Posted on 01/04/2006 7:33:35 AM PST by Nicholas Conradin
Scion of America’s greatest Keynesian, James K. Galbraith recently penned one of the most astonishing near misses in recent memory. In the December/January edition of Mother Jones Galbraith accuses free-market economists starting with Adam Smith of being Intelligent Design (ID) hucksters.
“Economists… have been Intelligent Designers since the beginning,” Galbraith writes. “Adam Smith was a deist; he believed in a world governed by a benevolent system of natural law… Smith's Creator did not interfere. He simply wrote the laws and left them for events to demonstrate and man to discover.” Galbraith’s analogy is badly forced. But it is forced ultimately to synthesize two of the left’s favorite bromides: that free-market economists are crazy, and that creationists are ignorant rubes.
Galbraith (deliberately?) misunderstands the bulk of the arguments for ID. After all, if “Smith’s Creator did not interfere,” his analogy with ID does not hold. ID depends on the idea of a Designer’s interference in the process of forming complex life-forms. By contrast, there’s Darwin, whose process is seemingly blind and purposeless.
Indeed, if ever there were a view of economics that builds in the blind, purposeless processes of trial-and-error, specialization, and complexity (the hallmarks of the Darwinian algorithm) it is Smith’s invisible-hand economics -- the Austrian variants of which are the most strikingly evolutionary in character. It is therefore odd that Galbraith calls his article “Smith v. Darwin.”
Indeed, if ever there were a view of economics that builds in the blind, purposeless processes of trial-and-error, specialization, and complexity (the hallmarks of the Darwinian algorithm) it is Smith’s invisible-hand economics -- the Austrian variants of which are the most strikingly evolutionary in character. It is therefore odd that Galbraith calls his article “Smith v. Darwin.” Indeed, it is the economics of the left, so affectionately espoused by Galbraith and his compatriots, that is secular Intelligent Design par excellence.
Consider quotes like this from the New York Times’ Paul Krugman: “What's interesting about [the Bush Administration] is that there's no sign that anybody's actually thinking about ‘well, how do we run this economy?’”
The very idea of “running” an economy is predicated upon the notion that economies can be run and fine-tuned, much like a machine. But what Krugman and folks like Galbraith fail to understand is that the economy isn’t a machine at all, but an ecosystem. And ecosystems aren’t designed, they evolve.
Recall the last time you were in a room with both liberals and conservatives. If the liberal heard the conservative start to talk about Intelligent Design, you might have seen him shake his head rather smugly. Why? Because he will have read his Kaufmann, his Dawkins, and of course, his Darwin. He’ll let the creationist say his piece, and then he’ll reply along these lines:
As long as the basic regularities of nature are in place, Darwinism and complexity theory predict that the myriad forms of life and details of the world will emerge from the simplest substructures -- i.e. atoms, amino acids, DNA and so on. The world doesn’t need a designer. The complexity of the world is a spontaneously generated order. The laws of nature yield emergent complexity through autocatalytic processes.
But does our smug Darwinist extend this self-same rationale beyond life’s origins?
He ought to; because like our diverse ecosystems, a complex, well-ordered society arises from the existence of certain kinds of basic rules, norms, and institutions (societal DNA, if you will).
The critic may try in ad hoc fashion to reply that such institutions are “designed.” But this rejoinder misses the point. Once you start to argue about the development of institutions, it’s rather like arguing about how the laws of nature came to be. And these are rather separate discussions, ones that push the question of a Designer back to a point before evolutionary processes are set in motion. In any case, proper institutional rules obviate the need for central planners and technocrats to control the economy. And like any other ecosystem, the economy will always resist being bent to a designer’s will.
People on the political left, while characterizing conservatives as being flat-earthers, do believe in a form of Intelligent Design. For like their conservative counterparts who believe that nothing as complex as nature could possibly have emerged without being designed, Beltway bureaucrats and DNC Keynesians believe nothing as complex as an economy can exist without being shaped in their image.
What both fail to realize is that neither needs a planner. Markets (individual actors in cooperation) do a better job of self-regulation than any government official can do from on high. Ecosystems (complex flora and fauna interacting in complex ways) regulate themselves better than the most determined ecologist ever could.
