A concrete idea to combat the unemployment, political economy

“The economic crisis has taken its toll on the young, ILO estimates that the global youth unemployment rate rose to 12.6% in 2010.” Helen Clark, Head of the United Nations Development Programme, March 21, 2011.

Index

1.     Overview

2.     Inexactitude of the statistics

3.     The sub employment is not revealed

4.     The intense use of technology and its effects on the employment

5.     Machine substituted the work of man

6.     What to do

7.     Demographic control

8.     The double working-day and the half working-day

9.     Global campaign of reforestation

10. Conclusion

1.      Overview

The unemployment is the worse illness of the society. The effects on their victims are of devastation. The employment is essential for the happiness. Unfortunately, the unemployment affects millions of people in the entire world. But there is other similar phenomenon: the sub employment (underemployment); this affects people that exert an economical activity but do not enjoy of a secure income neither the social benefits of the formally employed.

If you add the figures of the unemployed to the figures of the sub employed, the total amount is something really amazing, especially in the underdeveloped nations. The problem is that the figures of sub employment generally stay hidden. The official’s statistics usually do not reveal the sub employment figures.

The unemployment and the sub employment are the main cause of the poverty. So that the first measure to combat the poverty must be the creation of jobs.

But the creation of jobs requires several conditions. The jobs cannot be generated by magic. The creation of jobs responds to concrete needs of the society. An entrepreneur creates a job when he is sure of the utility of that job.

For the creation of a job it is necessary to make an investment; this means the use of financial resources and the employ of material goods, among them, resources of energy ---like petroleum--- that are every day scarcer and expensive.

One hundred years ago, the situation was different: there was abundance of material resources, especially of natural resources. For that moment, still man had not devastated the Earth wealth. The petroleum exploration was hardly beginning and the forests, rivers, lakes and oceans had not been razed.

Now, in the first years of the 21^st century, the reality changed completely. Today, the limitations of natural resources are something real. The reserves of conventional petroleum have diminished in a sensible amount; hundreds of animals and plants species have disappeared; the forests, the marine resources and the reserves of water are also in critical situation in many regions of the world while man realized 2,053 nuclear detonations only between 1945 and 1988. The food is seriously threatened by the drought, the water scarcity and now by the biofuels. For example, by the year 2007, 25% of the United States corn production was for ethanol. On March 31 2011, the Food and Agricultural Organization, FAO, described as “potentially catastrophic climate impacts on food production over the long-term,” in a letter to the Convention on Climatic Change.

But while the natural resources experiment a reduction, the population grow in a constant form. It is a contradictory phenomenon that threats the humankind survival at mid term. The world is overpopulated. This means that the resources are not enough to satisfy the demand of the world population, among them, the demand of employment. You can verify it in a simple form: observe the traffic jam, the limitations in the water availability, the price of gasoline, the number of unemployed and sub employed in your community, the files in the banks, supermarkets, in the drugstores, in the bakeries, the scarcity of food and basic services. This is especially visible in the underdeveloped nations.

2.      Inexactitude of the statistics

I have serious doubts about the exactitude of the statistics of labour; I will explain why. For example, if you study the statistics of unemployment of Mexico, you will find that the level of unemployment was ---approximately--- an average of 3% ---this represent full employment--- between the years 2003 and 2008, like you can see in the table 2.  I do not believe that those figures are true because of a simple reason: during the same period, the immigration of Mexican citizens toward the United States was huge, occupying the first place among the foreign-born population, as may appreciated in the table 1.

Table 1. United States, Foreign-Born Population by Race for Countries with 750,000 or more Foreign Born: 2007. Numbers in thousands

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2007, American Community Survey.

Available in Internet in: http://www.census.gov/prod/2010pubs/acs-11-pdf

For the period 2003-2008, the official statistics reveals that in the United States the unemployment was superior to 5%, this mean, superior to the Mexico’s unemployment rate; see table 2. This fact confirms that the doubt about the exactitude of the statistics is absolutely reasonable. The basic question is:  if Mexico has a level of full employment then why do the Mexicans citizens abandon their country to look employment in the United States?   A society that enjoy a high rate of employment, do not experiment a high percentage of immigration of its workers. Then, the logic conclusion is that the official unemployment figures of Mexico are not true. The figures of immigration reveal the economic disparities of the societies and especially their amount of unemployment and sub employment. 

Table 2. Unemployment, selected countries of America

Source: International Labor Organization. Laborsta, Internet.

Available in Internet in http://Laborsta.ilo.org/stp/guest

3.      The sub employment is not revealed

The big problem is the methodology used to define the unemployment. The traditional concept consider unemployed at the people of an age superior to the 18 years that search an employ and do not get it. But the statistics do not consider as unemployed the people that exert activities in the informal economy, the self-employed, neither the people that work for formal economic activities but do not enjoy of a fixed salary neither the social benefits of the formal employed, like the workers that work per hours, or in temporary form. All them are the sub employed, that do not appear in the official statistics. The International Labour Organization has its own concept about unemployment and underemployment, adopted by the 30^th International Conference of Labour Statisticians in Geneve, 1982.

