Re: Conference on Saving and Investment

[Paul Davidson <PB108928%UTKVM1.BITNET@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

FROM:  Paul Davidson
"      Economics Department
"      523 Stokely Management Center  (615) 974-4221
Dear Doug: If "the working class gets too uppity" as you suggest then they
are likely to try an gain additional real income not only at the expense
of the "hated"-capitalists but also they will try to get real income at the
expense of other workers (who are less uppity, less truculent, or more
civilized) or retired workers (pensioners who were, in their earlier life
life "exploited" by capitalists, and hence won't notice the difference).
     In fact if we get rid of the capitalists, why won't there be
competition between groups of workers to see who can be the most uppity and
gain the biggest piece of the GDP pie. And how about workers in this forth-
coming workers's paradise trying to get uppity relative to workers in
other nation's socialist paradise? Or, is possible that when we get rid
of the capitalists, then suddenly uppity workers will be civilized. (I think th
e Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust was based on a similar philosophy -- as
is the concept of ethnic cleansing today. If only we get rid of the other
group who are the trouble makers, those that remain will live in economic and
social bliss.)
     Sorry to be so facetious, but really, if some people are going to act
"uppity" (your word) or uncivilized (my word), then the question is how
do we modify people's behavior so that they act in a more civilized manner.
I think in ECONOMICS FOR A CIVILIZED SOCIETY we have suggested how to use
market plus civil values-incentives to produce a more civilized entreprenurial
system. I think it is fair to say that despite its outstanding faults, modern
entrepreneurial systems tend to be more civilized than State Planning
systems that were devoid of capitalists.  This is not to say that entre-
preneurial systems are perfect and completely civilized -- merely to suggest
that since Marx (and even Polish State Planner Kalecki)- entreprenurial systems
have been able to modify their worst warts. Even if there has been
some slippage in the years since Bretton Woods, the State Planning systems have
 done much worse during the same period.  (See Keynes's GT ch. 24)

Have a good day!____Paul Davidson
))))_ fax # (615) 974-1686