1. Faint Road
I found a faint road through a vast field
where genius, fool, and charlatan must ply.
As hard as the road is to follow,
harder still is to know who am I.
where genius, fool, and charlatan must ply.
As hard as the road is to follow,
harder still is to know who am I.
On The Art Of Synthesis
I am a wealthy pattern in my young, abundant biosphere. I am a thread in the net of life that threatens to encircle the universe. I seek a science to incorporate both the elusive abundance that builds what I have and the apparent scarcity that every day shows me what I have not. Through a vast field I follow a faint road along which I see landscapes that are impenetrable to traditional machinery of national and international finance. I see a distant village of mainstream economics barred from these exciting landscapes by its own walls and by the militant forces of pseudo-economics that interpose quaint, mirage-landscapes for mainstream society to fancy. In the same light that bathes the backs of those who once argued for a flat earth, I see proud, hoping, and helpless faces of those who argue for this week's popular economics —balance-the-national-budget-or-die. I see victim and perpetrator of quaint fancy.
I also see hope in the emergent work of others more learned than I.
Perhaps one fancy can replace another. Perhaps I can point through patches of scarcity in a field of abundance to a faint road that you fancy to explore. I did most of my own exploration in the 20th Century. Since 1980, for myself and few others, I have set forth my fancy on paper and electron clouds. In the 21st century I have returned a few times to my words to find poetry and alternate formats within my conjectures on the Economics of Abundance.
:: Bob Komives, Fort Collins © 1980-2021 ::
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
2. Everybody Knows
Everybody Knows
Bob Komives
A war rages in the Middle East
—costly by measures more important than money.
We so readily
suspend our fantasy of a balanced budget
so that we may fight a harsh war,
only to again impose our fantasy,
with harsh futility,
during brief interludes of peace.
Oh, the insidious fantasy!
Never apologize for expenditures
if they do not exceed taxes.
That is, if government recalls from us
at least as much money as it spends,
it can boast:
" We ruined the country
and much of the rest of the biosphere,
but we never ran an unbalanced budget."
Let us remember
that war is the age-old medicine
to counter peacetime fantasies.
For failing to make good investments in peace
we are as likely as ever
to
fall
into
internal and external
conflict
that will lead us again to war.
from: A War Rages
Things are not as they should be. The cold-war dichotomy between communism and capitalism has blurred. It should now be easier to study the complementary relationships between socialism and marketplace, and between peace and investment. Yet, in the years since the war in Kuwait such discussions seem less frequent, or, at least, less noticed.
Also in 1991, leaders in the United States of America were in a panic over their failing banks. Those who had long advocated smaller, decentralized government were sure it was time for larger, more centralized banks. They now have them. I see irony in this past and problems in this future.
One panic replaces another. In 1996 everybody knew that the big problem in the USA was budget balancing --provided we increase military expenditures and decrease both our taxes on the wealthy and our assistance to the poor. In early 1998 the problem seemed to be what to do with a projected budget surplus if we do not wage war with Iraq. Yesterday and today everybody knows that, when convenient, national taxes must balance expenses.
Once upon a time, everybody knew
the earth is flat.
Common sense confirmed it.
Common politicians ratified it.
The best scientists of the day spoke doubts.
Since everybody knew,
nobody listened.
from: Everybody Knew
:: Bob Komives, Fort Collins © 2006 :: Plum Local IV :: 2. Everybody Knows ::
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
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3. Plum Local
Plum Local
Bob Komives
::
Why only blame
—if our banks create money—
why only blame our government for inflation?
||
I turned my studies to art and architecture. Along the way I discovered a maverick named R. Buckminster Fuller. He stood among other heroes such as Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright in describing the unity of design and nature.
Can projects designed
following principles of our biosphere
ever be too ugly,
ever be too expensive?
||
I got married, and we went to the Peace Corps near the Pacific Coast in Guatemala. I saw discrepancy between strategies for national economic development and realities of community development.
