Tag Archive for 'behavioural economics'

After Copenhagen II: Whither progressive politics?

Published
by
Mark
2 months, 3 weeks ago
in Climate change, International, Policy, Politics and USA
. 26 Comments

A predictable response to the Copenhagen fail has been calls from Australian business for *even more* ‘compensation’ as a condition for continued support of the Rudd government’s ETS. I’ll save the domestic politics of the Copenhagen washup for a later post, but I think it’s also worth reflecting on what underlies the sort of political and policy thinking which leads to bills such as the CPRS.

In my previous post, I reproduced Brian Davey’s piece from Open Democracy, which expressed skepticism about the capacities of the political system to deal with complex phenomena, permeating all sectors of the economy and lifeworld, such as climate change. I agree with the diagnosis, but I think that a different mode of politics could find solutions.

There are three similarities between the design of the CPRS and the American Health bill (and for that matter, the US cap and trade bills):

(a) Both started out with an ambit, seeking to find the limits of giveaways and concessions to political and particularly corporate constituencies; rather than from the position of a solution;

(b) Similarly, both come with implicit rhetoric that any action is a good start, and a messy compromise can later be made purer and more effective;

(c) Both seek to accommodate existing interests and shift behaviour only at the margins, rather than constructing a new frame which would require actors to reconfigure behaviours, and create new actors (and destroy or reshape old ones).

In short, this sort of approach to governance is inherently conservative, in that it seeks to match political imperatives to already existing situations, rather than to transform the situation politically. This tends not to work, for reasons which are fairly obvious. Yet, notions like ‘nudge’ and using quasi-markets to achieve social ends are the hallmarks of postmodern progressive policy wonk-dom.

Continue reading ‘After Copenhagen II: Whither progressive politics?’

Economic and political disconnects (and the sociology of knowledge)

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 3 months ago
in Consumerism, Economics, Government, International, Markets, Media, Sociology and USA
. 18 Comments

It’s hard to know whether to blame the pollies or the press gallery more for the sorry standard of political and economic debate in this country. Did that golden age Paul Kelly used to talk about when Paul Keating had everyone trained to cross swords on the arcana of economic levers actually ever exist? Anyway, as non-farm growth fell into negative territory and the Reserve Bank cut rates again (moving them back into an expansionary posture), all eyes were on Julie Bishop’s cat claws, and her non-performance was at the centre of the parliamentary stage.

But perhaps, although he presumably wouldn’t welcome the Bishop meltdown, Malcolm Turnbull isn’t too worried about the level of triviality in the great economic management debate. The budget deficit yardstick went missing yesterday (that was so… last week) and Turnbull might not like to be reminded of his inconsistency and constant contradiction – whatever happened to that “economic narrative” we apparently were awaiting from him? Anyway, Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t think there’s much of a global financial crisis any more – because he hasn’t heard of any “big events”. Presumably events only happen if they’re on the front page of Australian newspapers. He might like to check out the leading indicators of the credit crisis which suggest we’re not exactly back to normality. But so parochial are our political leaders and media that debates about the restructuring of global finance and the dangerous leadership interregnum in the United States are apparently off our radar.

But there’s another disconnect happening in the economic sphere too. Continue reading ‘Economic and political disconnects (and the sociology of knowledge)’

Guest Post by Miriam Lyons: What does an Obama win mean for Australia?

Published
by
Guest Poster
1 year, 4 months ago
in Australiana, Climate change, Developing world, Economics, Environment, Foreign Elections, Foreign policy, Government, Immigration, International, Markets, Policy, Politics, Sociology and USA
. 12 Comments

Director of the Centre for Policy Development Miriam Lyons writes:

Barack Obama’s victory represents a watershed in American history, but it will also have ramifications around the world. Before I head out to celebrate I thought I’d just bash out a few quick notes on some of the policy implications for Australia of this momentous turnaround in the state of US politics:

Climate change

Today’s election result heralds the rise of Green Keynesianism. The US economy is in the toilet and smart economists are advocating direct investment over a more consumer-based fiscal stimulus. Democrats in Congress got a head start last year with the Green Jobs Act, and elements of the President-elect’s energy and environment policies look a lot like a ‘Green New Deal’. This from Time Magazine:

He wants to launch an “Apollo project” to build a new alternative-energy economy. His rationale for doing so includes some hard truths about the current economic mess: “The engine of economic growth for the past 20 years is not going to be there for the next 20. That was consumer spending. Basically, we turbocharged this economy based on cheap credit.” But the days of easy credit are over, Obama said, “because there is too much deleveraging taking place, too much debt.” A new economic turbocharger is going to have to be found, and “there is no better potential driver that pervades all aspects of our economy than a new energy economy … That’s going to be my No. 1 priority when I get into office.”

Calls for a Green New Deal are also starting to gain traction in the UK – and the UN. This can only help the chances of Australia’s version of the Apollo alliance, which released the ‘Green Gold Rush’ report last week calling for investment in green-collar jobs growth.

The Obama campaign’s target for emissions cuts was 80% by 2050 – a fair way ahead of Oz Labor’s as-yet-unaltered election promise of 60% by 2050. With the Arctic ice-sheet melting rapidly even an 80% target is too low for a developed country like the US, but it should certainly give Professor Ross Garnaut reason to revise his pessimism about the likely outcome of the Copenhagen round of climate negotiations. It’s worth noting that the Obama campaign’s climate and energy platform specifically called for 100% auctioning of permits.

Continue reading ‘Guest Post by Miriam Lyons: What does an Obama win mean for Australia?’