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Banned
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The direction of the thread has not changed, because unless those who attempt to sabotage this discussion have their way and succeed in getting it closed, I refuse to permit it to be misdirected.
alansmithee....if there isn't a better alternative, how about "fine tuning" this one. Is the Norwegian example worse than sitting here consuming twenty five percent of the world's oil, with no conservation or tax policy in place, until we no longer can afford to do so, and growth stops?
What are the influences in place that keep up the current status quo, posssibly discouraging an effort to examine alternatives in America?
A link to the background of an interesting book,
Economics as Religion by Robert H. Nelson
Quote:
http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-02284-1.html
"Nelson does not regard 'theology' as a cuss word, and so his detailed study of the theology underlying Samuelsonian and Chicagoan economics is not a put-down. It's a way of seeing the rhetoric of fundamental belief—what has been called vision. Nelson . . . speaks with authority from within the field. . . . His grasp of modern economics is broad and firm. And so in theology, too. It's an important, even an amazing book: Luther meets Smith." —Deirdre McCloskey, University of Illinois at Chicago
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Don't let the following link "put you off". It is cited because I found forwards to Nelson's book there:
Quote:
http://dieoff.org/page235.htm
.......Nelson’s book insists on giving the stuffed parrot back to the pet store. Nelson is what is known in the trade as a “policy analyst.” Though trained in economics, he uses the economics for practicalities. He therefore knows a dead bird when he sees one. Though trained technically like the rest of us, he is not concerned primarily with matters of pure theory, that is, what can be drawn out of the hat if you assume you have one filled with birds.
Economics and theology are opposites, right? Wrong, says Nelson, leaning against the European presumption since Goethe and Coleridge. Economics and theology look to modern eyes like strange partners. Nelson makes it work, showing in detail that theology has always had its economic double. Like Thorstein Veblen long ago he takes seriously a favorite turn of the newspaper columnist, that economics is mere religion. Voodoo economics. He takes it seriously by going further, knocking the “mere” out from the front end of the expression. Religion, he notes, is not mere. It is what we make of life. Economics, according to Nelson, is the religion of the ordinary.
Nelson detects two traditions in religion, which he calls the Roman (in both the ancient and the Catholic sense) and the Protestant (in both the Calvinist and the rebellious sense). The issue between them has always been the perfectibility of humankind. Moderation, prudence, courage, and justice, the four natural virtues, are especially admired by Romans. By their works ye shall know them. On the other hand the three theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity, are especially Prot*estant. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. On Sunday even Catholic Americans partake of this Protestant spirit. But the rest of the week, surprisingly, we Americans are Roman citizens. As Nelson puts it, “Of all nations, the United States exhibits a characteristic national outlook that matches most closely the Roman tradition. Americans typically believe that reason guides the world, showing a deep faith in progress.” An American soldier in the Gulf, when asked whether he hated the Iraqi enemy, said, “No, of course not. I reckon I’m here to do a job and so is he.” A centurion standing uneasily between Jesus and the Pharisees could not have better ex*pressed the attitude of Rome.
Rome under the Republic had a civic religion, consisting of the reading of entrails and other sensible precautions. The civic religion of the modern world is social engineering, which depends on similar techniques of divination. The religion promises material salvation, restoring the Garden of Eden and yielding, as Nelson points out, a spiritual salvation. For better or worse, economics is the theology of the modern religion.
Though Nelson does not hold much with social engineering, he by no means disdains religions, spiritual or secular. Religion is not some*thing that can be dispensed with. Nelson does not believe that religion is past. The popular notion is that modernization has overthrown religion. The notion is mistaken, though secular intellectuals from Voltaire to the average reader of the New York Times have believed it fervently. “Modernization theory” is among the less substantial achievements of the social sciences, claiming on no good grounds that medieval peasants were very different from you and me. We need religion just as much as our ancestors did. The most modern of nations -- I mean America -- is among the most religious, draping the exercise of national power in religious symbolism, going to worship on the Lord’s day in numbers that would appall the average Frenchman. We moderns continue to need a religion of the Judeo-Christian sort, with its progress and its salvation. “The twentieth century has seen a revival of the wars of religion,” says Nelson. Yes, and we fight under the banners of economic theologians.
