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Fri Mar 31 17:18:37 2006 |
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One more point to be made about this discussion:
The issue of whether you should tell underdeveloped nations
to "encourage" savings is political. That is, you are talking
about making one decision over another.
The very distinction between "investment" and "consumption:"
is political. (Think not? Why is a plow an investment and a
washing machine consumption?)
One of the most serious problems occurring in many under-
developed nations at the moment is the phenomenon of young men
leaving their wives to support themselves and their children.
This is a serious problem with serious future ramifications.
It is not going to be resolved by talking about "savings".
Keynes'
focus on consumption permitted western "free enterprise"
governments for the first time to talk about redistributions of
wealth and income within society as if it were actually
GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY!! Oh! so it is OKAY to give government
funds to women to stay home with small children because ...
it primes the pump and helps the economy and will keep free
enterprise going good and strong.
The problem is in the need to justify humanitarian actions
on the part of government -- the need to justify thinking of
government as merely another institution for the purpose of
achieving certain social goals, as the family is also --
the need to justify this as "economically necessary" because
it leads to more growth and a stronger market economy.
So in dismantling a Keynesian argument and replacing it
with an even OLDER argument about savings, understand you are not
doing it in a vacuum. YOu are also talking about dismantling
the redistributive policies and shortsighted educational failures
that have led to the wretched conditions that some people --
sorry -- writen wrong -- that might offer peolple, mostly children,
trapped in these wretched conditions at least some hope.
So you better know what you are talking about.
And I do not think the answer is in going back to Keynes or
pre-Keynes. The answer lies in finding a macroeconomic theory
that can accept complexity.
And coming to grips with the concept of government as
an institution that is just as much a part of the economy as any
other institution, an institution with different characteristics,
but an institution that is designed to meet social goals that
cannot be met efficiently in other ways.
-- Mary Schweitzer
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