More and more I think about the grossly misperceived art form of economics. Some folks believe economics is a precise science of money, governed by mathematical formulas, the furthest opposite of art they could possibly imagine. They forget that ultimately all science is a form of art, and when science forgets that, it just becomes tyrannical nonsense.
I'm deliriously happy to see that top drawer economists Joseph Stiglitz and Jeff Madrick apparently agree with me. They did a teach-in for the Occupy Wall Street movement over last weekend. Stiglitz said "We have too many regulations stopping democracy and not enough regulations stopping Wall Street from misbehaving." Although what I'd rather see than more regulations is just remove the money and let the traders instead spend their time gambling with paint and clay and stuff like that.
The ancient Greek word roots that eco- and -nomics come from mean "home management" or "dwelling place law" so the word really means study of the fundamental laws of sharing our beloved planet with all life forms. That requires a very high level of art skills. Money is not the measure, it's just a lubricant. Wall street, where this lubricant is slung around at excessively high speed, is a very slippery place.
One slippery idea is that the only healthy economy (personal or national) is one in which money is constantly growing. Such an economy just skids the rich into being richer, the poor poorer, and our shared air and water dirtier and scarcer on a global scale. I'm all for growth economies if something else besides that slippery lubricant is what's growing. Things like fairness, intelligence, creativity, ability to care, diverse kinds of identity, rewarding relationships, and knowledge of what is needed to preserve good things of this planet for our descendants. These are characteristics recommended for the President's Cabinet that I've redesigned, in the Appendix to my book. In my opinion that would provide the only growth economy that could really help preserve for us a healthy range of art resources, over the long term.
