Episode 05: From Flat-Earth Economics to Social-Ecological Economics with Clive Spash

00:00:00: I strongly believe that misconceptualizing the world as it's being done has tremendous damage both socially and ecologically.

00:00:08: So we have to reconceptualize how he understands, And this is re-consexualising not just in terms of the academic but the academic has to feed into practice.

00:00:19: so my concern is How do we take ideas from like My book is very philosophical and academic?

00:00:28: practices.

00:00:29: but my thrust is to change economics.

00:00:32: so you know, my real push is that economists are actually misleading the world into a total disaster and they should not be pretending that they're doing anything different.

00:00:44: And we need make this very obvious for everybody.

00:01:03: Hello and welcome to Invisible Handcuffs, a podcast that seeks to expose the economic ideology underpinning our crisis.

00:01:10: And explore ways we can free ourselves from its chains.

00:01:13: My name is Katy Shields and I am a recovering mainstream economist and your host.

00:01:18: Why does having a shared understanding of reality matter in The Fight To Reclaim Economics?

00:01:25: That is the topic of this week's discussion where I'm joined by Clive Spash, a social-ecological economist whose most recent book calls for a revolution in economic thought.

00:01:35: This discussion brought whole new language to problems i've sensed but been unable put into words because one key push backs that often get when I critique mainstream economists are they're doing impartial objective science.

00:01:49: Clive refutes such arguments, drawing on concepts from philosophy of science that is the theory of how knowledge is produced.

00:01:56: Just because you have a complex mathematical model or even done a survey or produced a graph does not mean your doing science!

00:02:05: What economists are often do is applying a particular method regardless whether it actually makes sense.

00:02:11: That's what assumptions based on and conception reality.

00:02:15: We discuss this in relation to one common approach that involves asking people how much they'd be willing to pay, save a certain species or river and forest.

00:02:25: but this framing already has the hidden bias we ought to keep something not be compensated for our collective loss.

00:02:33: It also implies environmental protection is matter of individual preference Not our collective survival.

00:02:39: So it's wrong method based on a flawed conception of reality that treats the environment as an endless resource we can choose to protect or not.

00:02:49: So what could better economics look like?

00:02:52: Well it would have a better conceptualisation.

00:02:54: for a start, what Clive calls critical realism.

00:02:58: This requires drawing many disciplines including other heterodox thought schools and sources physical limits, the laws of thermodynamics as well as power relations and the injustices of the existing capitalist system.

00:03:14: It would also incorporate a common ethics to ensure economic models do not produce the same justices.

00:03:20: whether we're talking about solidarity economics donut economics wellbeing or degrowth these are practices approaches but in order for them to contribute, to genuinely viable alternatives they need to be grounded in science.

00:03:34: This is where Clive hopes social ecological economics can come in not as an additional thought school and not a buzzword But a unifying social science that can pose a genuine alternative To the outdated and truly unrealistic economics taught from practice across schools And academia.

00:03:50: today I'll provide links to Clive's website and textbook In The Show Notes.

00:03:54: With That Please join me in welcoming Economist Clive Splash.

00:03:58: Welcome, Clive!

00:03:58: Thanks for joining us.

00:04:00: thanks for having me

00:04:02: yeah really happy that we're able to get this set up despite having been in the same city for quite some time and I didn't manage to get an interview with you when you were in Vienna You know up in Norway.

00:04:12: now can you remind me where you are actually?

00:04:14: Yeah i'm In a eco village actually in Hurdel.

00:04:19: it's about an hour north of Oslo So it's basically the only ecovillage in Norway, although there are some which are set up as farms and communities which are pretty close you could say.

00:04:31: And

00:04:33: ecological or a social ecological economist, I should say.

00:04:37: And i'd love to hear more about that today but something...I've noticed so now that I've been researching for this series your name has come up more and more!

00:04:46: I had John Harvey on a couple of weeks ago.

00:04:48: John has written a book on contending perspectives and he cited your work under ecological economics.

00:04:54: But as was getting into the field I hadn't heard of you as much.

00:04:58: maybe some other names we might talk later Raworth or Tim Jackson.

00:05:03: Is there a reason for that?

00:05:05: One of the issues is, how you communicate and whether you want to be populist or not.

00:05:11: I'm an academic researcher And i am dedicated to my science.

00:05:16: Do things in depth Look for coherence.

00:05:20: Communicating NOT to the general public.

00:05:23: It's not my aim.

00:05:24: My aim has been to reform the economics profession from within and necessarily without and also to be a activist or academic activist?

00:05:34: Well, one of the reasons I wanted to speak to you—and i'd love to get into this a little bit more is because of the approach that you take in your book.

00:05:43: And it's full if its all dog-eared as I have been taking with me on trains and so on.

00:05:48: Foundations of social ecological economics!

00:05:50: The fight for revolutionary change in economic thought... For me what was really illuminating Before we get into that, how did you get to where you are?

00:06:04: I presume you didn't sort of wake up and think i need to reform economic thought or... Where do you start?

00:06:10: Well

00:06:11: it's a reasonably long process.

00:06:15: Initially I was environmentalists before I became an economist which maybe is not unusual in one sense because economics It wasn't addressing the environmental tool when I was young.

00:06:27: So, you know... ...I was engaged in conservation and conservation movements from World Wildlife Fund when i was ten years old doing fundraising and through to Sea Shepherd where I was a teenager in my early twenties of whale activism so on and so forth.

00:06:45: So when I did my undergraduate.. ..I kind of lucky that ended up being one of only universities two professors looking at environment and economics, which was Nick Common.

00:06:57: And I could actually study something on the environment, which is becoming a bigger issue.

00:07:02: The thing that those days also... It's campaigned for nuclear disarmament.

00:07:06: so nuclear weapons were big issues but everybody was campaigning against.

00:07:12: it seemed like you know?

00:07:14: Then when we came to the environment there was hardly anything going on in the social sciences, and certainly not on economics.

00:07:24: So having specialised in economics I would be concerned then to address the environment And actually thought it'd very straightforward and simple that we stick a tax on... ...and I'll be unemployed!

00:07:37: The whole thing will be solved because you were basically educated.

00:07:41: It's just market failure.

00:07:43: Get prices right everything is perfect.

00:07:46: And here we are, forty years later and the same rhetoric is going round-and-round.

00:07:51: So I got into studying air pollution and air pollution impacts... ...and started to realise information was being suppressed that the coal electricity generating board in those days had full knowledge of their transmission of long range pollutants to Scandinavia creating acid rain.

00:08:13: but the information was suppressed.

00:08:15: they were private internal reports.

00:08:17: They didn't want to admit it internationally, so then you start getting into the political economy aspects... So I basically specialised in environment and economic issues And those days was a very small field mostly in North America and also mainstream in terms of the economic outlook despite A lot of what people were coming up with in the sixties and seventies was actually totally critical of mainstream thought.

00:08:47: People that we're coming out within the field of economics, or outside-of-the-field of economics...

00:08:51: This is an amazing thing!

00:08:52: So normally what happens?

00:08:53: As you get a two-meters report, a bunch of people who don't know anything about economics are awful.

