minority voting hypothesis

Super Tuesday was this past Tuesday and Bernie had a poorer showing than polling predicted.

3 facts stand out:
-black voters supported Biden over Bernie
-Bernie had higher Latino support than Biden
-young voters did not turn out as Bernie had hoped

Hypothesis:

A larger number of Latinos are immigrants. Children of immigrant families are the window to the outside world. Adults who don't speak the language rely on their children to navigate and understand the culture, customs and politics of foreign country in which they now live. Youth outreach worked for Bernie in the Latino community because Latino youth have more power to inform and influence decision making of the voting adults. 

African American (AA) family dynamics are very different. Highly racial policing have forced AAs into highly defensive parenting meaning exert strong control (most likely discipline) over children... a top down authoritarian family structure. Compared to Latino households, youth in AA homes have very little influence over adult decision making. The effect of AA youth outreach does not tend to penetrate the households.


If true, Bernie needs a strategy that targets adults in minority communities, not just the youth.

Difference between Democrats and Republicans...

... from the perspective of the 2020 elections:

planet earth = terminally ill cancer patient suffering great pain

treatment options from Republicans/Democrats:
Republicans: assisted suicide
establishment Democrats (party organization): non-prescription analgesics and smiles
progressive Democrats: try to push patient into remission... that will buy time to try to find a cure

New value system needed

Good interview at TRNN with climate scientist Will Steffen.


My comment:

"All of these [efforts to mitigate climate change] need to be underpinned by new value systems that value stabilizing the earth's systems as the highest priority that any economy must strive for." 

This should be the take home message of every economics course/lecture from now on. Economics and the values of economics must be defined beyond goods/services and financial return. My preferred definition of economies are self-organizing and self-sustaining systems of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services that promote the well-being of all participants. Capitalism would not be an acceptable primary economic system under this definition because it is not self-sustaining... using fossil fuels will eventually degrade the environment to the point where it cannot sustain human life as we know it. Placing profit and 'economic growth' above all else is the source of climate change, income inequality, health care crisis and many other social ills. But economies are human made social constructs; humans made/make them, humans can reshape them.

Orthodox Economic Theory does not Explain the Economy

Comment at TRNN. Economist Bill Black was discussing union membership in the U.S. and along the way, mentioned conventional economics does not explain today's economy:

"…that's far worse than simple inequality… economists really can't explain with conventional economics how this is occurring... that's of course because their economic theories are falsehoods... They're basically cover stories for laissez-faire..." 

The most important take home message of the segment: orthodox economic theory is wrong. If economists were responsible [social] scientists, they would go back to the drawing board, re-examine the data, develop better models/theories and test them as rigorously as possible.

It's striking how outright wrong economic theory is used to justify government policy that's bad for most people compared to how well validated science (climate change, theory of evolution) is demonized and ignored to the detriment of most people. [Climate change is validated by annual record breaking heat records of the recent 2 decades, increasing droughts & flooding and stronger hurricanes. The Theory of Evolution is supported by a wealth of biological, geological and paleontological data. The success of modern medicine also validates evolution: medicine is based on animal studies which are informative because they are evolutionarily related to humans; otherwise, there would be no way to justify the research.]

Name of segment: Low Rate of Unionization in US Consequence of Deregulation

Economic policy is not based on science

Comment at TRNN:

Trump's plan would mean 'a huge increase in the budget deficit primarily to give tax cuts to the richest people in the country,' says economist Dean Baker. 'I don't think most people would think that sounds like a very good idea'
 That climate change is occurring and caused by human activity is at near universal consensus of climate scientists. And it doesn't take a degree in economics to understand that climate change will have devastating effects on economies. One simple equation: climate change = less food = fewer or hungry people = smaller economy. And yet there are economists who argue climate mitigation to too expensive and bad for the economy. According to economists, science is bad economics.  The tax policy DJT is proposing is based on supply-side-economics and the Laffer curve which has essentially no scientific consensus; the Laffer curve doesn't even have units. According to (some) very influential economists, no science is good economics.   So is economics a science or ideology? I once compared science and religion (ideology): While there are some similarities, they are very important and significant differences. Both science and religion arise from the same social need; in the face of complete uncertainty, people want rules of behavior/conduct to avoid catastrophic outcomes. Religions codify collections of old anecdotes into rules of conduct. For example, biblical strictures against adultery/infidelity likely arise from a tragic outcome of a few adulterous incidents. But not all affairs will end in tragedy. This is akin to associating good fortune to a charm because you happened to be wearing it on the day of a good event (promotion, favorite team winning). Religions use anecdotes to predict the future. Scientific conclusions are based on carefully controlled and precisely collected data (if properly controlled, a set of anecdotes is data). Scientific predictions based on data are restricted to well defined circumstances. For example, science predicts two doses of measles vaccine are 97% effective. When sufficiently complete data is available, science is remarkably accurate in its predictions. 

[Climate] Science predicts coming changes in the climate will cause sea levels to rise, increase storm severity, and increase severity of droughts and floods, all of which will negatively impact economies. Most orthodox [neoliberal] economists pooh-pooh the predictive value of [climate] science in favor of data-free economic theories, more ideology than science.

