Immigration in terms of Population, Migration, Globalization

Blogs and more traditional news are full of immigration-related stuff these days. But I've seen little discussion interrelating globalization, population dynamics, and the environment. In Population, migration, globalization, Ecological Economics (2006: forthcoming) , Herman Daly attempts it, arguing that we rightfully ought to be as concerned over unfettered capital flight, and outsourcing, as we right now seem to be over immigration here in the US. Daly contrasts globalization ("global economic integration of many formerly national economies into one global economy, mainly by free trade and free capital mobility, but also by somewhat easier or uncontrolled migration) to internationalization (which retains a substantive nation-state presence while highlighting "increasing importance of international trade, international relations, treaties, alliances, etc.").

Was NAFTA supposed to help with the US/Mexico problem? Did it fail? If so, will CAFTA fail too? And if we are to get serious here in the US about limiting immigration, how are we to do so with the 1000 mile long US/Mexico border separating the two countries? Machine-gun turrets (or 9000 new border guards) don't seem prudent political choices. Or maybe they are. Are there really any "rising tides to lift all boats" out there? Or are we just whistling past the graveyard, hoping to ride out the impending storm and somehow then being able to bootstrap the global economy and polis toward a better world. Or maybe there is no storm, just massively enhanced productivity and trickle-down profits that allow the poor to get rich, while the rich get richer.

Here is a sampler of Daly's thoughts, highlighting links to immigration:

…[W]hat if globalization began to entail the overt encouragement of free migration? Even some free trade advocates might recoil from the radical cosmopolitanism of such a policy. Perhaps they can see that it would lead to massive relocation of people between world regions of vastly differing wealth, creating a tragedy of the open access commons. The strain on local communities, both the sending and the receiving, would be enormous. In the face of unlimited migration, how could any national community maintain a minimum wage, a welfare program, subsidized medical care, or a public school system? How could a nation punish its criminals and tax evaders if citizens were totally free to emigrate? Indeed, one wonders, would it not be much cheaper to encourage emigration of a country's poor, sick, or criminals, rather than run welfare programs, charity hospitals, and prisons? …

Further, one might reasonably wonder how a country could reap the benefit of educational investments made in its own citizens if those citizens are totally free to emigrate. Would nations continue to make such investments in the face of free migration and a continuing "brain drain"? Would a country make investments in education if it experienced massive immigration pressures, which would dilute the educational resources of the nation? Would any country any longer try to limit its birth rate, since youths who migrate abroad and send back remittances can be a good investment, a fact that might increase the birth rate? (With unfettered migration, a country could never control its numbers anyway, so why even talk about the controversial issue of birth control?)

To some this skepticism will sound like a nationalistic negation of world community. It is not. It is the view that world community should be viewed as a "community of communities," a federation of national communities rather than a cosmopolitan world government lacking any historical roots in real communities. A "world with no boundaries" makes a sentimental song lyric, but community and policy cannot exist without boundaries. For mainstream—neoclassical—economists, only the individual is real; community is just a misleading name for an aggregate of individuals. From that perspective, national communities impose "distorting" interferences upon the individualistic free market, and their disintegration is not a cost but something to be welcomed. To the contrary, I would argue, this aspect of globalization is just another way in which capitalism undermines the very conditions it requires in order to function.

Few would deny that some migration is a very good thing—but this discussion concerns free migration, where "free" means deregulated, uncontrolled, unlimited, as in "free" trade, or "free" capital mobility, or "free" reproduction. One must also be intensely mindful that immigrants are people, frequently disadvantaged people. It is a terrible thing to be "anti-immigrant." Immigration, however, is a policy, not a person, and one can be "anti-immigration," or more accurately "pro-immigration limits" without in the least being anti-immigrant. The global cosmopolitans think that it is immoral to make any policy distinction between citizen and non-citizen, and therefore favor free migration. They also suggest that free migration is the shortest route to their vision of the summum bonum, equality of wages worldwide. Their point is fair enough; there is some logic in their position—so long as they are willing to see wages equalized at a low level. But those who support free migration as the shortest route to equality of wages worldwide could only with great difficulty try to contend with problems of an open access commons, the destruction of local community, and other issues raised above.

A more workable moral guide is the recognition that, as a member of a national community, one's obligation to non-citizens is to do them no harm, while one's obligation to fellow citizens is first to do no harm and then try to do positive good. The many dire consequences of globalization (besides those mentioned above)—over-specialization in a few volatile export commodities (petroleum, timber, minerals, and other extractive goods with little value added locally, for instance), crushing debt burdens, exchange rate risks and speculative currency destabilization, foreign corporate control of national markets, unnecessary monopolization of "trade-related intellectual property rights" (typically patents on prescription drugs), and not least, easy immigration in the interests of lower wages and cheaper exports—amply show that the "do no harm" criterion is still far from being met.

Some feel that U.S. economic policies have harmed third-world citizens, and that easy immigration to the U.S. is a justified form of restitution. I have considerable sympathy with the view that U.S. policies (precisely those of globalization) have harmed third-world citizens, but for reasons already stated, no sympathy with the idea that easy immigration is a fair or reasonable restitution. For restitution I would prefer a series of small grants (not large interest-bearing loans), accompanied by free transfer of knowledge and technology.