00:08:59: An actual fact when you look at literature if anybody ever bothered to do it they would find there's whole range of critiques.

00:09:05: growth from the nineteen sixties onwards even earlier.

00:09:09: So you have Kapp, he wrote his first book on the environment and economics.

00:09:15: You have Ciriacy-Wantrap into conservation talking about that.

00:09:20: The resources for the future.

00:09:21: set up in Washington DC which is a major research center aimed at looking at resource environmental issues.

00:09:29: They start doing environmental economics research on environmental problems, starting in nineteen sixty-two.

00:09:35: You have the travel cost method.

00:09:37: Clawson and Knetsch.

00:09:39: you starts getting development of a whole range of ideas.

00:09:42: by the time you get to the late sixties you've got E.J.

00:09:44: Mishan publishing his book On The Problems Of Economic Growth, The Costs Of economic growth.

00:09:50: Yeah?

00:09:50: You've got nineteen seventies, seventy one.

00:09:53: We've got Georgescu-Rogan Publishing A major Book on Entropy In Economic Process.

00:09:57: You Get Herman Daly And The Steady State.

00:09:59: The idea that it's not economists, somebody outside economics is totally fallacious.

00:10:04: Absolutely fallacious.

00:10:06: and the amount of work was then going on.

00:10:09: so my supervisor Ralph Darge who has already working climate change before Nordhaus paying any attention to this issue.

00:10:17: there were major reports in United States like IPCC report six volumes with a major volume on economics.

00:10:26: The field was actually very, very critical of the approaches and this is coming from economists.

00:10:33: You've got ideas social metabolism arising, materials balance theory, canaes, heirs, dash... All these people were inside economics working as economists in the fields and producing work that was highly critical.

00:10:50: So what's your, I don't know if you also... If you know my works?

00:10:54: I've looked into the Meadows report in previous podcast with an in-depth look at it.

00:10:59: history spoke to Dennis Meadows and Jorgen Randers had a memoir from Donella Meadows as well To use And i knew they were also quite surprised by push back initially particularly because they'd been interacting lots of different scientists so didn't think much new lots of institutions and as well you know particularly working with people like Herman Daly.

00:11:21: but there was by then, maybe my take on this is wrong so feel free to correct me.

00:11:27: But there were already starting to be a split.

00:11:30: I mean it had been pushed back at MIT for example Robert Solow.

00:11:40: maybe it was less divided than it is now?

00:11:44: Maybe, how would you...

00:11:47: I mean we could say yes and no.

00:11:49: So the economics profession?

00:11:51: in those days there was no heterodoxy versus orthodoxy because it was one profession And you were trained to understand across-the-board different schools of thought.

00:12:03: so this dichotomy that comes later Is much harder and faster.

00:12:09: But when you look at it from the inside, there were clearly major divisions.

00:12:13: So the tolerance of economists who actually criticized the mainstream was pretty low amongst certain schools of thought.

00:12:24: but y'know... There's a whole history around the Montpelerin Society and The Pushback.

00:12:29: so the history of economics is quite interesting.

00:12:33: You know..there was domination of institutional economists in early part you know, for the twentieth century and they were leading things like The American Economic Association.

00:12:45: So there's a deliberate and planned and strategic pushback of these positions and an empowerment of people who are what will now be called neoliberal but actually it is neo-Austrian economists totally pro market anti regulation usually anticommunist and quite explicitly so.

00:13:05: in many circumstances, they regard communism as being anything to do with regulation by government.

00:13:13: So what you have?

00:13:15: people like Solow, Samuelson the mathematical economists are basically supporting capitalism and have no problem with capitalism at all.

00:13:26: And What They See Is The Problem is Anything That Comes Into Threatens Regulation.

00:13:32: So when you get to be like Nordhaus, who's the second generation of these?

00:13:34: You know he is a student from this same people.

00:13:38: He was just reproducing the same pro-growth arguments so that they can talk about environmental problems and then belittle them conceptualise in mathematical models so it becomes totally harmless or meaningless.

00:13:53: And thats basically what has been done.

00:13:56: So, you know when someone like Georgescu Rogan is extremely interesting because he is a leading mathematical economist?

00:14:04: He's lauded by people like Samuelson has given an award from the American Economic Association as a leading light in the field and then he Changed sides...he basically realizes that what his doing cannot address the environment That it doesn't have anything about qualitative change.

00:14:23: The entropy and thermodynamics requires that you understand quality, but most of the conceptualizations that you have in mathematical models turn them into metaphors and therefore they don't actually relate to the objective study.

00:14:36: And what happens to him?

00:14:38: He gets ostracized yeah he gets belittled ostracize chucked out.

00:14:44: so when we get to this stage where I think a few years ago there was an article...I mean it's The New York Times which claims that George Skerogian wasn't an economist.

00:14:54: Yeah, these people who were not economists.

00:14:56: I mean this is somebody given an award by the American Economic Association Who was lauded by Samuelson and now apparently he's not an economist you know.

00:15:06: Yes i'd like to get in then a little bit of that split because maybe we can do this together so defining what What you term ecological economics or social ecological economics, and maybe we can also for listeners because I studied environmental economics so more in the Nordhaus vein.

00:15:24: And didn't discover The Alternatives later Because like you said they ended up being suppressed.

00:15:29: So could you describe what your field is?

00:15:34: Also help us understand the difference between Social Ecological Economics Ecological Economic Environmental Economics.

00:15:41: Obviously, when I was starting there was no ecological economics.

00:15:45: There were only environmental and resource economics And basically this field developed in response to initially resource problems.

00:15:55: So in agriculture things like the dust bowl that economists were promoting production processes without paying any attention To in that case soil facility or soil structure.

00:16:06: So the concerns of the environment really start in the nineteen thirties, we could say with the economists where they start realizing that They have to pay attention to this structure.

00:16:16: It's actually you look at it as many other people who develop environmental economics started in agricultural economics.

00:16:23: so they're looking at agricultural systems.

00:16:25: This also leads into concerns about water and water resources.

00:16:29: but their orientation of economics in agriculture economics from that period is all about production and production processes.

00:16:38: How do we produce something?

00:16:40: And how do we do it efficiently, where efficiency's defined in very narrow terms... ...about increasing production with minimizing

00:16:49: inputs?".

00:16:50: So the orientation of it was all about optimal production… …how much can be produced at most benefit-at least cost which basically costs benefits analysis.

00:17:01: So the thrust of the field is that we need to look at things optimally.

00:17:05: It's very much an engineering approach, and this also adopts into mathematics.

00:17:11: so you get a combination of scientific approaches to create mathematical models The aim being to maximise production and minimise costs.

00:17:23: That's environmental economics.

00:17:24: it then slots environment in as variable.

00:17:28: So typically in production processes, they say it's land labor and capital.

00:17:34: And lands for the environmental economists is then seen as being an inadequate conceptualization of the environment.

00:17:40: so they try to improve that.

00:17:42: The thing is that as they improved their understanding of reality and tried to put into the model They realized It doesn't work.

