A Review of Taming Economic Rationalism: Wishful Thinking

A Review of Taming Economic Rationalism: Wishful Thinking

This book departs from orthodox methods of arguments development, referencing, content bibliographies and what the establishment would consider good academic content development.

If anything, the theories Tom Payne is juggling about here seem similar to a custom job on a manufactured product in a home-based workshop. I am not sure if the end product is any way improved as a result. First, I bought this book because it cost almost nothing, has zero critical acclaim, and its affection for Maslowian precepts, something every Pavlovian likes to chuck about are the theories and concepts gristled about even by Maslow. Sometimes you just have to dip your rod into the mysterious depths of the unknown and go fish. So that is why I ended up reading this book. I am not sure however if I would recommend it to anyone.

However I am also still not sure if I really learned anything from this writer. I just kept searching for threads of relevancy that I have to admit I could hardly find. As this writer does not even ascribe to what might be considered paragraphs or explanatory notes on wildly perceived and at times clearly considered topics, it is hard to imagine who the considered audience is supposed to be. However there are many points to which I would agree, however there are few, far too few, exemplifications of research or even support for research, in this text.

For example, I would agree corporations are the prime beneficiaries of global economic deregulations. However I would like to see evidence for arriving at such a conclusion. Furthermore, Payne seeks to address a philanthropic element of Maslowian hierarchies of needs, a feature of which even Glasser reviews in his own control theory, but to which Payne caps out the pyramid with an actualisation of communitarian philanthropy over-riding self-esteem and the attainment of luxuries. However the evidence-based requirements for suggesting such a permutation is not only actual are absent, but realistically considering that this is the next step in global economic development is problematic. However, as far as theories, anything is possible. Thankfully one does not have to agree with all of them or any of them.

Net accruments of wealth in the top percentiles of population, corporate organisation, and individuals in developed world economies have not provided evidence to support Payne's claims that the world is on the verge of a great philanthropic dispersal of capital. Perhaps the needs of the common man are more developed in the awareness of needs inequalities than in meeting any of them. It could be considered in the inverse that the benefits required of the most needy are often more proportionally accounted of their earnings as costs and not as redistributed corporate benefits provided by the rich. These nevertheless do not appear to be over-flowing with a gradual reallocation of the world's distributed wealth to the needy and poor with larger and larger dividend yields, investments, and financial returns.

In terms of corporate benefactors contributing to the needs of the poor, real needs are always indirectly supported through servicing corporate goals at achieving maximum return on investment which can effect allocations based on improving corporate image regardless of scale or proportional control of the allocated donations. So Payne's model seems entirely overly optimistic and wishfully contrived. Payne's discussion regarding Maslowian systems management seems to be superceeded by international trade and investment growth during the last twenty-five years. What he discusses as problems come as no surprise. He claims the public sector is higly dualistic concerning its role as a responsible arbitor and assessing its own limitations of policy influence. However, these are issues which could be considered specifically as evidence indicates that nations with successfully moderated public sectors have most successfully driven free trade and global economic forces over the last twenty-five years. Thus the centralised distribution of power within public sectors claimed by Payne must be observed in many developed nations as a historical referencing which no longer really exists. Reallocations of public capital have already taken place to support global growth as it occurs today.

While Payne writes that eventually developed world consumers will tire of living and spending beyond their means there appears no evidence for this. Furthermore, international markets defined as alternative sources of revenue for companies attempting to serve tired consumer markets have been highly developed and appear not to slow the consumption patterns of most developed nations. He seems overly optimistic that multinationals will lead a new surge in philanthropy. I would posit that since these companies cannot even seem to get even mediocre self-regulation right collectively then they will have little to contribute on a philanthropic level globally other than well-placed, sparsely financed initiatives which include only the most photogenic of beneficiaries, those most useful to be slotted into advertising and marketing campaigns. These days, MNCs seem firmly convinced that sweatshop labour is the answer to developing world issues. Furthermore, no where does Payne consider the power of microcredit.

Everything is "peaches and cream" for Payne as he predicts that soon enough the developed world will cease to exploit the natural and human capital resources of developing nations. As the accumulative yellow sands and dusts of Asia will attest, this does not seem a near enough term of decline measurable within single or even multiple lifetimes. Payne seems to think research supported claims can be substiuted with trite comments of a highly generalist nature such as:

"Money is valuable throughout the world."

"The number of electors in a modern national electorate is typically 70,000 or more."

His final notes regard the possibility of establishing economic democracy, assessment and testing of Payne's ideas and learning about them. It would be nice if Payne himself would get around to testing and evaluating them in his own community, possibly ripe for such research, to make such ideas a little more palatable to the general public. Furthermore, a few trips to the communitarian libraries available to him might help flesh out this volume. While Payne decries the gross inequities of power, and position from learjet executives to slum dwellers in rural India, he offers few insights into how he has grown an economic systems theory which offers more equitable distribution of wealth than that which captialism proports as its established actions and reactions concerning the dinner bells.

What Payne perceives as self-actualised moderation of developed world development away from consumption towards philanthropy runs in the face of humanist economic perspectives such as enlightened self interest. It just does not fit well with what could be expected of general consumers. There are very few individuals who could contest that capitalism is the least of all possible economic evils and that sadly, it implies one man's gain at another man's expense. When Payne can explain clearly how to convince corporate societies, guilds, networks, and sheep shearers of how their redistributed assets or losses, namely reallocation of speculative resources for the gains of others will be of greater benefit to their own economic well-being, then that will be momentous.

If he proves anything with perfection, it is the adage: "No Man Is An Island." For the sake of future readers and your theories, Mr. Payne, please go to the library.