[andy popp]

Authors don’t write blurbs, of course!

[seankenny]

I read some of the introduction via Google books and they say exactly the same thing!

More broadly, this vein of criticism of modern economics falls into the pattern of all descriptions of bogeymen or scapegoats. The bogeyman is at once weak and despicable (useless at forecasting recessions, makes obvious misunderstandings of human nature etc) and at the same time frightening in its destructive power (“it [neoclassical economics’ concept of scarcity] has fostered a world in which the economy and nature are on a collision course” to quote this book). Intellectuals are as prone to seeking scapegoats as everyone else but they’re probably better at kidding themselves that they’re being objective.

[Fultonius]

I read some of the introduction via Google books and they say exactly the same thing!

More broadly, this vein of criticism of modern economics falls into the pattern of all descriptions of bogeymen or scapegoats. The bogeyman is at once weak and despicable (useless at forecasting recessions, makes obvious misunderstandings of human nature etc) and at the same time frightening in its destructive power (“it [neoclassical economics’ concept of scarcity] has fostered a world in which the economy and nature are on a collision course” to quote this book). Intellectuals are as prone to seeking scapegoats as everyone else but they’re probably better at kidding themselves that they’re being objective.

So, which bit of modern economics do you feel it partrays incorrectly?

I've not read the book, so no axe to grind, but I do feel that current economic models are not exactly fit for purpose.

[seankenny]

Again, only going from a quick scan of the intro, but to my mind it presents economics as far more normative than it really is. It’s also worth pointing out there was a big lag between the beginnings of proper economic growth and its study (indeed, even its quantification). Annoyingly, I could guess which thinkers the authors would laud in their intro and they delivered.

One of my gripes about this kind of argument is the oft repeated statement along the lines of “if everyone’s consumption was at the level of the US then we’d need seven (or however many) Earths to supply the raw materials”. I suspect this is almost certainly true. Except for the small fact that we simply don’t know how to bring about that level of consumption. We just can’t do it (and not for want of trying either). Getting rich is hard and it hasn’t happened very often. To have global levels of US style affluence is just an impossible situation for us to bring about. “If people all grew to seven feet tall we’d need to completely remodel every building in existence,” is equally true and equally nonsensical.

Which economic models do you feel don’t work and why?

[andy popp]

Which economic models do you feel don’t work and why?

The Laffer Curve? Efficient market hypothesis?

To be honest Sean, I thought you were rather over defensive yesterday (though I get that it must be frustrating to have people beat up on economics all the time). Yes, the introduction is schematic - explicitly so, as introductions often are. The rest of the book goes on to unpack much more carefully what the intro schematises. I think the book is also meant to be polemic and I very much doubt the authors want to make any claim to objectivity. As an aside, you might find it a nice irony that the first author works at the University of Chicago.

In any case, more importantly, though I said the book was excellent and thought provoking I didn't say I agreed with all of it. But I do think it raises very important debates that we need to engage with, individually and as societies. I think it's worth reading and wanted to recommend it to others.

[seankenny]

The Laffer curve is both obviously true (if taxation was at 100% lots of people wouldn’t work and formal employment would fall apart) and not at all true in the way it’s commonly used, ie we don’t sit anywhere near the inflexion point on the curve, and hence it’s of extremely limited use as an analytical tool. The efficient market hypothesis has been described as not true but useful, worth bearing in mind for market participants, but I’m not particularly knowledgeable about finance so I’m happy to leave it at that.

The examples kind of show why I get frustrated, because the criticisms are usually obvious and a bit boring. Yes, the Laffer curve is used by right wing gobshites but it’s not really a key concept in economics. The things that are, eg market failure, externalities, asymmetrical information, etc, are far more interesting and applicable to most people’s lives, and also play a key role in the on-going work of de-carbonising industrial societies.

Anyhow yes, these debates are incredibly important, but trying to blame a particular intellectual tradition seems to sidestep the awkward truth that consumption is pretty popular across society.

[andy popp]

Sure, of course the Laffer Curve is a boring and obvious example (sorry about that), but that's because it had very real real-world consequences. Boring doesn't mean unimportant. Same with EMH, I would say. I don't think they can/should be dismissed for being boring/obvious.

but trying to blame a particular intellectual tradition seems to sidestep the awkward truth that consumption is pretty popular across society.

Except that's exactly what the book doesn't do. It follows multiple, often contradicting strands of thought that have shaped our attitudes to scarcity, plenty and desires. And it certainly doesn't gloss the fact that people like consuming stuff.

But I think we're probably done here.

In another news, I'm reading more Naguib Mahfouz - maybe my 14th? Children of the Alley.

