Re: MONETARY: Politics and Economics

[Keith Wilde <kwilde@ca.inter.net>]

Dan, thanks for the additional light on your background and agenda. I still
have some questions about the modeling activity you have in mind.

To my conjecture that
>> ...you have in mind a primarily
>> physical model, based possibly on energy sources and flows, but building
>in
>> some mechanisms to illustrate the conversion of physical relationships and
>> magnitudes into monetary signals. With this model of "reality" you would
>> then be able to plug in various policy alternatives and generate their
>> implications.

you responded that 
>
>"... my background...puts me more in the hands-on area than
>academia or political maneuvering I think (although all of these
>skills would of course be necessary for a successful team)."

Furthermore, that your
>"primary interest would be in constructing models, and strictly
>speaking, it would be the population generating the implications in
>a prototype.  Something along the lines of Jacksonville Quality
>Indicators for Progress, where researchers hit the coffee shops
>and so on, to ask people what they wanted to measure as wealth;
>only more work on the other side, of how to generate the results
>the population wanted. So the monetary signals would be tied
>to the signals from what the people had expressed a desire for.
>Some of this would be through a guaranteed income where there
>dollars would vote -- but how to manage the 'commons' would
>require something more of course.

The emphasis this suggests on a kind of opinion or preference polling seems
to refute my previous conjecture that 
>> your concept of an economy is primarily a physical one, leaving human
motivations >>essentially on the side.

I am still scratching my head, however, for your next comments repeat the
embrace of identifying and quantifying human values, but also reinforce the
exclusion of those aspects of human nature that inhibit progress toward a
better world. 

>This list is mainly on technical matters, and I would be interested in
>discussing the other in a separate forum, if I have time. 

This seems to say that work on progress indicators is "technical" (related
to the model building you have in mind), but that the aspects of human
nature that resist efforts to build, implement and respect the results of
such a model are not themselves capturable in models. Does that come close
to what you mean in the remainder of this statement?

>The human
>motivations are integral in such things as Genuine Progress Indicators,
>Quality Indicators for Progress, Local Indicators For Excellence and
>so on; but I think there is a lot more regarding, why won't the powers
>that be let some of this work proceed. Some time ago I made a proposal
>along these lines, and through the course of a side conversation on quantum
>physics got an offer to study this issue (without having any formal training
>yet),
>but not even an answer on studying alternative economics.  At that point,
>I focused on publicizing money reform.
>

Keith Wilde
Ottawa
kwilde@ca.inter.net
613 990-8125