A suggestive article by Joe Brewer that challenges some of the conventions of economic (and educational) orthodoxy: http://www.truthout.org/joe-brewer-the-death-self-interest-fundamentalism58915
Among his interesting points is the suggestion that certain dangerous and pervasive errors in our thinking about human decision-making were solidified in military mathematics labs during the cold war (I would say they have deeper roots). Also, when he comes to describing the way forward, he miraculously rediscovers some rather Hegelian insights. Enjoy.
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Brewer (I got the name right this time) argues that we need to rethink how we assess our economy. He makes several suggestions for how a "human-based economy" should work:
1. It should recognize the value of communities (presumably instead of the individual supremacy found in the rational individual model)
2. It should be designed around our biological needs for survival (which would attribute greater significance to environmental policies and concerns)
3. It should acknowledge that interpretations of human well-being are perpetually contested by competing views (no single concept of an ideal economic society is inherently better than another)
This article reflects many of the ideas that we have discussed in class: the idea of valuing communities by increasing local businesses and creating a localized "gift economy", and the idea that our current profit-driven economic system is the major cause of the devastation of our environment ( we haven't discussed the third point that he raised, but it might be worth while). Overall, I think this article reaffirms that we are on the right track in our analysis of property and economics, as well as our creative reconstruction of what they should be.
Brewer also mentions the inadequacy of GDP as a valuable and meaningful measurement of the economy. Although it would appear as though GDP does not account for many (if any) qualitative aspects of the economy, yet one of its major attractions is that it is relatively easy to measure and provides a succinct account of economic "progress." Flaws of GDP aside, I would like to know how we might measure our economy in order to account for the values that I mentioned earlier in this post. Intuitively I would imagine that it would be a much more taxing task, yet I cannot begin to think of a systematic way to accomlish such a feat. Does anyone have any ideas on this matter? Is a measurement of the national economy even valuable under Brewer's suggested system?
One place to start is the sort of thinking Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum do in their book "Quality of Life." It is certainly the case that there is no simple measurement of a nation's human-centered economy, but there are measurable elements, and surrogate indicators, that can help. The problem with GDP is that it measures output, period, regardless of what it is or what effects it has. So war is very good for GDP, as are dead-end production (nuclear weapons) and other dirty technologies (coal) for example. A human-centered alternative would discount these, and weigh more heavily things like renewable energy production, localized agriculture, library construction...
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