95. A question from someone else: Slate's Tim Harford, in "Why Not Start the Weekend on Wednesday?", asks why we -- as a society -- don't choose to work less rather than to earn (and consume) more.Harford's question captures an idea that keeps coming back to me when I think about the economic crisis: is the only way out of the crisis for everybody to start consuming more? To put it differently, how does this crisis end in a way that is actually healthy -- long-term -- for society?
Is the resumption of consumption our societal measure of "success"? Why have we gone so far down the consumption-road that we cannot envision other types of growth (other than economic growth -- in particular increased GDP)?
Harford's thoughts:
"If [turning away from more work and consumption] were a gradual process, mass unemployment would not result. People would simply earn less, spend less, wear a few more secondhand clothes, and spend more time reading or going for walks.I think he's got it right -- the whole basis/framework of economics is relativistic, and it would be nearly impossible to reframe the "measures of success" without fundamentally reframing society (which is not, alas, going to happen).
This would be perfectly possible. We are rich enough already. Even the Chinese might cope: They already devote much of their economy to making things for each other.
Here's the big question of the season, then: Why don't we do as countless moralists urge every year and focus less on money and more on leisure (or spiritual concerns, if you must)? Why haven't we all decided to work less, spend less, and consume less?
... We work hard because income is linked to our desire for status, which is collectively insatiable, because status is largely relative."
I think Harford's analysis tracks some of the ideas in the book Ishmael -- I may need to go back and look at that.
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Meanwhile, Robert Samuelson slams Obama on the stimulus package -- he says that too much of the government spending will come too far into the future to boost the economy now.Samuelson cites, as examples, the funding for (1) light rail, (2) health information technology, and (3) retrofitting federal buildings to make them more energy efficient.
96. Do any mainstream economists like the stimulus package?
I feel like just about everybody is criticizing it from one angle or another, and I guess that's why the market has reacted so negatively to it over the course of the past week.
