ANARCHIST is one who denies the validity of institutions as such--all exercise of discretion
over others, confounding power with authority.
APPLICABLE THEORY. “... what we mean by applicable theory is theory which does bring into
intellectual availability alternatives which in fact resolve the problematic situation. If
they don’t, that is what we mean by erroneous theory--theory which does not permit
you to get at the right evidences or arrange them for analysis. The arrangement is the
structure of the theory. 112 above
ARCHITECT is the person who has the function of applying aesthetic theory to the
technological function of structures.
ARTS. FINE ARTS have the central function of communication, while the central function of
INDUSTRIAL ARTS is the facilitation of other functions. Not the distinction between
work and leisure. 100 above.
AUTHORITY is the exercise of discretion over others with responsibility to them; validated
by comparative ignorance. Distinguish from POWER.
BAD is that which destroys the ability to participate in other activities.
BARBARISM is the organized use of predation to provide means of life.
BRUTALITY is the irrational show of coercive force without instrumental validity.
CAUSE. “... no item in the continuum that is human life can be regarded as a cause alone--
it is both cause and effect, and it has no peculiar nature as a cause. There can be
no nature of a cause. ‘Cause’ applies only to the interconnectedness of the run
of the facts.” Journal of Economic Issues, 1981:894-5.
CIVILIZATION is the relative development of the arts and sciences; it is never plural and
can't be lost; change or loss is in power structures.
COMPROMISE usually means both sides abandon some part of their position. It never
solves a problem because it is concerned with "how much" is abandoned rather
than "what," the identification of which requires a criterion of judgment.
CONSCIENCE is the sum of comprehensions of validity in one's own behavior; awareness
of degree of integrity.
CONSUMPTION is destruction, in the sense of elimination from inventory, but not destructive.
This would seem to be corollary to the definition of investment as variation in aggregate
inventory.
CONTINUITY does not mean long life. It means continuous in causal terms, cumulatively
developmental.
COST in instrumental rather than business terms is a function of values--the destruction of
values.
CULTURE is a particular application of the arts and sciences.
DEFENSE. SELF-DEFENSE is the only instance in which one validly has a choice between
life and death. In all other situations, there are other alternatives that will maintain the
social process.
DEMOCRACY is the process by which the people decide; the popular determination of
public policy.
DIGNITY is the outward expression of integrity.
DISCIPLINE is often equated with obedience, but the frontier experience led the founders of
the United States to mean by discipline self-control in trying circumstances.
ECONOMICS is the study of how the means of life are provided.
EDUCATION is the provision of opportunities to comprehend the arts and sciences and their
applications to the everyday lives of everybody.
EQUALITY. “In the instrumental sense, Justice and Equality are different words for the same
thing. They describe conditions of inquiry maximal to constant experiment in human
experience. They describe a condition of human affairs in which the individual as part
of society can make a maximum contribution, given his individual uniqueness and
talents and shortcomings, to the efficient carrying on of the life process of all men.”
ETHICS is the study of the difference between right and wrong.
FASCISM is a system in which power is the theory and the criterion of value.
FEUDALISM is a system in which function and status are determined by inheritance.
FREEDOM means absence of prescription to most of the world’s peoples, who have
constantly experienced power-imposing institutions. To North Americans, who
experienced over two centuries of frontier life without power-imposing institutions,
it means the area of discretion over one's own behavior.
FRONTIER “is an area of land which is outside the control of a judicial establishment and
outside the market process.” 164 above. A frontier economy is one in which one
or more factors of production do not enter into accepted accountancy.
GOVERNMENT is the organized exercise of sovereignty.
HABIT is a pattern of behavior learned by repetition in situations in which it appears to satisfy
functionally the requirements of the situations. "Habits are applicable where solutions
to particular kinds of problems have been attained with sufficient accuracy to permit
continued operation without serious infringement of the continuum in question." 96
above.
