Dear John,
Comments below,
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
John F. Sowa wrote:
On 9/5/2011 7:58 PM, Rich Cooper
wrote:
> I think that trying to
distinguish between awareness (Doug's word)
> or consciousness (your word) and
more automatic or instinctual
> reactions, is not observable.
I very rarely talk about
consciousness, and I'm sure that I did
not mention it in this thread.
You are correct – you didn’t
say that. That post was a response to Pat’s; he is the one who was
trying to make a decision between whether self interest is a conscious or a
unconscious motivator. So the word “you” in that clipping was
addressed back to Pat, not to you John.
A great deal (probably the most
important aspects) of behavior are
not based on conscious decisions.
In fact, much of the psychological
research shows that conscious
explanations of a decision tend to be
rationalizations for
instinctive reactions. Bismarck made that point
more bluntly:
"Every man
has two reasons, a good one and the real one."
I like the quote. I have heard it
before, but wasn’t aware that it came from Bismarck. Thanks for the note.
The point I have been emphasizing is
that self interest cannot
be separated from a very large number
of other psychological and
sociological issues.
It can’t be separated EASILY or
ACCURATELY, but it can be separated statistically by well designed polls and
well designed analyses of the results of polls. For example, how people
change their opinion before and after a significant event shows how much that
event affected their self interest as perceived by the pollees.
One point that many people have
observed
is that happiness is one of the most
important aspects of
self interest -- immediately after
the minimum requirements
of food, clothing, and shelter.
And many people have also noted that
happiness depends critically
on social interactions. (Note
that solitary confinement is one
of the most unpleasant punishments in
prisons.)
Agreed that social interactions are an
important part of MOST people’s perceived happiness, but there are
hermits and others who prefer solace for long periods of time.
There are many other issues, but the
main point is that you can't
take one aspect of psychology or
sociology and develop an adequate
theory without relating it to all or
nearly all other aspects.
I don’t you have made that point;
you haven’t addressed the statistical analysis of polls, historic events,
economics, or business processes such as traffic analysis of customer actions
versus environmental cues in the retail space. Those things have been
well studied and are getting a lot more funding because they work. Your ex
employer (IBM) is presently conducting seminars on what they call Business
Analytics which purport to statistically study such phenomenon where it can be
measured in commercial activities.
JFS
> But as I also said to Rich, all
the observations indicate that
> Herbert Hoover's approach was a
total failure, and the methods
> by Roosevelt and Truman led to
the unprecedented level of prosperity
> from the late 1940s through the
1960s.
RC
> Clearly we disagree on this;
that shows that there is subjectivity
> in the observation process...
I was not discussing subjective
issues. I was citing historical events.
You mean you were citing historical events
as read and accepted by you, who were reading and accepting the subjective judgments
of people you agree with. Remember Bismarck’s
quote; you were seeing and believing what you wanted to see and believe, and it
had nothing to do with objective reality. It was filtered by your own
past experiences that led you to be receptive to the position that Roosevelt did good instead of what he really did.
All the evidence shows that the worst
possible way to handle
a recession is to cut government
spending. That is what HH did
in the period from 1929 to 1932, and
it created the greatest
depression of all time.
HH made mistakes, and cutting spending at
that particular time was one of them, as I find the same history documented by
economists such as Milton Friedman whose work you are loathe to accept, again
due to your own experience and subjective focus.
The full recovery from the Great
Depression wasn't complete until
the spending on WW II, which required
a far greater amount of deficit
financing than at any period in US
history. What Roosevelt did during
that period was to PRINT MONEY.
It caused some inflation, but that
was compensated by the greatest
economic boom ever. After the war,
there was a recession in 1945, which
was countered by MORE SPENDING on the GI Bill of Rights (which sent a very
large number of veterans to college) and by the huge loans to Europe
for the Marshall Plan.
Those decisions enabled the US to have the
best educated work force
(in terms of percentages of college
graduates) on the planet, and
they also led to the greatest period
of prosperity in US
history.
That is history. The
interpretation I cited is the consensus of
nearly every economist on the planet
(except, perhaps, for those at
the right-wing think tanks).
If you can find any evidence to
counter that interpretation, I would
love to see it. And by
evidence, I mean historical *facts*, not
slogans or editorials.
No, you have it backward. Roosevelt kept the depression going from 1932 until 1941
when it was ended by massive spending on war materiel, by training soldiers in
the electronics technologies underlying military hardware of that ware, and by
bringing millions of women (Rosie the riveter, remember her?). After the
war, the rest of the globe was in ruble, especially Europe and Asia, which were
forced to purchase their goods and services from the only industrialized
country to escape the destruction – the US. Roosevelt
had nothing to do with the recover. You should remember that he died in
office long before the war ended.
If you want counter evidence, consider the
link at
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/the-great-depression-according-to-milton-friedman/
which describes how Bernanke specifically apologized to Friedman and said “you
were right; we made it worse”. Here is a snippet from that link:
Few events in U.S.
history can rival the Great Depression for its impact. The period from 1929 to
1941 saw fundamental changes in the landscape of American politics and
economics, including such monumental events as America ‘s going off the gold
standard and the founding of Social Security. It was a watershed for the growth
of the federal government.
The Great Depression created a widespread misconception that
market economies are inherently unstable and must be managed by the government
to avoid large macreconomic fluctuations, that is, business cycles. This view
persists to this day despite the more than 40 years since Milton Friedman and
Anna Jacobson Schwartz showed convincingly that the Federal Reserve’s monetary
policies were largely to blame for the severity of the Great Depression. In
2002 Ben Bernanke (then a Federal Reserve governor, today the chairman of the
Board of Governors) made this startling admission in a speech given in honor of
Friedman’s 90th birthday: “I would like to say to Milton and Anna:
Regarding the Great Depression, you’re right. We did it. We’re very
sorry.”
JS:> That is history. The
interpretation I cited is the consensus of
nearly every economist on the planet
(except, perhaps, for those at
the right-wing think tanks).
No, that is history the way you chose
to perceive it, in part because the left wing politicians and the need for the
public to believe that their government would save them from the Nazis and the
Emperor made them susceptible to believing it that way. What you typecast
as “right wing economists” and “the concensus of nearly every
economist on the planet (except, perhaps, for those at the right-wing think
tanks) shows that you have believed the propaganda of the few left wingers who
have both a good economics background and an inclination to study the
data.
If you can find any evidence to
counter that interpretation, I would
love to see it. And by
evidence, I mean historical *facts*, not
slogans or editorials.
I just gave you evidence; read it and
think carefully about it before you immediately reject it due to your previous
bias. Your view of history is very distorted by those social factors
which led to the propaganda during the war, to the growth of government through
special interests, and through your refusal to consider the opposite point of
view seriously. Not that I blame you for that misconception; the social
fabric of the last sixty years has been distorted by those events ever
since.
Do you consider Bernanke a right-wing
think tank economist? How about his predecessor who believed the same
way, and talked in obscure economics to congress to avoid being called out on
his views, which were unpopular with politicians devoted to expanding
government further. Both parties got us into the debt situation we now
face, starting with Reagan, slightly ameliorated by Clinton (not at his own desire –
remember his health care fiasco? The Republican led congress left him no
choice but to make the deficit smaller until he actually had a surplus), and
later devastated by two trillion in Bush Jrs wars and by four trillion more (so
far) by Obama’s ill advised stimulus plan that didn’t work.
John
But I suggest we not continue debating
this issue; it isn’t important to the Self Interest Ontology, and its
clear that neither you nor I will convince each other given our subjective
experiences.
Let’s move on instead of rehashing
this over and over.
-Rich