Harnessing the Devil

Back in East Texas, when you had just found a good solution to a bad problem, you “had the Devil on a down-hill pull.” That seems to be what’s happening with regard to China’s new law censoring Non-Governmental Organizations and tightening the ”Great Firewall” of censorship on China’s portion of the Internet. A large group of international corporations that do business with and in China have banded together to say that China’s new laws are “bad for business” and must be changed or risk China’s loss of their business.  The Devil in this case is both censorship and economic determinism, so it’s actually more of a tug of war. But however it works out, it’s a welcome pressure against oppression and represents economics at its best as a force for good. The Devil of economic determinism is being put to worthy purposes. 

It reminds me of a prior post of mine about the differences between physicists and economists, (Economics and Cosmology). Physicists and Engineers discover that gravity is the most powerful force in the universe, capable of creating black holes and moving galaxies, say “fascinating”, and go out to build ladders, stairs, cranes, skyscrapers, airplanes and rockets to the outer planets. A friend of mine who pilots the Messenger and New Horizons rockets, and piloted the rocket that safely landed on an asteroid, actually started the asteroid mission by looping the rocket around the sun in order to gain the gravitational momentum to get it to the asteroid belt. Gravity was both a friend and an enemy. Economists on the other hand determine that economic considerations are the most powerful motivators in human life -  “economic determinism”, say “well, that’s it”, and sit like the proverbial bump on a log muttering “TAANSTAFL” (There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch). If you propose something like an embargo or economic blockade such as with South Africa during Apartheid, which are enactments of TAANSTAFL, they just look gloomy and mutter “won’t work, hurts profits and it’s not strong enough.” Well then, figure out how to build a stronger ladder or an elevator – that’s what the engineers did.

The problem is that economists have lost sight of the truths that economics is not an end in itself but a tool to further human happiness and that there are more facets to happiness than economic gain. If they had only taken or stayed awake in a social science class that covered the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs, they would have learned that satisfaction of economic needs by itself is one of the lower rungs of that hierarchy, necessary to cross but simply a route to satisfaction of higher needs, not a destination in itself. The engineers understand that gravity is indeed the most powerful force but sometimes you need to go higher.

What we need is a new paradigm of economics as a tool for satisfaction of higher human needs. Economics originally had that. Aristotle coined the word to describe management of a household, and it takes a lot more than money to make a happy household. Adam Smith invented modern economics but as a Moral Philosopher deplored the indifference of the rich to the needs of the poor. Keynes invented the economics conservatives so despise during the Great Depression years to improve the overall happiness of society. The version of economics we practice today focuses on total GDP and along the way at possibly reducing unemployment, akin to the antiquated view that the only Vitamin C you needed was the amount to eliminate symptoms of scurvy. The prior wiser vision of economics has been lost and needs to be regained.

Perhaps the necessary shifts could be begun by adopting not the current simple-minded goal of just increasing total GDP, but instead, of increasing median per capita net wealth. If, in the process, we increase total GDP – good - but not at the expense of lowering the median level. That, after all, is supposed to be what democracy is all about. Then, after working as a society to get past those lower rungs of the hierarchy of needs, we could move on up the ladder. Yes, economic determinism is devilishly strong, but we as a nation have the wits to climb past it. It’s time to harness the Devil.