Moreover of the situation of Mexico and the United States, it must be underlined the reality of other countries of Latin America, like Venezuela and Colombia where the sub employment occupy a first plane, but this is not reflected in the official statistics. This situation happens not only in America but in the rest of the world. Therefore, it is right to say that the sub employment is most grave than the unemployment, because the sub employment is a hidden fact ---officially not recognized--- of disastrous effects for the world population.

4.      The intense use of technology and its effects on the employment

The technological development has brought two contradictory phenomenons: a) the displacement of the traditional workers and b) the creation of new technological jobs. The problem is that the former has been more than the second and this has contributed to the maintenance and increase of the unemployment. In some nations the phenomenon has been more intense and in other less. For example, in the last decades, the industrialized societies have kept acceptable levels of unemployment; in change, the underdeveloped nations have been more affected by the use of new technology, displacing a most number of workers.

The industrial societies have prepared the workers for the new challenges derived of the technological development. In the underdeveloped nations this process has been slow and in minor scale. This explains the relative reduced levels of unemployment and sub employment in the industrialized nations and the major amount of both in the underdeveloped countries.

 5. The machine has substituted the work of man

The objective of the entrepreneurs is the economic benefit, for that reason the search optimize their activities through the technology and usually do not consider the social impact of the technological changes. The objective of the governments is different. The governments look the social benefit; therefore, they must establish the rules to guarantee the employment.

It should have a balance between the aspirations of benefits of the entrepreneurs and the social need of to generate employments.

The machines must be used with rationality and justice; man must not be an enemy of the machines neither vice verse, the machines must not be enemies of man.

The machines must be employed to give happiness to the human beings and not to provoke sadness, exclusion and unemployment.

The principal task of the scientists should be to get the balance between the machine and man, and to guarantee the maintenance and creation of employments.

A technology that substitutes the work of man is not a good neither a fair creation. The main objective of man should not be to accumulate more and more money. All the owners of the machines and the most advances technologies will die and shall not keep with them neither the money, neither the machines. They should think in the human effects of their actions, the effects on the families and on the workers, and not only in the egoist desire of to obtain more and more money. At the final, that money will not be useful for them.

6. What to do

The solution to the problem of the unemployment and the sub employment is not easy. Nevertheless, it is possible to achieve important advances. The world might reach partial success in this matter. The problem is of such magnitude that requires the action of the international agencies, the national governments of the countries, the entrepreneurs and the workers worldwide. But the main responsibility corresponds to the international agencies like United Nations and the World Bank. They should be the sponsors of a global campaign for the promotion of the employment and the preservation of the environment. I think that those should be the principal goals of those institutions, because the unemployment and the destruction of the environment are the two most graves material problems of the world. In turn, those problems have a cause: the overpopulation.

The high rate of population growth in the underdeveloped nations is responsible of the world overpopulation.

7. The demographic control

If the population growth rhythm continues like until now, to resolve the basic needs of the world society will be everyday more difficult. The first measure should be to begin a global campaign of demographic control in the underdeveloped nations. The situation is different in the industrialized nations because they experiment a contrary phenomenon known as demographic transition. This is the augment of the life expectancy of the senior people and the reduction of the birthrate.

I think that the international agencies, United Nations and the World Bank and the national governments of the underdeveloped nations should develop a Global campaign of demographic control. This is the unique form of to guarantee the next generations survival.

8. The double working-day and the half working-day

Twenty three years ago, in 1988, I wrote and published, in Spanish, an economic model to fight against the unemployment. The title of the thesis was “A concrete idea to combat the unemployment, the double working-day and the half working-day.” Available in Amazon:

 http://www.amazon.com/Concreta-Combatir-Desocupaci%C3%B3n-Jornada-Spanish/dp/9803002813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1301159461&sr=1-1

The model was dedicated to the countries that suffer high levels of unemployment as consequence of the weakness of their markets, this mean, the weakness of the internal demand, by lack of income of a good part of the population, the unemployed.

It is an economic model that search to enhance the production of goods and services and to increase the level of employment, through the full use of the time of work, the productive infrastructure and the machinery. It is a new form of organization of the production and the work. The model is applicable especially in those countries where there is a productive capacity not enough used.

The core of the proposal is the legal creation of two different working-days of seven hours each one in a same day. In the most countries, the legal working-day is of eight (8) hours, but with the new proposal it would be established legally a second working-day of seven (7) hours. The workers that work in the first working-day cannot work in the second working-day. This fact guarantees the creation of new jobs that will be occupied by new workers.

The first working-day would begin at 7 am until 2 pm and the second working day would begin at 2 pm until 9 pm.

I shall explain the benefits with a single example: If 7 workers produce 7 pair of shoes in 7 hours, 7 new workers will produce 7 additional pair of shoes in the next seven hours of the second working-day. This mean that in the same day will be duplicated the jobs and the production.

Moreover of the industry, the model is applicable in the services sector; for example, in the medical and sanitary services. This would be especially useful for the underdeveloped nations that suffer serious restrictions because of the lack of medical attention.

9. Global campaign of reforestation

The other option to achieve a quick and effective creation of jobs is through the development of a Global campaign of reforestation, sponsored by United Nations and the World Bank, with the cooperation of the governments of the countries.

The Global campaign of reforestation would let to create millions of ecological employments worldwide and, in consequence, to attack the problem of the poverty and the unemployment. The other big advantage of this program is that it would let to keep the environment, because of the multiple benefits that the trees give to the people. The reforestation favors the ecological balance, the oxygen of the air, the rain, the conservation of the soils among others advantages.