I had to ask
" Does it make sense
—for our poverty, our sickness, our exploitation—
that our cure
cannot come
with our economic development,
but only after?"
||
We moved to Little Rock Arkansas where I tried my hand at city planning in the Model Cities program. This was 1969, a time of large investment in troubled cities. Our successes were real but modest.
Is it not strange?
Even during prosperous times
since our era of generosity,
they say,
we cannot afford to budget for success.
Since Our Era Of Generosity
I went back to school to get my professional planning degree. There I discovered economics, learning its many applications to local public policy. It was elegant; it was beautiful. The curves conveyed information to me in ways that no other medium ever had.
One weekend, I took a rest from my studies and read a book by R. Buckminster Fuller. I believe it was Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. There, I encountered for the first time his elegant formulation of the fundamental law of economics:
Wealth is a function of energy and knowledge.
Absent was any mention of scarcity, supply, demand. This was the economics of abundance. Fuller's economics made every bit as much sense to me as the crisp logic of market economics.
Humankind developed
laws,
traditions,
and institutions
to deal with scarcity.
At any point
in time and space,
scarcity is specific.
It is real.
We live scarcity,
but we come to live
and to thrive
through abundance.
Please do not misunderstand me.
I believe in scarcity.
I have lived it and seen
both its pains
and its benefits.
Yet, abundance is as real as is scarcity
and is even more fundamental.
Without scarcity,
the economist cannot draw
supply curves
and demand curves.
But these curves cannot anticipate
mathematics,
art,
democracy,
communities,
back rubs,
interplanetary exploration,
civil rights,
the popsicle,
or the yo-yo.
Nor could they have anticipated
the brown trout,
the monarch butterfly,
or the horned toad.
Each is part of our biosphere.
Each is our wealth.
And wealth must be the stuff of economics.
Today,
if we choose to love our wealth and our biosphere
we seem unable to seek the best for one
without harming the other.
Today, also,
sages preach to us of the evils in our economy.
They tell us to be more moral,
to separate pretension from wealth.
Let us heed such sermons.
Yet, the moral sage does not free us
from the choice between two loves.
Neither sage nor economist can free us
unless we know
how wealth and biosphere are one—
how we live scarcity,
but come to live
and to thrive
through abundance.
We Come to Live and Thrive
I lay sandwiched between a straightforward explanation of supply-demand-utility and Fuller's statement that wealth is a function of knowledge and energy. I found myself in that muddled layer of confusion and witchcraft called macroeconomics —including gold flow, balance of payments, balance of trade, inflation, and the like. The economy uses the biosphere's model of abundance, while conventional economics uses a model of scarcity. Beneath scarcity lies a supportive abundance —a macro-abundance. Beneath microeconomics, which specializes in scarcity, should lie a supportive macroeconomics specializing in abundance.
Microeconomics covers those situations in which flow of wealth mimics a traditional marketplace. People buy; they sell; they trade. The demand for a product in relation to its supply sets the price. Economists do not. Buyers and sellers do so, acting upon their needs and desires. One day, two chickens are worth two yards of cloth. The next day, they may be worth three yards in the morning but only one after lunch. Marketplace economics explains well the dynamics in this true marketplace and in myriad public and private markets in which goods and services are bought and sold. It can explain how the price for cloth changes as well as how the weaver decides how much to produce. It cannot, however, go on to explain how cloth came into existence nor how chickens were domesticated.
From graduate school I launched my planning career. I went to the island of Martha's Vineyard where I worked for five years to protect its resources and foster sensitive development. I moved as a consultant to Colorado, worked for a while in the analysis of socioeconomic impact from energy development. I went on to typical land-use planning. The gulf between my professional work and my struggle with the theories of economics seemed unnecessary, but enormous.
The economics of abundance remained a closet hobby until 1980 when I pulled together some of my notes in a hand-printed, ten-page document called Plum Local. It began with my apology: "Pardon my boldness ." I wrote, "The valid world economics will show the tie between genetic and economic evolution," and "Taxes, Bah!! Let's phase them out Let's balance our budget by investing communally (politically) in the growth of knowledge for mankind." I sent one copy to R. Buckminster Fuller. When I received his encouraging one-sentence response I felt some comfort.
