Let’s face it most economists aren’t too good at avoiding terminal orthodoxy, and the best are good with the Math and de-bunking current orthodoxy, but when it comes to crafting a new philosophy and ethics which they themselves call for….they’re better off leaving it to someone who largely agrees with the latter about economics and has the proclivity for and study of  philosophy.

What philosophy allows a single business model free sway to dominate and manipulate every other business model and everyone in their separate national economies?  A completely blind, biased and/or stupid one is the short answer.

An inclusive philosophy would allow Finance to still exist and profit, but would demand that it first be de-throned, de-toothed and forever neutered, and so compel it to take its correct and smaller place alongside every other business model. Then, rather than the state “withering away” which is a bit like lobotomizing the entire systemic philosophical project, instead, Finance, the truly problematic part of the economy would do the withering.  That basic ethical observation along with the most basic concept upon which that new philosophy would be based which is traditionally a spiritual one but that in fact is also an entirely natural and philosophical one without losing any of its transformative powers, should be the first postulations of any new economic philosophy.

Gracious and Merciful, but Wise and sovereign control that protects and considers the individual first, last and always and does the same to encourage stable free flowingness for the system with policies that include every business model but advantage none. That is the place to start and remain logically consistent with.

Jim and Scott,

Great interview, lots of relevant insights and Jim your observation about the wealth of the contemplative aspect of Life and its current diminishment is spot on.

I think that the last post of mine in Carl’s thread and the Observation about the philosophical concept of Grace being a universal solvent as well as the only concept that actually and effectively integrates both the traditional signature of Science (Duality) and the traditional signature of Religion-Spirituality (Trinity-Unity)….is also relevant to much of what was discussed by both of you regarding the factors influencing Brexit. Which factors everywhere are now threatening to be expressed in their vulgar, only dualistic and obesessively conflicting aspects.

Jim:  Thanks Steve,

And . . . one of the questions that I wonder about (I was a former high school teacher) is: how much of American Literature in particular (and Western Civilization in general) is being supplanted by the new gods.  Do students today know anything about the story of America as told by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Richard Henry Dana, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, Willa Cather, Francis Parkman, F Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Edna Ferber, et al?  Do teachers today know any of this? I read those authors in high school in the 60s. That made me rich.

Back to BREXIT:  Hanging on to ones culture and trying to pass it on is a most worthy goal. The burying or minimizing of a culture is not.  That is why the colonial powers destroy cultures.  When I see these silly, ignorant articles beginning with “What were they thinking!?”  I know that the authors are shallowly looking for answers that could only be found if the authors of these articles were capable of understanding that which is deep and meaningful.

Me:   Yep. The depth and thirdness of consciousness in humanity is there, but it must be re-stimulated and re-inforced continually or it withers or devolves into a culture of ignorance, obsessive argumentativeness and the political double bind we now find ourselves in.

Grace is both an integrated Duality and/within an integrative Trinity-Unity.

Grace/graciousness is the willingness to understand and relate benevolently to others despite the fact that they may have different opinions, culture, religious beliefs, are of a different color or different level of income.  Tolerance of course is a two way street, but grace is what is necessary for both or either side to navigate differences without getting hung up in them and consequently irritated to the point of ungraciousness.

Grace is the universal solvent.

The following is true, and because Public Banking, Disequilibrium Theory, Georgism and Sovereign Money all have aspects of Grace-Consciousness as the bedrock of their policies, and because inclusion of truths is also an aspect of Grace-Consciousness…aspects of their policies can be incorporated into the general and specific policies necessary for a true solution to our monetary and economic system.

And any thought that it can be entrusted to any other lesser philosophy and policies is either naive, a mistaken faith or a secret agenda for power by men desiring power…and so a false hope and a non-progression.

https://weapedagogy.wordpress.com/2016/06/30/the-u-s-supremacy-in-the-age-of-high-finance-expansion-and-crisis/#respond

The problematic glue that holds the current system together is power much more so than even profit. Because taxation/re-distribution does not resolve an inherent macro-economic tendency toward scarcity of individual income, and because forcing the basic and legitimate intention of businesses to profit to cooperate in making its already difficult ability to do so because of the inherent scarcity of individual income will naturally prevent the cooperation that will enable the integration that creates a third and much more unified system…socialism is hence not the solution. Of course, oligopolistic and dominating global corporatism is not legitimate, but rather a reactionary force born of greed and the necessity to become big in order to survive that the above basic scarcity holds in force.

As the concept of Grace is a more satisfying integration of two separatenesses to the point of simultaneous thirdness and oneness-completeness and major aspects of Grace are Gifting, Giving back as in the taking of power in order to give it back to the individual and Transformation-Ethical Redemption as in a true and conscious inner change AND REFLECTIVE OUTER CHANGE OF POLICY…..Grace is the necessary new economic and monetary paradigm required for the resolution of our current crisis.

