Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Not-Quite-Science Forum ECONOMICS--Is it a science, as it relates to the..

Jurriaan Kamp
This article appeared in Ode issue: 26 It was repeated in the Toronto Star--Canada's largest daily.

What is money? Do we need more of it to solve some of the world?s problems? Or is money the cause of them? Ex-banker Bernard Lietaer thinks the latter is the case. And he has the solution: a new kind of money.


You have no idea what money is. Bernard Lietaer is too friendly and modest a man to say it that way, but this is the easiest possible way to sum up his message. If you did know what money was, then you?we?would see to it that we had a different monetary system.
Everything revolves around money. It?s more than a clich?; it?s the daily experience of just about every world citizen not part of an indigenous tribe in the Amazon rain forest. And this daily experience involves, above all else, a continuous shortage of money.

There is not enough money to send the children to school. Not enough money for hospitals, or to care for the ever-greater numbers of old people who are getting ever older. Not enough money to clean up the environment and keep it that way. There is a lot of work to do, but no money to pay for it. Who among us is not familiar with the feeling of wanting to contribute something but having ?no money? to pay for that valuable contribution? The sad conclusion: If we just had more money, the world and our lives would be better.

Title: The Neurobiology of Trust
Authors: Paul J. Zak, Robert Kurzban, and William Matzner
Presenter: Paul J. Zak
Abstract:
Human beings exhibit substantial interpersonal trust-even with strangers. Animal models indicate that the neuroactive peptide oxytocin mediates social attachments, and we develop an application of these findings to humans. Interpersonal trust is examined in 38 subjects using a one-shot, game-theoretic social interaction with monetary payoffs developed by Berg, Dickhaut & McCabe (1995). In this interaction, one-half the subjects are assigned the role of decisionmaker 1 (DM1) and are given $10 and can transfer by computer any integer amount (including zero) to an anonymous subject in the lab.
The amount transferred is tripled in the receiving subjects' (DM2s) accounts, and these subjects may transfer any amount (including zero) back to the DM1s to whom they are paired. The amount DM1s transfer to DM2s is a measure of trust, and the amount DM2s return to DM1s indicates the degree of trustworthiness. Oxytocin is measured in blood plasma immediately following the decision made by each subject. The data show that oxytocin levels rise in direct proportion to the amount that is transferred to DM2s, and these subjects return more to DM1s.
That is, oxytocin responds to a signal of trust, and facilitates trustworthiness. Other factors that could affect oxytocin levels are shown not to affect transfer amounts indicating that Oxytocin levels are responding to the experimental stimulus. We conclude that signals of trust activate the mammalian attachment system causing the release of oxytocin and facilitating trustworthiness.

...and

Title:Building Trust: Public Policy, Interpersonal Trust, and Economic
Development
Authors: Stephen Knack and Paul J. Zak
Presenter: Paul J. Zak
Contact info: Dept. of Economics, Claremont Graduate University,
Claremont, CA 91711-6165, paul.zak@cgu.edu
Abstract:
Because Zak & Knack (2001, Economic Journal) demonstrate that sufficient interpersonal trust is a necessary condition for economic development, this paper builds a formal model characterizing public policy that can raise trust. We derive optimal funding for a number of potentially trust-raising policies when the objective is economic growth.
Policies examined include those that increase freedom of association, build civic cultures, enhance judicial contract enforcement, reduce income inequality, and raise educational levels. Even with optimal funding, a low-trust institutional poverty trap is shown to exist. Testing the model's predictions for a sample of 43 countries, we find very few policies raise trust sufficiently vis-a-vis growth to warrant funding as part of a program of economic development.

Development? Development!?

(mumbles to self) Isn't that how we got into this situation?

If we had started focusing on technologies to develop sustainability back in the 70's; we'd be in a position to export that technology around the world and do as you suggest. At this point, when I hear people talking about "exporting" development, all I can think about is China & NAFTA (to where we have outsourced our pollution). All we seem to be able to export is "democracy." (he said sarcastically)

I was real impressed with the recent philanthropic gifts (Gates, Buffet, etc.); but what are these people that they're saving going to do? Can they find a job sequestering Carbon? Where will they get their food and water? Branson at least has a global goal (and very profitable too!).

There are signs of effectiveness, such as: Microloans & Envirofit's first product is a Direct In-cylinder (DI) fuel injection retrofit kit for two-stoke motorcycle engines that significantly improves fuel efficiency and reduces emissions.
[designed for use in third world: google Envirofit]

But aren't we way too much "behind the curve" to rely on "business as usual" development?
Simply turning the third world into consumers will only work for one or two more generations before the whole pyramid scheme falls apart.

I do agree with your points about the subsidies. They perpetuate unsustainability.

I think developing the '3rd world' needs to be done as a part of "saving the world." It has to be done in a sustainable way.

Unless the true costs of the pollution and associated consequences of unbridled private investment are accounted for, the profit motive will overwhelm any goal of "helping" the people or the planet.


Not that I have any ideas or solutions...yet. But am I looking in the right direction?

~~Samwik

TFF, Maybe I am dumb, but I tried to read the following:
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html

Nothing, absolutely NOTHING, grabs my attention. Admittedly, it could be my fault....

4. The case of astrology, nowadays a typical pseudo-science, may illustrate this point.

It was attacked, by Aristotelians and other rationalists, down to Newton's day, for the wrong reason — for its now an accepted assertion that the planets had an "influence" upon terrestrial ("sublunar") events. In fact Newton's theory of gravity, and especially the lunar theory of the tides, was historically speaking an offspring of astrological lore.

Newton, it seems, was most reluctant to adopt a theory which came from the same stable as for example the theory that "influenza" epidemics are due to an astral "influence."

And Galileo, no doubt for the same reason, actually rejected the lunar theory of the tides; and his misgivings about Kepler may easily be explained by his misgivings about astrology.