Barack Obama’s chief economic advisor, the guy we’re all going to have to rely on to pull the economy out of the mess it is in, is Larry Summers. We cannot trust Larry Summers. He’s in the pocket of the people responsible for our problems.
Among the firms that paid Summers large amounts in speaking fees include J.P. Morgan Chase. That bank offered the former Harvard president and Treasury Secretary $67,500 for a February 1, 2008 engagement. It has received $25 billion in government bailout funds.
Citigroup, which has received $50 billion in taxpayer help, paid Summers $45,000 for a speech in March 2008 and another $54,000 for a speech that May.
Goldman Sachs, which has received $10 million in bailout funds, paid Summers $135,000 for a speech on April 16, 2008 and another $67,500 for a speech on June 18, 2008.
Summers also received about $5.2 million over the past year in salary from the major hedge fund D.E. Shaw.
I know whose side Larry Summers is on, and it isn’t the middle class or the poor.
Another question: what does a $135,000 speech sound like? I come from an academic background, where we fairly routinely bring in scientists to give lectures and spend a day talking with colleagues, and it’s fairly dense stuff, with lots of information. We generally pay travel costs (of course) and an honorarium of a few hundred to a thousand dollars. It’s very good value for the money. There are popular heavy-hitters like Richard Dawkins who can get $10,000 for a talk, but even there they may waive the fee, as we saw in Oklahoma, and even so, they can pack an auditorium with thousands of people who want to hear what they have to say.
Would thousands of people line up to buy tickets to hear Larry Summers speak? Does he really have the kind of significant information to transmit that would be worth a hundred thousand dollars for an hour of time? If so, I’d like to know more about these kinds of valuable speeches, because I’d love to pay off my entire mortgage with an afternoon’s work.
Of course, we all know that these speeches are irrelevant. It’s a way for organizations with a lot of power and money to funnel cash to individuals with a lot of influence in government…i.e., it’s a form of corruption, a kind of bribe. Even if it’s nominally legal, I hope Obama is smart enough to kick this shill for the financial empires off of his advisory team.
Glenn Greenwald has more to say on Summers. He calls the payoffs an “advanced bribe”.
And he’s a misogynist
B-b-but… Larry’s from Harvard. You are asking Obama to kick out a kwok from his alma mater.
Obama’s pick of Summers is the only thing that has made me doubt either his competency or his intentions.
Far too little has been made of Summers’ economic philosophy.
Well, it’s been pretty clear what he was about since the 1991 World Bank memo about dumping toxic waste in poor countries where life is cheap. Sarcastic, my ass.
Obama’s a cautious, smart politician. I’m thrilled we elected him, but we should know he’ll pull things like this for political reasons. But of course, us leaning on him can be a political reason too.
I think whether or not Obama gets rid of corporate favouritism in politics will be what defines his time as president.
You don’t even want to know what I pay to have someone visit and talk at my classes. It’s embarrassing. Considering what I make as an adjunct though…
As Equisetum and SC say, it’s the despicable World Bank shit that get me. I wouldn’t hire someone who could write this memo to mow my lawn (not that I have a lawn).
It’s the sign of someone who may be very smart, but follows economic logic down the rabbit hole with no concern for human beings or morality of any sort. I’m ashamed that our President could even have a conversation with this guy.
The pricetag’s for his ego, also he probably tells his audience what they want to hear as well.
Summers and Vilsack. As an eco-treehugger-green-whatever, these guys make me sick. Lets just dump poison on everything and keep the humans breeding like flies, who cares about plants and bugs and critters, we gotta feed all the people. Ah fuck it, I’m gonna go to my greenhouse and to hell with you stupid humans.
Read Mark Ames’ piece on him in the Exile: Larry Summers, A Suicidal Choice. Summers was a Reagan appointee originally. Ames tells of his disastrous stint “helping” Lithuania into economic disaster and his nasty work at the World Bank.
http://exiledonline.com/larry-summers-a-suicidal-choice/all/1/
I’ve noticed before that American writers usual divide income groups into “poor, middle class, rich”. Is it because of some Cold War hangover that they rarely refer to the working class?
OT: I was rather surprised the other day to overhear right wingers (Conservatives) here in England talking about “the Obama recession” being responsible for America’s and therefore the world’s current economic woes.
Interestingly, the same people having this conversation are also creationist IDiots. I suppose it’s a case of stupid is as stupid does!
Obama has made some important steps forward, but I must say, on the whole, I’m rather disappointed so far.
That’s even more than Ben Stein gets for blowing snot into a handkerchief.
Random Tory idiots in a pub somewhere? Or people that have some influence?
I expect they might well.
He actually might, given his insider status. But I’m sure he doesn’t give out that information in his speeches.
@rrt:
Yes, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. That’s apparently why Mr. Obama considers it necessary to have weekly consultations with religious idiots and to appoint an amoral and shameless character like this Summers person. Because he is such a smart politician.
PZ – it is important to distinguish between the following two charges:
1) Larry’s compensation from financial firms creates the appearance of impropriety
2) Because of his compensation from financial firms, Larry overweights the interest of financial firms relative to the middle class in his policy decisions
1) is a point often stressed by Lawrence Lessig and is important in many cases, but if that were the only concern I would think it would be outweighed in this case by the fact that Larry is one of only a handful of individuals with the economic expertise to weigh the costs and benefits of the policy options we now face.
2) would certainly be important – but also seems completely unfounded. Anyone who knows Larry would tell you that he is extremely evidence driven.
People who disagree with Larry about any particular economic proposal might feel better about themselves if they attribute that disagreement to differing value-judgments or sinister motivations on his part, but much more likely is that he just knows more economics and has a better sense of the costs and benefits of alternative proposals.
It is bribery period. Everyone knows it. Everyone lets it happen. It does not seem to bother most people in this country at all. The Lobby industry is nothing but the bribery industry and it is perfectly legal in this country. You can sell the citizens of this country anything if you put it in the right package. People actually believe that we need lobbyist that represent big business. If the average citizen really understood how much of our tax dollars go to these already mucho rich and the corporations they would have a stroke. Luckily the average citizen is too busy worrying about going to Heaven, their TV service and abortion. Religion is promoted by our government to keep people in line and occupied. That is why Obama has those conference calls each week. The churches keep them busy and scared and in return they get more money and tax breaks from the government. We cant afford Medicare and Medicaid but we can afford to hand billions of dollars every year of OUR money to special interests and corporate America. Our government is so corrupt and no one can see it. I dont care who is president they are all the same. Working for big business. We are in two wars right now to defend oil companies and their interests overseas. Our government does not work for us. They just want to keep us preoccupied and scared so they can get back to business. There is a whole section of society that we dont have access to. Their kids go to certain schools, they vacation together, they invest together. The only way in is to hit it big financially through luck, marriage or birth. All of my liberal friends voted for Obama thinking, like naive children, that real change would come. I knew better having a few years on them. I voted for Nader!
Ummm…. Duhhhh…
You create and power structure that’s centralized and reliant on money to stay atop the heap, and you get a power structure that is self-preserving.
I mean duhhh…
Here is a great Bill Moyer’s clip that at least talks about the fraud that the federal government is assisting to hide–
PZ – it is important to distinguish between the following two charges:
1) Larry’s compensation from financial firms creates the appearance of impropriety
2) Because of his compensation from financial firms, Larry overweights the interest of financial firms relative to the middle class in his policy decisions
1) is a point often stressed by Lawrence Lessig and is important in many cases, but if that were the only concern I would think it would be outweighed in this case by the fact that Larry is one of only a handful of individuals with the economic expertise to weigh the costs and benefits of the policy options we now face.
2) would certainly be important – but also seems completely unfounded. Anyone who knows Larry would tell you that he is extremely evidence driven.
People who disagree with Larry about any particular economic proposal might feel better about themselves if they attribute that disagreement to differing value-judgments or sinister motivations on his part, but much more likely is that he just knows more economics and has a better sense of the costs and benefits of alternative proposals.
“misogynist”
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Look Larry is many things, but misogynist is not one them. Go read the dictionary definition of the word, go read what Larry said when he was at Harvard that created a feminist uproar, read Pinker’s defense of him and then reread the dictionary definition again before your misuse dilutes the term to the point that when I hear someone say John Smith is a misogynist, I think that you simply dislike John Smith.
Bottom line for ‘Barry’ is that he might publicly castigate the Corporate and commercial ‘bankers’…but pragmatism dictates that there must be a working relationship b’twixt ‘n’ b’tween Government & the crooks on Wall street.
A little compromise on thangs financial management will not be wasted.
This is politics as usual…somethings can never change…and anyway it is probably not a terrifically great idea to really rub the ‘bankers’ snouts in the shite at this particular time in the global economic cycle…however satisfying the thought…or indeed the justice behind that thought!
Those fees are bribes…no doubt…cowering behind thin legality…the ‘bankers’ are attempting insurance policy but Obama is a smart cookie…methinks he can play political hard ball with the best of ’em….we shall see!
In a way it is a win win situation…if this bozo tries to over protect the dollar prima donnas…the press will scream bloody blue murder…if Obama calls bluff to any partisanship and goes head to head with his advisor then the industry will be in no doubt that the old…’puppet on a string in government fandango’ does not work quite as it did…they have no plan B methinks…and they are going to be ever so closely scrutinised…certainly like never before…and that surveillance is not temporary..they is goosed…well and truly!
Seems to me the last ones to actually realise the depth and seriousness of the financial tar pit they have tipped us all into are the Banks themselves… possibly due to cognitive dissonance and denial…….it will get through their arrogance sooner rather then later…and methinks ‘Barry’ is the boy to drive the lesson home and nail the fuckers to the Wall…and ironically…on Wall street…where else?
I hope one day the American voters, and this includes you dear mr. Myers, will realize that voting for either republicans or democrats is not in their own interest.
Both parties are OWNED, why is it that something so obvious since the past decades is so hard to understand for the American public? Why is it that so called intellectuals like you mr. Myers still endorse democrats or republicans for president? When you ask yourself why non Americans often think of Americans as stupid, this is one of the reasons.
After all, it was Einstein who said that the definition of insanity is; doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
In regards to the above quote from Einstein, you mr Myers, of all people, should have known better than endorse Obama, I hope you are wiser the next elections, I truly do.
Have a happy day,
Ferre, Amsterdam.
@ Matt Heath: I think there’s a myth in this country that the “working class” is a blue-collar subclass within the middle class, and “middle class” is comprised both of blue-collar and white-collar professions. It probably has a lot to with the Cold War, though it’s also a way for office laborers to set themselves apart from manual laborers. Working class implies a lack of education, so it’s sort of a slam.
When “working class” is brought up, it is usually in the context of talking about people that are focused on feeding and caring for their families to the exclusion of academic interests and to the detriment of their understanding of issues like economics. It’s often an excuse to condescend and to lie to them about things like bailout plans. But, hey, my dad is a union mechanic; I’m probably a bit biased. It infuriates me when people equate the words “blue-collar” and “working class” to “stupid” or “ignorant.”
Sorry PZ, I’m a big fan of yours but Summers is one of the best economic minds the world has to offer. As a scientist you should know that correlation is not causation (speaking fees to bailouts). Summers worked for the Clinton administration as Treasury Secretary and our country went through a huge economic boom (yes, that’s only correlation too). Do you really think President Obama is choosing this guy for political reasons? Possibly, but maybe he actually thinks Summers is the best person for the job and absent any obvious reason to the contrary we owe him a little time to perform the job as he sees fit. Sure be critical, but don’t call for an economic advisor to fired because he may have connections on Wall Street. Are you really so sure President Obama shouldn’t hear what Larry Summers has to say?
Sorry PZ, I’m a big fan of yours but Summers is one of the best economic minds the world has to offer. As a scientist you should know that correlation is not causation (speaking fees to bailouts). Summers worked for the Clinton administration as Treasury Secretary and our country went through a huge economic boom (yes, that’s only correlation too). Do you really think President Obama is choosing this guy for political reasons? Possibly, but maybe he actually thinks Summers is the best person for the job and absent any obvious reason to the contrary we owe him a little time to perform the job as he sees fit. Sure be critical, but don’t call for an economic advisor to fired because he may have connections on Wall Street. Are you really so sure President Obama shouldn’t hear what Larry Summers has to say?
Thanks Dark Matter.
25*
Another egotistical prat requiring a solid nailing to the wall…
‘Obama is king’…live with it loser!
@Jason:
I actually studied economics (among other things). Believe me, no single individual is able to make particularly meaningful statements about the costs and benefits of macro-economic policy decisions in view of the hideous complexity, unpredictability and chaotic behaviour of the global economy. Do you think your Larry has an accurate model of the world’s economy under his scalp?
Bwa HA HA !
can you support this assertion ?
This, of course, is what you call change.
Bullshit.
Are you honestly trying to say that there are “only a handful” of people that can do an effective cost/benefit analysis?
“Only a handful” of intelligent economists in the entire United States?
Bullshit.
“I hope Obama is smart enough to kick this shill for the financial empires off of his advisory team.”
Obama won’t do a damned thing. He’s part of the problem.
“…Summers is one of the best economic minds the world has to offer…”
Are you fucking joking? He stood in the way of real reform.
Go read about Brooksley Born.
http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2009/marapr/features/born.html
Go listen to Bill Black on Bill Moyers.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04032009/watch.html
Wake up.
Anyway, Larry Summers isn’t the only one. They whole system is full of Robert Rubin’s protegés and wannabes. It’s the main reason why they won’t admit that the system’s broken.
Take this, for example, from over a year ago – and keep in mind that the man still has credibility.
@#5 rrt
“I’m thrilled we elected him, but we should know he’ll pull things like this for political reasons.”
I am wonder, exactly what kind of political benefits will this give him?
The cynic in me says Mr. Obama is already thinking about how and where to raise funds for his 2012 re-election campaign, and this pick is a signal to the Powers That Be that he can be trusted with their agenda for the long haul.
Matt Heath @16
Random Tory idiots in a pub somewhere? Or people that have some influence?
They weren’t random, because I know them socially. I can’t imagine that they’ve got any particular influence, but they can be utter idiots at times. I suspect that they are more likely to be repeating the sort of prejudices and beliefs held by their ilk than they are to be influencing opinion.
@Drosera,
I am an economist as well – I don’t understand your point though. I agree that if the consensus of economists disagreed with Larry then we should probably go with the consensus of economists – but is that the case? What Larry can do well is take a complex economic situation, understand which factors are first-order, evaluate the empirical evidence on the likely magnitude of those factors where it exists, use economic theory where empirical evidence is lacking, and put all of this together to come to a reasoned policy conclusion.
@T_U_T,
Larry won the John Bates Clark medal for the best american economist under 40 – he would have been a shoo-in for the Nobel Prize had he continued working in academics, and is still very likely to receive one.
@Nominal Egg,
I consider myself an intelligent economist capable of doing cost-benefit analysis. But I would absolutely defer to Larry’s opinion on a question like the bank-bailout or the bailout of the auto industry because he is more knowledgeable about those industries than I, more familiar with the relevant empirical evidence, more familiar with the relevant theory, and has more political experience.
Poor usually refers to the lower class, which the working class is a part of.
Hmm. How would you define “working class” that sets it apart from “poor, middle-class, rich”? Seems like people in all three classes have to work for a living, for the most part.
I don’t think Obama “picked” Summers and Geithner; he was told to hire them. The Obama campaign got more than $48 million from the banker/financial, real estate interests. If one person can be held responsible for the derivative bubble and the worsening depression, it’s Larry Summers.
“As Treasury Secretary in 1999 Summers played a decisive role in pushing through the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act of 1933 that was instituted to guard against just the kind of banking abuses taxpayers now are having to bail out. Not only Glass-Steagall repeal. In 2000 Summers backed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act that incredibly mandated that financial derivatives, including in energy, could be traded between financial institutions completely without government oversight, ‘Over-the-Counter’ as in where the taxpayer is now being dragged.”
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/engdahl/2009/0318.html
I neither consider PseudoNobel nor Clark Medal to be anything than reward for ortodoxy.
I was asking about some real, you know, evidence.
what about larry’s opinion on polution ?
Jason,
I’m not arguing that Summers isn’t intelligent about economic matters. That’s irrelevant.
The problem is the obvious conflict of interest involved with regulating the very firms that pay him huge sums of money.
And your assertion that he is one of “only a handful” that can effectively perform this oversight is just stupid.
For once, I’m going to assume that someone is innocent until proven guilty of breaking the trust of the American people. I don’t think you could find too many career economists from the ivy league who are NOT in the pocket Goldmann Sachs, etc. They strip mine those schools for toadies.
I don’t like him because he’s a misogynist. A misogynist of the sort that thinks he’s a freedom fighter against political correctness, which is the most delusional kind.
You’re catching on. Time to join the revolution! ;-)
Who cares if someone is universally regarded by all trained economists as a brilliant economist with keen insight into the workings of the economy? Economists are just in thrall to their political ideology! (now go back and replace the word “economist” with “atheist biologists” and the word “economy” with “nature”)
My point isn’t that I would defer to Larry’s opinion about *everything* – but in fact, the outcry over his pollution comment is just based on ignorance.
Suppose we face a choice between the following two situations:
A) Pollute in the US, foregone wages = $1 billion, give nothing to Brazil, 100 people die in US from pollution
B) Pollute in third world country, foregone wages = $100 million, 100 people die in third world country, US transfers $500 million to third world country
In both cases, 10 people die, but in case B), both countries have more money (which can be used to save the lives of other people). I of course just made up these numbers to illustrate Larry’s theoretical reasoning. But it seems like this reasoning is actually pretty persuasive, although for perhaps it is politically impracticable to realize the gains from trade by arranging for the $500 million transfer in situation B.
In any event, the example illustrates Larry’s economic insight – it’s only morally callous to those too ignorant to understand his economic point.
Summers is an inhuman monster, but him and his ilk do not share all, or even most of the blame for our current economic troubles, that rests largely on the ignorant (and at the risk of going full tin-foil, malicious) inflationary economic policies instituted and executed by the federal reserve and bush/clinton/bush administrations.
Unrestrained capitalism is a serious threat, unrestrained government meddling by politicians with little or no proven economic education with a power agenda is just as dangerous if not more so, it’s unfortunate that most of the people speaking out against the latter have been blanket-branded as loonies, I won’t say that most of them don’t deserve that as there’s a fair share of crazy in that group, but it’s a horrible loss for the rest of us that the legitimate issues they raise seem largely ignored because of it.
Jason, the issue at hand isn’t competence, it’s ethics. Geithner and Summers receive great gobs of money from the banking industry, and Obama’s policies have reflected that, doing everything in their power to shield the executives from any sort of consequences of their actions. It’s quite noticeable when you contrast it against the administration’s handling of the automotive industry.
Oh, and I DO know what misogynist means. I followed the story back when it came out, and what he said as well as all of the desperate backpedaling that followed was simply inexcusable for a man in his position. It was a little “sheeple-ish” for the board to take a vote of no-confidence in him because of it, but he should have been a much more universal verbal spanking in academia for him having said that.
@Matt Heath:
There is a lot of rhetorical tradition about the U.S. being a “classless society”, and so the term “working class” never caught on in the U.S. outside of the Communist Party. Instead, we have lower, middle, and upper classes, which are not too solidly defined but which are broadly determined by income. Of course, the boundaries are slippery and nobody wants to admit to either poverty or (undeserved) wealth — 90% of America believes it is middle class.
There is a certain sense in which the rhetoric is true — it isn’t all that difficult for a lower class person to become middle class (other than making enough money, of course), and an upper class person who loses their money will drop like a stone. But it should be noted that upward social mobility in the U.S. has basically stopped since the Reagan era.
I’m going to assume that someone is innocent until proven guilty of breaking the trust of the American people. I don’t think you could find too many career economists from the ivy league who are NOT in the pocket Goldmann Sachs, etc.
That’s a non sequitur. That most career economists are in the pockets of the big financial capitalists is as good a reason as one could possibly imagine to presume any career economist is guilty until proven innocent.
Nominal Egg, I agree that all else equal, it would be better not to have a conflict of interest. But this is just the way economics works – if you’re an expert on the financial economy, chances are there will be financial firms willing to pay you large amounts of money for your advice. If an economist’s advice has never been sought by financial firms, chances are they don’t have much insight into the financial economy!
But this isn’t a 0/1 question about whether someone can perform economic analysis. There are degrees of qualification. I’d rather have a randomly chosen economist making economic policy than a random person on the street. I’d also rather have a leading economist known for work in macroeconomics, finance and labor economics than a randomly chosen economist. And I’d especially rather have Larry Summers – someone known as an especially brilliant economist with ample policy experience who is particularly skilled in synthesizing and evaluating the impact of large-scale economic interventions making policy than even other leading economists. If you were to replace Larry Summers with say Simon Johnson or Daron Acemoglu or other leading economists I wouldn’t be all that upset, but political realities being what they are, I think it’s unlikely he would be replaced by one of the handful of people who are similarly qualified.
So, what Summers is saying (and you obviously agree), is as long as it’s 3rd world foreigners that we’re poisoning, it’s OK. As long as we make more money in the process!
And that’s only morally callous to the ignorant?
Really?
Jason,
Appreciate your opinion and your expertise. However, your continuing reference to Mr Summers as ‘Larry’ is annoying in a Kwokish sort of way. Stop it, even if you do know him.
This is America. If you’re in politics and at all competent, you’re in someone’s pocket. Given that’s the norm. I don’t know why we have to assume that by default, these guys aren’t going to put the needs of the American people before the needs of the company that sometimes pays them a fat sack of cash. Summers is a corporate mercenary, not a corporate patriot. It makes no sense to assume he has any real loyalty to these companies.
What has Summers ever been right about? I don’t care how “brilliant” he is, if every decision he makes is disastrous. Why is anyone still listening to those “experts” who’ve been wrong about everything?! There are plenty of highly qualified people who predicted this economic disaster, and who got it right– bring in one of them for advice!
If this is a commonly held opinion, we’re all doomed.
(sorry, I wouldn’t want to seem Kwokish, I’ll go with Summers from now on!)
Just to echo Scrabcake’s point – everyone in American politics has conflicts of interest, and many are blatantly and unapologetically ideological. Summers is probably one of the most independent people in Washington. There are so many forces within the Democratic and Republican party that are blatantly trying to implement an agenda without regard to what constitutes good policy, it is just a crazy inversion of reality to worry that Summers is the one who is biased. Summers is one of the few sources of objective analysis in a political world where many people don’t even realize that there are objective criteria that can be used to evaluate economic reasoning.
A few people on here are too willing to dismiss economists as shills for big business or the financial industry. In my reading and experience most economists are supporters of markets over businesses, which is why so many of them oppose corporate welfare. I’m always surprised so many people with an understanding of biology in general and natural selection in particular fail to grasp how markets work since they function so similarly.
Also, it is constantly being pointed out here that almost all biologists agree that evolution is true. As lay people we, rightly, hold their informed opinions to be noteworthy. In matters of economics as in biology we shouldn’t be so dismissive of the experts who study these matters for a living. Of course, read up and study the issues on your own to form your own opinion. We laugh at creationists for thinking some “obvious” point all the experts missed overturns evolution; don’t make a similar mistake and think almost every economist has just missed some easy argument that crumbles their worldview.
So let’s embrace it!
Conflicts of interest for everyone!
YAY!
Just a quick point here. If everyone has a conflict of interest, which I slightly agree with, it is all the more reason to rely of market principles (voluntary cooperation) over an economy directed by politicians or their secretaries.
As populum does not count as an argument.
Suppose that false dilemma is a fallacy.
His economic point would equally justify old plutocrats hunting poor but healthy men for their organs ( one life is lost either way, but more wealth is saved when the poor man is dismantled, so as long as they pay to their relatives enough money afterwards )
This is not even callous, this is pure psychopathy on my book
Susan, Summers actually did have an impressive amount of foresight in predicting the current economic downturn (both in being one of the first people to realize it was going on and in a talk in the late 1980s where he laid out the conceptual framework). I agree that in the 90s he underestimated the need for regulation which was one factor which contributed to the current problems. He’s also been right about many other things, both in his forecasts, and in his conceptual understanding of how we should evaluate the outcomes (which can be just as important). He has actually been one of the leading figures in helping to understand why inefficiencies in the stock market produce excessive volatility, in evaluating the importance of central bank independence, in understanding the causes and consequences of unemployment and many other topics.
If you want examples of things he has been right about, try reading his hundreds of academic papers instead of blithely assuming on the basis of something you read on a blog that he is incompetent and not to be trusted.
DanB,
I agree with you. Not all economists are corporate shills.
Which is exactly why Summers is a bad choice.
Any person that thought it would be a good idea to create the situation we have now, is not the right person to help fix it.
Summers is the shitbag, not economists in general.
Jason@40,
I am not an economist, although I have a BSc in economics. What my excursions in this field have learned me is that economists are very good at predicting the past. I take issue with your suggestion that a single economist, however brilliant, is able to say much of value about the effects of administering untested medicine (read: gigantic bailouts) to the economy of the US. And certainly not by using such back-of-the-envelope methods as you describe. Besides, the moral standing and the track record of your friend Larry strike me as suboptimal (any Lithuanians commenting here?).
@T_U_T,
It makes all the difference in the world whether you appeal to a majority of random people (= Not likely to yield accurate results) vs. appealing to a consensus opinion of experts ( = Likely to yield accurate results). Presumably you believe in quantum mechanics, anthropogenic global warming and that Fermat’s Last Theorem is true – you do so not because you’ve evaluated all the evidence for yourself, but because of the consensus of experts. The consensus of experts is that Summers is a brilliant economist. Economists disagree about what exactly needs to be done to end the current recession, but I think you’d find about as many economists who think Summers is some kind of hack as you’ll find biologists who are Creationists.
On the pollution example, the choice was a stylized example to illustrate his economic reasoning. It’s not a false dilemma – the general point is that the foregone wages of pollution are lower in developing countries which means there are gains from trade.
Next, you assume that utilitarianism implies that we could kill people and harvest their organs (arguable), you assume that any moral system which acknowledges the force of pareto improvements is equivalent to utilitarianism (wildly false), and then you assume that the consensus opinion of economists about how we should evaluate the costs and benefits of such situations is psychotic.
Hmmm… let’s see, what is more likely? That tens of thousands of economists who have spent their lives studying the issue and submitting their arguments to peer review are psychotic, or that you are just ignorant and so don’t understand why they use the methods they do?
Yeah, setting aside the moral issue of dumping poison in “anyone’s” back yard, its the usual idiot short term thinking. Well, its only poisoning 100 people “now”, so lets just worry about what to do now. Then you dump more, and 200 die, then more, and 400 die, then more and animals start dying, then more and it gets into rivers and streams, then more and it starts poisoning coral reefs and fishing areas. Now you are killing the food for 3 billion fracking people!!! Mind, it going to take 50-100 years for that to happen, and the farthest you, as an “expert economist” are willing to either financially or ethically look into the future is *5* years, so.. it might as well be like.. 500-1,000 years, right?
Why the $@%^$ isn’t this not blindingly obviously the same stupid thinking that gets us into the kind of messes that we now hope this moron can help get us out of? Just wondering…
@Drosera,
The methods I proposed weren’t “back of the envelope”. Evaluating the empirical evidence might involve estimating incredibly rich and detailed models of the economy – but ultimately, such estimates are only as good as the assumptions you put in. Judgments need to be made about what factors are first order and ingenuity used in identifying causal impacts. You ultimately need one person to synthesize the existing evidence and make policy prescriptions (of course, with input from the rest of the profession). I agree that no economist can predict with much confidence exactly what will happen as a result of something like the bailout. But that doesn’t mean we can’t use all of the theoretical and empirical information available to us to try to determine when some policies are more likely to succeed than others. I disagree that Summers’ moral standing or track record are bad (although like anyone who tries to predict the behavior of a complex system, his forecasts are imperfect).
@Kagehi,
You might be right that there are consequences other than deaths and foregone wages which are first-order that Summers didn’t think would outweigh the factors he considered. Pointing such things out and arguing about whether they are relevant is what economists do. If you’re going to make the point, “Summers didn’t consider every possible relevant factor and reply to all possible objections to his view in his short memo”, point granted. But that doesn’t make him morally callous.
Presumably, you are plain wrong. I can evaluate the evidence for quantum mechanics pretty much on my own. And I have yet to meet a single book on economy that would be only remotely comparable int terms of difficulty to average paper about quantum mechanics ( or physics in general ).
.
False dilemma it is because in reality there are more choices than the two you presented.
I assume nothing like that. But if it allows one of your “pareto
‘improvements'” then it has no choice but to allow the next one.
Eat shit ! 100 trillion of flies can not be wrong
Honestly. There are thousand of theologists who spent their entire lives counting angels on a pinhead. Does it mean, that they are right, and dawkins who is not even a trained theologian is wrong ?
Given the evidence you provided in this thread ( passing a stupid false dilemma for an argument) , I think it is not me being ignorant
Now I don’t agree with Summers, but he got those speaking fees because he was former treasury secretary etc.
Jason (#68) thank you for actually being coherent on this issue. Part of the reason I respect this site so much is its defense of reason and evidence. But for some reason when it comes to economics people only focus on intentions and first impressions. The beauty of economic analysis is it encourages thinking counterintuitively and focuses on outcomes not intentions.
Summers, thankfully, has the courage to think unconventionally about issues. To assume he just doesn’t care about poor people, who he dedicated a significant portion of his career to trying to help, is ridiculous. Unfortunately, Kagehi (#69) thinks its “blindingly obvious” that we shouldn’t trust someone who challenges people’s assumptions as Summers did. It seems Kagehi has been blinded by his own obvious thinking.
Sorry, but I don’t buy it. Its not, “didn’t consider every”, its, “didn’t even consider the problems that arise in the long term that we have already **seen** repeated over and over and over again, from precisely this sort of behavior and thinking.” If it was just, “Well, no one has tried dumping pollution before. Maybe it will only effect a few ‘local’ people.”, that would be one thing, but it isn’t. We have study, after study, after study that says, “It doesn’t stay where you put it, and it eventually causes more financial and economic problems, not to mention hurting more people, in the long run, than the original predicted costs.” For anyone that has a clue this is a big, “Duh!”. Only people that won’t look at the realities of what ever other attempt ever made to poison someone else’s backyard, while imagining it won’t effect them, has caused, would fail to see how financially stupid the result is going to be, never mind ethically. And, that is the problem. Even if you throw ethics out entirely, you are still wrong, because in the long run you **lose** more financially than you gain in the short term by doing that kind of thing.
Its the sort of thinking that leads to idiots going month to month using “pay day loans”, where every month they get another loan on the next pay check, and never pay off the interest, then wonder why they bankrupt in the long run. Its the same thinking that led banks to trade unsellable properties farther and farther up the chain, until no one wanted them. Its the **same** thinking that got us into this mess. Its the same thinking that led to fisheries wiping out their entire industry, by not controlling how much they fished, etc. Its, “In the short term we will make lots of money, so we are not going to even **bother** to look at what happened to **every other moron** that tried the same thing in the last 200+ years.” Its just plain stupid, even without the ethical issues that are also involved.
Jason:
Fermat’s Last Theorem is not considered to be true because of a “consensus of experts”. It’s considered to be true because it’s been proven to be true.
It’s not good to mix math and science when discussing “truth”. Indeed, if you want to really get a grip on what the underlying philosophical bases of the different fields are, in math, theorems are proven to be true. In science, they are merely proven to be supported, consistent, or powerful. While scientists will typically slip into the vernacular while describing their theories (e.g. “Evolution is true.”), “true” in science is never used as strongly as it is in mathematics.
