Doing As Much As We Can Afford

"Anything we can actually do, we can afford."

That is a quote by John Maynard Keynes, an economist with whom I heartily disagree because his thoughts show an overwhelming faith in the utility of government force. But MyDex recently wrote some philosophical blog posts that show some flaws in modern economic thinking and they include some areas where he is accurate. Of course, I still reserve the right to be the final say in the full truth.

So in this post I'll call out some of those truths.

• Escaping Market Myopia points out flaws when we think of markets being the only or best way of taking capitalizing on opportunities for good society.
• "We can afford what we actually do" Part 1 discusses how some economic concepts seem like paradoxes or opposites, but there is truth to both sides.
• "We can afford what we actually do" - Part 2 calls out specific areas where we should expand beyond some of the conventional thinking.
  • (There's also a Part 3 but it's specific to MyDex work.)

That "Part 2" lists the following 8 areas, with hints as to how we can go beyond typical mass media doctrine:

• think capabilities (not just targets);
• think genuine productivity (not just cuts and savings);
• think mutual self help (to escape dependencies on external funders);
• think clubs and communities (which provide agency, and not just markets and states, which take it away);
• think institutional innovation (not just working within existing institutional constraints);
• think genuine investment (and not just financial extraction);
• think demonetisation (all the things we can do without money having to change hands); and
• think Fair Process (because that’s the best way to do all the above).

I agree with all those, which is surprising given my age and the opinions I've accumulated by now. (Nice job, Alan.)

I'm not going to expound on any of that so that you have time to digest the excellent posts above. I'll just leave you with one last sentence: note how much of our human-oriented progress is done not with efficient systems that carefully weigh and implement needs and wants, but rather by fuzzy and jarring steps in many directions while people experiment and "waste" time but also make amazing breakthroughs – world-bending improvements as well as soul-inspiring enlightenment.