Sandwichman wrote:
> Our current paradigm has exhausted itself.
I'm trying for a better way to describe the thing that phrase is meant
to describe.
> I blame Pigou's Economics of Welfare for enshrining the myth that
> externalities ("uncharged incidental disservices") were the typical
> form of market failure.
Your post to FW is the only Google hit on the phrase, "uncharged
incidental disservices". And Wikipedia's article on Pigou [1] reads
as if it has had pieces carelessly edited out.
I'm inclined to think that "our current paradigm" has been subverted
by "gaming the system". Not that such a thing hasn't existed forever
or at least for centuries. But the international system -- trade,
finance, politics, "projecting national power" etc. taken together --
now operates predominantly through giant bureaucracies that employ
large numbers of people (and computers) to analyze the system itself.
Face to face relationships and personal trust are still important at
high levels of power -- witness, e.g., Bilderberg and interlocking
directorships inter alia -- but nothing like the extent that it was so
a century or so ago.
If you look for instances, it's apparent that gaming the system is so
commonplace that we hardly notice it as deviance.
Today on Slash/Dot:
According to a new survey of college admissions directors by
Inside Higher Ed, the admissions strategy judged most important is
the recruitment of more out-of-state and international students,
who can pay significantly more at public institutions. Ten percent
of those surveyed also reported admitting full-pay students with
lower grades and test scores than other admitted applicants, and a
majority of schools either use or plan to use controversial
commission-paid agents to recruit foreign students
(commission-based recruitment is barred in the U.S.). 'This isn't
about globalization or increased educational diversity,' asserts
USC's Jerome A. Lucido. 'They need the money.' So, should
employees of a public university where the President's annual
compensation exceeds $1 million receive a full state-funded
pension for educating 16,000+ out-of-state students?"
http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/09/23/1343214/your-state-university-doesnt-want-you
(Where there are numerous links to relevant articles as well as
some interesting user comments.
The state university system, originating with a notion of serving the
public welfare, has now become an industry, a highly bureaucratized
system in its own right and a player in the arenas of other similarly
bureaucratized systems -- state and federal politics, state finance,
international academic publishing, organized fund-raising etc.
If you google for the phrase "gaming the system", two entries turn up
on Wikipedia: one defining the concept and another explaining at
length how gaming the Wikipedia system itself is harmful, known
methods for doing it and strong words about not doing it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Gaming_the_system
This is an enlightening read. "Don't dick around. Don't be a weasel.
Play it straight."
What would it take to implement a document like this for congress or
parliament? For stock exchanges and other financial agoras? For (to
return to the original subject line) departments of economics?
Okay, weasels we've always had with us. My (admittedly somewhat
blue-sky) notion here is that the developments in communications, IT,
management systems, organizational methods and (probably) elements I
haven't thought of have. so to speak, created handles (or weasel-holes
of ingress?) for manipulating the system for gain.
At this point, I think it may be commonplace to introduce some system,
product or service that is putatively a good thing for the user or
buyer but is structured beforehand explicitly to create an opportunity
for later manipulation. It's not a new idea but I surmise that
developments in technology and organization since WW II -- moreso
since circa 1980 -- have made a pragmatic methodology of what was
formerly at best a risky strategy.
- Mike
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
[email protected] /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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