I cover a lot of it in my posts, but part of the point of what I've written is to accurately describe the mechanics of what is happening, getting economic history correct.
So, the idea is coming up with some accurate descriptions that would apply in any given economy, not just one particular arrangement. One of my favourite writers growing up was Josef Svorecky, a Czech-Canadian who lived under Nazi and Communist occupation, and observed that the same people worked for both governments.
Most economics is attached to a political philosophy. They are not descriptive, they are prescriptive. They don't describe the world, and they don't accurately model interactions, and so they don't predict anything.
Rather, they are just prescriptive rules for the way the system must work - socialism, communism, capitalism, libertarianism, etc.
The only innovation I can claim to have made is that I have fleshed out some of the consequences of money being information, which has been asserted many times, over centuries. Money is a token we use to get others to perform a task.
However, it wasn't until the development of information theory, cybernetics and game theory that there was a rigourous scientific account of information. Economic models were a kind of mathematical metaphor taken from physics or engineering, when information is very different.
The entire financial and money system is informational. Uncertainty is missing information, and uncertainty affects prices, interest rates, rates of return, the list goes on.
The is other is that most existing economics are essentially the official economics of the state, whatever it's ideology is supposed to be, but the origin and purpose of government is not economic, it is legal. Marx' model of the communist centrally planned state was the one giant capitalist corporation.
My issue with far right and far left is that they are economic systems, not political and legal systems, and that they have both always been fundamentally opposed not just to democracy, but to the rule of law. "Authoritarian" and totalitarian governments enforce obedience, not the law. The "horseshoe" theory of the political spectrum, that if you go far enough left and far enough right they meet. Stalin's Soviet Union ran trickle-down economic policies exactly like those being practiced in the U.S. today. Marx himself didn't have different economic formulas from far-right capitalists like David Ricardo.
If you do not have the rule of law, you can't have either freedom or justice. If there is no way to ensure the law applies to everyone, then corruption is an absolute certainty, because people can act without impunity. These are not economic or market principles, and the reason why government should not run like a business is because the origin of the government is not a corporation, it is a court. The actual legal court of a King or queen, where the citizens can petition the court for justice.
Because freedom depends on rights, and those rights do not enforce themselves. They are written down, agreed upon, and it takes real resources, and lots of oversight for these rules to be enforced as they should be. Fairly and impartially. That is why the corruption of government is so serious, and that getting rid of government will not work.
Holy heck man. I quit reading you because you need a serious editor. The response above shows it again. Every post you have is so long, so turgid, so verbose it needs a 2 paragraph “executive summary”. Please, please, please find an editor. You have some fine things to say, but I, for one, cannot continue to read them and wade through the excess verbiage to the essence of your argument.
It's an incredibly entitled attitude to demand that someone work harder or shell out their own money to provide you with something you say is of value that you're getting for nothing.
As for the above comment, I have been asked by someone who says they disagree with me but keeps seeing my posts whether I have an economic theory. I sum up 126 pages of explanation in five paragraphs where I explain my criticism of current orthodox economics and set out the key ways in which my views are different.
Nope, I still stand on the need for an executive summary. I didn’t stay quit when it was clear that an appeal book required editing because the party who needed that appeal required complete clarity. Apparently you disagree"
Why don't you "push" yourself to examine & define your 'far right winger (-dinger)’ ideology? Treatises are not necessary: We should first & foremost do analysis of cost, benefit and risk, and determine to whom the effects pertain - ie. Main St. or Bay St/Wall St. City of London/Zurich/ the Country-Club.
I just want to encourage everyone who is interested in economics and monetary policy to read the Keybernomics PDF. I’m getting to the end and it’s still a great read all the way through. Very worthwhile if you’re seriously looking for solutions. Thanks
Glad I read this today. Compliments a podcast on modern monetary policy I was listening to. What’s your take on Mark Carney? As a central banker is he just a zealot and we will remain fucked if he gets into power?
I suggest that you find a copy of ‘All Honorable Men’ by J.S. Martin. It makes for interesting reading.
In the first part that I have read, it details the way in which steel production was managed by an organization run out of Luxembourg, that issued quotas to each country, much the way OPEC manages oil. It then went on to explain how I.G. Farben dominated (and probably still does) the petrochemical industry around the world by owning all of the patents.