To develop the Global campaign of reforestation it is not necessary to employ fossil fuels, like petroleum neither coal and this is its other great positive difference regarding other forms of creation of jobs. For example, to create one employ in the agriculture, the industry or in the tertiary sector it is necessary to use big amounts of energy. The campaign of reforestation does not need big amounts of energy.

10. Conclusions

-         There is not one or a rigid number of actions to promote the employment and to fight against the unemployment and the sub employment. I think that the human being have the duty of helping to find roads, solutions. That is what I want to do, only to help to find ways to solve this big problem that hit deeply the hearts and the life in family of the human beings in the entire world. The unemployment is something terrible, especially for the young people, that lose its hope when do not get a formal work. The same happen to the adults and to the senior citizens.

-         The international community, through the international agencies, the United Nations and the World Bank, might contribute in a decisive form to diminish the problem of the unemployment and the sub employment. I think that they might sponsor three basic campaigns: a) The Global Campaign of Demographic Control, b) The Global Campaign of Double Working-day and Half Working-day and c) The Global campaign of Reforestation, like concrete measures to combat the poverty, the unemployment and protecting the environment worldwide.

-         The Global campaign of demographic control is something essential to guarantee the survival of the next generations. The rate of population growth of the last decades is unsustainable.

-         The Double Working-day and the Half Working-day should be developed especially in those activities that require the less use of energy, like the tertiary sector of the economy; for example, in the activities to improve the quality of life of the population, like the medicine and services of health.

-         The Global Campaign of Reforestation is not only a measure of conservation of the environment but a measure of conservation of energy because its realization do not imply the use of the traditional sources of energy, petroleum neither coal.

Philosophy of science, economy and environment

Index
1. What is science?
2. Basic characteristic of nature
3. Basic characteristic of science
4. What is technology?
5. Difference between philosophy, science and technology
6. The main objective of science
7. Appearance and reality
8. The scientific method
9. From where does the inspiration come?
10. The attraction for the abstraction
11. Economics is a branch of politics
12. The objective reality
13. Idealism and materialism
14. The contradiction created by the scientific and technological development
15. Conclusion
Introduction
The most important objective of the learning process is to ensure the comprehension of the matter studied. The first step in that sense is the clarity of the explanation, the clarity of the ideas that are exposed.
It is the comprehension of the ideas that allow the student to apply what’s learned into a practice sense and transform that knowledge into new knowledge. That is the base of the success at research and the innovation.
The great fail of the educative process is to obligate students to repeat ideas, remember rigid concepts, formulas and other knowledge’s that in the majority of the cases are not used in the reality of the life.
The world would be better, with less poverty and unhappiness if the education would be different. The philosophy of science might contribute to find new roads to knowledge and the education; hence the philosophy of science is important.
In the next paragraphs we will answer some important questions about the matter.
1. What is science?
Science is the study of the reality of nature.
2. Basic characteristic of nature
Nature is an integral system of exact laws that determine the behavior of the Universe and life at all the times.
3. Basic characteristic of science
The basic characteristic of science is its exactitude and validity at all times.
The laws of nature integrate a complex system of exact cycles of changes; it is a predictable system, this means that you can anticipate its behavior. The system does not change in its essence; what changes is our knowledge of it; hence our perception of science is in constant evolution; but the laws and principles of nature are permanent, immutable.
4. What is technology?
Technology is the practice application of the principles and discoveries of science for the development of new material things.
5. Difference between philosophy, science and technology
Philosophy studies the first causes, the origin of life and knowledge.
Science studies nature and its laws.
Technology creates material things in the base of knowledge that is obtained from science.
6. The main objective of science
The main objective of science is to discover the hidden reality of nature.
Two realities exist: the observable and the hidden reality. You can appreciate at simple view the observable reality, for example, trees, sun, moon, but you cannot appreciate at simple view the hidden reality, for example, atoms.
7. Appearance and reality
The world seems flat and still but it is in fact round and rotates. One thing is the appearance of the things and other different its reality. To discover the truth of things beyond appearance is the purpose of science.
8. The scientific method
The basic steps of the scientific method are: a) the observation of reality, b) research about that reality and c) the elaboration of the hypothesis.
