I reproduce below in its entirety and without any comment from me, send me the answer that Mr. Jean-Claude Koeune the article posted on December 13 last. Once is not custom, usually, the comments are posting in the section provided for this purpose at the bottom of each article. But as Mr. Koeune was very fortunate to be a personal post, controversial and long enough, it seems logical that appears here as exceptionally "contributor" in itself.
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Dear Colleague,
I finally took the time to read your responses to the comment I made in your paper. I also read with interest the text of your conference on November 20 last Altercité [click here - CA] , which unfortunately I had heard while the peroration, given a change program which I had not been warned.
I begin with a focus that matters to me. You seem to blame me - or rather: have a negative perception of the fact that I worked as an economist in the banking sector, "industry which unfortunately " - my emphasis - "you have been involved" you write below, and your blog:
1. "Jean-Claude Koeune has long worked in (the) core banking and finance (capital), as chief economist in a large commercial bank - to a level of responsibility, where no doubt, the 'welfare to work' prevailed (helped by the level of pay) on ill-being ".
2." The quotation from Voltaire can certainly raise a smile between two small furnaces in the cocktail lounge a large bank.
3. "It is true that on your side, long economist in a bank, you may not be a 'hate' against the system that your favors."
4 ". ... commitments sincere but very problematic for economists to straddle the large bank, high finance and economics education.
5 ". ... that human beings should live under the yoke of monetary and financial logic that you worked your whole life to build.
I fear that in doing so, you may insinuate into the minds of your readers - though perhaps no was not your intention - the idea that this experience would make me unfit to discuss objectively the vices and virtues of society that is ours. If this is what you think, let me disagree with you strongly. Those who heard me in the workshop on financial regulation at the same symposium, 20 November Altercité can testify that they had no case to a spokesman banking system.
Without charge you the story of my life, I want you to know this:
- After 11 years in research and teaching economics at several universities abroad, I am returned to Belgium in 1977, hoping to find a job in a Belgian university, but probably had I been gone too long ... Anyway, I took a few months after the first job they offered me, very badly paid, in a cabinet: having a family to feed, having moreover not entitled to unemployment compensation , I did not have to be choosy. I finally spent 10 good years with a series of Belgian governments and I think the general interest in positions inherently unstable (like those governments) rather poorly paid, and where weekly hours of work commonly exceeded 60, even 70 hours. Unhappiness at work? Certainly not average, because it was very interesting and it taught me a lot.
- In May 1988, I voluntarily left the cabinet ministers to seek more stable employment, as I pointed unemployed for a few months, and I am forever grateful to the Banque Bruxelles Lambert for having committed at the age of 50 years as chief economist , September 88. Again I could not afford to be choosy, but frankly I'd never thought about it, because I was very pleased to have the opportunity to work in a private company - which, after University and public service, was missing from my experience - and, more importantly, to work in a bank, "the banking and financial heart of capitalism" as you so well, I dreamed long as that the economist, because that is where a good factory Part of the money supply.
This biographical point brings me to an important point of our disagreement: you deplore in your message below the "little secret arrangements" of the banking sector with what you call "counterfeiting" and the "logic of dispossession of money creation by private agents, which would you consider" anti-democratic. " Other comments on your blog are from the same barrel, and the fifth section of your conference on 20 November when you plead for a "radical reform of money creation" and you rebel against "the logic of debt-money - Reminiscent of the counterfeiter and the casino player.
noted first that "small agreements" you are talking about are not secret: it is a fact known to all the world - in any case it should be, and it would be if all aspiring citizens received at school correct information on the economy and the currency - that banks (whether they are of private or public does not alter the case) are behind the creation of a significant portion of the money, and it occurs spontaneously through the mechanism of credit, which in itself does not create money - - it simply transfers liquidity - but is originally a creation of additional money from the moment the IOUs of individuals or institutions are accepted as payment and begin to circulate in parallel with the economy fiat money. Suppose a monetary alternatives that you recommend in your project of "radical reform" means the day: "Governments may by order remove all commercial banks a monopoly of money creation, and be inspired, as close democratic control. " Never mind that encounter considerable difficulties this "narrow democratic control" to arbitrate between the competing interests of depositors, borrowers, and bank employees. But do you honestly believe that this reform will eliminate you money creation that comes from debt ... unless of course you dispose of it and the credit mechanism by banning it altogether. But this is not what you want, or I'm wrong?
