Re: Brave New Creditary World

["ÁÎ×Ó¹â Henry C.K.Liu ¹ù¤l¥ú" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: William B.Ryan <william_b_ryan@xxxxxxx>
> To: POST-KEYNESIAN THOUGHT <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2000 8:13 PM
> Subject: Re: Brave New Creditary World
>
> Infrastructure should be a priority.  Existing infrastructure is
> crumbling and worthwhile new projects are not undertaken because "we
> don't have the money."  The last major project in the US was the
> interstate highway system, completed many years ago.  Infrastructure
> should be defined very broadly to include social infrastructure, or
> "ultrastructure" such as education.

Bill,

I am curious to know if there is a technical economics purpose to catgorize
education as "ultrastructure."
Infra is a Latin word meaning within or below.
Infra-red describes a thermal radiation of wavelengths longer than those of
visible light, lying outside the visible spectrum at its red end.
Infra-sonic describes frequencies below the audibility range of the human
ear.
The dictionary defines infrastructure as foundation, especially the
permanent installation required for military purposes.
Generally, the term infra implies invisible presence.

The term infrastructure came into modern use in architectural/planning
discourse in the 1960s in the context of renewed awareness of urbanism as
complex systems.  By then, the less-than-satisfactory results of post war
reconstruction worldwide and the initial phase of the Urban Renewal Program
in the US began to force thinking architects to realize that buildings as
isolated objects are irrelevant without proper support from workable urban
systems.   Lessons on systems analysis learned from war are then applied to
the design and management of cities as part of the peace dividend.  The art
of building became inseparable from urban and environmental design and
public policies affecting the quality of urban life.  Attention is then
focused on social and physical infrastructure development.  Simultaneously,
Keynesian economic theories dominated post-war government policies in
combating the boom and bust business cycle through deficit financing of
infrastructure spending.  This created a market for innovative
infrastructure design. Unfortunately, while the building of roads is readily
accepted as a safe vehicle for public expenditure, the upgrading the the
urban destination that these road lead to continues to be maket determined.
The famous Gertrude Stein remarke: In America, there is no there there, is
still operative.  Markets create profit, and seldomn anything else.

In civilized society ( not neccessarily "civil society"), education is not
merely an invisible foundation for economic development.  If anything,
education really should be viewed as omni-structure.  Further, education
should be viewed as both investment and consumption in a mutually
reinforcing cycle.  Fundamentally, when it is structured properly (beyond
its preparatory function), education creates its own demand and supply. The
level of demand is a function of the level of civilization in a given
society.   Education is the only sector that supply side theory makes sense.

Henry C.K. Liu