A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World

Abstract

The reasons for the lack of communication between economists and econophysicists are clarified by giving an outline of the methodological differences between economics and econophysics, which has emerged as a new field of research over the last decade. Theorists working in econophysics see economic and financial phenomena through the ‘lens’ of statistical physics. So far, there has been no real dialogue between economists and econophysicists because both communities adhere to their own methodological precepts.     

Intellectual Migration and Economic Thought: Central European Émigré Economists and the History of Modern Economics

Summary

This article examines the life and thought of Thomas Balogh and Nicholas Kaldor, two Hungarian-born British economists, to suggest how the personal background and émigré status of these economists changed their view of the British economy and the economic policy recommendations they put forward as high-profile government advisers in the post-1945 period. This article combines research on inter-war intellectual migration and the history of British economics and economic policy making after the Second World War. It shows how the large scale migration of Central European intellectuals to the English-speaking countries affected the academic, intellectual and cultural lives of the host countries; it also suggests how economics, a relatively young social science discipline, has been crucially enriched by the contributions of exiles from old Europe, and how the mainstream paradigm of modern economics, the so-called neoclassical synthesis, was the result of the cross-fertilisation of ideas facilitated by the physical movement of academics and thinkers.     

The road from serfdom: economic storytelling and narratives of India in the rise of neoliberalism

Abstract

Studies of neoliberalism’s rise in the second half of the twentieth century have focused on influential US and European thinkers and global economic institutions. They rarely mention India. This article argues that, in the 1950s and early 1960s, Nehru’s India served as both a central laboratory and a discursive field for international economists debating the proper role of the state in economic development. US economists like John Kenneth Galbraith held up India planning as a proxy for the ‘American way’ of capitalism in Asia; neoliberal economists like Milton Friedman and B.R. Shenoy excoriated Nehru’s ‘road to socialism.’ As India’s economy stumbled in the late 1960s, neoliberal economists used Indian foundations to build an empirical and rhetorical case against scientific planning. Their cautionary tales about India’s ‘Permit-License-Raj’ helped to construct and sustain the project of delegitimizing state action and celebrating markets.     

Solar Climate Control An Opportunity for World-wide Use of Solar Energy

Abstract

An investigation covering the United States, Europe and Japan has been carried out since 1973 to determine the use of solar energy for heating and cooling the inside of buildings. This study, supported by and on behalf of more than 100 industrial companies was led by the author who here for the first time reports his findings to the general scientific public. A large interdisciplinary team of engineers, economists, planners and building experts was involved and their methodology their technical considerations, as well as costs, marketing and constraint are reported. Detailed data obtained from the project have only been communicated to the sponsors and are not publicly available.     

The RAAR Project — Heritage Management Aspects on Reburial After Ten Years of Work

Abstract

The general purpose of the international reburial project, Reburial and Analyses of Archaeological Remains (RAAR), is to evaluate reburial as a method for the long-term storage and preservation of waterlogged archaeological remains. Since 2001 material samples have been buried, retrieved, analysed systematically, and the results reported.

RAAR has mainly focused on the degradation of materials commonly encountered on archaeological sites, and on environmental monitoring techniques in order to determine what type of material can be reburied and for how long. The project has concluded that a heritage institution could provide short- or long-term curation for its archaeological archive by using reburial depots provided they are set up according to guidelines and restrictions stipulated by the RAAR project.

However, there are management and legal aspects that need to be discussed and resolved before each reburial project. Actual reburials that have been carried out so far are often a solution to emergency situations and lack collection and management policies. The questions ‘what’, ‘why’, and ‘for how long’ have been forgotten and need to be addressed. The legal protection of a reburial site is also important. This paper discusses these aspects and their consequences and highlights possible differences in approaches between the countries involved in the RAAR project.     

Desertification Processes and the Search for Solutions

Abstract

This paper reviews the evidence of desertification as reported in the scientific literature by ecologists, meteorologists, hydrologists, archeologists and various other disciplines. There is not as yet full agreement as to the extent and causes of this phenomenon. World wide climatic changes have been cited as causative factors, but the influence of man is still considered by most investigators as the dominant cause, possibly exacerbating cyclic climatic changes. Deserts, semi-arid and marginally productive areas vary greatly in extent and for different reasons.

Results of research and development have indicated that the enlightened intercession of man can contain and reverse this process. Sound management and conservation of existing land and water resources seem to be the basic needs and are perhaps the easiest technology to transfer to the desert farmer and nomad. The introduction of drought-hardy tree and bushes of economic value to bind drifting sand dunes and to regenerate overgrazed pastures have also proven their value. Recent research has shown the possibility for better utilization of water resources including brackish water for irrigation of agricultural crops.

Many other fields of technology are being applied to this problem, but the major focus will undoubtedly have to be on man himself and there has been some research on social organization, nomadism and sedentarization, technology transfer, population control, directions of education and a host of similar problems. Much more work will have to be channelled into this direction, however, if real progress is to be attained.     

ICAHM redivivus!

Abstract

The measures employed in a current Siberian rock art conservation project are briefly described; and preliminary results are examined. The future development of the project is considered, and specific noninterventionist methods are suggested in an effort to contain contamination of the rock art, and so to avoid the destruction of its remaining research potential. The main site among the series of sites being discussed has suffered extensive damage from rock art recorders, as well as intentional vandalism by residents of the district's villages. In view of the steepness of most of the sites, access modifications are considered to be the most effective measures of alleviating anthropic damage. A number of less serious threats can be mitigated by fairly simple measures of altering the conditions threatening the rock art. Such measures of minimal intervention are listed. Although the paper deals with a particular region, climate, demography and geology, the underlying management philosophy may be much more widely applicable.     

U‐2 flights in the North: Western strategy,intelligence requirements and political risks

Reindeer herding in Scandinavia has in recent years been studied as a common‐pool resource problem. In such studies the size of the herds are often analysed in relation to issues like economics, demography, and technology. In this article the author discusses the size of reindeer herds in relation to social and organisational issues in the light of experiences from an environmental assessment.     

The Car and its Artists

Abstract

Since the beginning of the carrage, coincident with the fin du siècle, car art has been as much in flux and reflux as the car's technology itself. Many eminent painters have at least flirted with automobile matters, great impressionists as well as modern pop artists, and between them, say from 1910 to 1960, there existed the golden age of the great illustrators and poster men. Each one of these has left us a different image of what the car meant to him and thi review attempt to project some of these images. It must be more than coincidence that the first and the last illustrations here show a car as an objet d'art.     

The Role of Provinces,States, and Territories in Shaping Federal Policy for Indigenous Peoples’ Health

ABSTRACT

Under both Canadian and United States law, the availability and quality of healthcare and health services to Indigenous peoples are primarily a federal responsibility. Nevertheless, sub-national authorities—most importantly provinces, states, and territories—play a crucial role by virtue of covering (often through federal mandate) services, and regulating health facilities and health personnel off-reserv(ation). While both federal governments have undertaken efforts to transfer, within their fiduciary obligations, their responsibilities for Indigenous peoples’ health to the management of Indigenous peoples themselves, that transfer has considered or included provincial, state, and territorial authorities and resources unevenly, and, in some cases, in tension with the objectives of respecting standards for quality and access. This article applies the methodology used by Canadian researchers of the sub-national health authority issue to the health transfer experience in the United States. The article summarizes findings that demonstrate similar deficiencies as those present in the Canadian transfer process. The article further outlines the experiences of Hawai`i and Ontario as offering models through which to address some of these deficiencies. The article finally suggests that there is a positive relationship between greater participatory models adopted by provinces, states, and territories and better health outcomes among Indigenous groups so included.     

Karl Polanyi for Historians: An Alternative Economic Narrative

The purpose of this essay is to provide the historian with a generic understanding of the term economy by examining some aspects of the work of the Hungarian “economic historian” Karl Polanyi (1886–1964). It does not seek to explain Polanyi's economic ideas to economists nor does it seek to locate his ideas within the discourses of the academic discipline of economics; there is abundant academic literature which carries out those tasks. This essay is intended to help fill a void in the historical understanding, especially the modern historical understanding, of the term economy, and of how the characteristics associated with it are generally understood. Yet, in reality, it is the neoclassical paradigm of economics which is typically and uncritically taken to be the touchstone for understanding the economy. This circumstance is problematic, however, when referring to the economy of societies earlier than the late nineteenth century or of societies whose culture differs radically from that of the advanced capitalist “west.” Polanyi's insights may help historians avoid the risk of either distorting or anachronistically misunderstanding the economy of such societies.     

Antebellum Southern Political Economists and the Problem of Slavery

This article seeks to contextualize the political economists of the antebellum South. The article analyzes them both as members of a transatlantic set of economic thinkers and as southern defenders of slavery. As such, they paired a commitment to the fundamental precepts of classical economics with a defense of chattel slavery. Some historians have claimed that the simultaneous commitment of the southern political economists to political economy and slavery compromised both their social science and their defense of slavery. In contrast, this article finds that the southern political economists exploited the gaps and tensions in classical political economy on the topic of unfree labor to build a coherent and popular economic defense of slavery. Key to the defense was a view of planters as profit‐seeking capitalists and a racism that necessitated the control of black laborers. In the process of developing the defense, some of the southern political economists championed the prospect of industrializing the economy of the South with surplus slave labor.     

Large Scale Projects: Planetwide Coalitions Needed

Abstract

Taking the Channel Tunnel as an example, there is a need for hard cost-benefit estimates to be made before any large scale project is begun. Long periods of gestation are frequent, high tech is not limited to macrosystems and structured collaboration between governments and other institutions is essential for success. The PAT system, supersonic tube flight and the priority selection of macroprojects are discussed and the establishment of a prototype development group is recommended.     

