Partha Dasgupta writes as an economist. So do I. Presumably I am supposed to be grateful for Dasgupta assuring LRB readers that the way many economists think about environmental problems “is the correct way to evaluate public policy … a policy should be accepted if and only if it is expected to lead to an increase in wealth per capita”. But I am exasperated by the imperious tone of such pronouncements, which will only serve to isolate economics further from environmental debate in the humanities and social sciences. Dasgupta continues “there is no evidence [Jared Diamond] even realises he doesn’t have the equipment to hand with which to study our interactions with nature” and worries that Diamond’s readers will likewise “not even notice that they haven’t got the tools”. Of course the ‘tools’, ‘equipment’ and ‘toolkit’ to which Dasgupta refers concern the contraption he terms ‘modern economics’. Dasgupta’s use of ‘modern’ as a badge of honour would make Blair proud. He mentions ‘modern theories of economic development’ and ‘modern decentralised economies’; in both cases the adjective is used to ignore and belittle alternatives without bothering to discuss them.

Debate is not encouraged by hints that only those with the right tools are qualified to speak. This is black box economics: out of my technical hat I bring the ‘correct’ policy, but sorry, no explanations or reasons since it’s too technical for you to understand. This technical guff needs a good lesson in market discipline. The vast majority of politicians, policy-makers and opinion-formers have no understanding or interest in intricate technical stories (they’re called ‘models’). More importantly, there’s little evidence that even for those who do understand, the technical stories have any influence on their thinking. Market economists are supposed to respond to customer demand, not rebuke them for failing to have the right toolkit.

The customers crave understanding; economists might begin with some honesty about the limitations of economic analysis. Dasgupta is right to emphasise the uncertainties which plague attempts to quantify natural capital, but wrong to imply that the solution is less ‘biased’ quantification. Since Keynes, most applied economists have accepted that genuinely uncertain outcomes cannot be quantified. Only the most austere Bayesians believe everything has a probability. Setting problems of uncertainty aside, quantification remains spurious. We would think it absurd to invoke cost-benefit analysis to justify say, homeland security policy. Environmental security should not have to pass such a test either. Bush and Blair know that cost-benefit analysis cannot legitimise their military expansion plans; they must appeal to morality. In this respect at least, environmentalism can learn from them.

http://www.michaelbalter.com/NeolithicNews/07_25_2005|Review_of_Guns_Germs_and_Steel.php

all best, Michael Balter, Science

http://www.michaelbalter.com

“Without a sympathetic understanding of economic mechanisms, it isn’t possible to offer advice on the interactions between nature and the human species.” Partha Dasgupta has written this in a review of Jared Diamond’s Collapse.

I’ve ridiculed Jared Diamond’s recent book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive several times (see Unanimous Fallacies and Lemony New Doom for examples) and saw no use to do it again when Partha Dasgupta’s review was published…