Oh, and Summers is a corrupt twit. His twittiness is on clear display in his discussion of gender issues. His corruption is, by now, manifest. His incompetence at macroeconomics is best demonstrated by the fact that he, along with Greenspan and Rubin, is one of the chief architects of the financial system that just collapsed utterly.
We’ll have to see if Obama will be as impatient with his economic advisors as Lincoln was with his generals. I hope he will be, but I fear that he is a kool-aid drinker when it comes to the nonsense that Summers and Geithner are peddling.
Jason@70:
I never disputed that. I would also agree that economists are in a better position to do so than a random group of people. But your suggestion that Summers is one of only a handful of economists capable of pulling this off is really grossly exaggerated, in my opinion. My main point is that unfortunately in economics there is a big difference between understanding a system and being able to predict its future. No amount of expertise will change that, unless we radically modify our economic system.
RickD how has Summers displayed his “twittiness” in regard to gender issues? In statistical terms he was correct (as the evidence stands today) about the distribution of men and women at the extremes and about the higher variance in aptitude of men. Steven Pinker has also vigorously defended Summers on this issue, do you also think he’s a twit? But even if Summers was WRONG (which he wasn’t) he should be allowed to explore these types of issues without considering political correctness.
@#68 Jason
“Presumably you believe in quantum mechanics, anthropogenic global warming and that Fermat’s Last Theorem is true – you do so not because you’ve evaluated all the evidence for yourself, but because of the consensus of experts.”
Wow, this is the most ignorant piece of crap that I have ever read. Mathematical theorems are not true because of a “consensus of experts.” They are true because a proof has been discovered. Scientific theories are not true because of a “consensus of experts.” They are true because of a staggering amount of evidence. This “consensus of experts” thing that you have uttered is the biggest load of crap ever.
@www.10ch.org
I’m not asking why those are true, I’m asking why YOU believe they are true. Unless you are a professional mathematician specializing in the relevant fields, you believe they are true because of deferral to experts who have checked the facts for themselves. As I said, we all rightfully defer to experts in fields about which we are ignorant. For some reason, people think you don’t need any expertise to comment on the economy. These people are wrong, their economic reasoning is transparently flawed, and they should recognize that they are no better than Creationists.
Economics is not theology because economics is not entirely based on a single premise, especially one which happens to be false! (if you disagree, please tell us the single false premise underlying all of economics and we promise we’ll give you a Nobel Prize.
Foxes indeed… for a darkly humorous, chilling and rage inducing read try this:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover
–Mark
T_U_T,
Which is why I gave several examples – have you also learned all the details of the proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem? The Geometrization Conjecture? Everyone rightfully defers to experts about things they don’t have personal expertise in. And regarding your second point: economics and physics have both attracted many brilliant minds (Larry Summers actually was originally planning to become a theoretical physicist and I believe Ed Witten did a year of graduate school in economics – they could easily have ended up in opposite disciplines). If you think any run of the mill physicist would be a great economist, you’re wildly mistaken.
Regarding the “false dilemma” charge – I gave two choices to illustrate the more general trade-off as I explained before. If the costs of holding a resource differ, there are gains from trade from transferring it to the lowest cost place. I don’t understand your follow-up point about how we’d have to do it again – are you assuming that everything is linear? The costs of polluting in any particular location are probably convex, so there will be an optimal level of pollution.
As I noted in my previous post, theology can go massively wrong because the entire field is premised on a single false presumption. Economics is not based on any single presumption any more than physics is (except possibly the presumption that logical reason and statistical evidence provide a useful way of understanding the world).
Honestly, what is your education in economics? Wouldn’t you think I was ignorant if I started talking about how quantum mechanics had to be wrong because nothing can be in two places at once? There is no false presumption at the heart of economics – there are just hard problems that smart people have spent a long time trying to solve. And for some reason, you think that despite not having studied and thought about their solutions, you are qualified to assert that they are just wrong. As I keep saying, there are many other people with this mindset, but I expect that you regard them with disdain.
T_U_T #64
Summers is regarded by other economists as one of the most influential economists living today. He is well regarded by economists, financiers, and central bank authorities. You may not like his economic theories and policies, but you have to accept his significance as an economist.
Personally, I was glad that Obama picked Summers as chief economic advisor. That tells me that Obama is serious about wanting to fix the economic crisis and is enlisting people who know something about the problem.
There’s a lot I don’t like about Summers’ economic inclinations. I don’t believe that even now he recognizes the effect of deregulation of financial markets and particularly the derivatives market had on the crisis. However, Summers probably won’t have any choice but to support reregulation. When Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), the ranking Republican member of the Senate Banking Committee. realizes that some form of reregulation is necessary, then Summers will accept the inevitable.
@Drosera,
You raise an interesting point about the distinction between understanding a system and being able to predict its future. I think this point is actually quite relevant. There is just a tremendous amount of uncertainty in any macroeconomic forecast. This is true even after the fact – it’s not easy to tell why things worked out the way they did either. The task of macroeconomists is just to try to use all the information available to make policies that are more likely to lead to good outcomes. None would have the hubris to pretend they knew how things would turn out.
To return to our point of disagreement, which economists do you think ARE as qualified as Summers? I can think of a few (Joe Stiglitz? Martin Feldstein to name a more conservative choice), but not many with his blend of policy-experience and expertise.
A fairly standard fee for a normal speaker is of the order of $500. Richard Dawkins receives 20 times that amount, and yet PZ says “the University of Oklahoma has the right to bring new ideas to its campus” (or something almost identical to it, I can’t remember the exact phrasing). Larry Summers receives 35 times the fee of Richard Dawkins, and PZ tells us that is bribery.
@Kahegi,
It may be comforting to assume that people who advocate policies you disagree with are just idiots, but it’s not an accurate representation of the world. Economic issues are complex and difficult, and it has taken decades of work by thousands of brilliant people to develop a coherent framework in which to evaluate them. Of course that framework is incomplete and continues to improve, but it’s a helluva lot better than what you can come up with on your own.
From your post, you don’t seem to have even understood Summers’ point. You argue as if it’s just intrinsically wrong to consider the possibility of pollution. But that’s just crazy. Pollution has costs and benefits. If we can save $1,000,000 by burning an ounce of coal, it’s obvious that we should do it. Even when lives are at stake we have to consider economic trade-offs. Should the speed limit by 15 mph on all highways? That would sure save a lot of lives. But it would also have massive economic costs. Many public policies place an implicit value on life. That’s just something we have to deal with. What we can do is to try to design those policies in a consistent way so that there aren’t obvious things we can do which make everyone better off (and of course, we can try to pursue other desirable social goals like equity). But this requires thinking carefully about economic trade-offs, not railing against those who do so as crazy idiots.
On your substantive points about pollution, OF COURSE any serious policy proposal would need to take into account the factors you consider. Economists realize this. It is only your inaccurate caricature of the reasoning of economists which is facile.
New York Times on Summers:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/us/politics/04disclose.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
in America, “class” is defined by income, not occupation, so a mechanic could be middle class if he’s a unionized, and well paid, or he could be poor if he’s working on-and-off in some podunk backyard garage.
the distinction you’re looking for is “blue-collar” vs “white-collar”, which is fraught with snobbism from both sides (overeducated paperpushers vs. people who do honest work; undereducated simpletons vs. people in important leading positions), while the rich laugh their asses off while playing them against each other. it’s all rather fun :-/
and I’m not even going to get into the economics debate. this seems mostly predictable (are there even any economists high enough in the pecking order who aren’t somehow part of this clusterfuck?), plus I can’t even wrap my head around why exactly growth economics are so great to begin with, nevermind discussing which flavor of growth economics we should be following.
Um, no. A purely academic speaker will get a few hundred dollars; someone with a wider circle of fame, such as the author of a popular book, can pull in several thousand dollars for a lecture. My own lectures net me between $0 and the record so far, $1200 (for a keynote talk at a conference). I gotta write a book to get my numbers up a bit.
Dawkins got $0 for his Oklahoma lecture.
Jason, please email me at rjim1wd02@sneakemail.com.
though I should amend that I find Summers to be a special kind of asshole for many reasons already mentioned by others in this thread
Jason@83:
Since I maintain that the economy is basically unpredictable I would answer that it doesn’t matter too much. Almost any professor of macro-economics of one of the major universities would qualify. Given that the person is an accomplished and widely respected economist (perhaps even a Nobel laureate) I would say that his independence and integrity would be more important than his experience in policy making. Also given that the financial system needs some major restructuring it would be best to have someone who, unlike Summers, has not been part of the system. Now what was the name of that guy who cleaned the stables of Augias?
@ Calgeorge #35:
Greenwald and Amy Goodman followed Black on Moyers program last night [they were awarded Izzy awards named after the ultimate Molly, IF Stone]. Video here Note that the transcript is from another program.
Doesn’t Michael Moore charge something like $40,000 for each of his speaking engagements?
If you have tens of thousands of one-legged ladder experts submitting their arguments concerning the best way to prop one-legged ladders against a building, it still doesn’t make one-legged ladders any safer.
If the economists in question all assume that no matter what else happens the wealthy must become wealthier, then their answer will always be favorable to the wealthy at the expense of the poor. The economic apparatus could also be tuned to favor the poor over the wealthy although it isn’t. However, simply because economic experts agree on an answer doesn’t mean that the underlying assumptions point to the best possible solution, and it doesn’t mean that they are not biased.
The basic problem with the economic mess is that the wealthy have gotten way out of control with disastrous results, propping up that failure ignores the underlying problems. Putting the fox in charge of the hen house is one solution and will feed the fox but, the hens should rightfully object strongly and try vigorously to oust the fox. The hens after all are the ones that create the wealth, which the fox can’t seem to resist eating.
PZ,
The reason Larry Summers is compensated so much for his speeches is because financial firms think he knows something that could make them money (this is the same reason he is compensated so much by DE Shaw). You don’t need to assume any secret quid pro quo to explain this.
Anyone with his level of financial expertise will be able to earn a lot of money by consulting for financial firms. You could operate under the cynical presumption that everyone who earns a lot of money from financial firms is corrupt. Surely some people are, but this is a pretty absurd presumption.
The relevant question is whether we have any reason to think that Larry Summers really won’t adequately weigh the interests of poor and middle class people in his evaluations of economic policy. I don’t know Summers personally, but I know very well many people who do know him personally, and all of them would find your charge just ridiculous. Larry Summers is a consummate economist who cares first and foremost about careful economic analysis, and to the extent that some ideological assumptions are inevitable, he is generally a liberal and someone who supports policies designed to improve the well-being of the least well-off. First and foremost though, he is driven by evidence about what works and what doesn’t and that is not a bad thing.
@Notagod,
What in the world does this have to do with any assumption that any economists actually make? Please, in your answer, cite some paper in the economics literature. If you can’t cite any paper in the economics literature because you haven’t read any, then stop pretending you know something about economics. Presuming that a whole discipline is worthless because you are ignorant of it is EXACTLY the error that Creationists make. There are many very smart people of all political persuasions in economics (I consider myself very liberal). The presumption that economists are all just servants of some wealthy elite is just as unreasonable as the assumption that all biologists are deluded by their materialist ideology. Economists are a diverse group, unified only by the fact that they have studied and thought about the economy.
This graph may give you some insight on where the loyalties – or at least the IOUs – of the congress lie. You can zoom in. Be patient as it takes a little time to load.
http://computationallegalstudies.com/2009/03/30/senators-of-the-110th-congress-take-2-contributions-by-industrysector/
This is just one datum so I don’t want to form any conclusions yet. Still, it’s interesting.
Posts like PZ’s above are an excellent way of expressing solidarity with the poor and showing off how compassionate you are…without actually making any sacrifices whatsoever.
“Look, everyone, look how indignant I am at the financial elite — and, by implication, really really really, morally, grievously, harrowingly concerned about the plight of the poor! I must be a swell guy. Yay me! Let’s all sit in a circle and sing ‘Kumbaya’.”
The fact is, if someone offers you $135,000 to deliever a lecture, and they’re not baby-eaters or devil spawn, chances are you’re going to accept it. There’s no evidence that there were strings attached, and therefore no evidence that a bribe took place.
I’m sorry Jason, I clicked the wrong button and accidentally deleted your email :( [why the heck are the two buttons right next to each other?!] Mind resending?
What? Why Summers and not Joseph Stiglitz?
You’re mistaken. We understand this similarity very well. We also understand that it goes even further than you seem to think: competition is selected against because it’s a waste of energy compared to the alternatives (niche splitting or, in the economy, cartels/mergers). Most of biodiversity is “the ghost of competition past”.
Capitalism must constantly be protected from itself. Competition is an unstable state of affairs. Left to itself, the free market quickly collapses into a monopoly or something very similar. We’ve had that already: it’s called the Gilded Age.
Notagod
Thanks for proving that you don’t know anything about economics.
Like the other “soft” sciences, economics is more malleable than physics or chemistry. Ideology does enter into economics. Contrast what comes out of the Von Mises Institute compared to the Stockholm School or the Post-Keynesians. However, that being said, economics is the study of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. British economist Lionel Robbins described economics as “the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses.”
I won’t bore you with describing the differences between positive economics and normative economics or theoretical economics and applied economics. If you’re interested, there are plenty of places on the intertubes which can give you that sort of thing. However, economists aren’t monolithic about their attitudes towards the wealthy and the poor.
I’m not sure if I would. I’d think they must either be crazy or are hoping to bribe me (and of course expect it to be an investment).
I mean, that’s a completely ludicrous sum! It’s a fantasy number, not something anyone would pay anyone just to hear him speak, even more so when his writings are publically available!
“Ridiculous Speed!!!”
– Dark Helmet
Larry Summers is a known mysogynistic imbecile. The fact that he has received numerous awards is proof that “economics” as it currently exists is a joke. 19th and even 18th century economists were far more sensible than the noodle-brained lot we’ve got today. Modern economists worship their models which are provably wrong. Basically an economist accepts his/her model if it behaves the way they think it should. Modern economists also like to spout rubbish about how science and technology will always come up with a miracle solution to solve emerging global problems. Modern economists also love to poo-poo Thomas Malthus and indulge in their fantasy that a “Malthusian Catastrophe” is a physical impossibility. Modern economists also love to poo-poo one of the most sensible of the past century’s economists, John Maynard Keynes, without any apparent reason to do so.
The most relevant thing for all of us on the planet today though is that economists have serious delusions about the role of the stock market in society. As it is currently formulated (and as it was 90 years ago), the stock market is the largest legitimate pyramid scheme on the planet. The delusion of economists is that the stock market is not a pyramid scheme. I always laugh when Ponzi gets the blame because what he was doing was in essence not new, it just could not maintain the illusion for as long as the stock market could. Hats off to Bernie Madoff who has run a private scam for decades in competition with the stock market.
It’s very simple really. America is a democratic country, so they only have themselves to blame. They should vote for people who lock up people like Larry Summers and fleece them. No candidate will do this? Well, become a candidate. No one will vote for you? Again, America is democratic country, and the American people happen to disagree with you. What, politicians don’t do what they promise? You know that you only need about a hundred truckers to make New York grind to a halt. But you don’t. Because Americans endorse what the politicians do. Again, America is a democratic nation and these politicians are (appointed by) the American people’s democratically elected rightful representatives. They are by definition right.
He claimed that males dominate the high end of aptitude in engineering and physical sciences. He cited statistical evidence, and even offered such justification as different available time commitment. How anyone can attribute this to sexism is completely beyond me.
MadScientist #103
Okay, asshole, show how our models are wrong.
Do you even know what an economic model is? Show me that you have the slightest clue about economics and I’ll listen to you. Until then, take your ignorance and shove it up your ass.
Jezuus but I get tired of fucking ignorant idiots pontificating about shit they don’t know anything about. They read an op-ed or two in the paper or listen to those assholes on MSNBC spouting drivel and think they’re all knowledgeable about economics.
There is it, ladies and gentlebeings, proof positive that MadScientist is a fucking idiot who doesn’t know any more economics than he needs to balance his checkbook.
First off, asshole, stock in the Dutch East India Company was traded on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange (Bourse) in 1602. In 1688, the trading of stocks began on a stock exchange in London. Stock trading has been around a whole lot longer than 90 years.
You’d look less like an idiotic asshole if you actually learned something about what you’re whining about before you did the whining.
Oh? Who the hell are “we,” Kemo Sabe? You one of the Masters of the Universe? What if you’re a poor farmer in South America or Africa or Asia who’s bearing these costs – having your land stolen and yourselves and your children poisoned – so that rich people in a few countries can squander the planet’s resources and steal your livelihood to maintain their unsustainable orgy of consumption, waste, and the amassing of obscene wealth? Fucking scumbag assholes with their fucking SAPs and their corporate-driven “development” schemes (industrial agriculture has been a total disaster, and they’re still fucking pushing it onto people). They’re destroying everyone’s future for their greed and their economic religion. Someone needs to explain human decency and democracy to Summers, and to you. Not that it would help. Fortunately, people around the world are refusing to go out without a fight.
Can’t seem to find the transcript of the speech on the web anymore (admittedly, I don’t have a lot of energy to look, but it’s been removed from where it was before, which makes me a bit suspicious).
Here’s an article about it:
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2206/stories/20050325000908300.htm
Summers has zero expertise in the subject, and his remarks were totally out of line given the context and his position at the time). But it doesn’t matter. Many people are simply so wedded to sexist ideas and the sense of superiority they confer even as gaps close that they will latch onto anything – even believing that fucking male vervets are master hunters and female vervets cook with pots – that seems to confirm them.
What if Dawkins was later hired to lead a panel responsible for major scientific grant decisions, and the universities that had paid the largest speaking fees were awarded the biggest grants? Are you saying that wouldn’t at least warrant some scrutiny?
@’Tis Himself:
You are an apologist for bad thinking (and for Larry Summers). It is your sort of fuzzy thinking that makes economics such a joke. I have had many discussions with economists and they have always failed to convince me about their models etc. So, if *YOU* have a model that works and you have the evidence to back up that claim, we’d all like to see it. Your adulation of Summers is absolutely laughable and so is your bizarre attitude that the rest of us should accept statements from silly economists as fact and without proof.
I just quoted you at length here, PZ. Hope you don’t mind. I had, in haste, used the term “worked for” to describe Summers’ relationship to those companies that gave him those speaker’s fees. As I wrote, I’m sticking with that description.
As for the title of this article, I think if you add the thought that we not only are using foxes to guard the hen house, but in fact we went out of our way to hire the most gluttonous and short-sighted foxes we could find, it would be truly accurate.
Obviously, people with Big Money all thought this guy had something Very Valuable to say…
Or is it just an indication of how ridiculously back-asswards the estimation of intrinsic value versus monetary value has become within the ranks of those who handle large sums of money as a matter of sweet routine. Look at severance packages for CEOs…they’re maniacally, friggin’ voracious.
Ahem, “ME ME ME ME”. And that’s just them clearing their throats.
No wonder the economy is in down in the poke.
I submit that an overabundance of concentrated wealth is nearly as injurious to critical thinking as religion is. But here’s the kicker: imagine such obnoxious wealth leavened by religion. Now THERE’s the whole crux (pun not unintended) of the problem.
If you really want to look at how nasty religion is, follow the money.
Tis Himself and Jason,
Sorry, didn’t see enough economists jumping up and strongly warning of the approaching economic catastrophe, which wasn’t that hard to predict. I saw it coming years ago and I don’t have an economics degree. Seriously, duh! I’ve had plenty of experience within the business arena, I know what the motivations are, I know that maximization of current profit is an important goal.
Economics are relative to values placed on each resource. When current dollars are given a high placement within the list a certain type of model will develop that favors current dollars. If biodiversity were given high placement, models that favor biodiversity would be developed. The question isn’t if an economist can figure a way to jigger things to work, they can do that. The question is what are their motivations, what is important to them. If Summers plan doesn’t put straight-jackets on those that guided the failures of Bush economics, I’m not the least bit impressed.
The economist I am interested in would put biodiversity and sustainability right at the top of the model. Anything less is just bandages and bullshit. We only have one planet, that is the economics of our situation, making billionaires is just stupid. All the other stuff just depends on which way you hold the mirrors.
This would raise eyebrows. I would have to then ask the question: what rationale did Dawkins offer for awarding the grants to those universities? If the rationale was transparently weak, that would be very suspicious. If the rationale seemed reasonable enough (but was controversial as any decision on the matter would be), then I would certainly give Dawkins the benefit of the doubt, since he seems from his writings like a very reasonable person and his integrity is attested to by those who know him.
To apply the same criteria to Larry Summers, you would have to be qualified to assess the reasons he gives for the bailout. If you don’t have a PhD in economics (or at least a very strong economics background), it’s very unlikely that you are qualified to do so. This doesn’t mean you don’t have a right to express an opinion – but it means you shouldn’t use the fact that YOU don’t understand his reasoning as evidence of impropriety on his part if other people more qualified than you agree that his reasons are at least sensible and not evidence of corruption (as even his critics – such as Paul Krugman – would agree).
Jason
I notice you didn’t read my post #82 where I wrote:
But thinking isn’t your first language.
I’m not the one who makes blanket statements about all economists and economic models, am I, asshole? Nor am I the one who thinks that stock exchanges were invented 90 years ago.
So you have a five minute talk with someone about a complex, technical subject you don’t know anything about and it’s their fault you’re still don’t understand the subject.
Read some basic economics textbooks and then you’ll have the necessary knowledge for me to show you some workable models. I’m not up to giving a lecture where I’d spend most of my time explaining all the terms and concepts. Come back when you know what deterministic chaos and stochastic process mean.
As it happens, I publicly argued with Summers about the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act. It was because of that argument that I’m no longer in government (although I’d probably have been pushed out by the Bushites sooner or later). I also supported Brooksley Born in her fight with Summers, Rubin and Greenspan over regulating derivatives. Summers and I are on opposite sides of a major argument about financial regulation. So you accusing me of “adulation of Summers” would be laughable if you knew anything about me.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t demand proof from economists about our pronouncements. I am saying that if you dismiss our statements and discussions out of hand because of sheer ignorance, you’re a fucking asshole. There is a difference, asshole.
I’m sure it’s because you’re just far too brilliant for their nonsense. Keep fighting the good fight!
Dear God. Mention economics and suddenly this place becomes just like a fucking creationist forum.
Again, as an economist, your post makes me think you have very little idea what economists actually do and how they do it. You should criticize what you know, not what you’re ignorant of.
But just to answer you: many economists attempt to study questions of sustainable development, and some even study biodiversity. The question is how we should weigh the costs and benefits. These terms are too general and ill-defined to say much. But if we consider specific questions, we immediately see that your idea of a lexical ordering in which we put biodiversity and sustainability first is just nonsensical. One way to promote biodiversity is to prevent species from going extinct. How much should be willing to pay to do that? Suppose 10,000 people have to lose their jobs so we don’t cut down a forest? Maybe that’s an acceptable cost. What if we find out that a species of intestinal worm is resulting in millions of deaths in the third world? Suppose we have the technology to destroy this species of worm – we could do it, but then there is one less species and less biodiversity. But of course, millions of human deaths trumps biodiversity in this case. This is an extreme case to illustrate the point that you have to consider costs and benefits – you can’t just say, “X is always the most important thing no matter what”. We need to try to think carefully about how much we are willing to sacrifice to preserve other species. If your answer is, “We should sacrifice anything to do so”, then you have left the conversation among reasonable people. If that’s not your answer, then you can join the rest of us in trying to come up with a reasonable alternative.
@MadScientist,
If you’d like to discuss my economic research, this is something I never get tired of doing! Please let me know and I’ll send you a link and you can explain to me why you find the model and evidence insufficient to justify the conclusion despite your lack of any training in the field.
@SC, OM
While the appropriateness of his comments given his position is certainly debatable, to say that Summers has zero expertise on the subject is just ridiculous. Why do you think women are underrepresented? Hypotheses include: discrimination, the fact that women are more likely to take substantial time away from research due to child-bearing, and the possibility that there is less variance in ability among women. All three of these are at least in part economic hypothesis, and certainly any analysis which attempts to gauge the relative importance of these factors in a serious way would need to use the tools of economics. It’s true that Summers was just speculating (and for the record I don’t actually agree with the relative importance he attributed to these factors), but he was speculating based on his review of the evidence which he is eminently qualified to assess as someone who has done substantial work in labor economics.
“””…and so is your bizarre attitude that the rest of us should accept statements from silly economists as fact and without proof.”””
“””I’m not saying you shouldn’t demand proof from economists about our pronouncements. I am saying that if you dismiss our statements and discussions out of hand because of sheer ignorance, you’re a fucking asshole. There is a difference, asshole.””” ‘Tis An ELf
What an arrogant semen stain! My goodness me! The trouble with “economists” is that they come from different camps, weight things differently, and rush in with predictions after the facts.
I wish I could find it. There is a great You-Tube vid where an interviewer goes into a large gathering of “notable economists” and asks them all why they didn’t see this coming and warn everybody about the cliff before we sort of ran out of real estate (pardon the pun). The responses were pretty sadly laughable, and yet most could “explain” what happened (sort of) once it happened.
The other problem with economists is that fraud can’t be factored into their models accurately, although they can talk about fraud.
Summers basically took large sums of money from Corporations who are neck deep in fraud, and Barack Obama maintains “There were no laws broken”.
There is your problem right there. A blatant disregard for some of our more basic laws (when is fraud NOT A CRIME?) at the level of our President.
Whew!
Not really. He was speaking as the president of a university – moreover, one in which the situation for women was difficult and hostile, which was an issue of significance. (As I noted the last time this was briefly discussed, I was working for a female professor at Harvard during his tenure there.) The top administrator of a university has no business making public (raving, uninformed, speculative) speeches on such controversial matters.
Bullshit. I’m a social scientist who doesn’t even work in the area of gender and I have vastly more knowledge about this subject than he does. What are his academic credentials in that subfield? Further, if you read the article I linked to you would see that he apologized for his comments and acknowledged that many of his claims were not established by research (he even used anecdotal stories about his own children as “evidence” – wish I could find the transcript, but I’m not surprised he took it down as it was only under pressure that he provided it). The fact is that he had little or no knowledge of the relevant research at the time he made his statements.
How the fuck do you know what hypotheses include among those who work in this area and are actively doing research? Read the piece I linked to, for a start. Read MIT’s report. Try to begin to get a fucking clue.
You are totally ignorant of research on scientific careers.
Not really. And to suggest this about the third is absurd.
He wasn’t engaging with research on the subject. He was flinging out sexist suppositions.
Which, again, he had no business doing. It was both irresponsible and disrespectful to his audience, his Harvard constituency, and those who have spent years studying these issues.
Who gives a shit?
*snort* On what do you base that assertion? He admitted that he wasn’t. If there was any review, it was cursory and dishonest.
Not.
Not in this area.
The real people responsible is Chris Dodd and Barney Frank. If they had not forced banks to lend money to people that could not make the payments, this would have never happened. Once agian,the left destroys somthing in the name of fairness.
If someone wants to buy a $500,000 house and only make $20,000 a year, what will happen? Do the math people. Barney Frank was not smart enough to figure our that giving away free houses would not work.
Now honest working people are losing their houses while the bums get bailed out.
We should kick Barney out of his house and let someone have it. Now, that’s a fair market! They are always complaining of rich people. isn’t Al Gore rich? Kick him out!
Isn’t Barney Frank pretty well to do? Kick him out!
Isn’t Obama rich? He makes over $250,000 a year. Kick him out.
Why kick only some select rich people out, why not all of them? Why not level the playing field?
Notagod #114, what you say seems sensible. I for one think that for a successful transition from the current crap toward a properly operating system would require the input of those who were very knowledgable about the reasons why it got so crappy. Call it “insider wisdom”. I just hope that Obama picked a guy who understands that the bullshit won’t work any longer and that he won’t try anything funny.
In other words, my reasonable expectation is that some analogy has been drawn from instances where experts at certain criminal activities such as forgery are recruited to assist law enforcement.
We’ll all just have to WAIT and SEE, won’t we?
If this Summers fucks up, THEN is the time to land on him – and Obama for hiring him. HARD.
Remember? We’re not supposed to practice preemptive strikes. It gets us into trouble every time.
Until then, this kind of fishing out potential problems is precisely what kept the Democratic Party so impotent against the power of certainty practiced by the Republican Party for DECADES. I’m NOT AT ALL saying that anybody shouldn’t express their misgivings or contrary views, but I am saying that once a leader – a duly-elected president with an administration – is installed, our idealistic ends would be better served if we exercised a little more confidence in the guy who actually has to deal with it.
After all, it’s not so hard to give that man a CONSTANT vote of confidence, say, on a word that he earned and that readers of this blog may reflexively shring back from. But it IS a simple word, and it really DOES have an earnest and honest and wholesome meaning that has nothing whatsoever to do with the national retardation that religion has fostered.
That word is “faith”. Take a good long hard look at it. DON’T ALLOW ANY IDIOCY TO MONOPOLIZE A PERFECTLY SERVICEABLE WORD OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. It belongs to eveyone. It just means a kind of trust. That’s all.
@Jason:
If you have a link to your models and explanations (including the limits of the models and what it attempts to mimick) I’ll have a look at them. In the past I have always been shocked by what friends tell me about whatever particular model they run and how most of their time is spent constraining things until the model result doesn’t simply ‘blow out’ – I can’t have any confidence in a model whose output is constrained in such an ad-hoc manner.
I agree with you on your first post though and the appearance of impropriety. I don’t see the huge fees as necessarily being part of corruption; from what I see such large fees are usually an indication of a lack of frugality and nothing more.
Puh-lease, derender. Leave Barney Frank alone. Oh, and in case you forgot, President Obama lives in the White House.
derender #122
As H.L. Mencken put it so well:
The Fair Housing Act of 1968, passed before either Dodd or Frank were in Congress, was the legislation that outlawed redlining. The causes of the housing bubble bursting are many and varied.
One could argue that Alan Greenspan was responsible for part of the bubble, since mortgage rates are typically set in relation to 10-year treasury bond yields, which, in turn, are affected by Federal Funds rates. During the 2001–2002 recession the Federal Reserve cut short-term interest rates to historically low levels, from about 6.5% to just 1%. In 2007 Greenspan admitted that the housing bubble was “fundamentally engendered by the decline in real long-term interest rates.”* Between 2000 and 2003, the interest rate on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages fell 2.5 percentage points (from 8% to all-time historical low of about 5.5%). The interest rate on one-year adjustable rate mortgages (1/1 ARMs) fell 3 percentage points from about 7% to about 4%. Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Fed, said in 2006 that the Fed’s low interest-rate policies unintentionally prompted speculation in the housing market, and that the subsequent “substantial correction [is] inflicting real costs to millions of homeowners.”**
*Interview in Financial Times 9/16/2007.
**Interview in Bloomberg 11/3/2006.
@MadScientist,
Try this one: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14759
@ SC, OM
I agree that Summers was substantively wrong, and I guess I’d (hesitantly) agree that a University President shouldn’t raise the kinds of hypotheses he did (hesitantly because I think it’s generally a bad idea to endorse norms which prohibit raising hypotheses).
In terms of whether Summers has expertise, he has actually made important contributions to the economics of discrimination (see “A Theory of Dual Labor Markets with Application to Industrial Policy, Discrimination, and Keynesian Unemployment” w/ 500 citations, a huge number for an economics paper). This is not a direct investigation of the question in women in science, but it is directly relevant to the question of when and how discrimination can impact labor markets.
It is one thing to say that as President of Harvard he should not have made these comments, but it’s just flat wrong to say he had no relevant expertise.
‘Tis Himself :
Aren’t you full of facts? Well, at least barney got some of what he deserved when Bill Oreilly went ballistic on him. Now if he would do that on the rest of Washington leftists. That would be funny!
