a few words about economics and future work
I'd like to thank both Saul Silverman and Jay Hanson for much more moderate replies after my recent comments. In general I'm enjoying the discussions on this list and I'm glad I signed up for it, though I naively expected a bit more discussion of the nominal topic, the future of work. I suppose one's view of the future of work does depend on one's views on economics and the overall future of the human species, so I can see a connection. And I suppose the earlier discussion amongst Eva Durant and various others about who-did-what-to-whom in Soviet Russia is ultimately about the very different approach to work under the Soviet system and what that might suggest about work in the future. But there does seem to be a great deal of blaming going on in both of these discussions, and I don't find that very productive. Having just said that, I'd like to make a couple of mildly critical remarks about economics, and about Soviet economics in particular. A remark I often quote is by J.A.Campbell, writing about what he claims is "the central problem in computer science: avoiding or minimizing the effects of the combinatorial explosion of possibilities in a search space". I believe that this claim is too modest, the combinatorial explosion is not just the central problem in computer science, but it society as a whole. In the early days of the Soviet Union there was an attempt to match people to jobs (or tasks) through some central bureaucracy. Of course bureaucracies don't work very well, but even if they did work, perfectly, they could not have accomplished that task because of the combinatorial explosion of possibilities. In graph theory and computer science the problem of matching workers to jobs (or any equivalent bipartite matching problem) is called the assignment problem. Good modern algorithms for solving the assignment problem are roughly O(3), which means that they scale up as to the cube of the number of nodes. Using my aging 120 MHz Pentium it takes about half an hour to solve an assignment problem with a few thousand nodes. To solve a problem with a few million nodes would not take 1000 times as long, but the cube of that, one billion times as long. So there is probably not enough computing power in the world today to solve the assignment problem the Soviet bureaucracy set themselves. OK, this is an oversimplification. But the basic point should be clear. The organization of society is the kind of combinatorial optimization problem that is hard to solve. Actually as combinatorial problems go, it is one of the easy ones, most are not just hard but virtually impossible. But somehow most economists don't address the combinatorial explosion. A flaw in the economics curriculum, I suppose. Unemployment is a good example. One constantly hears governments talking about job creation, as if there just aren't enough jobs to go around. To me unemployment is evidence that it is hard to FIND a job, not that there are too few jobs. Lots of women fail to find a husband, but you don't hear governments talking about man-creation or a shortage of men. For each individual to find a good job, society as a whole must solve a very difficult combinatorial optimization problem, a bipartite matching or assignment problem. Not an impossible problem, but we certainly won't solve it as long as we ignore the combinatorial problem altogether and try to do job-creation. So, there you have it -- after complaining about Jay Hanson's mistreatment of economists I go on to criticize them myself. But, people, please, it's not personal, and it's not a prejudice, I just think the universities need to add a few graph theory and computer science courses to their economics curriculum. dpw Douglas P. Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.island.net/~dpwilson/index.html
Re: a few words about economics and future work
In the early days of the Soviet Union there was an attempt to match people to jobs (or tasks) through some central bureaucracy. Of course bureaucracies don't work very well, but even if they did work, perfectly, they could not have accomplished that task because of the combinatorial explosion of possibilities. In the early days of the soviet union, when most of the marxist theorists haven't been killed by the civil/intervesionist war or later, Stalin, there was a genuine strife for democracy and a wide range of new/modern concepts of freedom for those times. However, their failure has not much to do with any combinatorial tasks, but with the facts, that most people couldn't read or write, most people had not enough to eat or place to live, most people had never heard of the concept of thinking for themselves rather than being told what to do by their landlord/ clergy or the tsar. In graph theory and computer science the problem of matching workers to jobs (or any equivalent bipartite matching problem) is called the assignment problem. Good modern algorithms for solving the assignment problem are roughly O(3), which means that they scale up as to the cube of the number of nodes. Using my aging 120 MHz Pentium it takes about