…DJT’s tax plan is nonsense, like almost all economic policy.

Post title: Trump's Tax Cut Plan Alienates His Base

Polluting for Profit

Comment at TRNN at post title, Coal Power Plants are the Largest Source of Toxic Water Contamination: 

Like all forms of industrial pollution, toxic byproducts of coal are driven by economic profit. Producers of polluting fertilizers & agricultural chemicals profit from the sales of these materials to farmers who use it to increase their farm profits. Fossil fuel & petroleum industry extract, process & sell their products for profit. Polluted water, air and climate (including climate change) are all byproducts of profit driven polluting industries. Americans need to understand that mitigating pollution and climate change is not anti-economic. It's a economic evolution analogous to the industrial revolution - change or be left behind. This is particularly important in light of the regressive policies of DJT. The U.S. dominated technological innovation in the past but DJT's retraction from already poor investment in science (cutting funding to FDA, EPA, anti-science rhetoric) and education will decimate any hope of American revival. DJT's business specialty is the making and selling of his brand, *not* cutting edge innovation. He's a good hire to put on a spectacle but lousy at the STEM fields which will drive the economy forward. The choice to pollute [ignore pollution] for profit is an economic decision. The choice to *not* pollute for the sake of profit is also an economic decision. We consumers have the power to influence that choice. Demand transparency; be informed consumers.

Open Insulin Project

Comment at Truthout interview about Open Insulin Project's attempt to create a cheaper insulin product for diabetes patients:

Regulations [patents] are tools of power [pharma] to control information [assign who gets to profit]. Secrecy and control of information are enemies of democracy. Transparency and informed choice gives power to the voter/buyer, not the candidate/seller.

Anthony DiFranco is attempting to re-generate the information [insulin patents] controlled by large pharma into marketable drugs. He will have the option of secret patents [like pharma] or open patents [any producer can use]. Open patents are more transparent and give consumers more informed choice.

Science is based on data

Comment at Down with Tyranny:

"Replace "climate" with "hell" and this would be the same reasoning used for the fire and brimstone version of religion."

This is essentially arguing [climate] science is like religion. While there are some similarities, they are very important and significant differences. Both science and religion arise from the same social need; in the face of complete uncertainty, people want rules of behavior/conduct to avoid catastrophic outcomes. Religions codify collections of old anecdotes into rules of conduct. For example, biblical strictures against adultery/infidelity likely arise from a tragic outcome of one adulterous incident. But not all affairs will end in tragedy. This is akin to associating good fortune to a charm because you happened to be wearing it on the day of a good event (promotion,favorite team winning). Religions use old anecdotes to predict the future. Scientific conclusions are based on carefully and precisely collected data (if properly controlled, a set of anecdotes can form a set of data). Scientific predictions based on data are restricted to well defined circumstances. For example, science predicts two doses of measles vaccine are 97% effective. When suffiently complete data is available, science is remarkably accurate in its predictions.

You have the right to make any choices that affect your individual well being; choose religion if that is your preference. When your actions affect the well being of the larger community, choose the path of minimum harm with most accurate predictive value. Science has proven to be a far better fortune teller than religion.

Pharma as a Public Utility?

Truthout asks if Pharma should be treated as a public utility. My comment:

No. The value of pharma is information (drug patents) which are already regulated. Making them public utilities just adds another layer of regulation over existing regulation. Drug prices are high because pharma has 'bought' influence over current regulations; they are more than capable of 'buying' any new regulators/regulations. The better solution is to publicly fund all drug research and have the information publicly available. Any manufacturer with the appropriate facilities can then make any drugs. Ensure high quality manufacturing practices can be insured by requiring that the public can observe/visit/examine facilities at any time. Transparency is a better way to drop drug prices without risking safety.

Honest and Open New EPA Science Act

Comment at Crooks and Liars post describing the Honest and Open New EPA Science Act which was 'to inhibit regulations based, in part, on confidential or proprietary raw data.'

The entire premise of the Republican anti-environment stance is their money and power will shield/protect them from the negative impacts of their policies. For the sake of humanity, we desperately need them to learn they are not unique among humans. They are just as susceptible to the pollution they allow to spew into the air and water.

Choke on some pollution indeed.

Science of gun policy

Comment at Truthout article about teachers fighting for gun control in schools:

The NRA is a good example of [gun] policy by ideology as opposed to policy based on science. Science is a system of knowledge that accurately predicts the future under defined conditions (example, researchers accurately predict vaccinations can prevent most cases of target infectious disease). NRA is all about profiting from guns so they don't want accurate scientific predictions of the effect of gun proximity to violence. As a result, they are a major player in banning epidemiological research on gun violence. This allows the NRA to use ideological '2nd Amendment' arguments to advance 'gun right'. The opposition doesn't have the resources to conduct scientific studies so they are forced to use anecdotal evidence to make their case to policy makers; even when their arguments are more intuitively sound, the stridency of the gun rights lobby is overwhelming. 

The resistance needs to fight individual issue battles under the umbrella of increasing overall universal rights. Policy should be based on science, not ideology.