Again with the fucking “we.” To use the example of agriculture I mentioned above, “we” live in a world in which the WB does the coercion, corporations (Cargill, Monsanto) get the benefits, and the poor bear the costs (for now – eventually, we all will). Poor people are excluded from the making of decisions that affect their lives. “We” requires democracy. “We” don’t have that. Until we do, it is dishonest to talk about our making economic decisions.
@SC, OM
I agree that it would be good to have campaign finance reform, and more generally, a political system in which poorer people had more influence, both in the US and in the rest of the world, and that the disparity in political influence between rich and poor is a great injustice. I have no idea what this has to do with my reply to Notagod’s misplaced criticism of economists, or my use of the word “We”.
I think it’s clear that you’re the one “latching onto anything”. In mathematics, the physical sciences, and engineering, the most creative innovators are almost without exception men. It’s not even close. We’re talking like 99% to 1%.
Discrimination obviously isn’t sufficient to explain this. Get real. (One could even argue that women have an advantage in these fields, due to omnipresent fear of inane and hysterical charges of sexism.) There must be other factors, and I think it’s certain that Summers stated the case rather mildly. There might be biological reasons as well as cultural reasons. For instance, men seem to be naturally more competitive, and competitiveness is very important in high-skilled fields.
Everything Summers said is as clear as daylight, and if anything ought to bore us with its obviousness. I find it absolutely outrageous — simply stunning — that people can accuse him of misogynism over his perfectly well-grounded factual claims.
Sigh… You know this, “He is well respected by economists.”, thing keeps getting trotted out. Out, lets go with that, in the “entirety” of economists, from the Wall Street Journal types, to the TV news anchor types, what percentage of them said, “This sub prime market will kill the economy!”, and what percentage of these so called “expert” economists where babbling, right up until the very end, that nothing at all was wrong, nothing was going to happen, and that infinite expansion of the market (despite finite resources) was never going to cause any sort of recession. And, more to the point, which side was Summers on?
I’ll answer for you. 1. Almost none of them where saying that it was going to be a problem. 2. Nearly all of those classed as “experts” where insisting that everything would keep going perfectly. 3. Summers, seems to have been on the side of the fools that where saying these things. Its not the fact that he has a different opinion than mine that makes him an idiot, its the fact that he didn’t see the on coming train, any more than the rest of them did, and, as people have pointed out, much of his vision of the future is the same nonsense that kept them from seeing the on coming train in the first place. Its like talking to someone in the 19th century about biology and being told that those phrenologist guys down the street have a wonderful new technique for telling which people you should hire to run your company, because they have “strong money bumps”.
A distinct sign of windbaggery: ignoring arguments and going straight for the credentials. Seriously, you positively reek of paranoia, faith and taboo.
Here’s one essential point:
Research from the social sciences in connection with gender inequality is inherently unreliable. The reason is that most academics are afraid of drawing any conclusion that isn’t favorable to the feminazis. Even Summer’s mere hypothesis that men disproportionately occupy the positions of higher aptitude in some intellectual subjects has caused ructions. It’s very difficult to discuss this topic honestly when thought police like SC are on the prowl.
@Kagehi,
So I presume you agree that because climatologists and weather forecasters couldn’t see hurricane Katrina coming more than a few days in advance we shouldn’t believe anything they say.
Predicting the behavior of a complex system is hard, but that doesn’t mean we can’t say anything about how different policy options might be expected to impact that system (or are you a global warming skeptic as well?). About 0.01% of what economists do is making business cycle forecasts about the macroeconomy. It just so happens that the talking heads on TV spend about 99.99% of their time talking about that. Lesson: if you want to learn economics, read a book, don’t watch Fox News.
At least I’ve got some facts, which is more than you can say.
Bill O’Reilly? Isn’t he the guy who had to settle out of court on a sexual harassment charge? Or am I thinking of the guy who lied about Bill Moyers?
Ahh yes… economists…
Well, good. (That’s not really the central problem, but good anyway.)
Argh. Not hypotheses. (Please refer to my comments earlier today on the “Heathens” thread.) But whatever.
…Well, no. I think you’re missing my point.
You’re getting there. Slowly. I should note that this is an area in which research was ongoing long before he made his stupid speech. It’s not as though no hypotheses had been raised or investigations carried out, as you seem to be suggesting. This is a major point. He didn’t engage with the existing research, preferring instead to go the unempirical sexist route.
?
OK. Those questions (and again, it doesn’t simply boil down to discrimination, even if we confine ourselves to “labor markets”) can of course be debated; and I’d venture to guess that, despite the irresponsibility of making comments in a controversial area not within his specific area of study, and even excusing that he evidently didn’t examine the literature about women in science before making his pronouncements, had he talked about labor-market issues alone this would not have erupted as it did. The issue that was explosively problematic in his speech was that of supposedly innate ability. In this he is no expert, as he acknowledged. He is, quite simply, a sexist.
I am saying that. The main reason I’m pointing it out is to make clear that it isn’t a matter of free speech or academic freedom.
No, it isn’t. You’re defining “relevant” extremely broadly. He did not have the requisite knowledge to make the claims he did about sex differences, as he himself admitted. End of story.
Anyone who claims that economics is an exact science is either an idiot or a liar. I’ve made wrong predictions, I haven’t seen economic events coming, and I’ve had to change my mind on various occasions concerning economic events. However, I’ve also been right fairly often.
Hear, hear.
He didn’t make claims, he made a hypothesis. So, what, are you trying to say that studies in the social sciences have falsified, beyond reasonable doubt, the hypothesis that men predominate positions of higher aptitude for mathematics and the physical sciences? Is this hypothesis now like creationism, so wild and improbable that it is preposterous to even entertain it? If not, then just what the hell are you trying to say? To me what it seems like you’re doing is acting on a taboo and performing mental gymnastics in a desperate attempt to defend it.
I’m an anarchist. I think we need global radical change that goes far beyond campaign finance reform. Anyway, what this has to do with your response and your repeated use of “we” is that you’re putting forth hypothetical scenarios about making politico-economic decision-making that bear no resemblance to the real world in general and to the WB in particular. If you agree that things aren’t in fact democratic and should be [more?!] democratic, then you need to fully recognize the implications of that for your statements about economics.
I just looked at a couple of reports of Barney Frank’s interview with Bill O’Reilly. Here’s what wikipedia says:
In other words, O’Reilly is a blowhard bully.
Hyperon,
You are a nitwit.
For a dose of reality:
Sorry, kids, but the FDIC isn’t forced by law to nationalize troubled banks.
Arrrgh. My last comment was directed to CalGeorge @ #35. Sorry, but it looks like Bill Black is flat-out wrong about the FDIC and what it can and can’t do WRT banks.
Yes, shame on him for that.
Not that it was needed, but how telling (if true) that is. How very…Mussolini.
If you agree that things aren’t in fact democratic and should be [more?!] democratic, then you need to fully recognize the implications of that for your statements about economics.
In other words, I’m suggesting that, rather than referring to an abstract “we,” you need to specify the actors you’re talking about and the process by which decisions are being made. Otherwise, it’s a sort of apologetics.
@SC, OM,
It seems like the main thing we disagree about regarding Summers is what the fact that he would speculate that women might have a lower variance in innate ability based on weak evidence reveals about his character. I think it reveals that he lacks tact, and you think it reveals that he lacks respect for women. I’m not sure there is much more that can be said since (presumably) neither of us know the man.
Regarding your points about democracy, I think you may just be taking some of my comments out of context. I was defending economics against particular attacks which struck me as wrongheaded and based on ignorance by offering stylized examples to refute those particular attacks. Putting the particular examples aside, what position that I’ve taken do you disagree with (if any)?
Nah. As for character, I’m quite sure he has none. :)
What this incident makes clear is that he’s a sexist, a wildly irresponsible administrator, and a sloppy-ass scholar.
Good lord. Are we having the same discussion here? He lacks a lot more than tact.
It surely does, among other things.
We both know this episode and also something about his career as a whole to date, and can interpret them. I don’t care at all about his innermost thoughts and dreams (ew), but about his public statements and actions.
Yes, I get this.
It’s the “stylized” examples themselves, as I said, and what’s boxed out politically when you construct them.
OK, but what matters is whether the examples address the point which they were meant to address. For example, you seemed to take exception to my pollution example illustrating Summers’ reasoning about a potential pareto-improvement. As I understand it, your objection was that this example ignores the realities of political economy in which the rich inevitably screw the poor.
I don’t see exactly what you’re disputing here. It’s true that the US has a lot more resources than a third world country, and I think we should spend about 1,000 times as much as we do on carefully targeted aid programs for 3rd world countries. But that’s not the question. The question here is where we should locate pollutants. Summers’ point is that if we locate pollutants in third world countries and compensate them, everyone would be better off. Now, you might say, “Well, the reality is if any country agreed to this, we’d just dump our pollutants on them and never give them a dime”. You might also worry that any money that did get transferred to third world countries would be pocketed by rich elites and the poorest people who would suffer from pollution wouldn’t see any of it. Both of these are valid concerns. Probably the best solution would be an “in kind” transfer. Rather than transferring dollars, we would locate pollution in third world countries in exchange for providing direct medical benefits such as vaccines. Would it be better to just provide vaccines for nothing? Yes. But rightly or wrongly (and I’d say wrongly), US diplomats try to advance the interests of the US and that’s just the fixed background within which we have to work. Given that constraint, in kind benefits of this type would realize the gains from trade that Summers identifies.
Oh, FFS. I think we may have reached an impasse here. See again my comment @ #108, and then my comment @ #148. There is no such we, do you understand? There is no such we. The wes that you posit I do not accept, in theory or in reality. A we from below, a democratic we, can be constructed, but it has nothing to do with this we of governments and rich people in rich countries as you identify it.
Physically painful. The imperialist mind in action. Who the fuck do “we” think “we” are? This has to come to an end. It’s unjust, it’s undemocratic, it’s inhuman, it’s killing everything. Again, people in the global south aren’t letting “us” dictate to them. To the extent that I can, I’ll stand with them.
Infuckingdeed.
“He’s in the pocket of the people responsible for our problems.”
I had no idea the man was in Congress, the agency with the Constitutional duty of controlling currency.
SC, somehow I don’t think you’ll be able to convince Jason here that the “we” we want is one where that person in the 3rd world gets to have an equal (or larger, considering impact on ones life and all) say in whether they get gunk dumped into their backyard as the rich businessman/politician doing the dumping.
Matt, the American tradition is to define class by income level, not what one does to get there. So working class people include both the poor (often specified as the working poor) and the middle class. In other traditions, the 100K+ earning jail guard might be defined as working class while the 48K earning self-employed shop owner is middle class.
The economists position seems to be that abstract yadda yadda is more important than actual physical results of that yadda. Our models are correct! Ignore those sick people dying of pollution! Don’t look at the poor we screwed and subjugated to our models! Our money is more important than your health.
Economists are heartless vampiric monsters.
Yeah, it’s a generalization, but find me one of these abstract fuckers who actually gives a damn about the planet outside their hermetically sealed walls then tell me I’m wrong.
I’m an economist and I give a damn about the planet. So you’re wrong.
Why did it become open season on economists? From the comments of some people on this thread, we’re tools of the undeserving rich and have shredded baby on our breakfast Cheerios. In actuality, economists are people who study certain aspects of human behavior, nothing more, nothing less. You may not be happy with some of what we say, but then creationists aren’t happy with what evolutionists say. Sure, we use jargon and build models which may or may not represent the real world, but we are trying, often successfully, to describe an import part of human endeavor.
I understand when you rail about Summers being in the pocket of Wall Street. I even understand when you complain that many economists didn’t forsee the present economic crisis. But making blanket pronouncements like “Modern economists worship their models which are provably wrong” and “Economists are heartless vampiric monsters” is not understandable. I’d expect to read such comments in the Freep, not at a website whose denizens pride themselves on their rationality.
I’m perfectly willing to explain economics to anyone who asks. I am also willing to get into a pissing contest with assholes who mindlessly denigrate the field I’ve worked in for most of my adult life.
This is so absurd. When did I say that people in the 3rd world shouldn’t have as much say as the rest of us in deciding where we locate pollutants? Why don’t you try actually reading what I wrote and trying to understand it instead of using it as an opportunity to feel morally superior without actually knowing or doing anything?
“As I identify?” Ever think that maybe one of us actually spends a great deal of their time trying to think of legitimate ways to help poor people rather than just ranting about what a shame it is that there is so much inequality? Who the hell do you think you are? As above, why do you assume that because you don’t understand every step in my reasoning that it must be a moral failing on my part rather than an intellectual failing on yours?
But putting the unfounded and ridiculous personal insults aside, there is a legitimate and interesting issue here. You raise the question of what would be decided if there were a legitimate democratic body that represented the interests of the poor and rich alike. How would global resources be distributed? Would they vote to locate pollutants in poor countries in exchange for adequate compensation? Well, that’s an interesting question, and the answer is debatable. If I’m right in assuming that the cost of pollution is lower in those countries (something I’m not certain of, and would need to think carefully about), it should be possible to compensate them more than the cost of those pollutants so that lives would be saved on net. As a political matter, they still might not agree (e.g. Nevada not agreeing to host nuclear waste, although perhaps that’s because we haven’t offered to compensate them enough!). But ultimately, the normative question isn’t settled by the realities of political economy, but by which side has stronger reasons for their position. If more lives can be saved by locating pollution in third world countries, I think this is what we should do. An important offsetting factor might be that pollutants would do more harm in a third world country because of inadequate medical institutions. If that’s the case, then they shouldn’t be located there.
Now, you might disagree with me about how to evaluate the consequences of this action. That doesn’t mean you care more about poor people or that you’re morally superior. It means that we have an intellectual disagreement about a deep meta-ethical issue, one that I’ve probably thought longer and harder about than you given that it is central to my profession. If you’d like to continue fleshing out that disagreement, I’d be happy to, but no matter how good it makes you feel, stop pretending that our disagreement means that only you genuinely care about the interests of poor people.
Amen.
I profoundly and deeply apologize for attacking individual persons who may be economists. I am finding that I have some very impolite tendencies when on this newfangled communications device and post without reflection. I will try to refrain from this in the future.
Jason’s new nickname, Larry Jr.
His writing style is very similar to Jason Scorse, the insufferable twit formerly posting to Gristmill.
Neoclassical economics has jumped the shark, time for post-autistic or heterodox economics to take over.
When you proposed a “solution” (“Probably the best solution would be an ‘in kind’ transfer. Rather than transferring dollars, we would locate pollution in third world countries in exchange for providing direct medical benefits such as vaccines”) that took no account of any democratic process that would include them. (It was really quite disgusting: “‘We’, the rich people who have been robbing you of your resources for centuries, will vaccinate ‘your’ children on the condition that we can steal your land and poison you.”) [To clarify: You didn’t say that exactly, nor did I say that you did. What you did, and what you continue to do, is to act as an apologist for the current unjust and undemocratic system by discussing these questions from the viewpoint of an abstract “we” which is not abstract in the least in the real world – “we” are corporations, Western governments, the wasteful consumers of a handful of countries, and the international agencies that serve their interests.]
And when you accept this obscene amount of pollutants produced by one small portion of humanity ass an inevitability, the burdens of which must then be carried by the people doing the least polluting. Ever occur to you that the best solution would be for “us” to stop this fucking extraordinary pollution that’s choking the planet? To live differently – in a way that’s sustainable and doesn’t require the oppression, illness, and death of others? The idea that “we” are going to pollute like this and have any right to do so is incredibly arrogant.
How utterly lame. Defensive and lame. (And I’ll note that you explicitly identified “we” as the US or the US government in the post to which I was responding.)
Someone who is pro-democracy and against corporate-led imperialism. Sorry if I called you out on being the opposite.
I understand everything you’re saying. Sadly, I think you do, too.
No, I don’t raise this question. I suggest that you’re an apologist for a system in which this is not the case. I’m interested in true democracy at all levels, in building federal, participatory systems from the ground up.
Ugh. There are poor people fucking being killed every day in these struggles. Why don’t you try learning what they’re saying and doing, concretely, instead of speculating about what some hypothetical global body might decide? Gah, this is so typical of the imperialist mind.
No, I’d like you to learn more about these battles on the ground in poor countries (and sometimes in rich ones) and to try to see the people affected by these decisions as genuine human beings, as your equals in debates about the future of the planet.
It isn’t a matter of caring, but of respect. Your attitude is condescending and undemocratic.
Of course it is, from the viewpoint of the corporation and the imperialist. That’s what Summers was saying. It’s cheaper because poor people there have less power.
No, that’s part of the reason it would be cheaper, according to Summers. Inadequate medical care means people get sick and die from so many other things that they probably won’t get up in arms about the deformations and cancers caused by being poisoned with our waste, which would be more costly to “us.” So they can be sickened and killed more cheaply.
sunsetbeachguy #62
Post-autistic economics considers how economic models are designed. For instance, neoclassical economic models regard competition as a state rather than as a process. They define perfect competition as a market with a large number of businesses with identical products, cost structures, production techniques, and market information. But in real life competition is a process by which businesses continually seek to re-establish the conditions of their own profitability. To compete in a market requires businesses to seek out and exploit differences between them in production, technology, distribution, access to information and awareness of trends in consumption. These differences are the essential dimensions in which competition takes place. Once the neoclassical conception of competition becomes imbedded in the model, appreciation of real-world competition, and hence the policies that might enhance it, becomes difficult.
The post-autistic economists have similar concerns about neoclassical concepts like freedom of choice, rational choice, rationality and efficiency. (If anyone wants me to explain these concepts further, please ask.) These are legitimate considerations that neoclassical or mainstream economics should answer. The problem with post-autistic economics is simple. Having identified disagreements with neoclassical economics, the post-autistics offer a variety of often conflicting solutions or improvements. Once post-autism finds its feet, it will almost certainly bring greater understanding to economics. It hasn’t got there yet.
Heterodox economics refers to schools of economic thought outside of neoclassical, mainstream, orthodox economics. Heterodox economics is an umbrella term used to cover various separate unorthodox approaches, schools, or traditions. These include institutional, post-Keynesian, Marxian (as distinguished from Marxist), feminist, Austrian, and social economics among others.
It is difficult to define heterodox economics. The International Confederation of Associations for Pluralism in Economics (ICAPE) has avoided defining its umbrella too specifically, choosing instead to define its mission as “promoting pluralism in economics.” All strands of socialism are heterodox, but not all heterodox schools are socialist. A key challenge for “heterodoxy” is to define itself in ways that move beyond the rubric of “non-neoclassical” economics. In defining a common ground in the “critical commentary” some heterodox economists have tried to do three things: (1) identify shared ideas that generate a pattern of heterodox critique across topics and chapters of introductory macro texts; (2) give special attention to ideas that link methodological differences to policy differences; and (3) characterize the common ground in ways that permit distinct paradigms to develop common differences with neoclassical economics.
Sorry, my post #165 was in response to sunsetbeachguy’s post #162.
Don’t forget the fact that biologists worship Darwin, hate God and are just fumbling around with nonsense theories so you kids can justify becoming gay and rejecting capitalism. You’re on a roll. Don’t stop.
Well, folks, have a nice time, because I’m going for a sail for the rest of the afternoon.
Sees yawl later.
Since when? Please cite one quote where I said the current system was just or should continue. In fact, I’ve explicitly acknowledged that it is unjust, but we still have to consider political realities if we want to influence the world. This doesn’t mean not vociferously pointed out the injustice of the current system and campaigning for change – I do this myself all the time. But this is not a substitute for careful thinking about alternative policies! If I say, “A is a better alternative than B”, you could propose a different alternative, but you can’t just say, “Radical change! Injustice!” That’s not a substitute for actually thinking about the consequences of alternative policies that policy-makers are considering in the hopes of making real people’s lives better rather than just moralizing.
Could paraphrase every critic of the God Delusion. Logic and reductionism are not bad, the only question is if the framework includes all the relevant notions. Which brings us to the central point: I think the remainder of your reply can be boiled down to your ignorance about what economists do.
In particular:
In your mind, what economists do when they measure costs and benefits is figure out how much money someone earns, and use that to decide how much their life is worth. THAT’S NOT WHAT ECONOMISTS DO. The fact that you think it is is because you aren’t educated in economics. That’s not economists’ fault – that’s your fault.
How should we actually go about figuring out the costs of polluting in any given location? That’s a difficult question, and to answer it, you’d actually have to engage in the process of doing economics. One thing we would look at is how many lives will be lost. A second consideration is disability and health problems induced by pollution, also foregone wages, as well as possible political ramifications. But these are just a few of the myriad consequences. If you think others are important than please, name them. Then we can enumerate them and argue about how we should weight these factors against one another. THAT IS WHAT ECONOMISTS DO. We don’t assume that the value of your life is how much money you make so it’s OK to kill poor people. No economist has ever claimed that. What Summers claimed is that – after taking into account the fact that people will die wherever we locate pollutants – the foregone wages are lower in poor countries which means that there is an opportunity for pareto improving gains from trade which makes both countries better off overall. Now, you might disagree that it makes a country better off if 100 people die from pollution but 10,000 more people live from vaccinations. That’s something we can argue about. But believing that doesn’t make me undemocratic.
Would it be better to just transfer resources to these countries? I agree that it would be. But if you think you can convince congress to do that, good luck. Would it be better if we elected different people to congress? YES. But that’s not the world we live in. We need to think how we can help people in the world as it is, not what we would do in the world as we would like it to be.
Maybe this question will clarify things: is it your position that in the absence of a democratic government in which rich and poor alike have equal say, there is no basis for judging which policies make people better or worse off? That is, would you take the position that all policies not decided on by a democratic process are equally bad, whether they result in genocide or prosperity?
Where I come from, economists don’t consider themselves neoclassical, post-autistic or heterodox. They try to write down their models to capture the most relevant factors in the most realistic way. If someone raises an objection to one of their assumptions, they try to either find evidence to support it or try a different assumption. Of course, economists are only human and they make lots of stupid assumptions and lots of errors, but over time, the economics profession advances in our understanding of the world. There is nothing that is “off-limits” because it violates the ideological strictures of economics. The only things that are off-limits are sloppy thinking or lack of familiarity with how economists have previously tried to solve similar problems.
I’d like to hear someone who is critical of economics try to describe what it is economists actually do. Here for example is a well-known paper on estimating the value of a life implicit in public policies.
http://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jpolec/v112y2004is1ps226-s267.html
Please, critique it! Or even better, come up with a better framework!
Are you really that dense? Evidently. Sigh.
More we. Sigh.
Except when you’re talking as though it doesn’t exist, as you’ve done consistently on this thread. Almost everything you’ve written is a big, condescending “fuck you” to poor people fighting for their rights.
Say to whom? In what context? This is the crux of the matter.
Who could? In what context?
I can if I’m someone whose children are being born deformed or dying of cancer because some rich assholes in another part of the world can’t contain their greed and shortsighted desire to squander and destroy our common planet’s resources (starting with those most affecting me) for their own ends. Oh, I forgot – those people aren’t in your field of vision. I can if I believe that not only are the policies being made stupid and wantonly destructive, but that the conditions in and process through which they’re being made themselves are unjust, exclusive, and totally undemocratic, and that there is a clear link between advancing real democracy, real human rights, real justice, and the ecological possibilities for our survival that goes beyond opposition to any specific set of policies.
I’ll type slowly – perhaps then you’ll understand. Policies are being made by one set of people to the exclusion of key stakeholders. The way in which goals are determined and costs and benefits are seen and framed is fundamentally shaped by this. No debate about the consequences of alternative policies should exclude the people who are bearing these consequences. The set of policy-makers and the process of making policy must include all involved. A system in which a group of people and organizations with their own interests are making policy decisions with consequences for other people and then imposing these upon them is totally unacceptable.
How fucking naive. Yeah, Summers is all about making poor people’s lives better in that memo. Here’s a thought: The way to help make real people’s lives better is by supporting their efforts to control their own lives and to have a say in making decisions that affect them.
That’s too stupid to even warrant a response.
Reductionism most certainly is bad in the sense he means it in this context.
No, the question about the making of political decisions, for anyone who favors democracy and human rights, is whether the framework includes all the relevant participants.
No, and stop putting words in my mouth. You appear to have missed my entire point about power.
You have first to engage in the process of doing democracy. Why does this elude you so?
I’ve had it with this. You’re obviously not going to make the slightest effort to understand what I’m saying. (I’ll note that you didn’t even bother to respond to my question about assuming the inevitability of these pollution-generating practices and the arrogance that underlies it.)
Which economists? Where? Paid by whom? Working as part of what democratic process?
You’re one sick fuck, Jason. The ignorant arrogance is overwhelming.
I must have missed where in there you or Summers decsribed the democratic process through which poor people in other countries have a say in whether or how they wish to be poisoned and in how much pollution should be produced in the first place.
It would be better, and in fact if we are to survive as a species it is necessary, that people in these countries (re)gain democratic control over their lives and resources. They are doing so, whether you realize it or not.
Perhaps you missed where I mentioned above that I’m an anarchist.
Changing the world we live in has never been more urgent.
Yup. I’ve had it with the Imperial We. I’m done with this for now – going for a walk on the beach.
Yes, or at least that it is inherently limited. Political decisions should be made democratically (I’ll leave your use of “government” alone, as this can be understood broadly). These are by their nature decisions that involve human lives and values. People decide, in democratic human communities, what is important to them and how they want to live (including how they define “prosperity” and what constitutes “better” or “worse” off for them). Scientific expertise of various sorts can be drawn upon in analyzing and evaluating the feasibility, costs, and consequences of various courses of action, but it is a tool, not a substitute for democracy. (If the Navajos decide to ban uranium mining on their land or the Bolivians decide democratically to add to their constitution that no government there may allow the dumping of nuclear waste, as they have, these are decisions that must be respected, whether you think they’re wise or scientifically sound or not. Same for decisions about roads, farming, the use of water, etc.)
Moreover, it should be obvious that any system in which the people making the decisions stand to profit from the oppression or exploitation of others to whom they are not accountable is not likely, to put it mildly, to lead to policies that have positive outcomes for these “others.” The idea that “we” know what will make “them” better off in the long run even if “they” don’t understand it is common to Communist and Market Fundamentalists, and we’ve seen the horrific consequences in both cases. They have no right. Have you studied the history of corporate/World Bank policies in poor countries?
OK, now to the beach.
@SC, OM,
It seems like your answer to my last question about the democratic process at least moved the conversation forward.
The problem is that we live in a world that is in important respects undemocratic. Is your position:
“The only thing we should care about is trying to make the world more democratic?”
I agree that deciding things by a democratic process is something with intrinsic merit even beyond whether it realizes good substantive outcomes, but absent a democratic process, you seem to think that there is very little we can say about what leads to improvements in well-being and what leads to diminutions. This strikes me as a fantastically wrong position. People are generally better off if they live longer, healthier lives, if they are more educated, if they have more opportunities and capabilities. They’re worse off if they have fewer capabilities. If you disagree that in the absence of whatever ideal government you would like we should try to promote these values, then you’re the one who is fucking sick.
Finally, I think your “democratic fundamentalism” is internally incoherent and ignores all the problems intrinsic to any democratic procedure:
Why should being Navajo or Bolivian be the only thing that defines your identity? What if I’m a Navajo who disagrees with the majority of other Navajos? Is there no basis for me to assert that the other Navajos have erred if they vote to ban Uranium mining?
It seems to me that you must acknowledge that there are independent reasons outside the democratic process for deciding what counts as just and unjust, what improves welfare and what diminishes it. Not to mention that it’s infeasible to literally have the populace vote or deliberate about every single policy question. It’s true that democracy is a great thing, but it’s one important value among many.
(yes, you said you’re an anarchist, so if you want, replace “government” with “ideal social order” in the above post)
SC,OM do you really think Jason doesn’t care about poor people because he has a different approach to making the world better as he’s concluded? Also, it’s so easy and transparently false to assume that “rich assholes in another part of the world can’t contain their greed and [have a] shortsighted desire to squander and destroy our common planet’s resources.” Are you so blinded that you can’t even consider that many economists or other people on this forum are actually sharing views that they hope would improve the world not irrationally eat up resources or exploit the poor?
Also throughout your entire set of arguments you totally assume democracy is the magical remedy to everything. Why are you so married to democracy being the standard which policies are measured? As opposed to individual liberty or general prosperity? Democracy is of course a very effective way of meeting many important goals but it’s a means not an ends. It may have been you or another poster but someone with a seemingly similar set of views was complaining about fishermen overfishing the common resource. Many economists have shown that if their was more private ownership that wouldn’t happen (i.e. tragedy of the commons).
Yes, nations should remain sovereign to make decisions (unless a very compelling reason to the contrary) that they decide are best for them like in your Bolivia example. But an economist’s job is not to decide the benefits of particular policies based on its level of democratic craftsmanship. Is it even conceivable to you that certain economists are laying out ideas that they’ve concluded help the poor more than some other idea that you or some possibly democratic government has decided upon? In your opinion can democracies ever be “wrong”?
Hmm… Well I’m glad Jason made that point about democracy better than I did. If anyone’s interested, Bryan Caplan (careful he’s an ECONOMIST…) has an excellent book on the topic, “The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies.” He actually makes a lot of parallels to the irrationally of religion if that sparks any curiosity in anyone.
except that, absent the democratic process, what we get is the standard “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” scenario at best, in which we think we know what’s good for others but really just make it worse. this is because
1)Half the time, we actually DON’T know what’s best for others
2)The other half the time, we aren’t willing to supply the necessary resources
3)the decision process is skewed, so that we get some “this is good for us, and it’s good for you too”, some “this is great for us, and it’s kinda not too bad for you too” and some “this is good for us, but totally sucks for you” but no “this totally sucks for us, but it is great for you”. thus, we get what we want, and they get what we let them have. welcome to “compassionate imperialism”
actually, it’s neither. it’s the mechanism by which any decision can at all be called legitimate. all other means and ends, no matter how benefitial, are still illegitimate if not democratic. otherwise, we should maybe all try to emulate the dictatorship of the Dominican Republic, seeing as how protective it is of its environment.
once more, because it’s worth repeating: democracy is basic foundation of legitimacy for any decision made, good or bad. no undemocratic decision is legitimate and we shouldn’t pretend that they are just because they’re done with good intentions.
are you high? that only works if the owner owns ALL of the resource and has a vested interest in maintaining the resource beyond his own lifetime. meaning it works, for example, it works when the lions (or hippos, or whatever) living in an area become the property of the tribe(!) living in that area(as opposed to being part of a NP or private, corporate part which does not profit the tribe directly), because then managing for sustainability of the population will guarantee that the tribe will have money now, and in the future for future generations.
it does not work if parts of a resource are owned by different people because of the tragedy of the commons (the fisher upstream has no reason to preserve fish populations if the fisher downstream can just as easily overfish), not does it work if the resource isn’t owned by those directly using the resource, i.e. a foreign monopoly because, well, they’re monopolies.
you need a democratic system with social cohesion before that ownership model of yours can make any sense at all.
also, I’m wondering who you think should own the oceans :-/
But you have to distinguish between morality and well-being more broadly and legitimacy. It’s arguably the case that democracy is necessary for legitimacy (depending of course on how legitimacy is defined). John Rawls argues for a more nuanced version of this thesis in Political Liberalism (I mention this because I have a lifesize cut-out of John Rawls in my kitchen that I received for my last birthday).
But the relationship between democracy and legitimacy doesn’t mean that nothing but democracy matters for human well-being! You seriously think that it makes no difference whether a dictator commits genocide or governs benevolently? That it doesn’t matter whether the US spends money on national defense or on trying to stop the spread of HIV in Africa?
As Dan B asked, why do you think that Democracy is the only value that matters?
These are all just blanket generalizations that are important in some cases and less so in others. Just because 1/2 + 1/2 = 1 does not mean you’ve supplied a mathematical proof that we should never care about anything but democracy.