00:17:51: So even though those people are within a mainstream economic approach, which is about mathematics optimization creating A wider understanding of what this land variable Is in their models they actually open up a box to whole range of other things Which is where the tensions and problems arise.

00:18:12: so environmental economics becomes Actually quite radical.

00:18:16: And it's recognized as such explicitly by people like Knays, Erzdash and others.

00:18:23: And they start to realise that pollution which is treated in mainstream economics as a single instance of market failure... ...that just requires us get the prices right.. ..is actually all pervasive!

00:18:37: They also recognise that the way economists are treating this is there's two-aptor problem There's a polluter And there's the pollutee.

00:18:49: Then, The Chicago School says oh well we don't need government they can just talk to each other and then the whole problem solved.

00:18:56: or We could have private property rights.

00:18:58: but everybody just negotiates.

00:19:01: so There is no problems.

00:19:02: So They get rid of the Problem by actually reducing it down.

00:19:06: But the environmental economists are like hey No look wait a second.

00:19:10: This Is not about two Actors in A simplistic Model this All-Pervasive Pollution.

00:19:18: everything that we're doing creates a pollution impact.

00:19:21: What does it mean?

00:19:22: It means if you take the mainstream economics approach of internalizing the externalities, calculating damages in monetary terms and making the polluter pay for example... You'd have to actually include every single thing produced would have different prices.

00:19:42: Everything has a different price.

00:19:44: All the prices are wrong.

00:19:48: That means you've now entered into the realm of central planning.

00:19:53: So what your actually doing is, You are planning The economy because all the prices wrong.

00:19:58: so some economists Now has to recalculate All the prices.

00:20:02: this is of course.

00:20:02: it's total horror for the free market Economists and the American capitalist Because What they're Doing?

00:20:09: Is the environmental economist have now come To the conclusion that pollution is all pervasive.

00:20:14: the economic model that They using his flawed Mathematics doesn't help you.

00:20:19: Optimization can't be done, and what we need is government intervention on a very large scale to address pollution problems.

00:20:27: So environmental economics Is actually now shifted into a revolutionary paradigm shift And that has to be denied.

00:20:36: That's why Ecological Economics emerges Because so many people are in the field who know this Who were pushed out that they actually decide to formulate a new organisation, which will allow them to express what they want.

00:20:53: Which requires setting up the new journal and new society... A new thrust into a way is not being controlled by the gatekeepers of mainstream economics.

00:21:04: So this was the evolution then of ecological economics?

00:21:06: And when did it happen approximately.

00:21:10: So this is happening from the mid-nineteen eighties onwards and then the formalization of The Society Is Around ATA, eighty nine And the journal set up just a little bit after that with actually a major conference in Washington DC.

00:21:27: I was there at the World Bank because Herman Daley Was There At The Time You Know.

00:21:33: so This Also Quite Interesting That Happens.

00:21:37: But I could just say a little, let me briefly just say about social eco-economics.

00:21:41: So the socially ecologic economics is because what happened when that disaffection and reorientation occurred?

00:21:50: Is there were all... There was a funny mixture if you like of people.

00:21:54: so you had people who i call them the dissenters from the Orthodoxy, right?

00:21:59: So you've got... You've got The Orthodox Mainstream which is the hardcore with this solo and, y'know, the Nordhaus type people.

00:22:07: And then you have these dissentors.

00:22:09: so there's a spectrum of those people who are really not sure how far they should push things.

00:22:19: Orthodox dissenters are opening up the box saying, well actually this is wrong blah blah blah.

00:22:24: and then you've got half of them going back in again And say okay we'll just forget about that entropy stuff or whatever.

00:22:30: Then You've Got The Real Radicals More Like Georgescu-Rogen Who Says Okay This Is All Wrong The Theory's All Wrong And Who Moves Away?

00:22:38: So What You Get Is That Social Economists Right?

00:22:42: My Supervisor Ralph Dodge Would Have Been An Orthodox Dissenter.

00:22:46: He Was Always Going Back Into The Mainstream.

00:22:48: But if you ever read the introduction to The Journal of Environment, Economics and Management which was the mainstream journal it's actually totally about social issues.

00:23:01: It mentions culture qualitative analysis... ...it talks about a whole range of aspects that the main stream really hates.

00:23:10: So the aim even within the environment economics was to bring the social aspects, the cultural aspect into the field and qualitative analysis.

00:23:19: And in ecological economics this is a very strong current... ...and you had something of division between the North American threads of the ecological economics who were keen on the optimisation approaches Even amongst ecologists.

00:23:34: The Europeans brought in more radical alternative thinkers People who are critical of economics, but not economists formally.

00:23:44: So there's a combination of what we call social ecological economists because people coming from very diverse disciplines they could be Marxist feminists sociologists applied philosophers and so on Who join in to create a new field which is much broader and interdisciplinary?

00:24:04: And that's the social Ecological Economics.

00:24:07: I'd say

00:24:09: Okay, and so you mentioned they are the kind of dissenters.

00:24:13: And this has

00:24:14: continued

00:24:15: though if I understand that This is something That i took away as well from your book There's there's continue to be a kind Of mix of methods in coherence?

00:24:24: I think As we put it can You talk A little bit about that?

00:24:26: maybe We could also get on here as Well too do The importance of bringing In a philosophy of science To social economic economics.

00:24:35: So I think what you end up with is, as i say in the subtitle of this book there's a fight going on between different perspectives and different understandings.

00:24:48: And there are lots of ideological positions pre-loadingness about what an economic system is.

00:24:57: even so when kind of trying to understand why are people arguing in a particular way and where they're coming from.

00:25:07: You have to go the philosophy science, I would say.

00:25:10: so what is it underlying philosophy that these people are putting forward?

00:25:14: And i will tell you most economists don't even understand the philosophy sciences using really do not realize.

00:25:19: but there doing on the same i think is indeed growth community as well.

00:25:23: some more radical alternative ecological economist did not understand how they're arguing and why their argument the way we do.

00:25:32: So when you start looking at this, You can say okay so what a mainstream economist really claiming that We should Say is a scientific knowledge claim?

00:25:42: And What are saying?

00:25:43: Is there's A truth an absolute Truth out There and That We Can get to This Truth by Making Foundational Assumptions and Then We can build from Those assumptions To make deductions about Reality.

00:25:58: They're then setting up everything they do on the basis of foundational assumptions.

00:26:05: I was just reading this article from the early seventies by Tobin and Nordhaus, And their writing on economic growth in how we should include environment is very dismissive about that.

00:26:19: The interesting thing i noticed In about eighty pages of text, they have sixty-nine occurrences in the word if.

00:26:28: If this...if that!

00:26:32: What does it mean?

00:26:32: It's an indication that there are making assumptions continuously That are dubious!

00:26:38: Totally dubious and quite often very ad hoc.

00:26:41: So the foundationalism you know The philosophy for a foundational science is your truth claims Are only valid if your foundations are truthful.

00:26:53: And it's a kind of... It is a loop, right?

00:26:56: Because how would you ever know that your foundation was truthful in the first place?

00:26:59: So foundationalism is very flawed!

00:27:02: It also claims there as an objective truth.