The four-page 2nd Plum Local of 1981 took my ideas further: "Taxation is role playing. Monetary return as we have in the national income tax system has no role to play. If there is a utopia it will be found in a humanistic management of instability."
Now, as then, I find it hard to put forth theories of economics that disagree with the teachings and preachings of intelligent people who are economists by profession. However, I would find it harder not to share ideas that help me find some sense and science among a potpourri of confusing theories and popular maxims.
Microeconomics covers those situations in which flow of wealth mimics a traditional marketplace. People buy; they sell; they trade. The demand for a product in relation to its supply sets the price. Economists do not. Buyers and sellers do so, acting upon their needs and desires. One day, two chickens are worth two yards of cloth. The next day, they may be worth three yards in the morning but only one after lunch. Marketplace economics explains well the dynamics in this true marketplace and in myriad public and private markets in which goods and services are bought and sold. It can explain how the price for cloth changes as well as how the weaver decides how much to produce. It cannot, however, go on to explain how cloth came into existence nor how chickens were domesticated.
From graduate school I launched my planning career. I went to the island of Martha's Vineyard where I worked for five years to protect its resources and foster sensitive development. I moved as a consultant to Colorado, worked for a while in the analysis of socioeconomic impact from energy development. I went on to typical land-use planning. The gulf between my professional work and my struggle with the theories of economics seemed unnecessary, but enormous.
The economics of abundance remained a closet hobby until 1980 when I pulled together some of my notes in a hand-printed, ten-page document called Plum Local. It began with my apology: "Pardon my boldness ." I wrote, "The valid world economics will show the tie between genetic and economic evolution," and "Taxes, Bah!! Let's phase them out Let's balance our budget by investing communally (politically) in the growth of knowledge for mankind." I sent one copy to R. Buckminster Fuller. When I received his encouraging one-sentence response I felt some comfort.
The four-page 2nd Plum Local of 1981 took my ideas further: "Taxation is role playing. Monetary return as we have in the national income tax system has no role to play. If there is a utopia it will be found in a humanistic management of instability."
Now, as then, I find it hard to put forth theories of economics that disagree with the teachings and preachings of intelligent people who are economists by profession. However, I would find it harder not to share ideas that help me find some sense and science among a potpourri of confusing theories and popular maxims.
:: Bob Komives, Fort Collins © 2006 :: Plum Local IV :: 3. Plum Local ::
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
4. A Crazy Cycle
A Crazy Cycle
Bob Komives
::
Bob Komives
::
In 1984 I had a chance to return with my family to Central America to teach land-use planning and work in watershed management. There, the importance hit me of bridging the gap between my land-use-planning work and my hobby of cogitating economics.
It made no sense to me.
The International Monetary Fund said
Central American governments should
reduce investment in
social
health
and environmental programs
(that were slowly raising quality of life for their citizens)
in order to borrow money
to pay for projects
that would produce exports,
in order to bring in outside money
to spawn development
to trickle down some resources,
in order to bring back
social
health
and environmental programs
to slowly raise the quality of life for their citizens.
A Crazy Cycle
:: Bob Komives, Fort Collins © 2006 :: Plum Local IV :: 4. A Crazy Cycle ::
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
5. Economics Should Be Life Science
Economics Should Be Life Science.
Bob Komives
::
In life there is everywhere synergism. Two or more organs, two or more organisms, act together to achieve what neither could achieve alone. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. R. Buckminster Fuller called it "synergy."
Scarcities are microeconomic parts
within macroeconomic abundance.
True to synergy,
we cannot divine the behavior of our abundance
if we study only our scarcities.
||
Economists have failed to build a unified theory of abundance out of their keen understanding of scarcity. Why? It cannot be done. Many scientists work to overcome this problem under the general umbrella of the study of complexity. The Santa Fe Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico is one focal point for their work. Such terms as artificial life, self-organizing economies, and increasing returns cover specific topics that draw away from the traditional static models of economics toward the dynamics that we see in nature --that we see in the economy but cannot explain using standard models. I feel confident that their work will deal with both abundance and scarcity and will eventually revolutionize economics --beyond even their expectations. Economics must be a science
--a human science,
a life science.