Unifying Resistance

A comment I posted at Truthout. It pulls together several themes I've written about here:

"Trump is upping his game, and we, as resisters, aren't ready." 

Yes. It's also time to be proactive as opposed to reactive. But we need to understand the reflex to react and how to step back and see the forest to respond proactively. It's important to understand how politics divides people in both obvious and subtle ways. DJT is a practitioner of confrontational divisiveness; he outright declares his rejection of immigrants, Mexicans, unattractive women, prisoners of war, disabled people, etc. Divide and conquer can also be achieved by more subtle tactics, such as when Republicans and Democrats specifically void the needs of the poor by leaving them out of the debate (or DJT spotlighting the educated with his 'I love the poorly educated').  

The modus operandi of the body politic is to act on the interests of the elite at the expense of the larger population by dividing the larger group. Successful opposition would require some degree of unified resistance which is not the case with single issue movements. I would suggest single issue movements make their case under the umbrella of a larger 'meta' theme for the benefit of the larger overall. For instance, demanding that all policy be based on objective evidence would mean the numbers of gun injuries and deaths factors into gun policy and definitions of corporate personhood would correct for the differential influence such policy would confer on owners. Another useful theme would be to define economies as 'production, consumption and exchange of capital for the sustained wellbeing of humanity'. 'Sustained' would entail policy makers incorporate a long view of policy outcomes - think climate change; 'wellbeing' would require some degree of universal healthcare; and the 'economics' of warfare would be completely invalidated. A final theme would be maximize information transparency. The only way a small group (elites) can concentrate power to any extent is through the control of information. They use propaganda (selective/deceptive use of information) to create divides in the larger population and amplify infighting. Information transparency inoculates against propaganda.  

The resistance movement needs to recognize that although Trump is personally repugnant and vulgar, he is only a figurehead. The real adversaries in the long fight are the power elites.

No Principles of Economics?

The latest episode of Economic Update, Where Economic Theories Clash, strongly implies something I feared regarding the field of Economics. In it, Richard Wolff called Neo-classical economics, Keynesian economics and Marxian economics 'theories' of economics which implies they have undergone some form of validation or testing (scientific theories are vigorously tested before they are called 'theories'). But in real economies, each of these 'theories' has failed in one permutation or other. This suggests that Economics has no unifying principles. [To use the physical sciences as an example (again): the Theory of Evolution is a unifying principle in biology - it connects all living organisms and justifies the study of model organisms to better understand life; Atomic Theory is a unifying principle of chemistry - it predicts the behavior of all matter.] An example of a possible unifying economic principle is the presumption that functional economies must yield profit; this would have strong implications for capitalism.

This is particularly troubling when it comes to policy. All public policy is economic policy and it is argued and made on the basis of Economic theory. If Economic theory is as poorly developed as implied above, then for all intents and purposes, Economic theory is ideology without basis in empirical principle. As it stands now, the science of climate change has very strong physical evidence backing it and thus should drive energy policy. In its stead, we have nonsense 'economic' arguments that the cost of protecting the biosphere is 'too expensive'. Policy makers are balancing the future of humanity against the profiteering of capitalists at our ignorance. If science can detangle systems as complex as climate to predicted global climate change, it should be able to apply similar methods to answer the question of how to best structure economies for the sake of mankind. Economies should serve humanity not the other way around.

Cult of Fear

This was intended as a comment on a Truthout.org post about how politicians, especially Republicans, use fear to manipulate voters into supporting them. However, my argument got a little too complex for a simple comment, so its only appearance is here:

Marketing appeals to fear and sex to sell because human biology is programmed to respond to these emotions. Monotheistic religions capitalize on fear in two ways: (1) Religions justify fear by providing an object – women are a constant threat to the power of men; their sexuality is their most fearsome weapon and must be brought to heel and under the control of men. (2) A fearsome all powerful, all knowing being has all the answers. But those answers are too much for men’s small brains and most men can’t communicate with the big dude anyway. Only special people (kings, emperors, popes, and the like) get to translate for him.

In modern times, religion teaches believers to trust their church authority (most people don’t read primary religious texts) over what can be objectively measured (faith over science). When personal faith is imbued in the words of an authority figure, it’s easy to transfer that trust into other people who present similar absolute certainty (for example, Rush Limbaugh is never wrong). Enter right-wing media which gives self-aggrandizing braggarts enormous forums and infrastructure to in essence to form cults (like Fox News under Roger Ailes). As bad as Democrats are, they have not codified the ideological Cult of Fear that Republicans so effectively used to ensnare their followers. Republican followers are told to fear women for taking men’s jobs and dignity; fear immigrants for taking jobs; fear Muslims for terrorism; fear liberals for taking their guns (but not to fear guns); fear science/scientists for their ‘self-interested agendas’; fear President Obama for being a foreign born Muslim; fear black people for existing; fear Obamacare for insurance mandate; fear the poor for needing social services; fear veterans for using the VA… In the face of such terrifying scenarios, cultists are told Republican politicians know how to keep them safe from all these threats.

