From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Fri Oct 18 2002 - 22:28:09 MDT
I originally wrote this note directly to Spike. But as I expanded
its discussion I thought it might be useful to the list. Spike, I
hope you will excuse this expansion of the discussion without my
extensive re-editing.
On Fri, 18 Oct 2002, spike66 wrote:
> Our current economic system was not so much designed
> as it evolved. As abundance increases, as a direct
> result of humans creating wealth as a byproduct of
> our labor and brains, our economic system evolves to
> be ever better adapted to the world in which it
> exists. Attempts at designing economic systems
> have led to such horrific abominations as communism
> and totalitarianism. May economic systems be left
> to evolve, hands off.
>
> > Will you stop the tongue-in-cheek cuteness and give your best thinking
> > please? - samantha
>
> This is my best thinking please.
Spike, while I generally agree with you here, I think you
*may* want to think about the "fickleness" of the masses.
Right now there is a real concrete trend away from investment
in the stock market and VC funds in general. The government
(on the other hand) made a huge boost in funds in healthtech
over the last decade and is still pushing boosts in funds for
nanotech.
So the public sector is picking up the slack while the private
sector is running scared. I've got no arguments with your
perspective on socialism, communism, totalitarianism, etc.
*But* you do need to devote more thought to whether *if*
engineered economic systems can be optimal (I'd view us as having
a half-assed engineered economic system at this time.)
The "freedom of the proletariat" perspective may not
work *if* the proletariat is undereducated with respect
to what can best help their cause. After all the proletariat
presumably would prefer to watch "Friends" than consider what
threats they might be facing or read a difficult article on
technological innovation from Science or Nature.
There is a balance to strike between long term and short
term investments. (Wouldn't everyone like to have a
replacement heart that costs $200?) Private capital
can only place those bets on 3-5 year time horizons.
Government capital can look much further down the road
(and should do so for the good of its citizens). After
all, "I" as a citizen of "20" would desire that my
government use my tax dollars to look out for my
interests at "40" or "60".
There is a real time horizon analysis perspective that
one has to engage in here. There are two possible goals --
"maximization of yield", i.e. ROI (i.e. additional tax
dollars a government would derive from superior economic
growth) and maximization of the *minimization* of the
"years of potential life lost" (which may have some very
interesting feedback effects on the maximization of yield --
more educated people living longer, as well as decreased
medical care costs, etc.).
I don't know how these should be traded off against one another and/or how
they should be optimized but I'm fairly certain that we don't have good
ideas with regard to how most economic systems and variances thereof are
influencing either saving human lives and/or accelerating human
development. (Obvious cases of regimes executing their citizens in large
numbers excepted.)
I don't believe that one can claim any "Western" democratic
system is the "best" system if one takes into account these
factors. We are in unexplored economic territory.
Robert
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