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Salon interviews the late Adam Smith
Michael Lind, Salon
Our guest today is Adam Smith, a major figure of the Enlightenment who is widely considered to be the father of modern economic theory. He is a former professor at the University of Glasgow and the author of “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” (1759) and “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” (1776), his best-known book. Professor Smith joins us from Scotland.
Professor Smith, the Obama administration recently imposed tariffs on China, after companies and unions in the U.S. complained that the Chinese tire industry benefits from Chinese subsidies as well as an undervalued exchange rate. Most editorial pages and magazines in the prestige press denounced the tire tariffs as a threat to free trade. You are generally considered the patron saint of free trade. What is your view of the tariffs on Chinese tires?
The case in which it may sometimes be a matter of deliberation how far it is proper to continue the free importation of certain foreign goods is when some foreign nation restrains by high duties or prohibitions the importation of some of our manufactures into their country … There may be good policy in retaliations of this kind, when there is a probability that they will procure the repeal of the high duties or prohibitions complained of. The recovery of a great foreign market will generally more than compensate the transitory inconveniency of paying dearer during a short time for some sorts of goods. To judge whether such retaliations are likely to produce such an effect does not, perhaps, belong so much to the science of a legislator, whose deliberations ought to be governed by general principles which are always the same, as to the skill of that insidious and crafty animal, vulgarly called a statesman or politician, whose councils are directed by the momentary fluctuations of affairs…
(6 Oct 2009)
From the article:
The remarks of Adam Smith are all quotations from his book “The Wealth of Nations,” first published in 1776.
What Jane Jacobs Can Teach Us About the Economy
Judith D. Schwartz, Miller-McCune
How is that economic stimulus package working for you? Think TARP was worth those billions? Perhaps our financial system is back from the brink, but just how far — or how long until we’re staring down that same precipice — is not clear. Aside from healthy investment-house bonuses and the fact that General Motors still exists, most have seen little change. While our financial pundits are still scratching their heads over why our financial structure plummeted so spectacularly let alone what to do about it, many economic thinkers are turning to urban pioneer Jane Jacobs.
Who?
Most know Jane Jacobs as the ultimate champion of cities, who stood up against neighborhood demolition and saw a vibrant ballet where others saw urban squalor. But three years since her death — and a year into a downturn marked by bailouts, foreclosures and sky-high unemployment — her economic vision has come into the spotlight.
“People in economic policy and development are looking carefully at Jacobs’ work,” says David Boyle, an author and researcher at the New Economics Foundation, a London-based independent economic think tank. “She’s been very influential, but subtly so. People aren’t always aware of where the ideas come from. This is true from the right and left.”
In the landmark The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jacobs called out the folly of urban “improvement” projects that left city districts barren. (Who guessed that people liked to see their neighbors, and that vacant courtyards and hallways invited crime?) In the same way, her 1984 book, Cities and the Wealth of Nations, zeroes in on how well-intended subsidies can deplete growth and block innovation. Wealth, she argues, is not merely a matter of assets but rather the capacity to 1) engage those assets in production and 2) adapt to changing circumstances and needs.
Jacobs pointed out that to boost an area’s economy, the normal plan is to bring in a branch of some big business. But then you have an industry without roots. They’re not using local accountants and local printers,” says Susan Witt, executive director of the E.F. Schumacher Society in Great Barrington, Mass., which, since its inception in 1980, maintained a close working relationship with Jane Jacobs. “It’s through those roots that you get the economic multiplier effect of small businesses. And a branch or factory based elsewhere can leave as easily as it arrived.”
Michael Shuman, research and public policy director of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, says research suggests that subsidies to attract and retain development are not effective at jumpstarting economies. One unpublished study he led recently looked at the three largest economic development programs in 15 states and found that fewer than 10 percent of companies involved devoted even a small majority of expenditures to local businesses; in most cases 90 percent of the money spent went out of state…
(24 Oct 2009)
Great informative site about Jane Jacobs here.
Welcome to 2025
Michael Klare, tomdispatch
Memo to the CIA: You may not be prepared for time-travel, but welcome to 2025 anyway! Your rooms may be a little small, your ability to demand better accommodations may have gone out the window, and the amenities may not be to your taste, but get used to it. It’s going to be your reality from now on.
Okay, now for the serious version of the above: In November 2008, the National Intelligence Council (NIC), an affiliate of the Central Intelligence Agency, issued the latest in a series of futuristic publications intended to guide the incoming Obama administration. Peering into its analytic crystal ball in a report entitled Global Trends 2025, it predicted that America’s global preeminence would gradually disappear over the next 15 years — in conjunction with the rise of new global powerhouses, especially China and India. The report examined many facets of the future strategic environment, but its most startling, and news-making, finding concerned the projected long-term erosion of American dominance and the emergence of new global competitors. “Although the United States is likely to remain the single most powerful actor [in 2025],” it stated definitively, the country’s “relative strength — even in the military realm — will decline and U.S. leverage will become more constrained.”
