Bravo Schumpeter!
Joseph Schumpeter really spoke my mind in his chapter on "creative destruction." (Part II, Ch. 7, "Capitalism, Socialism & Democracy"). I have long been sick and tired of neo-classical economists doing their little static analysis of the market at different time instances.
Here're some wonderful quotes re why oligopoly and monopolistic competition could be beneficial to the economy:
"The essential point...is that in dealing with capitalism we are dealing with an evolutionary process...Capitalism then, is by nature a form or method of economic change and not only never is but never can be stationary...not merely due to the fact that economic life goes on in a social and natural environment which changes and by its changes alters the data of economic actions...nor is this evolutionary character due to a quasi-automatic increase in population or capital or to the vagaries of monetary systems...The fundamental impulse that sets and keeps the capitalist engine in motion comes from the new consumers' goods, the new methods of production or transportation, the new markets, the new forms of industrial organization that capitalist enterprise creates."
Thus, these impulses "incessanrly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one. This process of creative destruction is the essential fact about capitalism."
Therefore, true competition is not about price, or capital, or labor supply. It is about, according to Scumpeter, new modes of production (sorry again for this Marxian term). Thus, firms are always facing the threat of the destruction of old methods. There must always be on guard, always ready to discover and embrace new methods of production. This means that oligopolistic or monopolistic conditions do not necessarily affect long run economic performance in a negative fashion at all. When economists argue that monopoly is nasty, they refer to its impact on the market at separate instances of time. In doing so, they "accept the data of momentary situation as if there were no past or future to it..." In doing so, they are visualizing "how capitalism administers existing structures, whereas the relevant problem is how it creates and detroy them."
Wonderful! I remember it was my mother who first raised these points to me some years ago, when I was still all idealistic about things, believing in every word my econ 1 professor taught me. Oh well...
Some updates on my readings
I strongly recommend anyone who could read to go and get himself a copy of W.B. Yeat's compilation of William Blake's poetry, published by Rutledge. Here are some of the most moving verses I have ever read. Aside from the "Songs of Innocence" and "Songs of Experience" which of course are widely considered to be classics, I would like to direct my readers to "Ideas of Good and Evil," a sub-collection of short poems. "Auguries of Innocence," "The Birds," "The Grey Monk," "Cupid," "Mary" and "Old English Hospitality" are some of my favs.
I have also finished reading Part I of Dr. Schumpeter's book, titled "The Marxian Doctrine." In it the author included many of his insights on entrepreneur capitalism, although the sentences do seem to be somewhat convoluted. I have always been aware of the fact that books written by German/Austrian authors are in general difficult reads (e.g. Kant, Hegel, Marx, Hayek, Schumpeter). I guess this has to do with the German language, which is complex in its syntax and difficult to translate.
Schumpeter was a very interesting man. Born into a middle-class family in Austria, during the waning years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1883, Schumpeter has always aspired to become the greatest lover in Vienna; the greatest rider in Austria, and the greatest economist in the world. He failed the first two rather miserably, and almost achieved his third dream, has it not been for John Maynard Keynes his nemesis (I guess this really depends on how you judge an economist to be "great" since Keynes certainly had his fair share of problems.) Although I'm sure it's no small feat for a man to serve for 10 years as the Chairman of Harvard's Economics Department. And yes he trained both Paul Samuelson the grand-old-man of modern economics and Paul Sweezy the maverick Marxian economist who helped end the McCarthyite era.
For his biography, see:
http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/schump.htm
Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy
Now that I am half-way through Prof. Walzer's book on Exodus and revolutions, I have just started reading Joseph Alois Schumpeter's "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy" (1942), a fundamental economic treatise by this enfant terrible of the Austrian tradition. It was in this book Prof. Schumpeter elaborated his idea of "creative destruction."