When this book was published after WWII, the FBI attempted to seize and destroy every copy. The reason? It names American corporations and individuals who were as involved in supporting the German war effort as the German industrialist like Krupp. I managed to have it pop up as an eBook.
Globalization has been happening since the 1494 when Portugal and Spain split the world in the treaty of Tordesillas. One could even consider Ghengis Khan as the first global leader with control from Crimea to Cathay. To think that there are forces at work behind the scenes is to only guess at the financial and legal frameworks on which the worlds economies are built. What has protected us from total disaster so far is that often bad actors are often reigned in or hobbled by these forces, if only out of self-interest.
And this leads us to our nation’s current challenges. Politicians can be very pragmatic, but too often short sighted. We have the resources to be self-sufficient, but there are likely too many parties in a deal to get done what would be good for the long term. In addition to the monies required, it would also require spending some of their political cache, which is very slow to grow back if it does at all.
This may be part of the reason it is so difficult to get good people into politics. We occasionally get great ones, like Churchill, Mandela and Zelensky, but the rest of them are no different from us. And they pay a high price for taking the job. Divorces, affairs, dependencies, etc… happen after prolonged stress for some, others retire before we see them break. A lucky few are strengthened by the work, but cannot keep their seats.
So in a democracy, perhaps we can help share the load by educating ourselves more, get to know the players involved at our local levels and ask questions. Lots of questions.
I do look forward to reading more of Mr. Lamont’s essays. Keep’em coming.
To lead a nation at war, especially in the face of Putin’s ambitions, is to have your character and resolve tested to your limits. Zelensky has earned my respect for lasting so long in the face of the Russian onslaught.
He is not perfect, as there are no perfect people, only perfect intentions. His leadership in marshalling support for Ukraine, and for staying in the fight is inspiring. He has lived under constant bombardment for the last 3 years. The Blitz in WWII only lasted for 4 months.
As for building up the background to ask good questions, we can smell some answers as lies just from being alive. Others, it takes specific knowledge to pin down the lie. One of the good things about these forums is that there are very literate people to learn from and to ask questions.
Do you have a constructive criticism and references to support your criticism? If you can show me examples of the truth as you see it, I will gladly read them, think on them, and adjust my thinking if warranted.
I am here to read economic perspectives, and geo-economic frameworks, which pertain to my country; not some misplaced gushing for the dastardly comic-twerp Z-man and his regime.
Your hyperbole regarding (Z)elensky and Putin is extremely slanted and fictional. Learn historical, and current, facts. Maybe the li'l' green comic running 1 of the most corrupt and UN-democratic regimes in the world will abscond to a mansion, he has a few, in your neighborhood with his dirty-wealth once his "Atlanticist" handlers pull their protection. Check his popularity polling #s in the heavenly, make-believe Ukieland.
Another interesting analysis! Thanks. I think though, it’s time we admitted that economics is most certainly not a science, nor a social science. Three witches at a caldron or a wizard with a staff or a shaman with a handful of bones could prognosticate as well, perhaps even better, than the fine folk who call themselves economists. The variables are as numerous as the billions of people involved, the trends as numerous as the values of the observers, the irrationality of both buyers and sellers as deep as irrational numbers in mathematics. Anything said by an economist can only be seen as an approximation, a generality, a guess from a particular point of view with a rather low probability of accuracy. Super macroscopically some trends can be seen and broadly applied to experiences of the past and while the rhyme may sound familiar it certainly does not repeat the past. What economy is requires a complete rethink as its notions today and from yesterday don’t seem to fit any more. Something is amiss.
As a ‘far right winger’ I always have to push to read your articles :). Curious have you written a “treatise” on the “correct” economic theory?
I cover a lot of it in my posts, but part of the point of what I've written is to accurately describe the mechanics of what is happening, getting economic history correct.
So, the idea is coming up with some accurate descriptions that would apply in any given economy, not just one particular arrangement. One of my favourite writers growing up was Josef Svorecky, a Czech-Canadian who lived under Nazi and Communist occupation, and observed that the same people worked for both governments.
