Federal Europe 2

Federal Europe: Should we blame Germany ?

" Greece cannot compete with Germany; but need it?"

Germany tends to export more to the world than it imports from it, so, while Germany runs a trade surplus, its trading partners have to run a deficit. This attitude to trade is termed mercantilism and was common throughout Europe from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, whereupon in most of the developed world Free Trade gradually won the day with more complex models and mechanism for balancing the value of trade. However, in Germany a liking for mercantilism lingered and, some say lingers still [Sergio Cesaratto, Antonella Stirati, (2011) "Germany and the European and Global Crises"; n. 607].

Tied to the mercantilist notion of a positive trade balance, is the notion that the accumulation of bullion constituted the accumulation of wealth in a country. Mercantilism (as its name implies) is the product of merchants, and to some extent of the Civil Service. In the heyday of European mercantilism (1340-1789; or from the Black Death to the French Revolution) mercantilism made a certain amount of sense. A trade deficit meant that a country ran out of gold. Without gold it could not field a significant army. If you could out-trade your competitors, you could probably vanquish them in the field as well, exclude them from markets, seize their colonies, etc.; the British have done all these. The highly competitive commercial policy of mercantilism goes 'hand-in-glove' with an equally aggressive foreign policy.

The attack on mercantilism was the work, not of remorseful merchants, but of philosophers and theorists (Locke, Hume, Smith, Ricardo). Mercantilism is today regarded (generally if not universally) as in error. Trade need not be a 'zero-sum' game in which the gain of one is the loss of another; it is now accepted that it is possible for trade to benefit both parties. Furthermore, Adam Smith also argued that the accumulation of bullion does a country no more good than an accumulation of peppercorns; bullion is just another commodity. As gold flows out of a country its value will rise; similarly its value will fall in a country where there is a net export of goods (and thus import of gold).

But, let us return to 20^th century Europe, and test the notion that Greece and Germany cannot co-exist in the Euro. Before the introduction of the Euro the currency markets would quickly bring the system into equilibrium. With excessive import of German goods, the value of the Greek drachma would sink relative to the D-Mark, making German exports to Greece prohibitively expensive. The Eurozone removed this automatic 'regulator of trade' and 'balancer of budgets'. No longer would Greece automatically stop buying German cars when it ran out of D-Marks.

What should have happened is that, as Greece ran out of Euros, their value in Greece should have risen; Greek salaries expressed in Euros should have fallen. However, the opposite happened; the Greeks (perhaps looking at salaries and wages in the rest of the Eurozone) let their own wages rise much faster than the Eurozone average. [The Greek public payroll rose from 38 percent of state revenue in 2000 to 55 percent in 2009.] Trade balance was lost, and money flowed out of the country. Fiscal balance was lost and the Government borrowed. Why not? 

Against borrowing the natural control is interest rate. Excessive borrowing raises interest rates, but by two different mechanisms; as lenders fear their debtors will devalue, and as lenders fear their debtors will default. Greece in the Eurozone cannot devalue; so interest rates were initially low, and debt accumulated. There seems also to have been a deliberate hiding by the Greek government of the real level of government debt. Now that proper EU scrutiny has been made, the markets and rating agencies seem to consider default likely. That might be the best option. Those who protest against default are probably the creditors who would lose the money they should never have lent in the first place. In the meantime the ECB and IMF authorities have imposed severe austerity measures, capping salaries, etc. Unfortunately, cutting public salaries by 20% cuts tax revenue by more than 20%. The debt:GDP ratio grows worse.

This fiasco need not have happened, and need not happen again. The Eurozone is a new concept, and there is much to learn. The main point I am making here is that because Greece cannot devalue the external value of the Euro to promote exports it must learn to revalue the internal value of the Euro; i.e. change internal prices and salaries.

(See also my post: http://occidentis.blogspot.com/2011/09/greek-debt.html.)

Federal Europe 1

Federal Europe: how can rich and poor co-exist ?

