Dear Editor
Dear Editor Economists In his discussion of "The Psychology of Economists" (NL, February 7) George P. Brockway was right on the money. He cut through the slipshod assumptions dear to neoclassical...
...New York City William Johnson George P. Brockway's column on economic laws and the psychological theories implicit in mainstream economics reminded me of an apocryphal story about Vilfredo Pareto, one of the fathers of modern neoclassical economics-and not so coincidentally, a major contributor to the ideology of Italian fascism...
...I wonder what planet he lives on...
...By the way," said Pareto, "do you know of any place where I can get a large sit-down meal with plenty of wine for one franc...
...Who says economics is a dismal science...
...The report card on this method is mixed, but it could be preferable to the present American system, wherein the hidden costs of addiction-in crime and health statistics-far outweigh the expense of allowing addicts to slowly kill themselves in a supervised setting...
...Washington, D. C. Robert Drake...
...New York City Philip Raines Greece Despite what Lucy Komisar suggests in "Greece's Hidden Realpolitik" (NL, February 21), the strategies pursued by Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou are not all that hidden...
...Not bad for two short pages...
...Voters will not acquire the objective point of view they need to assess candidates on the basis of the blatant propaganda put out by all sides...
...Great Britain tried decriminalizing heroin and maintaining the addict population for a while, then shied away...
...Then there are economic laws...
...New York City Tom Stewart Politics Andrew Mollison suggests that because political "campaigns are scandalously underfunded in this country," Americans are poorly informed and need the information provided by campaign ads in order to make informed choices ("What's Right with PACS," NL, March 7...
...By no stretch of the imagination can political advertising be called information, beyond letting the public know what a candidate's name is...
...The wrangle ended inconclusively during the actual session, but later on Pareto bumped into the man as they were looking for a restaurant...
...Pareto pounced at once: "Aha...
...While attending a convention of economists in Switzerland, the story goes, Pareto engaged in a bitter dispute with a colleague who insisted that economic laws simply did not exist...
...Part of the reason is that selling illicit substances is too profitable...
...Thomas Land's report on new African drug education programs ("Africa's Drug Problem," NL, March 21) prompted thoughts about the ineffective way things are done in the States...
...You'll never find a restaurant that cheap...
...He cut through the slipshod assumptions dear to neoclassical economics, exposing them for the castles in the air that they are, and pointed the way toward a theory closer to reality...
...That's impossible," the colleague replied...
...Drug busts will languish while Third World governments use the latest in Western police gadgets to hound dissidents...
...His skillful sailing so far may not last too long, but should he founder, it will not be due to the Greek people's sudden discovery of his "hidden" designs...
...Greeks are not stupid-they know what the realities of power politics in the Mediterranean are...
...Washington, D.C...
...Nor are they so different from those of his predecessor, Konstantin Karamanlis, whose pro-American stance did not lead him to exonerate Washington for supporting fascism in Athens and favoring the interests of Turkey...
...N. Clark In the uproar about the supposed evils of PACS, the virtues Andrew Mollison cited are often forgotten...
...Boston Paul Sims Drugs So now Africa is about to latch onto the latest "body of specialized knowledge" from the West for dealing with drug addiction...
...Land is quite right that "drug abuse has hardly been effectively countered in the West...
...Incidentally, one does not have to be a genius to figure out where the real effort spent in training and equipping Africa's drug enforcement units will be...
...It was good to be reminded...
...The best Papandreou can hope to do is tack against the prevailing wind coming out of Washington...
Vol. 66 • April 1983 • No. 7