[seankenny]

Sure, of course the Laffer Curve is a boring and obvious example (sorry about that), but that's because it had very real real-world consequences. Boring doesn't mean unimportant. Same with EMH, I would say. I don't think they can/should be dismissed for being boring/obvious.

I’m sorry but I can’t quite let this comment go without a reply. My point is not that it didn’t have real world consequences but that it is not a well thought out economic theory. It doesn’t “work” because it’s descriptive and predictive effects are small; it’s a great piece of pseudo-economics for right wing politicians but it’s not much use if you want to think about tax. So discussion of it is great as a criticism of right wing politics but rather lacking as a discussion of economics.

Now I’m done!

[andy popp]

That’s just blatantly moving the goalposts. We’re only allowed to consider the well thought out economic theories? Laffer might be junk but we can’t just pretend it has nothing to do with “real” economics.

[seankenny]

That’s just blatantly moving the goalposts. We’re only allowed to consider the well thought out economic theories? Laffer might be junk but we can’t just pretend it has nothing to do with “real” economics.

Here is a link to a graduate course at Harvard that studies public economics:

https://scholar.harvard.edu/stantcheva/classes/ec2450a-public-economics

This is the toolkit of the technocrats who work on tax issues in the US and Europe and of academics who study the role of the government in the economy, ie this is "real" economics. And the Laffer curve gets literally a couple of mentions - and then only in passing - in the course which has literaly dozens of slides covering the impact of taxation on labour supply and so on. And one of those mentions is regarding a "problematic" paper. There's no mention of actual research by Laffer (but, you'll be pleased to note, plenty by Piketty and other researchers on inequality).

Sure, you certainly can find the Laffer curve mentioned in some papers because the basic concept certainly sits in the backdround of questions about how taxation, income and output are related. However, these papers tend to be macroeconomic models which create very stylised versions of the economy - the kind of model that compresses the vast quantity of research in public economics shown above into one or two equations. Even with this sort of simplification, the models used simply hadn't been developed in the early 1970s and in terms of mathematical complexity they are far in advance of nearly everything that existed in economics back then. They are set up using reams of data that also didn't exist in the 1970s. This is very much "real economics" and has virtually nothing to do with a charlatan on the make scribbling on a napkin in front of politicians with a limited attention span. It's certainly not the place to look for platitudes like "lower tax and make us all better off".

Turn your argument around - why should we take outdated, overly simplistic and shoddily created models particularly seriously? Yes, some politicians took up an idea with gusto but politicians have used all sorts of nonsense over the years. I'm reminded of the Great Barrington Declaration - ideas with a superficial gloss provided by a rogue academic or two which happily confirm the course of action that the politician preferred anyhow. I appreciate that is important for historians but something can be historically and politically important without being a "real" piece of science or social science.

[cowboyhat]

Wanted to mark the passing of Milan Kundera; observed with interest how he hasn't been mentioned here and in the media i sort of missed it for nearly a week.

He was of course very old; I can't help think it would have been a bigger fuss if he'd died twenty years ago when his work was a bit fresher.  If you cling on long enough, people are sure to forget you exist.

Also had he died twenty years ago it would have felt significant to me. At uni in the late nineties all his stuff was in fashion, being passed around and discussed with all the names from the 80's; Welsh, Rushdie, Easton Ellis, and Murakami. With Kundera while I can't really remember what any of it was about, I am left with the distinct memory of being very impacted, moved and yeah, just that I was reading something significant, certainly in its style and novelistic form.

It has contributed to and informed my later tastes, however as with everything that I was absorbing as a nascent adult, I tend to have a skeptical view of whether it was actually any good. More the impression that I just didn't know anything and so thought everything was brilliant because it was new to me, someone with no frame of reference. Almost daren't go back because i'm bound to discover that like the stone roses first album, its actually just a bit boring and contrived. I do generally have a dim view of my young self though, up to and including last week.

So Milan Kundera is like a distant ex girlfriend; a significant name from my past that evokes a quizzical nostalgia; part of my whole but i can't even properly remember what I was feeling at the time.

This could have been a blog post but I wanted to know where he sits with other people, and has anyone in the world read the unbearable lightness of being since the turn of the century...?




p.s. apol re length etc, BUT are students of today reading whatever were the seemingly significant novels of the previous decade, if there is such a thing....?

[cheque]

has anyone in the world read the unbearable lightness of being since the turn of the century...?

I read it in about 2005 and it was my favourite novel for a while. My other half read it a few years ago on my recommendation and said she thought it was much more a book for men that women. She says that about most stuff I recommend to her though 

[Rocksteady]

has anyone in the world read the unbearable lightness of being since the turn of the century...?