9. From where does the inspiration come?
If those are the basic steps of the scientific method two key questions arise as a consequence:
a) How can man know something that he has never observed? and
b) From where does the inspiration to know the unknown come?
In Prehistory man made the principal discoveries that we today know, among them instruments of stones, hunting, fire, road, fishing, agriculture, metals, tools, textiles and architecture. But it was in the 18th century when began the most intense process of knowledge development with the discovery of new forms of energy, vapor and its applications to the mechanic and, later, in the 19th and 20th centuries petroleum, electricity and atomic energy. Since the 18th century until now the speed of scientific discoveries has reached unthinkable levels.
What leads man to discover new things?
Has he innate ideas that are responsible for the creative process?
If it is so then from where do those innate ideas come?
10. The attraction for the abstraction
Man has a natural trend toward abstraction. Perhaps it is a form of escaping of hard reality. Hence he creates ideal scenarios not possible in the practice of life. In the disciplines of the social sciences this trend is very intense.
The social sciences support a good part of its postulates in abstractions. It is easier conceiving an abstraction than a concrete and real idea ascertainable and applicable in the reality.
The reality, the practice, is the purgatory where the conceptions of the ideal word are tested.
The economy is one of the disciplines with a major charge of abstractions and ideal conceptions.
11. Economics is a branch of politics
The economy is not a science in the strictest sense of the word science.
Why?
This is because the economic postulates are not exact laws of universal validity at all the times.
The economy is a branch of the politics.
Why?
It is because the main economic decisions ---economic policies--- are adopted by governments in all societies and in all types of political regimes.
The market, the supply, demand and prices are influenced by governments in a decisive form.
Two economies exist: the true economy and the academic economy.
The true economy is the economy of reality. The academic economy focuses its attention on the theorist and ideal aspects of the discipline, that in many cases are very far from reality.
The same occurs with other disciplines like law. Practice law of the courts is completely different to theorist and academic law. One thing is the theorist and other different the practice. This presents to us another key question:
What is true and what not?
12. The objective reality
An objective reality exists in nature but it is not appreciated ever by our senses. The truth of nature is not relative neither ambiguous; what is relative is our knowledge.
The appreciation of reality depends on our analytic capacity and, even, on the place from where you see. For example, your vision from a helicopter is completely different of your vision from a street of a city where there are big buildings. A rich banker and a poor person have each one of them different opinions on the economic process.
Knowledge is in constant change as consequence of the advances and development of our thought. The capacity of our thought is infinite; hence our creative capacity is also infinite.
The conceptions considered so far true might in the future not be certain; in the history of the human knowledge this has happened already; for example, over centuries the intellectual elite of the world believed that the Earth was flat. A practical demonstration was necessary to ascertain the contrary; that demonstration was the circumvallation of the Earth by Juan Sebastian Elcano (1476-1526).
Practice is the essential way to ascertain the truth. Thought is not enough; thought must be accompanied of the practice.
13. Idealism and Materialism
To reach knowledge it is necessary to develop a synthesis between theorist and practice.
The Idealism, alone, cannot explain the truth of things; practice, alone, can neither enhance the knowledge.
14. The contradiction created by the scientific and technological development
The scientific and technological development brought great advances but, in turn, new situations that were not previously known. The main contradiction has been the damage to the environment.
The great change in the life of the world was promoted by science through the discovery of new sources of energy: vapor, petroleum, electricity and later nuclear energy. Those sources of energy are a very important cause of pollution everyday worldwide. A clear example in that sense was the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that began on April 20 2010 until July 15 2010, almost three months pouring millions of gallons of petroleum in the sea. Similar situations of minor scale occur every day in the world with forests, rivers and all the expressions of nature.
15. Conclusion
- The philosophy of science explains why, for what and the laws that govern the science.
- The main objective of the science is to discover the hidden reality of nature.
- In the reality, in the practice, the economy is not an autonomous discipline but a branch of the politics.
- The scientific and technological development has created, in turn, a new situation: the environment damage. Nevertheless, the science and technology has the duty of finding the ways for diminishing and, in many cases, to avoid that damage that is one of the most important challenges of the 21st century.

