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Theoretical and Applied Economics
No. 6 / 2013 (583)

The unanthropic context

„Economic theory accepts solutions to the problems which are specific to a type of life without intelligence, where the mechanical vision functions in an unanthropic context built on relationships in which the human factor is reduced to a consumable, or at most an ingredient to the capital's appetite for yield.”

The strong argument for the reconstruction of Economics is provided by the problem of the crisis, which in rational terms of time, amplitude and cause remains unsolved. Even though it is primarily considered as a miscalibration of market functionality, the crisis persists and keeps extending across all the systems of human action. The delicate part of the problem is that the mechanical perspective in structuring the vision, belonging to a somewhat pragmatic take on reality, points to the - at least from experiential knowledge -possibility of carelessly removing the defect.

It is known, however, that the mechanisms which can be repaired are those whose principles of construction and functioning are theoretically explained. The lingering and insinuation of the crisis beyond the usual limits of time and space clearly indicate that there is a severe deficit of knowledge on the configuration and functioning of economicity. Otherwise, an intervention could be made in order to restore the parameters and conditions of the generic recipe. The libertarians' recommendation to wait for all the problems to solve themselves, calculating in advance the costs for the duration of the disorder - or in other words comparing the effects to the sense of rationality, is a bad joke.

Thus, epistemologically, the defect originates in the way the economicity is perceived as a mechanism which cannot be overloaded in order to increase its yield. The understanding of economic behaviour is done in the terms of the technology of wealth, which enjoys beneficial periods in its use, but also breaks caused by lack of energy and by wear. The crisis is the direct expression of the over-revving of the economic mechanism in order to obtain wealth increase in the short-term. It amplifies the creation of added value through speculative means. The deviant configuration of the economic mechanism can be observed in the non-rational, even violent, redistribution of wealth. This is how the economic crisis ends up being a structural social crisis.

In the wake of this concept, the crisis is a cyclic event: it comes and goes repeatedly, its periods defined by the context of business, with a well-defined intensity and volume. The fatalism of the crisis is part of the intellectual background, motivated by the laissez faire principles.

Ontologically though, the defect proves much more complex. The institutional structure of the monetarily centred global economy and the functional horizon ruled by the maximal principles of the market's self-regulation imply the over-revving of the mechanisms of economicity. In these conditions, the exit from the crisis has the recipe for administering crisis overdoses. Public debt for instance, destined to satisfy the appetite for the on-the-edge functioning of the monetary system, activates the main channel for the expansion of the crisis. There is no doubt that in this model, the softening of the principle of self-regulation is tolerable as long as this favours the transfer of the costs of the crisis from the markets to the public budgets.

Self-regulation is the most spectacular innovation to come out of the neomonetarist vision because it absolves the markets from the burden of the costs associated with the over-revving. So a reality emerges, at the fringe of economicity, from which stems the evolution towards the sublimation of the crisis of the markets and the activation of the crisis of the states. It must be pointed out that the theory of market self-regulation is a sophisticated variant of the Machiavellian principle of the end justifies the means.

The complexity in the break-down of the mechanisms of economicity comes from the authoritarianism of the theory, which is insured by corporatism through a pact with the state administrations. The visible form of this pact is the circularity of the representation at the level of governance systems. This allows the concept of the functionality of the markets to cover, with an explicative layer well maintained through publicity, a few degrees of corporatist liberty where the responsibility of the states towards the social finality of economicity is being hijacked through excessive debt accumulation. More or less consolidated, the neomonetarist corporatism works in the long-term to maximize the function of yield; the short-term successes are unimaginable peaks though, rolling the speculative appetite like a ball of snow. In fact, it is still a game of resource control, this time in an all-encompassing formula which includes that which is due to the future generations.

The mainstream theory - the corporatist capitalism - established the prevalence of capital over work, of markets over states and of the economy over society. From a unifactorial point of view, the theory is perfect, as it satisfies the interests of the capital in their integrity. But contextually, it is the placenta in which the catastrophe takes shape. Essentially, the economic theory accepts solutions to the problems which are specific to a type of life without intelligence, where the mechanical vision functions in an unanthropic context built on relationships in which the human factor is reduced to a consumable, or at most an ingredient to the capital's appetite for yield. In reality, the human factor is completely dependent on the impulse, in terms of limiting the prevalence by conforming to the rule of power. The monstrosity is evident, but it operates unhindered because it is yield-oriented with regard to the expectations of materiality.

Under the pressure of unidirectional ideas, the behavioural patterns redefine their models. Frankly speaking, the gravitational law of the materialist universe ties order to wealth, disregarding the distance from the resources. The subtle force of the actional concordance is the illusion. The construction of the economy respects the need for reproducing the illusion by proclaiming wealth as the ideal. That is why the projection is one of living through representatives.


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The unanthropic context
Marin Dinu

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The Economicity. The Epistemic Landscape, Marin Dinu, 2016

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