half an hour to solve an assignment problem with a few thousand nodes. To solve a problem with a few million nodes would not take 1000 times as long, but the cube of that, one billion times as long. So there is probably not enough computing power in the world today to solve the assignment problem the Soviet bureaucracy set themselves. Even this estimate doesn't sound that dounting in the view of the present and possible future computing capabilities. However, there would be several different level of assigning anyway, say by local housing groups, education groups, workplace groups, district, town, country etc areas of collective decisions. Hey, if there is an energy problem/hiccup, it can even be done without computers... OK, this is an oversimplification. But the basic point should be clear. The organization of society is the kind of combinatorial optimization problem that is hard to solve. Actually as combinatorial problems go, it is one of the easy ones, most are not just hard but virtually impossible. But somehow most economists don't address the combinatorial explosion. A flaw in the economics curriculum, I suppose. Even the present system managed to work upto a point without a lot of combinatorics so far... Unemployment is a good example. One constantly hears governments talking about job creation, as if there just aren't enough jobs to go around. To me unemployment is evidence that it is hard to FIND a job, not that there are too few jobs. Lots of women fail to find a husband, but you don't hear governments talking about man-creation or a shortage of men. Well, the fact is, that while more and more people come to the job-market, there are less and less jobs. When last time there was an advertisement for a middle grade technician job in our department, there was 102 applications, 6 of them with Phds. If you into sharing the existing job-hours, basic income or other ideas mentioned on this list, you have to think of an economic structure that could work with such a human needs and not profit oriented problemsolving. For each individual to find a good job, society as a whole must solve a very difficult combinatorial optimization problem, a bipartite matching or assignment problem. Not an impossible problem, but we certainly won't solve it as long as we ignore the combinatorial problem altogether and try to do job-creation. I wish it was the question of just a bit of clever mathematics... It would have been solved by now; we have teams of able mathematicians all over the place looking for decent Phd projects... Eva So, there you have it -- after complaining about Jay Hanson's mistreatment of economists I go on to criticize them myself. But, people, please, it's not personal, and it's not a prejudice, I just think the universities need to add a few graph theory and computer science courses to their economics curriculum. dpw Douglas P. Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.island.net/~dpwilson/index.html
Re: Jay Hanson's remarks on economists
I would guess that if economics would (could?) internalize all externalities and would stop playing the economic growth game (which I don't think is central to economic theory--a theory which deals with the allocation of scarce resources among competing uses), then Jay Hanson and company would have less of a problem with economics. -- From: Ed Weick To: Douglas P. Wilson; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Jay Hanson's remarks on economists Date: Monday, November 16, 1998 8:28AM -Original Message- From: Douglas P. Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Monday, November 16, 1998 5:45 AM Subject: Jay Hanson's remarks on economists There is something rather uncivilized in the last few posts from Jay Hanson, and I don't like it. I'm not an economist, and have no great respect for the discipline as a whole, but Mr. Hanson's remarks offend me because they are full of prejudice and seem to be hate literature. Surely none of us would sit back and calmly accept such remarks about blacks or jews. On the subject of economics and economists, Jay Hanson has been uncivilized for some time. I've had a great deal of difficulty in understanding it. Many of his postings reveal him to be a highly intelligent person, very concerned about the problems the world faces. One has to give him a great deal of credit for persisting in raising issues that might otherwise get insufficient attention. And yet, in marked contrast, there are his continuing slanders against economics and economists. It is almost as though the very complex problems he has identified and dealt with intelligently must have a single cause, and only one, economists. And it is almost as though economists comprise a single group of robot like beings - those who work for brokerage firms do not differ at all in their day to day concerns from those whose work deals with poverty and inequality. Frankly, as someone who has worked in the field of economics for some decades, I do not feel demeaned by Mr. Hanson. However, I do feel a little sad that he persists in demeaning himself. Ed Weick
Fw: What other way is there to live?
