The Triple Economy [1st draft]
Aug. 29th, 2024 07:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nebrisIt's been at least thirty years since I read Schumacher, so I shall keep my critique of his work constrained until I re-read it, though preliminary research indicates that his thinking in many ways in rather well aligned with my own.
Greer's ideas are readily available on line, but to critique him properly, I still need to re-read Schumacher.
As ever and Goddess Willing, more shall be revealed.
~In his prescient volume, Small is Beautiful, E.F. Schumacher made the observation that there was both a Primary Economy, which consists of what 'nature' provides, what Capitalism would call 'raw materials', and a Secondary Economy, which is the actual production of 'finished goods' from said raw materials.
More than three decades later, J.M. Greer expanded upon this paradigm by the keen observation that there is a Tertiary Economy, one which manipulates the first two. He is speaking purely of Industrial Capitalism as his writing comes in the post-Soviet era, but it's clear that Soviet Communism was just as much a Tertiary Economic Model as Capitalism. It simply reached its End Game first.
In laying out the framework for an Economic Model for The New Matriarchy, I shall utilize [and modify] many of the ideas of Schumacher, and to a lesser extent, Greer, though I shall also reject portions of these ideas for reasons I will make clear below. [eventually]
First, I believe it necessary to make some change in terminology. Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary are all a bit too vague. They refer to the order of things, but not their content. So, I have renamed them and begun to expand upon their definition.
The Primary or “Natural” Economy:
The phrase Natural Economy is more evocative of the meaning intended, the resources available in Nature. It needs to be pointed out however that Nature is not limited to this world alone, that the Universe has vast resources as well. But we shall stay with Natural Economy as 'universal economy' could be confused with other constructs.
The Secondary or “Productive” Economy:
This really covers everything from Geppetto cobbling a single pair of shoes in his workshop to the vast machinery of ConAgra harvesting twenty million acres in the American heartland. Hopefully, one day it will include things like an industrial complex at El Five and the mining of the Asteroid Belt.
The Tertiary or “Conceptual” Economy:
This is the part that does not actually exist in solid reality, hence “Conceptual”. It could also be called the “Ideological” Economy. It is dangerous in that it is not constrained by real world factors like the first two, at least not until those real world factors make themselves known and usually in a catastrophic manner, like bursting of housing bubbles, or, in the case of the Soviet Union, the clear failure of the Concept itself.
So, The Triple Economy is the set of the Natural, Production, and Conceptual Economies.
It is in the area of the latter that the economy of The New Matriarchy shall first take shape.
Greer's ideas are readily available on line, but to critique him properly, I still need to re-read Schumacher.
As ever and Goddess Willing, more shall be revealed.
~In his prescient volume, Small is Beautiful, E.F. Schumacher made the observation that there was both a Primary Economy, which consists of what 'nature' provides, what Capitalism would call 'raw materials', and a Secondary Economy, which is the actual production of 'finished goods' from said raw materials.
More than three decades later, J.M. Greer expanded upon this paradigm by the keen observation that there is a Tertiary Economy, one which manipulates the first two. He is speaking purely of Industrial Capitalism as his writing comes in the post-Soviet era, but it's clear that Soviet Communism was just as much a Tertiary Economic Model as Capitalism. It simply reached its End Game first.
In laying out the framework for an Economic Model for The New Matriarchy, I shall utilize [and modify] many of the ideas of Schumacher, and to a lesser extent, Greer, though I shall also reject portions of these ideas for reasons I will make clear below. [eventually]
First, I believe it necessary to make some change in terminology. Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary are all a bit too vague. They refer to the order of things, but not their content. So, I have renamed them and begun to expand upon their definition.
The Primary or “Natural” Economy:
The phrase Natural Economy is more evocative of the meaning intended, the resources available in Nature. It needs to be pointed out however that Nature is not limited to this world alone, that the Universe has vast resources as well. But we shall stay with Natural Economy as 'universal economy' could be confused with other constructs.
The Secondary or “Productive” Economy:
This really covers everything from Geppetto cobbling a single pair of shoes in his workshop to the vast machinery of ConAgra harvesting twenty million acres in the American heartland. Hopefully, one day it will include things like an industrial complex at El Five and the mining of the Asteroid Belt.
The Tertiary or “Conceptual” Economy:
This is the part that does not actually exist in solid reality, hence “Conceptual”. It could also be called the “Ideological” Economy. It is dangerous in that it is not constrained by real world factors like the first two, at least not until those real world factors make themselves known and usually in a catastrophic manner, like bursting of housing bubbles, or, in the case of the Soviet Union, the clear failure of the Concept itself.
So, The Triple Economy is the set of the Natural, Production, and Conceptual Economies.
It is in the area of the latter that the economy of The New Matriarchy shall first take shape.