"If Ecuador can share a currency with USA, why not Greece with Germany?"

In the nineteen eighties and early nineties the ethos in the European Communities (EC) was positive, expansionist, welcoming. Funding was made available to improve impoverished corners of Europe, and to fund collaborative research between member states. The motive was no doubt to entice conservative populations into the concept of a united Europe. It seemed to be an accepted principle that all Europeans should enjoy the same benefits and the same standard of living. No one complained.

No one accept me. Holidaying in southern Europe, as we northerners love to do, I was struck by the absurdity of this thinking. Those who live in the sunshine do not need shopping arcades and motorways; they do not need work, achievement, wealth, museums and theatres in order to feel that life is worthwhile, for it is so patently enjoyable simply to sit under a tree and to wait for the cool of the evening. Europe, extending from Norway to Spain and from Ireland to Hungary, comprises very different lifestyles and life-purposes, as well as very different standards of living. This has been true for centuries, and no doubt for millennia. I have implied that it is largely to do with climate, though historical accidents will have played a part; and to some extent migration will have allowed people to select a climate, a culture, and a lifestyle, that suits their temperament. It should never have been part of the European mission to even-out cultural and economic differences; both are intimately connected to each other and to the terrain.

Simon Wolfson (Baron Wolfson of Aspley Guise; Next, P.O Box 4000, Sheffield, S97 3ET) believes it is impossible for rich Germany and poor Greece to co-exist in the Eurozone and to share a common currency. (Admittedly, some others share that view). I, on the other hand, question the impossibility of rich and poor countries sharing a common currency.

I was surprised to learn that Ecuador (in 2000) adopted the US dollar as its national currency. Their own monetary unit, the Sucre, came off the gold-standard in 1932 at 5.95 to the US dollar but by the end of the millennium had sunk to 25,000 to the dollar. Its rapid slide was a disadvantage to trade and tourism. Ecuador does not have access to the US Federal Bank, and it cannot print dollars. But it has complete sovreignty over its interal finances; it can raise and spend tax with complete independence from the USA. If Ecuador runs a trade surplus with the USA it keeps the dollars; it thus misses out on the interest that would accrue if it bought US bonds. The US on the other hand benefits from what amounts to an interest-free loan of the 'goods and services' it gains in this exchange.  (International Economics, Robert Carbaugh, 13^th ed. 2011). In effect, Ecuador opted, in 2000, to go back onto a sort of gold-standard; a pseudo-gold-standard (Milton Friedman, Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 4, Oct., (1961) pp. 66- .)  Ecuador and the USA are vastely different in per capita wealth yet they share a common currency. This is only possible while Ecuador operates a fiscal balance internally, and a trade balance externally. If Ecuador can share a currency with USA, why not Greece with Germany?

How on earth were the indebted countries of the Eurozone allowed to break the obviously inexorable rules regarding balancing both tax and trade budgets? Some people were aparently prepared to lend the Greek government money which it promptly spent. I think those lenders were at least as guilty as the borrowers, particularly as their motive was personal gain. So, let the borrowers default! 

Growth

(Note added 29th December 2023

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04962/SN04962.pdf)

growth of the economy

"Do not be deceived — 1% growth in GDP means 4% shrinkage of the economy."

For my previous aperçus regarding Greek Debt and Bank Capitalization see my Occidentis blog. I am now puzzling over the terminology in which the government and hence the media discuss growth of the economy. We are told day-after-day, week-after-week that the only way to get out of deficit is "Growth", and that the Office of National Statistics has downgraded estimates for past quarterly growth from  0.5% to 0.4%; while the Office for Budget Responsibility  has similarly downgraded its forecasts for future growth. We 'Small-is-Beautiful' people, i.e. those of us who have no ambition to conquer the world economically, might wonder why we should not be content with the status quo. Why do we need always to grow? But wait!

