The Promises Men Live By
Harry Scherman
published 1938
...after all, economics is a special field of knowledge. Is there any particular reason, one may well ask, why all men, or even many men, should be fully informed in it? We cannot in this hard world hope to be omniscient. Why not leave this branch of inquiry, as other branches are left, to the experts? There is no practical need discernible for any wide diffusion of understanding about Professor Einstein's theories of relativity. No disastrous consequences seem to arise from the almost universal absence of understanding of the simplest aspects of chemistry, physics, astronomy, geology, archaeology, philology, botany, and a hundred other fields of inquiry that might be cited. The rest of us can go about our own pursuits, safe in the confidence that the discovery of truth in these fields will slowly seep into the general body of wisdom the race inherits and will change our lives, if at all, in that slow way. Certainly, the common ignorance that prevails about such sciences seems to have no immediate harmful social consequences.
The reverse is true of economics. It differs indeed, in this respect, from almost every other pursuit of knowledge that one can think of. With the world constituted as it now is, the well-nigh universal ignorance among men as to how their society functions, since it determines the nature of their actions, is itself a governing factor, which can be seen operating in a thousand positive ways, in what currently happens to the human race. This universal ignorance has the most direct effect the fortunes of every single one of us, upon how we live and what we are compelled to do every day (that is the point!) whether or not we are conscious of the compulsion. What the great masses of men, for example, do not know about the processes of trade and even the very nature of trade; what they do not know about what they call their money -all this ignorance has a far more profound influence upon the daily welfare of each one of us than what a few men do know!
The disasters, which proceed from this ignorance, come first from those who have acquired the position of leadership in our states. Their policies and their acts, when misguided in an economic sense -as we have seen only too unhappily in the past quarter-century may engulf literally tens of millions of human beings in the most tragic circumstances. It is a bitter truth that the masses of men have had to pay, through their suffering, for the education of their leaders in economics; in spite of which, too often, no education seems to result.
Nevertheless, these persons, whom we allow to rule us, are only partly to blame. They acquire whatever power they have from our acquiescence. Their ignorance is really but a segment of our own, and rests finally upon our own.
xx
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npub13y…7epkg
2023-10-04 18:36:36
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npub13yrcjh6v8efapytwfssvz5awxh23vry9uu2e3hu72xzm03e0fges47epkgPublished at
2023-10-04 18:36:36Event JSON
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"content": "The Promises Men Live By\nHarry Scherman\npublished 1938\n\n...after all, economics is a special field of knowledge. Is there any particular reason, one may well ask, why all men, or even many men, should be fully informed in it? We cannot in this hard world hope to be omniscient. Why not leave this branch of inquiry, as other branches are left, to the experts? There is no practical need discernible for any wide diffusion of understanding about Professor Einstein's theories of relativity. No disastrous consequences seem to arise from the almost universal absence of understanding of the simplest aspects of chemistry, physics, astronomy, geology, archaeology, philology, botany, and a hundred other fields of inquiry that might be cited. The rest of us can go about our own pursuits, safe in the confidence that the discovery of truth in these fields will slowly seep into the general body of wisdom the race inherits and will change our lives, if at all, in that slow way. Certainly, the common ignorance that prevails about such sciences seems to have no immediate harmful social consequences.\n\nThe reverse is true of economics. It differs indeed, in this respect, from almost every other pursuit of knowledge that one can think of. With the world constituted as it now is, the well-nigh universal ignorance among men as to how their society functions, since it determines the nature of their actions, is itself a governing factor, which can be seen operating in a thousand positive ways, in what currently happens to the human race. This universal ignorance has the most direct effect the fortunes of every single one of us, upon how we live and what we are compelled to do every day (that is the point!) whether or not we are conscious of the compulsion. What the great masses of men, for example, do not know about the processes of trade and even the very nature of trade; what they do not know about what they call their money -all this ignorance has a far more profound influence upon the daily welfare of each one of us than what a few men do know!\n\nThe disasters, which proceed from this ignorance, come first from those who have acquired the position of leadership in our states. Their policies and their acts, when misguided in an economic sense -as we have seen only too unhappily in the past quarter-century may engulf literally tens of millions of human beings in the most tragic circumstances. It is a bitter truth that the masses of men have had to pay, through their suffering, for the education of their leaders in economics; in spite of which, too often, no education seems to result.\n\nNevertheless, these persons, whom we allow to rule us, are only partly to blame. They acquire whatever power they have from our acquiescence. Their ignorance is really but a segment of our own, and rests finally upon our own.\n\nxx\n",
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