Economics & Its Crisis of Philosophy

Economics & Its Crisis of Philosophy

Philo Agora 02 October 2012Philo Agora 02 October 2012

Why Economics?

• The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist

• John Maynard Keynes

Theory & Practice

WHOM DOES WHOM DOES THE SYSTEM THE SYSTEM SERVE?SERVE?

IS THIS IS THIS DOING DOING JUSTICE?JUSTICE?

Definition

• οἰκονομία (oikonomia, "management of a household, administration") from οἶκος (oikos, "house") + νόμος (nomos, "custom" or "law")

• My favourite: the allocation of limited resources to satisfy unlimited human wants (Paul Samuelson)

• The task of philosophy will be to question the definition & nature of economics

The Rhetoric of Allocation

• Tradition = f (laws & institutions)– e.g., History & legacy

• Command = f (strategy & regulation)– e.g., Taxation & money supply

• Market = f (interaction & exchange)– e.g., Price, supply & demand

• Martin Heilbroner, The Worldy Philosophers

Might or Right?Might or Right?

I’m right. You’re wrong.• The modern conservative is

engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.• John Kenneth Galbraith

Not in my backyard.• With some notable

exceptions, businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves.

• Milton Friedman

Do We Resort to Demonization?

What “Resources”? (L/K)

• Natural/Commons: e.g., lands & minerals• Public: e.g., infrastructure & civil works• Social: e.g., national currency• Labour: e.g., energies & skills• Private: e.g., capital & manufactures• Intellectual: e.g., innovations & inventions• Externalities: i.e. desirable & undesirable

Oversimplification Problem

• IT IS NOT SIMPLY CAPITAL AND LABOUR OR CAPITAL VS. LABOUR!

• SOME THINGS ARE NOT MEANT TO BE PRIVATIZED OR MONOPOLIZED

• GREATER VALUE IS NOT IN EXTRACTION BUT GENERATION

• BAD GOVERNANCE: PASSING ON THE COSTS TO SOMEONE ELSE

Satisfaction = To Meet Expectations

• What are Your Expectations?• Programming the Citizen as Consumers &

Producer• How Are Expectations Formed and Met?• Role of Media & Politics: Whose Interests Are

Served?

Unlimited Human Wants?

• The Quest for Value: From Survival to Wealth• Accumulation (To Have) VS. Creation (To Be)• The Ease By which It can ALL if not

ESSENTIALLY be blamed on GREED or OVERPOPULATION

• Although there are no limits to human greed, there are also no limits to potential & possibility: What Is “Fulfilment”?

Rhetoric of Capabilities Approach

• the freedom to achieve well-being is of primary moral importance

• that freedom to achieve well-being is to be understood in terms of people's capabilities, i.e., opportunities to do and be what they have reason to value

• Amartya Sen & Martha Nussbaum

• the assessment of individual well-being;

• the evaluation and assessment of social arrangements; and

• the design of policies and proposals about social change in society

The Philosophic Crisis of Economics

• Principles: The Dogma of Market Allocation vs. the Realpolitik of Market Manipulation

• Rights: The Program of Owning VS. Being Owned, That We Have No Rights Other than The Properties We Own, Acquire & Defend

• Aspiration: Feeding the Greed to Own while excluding others RATHER THAN to encourage excellence of self & others as “fulfilment”.

The Economic Crisis of Philosophy

• Economics Has Neither Been Challenged nor Challenged Itself Philosophically:

• What is economics?• What ought it to do?• What has it given us to

hope for?

• Philosophy has condemned economics & therefore man to a struggle for existence:

• Consumer-Worker & the Other as Rival

• Accumulate & live off the interest of my investments & hope to be remembered

Consistency/IntegrityConsistency/Integrity

• Do you see yourself as Do you see yourself as the change you want to the change you want to see in the world?see in the world?

OROR• Must “other people” Must “other people”

comply with “the comply with “the standards the system standards the system sets” whether the sets” whether the system complies with system complies with them or not?them or not?

• We must be the change we wish to see.• Mohandas K. Gandhi

• He who holds the gold makes the rules.• Nicolo Machiavelli

Redefining the Crisis

The Crisis Is More This ... Than This ...

Time to Explore Redefinitions

Than Rely on Promises & Excuses