Fear is the defensive emotion to the unknown. That’s why Republicans fear science. Science is a system of knowledge that seeks to determine patterns capable of accurately predicting the future. In other words, science answers questions about the feared unknown. The question is how to stage a cult intervention on the scale of roughly half the U.S. population.

Update: Yes, evangelical cults exists and they can be difficult to escape from.

Scientific theories are emergent properties

Part of Wikipedia entry:

In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is a phenomenon whereby larger entities arise through interactions among smaller or simpler entities such that the larger entities exhibit properties the smaller/simpler entities do not exhibit. 

Emergence is central in theories of integrative levels and of complex systems. For instance, the phenomenon of life as studied in biology is an emergent property of chemistry and psychological phenomena emerge from the neurobiological phenomena of living things.
In philosophy, theories that emphasize emergent properties have been called emergentism. Almost all accounts of emergentism include a form of epistemic or ontological irreducibility to the lower levels.

Scientific theories are the distilled explanations that emerge from the sum of known empirically observed facts.

Why Science...

A comment I posted at Crooks and Liars:

The power of science is it can accurately predict the future (within defined limits). For example, some science predictions include: vaccines will protect recipients from disease; greenhouse theory predicts climate change; Theory of Evolution predicts ever increasing drug/chemical resistant bacteria/weeds/pests; the appropriate assemblage of electronic components will function as a smart phone/laptop/tablet computer when powered up (same for any machinery)... Before science, religion taught us that a higher power controlled the future and it we behaved/believed a certain way, we might be given the future we sought.

When people don't have data/information/science, there's no way to know if a policy is actually working for the people's benefit. Anecdotal evidence can be discarded as random chance or used to 'prove' effectiveness. If Pres. DJT keeps science (USDA, EPA, NIH, etc.) away from people, he'll be the religion like 'greater power' with the ability to grant wishes; he gets to tell which anecdotes are 'real' and which are 'fake news'. He can use science to get the outcome he wants (everything to him and his cohorts). The people who voted for him will be expected to worship him and gift him with everything they own.

The critical thinking atheists will be left in a world of patronage sponsored science, seeking rich sponsors to fund science to figure out what he is actually doing.

Science is important. Objective data is important. Critical/analytical thinking is important. Compassion and humanism are important.

Carbon free renewable energy…revisited...

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) now says we must actively remove carbon from the atmosphere to mitigate the full climate effects of the carbon we've already put out. In other words, there's enough carbon in the air now to warm the planet from 2.5 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit. To not exceed those temperatures, we must have a net carbon emission of zero. To mitigate the damage of those temperatures, we must pull carbon out of the air.

I had previously suggested that offshore energy collectors (any combination of solar/ wind/ wave collectors) could generate hydrogen by electrolysis from sea water. But Elon Musk has said hydrogen is a terrible and inefficient way to store energy. Taking him at his word (knowing very little about the topic), this means we need a better storage mechanism for our putative offshore energy collectors... and it happens that the US Navy has developed a way to synthesize hydrocarbons from carbon in sea water. This means it might be possible to convert the energy collected by floating ocean based energy collectors into hydrocarbon fuels for use on land. Because the ocean is such an efficient carbon sink, this would be a very good indirect method to extract carbon from the atmosphere.

To be clear: synthetic hydrocarbon fuels are net neutral in terms of atmospheric carbon because they release carbon back into the air when used. To get a net negative atmospheric carbon reduction, carbon needs to be sequestered in biomass (grow lots of vegetation in native ecosystems).

Evolution is not a choice

It's easy to counter the arguments of the anti-evolution crowd to disprove their position. My target today is the idea of 'teaching the debate'. This is when creationists want teachers to 'teach' Intelligent Design (ID) as a theory whose scientific validity is on par with that of the theory of evolution. The problem is this wouldn't be teaching.

A major goal of teaching is for students to develop and hone their critical thinking skills. Presented with the evidence supporting ID or evolution, any critical thinker (critical thinking requires that all evidence be considered objectively and without bias) would have to reject ID in light of the mounds of evidence supporting evolution. Should a teacher equate the quantity and quality of evidence to 'teach the controversy', they are not teaching. They do not teach their students to critically evaluate the quality of the evidence in front of them or how it fits together to support a theory of how all life came to be. They not only shortchange the science education their students deserve, they shortchange the education and reasoning skills their students need to make good decisions as adults.

The ecology of economies

Econology Part 2: The ecology of economies

[This is a rewrite of two earlier posts which have been pulled together into one. The originals are still here but I think this is more cohesive.]

Economists, pundits and policy makers like to pontificate about the state of the economy. They often toss terms like ‘invisible hand of the market’, ‘free market’ and ‘market forces’ as if they are self-explanatory or common knowledge. They are not. These terms don’t explain why wages have not gone up when consumer prices have. They don’t explain the housing bubble or the banking crisis. They don’t justify factory closures or layoffs when their products are selling well. Economies and markets affect every aspect of our lives and yet there isn’t a cogent explanation of how or why this is so. That is the goal of this series of essays - to offer a cogent explanation of economies and markets. An informed public is an empowered public.