Wealth is basic.
It cannot be the invention of humankind.
It must be traced to the bases of life.
It cannot reside mainly in banks and buildings,
moneys and stock.
Primitive people had wealth
but none of these.
||
Science is a whole. It tries to encompass all that exists as well as all that may have existed and all that may come to exist. It attempts to describe the rules that govern the universe at all scales and make useful predictions based on these rules. The bodies of theory and information that we call the sciences are artificial, but convenient subdivisions of the whole, science. Physics cannot be separated from chemistry nor from sociology. At their frontiers, and even at their centers, there is overlap and synergy.:: Bob Komives, Fort Collins © 2006 :: Plum Local IV :: 5. Economics Should Be a Life Science ::
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
6. Some Good Hands
Some Good Hands
Bob Komives
::
Economics may be the academic field that has paid least heed to the unity underlying the several sciences. It offers few if any connections to the vast underpinnings of science. We do call economics a science but see little clue where to fit its complex maxims, axioms and curves. It tries to describe reality but often does so in arcane ways that more separate it than ally it to the rest of science. This will change.
Serious and capable scientists, serious and capable economists, work to rectify this problem. I mention a few. Paul Krugman argues well that good-old-fashioned Keynesian economics is much better than the fads that have dominated public policy discussion in recent decades, but he also works at a cutting-edge economics --evolution. I heard him say that economics and evolution are almost the same subject. Paul Romer has brought technology and growth back into the mainstream of economic discussion. He notes that economists tell us nothing about why economic growth occurs (Economist, Feb. 5, 1996). At the Santa Fe Institute, Brian Arthur and others representing several fields of science have applied their growing understanding of complexity from the "hard" sciences to economic phenomena. They collaborate with colleagues from around the world (including Krugman and Romer), and they build from the insights of earlier scientists whose work was bypassed by the mainstream of economic thought. Edward O. Wilson calls for Consilience, a "jumping together", among the natural and social sciences and the humanities. He argues well why economics must incoporate the natural sciences.
I believe the impact of such work and thought will be more revolutionary than even its enthusiastic supporters now project. I think they will eventually come to conclusions similar to mine, though I doubt any of them could now agree. My arguments will not change their minds; their own research must do so. I do believe that most scientists who work at the cutting edges of economics could agree that mainstream economics has long suffered from poor connections to the vast underpinnings of science.
:: Bob Komives, Fort Collins © 2006 :: Plum Local IV :: 6. Some Good Hands ::
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
7. Science and Pseudoscience
Science and Pseudoscience
Bob Komives
::
Bob Komives
::
While we can compare theory and experiments in microeconomics with findings by historians, anthropologists, sociologists, game theorists, and psychologists; microeconomics provides few connections to the rest of science. It has a fair excuse; it makes no pretensions. Microeconomics limits itself to a narrow subject, the marketplace and interactions that resemble the marketplace.
It is macroeconomics that should connect all of economics to the rest of science. After all, it should take a macro-view, look at the whole. It should overlap in many places with the other sciences. Narrow-viewed microeconomics should nestle comfortably inside. I see the reverse to be more true. Microeconomics forms the underpinnings of today's Macroeconomics. An unfathomable web of rules and rationalizations has spun out of marketplace theories of supply and demand to bind together the larger world of macroeconomics.
For macroeconomics we have something more akin to pseudoscience. It seems to patch together theories that rationalize all of yesterday, fail to predict tomorrow, and that do not lend themselves to testing . The young science of complexity shows that we cannot always expect to predict tomorrow; so prediction cannot be the only test of science. Simple parts can synergize a future whole that has recognizable but unpredictable patterns. There is a better test of science: falsifiability.
