RE: Civilized behavior

[enilsson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Eric Nilsson)]

I wonder what P. Davidson thinks of the arguments against government
intervention based on rent seeking and information problems.  For instance,
he said -- "What governments can do is act as a balance wheel to assure. . .
. "  I agree that such civilized would be a good thing on the part of
government.  However, such statements of "ought" does not address whether
governments will indeed actually act in such a way.

J. Galbraith's article seems to touch on this issue.  The Fed ought to ____
(fill in the blanks as you desire).  However, it is unclear whether the Fed
does indeed act as it "should."  Indeed, as Jamie indicates, it is not even
clear what theory the Fed uses in decision-making.  Nor is it clear how the
Fed weights the welfare functions of the various people/groups in society to
aggregate up to a "social welfare function" that it might then seek to
maximize.  (If it indeed is seen to do such a thing.  In any case, the above
is possibly inflamatory language for many on the pkt network).  (I recollect
that Jim Crotty at UMass might have once written on the implicit weightings
used in the Fed's social welfare function.)

While Jamie's article attempts to discover the Fed's theory, does this imply
that he thinks that the Fed makes decisions based upon theory and not based
on class interests.  Or based on the interests of financial capital?  Does
theory/ideology drive Fed decision-making or does something else?  Is Fed
theory merely a superstructural artifact?

Of course, I know almost nothing about how the Fed does its things -- so any
claim that Jamie makes has 1000% more weight than any random sniping I
engage in.  But, hey, isn't random (but civilized, pleased) sniping what
these network discussions are all about?

Note: while here, and in a previous message, I mentioned the mainstream
"rent seeking" and "lack of info" arguments against government intervention,
I hope no one thinks that I accept uncritically these particular ideas.
While I think they are interesting and important ideas, this is different
from accepting them fully.

Brent McClintock's excerpt addressed a number of issues related to these
ideas, particular rent seeking.  I need to read it more fully before I have
anything meaningful (or unmeaningfull for that matter) about it.

(In any case, my comments might be out-of-date as our network here is very
sick and eats a good proportion of pkt messages before I get a chance to
read them.)

Eric Nilsson
Department of Economics
California State University, San Bernardino
enilsson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
909-880-5564