…To avoid war, nations must both consume less and become more self-sufficient. But free traders say we should become less self-sufficient and more globally integrated as part of the overriding quest to consume ever more. We must lift the laboring masses (which now include the formerly high-wage workers) up from their subsistence wages. This can only be done by massive growth, we are told. But can the environment sustain so much growth? It cannot. And how will whatever growth dividend there is ever get to the poor, i.e., how can wages increase given the nearly unlimited supply of labor? If wages do not increase then what reason is there to expect a fall in the birth rate of the laboring class via the "demographic transition"? How could we ever expect to have high wages in any country that becomes globally integrated with a globe having a vast oversupply of labor? Why, in a globally integrated world, would any nation have an incentive to reduce its birth rate?

Global economic integration and growth, far from bringing a halt to population growth, will be the means by which the consequences of overpopulation in the third world are generalized to the world as a whole. They will be the means whereby the practice of constraining births in some countries will be eliminated by a demographic version of the “race to the bottom,” rather than spread by demonstration of its benefits. In the scramble to attract capital and jobs, there will be a standards-lowering competition to keep wages low and to reduce any social, safety, and environmental standards that raise costs.

Some are seduced by the idea of "solving" the South's population problem and the North's labor shortage problem simultaneously—by migration. However, the North's labor shortage is entirely a function of below-equilibrium wages. The shortage could be instantly removed by an increase in wages that equated domestic supply and demand—simply by allowing the market to work. But the cheap-labor lobby, in the United States at least, thinks we must import workers in order to keep wages from rising and thereby reducing profits and export competitiveness. Of course this also keeps 80% of our citizens from sharing in the increased prosperity through higher wages. …

…The real solution to the South's problem is for those countries to lower their birth rates and to put their working-age population to use at home producing necessities for the home market. And the reply to the half-truth that the United States is really more overpopulated than India because each American consumes so much more than each Indian, is that the United States needs mainly to lower its per capita consumption (and secondarily its population growth), while India and China need primarily to lower their population growth, and are in no position to lower per capita consumption, except for the elite. …

Demographers and economists have understandably become reluctant to prescribe birth control to other countries. If a country historically "chooses" many people, low wages, and high inequality over fewer people, higher wages, and less inequality, who is to say that is wrong? Let all make their own choices, since it is they who will have to live with the consequences.

But while that may be a defensible position under internationalization, it is not defensible under globalization. The whole point of an integrated world is that these consequences, both costs of overpopulation and benefits of population control, are externalized to all nations. The costs and benefits of overpopulation under globalization are distributed by class more than by nation. Labor bears the cost of reduced wage income; capital enjoys the benefit of reduced wage costs. …I lament the recent tendency of the environmental movement to court "political correctness" by soft pedaling issues of population, migration, and globalization.

Comments

[Dave]

From my reading the notes attached to "Science Direct," it appears to be OK to cite and link to "forthcoming" articles like the Daly one above. Does anyone have a differing opinion? I really would like to know so that we don't get too far afield from proper form here.

[Tracy W]

"In the face of unlimited migration, how could any national community maintain a minimum wage, a welfare program, subsidized medical care, or a public school system?"

By conditioning access on x years of prior tax-paying or tax-paying by parents/guardians? And a minimum wage is easy enough - pass a law and enforce it. (Obviously enforcement will never be 100%, and people can hold different opinions on whether a minimum wage is desirable or not, but immigration doesn't strike me as particularly changing these problems. In fact legal free immigration would make enforcement easier as it would reduce the incentive for immigrant workers to avoid authorities in order to avoid deportation.)

Indeed, one wonders, would it not be much cheaper to encourage emigration of a country's poor, sick, or criminals, rather than run welfare programs, charity hospitals, and prisons?

Perhaps it might be cheaper. But, rightly or wrongly, cheaper is not the only thing voters care about. A lot of support for public health care in NZ is from people who think they risk being sick. This concern is not solved by expecting those people to emmigrate if they get sick.

Equally, people appear to want to punish criminals, thus explaining the demand for prisons. Telling the mother of a murdered child that the murderer is now relaxing on a beach in Fiji will not meet her urge for vengence.

And welfare programmes tend to be driven by people's compassion for their fellow citizens and fear that they themselves may be dependent on these. Again, free immigration would not alter this calculus voters make.

Throughout human history people have never made decisions purely on the basis of what is cheapest. If we did, we would all have starved to death happily contemplating the amount of money we saved by not buying food, and thus would not be alive to argue about globalisation. This is a very silly argument by Daly.

"How could a nation punish its criminals and tax evaders if citizens were totally free to emigrate?"

This does not seem to be a major problem in NZ or Australia. (NZ and Australians can freely immigrate between the two countries). Countries establish repatriation treaties.