In response to Jadehawk, I’m not proposing that we rely on ANYONE’s good intentions. Which is exactly why I’m skeptical of democracy as a value in itself. Why should any majority necessarily have my individual best interests at heart? And sure a democracy is better, MUCH BETTER, than a dictatorship (no one, certainly not me, was suggesting it was). So please try to only refute arguments anyone is actually making.
Why many economists argue for free markets based on voluntary cooperation over even democratic governmental control of an economy is just so we as individuals don’t have to rely on ANYONE’s good intentions other than our own. One of the main reasons we in U.S. (or really anyone else) don’t have a pure democracy but a constitutional republic is because our founders valued individual rights over the rights of a democratic majority.
Despite that, you failed to respond to it in its entirety.
And we should be working with others to change that.
I believe I’ve made myself quite clear, but I’ll keep trying. I believe the devastation that has been wrought in poor countries has been made possible because of a democratic defifiency. Democratic participation in decision-making is absolutely essential to reversing this and to achieving economic justice and sustainability.
I can only assume at this point that your ignorance is willful. I’ve pointed above to the fact that there are poor people around the world struggling and dying to preserve their rights to not be robbed and to be real participants in making political decisions. They exist. They are fighting. I support them.
Listen to what you’re saying, in essence: “I recognize that this process is unjust, but [I know on which side my bread is buttered; let’s be honest, I really don’t care that much; I’m not sure what my role would be in a different world] so I’m going to go along with a system in which self-interested corporations set the terms of the discussion and define for people what “well-being” and “diminutions” mean.” You fucking have to stop with this “we” nonsense.
This is astoundingly broad, both in terms of the words you’re using and in terms of which “people” you’re talking about (how these outcomes are distributed). The specifics of well-being, which aspects of it are most important, and how to achieve them are something that must be determined by people themselves.
You haven’t been listening. Do you want a corporation with an interest in profiting in the process determining what’s in your best interest without your participation and agencies imposing policies on you or your community based on its arguments?
WTF?
You’re joking, right? Let’s use the example of the Bolivian constitution, with which I’m more familiar. The process went on for months and people from all walks of life participated (many having this opportunity for the first time in their lives). Was it perfect? Absolutely not. But people were able to meaningfully take part in debates over the future of their country. These are the people being affected by the outcome of the discussion. If you disagreed with the arguments about prohibiting nuclear waste (and I doubt many did) you could put forward your arguments in a democratic forum. This is the fucking essence of democracy. Contrast this with the imposition of SAPs in these countries or specifically with the (attempted, in the end) privatization of Cochabamba’s water. People have no practically-effective basis to oppose these efforts other than physical resistance, often at great human cost.
No, I mustn’t. You must acknowledge that “we” have absolutely no right to define for others what is a just outcome for them or what constitutes their welfare.
This is pretty off-topic. I believe that it is possible iven current technology for communities – of a certain size, in a federal system – to participate on a continuous basis in policy-making, at least at a certain general level of detail, beyond which they could monitor and hold decision-makers on more specific technical matters accountable. I think this is growing in many contexts. But this isn’t really relevant. Poor communities have their own procedures for decision-making, and can determine the issues that are important to them.
As Jadehawk has explained quite well, it’s the only legitimate mechanism for making any decisions or realizing any values. But you’re missing something totally fundamental here. These aren’t separable in the way you’re implying. If you believe that these other values can be realized and maintained via simply technocratic means in some benevolent dictatorship, you’re wrong. It simply doesn’t work like that. But it doesn’t matter, because that is not what we have at the global scale. We have rapacious corporations pushing policies in their own interests and ideologues claiming it is something other than what it is.
I didn’t want to change the subject too much so just as a quick response to who I think should “own the oceans.” Of course this is a perfect example of someone who won’t even consider an issue seriously (i’m not “high”) because it upsets their sensibilities. Economists, largely, work differently. But anyway, the government (or a supra-governmental organization) could sell individual transferable quotas for fish. I believe they do something similar in Iceland and New Zealand.
@SC, OM,
Let me summarize how I’ve understood the conversation so far, and you can amend it if you think I’ve misrepresented your views.
Me: We should use economic analysis to determine which policy options lead to the best outcomes.
SC, OM: Who are you to say what the best outcome is, you imperialist pig!
Jason: Wouldn’t it be a good thing if the US government spent more money on aid to Africa to save millions of lives and less money on building missiles and missile defense shields?
SC, OM: Who cares when are so far from my ideal of democracy? Viva la revolucion!
Is this an accurate summary?
Also, I don’t think you appreciated the critique I raised about democracy and majoritarianism.
Suppose we were trying to decide whether gay people should be allowed to marry and suppose that:
Next, suppose that we deliberated at length and finally decided that no, gay people should not be allowed to get marry.
Is it your position that this conclusion is just by virtue of the fact that it emerged from a democratic process? This conclusion seems obviously wrong to me. It is arguably “legitimate” (although I’d say not even that), but surely unjust. We rightfully evaluate outcomes based on criteria other than whether they resulted from a democratic process.
It’s not the only thing that matters, but it’s vital to the real and sustainable realization of all of the others. But this wasn’t the question under discussion here. It was whether corporations and governments acting in their own interests should be able to dictate (through international agencies or independently) the policies affecting the lives of people without their participation, and whether you would serve them in this, passively or actively. You’re trying to avoid it by using that abstract “we” and pretending you work in a vacuum, but it’s not fooling anyone.
You’re quite dismissive of the importance of democracy in general. Do you think participation in the making of decisions that affect you is a basic right? Are you willing to relinquish it if some person or organization or agency claiming expertise says it can make your life better?
***
And of course we have the “economic freedom” argument, so my only response to DanB the propertarian will be to link once again to this:
http://www.counterpunch.org/grandin11172006.html
(Jadehawk – I’m ignoring DanB because I spent too many months arguing with these people. Give it a little while, and you’ll understand the response I had to SfO months ago. :))
So you’re saying that for essentially all of human history most people have lived worthless lives because they have not lived in true democracies? The kind of democracy you speak of can be one important component of a life well-lived, but it’s not a necessary condition.
Ah, I actually didn’t realize that was the question. I’m curious, what exactly is something that you regard as a legitimate way to improve people’s lives that wouldn’t be “selling out”? Once I understand that, I can try to answer the question you raise here.
Since when? I think the realization that people should have a say in how they are governed is one of the most important ideas in human history.
Well, that depends on the organization or agency and whether I think they are better placed to make that judgment than I am. For example, I am glad to defer to doctors about what medical treatments I should have.
Sure, if you’re insane.
You know what? I have work to do, and this is a waste of my time.
(And your hypothetical, including your protrayal of my argument therein, is as stupid as any from Walton; in fact, it resembles in great detail one he actuslly used. I have never suggested that democratic processes can validly overturn basic human rights, nor that people deciding democratically cannot make decisions that are bad or wrong, even according to their own understandings. The irony is that both you and Walton came up with this nonsense in response to my mention of Bolivia – his about imposing religion and yours about gay marriage. It happens that this constitution ended the special position of the Catholic Church and also is one of the most progressive in the world, indeed groundbreaking, re LGTB rights. You can keep your abstractions and your hypotheticals – they’re all you’ve got. I’ll stick with my knowledge of the real world.)
Bye.
It’s instructive to see that you feel you can dismiss my arguments so readily. If reasons aren’t working you might as well just ignore, right? Do you often live by a biblical “ignorance is bliss” mentality? No one that is not already convinced will be persuaded by your ridiculous “counterpunch” link. You just assume political freedom is more noble and valuable than economic freedom without any obvious ground to make such a leap. History and philosophy from the enlightenment on suggest they’re both important and largely connected.
In fact throughout human history, although there was great variation and limitations on participation in some cases, there has been a great deal of democratic decision-making. Some of these local traditions, in one form or another, have survived, and we can learn a great deal from them. And “have lived worthless lives” is typical of your stupid hyperbole. But there’s been a lot of authoritarianism and inequality as well, which did vastly reduce people’s ability to develop their capacities and fulfill their needs, as it does today. This is what you support.
I’m sure you’re not really this clueless. And I’ve already told you that you need to start with an appreciation of the struggles in which people are involved. But you’re not interested in doing anything other than what you’re doing, and mocking others as you did in your post above. You’re just wasting my time.
You’ve already answered it many times over. I really don’t have time for this nonsense.
Democracy is a necessary condition, yes. Dismissive yet again.
In the abstract, of course. And not about whether they are governed, evidently.
Wow, you’re a fool. Good luck with that.
Oh, christ on a cracker. Read Bakunin on authority in “God and the State,” ffs.
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_archives/bakunin/godandstate/godandstate_ch1.html
Then study a bit of the history of medicine and public health in imperial-colonial contexts, doctors working for tobacco companies in the 20th century, and “company doctors” – far more relevant to our discussion.
1) what part of “democracy is not an end, it’s a basic foundation” are you not understanding Jason? no one is saying that with democracy per-se, all problems will be solved. however, realistically, we will not solve any problems at all until we have a true democratic process. There’s countries out there that have realized that imperialistic good intentions are useless. it’s one of the reasons there’s now a no-contact rule for uncontacted tribes in the amazon. there’s some people who have finally realized that an outsiders good intentions are more too likely to cause harm than help.
2)Dan, what kind of supra-governmental organization (that somehow wouldn’t be a monopoly) could own the oceans? how can we guarantee that it doesn’t just sell off the rights to the highest bidder/special interests rather than distributing it to the communities? Only an organization DIRECTLY accountable to exactly those communities in question, as well as other communities affected by its decisions. not by outsiders with money and power.
3)I don’t remember demanding mob-rule at any point. constitutions are nifty things; human rights are nifty things, as well. Now, I’m certain SC and I could argue about how exactly to implement a truly democratic society while safeguarding those (and she’d win, if only because I have less knowledge in these things and merely an visceral, German fear of anarchy to go on :-p ), but none of those differences and issues make “might(or money) makes right” a system even worth contemplating. I’d rather we remove the remnants of the Gilded Age completely, rather than perpetuating them under the cloak of aid.
@SC, OM,
This is not a rhetorical question or meant is an insult – but how old are you? I’m 25.
Jason
*sigh* my english fails me. it’s time to take a break, i think :-p
No one here is saying that. What people are saying is something known as “empathy”. Ever heard of it?
That’s a bit too much hyperbole for my liking. I agree that more problems get solved when countries are democratic and therefore accountable for their actions to their people, but not that no problems get solved without democracy.
Many problems have been solved with or without democracies. Consider that the majority of countries are not democratic. If no problems can be solved without democracy, then our abilities as a species at problem solving looks pretty hopeless, doesn’t it? But it’s not hopeless. Good can certainly be done by non-democracies, or where you not aware of entities like the UN and their god work, or treaties like the Montreal Protocol?
oh wow. i didn’t know irony meters worked on non-theists, too…
Jason,
None of your business. :) Significantly older than you (I’m a professor). But your young age does explain some things. I’ll probably be kinder if we have any dealings in the future.
Reading for comprehension. Ever heard of it?
@Jadehawk,
If by that you mean that democracy enriches many other values, then I understand and agree with you as does everyone else on this thread. If by that you mean that all other values are worthless without democracy, then I understand and think it’s obviously false. If you mean something else, then obviously I don’t understand any part of it, so please clarify.
@SC, OM,
Doesn’t this admission undermine your position? I thought your position was that advocating for any US government policy made me an imperialist who was trying to impose my values on others because the only thing I should work for is bringing about a world revolution that realizes true democracy. I’m honestly not being sarcastic here – if your position is different from this, then please explain it rather than hurling insults.
Also, I don’t know who Walton is and don’t follow the remainder of your comment. He sounds like a reasonable guy though.
Alas, I am this clueless. Please, tell me what professions and activities you regard as not selling out and why they are different from working as an economist trying to inform public policy.
Good point, if only I had known I wouldn’t have tried to think rationally when doing so was doomed to failure.
So you’re saying you *don’t* defer to doctors about what medical treatment is best because they’re all corrupt money-grubbing imperialists?
@SC, OM,
What are you a professor of? What is your area of expertise?
Jason
Look, I’m certainly not an expert on the economics of fisheries or anything. I’m just defending the way economists look at these issues. It seems to me that you and others don’t really care if the condition of our oceans and of the fish in them is improved or not, only whether some group you like has voted on it or not. Also, the United Nations is a possible candidate (but somehow I think there is a better solution). But I don’t want to get in too deep of a debate on this side issue.
I’m also glad to see you think constitutions and human rights are “nifty.” Your visceral reaction to anything is exactly the thing I was trying to expose and counter. People have a visceral feeling that God exists. They are, as you are in this situation, being irrational. You may not think some “system [is not] even worth contemplating” but economists do contemplate them and apply evidence and reason to them. SC tries to portray me as someone on the fringe of economic thought. However, I’m pretty center in the mainstream of in my economic views – as is Larry Summers (which is why I was defending him).
I’ve only voted for Democrats (although I’m only 25 like Jason so haven’t had that many opportunities; and would consider candidates on an individual basis) and I think the government does have an important role to play in certain cases such as imposing a carbon tax for environmental and national security reasons. A system of tradable carbon allowances auctioned by the government would also be an improvement over the current system. I believe President Obama favors a similar scheme – is he a “propertarian”?
You seem to believe that you could, with help, construct a system of democratic government that would uphold human rights and individual liberty over the tyranny of the majority problem inherent in democracies. That’s great. I believe Jason and I also favor such a system. It’s just that we seem to favor a little more emphasis on individual liberties over democratic rights. No one here is suggesting corporate rule or striping rights from citizens in poorer countries. I totally agree that strengthening democracy in the Least Developed Countries is a hugely important goal, but I also think that expanding free trade and wealth to those countries is an equally important goal. After all the best way to alleviate poverty and improve the lives of the millions of disadvantaged is to give them more economic freedom by strengthening those nifty constitutions to favor property rights and individual liberties over the rights of the state.
Jason,
Why are you asking me all of these questions? What is it you’re getting at? What does it have to do with the discussion we’re having?
Knock it off, please.
Dan
1)I’d suggest you stop thinking of democracy as “voting for candidate x”
2)I’m not saying anything about not studying theoretical of different structures. knock yourself out. the perpetration and implementation of “might makes right” however is indeed not worth considering. the Gilded Age is over (well, it’s dying anyway)
3)i’m not sure why you think that I or SC don’t care about the environment. environmental issues are actually some of the most important for me personally. education and technology are important ways to fight environmental degradation. for the most part however, our system does a lot of greenwashing, and little to no actual sustainable development. until we have a situation in which people are empowered and educated enough to not be taken advantage of by corporations, we won’t see sustainable development though. it doesn’t pay, when you can trick some poor country in taking in your junk.
SC, OM,
I was just curious since it is generally helpful when having a discussion to know something what the other person has expertise in (I wasn’t planning to play any gotcha game), but you don’t have to answer if you’re uncomfortable doing so.
Jason
oh, and also, either you had a humor failure, or I was too subtle in my use of the word “nifty” as a humorous understatement. I find the protection of essential human rights very important.
I don’t think it could be any more clear.
What?! My position was that we (you and I) should listen to and support local movements of people fighting for human rights and democracy and against the undemocratic imposition of policies by foreign governments, corporations, and international agencies. How would linking to organizations in these movements (the mayors’ movement is mainly of mayors in non-US countries, incidentally, not that it’s important) undermine my position? I’m trying to get you to understand that your “we,” in action, is imperialist. Poor people in other countries are active. Any time you talk about making policy for them you should recognize what you’re doing and what you’re participating in. You should think instead of respecting their right to make decisions for themselves and to participate in any that involve them. That’s what I’m trying to facilitate when I supply those links.
There are many, many nonprofit organizations from locally- to internationally-oriented that work for social justice – you can find some at idealist.org. Within them there are jobs for people with different areas of expertise. There’s independent media and work that can be done on the internet. There are democratic unions. There’s teaching, of certain sorts… You, and not I, are the one making this division between “selling out” and not. This list is hardly exhaustive, and I’m not saying everything else is necessarily “selling out” or that working for change from within is always impossible in every context. But if you work or are planning to work for the World Bank or similar you should not delude yourself about what you’re supporting.
Both “as an economist” and “trying to inform public policy” are extremely broad here. I’ve made no sweeping statements about economists. AFAIK, the people at the EPI do good work, and there are other organizations that employ economists who are committed to using their skills in a social-justice capacity.
Relinquishing your democratic rights is extremely foolish. I’m quite sure you wouldn’t do it so joyfully if you really were a poor person facing a government, company, or agency with its own plans for you, but by all means don’t let that stop you from making such foolish statements.
And read the section in Bakunin on authority.
Right. That’s exactly what I’m saying. Will you at least try to get a grip here? What is under discussion is a context of vast imbalances of power in which “experts” and their actions are not and cannot be neutral. This has to be kept in mind by everyone, including the experts themselves.
This thread is anecdotal proof of the rule of thumb that no more than 25% of an event’s attendees can be economists without killing the conversation.
Why are the bulk of economists such insufferable twits?
Economics like markets make a useful servant, a fearful master and a horrible religion.
I agree that this is a worthy cause (although I think I’d define an “undemocratic imposition of policies by foreign governments” more narrowly than you, at least insofar as it’s worth fighting against).
In any case, would you also agree that working for an organization which tried to directly improve the well-being of poor people without necessarily fighting for democracy would be worthwhile? For example, an organization dedicated to fighting the spread of HIV, or an organization dedicated to helping the poorest people have more opportunities to be educated?
If you would agree to that, why would you think that working for an organization like the World Bank was somehow inherently an evil act? Even if you don’t agree with the World Bank’s policies, any given person working for the World Bank might be trying to make those policies more humane and more just. The World Bank is a powerful organization with access to a great deal of resources. Why is trying to gain access to some of those resources to use them to do good not a noble endeavor?
(incidentally, I’m planning to go into Academia at least initially but I certainly wouldn’t rule out a public policy position at some point if I were offered one with a sufficient among of influence)
Suppose a group of people were having a heated conversation. You walk up, listen for a few minutes, say to one of them “Some people here sound just like so and so who is a twit!” Then you remain silent for a long time, contributing nothing. Eventually you chime in again saying, “Some people here are insufferable twits!”
Nothing about this seems wrong to you?
Interesting discussion going on here. I think however people have glossed over an important point.
Jason said:
Why the fuck did someone give you a cut-out of John Rawls for your birthday?
SC, Would you consider the possibility that one of those groups that work for “social justice” could actually do more harm than good? They are also imposing their worldview on the local politics of some nation. Sure they may be supporting a homegrown movement but they as outsiders are influencing that local democratic process (awfully imperialistic…). If another group in such a country wanted more economically liberal (in the classical sense) policies what right do these outside groups have to undermine them? Given your premises it would seem to be against what you say you’re fighting for. Also, you haven’t given a reason as to why you favor the rights of a democratic group to make policy over the rights of an individual to make whatever voluntary agreement he sees as appropriate for his individual circumstances.
And Jadehawk, I never suggested I think of democracy as just “voting for candidate x.” I also never said “might makes right” or argued it would be a good thing. Please try to respond to what I actually say. I believe you care about the environment; I just wish you could understand that maybe I or Jason or economists like Larry Summers might actually care about the environment too. It’s so cheap to assign evil motives to others you disagree with. I don’t think you or SC or others who think like you do are evil greedy people, why must you always assume we are? Can you even entertain the possibility that Larry Summers, and a lot of other economists like him, care about real people and the environment and their reading of the evidence has just lead them to a different solution to the problem?
i don’t know anything about you or Jason, other than you think patronizing other countries isn’t a big deal. as far as mr summers goes… well, he seems to think pollution somewhere else is just peachy. I’m not saying you’re evil. but unless you’re willing to give up a lot of your everyday comforts, i’d say you’re greedy. i know i am, because I *like* being able to sit on my couch and wasting energy on pointless debates online. i *like* my looseleaf tea, and not all of it is fair-trade. unless you can say that you’re living a 100% sustainable life, you’re living a life built on the backs of the poor of the developing world. i know this sounds melodramatic, but the fact that it sounds melodramatic is half the problem. after all, unless we acknowledge that not only do we live beyond our means, but at the expense of others, nothing much will change.
we’re spoiled, entitled, and we think the developing world should be grateful for the grand schemes we have for them. which brings me to those HIV-schemes. Europe throws condoms at the problem without much concern for behavioral schemes. the U.S. goes bonkers over an “abstinence only” scheme that never was one, but has now been turned into one, with possibly disastrous effects. Only some programs actually bother to involve locals into developing those programs. and yet, it’s THOSE programs that are the most successful, hmm….
It’s a necessary “cause.” Look, there’s a basic respect for oher people as global democratic citizens here that you seem to be missing.
Generally speaking, no. Fighting for democracy and/as working with local people has to be the way people go about things. You can’t be naive about this, or taken in by terms like “development aid.” Study the history of organizations and agencies (and not from their own self-promoting literature). When you do so honestly you’ll recognize, as Jadehawk has pointed out, a line going from the agents of 19th- and 20th-century imperialism (in which people portrayed and even saw themselves as doing good work for poor “primitive/underdeveloped/uncivilized” countries while hiding or ignoring the naked power and resource grabs in which their efforts were implicated) to much of today’s “aid community.” So you need to be skeptical and vigilant. More specifically, Partners in Health? Grassroots International? Yeah. AGRA? USAID? No.
I wouldn’t agree to the naive general argument you’re trying to make.
I’m suggesting you need to study the history of the WB in action, the history of resistance to its imposed policies and their results. I know what the World Bank is about and what it’s done to poor people.
I don’t agree with the World Bank’s existence.
Impossible. Again, this this is what some people acting as agents of the old imperialism may have believed they were doing. The best they could achieve was imperialism with a slightly more human face, which was brutal imperialism in the end and they were its apologists (in some ways worse than those who were more honest about what they were doing). The whole structure of the thing is rotten. It is driven by corporate interests and contemptuous of poor people.
Gee, I wonder why.
Really. Stop willfully deceiving yourself.
Excellent.
Hopefully by then you won’t be so green. :)
Hol-eee Sheepshit, PZ. We agree on something of economic importance.
Stop The Bailouts. Ron Paul 2012.
@ Jadehawk
Jason or I aren’t patronizing other countries. I’d like to see some place where he or I did so. Again you seem to be hearing what you assume either of our positions are without regard to what either of us actually says.
@SC, OM
You are breathtakingly arrogant without any good reason. As if no economists who support Jason’s position haven’t studied the history of the organizations you’re talking about. The issue is that they haven’t only read some history books on it or some counterpunch website they’ve studied that ACTUAL effects of policies and organizations on development. It just so happens to turn out that liberalized trade and often “EVIL” corporate interests have been the only thing to make significant positive effect on the economy and lives of the disadvantaged. The fact that you feel you can ignore facts doesn’t change that economists like Paul Krugman (http://www.slate.com/id/1918) argue that the policies you oppose as imperialist save lives.
It’s obvious you are so blindly condescending to the poor that you think they can’t handle having an international corporation in their town and decide for themselves if they want to work for it or not. Your contempt for the actual effects of policies on real people’s lives is striking. Can you point to any actual study or data that support your absurd dismissal of the benefits Foreign Direct Investment and freer trade to other countries?
What do you know about protectionist policies that 93% of economists don’t (http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/02/news-flash-economists-agree.html http://www.bepress.com/ev/vol3/iss9/art1/)? The fact that your patronizing attitude that the poor can’t be integrated into the world economy without being exploited is sad, false, and detrimental (http://www.econ.yale.edu/~srinivas/trade_poverty.pdf). Is it even possible in your all-knowing mindset that the developmental economists who disagree with you might happen to know more than you? As Bryan Caplan has written, “if you want to criticize the experts, the burden is on you to overcome the standard presumption.” We’ll be waiting for some evidence.
Ron Paul 2012.
that’s right up there with Sarah Palin 2012. at least she has an excuse for being painfully wrong.
@Jadehawk,
I actually agree with most of what you write in your post – I wouldn’t frame it as you do in the language of exploitation, but I think that Peter Singer is basically right that essentially everyone fails to live up to standards of basic decency because we’re unwilling to sacrifice amenities to save the lives of people we don’t know, and I think it’s a worthwhile thing to point out.
I don’t have any idea how this bears on the question of whether using economic analysis to compare policies and working through established institutions to improve people’s lives is a worthwhile thing to do (but if you weren’t arguing against that position, then perhaps we don’t disagree).
See, we agree on lots of things.
@SC, OS
I’m unclear whether you’re making an argument here about principle or about consequences. Are you saying that even if an organization like USAID is effective in saving millions of lives, it would still be unethical to work for them because they are brutal imperialists? Or are you just denying that they are effective in saving lives?
If the latter, isn’t understanding the causal consequences of public policy exactly what economists have expertise in? Dan B. is right to stress this point. Why do you think you know more than experts? You keep insisting that I study the history of the World Bank as if economists had never heard of such a thing as history. 90% of what economists do is study history to produce as accurate a picture as possible of the impact of alternative policies. You seem to think that despite having no expertise in this discipline, your assessment of the historical evidence is better than that of economists. Why would you think that? What do you know that we don’t? How are you different from Creationists who think that their assessment of the fossil record is more accurate than that of biologists? When experts and laymen disagree, laymen always try to attribute the disagreement to some kind of moral insight which they have but the experts lack (but why would EVERY expert lack this insight?). The vast majority of the time the disagreement is due to the superior knowledge of experts.
(@SC, OM I meant, sorry!)
If you had a poster of Geldof or Bono on your dorm room wall, read this.
If you’ve worked in Africa dispensing ‘aid’, read this.
http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/954/moyo/
So smart, so foxy.
Matt, thanks for the tip. Seems like an interesting book. I hope it isn’t imperialist if I read it for myself and investigate the merits of its claims. Of course, she worked for Goldman Sachs so she’s obviously a corporate apologist and couldn’t possibly offer anything beneficial to the world just by virtue of her employer’s existence. Clearly, as an autophobic Zambian woman she’s probably just patronizing her former African home. But I might give it a read anyway…
DanB, and you know she’s afraid to be alone, how? And if so, that would be relevant to African aid economics why?
Matt, sorry if you missed it. I was being sarcastic throughout in response to some of the attitudes others have displayed regarding the intentions of economists. I really think it seems like an interesting book. By “autophobic” I meant she has self-hatred (not really, obviously)… not fear of being alone. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-hatred
way to completely miss the point. congratulations.
She’s a “free”-market ideologue whose prescription for the failures of “aid” (which are not failures at all for corporations – money and resources have been flowing out of Africa and corporations have made out like the bandits that they are) is more neoliberalism, now with no obligation even to pretend to compensate for stolen resources (or anything about debt forgiveness). Nothing she says is new or “radical” – it’s boilerplate free-marketeering (people like her were a dime a dozen in Latin America, often funded by right-wing US think tanks). She pretends that “aid” in Africa has been different from other places, when in fact it has been the same corporate- and US-driven, local-economy destroying, privatization shit it has everywhere else, and continues to be. Look at the conditions of the SAPs in African countries over the past 20 years. She’s a liar. The model of “aid” in Africa she rails against doesn’t exist (the idea that corporate/US-driven “aid” programs have turned the continent into a “welfare state” is jawdroppingly absurd – welfare-state programs have been demolished by SAPs*), and her alleged prescription for radical change is largely an expansion of what the World Bank and IMF have been pushing in these countries for years, with disastrous results. And anyone who doesn’t see shades of Friedman-Pinochet in her discussion of democracy vs. “economic freedom” is blind. And if you think her connections to Goldman Sachs and the World Bank suggest nothing about whom her “prescriptions” would benefit, you are a fool. These are prescriptions for sucking the continent absolutely dry, giving even freer reign to corporations and foreign governments, and further environmental degradation.
I hope to have time to respond to Jason’s latest comments and to that interview in full shortly. I’ll try to return as soon as I can.
*See this (dated) list of anti-SAP protests. Note, Jason, how many are related to education:
http://www.whirledbank.org/development/sap.html
See also here:
http://www.globalissues.org/article/3/structural-adjustment-a-major-cause-of-poverty#WhatistheIMFWorldBankPrescription
I’m not sure exactly what you expect me to make of this list. For one thing, I don’t see too many citations to peer reviewed research attempting to evaluate the costs and benefits of these policies rather than just reporting on protests.
Regarding the second citation, I’m politically sympathetic to Joe Stiglitz’ critique of the IMF and Jeff Sach’s views on foreign aid. Frankly though I’m not a macroeconomist, so I’m really not qualified to assess the complex issues involved. Ken Rogoff argues forcefully against Stiglitz’s position here (I’ve intentionally selected a non-technical article so you can’t accuse me of obscuring things with math):
http://imf.org/external/np/vc/2003/021003.htm
Ken Rogoff is also a first rate economist. So is Joe Stiglitz. Here is a sample paragraph from Rogoff:
Can you honestly say you have an informed position on this debate about international macroeconomics? This is not a rhetorical question. Please, sit back and think about it for at least 15 seconds before continuing.
…
Let me rephrase the question so you can think about it one more time:
When you read Rogoff’s article, do you honestly feel that you understand all of his arguments and yet believe they are transparently wrong?
…
If your answer is no, you don’t understand all of his arguments, then why do you so readily presume that you have a deeper understanding of the issues involved than he does? After all, he is acknowledged by people with the qualitifications to assess his arguments as an expert on the matter with deep insight into financial macroeconomics.
If your answer is yes, you do understand all of his arguments, then you are either massively ignorant or a liar.
Also reading back through the comments – When I say that 90% of what economists do is study history, I mean history in the most general sense of trying to figure out what happened in the past. Dan B.’s distinction between reading history books and looking at data is critical. It is one thing to read histories or blogs or news articles to try to get a general sense of the impact of policies. But it is quite another to actually gather data to try to get a quantitative picture of what is going on rather than just relying on your own demonstrably inaccurate heuristic devices to piece together an accurate picture from anecdotal evidence.
My argument is a historical one (it is also a principled one). These organizations have not been “effective in saving lives,” nor will they ever be. Nor has this ever been their purpose, despite their occasional rhetoric.
Please read this article about USAID programs in Haiti (which squares with what I know from Paul Farmer and Randall Robinson)
http://www.counterpunch.org/kramer10142005.html
and this interview from a couple of weeks ago about WB/IMF/USAID and dam construction in India
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/23/dam_politics_indias_leading_activist_medha
Again, even in cases (not the ones we’re talking about on this thread) in which motives are pure, nondemocratic, nonparticipatory development schemes are not (and have not been shown to be empirically) capable of producing lasting benefits. (And I don’t know how many different ways I can say this to get my point across, but outside “experts” have no right to determine for people what is in their best interests or to calculate costs and benefits based on their own criteria.)
In the abstract, yes, they have expertise in certain aspects of this sort of analysis. But note that this is whay I asked you to stop speaking so abstractly above. Economists employed by organizations and agencies with their own interests and are beholden to other powerful interests are not approaching this as neutral analysts. In these nondemocratic situations the definitions of costs and benefits of local people (those affected by the projects) are not considered relevant, if they are known at all. Further, if you read the reports of these agencies or their responses to reports by other organizations determining that their projects have failed by any number of relevant standards, the standard response is denial and displacing blame. Capitalism and “free” markets can’t really fail; it can only be insufficiently implemented. The solution to clear failures – as is so devastatingly the case with agriculture – is always more of the same. Economic analysis in a democratic context can be a useful tool. In nondemocratic contexts – like the Soviet Union or the cases under discussion here – it is an alienated endeavor and a tool of oppression.
Why do you insist on misunderstanding me? This question is not a response to anything I’ve said.
I haven’t said anything about economists in general. I’m addressing you, and suggesting that you study the political and social history of these agencies from sources other than their own. A number of economists (especially in poor countries) who are not associated with theses agencies have been extremely critical of them.