00:27:05: If we go down to the empiricist route I can just measure stuff and tell you relationships.

00:27:14: so take something like the classic Land Labor on Capital.

00:27:17: Okay, we're going to go up there and measure land labour capital and stick it in a production function.

00:27:22: Define land labour and capital for me?

00:27:25: Well you can't!

00:27:26: You get the Cambridge Capital Controversies that goes on for twenty or thirty years... ...and economists between MIT and Cambridge in the UK cannot agree how to measure artificial capital.

00:27:42: It's a problem, it cannot be measured in the way that they need to do.

00:27:49: So you have a real issue I think underlying the philosophy of science said... The philosophy your knowledge claims are flawed.

00:27:57: so then you get to post-modern kind of reaction to this.

00:28:01: Economists and other scientists making claims about truth is what we call naive objectivism.

00:28:06: They're making claims that are naïve but actually There's an awful lot of sociology in here.

00:28:15: So we could say, well there is a group of scientists making claims and they get together And come up with rules about how to operate.

00:28:24: as we discussed earlier.

00:28:25: They chuck people out, show their backs on things.

00:28:28: so the post-modernist critique was very much that there are sociology science too bring people in and they create a discourse.

00:28:41: So then discourse becomes very, very prevalent in terms of how we should understand

00:28:47: science.".

00:28:48: The problem here is that it's not just about discourses.

00:28:52: this is very current... And we were talking about communication earlier.

00:28:55: everybody says oh if you change the discourse will change the world.

00:28:58: I'm sorry!

00:28:58: You won't.

00:29:00: there's role for communication and discourse in society but reality.

00:29:08: There's an infrastructure, there are a lot of other things besides the discourse in society.

00:29:14: And changing discourse is not going to change anything about the environment what we need to do.

00:29:18: it actually changed the reality of structures and what were doing The production processes...the way that we transport food so on and so forth.

00:29:26: So there was a realty.

00:29:28: Having said that Of course Discourse in human societies part social structure.

00:29:34: How will relate with world?

00:29:37: clearly through language, but that's conceptualization.

00:29:41: It is not just a discourse it how we conceptualize things.

00:29:45: so what you get to?

00:29:46: okay there are naïve objectivists who claim they're an absolute truth.

00:29:51: We reject them.

00:29:52: There the post-modernist who claimed everything was a discourse.

00:29:58: But both of those have got elements which might want us take on board.

00:30:03: but we don't have to say that truth is absolute and objective in that sense.

00:30:09: We are concerned about discourse in society as part of social structure, and how we conceptualize.

00:30:15: okay so we can take that from the post-modernists And we also can accept there's a social structure for science But There Is Also A Reality To Science.

00:30:25: So what really want?

00:30:27: it?

00:30:27: combine understanding reality conceptualization knowledge of how social structures are operating in society.

00:30:36: And that's why you end up with something that is critical and realist.

00:30:41: Love to unpack a bit more, I wonder if it would be helpful give an example.

00:30:46: so maybe if i can put one out there tell me if I'm going on the right track or have completely gone wrong.

00:30:53: On The Objective and The Absolute Truth, there was an example that I really liked in John Harvey's book which i think is quite a common one thats used Which Is If A Tree Falls Down In The Forest And No One Is Around To Hear It Did it Make A Noise?

00:31:20: Absolute truth, but there is an element of truth to it.

00:31:24: I don't know if i've gotten completely wrong there.

00:31:27: Yeah okay so what I would say Is that the... That kind Of example is used To criticise empiricism.

00:31:35: So empiricism claims that The only Truth is things we observe and measure.

00:31:40: If a tree falls down Makes noise or does whatever And nobody No human sees It.

00:31:47: then you say, oh well it doesn't... It never happened because its not empirical.

00:31:51: But this is the problem with empiricism that makes this claim.

00:31:56: Now what we understand.. Its' not when a tree falls down.

00:32:00: This Is The Problem With Not Getting To Structure.

00:32:04: If We Go To The Forest And We Find A Tree Has Fallen Down We Can Infer That When That Tree Fell Down It Made Noise.

00:32:12: How Do We Make That Influence?

00:32:13: Because We Understand The Structure Of A Tree and we understand what happens when trees fall over due to understanding structure.

00:32:20: We do not have to observe everything, to understand truth and make inferences about what

00:32:26: happens.".

00:32:27: And this of course is the fallacy of an empiricist approach which we had today.

00:32:33: so you know in public policy they're always talking about evidence-based science.

00:32:37: Evidence based science will have absolutely nothing to say about climate change because we'll have to wait until you know, before we could actually get anywhere to an empiricist's truth about climate change.

00:32:52: And what do a climate scientist do?

00:32:54: You know I had this debate with Helga Kromp-Kolb who is an Austrian leading climate scientist and she said that they are doing empirical science through established climate change...and i say to her no you're not actually!

00:33:09: Climate scientists don't do this and you should know because what they actually do is, they create climate models.

00:33:16: They understand the structure of the climate.

00:33:18: it's been understood since the late eighteen hundreds right?

00:33:21: The greenhouse effect.

00:33:23: that is a structure.

00:33:24: It's not about observing its understanding structure and then making predictions.

00:33:28: but What will this structure do if we chuck a bunch of carbon dioxide another green house gases into it?

00:33:36: We don't have to observe it And this is just like basic scientific understanding.

00:33:45: So the downplaying of structure and reality, ontology as we call it... The real world is a problem!

00:33:54: You don't have to observe the tree to know that made a noise.

00:33:58: We know what happens when trees fall over.

00:34:07: It feels to me sometimes has been also a delete tactic As you said, no we have to measure it.

00:34:13: This was a critique against the limits of growth as well.

00:34:15: that's actually one of the big critiques I interpreted from my research into.

00:34:21: how can say this is going to happen?

00:34:23: Things like... carbon pricing or the cost-benefit analysis that you mentioned, one of the key tools used by environmental economists have gone in the vein of William Nordhaus spending so much time and effort trying to calculate what is the social costs.

00:34:42: And tying themselves some knots I think with the ethical implications even trying to translate the damages into costs.

00:34:49: What do you think of that?

00:34:50: Is it a fair assessment?

00:34:54: where that leads us

00:34:55: to.

00:34:55: Yes, so there's different issues that are kind of implicit in what we've just said.

00:35:01: if I started with the Meadows approach right The interesting thing is that mainstream economists are doing abstract deductive modelling So they're actually doing what they criticise.

00:35:13: If they criticised the meadows approach for being an abstract model is totally contradictory because the entire neoclassical mainstream is an abstract model with no relationship actually to reality and it's not empiricist either.

00:35:33: So, you know that's a starter.

00:35:35: we could start there.

00:35:36: okay then you say so what do we do about the future?

00:35:40: We can't observe the future!

00:35:41: What you do of empiricism is you observe the past.

00:35:44: It's all about the past And we know that the past is not a good guide to the future.

00:35:51: It doesn't tell us about catastrophes and so on, The Meadows report was basically saying if we look at the structure... ...and say this is going to continue exponentially then this what would predict to happen?

00:36:05: They are aware.

