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Comment by AtlasBarfed | Hacker News Reader

Aaaand not a mention of global warming. Just abstract "environmental regulation". And it seems to only care about 1970s era regulation.

An article bemoaning the flawed state of modern economics also reflects the fundamental flaw of the culture of economics-the-study: not a flying fuck is given about existential environmental dangers and the very very real role economics-the-institution played in downplaying, avoiding, exacerbating, and denying their existence.

This despite an ever growing flood of REAL science that backs it up. The non-science of economics was in denial the whole time.

I was hoping this article reflected progress. Instead, it is the same old crap.

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Are you saying the article didn't mention global warming? You didn't read carefully enough. Climate is one of the things the author accuses the economist Diane Coyle of relegating to the "margin":

"All the same, her title cannot help but evoke other, perhaps more frightening monsters—ecological breakdown, deadly pandemics, secular stagnation, rising inequality, authoritarian resurgence—that her analysis relegates to the margins when it mentions them at all."

In the section on the book by Elizabeth Popp Berman, the author of the piece lays emphasis on the way the "economic style" has been involved in "downplaying, avoiding, exacerbating, and denying" dealing with carbon emissions:

"This was the first step in the marketization of pollution rights that ultimately led to cap-and-trade approaches to ozone regulation; economists would propose the very same approach to climate for years, leading to a spectacular failure of implementation in the United States and negligible impact on emissions in Europe to date. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently reiterated, the costs of this comprehensive failure have been staggering."

Take my intro micro class, or literally any intro micro class, and you will be treated to a chapter on externalities the leading example of which is unpriced carbon emissions which cause global warming.

If you can find me an intro micro class at any university in the United States which doesn’t cover externalities and use global warming as an example I’ll give you a dollar.

This is literally the fourth or fifth thing we teach students in their first class in the field.

Your comment is uninformed.

Okay, how about a central banker or think tank economist mentioning global warming at all? THOSE are the economists that matter, the ones that make policy.

But they don't want to ruffle the feathers of the masters, they want the gravy train of getting paid to rubberstamp right wing laissez faire U of Chicago cult dogma.

Here's another fun one. Let's look at the not-really-a-Nobel-prize winners in Economics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_Memorial_Prize_l...

Hmmmmmmmmmm. Any mention of environmentalism or issues with economic models resulting in exigent danger to the human race?

Nope, just a bunch of rich old white guys rewarding price theory and trade models.

Your "science" is corrupt to the foundations. I hope I am wrong, because your "science" has been used to marginalize the findings of REAL science for 50 years now.

The economic models already describe the harms of pollution, and they have for a long time. The negative externalities of pollution are taught in an intro microecon class, so I'm really not sure why you would expect someone to receive a Nobel for discussing it.

You're pretending that laissez-faire economists represent the majority in the field, but that simply isn't true and hasn't been for quite a while. Your rants are about 30 years too late to be relevant.

And the reform of economics is 50 years too late to save us from the worst of global warming.

I'll give you a pat on the head for trying your best, but your "science" has wrecked the world, and still can't see three months into the future. Externalities can't be accurately quantified by the dismal science. What is the value of a swampland drained? Of an extinction of a species? Please tell me what economics has magically awoken to value these travesties.

The endgame of labor in pure economics is still serfdom at best.

Globalization, championed by armies of economists for decades, has not just been a disaster but doomed the world by arbitraging what little environmental regulation existed into oblivion.

Even the most BASIC externality policy, the carbon tax on gasoline even for just the 20 pounds of CO2 created by currently burning gas, hasn't been instituted in 30 years.

In the 30 years of economics magically modernizing, workers have become, what 10x more productive and saw, at best wage stagnation. The rich have become ultra rich, and the governments of the world nakedly bow to their every whim.

And the "financialization" of the world. Oh please tell me that isn't the fault of economics. It has completely ruined higher education, housing, was responsible for the second-worst recession in American history, has ruined dozens of corporations such as Intel and GE.

Congratulations.

Laying many of these things at the feet of economics is laughably dishonest. You're throwing crap at the wall and hoping something sticks.

The only legitimate point you've made here is about globalization, which has actually been part of prevalent theory. The rest is an irrelevant, sanctimonious rant that I don't care about.

"Externalities have been a part of economics for years"

Okay, why hasn't a carbon tax, the most basic example of an applied cost externality been applied yet? 1 gallon of combusted gasoline is 20 pounds of carbon dioxide. It costs about 100$ to sequester a ton of CO2.

It is chemistry 101.

Show me you can do the math. At a MINIMUM for the offset of JUST THAT GALLON OF GAS, how much should the carbon tax be?

"I've had it with your irrelevant sanctimonious rant"

Okay, bury your head in sand, professor. It's not your fault. It's not the fault of your, ah, "field of study", you guys were just publishing papers about meaningless game theory and "ideal conditions" equations that had no applicability to the real world.

A bunch of right wing zealots took your little brain teasers and overapplied them to the world to justify their positions. Milton Friedman got a little full of himself and overstepped his bounds and had fun yukking it up with the fat cats. Your central bankers just throw darts at the wall, print some fiat currency, and cross their fingers, and enjoy a nice pension.

Keep handing out your "in memory of Alfred B. Nobel" prizes.

Meanwhile, real science and technology marches on, and actually improves people's lives.

>Okay, why hasn't a carbon tax, the most basic example of an applied cost externality been applied yet?

Greed. Politicians are afraid to try it. But you knew that already and you're grasping at straws. Pretending that the majority of economists are against externality taxes like the carbon tax is a lie, and you've already been corrected for it. Not much more to say, but keep trying.

Here's a fun exercise: type "scientists sign global warming declaration" in google. Boom:

https://abcnews.go.com/International/11000-scientists-sign-d...

This is what I got when I type in the equivalent for "economists":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economists%27_Statement_on_Cli...

Do you see the difference? Do you see the collective shrug? Do you see the eye rolling, the cultural alignment with entrenched industrial interests? Do you see how they position themselves as the science -> policy gateway, and basically only offer "weak sauce" solutions? Ones that anyone with any superficial awareness of politics, globalization, undermining regulation, and bending the law would recognize that those "market based solutions" were designed to fail?

Can you see that, or are you blind?

That statement is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. Worship of markets above all else. Contempt of regulation. Ok sure, it was 1997.

... why isn't there anything more recent? STRONG statements by the critical economic think tanks and departments of the land, those critical policy translators providing guidance to politicians... why isn't there a statement on par with the scientific community?

WHY?

One other thing... are you an adjunct professor or a TA? Even if you are chaired, you know about adjuncts and TAs. The slave labor class of higher education, part of the disenfranchisement of the current generation. The result of market forces to undermine the entrenched rent-seeking behavior of chaired tenured professorships.

Does anyone in your economics department care? I doubt it.

Economics in action.

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