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FREDERICK SODDY Between Aristarchus in 200 BC and Copernicus we had many centuries, but between the precursors of the corresponding revolution in economics and the appearance of two economic Copernicus, Frederick Soddy and Buckminster Fuller, we had less than a century. So, we notice an acceleration of history. Professor Frederick Soddy was the recipient of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He brought about a Copernican Revolution in economics, which the economists failed to note. As a scientist, he was treated with honors and became a Fellow of the Royal Society. But when he got involved in economics, he became a persona non grata and considered a crank. He was the discoverer of the isotopes and coined the word for them. He was a strong advocate of the development of atomic energy until he saw in the Great War the tendency for humanity to use technology for destruction. xx THE OVERLOOKED COPERNICAN REVOLUTION IN ECONOMICS Frederick Soddy's scientific scrutiny of economics revealed a crucial flaw in the discipline - the identification of money with wealth. Wealth has to do with being well, as health is related to being hale. Wealth, thus, is related to life requisites. Money is not wealth, as people and economists think, but a sui generis form of national debt. The owners of money have claims on the economy's goods and services, i. e, on the economy's wealth. Money is a means of exchange, through which people exercise their claims to wealth, but not wealth. Wealth is the reality and money, the symbol. Because of this false identification, we do not have real economics, which etymologically means household management, but chrematistics, which deals with exchanges. Real economics deals with wealth - the life requisites - and is based in use values which are the values things have for use. Thus, we have a money-centered economy instead of a wealth-centered economy. A money-centered economy has as its relevant values exchange values. ( Exchange value is the value a thing has in trade for money.) In chrematistics, money rules the economy, while in the wealth-centered economy, money serves. the economy. Note to Christians: In a money-centered economy, money is Mammon. In a wealth-centered economy, money has no controlling power and, so, it is no longer Mammon. caused a Copernican revolution in economics by replacing money by wealth as the center of the economy. If the geocentric view of the universe had prevailed, we could not have space travel. Similarly, in a money-centered economy,. the socioeconomic problems cannot be solved. He gave to his Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt the subtitle The Solution of the Economic Paradox. For not perceiving his conceptual revolution, society fell for the pseudo-solution offered by John Maynard Keynes to end the Great Depression. THE REAL FACTORS OR AGENTS OF PRODUCTION Soddy provoked not only a Copernican revolution in economics, but also put it in harmony with science. Soddy noticed that Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, though written in 1776, in the beginning of the industrial age, with the introduction of the steam engine, reflected the agricultural age. Smith classified the factors or agents of production as land, labor and capital, which make sense in the agricultural age, but not in the subsequent ages. In the scientific era, Soddy pointed out, the factors of production are energy, discovery of scientific principles and diligence. Brutal force is being increasingly replaced by diligence in the handling of scientific equipment. The first capitalist, Soddy wrote, was the tree, for the vegetation for eons of time saved, through photosynthesis, solar energy in the fossil fuels. This book was published in 1926, well ahead of this confusion, his confusion, he Great Depression, for which it offered the solution. With the present crisis in economics - the persistence of poverty amidst plenty - it is high time for us to take seriously Soddy's Copernican revolution in economics. Had the geocentric view been maintained, we could not have had space explorations. Similarly, if we insist in maintaining the money-centered economy we shall never be able to solve our socioeconomic problems. Note to Christians: Christ said that we would perform greater miracles than the ones He performed. And this we are doing through technology. But because Mammon, not us, is in control of the economy, we have not been able to satisfy the requirements for the Last Judgment of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. Let us, now, take a look at some predictions about the world evolution. SOME EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS Perhaps the oldest evolutionary view is that of the Bible predicting that the lion and the lamb would lie side by side and that swords would be transformed into plowshares. Buckminster Fuller made his transition in survival values in a profound personal crisis, in 1927. He had planned to commit suicide by drowning in Lake Michigan. On his way there, however, he pondered the function of humans in the universe and assumed that such function was to fight entropy. .[Entropy is the scientific designation for the natural tendency to chaos and loss of energy. We are all familiar with it in such phenomena as rotting of organic matter, rust, deterioration in general, aging etc] According to Fuller, humans are supposed, he concluded, to fight entropy through the use of their minds. Note to Christians: Fuller' assumption of the function of humans in the Universe explains Jesus' telling his disciples to live as the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. These creatures, by just existing, are fighting entropy through photosynthesis. Making money, Fuller reasoned, is not compatible with making sense. Hence, his advice to people - to make sense rather than to make money. - a counsel of perfection under our current conditions. The monetary reform suggested by Soddy would, however, eliminate the incompatibility between making money and making sense. (Note to Christians: The incompatibility that Fuller saw between making sense and making money corresponds to the incompatibility Christ pointed out between serving God and serving Mammon. Soddy's monetary reform corresponds to depriving money of ifs power as Mammon.) The works of Fuller and Soddy complement each other.. Fuller built a bridge between science and the humanities. Soddy built one between science and economics.
THE CURRENT CRISIS We are living in a predatory and litigious. world and in a climate of violence and war. We accept the paradox of poverty amidst plenty as an act of God, when Soddy long ago proved that it is the consequence of money being the ruler, rather than the servant of the economy. Our problems are to achieve peace, well being and prosperity. Fuller pointed out that our alternatives are utopia or oblivion. Our financial system is leading us to oblivion. The solution is not in a political revolution, but in what Fuller called design science revolution,. We are in the middle of epochal changes. As indications of this we can mention the following. Peter Drucker wrote books with titles such as The Post-Capitalist Society .and The New Reality. Shoshana Kuboff wrote The Support Economy: Why Corporations are failing individuals and the Next Episode of Capitalism. The mega-investor George Soros has written articles and books challenging some capitalistic concepts. In the preceding paragraph, the word capitalism was used several times. Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations is still the Bible of capitalism. Frederick Soddy, the recipient of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, undertook a study of economics with the objectivity of a scientist and noticed that the Wealth of Nations referred to the agricultural age, though written at the beginning of the industrial age. By 1776, the steam engine was being used, introducing the industrial age.
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