Wednesday, January 07, 2009
PS on the simple life
After yesterday’s post on simple living I was reminded by a television advert that there is a long history of popular culture lauding the simple life. Evidently the Little House on the Prairie, a 1974-1983 television series depicting a family in a village in the American Midwest in the late nineteenth century, is now available on DVD. It is based on books which were first published in America in the midst of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Other television programmes on a similar theme include the Waltons (1972-1981), on a family facing rural hardship in Virginia in the 1930s, and the Good Life (1975-78 – called Good Neighbours in America), a comedy on a couple who decide to opt out of the “rat race” in suburban Britain.
Labels: book, ethics, television
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Thoreauly simple
Mother Jones, a radical American publication, has an article by Michael Agger discussing several books on self-sacrifice in its November / December issue.
It starts by discussing Henry David Thoreau and his book Walden. For those not versed in American culture Thoreau was, among other things, a nineteenth century advocate of simple living.
The article then moves on to the present day with a discussion of Colin Beaven:
“The most notorious neo-Thoreauvian might be Colin Beavan, a 45-year-old New Yorker better known as No Impact Man, and even better known as The Man Who Doesn't Let His Wife Use Toilet Paper. That last detail was the highlight of a 2007 New York Times profile of Beavan, which portrayed how he, his wife, and their two-year-old daughter were attempting to live in downtown Manhattan with zero "net impact" on the environment. This goal involves eating only organic food grown within a 250-mile radius, composting inside their small apartment, forgoing paper, carbon-based transportation, dishwashers, TV, and adhering to whatever new austerities Beavan dreams up.
“Naturally, Beavan is hoping his no impact experiment has maximum impact. Like Thoreau, who, after all, was living on Emerson's land, Beavan is well connected. He has a book contract. His wife's friend has made him the subject of her documentary film, and he has a website, where people praise his boldness and question his motives.”
He almost makes Ethan Greenhart, spiked’s spoof environmental columnist, seem sane in comparison.
The article then goes on to discuss the following books:
* Judith Levine, Not Buying It
* Mary Carlomagno, Give It Up!: My Year of Learning to Live Better With Less
* Sara Bongiorni, A Year Without "Made in China": One Family's True Life Adventure in the Global Economy
* Alisa Smith and JB MacKinnon Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally
In conclusion Agger argues that: “The ultimate lesson of the new Thoreauvians seems to be that change is rarely drastic. We must strive for continuous, daily, incremental improvement toward whatever social, environmental, and economic goals we deem important.”
It starts by discussing Henry David Thoreau and his book Walden. For those not versed in American culture Thoreau was, among other things, a nineteenth century advocate of simple living.
The article then moves on to the present day with a discussion of Colin Beaven:
“The most notorious neo-Thoreauvian might be Colin Beavan, a 45-year-old New Yorker better known as No Impact Man, and even better known as The Man Who Doesn't Let His Wife Use Toilet Paper. That last detail was the highlight of a 2007 New York Times profile of Beavan, which portrayed how he, his wife, and their two-year-old daughter were attempting to live in downtown Manhattan with zero "net impact" on the environment. This goal involves eating only organic food grown within a 250-mile radius, composting inside their small apartment, forgoing paper, carbon-based transportation, dishwashers, TV, and adhering to whatever new austerities Beavan dreams up.
“Naturally, Beavan is hoping his no impact experiment has maximum impact. Like Thoreau, who, after all, was living on Emerson's land, Beavan is well connected. He has a book contract. His wife's friend has made him the subject of her documentary film, and he has a website, where people praise his boldness and question his motives.”
He almost makes Ethan Greenhart, spiked’s spoof environmental columnist, seem sane in comparison.
The article then goes on to discuss the following books:
* Judith Levine, Not Buying It
* Mary Carlomagno, Give It Up!: My Year of Learning to Live Better With Less
* Sara Bongiorni, A Year Without "Made in China": One Family's True Life Adventure in the Global Economy
* Alisa Smith and JB MacKinnon Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally
In conclusion Agger argues that: “The ultimate lesson of the new Thoreauvians seems to be that change is rarely drastic. We must strive for continuous, daily, incremental improvement toward whatever social, environmental, and economic goals we deem important.”
