In support of peaceism

In my classes, when students pepper their responses with any "ism"--capitalism, in particular--I tell them to avoid those usages.  At least in my classes, even if they continue with that practice elsewhere.  I tell them that while we think that we know what any "ism" means, and while we believe that everybody else agrees with that understanding, the reality is very different.

Most of us will find it difficult to define and explain any "ism."  Ask a devout Hindu what Hinduism is and you will stump them.  They will give you some rambling answers.  Even if their answer seems brief, chances of other Hindus agreeing with that brief definition are as rare as a snowfall in Chennai.

Capitalism seems like a word that we are all familiar with, and yet most of us will be hard pressed to articulate a clear and succinct understanding of it.  Even worse is when students beat up on capitalism because their professors did.  I would rather that students developed an understanding of issues and ideas, instead of merely mouthing about "isms."

One of my favorite political economic philosopher writes about capitalism that further reinforces our need to understand what we are talking about:

That we insist on ruminating on something called "capital" does not prove that its accumulation was in fact unique to modernity. And it is not. Romans and Chinese and human beings back to the caves have always accumulated capital, abstaining from consumption to get it.

Accumulating and owning capital is not anything new, right?

But, didn't "capitalism" make us rich?

What made us rich were new ideas for investing it, not the investments themselves, necessary though they were.

Which is what I tell students over and over again: The story of the last two hundred years is a story of ideas.  And, for that matter, it is through new ideas that we have gotten to where we are from the time we figured out permanent agriculture.

Even the capital, or investment capital if we want to be clear, alone does not work. Without new ideas, any amount of capital is mere crap; "financing is merely a necessary condition, not a sufficient one."

Back when I was a bullshitting teenager, I was convinced that it was a lack of money that was holding India back.  I freely and strongly opined that if people did not waste their money by buying gold, then there would be plenty of money for other things.  I forgot to ask myself: "What other things?"  Those other things are the new ideas that have transformed our lives.

So, financing is a necessary condition.  Like many other necessary conditions.

Necessary conditions are endless, and mostly not pertinent—"having liquid water at the usual temperatures" and "the absence of an active civil war" are necessary too, but nobody wants to call it waterism or peaceism.

If only we can make peaceism the dominant ideology!

So, if ideas are what transformed the world, and will continue to transform the world, then where do those new ideas come from?

Now, that is a completely different question from merely beating up on, or praising, capitalism, right?  Like I remind students, understanding the world requires us to ask the right questions.

I also tell them that I rarely ever have the answers.  My job is only to ask questions! ;)

Lower fertility is changing the world for the better

A couple of months ago, I authored an op-ed on falling fertility rates in India.  The rapid decrease in fertility rates throughout the developing world is news to most of the "regular" crowd though.  (Not so to the readers of this blog, of course; you are some of the well-informed people!)

The Economist has a lengthy piece on it, yet again.  A must read because of the implications that demographic changes have on all kinds of public policies.  The conclusion:

This link between growth and fertility raises awkward questions. In the 1980s the link was downplayed in reaction to Malthusian alarms of the 1970s, when it was fashionable to argue that population growth had to be reined in because oil and natural resources were running short. So if population does matter after all, does that mean the Malthusians were right?

Not entirely. Neo-Malthusians think the world has too many people. But for most countries, the population questions that matter most are either: do we have enough people to support an ageing society? Or: how can we take advantage of having just the right number for economic growth? It is fair to say that these perceptions are not mutually exclusive. The world might indeed have the right numbers to boost growth and still have too many for the environment. The right response to that, though, would be to curb pollution and try to alter the pattern of growth to make it less resource-intensive, rather than to control population directly.

The reason is that widening replacement-level fertility means population growth is slowing down anyway. A further reduction of fertility would be possible if family planning were spread to the parts of the world which do not yet have it (notably Africa). But that would only reduce the growth in the world’s numbers from 9.2 billion in 2050 to, say, 8.5 billion. To go further would probably require draconian measures, such as sterilisation or one-child policies.

The bad news is that the girls who will give birth to the coming, larger generations have already been born. The good news is that they will want far fewer children than their mothers or grandmothers did.

Nasty comments and learning experiences

First a dietitian propounding on economics, now a geography teacher. SJ editors, staff and apparently college teachers haven't a clue what economics/labor economics is about. ...
Western must be scraping the bottom of the barrel for teachers.

That was a comment to my opinion piece in the Statesman Journal (Sep 25th).
That comment is an example of how NOT to engage in debates and discussions. Such comments are wonderful learning experiences though :-) I often tell my students that in discussions we ought to stay focused on the issues, and should not launch into ad hominem arguments. I can use this as yet another example, I suppose.

So, what was the opinion that attracted such comments? Here it is:

State officials deserve better salaries
I support higher compensation for the governor, legislators, judges and other senior state officials.
The world and the state have significantly changed since Oregon's Constitution was adopted 150 years ago. The dominant economic activities then, for instance, were related to natural resources — farming, fishing, forestry — which also were seasonal. Citizens interested in politics and governance could then set aside time from their professions (if they could afford to, of course).
The issues also were less complicated than they are now. For one, they did not have to be concerned about the problems of most of the population — women and nonwhites, who did not have voting rights until much later. That itself would make the agenda for any government very light indeed.
Further, the much simpler economy meant that it was a limited range of issues that needed any discussion at all. An example will illustrate the point. There was no need
for discussions on a "bottle bill" in the 1870s because, well, there were no soda cans or bottles littered on the beaches and along the highways. Wait, there were no highways then!
In contrast to those simpler "Little House on the Prairie" times, we have a sophisticated economy, and the organization of our economic and personal lives is much more complex than it was even 50 years ago.
So much so that even the successful "bottle bill," which was a landmark legislation hailed all over the world, now needs updating to reflect the contemporary situation.
In a democracy, working on the "bottle bill" and a whole bunch of other issues requires qualified people in all the branches of our government. However, we can't expect, nor require, the legislators, judges or the governor to essentially do this on their time and money, which is what, in effect, low compensation levels imply.
Yes, we need to fix inefficiencies in our government, but the solutions for leaner and more productive government will not automatically happen as a result of low salaries. In fact, it will require higher salaries to attract talented people who can then work toward this important goal.
If compensation is the overriding issue, then perhaps we should watch out for loony proposals to outsource our government (including the governor and legislators) to India, where a few thousand well-qualified Indians will be willing to work for Oregon's minimum wage!
Obviously, higher salaries do not guarantee a better government. We only need to look across at the business world, which is filled with examples such as Enron, whose leaders were highly compensated but failed miserably. But, unlike in the corporate world, we people have the ultimate power after all — the votes to elect or not re-elect officials.
Finally, let us also remember two golden rules. One, the warning that, in a democracy, we get the government we deserve. And second, the marketplace axiom that we get what we pay for.
An outcome when these two rules work together can be disastrous for good government in the 21st century.