***

[This the most recent addition of a series describing a new way to look at the economy. It is not necessary to read Parts 1a and 1b to but they place this discussion in context:

Part 1a: It's not the economy, Stupid; it's economics

Part 1b:The depth and breadth of economies]

All economies have elements in common. They can all be divided into two parts, a system of production (economic systems are different systems of production) and a market (mechanisms by which producers compete to exchanged their goods and services). And all systems of production have some degree of inequality as a consequence of specialization. Differences in skills can be readily depicted with a pyramid diagram where the bulk of lower skilled workers form the base and the remainder of the pyramid by progressively fewer, more specialized workers until until terminating (Figure 1).

A pyramid representing an economy is actually a pyramid of pyramids: economies contain all the pyramids of all the organizations within its purview. The smaller organizational pyramids, in turn, contain the households of their workers (Figure 2A). Organizations are classified by their ownership model. Sole proprietorships have one owner while those with more than one owner can be further split into two classes, capitalist enterprises (by definition, for-profit commercial enterprises) and non-capitalist enterprises (all non-profit and some for-profit organizations) (Figure 2B).

The majority of workers, the ‘makers’ at the base of the pyramid (Figure 2A) make the marketable output (goods and services) produced by any specific commercial entity (for example, schools provide education; factories produce widgets; hospitals provide health care services; think tank produce analysis, etc.). The upper portions of the pyramid are, broadly speaking, inhabited by specialized ‘organizers’ (Figure 2A). They do not directly produce the marketable output but instead, plan and implement strategies to increase the productivity of workers and maximize the market return on worker productivity. Amongst their responsibilities is to direct the flow of capital; organize advertising strategy (marketing) and organize other organizers (executives).

[Note: Capital means all goods and services which can be exchanged for currency. This includes labor, wages, materials, consumer products, land, structures, equipment and currency.]

A universal truth of productivity and capital flow in all organizations and ultimately, any economy, is that the goods and services produced by makers are new capital (Figure 3), thus makers are the primary source of capital. The objects of economic exchange are all products of worker labor and their value is a function of the amount of labor inputted. For instance, dirt and water are essentially free for owners of land with dirt and water and have little market value. Bricks made out of dirt and water have market value and structures built of bricks have an even higher value. The difference between dirt and soil from bricks is the worker labor stored in bricks. Brick structures have an even greater input of worker labor which significantly increases their value over bricks alone. The value of services tend to reflect the extent of education and training necessary to learn specific skills. Skills which can be learned in a matter of hours (using a cash register) are less valuable than those needing extensive education (medicine or law). In return for their labor, workers are compensated a portion of the value of the goods and services they produce. By a similar process, the organizers ensure the productivity of workers or lower level organizers and are compensated a portion of the value of the goods and services made by workers. In other words, workers make stuff; organizers make workers make stuff.

The structure of production and direction of capital flow applies to all enterprises, both sole proprietorships and multiple owner enterprises. For single owner enterprises, the authority to make decisions lies completely in the owner. In multiple owner enterprises, the power to determine the distribution of worker produced capital is highly variable. On one end of the spectrum are capitalist enterprises where capitalist owners of the equipment and materials transformed by worker makers, hold ultimate power (Figure 4). They authorize lower level organizers to carry out their decisions. And because the raison d’etre of capitalist enterprises is to maximize profit (i.e., workers pushed to produce as much as possible and owners retain as much worker produced capital as they can), it is the fiduciary duty of executives/owners to minimize wages paid to workers and non-executive organizers so larger and larger portions of worker made capital is distributed to the owners.

There is greater diversity in the power structure of non-capitalist enterprises (Figure 2B). Some follow the strict top down model of capitalist organizations. At the other extreme, power is equally divided amongst all members - each has equal say (for this essay, socialism refers to this model). In a fully socialist system, worker owners use equipment they collectively own to transform materials they collectively purchase into finished goods. Communication occurs across all strata of workers and organizers (Figure 5) resulting in an equitable distribution of worker produced capital (Figure 6).

To recap… (I) Pyramid shape reflects the unequal distribution of skills and/or wages of working people. (II) The least skilled workers produce the majority of goods and services (capital). (III) In any given institution, power can either be concentrated in a limited number of owners (capitalists) or diffused among the large aggregate pool of worker owners. (IV) Distribution of worker made capital is determined by wielders of power.

As it turns out, economies aren’t the only entities with these four elements. Natural terrestrial (land) communities form ecological pyramids with similar traits (Figure 7): (I) The biomass at each tier, or trophic layer, reflects the relative population at each tier. (II) The organisms at the base the pyramid produces the calories (biological capital) which support all the higher strata (Figure 8).