In some sense I have never considered myself a hardcore libertarian or Austrian. Like Schumpeter I like to think of the liberal economy as something good that is doomed to be replaced by mixed (or perhaps even socialist, depending how you define socialism...) economy, due to its internal contradictions (pardon the Marxian terminology, though I certainly mean something different from what Marx would intend. Yes liberal economies are doomed precisely because they are liberal (again, in the classical sense.) It was under such a liberal milieu that capitalists will compete with each other to sell the rope that's going to be used to hang them, and it is under such milieu that intelligent men like Paul Sweezy (Schumpeter's Marxist student)are bred, only to become rebels against this system.
Learner's permit test passed
I just passed my Pennsylvania driving learner's permit test (a.k.a. the knowledge test) as well as my vision test. This means I'll be able to start practicing driving in a few days time! I'm trying to obtain my driver's license before graduating from college.
Levellers
I've finished reading the assigned readings from the Collection of Leveller writings. It's great fun reading these vulgar, rude, pointed and acerbic broadsheets and tracts written by some of the first liberals in human history (classical liberals that is, since the term "liberal" has been so poisoned in the U.S. that it is more often than not used to denote people I would call "statists.")
In fact, I had a conversation with my friend Kirk Wattles (of Street Corner society) some time last week about these Levellers, and was informed that some of them, after being suppressed by Oliver Cromwell in 1649, joined the Society of Friends in the early 1650s. John Lilburne is the most prominent among them. The tract I read written by him was about how it was in the Parliament, not the King, that the Sovereign People of Britain has invested the imperium over all armed forces in that country. This really is interesting since it addresses the question of who could legitimately decide when the law should end and violence should be employed. It also addresses the question of who could legitimately use violence in times of emergency. The King, or the Commons?
Well the English Civil War provided the answer. Within four years after this tract was written, King Charles the First of Great Britain was defeated and captured by the Parliamentary Army, known as the New Model Army, then under the command of Lord General Sir Thomas Fairfax and Lieutenant General Oliver Cromwell. The latter, after crushing the Royalist insurrections, dismissed the Parliament and imposed military rule over England in 1648. He was later proclaimed Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1653, and ruled the British Isles as a military dictator from 1653 till his death in 1658. The Journal of George Fox recorded two fascinating conversations between him and the Lord Protector. It was reported that after their first conversation, the Lord Protector held Fox's hand, and "with tears with his eyes said, 'Come again to my house; for if thou and I were but an hour of a day together, we should be nearer one to the other,' adding that he wished [Fox] no more ill than he did to his own soul."
Very interesting man indeed.
Terrible homework...
I'm having a pretty silly homework right now, which is about various numerical methods engineers use to approximate solutions of ordinary differential equations. The methods involved are Euler and "Improved Euler" and we have to use different "step size" for each. So on the whole, I have to use the same computer program 12 times for the "Euler method" and 18 times for the "Improved Euler method."
So pretty much I'm doing the same thing 30 times, plugging in different functions each time...boring...
Today's visit
Today's visit was a wonderful experience. I finally got a glimpse of how travelling Quaker ministers actually function. It was a very moving personal experience for me as his companion. BTW--the minister I ministered to today is Charles "Chip" Thomas, whom I just met last evening. Turns out that he was also a math major when in College. This really is interesting. I know that many Quaker ministers in the past were scientific men: Thomas Kelly, who was a chemistry major; Lloyd Lee Wilson, who was by training an electrical engineer; and Howard Brinton, a math professor in Canada and in New York would be some other examples I have. I guess it's their almost stubborn quest and thirst for Truth that had led them to become Friends ministers.
Driving
Hurrah! I've finally finished reading the Pennsylvania Driver's Manual, a very boring and tedious 71-page long junk.
I'm finally going to sit for the exam for learner's permit on Monday. And after this, I'll be able to actually practice how to drive.
Great experience in Lancaster
Today I went to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to visit Friends in the Caln Allowed Meeting, a Conservative (Wilburite) monthly meeting affiliated to Ohio Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends.
