Re: Fundamentals

[John Vertegaal <vertegaa@xxxxxxxxx>]

John M. Legge wrote:

>John V,

>are you saying that an economy is not part of the universe?
>or that people are not subject to physical laws?

No, what I am saying is that as long as we are part of the
universe, its ultimate purpose of unfolding the way it is
will have to remain a mystery to us.  But that through the
way the economic system has been set up, its elements take
on an additional purpose that, as far as their evaluation
as economic factors is concerned, overrides their original
purpose as "universal" particles.
  So that when we set its boundaries, move stuff in and out
of it, create its institutions, its values, rules and
regulations; we do so for a purpose that inherently cannot
originate from within the confines of the system itself (for
the same reason we cannot know the purpose of the universe);
but that as creators of economic system we can, so that the
system becomes a means to an end.
  Its individual elements, now meaningful only in terms of
that end, thereby surrender their substantial determinacy as
"universal" items and become indeterminate.  For if they
still were determinate, the purpose of the economic system
could be arrived at from the inside.

I am not claiming that isolating the economy as such, is the
only way towards sensible policy advice, but that it does
seem to do so without any paradoxes rearing their vexing
presence, when established theories take a stab at that.
  A rejection of my two axioms ennobles the creation of
capital as ends in itself.  It would leave its determinacy
intact (just as you claim it is) and insulated from charges
of inconsistency; but only as long as nobody makes a case
about sacrificing the ends for the means.

One cannot have both determinate capital and a determined
purpose to the system, unless a coherent theory of capital
value can somehow be advanced that shows this to be true.
  Anything short of such coherency, makes one a preacher
claiming to "know" what capital is.  And based on that
"knowledge" proceeding to explain the system from the inside
out; paradoxes be damned, as they cannot be part of ordained
"truth"; is vulgar.


>or that a supernova is a trivial event compared to a decline
>in share prices on Wall Street?

On the scale of the universe, a single supernova is indeed a
trivial event compared to the 30% loss in so called "wealth"
recently incurred by the world's markets.  Is the latter
portending economic collapse? probably not, but in terms of
probability an awful lot more likely to do so than the first.

The real tragedy being that deterministic economic theories
neither would have had a way of forecasting its imminence, up
until the very moment of it happening, nor could they have
prevented the setting of the stage allowing it to happen in
the first place.

John V