|
The P-CED Manifesto: Principles of people-centered economics
1. The US economy transitioned from hard-asset based
(gold, silver) in 1971 to Fed paper notes written solely
against the “good faith and credit” of US citizens.
2. Gold (or silver) is tangible, observable, finite: whatever
is on hand, is on hand. That provides a firm,
tangible, finite, objective economic
anchor. There is no way to create more of it at
will. One ton of gold is one ton of gold. Its
quantity and value are represented in numbers. Since
that time, the US national debt went from near zero
to nine trillion dollars in 2008 (~5 trillion in 1996
when these points were first compiled.) That debt
is backed by nothing more than paper based on numbers
which may or may not even exist.
3. Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” does not mean “non-existent”,
nor detached. It means what it says: invisible.
That is, not observable.
4. After disconnecting from the gold standard, US
economics and capitalism became purely a matter of
manipulating numbers. There was no longer a hard,
observable, tangible, finite anchor. Numbers are
not hard, observable, or tangible, and may not even
exist outside the mind of human beings.
5. With US and Western economics and capitalism shifted
to manipulation of numbers: are numbers real? That
is, do numbers exist independently of the human mind
and imagination?
6. Plato claimed numbers exist independently of the
human mind, are real, but exist in an ideal, transcendent,
unmanifest world. Numbers exist because
they are in that ideal world. That ideal world
is represented to us by numbers, and by extension, mathematics.
Therefore, numbers exist beause numbers exist.
Circular logic, per his protegé Aristotle.
7. Descartes, mathematician/philosopher, finally
got around some fifteen centuries later to further analyzing
the questions of what exists, what is real. He
went past numbers to the question of whether he himself
even existed. He posited that some entity, some
manner of consciousness and material world in the form
he found himself, must necessarily and logically exist
in order to ponder the question to begin with. He
concluded "cogito, ergo sum." "I
think, therefore I am." Thus demonstrating
that he, and by the same argument other humans, have
firm evidence that we exist, and are not mere fantasies
or cognitive constructs of an "Evil Genius"
imaginining all of us, the world, and the manifest universe.
Human beings exist. He was not able to reach
a similar conclusion about numbers, nor has anyone else,
nor is it possible to reach any such conclusion because
it is not possible to separate thinking of numbers by
a human being from the human being himself or herself
without eradicating the human being. In which
case, there would be nothing to speak or think further.
[Numbers are assumed by mathematicians to exist
in a real sense for the sake of their day-to-day work
six days per week, but not on the Sabbath when they feel
more obliged to be honest. (reference “The Mathematical
Experience", Davis and Hersh, 1981.) ]
8. Capitalism based on numbers may or may not be
valid, according to whether or not numbers are valid,
real, existent, independent of the human mind. Positing
them in Plato’s ideal realm and begging the question
of their existence on that basis was and is null and
void.
9. Find a 1, or a 2. Not a symbolic representation
of one or two, 1 or 2. Not a quantity of 1
of something, or 2 of something, but an actual 1 or
an actual 2, tangible, observable, on their own. Next,
find a human being. It is possible to find a human
being, one human being or two human beings. It
is so far not possible to find a 1 or a 2 in this world.
There are no instances in recorded history where
either of those have even been located and identified
as entities independent of the human mind,
nor any other number nor any mathematics nor any equation.
10. Human beings are real.
11. If a) the independent existence of numbers is
unknown, and unknowable; b) human beings do exist;
then c) any system of human economics based on reality
can only be based on human beings.
12. Positing numbers as real entities, and basing
economics on that unproved and unprovable hypothesis,
risks disposing of real entities (human beings) in
favor of imaginary entities (numbers.) The only
variable needed for that to happen is unscrupulous human
beings.
13. Human-based – that is, people-centered – economics
is the only valid measure of economics.
14. Manipulation of numbers, represented by currency/money,
allows writing “new” money as needed. There is
no tangible asset, or anchor. There are only numbers,
managed by whomever might maneuver into position to
do so. Economics came to be based on numbers,
rather than real human beings.
15. On that basis, capitalism trumped people and
therefore trumped democracy. Democracy is about
people, who since Descartes are considered necessarily
real, rather than numbers which are not necessarily
real. An imaginary construct, numbers, rule a
real construct, people. That arrangement allows
for disposal of real human beings, in the name of
the imaginary construct.
16. Capitalism nevertheless remains the most powerful
economic system ever devised. The problem is not
with the construct. The problem is with the output
of the construct, wherein imaginary constructs – numbers,
and currencies represented symbolically by numbers –
are left to control real human beings to the material
benefit of relatively few people and to the exclusion
of many others. Classical capitalism has reached
equilibrium in this regard. However, and consequently,
many and growing numbers of human beings are excluded
in the realm of finite resources hoarded by those most
adept with manipulating numbers/currencies.
17. This is where we find ourselves at the advent
of the third age of human civilization – the Information
Age, following from the Agriculture Age and the Industrial
Age. We are for the first time in human history
in position to take note of where we are and what we
are doing to and with each other. Or, not.
18. Modifying the output of capitalism is the only
method available to resolving the problem of capitalism
where numbers trumped people – at the hands of people
trained toward profit represented only by numbers and
currencies rather than human beings. Profit rules,
people are expendable commodities represented by numbers.
The solution, and only solution, is to modify
that output, measuring profit in terms of real human
beings instead of numbers.
19. We can choose to not reform capitalism, leave
human beings to die from deprivation – where we are
now – and understand that that puts people in self-defense
mode.
20. When in self-defense mode, kill or be killed,
there is no civilization at all. It is the law
of the jungle, where we started eons ago. In that
context, 'terrorism' will likely flourish because it
is 'terrorism' only for the haves, not for the have-nots.
The have-nots already live in terror, as their
existence is threatened by deprivation, and they have
the right to fight back any way they can.
21. “They” will fight back, and do.
22. The Information Age can become the pinnacle of
human civilization, the Golden Age. Or, it can
become the end of human civilization. We get to
decide which way to go, and act accordingly.
23. Dismissing people and consciously leaving them
to die is probably not the way to go.
24. Economics, and indeed human civilization, can
only be measured and calibrated in terms of human beings.
Everything in economics has to be adjusted for
people, first, and abandoning the illusory numerical
analyses that inevitably put numbers ahead of people,
capitalism ahead of democracy, and degradation ahead
of compassion.
25. Each of us who have a choice can choose what
we want to do to help or not. It is free-will,
our choice, as human beings.
Posted 10 July 2008. (This is the core argument from the 1996 paper.)
September 2008 arrived two months later, and the rest is history.
T.H., 27 December 2008, Kharkiv
|
