Joe Taylor's Searching
THE NOBEL PRIZE in physics was awarded recently, and one of the two scientists who shared in the award is a Quaker. Joe Taylor and one of his students, Russell Hulse, discovered the first known binary pulsar. A pulsar is a "collapsed star," a star which has fallen in on itself....The discovery is important because it lends support to Einstein’s theory of relativity....
I can remember the day nearly 20 years ago when Joe Taylor made his discovery.
One Sunday morning at worship, Joe came bouncing in the door-there is no other word to describe his energy. He sat down next to me and we settled into the quiet of unprogrammed worship. As we sat there, I could feel how excited Joe was about something—he was literally quivering with barely-suppressed excitement. The whole bench was shaking/quaking.
After a few minutes, Joe stood up and told the group about the discovery he and one of his students had made the night before. I didn’t understand how important the discovery was at the time, but I remember the heart of Joe’s message. To him all scientific discovery is also a religious discovery. There is no conflict between science and religion. Our knowledge of God is made larger with every discovery we make about the world.
It has taken the rest of the world and the Nobel Prize Committee a long time to catch of with the purely scientific significance of the discovery. How long will it take the world tocatch up with its spiritual significance?
All of the various disciplines which seek todiscover or to express the truth....have a basically religious impulse. Whoever searches for truth is also searching, one way or another, for God. -- Joshua Brown, 1993.
Added 9th Month 20, 1998
William Vickrey
1914-1996
Professor of Economics, emeritus, Columbia University;
President of the American Economic Association for 1992
1996 Nobel Memorial Prize in EconomicsVickrey and the Religious Critique of Classicism
by: Gernot Kohler
Oakville, Canada
mini #37 Nov. 1996Late William Vickrey's paper, "We Need a Bigger Deficit", concludes with a reference to "cross", "crucification", and "human values have been expunged."
Professor Vickrey was a devout Quaker.
| (Quoting from a Canadian column in his honour, The
Globe and Mail, 24 Oct. 1996, p. A24:)
"Mr. Vickrey never forgot the horrors of the Depression. His American father ran a relief agency that aided orphans of the Armenian holocaust, which left young Bill with a life-long concern for the less fortunate and little regard for personal wealth. ... During the Second World War, Mr. Vickrey worked at a government job in Puerto Rico as a conscientious objector. The war left him as a devout Quaker, a religion he shared with his wife ..." |
With this background, William Vickrey's rejection of Classicism was as much a critique of economic theories as a religious rejection of the underlying value system of Classicism (ideology, value axioms, "Weltanschauung", worldview).
And, indeed, the brutality of Classicist economics is rooted in its value system, which tramples on the cherished values of at least three major religions.
IMPORTANT NOTE: In the following, I distinguish between (a) the market as a practical instrument of economic organization (good) and (b) "The Market" as an object of worship (bad). I am favouring the first and attacking the second.
The Neoclassicist worldview places "The Market" at the center of everything (denying the relevance of other values cherished by local, national and global communities, for example, the value of "protection of the vulnerable", or "protection of the ecological system").
In the Neoclassicist view, "The Market" has the following properties:
(1) KNOWS ALL -- the price signals of "The Market" provide all the information that matters. Other information, e.g., from social groups, ecological experts, etc. is considered irrelevant. "The Market" knows all.
"The Market" is omniscient.
(2) CAN DO ALL -- all problems can be resolved by market mechanisms. There is nothing the market cannot accomplish. There is nothing the government or social groups can do that "The Market" cannot do more effectively. "The Market" can do all.
"The Market" is omnipotent.
(3) KIND TO ALL-- "The Market" does everything optimally. Pareto optimality. Once "The Market" has done its job, no further improvements are possible. "The Market's" solution is the best for all groups. "The Market" is kind to all.
"The Market" is all-benign.
These observations suggest that Classicism assigns to "The Market" the three attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and all-kindness. In Christian theology these are the attributes of God.
To worship "The Market" as the highest value principle is incompatible with worshipping God (Jewish, Christian, Moslem) as the highest source of value (as per Moses, Commandment #1).
Vickrey, as a Quaker, was not a worshipper of "The Market". His economic critique was rooted in his religious critique.
Considering the importance of the value systems operating behind the scientific surfaces of economic positions, Keynesians could, perhaps, find allies in the various religious communities. By comparison, the Catholic Church of Poland helped the Polish people to (a) maintain their society during the 19th century, when Poland was divided and annexed by Russia, Germany and Austria; and (b) to defend Polish society against the worst excesses of Stalinism.
Added 8th Month 13, 2000
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