I reserve the right to be wrong.
We tend to personify things with no will of their own. I grant you a lot of fish, swimming together for protection, may seem possessed of a shared will. But it just seems that way. The group does not have a mind of its own. For all the group-think in the world, there are no known group-minds.
And so to some examples;
THE CORPORATION
A voluntarily sustained legal fiction. PepsiCo can sue and be sued in turn despite not being a living being. There are a load of buildings and equipment owned by this fiction, and the decisions of the fiction are made by a bunch of appointed individuals.
The bank account may have the company name on it, but that account is handled by a person, ironically someone paid from that same corporate bank account.
THE GOVERNMENT
Another legal fiction, this time maintained by force of arms and threats. In more recent years the government has introduced some tasty carrots along with its sticks, in particular taxpayer-funded welfare systems, to ensure a large majority of people have skin in the government's game of thrones.
US
Yeah. Us. By this I mean the arbitrary group you are born into. Generally people's sympathies with regard to group lie with the Nation State. So the state has a central place in creating illusions of a group-mind.
THEM
People of a different arbitrary group to your own. The individuals of the other groups become homogenised into some kind of oblivion by the cultural outlook that every person imbibes over their lifetime.
THE ECONOMY
Ah, the personality that is made of all the economic acts by all the people in all the markets within a defined geographical area, generally one nation state, continent, or the world. This fictional phenomenon is the object of study for macroeconomists and most econometricians, neatly rendering those two fields of study equally fictional, and so pointless.
It remains to be seen whether humans will set aside these silly ideas and embrace a more peaceful, inviting, brighter outlook, but I am quietly optimistic that a great enlightenment awaits once we cast off the material shackles of historical consciousness and government.
Not to say we should have no historical consciousness. I merely mean that people, in making their judgements, shall someday no longer be ruled by the expanse of time behind them, but rather by the possibilities ahead.
On the next Ecomony Blogtime; Matty demonstrates beyond a doubt that economics is more interesting than watching paint dry!
We tend to personify things with no will of their own. I grant you a lot of fish, swimming together for protection, may seem possessed of a shared will. But it just seems that way. The group does not have a mind of its own. For all the group-think in the world, there are no known group-minds.
And so to some examples;
THE CORPORATION
A voluntarily sustained legal fiction. PepsiCo can sue and be sued in turn despite not being a living being. There are a load of buildings and equipment owned by this fiction, and the decisions of the fiction are made by a bunch of appointed individuals.
The bank account may have the company name on it, but that account is handled by a person, ironically someone paid from that same corporate bank account.
THE GOVERNMENT
Another legal fiction, this time maintained by force of arms and threats. In more recent years the government has introduced some tasty carrots along with its sticks, in particular taxpayer-funded welfare systems, to ensure a large majority of people have skin in the government's game of thrones.
US
Yeah. Us. By this I mean the arbitrary group you are born into. Generally people's sympathies with regard to group lie with the Nation State. So the state has a central place in creating illusions of a group-mind.
THEM
People of a different arbitrary group to your own. The individuals of the other groups become homogenised into some kind of oblivion by the cultural outlook that every person imbibes over their lifetime.
THE ECONOMY
Ah, the personality that is made of all the economic acts by all the people in all the markets within a defined geographical area, generally one nation state, continent, or the world. This fictional phenomenon is the object of study for macroeconomists and most econometricians, neatly rendering those two fields of study equally fictional, and so pointless.
It remains to be seen whether humans will set aside these silly ideas and embrace a more peaceful, inviting, brighter outlook, but I am quietly optimistic that a great enlightenment awaits once we cast off the material shackles of historical consciousness and government.
Not to say we should have no historical consciousness. I merely mean that people, in making their judgements, shall someday no longer be ruled by the expanse of time behind them, but rather by the possibilities ahead.
On the next Ecomony Blogtime; Matty demonstrates beyond a doubt that economics is more interesting than watching paint dry!