Eva sent this to me by mistake and asked me to send it to the list. - Original Message - From: Eva Durant [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Jay Hanson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 16, 1998 11:03 PM Subject: Re: What other way is there to live? I actually agree with most of the stuff as it is presented here by Jay, except - it is demonstrated now, that humans are in the right circumstanses are not into over-population - some relatively rich countries now have declining birthrates. - he again avoided to mention the type of economic structure that could support a sustainable system, - he seems to move from his favoured technocracy towards a global democracy. A police state - even in "the name of the majority" doesn't work. - There is no need to separate people to "producers" and those finding sustainable passtimes, a more likely scenario is that we share most activities. I think most people enjoy producing stuff as well as learning and being actively or passively artistic. We learn through our lifetime all the activities we feel we have talent and interest in, so for a few days a month we'd do some physical work for which say, the energy spent by robots would be too expensive, we spend some time with most of the other "work" that there is; "necessary" and "enjoyable" hopefully merging for most activities. - I can't see a big role for religion in an open and free society where the role of comforters such as drugs and religion would be diminishing, however, until people need it they would have it in a democracy - uptil the point where a religion obstructs openness and tries to supress freedoms. Eva I HAVE offered something constructive and useful in the past. I will attach more to the end of this post. I think many of you academics misunderstand the context of this debate. In his book "Of Men and Galaxies", cosmologist Fred Hoyle sets our physical context -- its' a one-shot affair: "It has been often said that, if the human species fails to make a go of it here on Earth, some other species will take over the running. In the sense of developing intelligence this is not correct. We have, or soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical prerequisites so far as this planet is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ore gone, no species however competent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high-level technology. This is a one-shot affair. If we fail, this planetary system fails so far as intelligence is concerned. The same will be true of other planetary systems. On each of them there will be one chance, and one chance only." [ Hoyle, 1964, 64 ] The social context of this debate is POLITICS -- and, as I have amply documented for you, it's the politics of life and death. I welcome a debate on economic theory, but the economists on this list aren't interested in debating economic theory because economics is not science -- it's politics. Economists do not react do disproved hypothesis by formulating a new hypothesis, instead they work politically to make the offending components conform to their hypothesis. Moreover, it's not possible to talk anyone -- even economists -- into giving-up political power. If history teaches anything, it's that political power must be taken. If economists are upset by the tone of my attack, it's because they are not used to being treated as politicians. What other way is there to live? Here's one: SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: Sustainable development both improves quality of life and retains continuity with physical conditions. To do both requires that social systems be equitable and physical systems circular. COMMONS: "A commons is any resource treated as though it belongs to all. When anyone can claim a resource simply on the grounds that he wants or needs to use it, one has a commons." [ Virginia Abernethy, POPULATION AND ENVIRONMENT, Vol. 18, No. 1, Sept 1996. cited in CCN's FOCUS, Vol. 2, No.2, p. 20. ] COERCION: To "coerce" is to compel one to act in a certain way -- either by promise of reward or threat of punishment. POLITICS: One coercing another. AUTHORITY: I use this word in the sense that goals (or ideals) are NOT produced by a consensus of the governed. For example, physical goals for sustainable development must come from "scientific authority" -- because no one else knows what they must be. Examples of "authoritarian" political systems include corporations, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and churches. An obvious example of extremely successful "authoritarian, systems politics" is a corporation. GLOBAL PROBLEMATIC: Global tragedy of the commons because people are genetically programmed to more-than-reproduce themselves and make the best use of their environments. THE ONE-AND-ONLY SOLUTION: Global coercion. NEW SOCIETY We already live under a coercive, global religio-political system called "Capitalism". The sine qua non of Capitalism is the conversion of our
Economists, please take note: 1883
