Hating the Obvious 2

As pointed out one and a half years ago, the hate of the obvious (HTO) is all that remains when two contradictory explanations seem true at the same time. For instance, a conspiracy by an elite and a lack of interest by policy-makers turn out quite similar in their effects. The evil and the banal. Incompetence and detest. The economics of the « huge » interim - a pandemic, a war, a profit-based inflation, a de-risking state and, in the now famous words of Stephanie Kelton from 2022 « Deliberate. Coordinated. Recession. »  -, and the economics of an undisturbed gradually deteriorating capitalism following its own rules. An earth circling the sun and a sun circling the earth.

Hating the Obvious

(Warum bin ich so müde?) Im September bin ich einmal mit der Deutschen Bahn gefahren. Wegen des Streiksfiel der Zug aus - ich musste anrufen; die junge Frau summte mit abgetöteterStimme, sie sei nicht zuständig: «Wo soll ich denn anrufen?» «Hier auf dieserNummer, aber nicht heute.» «Wann

SPORADICAL CHICuser2

It is the task of any science to uncover the right of two seemingly similar solutions. But there is a stalement, a game theoretical equilibrium that lies in neither of the two or rather in a mix of both of them, and it constantly slips out of the scientific sight. A conspiracy and a democracy coexist strangely. The sun is circling the earth and the earth is circling the sun, albeit one of those things is more of a fantasy while the other one is a scientific agreement (a very sophisticated fantasy tied to much more relations in the fantasy world). Truth is, both is happening at the same time in society, and they create together a turbulence, a fragmented circling of piecemeal circlings. All of this is just a matter of logistics, of hierarchical pathways of accessability. As is their stable equilibrium, the stalement.

«Suppose a caterpillar is locked in a sterile safe by someone unfamiliar with insect metamorphosis, and weeks later the safe is reopened, revealing a butterfly. If the person knows that the safe has been shut the whole time, he has reason to believe that the butterfly is or was once the caterpillar, without having any idea in what sense this might be so. (One possibility is that the caterpillar contained a tiny winged parasite that devoured it and grew into the butterfly.)» (Thomas Nagel, What Is It Like to Be a Bat?)

Record scratch * / * Freeze Frame * / Yup, that´s me. You´re probably wondering how I got into this situation

« Unfamiliar » with an insect, Nagel wrote, as if the Ivy league vampire family does not include the caterpillar, as if a person with money enough for a safe, knowing the passcode and not opening it for weeks does not know anything about metamorphosis and cocooning (of parasites for sure). This is the obvious: The possibility that a tiny winged parasite devoured the caterpillar and that it made a very uncommon and beautiful transformation all by itself. At the same time. Real- and Unrealabstraktion.

The Martians look at earth the way this person looks into the safe and finds a butterfly. They can only track changes and draw their conclusions about « in what sense this might be so ». But on the other hand this just might be the way how economics work. It is the nosey « underneath it all » of a spectator from above.

« The culture of the conversation makes the words arcane. But the people in the unfamiliar conversation are not Martians. Underneath it all (the economist´s favorite phrase) conversational habits are similar. Economics uses mathematical models and statistical tests and market arguments, all of which look alien to the literary eye. But looked at closely they are not so alien. » (McCloskey, The Rhetoric of Economics)

In 1820, in a debate at the House of Commons, Henry Brougham criticized that economist David Ricardo « had argued as if he had dropped from another planet ». He would rather treat the matter « as if this were a land of the most perfect liberty of trade—as if there were no taxes—no drawback—no bounties—no searchers—on any other branch of trade but agriculture; as if, in this Utopian world, of his hon. friend’s creation the first measure of restriction ever thought on was that on the importation of corn; as if all classes of the community were alike—as if all trades were on an equal footing; and that, in this new state, we were called upon to decide the abstract question, whether or not there should be a protecting price for corn? »

Notably, Ricardo might have dropped from another planet - a utopian one - and regards earth as if it was still the same one. It is not the other way round that the extraterrestrials are a better fit to understand the intricacies of the earthly system by their distance and relative progress (as is often the case, in a « stranger in a strange land » setting). Brougham labels it ‹otherworldly› to assume one could decide the « abstract question » of the price for corn and to strip agriculture from all the other branches of trade it impacts. There are taxes, drawbacks, bounties, searchers (?) to account for.

Brougham might be right, that things are much more connected, and that the industrial composition of the economy is always to be considered. If they would, those Martians would also see a huge difference between 2019 and 2023, by the way. But maybe agriculture could be treated all by itself, as if it was an isolated system. As long as it performs as if it was isolated, everything is fine. Who cares whether the caterpillar has evolved into the butterfly or if a parasite has devoured it? Both are beautiful and « flit from place to place », as they say. It´s the economy-stupid. A stupidity that is economical (Ockham) and extraterrestrial.

To calculate the price of corn in relation to a determinant, William Stanley Jevons developed the sunspot theory, by which he tried to prove that production cycles of corn are dependent on sunspots clouding solar rays which in turn influence the weather. He traced the instances of crisis and high prices of corn on 1825, 1836-1839, 1847, 1857, 1866 « and I was almost adding 1879, so convinced do I feel that there will, within the next few years, be another great crisis». Cycles  somewhat similar to those of the sunspots of 11.1 years, but not convincingly. He was immediately ridiculed for it by the public and the theory is still widely dismissed, but in an important twist he located the crucial economic factor outside of the planet earth, in a solar distance.