See above.
You have no basis for that statement.
See above.
Let me try this another way: Say you were raving about the wonderful things done by the Catholic Church. I, in turn, as I have here many times, suggested that you read some social/political history of Latin America written by people outside of (and especially those critical of) the Church to get a clearer understanding of what they’ve really been up to there (incidentally, they were another major source of support for Pinochet). That’s what I’m doing here.
Let me try a different tack: What were the costs and benefits of the invasion of Iraq? What data would you have to consider to answer this question fully? What quantitative benefits on balance would you require to consider that action justified or worthwhile?
because this part is bound to confuse some people, here’s my own take on that part of SC’s statement:
outside experts may be used by the people to inform them better about the choices they themselves will then make. however, those experts, being thus in the employ of those people, need to make the analyses according to the criteria set out by the people, not their own criteria (which are generally informed by western standards, and set up to primarily profit the west). nor are those experts entitled to make the decisions FOR the people.
going back to that medical doctor thing: we have such a thing as informed consent. the consent part means it’s you the patient that has the last say in the matter. the informed part means you have the right to know all variables, and the doctor doesn’t have the right to push his/her perspective on you (well, that used to be the case before the newest set of “conscience clauses”, anyway).
we in the west are protecting ourselves from power-abuse of the expertise of our own doctors. why don’t you think people in other parts don’t deserve “informed consent”? because in case you weren’t aware, for the most part programs like USAID don’t offer even “informed consent”(which is still not even the democratic process neccessary), they offer “my way or the highway” deals.
er. “why do you think people don’t deserve”, or “why don’t you think people deserve”
stoopid double negatives.
WTF? Stiglitz’ comments there were mainly political, which Rogoff ignores completely (as do you, unsurprisingly). Rogoff’s piece is propaganda, rivaling anything produced by the RCC. That he couches it in technical language divorcing the issues from social and political reality serves his political purposes fully. I’m amazed that you can’t see this.
I’m paying no attention to him, but if he did make such a distinction, it’s totally stupid. History books contain data.
Yes, it is one means of conducting research. (Note: We’re not only talking about the impact of policies, but about the process of policy formation and implementation.)
Historical and sociological data are data. Secondary sources can be supplemented by primary research, yes – including interviewing people affected by these policies.
In the social sciences, quantitative != more scientific. Sure, if you abstract away frrom the political and social reality (important aspects of which cannot be quantified) and retreat to a small subset of all of the relevant data determined by one group’s priorities, you can claim to have produced a “scientific” analysis; what you really are is a tool, in more than one sense of the word.
No, by all means, rely on those of the powerful.
So all political and social evidence is anecdotal? What if I assign everything a numeric value? (*rolls eyes*)
SC, OM – You too easily dismiss economists that are “employed [in] organizations and agencies with their own interests and are beholden to other powerful interests [and] are not approaching this as neutral analysts.” The woman that works for Goldman Sachs that Matt recommended reading also wrote the book on her own accord. The fact that you can paint her with such horrible motives so easily is absurd and dishonest. But you’ve ignored the many academic economists who have reached the same conclusions as those in industry. How do you brush them aside so easily?
Furthermore, I’m still unclear so if someone can inform me, what is the difference philosophically between an outside economist recommending policies he or she has deemed beneficial to a group and a political activist (such as one or some group you sympathize with) that provides support for democratic reform? Also are both not imperialistic (at least as either of you have used the term)?
I’m asking honestly for your own distinction. After all, different internal groups in a country favor different forms of government and even different forms of democracy. And I also don’t understand the difference of emphasis you place on political freedom over economic freedom.
Thanks, Jadehawk. That is precisely what I meant.
By the way, your comment
reminded me of this:
http://firedoglake.com/2008/05/19/first-geneva-now-helsinki-the-fdas-slide-to-the-inhuman/
@SC, OM Can I just ask why you are ignoring me? Also, yes I know history books contain data; that wasn’t the distinction I was making. But anyway, can you at least explain what I have said that is so ridiculous as to not even merit a response or attention? If it’s something specific maybe I can clarify or even learn where I’ve gone wrong. If what I’m saying is just inconvenient to your paradigm, which for the time seems more probable, than I’m sorry for any students you teach. You’ve so quickly judged the motives of economists and my politics (you called me a “propertarian” earlier). Sorry if I even SUGGESTED it MIGHT be acceptable to sell tradable quotes for fish. Generally, I’m coming at this from a classically liberal perspective so I don’t think I’m too extreme here.
I might be wrong about this but I don’t think so; I was the first one to challenge anyone’s easy assumption of valuing democracy above other political/social/economic goals. So I think I’ve certainly contributed to this discussion. Thanks.
@Feynmaniac
To show they knew me better than the people who gave me a life-size cut-out of Darth Vader.
@SC, OM
My takeaways from this article:
1) The world would be a better place if countries conducted foreign policy in the interest of human well-being rather than the national interest
2) The US spent 4 million dollars on “These projects include road and canal clean-up projects, terracing of hillsides to prevent erosion and electricity projects.” In all likelihood these helped many people, although a more careful accounting of their results would have been helpful.
3) The US actively worked to undermine a populist movement in Haiti
If all the facts in the article are accurate, I’d say the US involvement in Haiti was probably detrimental to the well-being of Haitians, although that would really depend on the relative magnitudes of the projects in 2) and 3).
Here is an quote from William Easterly’s Journal of Economic Perspective’s article, “Can Aid Buy Growth?” (Easterly is famously skeptical of foreign aid and this article is no exception).
“Indeed, in some cases foreign aid has been strikingly successful. For example, the World Bank’s $70 million loan to the Ceara state government in the Brazilian northeast concluded in June 2001. The loan facilitated innovative government-led initiatives in land reform, rural electrification and water supply and a fall in infant mortality. There are countrywide success stories like Uganda, with heavy involve- ment by the World Bank and other aid agencies. Earlier success stories associated with aid included South Korea and Taiwan. There are also sectoral success stories, like the elimination of smallpox, the near elimination of river blindness, family planning and the general rise in life expectancy and fall in infant mortality, in which foreign assistance played some role.”
Good question, let’s postpone this for now since there are already several topics under discussion and I don’t want the other points to get ignored, but we should return to it later (if we don’t get to it again tomorrow, feel free to remind me). Same with the debate about history and quantitative analysis.
Let me press you on this point. You claim that what Rogoff is saying is divorced from the issues of social and political reality. To justify that claim, you would need to understand what Rogoff is saying. Obviously, if you don’t understand what he is saying, you would have no way of knowing whether it was divorced from issues of social and political reality.
My position is: you don’t understand what Rogoff is saying but you are trying to pretend that you do to hide your ignorance. Let’s test this. If you surprise me by answering correctly my factual questions about Rogoff’s piece, I will be sure to give your arguments more consideration in the future. These are not trick questions, they are questions of basic comprehension.
1) Why does Rogoff think that it is generally preferable to insist that the IMF loan money to countries and insist on repayment rather than just giving them grants?
2) Rogoff writes the following:
Why would anyone think it was a good idea to “throw money behind a fixed exchange-rate regime”? Which parties would benefit from this money? What does it mean for a fixed-exchange-rate regime to be patently doomed?
3) Why does Rogoff think the existing empirical evidence is insufficient to dismiss moral hazard concerns as unimportant?
If you understood Rogoff’s article, you should be able to answer these questions without googling for any other information (of course, there is no way for me to enforce this, but if you do google, you will know you were lying to yourself about your comprehension).
@Jadehawk,
This would be fine if there were zero costs of information transmission. But there are always costs of information transmission – it’s not like experts figure something out and then everyone immediately knows it. Typically the insights of experts are difficult to express in laymens terms. For example, economists generally agree that the US should eliminate agricultural subsidies, that flexible and floating exchange rates offer an effective international monetary arrangement, and that a non-linear income tax is usually better than commodity taxes (the “Atkinson-Stiglitz Theorem”). It would take an extremely long time to explain to even a very well-educated person without a background in economics the reasons behind this view. Does that mean we should just ignore them in making policy? Or should we instead assume that since they reflect the consensus of experts, they should inform our policy even if lay people don’t understand the reasons behind them?
Some other questions:
Do you believe the FDA should be able to regulate what drugs are sold to consumers?
Why is it wrong for me to assume that any democratic party would want policies that are pareto-optimal – that is, policies that make everyone better off?
What do you think determines the proper scope of the democratic decision-making body you prize so highly (should it be families, villages, cities, counties, states, nations?)?
that’s fucking disgusting. that is beyond fucking disgusting
I’m teaching/working all day and then have a talk to go to. Will try to get back tonight; if not, tomorrow morning.
Jason, you’re a raging imperialist.
According to your definition, this is correct. And by being one, I work to improve many people’s lives, rather than blithely assume that nothing can be done until I’ve established democratic institutions through which local communities can decide on which values they like and which they don’t care about, and then send me an e-mail listing their values which I can then help them achieve. In other words, I impose on other cultures my arrogant suppositions that infant mortality is bad, that life expectancy is good, that we should work to eliminate small pox and river blindness, and that people benefit from a clean water supply.
You’re something much worse than an imperialist – you’re someone who advocates abandoning efforts to prevent human suffering so people will suffer enough that they finally see the world as you see it. That’s not morality – that’s cartoon level villainy.
Unless there is some very compelling rationale for this decision that I’m just missing, I agree.
@Jadehawk,
I may agree with you here, but I’m not sure exactly what distinction you are drawing. Suppose the World Bank was considering a loan to a country so they could build a dam which they think is justified given their cost/benefit analysis. In your view, what should be the conditions of this loan? What body should they ask whether they should go forward with it? Please describe both the “my way or the highway” way of proceeding and “informed consent” and how the two differ.
Jason! How dare you impose your western centric value that alleviation of human suffering is a good thing. I mean what about if an Islamist community that votes, VOTES!, that medical doctors shouldn’t be able help the women without consent of her husband. What if even the majority of WOMEN were to vote for such a thing?
[Working my way upward – don’t know if I’ll have time for more tonight…]
Do you think you’re somewhere other than this thread? Your third or fourth post here contained:
In any event, the example illustrates Larry’s economic insight – it’s only morally callous to those too ignorant to understand his economic point.
Now, I’ll remind you that these statements were ones he attempted to distance himself from when the memo was leaked, even, I believe, claiming that the remarks had been sarcastic. This is because he recognized that decent people had recognized his logic as perverse, as the Brazilian environmental minister did. You, however, jumped in and considered it seriously (“Larry”‘s an expert, everyone – how dare you question his brilliance?”) and defended the idea of that imposition, the question of whether poor people in other countries wanted to be poisoned be damned. You then suggested that perhaps they could be compensated for being poisoned by vaccination programs, as if decent people in the world don’t see vaccinations of poor children as something for which they shouldn’t have to trade anything. You’ve continued to ignore the question I posed to you twice about the assumption behind your two scenarios: that “we” are accountable to no one and have the right to keep polluting at the same rate and to force poor people here or elsewhere to pay the price for it. And so on. Do you really expect anyone to believe this humanitarian bullshit? You’re a joke, Jason.
Ah! I finally get it! I was unable to understand why you kept making comments like this, but now I understand. You’re disgustingly patronizing and ignorant. Let me fill you in: I’m not saying nothing can be done until anything happens because I know that local (including – perhaps especially) indigenous poor communities have democratic processes of decision-making through which they have made and continue to make decisions. Haiti has democratic institutions (well, it does in some places at the local level; the fact that the US government kidnapped their president and has spent millions trying to destabilize the party of poor people while funding rightwing rebels didn’t fucking help). Bolivia has local democratic traditions and is a democracy (USAID is busy spending tax money to destabilize it, too – I guess we should be thankful they haven’t killed Morales, though the fact that there’s been no coup is not for lack of trying).
You assume that poor people cannot have democratic practices or make decisions about their own lives, and need to be told what’s good for them by experts until we the benighted can lift them out of their own incapacity.
This is close to reasonable, but for the fact that this is usually an ongoing process of dialogue and debate. Incredible that you meant it as a joke. This is how economists function in democratic systems – as consultants, offering a perspective based on (presumably area-specific) expertise. Not imposing their schemes on communities or countries through coercion.
This admission alone marks you as an imperialist. Do you think I’m using the word as an all-purpose pejorative, like “big jerk”? I’m calling you an imperialist because that’s what you are.
Which they would get if they would just go along with corporate plans to poison it, or to divert their rivers and flood their land. The arrogance here is breathtaking. Do you think poor people don’t care about their health or their childrens’? That they care less than you or US corporations do (which, as we know, is not at all)? I’m sure anyone reading this thread who’s not an idiot can at least begin to recognize why so many poor people have risked (and lost) their lives fighting these corporate agencies and are telling them in so many ways to fuck off.
It’s really quite stunning. I talk about supporting (helping, working with, writing about/publicizing,..) the efforts of local communities and movements fighting these impositions that have harmed and are harming them, but they’re so marginal to your frame of reference that you can’t even accept that they exist. It’s like poor people as political actors are completely invisible to you – you can only see them as “bare life.”
Insane. And insane projection.
I’m planning to respond to your other comments above, but I’m telling you right now that if you make another one stating or implying that these people don’t exist or are not legitimate political actors or “our” political equals to whom we are politically accountable I will cease to engage with you.
What if they were? What would you do? Who are you in this situation? A local doctor who disagrees? A doctor working with the WHO or a foreign NGO? A local woman who opposes it? A part of a women’s movement working with groups in the region for women’s rights for decades? Part of a government that has overthrown a democratically-elected leader of the country in which this community is located and propped up a brutal dictator there for several decades, with strategic and resource interests there? The CEO of a corporation seeking to expand into the region? A World Bank economist working on a construction project in the area? Who? What would you do in these situations?
Thank you for reminding me:
http://www.campaign4equality.info/english/
And in saying that you acknowledge that USAID is a mere agent of self-interested US foreign policy, not an agency dedicated to human well-being. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
In all likelihood for anyone who is familiar with the history, they did not. “Electricity projects” is something of a red flag, and 4 million dollars (for transient, self-interested programs) is a tiny sum relative to the millions spent destroying their political system. A “careful accounting” would situate them in the context of more than two centuries of the most vile, rapacious extended looting of and stomping on a country in human history, including dam-building and the immense cost in human lives associated with it. The work of the US and France. The debt owed to the Haitian people is immeasurable. I mentioned Paul Farmer above. Read his books.
The US and French governments kidnapped the democratically-elected president of the country and have sought to destroy his party and associated social movements. There are people at Harvard Law working on this. Think it’s in keeping with international law? Leaving aside the centuries of exploitation and oppression continuing through the present, how does kidnapping a country’s elected leader factor into your cost-benfit analysis?
Here’s more:
http://www.democracynow.org/2007/7/23/randall_robinson_on_an_unbroken_agony
Ya think?
Ignoramus.
“Skeptical of foreign aid” says nothing. See example above.
By whose standards? Term?
I’m going to have to call bullshit.
Alternative voice from Brazil, btw:
http://www.social.org.br/cartilhas/cartilhaingles003/cartilha002.htm
http://www.landaction.org/display.php?article=273
See also MST.
Vague.
Again.
Via WB/IMF SAPs? Which foreign assistance? What is the context?
Whatever. Just two of the major points under discussion.
Uh, nice try, Rogoff, Jr. I posted the link to Stiglitz, and you posted the link to Rogoff as a “rebuttal.” You need to tell me: What were Stiglitz’ major points in that piece, especially those relevant to the historico-political discussion we were having? Then, point to where Rogoff addressed them in the statement you linked to (or elsewhere – I don’t care, particularly). Then we can proceed.
@SC, OM,
I realize you’re working your way down responding to my other messages, so I’ll just add this one to the queue and you can get to it when you get the chance. It might be helpful though if you read quickly through all the messages before responding to whichever is next.
When did I or Larry say that it would be a good idea to dump pollution in third-world countries WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT? I NEVER said anything remotely like that.
The position I took is that there were gains from trade from locating pollution in third world countries. This is the same position Summers was taking. If one of the parties doesn’t agree, then it’s no longer a trade, it’s just an imposition! Now, I can understand why a laymen reading his message might think otherwise. But that’s not Summers’ fault! If he had known the memo would be made public, I’m sure he would have been careful to make explicit all the usual caveats implicit in economic reasoning.
Now, the political economy of the situation is complicated than that because some countries have governments which clearly are not acting in the best interests of the people so it’s somewhat difficult to know exactly whose consent should be obtained.
But my comment didn’t bear at all on these questions. My comment was that a benevolent government should accept such a trade. I know you disagree with that as well, but you could at least try to understand my position before hurling insults at me.
Another caveat to prevent further misunderstandings: I don’t think everything the IMF and World Bank do has been productive, and I wouldn’t even argue that they’ve been a positive force in the world rather than a negative force. I think they do lots of things wrong, but it’s just untenable in light of the evidence to think they’ve never done anything right.
By the way, after I write my posts, I’m going to start reviewing them to edit out the personal insults. I hope you will do the same.
maybe this is my fault because of the “informed consent” thing I presented, but I think you’re confusing mere consent with equal power in negotiations.
or: in the 50’s-80’s, how many bosses have slept with their female employees “with their consent”? how many professors had their female students basically work as their housekeeper during field-work?
and how many of those women actually wanted to do so or would have done so if they could say no and not suffer consequences?
Not only have I not denied this, but this is made explicit in the organization’s mandate! Even they don’t deny this!
Now, the other part of their mandate is to help improve the well-being of poor people. It’s clear that these two goals can conflict, and when they do, the results can be tragic. What you seem not to understand is that USAID is an organization made up of real people, some of whom care deeply about the well-being of people in the third-world.
This gets us back to my comments earlier about anecdotal vs. quantitative evidence. The problem with anecdotal evidence is that it is selective. If you want to argue that USAID has been on the whole destructive, you can’t just link to a few individual stories of them doing bad things. You need to do a quantitative accounting of what they have spent money on, and the results of those expenditures.
For example,
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=256883
This paper presents some evidence that structural adjustment loans have been generally ineffective. Do you know of any comparable analyses of USAID policies?
If you can give me a citation to support this claim, I will agree with you that USAID’s involvement in Haiti has been destructive.
I’m not disputing your judgment here, but can you give me a sense of how many lives you’re talking about? Also, I’m not really familiar with dams, but what are the benefits of dam building?
Well, if they kidnapped him in order to accomplish some humanitarian goal (such as preventing him from committing genocide), then this would probably have been a good thing. I see no reason to think that was the case, so I’ll take your word that this was a self-interested act on the part of the US that should be condemned.
I don’t think everything the government does is good, I think most of George W. Bush’s policies – and especially his foreign policies – were very bad and hurt many people.
I just think your position that well-meaning people in government can do no good is indefensible.
I’m not sure either of the sources you cited bear on this example (I only skimmed them, but I couldn’t find any reference). Are you sure the references you provided referred to this $70 million loan? If so, can you list for me the negative consequences you think resulted and which of the above positives that Easterly listed you disagree with?
If you’d like to ask me specific questions to test my comprehension of Stiglitz’s piece I will be glad to answer them.
But once again you have misrepresented my position. I didn’t say that Rogoff convincingly rebutted Stiglitz’s points (I said his article was argued forcefully which is quite different!). I said that my sympathies were with Stiglitz, but both Rogoff and Stiglitz know far more than me about this issue, so the fact that they disagree means that I should be agnostic as well unless I spent a great deal of time thinking about their theoretical arguments and the relevant empirical evidence.
My further claim was that while you claim to understand and see through Rogoff’s argument, I think you actually don’t understand it. You’re not getting off the hook here. This is an easy supposition to test. Either answer my questions and prove your understanding, or admit that you in fact did not understand Rogoff’s argument.
Your charge of ignoramus is especially ironic. I am ignorant of the consequences of World Bank / IMF policies. The Easterly article I cited above seems to suggest that structural adjustment loans were generally ineffective, and from the few papers I have read on this issue, I think this is probably the opinion of most economists, although there is some disagreement. For example:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=569231
I say several times in this post things like “I’m not familiar with X”. There is nothing wrong with being ignorant about any particular issue. What is wrong is taking strong positions on issues about which you are ignorant.
@Jadehawk,
I don’t think I’m confusing these because I’ve taken no position at all about whose consent should be obtained in an instance like the pollution example or what would count as a fair agreement in practice!
I think it would help clarify things if you would respond to my previous post with an example distinguishing between informed consent, equal power, and my way or the highway as you see it.
you mean this?
I can’t answer that, because the question is backward. you’re putting the WB as the actor/initiator of action. The people affected by the dam don’t even show up in you statement, but they seem implied as passive receivers of action. that’s a pretty big presumption you’re making right there
let’s say the community in which this dam will be built (plus those who will be otherwise affected by the changing of the course of the river) agree on a course of action. the next step will be to find a sponsor. ideally, the sponsor would be one that wouldn’t require compromising the original agreement, but that’s not how negotiations generally work. however, at no point should the community have to be forced to abandon core parts of what they decided was important to get the dam built.
now, at this point we get into whether this will be achieved better by free trade and competition, or by working with non-profits that support local projects, or by a monopolizing but powerful organization like the WB or USAID. and from the evidence I’ve seen, a monopoly that can dictate conditions is the worst solution, while working with local-action-supporting non-profits (or even the occasional for-profit organizations, like the original micro-loan banks for example) is the best.
the cost/benefit analysis of USAID is not the point. if anything, a cost/analysis made by the community would be the one to discuss.
Jason,
I’m too tired for anything but “novelty” posts at this point, so I’ll return tomorrow.
As for this:
You’re asking me to deny my inner nature! Never! (I do not fling these terms about unthinkingly. They are genuine expressions, and I think they have an important place in debates of this sort. Discussing these questions in a sterile, academic manner is, to me, immoral. And really any issue in which I’m not invested enough to use strong language is not one worth discussing, as far as I’m concerned. Just one of many reasons I make a terrible academic…)
Good night.
@Jadehawk,
I said nothing of the sort. You and SC, OM both seem to have a strange expectation that people who don’t describe everything in exactly the same vocabulary must therefore have immoral or outrageous beliefs. Next time you read something I say, try interpreting it in a charitable manner rather than supposing I must mean the most outrageous thing that comes into your head. Even better, stick to the actual meaning of the words that I use.
That said, the rest of your answer is helpful.
Let me propose the following procedure. We select several representatives from each of the effected communities in proportion to their populations. It would not be feasible to conduct special elections every time a policy issue arises, but perhaps we can put in a good faith effort to find respected members of each local community. We bring them to a location where they meet for several days debating the merits of the dam and then come to a decision by vote. Among the participants in this debate are economists who have analyzed the likely outcomes if the dam is built. Whatever decision is arrived at at this meeting, the World Bank abides by that decision.
I agree that this is a much more just way to run things and likely to result in better outcomes too. If I were working at the World Bank (which is unlikely since this is not my field), I would push for this sort of change.
Now, was that so hard to actually propose a specific policy and ask for my opinion rather than assuming that since I don’t use exactly the same vocabulary as you that my beliefs must be outrageous or immoral?
*facepalm*
i gon’t give a flying fuck about your vocabulary. but what you asked me was how WB/USAID should act. the answer is: not at all, unless they’ve been approached. I was nice enough to answer a question you DIDN’T ask me, and what I get for that is condescension.
@SC, OM,
Fair enough. In that case: I find you breathtakingly arrogant (to use Dan B.’s apt phrasing) and astonishingly unaware of how little you know about the world. You act as if the world is divided into three groups: poor people, well-off people with exactly the same opinions as you, and evil money-grubbing people who care only about enriching themselves. From this facile caricature, you conclude that official organizations are inherently oppressive and that anyone who works for them is a sell-out, demeaning the life’s work of the tens of thousands of people who have worked through public organizations to bring about substantial changes that have led to enormous increases in human welfare.
Because you refuse to discuss your own work, it is difficult to make a personal evaluation, but since you seem to have no problem with drawing presumptuous inferences: I suspect from your posts that you spend a great deal of time attending protests that accomplish nothing but make you feel good for demonstrating “solidarity”. You call for “global radical change”, but you seem to have never given a thought to the question of how more democratic institutions are likely to actually come about, or how you could realistically work to realize those institutions. The key word here is REALISTICALLY.
It seems like both of us would like to see much more local democracy in the world, and much more say for people in how they are governed (and when pressed, you even seem to agree that helping poor people live longer, healthier lives is also a worthwhile goal). The difference is that if you continue on your present course, you will never actually EFFECT any change because you are so arrogantly dismissive of the concerns of those in a position to actually do something. Which do you think is more likely to lead to the World Bank actually adopting a policy of taking only actions approved by democratic bodies made up of the parties affected by their policies? One more ridiculous protestor outside the World Bank (ridiculous because you have so little understanding of the position of those who disagree with you), or someone who earns the respect of policy-makers at that institution by listening to their concerns, understanding them, and trying to explain how they can also be realized in a manner that is consistent with democracy?
And PLEASE, don’t tell me that I’m being naive and don’t understand how politics works. My academic mentor designed the program that gave universal healthcare to people in Massachusetts. Is this program perfect? No. Is it a massive improvement on what came before it? Yes. Another of my advisors is probably the person in the US most responsible for preventing the privatization of social security. Think how many people’s lives that made better given the events of the last year. I work with and learn from people who have actually made real changes in people’s lives, not just hypothetical changes – can you say the same?
Finally, of course I recognize that change comes slowly and only with great effort. There are vested interests and political forces with great power who oppose any change that weakens their grasp on events. But that doesn’t make change impossible. You condescendingly lecture me about my unconcern for the poor, but I have given considerable thought to the question of what I can do to have a real impact on people’s lives. You talk a good game, but you’ve proposed no plan of action that will actually help ANYONE.
@Jadehawk,
You say that now, but your first post on this thread was:
In other words, you obsessed over my vocabulary without actually trying to understand my position.
Maybe you didn’t read my last post, but it seems like once we actually managed to get clear about what policy you were proposing, I agreed that it would be a huge improvement over the status quo. You received deserved condescencion not for the substance of your answer, but for your earlier presumption that I would disagree with it.
Jason @251, facile caricature indeed.
[…falling asleep…resisting…]
Pardon?
Jason, you’re still not getting that the “we” you used, and the way you asked the question, are part of a problem that has nothing to do with your vocabulary per-se.
so you accept that my description of action would be an improvement. would you then finally admit that dumping pollution in a poor country, even with compensation, is NOT an option to be considered? And that Summers was being inhumane for doing so? If so, I will apologize for saying that you wouldn’t understand and support a global, democratic “we”. otherwise I’ll have to say that you still don’t get what I’m talking about.
@Jadehawk,
No, I would not admit this because I don’t think it’s right, and I don’t think Summers was being inhumane for suggesting this. I would agree with you that the best way to implement such a policy would be to have local democratic leaders vote on whether to accept pollutants in exchange for adequate compensation.
Summers’ point – and my point – is that it should be possible to provide adequate compensation if (as we’ve been assuming) the cost of polluting is lower in the third world country. That is, the US should be able to offer an amount such that it is less than the cost of storing the pollutant in the US, but still more than enough to offset any damages from storing the pollutant in the third world country.
Now, in practice, it’s impossible to predict what the outcome of deliberation by this democratic body would be. It might be that someone on that body will argue eloquently that no amount of compensation is worth the insult to their culture from having to store the pollutants from the US.
If this was their decision, I would say the US should abide by it, but that the body decided wrongly. Public policy is inherently about trade-offs, and we can’t close our eyes and pretend that we don’t make decisions all the time that sacrifice people’s lives for economic gain: speed limits, energy production decisions and health care decisions are just a few examples. Unless someone supports a 15 mph speed limit on all highways, there is some price they are willing to pay in lives in exchange for economic gain. If a government is willing to pay $2 million dollars per life saved in some instances (this is about the cost of a statistical life implicit in current speed limit laws), but only willing to pay $300,000 to save a life in other instances (this is the cost of a life implicit in the impact of the Medicaid fee policies on infant mortality), then we should reallocate resources to the policy with a lower dollar cost per life saved. This is the type of reallocation that is being offered to the poor country.
It might be that they place so much value on “not being insulted” that this outweighs any other potential benefits from the deal. If that’s the case, I would argue that they were wrong to perceive the deal as an insult, and I would wonder whether the parties at the negotiation were really acting in the best interest of the people they represent (since those people might gladly accept such an “insult” in exchange for health care and education).
However, as I said before, while I would regard such a decision by a democratic body as incorrect, I would still argue that we should abide by it.
@Jadehawk,
Since you keep making such a fuss over my use of the word “we”, I’ll explain who that refers to. It refers to anyone capable of deliberating about how society should be arranged (which includes all normally functioning humans in adulthood). The claims I am making are claims about how that deliberation should proceed. I have no idea why you or SC, OM thought I meant to exclude poor people from this “We”.
I give up. you’re still not getting it, and I have run out of ways to try to explain it.
SC @254, that was meant as ironic. Jason caricatures you.
Jason, it seems Jadehawk and others are just going to decide for everyone else to be insulted. After all, according to him you or Larry Summers shouldn’t even CONSIDER the proposition. For me, I don’t understand why your position that some agency could ask some group if they would consider locating pollution in an area near them for some compensation that THEY deem appropriate. But no, Jadehawk specifically, and SC, OM it seems has essentially decided for them that, no, they cannot even hear this offer. They shouldn’t be trusted with THAT much democracy. “would you then finally admit that dumping pollution in a poor country, even with compensation, is NOT an option to be considered?” Who here is really condescending or patronizing? And Jadehawk, how imperialist of you to decide for them that such an option can’t be considered.
@ John Morales: Jason made it clear he was deliberately “drawing presumptuous inferences” about SC, OM as a rhetorical device. Also, I don’t think you know what “ironic” means. But whatever.
*”why your position […] deem appropriate [is so terrible].”
DanB, yes, I get that. That he’s using the device he’s putatively condemning is ironic, and so was my response.
As for whether I understand the meaning* of the term, I consider I do. I stand by what I wrote.
—
* I did, however, just check my OED before posting this. :)
@John Morales,
While most of my message was presumptuous (and intentionally so), I stand by my claim that SC, OM’s vision of the world is a “facile caricature”. For example:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1265231
While SC, OM would like to paint the World Bank as a monolithic symbol of evil, it of course does good as well as bad. And not merely imperialism with a human face, some of it’s programs actually promote… shudder… democracy (again, I’m not taking a strong position about the net outcome, which if I were to judge only from Easterly’s article I would evaluate as negative).
What part of saying it’s impossible for someone in the World Bank to do anything to make the world more humane and more just DOESN’T sound like a facile caricature to you? I regard the Bush Administration as pretty damn morally callous, but I would never make such an absurd blanket statement about people working in the Bush administration despite the ample political pressures they faced.
If what you meant was that SC, OM acknowledges that people other than himself and poor people can have good intentions – so it’s wrong to say he believes they’re “evil” – he just believes they can’t accomplish anything worth accomplishing, then I’m happy to qualify my remarks accordingly but that doesn’t make his beliefs any less of a facile caricature.
(and of course, “other than himself and poor people” should read “other than people who share his outlook on the world and poor people”)
@SC, OM and Jadehawk,
Let me reproduce the abstract of the paper I linked to in my reply to John Morales since it is worth reading (along with the evidence presented in the paper if you don’t want to just take the abstract for granted):
Among the empirical results they report in the paper: “that the role played by village chiefs and by local democratic politics at the sub-regional level are key determinants of which villages receive projects and which villages do not, in the context of this particular CDD program”.
This is a World Bank program. It looks to me like there is pretty good evidence that it solicited the input of village chiefs and other local democratic figures, and contributed to substantial increases in human welfare to boot.
Someone within the World Bank must have pushed for such a program.
