Thanks, Keith, for that wonderful opportunity to show it clearly!
The builders of the bridge obviously didn't assess enough data for a start, or
it was just a "con" like the present banking system? Douglas worked on carefully
researched data.
But they certainly did take a very expensive method of destructively testing
their hypothesis. Just like the present banking system, which, however, also
destroys the lives of millions of people in the poorer countries.
And the beauty of applying this to A+B is, as I have stated before, that there
is only one alternative, the opposite. Which clearly falls down like the bridge
under any wind of scrutiny.
(Looking back, my political experience is showing, so please take the "gist"
rather than the exuberant wording.)
Regards. John R.
>From: "Keith Wilde"
<keithwilde@sympatico.ca>
>Reply-To: socialcredit@elistas.com
>To:
<socialcredit@elistas.com>
>Subject: Re: [socialcredit] Replying to John
Rawson re Bethune vs. others
>Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 08:45:53 -0400
>
>Well,
John, as a testable hypothesis how is yours different from that of the engineers
who were sure they could build a bridge across the St. Lawrence River at Quebec?
Two of the gigantic structures buckled and went down to the bottom, taking the
workmen with them. They had some pretty sound physics to work with, but their
faith in the prediction that they could complete the span turned out to be a vain
hope.
>
>For a better comparison with A+B, consider the neoclassical analysis of
product and factor prices with its
implications for general equilibrium and optimum social welfare. I dare say that
it has had a lot more ink spilled over it with the same end product as you claim
for A+B, i.e. that "since nobody has ever pointed to any fault in his methods, at
that level it may be taken as something generally agreed... ." Before Copernicus,
Kepler and Galileo there were not many objections to the method of those who
believe in a geocentric vision of the universe. General agreement does not amount
to a tested hypothesis. I haven't noticed any disputes over Douglas' methods, as
you say, but there has been plenty of controversy over his analysis, on this list
alone. It might be useful (I think it would) to have some explicit discussion
about just what his methods were, and to contrast them with those of Jevons and
the Austrian and other marginalists who followed.
>
>How is your explanation
below
of a "testable hypothesis" different in form from the dirge of the neoclassical
market fundamentalists that "the market system has never been tried"? (Note the
precise parallel with the socred theme that "practical Christianity has never
been tried".) The market fundamentalists have been getting their way in recent
decades, with the progressive success of their campaign for "de-regulation". They
seem to think that it is also a "scientific" success in the sense that it has
improved the general welfare. There are many these days who disagree with the
evidence of success. What evidence or argument can you provide that a trial of
A+B would be any more conclusive in the direction you prefer? I asked you for a
testable hypothesis and you have given back an armchair rationale of the kind
that is supposedly despised by "inductivist" disciples of Douglas.
>
>Consider
the possibility
that you are confusing science with engineering. Market fundamentalism, based on
neoclassical rationale, and Social Credit, based on A+B rationale, are social
engineering projects. Each contains some presuppositions that might be capable of
scientific testing. (That is why I am interested in the 'philosophy'.) I haven't
tried hard to conceive of a refutable test involving A+B (or some other element
of the Douglas analysis), short of the big engineering project; that is why I
reacted to your claim that one is available.
>
>If you investigate the subject, I
think will find that social scientists spend quite a lot more time reading and
thinking about the essential nature of scientific method than do persons whose
training is in the natural sciences. That is because the latter learn techniques
that have been time tested and show good results. In the social sphere we have to
try
much harder to devise techniques that get comparable results and we are
therefore quite a lot more self-conscious about method. One could characterize it
as the difference between technicians and philosophers.
>
>Keith Wilde
>
>
>
>
>
----- Original Message -----
> From: John G Rawson
> To:
socialcredit@elistas.com
> Sent: Monday, May 16, 2005 4:23 PM
> Subject: RE: [socialcredit] Replying to
John Rawson re Bethune vs. others
>
>
> Thanks Keith. I did cover this before
when dealing with a scientific approach, but everything seems to get covered many
times in this group.. From that viewpoint, the A+B statement has two standings
depending on where it is applied. As discovered by Douglas in relation to
industry, since nobody has ever pointed to any fault in his methods, at that
level it may be taken as
something generally agreed as Vic Bridger states, i.e. a "fact".
>
> As applied
to the whole economy, where other factors come into consideration, it ranks as a
"hypothesis". Were it accepted by a large proportion of those dealing with it, it
would rank as a "theory". As a hypothesis expressed in tangible form, in this
case a mathematical inequation, it IS, in this context, a "model".
>
> Taking it
from this viewpoint and assuming that the discipline of Economics adopts
scientific method, I predict that it will become the great unfying theory of that
field, equivalent (as someone said recently) to Einstein's work in Physics, or to
Evolution in Biology, or Continental Drift in geology.
