We are a group of people exploring online opportunities to learn, improve and develop. SWISSUES began as an open, discussion forum in Switzerland, looking mainly at supply chain matters before breaking free of geography and subject matter.
Œconomics is our interest. That is economics when it was still open, before being polluted by utilitarianism, scientific managment and the silly idea that only things that can be measured can be managed. Everybody knows that is nonsense but keeps repeating it. W. Edwards Deming actually said, “It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – a costly myth.”
Œconomics arose from the moral philosophy of Adam Smith. Smith’s book, The Wealth of Nations (1776) is considered to be the first formalisation of economic thought. It was the study of open systems; of people, morality, money and motivation. Smith was not an economist; he was a philosopher and his first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, (1759) described the natural principles that govern morality and the ways in which human beings come to know them. To mathematicalize economic theories, Smith’s successors used increasingly reductionist methods to define unnatural, closed systems that allowed them to do little more than prove their orignal assumptions; and from these arose justifications for all sorts of business misdirection and political mischief. That is our excuse, if we need one, for going back to principles.
This web site is managed by Bill Young who is always delighted to receive your suggestions, complaints and threats.