Market Providentialism

Some guy over at the American Enterprise Institute claims that the fact that air pollution has dramatically improved since 1980 is proof that the catastrophic predictions made by early environmentalists were wrong (and, hence, we ought to ignore all those dire predictions being made by environmentalists now, natch). As others point out here and here, this analysis neatly ignores the fact that environmental activism led to government regulation led to averting the predicted consequences of inaction.

This would not be especially noteworthy except that a similar line of "thought" can be found all over the place among those who feel that the market will provide. Running out of oil? No worries -- as the price increases, entrepreneurs will be motivated to innovate new extraction methods, new energy sources, more efficient engines, etc. (I've written a bit about this before, discussing some things said by John Romer, husband of Obama's chief economic advisor, Christina Romer.)

This providentialism always ignores the non-market activism that precedes and motivates the market activity that "solves" the problem in question. There's always a sticky point where Cassandras start screaming and marching and demanding change, and the market providentialists have a hard time fitting these Cassandras into their narratives of this, the best of all possible worlds.

Modernity's Manichean Pugilists

So now I'm a bit obsessed with Stephen Holmes (see previous post). I went back and read one of his earliest contributions to political theory, "Aristippus in and out of Athens" (first published in APSR in 1979, but just included in Aristotle's Politics: Critical Essays). He clearly comes out of the school of modernization theory that also shaped Habermas, and insists that the structural and institutional differentiation that marks modernity (a la Durkheim and Simmel) makes any appeal to the Greeks not only romantic and anachronistic, but inherently irrational and "totalitarian" (his scare-quotes).

I'm interested in one polemical move that he shares with Habermas. On the one hand, the sociological theory that supports the above claim leads him to dismiss the students of Heidegger (Strauss and Arendt) for their idealistic belief that modernity's origination can be traced to "a shift in attitudes" rather than to structural and institutional transformations. Thus, he seems to cast himself as a materialist and empiricist.

But, on the flip-side, he floats the "hypothesis" that "modern 'totalitarian' regimes rely for ideological legitimation on a diffuse rancor against modernity and on an anachronistic nostalgia for the integrated and heavily politicized life of the Greek city-state." In other words, "totalitarianism" is in part explained by the irrational attitudes of the pious and romantic anti- and post-modernists. A completely idealist explanation is offered.

Modernity had to be; it is objectively grounded in structural transformations. Anti-modern totalitarianism, on the other hand, is contingent, and can be blamed, in part at least, on this rancor and nostalgia. That "modernity" might itself call forth this very rancor and nostalgia is never contemplated. That the very structural differentiation that makes Greek city life impossible under current conditions might also make us long for it and for a transformation of our conditions is ignored as a possibility.

There is thus a fundamental Manicheanism at work in Holmes' discourse (and that of Habermas). Modernity is fundamentally good, and all the good that characterizes our modern life is explained by modernity itself. But all of the evil (or, at least, the greatest evil) that besets our condition is explained by something outside, by something non-modern or anti-modern. The assumption is that modernity is at home with itself, unified and non-contradictory. To have a happy modernity, we just need more modernization and more liberalism, and to eliminate fully the vestiges of this rancorous longing for undifferentiated unity (be it political or religious or whatever).

Such modernization discourse is fundamentally at odds with and (to my mind) inferior to the Marxist "modernization" theory. Marxism insists that modernity is a fundamentally contradictory phenomenon, and that the problems of modernity can thus never be solved merely by adding more modernity. That is also why, it seems to me, Marxism doesn't lend itself to the sort of extreme moralism that drips out of an essay by Holmes or Habermas.

Economists are Economists, Liberal or Conservative

Paul Krugman:

The fact is that Malthus was right about the whole of human history up until his own era.

Sumerian peasants in the 30th century BC lived on the edge of subsistence; so did French peasants in the 18th century AD. Throughout history population growth had always managed to cancel out any sustained gains in the standard of living, just as Malthus said.

It was only with the industrial revolution that we finally escaped from the trap (if we did — for all we know, 35th-century historians will view the period 1800-2020 or so as a temporary aberration).

Was Malthus just unlucky? No. The same forces that made the industrial revolution possible — above all, the spirit of inquiry and rationality — also led to the birth of analytical economics. There probably couldn’t have been a Malthus until the world was on the verge of becoming non-Malthusian.

Ah that great force, the spirit of inquiry and rationality! Where did this spirit come from? Was it a special dispensation? Did it have a body, or did it wander the globe, haunting dark corners and abandoned buildings? What were its causal powers?

This blog got its start because I was supremely annoyed at an economist for "explaining" the end of the Malthusian trap by means of some absurd forays into socio-biology. Now another economist--a darling of the liberal blogosphere, rather than a crypto-racist--"explains" the end of the Malthusian trap by means of a conjuring trick. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; the great circle is closed, Hallelujah!