I am very impressed by their deep spirituality. The Friend who was my host, Steven Geyer, is an English teacher who teaches at a nearby Mennonite high school. Both he and his wife Charlotte are very warm, loving and hospitable. After lunch, we went to Marie and Mike Kinch's home, to participate in meeting for worship. It was a very moving experience. Two Friends offered their heartfelt prayers and Steven made a brief vocal ministry concerning the loving of our "neighbors" and "brethren." We had a fellowship dinner afterwards. Among other Friends were Seth Hinshaw, a Quaker historian, Chip and Penny Thomas, both from Marlborough, and Terry Wallace, from Harrisburg, and Francis who drove 2.5 hours to participate in the worship. Also visiting is a history lecturer at the University of Goettingen in Germany (a native of Kentucky really), who was doing research on the relationship between Quakers and German Pietists.
I should also note that this is a Conservative (Wilburite) group of Quakers, who retain most of the customs and ways of life of earlier Friends. Plain dress (unadorned coat and broad-brimmed hat) and plain speech ("thee" instead of "you") certainly set them apart from the "world," which indulges in all her luxuries and debaucheries. Through their simple and pious lives I had a glimpse of the life of George Fox.
Finally, I should note that Friend Chip is visiting Central Philadelphia Friends tomorrow as a minister "travelling under a certificate", to admonish them to fear God, and to respect and honor our Christian roots. For many Friends in Philadelphia have lapsed into unbelief. I will be his travelling companion. There's been a long tradition of travelling ministers bringing companions with them. This is going to be a heavy burden on my part, and I hope I could grow spiritually by bearing it.
New Book
Now that I'm done with Cardozo's book, I will start reading something else. I think I'm going to read Michael Walzer's "Exodus and Revolution." The book is about "an idea of great presence and power in Western political thought, the idea of a deliverance from suffering and oppression: this-worldly redemption, liberation, revolution." In it, the author wants to "retell the story as it figures in political history, to read the text in the light of its interpretations, to discover its meaning in what it has meant."
In short, this is a book which aims at understanding the Book of Exodus in political terms.
Prof. Michael Walzer, Ph.D. (Harvard) is a Professor of Social Sciences at the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton.
Cardozo's book finished
I've just finished reading Benjamin Cardozo's "The Nature of Judicial Process." Originally delivered by Judge Cardozo (as he then was) as the Storrs Lectures at Yale Law School in 1921, It is a very straightforward treatise on the judicial process. I will post a book review on it when I have time.
William Blake & Vladimir Mayakovsky
Being the helpless romantic that I am, I have also somewhat rekindled my interest in reading poetry. So far I've been dwelling on my favorite poet, William Blake. I have an anthology of his poems & prose, edited by another great poet, the legendary W.B. Yeats of Ireland.
Another poet I'm currently reading is V. Mayakovsky (1893-1930), former Poet Laureate of the Soviet Union. Mayakovsky is one of the most imaginative guys I've ever seen, and he does seem to have a fairly eccentric sense of dark humor. His use of imagery is very wild and postmodern, to say the least, and (although I don't read Russian) I was told that he was also a master of word play. Aside from writing poetry, Mayakovsky was also well known as a cartoonist and playwright. Together with other iconoclastic icons like Sergey Prokofiev, Sergey Eisenstein, S.A. Esenin, N.A. Ostrovsky, Boris Pasternak & Vsevolod Pudovkin, Mayakovsky helped create a strikingly revolutionary era in the area of art and letters.
A hunky man standing 6"2', he's quite well known for being a gentlemanly rogue and a well-dressed dandy. Having had multiple love affairs, one of his love poems were banned in Latvia for being "pornographic."
In 1930, Mayakovsky shot himself. It was said that his death marked the beginning of an incredibly dull era in Russia. All dissident voices in the artistic & literary circles were stifled soon after his death and all that is left is "socialist realism" (which helped to produce some good stuff in oil painting, to be sure, but hey you don't want to have every singly painting drawn exactly the same way, do you?) Oh well...
