Parallels and Parables
1. A FEW HISTORICAL PARALLELS
The
ancient Greek philosopher, Dionysius of Halicarnasus,
said that “history is philosophy teaching us
by examples”. Here are a few examples.
Medieval Church and Modern Money System (1985)
"Money
plays the central role in modern industrial society
that religion played in the late middle ages. Then
the local church ... Financial mumbo-jumbo holds us
in thrall today, as religious mumbo-jumbo held our
ancestors then."
Full quotation from Future
Work, the beginning of Chapter 9.
A 'Dissolution of the Monasteries' (1985)
"The
dissolution of the monasteries was an event that clearly
marked the decline of religion in the transition from
medieval to modern times. May the post-industrial counterpart
to that prove to be a monetary and financial collapse
so severe that ...? ... At least some later historians
would look back on such an event as marking the end
of the era that we call the industrial age."
Full quotation from Future
Work, the end of Chapter 9.
Redefinition of Money now Needed (2003)
In
the 19th century money was redefined to include paper
banknotes as well as gold coins and bullion. "The
challenge we face is similar. But our definition of money
should now extend to include, not just banknotes as well
as coin, but also the electronic bank-created money in
our current bank accounts. ... That commercial banks
still create this official-currency money for private-sector
profit has become a glaring anachronism."
Full quotation from Monetary
Reform - Making it Happen, Chapter 1.
21st-Century Introduction of Citizen's Income and 1846
Repeal of Corn Laws. (1985)
"[The
introduction of a Citizen's Income] will be a historical
milestone of the first importance. By officially disconnecting
subsistence from paid employment it will mark the transition
to the post-employment age, as surely as the repeal
of the Corn Laws in 1846 marked the transition from
an agricultural to an industrial society. It will start
reversing the process that began several hundred years
ago, when the common people were deprived of access
to land and the wherewithal to provide their own subsistence,
and so became dependent on paid labour."
Future
Work, Chapter 12.
2. A FEW PARABLES
Although
Dionysius of Halicarnasus didn’t
say it, parables are another kind of story that
philosophy uses to teach us by examples. Here are a
few examples.
"Devil's
Tunes" or "An Infernal
Strategy Review" (1992)
This four-page strategy review, presented to President
Satan by his Ministers, discusses why he should authorise
them to encourage humans to continue on their present
catastrophic course.
Beyond
The Dependency Culture, Chapter 10.
"Beyond
Horseshit Economics" or "The
Fallacy of Single Level Control" (1992)
A lesson for economic policy makers. It took too long
for the experts to realise that limiting the amount of
food for chickens to the corn they could peck out of
horse manure resulted in making the chickens too thin
or the horses too fat.
Full story in Beyond
the Dependency Culture, Chapter 11.
Also in After
Dependency: Healthy People and Places in the 21st
Century.
Drowning Dogs (1998)
"The
kind of society we are living in is what you might
call a remedial society. We concentrate more effort
on trying to put things right after they have gone
wrong, than on making them go right in the first place.
It reminds me of the story of the man who lived at
a bridge over a river, and spent a lot of time saving
dogs from drowning as they floated past. ... As a rule,
it will be more effective to deal with upstream causes
than with their downstream effects."
Full story in After
Dependency: Healthy People and Places in the 21st
Century
A "Modernised" Form
of Cricket, as
a model for the Game of Economic Life. "This is
rather as if the game of cricket were to develop to the
point where ..."
Full quotation in Future
Wealth, Chapter 9. (1989)
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