The problem with economic theory is we hear nothing but a bunch of tight assed conservativism, chilly technocratic Austrian/libertarianism and tired old liberalism. These mindsets by themselves all amount to a lot of authoritarian, non-integrative and orthodox bull shit. Try taking the particles of truth in each, combining/integrating them and throwing out their unworkabilities and the culturally ingrained falsehoods they also all contain, add even a modicum of grace while coming into a new mental unit of time and the power of humans to self actualize could swiftly begin a cultural quantum leap toward sanity and civility. Integrate this integrative approach into an equally integrative and open minded scientific method and you’ll have the signature of scientific breakthrough. Wisdom is the integrative process itself. The world has a crying need for Wisdom. Let us have it

GM:  The first paragraph seems beneath you, Steve.

Me:  Not at all. There IS a rational end to patience. My aim is not the puritan obsession with perfectionism, but integrated and integrative truth.

GM:  I do not see how such language as “tight assed conservativism, chilly technocratic Austrian/libertarianism and tired old liberalism” contributes anything to the understanding of, for example the A+B theorem or calculation of a dividend.

Me:  That wasn’t my intention. My intention was self reflection on error….and then having the courage, honesty and forthrightness to pursue a new thought. As for my method, one of the workable methods zen masters employ for certain novitiates to come into present time and drop their habitual ways of thinking is to hit them on the back with a stick. Wisdom is discernment of temporal and human truth. Sometimes an unorthodox method works. For instance when Solomon told his guard to cut the baby in two and give each woman half he already intuitively knew that the real mother’s immediate reaction would be horror and even the willingness to give up her child.  Pursuing statistical evidence is just fine, but Wisdom’s discernment is the more rapid and powerfully instructive route to truth.

GM:  One of the Precepts is a commitment to speak ill of no one. Social Credit is not intuitively apparent, the way an   overflowing teacup may be, and seems indeed incongruent with the world we know.  A SC defender  may say that is because the Prince of this World has blinded everyone, and though that may be true,  it is still necessary to somehow explain color to the blind who live here and whom Social Crediters hope to convince.

You seem to think that SC is Wisdom.  Why should we not suppose that it is, rather, error, since that which we need to make its merits evident seems lacking?

Me:  Number one I’m not a completely orthodox person in almost any sense, except perhaps advocating that one would be smartest and most benefited from contemplating the aspects of the experience of Grace. Number two I’m not overly concerned about being perfect as I already said. Number three one of the primary aspects of Grace is actually free flowingness, as in freedom from the obsessive bondage that orthodoxy can sometimes develop around rules. Number four humor is also an aspect of Grace because it is a momentary release, a momentary freeing of oneself from internal and/or external things that are holding one back from the free flowing and joyous experience of Grace. Social Credit is based upon Grace which is love in action, the pinnacle of Wisdom. The reason Social Credit and its policies is not perceived as such is a testimony to modernity’s lack of same which makes for shallow, fragmented and sometimes erroneous analysis.

GM:  But it is incumbent upon someone making such a charge to produce evidence of error and shallowness, and ideally a superior analysis, which Social Credit has not yet done satisfactorily. If it were satisfactory and convincing, we might not be wondering why hundred years after its introduction Social Credit seems to have convinced no one to try it.

Me:  The bulk of individuals are hypnotized by the paradigms of debt only, work only and various other puritanical traits. Finance is dominant economically, politically and monetarily, and an equal number of people are ignorant of the real issues and/or “distracted from distraction by distraction” and so disengaged. There are the reasons for Social Credit not being prior-ly implemented. However, crisis and lingering crisis are opportunities for change. That is why a mass movement like an Operation Economic Wisdom and Grace is the route to go. That’s how Gandhi did it, that’s how MLK did it. People are sick and tired of being sick and tired of no actual change. Obama’s first term and Trump’s present one are proof of this. What’s lacking is Wisdom and awareness of the wisdom of Social Credit’s policies. Politics is poor theater and an almost impossible path to change. A mass movement of interested economic actors that would herd the entirety of the political apparatus toward the wisdom of Social Credit is what is needed.

GM:  Maybe, but “where’s the beef?” Perhaps the entire world is blinded and fooled, hypnotized, as you suggest and only a little, hardy band of Social Crediters has the truth. Come to think of it, Scientologist talk in very similar terms.  They cannot present much in the way of hard evidence either. Neither Martin Luther King nor Gandhi told people “I have a secret formula for what needs to be done, but I can’t give you the details.” They demanded simple, clear, easy to understand moves to bring people freedom and equality. Martin Luther King pressed  for the Voter Rights Act, which did not require an esoteric doctrine of political science to understand. All he had to say was “my people have a constitutional right to vote, and states are preventing them.” In those days, as obvious as it seems now, that was controversial and inflammatory. What I hear from Social Crediters is more along the lines of “we support everyone sharing in the productive capacity of the economy, but we can’t say how much, or how. It would take a think tank to work out the details. Oh, and by the way, one of the fundamental theorems of our analysis is rejected by most professional economists as untrue.”

Me:  You’re way over “right brained” and obsessed about numbers regarding this IMO. Try integrating a little more of the discernment of wisdom you say you believe in and maybe you’ll see that the numbers are not as important as you currently think. In the book I wrote in 2012 Money and Wisdom: The Way Out, The Way Home I actually used the number of $1500/mo. for the dividend. You can still get it on Amazon if you want. Integrate the ideal and the practical…that  is what Wisdom does and is. Again, obsessing over numbers and equilibrium are unnecessary. The vast majority of people respond much better and much faster to a moral call to right a wrong. Steve Keen has been trying to convince the small constituency of macro-economists with math since before the recent crisis in 2008 and has gotten nearly no where.

GM:  I have a job to do and numbers matter in that job.  I left the psychedelic 60s behind decades ago.Thanks for bringing back memories.

 Right brain?  If you knew my situation, you would not presume to offer such a diagnosis,.
ROTFL,
Greg
PS Who is Steve Keen?  How did you calculate that  $1500? Thanks.

Me:  As I said, try integrating numbers and ACTUALLY looking at the effects of Social Credit’s policies, instead of just blithely reading the words about them and then going into obsessive questioning and doubt. Estimates would work just fine because money that the individual has, whether it is received via work for pay or gifted is completely exchangeable either way and the discount, because it occurs at the very end of the entire economic process where costs and prices are terminally summed would obliterate any possibility of inflation so both of modern economy’s primary and chronic problems, a scarcity of individual incomes and creeping inflation COULD NOT EXIST, especially if the  dividend is relatively abundant and the discount is like 40% or more. The two policies are interpenetrative (the dividend) and encompassing of the entire economic/productive process including being located at its very end where production becomes consumption and so their implementation cannot do any harm to any economic agent (the discount).  The way to really perceive is to actually look,  and then look long and deeply. That is contemplation and Wisdom. Look at what Social Credit’s policies would actually do.