When your car is malfunctioning and you take it to a mechanic, you hope that they’ll diagnose the problem and give you some repair suggestions and costings. You don’t expect them to discourse lengthily on the wider transport system or on government priorities vis-à-vis roads and other infrastructure. It’s not their job.
I’d like to suggest that economists should likewise be seen as the mechanics of the political economy. I’m interested in their opinions on the pros and cons of different policy instruments for achieving desired political and social goals, using the technical skills developed in their discipline. I’m not interested in their opinions about what political and social goals are desirable – matters on which I don’t consider them to have more legitimate authority than anyone else.
I mention this in the context of a tweet from Branko Milanovic, an expert on the economics of global inequality (whose work was previously discussed on Small Farm Future here), in which he attempted to ridicule the ‘doughnut economics’ thinking of heterodox economist Kate Raworth, and by implication the wider tradition of alternative, degrowth-oriented economics.
Milanovic tweeted “Here is a list of some things that Doughnut economists could advocate if they seriously believed that the planet is in danger and that world GDP must not increase and yet abject global poverty must be reduced
Reduce work week to 2 days
Increase highest marginal tax rates to 80%
Double indirect taxes on all polluting goods
Triple the price of oil
Double subsidies to all renewable sources of energy
Sell (very expensive) meat only two days a week
Ban cheap airplane companies and double the price of air flights
Introduce a £1000 tax for all travel by car & airplanes outside the UK
Introduce UBI of say £200 per person per week
Define the goal of halving GDP and real incomes by 50% in 10 years
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