In natural ecosystems, plants are the makers/primary producers - they make more plants (vegetative calories) from simple inorganic carbon and water with sunlight. Herbivores (secondary producers) consume vegetation (vegetative calories) to grow and reproduce (make more herbivorous calories). Carnivores consume herbivores (herbivorous calories) to grow and reproduce (make more carnivorous calories). This pattern, the products of each trophic (ecological production) layer consumed by those above, continues along the trophic pyramid to peak with apex predators. Only primary producers (autotrophs) are capable of transforming simple inorganic carbon into organic carbon (like turning mud into bricks); all other subsequent trophic levels are comprised of heterotrophs which cannot make use of inorganic carbon; they consume organic carbon (cannot turn mud into bricks, can reshape and stack bricks). Directly or indirectly, the existence and maintenance of all the plants and animals in a food web depends on plant productivity (Figure 8).

Then there is the higher order similarity between ecological food pyramids and economic production pyramids. They encompass the individual biological entities and food chains within an ecosystem (Figure 9A) like an economic pyramids contain the collective households and enterprises of an economy (Figure 2A). Additionally, individual food chains can be differentiated by the biological interactions they use to collect the calories necessary to sustain life (Figure 9B), much like business structures in economies (Figure 2B).

Carnivorous predation, for one, is an antagonistic biological relationship; essentially the calorie transfer described above. In a food chain with a predator at its apex (Figure 10), food calories move up the food chain and power is effected downwards in that predators determine if prey will be able to continue producing - eating prey destroys their capacity to produce; power over life and death… A lot like capitalism. Biomass (calories) produced by prey is consumed (taken in) by predators. Predators exert ultimate control over prey (see traits III & IV of economic pyramids).

Mutualism, an example of facilitative interactions where no participant is harmed and some participants benefit (Figure 9B) is common in social insects where the activity of each member of a community benefits the community in total (see traits III & IV of economic pyramids). Take for example, a honey bee community (Figure 11)...

In the case of honey bees, flowering plants (primary producers) and bees have a mutually beneficial relationship; the plants provide nectar and pollen in exchange for the pollination services of bees. The bees within a beehive community also have a mutually beneficial relationship. Bees at each strata carry out duties which contribute to the survival of the community as a whole. And while it may not be known how bees communicate or if there are strict lines of power, coordinated bee behavior suggests communication occurs. These include mating flights (queen and drones act in concert); egg and larvae care (feed needs to be appropriate to developmental needs of larvae); locating nectar sources (scout bees communicate direction and perhaps abundance to other bees); processing nectar (pooling of nectar and its concentration into honey requires coordinated effort by workers). The honey produced and stored by worker bees is thought to be available to all members of the colony… A lot like socialism. Production is a collective effort and seemingly no single authority regulates the distribution of goods (see traits III & IV of economic pyramids).

Capitalism and socialism have ecological equivalents. What about other economic systems? As it happens, sole proprietorships behave like autotrophs, organisms capable of generating their own calories; thievery is a form of parasitism; feudalism is capitalism constrained by mobility (predation in habitats where limits on nutrient availability restricts mobility of inhabitants - oases; deep sea vents; caves; whale falls); various forms of slavery are variants of capitalism (predation) or ‘zombie’ parasitism where parasites alter the behavior of hosts (Table 1). Given the diversity of biological interactions in the natural world, it is more difficult to identify an economic system without an ecological analog than a biological interaction without an economic analog.

***

Having established that economic modes of production are analogous to ecological modes of production, perhaps the ecological market might shed light on what economic markets are and their role in the economy.

But what is the ecological market? Economic market activity can be tracked by following the movement of capital but ecological capital (organic calories) don’t exit the production pyramid; they are created and consumed within food webs. Fortunately, there are two nutrients which traverse food webs much like capital moves in economic production, carbon and water. And as it turns out, water and economic capital (money) share some unusual features (Table 2): (1) Like currency, water is fungible (to a living organism, there is no difference between water sipped from a puddle or water in hay). (2) Money figuratively transforms into goods and services through market exchange, analogous to the literal transformation of water as it traverses the water cycle. (3) The supply of money limits economic growth and activity much like the water supply limits ecological productivity (the abundance of water is likely the single most significant factor in determining total ecosystem biomass and diversity).

Figure 12 shows how food webs makes use of the geochemical  water cycle to capture the water necessary to sustain and grow itself.

As plants are sessile and cannot seek water, it must be delivered to them by rainfall. Water taken up by plants is incorporated (or biochemically transformed) into more plant mass. At this point, the water either stays in the form of plants (plants grow/propagate) or is eaten by something else or is metabolized to meet the energy needs of the plant (transpiration). In the first two, the water stays in the food web (Figure 12A, B); in the last, water is released into the air as water vapor (Figure 12E). A similar process happens in plant predators, the herbivores (Figure 12B). They eat water containing plants and transform the plant (and water within) into herbivore mass; the water, now in the form of herbivores either stays herbivore, is preyed on by a predator (Figure 12C) or gets metabolized (respiration) for energy (Figure 12E). This pattern continues through the food chain until it reaches the apex (Figure 12D) where water is seldom loss to predation.

Water vapor lost from the food pyramid by transpiration, respiration and evaporation (Figure 12E) merges with water vapor in the atmosphere [evaporated from soil/bodies of water (Figure 12I)] to coalesce into clouds (Figure 12G). Water holding clouds are buffeted by winds until meteorological conditions triggers a precipitation event. Rain water is released back into the environment to re-enter the ecological pyramid and recharge natural reservoirs. The bulk of the water on the planet is not locked into food webs but contained in natural reservoirs (Figure 12I). Flora and fauna rely on these reservoirs to survive periods of drought. Natural reservoirs also store untapped capital to support growth in times of expansion.