Does this mean that Sunday School was right all along? Well yes and no. Yes in that philosophy is always the place to start if you want to have and maintain intellectual honesty and clarity, and no if you want to be ONLY an exclusionary pre-scientific religionist about it.

So be smart enough and conscientious enough to fully flesh out the necessary concept, and don’t fall into dualistic religiosity….or cynical, stupid and all too modern reaction against the same.

wisdomicsblog.com

The proof of this is the fact that if the US or Britain or any other major nation were forced into war any thought of not financing it would be derided as idiotic if not unpatriotic.

We are actually setting ourselves up for a major war with the lingering economic stagnation we see everywhere. What we need to do is not only recognize this, but also recognize that war is not the answer to our economic woes, especially in an era of smart and devastatingly destructive weaponry. In fact the way to not only prevent war but also to prevent its tendency is to realize that actually free and prosperous people are not nearly as inclined to be manipulated by powers that benefit from war…and so imminent individual economic freedom and continuing systemic economic free flowingness are the real goals economists must advocate, and a universal dividend sufficient to enable an adult individual a near middle class level of lifestyle coupled with a proactively price deflationary discount at retail sale by merchants that is in turn rebated back to participating merchants by a monetary authority….are the specific policies immediately necessary.

Economists need to brush past such considerations as gradualism, worries about idleness and terminally habitual, obsessive and short sighted “solutions” like employment.

Gradualism is the disguise that enslaving forces use to live another day. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.” The world evermore surely hurtles toward increasing conflict and war. The rhyming of long term economic down turn and/or stagnation with humanity’s history of conflict is too obvious and too unimaginably destructive today for us to fall for the idea of half measures or lengthy step by step by backward step reform. The time to act is now, and the actions to be taken are the specific policies that will effect individual freedom and systemic free flowingness!

Man is a purpose driven animal, and leisure is not idleness, but rather self determined and attentive activity. Today, even in an increasingly onerous economic system better than 90% of us manage to find sufficient positive and constructive purpose to avoid incarceration.  Instead of people being required to do something the great majority of which they didn’t actually want to do, and that because of innovation and artificial intelligence was in the very near future disruptively even less and less available to them, if individuals were themselves able to determine what they wanted to do as work for pay or simply as several of the myriad other worthwhile purposes other than employment…..how much more free and joyous and creative could such a society be! Employment is not the only, or now even the most available purpose of economics and economic theory, let alone of Life. Economists and the other leaders within nations must work together to help acculturate individuals to their true freedom of choice of life’s purposes which will broaden their energy of hope, compassion and creativity instead of squashing same into a failed experiment like homo economicus.

c copyright

Steve Hummel

06/29/2016

Robert:  “What’s more interesting to me is the cartel’s ability to misdirect so many along the entire political spectrum.”

Me:  That’s because the vast majority are conditioned to austerity, scarcity, egotism and the resultant fear, anger and apathy. These individual (mostly unconscious) postulates cut across party lines and whatever other allegiances people have. As a Man thinketh, so is he. And there is no enslavement like the enslavement created by oneself….and held in place by the will and the strongest intention in the cosmos….the intention to be right, especially in one’s own mind.

Me:  When the next 2008 crisis occurs the president should simply do an executive decree declaring a modern debt jubilee of up to maybe $100k for every debtor 18 years of age or older, declare dual dividend and discount policies and also a state banking system along the lines of North Dakota.

There would be a hue and cry like no one has ever heard before from the Banks, but the obvious benefits to the macro-economy, all other business models and the vast majority of individuals would make it nearly politically impossible to undue and would become a fait accompli. Such a man or woman would be remembered as the greatest and most benevolent president the country ever had.

Freedom From Financial Tyranny, and Freedom To Be, To Do and To Grow In A Humane Leisure Society!

Jim:  Debtors to whom and for what?  There are debts and there are debts. Just to the banks?  Remember that the banks own your deposits.  You have lent them to the banks. That’s why deposits are liabilities.  Hmmm

Me:  All manner of private debt. Mortgage Debts run up during the asset inflation prior to 2008, inflated student debts run up during and after that time. Steve Keen recognizes that it is private, not nearly so much public debt that is the problem, and came up with the idea of “a modern debt jubilee” where anyone with debt (nearly everyone) must put their jubilee payment toward retiring their own debt first, and anyone who didn’t have debt would receive the payment as a gift. If they paid all their debts before their $100k jubilee the remainder would be a gift in cash. I actually proposed something very similar to this in my first book (https://www.amazon.com/Money-Wisdom-Giving-Immediately-Necessary-ebook/dp/B009QGFX6U#nav-subnav) after posting it to Keen’s Debt Watch site before he came out with “a modern debt jubilee.

And if you are someone who has bonds that other people are paying off….why you get paid back. At which time you are free to put your money back in bonds or probably some other investment that actually produces something and is likely going to pay you more than a bond nowadays because after a jubilee etc. the investing climate will be light years better than it is now.