Labels: America, book, consumption, ethics, spiked
The aim of this site
This is a temporary version of my site. After I finish writing my book, by late 2009, I hope to develop a fully-fledged website. In the meantime this site brings together my writing and other resources on "growth scepticism": the tendency to call the benefits of mass affluence into question.
Friday, January 02, 2009
A narrow vision of development economics
A survey by the Economist of the “international bright young things” of economics, based on canvassing leading authorities in the field, shows how narrow the study of development has become. It seems that the leading young thinkers are focusing on relatively narrow micro questions rather than the big picture:
“Esther Duflo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) received more recommendations than any other economist. Some who didn’t nominate her thought she was too established to count as “new”.
“With her colleague, Abhijit Banerjee, Ms Duflo and Mr Kremer have remade development economics, nudging it away from its concern with policies, towards a preoccupation with projects. They study economic development as seen from the field, clinic or school, rather than the finance ministry. They might be called the “peace corps” of economists, bringing the blessing of their investigative technique to the neglected villages of India or the denuded farms of western Kenya.
“Ms Duflo has made her name carrying out randomised trials of development projects, such as fertiliser subsidies and school recruitment. In these trials, people are randomly assigned to a “treatment” group, which benefits from the project, and a “control” group, which does not. By comparing the average outcome of each group, she can establish whether the project worked and precisely how well.
“In one study, Ms Duflo and her colleagues showed that mothers in the Indian state of Rajasthan are three times as likely to have their children vaccinated if they are rewarded with a kilogram of daal (lentils) at the immunisation camp. The result is useful to aid workers, but puzzling to economists: why should such a modest incentive (worth less than 50 cents) make such a big difference? Immunisation can save a child’s life; a bag of lentils should not sway the mother’s decision either way.”
Academic economics is evidently narrow and technocratic rather than asking the big political questions about inequality and slow development.
“Esther Duflo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) received more recommendations than any other economist. Some who didn’t nominate her thought she was too established to count as “new”.
“With her colleague, Abhijit Banerjee, Ms Duflo and Mr Kremer have remade development economics, nudging it away from its concern with policies, towards a preoccupation with projects. They study economic development as seen from the field, clinic or school, rather than the finance ministry. They might be called the “peace corps” of economists, bringing the blessing of their investigative technique to the neglected villages of India or the denuded farms of western Kenya.
“Ms Duflo has made her name carrying out randomised trials of development projects, such as fertiliser subsidies and school recruitment. In these trials, people are randomly assigned to a “treatment” group, which benefits from the project, and a “control” group, which does not. By comparing the average outcome of each group, she can establish whether the project worked and precisely how well.
“In one study, Ms Duflo and her colleagues showed that mothers in the Indian state of Rajasthan are three times as likely to have their children vaccinated if they are rewarded with a kilogram of daal (lentils) at the immunisation camp. The result is useful to aid workers, but puzzling to economists: why should such a modest incentive (worth less than 50 cents) make such a big difference? Immunisation can save a child’s life; a bag of lentils should not sway the mother’s decision either way.”
Academic economics is evidently narrow and technocratic rather than asking the big political questions about inequality and slow development.
Labels: development, economics
Phoney ambition 2009
Andrew Simms, the policy director of the New Economics Foundation (NEF), provides a typical example of environmentalism’s phoney ambition in his New Year’s Day comment piece for Britain’s Guardian newspaper. In response to what he calls “climate upheaval” he urges readers to: “squeeze those eyes open to 2009, and history tells us great things are possible. We are still in control. We just need to build, rapidly, new energy and transport systems and change our behaviour.”
Simms is certainly right when he points to the great achievements of the Victorian engineers of the mid-nineteenth century. But their goal was to build huge amounts of railway track to enhance mobility. In contrast, he says in his article he wants to “get people out of their cars”. Although Simms says he supports cleaner transport as an alternative it is hard to avoid the conclusion that he is anti-mobility, or at least would like to see it restricted, given his opposition to cars along with the NEF’s emphasis on local communities. A similarly narrow attitude is apparent in the emphasis on renewable energy when more high technology sources are needed to provide the world with the energy it needs.