From: Cordell, Arthur: DPP [EMAIL PROTECTED] I would guess that if economics would (could?) internalize all externalities and would stop playing the economic growth game (which I don't think is central to economic theory--a theory which deals with the allocation of scarce resources among competing uses), then Jay Hanson and company would have less of a problem with economics. There is certainly plenty of things that economists could do to improve their dicipline. For example, physics incorporated thermodynamics -- moved from "production" to "circulation" -- over 100 years ago. But modern economic text books (McConnell Brue, 1999; Samulson Nordhouse, 1998) still do not index thermodynamics or entropy. --- "Here, in a nutshell, is the preeminent problem of the nineteenth century: How can labor, or indeed Nature, bring about the expansion of value? Hehnholtz's answer was flatly that it could not: Nature was also subject to capitalist calculation. In a masterful tethering of the economic metaphor to the metaphor of the body in motion, he hinted that it would be nothing less than immoral, fraudulent, and venal to question the law of energy conservation. Nevertheless, Helmholtz's justification of the energy concept bore only a tenuous relation to the physical theories of his time. Indeed, as Breger (1982, pp. 244 ff.) indicates, Helmhohz elided the distinction between the physics definition of work and its colloquial economic usage numerous times. "For Helmholtz, the world is a machine; man is a machine. Men work for men; the world works for man; you can't swindle Nature; in the Natural state no one is swindled. Even his fascination in later life with the significance of variational principles only served to amplify the metaphorical resonances. Nature works in the most efficient manner; the natural state of man is to minimize effort and maximize profit. "Innumerable writers took their cue from Helmholtz, and the latter half of the nineteenth century was awash with further elaborations of this metaphoric triad. The mathematician De Morgan wrote, 'The purse of Fortunatus, which could always drop a penny out, though never a penny was put in, is a problem of the same kind' (quoted in Dircks 1870, p. 148). Across the Channel, Bernard Brunhes waxed eloquent: 'In nature, the course of the exchange is uniform and invariable . . . Nature never pretends to realize a profit on the transformations of energy which she permits . . . The role of [modern] industry is precisely to produce artificial transformations of energy' (Brunhes 1908, pp. 24-5, 198; my translation). But the most explicit popularizer was one Balfour Stewart: 'It is, in fact, the fate of all kinds of energy of position to be ultimately converted into energy of motion. The former may be compared to money in a bank, or capital, the latter to money which we are in the act of spending . . If we pursue the analogy a step further, we shall see that the great capitalist is respected because he has the disposal of a great quantity of energy; and that whether he be nobleman or sovereign, or a general in command, he is powerful only from having something which enables him to make use of the services of others. When a man of wealth pays a labouring man to work for him, he is in truth converting so much of his energy of position into actual energy . . . 'The world of mechanism is not a manufactory, in which energy is created, but rather a mart, into which we may bring energy of one kind and change or barter it for an equivalent of another kind, that suits us better - but if we come with nothing in hand, with nothing we will most assuredly return Stewart 1883, pp. 26-7; 34 ].' "Economists, please take note of the period - Stewart's book was in its sixth edition by 1883 - and of the profound shift of metaphor from production to circulation. Nature, before the bestower of bounteous gifts, had now become our niggardly paymaster." [ pp. 131-132, MORE HEAT THAN LIGHT, Philip Mirowski; Caimbridge, 1989; http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521426898 ] Jay - COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU! http://dieoff.com/page1.htm
Re: What other way is there to live?
THE ONE-AND-ONLY SOLUTION: Global coercion. NEW SOCIETY ". The sine qua non of Capitalism is the conversion of our life-support system into commodities. Thus, Capitalism WILL end -- one way or another Step one is to break out of the money/market/advertising/consumption death grip. A new society would NOT be based on money because it's inherently unsustainable The key to the new society is to find meaning and happiness in non-consumptive activities such as religion and the arts. With modern technology, probably less than 5% of the population could produce all the goods we really "need". This is an appealing, return to Eden, type of vision. If only we could!! Jay mentions that the three million or so people of 35,000 years ago used a fraction of the energy that we do. This is true. But then they did not have to sustain six billion people, many of whom live in huge cities, none of whom could now live independently, all of whom rely on the many man-made life support systems which we have fashioned from the natural world. Is it sustainable? Not likely. Is there a crash coming? Probably, though perhaps not really a crash. More of a coming apart here and there -- little pieces tearing off the edges, then a big piece out of the center, then .? Jay is right. Economists are politicians -- or, at least, they tend to think politically. How on Earth do you prevent or forestall human tragedy except through politics? There is no question but that we do know what to do. We need to reduce population growth and perhaps reduce population, greatly reduce consumption of energy resources, stop abusing the commons etc., etc. But how to get agreement on these things -- witness the problems of implementing the Kyoto accord, or indeed any of the environmental agreements that have been signed in recent decades. Instead of being rational in our approach to global problems, we remain politicians. Instead of thinking globally and acting locally, we think locally and act globally. But as politicians, we cannot help doing that. We must respond to our constituents, not people 10,000 miles away. Establish a supergovernment that would force us to act globally? I cannot think of a singe country that would be willing to give up any of its powers. The UN has now been foundering in virtual irrelevance for about fifty years. I agree with Jay's dismal prognosis, but I see little hope of getting out of it by rational thought and behaviour. At some point we will wind down, whether cataclymically (Hurrican Mitch) or bit by bit remains to be seen. Meanwhile, there is work to be done in the mess we are in. Ed Weick