So this is it. 1930. The end of an era of hope and the beginning of an era of terror.
Lunch today
Today I had lunch with Kirk Wattles, a Friend from Arch Street. He was a former graduate student at Penn and currently works for the Medical School.
We had some excellent discussion about the current state of the Society, as well as historical topics like the Levellers & the rule of law, etc. I've just finished reading the Cambridge anthology of the Levellers' pamphlets/tracts, etc., which is a class assignment from my political theory class. It is interesting that the Levellers in 17th century England, being the earlier classical liberals, greatly influenced men like William Penn. Some of the Levellers, like John Liburne, actually joined the Society in the 1650s.
I guess nowadays I would consider myself more of a classical liberal (in the Lockean/Miltonian/Federalist/Leveller sense, as opposed to modern liberal).
Benjamin Cardozo
I have also started reading Benjamin N. Cardozo's "Judicial Process," (1921), delivered in the Storrs Lectures at Yale Law School. It was very lucidly written and thoroughly researched.
Cardozo, an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1932-1938) and a former Judge of the Court of Appeals of New York State, was widely celebrated for both his judicial insights, his learning and the elegant yet straightforward style of his prose. I will post a book review some time later, when I'm done with the book.
Visit to Middletown Monthly Meeting
I have recently been somewhat disappointed by my home Quaker Meeting in Philadelphia. People have somewhat become even more quietistic in their approach to religion and various people whom I like to refer to as "refugees" from creedal churches have been quietly influencing discourses in religion. These people are usually moral relativists who deny the existence of objective truth.
So after much thoughts, I was moved to visit Friends in Middletown. After the meeting, I was deeply moved by the simple piety of these Friends. It is a small meeting, compared to Arch Street, but it is a group of humble men and women who gathered together in worship because of their love for God. I was informed by the clerk, Rich Ailes, that Swarthmore Meeting has also become more spiritual in recent years. Speaking of Friend Rich, I am very grateful for his hospitality, for he drove me from the train station to the meetinghouse. Without his kind offer I wouldn't have been able to make it there. I plan to visit there again in future, both for worship and for Bible study.
Robert L. Heilbroner (1919-2005)
I am saddened by the passing away of Professor Robert Heilbroner, a highly prolific economic writer and commentator as well as a very accomplished historian of economic thought. He was one of the remaining pillars of American Institutionalism.
Born into a wealthy German-Jewish family in New York City, he studied economics, government & philosophy at Harvard, graduating summa cum laude in 1940. During the war years, he worked under John Kenneth Galbraith, a fellow Institutionalist, in the Office of Price Administration. After the war, Prof. Heilbroner worked as a stock broker for several years before returning to graduate school.
In 1953, he published his magnum opus, the 'Worldly Philosophers,' a lucid collection of biographies of economists from Adam Smith to Karl Marx to John Maynard Keynes, and expository pieces of their thought. It became an immediate hit, and over the years it has become the second best-selling economic book in human history (after Paul Samuelson's Economics, 1948) During this period Professsor Heilbroner was influenced by his mentor, Dr. Adolf Lowe, a quasi-Marxian economist from the University of Kiel in Germany.
In 1963, he was awarded a doctorate in economics by the New School of Social Research in New York, for a treatise on the making of the economic society. In the 60s and 70s, he continued to write prolifically, publishing books (I've read) like "An Inquiry into Human Prospect" (1974), "Marxism: For and Against" (1979) and "The Nature and Logic of Capitalism" (1985).
Although he has always been to the left of the center, he has maintained some excellent friendships with economists who disagree with him. He has always been able to seek common grounds to work with people. For instance, he once co-wrote an article with a libertarian from the George Mason University (who obviously disagree with him on just about everything else), criticizing the technocratization and mathematicization of modern economic science.
Before reading his books, I've always considered economics to be a boring subject, sudied by pseudo-scientist-wannabes. He has truly opened my eyes.
