Zen Economics by CounterPunch Books

Author:CounterPunch Books
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Economics
Publisher: CounterPunch Books
Published: 2016-04-13T00:00:00+00:00

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41 http://www.bls.gov/jlt/ the data is regularly released and is publicly available making the argument that unemployment results from disinterest in working the hallucination of extremely lazy ideologues

Dying of Thirst While Sitting Atop a Mountain of Diamonds

For those without a formal education in Western economics its ‘great controversies’ are likely perceived as technical quibbles, arcane differences that would better be solved by looking at ‘the evidence.’ As laid out above and below, ‘the evidence’ tends to settle very little. This has basis in social power relations—the West today is ruled by a small plutocracy that uses its economic power to determine public policies. But it also has basis in the implausible theoretical frame from whence economic questions emerge.

One textbook definition of this economics is: economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources. One quick look at the breadth and bounty of ‘the world’ suggests that this ‘scarcity’ is more a state of mind than factual description of a state of affairs. The frame itself establishes a contest for limited supply—resources are scarce and therefore the means by which they are distributed, their allocation, makes this economics a relevant realm of study. Additionally, ‘scarcity’ is put forward as an artifact of nature, as a limitation imposed by the natural world.

Within this frame one of the great ‘mysteries’ in Western economics is the ‘diamond-water paradox,’ the low price of water so important to human existence relative to the high price of diamonds that are of relatively little importance. The ‘solution’ Western economists came up with is that water exists in relative abundance whereas diamonds are scarce and therefore that scarcity—the supply of something relative to that of other things, determines its value relative to them.

Conspicuously missing from this ‘solution’ is the historical role of diamonds as ‘treasure,’ as quasi-money like gold that is found in jewelry and industrial applications but that also has long history as a ‘store of value.’ Alternatively, as mentioned above, 1974 Yugo hatchbacks are also ‘scarce’ but have little to no implied or actual economic ‘value.’ In fact, capitalism is in the process of producing one of the greatest die-offs of ‘scarce’ endangered species in world history and responsible capitalists place little to no value on this ‘scarcity.’

Moreover the idea of scarcity at work is as a dearth of metaphysical objects—the commodities that exist in the ether of capitalist economics—both ‘water’ and ‘diamonds,’ are unified in the formulation of the puzzle as psychic objects as they exist in the ether, not in a particular container of water or a particular diamond.

Framed differently, want of ‘diamonds’ is pornographic in the sense that it is decontextualized, it is for the ‘shared’ qualities of diamonds as social objects and not for a particular diamond except as it relates to these qualities. Money is the conversion device that bridges the metaphysical divide between these things in their thing-ness—the metaphysical objects of water and diamonds, to form equivalence.

In addition to relative scarcity what is needed to render this

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