In fact, the intersession of bureaucrats in the economy almost always make things worse -- as harmful unintended consequences follow from their actions. Because unlike the Intelligent Designer favored by Creationists, bureaucrats are neither omniscient, nor omnipotent.
A further, delicious irony in all of these quibbles about the relative merits of Intelligent Design comes in the fact that conservative proponents of ID may have borrowed their tactics directly from the left. According to philosopher Stanley Fish, writing in Harper’s:
“[The ‘teach the controversy’ battle cry] is an effective one, for it takes the focus away from the scientific credibility of Intelligent Design -- away from the question, ‘Why should it be taught in a biology class?’ -- and puts it instead on the more abstract issues of freedom and open inquiry. Rather than saying we’re right, the other guys are wrong, and there are the scientific reasons why, Intelligent Design polemicists say that every idea should at least get a hearing; that unpopular or minority views should always be represented; that questions of right and wrong should be left open; that what currently counts as knowledge should always be suspect, because it will typically reflect the interests and preferences of those in power. These ideas have been appropriated wholesale from the rhetoric of multiculturalism -- “
Of course, no self-respecting liberal will admit that his conceptual latticework is analogous to ID any more than he’ll admit that a minority view like ID should be protected from “hegemonic control by those in power” in the interests of “diversity.” I’ll leave it to the leftist intellectual to further plumb the depths of postmodernism and explain away the hypocrisy.
In the meantime, I’d like to know why, by the left’s own rationale, we should be teaching socialist economics – the economics of Intelligent Design -- in our public universities.
Max Borders is Managing Editor of TCSDaily.com. He is also founder of The Wingbeat Project
"Are you aware, sir, that publishers, rather than authors, commonly write titles and subtitles for books?"
"No, I'm not aware of that. Did you just make it up?"
No, I didn't make it up. And I'll bet dollars to dimes that Bethell's publisher wrote the bogus subtitle, then Bethell corrected it when asked to sign off on it. But that wouldn't stop you from misquoting Bethell, would it.
Until a month ago, Bethell was selling books using it on amazon.com.
I've never heard of a publisher who didn't ask for author approval of book covers, etc., before using same.
The problem that socialists and ID advocates can't wrap their minds around is that even if there are designers, complex things like life and economies are shaped by contingencies that cannot be foreseen. Arguing that businessmen design and plan is like arguing about the details of what causes mutation.
It is obvious to conservatives that central planning can't produce a robust and stable economy. Similarly, any entity attempting to plan for all the contingencies faced by living things would be swamped with change orders. A stochastic source of variation will always prove the most adaptable and robust.
If he's wrong on this central point, capitalism is immoral and socialism should be the most efficient kind of economy. All the planning in the world doesn't make corporations stable. There is a larger view in which the destiny of companies is shaped by contingencies rather than planning.
Even the kinds of plans businesses make are shaped. Planning theories go in an out of style. You cannot tell me what the buzz words will be a decade from now.
The main problem you have is understanding that the source of variation makes no difference in biological evolution or in the economy. Planned or unplanned, things are shaped by unforeseeable contingencies.
What is a "government backed currency"? What can I get from the government in exchange for my paper dollars?
If I try to rent a car, is Hertz obligated to take my government backed cash, or will they rely more on the backing of Visa?
"So you're claiming the US Government has juridiction in Tanzania?"
No, but are you claiming that the US government does not back dollars in Tanzania?
Look, I know perfectly well that rudimentary trade can occur without any government involvement. All I'm saying is that trade be severely hampered if it did not make use of government-back currency. Certainly modern trade would be nothing like it is without such currency. And that currency constitutes an "intelligent" government involvement. The Theory of Evolution specifically excludes *all* intelligent intervention, of course.
Please don't distort what I write.
Nobody "planned" for the introduction of the Xerox machine. And I'm sure the manufacturers of slide rules were surprised by the unplanned introduction of transistorized calculators. There are thousands of such examples every generation, and the pace is accelerating. No "Designer" could ever begin to handle something as complex as an economy. Or an ecosystem.
Absolutely. Try complaining to the embassy they won't take your dollars in Tanzania.
All I'm saying is that trade be severely hampered if it did not make use of government-back currency. Certainly modern trade would be nothing like it is without such currency.
Trade originated without government backed currency. Markets came first; government intervention much later.