I read it in about 2005 and it was my favourite novel for a while. My other half read it a few years ago on my recommendation and said she thought it was much more a book for men that women. She says that about most stuff I recommend to her though 

I read it last year, never got round to it before, always thought the name was incredible.

I thought it was very good in terms of the quality of the thinking about life, relationships etc and the quality of the prose. As a novel it is very odd; it deliberately distances you from the characters at times and takes you out of the immersive flow which is very much against the grain in modern novels. Has a sort of wry narrator voice sitting over the top that is unfashionable. I really liked it though. I'd read it again for sure.

[steveri]

I have similar feelings and read a handful of novels off the back off Unbearable Lightness. I couldn't tell you why it was important but it felt so at the time, it still has a spot on the shelves behind me and hasn't seen any kind of Marie Kondo-ing. I read it in 1988 according to the inside cover, so I'll slightly forgive the sketchy memory. Need to foster more of that curiosity about the world, beyond phone scrolling.

[Duma]

I've read Unbearable... was 2004, I know as I was living in my van in font at the time and read some of it under the boulder named after it (sounds even better in french: https://bleau.info/isatis/602.html )
Sadly never managed the problem, and tbh don't remember a lot of the book, definitely enjoyed it though, more for the style than the content I think. Not read anything else of his, but still have my copy of ULoB, and might go back to it now.

[TobyD]

Recently read Artemis, which I found very enjoyable.  It's categorized as science fiction,  but it is as much a thriller as sci fi.  It definitely has the feel of something that's been written with a movie in mind (the author also wrote The Martian,  which has obviously been made into a movie).

[Fiend]

Currently reading Project Hail Mary, which I'm finding very enjoyable.  It's categorized as science fiction, and it certainly is. I don't know if it's been written with a movie in mind (the author also wrote The Martian,  which has obviously been made into a movie), but I'd welcome one (assuming the rest of the book pans out well).

One disclaimer is that the prose / conversing is quite flippant / casual, just about tolerably so, but I'd prefer if it was a bit more down to earth and less "quippy". That aside it's a really good read so far, I don't know where it's going (which is nice), the interactions are attention-grabbing, and the back and forth with the timeline (something that often distracts me) is done well and un-intrusively.

[Johnny Brown]

Jus finished Brittle with relics: a history of Wales 1962-97. This was recommended a few pages back by FD, but I don’t think he’d read it at the time. What a fantastic book, if you’re interested in understanding modern Wales and welshness - the aspirations, resignations and all the baggage - you have to read it. Should really be subtitled an oral history, because almost all of it, bar a little context, consists of quotes from individuals interviewed by the author. The result is a rich chorus of voices creating multi-faceted perspectives on the complexities of history that are too often reduced to a neatly plausible narrative. The author’s background means musicians are perhaps over-represented while some have suggested right-wing voices are largely absent (unless you count Plaid), although I suspect on both counts to the benefit of the entertainment value. At the heart of the book, for me, is the reconciling of the righteous fight to protect the language versus the risks of stirring the dark side of nationalism.

[jwi]

Currently reading Project Hail Mary, which I'm finding very enjoyable.  It's categorized as science fiction, and it certainly is. I don't know if it's been written with a movie in mind (the author also wrote The Martian,  which has obviously been made into a movie), but I'd welcome one (assuming the rest of the book pans out well).

Here's my goodreads review 4/5:
Jules Vernes for the 21 century! Loses a star because 1) the protagonists first instinct was not to measure the Coriolis force —even though he had a pendulum— and 2) the protagonists had amnesia (amnesia is a plot device, not something that ever happens)

[spidermonkey09]

I finished Blood Meridian last night and now I am haunted by The Judge. For the first third of it I couldn't get on with the book and wondered whether McCarthy just wasn't for me. All the Pretty Horses left no impression on me and I was wishing that someone would show McCarthy where the comma was on his keyboard. The violence was just senseless and disgusting - why, I thought?

As the character of The Judge develops I was pulled in, and in the end there's so much going on. I need to reread it at some point.

On the contrary, I think Chigurh and the Judge are expressions of the worst of human nature, but that ultimately, they are human like the rest of us.

Naaah, The Judge is something supernatural, isn't he? The simplest explanation is that he is the/a devil, or is he god?

NSFW  spoilers:

He even tempts the kid in the desert. "I know too that you’ve not the heart of a common assassin. I’ve passed before your gunsights twice this hour and will pass a third time. Why not show yourself? No assassin, called the judge. And no partisan either. There’s a flawed place in the fabric of your heart. Do you think I could not know? You alone were mutinous. You alone reserved in your soul some corner of clemency for the heathen."