Abstract ideas, economic reality and philosophy of the science

Index
1. Two different systems of thought
2. Difference between scientific knowledge and intuitive knowledge
3. A review of the social sciences concept
4. Origin of the philosophy and science advance
5. Theory of the knowledge, how do we know?
6. The two hemispheres of the brain
7. Philosophical base of the economic knowledge
8. Abstract ideas and economic reality
9. The economy and the mathematics
10. The Philosophy of the science
11. Conclusion
Introduction
It is necessary to say that one thing is the philosophy and other different is the religion. One and other should not be confused. The philosophy encompasses the essential affairs of the religion but not vice verse; the religion do not encompasses the essential affairs of the philosophy.
1. Two different systems of thought
When in the western world the people think in the word philosophy, immediately the word is associated to the great thinkers like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Hegel and others.
In the western world the people usually forget that exist other important philosophical conception which has dominated a good part of the world. That philosophy is the Confucianism, adopted as the official ideology of China in the year 136 BC until the beginning of the 20th century.
Confucianism represents an ideal approach, an especial manner of tackle basic affairs of the life. It recognizes the ontological dimension, the existence of God, the being and the abstract entities by a side and, also, the epistemological dimension, this mean the different forms of understanding or theory of the knowledge, but those two great issues did not constitute the principal object of their attention.
Confucius (551 BC- 479 BC) that is the most important figure of the eastern philosophy concentrated his attention in two great affairs: a) The duties of the statesmen and b) The main values of the human beings. His philosophy was a philosophy referred to the reality of the life, to the here and now and not a reflection about the eternity.
Confucius spoke about the clarity of the ideas as the essential condition of the philosophy and the knowledge. A similar idea was expressed hundred of years after by the apostle Pablo, when assured that the most important is the comprehension of the doctrine. Indeed, this comprehension can be achieved only by mean of the clarity of the ideas. The western philosophy did not give importance to that concept. Hence, to understand the western philosophy has been ever a difficult task.
The western philosophy concentrated its effort in the study of the being, the study of why and for what do we exist, the live after the death, the existence of a superior being, God, and the laws that govern our thoughts or theory of the knowledge. Albeit Confucianism does not explain the previous mentioned great affairs, it has been a strong moral force that has influenced a good part of the world population. Philosophically, the Confucianism might be considered a Rationalist conception; this is a creation of the reason and the feelings. In change, the western philosophy is a complex system of thought integrated, in turn, by different sub-systems of analysis. Over that complex structure of thought has been built the western system of philosophy and science.
This reflection and comparison between the eastern philosophy and the western philosophy is important because it complements and gives the real idea of the world, the idea of its integrality. So we do not see only a part but the global conception.
2. Difference between scientific knowledge and intuitive knowledge
The scientific knowledge research and explains in systematic, logic, rational and permanent form the essence of the things and the relation existent between them. The intuitive knowledge is the natural wisdom that all the human beings possess. Some philosophers consider that that is the highly grade of knowledge.
3. A review of the social sciences concept
The concept of science gives the idea of precision, regularity and permanent action.
The scientific truth is a constant truth that do not change in the time: the Earth rotation movement occur each 24 hours, the movement of translation each 365 days. It is a truth that may be verified in any moment.
It do not occur the same with the social sciences, which postulates are temporal and relatives; this is the negation of the basic principle of the science: their validity in the time. So that speak about social sciences do not respond exactly to the orthodox concept of science that mean precision and stability along the time.
4. Origin of the philosophy and science advance
The creative minds are the driving force of the philosophy and science advance.
In his work, Philosophic table of successive progress of the human spirit (1750), the French philosopher Anne-Robert- Jacques Turgot (1727-1781) spoke about the existence of spirits to whom the nature give a great memory able of accumulate a big amount of knowledge’s and the capacity for compare and order those knowledge’s. But the same nature usually denies to those minds the genius for invent and to open new roads. They are brilliants, but brilliants that do not shine with own light but with borrowed light, he said.
Turgot thought that that kind of minds makes a very important work but they do not change the things, they keep the establishment. On the contrary, in a minor proportion it exist the creative minds; they are who change the world.
5. Theory of the knowledge, how do we know?
The objective of the philosophy is the knowledge of the reality as a whole; in a general sense, the objective of the science is the knowledge of the different parts that encompasses the reality. Each one of those parts integrates the specific sciences.
The human knowledge has its origin in two essential forms: a) the ideas and b) the practice, the experience.
The philosophers named the first form of knowledge Rationalism and the second one Empiricism.
The Rationalism believe that the knowledge come from the reason, from our thought and intelligence. The main first exponents of this trend were Plato (427 BC- 348 BC) and Saint Augustine (354-430).
Plato thought that the world of the experience is in constant change and hence it can not give us a true wisdom. The senses can not lead us toward the knowledge, he said. He explained that there is a supra sensible world where our conscience obtain knowledge; that supra sensible world is the world of the ideas.
The other great leader of the Rationalism, Saint Augustine, preached that the trues and supreme concepts are irradiated by God to our spirits. He believed that the knowledge come from the human reason or from the divine illumination. His conception is known as Theology of Rationalism or Theory of the Divine Illumination.
In the Modern Age, the philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650) developed the Theory of the Innate Ideas. He assured that moreover of our experience we have innate ideas that are an original patrimony of the reason. Those ideas represent a basic source of our knowledge. The philosopher Amadeus Leibniz (1646-1716), continued and improved the work of Descartes. Other rationalists were Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804) and George Frederic Hegel (1770-1831).
The Rationalism found a solid point of support in the mathematical knowledge. Indeed, the mathematics is a conceptual and deductive knowledge which origin is our creative capacity, our imagination. Who has seen, tasted, touched, felt or smelt a point, a number, a geometric figure? Why one is one and not two or eight? Why a point is a point and not a triangle? What really is a number, a point or a triangle? Those are concepts created by the rationality our minds. The time and the space are too mathematical dimensions created by our minds. The mathematics is the unique exact science based exclusively in the creations of our thoughts, in our capacity of abstraction.
The Empiricism point out the contrary thesis of the Rationalism, this is that the source of the human knowledge is the experience. The defenders of this thesis were Francis Bacon (1561-1626), John Locke (1632-1704), George Berkeley (1685-1753), David Hume (1711-1776) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873).
John Locke was the principal figure of the English Empiricism; he combated the theory of the innate ideas of Descartes and assured that all our knowledge’s are acquired by mean of the experience, by mean of our five senses or the internal sense of reflection; this internal sense let man create the abstract ideas. But that conception of Descartes, the doctrine of the abstract ideas, was rejected by other important philosopher of that time, George Berkeley, who assured that that doctrine do not reflect the reality of the things. In the 19th century, other philosopher, John Stuart Mill, would assume a most radical position. Mill said that until the mathematical knowledge come from the experience. He wrote the logic of the Empiricism and the induction.
A synthesis of the two mentioned contradictory theories ---Rationalism and Empiricism--- was developed by other philosophers. The Intellectualism was the first synthesis and his principal exponent was Aristotle, in opposition to his teacher Plato; after, in the Middle Age, Saint Thomas of Aquino (1225-1274) followed the same way. The Intellectualism consider that the human knowledge come from the reason and the experience.
Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804) developed a similar theory about the knowledge; he recognized the paper of the reason and the experience but he said that we have empiric knowledge in our minds, an a priori knowledge, it means previous to the experience. This Kant’s position is known in the philosophy as Aprioristic Theory.

