Michael, as usual, your musings are deep and wide at the same time, but occasionally I see bits and pieces of what appear to me to be misconceptions, or perhaps merely misstatements or misunderstandings - please see below.
(Apologies to the reader, I frankly believe the old Usenet conventions - plain text, nested & quoted content, and minimal top-posting was vastly superior to present day hodge-podge of html "enhanced" user experience, but as with many vastly superior innovations in information technology, they are soon superseded by "new and improved" product for sale by hungry young IT workers in far distant lands on upper-management inspired accelerated-obsolescence product life cycles. Or maybe I'm just becoming an old coot who can't keep up with the fashion of the day). ----- Original Message ----- From: Michael Tobis Newsgroups: gmane.science.general.global-change To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2007 9:51 PM Subject: [Global Change: 1296] Re: Economists recommend fossil fuel tax Don, thanks for the bait. I'll nibble at it a bit again. <snip> My skepticism about economics runs deep. For now let me point to this announcement of a talk I received recently: ===> Prof. Michael Berry, Physics Department, Bristol University /Emergence and Asymptotics in Physics: How One Theory Can Live inside Another/ In physics, each deeper level of description (e.g., quantum mechanics) "reduces" to a less general level (e.g., Newtonian mechanics) in the asymptotic limit when a characteristic parameter (e.g., Planck's constant) is negligibly small. Such limits are usually singular; hence, the different levels can involve very different concepts ("incommensurability") and lead to predictions of qualitatively new phenomena inhabiting the borderlands between theories. ... <=== I think the claims made by Prof. Barry will appear meaningless to economists, whereas most physical scientists will follow along with him. The point is that economists do not typically recognize regimes of applicability of any of their theories which leads them to an absurd tendency to absolutism. [dl] Michael, how do you square this with the Macroeconomics/Microeconomics distinction in the course catalogue of every modern university, with the possible exception of Evergreen in Washington and Reed in Oregon? (In fact their theories are quite fuzzy because their object of study ultimately is human behavior, which has vast and mysterious confounds, but let's leave that aside for the moment.) [dl] Reminds me of a remark by an Econ 101 lecturer when I stood up and asked "why don't economists study needs instead of wants?" Reply (paraphrase: "Some questions are best left for Psychologists - for example, why do you wear a t-shirt with a dragon emblazoned on it, while I wear a white shirt and tie?") I guess it was meant as a professorial way of saying "sit down and listen", but my point is that economics is not the only science of human behavior. We Sociologists have a thing or two to say about the place of Economics in the grander scheme of things as well, although there is no executive branch "Council of Sociological Advisors". On the other hand, NEPA (signed into law by Nixon) did create a Whitehouse Council on Environmental Quality (in counterpoint to the Council of Economic Advisors established in 1946). Once you are beyond the ten-year horizon and approaching the hundred-year time scale these ideas that seem so clever in the short run seem to turn into blithering idiocy in the long run. The basic ideas, that wealth can be increased without limit forever, should be increased without limit forever, and can be defined in terms of what people trade with each other, seem to be generally accepted. [dl] You can probably find many people, and perhaps some economists, who believe the "forever" business, but most that I am aware of who have taken a serious look at the critical literature written by persons of the environmentalist persuasion will readily admit your point that economic planning beyond a 10 year horizon is folly. If you are inclined to the scholarly approach to learning about the world around you and how it came to be, you cannot spend much time in a library on subjects that involve 100-year time-scales of human economic activity before encountering many books containing the term "political-economy" in the title. For example, google "political economy of oil book". The point, again drawing from Econ 101 lecture: "Some questions are best left for..." other social sciences, some of which (e.g. Political Science) are more social than science, but never-the-less exceed the scope of Economics proper. I think corporations and entrepreneurs need to be given appropriate incentives to achieve social goals, though. In my opinion the corporations are and should be amoral. Thet need to be guided and constrained by government, and in the case of CO2 they are even beginning to understand this. [dl] By Jove, I think you've got it: Economics does not live in a vacuum - it is steered by politically negotiated goals, guidance and regulation. I think perpetual "growth" in the economy should not even be among the goals of governance, never mind the primary one. [dl] The argument that "growth is good" is underpinned by the common observation that most people think they would be better off if they had a little bit more of... [fill in blank], so it seems to be a perpetual goal of politicians (who hold sway over the political economy of resource x, y, and z) to increase the amount of [fill in blank]; our motto - "give the people what they want!" But a student of history will note the curious tendency for the desired x, y, z, to subtly shift over time - what it means to be "wealthy" and "better-off" is not an absolute (as I think you may have asserted is the common conception among the conventional wisdom of mainstream-economically indoctrinated crowd), but is relative. Drawing again on your fondness for physics, the Frame of Reference in economic discussions of value and growth in value is not stationary over time. There have been attempts to ground economic theory in long-term stable "human needs" (I believe Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen heavily influenced by this school), but again, when a human life spans roughly 100 years max, even concepts of what is essential for life, let alone "the good life" are variable within generations - so intergenerational economics is beyond the realm of experientially grounded reason, and largely a matter of faith. It would be funny if there weren't so much at stake. Unfortunately it's not a very funny joke. The consequence of taking this idea of perpetual "growth" seriously seems to be increasing stress, insecurity, injustice, strife, waste, cultural decline and irreversible environmental damage. In a world of plenty which could manage so much better if the core assumptions shifted a bit, I hope you will forgive me if I'm not impressed by all the "growth". [dl] Please refrain from taking this idea that "main-stream economists believe in perpetual "growth"' too seriously - it seldom is among serious social scientists, though it is a favorite straw-man in the counter-cultural environmentalist critique. For example, please see economic demographer Paul Demeny's review of the late Garrett Hardin's _The Ostrich Factor. Our Population Myopia._ (Nature, Volume 401, Issue 6753, pp. 528-529 (1999).) Thanks, -dl --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
