[PEN-L:8174] RE: Re: RE: Re: Request: Summers Memo

["Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Henwood [mailto:dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 1999 10:14 AM
To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [PEN-L:8171] Re: RE: Re: Request: Summers Memo


Craven, Jim wrote:

>Well for vitriolic "poetry" embodied in the "positivist and
>"free-of-'normative'-considerations calculus" of "rationality and
>optimality", I can't match:
>
>"I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the
>lowest-wage country [or preferably Indian Reserve/Reservation] is
impeccable
>and we should face up to that."

The thing is that by the logic of neoclassical economics, Summers/Pritchett
is absolutely right. It's an indictment of the discipline, not his/their
personal evil. No one seems to have had the nerve to "face up to that."

Doug

Doug,

That was precisely my point: the inexorable syllogism and reductionist
logic" of the neoclassical/neo-liberal globalist/trickle-down paradigm. I
would have to slightly and ever-so-respectfully disagree that it is not a
reflection of their own personal evil in that, like Mein Kampf, many have
been exposed to and trained in the neoclassical box (paradigm) and never
bought it for a moment; we are responsible for the sides chosen and the
consequences that inexorably flow from the logic and "mens rea" from any
evils of the sides chosen--left or right.

In any case, the only "equalizations" that will occur under the neo-liberal
globalist and neoclassical "solutions" will be as Ross Perot put it: "That
giant sucking sound." (Wealth/power sucked "upward",
pollution/death/powerlessness trickling "downward"). The other giant sucking
sound comes from some academic toadies, lined up and assuming the "Lewinsky
position" as supplicants/applicants for their new positions as
theory/policy/data pimps of the DemReps or RepDems.

Jim C