[donquixote99]

It occurs to me that the fundemental question here is one of philosophy. Economics makes a fetish of it's graphs and things, and likes to makes like it's just super-accounting, but I think at base it is philosophy--indeed, it is where modern philosophy is done--thus the irrelevance of the guys now called philosophers.

There are lots of byways where philosophy gets bogged-down, but the big question always has been and is 'How should people live? What the right way to arrange everything?' So who answers this for us these days? Economics, in particular the now-ascendant neoliberal economics. And the school answer is thus 'everything should be arranged so that activity takes place through people organized in private firms that compete in free markets.' The market, in this philosophy, is the measure of all things. Profit is what is good. Loss is what is bad. And taxation and regulation are sinful things that distort the market's all-righteous workings.

It's a rather amoral philosophy--success in the market justifies, or excuses, just about anything. It's rules thus allow it to be a deceitful philosophy, that actively seeks in recent years to hide that it even is a philosophy. This explains why modern neoliberals have stopped calling themselves neoliberals.

I think before we plan to launch solar power satellites or develop renewable biomass energy, we need to develop an overarching philosophy. The one measure of value now is the accrual of private assets in a market economy. Shall we not assert the primacy of values that are now devalued? Which one or ones should be central?