Tuesday, May 08, 2012

Short term gain long term pain

The productivity myths of modern politicians are pretty simple - terribly simple , scarily simple. That wannabes run on simple ideas is completely understandable and quite rational but ,,,, if you haven't worked that out yet , not everything important comes to those who can follow the last line of an argument ; like Tony jones does on Q&A when he " moves on " ( and would be stupid to describe this point as " the end " ( go see The Best Marigold Hotel ")
While the wannabes  havago at each other in the house,  they are  all singing from the same song sheet . "It its efficient,  it will save us ".  Note it is not the song  " if its efficient it will screw us"  ( much more realistic and balanced ) or if ( could be Julia's footnote on history ) if it doesn't work ( not effective) even the greatest tax idea of the century will be lost  .(TGEINOBI)
The depth of the efficiency / effectiveness paradoxes are too deep to explore here - except to say that while we need both , we can't afford a disconnect between both .(esp effectiveness and purposefulness.)
Clearly if we are to be like nature,  we should,  at the very least ,  be efficient ( esp in the sense that we don't waste things . Even Aristotle got that - see Etiene Gilson  ) .
Our problem is that we are
not very effective and .a bit arrogant ....worse,  we don't admit why we are poorly targeting our technology ( Ellul and other knew why but we are .. ...    well to be generous,          not at that line yet )

Why don't Liberals go back to talking radical liberalism rather than contining to follow Labor into the cul de sac of mere market fundamentalism . After all , if economic policy amounts to balancing the budget , the Libs  can't win. The Libs can save all they like ,but if Labor spends it all - Labor wins . If people see themselves as mainly dependant consumers and not independant producers  the  traffic is one way,  and even if efficient - its not effective in the long term .
http://monthlyreview.org/2001/03/01/refuting-the-big-lie
also

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