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) attempts to measure the total productivity of a country and is defined by an agreed formula usually written as the sum of gross private consumption + government spending + businesses' capital investment + net exports (or exports minus imports):

GDP = C + G + I + NX

Data is widely available stretching back decades and it is clear that since the second world war there has been an almost logarithmic growth in British GDP, with a doubling time of about 10 years. However, data on inflation show that the cost of a standard and agreed mix of purchases such as the Consumer Price Index (which has replaced the slightly more inflationary Retail Price Index) has shown an almost identical growth over the same period.

In other words gross domestic production (as opposed to GDP) has NOT incresased by more than a whisker in the last several decades if we correct for inflation. The increase in the 30 years from 1980, corrected for inflation is not 4 fold; it is a mere 1.1 fold; i.e. a 10% increase in 30 years. It further means that, with current inflation running at 5% (per annum) and current GDP increasing at a mere 1% p.a., the economy is not in stasis — it is shrinking. Do not be deceived; 1% growth in GDP means a 4% shrinkage of the economy. So maybe we do need to see a rising GDP expressed, as it is, in a shrinking currency.

When I was a boy it was not uncommon to see a working horse with 'blinkers'; leather patches attached to the bridle such that the horse could not see to left or right, and only obliquely could it see ahead where it was going. I was told that this was so that the horse would not be alarmed by passing traffic. I think politicians have put blinkers on us the public, so that we do not get alarmed at what is going on. Recession to the BBC (Radio 4 World at One pm) means negative growth in GDP; to me it means negative growth in 'real terms'; i.e. any growth in GDP that is less than inflation.

On the other hand, a dramatic decline in gross private consumption does not worry me particularly, even when measured in real terms, for we were consuming far more than we were manufacturing during those boom years; we were busily spending money imagined for us by the financial sector and now imagined away again; dream money (see Bank Capitalization). What should worry us is not a decline in living standards, for we are still absurdly well off, but high youth unemployment. As a nation we have to find a product that the world wants to buy, and settle down to make it at a price that tempts buyers. We are most of us sitting around waiting for someone else to think up what that product is and build the requisite factory, so of all people we waiters cannot complain. We can only wait patiently, and hope that somebody, somewhere, it doing the thinking.

Programme Notes (Op.2/3)

Piano Sonata in C major, Op. 2, No.3 — Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)

i.   Allegro con brio, ii. Adagio, iii. Scherzo, allegro, iv. Allegro assai. 

This sonata, published in 1796, is the 3^rd of Beethoven's published sonatas and bears a dedication to Franz Joseph Haydn. In July 1792 Haydn persuaded Elector Maximilian of Bonn to give Beethoven 2 years' leave so that he could study composition with Haydn in Vienna. In 1794 Haydn returned to London for his second visit leaving Beethoven in Vienna, no longer supported by the Elector but earning his own living, by playing, teaching and composing. (His Op. 1 trios, published in 1795, earned Beethoven enough money to support him for the best part of a year.)  Our Op. 2 sonata, 3^rd in the set and the most virtuosic, is strongly Haydnesque (humorous, extrovert, classical, and rhythmically vigorous), yet it is clearly Beethovian also, thematically inventive, experimental in key changes and departures from sonata-form; and in expressing more emotion than Haydn. (You may hear an interesting discussion of the sonata by Andras Schiff at http://audio.theguardian.tv/sys-audio/Arts/Culture/2006/11/01/SonataCOp2No3.mp3)

 