Nelson believes that our civic religion needs renewal, and finds the renewal in a combination of left and right, the environmentalists and the libertarians. Both are suspicious of the established church. Nelson recommends a Protestant variety of churches in our secular religions. The variety would give people a free choice of economic regime. Unfashionably, he preaches “tolerance of diverse economic theolo*gies.
Robert H. Nelson writing in the Preface:
[ p. xix-xx ] Some years ago, I began writing about the advisory role of economists in government. I concluded, as a number of others have, that econo*mists do not do in practice what they preach. Economists are not neutral technicians who provide a tool for implementing values and basic beliefs supplied by others. They do not keep themselves separate from politics, confining their efforts to matters that can pass a strict scientific test. To observe these rules would be extremely confining, precluding economic inputs in many areas where economists actively and routinely participate in current social debate.
Instead, as many others also have, I concluded that economists are actually strong advocates for a particular way of thinking about the world. Without some lens or filter, the events of the world would seem mere chaos and confusion. Economics provides a way of ordering, interpreting, and giving meaning to events. Moreover, economists do not offer their perspective from a disinterested and passive stance. Rather, many of the most accomplished are firmly convinced and seek to persuade the rest of the world that the economic way of thinking is the best way. Economists over the past 30 years have in fact had considerable success in this regard, introducing the use of economic analysis into many new areas of government such as national defense, education, health, and the environment.
As economists have made contributions in areas such as these, they have often been surprised by a critical reception. Many of the fiercest policy debates have concerned matters not of economic detail -- where disagreements had been expected -- but of the basic acceptability of the economic view of the world. The influence of economics has been opposed by proponents of other outlooks who resist the invasion of the market, of efficiency, and of economic tests into particular areas of social concern. These opponents find that the way of thinking of economists violates beliefs that are dear to them.
This resistance raises a practical question for an economist: How might it be said that the economic understanding of the world is actually better than some other understanding? The old orthodox answer of the economics profession would be to deny the validity of the question, asserting that economics makes no such claims and limits itself to technical and value free matters. However, if this answer is rejected as both inaccurate in practice and flawed in principle (as I am far from alone in doing), the matter must be pursued further. A second answer might be that economics is a true science and that the scientific method -- if perhaps reflecting certain values -- has already amply proved its merits. Yet, aside from the question of whether science is value-free or not, the scientific accomplishments of econom*ics to date must be rated as modest -- certainly a disappointment in comparison to the expectations of the past. There is today not only widespread public skepticism concerning the scientific claims of eco*nomics, but many doubters among economists as well.
Yet, if the scientific claims of economics are in question, why should society today regard with favor the strong conviction of many econo*mists that they have a better way of thinking about and understanding the world? If economics is not so much a matter of providing practical answers to well-defined problems, and instead seeks to provide the very framework for social thought, why should society pay close attention -- as it often does -- to the advice of economists? From where or what does economics derive its legitimacy in social policy debate? These questions formed the starting point for this book.
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Bottomline: Our current U.S. economic system has led us to at least the threshhold of a period when it is probable that we reach the mid point of the availability of oil. This will put heretofore unexperienced pricing pressure on oil. We in the U.S. have no national policy to deal with this in a hurry, or it seems, at all. We are not keeping up with paying the current costs of our oil use and other imports, or of the costs of funding our own military program.
Our dollar shows the strain; a euro bought only .82 dollars just 4 years ago, and now buys 1.26 dollars. An ounce of gold cost $250 in summer 2001, and now costs $420. Our soon to exceed $8 trillion national debt, currently financed with tragically short sighted short term, low interest paper (T-Bonds), with service of interest costs, even at current low rates, impacting a $500 billion annual federal deficit, will contribute a mightily greater strain on the deficit as interest rates rise to slow the dollar's decline.
We are dependent to foreigners, especially China and Japan to finance our debt. Our current system renders 40 million of us with no health insurance coverage. Without any rapid adjustments in the policy of energy consumption or in the form of our economy how will we avoid the direction that our economy is trending towards? They seem to be aimultaneously more expensive oil,aggravated by progressively diminished dollar buying power. We are living the early stages of this now.
Last edited by host; 05-29-2005 at 12:54 PM..
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