Science and pseudoscience are incompatible: astronomy and astrology, evolution and creationism. The separation of macroeconomics from science comes from mutual repulsion between two inherently incompatible bodies of thought. I wish to paraphrase and thank a scholar who commented on the difference between creationism and evolution. I did not hear his name when a radio network interviewed him in 1987 during one resurgence of controversy over those competing explanations of the origin of our species. The difference? Evolution could conceivably be disproved by evidence whereas creationism could not. Thanks to Murray Gell-Mann and his book, The Quark and the Jaguar, I now know to give some credit to philosopher Karl Popper who promoted this falsifiability test for science.
Scientists modify the theories of evolution as they gather new evidence. Creationists are bound by their belief to support their story of creation no matter the changes in the evidence. Today's descriptions of evolution may not be perfectly correct, but they are science. Creationism is a complex pseudoscience that mounts evidence to defend a belief.
Good macroeconomists do practice science. They subscribe to the principle that their theories could be falsified by evidence. But macroeconomics has become so abstruse --and at times defensive-- that it resembles a belief system to be manipulated by politicians rather than nurtured by scientists. Depending on your political viewpoint and the latest fad, macroeconomics is a particular dogma. In 1998 "everybody knows" the federal budget must balance. For a politician in the United States of America to voice doubt in balanced federal budgets might be as harmful to her political career as expressing doubt in the bible. This seems to be the political reality, though even mainstream economics taught every day in our universities gives little importance to budget balancing.
Part of the problem here is that much of the economics that sets public policy has been wrested from the hands of economists. The media seem every day to find someone who calls himself "an economist for the Wall-Street firm of Stock, Broke, and Bond" to say that the market went up, or down, or failed to do either, "because president and congress failed to reach an agreement today to balance the budget (or distribute the surplus)." Of course, even if one statement happens that day to be true, fluctuations in today's market do not prove that balanced budgets are necessary any more than buying an umbrella proves that umbrellas cause rain. The public, however, is left to conclude that what it already knows to be true is true: a federal balanced budget is necessary.
Once upon a time, everybody knew
the earth is the center of the universe.
This was confirmed by religion
and ratified by politicians.
The best scientists of the day spoke doubts.
from: Everybody Knew
The public of 1633 in Europe must also have concluded that what it knew to be true was, in fact, true. Its media reported correctly that Galileo had just recanted his published conclusion that Copernicus was correct. Standing before judges of the Inquisition, Galileo said, no, he no longer believed what he and Copernicus had written. No, the sun is not the center of a solar system of planets. Yes, the planets do revolve around the earth, the center of the universe.
You think Galileo was a great one,
but he wrote heresy in 1632.
He wrote, " Copernicus is right,
our earth circles the sun,
not the other way around. "
You think Galileo was a great one,
but in 1633 he did recant so he would not burn.
Now you too believe
that to the sun belong the planets,
that we live on one example of them,
our sun-centered revolution,
a scientific revelation,
from a genius then among them
a religious revolution,
insult to god above them.
One way or another,
believers go early, but truth stays late.
Yes, die for your country to get a plaque.
Yes, die for your religion to get guaranteed heaven.
But why die for your science to get guaranteed hell?
Why should you burn for your solar system?
Is the martyr more hero than the genius?
We well know how to make you a martyr,
but we lack the weapon to make you a genius.
How can you resist?
How can you insist:
that Earth is a sphere,
if it is healthier to talk "flat"?
that we came from evolution,
if the inquisition favors special creation?
that all peoples are equal,
if we preach one-ethnic perfection?
Recant today so you will not burn.
Choose humbly to not-believe what you believe.
Humility is a sign of greatness.
For everybody knows and the bible humbly shows
our Earth to be center to the universe.
You think Galileo was a great one
for finding the motion of the pendulum,
the equal rates of falling objects,
and, of course, our telescope.
But then he wrote that Copernicus is right.
You think Galileo was a great one
--but then he did recant
--but then he did not burn.
You Think Galileo Was A Great One
What-everybody-knows is often not true. What everybody knows about the economy is often wrong, but serious economists, when they are asked, seem unable to help the public know better. For example, while they can tolerate unbalanced budgets, we hear serious, academic economists stand before a media inquisition and say about national debt:
"We know at some point too much is too much."