SC, OM – what do you think of this?
@Jadehawk,
Stop being so blindingly arrogant. I understand what you’re saying, I just disagree with it.
The question I am posing is what factors that democratic body should actually take into account when they deliberate. You presumably would say, “We can’t say anything about that, it’s their choice!” As I’ve stated many times, I agree that there are good reasons to abide by their decision whatever it may be. But of course that doesn’t mean we can’t say anything about what criteria are good ones to use when a democratic body is actually deliberating! If that were right, then what criteria could they themselves use to evaluate each other’s arguments when they deliberate? The point is that their are standards which apply to any deliberative bodies, and we can evaluate their arguments against those standards whether or not we think it’s appropriate for us to actually have a vote.
You say you’ve run out of ways to explain it, but I think the problem is that I understand what your saying and still think it’s wrong. You on the other hand have shown no signs of understanding what I’m saying or engaging with it.
@Jadehawk,
By the way, I may have unfairly assumed that you would want to use the same conversational norms as SC, OM – if you would prefer that I edit out personal insults from my comments to you before posting them, I will be happy to do so.
Jason, everyone can read this thread and see the plain meaning of your words and the progression of your argument in response to our comments. You started off with the position that is the one by which the World Bank operates: that “we” may impose our will upon poor people in other countries, including dumping polluting industries on them, if “we” deem it beneficial. You then moved to another aspect of the WB’s SOP: the coerced “trade” of funding for acquiescence (using the grotesque example of offering vaccinations in exchange for agreeing to have their environment and themselves poisoned). (Still not once have you addressed the question of “our” right to pollute in this way.) You refused to acknowledge the existence of local communities even when then it was repeatedly pointed ut to you, even joking about the supposedly hypothetical situation in which they “would” democratically determine their policies. You rejected the idea that they are capable of understanding the questions involved in policy-making. In the case of national governments, pretty much the only entities you, after being pressed, acknowledged might have an active role to play in these decisions, you argued that any reasonable government that understands the matter would see that your policy recommendations or proposed “trades” are desirable. If they don’t see it this way, it’s because they’re economically ignorant. (Never mind that you need no special expertise in economics to make the points that Stiglitz does about the predictable effects of SAPs – just look at the record – or about the fact that the imposed policies don’t reflect area-specific knowledge but are standardized ideological models applied to every case). You also ignore local or global NGOs. That they and local or national political communities may possess expertise in these matters is something you appear to think ridiculous, as you haven’t acknowledged the possibility. You claim a consensus among “experts” where none exists, and refuse to accept the existence of anything outside it. Your later grudging admission that if there was local opposition you would have to “abide” by it (not seek out opposing views, or listen to or engage with them, mind you – they can only say yes or no to your proposals) is not convincing given your other statements, and it does not reflect how the World Bank operates, which is what we were talking about.
In response to your one cited working paper (the quote from which about politics was confusing and ambiguous) and your citation of Easterly (even if, as you say, his view is generally negative, you should have noted that his nonacademic – Stern School of Business at NYU – contact email ends with worldbank.org), I could cite works I have read by Farmer, Naomi Klein, Vandana Shiva, and numerous NGOs and others. But instead I’ll just provide this one :
http://www.edf.org/documents/2489_Richcritique.htm
It’s a reply to a World Bank response to a book that was published in the ’90s, Mortgaging the Earth by Bruce Rich. I haven’t read it (though I’ve read individual books and reports about some of the cases he discusses), but I plan to get it at the library tomorrow. Things haven’t improved since then.
Once, maybe twice, after a couple hundred comments, reluctantly. And this statement makes it even more unconvincing. Not “we must respect the democratic process and people’s fundamental human rights” but “there are good reasons to abide by” their decisions.” It’s very telling – not that it wasn’t clear to begin with.
What are you talking about? You really need to stop using these pronouns, as it’s often entirely unclear to whom you’re referring. Anyone can say anything they like about anything they like.
If what were right?
Standards of criteria used in deliberation that transcend context and the question under discussion? Or just your criteria, which you consider superior to those important to others?
People who are not members of a political community that is deliberating can evaluate all they like. They are perfectly free to say that they disagree with the democratic choices of another community. They cannot therefore do what the WB does and impose their policies on communities that have decided against them.
?
What you’re doing here is so obvious, Jason. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, we should probably respect people’s democratic sovereignty and all, except, y’know, when we disagree with their decisions or think they’re being stupid.”
Ah. Good man. Thanks. Carry on. :)
***
*snort*
It would take an hour to pull apart the flaws in this paragraph. I’ll say only that I’ve not once made any statements that could be construed as referring to all public organizations or everyone who works in one. In fact, I very clearly said that I was not doing so.
Which would be entirely futile, in any case. Address what I’m writing.
You suspect wrong.
Not only have I given it thought, and devoted years to investigating it, but I have stated several times on this thread that democratic institutions exist, that local communities and NGOs have been active for decades in working for democratic and genuinely sustainable development, and that I am active in various ways (though to my great shame not nearly as much as I should be) in supporting them.
But only one of us appreciates that which already exists.
People can govern themselves.
You’re such a jackass.
The one you’ve imagined.
How dare I arrogantly dismiss the concerns of rich, powerful people who are imposing their policies on poor people. Again, it’s telling that you don’t see poor people or local communities as having any political agency or the ability to effect change.
Uh, mine, by a mile.
You’ll have to forgive me – I can’t even keep track of these strawmen at this point. (Incidentally, I’ve attended closed meetings meetings/talks by World Bank people about projects in their planning stages.)
The World Bank is the contemporary equivalent of the British imperial-colonial service. Think about it.
I’ll stop telling you that when you stop writing in a manner that supports it.
The relevance of this is…?
*sigh* Yes. Many of them are quite poor, by the way.
Yeah, that’s what I’ve been saying. Right.
You need to give it some more. Better yet, why don’t you try working in some organizations with some poor people themselves.
In fact, I’ve pointed several times to working with/for local communities and grassroots organizations on issues I consider important.
no. we’re disagreeing at a more basic level than that, which renders the questions you’re asking irrelevant, because several mis-steps and assumptions have already been made. at this point, that democratic body would be dealing from a position of inferiority. Thus, regardless of what will be at this point decided by the democratic body, it will be a decision compromised by the inferior position.
it is the assumption that the factors that bring about the inferior positions are either acceptable or negligible that is the problem. however, i have been unable to explain this position and those factors to you and therefore give up. I have better things to do than get insulted for trying to explain things (and no, i don’t have a problem with rude language. self-censorship is fucking stupid)
@Jadehawk,
I actually agree with you that this is a problem, but what I don’t understand is what solution you propose.
Is your position that the World Bank should never make the offer of pollution plus compensation in the first place because the receiving nation will inevitably be in an inferior position? Would you hold that view even if you knew that the offer were sufficiently generous that a democratic body made up of representatives from the effected communities would accept it (inevitably without equal negotiating power)?
If that is your position, I disagree with it, but before I explain why, is that your view? If not, I am genuinely puzzled as to what you believe should be done in this case.
Just a reminder:
http://www.gregpalast.com/the-globalizer-who-came-in-from-the-cold/
You gotta love how Jason seems to think that where Stiglitz failed and was forced out, he, Jason, will effect change from within. Hilarious, and more than a little sad.
I’ve never taken this position. I’ve explicitly taken the opposite position, that we should attempt to obtain the consent of a democratic body made up of representatives of the effected citizens before proceeding (with one important caveat I explain below). You say anyone can read this from my comments – cite the comment you’re referring to, and I think you’ll find that you simply misunderstood it.
I’m unsure if you’ve been reading my posts directed at Jadehawk (not that I would expect you to), but it may help to clarify things if you go back and do so now.
In all cases regarding foreign aid, I think it would be preferable to obtain the assent of a democratic body made up of the effected parties. Now, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that we “cannot” do otherwise, because I think there is an important practical objection – how will the government actually in power react to being circumvented? What will be the humanitarian consequences? If these consequences are graver than any possible benefits of the project under consideration, we may have no choice but to work through the established government. I agree that in making this decision, we need to assess whether the policy can be effective if pursued in this way, and whether by pursuing it we strengthen unjust governments.
I disagree about two further points:
1) I disagree that absent such assent there is very little we can say about what policies are good and which are bad as I elaborate below.
2) I think there are certain cases where the people doing the deliberation should willingly cede decision-making power to a body of experts. A prototypical example would be Central Banks like the Federal Reserve. I would strongly oppose any effort to require a democratic body to approve the day-to-day decisions of the Federal Reserve (although I agree that checks and balances are needed in the long term).
First, I should say that having looked at the evidence over the last few days, my tentative position is that most World Bank and IMF programs up until say 2003 were unsuccessful, and I would agree that most also violated the basic norm of attaining democratic consent. I don’t have a position on more recent programs since I haven’t seen a careful accounting that goes beyond pointing out individual failures and successes. From what I have read it appears the World Bank at least now pays lip-service to the idea of incorporating local democratic leaders into its policy-making – the paper I cited above suggests impressive progress in this regard in at least one instance.
The second more important issue is how foreign aid should be conducted from this point forward. I think you mistakenly thought that I cited Rogoff in order to argue that obtaining the assent of democratic bodies was unimportant, and this generated a great deal of heat but no light. Rogoff’s article said nothing about this issue.
What Rogoff does have a lot to say about is how foreign aid should be structured in practice. You still have not replied to my charge that you don’t understand what Rogoff was saying. Is it your position that you did understand everything in his article, or is it your position that you don’t, but even if you did, what could he possibly say that would change your opinion? I think you pretend your position is the former, but it is really the latter.
Before I discuss this though, I want to here your proposal. Suppose that you were put in charge of the World Bank and given the authority to completely restructure it however you wanted. Let’s say that democratic bodies made up of local community leaders send you loan applications. The question you face is: which loans should you make with the limited funds available to you? (or would you instead make grants)? Would you require the bodies submitting applications to live up to any conditions if they took loans?
If your response includes some subset of the words, “You don’t understand, unequal power, injustice, presumption, you’re a jackass, etc…”. Then rather than speaking in generalities, please explain to me as clearly as possible what you would do if President Obama appointed you to run the World Bank and gave you authority to do whatever you wanted with $1 trillion (including ceding the authority about how to use it to any other bodies you wanted to cede it to – the question is who you would cede it to).
I’d also agree that “we must respect the democratic process and people’s fundamental human rights”, with the caveats above. But wait, who is this WE you speak of? IMPERIALIST BASTARD!!!
In this case, “we” means you and I here and now. I am arguing that you and I here and now can deliberate about what would be best for people other than ourselves. I am NOT arguing that this means we should impose that judgment on them without their consent, not have I ever argued such a thing (and neither has Larry Summers, though you don’t hesitate to put words in both our mouths).
I’d agree with the first two sentences of the statement, and would partly agree with the last sentence as well (replacing “cannot” with “should not” since “cannot” implies an absolute inviolability where as “should not” implies a prima facie objection). I say partly because of the practical difficulty articulated above. We need to decide in any given case whether the government in place is “democratic enough” to work with or whether it must be circumvented. This is not an easy question because circumventing the established government can have dire political and humanitarian consequences (and I use “political” consequences here not to mean consequences for the US, but consequences for anyone who cares about fostering international cooperation to combat global problems), and may make it more difficult to implement whatever project was under consideration in the first place. I think that your position is that if we can’t practically obtain the assent of a democratic body, we should just abandon the project, but I think that is inhumane if the project is likely to lead to longer healthier lives.
I actually explicitly said the opposite – that even if we judged that the democratic body had erred in rejecting the pollution trade, we should abide by their decision.
What you’re doing here is so obvious too – failing to comprehend because by doing so, you’d have to admit that you’re not actually morally superior.
And when have I denied this? It just didn’t seem germane to any of the points I was trying to make. But if you want to know, I recognize this and agree that this is an extremely worthy cause and have myself contributed to such NGOs.
And yet, you’ve said essentially exactly the same thing about my views on the importance of democracy. The difference is, I was being ironic, whereas you were just being presumptuous. So if I’m a jackass, you’re a stupid jackass.
There is a difference between the “concerns” of such people and the “interests” of such people. They clearly don’t have a substantial interest in these matters, but their concerns are the concerns of people who like you legitimately care about doing their best to help people in the third world. These are the concerns which it is wrong of you to dismiss.
Doesn’t this contradict essentially everything you’ve been saying about how the World Bank is run by vested interests and corporations who couldn’t care less about democratic movements in the 3rd World?
As I said above, I agree that helping NGOs and local democratic movements is also quite worthwhile, but I think that the policies of the World Bank are clearly more likely to be influenced by insiders than by outsiders. You disagree?
Oh, you’re saying you don’t like it when people draw presumptuous inferences about you that go miles beyond anything you’ve actually said?
I actually don’t know enough about the British imperial-colonial service to assess this; my guess would be that they gave somewhat more weight to national interest relative to humanitarian concerns than the World Bank. But if the British colonial service did have humanitarian goals as part of it’s mission, I would expect that sincere conscientious people working for the British colonial service could also accomplish a great deal of good (again, I don’t know anything about it, so it might be that your comparison is just wildly off the mark).
That these people worked through government institutions to accomplish this, a feat which you seem to think impossible. Or does your definition of “poor” exclude anyone living in the US?
I think it’s clear that I could be more effective at changing people’s lives doing what I currently do given my particular skill-set. But I don’t mean to suggest that this isn’t a worthy cause for other people to engage in.
I’m curious though, I fully believe that you have worked with these grassroots democratic bodies. Do you think that YOU personally have made a difference? What exactly have you contributed to that would not have occurred in your absence (or at least been delayed)? As an undergraduate, I did hundreds of hours of volunteer work trying to help homeless people find housing, but in retrospect, I think most of that work was ineffective (except in so far as I provided people with company and encouragement) because of various institutional barriers. I would imagine that having an impact in establishing democratic institutions from the ground floor is substantially more difficult.
Actually, I have no intention of working at the World Bank at all. I’m not a development economist or a macroeconomist. I work on health policy (and public policy more generally but not issues of foreign aid).
But while Stiglitz is an extremely brilliant economist – he, like Paul Krugman – is not exactly known for being diplomatic. He is about the last person I would expect to be effective at bringing about political change.
So, are the foxes in charge?
SC and Jadehawk for the affirmative vs. Jason and DanB for the negative!
<grabs popcorn>
Foxes in charge.
I’d say the foxes and the pigs were recently replaced by the mules and a few owls (one of whom is occasionally mistaken for a fox). I wish the owls had more influence, but mules are stubborn and at least a hell of a lot better than foxes and pigs. Also, I think the owls have a lot to say about how we can help the goats and the sheep build their own farms.
Got that?
Um.
You seem to be using some jocular obscure allegory to say there’s been some recent change and, anyway, things could be worse, so hey. Oh yeah, and that you consider yourself an owl, not a fox.
Anyway, I’m just a bystander. Carry on.
With the exception of “and, anyway, things could be worse, so hey.” I still think there’s plenty of foxes around keeping the mules in line, and it’s pretty damn terrible that the goats and sheep don’t have farms (although it’s no crime to let them sleep in the pig sty rather than leaving them out in the rain until the farms can be built). It’s just that building farms is really hard and even the owls only have a few pieces of the blueprint. Some cats admirably speak up for the goats and the sheep, but because they can’t tell the difference between foxes and owls, they risk throwing out the owls, and then they’d have to deal with the foxes plus they’d have no blueprint to boot, and that’s to say nothing of the hens and roosters who keep clucking about how about the farmer himself will return and save everyone – but there is no farmer, it’s turtles all the way down.
Is it clear to anyone else that SC frequently cites Stiglitz as somehow in solidarity with his position when nothing could be further than the truth? Stiglitz may offer harsh criticisms of the IMF and World Bank but he is closer to Jason or I’s position than the anarcho-collectivist position he seems to take. Stiglitz has called many times for the reform of the global financial institutions, not their elimination. Also, he is in support, generally, of liberalizing trade (if properly managed under his view). He clearly is a skeptic of bilateral trade agreements which undermine the principles of the original GATT accords – namely non-discrimination. But so am I and is the world’s strongest defender of free trade, Jagdish Bhagwati, who even recently wrote a book on the topic (“Termites…”).
What is not clear is what Jadehawk and SC think other nations, NGO’s, economists in general, or anyone else can offer to insufficiently democratic nations and communities other than just supporting more democracy. You have all acknowledged that achieving progress takes a lot of time. Without hiding behind calling us imperialists, is their anything in the meantime (“in the long run we’re all dead”) that you think we (yes, the imperial western “we”) can offer under ANY circumstance?
China isn’t exactly a beacon of democracy – frankly they’re pretty horrible authoritarians and are blatant human-rights abusers. But liberalizing their economy and the international community working with them despite their democratic shortcomings has had a real positive impact on hundreds of MILLIONS of real people. It also, arguably, has (somewhat – certainly not anywhere near an acceptable level) pushed them forward (by, yes, western standards) politically. Does anyone disagree with the substance of the claim that human lives have improved due to allowing more economic freedom in China without an equivalent step toward political freedom (i.e. a move toward democracy)? Assuming you agree that is true, do you still believe that economic reform/action without democratic reform is always unjustifiable?
And Jadehawk, do you think that political liberty is more essential than economic liberty? If so, why? Is the good in either intrinsic to political liberty but not to economic liberty? I believe you earlier (maybe it was someone else) disagreed that democracy was a means to an ends.
I don’t believe an answer has really even been properly attempted to any of my questions or objections – I think you owe it to yourself to try. I’m also curious if you have even considered these questions to yourself before I have raised them. If you haven’t, what does that say?
Jason, I didn’t need more insight into your Machiavellian mindset. I grant your facility for (and relish in) navigating the pastoral metaphor.
Sorry for distracting you, carry on.
Jason, I like the “turtles all the way down” reference. Bravo.
p.s. i know this is probably quite sad, but how do I do those “nifty” html quote blocks? If it’s too difficult to explain (i’m sure it’s not), can someone point to a site I can read up on it myself – i’m new to this online commenting business?
Sorry, just a clarification, when I say the “anarcho-collectivist position he seems to take” – the “he” i’m referring to is SC, OM.
@DanB
Try starting the quote with the word blockquote enclosed by less than and greater than and ending with /blockquote enclosed by less than and greater than (I actually don’t know how to get the less than and greater than symbols to appear in the message without triggering html tags…).
@SC, OM,
I’d agree with Dan B that the single greatest gain in human welfare in the past century was the growth of incomes in China and India in the past 40 years has brought literally billions of people out of poverty. What do you think was responsible for this growth? What do you think are the implications of this growth for the relationship between democracy and economic prosperity? (and in your answer, please make at least three outrageous presumptions about how I would answer this question)
Also, why exactly do you think that DanB’s posts are not themselves worthy of responses?
@John Morales,
You’re treading perilously close to participating. Also, check the OED. Machiavellian is not a synonym for pragmatic.
Jason, thanks for the help with the
Ok
— thanks for everyone’s patience.
Jason, HTML entities: > to get < and < to get >
So you can write “block quote by using <blockquote>[quoted text]</blockquote>”.
@John Morales
Now the question is, how did you write ampersand gt and not have it appear as a greater than sign? Are you a witch?
Um, I got gt and lt backwards :(
gt is mnemonic for “greater than”, lt for “less than”.
PS Jason, Machiavellian is indeed what I mean, though you may call it utilitarian pragmatism.
Oops, yeah, here: use the ampersand meta: &
Here’s a good list of the escape codes. (I think I got it on my bookmarks from here, but can’t give credit to whoever put it up).
It seems at least that the IMF is willing to attempt reform. Also, an “imperialist” newspaper like The Economist (which I love) even cares above giving more influence to emerging economies. In this week’s edition: http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13447231
In another article in the issue it says specifically that “A priority is to give emerging economies more clout.”
But you don’t get to decide what words mean, or you’d be a profligate floozy. I wouldn’t call myself utilitarian either, I’d say broadly consequentialist like Amartya Sen.
Jason:
That’s why I linked to Google, a mindless engine scouring the internet for definitions.
Still, I will clarify. From my home OED: A n. A person who adopst the principles recommended by Machiavelli in hes treatise on statecraft; a person preferring expediency to morality. B adj. Of, pertaining to, or characeristic of Machiavelli or his principles; adopting unscrupulous methods; duplicitious, deceitful; cunning, scheming.
It’s only my opinion based on what you’ve posted here, of course, but that word describes it well.
Thanks
Right, my intention above was to press you to *defend* this charge rather than use non-participation as an excuse to hold indefensible views. Are you inferring based on my conduct here that I prefer expediency to morality in my personal conduct? (based on what?) Or are you saying that the position I argued for above is Machiavellian?
The only reading I can see in which the latter claim would be justified is if you equated morality with democracy and argued that my claim that other humanitarian values must be weighed against democratic values is therefore Machiavellian. But then you need to defend the equation of morality and democracy, since that is a point I have disputed.
My substantive comments will have to wait till I return home tonight. For now, I’ll just link to this:
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/development_2005_09.pdf
and the associated article here:
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/65540/imf/'s_%22pro-growth%22_policies_killing_gains_in_developing_world/
There’s also a relevant article by Przeworski and Vreeland, “The Effect of IMF Programs on Economic Growth,” from the Journal of Development Economics in 2000.)
But of course neither of these get at the political dimensions, which if you want to discuss you would have at the very, very least to read Klein’s The Shock Doctrine. Nor do they get at the environmental aspects or their interaction with the political, health, and economic aspects, especially over the longer term – for that you could start by reading Vandana Shiva’s works.
SC, OM,
I await your more substantive comments, but I’ll just note that I have not defended the IMF policies here, and I’ve offered my tentative opinion that they are ineffective, and agreed with the view that they also generally failed to abide by the norm of securing democratic assent from the effected parties. I use the word “tentative” because it would take me a great deal of time to review the arguments made by economists who disagree, understand those arguments, and feel that I had a credible counterargument – so if your goal here is to make my view on this point less tentative, you would do better to cite critics and then respond to them than to cite people who agree with your point of view (and if you want to convince me to give your assertions more credence, convince me that you have some understanding of economics by replying to my questions about Rogoff’s article).
My position on the broader relationship between free-markets and growth is: free-markets refer to lots of different things, in general I think there is a prima-facie case that markets are good, this case is overridden in many particular instances and certainly dependent on other institutions, and you just have to clarify exactly what policy you’re considering before I could render an opinion.
So the main takeaway from this post should be: GET SPECIFIC. Tell me precisely what policies you advocate in lieu of the current policies.
@SC, OM
Another way to get specific is to ask well-posed questions about the causal relationship between variables. For example, you could ask whether reforms which promote democracy promote growth, or whether reforms which liberalize capital markets promote growth. There are huge literatures on this question which I know very little about, but which you almost surely lack the technical expertise to assess.
Here is a (by no means representative) sampling:
http://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eecrev/v45y2001i8p1341-1378.html
http://ideas.repec.org/p/nbb/reswpp/200405-9.html
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11370
Jason @296, you’ve over-interpreted me.
1. I was stating in broad terms my (instinctual, not considered) impression of your mindset based on your posts in this thread. I guess my language was a bit loaded, but I rarely use words I misunderstand.
2. Not what you prefer, that I wouldn’t know. More like you seem to argue for keeping with the system and with its basis, and speak of changing policies and personnel, not the system. I could’ve written realpolitik instead.
3. Close, but no. The reference was to your mindset, not to the position itself.
Eh?
Morality and democracy are mutually independent concepts. There may be intersection, but there is no equation.
I have nothing agaist you, Jason. Carry on.
@John Morales,
I think “realpolitik” of “Machiavellian” are severe misrepresentations of what I’ve said, at least according to the ordinary meaning of those words.
Both terms generally imply a politics based on national interest, in which countries do what they can to advance their own agenda regardless of the moral consequences. This position couldn’t be further from the one I have articulated.
In fact, I think one of the great moral errors of our time is the belief that it’s alright to give greater moral weight to the lives and well-being of others just because they live in the same country. Because of this, I support eliminating almost all restrictions on immigration, massively increased amounts of foreign aid, and greatly strengthened international institutions that would give national governments approximately the role that state governments currently have within the US.
When you say I argue for keeping “keeping with the system and with its basis”, if you mean I’m not an anarchist, that is completely correct, and if you mean I think people like Larry Summers are doing their best to improve the human condition rather than advancing their own selfish agenda, that is also correct. But how could my position possibly be construed as Realpolitik?
I have to agree with Jason on his last points again. However to show we aren’t in lock-step here – Jason, I think you should reconsider your preference to “give national governments approximately the role that state governments currently have within the US.” That dramatic change would axiomatically reduce democratic power among individuals and smaller groups. Is that what you favor? Certain things can be better coordinated at an international level (like trade and possibly international migration) but shifting that much more power upwards to supranational institutions seems unwise. It’s one thing to argue for more international cooperation or less nationalism but another to actually remove so much democratic power away from those most effected. Don’t think I’m being inconsistent. My preference is for international organizations only to regulate (or help facilitate) international actively not to replace any functions of local, state, or national governments.
And John Morales sorry to harp on your word choice again (i wouldn’t have if you didn’t write that line I quoted. But how would one “over-interpret” someone? I can’t imagine you were referring to some Freudian analysis of or by Jason.
Jason, whoa! Since you repudiate the concept so vehemently, I stand corrected.
Q:
Glancing back…
A: By sentiments such as this:
Also,
Also,
DanB,
It was a poor quip, and taken more seriously than intended.
I’ll shut up now.
I would also support institutional changes that would give local communities more discretion in how funds allocated from higher levels are spent, and in general I think government at all levels should be much more open to experimentation, so I would want to leave substantial flexibility to member states to experiment with different policy options.
I guess the question I would ask is: do you think it was beneficial for the United States to have a strong federal government rather than remaining a loose confederation of states? I would argue that it was, because this facilitated trade, because this sped up the diffusion of needed political reforms (when would Alabama have outlawed slavery?), because this allowed for better coordination against external threats, and because this lead people to regard themselves as citizens of the US rather than citizens of individual states and to give substantially more weight to the well-being of members of other states in their political judgments. I think the same benefits would accrue to a global government (with the external threats being questions of sustainable development and global warming rather than the British). As a positive matter, I think the world is moving slowly in this direction with reforms in Europe and trade organizations, and I think national governments will eventually cede more authority to these organizations to make policy in cases where coordination is helpful.
Finally, I think these issues are extremely complex and difficult, and I haven’t really thought through systematically which powers would be best to give to a global government and which to reserve to member states and local communities (and this is certainly well outside my own areas of expertise!).
@John Morales,
No need to shut up, your input is appreciated. I guess I’m not sure what you see as Machiavellian in my comment about Summers. This comment is based on the notion that making good economic policy requires substantial expertise and technical mastery. Especially in cases when the empirical evidence is indeterminate (such as what we should do about the financial crisis), it’s crucial to have someone with a firm grasp of the underlying economic theory, and also helpful to have someone who has experience in politics and finance. There aren’t many people I can think of more qualified than Summers in these regards.
Do you disagree that an Obama administration is a hell of a lot better than a Bush administration? I think Obama is doing a fairly good job given the political constraints he faces which cannot be overestimated. If I were in charge, I’d use more of my political capital to try to relax immigration restrictions, to increase and reform foreign aid, to massively reduce defense spending, to reform and simply the existing tax code, to eliminate farm subsidies and to increase funds for early childhood education (just to name a few), but I think on some critical issues – such as health care reform – the administration is really doing the best it can given the existing political constraints.
Jason, I don’t want to be rude and ignore you, but I’d rather not opine on US politics, other than yes Obama seems a change for the better.
As I see it, the fundamental dispute is that you argue for the validity of the existing financial aid paradigm (though you’d change its implementation) whilst your antagonists here argue it’s fundamentally biased and needs to be changed. I made a snarky comment from the sidelines and stupidly got dragged in.
Can’t you see my comment @275 for what it is? It’s a compliment, dammit! Both sides are arguing beyond the level of my expertise, so I’m not going to weigh in on the substantive claims when I only half-understand them.
Carry on and let me be. :)
FIrst off, John Morales. Don’t feel like you need to leave – I’m really just having some fun with you; nothing personal. A couple of misuses of a word doesn’t disqualify you from productive conversation. Looking back, I misused “their” a couple times in my haste.
Jason, yes, I do think a federal government is better than a loose confederation of states. But it doesn’t follow that a global government (in the style that I’m assuming you mean from your state comparison) would be better than a much looser confederation of nation states (if I can phrase it in such a way). The United States transition certainly did facilitate trade, which I wholeheartedly support. It helped speed up the elimination of slavery. But, I’d argue that any state (or nation) does not have the right to enslave another human being – to me individual liberty is primary. The south’s appeal to “states’ rights” does not trump an individual’s right to freedom. So whether the United States remained as a confederacy or not, I believe the federal government (or even a foreign government if necessary) would have the right to intervene and liberate the slaves.
Of course, giving more power to the federal government has led to problems too. I think the federal government has greatly overstepped its bounds in recent decades. I generally think the founders got most of it right (aside from race and women issues) and the growth of the federal government at expense of the state’s rights I believe has generally been bad (and if it wasn’t, the way to change that would be to change the constitution not just doing it regardless). Drug law should be state-by-state, marriage should be state-by-state, etc. I also think that most taxes should be more localized. The distinction should, generally speaking, be if the issue a government is enacting a law about affects people outside their purview in any meaningful sense. For example, a carbon tax (or something like cap and trade system) should be national or even international because carbon emissions don’t have just a localized effect. Assuming there is generally free migration one can move to a place where they more agree with local laws and culture. If too much power is given to a global government you can’t escape the scope of their decisions. Also, you’d have less power to affect change on a global scale as well.
Is there a specific issue that you think could be better handled on an international level than on a more localized level that is not in itself international in scope like trade, migration, environment, or maybe currency? And I’m not talking about top down declarations of individual rights. The further expansion of individual rights would surely be positive, but any regulation or law that doesn’t specifically do that definitionally abrogates liberty.
Fair enough, perhaps I was a little carried away!
I’m actually not sure if this is right. So far, I haven’t disagreed with any of the particular reforms that SC, OM and Jadehawk have proposed.
If I had to locate the sources of disagreement so far, I’d say:
1) I have a much higher opinion of Larry Summers in general, I think they misinterpret his pollution memo by assuming that Summers said anything more than that there are gains from trade from locating pollution in poor countries (which, if correct, would imply that poor countries should agree to this trade, not that we should impose it upon them if they don’t!), and I think Summers’ reasoning in the memo is valid (although I haven’t taken a position on whether his conclusion that the costs of pollution in poor countries is lower is correct, since it may be that the lack of adequate medical care means that the costs of any health complications are in fact higher)
2) I am more willing to trade off democratic values for other humanitarian values (for example, policies which promote economic growth, since I think these tend ultimately to be the best anti-poverty measure)
3) I think in general the question of how to best restructure foreign aid to promote both democracy and growth is extremely complex and difficult, and that we haven’t really engaged yet with some of the most difficult questions. I would guess from what they’ve written so far that SC, OM and Jadehawk would argue for giving large amounts of aid to local democratic movements, and I also think this is a worthy cause, but I don’t think this exhausts the space of potentially worthy sources of aid.
4) There are equally complex questions about the relationship between markets and growth which I think we have only touched on, but I think we disagree about these as well (and I would argue that SC, OM and Jadehawk don’t have the training required to assess them, although I also don’t have sufficient familiarity with the literature to render any more than a tentative opinion).
5) SC, OM and Jadehawk object to my use of “We”
Of course, this is just how I see things, so perhaps SC, OM and Jadehawk would locate the disagreements elsewhere!
Um, Jason, I’m not disputing your list of disagreements, however:
I don’t think that’s right, in light of, for example,
I may not have adumbrated it well, but your disagreement seems to me to be more fundamental than you make it out to be.