7 Fantasien, Op. 116   ———   Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897)

In 1890, after writing his 2^nd string quintet, the 57-year-old Brahms decided to give up composing. However, he soon resumed, writing (in his remaining 6 years) 4 works for clarinet, 4 sets of short piano pieces (Opp. 116 – 119), and some vocal music. He died in April 1897 (11 months after Clara Schumann). These later sets, like his earlier forays in the genre, may represent in some respects a backward glance at the integrated cycles of short piano pieces that were among Schumann's most characteristic works. Brahms' style is a lyrical, but carefully structured, romanticism; he avoids the 'flying trapeeze' virtuosity of Liszt, and the 'story-telling' romanticism of the Liszt/Wagner school. Though not himself polemical, Brahms was often put forward as the antithesis of Liszt/Wagner romanticism. Opus 116 (composed 1892) comes 13 years after his immediately preceding piano work – the 2 rhapsodies of Op.79. The Op.116 set is not so rich in tunes as either the earlier or the later sets; there is a slight tendency to wooden chords, and a quaint reliance on instructions to play with the "uttermost intimateness of feeling", or "sweetness". The  piano writing lies well under the hands – if you have very big hands. (The pieces end as often as not with a 10-note chord; literally 2 hands full.) Compared with Op. 79 there is much rhythmic innovation and complexity (notes across-the-barlines, 3-beats-against-2, etc.). It might be said that, with Op. 116, Brahms was exploring and developing a form he perfected in Opp. 117, and 118. It contains 7 pieces; the capriccios are fast and energetic, the intermezzi slower and more relaxed.

1. Capriccio — Presto energico (D minor);  2. Intermezzo — Andante (A minor); 3. Capriccio — Allegro passionato (G minor); 4. Intermezzo — Adagio (E major); 5. Intermezzo — Andante con grazia ed intimissimo sentimento (E minor); 6. Intermezzo — Andantino teneramente (E major); 7. Capriccio — Allegro agitato (D minor)

 

Piano sonata No. 1 in B minor  —————  Franz Liszt (1811 – 1886)

The B minor sonata is considered by many to be Liszt's greatest work for solo piano, and is remarkable in his oeuvre in being 'pure music' (i.e. not programmatic, not depicting fountains, or runaway horses.) It was written in Weimar in 1852-3 where Liszt had retired from his peripatetic life as a virtuoso to concentrate on composition (at the urging of Princess Carolyne Wittgenstein with whom he spent the last 40 years of his life). It is dedicated to Robert Schumann, who had 16 years earlier dedicated his Op. 17 Fantasie to Liszt.  Though there are tempo markings and key changes indicating distinct sections, the 30 minute work is played as a single continuous whole. It is held together by its themes, of which there are 5 that recur in different forms — now heroic, now lyrical. Given the lifelong artistic antagonism between Brahms and Liszt, it is amusing to note that in May 1853 the 20 year old Brahms, touring with the violinist RemŽnyi  and fatigued from travelling, fell asleep while Liszt played through the barely completed and still unpublished B minor sonata. (The following year Liszt seems* unaccountably to have lost the manuscript of an early Brahms sonata for violin & piano which Brahms had left with him!) The dedication to Robert Schumann seems nowhere more relevant than in the final 20 bars, where the Lento assai sinks gradually into silence, for that calls to mind the similar ending of Schumann's Kinderszenen. This was not Liszt's original ending, as can be seen in the facsimile score (see: International Music Score Library Project) where a FF ending is crossed out in red ink and the PPP ending substituted; maybe when the Schumann dedication was decided upon. (In support of this suggestion, let me quote Liszt's letter* to Schumann, 5^th June 1839 "As for the Scenes of Childhood, I owe to them one of the keenest joys of my life.....") (*La Mara's Letters)

(Programme notes complied from various sources by Ian West.)

 

Programme Notes

Piano Trio no.4  in E Minor, ('Dumky') —— Antonin Dvořák (1841 - 1904)

i.       Lento Maestoso, ii. Poco Adagio, iii. Andante, iv. Andante Moderato, v. Allegro, vi. Lento Maestoso. 

