Originally to Ottawa Dissenters, but may be of broader interest. Ed
----- Original Message ----- From: Ed Weick To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: David Delaney Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 4:04 PM Subject: Not all economists are tools of the system I've recently heard comments about work done by economists. The basic thrust of these comments is that economists do little more than rationalize and support what the market system, already in a state of overshoot, is doing by continuing to grow. Yes indeed many economists do that and thus help promote the notion that growth is good and can continue forever. However, not all economists fall into line and do that. I've recently been reviewing a diary I've now kept for some thirty years and have found reviews I wrote on things I read. Ivan Illich is an economist who, instead of supporting the growth of the market economy, tried very hard to understand how it conflicted with and tended to eradicate possible alternatives to it. Here is my 1985 review of one of Illich's essays. Ed -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- July 30, 1985 I’ve just read, "Shadow Work" by Ivan Illich (Marion Boyars. Boston. London, 1981). This is a series of essays. I had not read Illich before and was impressed with power of his ideas. The first essay, "Three Dimensions of Public Choice" introduces concepts which are central to Illich’s thinking, namely the "shadow" economy and the "vernacular" or "subsistence" economy. Both the market economy and the shadow economy serve the industrial system, but the product of the shadow economy does not enter the market, is not paid for and does not appear in conventional measures of output such as GNP. Examples are the housewife whose economic role is, in effect, that of an unpaid servant to her industrial worker husband, and volunteer workers who provide help to people who have fallen out of the industrial economy. The vernacular or subsistence economy is an alternative economy which follows a different, non-growth oriented mode of production from that of the industrial economy. It should not be identified only with remnants of cultures which pursue a subsistence way of life, although these would certainly be a part of it. Illich seems to be trying to establish the legitimacy of a genuine, modern alternative to the industrial economy, perhaps like the communal system Mao Tse Tung tried to establish in China after the revolution (and which he tried to re-establish with the ill-fated Cultural Revolution). Illich argues that along with choices about the political form people want their society to take (democratic, authoritarian. etc. which is not typically something that people have much choice in), and the production function they wish to employ (hard vs. soft), they can also choose whether they want to remain in the "having" consumption oriented industrial economy or opt for a "doing" production oriented subsistence economy. Such choices do not imply the independence which Illich suggests. The choice of a subsistence mode would seem to imply also the choice of soft technology and an open, relatively unstructured political system. As well, a highly industrialized consumer society does not really imply a choice people deliberately or consciously make, but the erosion, destruction and foreclosure of alternatives. It implies a high level of organization, bureaucratization and the centralization of power, which the bulk of the population would find difficult to counter even if it wanted to. Thus, in a society such as the US or Canada. you can see some people able to effectively implement a subsistence mode of production using soft technology, but certainly not the vast majority of people, who are too firmly enmeshed in the consumer system as is. Illich argues that the modern variant of the subsistence economy is a reaction to the consumerism and mass processes of the industrial economy. A characteristic of the industrial economy is its tendency to overwhelm and destroy the subsistence form, which it has been doing in western civilization since medieval times. He believes that this destructive process is rooted in the ancient tendency of western culture to view non-western cultures as "being wanting" -- as having needs only western cultures can fulfill. The missionary has tended to see other cultures as in need of civilization, the educator as in need of letters, the merchant as in need of trade goods, the agriculturalist as in need of farm plots, and the industrialist as in need of employment. Because non-western cultures are perceived to have these needs, there is a burden to be taken up -- i.e... "the Whiteman’s burden". Taking up this burden requires the development of appropriate institutional forms (for example, a market for western trade goods) where none existed before. The resultant institutions become, to use Hugh Brody’s term "totally intrusive" into the host society. Most often they complement each other even if that is not the primary intent. For example, the church teaches industrially useful values about work, the education system industrially useful perceptions of life, the factories, supermarkets and offices provides the work places and social constructs in which those values and teachings can be realized. (To be taught to work and think in English not only opens a whole world to an individual whose mother tongue is not English, but opens that individual to all of the influences emanating from the English speaking world.) Illich argues against the inclusion of the subsistence economy in measures like GNP. The subsistence economy is an alternative to the industrial economy, and in no way intends to contribute to it. It is the individual or the community asserting his or their independence from the industrialized state, and his or their desire to be excluded. Shadow prices based on pricing systems operative in the industrial economy cannot therefore legitimately be applied to subsistence pursuits, even though this would be enormously bothersome to the bureaucrat concerned with social measurement. On the other hand it is completely legitimate to assign shadow prices to shadow work which by its nature supports the industrial economy, such as that done by the industrial worker’s housewife.
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