In the Belly of the Beast

When you walk down the halls of corporate America, you don't bump into any economists. Why is that?

Economists are much more useful preaching the gospel of the true religion outside the belly of the beast. You know, the rationally calculating economic man and the wonderful capitalist machine that will go of itself if people would just leave it alone.

However, in the belly of the beast things aren't quite so handsome. Spend a year or two in conference rooms talking about who will have a job and who won't when one company buys another, and you'll see a much different calculation going on. Take your favorite financial spreadsheet and run it through the shredder because it won't do you any good.

As John Kenneth Galbraith was fond of saying, there's the myth and the reality.

Some economists are fond of saying that a planned economy won't work because nobody can plan people's wants. Why that logic applies for a social program and not inside the belly of the beast eludes me.

Alone at night, I read my Galbraith more, and Tech Central less.

Thanks to Jodi Dean at I Cite for inspiring the notion.