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Both faith and skepticism are helpful in using scholarly doctrines John R. Ewbank Copyright I am an 84-year-old patent attorney who had a minor in economics during graduate work. Knowledge is a convenient classification of useful data. Relatively few matters can be proven so conclusively that there are no skeptics or dissenters. To minimize the time wasted on disputes, various procedures establish tentative conclusions. For example, in a criminal trial, there are potentialities for a jury to issue a verdict that a defendant is guilty. Hundreds of juries have blundered into incorrect verdicts, but the system is manageable. Similarly, in every realm of knowledge, group decisions have sometimes been erroneous. Few sciences are taught using textbooks from remote decades because some earlier doctrines are obsolete. As regards the concept that mass attracts mass, or a law of gravity, there has been consensus for so long that it requires no faith to assert the validity of the law of gravity. Many scientific theories are widely used notwithstanding sufficient skepticism on the part of some. Use of such theories involves an element of faith. The term "doctrine" embraces concepts for which the proof is deemed by many to be incomplete. Only those recognizing that some adherents have faith in such doctrine and also recognizing that others have skepticism about such doctrine desirably should use a doctrine. That is, doctrines are inherently controversial as distinguished from being universally accepted as valid. Substantially all economic doctrines are controversial. Each of several groups of economists tends to imitate religious fundamentalists in their fanaticism for their particular economic doctrine. Humanity must cope with an evolving matrix of institutions, some of which are based upon doctrines which must be taken on faith. No individual or entity can long survive without reliance upon some doctrines. Unfortunately, some individuals are unaware of the assumptions which they are taking on faith. Toddlers need to accept significant authoritarianism from their parents and cultural environment. Humans need to grow up with recognition of the need for a re-evaluation of the universe because of the ongoing discoveries that some of the myths they had previously relied upon are false. Myths such as Santa Claus sometimes guide a child to accept the need to periodic reevaluation based upon the discovery of the falsity of other myths previously relied upon. Few adolescents can comprehend the complexity of the universe.  Doctrines permitting a simplified perspective on the universe are appealing to adolescents. Many adolescents become addicted to various doctrines, whether concerning energy-matter or sociology. Many humans, by the time they are about age 30, have had a sufficient variety of experiences to be capable of substantially defying all external authority and basing many of their decisions pragmatically upon what has been their own unique experience, including their experiences of "inner seed" or "inner light" or "conscience". . Individuals must take individual responsibility for self-government. Many individuals prefer to retain the submissiveness which is so comforting to toddlers, even when they are adults. Among those past 30, the desire for self-government is not universal, but is sufficiently abundant that society can rely significantly upon such passion for self-government and individual responsibility. Liberating oneself is a lifelong struggle. As long as an individual retains even an iota of desire to manipulate others, as distinguished from sometimes suggesting opportunities to others while unambiguously granting the other person complete freedom to choose from among all available alternatives, the tyranny of toddlers and the dominant-submissiveness complications persist through life.  Each institution must maintain certain doctrines as governing relationships within such institution. Although a church can grant a significant range of theological doctrine and/or behavior standards, its survival of a church can be threatened by any appearance of complete lack of doctrine. Similarly, any governmental institution must tentatively adopt some doctrines as its standards. Any government seeking to minimize thievery needs to respect individuals stressing the phenomena that institutional injustice sometimes stimulates thievery.  However, if a government is entitled to coerce all occupants for the purpose of minimizing thievery, then such government needs to adopt a doctrine that thievery results from inadequate sense of responsibility by individuals. Some doctrines are promoted because of profitability to their advocates. In evaluating doctrines, appraising the factors stimulating doctrines should be basic. For example, theological doctrines provide the intellectual framework designed primarily to enhance the power of the clergy. Similarly, economic doctrine serves significantly as the intellectual framework for enhancing the power and authority of government officials. Conflicting economic doctrines inevitably result from conflicts among politicians about what any level of government should be doing to regulate economic activity. An institutional lag is inevitable as regards all government regulation. Cultural and technological and other varieties of changes occur far more rapidly than is the typical adaptation by a typical government.  Market forces, to the extent that the competition is sufficiently fair, can sometimes adapt with less institutional lag than governments. The neoclassical economic doctrines [and there are an abundance of them, depending in part upon the culture and technology background of authors] focus primarily upon the usefulness of fair competition for coping with change, as distinguished from the modifications of government regulation. Such neoclassical economic doctrines are completely contradictory to the doctrines of national socialism. Many politicians are enthusiastic for national socialism, with its centralization of totalitarian authority in national governments. I became a teenager in 1929, and have criticized academia for its over-glorification of national socialism economic theory. About 1980 a few neoclassical economists managed to have a slight impact. I am amazed that current writers connote that academia now teaches neoclassical economics as the politically correct dogma. To the extent that observers can recognize all economic doctrine as analogous to theological doctrine, and concerned merely with seeking greater power for politicians, such changes can be useful. To the extent that there are power struggles to impose one variety of economic doctrine upon all governments, it is even more dangerous than any attempt to impose upon all governments the identical theological doctrine. During the 20th century, there was a very important global mind change. In 1899, the hierarchies of many organized religions persisted in their hopes of eventual domination of the world by winning the birthrate contest. By 1999, the hierarchies of many organized religions were comfortable about the perennial coexistence of diverse religious denominations. The time has come or economists to similarly accept the perennial coexistence of diverse, conflicting economic doctrine, and to recognize that whatever world government evolves must cope with, not merely diversity of theological doctrine, but also extreme diversity of economic doctrine. Hundreds of towns have successfully operated water supplies, sanitary waste systems, schools, and other aspects of socialism without significantly endangering individual freedom or the autonomy of local neighborhoods. However, when the remote bureaucracy of a nation attempts to operate a business which elsewhere is handled by competitive enterprise, a chain reaction of evils can readily evolve. . Any economic doctrine even slightly tainted with national socialism should be recognized as an attempt to revive Nazism. Substantially all varieties of national socialism have curtailed individual freedom in a manner quite different from local socialist projects. It is not only economics, but substantially all realms of knowledge, which should be taught in such a manner as to inform students about the existence of conflict among a variety of doctrines, some of which may have only a small following.  All of the arguments used by "flatlanders" should be a part of the teaching of geography so that the student will choose or reject the flatlander doctrines pragmatically, and not because of the authoritarian domination of the educational system. Substantially all significant knowledge has a "faith" component arising from the choice of a significant array of doctrines which cannot be proven. Just as juries have sometimes come to wrong conclusions, so groups of experts have sometimes adhered for months or years to wrong conclusions. Learning to accept such an abundance of uncertainties should be accepted as a part of maturity.