Economics: intellectual battering ram for the rich
http://www.afr.com.au/content/981114/perspective/perspective3.html "Bishops who used to believe in God, they can go in for socialism or sodomy, but an economist who's agnostic about economics is unemployable." Attributed to "British policy adviser Sir Alfred Sherman" -- 1992. Stephen Grenville, the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, did not mince words yesterday. "Despite the most diligent, strenuous efforts on the part of those who have built models and academic reputations on the Efficient Markets Hypotheses, the data consistently but inconveniently refute it." He said vested interests had used "the efficient markets paradigm as an intellectual battering ram to open new commercial opportunities". Jay - COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU! http://dieoff.com/page1.htm
Re: Jay Hanson's remarks on economists
At 9:41 AM -0500 11/17/98, Arthur Cordell wrote: I would guess that if economics would (could?) internalize all externalities and would stop playing the economic growth game (which I don't think is central to economic theory--a theory which deals with the allocation of scarce resources among competing uses), then Jay Hanson and company would have less of a problem with economics. I would like to say that while I deplore the invective generated on this issue, I can understand it, and I think it has cleared the air a bit. It has certainly led to some excellent posts by various people and expecially to Jay Hanson's "What Other Way Is There to Live". I think Mr. Hanson has a good mind and a vital message, but I think he would be much more effective if he emphasized the positive as he does so beautifully in that post, rather than the dire and gloomy, as he so often does, even in his public name of "Dieoff". People need to understand the urgent dangers, but I think it is positive visions which inspire them. I hve been thinking of joining the fray since yesterday, and while I feel that I have been largely pre-empted by Mr. Cordell's terse comment which goes close to the heart of the issue, as well as by Tom Lowe, who covers much of my ground, I think there are still a few more things to be said. Jay Hanson's view of economists would not even have been questioned on some lists I am or have been on. The reasons certainly include those raised by Mr. Cordell, but I think there is a bigger issue, real or perceived. It is not just that the economic establishment seems to have no problem with ignoring "externalities" like severe weather and grave damage to the environment and human health, which impose huge economic as well as social costs (not to mention the unfairness of shifting those costs onto the general public or the gigantic distortions they introduce into the allocation of resources), and the obvious limits to growth on a finite and arguably "full" planet-- omissions which are tantamount to engineers' ignoring gravity and windage, and which clearly vitiate any claim that economics is a science. I think the real reason for the widespread hatred of economists is that they have been become the de facto priesthood of the world wide religion of "free market" globalism, based on maximum economic growth. I call it a religion because it (in its dominant orthodox neo-classical form): 1. claims to be based on a scripture (The Wealth of Nations) which is quoted selectively while ignoring its essence- e.g. that a free market cannot exist where there is monopoly of any kind, unequal information, etc.; 2. clings to a rigid dogma, litanized as "lower taxes" and "less government" regardless of the disastrous results for the great majority of people; 3. claims to have brought (or shortly to be bringing) a paradise of global prosperity despite the facts that: a. real wages have been declining for over a quarter century (since 1972), b. the gap between rich and poor, both individuals and nations, is greater than ever before, and increasing rapidly, c. even in that paragon of 'prosperity' the USA, most families must work at at least 2 jobs and not uncommonly 3 or 4 jobs just to pay for the 'necessities' and still private debt is climbing to unprecedented peaks, while diseases related to stress and environmental deterioration soar; 4. continues even now to justify the speculative floods of hot money sloshing around the world bringing poverty, misery and death (by suicide, violence, or starvation) to millions of people; 5. admits to the company of the elect (graduate and especially PhD programs) only those who have demonstrated ideological purity (I have this on good authority, from several people who are currently PhD candidates. There are a few schools where heresy is tolerated or even encouraged, but the vast majority, including all the centers of power and influence, insist on blind orthodoxy); 6. welcomes the role of pundit and advisor to the world which is thrust on it by the corporate media; thus whenever there is news of a government initiative, or indeed almost any kind of news, the priesthood is consulted for its advice, which usually is "lower taxes and less government interference"; 7. has presided over the concentration of corporate wealth and power (which has long since gone past the classical boundary of monopoly i.e. fewer than 10 significant players in an industry, or any one controlling 12% of the market or more) that has made corporations--immortal, inanimate entities, whose paramount duty is the maximization of profit-- the richest and most powerful institutions on the planet-- even as regulation of them is reviled and destroyed; 8. has applauded as "wealth creating" mergers in which assets are stripped, plants closed and workers laid off in massive numbers (sometimes to be hired back as temporary help at half their former wages and no benefits)-- perhaps the greatest
Re: What other way is there to live?
