Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: Economic motivations...
From: demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man)
Date: 9 Sep 92 14:04:23 EST
Organization: Demonic Possesions, Inc.

In article <183433@pyramid.pyramid.com>, pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi) writes:
> In article <1992Sep4.144834.3921@desire.wright.edu>,
> demon@desire.wright.edu (Stupendous Man) writes:
> |> In article <52933@dime.cs.umass.edu>, yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu
> (victor yodaiken) writes:
> |> ...
> |> > Honesty and clarity. Economics is deeply connected to morality, and it
> |> 
> |> 	No, it is not.
> |> 
> |> 	Economic justifications, however, frequently are.
> 
> Economics, is the science of measured aggregate and individual valuing
> behaviors made by humans.  

	That's not what I learned in my Econ. classes :).

> Valuing is an essential human expression.  Each
> person has a private value system or morality.  Watching money, we can
> essentially create a real valued function which allows us to measure one
> aspect of human behavior -- valuing or morality.  In this sense, economics
> is the science of human morality.

	Economics *can* incorporate human values.  However, it doesn't
necessarily *have* to.

	Taking a cab doesn't involve any moral imperatives for me.

> Self-described "value-free" scientists have a tendency to forget that human
> behavior is the underlying driving force in all economic expression, micro or
> macro. 

	Human behaviour can be a considerable driving force.  But then again,
it might not be.  It is a considerable force in tax revenues, but pretty much
is absent from calculations on debt to equity ratios or bond yields.

	There are effects caused by people, and effects inherent in the
behaviour of people, but the two are not the same.

> |> > is either disingenuous of simply mistaken to claim that one's economic
> |> > program is based on scientific principles alone. Even if economics were
> |> 
> |> 	Not if your program is merely to make the economy grow, and not to
> |> reward a certain sector.
> |>
>  
> Growth economics -- i.e. making the economy grow -- IS a morality.

	*Which* one?  The morality of being fruitful?  That's like saying
growing old is a morality or wanting to live instead of die.  Do trees make a
moral choice in growing?

> Its practice in this country elevates it to being a full blown ideology, if
> not a world-view or religion.  A neutral person wouldn't give a shit what
> the economy did.  Someone who is emotionally and intellectually attached to
> a particular economic outcome --e.g. growth -- is obviously not (morally)
> neutral.

	Why would a neutral person not give a shit about the economy?  How the
economy goes pretty much has an affect on everyone.  Would a neutral person
ignore traffic signals?

> At its worst, "economics" is belief-based politics, religious secularism 
> disguised as science. 

	Ahhh, yet another "secular humanism is a religion".  I should have
known.

> Practitioners get stuck on trying to dick-around
> with the system to get it to be the way they want it.  This is always
> done using
> some resort to mass goodness, and always results from the same base energies
> that motivate all human behavior -- they want it that way.  It may be
> a few or many somebodies.  It may even be a good system.  But it is always the
> expression of human desire.

	A is a relgion.  A does X in the name of religion.

	B claims to be a religion.  B does Y which to me looks a lot like X. 
Thus B is a religion.

	Sorry, but I don't buy it.

> The point is this:  if you live your life unselfconsciously, then the total
> economy is the sincere expression of lives.  If you try to alter the
> rules, then
> our lives become constrained by economic policymaking.  The rules determine the
> game.    This is the basis of power politics as its been practice for about the
> last twenty milennia.

	Who said anything about changing rules or power politics?  You're
making assumptions.

Brett                                                      
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