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May 16, 2007
Econ-Speak
Preach it, Brother Atrios. Something has happened to the public discourse in this country that has left us unable to talk about anything save in terms of quantifiable GDP benefits. If you want to sell more vacation time, better do it on grounds of productivity -- even though the actual reason is that it would be nice if people could take vacations. Want to sell environmentalism? Better do it based on the possible job creation benefits of green energy. Health care? Administrative efficiencies. High wages? Lower turnover. Flex time? Productivity, again.
There's no conversation over the optimal type of society, or public goods, or the benefits of leisure. You see this in our odd discussions over the French system, in which the French are inexplicably hamstringing their own economy, possibly in order to annoy us. You see this in the Right's schizophrenic approach to family values, where they know perfectly well that kids are shortchanged because businesses don't have to offer paid maternity leave, paid time off, flex-time, serious vacations, or a thousand other things that advantage the family, but they can't bring themselves to advocate for anything that would make a difference, because it's so damned difficult to advocate for anything that doesn't clearly increase GDP.
This isn't, incidentally, the fault of any individual economists; it's more the outsized respect we accord the profession, our cultural subservience to whatever we've been convinced the economy wants (more tax cuts!), and the capture of economic rhetoric and argument by right wingers. That, I think, is the elephant in the room here: It's not that the TV is filled with academic economists spouting off myopic platitudes. It's filled with business types and corporate flacks and industry shills who are very, very skilled at spinning basic economic concepts and perceived societal wisdom (government is inefficient!) to set the terms of the debate.
May 16, 2007 in Economics | Permalink
Comments
Ezra, we luv ya when you rant (lol). And its good rant!
It's filled with business types and corporate flacks and industry shills who are very, very skilled at spinning basic economic concepts and perceived societal wisdom (government is inefficient!) to set the terms of the debate.
Can I add politicians and political strategists to the list of spinners of economic 'truth'?
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | May 16, 2007 11:58:20 AM
Posts like this are why I like Ezra so much.
Posted by: moo-cow | May 16, 2007 12:00:01 PM
Let me add to my comment above: Man, you are on a spree of hot bloggin today! Were your Wheaties spiked this morning?
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | May 16, 2007 12:13:23 PM
Besides the spinners - which is very on target - there's this:
" our cultural subservience to whatever we've been convinced the economy wants."
In reality, it doesn't want anything (nor am I saying that you think it does, of course). Really, I'm just restating the post - we're increasingly given to think not about what people might want - we've become the dependent variable - but solely about what a reified economy wants - Not, given these aims and values, what would work best given the current structure of the economy, or what changes can we make that are most likely to have the intended effects. It's like one of those Chinese landscape paintings with a tiny human figure or two dwarfed into insignificance by immense mountains (in this case, of data).
Although really, Charlie Chaplin said it better . . .
Posted by: Dan S. | May 16, 2007 12:36:22 PM
1) Sandwichman at Max Sawicky's blog, with support has been discussing leisure and labor as complementary goods in a very long series of technical posts. Excellent stuff. Chapman was right, Walras & Hicks wrong? Something like that.
I keep reading this stuff with little understanding or recollection. I have to stop commenting and start studying/working, but then why am I reading? Conflict.
b) This morning I am in one of my moods about liberalism and the Keynes/Schumpeter/Galbraith project of softening capitalism in order to preserve and perpetuate it. My life of watching the welfare state built and slowly diminished does not make me optimistic about meliorism.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | May 16, 2007 12:37:25 PM
"This isn't, incidentally, the fault of any individual economists; it's more the outsized respect we accord the profession, our cultural subservience to whatever we've been convinced the economy wants (more tax cuts!), and the capture of economic rhetoric and argument by right wingers. "
I'm not going to deny the influence of any of those, especially the last, but there seems to be a simpler explanation - American exceptionalism. Questions like "Do we want more leisure or more GDP?" can only really be properly discussed by comparing economies and societies. But when the premise of almost any popular or media economic discussion is: "The US has the greatest economy in the world and the greatest people, so we don't need to look elsewhere to figure out how to do things better," then that sort of comparison is unlikely to happen.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | May 16, 2007 12:48:42 PM
The "Family Values" crap, of course, has nothing to do with actually valuing families and embracing public policies that would enhance their lives. Family values are code words that say who you can fuck, when, and under what circumstances. (And, remember, its okay if you are a Republican.)
A great case in point is the current bill that would mandate employers with 15 or more employees to provide at least 7 days of paid sick leave a year. Republicans are working to kill this bill because it's bad for the economy. The people for whom the economy exists -- who cares?
