How do we define an “economics” that would be appropriate for spaceship earth? Is the current Chicago school of economic theory, as embraced by Senator Obama, the best we can do? It has had a long run. Has it gotten us to where we want to be? Can it get us to where we need to get? Or is it time for it to be replaced by a new economics for the 21st century?

Would a new economics require the incorporation of thermodynamics such that the use of less than the fullest content of a resource’s intrinsic value is penalized ? IE do our economics penalize waste, such as throwing away 2/3s of the energy in the fuel, as large central generating plant do when they only convert about 1/3 of the fuel into electricity and then throws the “waste heat” away? See, for example, the work of Georgescue Roegens, 1971 “Entropy law and the economic process”, the work of the Club of Rome, Jeremy Rifkin, Tom Wessels, etc.

In the end, does our economics accept the notions of limits and consequences, as in Fuller’s notion of ’spaceship earth’, or reject them, by excluding thermodynamics from economics? Is it sensible for our economics to postulate an economy built on the assertion that infinite growth is possible, natural and the only legitimate goal of economic activity? Is it prudent to stay with an economics that accepts ‘externalities’ that are not ‘on the books’, such as ignoring the cost of storing nuclear waste for 100s of thousands of years?

Should our economics be premised on the shriveled and impoverished view of humanity that is at the root of economics based upon John Nash’s cold war work on game theory? [Work that he now appears to find wanting.] That is, does our economics recognize the existence of a common good, cooperation and altruism? Or does our economics deny these, as does the dominant strain of contemporary Western economics used to justify current unregulated, radical, free market extremism? Does our economics accept a legitimate role for government or do our economics reject government as fundamentally illegitimate and assert the sole primacy of ‘the market’?

It is also useful to consider if the dominant economic assumptions are based on “science” that can be tested and shown to be false, or are they based on ‘bad’ science and tautological dogma? It is no accident that the last 8 years has seen the dismantling of ’science’ within the Federal government in order to prevent science from causing “problems” for the administration’s preferred dogma. Look, for example, at the very sad history of science at the FCC. Only about 4 good years of science in the last 40 or so years. No wonder our communications infrastructure is less than optimal. It is too much determined by lawyers and economists with little or no technical training, much less an understanding of the work of Claude Shannon.

Obviously, much the same sort of questions can be asked of anyone’s “politics” as well.

Today, however, very little critical thinking is allowed, much less encouraged, with respect to conventional ‘dogmas’.

A key problem is that people act on what they “see”, and only “see” what they “believe”. So to achieve significant change, as required by our current challenges, we have to change what we believe in order for us so “see” new possibilities to act on.

I am not sanguine about changing what too many regulators “see” if we do not change what they ‘believe’ about economics and politics. Hence my concern with redefining them as a necessary first step. I expect that old thinking about politics and economics will prevent any meaningful changes in how we mange any of our resources, energy, spectrum, and all of the rest. Or put it this way: What are the economics and politics that would enable meaningful change in, say, the way we think about and manage our communications infrastructure?

What will it take to reach these enabling politics and economics?

Clearly, we all need to open our minds to the possibility of new ideas leading to the possibility of transformations which will then require considerable reconciliation of the new with the old. It will be a real challenge to reconcile the advantages of Open Spectrum with the old notions of spectrum as scarce private property defined by interference.

It would be lovely to have technology, politics and science at least more or less in the same boat, rowing most of the time in generally the same direction.

The fact remains that change, Senator Obama to the contrary not withstanding, is very hard indeed. If Senator Obama can not “see” beyond the limits of the Chicago School, he will be unable to lead us to the changes we so badly need.

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