00:36:06: you have strong uncertainty as I call it which means you cannot predict.

00:36:11: So what do you do?

00:36:12: is scenario analysis?

00:36:14: Scenario analysis isn't strange you know, it was pushed forward by both the military and the corporations to make predictions about the future potentialities.

00:36:25: It's actually a totally logical approach to use.

00:36:28: so there are lot of fallacies in that.

00:36:31: but then when we move on okay if start measuring stuff The thing is cost-benefit approach.

00:36:38: at the origins came out this idea rather than reducing pollution We if we were to try to do that, we would lose lots of benefits.

00:36:50: So therefore there are benefits and costs involved in any action.

00:36:54: And we should try to take these into account.

00:36:56: But as you pointed out very quickly the environmental economists like my supervisor Ralph Dodge Realized this raises all sorts with ethical questions.

00:37:07: but then they're their kind of courts between not wanting too raised lots of ethical questions.

00:37:14: I mean, the IPCC—I think it was a second assessment report —has a chapter on economics with Arrow and various other mainstream economists where they actually say when talking about discounting future durations if we were to make an ethical decision here wouldn't have to make ethical decisions over everything?

00:37:33: You know this is oh my god how horrible!

00:37:35: Now you're going to have to judgements in ethical decisions.

00:37:39: so instead what they do is leave implicit.

00:37:42: So all the ethical decisions are being made but they're not discussing how and clearly Economists have a very, very strong ethical position.

00:37:51: They're consequentialist.

00:37:52: The only thing that take into account is consequences their instrumentalists.

00:37:56: it has to have an instrumental element to it.

00:37:59: It's got to be anthropocentric.

00:38:01: they exclude the non-anthropocentric.

00:38:03: so basically what happens is cost benefit analysis implicitly making ethical judgments.

00:38:09: It's actually adopting a philosophy in terms of moral philosophy, and this philosophy that it adopts is consequentialist.

00:38:18: so when I was studying at the University of Wyoming for example where they developed contingent valuation method their very concerned about willingness to pay willing to accept etc.

00:38:29: So there are major issues here.

00:38:31: what happens early nineteen nineties?

00:38:33: Exxon Valdez runs aground spills oil all over the Alaskan coastline.

00:38:40: There's a massive court case, there are potentially billions of dollars at stake in this court case but Exxon is a very large corporation one of those seven sisters and it has billions to spend on a court case.

00:38:53: so what happens in this?

00:38:55: Is that the NOAA the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration in the US starts having a blue ribbon panel and starts looking at contingent valuation studies to do this.

00:39:08: So suddenly, this contingent evaluation approach is accelerated into the limelight.

00:39:14: Now what comes out of this?

00:39:15: Is that contingent valuations?

00:39:18: if you were looking at it they still study on willingness to pay but actually If you damage somebody It should be about their willingness to accept compensation.

00:39:30: so there immediately Into a conflict What's the ethical position?

00:39:36: How much should you compensate?

00:39:38: on what basis do you compensate?

00:39:40: how does money represent Compensation and so on.

00:39:43: So, the ethics comes to the front.

00:39:46: Can I just clarify on this

00:39:50: Contingent evaluation?

00:39:51: yeah, so what happens is that the economists very early on realized That they can't measure things in the marketplace travel cost method, try to find something where there is somebody paying something.

00:40:05: So you travel in a car tour at National Park and I can look at how much time you took or how much petrol you spent on.

00:40:12: so then i say okay!

00:40:13: You're prepared to pay this much to go to that national park?

00:40:17: This the kind of thing they do.

00:40:18: but then they realise actually aren't markets in most things that they can relate environment too.

00:40:24: They come up with an idea what we do directly ask people how much they're willing to pay for something.

00:40:30: So I say, How much are you prepared to pay?

00:40:33: For one extra tiger in this national park?

00:40:37: and This is contingent on the circumstances i describe And therefore it's a contingent valuation so its contextualized.

00:40:47: We have to set up A pseudo market and try To get YOU to pay Something.

00:40:54: And one of the big contentious when this was done, actually why should I pay?

00:40:58: If you kill all the tigers in a park.

00:41:02: You should compensate me for taking something away from me right It's not about me paying.

00:41:08: so there is immediately contestation over okay Is it willing to pay or willingness to accept?

00:41:13: This isn't ethical issue but The Big FX issues came out earlier with intergenerational climate change.

00:41:21: very early on people were realising the way that economists are describing future generations and the impact on future generation raises ethical issues.

00:41:33: And this is why there's whole fallacious debate over.

00:41:36: discount rates became so central because it's actually implicitly deciding whether the future has any weight at all in our decisions, and its an ethical decision.

00:41:47: Yeah It seemed to me.

00:41:48: with a discount rate I mean theres so many problems for these approaches.

00:41:53: Even if you took the willingness to pay, it's sort of who has the power to pay?

00:41:57: And exactly.

00:41:59: We're talking about now future generations.

00:42:01: they don't have what If You Don't Have The Information?

00:42:03: I don't know that Tiger is good for me!

00:42:05: I don't know any decline climate.

00:42:06: today Fox News is telling one thing.

00:42:09: my neighbours tell something else but on the discount rate It felt like the way that economists are getting out and its important note still being used.

00:42:21: it's sort of, well but all we're doing is putting the numbers together and giving politicians a decision on what discount rate to make so then it becomes democratic.

00:42:30: Is that not how they get out?

00:42:32: Yeah this course has a total fallacious argument aswell because when you frame anything and present it clearly he already made his own decisions.

00:42:44: The economists who are claiming their going-out measures... This is naive objectivism.

00:42:49: All I'm doing is going out there and measuring things, then telling people the truth.

00:42:54: Now if we describe something I'll give you an example right?

00:42:57: You're going to describe something as a communist.

00:43:00: your totally objective...you want to be totally neutral....and do go out there ...and decide i'm going to measure unemployment!

00:43:08: And see what causes unemployment.

00:43:10: who's unemployed?

00:43:11: so i'd go out tonight measure people who are unemployed and i find it out that there are lots of long-term unemployed for reasons that have nothing to do with being lazy or anything else.

00:43:25: They're actually discriminated against, they are usually people of colour their immigrants disabled and so on.

00:43:31: So there's many discriminatory factors in the labour market.

00:43:34: All I've done is objectively describe what's going on In reality... I've suddenly undermined the conservative government's policies in The United Kingdom, which claim that long-term unemployment are a bunch of lazy people who don't want to do anything or who were scammers.

00:43:54: Who taking their welfare state for a ride and so on?

00:43:59: So my innocent descriptive research is heavily value laden but more than what it does is criticizes whole bunch think tanks institutions society.

00:44:10: they're up evading lies about society.

00:44:15: So you can't even do descriptive, objective research without having value implications.

00:44:23: and I would go even further and say the implications of research like that mean that the person who does the research actually has a responsibility for doing something about it.

00:44:34: if That's what you discovered then You better start becoming an activist about unemployment on the way that people are treated to become a social activist.

00:44:41: and it's the same with the environment.

00:44:44: And so, yet some people would say that scientists shouldn't be activists?

