Thomas E. Chamberlain, Ph.D.*
January 12, 2007
SUMMARY
A prominent quality of the natural sciences is the integration of formerly separate or distinct branches of
investigative learning, and a similar unification is now underway in the human sciences. Socialism and
capitalism may also be united, on the same foundation: While the canonical Gossen Equation directly
accommodates and unites the human sciences (most prominently...psychology, economics, and social-
psychology), this relation also allows an analysis and explanation of poverty, and shows how the
essentially unstable capitalist market-economy may be stabilized by appropriate socialist policies and
institutions. More to the point, the increasing or growing division of the population into rich versus poor
may be arrested and reversed by: (1) damping the predictability/confidence-eroding surges of capital and
goods across international boundaries; and (2) instituting programs to directly sustain and promote the
capital-intensity of disadvantaged citizens by sponsoring/requiring health-care, education, training,
business knowledge, etc. ...After briefly reviewing the emergence of the instant utility methodology over
the past 150+ years, the discussion turns to a substantive or essential factor in socioeconomic dysfunction
in the world today—the tendency of the poor to reasonably and rationally reduce investment (in
education, skills, health, etc.), in accordance with their lower or secondary discretionary power, thereby
falling behind in relative and (finally) absolute terms. It is then advanced that socialist measures
(proactive governance for equality and well-being) will defeat market-economy instability, and open the
way to a more just and beneficent global society. ...As an unusual but constructive adjunct or add-on to
the paper, the paper-discussion offered by Professor Yongjiang He of Nankai University at the Beijing
Pacific Rim Conference is provided in the appendix, with responses to his questions.
