thanks (0.00 / 0)

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by: bruhrabbit @ Fri Jul 11, 2008 at 22:43:19 PM UTC

He sounds very interesting. (0.00 / 0)

I liked the post that ended thus:

I am in natural sympathy with the second story and not with the first, but I suspect both are largely true. The industrial revolution contained both these stories. Technological change and inequality-driven poverty that made many people really worse off. And as so often, EP Thompson got it right. Commenting [in The Making of the English Working Class, p232] on John Clapham's Economic History of Modern Britain he wrote "Throughout this painstaking investigation" of changes that affected field labourers at the turn of the 19th century, Clapham "eschews all generalizations except for one -- the pursuit of the mythical 'average'." "What he was really doing [with his pursuit of the average], of course, was to offer a tentative value judgement as to that elusive quality, 'well-being'... Since the judgement springs like an oak out of such a thicket of circumstantial detail -- and since it is itself discuised as an 'average' -- it is easily mistaken as a statement of fact".

Was the industrial revolution good or bad? Yes.

So how do we react to these two different stories? By refusing to let one cancel out the other. A natural conclusion of Sen's story is that scarce basic goods should stay out of the market economy (public education, public health care) as price is not a good way to ration access to such goods. And a natural conclusion of the innovation story is that the market economy has an important role when it comes to providing new goods. Neither are particularly controversial of course, but if we pursue the mythical average we end up thinking of them as being in contradiction. If the market is good for cars why not antibiotics? If price cannot be trusted to supply rice in Bengal, why can it be trusted with cellphones? It is in pursuing the mythical average that we end up with such one-dimensional statements as "markets are bad" or "government should stay out of the economy". The trick, I increasingly think, is to refuse to pursue that average.

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.

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by: Mimikatz @ Fri Jul 11, 2008 at 23:22:06 PM UTC

excellent curmudgeon (0.00 / 0)

I found Slee a month ago via Crooked Timber. I agree, an excellent and often very funny blog. His spoof of the Long Tail / Here Comes Everybody genre was perfect.

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by: souvarine @ Sat Jul 12, 2008 at 01:26:17 AM UTC

Curmudgeons are just as shallow as idealists (0.00 / 0)

I dunno, maybe I need to read his book, but the blog doesn't really seem to be adding much to the conversation.

Things are changing. Some people are overexcited about this, no doubt. But simply pointing out where people are overexcited -- essentially being a critic -- is minimally helpful.

What's actually changing? What are the new opportunities, the new threats? That's what's interesting. That's what will really matter. Because without Better Ideas, simply critiquing existing ideas yields no progress.

I'm curious what his take on Bekler is.

Me | My Work | Future Majority

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by: Josh Koenig @ Sat Jul 12, 2008 at 23:50:28 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Reich (0.00 / 0)

Matt, have you read Robert Reich's Supercapitalism? How does No One Makes You Shop at Walmart compare to it?

The truth about Saxby Chambliss

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by: nstrauss @ Sat Jul 12, 2008 at 05:36:36 AM UTC

There are several thoughtful reviews of his book... (0.00 / 0)

at amazon.com's site.*

*(Not a recommendation to buy at Amazon; it is the place I usually go to see what other readers think, when considering whether to put a book on my own reading list.)

Keep your mind free and clear, Donna Edwards, and don't sell your soul.

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by: murlandguy @ Sat Jul 12, 2008 at 19:16:58 PM UTC