First Discipline

The First Discipline.

Humankind has devised many disciplines to facilitate and make life easier for itself. Without these disciplines we could not cope with or manage the complexities of our world, natural or man made. These disciplines vary. They include the disciplines of science, sociology, philosophy, psychology and history. The singular most important discipline is economics.

Economics is the most important because not much in life is possible without it. Imagine erecting a building with out first taking economic factors into consideration, like the expense of cement or how much it will cost to maintain it. Some might argue that science is the most important discipline because its research and development affords us the technologies which sustains us, or builds that building. True, but in the final analysis science has to rely on economics because it provides the funds that pay for it all. Economics collects and distributes the moneys and resources science needs to produce the technologies that make life possible. As for the other disciplines, they also wouldn’t be affordable if we first didn’t have our economic house in order. In today's world all disciplines are in a sense luxuries made possible by economics and the management skills and money it makes available to pay for them.

Any housekeeper understand the fundamental importance of economics in maintaining the family. It is the discipline that puts a roof over our heads, cloths on our backs and food on the table. Economics is not just about money and budgeting, it’s also about the wise use of time and resources. Because its practice is so fundamental to our survival and continuance I’ve dubbed it the husbandry of Civilization. Very little else of meaning is possible without first having our economic house in order.

The practices of economics, in some form or other, has been around since the beginning of Civilization. It was the first discipline, born of an immediate necessity. It started simply from a number of fundamental tasks of life, such as the growing and gathering of food, the organizing of households and the first exchange of goods and services. From this a pattern and a routine began to emerge in life, one meant to help ensure security, survive and continuance. This routine required a methodical and some imaginative thinking, a mindset that would become the beginnings of economics. The first economic system was traditional, so called because it was simple and followed tradition lines. For example, a son would follow in his fathers footsteps into the same profession. A farmer’s son would be a farmer . A carpenter’s son would be a carpenter. Women led traditional lives in that they stayed home, reared children and did the household chores. The higher aspects of economics were managed the same way, by a perennial ruling class.

Many things have changed the nature of economics throughout history. One big change was caused by a great plague - The Black Death, (14th-18th cc.) which killed a lot of the working population in Europe. The high death toll in cities increase demand for labor there and caused one of the greatest shifts of labor ever , from feudal farms to the cities. This shift in labor marked the beginning of the end of agrarian based economies. However, no event had more of an impact or affect on economic thinking and planning than the Industrial Revolution which began in l8th century. It was from that point that economics really began to emerge as the premier discipline.

Modern economics began to develop in the early part of the 19th century. It coincided with the emergence of a middle class which itself was an emergence of the Industrial Revolution. What the Industrial Revolution wrought to humankind needed a sophisticated management system, hence the birth of modern economics. Humankind needed a discipline that could help manage and temper the impact and upheavals of industrialization and its transformation from an agrarian society. Economics as we know it today developed not only as a means of alleviating those problems and dislocations but also for the allocation, replacement and conservation of vital recourses. Economics introduced the theories on how things could be done better, cheaper and more efficiently. It introduced the theories and practices for doing things on a mass scale.

Modern economics also has its roots in pessimism. In many respects it is a result of pessimism. One early economist, Thomas Malthus (1766-1834), argued that the world’s population increase could not be sustained indefinitely. He believed that the earth’s resources were finite and that the growing demand for them would soon deplete them, leaving the human race in dire straits. He didn’t think that the food supply could keep up with human demand. I believe his dire predictions about the future of humankind is what gave this disciple its commanding stature and the jolt to find ways of managing human and natural resources better. Malthus’ economic predictions were so pessimistic that since then economics has been known as the ‘dismal science’, dismal because its responses chiefly have been due to dismal predictions.

I am sure the negativity Malthus projected provoked some major rethinking about how to economically organize things better and being more efficient. But then, this is the essence of this discipline, to react to circumstances and predictions, good or bad, and adjusts accordingly. The raison d'être of good economic theory and management is to find new and innovative ways of sustaining and maintaining humankind.

Fundamentally economics is driven by negative factors, like the worry of running out of things or not having enough. Another negative factor that determines economic policy is a natural one, thermodynamics. I would say that this is the ultimate determining factor of economics, how its orientated and put into practice. It’s the second law of thermodynamics that’s at the heart of it. Its euphemistically known as the law of entropy. It basically states that things and systems will inevitably decline and fall apart. So this means the technologies - from a hammer to a subway system - we’ve developed to maintain and sustain ourselves will in time decline and deteriorate. It also means we will run out of resources and food like Malthus predicted. However, there is one way of combating this decline and that’s through the act of renewal (the first law states this can happen under the right circumstances). And that’s where economics comes in. It’s the means of renewal. The only way to combat entropy and achieve renewal is through sound economic planning, through the good management of resources, upkeep, replacement and having the financial resources to do it.

To be continued...............


“Civilization, like leisure, is only possible after needs have been met”. The only way those needs ultimately can be met are through economic means. Civilization, then, is only really possible after certain vital economic needs have been met.