Capital plays the same role in economies (Figure 13) as water does in ecosystems…

[Notes: ‘Economic cycle’ refers to the cycling of capital through economic production and markets as depicted in Figure 13, not cycles of expansion and contraction. The latter will be referred to explicitly or as the ‘business cycle’.]

Figure 13 depicts movement of capital from its raw form entering the production stream (Figure 13, arrow H to A) where it is transformed into marketable capital (goods and services) by primary producers (Figure 13A). Marketable capital can either stay with the primary producers (Figure 13A, B) - as savings; be taken up by the next tier of workers (Figure 13B, C); or spent by workers (Figure 13E) on their own behalf. The amount taken up by the next tier of workers (Figure 13B, C) is decided by the power brokers within organizations. The spending and saving patterns of workers (Figure 13A, B and E) reflect how workers dispose of their incomes to meet their needs. The next tier of workers (Figure 13B, C) retains a portion of the marketable capital as income for their contribution to the production of marketable capital (an example of secondary production might be an inventory of primary production). These wages also undergo the three way split: retention by secondary producers (Figure 13C, D); lost to the next tier of workers (Figure 13C, D); or spent to support their well-being (Figure 3E). Capitalists and owners at the apex of the production pyramid either retain (Figure 13D) or spend (Figure 13E) their takings; there is no other loss.

Spending in the marketplace (Figure 13F) is where the capital exchange occurs (goods and services exchanged for money and vice versa). Central banks (Figure 13G) control the value of currency and commercial banks (Figure 13G) track and transfer capital (Figure 13H). Purchased capital (Figure 13H) always traverses the production pyramid to reach its buyer because the purchasing capital is produced by the workers at the lower production tiers. Capitalists (Figure 13D) purchase goods with the cumulative capital produced by all other producers in the pyramid (Figure 13A, B, C & D).

Central and commercial banks (Figure 13G) are the 'clouds' (Figure 12G) of economies: they determine the availability of capital (thus its value) through interest rates; they concentrate capital; they mediate transformation of capital (currency into stocks/bonds); and they facilitate the transfer of capital between and amongst institutions and economies. Likewise, governments (Figure 13I) mimic natural reservoirs (Figure 12I) in that they buffer capital flow during cycles of expansion and contraction and they are stewards of the capital reserves that fuel future growth.

[In a cyclical system, the precise start and end points are arbitrary because, in the end, they meet at the same place. An equally legitimate read of the cycle would have workers making widgets (Figure 13A, B, C). Executives sell widgets in marketplace for money (Figure 13E, F, G). Taxes are paid to the government (Figure 13H -> I) before wages are paid to workers (Figure 13H -> A, B, C, D).]

Tables 3 and 4 summarize the similarities between economies and ecosystems.

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Part 3 will delve into the lessons the water cycle teaches about economies.

Econology Part 3: Eleven economics lessons from ecosystems.

It's not the economy, Stupid; it's economics

Econology Part 1a: It's not the economy, Stupid; it's economics

Why have wages been stagnant for decades? Why is income inequality so high? Why is the wealth gap so enormous? Why have all the economic gains of the last ‘recovery’ essentially all gone to the top 1%? How did eighty people end controlling half of the world’s wealth? Why is the economy not working for workers? Why is it that persons of influence fail to speak of the major failings of our economy much less fix them?

Modern economies are designed by economists/politicians/policy makers who had been trained into a particular mindset by the prevailing economic orthodoxy… the problem with the economy is not the economy, it’s economics.

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An economy is ‘the wealth and resources of a country or region, esp. in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services; a particular system or stage of an economy: a free-market economy | the less-developed economies.’ Economics is the social science which studies the formation and operations of economies. Wikipedia calls economics ‘the social science that studies economic activity to gain an understanding of the processes that govern the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services in an economy.’ Neither definition conveys the role of the economy and economics in our everyday lives…

So let’s try something else - let’s try a thought exercise: imagine back to the time of hunter-gatherers. In those days, economic activity consisted of trading or exchanging goods that were not immediately needed by the seller but needed by the buyer, extra game for a handful of berries, a spare animal hide for excess firewood. Similar exchanges in today’s economies involve many additional intermediate players (producer, supplier, distributor, seller…) and economic advances (specialization, debt, currency, employment, corporations…). But for all the complexity of modern exchanges, the function and purpose of trade remains unchanged: exchange of surplus production to promote the mutual survival and well-being of all participants.

And this establishes two critical concepts of economics. First is the functional element; if economies exist to support survival and well-being of its participants, then economics becomes the study of economies to benefit its participants. [The implications of this alone are far ranging and completely rearranges the priorities of any economy. Offensive weaponry becomes economically dubious; environmental sustainability/protection is a must - human well-being  depends on the environment; and then there is health care and pharmaceuticals...]