00:44:52: Yeah but this is again highly problematic right!

00:44:54: So you take something like... Say we take Hansen who was in NOAA in the... James Hanson.

00:45:04: So you think James Hansson he's doing climate research.

00:45:08: He's very much in the naive objectivist camp of science.

00:45:13: he believes that his science, because it is factual and correct will actually make United States government implement a policy to control greenhouse gases.

00:45:25: The man couldn't be more naïve.

00:45:27: if you ask I mean its really amazing.

00:45:29: anybody would be so naïv.

00:45:32: Basically, you know what he's asking in nineteen eighty nine is for the total deconstruction of the capitalist fossil fuel economy and He doesn't even realize it.

00:45:41: but he's doing testifying in front of The Congress a Senate In the United States.

00:45:47: It's hitting their headlines and everything And he just sticks to his guns on His science.

00:45:54: right there's nothing wrong with that in one sense But its totally naive.

00:45:57: and of course What happens later?

00:45:59: Is that he becomes an activist Because the man has some ethical values, right?

00:46:04: He actually understands that it's wrong for him to suppress his information.

00:46:08: It's wrong For him to deny That there is climate change.

00:46:12: its wrong for them to deny The implications of it.

00:46:15: therefore he has To do something about it.

00:46:18: you know science as implications for society.

00:46:21: Technologies are not neutral.

00:46:23: for example You know scientists who were doing supposedly objective research on new technologies, are implementing things that have all sorts of implications for society and the structure of society.

00:46:35: Whether it's our television mobile phones jet planes or nuclear weapons they will have implications.

00:46:42: these are not neutral things.

00:46:44: yeah so maybe we can pick up on the activist part.

00:46:47: So you've been bring this to an area.

00:46:50: activism would say one hour movement.

00:46:52: You mentioned degrowth before?

00:46:55: Could you maybe talk about then the importance as well of that movement, like you say we've discussed that science is political.

00:47:05: There are reasons why certain strands of economics have become dominant and others not And degrowth developed as a movement kind if I understand correctly against the growth paradigm.

00:47:16: Can you talk a little bit?

00:47:18: how do define degrowth or the relative importance of the movement?

00:47:26: Yeah, so degrowth is interesting because it's originally as I argue... It's got diverse roots but i would argue that it has a core in an understanding of science and limits.

00:47:37: And it has connection to the work of Georgeski Rogan for example and entropy and the kind of basic laws of physics and implications for economy.

00:47:48: having said that its also very diverse and it involves political activists, people who are not scientific in that sense.

00:47:57: People do believe we can change the world through changing the discourse which was discussed earlier.

00:48:06: They think if they get language changed then the direction of society will change.

00:48:14: So degrowth has got different elements to it.

00:48:17: Degrowth is also, because of that initial limits aspect to it has... It's quite often caricatured I would say as being about a downturn in growth.

00:48:28: Which is not what degrowth really I think substantively ever been about.

00:48:34: Substantively its' about different type society or different types societies.

00:48:41: where the structures are such You don't pursue growth, you don't pursuit the more and more.

00:48:48: You pursue a more meaningful life.

00:48:50: And then there's a whole range of what is that meaningful life about?

00:48:54: This where we get into alternative societies, alternative structures Solidarity community caring And then to philosophies on what would alternative communities be like.

00:49:07: So What I see with degrowth in one respect Is it gets caricatured as just a downturn In the economy which is actually a recession, you know?

00:49:16: And it's not about the recession.

00:49:17: It's about the structure and even some of the leading people in DeGroff or The Loudest Voices.

00:49:23: we could say... Not sure if they're leading but certainly very loud!

00:49:26: They will argue positions that maintain a capitalist structure and talk about de-growth being like reducing hours of work within a capitalist Structure.

00:49:37: But actually de-groves are changing the structure.

00:49:40: It isn't just about working within capitalism You know, that's just a reformist agenda and degrowth was much more radical agenda.

00:49:49: So the other thing with degrowth I think is it has been very useful because its social movement i would say not to science but as bases in science.

00:50:00: so what does this brings together lot of diverse people who have solidarity around certain value issues.

00:50:08: they recognize society going their own direction.

00:50:11: capitalism is not helping, has created lots of harm socially and ecologically.

00:50:16: that growth the growth economy or growth mania as mission called it needs to be deconstructed taken apart.

00:50:24: And we need a different direction.

00:50:26: so it has to have very strong anti-growth element.

00:50:30: an anticapitalist elements I would say are part from what degrowth was about.

00:50:35: but at same time degrowth then got into problems.

00:50:41: So I wrote an article, What's Wrong with Degrowth trying to discuss some of these issues which is about creating too broad a agenda.

00:50:50: Trying to pull in people who actually are pro-growth In some elements?

00:50:55: you know whether it's the development of developing countries or wherever Which means that they end up being pro-groves pro-capitalists... ...which is a problem And then That Being justified as being tolerant and pluralist.

00:51:07: Well, this is where I go back to science.

00:51:10: We need a scientific basis for our activism.

00:51:13: Activism still has to understand what are the causal relationships?

00:51:17: What is it that's causing things to go wrong?

00:51:20: Why do we want have some kind of movement like degrowth which doesn't if you don't understand anything about what the structure society or how to address it?

00:51:30: Clearly You Have To Have A Scientific Understanding.

00:51:33: So I think these are the elements, but the nice thing about degrowth was it actually helped to stimulate more radical thinking.

00:51:41: And i feel that e-clay economics is actually atrophying in some extent In the same way environmental economics did before degrowth started which is why I've always supported degrowth as a social movement and find it very good community because it stimulates thinking, and it stimulates more radical thinking.

00:52:05: And it is an outlet for academic activism as well which is important.

00:52:09: On activism maybe I can ask about your experience here where we should have met but not to do this interview in Vienna when you were heading up the Masters of Social and Ecological Economics and Policy at The Vienna University of Business & Economics.

00:52:29: Newspaper article, I think it was a protest at the university around the closure of library.

00:52:35: Can you talk about that context?

00:52:36: and then maybe also more broadly what is like right now in the University to get these more... To advance this science as your trying do with this book Fight for Revolutionary Change.

00:52:47: How's It Going?

00:52:48: What needs to happen?

00:52:50: Yeah so they issue The University.

00:52:54: In Vienna election of a rectorate took place.

00:53:00: Rectors are usually appointed on the basis of a vote of students and staff who send an indication that their preferred candidate is from those in the ballot.

00:53:14: It's highly unusual for this to be ignored, In this case.

00:53:20: they appealed extreme right-wing government of twenty years ago, and this legislation was never reversed.

00:53:32: And this body—this quango outside body has the power to appoint the

00:53:37: rector.".

00:53:38: So they ignored the internal people —and they appointed it!

00:53:42: The preferred candidate is a critical of mainstream economics more as social economist And the person they appointed was a Head of Department, or the Economics department.

00:53:54: A totally mainstream orthodox economist.

00:53:57: So once you had this economist as director What does he start doing?

00:54:03: He starts basically shutting things down.

00:54:06: so what he did was...he shut down The library Of the social economics department!