6. The two hemispheres of the brain
It is important to say, moreover, that at middle of the 18th century the psychiatry, and the psychology after, began to speak about the two hemispheres of the brain.
Since then the researchers has discovered that the left hemisphere is responsible of the reason, the logic, the organization and the verbal communication, among other
capacities, while the right hemisphere is responsible of the emotions, the intuition, the creativity and the gestural communication.
In the western world our education has made emphasis in the abilities that the left
hemisphere give to us. This explain the preference by careers linked to the mathematics as engineering, informatics, the social sciences and the lesser interest in the research and the innovation.
I asked to a recognized psychologist, Doctor Luigi Alberti, his opinion and this was his answer:
The two hemispheres of our brain are like the two wings of a bird; if our education
emphasize the development of one wing then the flight will be irregular, not
harmonious.
We must learn to have two good wings, but for achieving that goal we need to develop
our right hemisphere, he said.
The conclusion is that that recommendation should be an important objective of the
modern education.
Doctor Luigi Alberti remember that thousands of years ago, the Mexican Toltecas Indians spoke about the two sides of the human body; they assured that the left
side was linked to the present, the live, the here and now while the right side was linked to the unexplainable, the intuition, the Gods, a similar concept like the expressed by the modern psychology.
Coincidence?, Innate ideas?, Aprioristic ideas?, What do you think?
7. Philosophical base of the economic knowledge
The economic knowledge is an outcome of the world of the ideas albeit it must be recognized that the human beings have a natural practice economic awareness, an innate knowledge of the economy.
We can say then that, historically, the Rationalism has been the support of the economic knowledge. This means that the economic knowledge has been based, essentially, in the ideas of their creators.
8. Abstract ideas and economic reality
One of the basic postulates of the economy is the existence of the market; this conceived not as a concrete place where coincide producers, sellers and buyers with total freedom for making economic transactions, but a conceptual creation of the human reason for explaining the economic behavior ---supply and demand--- of the individual people and its social organizations. It is then, an intellectual conception.
The mind of the economists created the laws of the market, the law of supply and the law of demand. As a result of that invention appeared the third key element: the price.
But the market is not an aseptic institution influenced only by the laws of the supply, the demand and the prices, no, there is a fourth decisive factor that determine in last instance the behavior of the market: that decisive factor is the State, in all the political regimes, even in the extreme capitalist societies.
From the Rationalist method of analysis the economy obtained the abstract idea of the market, the perfect competition and the use of the mathematics to explain some economics issues.
An abstract idea might coincide or not with something practice. One thing is the ideas and other completely different may be the reality. This occurs clearly in the economy. For example, in the economy of the common life the perfect competition does not exist. This concept is a fiction of the mind. Notwithstanding, the economic science was founded taking that idea as one of its principal concepts.
John Stuart Mill in his Principles of Political Economy with some of their applications to social philosophy, book II, chapter II (1848) make an important reflection on the competition that deserve to be quoted; this is:
Of Competition and Custom