The Fire of Zeal
I went to St. Mary's Episcopal Church today and met with a Third Order (Anglican) Franciscan brother, whom I have had some conversations before. He told me a wonderful story about the Desert Fathers, Christian hermits and mystics who lived in the North-African and Middle-Eastern deserts during the first centuries after Christ.
It was about a young hermit, whose name was Lot, and his meeting with Abba Joseph, abbot of his monastery. Brother Lot was a little bit frustrated by the fact that he has not been devoting his own heart and soul to God lately.
He said, "Abba, as much as I am able I practice a small rule, a little fasting, some prayer and mediation, and remain quiet and as much as possible I keep my thoughts clean. What else should I do?" Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands toward heaven, and his fingers became like ten torches of flame and he said to him, "If you wish, you can become all flame."
In deed, it is this fire-like zeal for God and his consolations that is lacking in most Christians today. It is through fire, not through water, that believers are baptized by the Holy Spirit into the Universal Church. George Fox described his own conversion,
"Now I was come up in spirit through the flaming sword, into the paradise of God. All things were new; and all the creation gave unto me another smell than before, beyond what words can utter. I knew nothing but pureness, and innocency, and righteousness; being renewed into the image of God by Christ Jesus, to the state of Adam, which he was in before he fell."
It is through fire that we are purified into perfect beings, truly reflecting the image and likeness of the living God.
Martial Arts movies
I am going to post some film reviews on martial arts movies made by Lau Kar Leung (b. 1935), one of the greatest kung-fu movie director who directed the Legend of the Drunken Master (1994) starring Jackie Chan (which is probably Chan's best movie to date).
Born into a family of martial artists, Lau is a foremost authority on Hung Gar, a traditional Southern-China school of martial arts. After joining the film industry in the late 1950s as assistant martial arts choreographer, Lau rose through the ranks during the 60s and by 1966 he had established himself as the most important action choreographer in Hong Kong.
He directed his deput "Spiritual Boxing", the first ever kung-fu comedy made in Hong Kong, in 1975, thereby establishing Kung-fu comedy as an independent genre of film. Following its box office hit, Lau made 15 more films between 1975 and 1985 for the Shaw Studio in Hong Kong. These are:
The Challenge of the Masters (1976)
Executioners from Shaolin (1977) (Starring Chen Kuan Tai & Wong Yu)
The 36 Chambers of Shaolin/Master Killer (1978) (Starring Gordon Liu)
The Shaolin Mantis (1978) (Starring David Chiang)
Shaolin vs. Ninja (1978) (Starring Gordon Liu)
Dirty Ho (1979) (Starring Gordon Liu & Wong Yu)
Spiritual Boxing II (1979) (ditto)
Mad Monkey Kung Fu (1979) (Starring Lau Kar Leung & Hsiao Hou)
The 36 Chambers of Shaolin II (1980) (Starring Gordon Liu)
Martial Club (1981) (Starring Gordon Liu & Kara Hui)
My Young Autie (1981) (Starring Kara Hui)
Legendary Weapons of China (1982) (Starring Lau Kar Leung, Kara Hui & Hsiao Hou)
Cat vs. Mouse (1982) (Starring Alexander Fu Sheng & Adam Cheng)
The Lady is the Boss (1983) (Starring Kara Hui & Lau Kar Leung)
8 Diagram Pole Fighter (1984) (Starring Gordon Liu & Alexander Fu Sheng)
Disciples of the 36th Chamber (1985) (Starring Gordon Liu)
After the closing of the Shaw Studio, Lau first moved his base to mainland China, making:
Martial Arts of Shaolin (1986) (Starring Jet Li)
He then turned his eyes to modern action thrillers, producing various pieces for Cinema City:
Tiger on the Beat (1988) (Starring Chow Yun Fat)
Aces go Places V: The Terracota Warriors (1989) (Starring Samuel Hui & Leslie Cheung)
Tiger on the Beat II (1990) (Starring Danny Lee)
Finally, he collaborated with Jackie Chan ( a long time rival as director) to make:
The Legend of the Drunken Master/Drunken Master II (1994), after which he also made
Drunken Master III (1994)
Lau is currently living in semi-retirement, although he did make a comeback in 2004 with the old-school martial arts showcase "Drunken Monkey" (2004). Interestingly, this movie was produced by the Shaw Studio, which has been active again from time to time since early 90s.