From: Ed Weick [EMAIL PROTECTED] This is an appealing, return to Eden, type of vision. If only we could!! I agree that it is HIGHLY unlikely. Moreover, the window of opportunity is closing very fast (e.g., After we bombed Russia back into the Stone Age with economists, they have apparently decided to rewire the bipolar world). I see three basic scenarios ahead of us (although I realize the reality will be a blend ,or something completely different): #1. Business as usual with incremental deterioration leading to global social collapse within 30 years. The Third World descends into anarchy while the First World evolves into something like Orwell's 1984. Given the constipated politics in the First World, this is my most likely scenario. #2. Same as #1, except the First World sees the Third World as a strategic threat to its life-support system and moves to eliminate the threat with biological agents. After most of the world has been depopulated, a fairly decent life becomes possible for the survivors. This option will look more-and-more attractive to rich First Worlders as gas lines become longer-and-longer. #3. Back to Eden. This is my preferred scenario, but the least likely. A billionare should set-up a pilot Eden project somewhere... There is very little time... The alternatives are horrible. Jay
Dole's good news
Giving credit where it's due is as important as assigning blame. * FORWARDED MESSAGE * Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Unverified) Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 12:12:30 -0800 Reply-To: mckeever [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: The Other Economic Summit USA 1997 [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: mckeever [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Dole's good news To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dole announced Sunday that it would keep on 6,000 workers in Honduras to help it rebuild. (Reuters, 11-15-98) * END of FORWARDED MESSAGE *
Re: What other way is there to live?
At 8:43 AM -0500 11/17/98, Ed Weick wrote: snip Establish a supergovernment that would force us to act globally? I cannot think of a singe country that would be willing to give up any of its powers. Yet Canada seems eager to give up powers to p[rovinces and especially to corporations (through NAFTA and MAI) The UN has now been foundering in virtual irrelevance for about fifty years. Not irrelevance- I hate to think what the world would be like without it, but certainly to bullying by (mostly) the paranoid and anti-social US, which cannot be overcome because there is no effective democracy there. The UN still offers some (faint) hope, but not without reform and getting out from under US domination, which seems unlikely, but sodid the Soviet implosion, so who knows? I agree with Jay's dismal prognosis, but I see little hope of getting out of it by rational thought and behaviour. At some point we will wind down, whether cataclymically (Hurrican Mitch) or bit by bit remains to be seen. Meanwhile, there is work to be done in the mess we are in. So long as we refuse to face the crucial issues (overpopulation, squandering of irreplaceable resources, increasing inequality/inequity, moral and spititual decay) other 'work' is like rearranging deck chairs, or perhaps refilling Nero's glass while he fiddles. Jay is right about the urgency, but I think it takes positive visions to get people going. One thing the UN does is to help keep the vision of an equitable, sustainable world alive. Caspar davis
Re:Chossudovsky on the IMF and Financial Warfare
Sorry- this message was resent by mistake. Csapar Davis
Flow model in natural systems and economics - the economics of Kenneth Boulding (was: Economists, please take note: 1883)
What Jay Hanson and others might like to look at is the writings of
Kenneth Boulding, certainly a leading professional economist of his day
(1930's through 1970's, I think), particularly his little book on
mathematical economics and its underlying preconceptions entitled A
RECONSTRUCTION OF ECONOMICS (originally published in 1950, and reprinted
in 1962 in a paperbound edition by Wiley) in which Boulding anchors
technical economics in an explicitly ecological framework.