Most economics is attached to a political philosophy. They are not descriptive, they are prescriptive. They don't describe the world, and they don't accurately model interactions, and so they don't predict anything.
Rather, they are just prescriptive rules for the way the system must work - socialism, communism, capitalism, libertarianism, etc.
The only innovation I can claim to have made is that I have fleshed out some of the consequences of money being information, which has been asserted many times, over centuries. Money is a token we use to get others to perform a task.
However, it wasn't until the development of information theory, cybernetics and game theory that there was a rigourous scientific account of information. Economic models were a kind of mathematical metaphor taken from physics or engineering, when information is very different.
The entire financial and money system is informational. Uncertainty is missing information, and uncertainty affects prices, interest rates, rates of return, the list goes on.
There's a brief summary and pdf attached.
https://open.substack.com/pub/dougaldlamont/p/keybernomics-a-new-economics-for?r=9gk0j&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
The is other is that most existing economics are essentially the official economics of the state, whatever it's ideology is supposed to be, but the origin and purpose of government is not economic, it is legal. Marx' model of the communist centrally planned state was the one giant capitalist corporation.
My issue with far right and far left is that they are economic systems, not political and legal systems, and that they have both always been fundamentally opposed not just to democracy, but to the rule of law. "Authoritarian" and totalitarian governments enforce obedience, not the law. The "horseshoe" theory of the political spectrum, that if you go far enough left and far enough right they meet. Stalin's Soviet Union ran trickle-down economic policies exactly like those being practiced in the U.S. today. Marx himself didn't have different economic formulas from far-right capitalists like David Ricardo.
If you do not have the rule of law, you can't have either freedom or justice. If there is no way to ensure the law applies to everyone, then corruption is an absolute certainty, because people can act without impunity. These are not economic or market principles, and the reason why government should not run like a business is because the origin of the government is not a corporation, it is a court. The actual legal court of a King or queen, where the citizens can petition the court for justice.
Because freedom depends on rights, and those rights do not enforce themselves. They are written down, agreed upon, and it takes real resources, and lots of oversight for these rules to be enforced as they should be. Fairly and impartially. That is why the corruption of government is so serious, and that getting rid of government will not work.
Holy heck man. I quit reading you because you need a serious editor. The response above shows it again. Every post you have is so long, so turgid, so verbose it needs a 2 paragraph “executive summary”. Please, please, please find an editor. You have some fine things to say, but I, for one, cannot continue to read them and wade through the excess verbiage to the essence of your argument.
Well, stay quit.
It's an incredibly entitled attitude to demand that someone work harder or shell out their own money to provide you with something you say is of value that you're getting for nothing.
As for the above comment, I have been asked by someone who says they disagree with me but keeps seeing my posts whether I have an economic theory. I sum up 126 pages of explanation in five paragraphs where I explain my criticism of current orthodox economics and set out the key ways in which my views are different.
So maybe it's just not for you.
Nope, I still stand on the need for an executive summary. I didn’t stay quit when it was clear that an appeal book required editing because the party who needed that appeal required complete clarity. Apparently you disagree"
Thanks Dougald, I read the whole thing bc your ideas are important
Why don't you "push" yourself to examine & define your 'far right winger (-dinger)’ ideology? Treatises are not necessary: We should first & foremost do analysis of cost, benefit and risk, and determine to whom the effects pertain - ie. Main St. or Bay St/Wall St. City of London/Zurich/ the Country-Club.
I just want to encourage everyone who is interested in economics and monetary policy to read the Keybernomics PDF. I’m getting to the end and it’s still a great read all the way through. Very worthwhile if you’re seriously looking for solutions. Thanks
Glad I read this today. Compliments a podcast on modern monetary policy I was listening to. What’s your take on Mark Carney? As a central banker is he just a zealot and we will remain fucked if he gets into power?
I suggest that you find a copy of ‘All Honorable Men’ by J.S. Martin. It makes for interesting reading.
In the first part that I have read, it details the way in which steel production was managed by an organization run out of Luxembourg, that issued quotas to each country, much the way OPEC manages oil. It then went on to explain how I.G. Farben dominated (and probably still does) the petrochemical industry around the world by owning all of the patents.
