OK, not really. But these lines from a recent NYT Magazine article caught my eye:
reduced to measurable risk. So asset prices always reflected
fundamentals, and unregulated markets would in general be very stable.
By
contrast, Keynes created an economics whose starting point was that not
all future events could be reduced to measurable risk. There was a
residue of genuine uncertainty, and this made disaster an ever-present
possibility, not a once-in-a-lifetime “shock.” Investment was more an
act of faith than a scientific calculation of probabilities. And in
this fact lay the possibility of huge systemic mistakes.
A "residue of genuine uncertainty." Sounds rather like Chuang Tzu, though he is open to a much greater tolerance for the unknown. Uncertainty, a Taoist might say, is all that is really genuine; that is, it is always true that there is much beyond our knowledge. But that uncertainty is something that is extensive and fundamental, not merely residual. Thus, the Taoist would be more emphatic about understanding investment decisions, and economic theory in general, as acts of faith. And, by extension, the Taoist would expect "huge systemic mistakes" to be more likely and common.
Nonetheless, it was refreshing to be reminded of Keynes' milder skepticism. In this moment of massive market failure and outright thievery it seems apt to remember that there is much we cannot know and that is beyond our control, and that applies as well to economic "experts" and government policymakers.
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