"Further, one might reasonably wonder how a country could reap the benefit of educational investments made in its own citizens if those citizens are totally free to emigrate. ... Would any country any longer try to limit its birth rate..."

This makes my blood boil. Daley is assuming that, as a woman, the number of children I have is AUTOMATICALLY determined by my country, and NOT BY MYSELF! And ditto for educational investments. He appears to have absolutely no discussion of the rights or wrongs of assigning control of MY BODY and MY MIND to my country and appears to assume that this is a matter for my country to resolve. What an illberal man.

"Their point is fair enough; there is some logic in their position—so long as they are willing to see wages equalized at a low level. "

Or, people will immigrate to countries that have effective institutions that allow growth in wealth, and emmigrate from countries that have bad policies that keep everyone poor, and ruin the environment. So in the long run everyone will gain except the dictators. (Dictatorship is correlated with poverty).

"To avoid war, nations must both consume less and become more self-sufficient. "

This does not match with human history. Arguably an intertanglement of investments decreases war as interdependence rises so war becomes more expensive. Some of the motivation behind the EU appears to be driven by the urge to avoid another European war by leaders who lived through the hunger of WWII.

"i.e., how can wages increase given the nearly unlimited supply of labor? "

Daley is commiting the lump of labour fallacy. To reverse Julian Simon's dictum, every brain and pair of hands comes with a mouth. The "nearly unlimited supply of labour" needs to be fed, housed, and clothed. This requires farmers, farm hands, builders, weavers, knitters etc. And the food, bulding supplies, etc, need to be gotten to the people which requires transport systems, which in turn requires labourers and drivers and engineers.

Small children require great quantities of labour to keep alive to become workers.

And once people are fed, housed and clothed, there are various other services they like and can be sold. Healthcare for a start, and clean drinking water, and sewerage systems. This requires nurses and doctors and orderlies and more engineers (to design the sewerage system) and more labourers (to build it).

And how about some tastier food. This requires more farmers of course.

And while we're at it, the mind is in need of resources too. Based on past history, people are happy to spend resources going to movies or plays or music concerts. Of course this requires actors, filmmakers, set designers, musicians, the guy who takes the tickets, etc.

As you can see, more people generate a need for more labour. And as people get richer, the amount they consume above the bare minimum necessary to keep life and limb together rises, thus creating a demand for more labour. (I do not think that even Daley will go without a sewerage system). Richer people consume more than poorer people on average. So additional labour creates its own demand.

If Daley's analysis was right, then we would see very high assumptions of unemployment in the West. For example, in the UK, population in 1801 was about 9 million. Now it is nearly 50 million. If more people simply decreases wages and/or employment, and assuming that people were fully employed in 1801, then we should see unemployment rates of about 80% in the UK at the moment, and/or per capita income levels about 20% of 1801 levels. This is ridiculous.

Based on what you have quoted, this is very poor analysis, particularly the assumption that birth rates are a decision for the country to make, and not for individual people. (Of course individual people's decisions are affected by a wide variety of factors, including the policies of the country they live in, and the policies of other countries. No woman is an island. But I currently want to claw Daley to pieces for his easy assumption that how many children I have is a matter that is determined by my government [which I didn't even vote for!] and not by myself).

[Tracy W]

Having calmed down a bit, I think what irritates me most about Daley's discussion of birth rates is that apparently it never even occurs to him that a woman might have a different opinion than her government about how many children she should have, or that she may have some power to carry out her wishes.

There's no sense that he's even considered the question of the relationship between people and their government in deciding on how many children they have, be the question considered in a descriptive or a normative sense. He just assumes that women's wombs are directed by their government.

[Tracy W]

Sorry, this is like picking at a scab or rubbernecking at a traffic accident. Daley's work, as quoted, is so bad I keep coming back to it.

Further, one might reasonably wonder how a country could reap the benefit of educational investments made in its own citizens if those citizens are totally free to emigrate. Would nations continue to make such investments in the face of free migration and a continuing "brain drain"? Would a country make investments in education if it experienced massive immigration pressures, which would dilute the educational resources of the nation?

He analyses this from the country's viewpoint. But in a democracy, the citizen's viewpoints are relevant too. I think it is pretty thoroughly established that parents love their children far more than said children deserve, and are prepared to invest substantial amounts in their education. Since parents are not saints, they are also likely to argue that other people should invest substantial amounts in their kid's education - through the tax system. Added to that that many of us have a touch of compassion and sympathy and are prepared to make some expenditure on assisting our fellow citizens in hardship, then I think it can be safely assumed that citizens will continue to vote for increased education expenditure even if it is against the government's own interest. And since in a democracy a government's own interest is fundamentally to get re-elected, it will therefore be in a government's own interest to invest in education.
I also note that NZ and Australia have had free migration for as long as I know, yet public spending on education has risen in real terms over the last century, despite increased financial pressures from pensions in an aging society.

In the scramble to attract capital and jobs, there will be a standards-lowering competition to keep wages low and to reduce any social, safety, and environmental standards that raise costs.