That, of course, was then; this — some 11 months into the future — is now and how things have changed. Futuristic predictions will just have to catch up to the fast-shifting realities of the present moment. Although published after the onset of the global economic meltdown was underway, the report was written before the crisis reached its full proportions and so emphasized that the decline of American power would be gradual, extending over the assessment’s 15-year time horizon. But the economic crisis and attendant events have radically upset that timetable. As a result of the mammoth economic losses suffered by the United States over the past year and China’s stunning economic recovery, the global power shift the report predicted has accelerated. For all practical purposes, 2025 is here already.
Many of the broad, down-the-road predictions made in Global Trends 2025 have, in fact, already come to pass. Brazil, Russia, India, and China — collectively known as the BRIC countries — are already playing far more assertive roles in global economic affairs, as the report predicted would happen in perhaps a decade or so. At the same time, the dominant global role once monopolized by the United States with a helping hand from the major Western industrial powers — collectively known as the Group of 7 (G-7) — has already faded away at a remarkable pace. Countries that once looked to the United States for guidance on major international issues are ignoring Washington’s counsel and instead creating their own autonomous policy networks. The United States is becoming less inclined to deploy its military forces abroad as rival powers increase their own capabilities and non-state actors rely on “asymmetrical” means of attack to overcome the U.S. advantage in conventional firepower.
…Here is my list of six recent developments that indicate we are entering “2025” today. All six were in the news in the last few weeks, even if never collected in a single place. They (and other events like them) represent a pattern: the shape, in fact, of a new age in formation.
1. At the global economic summit in Pittsburgh on September 24th and 25th, the leaders of the major industrial powers, the G-7 (G-8 if you include Russia) agreed to turn over responsibility for oversight of the world economy to a larger, more inclusive Group of 20 (G-20), adding in China, India, Brazil, Turkey, and other developing nations…
…2. According to news reports, America’s economic rivals are conducting secret (and not-so-secret) meetings to explore a diminished role for the U.S. dollar — fast losing its value — in international trade…
…3. On the diplomatic front, Washington has been rebuffed by both Russia and China in its drive to line up support for increased international pressure on Iran to cease its nuclear enrichment program…
…4. Exactly the same inference can be drawn from a high-level meeting in Beijing on October 15th between Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and Iran’s first vice president, Mohammed Reza Rahimi…
…5. From Washington’s point of view, efforts to secure international support for the allied war effort in Afghanistan have also met with a strikingly disappointing response…
…6. Finally, in a move of striking symbolic significance, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) passed over Chicago (as well as Madrid and Tokyo) to pick Rio de Janeiro to be the host of the 2016 summer Olympics, the first time a South American nation was selected for the honor…
(26 Oct 2009)
Michael Klare is the author of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet.
Carolyn Baker reviews Daniel Elgin’s “The Living Universe”,
Carolyn Baker, Speaking Truth to Power
n the current moment it is nearly impossible to trust many of the voices in our world that issue from the field of economics. It is safe to say that none of the most esteemed in the field has the slightest idea how to address the global economic crisis. So when I picked up Duane Elgin’s book The Living Universe: Where Are We? Who Are We? Where Are We Going?, I was a bit wary when I read about his MBA from Wharton Business School—that is, until I realized that he is also the author of Voluntary Simplicity: Toward A Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich. Even more reassuring is Elgin’s work as a social research scientist at SRI International and his work with Joseph Campbell alongside his lifelong commitment to integrate science, economics, and the world’s greatest wisdom traditions.
Elgin asserts that on the other side of our growing systems crisis, the world will be a decidedly different place depending on our actions now. We will either have an Earth ruined through conflict or an Earth restored through cooperation. Echoing the perspective of geologian and eco-scholar, Thomas Berry, Elgin states that:
The universe is deeply alive as an evolving and learning system and we humans are on a journey of discovery within it. We are learning to live within a living universe. If we lose sight of where we are (living in a living universe) we profoundly diminish our understanding of who we are…and where we are going….
The book is divided into the three categories above, with a final section on “Actions For The Journey Ahead.” Realizing that many readers may not espouse the living universe perspective, Elgin goes to great lengths in the book to establish a rational foundation for his assertion, skillfully marrying the principles of modern science with ancient wisdom. Although I read the entire book, I found the first two sections onerous since I needed little persuasion regarding the scientific basis for arguing the case of a living universe. However, for those who do, Elgin’s arguments are intellectually sound and powerfully compelling.
My interest in the book lies in the third section: Where are we going? Elgin wastes no time telling us that we are hanging from the edge of the cliff, but he does not leave us there because he reminds us that at this pregnant time in human history, we are each called to help birth a larger vision of the human journey. The author underscores what I have been asserting for many years and what I reiterated throughout my book Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization’s Collapse, namely, that more than just a successful response to climate disruption and the dwindling supply of cheap oil, we need a compelling story about the human journey that enables us to look beyond looming conflicts over scarce resources. As citizens of the earth, every person has the right and responsibility to contribute to the collective visioning of our journey.
