Economics of Intangibles, Zatzman, ul-Islam

Arabs, Jews, and Muslims in Economics

by Joachim Martillo (ThorsProvoni@aol.com)

Gary Zatzman and Rafiqul Islam recently published The Economics of Intangibles. In the preface they state:

Up to now economics as a branch of social science has been mainly concerned to map the commercial and financial relations of Humanity including a wide variety of institutions spawned to sustain livelihoods within these relations. Although these relations, qua relations, are by definition intangible, the forms by which these relations are expressed -- and in which they may even be quantified, are by definition intangible, the forms by which these relations are expressed -- and in which they may even be quantified, predicted, and managed -- are all tangible. Thus we have arrived at the tantalizing paradox, wherein for economists, tangibles seem to occupy the entire space of interest, even though that which has given rise to their very field in the first place are actually social relations that remain utterly intangible.

Always and everywhere the tangible is quantifiable. However, lifting this veil uncovers something very strange. To the extent that tangible economic activity takes quantifiable form, it is possible to generalise about the forms themselves and-or to verify them, without reference to any further information as to the intent, conscience, or consciousness of those who gave rise to these activities in the first place. This elimination of "subjective factors", such as intent, was long trumpeted as the economists' greatest success (as social "scientists") -- but is it?

As I have looked at the intersection of ethnicity and economics especially as it relates to Friedmanism, Zionism and Yiddish culture (and then instantiates itself in the thinking of important modern Zionist Jewish economists like Lawrence Summers, who recently began to wear his Jewishness or Yiddishkeyt on his sleeve), I have begun to ask the same question and probably should not have been surprised as I looked through the preview of the book that it contained an email exchange in which Wafaa' al-Natheema of the Institute of Near Eastern and African Studies, Naseem (Nissim) Rejwan of Hebrew University, Peter Sluglett of the University of Utah, Sheila Musaji of The American Muslim e-zine and I took part. The entire discussion of the Arabic identity of Iraqi Jews can be found by threading through the hyperlinks starting at Attacking Shohat: Falsifying Jewish History.

In another context Gary Zatzman has also peeled away the veil of false devotion to human rights by Natan Sharansky and Irwin Cotler in Ministering injustice, which can be found at Zatzman's web site Online Ticket to the Political Thicket.

In other words both "elimination of subjectivity" and also "appeals to conscience and higher ideals" like human rights (or stopping genocide in Darfur" often conceal conscious Zionist intent or Pavlovian Zionist conditioning in contemporary political or academic discourse.

Sphere: Related Content