(Sorry, I was always bad at being quiet and the whole willpower thing)
Ya, I have to agree with John in his assessment that the disagreement is much more fundamental.
Of course, it is hard to get an accurate gauge since they aren’t entirely specific with what is wrong with your positions other than them being imperialistic and generally pro-market (although they haven’t made it clear why they think the latter is bad). They’d also add undemocratic I’m sure, but I haven’t since I don’t think you’ve taken a specific and overtly undemocratic position. You have just emphasized values other than and over democracy in some cases.
Also they have not refuted my claim (or question) that their opposition to Larry Summers (or any other actor) contemplating, suggesting, or offering proposals that they judge as bad is condescending, patronizing, and (philosophically) imperialistic. Your position that someone or some organization offer (not force) a poor country or community something like Larry Summers wrote about seems entirely reasonable, modest, and adult.
Fair enough, I did leave out the whole anarchist thing from the list of disagreements.
I guess I still feel there is an ambiguity in SC, OM’s claim that he doesn’t agree with the World Bank’s existence which makes his position closer to mine. The problem is in defining what exactly he thinks shouldn’t exist. Presumably he thinks that resources should be transferred from the US to people living outside the US. If these resources are transferred, the US needs to decide which people to give it to (even if this decision process amounts to ceding the rights to some other body, the US needs to decide *which* body). In the broadest sense, this is what I see organizations like the World Bank doing, and I can’t imagine that SC, OM thinks it would be better if we just kept those resources for ourselves.
I think a (more charitable?) interpretation of his comment is that he thinks that in its current form, the World Bank should not exist. That is, rather than doing economic analyses and deciding on which projects are worthwhile, the Bank should solicit loan / grant requests from democratic bodies located within poor countries and (through some heretofore unspecified mechanism) decide which projects to accept.
What is puzzling to me is that the World Bank does do some of the latter, so I don’t see why he’d say it shouldn’t exist rather than just shifting to do less of the bad stuff and more of the good stuff. Perhaps what he means by this is that rather than US government officials deciding whom to lend money to, we should convene a world congress of community leaders to decide (or give this money to the UN?). If that’s the case, I wouldn’t object to the world congress idea in principal, but it would need to be fleshed out much more to be workable in practice, and I’m unsure whether the UN could be relied upon to spend this money wisely.
But at any rate, I don’t really see what other options there are that would transfer resources from the US to poor countries. So it seems like when this claim is unpacked a bit, it’s really a less fundamental disagreement than it seems (unless of course I’ve missed something).
Jason, SC merits the female pronoun.
I haven’t left the building. I’m off to lunch and the symphony with MAJeff, and when I get home (whenever that may be) I have student emails to respond to, so I may not be able to come back to the debate until tomorrow. Alas. I will return.
The BSO is doing “The Miraculous Mandarin” tonight? OMG! I recently picked up a CD of “Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste” and “Concerto for Orchestra”, and started thinking about what Bartok pieces typically get performed, and despaired of ever hearing “Music For…” in a live performance, let alone “Mandarin”. Have fun!
SC, OM — I HAVE to ask… you aren’t Professor Peet are you? Incredibly unlikely, I know.
My apologies!
@DanB,
I agree that there are some powers which the federal government currently claims which should be reserved to states or more local communities, and I would not want those particular powers to be given to a global government. On the particular issues you mention:
In the case of marriage, I don’t agree with this – I think there should be a constitutional amendment *allowing* gay marriage (arguably no amendment is needed depending on how the Supreme Court interprets the equal protection clause). This is a basic human rights issue, and federalism does not entail that some states can deny people’s rights as equal citizens. I think the “free migration” argument is a red herring – people have roots and relationships and it isn’t costless for them to just relocate.
I would support the localization of drug laws. I think few if any drugs should be illegal (although they should be regulated and taxed, like cigarettes), but I see little benefit to conducting this regulation at the federal level.
Taxation is a somewhat more difficult issue since this is really what funds all the other programs, so it’s hard to talk about in isolation. I guess if after we do an accounting of the remaining programs we find that more are relegated to states and fewer to the federal government (which seems plausible), I would support more localized taxation as well. I do think that federal (and hypothetically global) taxation serves a useful redistributive role.
I guess the question I would pose to you is: what do you see as the disanalogy in state : nation :: nation : world. Which of the reasons I articulated above for thinking a federal government better than a loose confederation of states are less persuasive in the latter case? I agree that there are important downsides to concentrating more power in few hands – I just don’t see any of these as weighty enough to outweigh the benefits I enumerated above. Which do you think is the biggest downside of a global government?
On the marriage issue, I’d would certainly support a constitutional right to marriage for gays (and everyone else of an appropriate age of consent) – just currently their isn’t one so I didn’t think it was a federal issue. However, if I could have ANYTHING I’d still argue that it isn’t the federal government’s place. Frankly any government should not be in the marriage business at all. Why is it that they can say anything about marriage? When was that enumerated to them? The only role the government would play is upholding contracts between two (or plausibly more – it icks me out but I haven’t heard a good philosophical reason against it – only practical reasons) individuals. Then the government wouldn’t have any right to deny people of any sexual preference the right to marry. But we digress.
I may have missed it but what were the benefits you stated for giving a global government powers equivalent to federal governments now? I agree that thinking more like a global citizen would certainly be beneficial but I’m not sure forming a global government would help that process. Plenty of reasons could be given for the opposite being true. But, I think the cultural aspect would need to come first (either way we don’t know, I suppose). If you’re just going by an analogy to becoming more American after the federalization of our government I think that n of 1 (one case) certainly does not provide you enough variables to make a persuasive case (and it’s also MUCH different in scale). When I lived in England for a short time their was a sort of zeitgeist change where people were showing signs of thinking themselves more as English, Welsh, and Scottish, rather than British – so I don’t think the form of government shows any casual relationship.
I stand by my separation of powers in terms of direct relevance to the governing body. Firstly, as many rights (economic, political, social) should be given to individuals as is reasonable – I concur with you on the drug issue btw. J.S. Mill said it best arguing sovereignty over one’s own body.
A global government would deal only with global issues – trade, migration, international disputes, security, managing global financial markets, banking, and maybe most important environmental issues. In terms of the national-state dichotomy, I’m pretty satisfied with Madison and crew’s constitutional break down. State’s have most powers; National governments can deal with interstate commerce (and not as ridiculously broad as is now defined). I make a few exceptions, which I readily admit I have trouble arguing on philosophical grounds rather than just results based. I’d support universal healthcare because I think it’s the best solution (although, I’m not very well versed as I’d like to be on the issue). Incidentally, Larry Summers had high praise for a book I admire on the subject “Healthcare, Guaranteed” by Ezekiel Emanuel. Also, I think funding for science should be federal as well as state. National defense is clearly best served at a federal level.
But without going through every issue imaginable, I have strong sympathies for the laboratories of democracy argument in favor of federalism. And I think you too easily dismiss my free migration argument. You say that it’s too difficult for people to move. I agree a bit, but it is harder the farther you move presumably; moving a short distance is not so difficult as to disqualify my argument. If localities have more power, a short distance move could yield bigger differences in policy that are not possible if you push the power up more levels. Hence, I favor that system. It would also help if governments didn’t discriminate toward owning houses over renting apartments (Google: Ed Glaeser for his views). Furthermore, I think competition in policy would yield greater policy (I know, I just love those free market arguments): more policies the more localized the policy making and therefore more “competition.” It seems to make more sense that if you want to live in a town that wants to spend lots of money on parks, recreation, schools you can and if you don’t you can live in the town next door. If you have to move to a new country or planet… now that just is not practical.
Finally, as much as I’ve argued against the democratic fundamentalism/dogmatism of Jadehawk and SC,OM I still believe democratic rights of citizens is very important. The closer you are to the government the more power you have. Individual citizens would have virtually no power in a global government – they have basically none now in federal elections (I think get-out-the-vote operations cause more harm than good). Anyway, I’m going on too long – you get my drift.
PS> I’m disgusted by my continual misuse of “their”. I do know the difference, I just type fast and, I guess, only seem to notice after I post.
Sorry, one more clarification and I’ll wait for your (or anyone else’s) response. I wrote “maybe most important environmental issues.” I meant “maybe most importantLY, environmental issues” Global climate change and our global environmental issues certainly could be better handled globally since they don’t adhere to arbitrary national boundaries themselves.
Bzzzzzzzt. They have given good arguments for why more democracy would be helpful and how. That’s not fundamentalism or dogma. It’s just rational discussion. You caricaturization is unsound.
@Dan B,
I also think an acceptable solution would be for the government not to grant “marriages” to anyone, and just to call everything “civil unions” – the key point is that institutions should affirm the status of gays as equals. A separate question is whether marriage should be subsidized in any form. This is not a question I’ve thought very much about, but I’m inclined to think there is good reason to subsidize it if only because it’s one of the few things psychologists have shown to have persistent effects on happiness – this doesn’t show there’s an externality or market failure, but I’d expect there are substantial “internalities” (Becker and Posner apparently disagree with me about this). Perhaps a more productive approach would be to break down the constituent activities that we associate with marriage and then analyze more carefully which of those activities are worth subsidizing.
The reasons I gave for global government were:
I agree that the Zeitgeist type issues are difficult to assess (here is a topic where sociologists or political scientists would have substantially more expertise than economists!). Just to save SC the trouble of coming up with additional epithets to attach to “Imperialist”, my position is NOT AT ALL ANYTHING LIKE: “The US and western Europe should declare that they have dominion over the rest of the world and start legislating for them”. The n of 1 is also problematic: my hypothesis is that if we looked at the history of political centralization, in cases where centralization was NOT imposed by force (such as the US, or the European Union), we’d find that the above factors were operative.
I agree that these are the issues in which the case for such a government is strongest.
I actually generally agree with your other points as well – I’d like to see more experimentation in health care, not less. The main additional purpose that I see a global government serving is redistributing resources to the very poor – that is, I’d like to see the global government in charge of things like disaster relief, severe threats to public health, and guaranteeing things like food stamps and emergency health care.
I actually took 1011a and 2010a with Ed Glaeser back in the day, so I’m pretty familiar with his views and quite proficient at using the implicit function theorem to get comparative statics from first order conditions.
Also, on the migration question, my point was not that the possibility of migration is completely irrelevant to welfare, but that it was irrelevant to the gay marriage issue, and any model employing it needs to take into account the fact that there are substantial costs to migration. If we wrote down a conditional logit type model where individuals had idiosyncratic tastes for “societies” we would find big welfare gains from increasing the variety of societies offered (even with substantial switching costs). I guess what I don’t see is what exactly this idiosyncratic component corresponds to and how a desirable form of differentiation could be promoted by governments. I guess if there were one country that had high taxes to promote museums, art, music and cultural events, another with high taxes to promote scientific research and public seminars, and a third with low taxes but fewer amenities, something like this model might be appropriate, but I’m not sure how closely that corresponds to the kinds of differentiation we would expect in the real world (for example, is this a good model of the differences across states within the US? Have state governments generated useful differentiation?
But at any rate, I certainly wouldn’t favor any kind of “cultural homogenization” program, and I find the experimentation rationale reason enough not to centralize most spending decisions other than a set of minimal requirements including emergency healthcare, food, housing and funding for education.
@ Jason: You took a class with Glaeser? Well, let me just say that I’m extremely jealous!
I’m not sure that many people get married that otherwise would not if there was not a subsidy. For those that do get married for that reason that otherwise would not, I’m skeptical there is much evidence they stay together as long or longer than couples who marry for more traditional reasons (but I haven’t looked).
@ strange gods: can you point out any of those arguments? And them saying that more democracy is better because more people have political power, which is good, is a tautology of sorts – so I don’t count that as an argument.
@ Jason (again): Well I agree with the disaster relief and public health. But food stamps? Really? From a global government. It just seems out of proportion. I’m still unclear as to what dramatic increases in power you’d give (not “you” in the imperialist and literal sense: the fact that that needs to be said is amazing) to your global government. The UN and other international agencies seem to do most of these things you mention now – and arguably quite poorly. What national government power that exists solely with national governments now would you evolve up to a global government?
Regarding the redistribution of wealth, I’m skeptical a global government would be better than the status quo (which is horribly poor now). I’m not a big redistributionist (I favor it only slightly for philosophical and practical reasons (i.e I think they would be better off otherwise in many cases/and I want them to be better off!)). It seems more likely, localized governments could better manage resources since they are closest to the problem. If you would respond that those local authorities don’t have the proper resources to distribute than a global government would not be necessary to rectify that anyway. If it’s just food stamps (I know you just threw that in there ;) ) I’ll pass.
In short, the potential problems of a global government would seem to outweigh any benefit I can see. Most issues (if not all) you cite can be handled without a global government and are now. The EU’s biggest success is their common market along with giving nations an incentive to better themselves so they can join it – not their parliament or constitution by any means. A global government would weaken sovereignty, weaken the democratic powers of minorities (in the broad sense of the word), lessen policy competition, wouldn’t obviously improve efficiency, remove EU-like incentives (unless you propose excluding certain nations), and considering the indisputable upward trajectory of power from local to state to federal government in all cases I’m aware of, I’m convinced a global government would also seek to gain more power for itself compounding problems I’ve outlined here and earlier.
@Dan B,
I agree, I haven’t seen any evidence on this (and I’m not sure it would be a good thing if couples stayed together longer due to the subsidy!). On the other hand, for those opposed to any kind of marriage subsidy, the small elasticity would also mean small efficiency costs…
I didn’t mean the redistribution and in-kind benefits to be separate – I meant that it would serve a redistributional function by providing emergency in-kind benefits. The main role I’d like to see a global government play in the case of food stamps is stepping in when the local infrastructure proved inadequate. So maybe the optimal authority would be just an oversight role with an option to exercise more power if the oversight authority deemed it necessary.
I think there are several reasons the UN is currently unable to provide an adequate level of these services; these include the fact that it is too easy for member countries to veto such proposals, and the fact that the UN doesn’t have a reliable means of raising funds and so lacks the resources to serve the role I have outlined.
I’m also somewhat uncertain how such a body would behave if these concerns were rectified – that is, if they were given substantially more resources, to what extent would the body responsible allocate them where they are needed vs. allocate them to member countries in proportion to their political influence (certainly a mix of both, but the mix depends in part on questions about how much member countries trust one another to behave in good faith). Because of this uncertainty, I would certainly not want to just instantaneously create a hugely powerful global body, but would want a series of gradual reforms (as with the formation of the European Union).
It seems to me that issues of trade and climate change – which both have substantial welfare implications – are badly mishandled now and could be handled much better by a global government (one major difference with the current regime is that it is a serious mistake to give every country veto power over each piece of legislation being considered).
I actually don’t really know much about the recent political history of the European Union (although I agree this is an important benchmark case) – I’d be curious to see an analysis which used something like the general social survey to analyze how membership in the European Union has impacted members political beliefs about things like gay rights, and how much weight members give to their own countries relative to other members of the European Union and people in outside countries in rendering their political judgments, and perhaps relate this to foreign aid numbers as a % of GDP.
The slippery slope argument is one I hadn’t really considered – it’s an interesting question whether it would be possible to put in safe guards to prevent a global government from gradually increasing its power, but I don’t have a considered opinion.
Jason, you’re not for MA are you?
*from
It might be helpful if you would stop being a presumptuous git.
Every post you started with early on on this thread conveyed exactly that, as have your incredibly arrogant assumptions about what you, a 25-year-old with close to zero life experience and evidently little historical knowledge, felt you knew about what “deals” poor people should reasonably be offered and which they would be wise in accepting. This is precisely the way the World Bank operates – arrogance, coercion, force – this is precisely Summers’ position, and this is precisely what you’ve been supporting. (And this “Larry” business is pathetic and creepy.) (And since you later acknowledged that it appears that the WB under his leadership was in fact undemocratic and coercive in imposing its policy “recommendations,” your defense of him here is disingenuous.)
Which you’ve obviously considered from numerous perspectives and in light of your extensive knowledge.
Indeed. And you are blithely unaware of how Summers’ former organization operates in the world, or you just don’t care. One of the projects about which I attended an early nonpublic meeting (I think you were in middle school at the time) was a Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline. Why don’t you stop electronically kissing “Larry”’s ass long enough to investigate who gained from that project and how democratic the process of its implementation was? Start here:
http://www.ips-dc.org/articles/698
Why don’t you study the dams that have been built and try to appreciate the nature of the process and the people who gained? Start by watching the film FlOW: For Love of Water from start to finish. There are no gains to be had for the poor people of these countries from any of this bullshit, and you’re an arrogant ass for thinking you know the first thing about it because you have a degree in a single subject.
Because you’re a fucking development expert. Right.
Naivete and arrogance are a dangerous combination.
But very easy to claim that it’s too difficult to bother, especially since you know what’s best.
This is based on your deep knowledge of environmental issues and the history of the World Bank in poor countries.
I have knowledge. You have none. You’ve graduated with a degree in ideology, and it doesn’t speak well for contemporary economics education in the US.
You don’t have the evidence and you probably never will. I’ve given you some suggestions for future reading and could give more, but you’re singularly incurious. They know how to do things differently, but this wouldn’t benefit the interests they serve.
Please try to read. I said “a mere agent.”
Zero historical knowledge.
Combined with a lack of critical thinking about powerful organizations. Sigh.
As I pointed out above, this was stupid. The opposite of quantitative isn’t anecdotal, it is qualitative. I linked to a response from an author of a book about the World Bank who was accused of choosing selected cases to support his arguments. Read it again. And again, I’ve been studying these issues for years. You need to start reading some histories of individual countries and regions to understand the results of their actions and coercive policies.
Look, fool, I’ve given you places to start. I’ve listed numerous books (and now a film), writers, and organizations that can introduce you to this history. You have to put in the work.
I’ve given you two references: Dr. Paul Farmer and Randall Robinson.
Start by watching FLOW (which features people who have spent decades investigating and writing about this) and reading Vandana Shiva.
Astoundingly incurious.
That was never my position, which I’ve twice made explicit.
I’m not sure if this is one I listed above, but it bears directly on WB land reform in Brazil:
http://www.social.org.br/cartilhas/cartilhaingles003/cartilha004.htm
See FLOW for more on water.
Asshole, I wanted you to respond to it. In order to do so, you need to make clear your understanding of what he’s saying, which requires no special expertise (although possibly more historical knowledge than you possess). If you think Rogoff responds to the points Stiglitz was making there, show where, because I skimmed the Rogoff thing and didn’t see anything resembling a response to the arguments Stiglitz made.
.
Then there was no reason to post the link, since an argument calls for a response.
You haven’t demonstrated that you even know what the issue is.
You’ve shown that you don’t know what constitutes the relevant empirical evidence.
I see that Stiglitz was arguing, correctly, that the WB positions and policies are based on ideology, and that’s what Rogoff is presenting.
Arrogant jerk. I’ve been studying the history of capitalism for many years, during two of which I focused specifically on the history of finance (from Hilferding, Luxemburg, and Lenin through the Annales School, Fred Bloch, David Harvey, and Eric Helleiner, with many in between). I know vastly more than you do about this history and where the World Bank, its actions, and its ideology fit than you probably ever will (especially given your profound lack of curiosity). It’s no surprise that these agencies have become the tools of MNCs and their government allies – the postwar arragements could never have lasted. This is not being driven by the market-fundamentalist ideology of people at the World Bank, although the large number of ideologues there has helped it to move faster. It’s in the nature of capitalism.
I skimmed Rogoff’s piece and your questions. I suspect that even if I read his piece closely there would be many technical matters that I wouldn’t understand. Same thing if I read the works of high-level Soviet administrators – all that complicated diamat. But I could still criticize their policies and actions. (By the way, I’ve been reading ‘Tis Himself’s comments for some time now. He’s a professional economist with 30 years of experience. I’ve never had a problem understanding what he’s saying, and I’ve never seen him retreat to abstractions to avoid real-world questions and experiences. You could learn a lot from him.)
Show evidence that Rogoff’s argument has anything remotely to do with the major criticisms Stiglitz made in that article – which were not arguments about abstract economic theory. Otherwise, it’s irrelevant, and you’re making it clear that you, like Rogoff, are being evasive.
Then you should try listening to people who do have more knowledge than you and learning something before you arrogantly pontificate about what “we” and governments should do.
And when X is the topic under discussion, you should read and learn.
Projection.
Maybe, Jason, you could distinguish between these two in a practical and relevant manner if you studied the history of World Bank in action.
.
Jason will tell you the relevant costs and benefits, Jadehawk. He’s 25 and has an economics degree.
I’ll only speak for myself, but you have shown yourself to be dismissive of democracy and grossly ignorant of the existence of ongoing struggles.
Next time you read something, try not responding like an arrogant tool. It’s perfectly obvious where you’re coming from.
Let me propose the following procedure, asshole. You fucking listen to what local communities have been saying and try to understand their perspectives. You don’t tell people how they have to organize to speak to you. You don’t presume to present them with fixed options. Prior to this, you fucking study the history of these dams, their effects on people, and alternative water provision, purification, and conservation efforts that people have been actively involved with..
Now economists are experts on dams. Moron. (Note that one of Stiglitz’ major points was that these “expert” analyses are not based on evaluations of past experiences or knowledge of local conditions, but on ideology).
Let’s get something straight. The World Bank is not concerned with providing benefits to poor people, or with “development” that will lead to well-being for them. It is an agent of corporate and political power. That’s what it has clearly shown itself to be. Only the most ignorant or ideologically blinded or both would not recognize this.
Here’s an article about the World Bank and fossil fuels (at this point I’m sure young Jason won’t be seeking to inform himself more fully but rather will dismiss this as yet another anecdotal blip):
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41943
And you would fail with even your plan, as any number of others have. You don’t grasp the fundamental fact. The World Bank is not about alleviating poverty or inequality. It is about access to resources, corporate profits, and power.
Your conflating of public bodies and the World Bank has been annoying.
This is still stupid in light of the real historical context. And you’ve still not once answered my question about accountability for obscene levels of pollution and other environmental destruction in the first place.
That link is not working for me, but it doesn’t matter. You’re under the mistaken impression, Jason, that we’re all equally ignorant here. You’re posting links to random working papers because they’re what you’ve found in a few days of even thinking about this. I’m posting links that are relevant to the discussion and that I think might be a good place for you or others to start, but they do not exhaust my knowledge of this history. Far from it. I’ve given you book recommendations. I could give more.
Study the fucking history.
Read some history (not written by the World Bank).
If I were making the same arguments about Stalin’s government, would you call it a facile caricature?
The organization is working for access to resources, corporate profits, and power for rich countries. It matters not what some individuals’ intentions are or how they view their actions.
The organization’s understanding of “worth accomplishing” is shaped by the interests on whose behalf it acts.
Because the impetus for anything you see as good couldn’t possibly come from poor people.
I think you need to study some history and learn to view research more critically.
It’s quite amazing that even after being prodded and pushed to understand the arrogance behind your view, you still don’t get it. First, you don’t get to decide who “they” are. Second, you don’t get to decide what alternatives are being presented. Third, you don’t get to decide what matters to them and how they want to live, and therefore not what criteria they use in evaluating options. Fourth, you don’t get to decide that it’s OK to keep polluting as we have been and that other people have to take the burden of it (in the short run – we all will in the long term). Fifth, you don’t get to decide that they should have to suffer to pay back loans when what they deserve in a just world is not only debt forgiveness but reparations for the resources that have been and continue to be stolen from them.
Why don’t you offer an example relevant to the discussion at hand. And if the people doing the deliberation think the “experts” are a bunch of assholes who are acting on behalf of corporations and foreign governments and have not shown themselves trustworthy in the past, well, they have to be shown what’s good for them. What you’ve done here is to – again, eventually and after much pushing – grudgingly admit that democracy is what should happen (still ignoring the years of real struggles for democracy in this realm), while at the same time hedging in every way on whether democracy is really necessary or proper when it comes to poor people in other countries. This is imperialism.
I don’t know where you’re coming up with this date, but it’s ridiculous. And if you recognize that this is the broader picture, then you should acknowledge your ignorance, shut up, and try to learn.
You haven’t done that for the older ones, either. You’re almost totally ignorant. This is not a game, Jason, in which you can tick off boxes in columns with no understanding of what’s happening on the ground and over the long term.
Do you understand how “paying lip-service” is ordinarily used? That’s exactly what they’re doing. It’s all spin that they’re using to disguise what they’re really up to. No one who knows anything is fooled (just as no one was when they changed the name of SAPs, any more than people were by the School of the Americas name-change). You cannot really be this freakin’ naïve.
And that issue, granting for the sake of discussion your use of “aid” – is going to be decided through struggle. your management by self-appointed experts is on its way out.
Yes – “I am an expert. I know what’s best.”
It’s an imperialist question, but for the sake of argument: I would dismantle it. There are plenty of proposals for reforms that would establish different IFIs, and many of them are coming from people in poor countries and have been for many years. My ultimate goals go far beyind this, and are in relevant areas not directly related to the structure of IFIs and in which millions of other people are working, but getting rid of these is important.
Again, there are real, longstanding proposals for replacements and there are existing and growing alternatives. But you don’t see them or seek to know about them because you’re an imperialist who only sees the world from a position of institutional power, even if he can only project himself into it for the time being.
Yes, with those caveats.
Are you stupid? I was speaking as you.
Uh, but that’s not what we were talking about. And really, we – you in particular – shouldn’t be doing this when we can be hearing what they have to say. I really wonder who the hell you think you are to be so self-admittedly ignorant and still think you should be talking about what’s best for other people. If you wish to be involved in a discussion with people, you should at the very least try to learn something about the situation. Listen to the “people other than ourselves,” and try to learn from them.
And the local communities as well. We definitely need to make this determination before we inflict upon them policies that were decided undemocratically in others’ interests by people in foreign countries.
As determined by you and your “experts.” Any more caveats?
Unless any of a number of conditions prevail.
But evidently not listened to anything they’ve had to say.
Because you’re no supporter of democracy, as you’ve made clear.
They are agents of people who do. They are also ideologues in the main.
They most certainly are not. If they legitimately cared about this, they would have looked critically at the results of their actions, they would change when confronted with the evidence rather than resorting to PR, and any dissident in the organization who recognized what it was about and that it was not changing would leave it and fight against it.
Look at the fucking history of the World Bank and IMF.
No. You’re arguing from ignorance. You are unaware of the effects of outside pressure and collective action on these organizations, so they can’t have an effect. But they have had an effect, and they are having an effect – finding and fighting for alternatives, putting a halt to projects on the ground, drawing public attention to what the organizations are doing. All of this constrains the organizations from behaving even worse, develops local, democratic, and sustainable alternatives; involves people actively in the democratic systems that can replace what exists; and educates people.
Yes, and my view is based on years of experience and even more years of scholarship. Yours is based on total ignorance.
My responses have been to your words here.
So you’re outraged about being called an imperialist, but ignorant about imperialism. Why am I not surprised?
No, somewhat more weight to states; now it’s corporations.
But you’re not an imperialist! Really, this is shocking. I had this same surprise when I read Caroline Elkins’ Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya, which just came out in 2005. In the introduction, she talks about how horrified she was when she started doing research for her dissertation and learned of these atrocities, as she had thought of the British in Kenya as relatively benign and even benevolent. I wondered how the hell a graduate student in history (at Harvard, IIRC) could have thought this.
First, I never made any blanket statements about “government institutions.” I’m an anarchist, so working with more reform-oriented organizations and people in government is a complicated matter, but I’ve done it. Second, you’re ignoring everything outside these government institutions. But that’s because you’re ignorant.
None of your fucking business. But again I’ll note that you only see the world from the perspective of “people in charge” rather than that of contributing to something through democratic participation.
There’s a difference between more charity-oriented and more social-justice oriented organizations, and a difference between those made up of the people affected themselves and those acting on their behalf. Also, you continue to be under the mistaken impression that democratic organizations would have to be constructed from scratch.
He was at the fucking top of the organization. But you, ever the diplomat, would be far more effective. (Your constant talk of change from within is quite amusing, in any event, as you haven’t shown yourself to be in opposition to the undemocratic and corporate-driven policies of the organization in the first place, and pantingly ready to accept any democratic PR bone they toss you. You would be far from a progressive voice.)
Fool.
They have a blueprint for exactly the sort of farm (allegorical and fucking real) that will serve the interests of the powerful. That’s what they’ve been fucking constructing.
And here’s a clear statement of Jason’s view. Poor people are goats and sheep, and he’s an owl.
Of course, it’s unimaginable that the goats and sheep have blueprints or are already building.
Only economists exist in Jason’s world. And rather than reading more extensively, he jumps from reading a few articles available online to seeking out their disagreements.
That’s very intelligent. Learn a bit about something that changes your view over the course of a few days, and instead of trying to learn more, turn back to familiar voices in your narrow sphere.
This is based on your vast knowledge and experience, no doubt.
Here’s what I’m advocating (for you or anyone): 1) acknowledge and learn more about the proposals for reform of IFIs coming from people in poor countries (some of these – and I wouldn’t support any that didn’t – involved abolishing the WB and IMF); 2) learn more about the history and present actions of these organizations, and publicize them; 3) acknowledge and learn more about the struggles surrounding their policies around the world, and publicize them; 4) become involved in supporting those with whom you agree in these struggles (and supporting may well mean contributing ideas and expertise in a democratic context).
No, dear. The way to get specific is to talk about specific histories, which you refuse to do for some reason. (An article about the benefits of financial liberalization? At this moment? You’re funny.)
And yet you’ve done it this entire thread. You’re just too stupid to realize it.
It’s not at all surprising, in the context of your comments, how many of your statements start with some variation on that theme.
You’re willing to deny people say over their own lives, or support an organization that does, including in real situations in which the organization you’re talking about represents rapacious interests, if you believe your nonexistent “expertise” tells you that they’re wrong. You’re a dangerous imperialist, you would do nothing for positive change, and people are right to fight you and all others like you.
There is no single “literature,” asshole. There are huge literatures in political, social, and economic history.
Look at the direction of resource flows, idiot.
Twit.
A lot is puzzling to you. You have no clue what the World Bank does or for whose benefit.
Yet again, young Jason insists upon ignoring all existing struggles over this issue.
Anyway, I’ve found this discussion tiresome, and you, Jason, arrogant and presumptuous. I doubt you’ll heed my advice, but there’s always a chance. This will be my last post on this thread. Feel free to have the last word, and to continue your discussion of world government.
This has been a timesucker.
Perhaps I’ll run off with Sven to the real world…;)
oo, oo…can it be Hawaii? It’s really real over there.
OK, now‘s when I stop commenting.
This is DanB (I just signed up for TypeKey). I’ll use this handle from now on.
—
Jason, I wouldn’t worry too much about SC, OM – he’s so blinded by his ideology (despite him trying to stick you with that distinction) that he can’t even entertain the idea that an organization or an economic or political system other than his could produce beneficial results. You have to be completely crazy and inhumane not think like him apparently. Nevermind that he can’t point to any empirical accounting of the success or failure of his alternate policies (ridiculously vague and naive as they are). I guess it’s imperialistic to want data to support claims as extravagant as his – or is it the data that’s imperialistic? After all the data may measure something that those affected don’t recognize as significant… you know, like wealth and mortality rates. It’s a shame we’re not old enough to recognize the wisdom in his supercilious relativism.