There is also no evidence of a race to the bottom in environmental standards.
See http://www1.worldbank.org/economicpolicy/globalization/documents/AssessingGlobalizationP4.pdf
or
http://www.aworldconnected.org/article.php/558.html
or
http://www.nber.org/digest/nov02/w9021.html

The theoretical argument is that increases in wealth as a result of trade mean that people start "buying" a better environment with their increased wealth. There is a lot of evidence that people all over the world like trees and other green things and clean air and safe drinking water, and once they no longer worry about the kids not dying of starvation, they start wanting to have these environmental goods. (E.g. gardens are common in all cultures, from the famed Hanging Gardens of Bablyon, to the Japanese zen gardens and the English stately lands designed by 'Capability' Brown. National parks are established all around the world.)

Social standards - democracy has been increasing in the world ever since the industrial revolution, and since WWII and since the collapse of Communism. Wealth is generally correlated with civil and political liberties. The direction of the link is not known (do wealthier people demand more democracy, or do democratic institutions restrain kleptomanaic government and thus create more wealth) and could be bi-directional. Women's rights have become more and more popular.

Labour standards - globalisation is associated with a fall in child labour. See http://papers.nber.org/papers/w8760
And there is no evidence that low labour standards lead to more trade. See http://www.sice.oas.org/TUNIT/STAFF_ARTICLE/jmsx04_Univ_VA_comments.pdf

Plus life expectancy throughout the world has been growing, with the exception of sub-Saharan Africa (Aids), and some of the ex-Soviet States, especially Russia (social and governmental collapse). While these declines are bad, and possibly the AIDS could attributable to increased travelling within Africa, the gains in the rest of the world must be counted. Daley cites no evidence that globalisation per se reduces living standards.

try to contend with problems of an open access commons, the destruction of local community,

The problems of an open access commons happens anyway. I don't recall any suggestion that the pressure on NZ fish stocks would simply be solved by stopping immigration. One part of the problem is overseas fishers slipping over into NZ's economic zone, but the larger problem is that our own fishermen were too numerous and too efficient.

As for the "destruction of local community" - local communities are also *formed* by migration. I would not exist if it were not for migration (some of my ancestors are English, some Irish, some French, some Maori, they could not have met without moving around the world), so I am rather biased on this topic. More broadly, if it were not for migration the world community would be rather less diverse since we would all still be living in Africa.

If someone had somehow instead stopped migration in 1492 the communities now in places like New York, Boston, Wellington, Sydney would not exist. America would not have raised the bagel to a culinary excellence. Singapore and Malaysia would have considerably less vibrant cusines if they had been deprived of British, Indian, Chinese and Muslim influences on the local Malay culture. Mark Twain, Graham Sydney, Robert Frost, jazz, blues, rock and roll, all bye-bye. No American-Egyptian fusion resulting in bellydancing. No German prince introducing Christmas trees to England. No Katherine Mansfield. No "Wild Colonial Boy". No "slap a shrimp on the barbie". No Christmas celebrations in the middle of summer on the beach playing cricket. No Pakistanti-British male bonding over cricket matches. No Mum fixing her back by regular practice of Indian-developed yoga. No hakas about tax. No Tanzing Norgay and Edmund Hilary hugging on top of Mt Everest. No Tracy. No Tracy's husband. No Tracy's siblings. No Tracy's parents. Nearly all of the people I care about wouldn't exist. Other things and people would of course, but Daley does not provide any evidence that these things that would exist are better than what does now. (Oh, and a lot more Jews would have been killed by Hitler. The more you limit migration, the harder it is to get away from genocidal rulers. Talk about destroying local communities.)

If you ignore every argument that depends on the lump of labour fallacy, Daley's argument against globalisation is that economic growth may destroy the environment. Given global warming, he may possibly be right. And to the extent that free immigration increases economic growth then, if the linkage between econmic growth and global warming is unbreakable, he may be right in that damage. But Daley does not appear to establish this linkage. (And I also think that global warming would be a problem without any migration, and my favoured method for addressing this is a carbon tax, which does not depend on any particular migration laws).

In summary, when Daley says "…I lament the recent tendency of the environmental movement to court "political correctness" by soft pedaling issues of population, migration, and globalization," I am delighted that many in the environmental movement are using their brains about the relationship between the environment, migration and globalization. Unlike Daley. Daley may not be bothered by political correctness, but he also is evidently not bothered by any urge to supply evidence, or even exercise basic logic.

[Dave]

Tracy,

First, thanks for taking such a passionate interest in my Daly post. Here are a few thoughts relative to some of your many points: Let's begin with your statement: "I also note that NZ and Australia have had free migration for as long as I know…" Perhaps the two have allowed free migration, but free immigration? No! To migrate from some place you have to be able to immigrate into annother place. It is the total package that Daly sees relaxed. Here's a bit of immigration history:

New Zealand:
http://www.workpermit.com/news/nz_immigration_difficult.htm
http://www.stats.govt.nz/analytical-reports/tourism-migration-2000/tourism-and-migration-appendix2.htm

Austrailia:
http://immigration.museum.vic.gov.au/timeline/time2000.asp
http://www.aph.gov.au/LIBRARY/Pubs/online/Refugees_s1.htm

Next, let's explore: "[Daly] analyses this from the country's viewpoint. But in a democracy, the citizen's viewpoints are relevant too."