The Honourable Norman L. Kwong, C.M., A.O.E.
The Honourable Norman L. Kwong, C.M., A.O.E., of the Order of Canada, was recently appointed by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of Canada, by and with the consent of Prime Minister Paul Martin, to be the 16th Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Alberta. He is the first Lieutenant-Governor, and as such the reigning Monarch's representative, of that Province who is of Chinese extraction.
Born to immigrant family in 1929, Mr. Kwong started his career as a professional footbal player in 1948. Within two years, he has already won the Grey Cup of Canada, becoming the youngest footballer who had ever achieved so. He went on winning three more Grey Cups and was named "all Canadian fullback" five times before his retirement as a professional athlete in 1960. Aside from these, he also held 30 Canadian Football League records and Canada's Athlete of the Year in 1955. He was inducted into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame in 1975. Interestingly, his nickname at that time was the "Chinese Clipper," a monicker that is no longer deemed acceptable today.
Upon retirement, he entered into the real estate business and became a highly sucessful businessman. Here's the official biography of His Honor the Lieutenant Governor:
http://www.lieutenantgovernor.ab.ca/index_2.cfm?choice=welcome&subchoice=Biography
Charles Kelly and the story of the feeding of the sheep
I met a fellow Friend Charles Kelly today in worship. He has been a good friend of mine since we first met some time early in 2004.
Friend Charles has a very interesting life story. Born and raised a Roman Catholic, he was trained and ordained a Catholic Priest, and was admitted to the religious order of the Congregation of the Missions (the Vincentians, named after St. Vincent de Paul). During the Vietnam War, he served as a Catholic chaplain of the U.S. Navy and served for several years in Vietnam, witnessing that human tragedy. Later in life he resigned his Priesthood and became a Lutheran, and was determined to become married. After some rigorous theological training in the Moravian Seminary here in Pennsylvania, he was (re)ordained a Lutheran minister, and served as founding minister of a Lutheran congregation in Brownsville, Texas.
After some spiritual search, he was eventually convinced as a Friend, and today he works as a realtor in a prestigious real estate firm in Philadelphia.
He told me a very interesting story today about how it is sinners who should minister to sinners. When he was a pastor, he preached about the contrition of heart. Being an innocent man at that time, he did not have much experience in such. So he prayed to his heavenly father, asking for guidance. After many prayers, he opened the Scriptures, and lo and behold, he found the last passage in the Gospel of St. John. It was about the conversation between the Risen Christ and St. Peter. Jesus asked Peter, after he has risen, and was cooking his breakfast on a shore, "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?" Peter replied without hesitation, "Lord, you know that I love you." Christ replied, "feed my lambs."
After a while, Christ asked the same question again, and Peter replied the same way he did. Finally, Jesus asked Peter the third time whether he loves him. Peter (now recalling that he had once betrayed Christ for three times) grieved over his own sins and broke into tears. It was now Christ commanded him, "Feed my sheep."
This is very interesting, since it takes those who have really "screwed up" in their own lives to minister to the sheep, as opposed to the lambs. It is difficult for a man whose innocence stems from ignorance to minister to those who are longing and thirsting after true innocence. It takes a man transformed in the image of the Second, not the First, Adam, to minister to the lost sheep.
exams and papers
I think I did quite well on my paper last week (on Machiavelli's "The Prince") and midterm (on probability). This could be the first time I've done well since the beginning of my senior year! I was rather depressed last semester and did not do too well academically. Now that the stress is over, I'm sure that I'll have a great rest of the semester!