"We do not know how much is too much too much."
Such statements are as unclear as they are unfalsifiable. By comparison, those articulate, Wall-Street economists sound clear and confident. They give short answers that sound precise --even if, when spliced together, their daily pronouncements make neither sense nor science.
In search of sense,
in search of a science
I took my thoughts on a trip from economics
haphazardly
to the origins of life
and, still in search,
back again.
||
:: Bob Komives, Fort Collins © 2006 :: Plum Local IV :: 7. Science or Pseudoscience ::
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
8. Market and Vision Must Change
Market and Vision Must Change
Bob Komives
::
I suffer
when I see North American cities sprawl
inefficiently, sloppily across the landscape.
My heart hurts for the poor campesino
struggling to produce
a poor crop
on poor land
cut and burned
from Earth's diminishing forest.
Harsh reality,
or bad vision?
||
When such problems occur in a market economy, the harsh marketplace seems to fail the biosphere and its human population. In socialist economies, it seems to be the planners and administrators who fail in pursuit of their vision of economic development. I say both market and vision must change.:: Bob Komives, Fort Collins © 2006 :: Plum Local IV :: 8. Market and Vision Must Change ::
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
9. Ignorance and Economic Development
Ignorance and Economic Development
Bob Komives
::
Despite our ignorance,Bob Komives
::
we are fair instruments of economic development,
while often not fair to the biosphere which gave us life.
Remove more of our ignorance
and we may become consistent economic developers.
||
I see economists shackled to a model of the world based on scarcity —making it difficult for them to approach the plentiful world of economic development. The last time I checked in detail, this was quite evident in text books. For example, Paul A. Samuelson and William D. Nordhaus, in the twelfth edition of Economics, devoted section seven (of seven) to economic growth and international trade, chapter 36 (of 40) to the theory and evidence of economic growth, and only 3.5 pages out of about 900 to "The Sources of Economic Growth." In these pages, they described growth accounting as an attempt to measure the ingredients that contributed to past growth trends —for example, capital, labor, land, education, and technological advancement. They stated frankly that no theory seems to fit reality very well. As for growth accounting, they wrote that it is far from perfect, but it is about as good a guide as any in this imperfect world. I felt that to be a discouraging conclusion to find on page 799 of an introduction to economics.
More encouraging were theories relegated to the appendix. There I found Joseph Schumpeter's model emphasizing innovation, Harrod & Domar's emphasizing productivity, and Von Neumann's emphasizing a logical tie between the growth rate and the interest rate. These models apparently got relegated to the appendix because there is no unifying theory. Samuelson and Nordhaus expressed hope for a future synthesis that will integrate the neoclassical analysis of economic growth with some 300 pages of macroeconomic problems found earlier in their book.
Can economics be a mature science if its theories of economic growth do not mesh with what economists call macroeconomics? Other authors of other texts may organize things differently; I doubt that they improve much on the clarity and honesty of Samuelson and Nordhaus. The problem lies in economics, not Economics.
:: Bob Komives, Fort Collins © 2006 :: Plum Local IV :: 9. Ignorance and Economic Development ::
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
10. Buckminster Fuller's Elegant Law
Buckminster Fuller's Elegant Law
Bob Komives
::
Bob Komives
::
Growth studies are integral to physiology. Construction is integral to architecture. Economic development should be integral to economics. Yet, economic developers and economists share little common ground. At least one economist, Paul Romer, works to change that by convincing other economists that knowledge and technology are part of economic growth. This seems obvious to a person on the street but revolutionary to most macroeconomists.
Depending on where I run into it, economic development still seems to be more in the kit bag of real estate developers, promoters, and financiers, as well as thought provoking generalists. Confusion among economists makes me no more comfortable with the developers and promoters who play on a simpler stage:
" I create jobs.
You want jobs.
Jobs make community rich.
Give me break.
I will make money.
Then, I will make you
a nice, rich community."
||
Pending some coherent understanding of economic development such a monologue plays well to many audiences.
