Reading about the IOOF led to this, but it’s not really related to the IOOF.
One article in an Odd Fellows journal around 1920 mentioned Roger Babson as an economist who was in sync with the principles of Mutual Benefit Societies. I looked up Babson and found one of his books, which starts oddly enough with a quote from Senator Burton of Ohio.
= = = = = START QUOTE:
A study of past disturbances leads to the conviction that no severe depression has occurred which was not preceded by loud warnings. These warnings ought not to pass unheeded, and in order to recognize them promptly it is necessary that accurate statistics be furnished. Much improvement has been accomplished in the last few years, though it is to be regretted that so much of our statistical information is fragmentary or inaccurate.
Official and private publications furnish much valuable information. They include voluminous figures of deposits and loans of banks, movement of currency, exports and imports, railway earnings, wholesale prices, and the condition and probable yield of crops. A vital defect in many of them is failing to give, for purposes of comparison, similar figures for previous months and years. Another defect is the absence of uniformity in the methods and classification employed. These comparative statistics would afford a means of determining the trend of events, and give warning when prices are unnaturally high or any branch of business is overdone.
= = = = = END QUOTE.
Burton was preaching METROLOGY. At the time when Babson was writing, apparently the government was starting to do a better job of METROLOGY. Since 1946 the whole idea has become heresy. All stats in economics, education, medicine, and every important subject, are intentionally deceptive. All methods of measurement change all the time. We never hear comparisons with other times and places, just raw numbers without context. All of our media discussion and political discussion is strictly based on the government’s bizarre frauds.
The failure of METROLOGY is a big part of this decade’s monstrosity. Government and aristocrats are convinced that everything is wonderful because the utterly meaningless Dow increases forever, and the utterly useless stats improve forever. We don’t need to fix problems because our yardsticks tell us that all dimensions are perfect and couldn’t possibly be improved.
Polistra's Mill 