Re: Income distribution [and growth]

["Dr. Bruce McFarling" <ecbm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

John O'Donnell <jackodonnell@xxxxxxx> wrote,
on Thu, 05 Sep 2002 09:19:27 -0700:


[quoth I]

> > Just assumed that it
> > is a self-regulating system, and that whatever level that
> > it happens to end up with under the current institutional
> > framework is somehow the "right" outcome?  Then you don't
> > have to do anything at all.

> Now your presenting the typical methodology of economists. Can you identify
> any proposals by economists that are anything but belief that a choice is
> good therefore any failure to attain any particular end is just the result
> of extraneous forces that caused the failure of the believed choice?


Of course I am presenting the typical methodology of many
mainstream economists.  I read PKT to (occasionally) be exposed
to different facets of non-mainstream economics specifically
because that sort of nonsense is tolerated in mainstream
economics.  However, I do not see how naive social engineering
is any better than mathematically erudite rationalisations
of the status quo power structure.


> > And, yes, financial wealth is an internal positive feedback
> > ... it is information generated as a result of a process
> > that serves to modify the operation of the process.  At a
> > certain level of wealth holdings, the holder can live on
> > the returns and continue to accumulate, which is how an
> > aristocracy of wealth continues to emerge.

> You really do live in a world all to yourself. What action is taken in
> response to what feedback signal are you attempting to describe here?


If you can't see it directly, then lets go slowly.  The type of

systems theory that we need is the theory of self-regulating
natural systems processing matter-energy and information, that
is, Living Systems theory or some similar General Systems approach.
So to get our terms of reference in place, do you see that
financial wealth is information rather than matter-energy?