00:54:12: The Berkshire University is very interesting.

00:54:14: It has an economics department and it has a socio-economics department.

00:54:19: And this is another story because the previous rector before these guys, two previous rectors.

00:54:24: He was head of the economics department became the rector and after you've been rector You will go back to your department.

00:54:32: possibly they usually go on a greater thing somewhere which he did.

00:54:36: but he Was thinking he didn't want to go back into the economics Department?

00:54:40: He wanted to have a social economics department.

00:54:42: so we created one.

00:54:43: So it actually set up the socio-economics part.

00:54:46: now you got economics department Social Economics Department, right?

00:54:50: And now what happens is the rector becomes The Economist.

00:54:56: So he doesn't like the social economics department.

00:54:58: clearly He shuts down the library.

00:55:00: so basically it's done under all sorts of guises.

00:55:04: Oh we need more lecturers We need this that yellow.

00:55:06: but the bottom line Is they close Down to the heterodox the Heterodox Institute They shut down the the Library for the socioeconomists and they discriminate against It.

00:55:18: So that's the point there.

00:55:19: This is a long-running kind of battle if heterodoxy versus orthodoxy, you know Fred Lee wrote book about this documenting The Way That Different Departments Were Shut Down and it's very well known issue that goes on all the time And its also something I've written in my book In Terms Of Equal Economics You Know The Fight With The Mainstream and continuously having them encroach into heterodoxy, taking over removing professors so on.

00:55:48: So activism right?

00:55:49: That was just a small local kind of issue.

00:55:53: Activism I think is more serious when we get to civil disobedience... When you start talking about what extent can we challenge the power structures in societies which are becoming increasingly undemocratic where civil protest has been discriminated against?

00:56:11: the United Kingdom has become really awful.

00:56:14: The outlawing of organisations on Palestine, the imprisonment of people in arbitrary ways but even earlier times it's now come that they had already planted people inside environmental NGOs.

00:56:30: so you have really awful cases where these undercover agents are sleeping with activists and having children.

00:56:41: It's been a long-running and very awful kind of struggle, but therefore I think there are serious and legitimate grounds for civil protest in actors.

00:56:51: And it depends also which society you're in.

00:56:54: so even though the way things are going is pretty awful we still have some elements to democracy –I wouldn't call them democracies myself– which is being reduced all the time.

00:57:10: But if you're in a totalitarian dictatorship, If your'e in China or Saudi Arabia Or United States today You are going to suffer In very strong ways.

00:57:24: So what do you do under such regimes?

00:57:28: I'm not gonna give any answers but i am just saying that there are grounds where you have to actually struggle against powers when you don't have power And ultimately, of course you can get to the stages where people are engaged in revolutionary acts and revolutions have different sorts occur whether it's like velvet revolutions or armed revolutions.

00:57:49: It depends on the context.

00:57:51: I think The bottom line for me though is that from a scientific perspective Is what other causes create a society?

00:58:00: How do we actually change what supports about society?

00:58:04: So as long we have the mechanisms of say law, constitution civil protest, civil rights and so on.

00:58:13: We have an opportunity to use mechanisms that don't require extreme violence.

00:58:20: if those mechanisms are removed from society then you end up with Civil War

00:58:26: In terms where do go?

00:58:28: And maybe bring it back slightly too.

00:58:31: One reason I wanted this podcast and hopefully a documentary is that I feel like the economics as it's taught in practice today, its legitimising the current system of holding up.

00:58:46: And i think for all discussion we had at beginning about the more populous text there are critiquing economics maybe without as much of a scientific basis.

00:58:57: They have opened up a lot of people to alternative ideas, including myself and now I'm going around the route of trying to fill in the gaps and get better education on it.

00:59:05: so thank you for your work.

00:59:06: that but one of the points i tried make with people who are newer or read some popular texts we've discussed is they quite often don't realise how far away were from this science.

00:59:21: Oh, they see maybe there's a master at the view where you were teaching and this is now on the textbooks.

00:59:26: This was in The Curriculum.

00:59:27: And we don't realise that actually In some cases as you've just described or even going backwards for suppressing it more.

00:59:32: so I guess how important do You think?

00:59:36: Should We continue the fight?

00:59:39: Do you want us to be out with this?

00:59:45: Is That something?

00:59:49: Or i guess I guess to what extent do you think it is important that we fight within the universities?

00:59:54: and if so, what could other people do?

00:59:57: We've talked about other types of activism but maybe on the university side.

01:00:01: I'd like to hear your thoughts are there?

01:00:03: Yeah i think these are not mutually exclusive.

01:00:06: You have to be active at all levels.

01:00:10: The first of my life's work If you like Is... Not only activist right..I do activism I do civil disobedience in various other things And I have done throughout my life.

01:00:20: But my core is actually to change ideas in society.

01:00:25: I strongly believe that mis-conceptualizing the world, as it's being done has tremendous damage both socially and ecologically.

01:00:34: So we have to re-consectualize how you understand.

01:00:39: And this is Re-consectualizing not just in terms of the academic but the academic has to feed into practice.

01:00:46: so My concern Is How do We Take The Ideas From?

01:00:49: like my book is very philosophical and academic, and move them into practices.

01:00:57: So we need to get the element of practice.

01:00:59: but my thrust is to change economics.

01:01:03: so you know... My real push is that economists are actually misleading the world into a total disaster!

01:01:13: And they should not be pretending that they're doing anything different.

01:01:18: very, very obvious to everybody.

01:01:21: My concern on the communication front is I'm totally in favour of artistic expression, communication populist writings and so on.

01:01:31: what they don't like Is when populous writings pretend to be scientific?

01:01:35: That's where they just really don't lie.

01:01:38: So i have no problem with people writing books which communicate things in a populist way.

01:01:43: I still want to have coherence, and iIstillwanttohaveunderlyingscientificaspects to these things.

01:01:49: So you know if i were ttake something like the doughnuts... ...i think it's misleading.

01:01:54: that isthe problem i have withit.

01:01:56: Now many people ,like yourself get introduced into these ideasand they go deeperwithit.

01:02:02: But mostpeople i know seethatdiagramneverreadthebook understand verylittle And you have to question, so what is this actually doing?

01:02:11: What is the role of these images in society.

01:02:14: How many people does it really empower to do what your'e doing as opposed just they say Kate Royal has got a doughnut thing.

01:02:22: we don't need worry about environment and social issues anymore.

01:02:24: that's good You know.

01:02:26: I fear that can happen.

01:02:27: So my concern is really We do had fundamentally change ideas.

01:02:32: Now when me get into universities clearly There's funding issues, there are things again about democracy here.

01:02:39: So suppression of critical thinking is very current.

01:02:42: but suppression of political thinking comes from the extreme right and I'm sorry to say it also comes from a pluralist kind post-modernists side which quite on left as well.

01:02:54: so being able to criticise scientifically reject ideas is often seen unacceptable.

01:03:03: Oh, we should be tolerant and pluralist.

01:03:05: Well I'm sorry that's an idea of political tolerance which i'm totally in favor of.

01:03:10: political Tolerance right but I not about saying the earth is flat.