A 'dumky', according to Wikipedia, is a "Slavic (specifically Ukrainian) epic ballad … generally thoughtful or melancholic in character."  It traditionally alternates cheerful with melancholic moods, and its importance in music is that it is not sonata-form. Dvořák wrote several dumky movements but in this work each of its 6 sections is a 'dumky'. The first 3 sections (in the related keys of E, C♯, A) run together forming a complex first movement; the last 3 sections are in the less related keys of D, E♭ and C respectively. In 1891, at the age of 50, Dvořák was already an international celebrity with his Stabat Mater, his violin concerto, 3 of his 4 trios, 5 of his 8 quartets, and 8 of his 9 symphonies behind him; but his three greatest and best loved works were still to come — the American quartet ('93), the New World symphony ('93), and the cello concerto ('94). He composed this piano trio in 1891 and, at its premier in Prague, he himself played the piano part. It was a great success and, before Dvořák left in 1892 to take up a 3-year appointment at the conservatory in New York, the trio was played all over his homeland in a 40 concert tour.

Piano Trio no.2 in E minor, Op.67 ——— Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 – 1975)

i.       Andante,  ii. Allegro con brio,  iii. Largo,  iv. Allegretto

The terrible, 3-year-long, siege of Leningrad began in early 1941 while Shostakovich was teaching at the conservatory there. He volunteered for action, but was rejected because of his short-sightedness. He contributed, however, by making speeches and composing. By Christmas '41, after all birds, rats and pets had been eaten, there were reports of cannibalism, and those who could do so escaped, including the Shostakovich family. In May '42 the score of his heroic 7^th symphony was smuggled back into the city across German lines and on 9^th August the symphony was played by the skeletal Radio orchestra of Leningrad (augmented by anyone who could play an instrument) and broadcast on loudspeakers throughout the city and out towards the German lines. That date marks the turning point of the siege which nevertheless lasted till January 1944. Shostakovich (aged 38) then started work on his 2^nd piano trio which was premiered in Leningrad 10 months after the lifting of the siege. The first half of the Andante is rather desolate, on muted strings, but gathers energy, which is the 'keynote' of the 2^nd movement. In the last movement plaintive Klezmer melodies alternate with anger (hypnotic and obsessively repetitive), till a degree of resolution is achieved in the last dozen bars. There is no doubt that Shostakovich's eventual response to the war was not heroic, but deeply negative. Jewish melodies (as in the last movement) are a recurrent theme in this as in much of Shostakovich's post war work but his pro-semitism was purely sympathetic; his close friend, the Jewish polymath Sollertinsky, to whose memory the work is dedicated, died February 1944.

++++++++     Interval of 20 minutes     ++++++++

Piano Trio no.1 in B flat major D898  ———  Schubert (1770 - 1827)

i.       Allegro moderato, ii. Andante un poco mosso, iii. Scherzo (allegro), iv. Rondo (allegro vivace)

It has been said "No chamber work by Schubert is more popular than the B flat major Trio". Commenced in 1827, completed in 1828, the last year of Schubert's life, it nevertheless carries no traces of the anguish that appears in "Der Winterreise" and the string quintet. Schubert always had devoted admirers but little public fame. However, in 1827 he was brought to Beethoven's deathbed and (if the story is correct) received praise. In that year also he began to be approached by publishers, and was finally acknowledged by the Musikverein of Vienna.

The first movement has several captivating themes which rotate. As the movement unfolds you think you have heard this tune before; and you have of course, but in a subtly different key. The only sombre touch is towards the end where there is a bar of complete silence; the effect is astonishing, as though a gap in the continuum of time momentarily opens, to reveal…... The Andante is a perfect example of Schubert's counterpoint — three voices each saying entirely different things yet completely agreeing, and never obscuring each other. The scherzo is rhythmic rather than tuneful, but has a softer and more melodic trio section. The finale is a rondo, with tune after tune chasing each other as in the first movement, though rhythmically it is more like the scherzo. The tremolo sections are spooky but not sinister. The Schubertian key-changes are again a little spooky as you shoot suddenly off into a parallel universe. Throughout the trio the piano balances the strings perfectly; in the first movement mostly giving us three voices, but in the Rondo more often two voices with the strings doubling each other in octaves like the piano.