He wants the kid to take the shot, the priest begs him to, and when he refers to the Indians he labels them "the heathen", not savages/n-words etc as they are called at other times.

Another memorable line. "Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent." Surely use of the word creation is purposeful there?

Re read Blood Meridian this week on holiday and loved it (if that's the right word). Not sure i fully appreciated it when I last read it several years back. The violence I was prepared for so it kind of made less of an impact on me than I guess it would if you were reading it for the first time. I'm also probsbly inured to reading about violence as I do it every day for work! The shocking and deliberate nature of it is very confronting and I understand why some might close the book in disgust. As to why, i do think there is a coherent rationale behind it. It seems to me that only by depicting the violence so fully and matter of factly can the author get across the way that violence was central to the fabric of the West and the frontier at that time. Crucially, no single group is depicted as uniquely violent; as it says in the testimonial on my copy, "all me are unremitting bloodthirsty here, posed at the peak of violence, the meridian from which their civilisation will quickly fall." Indians, Mexicans and Americans all commit senseless acts of violence, all kill women and children, all are appalling examples of humanity.

As for the Judge, I would still stand by my initial reading that he is a metaphor for the evil that lives in man rather than a supernatural being, or god/devil figure. It would be extremely unlike Mccarthy to inject religiosity into his works, which tend to overwhelmingly focus on men and their flaws rather than the supernatural. It occurred to me the Judge might be a metaphor for the devil as humans imagine him or some such, but I still think the most coherent explanation is that he represents the absolute worst of humanity incarnate, and embodies the things in the world that we cannot understand. The ending is great and ripe for discussion for years yet. There's a great film to be made there if someone has the courage to do it.

[Will Hunt]

I have just thoroughly enjoyed A Gentlemen in Moscow. It was moving, humorous, melancholy, joyful. In a world where people laugh easily at 5 people being instasquished in an imploding submarine because 1 of them is a billionaire, I think it also bears an important lesson in humanity. I'm not going to try and reword this synopsis:

"A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in another elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him a doorway into a much larger world of emotional discovery.

Brimming with humour, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavour to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose."

My only caveat is that easily-irritated Bolsheviks such as dunnyg may find it pretentious in a little-and-often sort of way.

[TobyD]

Just finished reading butler to the world,  which I rated highly, its compelling and interesting,  in its analysis of how Britain has morphed from an Empire governing power to a state which caters for money launderers,  oligarchs,  deregulated gambling and dictators wanting to make the most of their ill gotten gains. 

[Fiend]

Currently reading Project Hail Mary, which I'm finding very enjoyable.  It's categorized as science fiction, and it certainly is. I don't know if it's been written with a movie in mind (the author also wrote The Martian,  which has obviously been made into a movie), but I'd welcome one (assuming the rest of the book pans out well).

One disclaimer is that the prose / conversing is quite flippant / casual, just about tolerably so, but I'd prefer if it was a bit more down to earth and less "quippy". That aside it's a really good read so far, I don't know where it's going (which is nice), the interactions are attention-grabbing, and the back and forth with the timeline (something that often distracts me) is done well and un-intrusively.

Conclusion: It bloody well did. Great book. Go read it if you like that sort of thing: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Project-Hail-Mary-Andy-Weir/dp/0593135202

[Steve R]

Thanks for the recommendation, I like Andy Weir so will be sure to get Project Hail Mary.  After enjoying the Martian, I read one of his more recent books Artemis.  Fairly light and fun with some good swashbuckling around on the lunar surface but wouldn't really recommend strongly.  Had quite a strong sense of that 'hmmm feels like he's writing this one to hopefully be made into a movie too' sort of feel. 

Whilst on the hard sci-fi theme, has anyone read Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward? I first saw it strongly recommended by David Deutsch in his non-fiction book The Beginning of Infinity (also good).  Anyway Dragon's Egg didn't disappoint, really cool and original with good story telling and questing about with some of the best neutron star dwelling slug erotica I've ever read.  Written in 1980, the science component of the sci-fi appears to have aged well as far as I could tell. Apart, that is,  from the heavy use of magnetic monopoles in various engineering projects.  The sequel Starquake is similarly cool if you enjoyed Dragon's Egg though somehow not quite as satisfying. 

[Falling Down]

If anyone’s got six grand going spare, Aleister Crowley’s annotated copy of Abraham’s Rock Climbing in Nth Wales is on the market.  Heavily marked up with inscriptions and comments against the routes and other sections.

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31507012170&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-tile7&searchurl=ds%3D10%26kn%3Daleister%2Bcrowley%26sortby%3D1