I'm always struck by the derision for the French voiced over and over again in virtually every mainstream media outlet in the country. These silly people who think they are entitled to six weeks of vacation, and 35 hour work weeks, and other amenities of civilization. Who do they think they are? They'll learn -- and soon they can be miserable grunts like the rest of us, working 50 hours a week, and enjoying their two weeks of vacation in the manner that they should become accustomed to.
Posted by: Klein's Tiny Left Nut | May 16, 2007 12:51:03 PM
...the French are inexplicably hamstringing their own economy...
Didn't the French just signal their intention to move in the other direction in this last election?
Posted by: Fred Jones | May 16, 2007 12:56:30 PM
Economic values dominate public discourse because there's no real disagreement about the value of the almighty dollar, while most other values are subject to debate. Emphasizing the GDP effect of a particular policy turns out to be the most effective form of sophistry. Basically, it's a side-effect of elective government in a heterogeneous society.
Posted by: henry evans | May 16, 2007 1:15:28 PM
this little diatribe seems to rest on nothing more than resentment that there exist ghaslty people who point out that your pet policy proposals have costs that must be paid.
I myself find that talk about GDP is obsessive and doesnt really denote that much about what is going on in an economy, but it is certainly no inferior to your apparent outlook, which seems to be that the political system should mandate certain things that you personally think are lacking and simply forget about whatever costs these measures may impose on anyone else.
Posted by: henry hazlitt | May 16, 2007 1:21:20 PM
Fred,
Yes, by electing someone who promised to allow them the option of exceeding the 35-hour max, while preserving the idea on its face. Ooooh, radical free-markets here we come!
This is mostly just to mirror something Matt Y said a few weeks back; it's ridiculous for the right here to look at elections in France and talk about the outcome as evidence of sweeping approval of conservative principles. They are starting so far to the left of the American consensus that any shift to the right tends to be only at the margins (gedunken experiment: could any Democrat be taken seriously as, say, a presidential candidate after proposing a 35-hour work week in the US?)
Likewise, the US exists as a sweeping disavowal of real left-wing ideals; any proposal by a serious Democrat would be laughed at in Western Europe as being hopelessly capitalistic.
Posted by: David S | May 16, 2007 1:22:52 PM
This post reminds me of a conversation I have with my wife all the time:
Wife: “I really think we should….”
Me: “That’s fine, but it’s going to cost us X. Are you willing to forgo your Y for it?”
Wife: “Why do you always have to equate things to money?”
Me: “There are always tradeoffs in life honey.”
As this point, my wife gets pissed, which is fine as I can always bring her back. But the point is, thinking about these things in quantifiable terms, say GDP or Productivity, at least gives you something measurable with which to compare the tradeoffs.
To use the French as an example: what a 35 hour work week and 6 weeks vacation, you’re going to give up some employments, some productivity, some competitiveness, etc. Sure, your “unit of happiness” may increase, but what are those really worth? The French seem to value them higher that GDP per head. That’s their decision and its fine.
I think we’ve already had these conversations in the states and they’ve been going on for a very long time now… all the way back to the days of Ben Franklin. As a culture, we value GDP (for lack of a better term) more than Euro’s, or some other societies. Some may deem this unhealthy, but other, probably a larger portion of us, are fine with it.
Posted by: DM | May 16, 2007 1:26:51 PM
DM, that makes sense if "X" is an item or an action that costs actual money, in which case it does equate to money. A decision whether to spend my leisure time reading or going to the gym on a given evening doesn't directly translate, and I'd hate to think that conversations with your wife take the same tack.
this little diatribe seems to rest on nothing more than resentment... blahblahblah
How's this: putting policies into place that would extend the lifespan of old people would no doubt cost more money to medicare and social security, perhaps resulting in a small decrease to GDP. Do we do it?
Another one: A certain free trade agreement may increase GDP by resulting in large gains to a small group while distributing (slightly smaller) costs over the larger populace. Is it a worthwhile policy to pursue? The GDP analysis would say "yes." The 100,000 people who lost $10,000/each in wages so that 100 people could gain $12 million/each might say no. And when the economist tells those 100,000 people to be thankful that they got to be sacrifices as part of the glorious pro-GDP revolution, they're not going to be very amused.
Posted by: Tyro | May 16, 2007 1:43:49 PM
DM,
I think most people have utterly no idea what they are giving up in the trade off, because there is simply no serious discussion of alternatives here. The news media act like cheerleaders for corporate interests and the well to do. We cheer the latest corporate profit reports or the recent movie box office receipts or the list of richest people like it has something to do with our lives. Watching CNN in the morning makes me want to puke most days. The disaster de jeur, extreme weather events, celebrity piffle, corporate cheerleading, and maybe a two minute story from Iraq. That's the liberal cable news outlet.
