[Ed. note: This column was submitted prior to the ceasefire in Gaza.]

I have done some thinking about and studying the above subject. There appears to be a lot of literature and (corporate) trainers and (personal) coaches regarding this subject.

This issue comes up frequently when we are talking about economics and politics.

To make a long story short, I have not found what I was looking for. Typically, the strategy is one of avoidance, accommodation, competition, compromise and collaboration depending on the degree of importance of two things 

1. Relationship to the other party
   
2. The importance of the goal itself

As an example: When solving the conflict by "competition," we put a high value on the resolution of the conflict—achieving our goal—whereas maintaining the relationship to the other party is much less important.

But there is also the role of poor communication; I believe we do not have to dwell on a solution to it. The importance of knowledge I will discuss below.

Some are frequently accused of being in competition and sometimes behaving as "a bull in a china shop." This may cause a lot of unhappiness and even rejection on the part of the other party. But there is a greater chance of resolving the conflict, though it may also result in a total rejection by the other party.

Then there is an opposite approach, which puts a high value on the avoidance of conflict and on maintaining a good relationship with the other party. As a result, the person practicing conflict avoidance is universally liked by just about everybody. But many times, the conflict and the issues are not resolved, which also means the goals may not be achieved.

Then there are the strategies in between: accommodation, compromise (called a lose-lose strategy) and collaboration (called a win-win strategy if it can be achieved), that increasingly represent the retention of your goals, but may give up some of the relationship to the other party.

Only rarely is the role of poor communication discussed, while personal and political bias is usually considered an immutable given. 

The importance of the knowledge of the subject, and in particular the scientific knowledge of the subject, is rarely recognized at all.

By the "scientific knowledge" of the subject, I mean the facts, scientific data and the scientific method of inquiry into the subject.

I want to say that the "scientific knowledge" of the subject is most important of all. I do not mean any kind of elitism. I only want to contrast scientific knowledge with intuition, "talking out of school" and the worst of all—talking only on the basis of political proclivities, innuendo, unverified assumptions and bias, instead of facts and data, which imply knowledge.

This was taken to an extreme by the "progressives" of the beginning of the 20th century, such as our first "progressive" president, Woodrow Wilson. They believed that the public was not knowledgeable enough to govern its own affairs and had to be guided by "experts." These ideas emanated from Prussia of the late 19th century, when Prussia was a hotbed of progressivism, and Chancellor Bismarck is considered the first progressive politician in the world.

I do not mean that. What I mean is illustrated by examples below.

Example 1: There was an article entitled "Water,  water everywhere" that claimed the agriculture of Sullivan County, NY, was suffering from excessive rainfall caused by "climate change."

As anecdotal evidence, my basement was periodically flooded in those two or three years. This ended two years ago and my basement has been dry for two years.

I responded that the weather data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/National Weather Service is readily available for the past 135 years. From the year 1890, it shows no trend (no increase or decrease) in precipitation and temperature for Sullivan County, NY.

A reader wrote that I did not follow my own recommendation because (a) Within those 135 years, there were several periods of time when the precipitation and temperature did increase; and said (b), "This confirms what I read in the media, namely that the average temperature in Sullivan County, NY has already increased by 4 degrees Fahrenheit."

However, (a) indicated a lack of knowledge of how to analyze statistical data. The reader simply selected those periods that suited his unverified hypothesis and disregarded the data that did not agree with his hypothesis. For no trend over a period of 135 years simply means that each increase during that period was followed by a corresponding decline in temperature and precipitation.

In (b) the reader was talking about the temperature increase of 4 degrees Fahrenheit, while even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations in Geneva estimates that the Earth's temperatures have increased by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since pre-industrial times, 200 years ago. Here, the reader was talking merely on the basis of his political proclivities and a bias unsupported by any data.

Example 2: This example of a conflict resolution may be more important. 

A reader was a lifetime Democrat, an attorney and a Jew opposing Israel, who supported the candidacy of the Democratic Rep. Riley with fundraising and other efforts. He stated that he could not support Riley's candidacy anymore after Riley went to Israel, where he said that the Gaza conflict was started by Hamas (which it did).

The reader said it himself: "I will never agree..."

Yet, for the resolution of the Gaza conflict, it may not be important what Rep. Riley said, other than it may not be smart to make statements that may anger one party to the peace agreement on the table.

Neither may it be constructive for the resolution of Gaza conflict when the reader wraps himself in a high-minded cloak of human rights and genocide and shows by his conduct an utter unwillingness to yield and negotiate when the peace proposal is on the table.

For the most important thing is to get both parties in the Gaza conflict together to negotiate. This implies a compromise and the resulting consensus. The White House proposal of the Gaza peace agreement goes a long way in this regard.

Going back to my statement about knowledge, my problem with Rep. Riley is different: He does not understand economics, which should be a prerequisite for somebody deciding the future of this country in Congress. 

He does not understand how prices in our capitalist economy of free enterprise are automatically determined by supply and demand without any human intervention and are pushed down to an absolute minimum by competition while still allowing for the recovery of costs and for a reasonable profit. Thus, Rep. Riley proposed a discredited and unworkable socialist control of grocery prices (see von Hayek, an American Nobel laureate in economics on this).

Von Mises is an occasional opinion column on economics, written by Ivan Orisek of Forestburgh, NY. It’ll look at money and the way money works in America, and show you the numbers behind the headlines.