Daly is very aware of this, but is writing this article from the viewpoint of national and international policy.

Next: "Daley's [sic] argument against globalisation is that economic growth may destroy the environment."

No. Daly's point is now, as it has been for a long time, that unfettered global capitalization (the relaxation of too many institutional rules, including free mobility of capital and labor) my indeed destroy the environment. Daly admits, along with almost all economists, that increasing the standards of living of people will, if accompanied with wise social policy (e.g. education that includes a healthy dose of ecological literacy), help protect the environment.

Finally: "Based on what you have quoted, this is very poor analysis, particularly the assumption that birth rates are a decision for the country to make, and not for individual people. …what irritates me most about Daley's discussion of birth rates is that apparently it never even occurs to him that a woman might have a different opinion than her government about how many children she should have, or that she may have some power to carry out her wishes.

"There's no sense that he's even considered the question of the relationship between people and their government in deciding on how many children they have, be the question considered in a descriptive or a normative sense. He just assumes that women's wombs are directed by their government."

Daly is very sensitive to the views, wants, desires, needs, of all individuals. He just isn't talking about such in this article. And culture, including government, makes a great deal of difference as to the choices individuals make in any society.

[Tracy W]

The first NZ link you cite clearly says that Australian citizens have maintained the right to freely migrate to NZ. I assure you as a citizen of NZ that NZ citizens can freely migrate to Australia. While I have never done so, I know a large number of NZ citizens who have.

I specified in my first comment on this post that I was talking about migration between NZ and Australia, not complete migration everywhere. My apologies for not making this clear again later.

"Daly is very aware of this, but is writing this article from the viewpoint of national and international policy."

I was criticising his analysis as wrong because it ignores the interests of
individual citizens and thus leads him to argue things like a country would not spend on healthcare or prisons, when healthcare is in the interest of individual members of the state. Daley can analyse from the viewpoint of national and international policy if he likes, but personally I think he'd have better quality arguments if he kept in mind that there are actual human beings in this world who have minds of their own.

"Daly is very sensitive to the views, wants, desires, needs, of all individuals. "

Yeah, right. If it's sensitivity to believe that my reproductive decisions are made by my country without any say from me, put me down as being in favour of heartlessness and thick-skins.

"And culture, including government, makes a great deal of difference as to the choices individuals make in any society."

Yep. But Daley doesn't discuss birth rates as decisions made by individuals, as decisions that are affected by culture and government policies. If these quotes are accurate, he discusses them purely as decisions made by countries. He says "Would any country any longer try to limit its birth rate..." There's nothing in here that indicates that the thought ever flickered across his mind that I, be I affected by my culture or my government or not, might try to limit my own birth rate even if my own government has a different idea about what I should be doing.

To repeat myself, I agree that my decisions about my body are affected by various factors outside myself, including my culture and my government's policies. What I am objecting to is Daly's assumption that it is NZ that makes those decisions about my body, not me.

" No. Daly's point is now, as it has been for a long time, that unfettered global capitalization (the relaxation of too many institutional rules, including free mobility of capital and labor) my indeed destroy the environment"

From the original post: "We must lift the laboring masses (which now include the formerly high-wage workers) up from their subsistence wages. This can only be done by massive growth, we are told. But can the environment sustain so much growth? It cannot. "

Strikes me as a pretty clear statement against economic growth per se, not global capitalisation.

[Dave I]

Tracy,

Daly: "We must lift the laboring masses (which now include the formerly high-wage workers) up from their subsistence wages. This can only be done by massive growth, we are told. But can the environment sustain so much growth? It cannot."

Tracy: Strikes me as a pretty clear statement against economic growth per se, not global capitalisation.

If you look at my other blog "Economic Dreams - Nightmares" You'll see a quote from Edward Abbey that says the equivalent of Daly's quote above: "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."

I think that pretty much summs up the arguement against "economic growth" for the sake of economic growth..

[Tracy W]

Out of curiousity, who argues for economic growth for the sake of economic growth?

I don't think I have ever read an argument that economic growth is good for economic growth's sake.

Now there is an argument that economic growth is good because living on a subistence level, watching your children moan with hunger, is a very bad thing. This is what those people Daley refers to as saying that the labouring masses should be lifted from their subsistence wages are arguing. This is distinctly different from arguing that economic growth is good for economic growth's sake.

There is an argument that economic growth is good because it allows us to pay for things like healthcare, and mind-expanding education and art and clean air and clean drinking water and incoming asteriod detection/deflection.

There are various other arguments about why economic growth is good.

But I don't think I have ever heard anyone argue that economic growth is good purely for its own sake. I suspect this is a strawman.

[Dave I]

Tracy asks: "Out of curiousity, who argues for economic growth for the sake of economic growth? I don't think I have ever read an argument that economic growth is good for economic growth's sake. ... I suspect this is a strawman."

You will seldom hear anyone arguing up-front for "economic growth for the sake of economic growth." Many who advocate for an "Ecological Economics" conversation, however, believe that the assumptions of neoclassical theory do just that—constructing a strawman as the problem is framed. The neoclassical strawman is constructed from the narrowness of the assumptions when used as a basis for public policy.

Such a "strawman approach" is often used unwittingly by people unaware of the appropriately wide frame that must be employed for public policy-making. But it is also sometimes applied for personal gain or political advantage by unscrupulous players. Kenneth Boulding called this phenomenon a "Cowboy Economy." http://www.panarchy.org/boulding/spaceship.1966.html

Consider finally the concluding paragraphs of Paul Christensen's "Driving Forces, Increasing Returns, and Ecological Sustainability" (from ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS: The Science and Management of Sustainability, Robert Costanza ed., 1991):

"According to neoclassical theory, a market economy is an atomistic isolated entity which is self-regulating and self-sustaining. The production side of this argument rests on a conception of resources and technology which presumes the productivity of individual production factors. The inherent productivity which was presumed for land (Quesnay and Ricardo) was generalized to capital goods (Walras and Wicksteed). This view reflected the conceptual and mathematical framework of nineteenth century analytical mechanics which presumes the presence of source (a gravitational field of forces, etc.) which can be taken as given [Newtonian/Cartesian mechanics]. Capital in this framework can literally substitute for natural resource since all inputs are assumed to be inherently productive. This takes no account of: thermodynamic sources and their depletion; the interdependence of materials, energy, and environmental support structures; the limits of environmental systems; or the contributions and limits of social systems. The conceptual and mathematical framework of analytical mechanics are inappropriate to the tasks of economic theory and policy.

"A biophysical organizational approach to ecological economics starts from a recognition of the environmental, technological, individual, and social sources and support systems of productivity. Economies are constructed historically in relation to environmental, technologic, and social possibilities. In contrast to the diminishing returns assumptions of neoclassical theory, a biophysical approach recognizes the operation of increasing returns in materials-energy transformations and knowledge-based processes. An increasing returns economy puts enormous pressure on environmental resources and systems which are subject to limits, depletion, and destruction. Production and consumption choices are not path independent. We must make hard choices about the technologies and institutions we choose to employ. Obviously, market-based signals and policies will be vital in spurring these choices. But technological and social polities are also crucial and these cannot be meaningfully evaluated from an atomistic and mechanistic framework based on nineteenth century physics. An increasing returns, positive-feedback economy must be managed, regulated and coordinated. Preservation of sustainability is a primary condition of economic and social development. Economic development must proceed in a way that preserves ecological viability. This requires the development of an ecological, economic, and social framework for analysis and policy, an ecological economics."

The upshot, admittedly somewhat detailed in Christensen's conclusion, is that those who traffic in ecological economics conversation believe that too many practitioners and policy makers are still unwittingly wedded to outdated assumptions that allow for too much reliance on individual action and too little on collective action, too much reliance on methods that export too much of "the problem" to the realm of "externalities," (societal and environmental) and so on. The argument is simply that broader framing is needed, framing that includes both prudent, informed individual action, as well as prudent, informed public policy.

Ecological Economics practitioners are not the only ones who so believe. Take a look at what the "Austrians," the "Institutionalists," the "Post Keynesians," the "Post Autistic Economics Network," "Critical Theory Practitioners" and others have to say on the matter.

[Tracy W]

So, to summarise your comment, you don't know of anyone who argues for economic growth for economic growth's sake.

Whatever the effects of the assumptions of neoclassical models, (which in my experience are about money and were put together in a reaction to the failure of Keynesian models to explain the stagflation of the '70s - I think Christensen is thinking of general equilibrium models and Solow's growth model + extensions, rather than neoclassical economic models), your original statement was that you had happily knocked down the argument for economic growth for economic growth's sake. This is a rather different belief from talking about the assumptions of models.

[Dave I]

Tracy,

My "original statement was that [I] had happily knocked down the argument for economic growth for economic growth's sake"? Huh? Please explain.

All I remember doing is noting Ed Abbey's statement about his perception (which I share) about modern cultural biases: That we (the Western world) seem hell-bent on growing our economies as if somehow that growth will, pretty much by itself, solve all our social problems. But I'm pretty distracted these days, with too much going on and too little time to attend to most things, so I might have overlooked my "original statement." Caught, as I am, on the treadmill of Western Civilization.

Just for fun, remember Gandhi's comment when asked what he thought of "Western Civilization"? He remarked, "I think it would be a good idea." See "On the West" here: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mohandas_Gandhi

Part of creating a civil society, I believe, is to think hard about limits to growth in many forms--clearly NOT including qualititative development of mind, body, soul, (individual and cultural) and even technology. Although I believe, as did Mary Shelly (Frankenstein) that we ought to talk long and hard as to directions our technological enhancements are heading. See: http://home-1.tiscali.nl/~hamberg/Frankenstein/title.html

Again, help me understand your perception of my "original statement."

