Re: Gintis: The Dialectics of Economic Growth Jul 19, 94 08:02:13 am

[Herbert Gintis <gintis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ric Holt writes:
>Herb,
>Years ago ( Actually I think it was 25 years ago :-)) you wrote a piece
>called "The Dialectics of Economic Growth." In the article you said,
>" Capitalism does not provide the social institutions for the derivation
>of welfare from non-individual consumption activities. The lack of
>functioning communities, solidary and non-alienating work environments,
>etc., renders consumption activities the only feasible path to personal
>well-being." At the end of the article you concluded: " Capitalist
>economies grow, but they do not satisfy men's needs because the growth
>is irrational. Irrationalities occur through destruction of residential
>areas; irrationalities occur through the vast destruction of goods and
>services in the military-industrial-space complex; irrationalities occur
>through enforced obsolescence of commodities, style changes, and the
>culturally enforced norms of conspicuous consumption; irrationalities
>occur through the insufficient supply of important public services, such
>as medical, child care, transportation, natural recreational areas."
>Do you still believe this?

	I hate to answer a question with a question, but I will start an
answer with a question: why are you asking this? If it is in response to
my query to Mangiovi concerning the evidence for the value of social
programs, then my reply to him may be relevant to you concerns.

	On to your quote from my earlier statement (25 years
earlier!). I think I underestimated the possibility of a mixed
economy, with strong private and public sectors, handling the problems
I alluded to in that statement. I think I also overestimated the ease
of finding an alterative to such a 'mixed economy.' There is no
reasonable alterative, as far as I know. So my statement is valid for
laissez faire capitalism (and for capitalist without a democratic
state), but is too much of an obiter dictum as it stands.

	Some of things I said there I now consider completely wrong,
including the stuff at the end about enforced obsolescence, conspicuous
consumption, cultural ideology, and the like. What I wrote there was
just your typical new-left laundery list of anti-capitalist gripes.

	You probably think, Ric, that I am just one more disenchanted
leftist. This is not accurate. I continue to work on issues of
economic equality, economic democracy, and the endogenous formation of
preferences. See my book with Gustafsson and Bowles (eds.) on
Democracy and Markets (CUP, 1993), and forthcoming book with Jerry
Epstein (eds.) _Macroeconomic Policy after the Conservative Era_, as
well as my work with Bowles on the democratic firm and productivity-
enhancing asset redistributions. But all this work is predicated on
the assumption that there is no alternative to the mixed economy and
the state must operate efficiently in its interventions.

Herb gintis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx