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
So answer my question, then; when you say they're 'backed' by the US government, what does that mean?
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.
ROFL!
Students who fail the exam are always the ones who are convinced the teaching was inadequate.
By golly, you know your illiteracy! :-)
(Patty Buke, Batty Puke, whatever)
He's wrong precisely because economies do have a forseeable direction, because people are not blind and purposeless: they make plans, tell people about their plans, and work to achieve their plans. Further, they can identify areas for future improvement, and work to achieve those improvements. Evolution, as you say, does not do this -- improvements come only because single random mutations happen to survive long enough to reach the next generation.
Because economies of whatever type depend on the operation of intelligent decision-making, they are examples of various flavors of intelligent design. There's an interesting wrinkle here, in that a free market comprises a very large number of actors and thus has a statistical component to it: lots of intelligent decisions being made all at once. Interestingly, this turns Dawkins's famous statement on its head: all that apparent economic randomness is in fact the cumulative effect of conscious "design" decisions.
As an aside, Hayek's major insight about command economies was not that people in an economy were "blind and purposeless," but rather that a few central planners simply couldn't know as much as a whole bunch of semi-independent economic agents.
And to repeat: we know that economies have a forseeable direction because we can observe the existence of highly successful investment markets, venture capitalism -- not to mention intellect-driven technological progress.
The Hanseatic LeagueDidit placemark
#####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.#####
That's why I believe in natural selection, though I remain doubtful of micro-to-man evolution.
Only in the very broadest sense - the economy as a whole grows, etc. Everything else is pretty much a random walk, technical analysts notwithstanding.
Nope -- unless you're going to claim that people's economic decisions are the exact equivalent of a random biological mutation, the analogy between the free market and biological evolution makes no sense.
I'm saying that on a day-to-day basis, markets are chaotic systems, much like biological evolution. If you think otherwise, pick your favorite stock and tell me what the closing price will be on June 12, 2008.
Economies are driven by intelligence. Evolution is not. The premise of the article is false.
You can pick stocks based on any method you like, but the fate of any particular one of them is basically unpredictable in the short- to medium-term. Shall I link you to those sorts of stories that pop up in the WSJ from time to time, the ones where a dart-throwing chimp beats the average fund manager for portfolio performance?
Evolution and economies are driven by natural selection.
But hey, just imagine if you could 'kill' all your losing trades and keep only the winning ones. Why, I bet you could make a 10,000% gain in the commodities market in only a year!
(/Hillary)
Makes sense. In for a dime, in for a dollar. ID all the way!
But for the analogy to hold true, all economic decisions would have to be utterly random, and there'd not only be no way to predict which ones make money, but nobody would be doing any financial planning in the first place. That's clearly not true -- and thus you should recognize that the premise of the article is false.
We both know that people's economic decisions are not random: each is made with distinct goals in mind. This is the opposite of the mechanism by which evolution is supposed to work, where there are no "goals" in the first place, and there is certainly no "purpose" to the random mutations that are supposedly the biological equivalent of an economic decision.
You're basically saying that the superficial similarity between the two must mean that they are the same. And it's true that both systems are examples of large statistical populations; however, the driving forces behind them are completely different.
As I said above, a free market economy turns Mr. Dawkins's statement on its head: all that apparent economic randomness is in fact the cumulative effect of conscious "design" decisions.
So you're essentially claiming that economic success is simply a matter of pure luck?
Really, now - you're smarter than that. Back up and try again.
And you're surely smart enough to know that I was aking a rhetorical question, to which you and I both know the answer is "no."
Let's be honest: we both know that economic success is more than a matter of random chance. The evolutionary equivalent of an economic decision is the mutation, which is said to arise through random chance. Economic decisions are not random.
One further difference: in evolution, the fact that mutations are assumed to be not only random, but also statistically independent, means that they are different from other economic decisions in another important way: lots of people can make the same economic decisions for the same reason.
One further difference: in evolution, the fact that mutations are assumed to be not only random, but also statistically independent, means that they are different from other economic decisions in another important way: lots of people can make the same economic decisions for the same reason.
Natural selection is like that, too - lots of creatures evolve in the same general way because they're subject to the same sorts of pressures. Birds and bats have similar body plans, sharks and tuna have similar body plans, snakes and earthworms have similar body plans, despite the fact that none of those pairs are especially closely related. Mutation may be random, but the selective pressures that operate on them aren't.
No, because as js1138 says, the mechanism of variation is in general irrelevant to evolution. Some of the individual short term plans are smart, some are stupid; some are fortunately timed; some are smart but ill-timed.
You're basically saying that the superficial similarity between the two must mean that they are the same. And it's true that both systems are examples of large statistical populations; however, the driving forces behind them are completely different. As I said above, a free market economy turns Mr. Dawkins's statement on its head: all that apparent economic randomness is in fact the cumulative effect of conscious "design" decisions.
It's an analogy, and I agree any analogy is stupid if pushed too far. But there is no economic randomness in the long term; we don't differ from the economy in 1906 by a random walk, we've grown massively. On the other hand, there is a lot of superficial randomness in the short term.
(I disagree that you can't make money off short term fluctuations, BTW; I play several stocks where I detected a well defined periodic oscillation, and I've done very nicely doing so. )
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