The first chapter lays the foundations ("An Ecological Introduction",
pp. 3 ff.) in a discussiion of the physical reality that economics has
to deal with as an ecosystem in which "populations act and react upon
each other, and the equalibrium size of any given population is a
function of the sizes of all others." He goes on, wherever appropriate,
throughout the book to link economics and ecology. Very specifically, in
his chapter on "The Equilibrium of Production and Consumption" (pp. 155
ff.) Boulding makes the linkage (by analogy) between flows and cycles in
natural ecologies and the flow of assets in economic systems
(pp.166-167). In his final chapter, "A Concluding Note" (pp. 303-308)
Boulding gives his views as to the future orientation of economics and
its methods. He devotes the greater part of this chapter to the
application of cybernetic thinking to economics; though he focuses on
the application of cybernetics to dealing with "the wide fluctuations of
output and unemployment" and the problem of reducing these to "tolerable
dimensions", the point is worth thinking about and probably has more
wider applicability to the range of today's problems.
The book itself is an epiteme of Boulding's revisionist economic
thinking and analyss, and the orientation of his policy
recommendations. It presents both an overview of the underpinnings of
economics (as he sees it) and an assessment of what can be useful in the
technical apparatus of modern economic analysis (up to that time). In
the latter field, Boulding, through the various editions of his massive
textboook, ECONOMIC ANALYSIS (from the 1940's on) probably had an
influence on the training and orientation of professional economists at
least as significant as Samuelson's.
Boulding's RECONSTRUCTION IN ECONOMICS deserves to be read (or worked
through) in full. It leads to an appreciation of Boulding's later
writings as an advocate of ecological and social innovation as a means
of approaching the resolution (so far as they can be resolved) of the
problems of living in, and caring for, this world. As such, it is a
useful contribution that remains broadly relevant today.
Saul Silverman
Re: Jay Hanson's remarks on economists
I think that Caspar Davis's critique of economics (the 10 numbered points in particular) provides one of the more useful ways of probing the issue of whether economists can be relevant to current concerns, and why much of contemporary economics is held in disrepute. I don't necessary buy all of these points, or agree with the specific formulations, but no matter. They are a meaty contribution to the specific train of analysis and aargument, and if chewed over and debated, can probably help lead us both to some generally useful conclusions about reshaping our economies and societies and, specifically, dealinng with the "future of work" which is the core topic and concern of this list. Saul Silverman
UN uselessness and U.S. bullying (some qualifications)
Re. comments by Ed Wieck (UN is mainly useless) and Caspar Davis (world would be worse without UN; problems mainly arise from U.S. bullying): 1. The usefulness or uselessness of international institutions has to be judged in historical perspective. In the 1890's and even later, gunboat diplomacy could be freely engaged in for any and every reason -- e.g. a citizen (or someone who on fairly tenuous grounds claimed to be a citizen) was kidnapped in a foreign country (U.S. threats, backed by force, vs. Morocco under "Teddy" Roosevelt; earlier actions by Britain, under Palmerston, in the mid-19th century versus Greece or Turkey, I forget which); because a nation had defaulted on a debt -- British sent gunboats to various countries; boundary problems -- e.g. Venezuela, with Britain exercising the muscle, and the U.S. intervening, in the name of the "Monroe Doctrine," and arranging for the parties ot settle the dispute by arbitration; sheer economic interests -- e.g. US interventions and landings of Marines in Central America (see, on this, which is of course well known, the disilllusioned memoirs of Marine General Smedley Butler, written in the 1930's, which said that he had believed, throughout his career, in the Marine motto "semper fidelis" as representing hoonorable service to his country, but concluded, after he commanded intervention forces in Nicaragua, that he and those he commanded had become the equivalent of Al Capone's machine gunning goons in enforcing Capone's grip on his cashflow in prohibition-era Chicago). And so on, ad infinitum. The point is that we have made SOME progress (perhaps very little) since then: then, it was intervention and bullying without anyone's leave (unless one ran into a conflicting interest of a power with the same, or greater, muscle); now, it seems well established, at least for the U.S. and a few other countries, that they have to be able to claim some sort of U.N. sanction, and go through a debating process and a proces in which other parties, including the U.N. Secretary General, which sometimes limits their possibility of acting. 