Simms is certainly right when he points to the great achievements of the Victorian engineers of the mid-nineteenth century. But their goal was to build huge amounts of railway track to enhance mobility. In contrast, he says in his article he wants to “get people out of their cars”. Although Simms says he supports cleaner transport as an alternative it is hard to avoid the conclusion that he is anti-mobility, or at least would like to see it restricted, given his opposition to cars along with the NEF’s emphasis on local communities. A similarly narrow attitude is apparent in the emphasis on renewable energy when more high technology sources are needed to provide the world with the energy it needs.
Labels: climate, economics, energy, environment, transport
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Guides to China 2008
The China Digital Times, an excellent portal source for information on contemporary Chinese society, has produced a useful series of guides to China in 2008. Topics include China and the developing world, the environmental crisis, the global financial crisis and China’s domestic market. Links to each review are provided in the latest topic guide: on the contentious subject of food and product safety.
Labels: china, development, economics, environment, food
A defensive defence of capitalism 2008
A review of the Economist’s economic coverage of 2008 reminds its blog readers that the magazine often took a pessimistic stance even before the worst of the crisis broke. It also provides a useful reminder of one of its key articles of the year. In October it published a markedly defensive defence of capitalism. After setting itself up as “on the side of economic liberty” it went on to argue that:
“In the short term defending capitalism means, paradoxically, state intervention. There is a justifiable sense of outrage among voters and business people (and indeed economic liberals) that $2.5 trillion of taxpayers' money now has to be spent on a highly rewarded industry. But the global bail-out is pragmatic, not ideological. When François Mitterrand nationalised France’s banks in 1981 he did so because he thought the state would run them better. This time governments are buying banks (or shares in them) because they believe, rightly, that public capital is needed to keep credit flowing.”
It goes on to argue that Walter Bagehot, one of the early editor’s of the Economist, supported state intervention to prevent bank runs from damaging the real economy. The article concludes with the lines:
“Capitalism is at bay, but those who believe in it must fight for it. For all its flaws, it is the best economic system man has invented yet.”
It is true that the recent massive state intervention to bail out the financial system is pragmatic rather than ideological. Nevertheless it shows that the notion of a vibrant free market is a myth.
“In the short term defending capitalism means, paradoxically, state intervention. There is a justifiable sense of outrage among voters and business people (and indeed economic liberals) that $2.5 trillion of taxpayers' money now has to be spent on a highly rewarded industry. But the global bail-out is pragmatic, not ideological. When François Mitterrand nationalised France’s banks in 1981 he did so because he thought the state would run them better. This time governments are buying banks (or shares in them) because they believe, rightly, that public capital is needed to keep credit flowing.”
It goes on to argue that Walter Bagehot, one of the early editor’s of the Economist, supported state intervention to prevent bank runs from damaging the real economy. The article concludes with the lines:
“Capitalism is at bay, but those who believe in it must fight for it. For all its flaws, it is the best economic system man has invented yet.”
It is true that the recent massive state intervention to bail out the financial system is pragmatic rather than ideological. Nevertheless it shows that the notion of a vibrant free market is a myth.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Celebrity misconceptions on science
Sense about Science, a British science education charity, has produced its third annual Celebrities and Science review (PDF). Not only is it amusing but it is also informative about common misconceptions on scientific topics.
Labels: celebrities, science
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Merry Christmas
I wish all my readers a Merry Christmas as well as a happy and prosperous new year.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Uplifting mortality statistics
Indur Goklany has written a cheery article for the Cato Institute on death from extreme weather events in America. Despite the grim nature of the subject the ultimate conclusion is uplifting:
* Extreme cold is responsible for about half the deaths from weather-related events - about twice as many as extreme heat.
* Extreme weather accounts for a tiny proportion of the annual American death toll.
* The trend over time is for extreme weather to be responsible for an ever smaller proportion of deaths. That is despite any tendency towards global warming.
The more humanity advances economically the less vulnerable it becomes to extreme weather.
* Extreme cold is responsible for about half the deaths from weather-related events - about twice as many as extreme heat.
* Extreme weather accounts for a tiny proportion of the annual American death toll.
* The trend over time is for extreme weather to be responsible for an ever smaller proportion of deaths. That is despite any tendency towards global warming.
The more humanity advances economically the less vulnerable it becomes to extreme weather.
Labels: climate, development, progress, technology
