{"id":36238,"date":"2018-07-27T06:20:03","date_gmt":"2018-07-27T11:20:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36238"},"modified":"2018-07-27T06:20:03","modified_gmt":"2018-07-27T11:20:03","slug":"magic-economics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36238","title":{"rendered":"Magic economics"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"entry-header\">\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/smallfarmfuture.org.uk\/2018\/07\/magic-economics\/\">Magic economics<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>When your car is malfunctioning and you take it to a mechanic, you hope that they\u2019ll diagnose the problem and give you some repair suggestions and costings. You don\u2019t expect them to discourse lengthily on the wider transport system or on government priorities vis-\u00e0-vis roads and other infrastructure. It\u2019s not their job.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d like to suggest that economists should likewise be seen as the mechanics of the political economy. I\u2019m 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\u2019m not interested in their opinions about what political and social goals are desirable \u2013 matters on which I don\u2019t consider them to have more legitimate authority than anyone else.<\/p>\n<p>I mention this in the context of a <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BrankoMilan\/status\/1014429745113698306\">tweet<\/a> from Branko Milanovic, an expert on the economics of global inequality (whose work was previously discussed on Small Farm Future <a href=\"https:\/\/smallfarmfuture.org.uk\/2017\/08\/the-hypocrisy-of-environmentalists-and-the-need-for-economic-growth\/\">here<\/a>), in which he attempted to ridicule the \u2018doughnut economics\u2019 thinking of heterodox economist Kate Raworth, and by implication the wider tradition of alternative, degrowth-oriented economics.<\/p>\n<p>Milanovic tweeted \u201cHere 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<\/p>\n<p>Reduce work week to 2 days<\/p>\n<p>Increase highest marginal tax rates to 80%<\/p>\n<p>Double indirect taxes on all polluting goods<\/p>\n<p>Triple the price of oil<\/p>\n<p>Double subsidies to all renewable sources of energy<\/p>\n<p>Sell (very expensive) meat only two days a week<\/p>\n<p>Ban cheap airplane companies and double the price of air flights<\/p>\n<p>Introduce a \u00a31000 tax for all travel by car &amp; airplanes outside the UK<\/p>\n<p>Introduce UBI of say \u00a3200 per person per week<\/p>\n<p>Define the goal of halving GDP and real incomes by 50% in 10 years<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Magic economics When your car is malfunctioning and you take it to a mechanic, you hope that they\u2019ll diagnose the problem and give you some repair suggestions and costings. You don\u2019t expect them to discourse lengthily on the wider transport system or on government priorities vis-\u00e0-vis roads and other infrastructure. It\u2019s not their job. I\u2019d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17604,15683,203,9738],"class_list":["post-36238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-branko-milanovic","tag-chris-smaje","tag-degrowth","tag-small-farm-future"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36239,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36238\/revisions\/36239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}