The Theory of Evolution specifically excludes *all* intelligent intervention, of course
BS. You think the ToE excludes dog-breeding? Transgenic organisms? Like the market, with the material evolution has provided us, we can intervene and make the system more useful to us. But the market arose without our intervention.
Yes, when they're not finding God to be the source of regularity. But when you claim that everything is your "evidence," you're really saying that you have no way to determine what is and what isn't evidence. In other words, you have no evidence at all.
Your reply demonstrates that I am wasting my time in debating with you, but let waste just a bit more for fun.
Does the US government back dollars in Tanzania? You want to get into a semantic nit-picking? No, of course the US govt doesn't back them *in* Tanzania, but if you bring them back to the US it backs them. Duh! So it backs the "dollars in Tanzania" but it doesn't "back them in Tanzania". So I guess we are both right, depending on how the sentence in interpreted.
As for the ToE excluding intelligent intervention, you obviously know darn well what I meant.
I think you missed your calling. You should have been a lawyer.
I probably didn't express my point very well. It's not that one type of economy is "planned" and the other is not. In reality they're both the products of planning; it's just that the responsibility for the planning is centralized for socialism, and dispersed in the free market. Neither approach, however, is "blind and purposeless," and that's why the analogy to evolution fails.
Perhaps a more appropriate analogy would be found in a comparison of development strategies between the Mac and PC worlds. Apple maintained strict control on both software and hardware development, whereas the PC world was very much a free-market environment, for both hardware and software. In terms of market share, Macs continue to be slaughtered, despite being (allegedly) "better." Neither approach, however, would be considered blind or purposeless: both demonstrate different approaches to an "intelligent design" solution for computer stuff.
The main problem you have is understanding that the source of variation makes no difference in biological evolution or in the economy. Planned or unplanned, things are shaped by unforeseeable contingencies.
Actually, the "problem" appears to be that I understand the difference and you apparently do not. If I understand your take on the matter, you're stating that "unforseeable contingencies" are the only thing that can drive an economy. But we know that's not true: if it were, there such things as financial markets, stock exchanges, or even money could not exist. Unforseeable contingencies certainly do play a role, but the point is that they don't play the only role: we know that economies are affected by the fact that people make economic decisions that are neither blind nor purposeless.
I'd guess you probably are. I 've detected no capacity in your for learning.
No, of course the US govt doesn't back them *in* Tanzania, but if you bring them back to the US it backs them. Duh!
How many people in Tanzania can travel to the United States? The point is, they are a useful medium of exchange in Tanzania by common agreement, not because the US government 'backs them'. The Japanese Government mints the Yen, it's a hard currently, but try spending yen in Tanzania.
And what does it mean to say we 'back them', anyway? The days you could ask for gold in exchange for dollars are long gone.
As for the ToE excluding intelligent intervention, you obviously know darn well what I meant.
I'm not even sure you know what you meant. Governments started intervening in markets long after markets arose. Intelligent beings started intervening in evolution long after evolution started.
I think you missed your calling. You should have been a lawyer.
You mean, like Phil Johnson, the modern father of ID?
In the long run it doesn't make much difference. Corporations come and go regardless of their planning strategy. Corporate planning is analogous to an individual's life functions, not to the economy as a whole. the planning done by a corporation affects it's lifespan, but does not affect the economy very much.
Obviously the failure of a major corporation has an impact, but then ecosystems have extinctions and cataclysms also, and life goes on.
Unless you're going to claim that economic decisions are "blind and purposeless...." In which case, I'll turn you over to the ghost of Mr. Hayek.
Mutation certainly appears to be blind and purposeless. The direction of natural selection is as unpredictable as the weather. Evolution does not have a foreseeable direction.
In what respect is the author wrong?
Sir, do you really not understand that trillions of US dollars are held in foreign nations by foreign corporations? And do you really not understand that those corporations hold those dollars with the expectation that they are backed by the US government?
With all due respect, sir, you're arguments amount to semantic quibbling combined with nonsensical "reasoning." I'm finished wasting my time. The fact that you are a "professor" is just more evidence of the decline of our system of "higher" education. Go ahead, have the last word. I won't even read it.
LOL.
Remember my comment a few days ago about Patty Buke folding the science illiterates together with the economic illiterates? Am I prescient or what? ;)
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