01:03:15: it just as valid does.

01:03:16: the Earth is round.

01:03:17: you know what they're arguing a mainstream economics basically telling us the earth was flat And We all Know It's Round.

01:03:25: so this Is The Kind Of Delicious Debates That We Get Into.

01:03:31: So I think that you know the big issues around Around.

01:03:35: it's a way.

01:03:35: That universities are running is that they have to be independent.

01:03:39: They have to have independent funding, they should not be controlled politically But there should be fair elections of things like rectors.

01:03:47: so the example i gave You earlier is totally biased top-down and has nothing To do with their Elections or representation.

01:03:56: There's A lot Of Issues About The Way That Curriculum Is Controlled especially in economics, there is really a suppression.

01:04:04: This is why heterodoxy got going into the very first place because heterodox economists had to organize themselves as a separate distinct society.

01:04:13: they tried within The Royal Economic Society.

01:04:16: There were big pushes to try and reform it.

01:04:20: They got so frustrated by being pushed back.

01:04:22: They just ran a parallel conference, they'd started running parallel conferences and organizing themselves.

01:04:27: And then it grew from

01:04:28: there.".

01:04:29: Well okay why do we even bother with these mainstream people?

01:04:32: That's been my position!

01:04:34: I spent twenty years in environmental resource economics... ...I was involved in the European society.. ..I was running their newsletter at one time....and it goes

01:04:44: nowhere!!

01:04:47: How many mathematical models can you

01:04:49: deconstruct??

01:04:51: It is a

01:04:51: farce!!!

01:04:52: I go to an international conference and you have economists putting up mathematical models on climate change, which was my specialization.

01:05:00: Like did my PhD on it?

01:05:01: And they're putting out these models...and i know those models that everybody who's in the room knows would take your week to understand.

01:05:09: Yeah So just because someone sticks this up and says blah blah blah and there is a conclusion Nobody understands that in their room It's total fast right!

01:05:22: Because it's not about science at all.

01:05:24: That is what we need to geek and strut.

01:05:27: We want real silence here.

01:05:29: So there is a really important role To be played in exposing The fallacies that are going on around scientific claims, thats why the book has got you know A lot of philosophy with sciences were discussing earlier.

01:05:44: It was very important when people make knowledge claims What basis they're actually founding that claim on, naive empiricism, naïve objectivism.

01:05:57: Is it what's going?

01:05:59: Yes It is and in which case you don't have to get a PhD in economics to deconstruct this.

01:06:04: This was I told my master students.

01:06:06: Don't worry That You aren't an economist!

01:06:09: You don't Have To Be An Economist to Deconstruct an Economist because their basic philosophy of science And the fallacy Of Their Arguments is so obvious.

01:06:18: once you study it You know, as you're aware that you don't actually have to get into all the details of a mathematical model and whether they've included this variable or that variable.

01:06:29: Or how they did their econometrics.

01:06:32: twenty thousand times on your computer is irrelevant because there's not just... They are not even answering basic questions!

01:06:39: Just say if I was talking about a post-Keynesian economist who has textbooks And i said to him Can you define work for me?

01:06:50: Define work, you couldn't do it.

01:06:53: We spend an hour over dinner discussing work because at the end of that he still couldn't define them.

01:06:59: You know this is a problem.

01:07:00: Money supply what's money?

01:07:02: Supply?

01:07:02: now we're talking about basic conceptualizations Of central concepts in the theories Because they don't have any science their philosophy or science.

01:07:13: What are you actually doing?

01:07:14: you write you know but the importance for clarifying division and seeking unity.

01:07:18: I wonder how how we can see unity.

01:07:20: And as you write, and I've also discovered that there's a lot in the heterodox schools it would seem is useful?

01:07:27: I don't know if...I think were going to have an answer today but i'm just wondering Okay great!

01:07:34: You had the answer!

01:07:35: Perfect!

01:07:36: At

01:07:36: end of day There Is A Structure There Is Reality.

01:07:40: So The point of emphasising this science?

01:07:43: We Have To Look at The Object That Were Studying And The Object Of Study Will Tell Us whether we're getting things right or not, and then we put practices in place.

01:07:54: And we see okay is the practice working?

01:07:56: Does the practice work?

01:07:57: Is my knowledge adequate for this thing that I want to do?

01:08:01: Do i have a good explanation?

01:08:03: Do I understand the causal

01:08:04: relationships?".

01:08:06: It's very clear to me though The unity of...that were searching for..is the unity around A common understanding Of the way reality is structured And that's why the science is important.

01:08:19: Then, on a more post-modern side we can say... We have to conceptualize!

01:08:25: So what I call in this book common denominator concepts so we can unify around common understandings of reality which doesn't change.

01:08:37: The social structure isn't changing rapidly at all.

01:08:42: We have this very powerful social structure that has been there in basically the same form for a couple of hundred years.

01:08:49: It's called capitalism, you know?

01:08:51: And we can study it and understand it... There are lots of understanding about this.

01:08:56: The divergences come not actually quite often with the ontology but with what we should do about them.

01:09:05: That is more so.

01:09:06: then some things I point out into my book our divisions within the heterodoxy about whether you keep the system and reform it or we change the system.

01:09:16: And this should be a resolvable debate to some extent over understanding causal mechanisms, so what are the causal mechanisms?

01:09:25: So if you take something like the leftist pro-growth position they think that can control capitalism make into state capitalism.

01:09:32: just do income redistribution.

01:09:35: I would argue against this because if you maintain capitalism, implicit in it is exploitation and all that you do is offshore your exploitation to third world countries.

01:09:45: So we're very nice and happy in England as we can redistribute but we are exploiting everybody else in South America India Africa Eastern Europe wherever.

01:09:58: so i don't think it works.

01:10:00: but this is actually something that you can study and understand, if we had open debate in society it could get to a point where we could resolve these issues.

01:10:13: I also talk about pre-analytic visions which are really our understanding of the reality.

01:10:23: why people do not Ecological economics, social economic.

01:10:30: They have common ground right?

01:10:32: There is common ground in terms of our pre-analytic vision Of what's wrong with society the way we understand Society.

01:10:39: So there is a unity their that aspect you know.

01:10:44: so I think look at bottom line Is we are studying A social ecological system and That structure is they're Independent to us and therefore we can come to a common understanding by studying it.

01:10:59: Thank you, Clive!

01:11:00: I might come back on some of these topics... ...I am tempted to put together something for your work on the forces of science in this project.

01:11:09: It needs to be communicated but it has to be scientifically grounded.

01:11:12: so there's a challenge that i've set myself.

01:11:15: This was really insightful.. I'll let you get back into your eco-village in Norway and hope maybe see you live at some point.

01:11:26: You've been listening to Invisible Handcuffs, Unchaining Economics hosted by me Katie Shields with Music Art and Production by Philip Melchers.

01:11:34: If you enjoyed this episode please consider liking us on YouTube or your favourite podcasting platform and subscribing our website at TheVisibleHandcuffs.com where you can also find the show notes for more about the project!

01:11:47: With that

01:11:50: thank-you.