Sasanian period drop-tower gristmills on the Deh Luran Plain,southwestern Iran

Abstract

The nature of the Deh Luran gristmill system is described, and archaeological and ethnohistorical observations provide insights into ancient rural technology, economics, and socio-politics. Optically Scanned Luminescence, ceramics, and other archaeological associations, date the Deh Luran gristmills to the Sasanian period (A.D. 225–700). A Middle East/Mediterranean origin as early as 250 B.C. is suggested for the drop-tower side-shot water wheel technology used.

The Deh Luran gristmill technology was well adapted to the topography and limited, variable water supply. Currently farmed lands, and their productivity, are found to be far less than projected grain surpluses for an expanding Sasanian Empire in Deh Luran. Population estimates based on gristmill productivity contradict those from archaeological data. Data suggest that Deh Luran, and similar rural areas, were relatively autonomous.     

Who owns the past? A perspective from Chiang Saen,Thailand

Abstract

Chiang Saen is an early Buddhist community in northern Thailand, dating from the fourteenth century. It is regarded as an important historic site and, therefore, as deserving of preservation and protection. A preservation plan for this ancient town, proposed by the Thai Fine Arts Department, has been in operation since 1957. Forty years of attempts to develop the site have seen profound differences in attitude between local people and the government archaeologists and technicians. Problems such as looting, damage to and deterioration of the ruins, and site encroachment have hampered heritage management in the area. Research on the management of the site was conducted in summer 1996 and winter 1997, revealing a number of reasons why this well-intended preservation project has met difficulties. The problems encountered revolve around the question: Who owns the past?'. Government officials conducting CRM work at the site often blame local people for not cooperating with an 'official government project', and for failing to understand the informational value of the site. Local people take a different view: they understand that the site and/or archaeological remains found there belong to the government, so they believe it is the government's responsibility to take care of them. They do not feel a sense of ownership for the cultural property. Interviews with local people suggest that public education and interpretation must be taken seriously. Local people are ready and willing to help if they feel they have a stake in the CRM programme. Any possible cooperation and assistance from the residents lies in the government's ability to answer the question of ownership of the past in a way that includes local people.     

Strategies for Protection of Wooden Underwater Cultural Heritage in the Baltic Sea Against Marine Borers. The EU Project ‘WreckProtect’

Abstract

Marine borers constitute a great danger to historical shipwreck in marine environments as they are able to decompose wood material in just a few years. Recently, there have been indications that the marine borer Teredo navalis is spreading into the brackish Baltic sea, where thousands of invaluable historical wrecks for centuries have had unique preservation conditions. The WreckProtect project was a coordination and support action funded by the European Commission within the 7th Framework Program. The main objective of the project was to develop tools for predicting the spread of marine borers into the Baltic and to evaluate methods for in situ protection of the historical wreck and submerged settlements. This paper gives a summary final report of the project and an overview of results.     

Experimental Consensus: Negotiating with the Irrigating State in the South of Laos

Abstract

It is common to view Laos as a political culture prone to “consensus”, yet it is also true that policy is constantly changing there, often radically. If everyone is always “in consensus”, what can explain this change? I suggest that the answer is found in the particular kind of consensus at play: it is informed by a wider “experimentarian” ethic evident in rural Laos, where ideas (including the latest policies) are put to the test through practical implementation. The results of these experiments are used to validate policy change and reversal. This allows rural residents a degree of manoeuvrability in their engagements with the state that is striking given the “authoritarian” status of the current regime. It can explain and is used to justify, for instance, the oft-observed gap between policy and actual practice. This room for manoeuvre comes at the price of “playing the game”, at least for a while, of the latest policy fad, sometimes with disastrous consequences for rural livelihoods. I use the example of an irrigation project that was implemented in the south of Laos from 1999–2002 to examine “experimental consensus” at work as policy was received, engaged and eventually relinquished.     

Insights Regarding Transdisciplinarity and Knowledge Transfer Gained from Two Case Studies on Integrated Water Resources Management in Ukraine and Mongolia

Abstract

Transdisciplinary environmental research (TD research) seeks to solve problems arising at the point of interaction between ecological systems, the economy, and society. It seeks to enhance problem-solving capacity through interdisciplinarity and knowledge transfer between scientific and non-scientific actors. The article assesses how far the prerequisites for knowledge transfer are met in transdisciplinary projects on integrated water resources management (IWRM), particularly in post-socialist transition countries. It examines two relevant case studies, in Ukraine and Mongolia, which share a similar institutional and cultural background, and use some of the same methods closely related to knowledge transfer. It is shown that, in each case, knowledge transfer was achieved more or less effectively in both directions — from science to society and vice versa, despite the additional obstacles posed by a common post-socialist legacy. The paper concludes with a number of recommendations for designing and implementing similar TD research projects in the field of IWRM.     

Economic Globalization and its Problems: A Response to Eaton,Herpel, and Moe-Lobeda and Spencer

Abstract

Building on the other papers in this issue, I offer a theological critique of economic globalization. The theory, or "theology" that supports it leads people of good will, despite the many negative consequences of the globalized pursuit of growth, to pursue such growth, as measured by GDP, as the goal of economic policy. This economistic theology takes no account of human community or ecological sustainability. Until it is changed economists will continue to direct us toward catastrophe.