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Thanks for the good wishes, Steve, and for your
admonition, which I abbreviate for personal application to my arguments with
Rodney to "too much dithering over picking the right action can prevent any
action at all!
Keith
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2003 8:27
PM
Subject: Re: OWNERSHIP: Red-letter
sequel
Good luck in your upcoming surgery, Keith,
Regardless
all the words that we banter about--most of them are inadequate in describing
much about real life--like love or dying. Words are symbols. We agree to use
them, but people need to cut other people some slack in that regard. And, of
course, we can waste all of our time in these labyrinths of language--or try
some "right actions" and see what happens...even if we fail.
Words also
are woefully inadequate when it comes to debating what should be done about
de-concentrating the tremendous wealth that world economies are capable of
producing. No one can possibly predict what may happen in the future. Life is
a non-linear process full of perplexing paradoxes. But we are all, like it or
not, fellow travelers in this streaming. It has amazing intelligence. I like
to try and build on that. Sometimes we can't describe this process with words.
But yet things, changes, happen. And they do, regardless the analysis of
various "experts." In many ways it is a leap of faith, which is what life is.
How does my heart keep pumping--or not? This, ultimately, is out of my control
even if I try and keep my aging body in shape.
Whether we want to admit
it or not--death defines life. All of us eventually exit, which I suppose is
the ultimate display of our humanity.
Some people get really religious
about the various unknowns that we all face. To me, it's just a way to try and
grapple with the Void~~Steve Nieman
On Tuesday, June 24, 2003, at 12:17
PM, Keith Wilde wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: Rodney Shakespeare
To: ownership@cog.kent.edu
Sent:
Monday, June 23, 2003 3:55 PM
Subject: Re: OWNERSHIP: Red-letter
sequel
Keith,
You
disagree with the binary analysis, in which case I suggest that, instead of
being negative, you try to evolve a better one.
Well,
I have said many times that I don't see much need for the binary analysis
(two-factor theory) at all. When
the Chief Actuary of the Canada Pension Plan expressed an interest in
reading the draft version of Binary Economics in my possession, I
recommended that he skip most of the first seven chapters and go straight
into the techniques for effecting the democratization of common share
ownership.
If
you want a rationale for explaining to people why they should feel entitled
to share the common wealth, I think that the one used by social crediters is
pretty persuasive. And for an explanation of what capital is and how it is
related to both raw nature and labor (human input of all kinds), the one
attributed to Bohm-Bawerk and called the Austrian theory of capital and
interest by economists is pretty good (see it as a chapter in Joseph
Schumpeter's Ten Great Economists from Marx to Keynes)--even though it lacks
the democratizing rationale. That would have to be added, but I think it
could be done without great
difficulty.
I only have time to comment on two other matters.
Time
is limited for me also. This will be about my last communication
for several weeks, and the return assumes that I will
be neither dead nor comatose following seven hours of surgery next
week.
a)
You are making a big mistake in referring to "professionals like
Michael Hudson." Today, in a email to me, he wrote "I know
nothing of binary economics. I can't understand a paragraph of it. It's
utterly confusing to me. I don't feel bad or embarrassed making this
statement, because I don't know anyone else (except yourself) who has been
able to understand it either."
If
you can keep Hudson's attention and get him to read Kelso aond Adler's New
Capitalists and/or Stephen Kane's article in the Journal of Socio-Economics
it would probably mitigate his confusion quite a bit. It seems obvious
to me that when Hudson links Enron to binary economics, that he is
really thinking of ESOP and equating B.E. to ESOP. I agree that
that is a mistake, but he can hardly be blamed for it when it is you and
your colleagues who insist on wrapping the flakey analysis together with the
policy prescriptions and
techniques.
Now this statement from Hudson comes in the context of his continuing to
allege (seemingly anywhere he can on the internet) that binary economics is
to be blamed for the Enron debacle because employees' savings were
involved. To anyone who has read the Ashford/Shakespeare book, like
your good self, it is impossible that a person could not understand,
for example, that binary economics uses interest-free money issued by
the central bank and not employees' savings.
That
may be the ideal, but I believe the criticism comes from observing quite a
few instances of employee ownership schemes in the States in which something
like the "ideal" was used fraudulently to allow con artists to extract
wealth and leave employee owners holding a bag of hollow assets
and debt. And keep in mind that a very careful and perceptive
analyst like David Ellerman has shown that the combination of tricks in the
ESOP package does involve some RE-distribution of wealth or income, contrary
to your continuous protest. That is not exactly your issue with Hudson, but
I suspect they are related. (I am not sufficiently expert in the
monetary-taxation-financial mix to have a judgment any more firm than this
impression.) If Michael got beyond the "analysis" and into the more
universal applications of Kelso's idea, he might be more sympathetic. (Too
bad the COG library doesn't have the paper written by your co-author's
friend in California--the investments manager, John Jones, who describes its
application to a portfolio of
assets.)
Hudson
even goes on to say things like binary economics "is all things to all men
" which is preposterous (e.g. it's hardly extreme socialism, is
it? And it's hated by hardline right-wingfers, isn't it?).
What it all gets down to is Hudson has NOT read the A/S book even
though he has a copy. In contrast, you most certainly have and,
even though you do not agree with portions of it (e.g. the productiveness
analysis) I have never understood you to say that you ever found
any of it difficult to
understand.
So in referring to "professionals like Michael Hudson" you are referring to
somebody who makes vitriolic attacks on binary economics, a subject about
which he admits he knows and understands nothing -- almost certainly
because he has not read the book. There's "professionalism" for
you!!
Keep
in mind that I had several months of help in reading the book, from
you, Norm Kurland, Alan Zundel, David Spitzley, Dan Bell, Stephen Kane, D.
Ellerman, Shann Turnbull, etc,--even Mark Reiners sometimes, which
involved quite strenuous effort on the part of all those named. I have the
impression that Michael Hudson's primary interest in policy improvement
centres on debt and debt forgiveness. If I am right on that, then your
focus on acquisition of assets via further debt is not central to his
concerns. In this context it is consistent with professionalism to rely a
bit on the judgment of others who have taken the pains to read, and that was
available to Michael, even if the only version of my Report to Ford
Foundation that he read was the rebuttal organized by yourself and Norm
Kurland.
I have asked Hudson for an apology for the Enron allegations
but doubt if he is big enough to
give it.
b)
You say
"I am skeptical of a movement which claims to be based in binary economics,
therefore, no matter that its general thrust is appealing on the surface,
because I know that its promoters are practitioners of golden bible
science."
This sentence does not make sense to me. What is the "movement?"
referred to? Binary economics or the Global Justice Movement?
GJM
of course. I do not regard any form of "economics" as a movement. Your
question nevertheless reinforces my frequent observation that you do
designate a political movement when you say "binary economics".
If
the latter, binary economics is but part of the GJM and the parts co-operate
with each other to achieve the Five Justices. This will become
apparent to you when the main Global Justice website opens up -- which
should be quite soon -- where you will be able to find answers to a
number of questions exercising you.
Rodney
Shakespeare.
I
sum this up by suggesting that Michael Hudson is skeptical of GJM
because he thinks B.E. = ESOP, a situation for which you are partly to
blame, and I am skeptical because I believe the main content of B.E. is
unnecessary baggage and is furthermore a form of "golden bible
science". I will have some interest in seeing how B.E. is woven
into the upcoming exposition on the GJM
website.
Keith
Wilde
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