Kritisk blikk på etablert økonomi Are Ingulfsvann, Senter for økologisk økonomi og etikk

Hva er det vi holder på med…

 En liten historisk gjennomgang  Vektlegging av de tanker som trolig er med på å skape problemer  Hva ligger i bunnen av det vi lærer i dag

Middelalder: Skolastikerne  Presteutdannede som interesserte seg for økonomi av etiske årsaker  Ingen markeder – hva er en rettferdig pris  Praktisk innsikt – den naturlige pris  Konkurranse  Fornuftig bruk av ressurser  Ærlighet

Merkantilismen  Et sett regler for herskerne for å få mer makt sammenliknet med andre  Folkets velferd er ikke interessant  Så lite import som mulig – og helst kun råmaterialer

Fysiokratene: Quesnay  Franqois Quesnay ( ) lege  Landbruket som utgangspunkt for velferd  Politikk som var god for landbruket var dermed god for Frankrike  Denne gruppen skapte begrepet ”Laissez faire, laisser passer”  Fysiokratene var trolig den første ”skolen” i økonomi  Kvantitative analyser  Fikk besøk av Adam Smith.

Physiocrats : Turgot  Anne Robert Jaques Turgot ( ) – clergyman – state administrator. Minster of Finance in France.  Law of dimishing yield.  Marginal cost

Adam Smith  ”The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgement with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour”  The pin maker  Snowballs Snowballs

Det ofte gjengitte sitatet om den usynlig hånd  ”every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it.he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the societymore effectually than when he really intends to promote it” (Book IV p.32)

Den fulle versjonen  ” As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce maybe of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the societymore effectually than when he really intends to promote it”

David Ricardo  Modell verden  Abstrahering  Økonomi som vitenskap  Comparative advantage  Overforenkling skaper muligens problemer

Jevons, Walras og Menger - en frikobling  Den marginalistiske revolusjon  Større vekt på teori om den enkelte aktør  Større vekt på etterspørsel  Matematisk formalisering

 “On the one hand, we have a moral science the aim of which is to determine how wealth ought to be distributed as equitably as possible; and on the other hand, we have a natural science the aim of which is produced as naturally as possible. (…) If necessary we shall divide political economy into a natural science, a moral science and an art.” (Walras, 1954 p. 57)  Men de to siste er muligens noe vanskelig å se i praksis

 Både produsenter og konsumenter tolkes som aktører som vil oppnå mest mulig nytte  Balansere gevinster og kostnader slik at det ikke var flere fordeler å hente  “But never mind the difficulties; theoretically the problem could be done” (Heilbroner)

Nytte  “Beside these things the world contains certain useless things (not to speak of harmful ones); such as weeds and animals for which man has found no use. They call for no action from us apart from a systematic attempt to discover in them properties which will take them out of the class of useless things and render them useful” (Leon Walras, [1877] )

Problem (?)  Behov  ”The necessaries of life are so few and simple, that a man is soon satisfied in regard to these, and desires to extend his range of enjoyment. His first object is to vary his food; but there soon arises the desire of variety and elegance in dress; and to this succeeds the desire to build, to ornament, and to furnish – tastes which where they exist, are absolutely insatiable, and seem to increase with every improvement in civilization” (Jevons, 1888 s. 40).

Et annet problem  Hva er nytte?  Kan vi egentlig si at deler av naturen er “useless”?  Det synes å være et problem at kunnskapen om økologien ikke var stor

Målet  Velferd  “From these observation we learn that there can never be, among civilised nations, so much wealth, that people would cease to wish for any more” (Jevons, 1880, s. 18)  Vekst i BNP  Som betyr?

Vekst i BNP  Handler om å øke gjennomstrømmingen i økonomien, gjennom økt konsum  Økning i bruken av materialer og energy følger veksten i BNP  Decoupling har vært forsøkt, men mislykkes  Gjennomstrømmingen i økonomien er matrialer og energi som tas ut, prosesseres, transporteres og distribueres, for deretter å ende i miljøet som avfall  Sammenheng med økning i lykke opp til et visst punkt, men deretter frikobles det. (Her har man lyktes med decouplingen.)

Some reflection points  ”Virtually everyone is in favor of economic growth.” (Samuelson og Nordhaus, 2001 s. 573)  Er det en grense for vekst?  Er økonomisk vekst mulig uten en vekst i ressursforbruket?  Hva med grønn vekst?

