This is a book that seeks to unmask neoclassical economics as an imposter: the study of the allocation of scarce resources is uprooted by the Skidelskys--in their manifesto to switch out scarcity for abundance. (It's a perception thing, don't you know). At the same time, modern liberalism is somewhat trashed too. The essence of the attack on both disciplines is that of public neutrality--neutrality between different concepts of right and good (ethics) and want and need (economics). It is to the authors' credit that they proceed to do this without antagonising this reviewer--who holds such ideas of impartiality quite dear to her heart. That's because much of the text is very interesting, gorgeously written, and their approach is novel.
Skidelsky and Skidelsky would disagree with your reviewer about novelty though. Their thesis is that "the good life"--supposedly objectively worthwhile living whose purpose is its own end--has been recently airbrushed out of the public square where it had previously resided since Socrates. And this is somewhat tragic because, give or take, most rich countries have finally arrived at the aggregate level of income/output that Keynes dreamed of in 1928 when looking forward to 3 hour work days and an abundance of leisure (TV, facebook and video games don't count in the latter by the way; reading does)
Why didn't this easing up on toil happen? Several reasons. For the workaholic rich, declining marginal utility of income is countered by the rising cost of an hour off. For the less rich, competitive pressure to consume fritters away the gains. And those at the bottom are segregated into workless poverty by the greater economic efficiency of hiring fewer people to do more work. So the labour force consists of people who work more than they want (and have little good life), and those that work way less (and can't afford any).
Such is the rationale offered by those that cast inequalities as the root of most evil. But, refreshingly perhaps, the authors don't portray this as manipulative unfairness, more as mass, rational defection within a grand "prisoner's dilemma" game whereby everybody gets a suboptimal, but selected outcome.
It is less than half the story though. Insatiability, or never having sufficient to stop aquiring, is perpetuated by a kind of design-flaw that is positional goods (ones that only a minority can have, else they cease to be). Advertising is insidious and social-welfare-reducing in respect of such luxuries. The result is a Faustian bargain, where public well-being has ceased to be a goal, but an alleged mechanical outcome of manual invisibility, and where economic growth is a "felix culpa" (happy sin)--hateful and unjust as per Marx, but an instrument of liberation, for some at least. Wealth beyond measure (the authors' superlative), but with its chief benefit cruelly stolen away ("having enough").
In another poetic statement, the exchange value of stuff, which money is the unlocking key, creates a metaphysical scandal (that deeply troubled Aristotle among others). It violates the qualitative uniqueness of things--such as that of a pig, and that of a bed--and it mutates ends (pigs and beds) into means (currency). The climax of this transgression is usury; money giving birth to money in what is portrayed as a Frankensteinian abhorrence.
The authors' model is more dietary. We should school ourselves to stop accumulating when we have enough. And then we should--basically--distribute it. Not so much in cash, more in "basic goods". These differ from John Rawls' primary goods (they are not commodities) and from Amartya Sen's capabilities (neither are they means). Rather, they are ends in themselves: health, security, respect, personhood, harmony, friendship and leisure. Your reviewer regrets she can not detail these within a short summary. They are all telos-like in nature. The authors admit that distributing these is kind of difficult, and rather paternalistic ("non-coercively" is their out, to the extent they desire one).
The thrust of the book repeatedly cycles back to the argument that pursuing growth is senseless (and not that it produces harm, for if that was the rationale they could--they fear--be disproved). Several points are missed in their analysis. The most glaring to this reviewer is the absence of acknowledgement of the approximate complete absence of any positive-sum aggregate economic growth, through pretty much all the centuries during which social arrangements were busy not being obsessed with it (If it isn't there it is rather hard for it to dominate anything much). The second was no consideration of whether an engineered benign "stop" in growth was possible (Skidelsky and Skidelsky would bring it about by initiating manifold disincentives to neuter "avarice" and "greed"), nor whether such a halt might actually feel more like a non-trivial contraction. On top of this the issue of the world's several billion dirt-poor is barely touched, and bizarrely, apparently catered for by reversing the developing world's integration with the rest of it. Hmmm.
