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After a dozen years as a market research executive, Fred Phillips was professor, dean, and vice provost at a variety of universities in the US, Europe, and South America. He is now Visiting Professor... Read More »

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A job interview, some years back, at No Name University (NNU). I was the candidate. The diversity question, pitched right on schedule. The surprise was who asked it. Of the seven search committee members (plus the search firm rep) only one was a person of color, and guess who they stuck with asking the diversity question? A clear signal I would not want to work at their institution, but I gave it my best game anyway.

This is a companion piece to “Enough: Toward A Sustainable Economics” 

https://www.science20.com/fred_phillips/enough_toward_a_sustainable_economics-256755.

Jobs. Gates. Berners-Lee. They opened our worlds to wonders: Graphical user interfaces, PCs, the World Wide Web. They were my heroes, and probably yours, deservedly so.


We're no longer surprised that so many people bow down to the Invisible Hand of economics, worshipping its messenger coins and notes, and attending its oracles, the Wall Street analysts. Adam Smith, the 18th-century originator of the invisible hand metaphor, took pains to affirm its workings should be tempered by moral considerations and should not be interpreted as the will of God. Those emphases have been lost.

And back at home, Congressman John Curtis (R Utah) tells National Public Radio that the “conservative climate caucus,” which he chairs, seeks climate solutions that “don’t demonize fossil fuels.”*

Now, as many of you know, I’m a political centrist at heart, but because the country has drifted so far to the right, I’ve resolved to be a knee-jerk leftist – a flaming liberal, a yellow dog Democrat – until things come back into balance.