Retorts

Fetish Fallacies

Rodney Hide's reply [link-textViewpoint, April] to John Peet's article on link-text"Public Policy and the Money Fetish" [July 1993] requires comment.

Firstly theories are not tested "by experience". This is admitting bias from the outset. The jibe that the price of something evokes a common response across cultural boundaries is bunk. He should try and interest an Eskimo in a really cheap refrigerator.

What really concerned me about Hide's reply was the strong message that it is still OK to consume profligately so that we can attain the obligatory "growth" and to hell with the increasingly large number of disadvantaged who have been placed in that position by the mindless application of "market forces". Choice is certainly there in his society, but only for those who are rich enough to pay for it.

Finally, I would query his credo, the twice-repeated comment that "economics and the market order sail on unaware and unscathed". I would suggest that "unaware and uncaring" would be more appropriate. It will be interesting to see how far the vessels sail once overwhelming population growth, pollution, resource depletion and climate change act to trim their sails and load them above their Plimsoll marks. No doubt Mr Hide will get off and walk.

Rex Stewart, Christchurch