I find more comfort with the generalist synthesizers who try to comprehend the complex world and take us along for the trial. They look beyond their narrow window on the universe to an ever-expansive view. This is not frivolous pursuit leading to nowhere. Some, such as da Vinci and Einstein left obvious legacies. Others do no less than help us think, create, and pursue our own synthesis. They are skilled people who are generalists and designers.
Generalists:
see pattern
where others see spots,
see hypothesis
where others struggle to see the experiment.
Designers:
see opportunities
where others see problems.
||
One generalist designer got me onto this economic tangent. R. Buckminster Fuller formulated the fundamental law of macroeconomics. Wealth is a function of the knowledge and the energy in the universe.
wealth = function of (knowledge & energy)
The amount of energy in the universe is constant. The amount of that energy that we can call wealth, however, is not constant. It varies as the biosphere grows and changes. According to Fuller's Law, then, knowledge is the only component of wealth that can cause wealth to grow or shrink. This makes sense if we adopt a broad concept of knowledge.
We know something about
food, clothing, shelter,
art, and human rights.
They know some things about us.
Each and all is wealth.
Food is energy
made palatable.
Clothing and shelter are energy
reformed into protection and image.
Art controls and molds energy
to please our senses.
Human rights let us control our own energy
(including our own bodies).
Lacking such energy,
and the knowledge to use it,
we are poor.
||
Buckminster Fuller's formulation for wealth lead him to make a simple prescription for economic development: Increase knowledge! Since the quantity of energy in the universe is fixed, we create wealth only by increasing knowledge. More important, when we increase our knowledge we cannot fail to increase our wealth.
My own formulation is incidentally different, but it leads to the same conclusions:
wealth = knowledge
On this alone I would like to rest my case. What else I have to say is not so clean and simple. I too need more designer synthesis. However, I believe I can argue well that economic development is inseparable from economics. I can lay down some of the bases for a conscious economic development strategy that equates with a sane use of the biosphere and discards the popular conception of a balanced national budget. The knowledge we need is within us, around us, and ahead of us.
:: Bob Komives, Fort Collins © 2006 :: Plum Local IV :: 10. Buckminster Fuller's Elegant Law ::
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
11. Classes of Knowledge, Uses of Wealth
Classes of Knowledge, Uses of Wealth
Bob Komives
::
Bob Komives
::
Knowledge is just an abstract concept
until we tie it to the energy that it harnesses.
The wealth potential of the biosphere
is to have useful knowledge
of all the energy in the universe.
We have reached but the tiniest fraction of that potential,
but take note:
for billions of years the total was zero.
Knowledge makes wealth. Wealth is energy --that energy that is of value because we know how to use it to our benefit. Even when ignorant in our brains of value, something in our body, our society, or our environment knows how to harness the energy of wealth to our benefit. One can benefit from electricity knowing little of its physics and mechanics. Nor is it necessary to know how our immune systems work to benefit from their protection.
As our knowledge increases, our species' wealth increases. As long as our knowledge increases faster than our population, wealth per person increases. Buckminster Fuller saw that if we understand the principles of knowledge formation we understand the principles of economic development. With such understanding we might avoid extinction and continue to partake in evolution's gift of growing prosperity.
Fuller saw energy as physical, yet saw knowledge as metaphysical. Since knowledge is the only variable in his conception of wealth, if it is metaphysical it does not lend itself to measurement. (At least I do not know any metaphysical measurements to apply.) Convinced that Fuller's Law held much more promise than the collection of theories that were passing for macroeconomics, I looked for a way to reformulate the law so that we might test it alongside other physical laws that we reveal through science. There should be notation that can express Fuller's Law in physical terms. Knowledge could then be discussed as a quantity even if measurement were still impractical.
After an enjoyable, but long, struggle with this measurement problem I saw that it simplifies if we think of one instant in time and ignore any complications from the relativity of time across the vastness of the universe. At one instant as seen from one point in the universe, knowledge is not metaphysical. It acts upon discrete units of energy. At that instant all of the energy of the universe can be divided into three classes.