Deficit spending

Deficit-Funded Growth

Regarding the importance of deficit-funded growth, John Lanchester (London Review of Books, 8^th Sept 2011) finds that electors in developed Western democracies, and the majority of their politicians, fail to grasp the important point that national finances differ from domestic finances. "The problem is" (he writes) "in large part to do with the application of an incorrect metaphor, the easy-to-understand idea that a household has to live within its income. But Governments are not households, and the idea of cutting your way to prosperity cannot be read across from an individual's finances to those of the state. It is a manifest fact that these policies, and the refusal to embrace stimulus spending, are causing economic slowdowns all over the world...."

He is right that we, the public, cannot easily shake off the simple notion that deepening government debt seems a desperate way to reduce government debt. And the majority of conservative politicians seem to think likewise (e.g. Matthew Hancock MP in his blog: http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2011/02/matthew-hancock-mp-we-can-ensure-growth-whilst-making-cuts-to-reduce-the-deficit.html)

We can agree (of course) that governments are not households; but what are the differences that makes the metaphor invalid? Neither a household nor a government can "cut its way to prosperity", they can only cut their way to balancing income and expenditure. One crucial difference is the effect of "the multiplier". A household can live very well on 90% of its previous expenditure. Lower household spending will tend to lower consumer prices and the 10% cut in spending will have a less-than-10% effect on standard of living. With governments it is different. A large fraction of government spending goes on wages, and therefore straight into the pockets of domestic consumers, and from there (by the multiplier effect) into the pockets of domestic and foreign producers. An ill-considered cut in government spending will cut demand out of the economy; business will languish; by this multiplier effect, a 1%  cut may take 2% out of gross domestic production, and therefore 2% out of tax revenues. The deficit is not decreased; it is increased! Cuts in public spending should be made very carefully. Perhaps benefits could be cut without fiscal loss, if that forced recipients to work; though not without hardship. Or NHS spending on medicines, but not on salaries. 'Surgical' cuts!

 

Another crucial difference is that governments can, at the stroke of a pen, increase their income — by raising tax revenue. But again they should be cautious; money taken out of the pockets of the average household will lower demand and thus (by the multiplier) lower GDP and the global tax take. However, I cannot see that taxing financial transactions would do any harm; they are entirely valueless to the real economy. Nor taxing large incomes, for they are not spent anyway. Nor blocking tax loop-holes; Mitt Romney made a big contribution in Massachusetts by closing tax loopholes to businesses. And above all, large accumulations of wealth should be taxed, by death duties or inheritance taxes.

 

Table 1 — Interest rates paid on sovereign debt by different countries in recent years.
	2000	2005	2010
Greece	7%	4.5%	6%
USA	3.5%	2.7%	3.0%
UK			2.7%
Japan	0.2%	0.1%	0.5%

 

In the short term, governments (like households) can borrow money to bridge the deficit.  When interest rates are low, as at present (See Table 1), there is little incentive to pay the borrowed money back. Japan has an enormous government debt, but a miniscule rate of interest (perhaps because the debt is held by Japanese citizens and businesses). Depending on the bond, or 'gilt', issued (5 year gilts, 10 year, etc.), the debt becomes due for repayment in a rolling manner, and is usually paid back by simply taking out another loan. But, what if interest rates are then higher? There is little to no chance of the British Government defaulting on its (our) debt. We never have in 250 years. For debts in Sterling we can always repay the debt by printing money. However, the consequent inflation would raise interest rates just as surely as a perceived risk of default. A government would be mad to borrow simply to sustain its deficit (its hypertrophied civil service, National Health Service, or army). Except (you may ask) in the very short term? Yes (I would answer), even then.