PS.. Of course no one argues "growth for the sake of growth," explicitly. If they did they would be directly in Edward Abbey's line of fire. Few are that stupid. Such an argument can only be discovered, typically, by looking into the substance of more elegantly adorned arguments to see that really all that is there IS that particular argument. (Of course Dick Cheney's alleged statement that "deficits don't matter" is an example of an argument that gets rather close to such a naked argument.)

PSS. What "neoclassical economic models" are you thinking of that expand Christensen's narrow focus? Give us some specifics. Perchance pursuing this line of reasoning will get you and I beyond our current impasse -- and likely into another impasse just down the road. :)

[Tracy W]

You said in your second-to-last post that:

" think that pretty much summs up the arguement against "economic growth" for the sake of economic growth.. "

Perhaps "happily" was a stretch too far.

"Few are that stupid. Such an argument can only be discovered, typically, by looking into the substance of more elegantly adorned arguments to see that really all that is there IS that particular argument. "

The people making these arguments being?

Plus it is easy to get lost when making sophisticated arguments and wind up arguing something that is not what you meant to argue. There are some law professors that specialise in making their students do that. I am pretty sure that the various people such as Daly who commit the lump of labour fallacy do not realise that they are effectively arguing that unemployment has been rising ever since humanity's lowest population bottleneck (Adam and Eve if you want a more vivid image). Consequently I think it is a bit unfair to compare people blatantly arguing for economic growth for economic growth's sake to people who have not fully thought through the implications of their arguments.

Also, please give me some context for the Dick Cheney statement - for example he may have been saying that meaning that deficits don't matter in terms of getting re-elected - a different thing again from arguing that economic growth is good for economic growth's sake.

" we (the Western world) seem hell-bent on growing our economies as if somehow that growth will, pretty much by itself, solve all our social problems."

Again, arguing that economic growth will solve all our social problems, whether that argument be right or wrong, is different from arguing for economic growth for economic growth's sake. It is an argument that economic growth will cause good things (or at least remove bad things), not that it is valuable for its own sake.

As for Christensen, I was just noting that his terminology struck me as a bit off.

Some history of macroeconomics. Before the Great Depression, you had people happily constructing models of the economy like the Walrasian auctioner model, where the economy was always in balance, wages adjusted so there was no involuntary unemployment, etc.
Then the Great Depression happened, the economy was not self-adjusting, so Keynesian economics got taken up.
Then the 1970s happened. High unemployment, high inflation. The Keynesian models could not account for this.
So, some macroeconomists started going back to the classical models and trying to construct models that explained both the unemployment of the Great Depression and the stagflation of the 1970s. These models were called neoclassical models. Other macroeconomists went back to Keynes and started constructing neo-Keynesian models. Much sniping between the two camps occurred and, as far as I know, is still occurring.

In another strand, in the 1950s Robert Solow and T W Swan developed a model of economic growth, sometimes called the exogenous or neoclassical model. The form of this model is Y=A*K^(a)*L^(1-a), where Y is total production in an economy, A is multifactor productivity (often generalised as technology) and K is capital and L labour. I forgot in my earlier comment that this model is sometimes called neoclassical, so perhaps I shouldn't be too picky about Christensen referring to neoclassical economic models.

However, from his description that you've quoted, I think Christensen is referring to the classical models before the Great Depression, based on names like Walras and Ricardo. Leon Walras died in 1910, according to Wikipedia, before neoclassical economics. Ricardo died in 1823, Wicksteed in 1927. These dates are before 1956 when the Solow growth model was published. Consequently it is a bit surprising to see Christensen referring to their work as neoclassical - they were dead before neoclassical economics was invented.

The Walras/Riccardian/etc models of course are very simple and do not include the whole long list of "thermodynamic sources and their depletion; the interdependence of materials, energy, and environmental support structures; the limits of environmental systems; or the contributions and limits of social systems. " Perhaps the models should not be taught in Econ 101 due to their oversimplification. On the other hand, in my experience of tutoring and studying, people's brains are limited. If you try to present too much information all at once you wind up communicating no information at all to the student. I wonder if Christensen has ever even built a model that takes account of themodynamic sources and their depletion, etc, etc, let alone taught it to a bunch of first years.

So, I come to the Solow growth model, which seems a much more valid target of Christensen's ire than the classical economists. This does assume economic growth. This is problematic as it sets out to explain economic growth, and assuming what you intend to explain is bad logic. (Whatever the impact on the environment, economic growth has been happening for the last 200 years now, so, regardless of whether one regards this as a good or bad thing, seeking to explain it strikes me as a valid scientific endeavour). This criticism was made by other economists well before my birth, so we now have endogenous growth models. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_growth_theory for some discussion. That's why I think Christensen should be complaining about the Solow growth model.

As for "This requires the development of an ecological, economic, and social framework for analysis and policy, an ecological economics" - sometimes I think ecological economists tend to overestimate humans' cognitive limits. I do not think it is possible to build a model that both takes into account "thermodynamic sources and their depletion; the interdependence of materials, energy, and environmental support structures; the limits of environmental systems; or the contributions and limits of social systems" and is understandable by human beings. I have a degree in electrical engineering and another in economics, and I don't know enough about thermodynamic sources and their depletion to be confident of fully incorporating them into a model, let alone the rest of the list Christensen reels off, every topic in itself a vast area of scientific research.

