Nu-i da orbului sa coasa [sau nu lasa pe seama tehnocratilor deciziile pe care societatea este datoare sa le ia]

2009-10-13T00:38:00.000+03:00

1. În blogul Dorinei Guţu, Cristian Călugaru ne atenţionează să ne "Ferim de tehnocraţi" astfel:

Mergând mai departe cu raţionamentul, de astă dată politic, nu pot să nu constat că riscăm să cădem în eroarea de a înlocui o clasă politică (aşa cum este ea, de multe ori invadată de paraziţi) cu o clasă de pretinşi specialişti a căror singură măsură pare a fi siguranţa de sine, nesusţinută însă de realitatea obiectivă.

2. Într-un răspuns pe acelaşi blog, mă gândesc la cum, de fapt, tehnocraţii sunt lăsaţi să ia nişte decizii care ar trebui să revină societăţii. Iată argumentarea mea:

3. Poate este doar o părere, dar atacul pare să fie îndreptat mai mult împotriva singurelor două categorii menţionate pe nume – economiştii şi juriştii.

4. Nici una dintre cele doua categorii nu cred că işi doreşte să conducă lumea [cel puţin nu în mod direct]. Tribunalele [de exemplu CEDO] deplâng de fiecare dată când trebuie să ia o decizie în locul legislativelor [sau statelor membre], pentru că acestea refuză să dezbată, sau să ajungă la un consens. Economiştii, de asemenea, şi-ar dori în visele cele mai frumoase mai puţine variabile şi mai multă siguranţă rezultată din deciziile clare şi la obiect ale legislatorilor.

5. Aceasta nu se întâmplă.

6. De ce? Răspunsul poate sta în interes, neînţelegerea problemelor, corupţie etc. Dar poate la mijloc este o problemă mult mai simplă: societatea, în starea sa actuală, este antagonizată pe mai multe axe [bogaţi-săraci; angajatori-angajaţi; angajaţi-pensionari etc.] care reprezintă tot atâtea potenţiale “majorităţi” şi “opoziţii”.

7. De multe ori, însă, o decizie care ar părea clară dintr-un punct de vedere ne dezavantajează din altul. Combinând cele două, rezultă o dorinţă clară de lipsă de acţiune. (Mai exact, un motiv de indecizie)

8. În vidul rămas, este normal ca deciziile să fie luate de jurişti şi de economişti, prin simplul motiv că ei trebuie să decidă asupra lucrurilor de pe o zi pe alta, fără amânare. (De exemplu, ştim ce se întâmplă atunci când bugetele sunt îngheţate până la aprobarea unui set de indicatori de cheltuieli; adică atunci când juriştii şi economiştii nu au mână liberă)

9. Ca atare, nu cred că ar trebui să-i damnăm pe tehnocraţi – care fac lucrurile să meargă măcar previzibil şi oarecum fluid, ci trebuie să găsim moduri mai bune de reprezentare şi de dezbatere pentru a putea descâlci firul problemelor asupra cărora polis-ul (şi nu ei) trebuie să decidă.

What the Nobel in Economics Tells Us (First Post)

2009-10-13T00:04:00.001+03:00

1. Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson have won the Nobel prize for Economics. Mrs Ostrom, the first woman to win the Nobel Economics prize, has researched the ways in which communities can manage common property.

2. Economics teaches us that the common good will be advanced if every person pursues their own interest, while avoiding to directly harm anyone else. The sum of individual, selfish, interests would thus become something more than its parts - the common advancement.

3. Experience shows that when people are given the chance to take something for free they will take it, unless the bother of doing so [or loss of face] would be greater than the advantages thus acquired. In other words, as long as there is value to be obtained, people will generally take it, regardless of other factors.

4. Generally, people are protective of their gains. If I fish, say, 10 cod, then I would rather store them in my fridge than give them to the poor [or maybe I'll give one, sell 2 and store the other 7]. This is so even when I wouldn't have a fridge. Experience shows that in such a case, humans would rather have their fish rot in the sun, if they can't trade them fast for something useful.

5. This usually works in the economic cycle because what people own is usually the result of their own creative energies, which are commonly known as work. The capacity to work usually limits one's acquisitions to a reasonable level, multiplied, as it is nowadays, by the benefits of social [or corporate] rank.

6. In some cases, we are faced with a windfall gain, which, as seen above, we are tempted to take. Let's say that, because of some water current, I catch 20 fish one day rather than the normal 10. I would most likely keep the 20, regardless of my possibilities to store them, or maybe try to find some good use for them. It is highly unlikely that I would give more than 2 away.

7. An individual's windfall, however, might sometimes mean subtracting value from a shared resource. If, say, my 20 fish lived in a lake that I have access to along with 50 other villagers, then my 10 extra fish [from the example above] are 10 fish less for the rest of the village.

8. In the longer term, if I will continue to go at the same spot and enjoy a bonanza of fish, the entire village might find, the next season, that a substantially lower number of fish have been born, and, ultimately, I would suffer too.

9. The economics of commons, in which Mrs Ostrom specializes researches the ways in which communities around the globe have tried [and sometimes managed] to find a way to enhance the common and individual long-term good, by limiting the short-term gains of their members, when shared resources are at stake.

10. Examples of successful management schemes include, in the past, the feudal rights to fish, hunt, grow different kinds of animals and toil the common land. Although these might seem exclusive at first, they could have also indicated an understanding of the limits that a shared resource might support.

11. Such restrictive arrangements, which work at the local level, have easily been perturbed by globalization. The free movement of goods and persons, and the rights each of us has gained in the modern democracy, skew the incentives that communal arrangements assume.

12. For example, if in a village, I might think it worth giving up 3-4 cod of my daily catch in order to gain the kindness and potential help of the other villagers, someone from another country might completely disregard them, and fish the 20 cod out of the water, without remorse.

13. The short principles above can be applied both to the local lake, but also, more generally, to our common resources as a planet; to people, but also to states and unions of states; to positive gains [i.e. having more fish] but also to the occupation of physical space [i.e. dumping things in the ocean].

14. An aspect that humans currently ignore is that, whereas our lives are fully regulated, and we usually tend not to profit from windfalls, since they have long been shared according to prescribed rules, at the international level, the fight for windfalls, and for the shared resources that produce them, is on.

15. Examples of this include the Arctic, which, as it begins to heat and thus shed it permanent ice, is being colonized much as Africa was split in the 19th century; the mid-ocean ranges, which are proven to contain energy-rich polymeric nodules; and the orbit right around Earth, which is getting filled up to saturation with space junk [i.e. old satellite parts, remnants from test explosions and other debris].

16. The pressing issue, which makes Mrs Olstrom's scientific research more needed, is that whereas past fights for the common pool have tended to impact a certain well defined area [a village, a city, a country], and take some time to exhibit their effects, the transformations taking place now are faster and all-encompassing.

17. Which is why I believe that, in expectation of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, this year's Economics Nobel Prize has touched the right spot.

Law in Private

Nu-i da orbului sa coasa [sau nu lasa pe seama tehnocratilor deciziile pe care societatea este datoare sa le ia]

What the Nobel in Economics Tells Us (First Post)