 

John Lanchester talks sardonically of the "non-scenic route" to where we are going, meaning I suppose the one that involves a decade of tightened belts. But is there an alternative? Which is his "scenic route"? Surely he is not advocating increased borrowing in the hope of increasing GDP? In my analysis we have lived in a bubble of borrowed money for a decade and there is no way back to that level of prosperity. We never did have that level of GDP, for it was not wealth that we produced. To borrow more money now to "stimulate growth", is like a bankrupt borrowing money to bet on the horses; there is little chance that it will do anything other than increase the country's indebtedness.  To borrow money from the open market seems to be equivalent to stretching oneself over a barrel and inviting punishment.

 

Classic Keynsianism may now be out of date. The crucial question in regard to government borrowing is the question of where the money is coming from; who holds the debt. If it is internal, interest rates may be low; if it is external, interest rates will rise with inflation and the country is in hoc to the international money-markets. Talk of 'growing the economy' raises questions of where the increased GDP is going to come from. Are we going to under-cut the Chinese and make our own telephones? Real growth in a global sense can only come from an increase in efficiency. It is a slow process.

 

As far as I can see our only way to fiscal balance is a mixture of 'surgical' cuts and judicious realignment of government spending, together with carefully controlled increases in overall taxation (e.g. capital gains, death duties, and stock market and banking activities). To this might be added a tiny amount of focused devaluation ('quantitative easing)'?

The philosophical summing junction

We spent a happy hour or so, tossing around the question of who to save in the event of nuclear war; not that we anticipate needing a plan of action, but rather as a challenge to the concept that philosophy is a method of clarifying and solving problems. I attempted to draw the exchange to a close by suggesting that in our 60 minutes of vigorous thought and discussion we had produced between us an almost complete answer to the question of how to proceed. Someone else said he scored it "philosophy nil, chaos 100". Clearly I had failed to make my point. Here (below) I try again, giving myself a bit more space.

In the discipline of electronics and analogue computers there is a concept that goes by the name of 'the summing junction'. It functions (in my head) as follows: The junction has 2 inputs and one output, such that the output is the algebraic sum of the two inputs. If one input is at +5v (relative to the earth rail) and the other is at +2v then the output is at 7v. You get the idea? (If one was at +3v and the other at -4v the output would be at -1v.)

In my head it is a simple matter to conceive a summing junction that had 100 inputs and one output, but which worked in exactly the same way; or 1000 inputs. You might ask how a single output number like -1, or  +42, could be the answer to a question like "what should we do?". Agreed. But, if one of the inputs says 'go in this direction' and another says 'go in this other direction' then the summing junction tells us a direction in which to go. So, some of the inputs could be 'act selfishly', 'act altruistically', 'be pragmatic', 'be political', 'be Darwinian'.

It is easy to think of 2 vectors in a plane. If they were of equal magnitude, one pointing north and the other pointing east, the resultant would point northeast. It is easy to see that we can extend this to 3 dimensions; adding an equal vector vertically upwards would produce a resultant that pointed northeast but upwards at an angle of 45º (I think; well, that will do for now anyway.) Not so easy, but just about convincing, would be the contention that 100 different dimensions could be handled in the same way; there would be such a thing as their geometric or logical resultant. (Up or down in the 'moral' dimension, left or right in the 'political' dimension, soon/late, near/far, ordered/random, the prudent dimension, the possible, the Benthamite, the Nietzschean; whatever!)

We spent an hour tossing ideas into the ring. Some ideas led to the conclusion 'pick survivors at random', some said 'protect your family', etc, etc. It is hard to state the answer, but I submit that it is quite easy (now) to see that the answer is a complex function, indeed a type of sum, of the arguments (and emotions) advanced.

Though to state the answer is difficult, I suggest that there is available a complex and delicate piece of machinery that can function to some extent as the multi-dimensional, vectorial, summing junction just postulated; like a gold-leaf electroscope but more complicated and more sensitive. All that you require is a pair of ears connected up to a brain, and a tongue. Ideally, one would collect a bunch of these together in one place and let them interact for an hour or so, until the 'resultant' steadied. For delicate or 'high definition' work the tongues might need to be calibrated on white noise, in case they were not of equal loudness; so also the ears, and the brains!