Also, rest assured that she KNOWS the “history of capitalism.” Therefore I’m sure she recognizes that capitalism has lifted more billions out of poverty, done more for the liberation of women, and contributed more to the growth in life expectancy rates than any alternative economic system that she’s ever gushed over in ANY counterpunch article. But frankly, it really is a shame SC, OM has put so much emphasis on terrible journalism to form her worldview. She can read so many anecdotal and superficial characterizations without ever wondering if the quoted journalist’s or witness’s impression of the cause of the problem might be wrong. After all, it SEEMS like nature was designed (spoiler: it wasn’t). It doesn’t matter how many histories you have read or people living in the real world you’ve personally asked if they think God designed the birds or some capitalist policy ruined their town if the truth is otherwise.
SC,OM: you can have spent double the time Jason has spent on earth reading Naomi Klein books but they don’t substitute for real data that shows the real effect and causes on the people you say you care about. But really, you don’t give a shit about individual people. I mean, do you really give a fuck about some girl in a small village somewhere if she would have been better off having the economic freedom to choose to work in a crappy factory instead of selling her body on the street if an ignorant majority voted against the evil MNC?
Also, what is with the assumption that if corporation is “multi-national” it is bad? The world needs more integration, not less. SC, OM do you really think the welfare of humans would be better if we broke up the world economy into 600,000 self-sufficient democratic tribes? Does the fact that more globalized countries are better off than less globalized countries even give you pause? Is it really too much globalization that is holding sub-Saharan Africa back? Hypocritically I haven’t established any statistical correlation but SC,OM makes me think the older you are the more you can believe anything.
Jason cares about democracy. But he seems to care a bit more about the actual effect policies have on people (whether they voted for them or not). Really SC, OM what is it about political liberty that is intrinsically more valuable to you (the imperial “you”) than economic liberty? No one on this thread has even attempted an answer to that question. As an anarchist you presumably don’t recognize a natural governmental right to govern a people. So why the hell do you think it’s ok for a majority to deprive individuals the right to engage in voluntary cooperation? Again, why does VOTING make it ok to remove liberty from someone? If they vote against liberty, vote for policies that harm economic opportunity or cause mortality rates to be lower than they otherwise would, or a majority collectively decides on a policy that results in more child prostitution and less education can WE in the west really not judge that as bad? Do we have no place to suggest alternatives? Do we have no place to PRESSURE them to change their policies? Real people die and suffer because democracies choose failed policies. Alleviating human suffering matters to Jason and others who think like him – not just democracy. He’s been very willing to grapple with different policy ideas and philosophical systems even if they are contingent on a western standard that wealth is better than poverty and health is better than sickness. Sometimes even the old need to grow up.
In the first paragraph is looks like I used the wrong pronoun. opps… writing fast.
@Dan B,
I’m originally from PA, but I’ve lived in MA for the past 7 years while going to school. How about you?
@SC,
YOU INTERPRETED my posts to convey that – nothing I said at was even remotely close to this. You did the same thing to Larry Summers. You are so self-centered that you believe every intellectual discussion boils down to the one question you have actually given some thought to. Then you criticize us because you can’t be bothered to try to understand what we’re actually saying.
Regarding the remainder of my comment, it is not my lack of life-experience, but your incredible combination of smugness and ignorance which stands in the way of understanding. You say I can’t possibly know what’s best for poor people – but I never claimed to know everything about how they should live their lives (whatever that would mean). I claimed that they should accept a deal which made their lives better in important respects. You might disagree with this claim. If so, TRY ENGAGING WITH IT. Are you seriously suggesting that there is NO amount of compensation that would make accepting pollutants worthwhile? Pretend that you and I were members of a democratic body deliberating about whether or not WE should accept pollutants in OUR community. What arguments could you offer against my position that there is some amount of compensation which would make the offer worthwhile?
You seem to take the fact that I am willing to admit when I don’t know something as a sign that I must be massively ignorant. In fact, this is a sign that I am sane. The fact that you are unwilling to admit when you don’t know something is not a sign that you know everything, but that you are delusional.
In fact, as I’ve stated numerous times, this is an arguable proposition and not one I have a strong opinion on. Summers gave some reasons to think that there would be gains from trade. You disagree, but not on the basis of facts or arguments, but on the basis of having some kind of visceral reaction to the possibility of logical argument.
No, you’re an arrogant ass because you draw sweeping and unjustified generalizations from individual stories. I’ve (tentatively) agreed that the World Bank policies were on the whole negative, but also pointed to some examples of successful projects such as:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1265231
You’ve failed to engage with these examples at all.
I’ve been quite explicit about what I know and what I don’t, whereas you’ve pretended to know all the relevant facts. What particular position that I’ve taken do you think is wrong?
You accuse me of having “a degree in ideology”, but I doubt you could accurately summarize a single one of the positions I’ve taken in this thread. I’m unsure whether this is because you’re too arrogant to read them carefully, or simply because you’re not smart enough to understand any position more nuanced than your own. My initial thought was the former, but I’m moving slowly towards the latter. This actually reflects well on you – better to be stupid and wrong than to be arrogantly dismissive and wrong.
Despite your former obsession with the use of pronouns, you use them rather ineptly yourself. Who is “THEY”? Some secret cabal conspiring to world domination? Or is it just possible the World Bank is made up of lots of different people, some of them ideological and obsessed with advancing their own interests, and others more motivated by the desire to actually help the people they’re serving. One of these positions suggests some understanding of the real world, the other suggests ideological blinders.
This is a bit of an exaggeration, although I agree I’m certainly no expert on this topic. But I do have enough knowledge to see your unwarranted generalizations for what they are.
Compare two positions:
1) Government organizations dedicated to foreign aid often act in ways that advance the national interest or the interests of those in authority rather than the interests of the people receiving aid. Careful quantitative analyses suggest that the net impact on the development world of their policies has been negative, although the results are somewhat mixed and there are individual success stories. We should carefully consider what worked and what didn’t in forming future policies.
2) Government organizations dedicated to foreign aid always act in ways that advance the national interest or the interests of those in authority rather than the interests of the people receiving aid. This is because they are controlled by organizations devoted solely to maintaining their hold on power. Their policies never work and never will work, because they are inevitably designed to advance the interests of the people crafting them.
One of these positions is realistic, the other is filled with unwarranted generalizations, which are the hallmark of the uninformed ideologue.
I don’t see how this engages with anything I have said. Why don’t you read what I say and try to understand what it is we actually disagree about rather than giving me articles to read that don’t bear at all on any of our disagreements. Once again, let me try to get this through your thick skull: I’m not disagreeing with you that past world bank policies have been on the whole negative. If you want to convince me that they have been entirely negative, try refuting the examples of effective policies like the one I cited above. A more productive line of inquiry might be to actually answer my questions about how you think the World Bank should conduct foreign aid. Then we could actually try to evaluate how the past evidence bears on your particular proposal.
You’re given me two names, as if you expect me to go and sort through everything they’ve ever written to see if it contains the one numerical comparison between the dollars spent on political involvement vs. humanitarian aid in Haiti. I actually think it’s quite likely that this evidence exists in which case I’d readily concede that World Bank involvement in Haiti has been negative. But the fact that you think an adequate answer to a specific factual question is to cite two names is rather telling…
Let me rephrase: I just think your position that well-meaning people in government can not do more good than harm is indefensible.
This account of your position comes from:
You’re actually right for once! I have no idea what the issue is that you’re talking about. As I understood it, the issue was, “SC thinks she understands how foreign aid should be conducted, but in fact, she knows nothing about economics and is astonishingly unaware of her own ignorance. Rogoff is someone who both disagrees with her and knows a lot more than her. I’m curious if she can demonstrate some understanding of why Rogoff thinks that some IMF and World Bank policies that she objects to have promoted human welfare and perhaps even cogently respond.” Clearly, you think the issue is something else, almost certainly something we don’t disagree about. Would you care to state precisely what you think the issue is?
Again, you use the word “ideology” to dismiss arguments you don’t understand so that you don’t have to admit to yourself how ignorant you are. Once again, if you answer my simple questions about Rogoff’s article, I will rescind my charge that you are a complete intellectual phony, pretending to be expert on topics you know little about. But until then, I have no reason to suspect otherwise.
I actually agree that you very likely know more than me about the history of finance. What I accuse you of not understanding are the arguments for and against alternative foreign aid policies (such as loans vs. grants, or financial market liberalization). That is, you’ve presented no reason for me to think that you have any understanding of what the likely consequences of these policies would be, and why people like Rogoff interpret the evidence differently from you.
Again, you say I’m avoiding real-world questions. WHAT QUESTIONS? Ask a SPECIFIC REAL-WORLD QUESTION, and I will answer it. How are you proposing that the US conduct foreign aid?
I honestly have no idea what I’m even evading. I’m not sure which points Stiglitz made you’re referring to, but chances are I don’t disagree with them. Once again, reading comprehension. Try it sometime.
You seem to have missed the point. The fact that you cite articles about something doesn’t mean it’s the topic under discussion. Once again, I challenge you to try to accurately summarize any position I have taken on this thread. Then we’ll have Dan B. try and do the same. The fact that Dan B. could easily do so and that you would likely be completely unable to do so is a reflection of your lack of comprehension, not my lack of clarity or ignorance.
This was a request for clarification, not a rhetorical question. I’m trying my best to get you to articulate a coherent policy position so I could actually engage with it.
Yes, let’s never try to actually assess any policy. Instead, let’s just say that things should be more democratic, because really, there are no other substantive questions worth thinking about.
Let me propose the following. TRY TO UNDERSTAND ONE POSITION I’VE TAKEN ON THIS THREAD. Just to say it again: I think it’s a good idea to have local communities make loan applications to the World Bank rather than the World Bank just providing them with a fixed menu. NICE WORK. Now, how should the World Bank decide which applications to fund? Should they cede this authority to some other democratic body? Which one? THESE ARE SUBSTANTIVE POLICY QUESTIONS. YOU HAVE FAILED TO EVEN ACKNOWLEDGE THEY EXIST.
Economists aren’t experts on dams, but some of them are experts on the economic consequences of dams (at least the ones who have studied this question). Sociologists on the other hand are NOT experts on this issue.
I think I know the problem!! When you read my posts, you only read the words that strike your attention, and then you impose your narrative on those words. Try not doing that next time.
The words you cite here were part of an example where I was trying to articulate as clearly as possible how YOU felt the World Bank should operate in the future. Your response is a complete non-sequiter.
What would you replace it with? What about the institutional structure of the World Bank makes it ineffective? If the US set up a new organization called the Global Deposit Organization, what should be done so it is more effective than the World Bank? MAKE A PROPOSAL.
No, you think you’re posting links that are relevant to the discussion because you haven’t bothered to read anything I wrote so you have no idea what points we are actually discussing.
Cheers Jason, thoughtful response. — Yes, I live in MA, just north of Boston right now. (anyway to exchange email addresses without the whole world seeing them?)
Also, I liked (I’m not deliberately trying to be sycophantic) your Animal Farm analogy; I’m rereading 1984 right now. It’s the edition with Animal Farm in it, and Christopher Hitchens writes the foreward.
Finally, in regards to your concise reply to SC,OM’s financial liberalization point: bravo. I was going to write a bit of a response to that myself since it really bothered me, but didn’t want to get too off topic of what I was trying to present. Also, I figured you’d be responding to her specific points and I just wanted to comment on things generally. The quick dismissal of your original point was incredibly telling. For SC, OM it is all about people’s impressions (and her own) – actual facts, studies, and argument are nonexistent. She may be able to pull something off the internet but I actually still highly doubt she could argue in her own words a coherent argument for opposite her opinion on this matter (or many others). Feel free to prove me wrong on this one SC, OM: Can you seriously argue that our current financial crisis was not due to financial liberalization? Personally, I’m not sure where the truth lies but I’ve read persuasive arguments with a wide spectrum of positions. Have you even CONSIDERED an alternative to you immediate gut feeling (btw, those aren’t always reliable)? Ok, I’ve made my points. All the best.
@DanB,
Try emailing your address to jason1083@mailinator.com (and post here when you’ve done so) and then I can respond with my real email address.
I agree – I feel like in retrospect, I spent too much time getting sucked in to side-arguments about democratization rather than focusing on the substantive question of whether what Larry Summers said was reasonable – SC and Jadehawk’s protestations to the side, the question of how much pollution to produce and where to store it is a substantive question that isn’t resolved by saying, “Democracy!” since democratic bodies still need to decide what to do about it.
As far as I can tell from SCs posts, her answer to this point is something along the lines of, anyone who thinks it is even worthwhile discussing the question when there are so many people who don’t live in democracies is an imperialist scumbag, and besides, democracies can deal with this question by voting and if they care to have the opinion of economists, they’ll send us messages asking for our input (presumably economists in the US should never study any issue or render an opinion unless explicitly asked to do so by Congress or some local legislative body).
Sent.
Whoops, apparently mailinator is no good (it automatically deletes mail after a few days!) – I set up a yahoo account, try jason_1083@yahoo.com (and once again, please post here when it’s sent).
Ugh. I know I said I was leaving, but I can’t stand seeing
Yeah, sure. My argument that Summers was an arrogant asshole in suggesting that “we” should dump polluting industry on poor people when he was in an organization that was imposing just such things on poor people at the moment he wrote about it was totally arrogant.
I don’t know how many more ways I can possibly say this. Jadehawk tried as well, and it’s very frustrating. Look at the history of the World Bank in poor countries. Try to see things from a point of view other than your own (hint: I don’t mean mine).
Stop pretending shit and start trying to understand history and listening to what people in poor countries, including experts, are saying.
Read Vandana Shiva’s Soil Not Oil. Just fucking read some books.
You admit that you have no knowledge, but still hold to the belief that you have an argument that’s worthwhile to make to other people who know far more than you (no, I’m not talking about myself).
I’m not asking you to accept any arguments I might make about specific policies. I’m asking you to seek out what people in poor countries are saying and to study this history. I’m trying to get you to step out of this mode of (junior) Western advisor or expert and act like a democrat.
No, I disagree on the basis of history, of which I have knowledge. So does Summers, but he’s an arrogant imperialist asshole. You don’t.
You’ve pointed to one or two working papers. You need a far broader understanding of what’s going on here.
Study the history.
Read the history. Why won’t you fucking read the history?
You have no basis for disagreement on any of this, as you have almost no knowledge whatsoever. That is not all I’m arguing, and it’s simply not a question of a fucking balance sheet with columns you decide on. But if you’re not going to try to educate yourself, there’s no point in discussing this.
Or you could google “randall robinson haiti.” You don’t exactly have the makings of a fine scholar. But such a numerical comparison would be impossible because they candidly admitted that even their humanitarian aid had political-destabilization motives. Not only will you not seek out further reading materials, you can’t even read the short ones provided to you. And, by the way, anyone who lives in MA and is involved with public health and plans to go into academe who hasn’t read Paul Farmer’s books needs to put in some work.
We were talking about USAID.
I cited the names of people who have written detailed histories of this, specifically touching on this question. I could link to exact quotes, but I’m intentionally not doing so because I want you to read some history. It’s telling of that motive.
That is not my position either.
The World Bank is not a “government.” And you don’t distinguish between agents of governments in representative democracies and imperialistic governments or corporate-led organizations. There doesn’t appear to be any government, organization, or entity that you don’t think should be abolished or fought, or in which you would not have moral qualms about working. It’s ludicrous.
The broader issues were pollution and poverty and how we the human race are going to deal with the fact that we are destroying the basis of human and other species’ life. Summers position was that the arrogant imposition of cookie-cuttter policies in corporate interests on poor people around the world should be acquiesced to, and he acted accordingly. Stiglitz took issue with the way the WB operates based on his knowledge. He has suggested reforms. I think the changes that need to happen to minimize suffering and keep us from destroying our own and many other species are more radical. I think that many ideas for radical change – in agriculture, water, trade – have been and are being developed by people in poor countries. People in poor countries should not only make their own decisions about the direction they want to go, but people in rich countries should be held democratically accountable for their actions. These are political questions and cannot be divorced from the current situation of corporate-driven imperialism, but you refuse to recognize them as such, instead insisting that it’s merely a matter of which from among a narrow selection of “experts” “we” should follow on any given issue within the imperialist framework. “The issue isn’t imperialism or power. It’s the number of calories that should be alloted to the natives in the work camps. Stop wailing about democracy and human rights and propose a calorie count, already.”
Stiglitz used the word ideology, and I believe he has frequently. I’m just agreeing with him. You could learn more if you read Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, but you won’t.
Once again, I’ve asked you to show where Rogoff was responding to Stiglitz’ arguments in the piece I linked to, which you refuse to do. (Incidentally, I just saw Rogoff last night on PBS NOW – which also featured Vandana Shiva, by the way – promoting a carbon tax. I may have judged him prematurely. Will look into him more)
I’ve presented you with a variety of suggestions for reading. That you’re too lazy or unconcerned to do it doesn’t speak well of you.
No! Break out of that fucking mindset! I’m trying to get you to read about how foreign “aid” has been conducted and seek out perspectives from beyond a narrow range of people.
The political points. You responded “Ken Rogoff argues forcefully against Stiglitz’s position here.” What positions in that piece, which made a number of political arguments, did he argue against forcefully?
The World Bank, and Summers’ memo as indicative of how and in what interests it operates, were clearly among the subjects under discussion.
I’ve done so throughout.
I know imperialism is tough to break free from, but you could at least try.
How can you fucking presume to assess any policy without understanding the historical context or listening to the people involved?
No, the first is stupid because you fail to recognize the interests behind the projects funded by the World Bank. The second and third are political questions around which people in poor countries are acting. I’m telling you to familiarize yourself with this and its history.
And the ones from the WB invariably and unsurprisingly have claimed their “expertise” shows that they are beneficial, ignoring both contrary opinions and history. Gee, go fucking figure. As noted in one of the articles I linked to above (which you likely didn’t read), they even ignore the clear advice of commissions they have set up to study these issues and make recommendations.
You’re an idiot. I’ve never said a single word about sociology. I have repeatedly pointed you to works of history and to the writings of people in poor countries, like Vandana Shiva, who have done research on these questions.
Gah! It’s not about what I would replace it with! Look, even if you fail to get it utterly here, as you appear to be doing, I hope I’m planting the smallest seeds.
It’s perfectly effective at transferring resources and control over them to corporations.
Fortunately, even though you’re totally unaware of it, people are fighting and struggling to make changes. Do you understand? I’m trying to get you to STOP thinking about this as an argument amongst “us” and not a question of global political struggles.
And in the name of their intentions and “expertise” they led to the deaths of tens of millions of people on whom those policies were imposed. I can just hear you now: “Comrade Summers is an expert, and I think he makes a good argument about the relocation of the kulaks. Who are we to question him?” You’d fit right in, just as you would at the World Bank.
In fact, you seem to be acknowledging that it is apt, in the sense that you are, astoundingly, making the same argument about British imperialism and even Stalin that you are about the World Bank. I’ll just let this stand without further comment.
No, it’s only those you believe have sufficient expertise or choose to convene.
Every time on this thread you talked about “deals” they should find acceptable without recognizing what they’re actually doing and presenting as alternatives.
You can make your arguments in any case, to whomever cares to listen. I’m trying to get you to inform them and to recognize that you’re not an expert.
You can, uninformed as they may be.
It’s my position that the situation is urgent and we need radical reductions in the amount of pollution we produce which will only come about through drastic changes in our lifestyle (that of most people in rich countries and some in poor countries) and constraints on corporations (which I don’t see coming about without a struggle). It’s my position that we don’t have any right to, as we are doing, suck up the finite resources of this planet and poison it for other people, creating climate chaos.
That’s big of you.
You’re an idiot. Understanding policy-formation in an imperialist, corporate-rule context cannot happen while ignoring that context.
You simply aren’t getting it.
FFS! Yes, you need to wade through book-length treatments of history in these countries to have even the slightest basis for an informed opinion.
Why don’t you listen to the discussions that are actually happening? None of this is fucking pretend.
ALL-CAPS isn’t helping you to understand that I am intentionally avoiding a discussion amongst “us” about policy questions. By your own admission, you’re ignorant. Not only do I not care about your ignorant opinions, but I’m trying to get you to remedy that ignorance and to seek out other knowledge and opinions (not mine).
You give lip service to the idea, but you don’t appear to be capable of acting democratically. (And yes, I did catch the sarcasm – it was just too stupid to warrant a response.)
The World Bank and its apologists. Should have been evident from context.
No, out of humility I would never count myself among people who have put their lives on the line and had to struggle with this every day.
No.
Bullshit. You keep talking about “pretending” and “What should we do? Convene…?”
“At the top” of an organization doesn’t necessarily imply the top position.
Uh, not really. I read that book when I was maybe 12, but I didn’t recall an owl. I do recall that the presentation of some people as stupid sheep was offensive and an insult to people who really suffered and fought under that regime. For a complex empirical treatment, read The Whisperers. For a better view of working people in struggle from Orwell, read Homage to Catalonia.
Idiot. Read history. Read the work of analysts from poor countries who have differing opinions (yes, hard as this may be for you to believe, there are experts, including economists, in poor countries, and they often disagree with you and with one another).
My opinion as a scholar who has knowledge of history and has looked critically at “free markets” and the “growth” paradigm and their implementation for years is indeed far more informed than yours.
Because that would defeat the purpose of pushing you to learn more for yourself.
Well, you’ve shown no intention of doing either, so I’m not optimistic.
And there we go. How does this make any sense? That’s why we need to talk about them.
You should be interested in understanding the present situation in its historical context.
I’m not interested in any conversation with you about deciding policies. I’m trying to get you to engage with directly with other people.
Sent. — Also, I’m going to guess that she never suggests any proposals herself not just to push you to learn more but because she and others like her don’t ever seem have any respectable answers themselves, often just misguided criticisms. Furthermore, The Economist pointed that out that Naomi Klein doesn’t either, and she’s not an expert on history or anything else. She’s a journalist who has an amazing ability to incorrectly diagnose a situation. SC, OM can’t even suggest a proposal someone else she likes has made. What if the remedy that was democratically decided on turns out to make the problem worse or create a new problem? Tough luck, I guess. Can that policy be criticized? What about before it’s even put in place?
By the way, Jason never said he was an expert and poor people should take his advice. Stop acting like it. It’s not imperialist to share his opinion on what he thinks would be best. It’s an opinion not an imposition.
Also, just curious, have you SC, OM or Jadehawk or whoever else shares their view of things ever read some “history” that isn’t favorable to your point of view? Another thing, how is Jason or you or anyone supposed to know if those “histories” you keep telling him to read are reliable? I’m not saying they aren’t worthwhile, many are, but at least when looking at data (assuming you can reliably believe it wasn’t fraudulently manufactured) you can reach your own conclusions.
Since SC, OM likes dropping names and books to read so much I’ll try a couple if anyone is interested: try anything by Jagdish Bhagwati and also Martin Wolf’s “Why Globalization Works.” In that latter suggestion he writes of these localized democratically controlled collective economies that SC, OM seems to advocate: “The proponents believe as a matter of faith, not reason, that these self-sufficient regional, national and local economies would be less harmful to the environment than a global economy. The belief that a ‘local’ economy is intrinsically less environmentally damaging is completely unjustified[…]” He argues that case before and after that quote with data, logic, and even HISTORY – feel free to judge him for yourself. I thought that quotation was apt given the discussion we’re having and also because of where we are having it.
@SC,
Let me enumerate and try to summarize our disagreements in the hope of moving them forward. Please read every word rather than just the first few sentences of each point since I tried my best to anticipate and reply to your responses.
1) I think someone working at the World Bank could bring about positive change. You deny this, citing as evidence lots of bad things the World Bank has done. I reply by citing as evidence (Easterly, the ssrn article I linked to) a few good things. You argue that these good things can only be assessed by consulting a book length treatment of the topic and repeatedly exhort me to “read the history”. I think the article cited here:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1265231
does a fairly convincing job of showing that the particular World Bank policy under consideration in Senegal had a positive impact and I doubt there exists a book length treatment looking at the impacts of this policy in Senegal. If you disagree, rather than saying, “Read a book!”, say something specific about why you think the analysis presented in the article is incomplete or incorrect and how reading a book on the history of Senegal might help me to understand this. I agree that this one article does not say much about whether the World Bank should exist or not (see point 2) – what it does do is say something about whether a well-meaning person at the World Bank could bring about positive change.
2) Joe Stiglitz thinks the World Bank and the IMF embrace policies based on a discredited ideology and undermine the democratic process (and in fact, I’ve read both the article you cite and his book length treatment of the topic). Ken Rogoff argues that the IMF has erred in the past (and should continue to make changes in light of these errors), but continues to serve an important role moving forward.
To the extent that this is a question about whether the IMF should allow “time for broad consensus-building or even widespread consultations with either parliaments or civil society” in Stiglitz’s words, I agree that it should and presume Rogoff would as well (if not, I’d be curious to hear what he thinks since this seems obviously a good thing as presented).
Your position is that reading the history of the IMF shows that it is a pipe dream to think that any good could come from IMF policies. My response to this is:
a) I’m not an expert, a position for which you apparently think I am deserving of ridicule, but my political sympathies are closer to Stiglitz
b) This is in part a question of evaluating the impact that IMF policies have had in averting economic disaster. Reading the history of these countries following IMF intervention is not sufficient to answer the counterfactual question of what would have happened absent intervention.
c) Smart and thoughtful people with more expertise than you in evaluating that counterfactual – like Ken Rogoff – disagree that the IMFs impact has been entirely harmful
d) You show no evidence of understanding Rogoff’s argument and instead dismiss him out of hand (except to acknowledge that now that you actually listened to him talk for a few minutes on PBS, his opinion might not be worthless)
3) You write:
I agree that currently we overconsume scarce resources and that vested interests (such as corporations) prevent needed reform. I bet Larry Summers does too. A first point is that climate policy involves trade-offs. We need to try to evaluate the costs of climate change to get a sense of what should be given up. For example, which of the following (if any) would you support:
a) A law banning all locomotive vehicles including cars, buses and trains in the US
b) A law banning driving cars in the US and mandating only the use of public transportation
c) A law banning the use of all but the most fuel-efficient cars
d) A carbon tax
I would oppose a), b) and c) and support d). I think d) could serve the same purposes as c) but more efficiently (in the sense of achieving the same reduction in pollution at a lower cost).
Unless you support a), you acknowledge that there are costs and benefits to pollution – so the question is – how much pollution should be allowed and by whom? I agree that this question should ultimately be decided by democratic bodies and not by dictatorships. However, that’s not an answer to the substantive question of what law if any such a democratic body should pass in order to regulate emissions.
4) Given the points in 3), let me now return to Summers’ original comment. You write:
My points regarding this memo are:
a) Summers was completely agnostic as to who should have a say in making the actual decision of where to locate pollutants. You argue that because he worked for the World Bank, one can assume that he intended for this policy to be imposed on poor countries with only nominal consent if any. This is the argument we were having in 1) and 2). Obviously you think that any such proposal would simply lead to the exploitation of poor people. I disagree. But a separate question is whether – presuming such a proposal could be implemented by the parties in good faith (rather than one party exploiting another) – this proposal would lead to mutual gains. This is the question I explore in the points c)-d) below.
b) Summers’ original memo didn’t use the word “we”. My first defense of it used the word “we”, but you misinterpreted it to mean “the US or the World Bank without consulting anyone else”. I understand why you interpreted it this way since in your vision of the world, every discussion of any substantive issue is really just a discussion of points 1) and 2) above since every policy ends with the wealthy exploiting the poor for their personal gain. I disagree with this pessimistic conclusion but in any case, this is not what Summers or I were discussing. My use of “we” was the active voice equivalent of the passive voice statement “X should be done”. You might ask, “By whom?” That is a fair question to ask, but not the question Summers or I was addressing. If you want an answer, I would say: by a policy agreed to between the US government and local democratic organizations, leaving “time for broad consensus-building and widespread consultations with either parliaments or civil society”.
c) The question Summers and I were discussing was:
“Presuming such a proposal could be implemented by the parties in good faith (rather than one party exploiting another) – would this proposal lead to mutual gains?”
In other words, could it be designed in such a way that democratic bodies, negotiating from a position of equal power and fully and accurately informed about the consequences of alternative policies would decide to engage in a trade relocating pollutants in less-developed countries in exchange for other resources?
I think the answer is yes for the reasons Summers outlines. One example is that the costs of pollution are non-linear – so a quantity of pollution which would have no adverse health consequences in Sierra Leone might result in many deaths when piled on top of the already substantial pollution in Mexico City. As far as I can tell, you have yet to engage with Summers’ substantive remarks on this topic.
What I don’t see is how you can dismiss this question as unimportant. If Summers and I are right that this is a trade that democratic bodies would agree to, it seems there are two choices for a person working at the World Bank:
a) Propose this trade, try our best to allow “time for broad consensus-building or even widespread consultations with either parliaments or civil society”, and then either have the trade accepted or rejected by the countries in question
b) Don’t propose this trade, because history indicates that any such proposal will lead to exploitation. This also means that a good policy which would save human lives would fail to be implemented.
Position b) doesn’t seem crazy to me – but it is also far from obvious, and it has a cost in human welfare which you completely fail to acknowledge. To say that Summers and I lack basic human decency for preferring a) is just ignorant.
@SC,
One quick clarification, I realized that the sentence “If Summers and I are right that this is a trade that democratic bodies would agree to…” takes a stronger position than I have taken so far or meant to take. As I’ve noted on this thread, it could easily be that the factors mentioned in the memo are trumped by other factors (such as pollutants having a more severe impact in less-developed countries due to inadequate healthcare).
My own position on the contents of the memo (as reproduced here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summers_memo are):
1) Foregone wages are one factor in assessing the costs of morbidity, but irrelevant to the costs from mortality – the same number should be used for the costs of mortality across countries
2) The non-linearity point is theoretically persuasive, but I have no idea whether in practice the impact of pollutants on health is convex in the amount of pollutant
3) The point about pollutants causing diseases in old-age is potentially persuasive as well.
“Persuasive” just means “has prima facie” weight – not that it is decisive in making this good policy. It also definitely does not mean: “this would be a good policy to impose on poor countries without their consent.” It means, locating pollution in country A rather than country B will kill fewer people, so there should be gains from trade from locating it in country A and having B compensate A accordingly if all the parties act in good faith (I am aware that you dispute the possibility that the parties would realistically act in good faith).
@SC,
Checking back, I realized Summers did use the word “We” in his memo (I searched through it a little too quickly the first time), and as far as I can tell he was referring to the World Bank, which is different from my usage. The sentence in question is:
I feel kind of silly defending this sentence since it’s obviously written to provoke by stating the matter in the most blunt terms possible rather than to persuade (which certainly is a political error for a figure in a position of power even if he intended the memo to remain private). It’s also odd because the statement is far too strong given the preliminary thoughts presented (I’m sure Summers would know this as well, which gives some credence to the idea that it is somehow out of context or sarcastic, although it’s also possible Summers just signed off without reading it too carefully).
But the question we’re debating is not whether this was politically wise, but whether it was a morally bankrupt or indecent thing to say. If you interpret, “We should face up to that” to mean, “The US should dump toxic waste on poor countries without their consent”, I can see why you would find this objectionable. If you interpret it to mean, “The World Bank should advocate for a policy which locates pollutants in poor countries in exchange for compensation” it is not prima facie objectionable (although it might be wrong on the merits). As I stated multiple times above, I understand your position is that “The World Bank should advocate for a policy” is practically indistinguishable from “The US should blackmail poor countries into doing X”.
It’s important to be clear that your objection is not an objection to Summers memo per se, but an objection to anyone working at the World Bank proposing any policy which would have a substantial impact. In other words, if this is your only objection, Summers is no more inhumane than Rogoff, Stanley Fischer, Nick Stern, or anyone else who has held a position of authority in the World Bank or IMF. I think this position is too strong, for reasons I’ve enumerated in 1) and 2) above which we can explore more fully.
To object to Summers memo in particular beyond this general point about the World Bank, you would have to engage with his reasoning and show why it was wrong and inhumane; you have not done this.