Einstein said in connection with Special Relativity Theory, Everything is relative. Lonergan said regarding macroeconomic dynamics, The analysis is functional and purely relational. In normative Monetary Field Theory all flows of products and payments are connected in a purely-relational, unitary, coherent system. And coherence means that all the explanatory conjugates and equations “hang together.”
On one hand, in Centesimus Annus we affirm and emphasize the freedoms of the person, including the right to own what he/she crafts, and we emphasize the dignity of the person. On the other hand, we note in the totalitarian system of government:
As healing can have no truck with hatred, so too it can have no truck with materialism. For the healer is essentially a reformer; first and foremost he counts on what is best in man. But the materialist is condemned by his own principles to be no more that a manipulator. He will apply to human beings the stick-and-carrot treatment that the Harvard behaviorist B.F. Skinner advocates under the name reinforcement. He will maintain with Marx that cultural attitudes are the byproduct of material conditions, and so he will bestow upon those subjected to communist power the salutary conditions of a closed frontier, clear and firm indoctrination, controlled media of information, a vigilant secret police, and the terrifying threat of labor camps. [CWL 15, 104]
Einstein would characterize Faraday’s and Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory as the “greatest alteration … in our conception of the structure of reality since the foundation of theoretical physics by Newton.” (quoted in Hirshfeld, 2006, p. 212) Perhaps we might say something comparable about Lonergan’s macroeconomics, gnoseology, and theology.
Let intellectually and personally weak individuals gain unmerited power and glory and many will do whatever they perceive necessary to hold onto that power and glory. They will deceive even themselves. They will develop a god-complex and come to consider their twisted inclinations the supreme truth. For those many, no lie will be too big; and no giveaway to buy votes will be too profligate, or damaging to the public welfare and the good of order. So, we ask, Do our empowering systems of politics and communication – executive, legislative, judicial, deep-state, academic, electronic and print – allow the general public to become hostage to deceitful individuals?
How many socioeconomic problems are primarily cultural problems, with leaders throwing more and more money in vain at what are basically problems of culture and its ethos? A president or prime minister or chancellor must not confuse cultural problems with economic problems. A vast educational effort is called for.
If Fay Vincent’s essays in the Wall Street Journal were gathered into book form, I’d pay money for the book. A welcome respite from egoistic claptrap.
A Must-Read: Fred Lawrence, “Money, Institutions, And The Human Good”: An Ordered Perspective Distinguishing Social and Monetary Values.
when a limited liability company has served its day, it goes to bankruptcy court; but when bureaucrats take over power, they intend to stay. … when the pressure of terrorism is needed to oil the wheels of enterprise, then the immediate effect is either an explosion or else servile degeneracy. (CWL 15, Editors’ Introduction xxxiv) Continue reading →