The second relates to scope: economics has precedence over all human achievement meaning that economically determined distribution of surplus production is what enables human achievement (art, science, culture, technology…). Surplus food freed the inventors of the wheel from hunting and gathering to make prototype wheels. Farmers who produce more than they consumed freed artists and thinkers from farm labor to make art and innovate. Social and cultural institutions (religion, state, arts, recreation, etc.) are all products of surplus production (contrary to Margaret Thatcher’s ‘There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families.’).

The role of economics in public policy is second to none. Economic policy arguably has a greater impact on the daily lives of every person on the planet than all the cutting edge research in all the sciences combined. This being the case, the highest and most rigorous standard of theoretic and applied economics should be used to determine policies which effects the lives of everyone within its sphere. But contrary to its classification as a ‘social science’, economics fails to provide valid ‘social’ and ‘science’ policy advice.

Economist have long disregarded the ‘social’ aspect of their field and often neglect to connect their work to the common good. On the ‘science’ side, researchers have yet to determine the First Principles of Economics. Contrast Economics to the natural sciences with their established foundational principles: Physics has the General theory of Relativity, Quantum theory, String Theory and the Theory of Everything. Chemistry has the Atomic Theory. Medicine has the Germ Theory of [infectious] Disease and biology has the Theory of Evolution. Though some economists may claim there are no guiding principles in economics, two common features of economies argue against that. That (1) economies cannot be destroyed (the collapse of nations and empires -modern examples are Somalia and the British Empire- do not eliminate commerce or trade) and (2) economies cannot be repressed (even in the most straightened of circumstances where capital and goods are in short supply; infrastructure is nonexistent and social structure best described as absent -such as refugee camps- trade commences and economies develop) suggests that geopolitically determined economic systems are not essential for functional commerce or the growth of economies. If anything, they support the idea that economies are self-organizing, self-sustaining entities directed by rules which have yet to be determined.

Considering that all surplus production (meaning all production not immediately consumed by producers for their immediate survival) falls into the realm of Economics, the two branches of economics, macro and micro are inadequate. It’s equivalent to the economy as an ecosystem and the only research tools available were narrow vision telescopes. Scientists could only see individual interactions out of context with their environment. Those who study social insects (bees, ants and termites) would report on the wonders and advantages of a communal economy (Marxian macro economists) and researchers who study predators would advocate that owners of capital should reap all surplus production (capitalist macro economists). Meanwhile, micro economists are busy dissecting and cataloguing all the parts of an insect colony or particular predator or prey species (one queen, many workers…; two wings, two feet, one heart…), thinking because the whole is an aggregate of parts, the parts explain the whole.

This type of reductionist tunnel vision economics has justified decades and sometimes centuries long national attempts to institute capitalist or communist economic systems. By the criteria of economies - self-organizing and self-sustaining entities to promote well-being of workers - both capitalism and communism are spectacular failures. The need for government intervention to recover from the Great Depression and Great Recession proves capitalism is neither self-organizing nor self-sustaining and the dearth of living wage jobs bodes ill for worker well-being. The failure of communism to provide for the well-being of workers lead to the collapse of the Eastern Bloc nations including the Soviet Union. It has lead China to adopt numerous capitalistic practices; Cuba to ration food; and resulted in North Korean famines severe enough to affect the stature of their population. In both communist and capitalist economies, the route to economic decline follow a similar pattern: concentration of the power to mold the economy. This was by designed in communist nations through their central planning committees. The process was a little more subtle and protracted in western democracies where capitalists secured their hooks on the major political parties by carefully cultivating their dependence on private campaign funds. Regardless of the means, in both economic systems, capital and power eventually fell into the control of a small select group of brokers to the detriment of everyone else.

When economies no longer meet the needs of workers and stopgap rejiggering has proven ineffective, reform is essential. The global economy is under threat from a multitude of ecological catastrophes, man made industrial accidents and all levels of human misery and unrest. To properly institute a self-organizing and self-sustaining economy capable of resolving these issues requires a far greater understanding of economic principles than is currently available. Economists need to develop an interdisciplinary holistic systems science approach with the aim of evolving stable economies which synchronize production and environmental/ecological productivity with the needs and desires of workers, in other words, circular economies.

The risk of ignoring the systemic problems of modern economies is extraordinarily high. Modern day work is not merely a metaphor for hunting-gathering, it is modern day hunting-gathering. When the economy does not provide sufficient opportunity for workers to support themselves, they risk economic disengagement leading to declining economic output, political apathy and political unrest. In the long term, current economic policies puts the planet on course to massive wildlife extinction and ecological disaster.

Econology Part 1b: The depth and breadth of economies
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I have/had a number of qualms about writing/posting this screed as I am obviously not an economist  nor do I have the background to offer a proper critique of economics (unlike some who are more qualified). But I haven’t seen the patterns and connections described here written about or discussed in the outlets I follow. And just as a doctor would not treat systemic infections by bloodletting, public policy should not institute an austerity program in the face of an economic downturn in the absence of true knowledge and understanding. We, the people of the economy, have the right to demand an economy that works for us, not an economy that barely permits us to work…