“1. Under the rule of individual property, the division of the produce is the result of two determining agencies: Competition, and Custom. It is important to ascertain the amount of influence which belongs to each of these causes, and in what manner the operation of one is modified by the other.
Political economists generally, and English political economists above others, have been accustomed to lay almost exclusive stress upon the first of these agencies; to exaggerate the effect of competition, and to take into little account the other and conflicting principle. They are apt to express themselves as if they thought that competition actually does, in all cases, whatever it can be shown to be the tendency of competition to do. This is partly intelligible, if we consider that only through the principle of competition has political economy any pretension to the character of a science. So far as rents, profits, wages, prices, are determined by competition, laws may be assigned for them. Assume competition to be their exclusive regulator, and principles of broad generality and scientific precision may be laid down, according to which they will be regulated.” End of the quote.
In the paragraph may be observed how John Stuart Mill doubts about the character of science given to the economy and how the principle of competition is one of the most important concepts employed by the founders of the economy.
In the economy of the diary life the decisive factor is the state and not the market. The state decides the key economical issues in all the political systems. First of all it decides what kind of economical regime will be applied in the society: free or regulated market. But the same decision regarding the free market is a form of interventionism because the state can resolve the contrary.
In the most radical societies of free market the state determines, moreover, the other basic aspects of the economy: the monetary policy, the financial policy and, in consequence, the interest rates, the commercial policy, the imports and exports and the rest of the essential economic affairs.
The merchants and bankers this true realize perfectly and for that reason they has invented ways for influence the politics and the statesmen. Nonetheless, the true power of the market is in the hands of the statesmen. This is a proof more that the abstract idea of the market and the competition does not correspond to the reality of the things.
The economic freedom is an abstract idea, a fiction of the mind because the real behavior of the economy is decided by the politics, the states, the statesmen through the legal systems of the countries. The statesmen make the laws, all the laws, including the economics laws.
9. The economy and the mathematics
The preference by the use of the mathematics confirms the Rationalist trend of the economy.
One of the pioneers intends for using the mathematics to support the economical knowledge was made by William Petty (1623-1687). His Political Arithmetic was written in 1676 but was published in the year 1690 after his dead. Petty is one of the most important figures of the economy. In a concept of his book he express that one of his most important objectives was to express his opinions in terms of exact magnitudes, in terms of numbers, weight and measurement. He thought that the economic reality might be represented through the mathematics.
82 years after, Francoise Quesnay, principal exponent of the Physiocratic school, published his Tableu Economique (1758), which constitute an important step toward the employ of the mathematics in the economy.
The Tableu Economique was a system where was presented the annual total production of a country and the resources needed for the reposition of those resources each year.
Those two experiments, the work of Petty and the work of Quesnay, were the base for the development of the econometrics in the 20th century, from the hand of Alfred Marshall (1842-1924), who separated the economy of the politics and created the modern economics, based, in a good part, in the mathematics.
The mentioned facts confirm the Rationalist trend of the economy. Why?
Because the mathematics is a science that has been created by our reason, our thought, as already was said in previous paragraphs, but it is important to repeat it for a best comprehension of the idea.
10. The philosophy of the science
The philosophy encompasses the totality of the knowledge. The science as a whole is a part of the philosophy and the special sciences, the particular sciences, a restricted portion of the global science; in consequence, an expression of the philosophical knowledge.
The philosophy of the global science and of the particular sciences has the same objective of the philosophy.
Which are those objectives?
The objectives are to discover the reality of the world and the universe, this mean to understand the laws that govern that reality and the relations between each one of the parts that integrate that reality.
The philosophy of the science might be more useful and to adapt their action to the true needs of the humankind. It should give the analytical support for the development of the knowledge to enhance the quality of live of the people. The first lesson that the philosophy of the science should give to the world is to teach the love for the Earth and to love the life.
The life is a miracle. God has given to man the ability for realize a part of that miracle but not the license to destroy it.
Man has advanced very far in the way of the destruction. The atomic weapons are able of to disappear the Earth. But now he wants to intensify the destruction affecting directly the creation of the life through the new experiments in the biology.
God is the unique creator; man should not create artificially the life. The philosophy of the science should help man to understand this true.
Man can reach more advances in the medicine, defeat the illnesses’ and to extend the longevity; but, for achieving those goals, first of all he need to reduce the poverty and to develop a global program of demographic restriction in the developing countries. This is the other great knowledge that the philosophy of the science should teach us now.
The population growth is the most important issue that the humankind will face in the coming years. The natural resources scarcity, especially the water stress and the contamination reduce the possibilities of the Earth for producing the food that the high population growth requires. To spread that knowledge should be other important task of the philosophy of the science.
The great challenge of the future will be producing food and to distribute that food. It is something unfair and unbelievable that while million of people are undernourished and thousands of children die by hungry, millions of tons of food stay in the granaries of the big producers, waiting by an increase of prices.
Other great need of the world is to moderate the extremist mercantilist conception of the medicine and the health; for example, the science might find the cure and to reduce the morbidity of many illnesses, but for reaching that goal it is necessary to see the medicine and the health not only as a business but like a scientist and moral duty of helping our neighbors.
Finally, it is necessary to underline the need of preserve the nature and the environment. Man should find ways for reducing the contamination of the land, the air, the rivers, the oceans. Currently ---May and June 2010--- the world is facing one of the most ecological disasters by a big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This kind of mistakes should not continue in the future.
Man should protect the forests and develop a global program of reforestation; that is the unique way to keep the live at mid and long term. The philosophy of the science should help to the comprehension of all this reality.
Conclusion-
- It must not be confused philosophy and religion; they are different.
- The eastern philosophy ---Confucianism--- represent a scale of values that deserve be known by the western world.
- There is a key concept of Confucius: the clearity of the ideas, as essential condition of the philosophy and the knowledge. The western philosophy does not practice that concept.
- The social sciences do not comply with the basic principle of the science: their validity through the time because the social sciences are in permanent change.
- The creative minds are the driving force of the science progress.
- Our education should make more emphasis in the research, the development of the creative capacity and the innovation.
- The economic knowledge is a rationalist knowledge, an outcome of the world of the ideas.
- The economy has stressed abstract concepts, fictions that do not exist in the reality.
- The preference by the use of the mathematics confirms the rationalist trend of the economy.
- The philosophy of the science might be more useful and adapt their action to the true needs of the humankind. There are essential issues like the preservation of the forests and the development of a global campaign of reforestation; that is the unique way of to keep the planet. The other essential measure is to develop a global program of demographic control because the overpopulation is and will be the gravest problem of the world at mid and long term. The other great problems: poverty and contamination are a consequence of the overpopulation, this mean the lack or scarcity of resources for attending the human needs.
What do you think?

