Friday, May 25, 2012

D&D Alignment Chart: Economic Theorists


This is the D&D Alignment Chart which shows the philosophical position of historically famous economic theorists and how hedge fund operates. This alignment chart describes these economists' personality based on the D&D alignment chart characteristics: Lawful v.s. Chaotic on the X-axis and Good v.s. Evil on the Y-axis. The definition of these characteristics follows what "Wizards of the coast" defines.

The method of measuring the characteristics of these historically famous economists is based on the author's subjective assumption. For example, "Good" owing to what D&D alighment chart means serving others well. So, in this spectrum, the "Good" economist attempts to keep the utility of all individials living as high as possible. The "Evil" economist is conservative, stubborn, and/or spontaneous so that her/his economic theory takes selfishness and carelessness of economic agents for granted. The "Lawful" economist supports encouraging economic growth at a stable pase and uses the dynamic analysis. The "Chaotic" economist cares about the drastic reform rather than the stability and uses the "short-termist" analysis.

So, I will show how my spectrum labels these remarkable economists (I have chosen 8 famous economic theoriests who had influenced to introduce a new paradium in the study of economics):



John Maynard Keynes: Lawful Good (The Crusader)
Lord Keynes is the person who saved the life of the global capitalism and reformed it to be a more sustainable one. Therefore, he is worth to be seen as the crusader of economics. He supported remaining the market system itself, but he insisted that the agents have to change their attitude toward economy when both the scale (The quantitative aspect) and the characteristics (The qualitative aspect) of economic activities change in order to become able to adapt to the new environment and stablise it.

Keynes is the "Lawful" because his main aim is to stabilise the business cycle by the intervention policy. He claimed that both the highly volatile economy and the economy going either up/down at a very high pase harm individuals' life very seriously. He supported remaining the free market system (Socialists call it capitalism) itself. Nonetheless, he also claimed to establish some non-profit oriented institution which intervene into economy to change the stream of the market mechanism if necessary.

Keynes is the "Good" because he thought of the well-being of all individuals in all the social classes. He detested that the powerful minority individuals take advantage of the volatile economy, the recession/depression, and the economic bubble while the majority individuals seriously suffer from it. At the same time, he was against the proletariats' revolution which socialists craved for because he was concerned about a serious continous chaos caused by the regime dominated by uneducated and/or uncivilised working class mobs. He definitely supported the balance of social reforms on the top of economic reform.



Milton Friedman: Neutral Good
Prof. Friedman aspired to offer a freedom for many people and keep the economic system flexible. Some socialists claims Prof. Friendman is a conservativist, but he is not. He supported many changes and reforms if it is necessary to offer all people to obtain the freedom and fight against any totalitarian oppression!

Friedman is neither the "Lawful" nor the "Chaotic" because he cared too much of neither stablity nor a big commotion. Although he supported a certain degree of the intervention into the business cycle, his main objective was freedom of choice. Furthermore, he was afraid of that the responsibility of either government and the big world wide institutions becomes very high enough to restrict each individual's freedom.

Friedman is the "Good" because he attempted to offer the great sum of utility to all individuals living in this world by establishing the system offering the freedom at the highest possible level.



Karl Marx: Chaotic Good (The Rebel)
Marx, the revolutionary, is known as the most remarkable hero for socialists. He was highly sceptical about how people in the world took how the contemporary world economic system operateed for granted. He devoted to creating a new economic theory which completely contradicts the currently existing paradium.

Marx is the "Chaotic" because he encouraged provoking an unresting drastic revolution which would even cause a havoc. Unlike Keynes and Friendman who cared about all individuals from all classes, Marx was extremely in favour of his loving proletariats. Some intellectuals who are called Neo-Marxists are more rational than Marx himself enough to take care of all individuals. However, Marx himself was really close minded and enthusiastically insisted on the fundamental socio-economic transformation.

Marx is at least the "Good" because his fundamentalism took account of offering the majority's well-being. Although he categolised the minority bourgeoigie as an ultimate fatal enemies of the majority proletariat (Many current Marxists argue that the individiauls categolised into the middle class are nowadays "proletarised" more than they used to be), he wanted "everyone" to enjoy his dreaming new economic administration created by his brand new economic paradium.



Thomas Malthus: Lawful Neutral (The Judge)
Mr. Malthus is still respected by both many conservativists and many environmentalists. His concern on the possible extinction of natural resources and even an earth itself sympathised some cohort of individuals from both the Rightwing and the Leftwing.

Malthus is a typical representative of the "Lawful" economists due to the mathematical rigorousity seen in his economic theory. He was one of the firstest economists who applied "the law of conservation of mass" to economics. Everything has a limit on its quantity so that the natural resources such as foodstocks, which feed growing human population, is obvously not unlimitted. Therefore, it is never guaranteed that the rate of food productivity growth keeps the same pase as the rate of increase in the demand of foodstocks. Furthermore, even though the food productivity growth increases, it is highly possible to cause the exploitation of the narual resources existing our narual world. This has been diarectically proven by the las of conservation of mass.

Malsus is neither the "Good" nor the "Evil". He is not the "Good" because he had never supported any stimulus plan which would encourage the well-being of individuals. In a way, he and his theory were very stoic. He claimed that individuals have to be patient enough to cope with their tough life situation. Then, their patience would lead to the reasonably good life guaranteed stably in the long run. He demonstrated that the combination of the stably lowered population growth and encouraging the morally good life style increases the income per-head so that improves the living standard for everyone. Therefore, he is not the "Evil" either because he did not particularly take selfishness and carelessness of economic agents for granted. His aim was to establish the sustainable balance of reserving the sufficient natural resources and the humans' economic activity.




..... To be continued (I will update this post as soon as possible)

Adam Smith: True Neutral

David Recardo: Chaotic Neutral (The Free-Minded)

Friedrich August Hayek: Lawful Evil (The Dominator)

John Nash: Neutral Evil(The Backstabber)

Hedge Fund Managers: Chaotic Evil(The Destroyer)





Economic Political Compass/Spectrum