(no subject)

[Brad DeLong]

>>Ah. Now we're getting into "Their Morals and Ours" territory... Is it
>>more immoral for the United States to issue an ultimatum to
>>Afghanistan (if it is indeed Osama bin Laden's group that is
>>responsible) and to follow through (if bin Laden and company are not
>>delivered) with massive retaliation (and thus to kill innocent
>>civilians by the office-tower-load)? Or is it more immoral not to
>>take actions that kill yet more innocent civilians by the
>>office-tower-load, and thus to teach every fanatic for the next
>>century that large-scale terrorism is a really effective way of
>>getting the world's attention, and has little downside, and so set
>>the table for even more massive civilian casualties in the more
>>distant future?
>>
>>I don't know the answer. One reason I do economics and not political
>>science is that even thinking about such questions leaves me
>>profoundly depressed...
>>
>>Brad DeLong
>
>This is one of the most revealing comments I've seen you make, Brad. 
>Something that fascinates me about economics is the abstraction that 
>is involved and the way that aids in sanitizing capitalism's basic 
>grubbiness and insulating the observer from the sheer brutality that 
>fills the marketplace.  You guys seem content just to twiddle with 
>your globalistic formulas -- math is the fun part, as you say -- and 
>set them loose in the field via outfits like the IMF; then, boom!, 
>when the natives revolt and Indonesia is torn apart or the 
>WTC/Pentagon is blown up, the political scientists are left with the 
>hard work, tackling thorny moral problems that never should have 
>arisen in the first place.
>
>Carl

Sheer brutality that fills the marketplace? Indonesia where working 
class standards of living today are four times what they were a third 
of a century ago?

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to drop out of this list. Too many 
ignorant fools, and its pushing me rightward into a place where I 
don't want to be.

Brad DeLong