And maybe he was not so off. In a famous paper, Krugman hoped « that we may eventually discover or construct a world to which orthodox economic theory applies. It is obvious, then, that economists have a special interest in understanding, and, indeed, in promoting the development of an interstellar economy. » What sounds like the ironical response to a common critique of « orthodox » economics is maybe just a truth: Economics is Martian in the first place, exactly because Mars is the second place it takes place in. It is the lagging representation of what earth once might have been, and by returning to earth in the technical words of economists, economics appears maximum Martian. This is why the entombed « underneath it all » is at the same von Däniken time very, very far away and quite old.

Consider this:
« Pharaoh's Broker: Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner (Written by Himself) (1899), is a Planetary Romance set on Mars, where parallel Evolution has resulted in a society almost identical to that of Egypt in the time of Joseph. In the end the hero, having been a grain-broker in Chicago, is able to take on Joseph's role. » (SF Encyclopedia: Douglass, Ellsworth)

Or this:
« Die Nation kömmt sich vor wie jener närrische Engländer in Bedlam, der zur Zeit der alten Pharaonen zu leben meint und täglich über die harten Dienste jammert, die er in den äthiopischen Bergwerken als Goldgräber verrichten muß, eingemauert in dies unterirdische Gefängnis, eine spärlich leuchtende Lampe auf dem eigenen Kopfe befestigt, hinter ihm der Sklavenaufseher mit langer Peitsche und an den Ausgängen ein Gewirr von barbarischen Kriegsknechten, die weder die Zwangsarbeiter in den Bergwerken, noch sich untereinander verstehn, weil sie keine gemeinsame Sprache reden. „Und dies alles wird mir“ – seufzt der närrische Engländer – „mir, dem freigebornen Briten, zugemutet, um Gold für die alten Pharaonen zu machen.“ » (Karl Marx, Der achtzehnte Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte)

And consider just some examples of the Daniela Gabors alien language as an illustration:

It´s not only that this language is full of special terms and abbreviation — it is meant to be Martian: not a nice language, not a beautiful one, but not even a technical or functional one. Entirely new and strange, curated by the amazing and very much not-orthodox Gabor.

Or consider the business man who is trying to understand the scientist who found a tool to offset gravity and which he wants to exploit for his « enterprises »: «  Half his words were technicalities entirely strange to me, and he illustrated one or two points with what he was pleased to call elementary mathematics, computing on an envelope with a copying-ink pencil, in a manner that made it hard even to seem to understand. » (H. G. Wells, The First Men in the Moon)

« A manner that made it hard even to seem to understand », obviously not so obvious. ‹Hard to understand› is a good description of hieroglyphic economic theory and its complex mathematizations (but what means complex, anyway?). While the public and the state have to help de-risk and bail out the banks, what is happening is always happening beforehand or beneath Paradeplatz or behind closed doors, and we knew that: it is not understandable from the obvious alone, or maybe it is obvious that it is not so obvious. We know it alreay, when we read the news.

The story goes like this: that we could have « foreseen » it, but why did no one? Because no one in their right mind expects to trust sight in a matter of capital, or only a very distant, uncovering sight. Economics is the Obvious that is searching for the Not-Obvious underneath it all, the old-fashioned surprise, having jumped the shark very long ago. And we were told to adopt it. We know all that too good, and we also know, that it is not the whole truth, but only one part (circling around the other part like a sun around the earth). The truth is the Obvious we´re told not to hate. It is obviously not the case, that everything is hidden and cryptic and unintelligible, we know that. But we also don´t know the whole story and know we´ll never will. It's ‹hard even to seem to understand.› And the economy is, after all, a bit complex, innit?

Most of the talk about the ‹complexity› of economics is probably just a ploy to distract the public, as well as the sideeffect of creating more and more financial derivative devices that are not regulated and not covered by the language of law (Pistor), which results by default in an anti-language to the speculegality linguistic that pervades us. But the strange language is not restricted to orthodox economics, but rather thrives in Daniela Gabors alien tweets. But while the one thing is the pharaonic way of talking hieroglyphical, the other is Martian. The Martian is the uncanny person who is looking into the safe into which they have boxed in a caterpillar, but this time its humans and the safe or tomb is the planet. It is exactly this way of talking, looking and making the « words arcane », that still proposes the biggest potential for economics.

Why should you look underneath it all, when you can look above? And why do you need to uncover the truth, when you can cover the truth by something even stronger, similarly to the power when you uncovered truth (yes, we are circling the sun of the Höhlengleichnis).
As music looks big in small things, economics looks small in big things, and the view from very far away makes clear that it is the only planetary science as of now.

The satirical party « Die Partei » once posted a photo somewhere (can´t find it anymore) of a sign mocking the Fridays for Future protests. It was also the most accurate Marxist statement on that topic I have ever seen: « There are many planets, but only one Capitalism. » And it only emerges - and can only be overcome - between the planets. It seems as if one is circling around the other, either one, but it is so hard even to seem to understand it.