Re: Absent Wealth and Employment

[John Gelles <jjgelles@xxxxxxxx>]

	It is nice of William Hummel to comment.

	As my original message said, pragmatism is
	the philosophy to apply -- the one that is
	adopted in most things American.  Here
	there is not "fact" -- in the sense that you
	can know as a fact what the future will
	bring.  Rather, you apply your best guess
	on relationships, models, trends, etc.,
	and go after your objectives.

	The two key elements I pointed out were
	(1) the on-going validity of Keynesian ideas
	on spending, employment, interest and
	purpose.  And (2) the idea that you must
	have national objectives in peace.

	These two are antagonistic to the post
	W.W.II belief that you need no objectives
	or that your objectives will be devined by
	shopping en masse -- and if such shopping
	leaves slums, poverty, neglect, etc., in
	place, then the "fact" is they ARE worthy
	objectives, and your system is optimized
	to gain them.  (Of course here I exclude
	anti-communism and cold war Keynesianism
	-- which did represent success of sorts.)

	(But it went too far -- to hot wars that
	got out of hand and in the end alienated
	a whole nation from its government and
	its responsibilities.)

	For the moment I am trying to rally the
	troops here and on the Cyberspace Society
	List.  But, as I originally said, history
	has taken some wrong turns.  There is no
	difficulty in meeting William Hummel's
 	request -- "someone must already understand
	the big picture and know the answers. ...
	it remains only to find that someone and
	to persuade him to lay out a convincing
	case ...":
	
	     Thay someone is two:  John Dewey's
	pragmatism.  John Keynes' economics.
	The rest is detail.

	     John Gelles


On Sun, 12 Oct 1997, William F. Hummel wrote:

> If government bonds are a mistake and interest rates are a game,
> and both are at the bottom of missing wealth and employment, then
> these two questions are serious indeed. ...