[Tracy W]

Scratch most of my criticism of Christensen. I was just browsing on Wikipedia and I came across a page describing neoclassical economics as pretty much all of economics since the invention of marginal utility. He is right to call it neoclassical, and I was wrong.

Though I still think that a model incorporating all of his long list of items is beyond human cognitive abilites.

[Dave I]

Thanks for the points of clarification, Tracy. I think that the "problem with models" is best summed up Herbert Simon in his description of the "Mathematician's Aphasia." Simon says,

"It is easy for the operations research enthusiast to underestimate the stringency of the conditions for applicability of his methods. This leads to an ailment that might be called mathematician's aphasia. The victim abstracts the original problem until the mathematical or computational intractibilites have been removed (and all semblance of reality lost), solves the new simplified problem, and then pretends that this was the problem he wanted to solve all along. He hopes the manager will be so dazzled by the beauty of the mathematical formulation that he will not remember that his practical operating problem has not been handled." (p. 59) Herbert A. Simon, THE NEW SCIENCE OF MANAGEMENT DECISION (Revised Edition) 1960, 1965, 1977 Prentice-Hall, NJ.

You note: "The Walras/Riccardian/etc models of course are very simple and do not include the whole long list of "thermodynamic sources and their depletion; the interdependence of materials, energy, and environmental support structures; the limits of environmental systems; or the contributions and limits of social systems. " Perhaps the models should not be taught in Econ 101 due to their oversimplification. On the other hand, in my experience of tutoring and studying, people's brains are limited. If you try to present too much information all at once you wind up communicating no information at all to the student. I wonder if Christensen has ever even built a model that takes account of themodynamic sources and their depletion, etc, etc, let alone taught it to a bunch of first years."

W/r/t "people's brains are limited. If you try to present too much information all at once you wind up communicating no information at all to the student," I can only say that I have felt for a long time that too frequently economics professors get lost in the thickets of algebra, and fail to keep coming back to the complexities of the real world. It's a tough balancing act, but if we start with broader framing, then allow ourselves to abstract (and build models) to highlight aspects of behavior, THEN go back to the broader framing for policy, politics and so on we would be better served.

Bad habits learned in the Classroom tend to spill over into the Boardroom and into Chambers of Congress as well as administrative offices of government. It is these latter places where we see the most blatent abuses of too-narrow framing. See, e.g. Roger Lowenstein's book WHEN GENIUS FAILED: THE RISE AND FALL OF LONG TERM CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, about the tragic consequences of too-narrow framing. And see the many examples of trouble highlighted by Robert Jervis in SYSTEMS EFFECTS: COMPLEXITY IN POLITICAL AND SOCIAL LIFE, as well as Dietrich Dorner in THE LOGIC OF FAILURE. Both SYSTEMS EFFECTS and THE LOGIC OF FAILURE give examples of how to model systems in more holistic framing. So too does Lance Gunderson and E.S. Holling, eds., PANARCHY: UNDERSTANDING TRANSFORMATIONS IN HUMAN AND NATURAL SYSTEMS. So many books, so little time!!!!!!

PS.. As per context on Dick Cheney's remark, do a Google Search on {cheney, "deficits don't matter")

[Tracy W]

"It's a tough balancing act, but if we start with broader framing, then allow ourselves to abstract (and build models) to highlight aspects of behavior, THEN go back to the broader framing for policy, politics and so on we would be better served."

So presumably you think this is what John Daly and T.F.H. Allen, Joseph A.Tainter, and Thomas W. Hoekstra have failed to do, judging by the poor quality of their arguments.

Picking a holistic framework doesn't tell you whether your framework bears any relationship to reality or not. The Communists had a holistic, broad, framework. I've seen too many broad frameworks be tripped up by a minor practical detail (like tides coming at a different time each day) to be impressed by broad frameworks. I've also seen narrow models be tripped up by little practical details too. It's a wash. What we need is testing our ideas against reality and getting feedback.

[Dave I]

Tracy,

No doubt one has to choose between ideological and methodological frameworks. Same holds true at the collective level, societies have to make such a choice via social learning and acceptance. So be it..

Incidentally, I'm sure our readers would be very interested in your specific criticisms of Allen, Tainter, and Hoekstra's book SUPPLY SIDE SUSTAINABILITY (not of summary statements in a review, but of the book itself). If the book itself is flawed, then we ought to know about its flaws. But it does little good to shoot at summary statements from a review without delving deeper.

[Tracy W]

Well if you can send me a copy, I'd be happy to (it's not in my local library, and I've just spent my discretionary money on bellydance supplies at the recent festival - I now have a sword :) ).

Supply-Side Sustainabilty - examined through a filter of possum problems. I should add another problem to my filter - perhaps water quality in Lake Taupo.