Essential Excerpts from The Living Universe
While it’s tempting to get ahead of ourselves, we are at a dangerous time in the transition from separation to communion. We are between two major stages and moving rapidly into a time of planetary initiation. Entering as we are a world system crisis, we must choose whether we will pull together in creative cooperation or pull apart in profound conflict. According to Elgin, the coming decades will reveal the soul of our species and provide the opportunity for a rite of passage from one great trajectory of learning development to another.
A critical step in this supercharged setting is to imagine together the world of our vision. All current signs point to a future of catastrophe and ruin, and it is easy to envision many such scenarios but much harder to visualize a future of opportunity and renewal. The latter is still a vague and unformed possibility in our collective imagination. The bigger the challenges, Elgin implies, the larger the vision required to transform conflict into cooperation and thereby facilitate a more promising future. Not only must we hold an expansive vision, but that vision must be informed by a commitment to a larger story of humanity than civilization has provided.
Some may question the need for understanding the reality of a “living universe”, but Elgin argues that it is necessary because understanding it allows us to discover our inextricable place in the fabric of life and expands our empathy as we come to see ourselves as beings of cosmic dimension and participation. Such compassion then becomes the basis for a higher unity that transcends our great diversity—racial, ethnic, sexual, generational, religious, political, economic, and more.
…The alienation of today’s massive cities could be replaced with a social and physical architecture sensitive to the psychology of modern tribes and a flowering of diverse communities—most created through retrofitting. One current manifestation of this is the eco-village.
Despite the appeal of eco-villages as a design for sustainable living, there is not time to retrofit and rebuild our existing urban infrastructure before we hit an evolutionary wall. Climate disruption, energy shortages, and other critical trends will overtake us long before we have the opportunity to make a sweeping overhaul in the design and function of our cities and towns; therefore, it is important to turn from the experiments in eco-villages and co-housing and to adapt their designs and principles for successful living to existing urban settings. Without the time to retrofit into well-designed green villages, we must make the most of the existing urban infrastructure and creatively adapt ourselves within it. Global challenges will produce a wave of green innovations for local living—technical, ecological, economic, social, architectural, and more. Lessons learned in eco-villages and co-housing will be important sources of invention and inspiration for a new village movement as existing urban architecture is transformed into human-scale designs for sustainable living…
(25 Oct 2009)
Originally printed in the Transition Times: Colorado edition. More information about the The Living Universe here. -KS
Bill Moyers: How Can the U.S. Be an Empire and a Democracy at the Same Time? (interview transcript)
Bill Moyers, Bill Moyers’ Journal
BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal.
President Obama has been holding one meeting after another trying to decide whether to escalate the war in Afghanistan. He would do well to hold off another discussion until he has sent everyone home for the weekend to read this new book with the provocative title, STRIPPING BARE THE BODY, and a cover that holds the eye like a magnet.
The subject is politics, violence, and war, and running through it is an old truth often forgot: you start a war knowing what you are fighting, but in the end you find yourself fighting for things you had never thought of.
In the meantime, you make decisions that inflict on people in far-off places suffering you never imagined.
That’s but one stark truth you will find in these pages. The wars we fight, and the violence that feeds them, reveal like nothing else the hidden structures of power in Washington: the personal rivalries, the in-fighting and deal-making, the ambitions that decide our policies and often our fate. STRIPPING BARE THE BODY, you will discover, is a moral history of American power over the past quarter century.
Its author is Mark Danner, who throughout those 25 years reported from more mean places in the world than any journalist I know — Iraq, the Balkans, Haiti, and Washington, among them. Despite more than one close brush with death, he keeps going back. He writes for some of our leading magazines and has produced a series of acclaimed books, winning awards left and right as well as receiving the MacArthur Fellowship. All the while Mark Danner has been teaching journalism and foreign affairs at both the University of California, Berkeley, and Bard College in upstate New York. He’s been at this table before, and it’s good to welcome you back.
MARK DANNER: Thank you, Bill. It’s good to be here.
BILL MOYERS: First, the title. Very provocative. Where did it come from?
MARK DANNER: Well, it comes from a former Haitian president, who survived in office for about four months before being overthrown in a coup d’état, and he said he told me and said in speeches subsequently that political violence is like stripping bare the body, the better to place the stethoscope and hear what’s going on beneath the skin. He meant that times of revolution, coup d’état, war, any kind of social violence going on tends to form anyone moment of nudity, as he put it. In which you can actually see the forces at work within the society stripped bare.
It’s like one of those models in biology class, where you see the body, you see all the organs beneath it, and suddenly you see who’s oppressing whom, who has the money, who has the power, how that power is exerted. And that that is the time to seize a society and look at it, to X-ray it, try to understand what exactly is going on in its intimate recesses…
(20 Oct 2009)
More information about Mark Danner’s book here.