Praktisering  «Our enourmously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions, our ego-satifactions, in consumption»  Bør et system kreve noe av menneskene?  «We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever increasing pace. We need to have people eat, drink, dress, ride, live, with ever more complicated and, therefore, constantly more expensive consumption.» (Victor Lebow, 1955)  Eller kanskje vi kan gå motsatt vei?

Det man glemte  Nullvekstvisjonen

The stationary state hos Smith  ”It deserves to be remarked, perhaps, that it is in the progressive state, while the society is advancing to the further acquisition, rather than when it has acquired its full complement of riches”  Hvordan skal vi tolke dette?  Robbins kommenterte”whatever he meant by that”

 ”It deserves to be remarked, perhaps, that it is in the progressive state, while the society is advancing to the further acquisition, rather than when it has acquired its full complement of riches, that the condition of the labouring poor, of the great body of the people, seems to be the happiest and the most comfortable. It is hard in the stationary state, and miserable in the declining state. The progressive state is in reality the cheerful and the hearty state to all different orders of the society. The stationary is dull; the declining melancholy.” (p184)

The Stationary State hos Mill  “I cannot, therefore, regard the stationary state of capital and wealth with the unaffected aversion so generally manifested towards it by political economists of the old school. I am inclined to believe that it would be, on the whole, a very considerable improvement on our present condition. I confess I am not charmed with the ideal of life held out by those who think that the normal state of human being is that of struggling to get on; that the trampling, crushing, elbowing, and treading on each other’s heels which form the existing type of social life, are the most desirable lot of human kind, or anything but the disagreeable symptoms of industrial process” (Mill, p 126)

Progress  ““I know not why it should be matter of congratulation that persons who are already richer than any one needs to be, should have doubled their means of consuming things which give little or no pleasure except as representative of wealth; or that numbers of individuals should pass over, every year, from the middle classes into a richer class, or from the class of the occupied rich to that of the unoccupied. It is only in the backward countries of the world that increased production is still an important object: in those most advanced, what is economically needed is a better distribution, of which on indispensable means is a stricter restraint on population” (Mill, 2008 p.127)

Markedsidealet  «An ideal market economy is one in which all goods and services are voluntarily exchanged for money at market prices. Such a system squeeses the maximum benefits out of a society’s available resources without government intervention. In the real world, however, no economy actually conforms totally to the idealized world of the smoothly functioning invisible hand. Rather every market economy suffers from imperfections which lead to such ills as excessive pollution, unemployment, and extremes of wealth and poverty» (Samuelson and Nordhaus, 2001 p. 35)  Myndighetsinngripen for å fikse problemene…  Men løser en skatt et forurensingsproblem?

 Skille mellom «positive economics» som kun forklarer gjennom analyser  Normative economics som involverer etikk  Problemet er ofte at det etiske perspektivet blir for snevert  Man hviler på en forutsetning om at det beste alltid er det som gir mest for minst  Avvik fra det må forsvares

Naturressurser i en vekstbasert økonomi  ”A second point concerns the relative productivity of different assets. Many environmentalist argue that energy and other natural resources like wilderness areas and old-growth forests are very special kinds of capital that need to be preserved so that we can maintain “sustainable” economic growth. Economists have a different point of view. They tend to regard natural resources as a special category of productive assets – along with fast computers, human capital in educated workforce, and technological knowledge in its software, scientists, and engineers. Both economists and environmentalists agree that this generation should leave an adequate stock of capital assets for future generations; but economists focus less on the exact form of capital than on its productivity. Economists ask, would future generations benefit more from larger stocks of natural capital such as oil, gas, and coal or from more produced capital such as additional scientists, better laboratories, and libraries linked together by information superhighways?” (Samuelson og Nordhaus, 2001 s. 369)

Avslutning  ”the ideas of Adam Smith in the context of the early trauma of the Industrial Revolution, those of David Ricardo in its later, more mature stages, those of Karl Marx in the era of unbridled capitalist power, those of John Maynard Keynes as a response to the unrelenting disaster of the Great Depression.” (Galbraith, 1991 s.2)

En god løsning for en liten stund  Men det kan jo tenkes at vi har andre utfordringer nå…  Skift i fokus  Problemer  Myter