Friday, September 7, 2012

"State of Human Capital Utilization"

commentary by Roger Erickson

A report and accompanying film are out.

State of the World's Minorities and Indigenous Peoples 2012

This Could be Generalized to "State of Human Capital Utilization"

What's money got to do with capital? Just another automatic stabilizer.

It's telling that the paradigm most commonly voiced by developers is that local people are standing in the way of others utilizing static "riches." Such a definition of development and "finance", as rape, is then a rallying cry to angrily take said riches by force from the "obstructionists," who are subsequently typically labeled as terrorists. Talk about not being able to see the human capital for all the people!

By this measure, the list of prominent terrorists throughout history would include most notable religious martyrs, nearly all regional tribes in every land, and, of course, all the signatories to our own US Constitution. Oh, and we must now also include that 99% of our current population who are standing in the way of our 1%, who simply want to put OUR resources to "better" use - by and for them, of course. But of what use is their form of use?  Their use always turns out to a confused state of the tail hoarding the dog.  Buddy can you spare a paradigm?  We seem to all be in the way of the one we have.

However, there are other paradigms to select from. One is as follows.

"Venimus, Vidimus, Perfecimus Eventus Accommodatos" 

[We came, we saw, we made a more perfect union.]

What is wrong with an education system that can teach superficial aspects of accounting, relativity, organic chemistry, and nuclear engineering to vast numbers of people, yet can't or won't teach a topic as rudimentary and fundamental as the difference between static and dynamic value?

Without that distinction, supposed "capitalists" show only an abject failure to compound net human capital. Some capitalists! If you're gonna aspire to be one, it might help to define and rank the forms of capital, and what they mean to citizens of a nation, and members of a social species.  Is dynamic value EVER mentioned in accounting classes?

1 comment:

John Lounsbury said...

You asked: "Is dynamic value ever mentioned in accounting classes?"

I am reminded of the of the definition of bean counters: "They know the price of everything and the value of nothing."

They are one step ahead of neoclassical (mainstream) economists though who don't even consider cash flows in there static equilibrium models.

There are problems here on many different levels.