If you know that you as a sensitive and aware being are real, then you must also acknowledge that everyone else is the same. This is the human condition. We are aware of right and wrong, i.e. morals and of all of the shades of grey that the complexities of life present to us, i.e. ethics. And it doesn’t matter whether you consider morals and ethics to be transcendental or completely natural. Our awareness of right and wrong  exists.

If you are human you also must accept that there is no such thing, while we are here in the temporal universe, as total freedom. There is only freedom amongst known ethical barriers. This is what I refer to as the beatific chains of ethics because acceptance of that fact not only grounds you personally, it also makes you strong morally.  In other words you grant that there is no acceptance, no tolerating a system or relationship that is anti-socially dominating and manipulative.

The money system is completely controlled in its own self interest by private finance. This in turn enables them to dominate every other business model and probably 96-97% of the general populace.  Private Finance’s paradigm of Debt Only enforces its domination. It also enforces the tawdry and dominating ethic of profit ONLY. The ONLYNESS of these ethic can no longer be tolerated. A truly human and humane economic system considers the individual person and the individual enterprise first, last and always and creates an equitable association between them.

The highest ethic humans can aspire to is Grace-graciousness. You can call it satori, atonement or samadhi it matters not. In the west we call it grace. Grace is the new monetary and economic ethic. Grace as in Gifting. Grace as in sovereign but benevolent power. Grace as in understanding and Wisdom. Grace as in abundance. Grace as in tolerance of others’ opinions. Grace as in the wisdom of discernment of the truths in apparently opposing viewpoints…and the ability to integrate those truths while deleting their separate or mutual untruths, unworkabilities, inapplicabilities and lesser ethical considerations.

Grace is the new monetary and economic ethic and Monetary Gifting is the new monetary and economic paradigm.

JK:   The type of manipulation I’ve focused on I often refer to as the “collectivist scheme.” By this I am referring to the efforts certain groups make to improve their purchasing power in the marketplace by arranging for all the members of the group to experience an increase in the number of disposable dollars/pounds/etc. that each will have at hiser disposable.

Prime example: the machination we just saw a Republican Congress execute a short while ago when they legislated big tax cuts for rich people. Another example would be Craig’s gifting idea.

Me:  Supply and Demand models are not valid or reliable ones. The mark up model is much more reliable and a ubiquitously applied discount/rebate policy of sufficient percentage (50% or higher) would make the mark up model reality. The new paradigm would make economic vices, vices instead of shaky macro-economic theory, and economic virtues, virtues instead of financialized legerdemain that makes the economy a process of drawn out drowning rather than a legitimate system of orbital free flow.

After all systems were made for man, not man for systems. Wouldn’t you agree?

…if they were able to completely cut all of their transfer tax costs and most or all of their income tax costs as well???

Such elimination of costs is what a sufficiently abundant universal dividend and a sufficiently high discount/rebate percentage policy at the point of retail sale….will enable.

The dual policies of a universal dividend and a 50% discount/rebate at the point of retail sale are the key to enabling Steve Keen’s disequilibrium theories, MMT, Public Banking, QE for the People, Americans For Tax Reform and every other monetary and economic reform to unify and finally stabilize the economy in a way that benefits all agents commercial and individual.

Any model that rejects the two policies of a universal dividend and a 50% discount/rebate at the point of retail sale consciously or unconsciously refuses to cut the Gordian Knot that holds in place the tug of war between necessary injection of additional credit into the economy and price inflation. And any model that entitles the dominating and monopolistic paradigm of Debt Only to continue is a sop to Cerberus/Finance.

Me:  So what does everyone think is/might be the new paradigm in economics? I’ve gone on record as Monetary Gifting being my assertion. C’mon give it a try, take a chance.

And by the way IMO fully recognizing the significance of retail sale as the point to implement monetary policy in the new economic paradigm is the telescope, the ellipse and cultivation of the ground type discovery that always attends, enlightens and confirms a genuine paradigm change.