Class-w energy is the knowledge (wealth) of a particular species, ecosystem, community, or other subordinate part of the biosphere. Human wealth is class-whuman.
Class-W energy is biospheric knowledge. It includes all class-w energy.
Class-U energy is all the energy in the universe, including class-W.
Since knowledge and energy are inseparable at this instant, we can measure knowledge by measuring the energy to which it has attached. Our human wealth equation becomes a summation of this attached energy:
∑wealth = ∑knowledge = ∑class-whuman energy
When life appeared the amount of the energy in the universe devoted to life went from zero to a tiny amount. As life multiplies that amount stays tiny relative to the universe but steadily increases. Life's invasion of the inanimate universe has begun. Earth has become a biosphere. Life captures inanimate energy and organizes it into its systems. Some newly captured universal energy gets bound into living creatures. A larger amount --still inanimate-- serves as storehouse of energy for life support. Life exploits this storehouse as food and as supportive environment in which to survive and prosper. This captured, organized energy is life's wealth. It includes the growing amount of energy that actually knows how to live and the expanding reservoir of inanimate energy that life knows how to exploit. So it is for our species. Our class-whuman energy is the energy that knows how to be we, plus other biospheric energy that we know how to use to our benefit.
That part of Class-W biospheric energy that we cannot count in our class-whuman wealth is quite important. It measures our ignorance.
:: Bob Komives, Fort Collins © 2006 :: Plum Local IV :: 11. Classes of Knowledge, Uses of Wealth ::
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
12. Our Challenge: Grow Into The Biosphere
Our Challenge: Grow Into The Biosphere
Bob Komives
::
When we admit that parts of the biosphere
lie beyond our wealth estate
we receive no license to destroy,
but, rather, a challenge
--rather our challenge to integrate.
lie beyond our wealth estate
we receive no license to destroy,
but, rather, a challenge
--rather our challenge to integrate.
||
Exploration can lead down unexpected and unsought paths. I found it helpful to divide wealth into classes. However when I distinguished class-W (biospheric wealth) from class-whuman (human wealth), I worried that I was about to conclude that we could do without much of the biosphere --that we can afford to destroy any of the biosphere that is not classified as human wealth. I sketched a series of diagrams that helped me to another conclusion.
When we have the power to eliminate a form of life from the biosphere, a form that we do not know as wealth, we must face a truth; we have the power to eliminate a source of future wealth.
Humankind has no sympathy for smallpox, but smallpox is some of what the biosphere knows. We must ask, "What does smallpox know that we do not know?" From the point of view of the smallpox virus, its sphere of wealth (class-wsmallpox) shrank from a large portion of the biosphere, where it devastated human populations, to its imprisonment in a few isolation units. Our concern has shifted. Once we feared for our survival. Now we must fear loss of biospheric knowledge into which we might one day grow.
Humankind is of the biosphere.
Biosphere is of the universe.
Life's challenge to the biosphere:
. become one with your universe.
Life's challenge to humankind:
. become one with your biosphere.
Meeting --or failing-- our challenge
we will change:
. change in form
. change in method
. change in abundance.
When we have the power to eliminate a form of life from the biosphere, a form that we do not know as wealth, we must face a truth; we have the power to eliminate a source of future wealth.
Humankind has no sympathy for smallpox, but smallpox is some of what the biosphere knows. We must ask, "What does smallpox know that we do not know?" From the point of view of the smallpox virus, its sphere of wealth (class-wsmallpox) shrank from a large portion of the biosphere, where it devastated human populations, to its imprisonment in a few isolation units. Our concern has shifted. Once we feared for our survival. Now we must fear loss of biospheric knowledge into which we might one day grow.
Humankind is of the biosphere.
Biosphere is of the universe.
Life's challenge to the biosphere:
. become one with your universe.
Life's challenge to humankind:
. become one with your biosphere.
Meeting --or failing-- our challenge
we will change:
. change in form
. change in method
. change in abundance.
||
:: Bob Komives, Fort Collins © 2006 :: Plum Local IV :: 12. Our Challenge: Grow Into The Biosphere ::
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
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