The Layman’s Guide to Economics, Appendix 1

When I first published the Layman’s Guide, I omitted any reference to economists as such, mostly because it seemed to me at the time that not even God himself, let alone an untutored blogger, could make anything either succinct or coherent out of their work. Since then, I’ve read more widely, if not more deeply, and, by George, I think I’ve finally got it.

Economists in General: The health of the economy does not depend on your having any.

Some Economists in Particular: And a damned good thing it is, too, which you would realize if only you could grasp the concepts involved.

A Cold Day in Hell

Today Paul Krugman has discovered that, gasp, technological unemployment is really real! And it’s really, finally here! And it really, really will result in a permanent transfer of wealth from labor to capital, no matter how many college degrees laborers go into debt to acquire! (and, coincidentally, of course, this also seems to imply that Marx might actually have been a bit smarter than we thought.)

I’m being unfair, or at least uncharitable, to the penitent Dr. Krugman, who’s a nice guy, and would be a nice guy even if he weren’t an economist. Still, this is an amazingly belated observation on his part. I thought that these economist guys all knew this stuff, but were afraid to mention it for fear of devaluing their Keynesian cheerleading. Horrifying to think that they didn’t actually know it at all.

Explaining Myself (To Myself, If To No One Else)

In this crazy season just prior to the U.S. elections, I’ve found myself strangely unable to pay adequate attention to my own business. There are just too many people around me who’ve given themselves over to the din and the compulsion, and want me to join them in their last ditch defense against the unthinkable. I can’t do it, not least because I’ve long been convinced that the unthinkable is already upon us. We’re going to have to live with it at one level or another for as far as most of us can see into the future. That will take some doing, at least for those who will live through more of it than I’ll have to.

Still, it may be a good idea, in my current rattled state, which seems to recur every two years at about this time, to take stock of where in the landscape of our current discontents I find what Christians call the Rock Of My Salvation. Then, with any luck, I’ll be able to get back to business again:

1. Immanence rather than transcendence

2. Heraclitus rather than Aristotle

3. The Tao rather than filial piety

4. Blake rather than Newton

5. Marx rather than Keynes

6. A decent respect to the opinions of mankind rather than full-spectrum dominance

7. Mens sana in corpore sano above all (although I freely admit that this doesn’t mean to me what it seems to mean to most of my contemporaries.)