RR:  Thanks, but we will have to agree to disagree. You seem to be stuck on the Kuhn paradigm and not realize that the field of the history of science continues to grow. New theories are displaced in more than one way, depending on many factors, rather than following some archetypal mold. Alfred Wegener had a perfectly good theory while the old one was failing an multiple points. Nevertheless it was flatly rejected by American scientists not because Wegener’s “theory” was wrong (they never gave it an honest hearing in America from the start, except for a few) but rather because of methodological and cultural reasons. It doesn’t take a theory to beat a theory, for theories can fail miserably before a new theory emerges, and even if one is present it can be rejected because scientists are not automatons, but human beings, and science doesn’t take place in vacuum but in specific social context.

Me:  RR,

One thing that greatly clarifies even paradigms is considering the ascending scale of mental activity/epistemological awareness. We are not only approaching the necessity of a new economic and monetary paradigm, but a new zeitgeist as well. Here is that scale and the corresponding mental activity from top to bottom:

zeitgeist/ethic – self actualized knowingness

paradigm – looking in order to know while integrating both holistic and reductionistic mental modes of thought

philosophy – combining and aligning ideas

theory – combining and aligning data and factors

data – a kind of figure, figure on separate facts

This scale can also be looked at as concentric circles of mindsets with data the first such circle.

DT:  Isn’t this what Steve Keen is doing at a more technical level with his ‘Minsky’ simulations?

KZ:  DT, a proviso I suggest be added to your description is that scenario alternatives to Minsky need to be considered in the planning.

Me:  Steve Keen is my choice of probably the best economist on the planet. Maybe co-equal with Michael Hudson. However, his Minsky software is basically “epicycle” research because it resides virtually entirely within the current paradigm of Debt Only. Yes, DSGE/Neo-classical Economics ignore/deny money, banks and debt…but factoring them correctly into theory…isn’t sufficient, and neither is one-off actions like “a modern debt jubilee”. It’s reform, it’s palliation of the actual problem, it is still hypnotization by the current paradigm. Minsky was right that modern economies are financially unstable. So how do we actually stabilize it?

Keen correctly states that whenever the rate of credit creation dips the economy will quite soon go into recession….unless (he thinks) the government injects more money and/or credit into the economy. This is basically new Keynesianism, MMT, his modern debt jubilee one-off and maybe a little QE for the People thrown in. That’s good. It’s better than the present enforced austerity and it looks some of the policies of the new paradigm straight in the face…..but it still doesn’t actually recognize the new paradigm, how it can be implemented so as to saturate the economy as the current paradigm of Debt Only has done and so replace its primacy and dominance. And because it’s only a reform instead of the paradigm change that has been needed for the last 150-200 years if not the last 5000….it will inevitably get morphed back into a tweaked DSGE/Neo-classical economics or worse just like what happened to the reform of Keynesianism….as Keen and every other heterodox economist is happy to point out.

Find the new paradigm and boldly go with it. Don’t Escape From Freedom. (Erich Fromm) Expand your mind, re-integrate your life….and enjoy!

That’s what we live in. Perception has become dulled and deadened and science and technology as useful as they have been and still are have served more to clutter, distract, abstract and inhibit the genuine experience of the moment which is the proper and pure integration point of consciousness itself and the incredibly complex and beautiful physical environment.

Our task must be the conscious re-integration and practice of both science and self awareness/consciousness raising in the present moment.

Steve Hummel 0203/2018

Me:  Liberals and conservatives look at Trump through their respective biases. The unvarnished objective truth is that Trump is an historic demagogue, a 3rd rate populist intellect and terminally orthodox economic “thinker”.  In other words disintegration is the default mode of unconsciousness.

Everyone wants change. The question is do we want integrative change or disintegrative non-change.

JS:  Well, if Trump showed us anything, we can control politicians through exercise of our vote. You seem to think “populism” is a bad thing. What’s better, being controlled by elites that do not have our best interest at heart.

Vote for change. Vote for the politician that both parties hate. Drain the swamp. Get rid of the aristocracy that rules us now.

Me:  As for Populism it’s just another insufficiently integrated with grace political ism, and Trump is all about power and manipulation of his fellow power seekers ONLY. There’s no real insight there politically or economically….let alone individually. There are hints (not established yet) that Devin Nunez, Paul Ryan the speaker of the House and Mitch McConnell the majority leader of the senate are recorded on signal intelligence as agreeing to launder Russian money into the Republican party which would make their failure to call Trump on his caustic demagoguery and his obvious attempts to muddy the waters regarding the Mueller Investigation a lot more clear. In other words they’re all implicated and not only is Trump going down the Republican party itself as an organization is going to go down as well. I really hope this is not the case, but it fits within the craven domination of politics by power.