The possiblity of a different kind of society, oriented toward the interests of common people is simply not a part of the discussion. As someone else pointed out above, even the most progressive Democratic candidates would be loathe to put forward a platform that openly embraces the more socialistic aspects of Western European society because they would be viciously attacked and marginalized by our media masters.
Posted by: Klein's Tiny Left Nut | May 16, 2007 1:48:08 PM
. Sure, your “unit of happiness” may increase, but what are those really worth? The French seem to value them higher that GDP per head.
Presumably the French are labouring under the delusion that their economy exists to serve their people, rather than that their people exist to serve their economy...
Posted by: Phoenician in a time of Romans | May 16, 2007 2:09:51 PM
"Presumably the French are labouring under the delusion that their economy exists to serve their people, rather than that their people exist to serve their economy..."
Nor are they serving each other well.
Posted by: DM | May 16, 2007 2:16:41 PM
Non-economist Carl Sagan said that "Longevity is perhaps the best single measure of the physical quality of life. (If you're dead, there's little you can do to be happy.)", but this approach has its own problems - for one thing, it discounts leisure time and similar enjoyability of life issues unless they contribute to longevity. (Which they do, but their actual value in quality-of-life terms may exceed their health value.)
Still, longevity at least excludes economic activity that doesn't really improve people's lives. I think that'd be an improvement on GDP. But it takes a long time for changes in a society to be reflected in its lifespan statistics; GDP is convenient because the statistics can be collected faster.
Posted by: Chris | May 16, 2007 2:38:06 PM
I don't know, DM, I've been to Paris recently and life there seemed pretty good. And well lived.
I understand why a lot of people there are not too crazy about the notion of adopting an American style economy.
Posted by: Klein's Tiny Left Nut | May 16, 2007 2:40:22 PM
I'm not convinced individual people or the populace as a whole really are weighing the possibilities and choosing a higher GDP as being preferable. I think a pretty telling example is what really started these conversations; Ezra commenting on the French elections and stating that *if he were given the option* he'd choose more vacation time for lower wages. Americans don't have those options because there are no major political parties or candidates that are trying to make that happen and anyone who tried such a thing would be destroyed in the press.
Posted by: Ben | May 16, 2007 2:43:25 PM
The increasing focus on "what the economy wants" has more to do with having a capitalist economy that values profit over people than anything else, I think. The placing on a pedestal of the profession follows logically: economists know more about profit than anyone else, right?
Is this a broken record comment? Maybe, but I think it's accurate.
Posted by: Dennis | May 16, 2007 2:44:31 PM
The increasing focus on "what the economy wants" has more to do with having a capitalist economy that values profit over people than anything else, I think. The placing on a pedestal of the profession follows logically: economists know more about profit than anyone else, right?
Is this a broken record comment? Maybe, but I think it's accurate.
Posted by: Dennis | May 16, 2007 2:47:04 PM
...Nut,
I bet. I haven't been in some time, but I recall the French to be quite likable, happy people... very much unlike some Brits I dealt with, but that can be attributed to the weather.
My comment was meant to be more tongue in cheek than serious.
Posted by: DM | May 16, 2007 2:54:04 PM
I don't know, DM, I've been to Paris recently and life there seemed pretty good
I don't know your specific situation when you went to paris, but visiting the capital city of a country is really not the best way to judge how well it's doing.
By way of an extreme example, on any given day in Skopje, in the Republic of Macedonia, you can go to the main square by the Vardar river and see people out having coffee and enjoying themselves in large numbers. Now, many of these people are unemployed and living with their parents because the economy is so poor. They're out spending time with their friends because it's better than moping around all day being depressed about their lot in life. Belgrade was pretty vibrant, too, when I visited, but I assume that the underlying economic situation was similar.
Obviously, France is a much better off, much wealthier country, but don't say, "I visited the capital city of country X, and everything seemed great!"
But then that brings us back to the original top-- how DO we evaluate their quality of life? GDP is going to be the first metric we all leap to, rather than the "public capital city vibrancy index."
Posted by: Tyro | May 16, 2007 2:59:08 PM
Funny- I don't remember anyone asking me what kind of life I wanted to live. When did that happen?
Posted by: akaison | May 16, 2007 3:03:39 PM
Is this a broken record comment? Maybe, but I think it's accurate.
Hee. Best double post ever.
Posted by: Isabel | May 16, 2007 3:08:49 PM
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