>
> Two of my reasons are
that it explains groups of facts that orthodox economics can not (as I noted
before) and unifies in that application of policy based on it
would, for example, reconcile Say's "law" with other conflicting views.
>
>
While doing this, I will risk a couple of comments on other recent statements,
first Don's "child of ten" one. When I was young enough to go five miles over our
then muddy clay roads on the front of my Mother's saddle on a small pony, I
forget when, but obviously much younger than ten, I heard our Col. Closey speak.
In reference to A+B he used the example of a bootmaker investing some earnings to
buy a new machine and thus costing the one amount of money into two cycles of
production. Not only did I understand it, but years later as a candidate I used
the same example. I was no infant prodigy, my level of intelligence is sufficient
to get with hard work what many would regard as an "easy" degree in natural
sciences. (But perhaps better than one in Economics?!) Closey by repute had been
the youngest
Colonel in the British (incl. NZ) armies, was brilliant, and obviously able to
explain it clearly. One of those people (like many top American scientists)
completely and humbly confident on his topic who didn't need to obscure with long
words and bad definitions.
>
> The other was that my comment on "original sin"
was by no means intended to create a sideline, but to head one off. I believe SC
has a great deal in common with Christianity, particularly its absolutely basic
accent on the worth of the individual. But it has nothing to do with a doctrine
that tends to regard the individual as worthless until he "sees the light",
usually according to the precise rules of the particular sect promoting it. To
me, that is equivalent to broadening the field to include binary economics on the
SC side.
>
> Regards. John R.
>
>
>
>
> >From:
keith wilde <kwilde@tc-biodiversity.org>
> >Reply-To: socialcredit@elistas.com
>
>To: socialcredit@elistas.com
> >Subject: [socialcredit] Replying to John
Rawson re Bethune vs. others
> >Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 05:37:30 -0700 (PDT)
> >
>
>John, I thought I had sent this question yesterday, but it doesn't seem to
have registered, even in my own e-mail window. To repeat, therefore:
> >
> >What
is the specific hypothesis you have in mind, and how do you propose that it could
be tested?
> >
> >Keith Wilde
> >
> >John G Rawson <johngrawson@hotmail.com>
wrote:
> >
> >Thanks, Don.
> >
> >To put it another way, if Sherlock Holmes had
spent months discussing what note he was playing when the idea popped into his
head, what his temperature was,
whether he was facing east, west or upwards, even perhaps the relative
discomfort of his bladder at the time, how many crooks would he have caught?
>
>
> >These discussions have partially or completely reinvented the hypothesis
something like fifty times from about as many diections, while seldom or never
testing its veracity.
> >John R.
> >
> >
> >
> > >From: <donzbeth@ihug.co.nz>
> >
>Reply-To: socialcredit@elistas.com
> > >To:
<socialcredit@elistas.com>,<sutton
@kingsley.co.za>,<Walt.p@free.fr>,<murshed@choudhury77.fsnet.uk>,"Wallace M.
Klinck" <wmklinck@shaw.ca>,<jschroeder@sympatico.ca>,<hermann@picknowl.com.au>,"L
Manning" <manning@kapiti.co.nz>,"Pabo"
<pabo@paradise.net.nz>,<weddel@paradise.net.nz>,"Bill Daly"
<b.daly@xtra.co.nz>
> > >CC:
<corodoor@wave.co.nz>,<nvp@theosophy.org.nz>,<theredbrick@xtra.co.nz>,"Neville
Aitchison" <naitchison@farrowjamieson.co.nz>,"Don Bethune"
<donzbeth@ihug.co.nz>,<otherside532@yahoo.co.nz>,<john.rabarts@ihug.co.nz>,<ekkirion@rogers.com>,<philippa@clear.net.nz>,"David
Wilson"
<wilson_df@xtra.co.nz>,<wmcgunn@maxnet.co.nz>,<james@jamesrobertson.com>,"Henry.
Raynel" <henry.raynel@actrix.gen.nz>,<sooriuk@yahoo.com>
> > >Subject: RE:
[socialcredit] Replying to Vic Bridger (and including all on this list).
> >
>Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 22:38:33 +1200
> > >
> > >
> > >Dear Jessop
(especially) & Other Interested Parties,
> > >As a lifetime supporter of the
Social Credit Philosophy it deeply
saddens me
> > >to read of you initially seeing S.C. as answering South Africa's
needs,
> > >and then because of the incessant arguing and semantics among the
very
> > >people who delude themselves into thinking they are S.C. experts
> >
>and so must be helping its progress, you become disillusioned to the point
>
> >of forfeiting any hope of S.C.
> > >being of practical assistance while you
are still alive...
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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