Political economy, the first objective of the science and technology should be to conquer the Earth

In the last century man has obtained a great advance in science and technology; one of the best examples of that progress is the spatial career. Man is conquering the exterior space but, ironically, still he has not conquered the Earth.
On April 15, 2010 a report of BBC News signed by the journalist Jonathan Amos, assured that the President of the United States, Barack Obama, announced that “it should be possible to send astronauts to orbit the planet Mars by the mid-2030s and return them safely; a landing on Mars will follow…”
This announce reveals the great development reached until now by the science and technology but it is a good opportunity also for to reflect about the challenges that man has not resolved yet.
The first objective of the science and technology should be to conquer the Earth. There are four key fields where a most effort might be made:
1. Agriculture development.
2. Environment protection.
3. How conciliate the technology and the need of create new jobs.
4. Defeat of the illnesses.
Those are critical areas where the science and technology would help to improve the quality of live of the people, especially in the underdeveloped nations, where is concentrated the world population.
1. The agriculture development encompasses some basic tasks, like the followings:
a) To reduce the consumption of water because is in this productive sector where the consumption is most.
b) To increase the crops yields and the production of food.
c) To guarantee a best and fair distribution of the food production to benefit especially at the poorest and hunger population of the world.
2. The environment protection encompasses:
a) To reduce the desertification phenomenon and to preserve the forests.
b) How to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions especially in the coal and petroleum industry. In this sense the experience of Norway in their North Sea oil fields is very important because they have reduced their emissions of CO2 in 40 percent of the global average. That example might be considered by the industry in other places of the world.
c) What to do for avoid the oil spills in the oceans that cause a severe damage to the environment.
d) How to improve the methods for the nuclear garbage and the industrial waste disposal.
e) How create new methods for a best use of the energy sources.
3. The creation of new jobs encompasses:
a) To identify those activities where may be created the most number of jobs and to carry out them. This is one of the most sensible areas because of the reduction of the employments in the world as a consequence of the substitution of the workers by machines.
4. The defeat of the illnesses encompasses:
a) To make possible the access of the total world population to the health resources.
b) To advance in the scientific research to find the cure of the most graves illnesses.
c) To spread information about the advances of the science in the discovering of new medicines and curative methods. The human beings have the right of to know those discovering. There are people that assure that the medicine and the pharmaceutical industry have the remedy for some illnesses but that they do not present those medicines because their business would result affected. I do not believe that that is true but, in any case, the commercial interest should not be the most important. I think that, on the contrary, the pharmaceutical industry and the health sector might obtain the same or perhaps most benefits if the discovery of new curative and preventive medicines and procedures be developed.
Definition
According with the OECD Frascat Manual, fifth edition, 1993, paragraph 20, page 5, quoted by STATS.OECD, “…Scientific and technological innovation may be considered as the transformation of an idea into a new or improved product introduced on the market, into a new or improved operational process used in industry and commerce, or into a new approach to a social service…”
Origin of the progress
The innovation is the base of the human progress. But the innovation is linked to the level of education of the nations. A person may have a natural capacity but that is not enough. The natural vocation must be complemented with the formal knowledge. The developed nations reached that level of scientific and technological advance because they had an important amount of creators, people with natural intellectual abilities and a great research capacity.
Many factors influence the intellectual capacity. One of the most important is the quality and quantity of food available in each country and their distribution between the people. In an impoverished country with food scarcity it is very difficult the biological and intellectual development of the population. In change, in the countries with abundance of food is different.
The developed countries have had abundance of food. The underdeveloped nations have had restrictions in this sense. This explains the difference in the level of progress between both.
So that for the construction of a best world, first of all, it is necessary to develop a solid agriculture for producing and distributing the food that the human beings need to live. Without food nothing is possible; for that reason the first priority of the world should be the production and fair distribution of food.
Wealth and knowledge distribution
Until now the distribution of the scientific and technological knowledge has followed the same pattern of the wealth distribution. For breaking that circle it is necessary a great effort. The creation of new institutions of research in the underdeveloped nations is very important. The support to the individual researchers is too very positive. It is necessary to develop a mechanism for to spread the ideas of the unknown creators, because in any mind and in place of the world might be a good idea, something that may help the progress of humanity.
Number of researchers
According with the World Bank, World Development Indicators 2010, Finland is the country with major number of researchers per million of people, followed by Iceland, Sweden, Japan and Singapore as you can see in the table.

The figures confirm that the most developed nations concentrate the most number of the world researchers; by group of nations the Nordic countries are the main.
In the next table you can appreciate the contrast between the most advanced nations and the Latin American countries.

That is the reality that should be modified; the underdeveloped nations should increase the number of their researchers and direct its attention to those problems that most affect those countries. It is the local solution of the problems a way for the global advance of humanity. The regions or countries might create their own scientific and technological methods for to resolve their own problems. Of course, the paper of the global science and technology is something essential, but should exist too the appropriate local or regional contribution.
Cultural duality
It is the coexistence of the most advanced scientific and technological advances with the most precarious and savages forms of live. If you visit some regions of the world you can appreciate that duality. For example some tribes of the Amazonian regions still live in the Stone Age but in those regions you can find, in turn, instruments of the modern civilization.
There are also educated and apparently civilized people that, nonetheless, in their attitudes and mind still live in the Stone Age.
Conclusion
Man is conquering the space but still he has not conquered the Earth. Three big problems deserve the attention of the world leaders: the poverty, the lack or scarcity of natural resources and the damage to the environment. They are politics, economics, scientific and technological problems. The political economy might give a very important contribution but the science and technology must provide the other part. There are concrete problems that need answer: the water scarcity, the pollution, the nuclear, industrial and cities waste disposal, the destruction of the forests, the desertification, the hunger, the poverty and the unemployment.
The objective of the sciences must be the human beings happiness.
What do you think?