I read the book a while ago and found it as you found the video a bit
simplistic but basically good. Note however that her economics is basically
NC externality theory. In all my intro and intermediate level mainstream
(NC) classes I use the diagrams on pp. 300-301 to situate the NC theory of
markets in a broader context (overdetermination, in my mind), even if I
don't use anything else from the book.
Note also that there is now a lot of this "green accounting" going on. The
material from Redefining Progress on the "Genuine Progress Indicator," and
their article in the Oct. (?) 1995 ATLANTIC MONTHLY ("If the GDP is Up Why
is America Down) is very useful. The basic point, of course, is that GDP is
not, as all the textbooks call it, a measure of the value of all goods and
services produced in the economy; it is only a measure of the value of all
goods and services *exchanged* in the market economy. This little sleight
of hand conflates market with economy and, as Waring and others have often
pointed out, slights the role of women, as well as the fundamental
importance of the natural environment.
The whole notion of the "efficiency" of the equilibrium market solution in
NC theory depends on the absence of "externalities," as everyone here is
aware and NCs themselves recognize. The question immanently is whether
externalities are few and far between, occasional glitches in the NC market
mechanism, or pervasive and overwhelming. I believe the latter.
For instance, I have a flyer (I don't know the source, sorry) advertising
the "Apocalypse" automobile for $250,000, a price based on the indvidual
car share of social costs over ten years ("At this price it will surely
take your breath away.") This cost includes pollution-related cancer,
respiratory and heart disease: $100 billion; injuries and related expenses:
$400 billion; gas and auto subsidies, congestion, road construction and
maintenance: $900 billion; military expenses to protect the oil supply, $30
billion (except during the Gulf War); but does not counting environmental
costs of oil spills at sea and on land, acid rain, global warming, damage
from road salts, noise pollution, neurological damage from lead, 500
million mammals killed by cars, 3 million acres of farmland displaced
yearly by roads and suburbanization,...). Now the average cost of a new car
in the U.S. is very approximately $20,000, and I think the annual market
cost of driving and maintaining the car is another $5,000 or so? which
would make the ten year market price of a car around $75,000. What does it
mean when the "externalities" associated with a commodity are three to four
times the market value?
[I would really like to know the source of these estimates and am pissed
that they aren't cited. What I tell my students is that even if the
estimates are too big by three to four times, then they're still the
equivalent of the market cost and the same question is appropriate.]
Blair
Blair Sandler
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