2. On this same point, as long as we have a system based on nation states (which seems to be what will prevail, politically, for the foreseeable future) we are going to have a system in which power politics is a pervasive reality. Saddam Hussein is a bully, and worries me, just as the U.S. is sometimes a bully, and also worries me (and I can name a whole bunch of other states whose leadership, sometimes or almost always, acts in a bullying fashion). In this kind of sysem, I prefer having a UN and other international mechanisms and groups of countries organized in some ways (e.g., sometimes the need to bring together its NATO allies in a concerted effort has led to the U.S. having to moderte its position to get some of the other countries on board) in existence, to buffer the clash of power against power, than take my chances in a world without this buffering -- as ineffective as this may sometimes be, or seem to be. 3. Politically, the UN is a place where people talk. Sometimes it seems that they talk and nobody listens. But, a relatively short time ago (25, or at most, 50 years ago) most of the world didn't have a place where their voices could be raised, in an international forum; most of the world wasn't even listened to, or thought to have a right to be listened to (often, even in polite circles, this was justified by overt or implicit racism). I believe that one of the greatest achievements iin international relations in my lifetime has been this shift. I often do not like what I hear; I often think that what I hear should be matched by action. But I am glad that these voices now are heard and have status to be heard, and forums within which they can be heard as a matter of right, not as a matter of indulgence. When I think about this, I realize that, perhaps, we are gradually creeping forward out of the primeval ooze and beginnning to approach civililzation. 4. Not everything that the UN does occurs in the realm of big political issues and confrontations. Technical assistance, work with refugees, and a host of other practical activities day-by-day -- work in the trenches of humanities struggle -- occur, multilaterally, through the UN's varied "functional programs." There are others on this list who are, or have been, more closely tied to these activities than me; they can deal with these matters, if they choose. 5. In the long run, re. both the political and the other questions, more effective international government will probably move in the direction of more direct power and authority for the UN or its successor organizations. Whether this will take some decades (say, 50 years) or a few centuries, no one can tell. Whether we will in fact make it till then, without a major disaaster of some sort, either in the area of war and peace, or through natural processes or a reaction of natural processes to
Labor participation rates
I wanted to draw futureworkers attention to an article in the Globe and Mail, Monday, November 16th."Low unemployment has hidden cause". It indicates that just over 65 percent of the potential labor force (Canadians 15 and over) was working or looking for work in October, while in 1990 this percentage was 67.9%. This drop in participation rate was broken down by age groups: aged 25-54---9% of this drop in participation rate aged over 55---27% of this drop in participation rate aged 15-24---64% of this drop in participation rate Thus it is falling most heavily on youth who had a participation rate of 70% in 1989 , but last year had a rate of 61% (and this includes any type of part-time job). We discussed this some time ago about the "missing workers" in the U.S., many of whom were older "discouraged" "downsized" workers, but the implications here bring this back to some of the original discussions about the changing nature of work and problems of youth employment that Keith Hudson referred to. I wonder how these Canadian statistics compare internationally, and what realistic steps are being taken to counteract this trend? Also, I found this article to be going against the general media reporting that seems to be saying that our unemployment problems are solved or at least is not seriously evaluating the significance of the participation rate drop. Melanie Toronto begin: vcard fn: Melanie Milanich n: ;Melanie Milanich email;internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] x-mozilla-cpt: ;0 x-mozilla-html: FALSE version:2.1 end:vcard