Me:  @NR,   What specific economic and monetary policies do you suggest in your book Telos & Technos?

NR:  Please reference FRANK SALTER

Me:  If you’re not going to disclose any policies advocated in Telos & Technos all I can assume is that it is only a philosophical work. That’s fine of course, and as Telos (purpose) and Technos (action in the temporal universe) are conceptually oppositional it tells me that it may be about the integration of their separate truths which as I have posted here numerous times is the very process of wisdom. However, as I have also posted philosophy is an order of magnitude below paradigm perception. A new paradigm is a singular concept that enlightens and is thoroughly applicable via aligned policies to an entire new pattern. It’s Agriculture. It’s Helio-Centrism. It’s Machine Printing of Information….and in the case of economics and the money system and their current paradigm of Debt Only it is Monetary Gifting.

FS:  Addendum: I would suggest that the valid paradigm is: Classical Transient Analysis

Me:  Transience and process are valid aspects of the new ethic/zeitgeist of economics namely the natural philosophical concept of grace as in continuous free flow as well as the new paradigm of grace as in Monetary Gifting. The natural philosophical concept of grace is also characterized by abundance as opposed to scarcity/austerity and dynamically integrative disequilibrium as opposed to static equilibrium. These two latter aspects are particularly relevant to the economy of course as capitalist economies are demand constrained as Steve Keen has said, the current paradigm of Debt Only enforces scarcity/austerity via debt deflation and the much debunked DSGE enforces the fallacious static equilibrium. The new paradigm accomplishes the requisite signature of paradigm change, that is fundamental inversions, in this case inverting monetary scarcity and equilibrium with what I refer to as “the higher free flowing macro-economic disequilibrium ratio of abundance of total demand in ratio to total retail prices.”

FS:  I believe that Craig and I are using paradigm with totally different semantics. Craig appears to be using the word at a metaphysical level. My use is consistent with the Wikipedia entry “Scientific paradigm”.

Me:  Yes we are. I’m using it in the NATURAL and EXISTENTIAL metaphysical sense which are the signatures not only of good inclusive science, but of scientific breakthrough. Science ONLY has been the paradigm of inquiry for the last 400-500 years and unfortunately has become rather rigid and orthodox. Science like food is good, delicious, necessary and resides entirely within the digestive tract of Wisdom…..which is the new paradigm of inquiry.

It is not only time for economics to be guided by the new paradigm of Gifting it’s time that mankind learns to more broadly utilize the integrative process that better enables a leap in epistemological experience.

ER:  I find all of the above very interesting because they relate to how real people think and function in the real world and I think without this understanding dare I say it no amount of theorizing will change economic thinking

Me:  Correct ER. Because theorizing is reform not paradigm perception which is mind clearing progress. There are a thousand nudges forward (or backward) from one “advance” to another with reforms. It takes paradigm perception to truly move forward. Sadly, even genuine scientific discoveries are mere “epicycles” compared to the insights and leaps forward of paradigm changes.

FS:  I take it that you are not a practising scientist. The scientific method is merely to test theory against empirical evidence. If they conflict then discard the theory. I do not see rigidity or orthodoxy entering into such a simple concept.

Me:  If you re-read my posts you’ll see that I am four square for science. Science has been the paradigm for knowledge and inquiry for the last 400-500 years. Unfortunately it has become the orthodoxy of Science ONLY. I believe this has been recognized here by Lars Syll and Asad Zamon. Orthodoxy kills and/or infects inquiry. Wisdom is inclusive of Science. We need a Wisdomics not its subset economics.

YS:  It seems that nobody is against the dictum that it take theory to beat a theory. Although we cannot find this dictum in the Thomas Kuhn’s famous book: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, he thought that a scientific revolution was a change of paradigm theory.