Nonetheless this reviewer appreciated much wisdom in here. Including a withering debunking of happiness economics that she has longed to read but had not found anyone had written, and a cogent critique of environmental justifications for austerity which she would not have expected from this source. And the authors' turn-of-phrase is exquisite; she has already dripped many classy quotations into this review. One more--a liberal vision permits infinite visions of the good life, but it is hospitable to none of them.
Skidelsky and Skidelsky would disagree with your reviewer about novelty though. Their thesis is that "the good life"--supposedly objectively worthwhile living whose purpose is its own end--has been recently airbrushed out of the public square where it had previously resided since Socrates. And this is somewhat tragic because, give or take, most rich countries have finally arrived at the aggregate level of income/output that Keynes dreamed of in 1928 when looking forward to 3 hour work days and an abundance of leisure (TV, facebook and video games don't count in the latter by the way; reading does)
Why didn't this easing up on toil happen? Several reasons. For the workaholic rich, declining marginal utility of income is countered by the rising cost of an hour off. For the less rich, competitive pressure to consume fritters away the gains. And those at the bottom are segregated into workless poverty by the greater economic efficiency of hiring fewer people to do more work. So the labour force consists of people who work more than they want (and have little good life), and those that work way less (and can't afford any).
Such is the rationale offered by those that cast inequalities as the root of most evil. But, refreshingly perhaps, the authors don't portray this as manipulative unfairness, more as mass, rational defection within a grand "prisoner's dilemma" game whereby everybody gets a suboptimal, but selected outcome.
It is less than half the story though. Insatiability, or never having sufficient to stop aquiring, is perpetuated by a kind of design-flaw that is positional goods (ones that only a minority can have, else they cease to be). Advertising is insidious and social-welfare-reducing in respect of such luxuries. The result is a Faustian bargain, where public well-being has ceased to be a goal, but an alleged mechanical outcome of manual invisibility, and where economic growth is a "felix culpa" (happy sin)--hateful and unjust as per Marx, but an instrument of liberation, for some at least. Wealth beyond measure (the authors' superlative), but with its chief benefit cruelly stolen away ("having enough").
In another poetic statement, the exchange value of stuff, which money is the unlocking key, creates a metaphysical scandal (that deeply troubled Aristotle among others). It violates the qualitative uniqueness of things--such as that of a pig, and that of a bed--and it mutates ends (pigs and beds) into means (currency). The climax of this transgression is usury; money giving birth to money in what is portrayed as a Frankensteinian abhorrence.
The authors' model is more dietary. We should school ourselves to stop accumulating when we have enough. And then we should--basically--distribute it. Not so much in cash, more in "basic goods". These differ from John Rawls' primary goods (they are not commodities) and from Amartya Sen's capabilities (neither are they means). Rather, they are ends in themselves: health, security, respect, personhood, harmony, friendship and leisure. Your reviewer regrets she can not detail these within a short summary. They are all telos-like in nature. The authors admit that distributing these is kind of difficult, and rather paternalistic ("non-coercively" is their out, to the extent they desire one).
The thrust of the book repeatedly cycles back to the argument that pursuing growth is senseless (and not that it produces harm, for if that was the rationale they could--they fear--be disproved). Several points are missed in their analysis. The most glaring to this reviewer is the absence of acknowledgement of the approximate complete absence of any positive-sum aggregate economic growth, through pretty much all the centuries during which social arrangements were busy not being obsessed with it (If it isn't there it is rather hard for it to dominate anything much). The second was no consideration of whether an engineered benign "stop" in growth was possible (Skidelsky and Skidelsky would bring it about by initiating manifold disincentives to neuter "avarice" and "greed"), nor whether such a halt might actually feel more like a non-trivial contraction. On top of this the issue of the world's several billion dirt-poor is barely touched, and bizarrely, apparently catered for by reversing the developing world's integration with the rest of it. Hmmm.
Nonetheless this reviewer appreciated much wisdom in here. Including a withering debunking of happiness economics that she has longed to read but had not found anyone had written, and a cogent critique of environmental justifications for austerity which she would not have expected from this source. And the authors' turn-of-phrase is exquisite; she has already dripped many classy quotations into this review. One more--a liberal vision permits infinite visions of the good life, but it is hospitable to none of them.
via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/1zMbgyK
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