Richard Lloyd Jones: Looking up economics in Wikipedia can bring you hours of reading pleasure. Explore micro and macroeconomics, or delve into the division between the mainstream theories and Marxist thinking. It's a vast and, frankly, overwhelming area of study. And in the end, it appears there are almost as many economic theories as there are economists. I'm Richard Lloyd Jones. Today on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head, we'll explore the new economics arising out of Dr.
Norberto Keppe's beautiful work in Analytical Trilogy. His comprehensive work that unites philosophy, theology, and science to give us a new perspective on the human being and his society. As always, you can drop me a line at rich at richjonesvoice.com. I'd be very happy to hear from you. And let me know if you're interested in our free book offer on Thinking with Somebody Else's Head, Dr.
Keppe's Liberation of the People, the Pathology of Power. We're still giving away copies of this extraordinary book. Someone, I'm not sure who, once said, if you lined up all the economists in the world, they'd all point in different directions. Maybe this was more prophetic than he or she realized. Truman pined for a one-armed economist that, as a result, could never say, On the other hand, economics drives our world in obvious ways through its influence in every aspect of human society.
From sweating the family budget to the sophisticated polling and research of lobbyists and think-tank academics, there is no area of daily life that's not impacted by it. But arguably, there is no area where we have been influenced more by the thinking of other people's heads than in this one. And some of the theories that have been thrust upon us from these heads have caused us a lot of personal and collective grief.
Let's enter a new world of economics today with psychoanalyst Dr. Cláudia Pacheco, vice president of Keppe's International Society of Analytical Trilogy in São Paulo. We'll base our podcast today on Dr. Keppe's work and capital book. Cláudia, money, richness, economic development, what are the first things you have to say about economics? Money
Cláudia Bernhardt Pacheco: does not make money, Richard. Richness comes from work, especially work of quality and necessity, and comes from raw material, meaning minerals and energy etc.
But never money made money. This idea brought the destruction of the true production and the true prosperity of nations. This is the basis of Capi's work on economy. Work and capital, not capital and work, because he sees that Marx and Adam Smith made the same mistake. They thought money or capital could bring richness to the countries. It's not that we should not have capital.
We must have capital. This is important. Prosperity comes from pure action is working, is accomplishing, is developing the accomplishment, productivity of quality and necessity to the world. This is not
Richard: the first time we've explored this subject, of course, but it's very important to come at it again because changing our thinking in any area is not the easiest thing to do. And in economics, we've been literally conditioned to accept it since the moment we're born.
Keppe is unequivocal on the subject, however. In a nation's economy, he writes, money must be subordinate to the country's industrial, agricultural, and scientific power. Otherwise, a process of deterioration will set in. I like his consideration here about what's important in society because this making money with money policy that we see so prevalent today is very unstable. How would you see this, Cláudia?
Cláudia: It's an enormous speculative balloon. Since the 1980s, when Mr. Ronald Reagan brought this philosophy of speculation to the country, where the stock market had the main role in American economy and the world economy. Since the early 80s up to now, the United States had a growing national debt to the point that yesterday I looked at the clock of U.S. Debt, And it was $8,815,643,644,485 debt.
So you may consider that each American citizen has already almost $30,000 debt when they are born. And does this have anything to do with this person's life? Nothing. This has only to do with the empowerment of small groups of corrupt, powerful people. That live upon military non-ethical profits.
Richard: This can all seem a little overwhelming, I acknowledge. Our economic system is so distorted now, totally manipulated by the powerful interest, that it's hard to see our way clear.
The idea of a free market is, in reality, just some words on a page from some theoretical economists throughout history. We're no more free than those in medieval times. Nor is our market free. Controlled as it is by the powerful economic and political interests which are often directly opposed to what would be best for human beings. We could use the example of many consumer product areas where the best product is seldom the most successful.
Since money dominates our culture, the companies that have the most money are usually the ones that dominate any consumer market, and the dominant product is seldom the best product for us, whether we're talking food, soft drinks, computer operating systems. Consequently, we see an enormous dumbing down occurring, a massive domination of lowest common denominator winning out. Where are the superior technology automobiles, for instance, the non-polluting, better-for-Mother-Nature ones we should have had since the 70s, kept off the market by powerful oil companies and others?
How do we begin to dig ourselves out, Cláudia?
Cláudia: Conscientization, Jones. People must pay attention to this inversion. Humanity is based in many, many concepts that are inverted, and one is this. Work must come from the pure action and the necessity to do good for other people, and not based in exploitation, speculation. So humanity should work for a higher purpose in life, which is the common good of humanity.
Richard: Let's evaluate all this a little more specifically, Cláudia. You talked at the beginning about the mistake of thinking that money brings prosperity. This is an inversion in Keppe's language, a psychological inversion which happens individually and is also manifested in the society. How would you further critique our economic system?
Cláudia: Today I was talking to a friend of mine he works for a multinational French corporation, he was concerned because of the fall of the stock market.
And he said, this access that exists between the United States and England of this new liberal model of economy is bringing down all global economy with them. So he was very much afraid and saying, what is going to happen? What should we expect from this? And I said, well, what is real? The real means of production, the real richnesses, they will continue in the world.
Factories that are working, that are producing, agriculture. So countries that did not base their economy so much in speculation, stock market, they will not suffer so much. But countries who based their way of living in stock markets and speculation will suffer very hard, very deep.
And
Richard: maybe that's what's behind the market uneasiness we see globally at the moment. You know, one of Keppe's main premises in his book Work and Capital is that work needs to be tied to production of something.
It's not healthy for an economy when money is floating around, untethered to anything concrete, like it is now in our largely speculative market environment. Corporations today are making money in risky and unstable derivatives markets, for example, rather than in producing the products or delivering the services they were founded to provide. And, of course, there's also been an almost complete migration of production from the first to the third world, which is also a big mistake.
This is a more subtle continuation of the former exploitation policies of third world countries, which is worsening our collective experience on Earth. What's to be done in this situation, Cláudia?
Cláudia: So I think, Richard, that the third world countries or the countries who produce things, they have to become aware of this... Inversion, because they think that they need the money and the first world countries to survive.
They think if they would not have the so-called help, which is not really a help, they would not survive. And it's exactly the opposite. It's the same inversion as employees think about their bosses. They think that the owners of a company or the bosses are necessary, the powerful people are necessary for them to have something to do and to have something to eat.
It's the other way around. Those who work, those who serve, those who produce are those who support the powerful people and give means for them to survive. This is the situation of the third world countries. They give everything the first world need to survive and not the other way around.
Richard: And of course we can see that in another way, Cláudia. In the fact that the middle class, those who do the bulk of the work, pays the bulk of the income tax, certainly in North America, while corporations and the economically powerful pay big lawyers to find as many ways to get around paying as possible.
But let's get back to this third world, first world issue. What would be a healthier way to structure things there?
Cláudia: We cannot say that, for instance, Europe is not important because they have an important technology and science and they know how to organize things. So they built America when they immigrate to America. So they have more knowledge in many ways, but they should bring this knowledge to the third world in order to build a healthy planet, a balanced planet, where everybody would benefit from this.
Because this so-called inverted system is not going to survive and is bringing damage for everybody.
Richard: True and idealistic words, Cláudia. You know, it's my hope that this new economic view resonates with you. And I'd like to offer you some more reading about how business can be restructured these days. I'll put more on my blog at somebodyelseshead.blogspot.com. I'm Richard Lloyd Jones. Thanks a lot for listening.