Economics is now in a great crisis. Many people, not learned economists in particular, but many common people, now acknowledge it. We are now in the age of scientific revolution for economics. It comes from replacement of paradigm theory by a new one. The strategy that we should take is almost evident.

Me:  Correct, except a new paradigm is not a theory it is the recognition of a new pattern….which then makes a new theory and its policies a relatively easy and rational/logical process. Focusing on theory first and only generally just slows and/or distorts the process of paradigm perception. This is not to invalidate the scientific process of theorizing of course. Rather it is simply suggesting that we integrate the reductionistic/iconoclastic process of the scientific method and the wholistic/unifying process of Wisdom/paradigm perception. The better to hasten the recognition of the new paradigm/pattern. We don’t need just economic theory we need a Wisdomics.

FS:  What is “the orthodoxy of Science”? Science has been developing in many different directions. New applications are being developed continually. I agree wisdom is a very precious characteristic.
Do you think that there are prescriptions by which wisdom might be learned? I do not understand how economics might be a subset unless you are speaking of classification theory.
Philosophy might seek to explain reality, but metaphysics is unlikely to lead to the development of solutions in the real world. They need to be based of a genuine understanding of reality and what alternative courses of action will produce.

Me:  Science is Science. Science Only is an orthodoxy. Orthodoxies are mindsets that always exclude, reduce, inhibit looking and eventually degrade into arrogance and invalidation.

Wisdom can be learned by studying the world’s major Wisdom traditions, all the time focusing on the meanings, purposes and experiences related there as opposed to latching onto the dogmas also found there.

As Wisdom is the discernment process of integrating seeming opposed truths you can also habituate yourself to the integrative ethic or what I refer to as The Cosmic Code in this case:

[ (Science x Wisdom) <–> A Greater Thirdness-Wholeness-Oneness of Temporal-Empirical & Self Knowledge in whatever area under observation ]

Science tends to suffer from obsessive reductionism and religion tends to suffer from obsessive wholism both of which cling to dogmas instead of being a trinity-unity-oneness gestalt like the Cosmic Code.

YS:  Kuhn used the term “paradigm theory” five times in his book: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

Kuhn defined his key concept “paradigm” primarily as “model or pattern”. (III. The Nature of Normal Science). These words are ambiguous and and we should reflect what a paradigm is or can be in a concrete scientific revolution. At the same time, it would be true that simple pattern of way of thinking has no power to replace the old pattern of thinking. It needs a certain degree of theory. The dictum “It takes a theory to beat a theory” may point this.

Kuhn talks about Copernicus, Newton, Lavoisier and Einstein. In each case, the person who brought a revolution had a well developed theory. In cases like Copernicus or Einstein, it is evident that they could not perform their revolutions without having a theory or a system of a theory that are at least comparable to the old paradigm they had to compete with. Simple change of methodological or methodological attitudes cannot bring a revolution.

A change of perceptional pattern may occur at first in the mind of the revolution bringer, but between that personal inspiration and the revolution a theory making or construction is necessary. For me, Lars is not aware of this phase of paradigm change or ignoring it. His philosophy of economics has a defect.

Me:  Well, as I said I’m not trying to invalidate theorizing. I’m simply saying that a paradigm itself is a singularly significant concept that fits within and creates an entire new pattern….and recognizing the concept is a boon to theorizing which may be going in the conceptual direction of the paradigm…but has not fully cognited on the paradigm itself. Paradigm perception is an extremely progressive event that clarifies the path ahead toward its implementation.

And paradigms have signatures like opposition, inversion of present realities and new discoveries/insights from places people aren’t aware of or looking at either because orthodoxy has told them not to look there or they incorrectly decide that an area is not relevant….and so do not look. The paradigm change from H & G to Agriculture was the oppositional change from nomadism to homesteadism, i.e. moving around to staying in place. Helio-Centrism was the inversion of the position of the earth and the sun. For the Church and many believers it was also a psychological inversion from ego-centrism to relativism. Helio-Centrism also was accompanied by the telescope and finally the ellipse. When you mentioned that your books were looking at micro-foundations I thought, “Ah, someone who may cognite on the significance of the aggregative and singular integration point between the micro and macro economies that is retail sale. Being willing to look anywhere and everywhere prevents the blunting and blinding of orthodoxy.