When this book was published after WWII, the FBI attempted to seize and destroy every copy. The reason? It names American corporations and individuals who were as involved in supporting the German war effort as the German industrialist like Krupp. I managed to have it pop up as an eBook.
Globalization has been happening since the 1494 when Portugal and Spain split the world in the treaty of Tordesillas. One could even consider Ghengis Khan as the first global leader with control from Crimea to Cathay. To think that there are forces at work behind the scenes is to only guess at the financial and legal frameworks on which the worlds economies are built. What has protected us from total disaster so far is that often bad actors are often reigned in or hobbled by these forces, if only out of self-interest.
And this leads us to our nation’s current challenges. Politicians can be very pragmatic, but too often short sighted. We have the resources to be self-sufficient, but there are likely too many parties in a deal to get done what would be good for the long term. In addition to the monies required, it would also require spending some of their political cache, which is very slow to grow back if it does at all.
This may be part of the reason it is so difficult to get good people into politics. We occasionally get great ones, like Churchill, Mandela and Zelensky, but the rest of them are no different from us. And they pay a high price for taking the job. Divorces, affairs, dependencies, etc… happen after prolonged stress for some, others retire before we see them break. A lucky few are strengthened by the work, but cannot keep their seats.
So in a democracy, perhaps we can help share the load by educating ourselves more, get to know the players involved at our local levels and ask questions. Lots of questions.
I do look forward to reading more of Mr. Lamont’s essays. Keep’em coming.
Ask questions for which you know the answers, or at least enough to discern bullshit or evasive answers...Zelensky?!?
To lead a nation at war, especially in the face of Putin’s ambitions, is to have your character and resolve tested to your limits. Zelensky has earned my respect for lasting so long in the face of the Russian onslaught.
He is not perfect, as there are no perfect people, only perfect intentions. His leadership in marshalling support for Ukraine, and for staying in the fight is inspiring. He has lived under constant bombardment for the last 3 years. The Blitz in WWII only lasted for 4 months.
As for building up the background to ask good questions, we can smell some answers as lies just from being alive. Others, it takes specific knowledge to pin down the lie. One of the good things about these forums is that there are very literate people to learn from and to ask questions.
Delusional - go have some more propaganda.
Dear Johnny,
Do you have a constructive criticism and references to support your criticism? If you can show me examples of the truth as you see it, I will gladly read them, think on them, and adjust my thinking if warranted.
Otherwise, why are you here?
I am here to read economic perspectives, and geo-economic frameworks, which pertain to my country; not some misplaced gushing for the dastardly comic-twerp Z-man and his regime.
Dear Jimmy,,
Your hyperbole regarding (Z)elensky and Putin is extremely slanted and fictional. Learn historical, and current, facts. Maybe the li'l' green comic running 1 of the most corrupt and UN-democratic regimes in the world will abscond to a mansion, he has a few, in your neighborhood with his dirty-wealth once his "Atlanticist" handlers pull their protection. Check his popularity polling #s in the heavenly, make-believe Ukieland.
Johnny Canuck, another Russian stooge.
Fantastic article.
Another interesting analysis! Thanks. I think though, it’s time we admitted that economics is most certainly not a science, nor a social science. Three witches at a caldron or a wizard with a staff or a shaman with a handful of bones could prognosticate as well, perhaps even better, than the fine folk who call themselves economists. The variables are as numerous as the billions of people involved, the trends as numerous as the values of the observers, the irrationality of both buyers and sellers as deep as irrational numbers in mathematics. Anything said by an economist can only be seen as an approximation, a generality, a guess from a particular point of view with a rather low probability of accuracy. Super macroscopically some trends can be seen and broadly applied to experiences of the past and while the rhyme may sound familiar it certainly does not repeat the past. What economy is requires a complete rethink as its notions today and from yesterday don’t seem to fit any more. Something is amiss.
Most schools of economic thought are ideological/theoretical first, whether their adherents recognize this or not.
Yes. Quite so.
Thank you.
It’s always interesting to see contrasting perspectives on economic narratives—curious to dive into this analysis on Canada’s GDP trends
Fuck the economist and the globe and mail. Fascist propaganda rags.