The “invisible hand” was discredited long ago

Members of our group who have been writing Ron Paul posts note the amount of comments they have been getting from L/libertarian true believers, as well as a few noting that their laissez-faire economic beliefs have long been disproved.

I’ve blogged about this on my blog before, so I’m going to tie a few ideas together.

First, economics was philosophy, not “social science” (the idea didn’t even exist then, “natural science” as a separate discipline was just emerging) when Adam Smith wrote “Wealth of Nations” in 1776.

Whence the idea, philosophically, then, of Smith’s famous, or infamous, “invisible hand”?

Enlightenment Deism, with its believe in a Deity who wound up the mechanism of the “clock” running our universe, and then took his hands off of it, i.e., laissez-faire. (This idea was actually around a century earlier, part of what lies behind German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz’s assertion that this is “the best of all possible worlds.”)

Well, a number of findings in the world of science have cratered the theory of the “wind-up universe.”

Tops is, obviously, quantum theory. Early 20th-century physicists started to recognize that quantum mechanics’ uncertainty principle could either be considered a human-measurement limitation or else a fundamental “graininess” of “fuzziness” to the space-time fabric of the universe itself. Most understood it the first way, perhaps making a deliberate choice. But Einstein, in his famous “the Old One does not play dice” comment, recognized the uncertainty principle for what it really is: there is a limit to precision.

Second, modern heterodox economics, especially when it pairs up with the latest research from neuroscience and cognitive science, recognizes just how strong emotional drives are for home economicus, meaning we’re a lot less rational in much of our economic decision-making than libertarians believe, or would have the rest of us believe.

But, there’s evidence beyond scientific theories and research.

If Voltaire’s riposte to Leibnitz wasn’t enough, the horrors of the Napoleonic wars, followed by the far greater ones of World War I and World War II, show just how irrationally emotional humans are, and that a Deity who would wind up a clock with that result is either pretty weak or pretty clueless.

And, at Hiroshima, the empirical evidence of this met the scientific theory of quantum mechanics with horrific results.

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Rep. Larsen (WA-2) Smells a Rat

I've typically been pretty proud of my district's representation in Congress. Rick Larsen grew up in a town only a few miles from my own, and has served our district with distinction, fairness, and even handedness; which is difficult, given the dichotomous nature of the Washington 2nd's political geography. He's served our agricultural, military, and big business interests (Boeing) while maintaining his Democratic credentials. However, he did vote for the war, and he also voted for that atrocious Sensenbrenner immigration bill (which was out of left field - I still have no idea why he voted for that racist dribble...). I voted for him again in November, and while I still supported his candidacy, it was with a little less enthusiasm.

My faith has been, in part, restored (he still has a lot of climbing if he intends to get himself out of that Sensenbrenner hole...). The Seattle Times reported today that President Bush has been targeting specific members of Congress in an effort to co-opt them to support his inevitable escalation of the war. Alicia Mundy reports that the President included Rep. Larsen as one of those members of Congress whom he supposedly took into his confidence by laying out "secret" strategies for the Iraq conflict. However, when he met with two other members of the Washington delegation - Rep. Dicks and Rep. Smith - his story changed. When comparing notes on the President's narrative, Rick Larsen noticed inconsistencies.

Apparently, no mention of an Iraqi impetus for the so-called "surge" was made to him, while it was considered central to the strategy laid out by Bush to Norm Dicks and Adam Smith.

"...when reports of the plan leaked out, Larsen smelled a ruse.

Larsen told Dicks that nobody at the White House had mentioned any Iraqi-driven plan to him a few days earlier.

He speculated that the explanation had been drummed up by Bush's political advisers at the last minute to try to placate more senior members.

News stories confirmed that al-Maliki himself was denying responsibility for the plan.

Larsen, Dicks and Smith are now dug in against the escalation. And Larsen says he does not trust the Iraqis to show up to fight.

The White House 'changed the sales pitch,' Larsen said, adding: 'I don't buy it.' "

Perhaps this is an example of the Dems having actually grown a pair. Of course, such a claim must be backed by action.

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