HEDONISM is the doctrine that pleasure is the sole or chief good and that moral duty is
fulfilled in the gratification of pleasure seeking instincts.
IDEA is a comprehension of the consequences of some activity and always precedes action.
INDIVIDUALISM is the theory that assumes that the only source of validity for an individual's
behavior is the convicted accreditation of that individual.
INFLATION. True inflation exists when price level increases themselves cause further
increases; partial inflation exists when a rising price level does not eventuate in
further price increases.
INSTITUTION is a prescribed pattern of correlated behavior. Its prescriptive power is by
virtue of habit.
INSTRUMENTAL THEORY OF VALUE identifies problem solution as the criterion of judgment.
It is universally applied but seldom recognized.
INVESTMENT is the rate of variation of inventory of a community (for Keynes, inventory of
business); the difference between the rate of production and the rate of destruction.
"In the classical tradition, increasing capital accumulation is good, but increasing
inventory is bad, in that it leads to decreasing investment and income. In Keynes,
capital accumulation is inventory and is good, leading one to question the proper
character of inventory."
ISM is that which stands for or represents a body of theory, the validity of the assumptions of
which is based on the theory itself. It is always teleological, demonstrating how to
achieve a preconceived end outside of the life process. 119 above
JUDGMENT is a connection between the present and the future; it is a hypothetical projection
of choices within one’s area of discretion into combinations which are not yet. If the
combinations exist now, you aren’t making that judgment; it has already been made.
94 above.
JUSTICE. "In terms of the instrumental theory of value, the concept of justice becomes
identical with the problem of welfare--progress. It disappears as a separate problem."
From Gladys Foster’s notes printed in the Journal of Economic Issues 25 (December
1991):1155-60. Cf. EQUALITY above. Price theory is the equational theory of justice
applied to the economic process: price = cost. Same for Marxist theory of exploitation.
LAG. The cultural lag hypothesis advanced by Ogburn, Social Change, 1922, denotes
something inherently different between culture and technology. Institutional adjustment
is assumed to lag behind technological change. We do have institutional problems
brought about by change of industrial arts, but this is very recent, only since science
has adopted the instrumental value theory. It used to be the opposite: the family,
government, the market were invented before the wheel.
LEISURE. "Leisure is an attribute of employment, it is not an alternative to employment. It's
an alternative to working when you are employed. It's an alternative available to those
who have placement in the institutional structure we call employment." 136 above.
LIBERAL is one willing to alter the established institutional order to solve problems.
LICENSE is institutional enforcement of improper choice.
LOVE is the integration of two personalities.
MAN is a social animal; social life consists of integrated patterns of behavior.
MISSING MIDDLE. Foster’s characterization of a bifurcation or assertion of an ontological
difference in kind. His name is taken from the canon in formal logic of conjunctive-
disjunctive relations among propositions: something is either A or non-A. Cf. Dewey’s
Logic, pp. 343ff. Foster rejected many popular assertions of a missing middle:
between pleasure and pain, science and philosophy, fact and value, means and ends,
cause and effect, theory and practice.
MODEL is an alternative methodology to theory: deductive logic going from general to specific;
axiomatic, tested not by evidence but logical consistency with assumptions--beyond
which one cannot go.
MORES PRINCIPLE is that habits constitute institutions. “Institutional structures are con-
constituted by mores and folkways (by habits of thought and action); i.e., the behavior
patterns that constitute institutions are habits. In application it is usually assumed that
institutions are not only constituted by but also determined by habits. That assumption
is false.” 109 above
PACIFISM has no foundation in fact. While aggression is always invalid, defense is always
valid.
PHILOSOPHY is the deliberate effort to think coherently over the entire field of human
experience, i.e., a deliberately rational effort 1) to build generalizations which are
inclusive of the whole of human experience and 2) to verify and/or negate these
generalizations by observing singular applications. It is generic with science, the
only difference being in universes: philosophy is the all-inclusive science, and
the sciences are singular applications of philosophy. The same difference
exists between mathematics & arithmetic. 88 above.