Another important point of disagreement between us regarding the "internalities anthropo-environmental." Forgive me for accusing him of having "invented" this concept, and I pay gladly to Ivan Illich his due, without further certifies the concept to me: the only book I read was Illich A society without school in years 70, and I was not encouraged to read other works by the same author, his thoughts seemed to me inspired generous bill but confused. But never mind.
The substance of the matter is this. I accept that there are indeed "internalities anthropo-environmental" work-related: for if I take your definition of internalities ("a result of activity for some economic actors who participate in internal and goes against the rationale of the activity in question "), I quickly concluded that most human activities (not just economic) include such internalities, and they are positive or negative, and often one and the other for the same individual at different times. A concept as commonplace, and difficult to measure such generality does not seem very useful for reflection and analysis. pompously called the deal a "internalities anthropo-environmental" is, in my view, the pseudo-science. In this meaning that I wrote previously that such a concept does not "was not the road."
For the rest I do not deny nor denies the suffering at work, whatever you pretend, and you do not believe me maybe if I tell you I have known something, but simply I deny that it is in our society more than in other industrial societies (we are not in Arcadia), "a phenomenon profound, widespread, almost Epidemiological order" and there is no as a "welfare to work" that must also be considered. I accept that suffering is at work on average increased recent decades, at least in the West (as if that were hard working conditions in Chinese production, I think they are less bad than those of working the land in rural China, unless one considers that hundreds of million Chinese have become masochists), this increase has resulted from globalization, the downward pressure it generated on the remuneration of unskilled labor in the West, and threats of relocation or insecurity of a series of jobs. I still believe we can reduce that suffering by trade union action by the national governments, for better cooperation between them, particularly within the ILO and WTO, and, finally, by adopting global standards (I agree on this point with the first "front" you propose to open in your conference, 20 November) whatever the difficulty of that task. "In its largest effort," Camus wrote, "man can only propose to diminish the pain of the world arithmetically" ( The Rebel, p. 374).
About quotes, I regret that you have found "distasteful" my quote Voltaire on the suffering at work. I should rather quote Oscar Wilde: " Work Is the Curse of the drinking classes ! But seriously, if your ethics and that of the new society that tolerates birth you want as little humor, no thank you!
Last point: in About what I wrote on the company town and company dormitories you write: "JCK we therefore suggest that it is really urgent - and probably good for the growth imperative of the global economy - that every Chinese has a car so that he, too, exercise the 'freedom to choose their place of residence'. The implication for the relocation of economic activities, a return extended towards smaller and rhythms, it is preferred the rule of 'freedom'. "You will see a sign" of the inability of many alleged progressives to understand contemporary issues. "I want to clarify this, for you and those of your readers:
- I do not consider myself "progressive", calling it too often this term in contemporary language people incredibly backward-looking to my eyes;
- I have absolutely no suggestion that it was urgent that every Chinese has a car, if you reread my comment, you will find that I have not once used the word car can move otherwise. Personally, I am a long time supporter of public transport;
- more fundamentally, for me that at present travel between home and workplace resulting in the most choice freely exercised today or in the past, and there is no need therefore to consider them as "internalities" negative, does any part of my approval of the overall situation created by the free choices, because it This fact produces far too many negative externalities , I personally find much preferable to a state where roads are less congested, road transport cleaner, and used public transport more, and I think as an economist, that the freedom to choose, I defend, is exercised through individual budget constraints and family, who are themselves largely determined by the price system, which may not accurately reflect the actual costs (including the environmental cost) alternatives available to individual choice. I obviously do not teach you anything, but do not make me say that I have absolutely no say or suggest.
With that, I salute you,
Jean-Claude Koeune
PS. You can put this comment in your blog, provided it is incorporated in its entirety .
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