In the ’92 Clinton presidential campaign they had the saying, “It’s the economy, stupid” as their focusing point. It was their political paradigm and it worked.

The same thing would work with the new monetary and economic paradigm of Monetary Gifting. That’s because once a paradigm is recognized it clarifies, focuses and progresses like no other factor in the area to which it is applied.

It’s the new paradigm of Monetary Gifting, stupid.

Precisely why we require a new monetary and economic paradigm. Paradigm changes are so obviously great leaps forward that they cannot be denied. Everything in the body of knowledge/area of human endeavor adapts to the new paradigm….not the other way around as you correctly observe regarding what occurred with the REFORM of Keynesianism. A paradigm is a focusing, clarifying and utterly progressive single concept that creates an entire new pattern. Let’s have it. It’s only 5000 years overdue.

********************************************************

What’s all this figure-figure about taxes? MMT’s actual greatest insight is that governments don’t need taxation because they can create money….AS money INSTEAD of Debt, and distribute it as they see fit…and if they had an ounce of brains and ethics it would be to make the system serve the general populace first, last and always instead of the populace having to slavishly serve it….like now. Of course the best and quickest way for the government to do that would be to distribute a monthly universal dividend and immediately double everyone’s purchasing power by implementing a 50% discount at the point of retail sale that was rebated back to the enterprise granting the discount to its consumers.

The new paradigm of Monetary Gifting supersedes and progresses all other reforms and theories…just like all of the epicycles of Ptolemaic cosmology got brushed aside by Helio-Centrism and every other new paradigm has done in the area it has been applied to.

MMTers don’t fully grasp the aspect of Gifting their theory aligns with and affirms.

It’s not progressive.

MR. S:  @Steven Hummel

“MMT’s actual greatest insight is that governments don’t need taxation because they can create money”

That’s not what MMT says at all; to disseminate that inaccurate interpretation of MMT is irresponsible, and gives ready ammunition to its mocking critics.

MMT absolutely recognises that governments need taxation. In fact, it’s essential to destroy previously created money, as well as to ensure acceptance of a fiat currency.

Govt doesn’t need the revenue from taxation as funding before it can spend, but that’s a different point entirely.

Me:  “That’s not what MMT says at all; to disseminate that inaccurate interpretation of MMT is irresponsible, and gives ready ammunition to its mocking critics.”

Yes, well that’s always the cry of those who are not fully conscious of a new paradigm…right up until they see that it’s the next new truth. I’m sure there were many tribal chiefs of hunters and gatherers who laughingly mocked the first farmers saying, “Everyone knows you have to move around to gather fruit and hunt game. If you stay in one place…you’re gonna die dummy.”

“In fact, it’s essential to destroy previously created money, as well as to ensure acceptance of a fiat currency.”

To prevent what? Inflation? If you had a 50% discount at retail sale which is the TERMINALLY expressed place and time of consumer price inflation…how are you going to have inflation? As for hyperinflation that’s just another irrational fear because hyperinflations never occur unless there are catastrophic circumstances, priorly enforced indebtedness that a nation’s elite wants to end and the central bank is complicit with speculators who short the currency. And all you need to do to prevent the latter is a government to pass a law that any leveraged shorting of the currency by anyone will be considered “null and void”. And even if you allowed for a manageable 2-3% yearly inflation (which could probably be effectively prevented as well with rather simple and rational regulations) you’re still looking at an immediate increase in everyone’s purchasing power by 47-48%

And if down the road when everyone is a millionaire, maybe you could have International burn $10,000 day…or more intelligently Everybody contribute $10,000 to Burkina Faso day to help them ecologically industrialize and enjoy the wonderful heritage of productive potential that mankind has achieved.

All you really need to make such a system work is legal tender laws, an operational economy and a political elite with a couple of balls and more than three brain cells that cognites on the new paradigm and its aligned policies.

New debt will probably be needed for a very long time, but proportionally less and less with the new paradigm of Monetary Gifting, and that is why economies will become more and more stabilized. The paradigm of Debt ONLY and the ideology of austerity being the current insanity. Marx almost got it right, but rather than the state it will be Finance that will “wither away.”