POLITICAL ECONOMY is the pattern of institutions through which the character and level
of real income are determined.
POLITICAL FUNCTION is the process of determining public policy.
POWER is the exercise of discretion over others without responsibility to them. Distinguish
from AUTHORITY.
PRINCIPLE. "Etymologically, the word principle refers to an inclusive and continuing
operational proposition to which there are no exceptions."
PROFIT is the ratio of unobligated proceeds (beyond costs) to investment as time rates;
net proceeds/net costs.
PROGRESS is the advance of civilization; it is sometimes defined as the rate of capital
accumulation, since accumulation is necessary for invention.
PUGNACITY is a human capacity, a temporary circumstance raised by some historians to
the level of a principle.
PROPERTY always implies the right to the return from the use of an asset; it can include
discretion over use.
PUBLIC UTILITY is an enterprise regulated as to price and product, but privately owned.
REASON is the human capacity exercised in selecting alternatives in problematic situations
in which habitual behavior fails to satisfy the requirements of the situation.
RELIGION is the search for the nature of cause beyond ordinary experience.
REPUBLIC is one institutional structure used to carry on the democratic process.
RESPONSIBILITY is accountability for one's behavior.
RIGOR is a sudden and painful dislocation in an otherwise orderly process. Latin stiffness
or severity, from rigere, to be stiff.
SABOTAGE, PEACEFUL is the intentional, willful, deliberate, planned curtailment of the
provision of the means of life.
SCIENCE is a matter of arraying facts in causal terms, in line with a theoretical formulation,
which is a theory of value, a criterion of judgment. l) building generalizations, and 2)
constant verification and/or negation through singular applications of those gen-
eralizations as working hypotheses. The two steps are separately identifiable
but not separable operationally, since the first is accomplished through the
operation of the second. 88 above.
SIGNIFICANCE is applicability to real problems.
SOVEREIGNTY is that resolution beyond which there is no appeal.
SPECULATION is the effort to gain by changes in price levels.
STYLE is the individual character of the use of tools.
SUBSIDY is a payment which wouldn't have been received if real cost were the limiting factor.
SYNDICALISM is the system in which function and status are determined by economic role.
TECHNOLOGY is the application of theory (the arts and sciences) to physical fact, to the social
process, to the use of social and physical tools.
TELEOLOGY is an outside-of-the-process directional determinant or directional identification.
THEORY is the identification of significant data and hypotheses about relationships. "The
function, and therefore the significance, of scientific theory is twofold: it identifies
pertinent data, and it specifies the arrangement of those data for analysis in order to
find answers to problems." It is an alternative methodology to modeling, going from
specific to general: if first is true, next is probably true. At least one statement must
be empirically verifiable.
UTILITY. “Some things give more pleasure or pain than others, and people make judgments
about them. But those traits do not explain how things come to be judged desirable or
undesirable. A criterion of judgment is still needed.” 117 above.
UTILITY THEORY OF VALUE identifies want satisfaction as the criterion of judgment. It is
almost universally assumed but cannot be applied because it is irrelevant to the
causal continuum of human experience. “It is impossible to apply an
erroneous criterion.” 93 above.
UTILITARIANISM is the doctrine that the useful is the good, and that the determining
consideration of right conduct is the usefulness of its consequences; especially the
doctrine that the aim of moral action is the largest possible balance of pleasure over
pain or the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
VALUATION is the process of applying a value when judging comparative worth. "Now,
valuation as such is the selection of proper behavior, as choosing among alternatives,
alternatives which are available in the sense that they may be chosen but which are
not yet operative." 97 above.
VALUE is the criterion, end, or referent of judgment.
VALUES usually mean things we hold dear. They are never continuing factors; they refer to
temporary situations rather than to continuing conditions, and thus cannot serve as
grounds for judging what is good and what is bad economically, i.e. VALUE.
WAR never solves problems, but does determine who will make policy after it is over.
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