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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS April, 2004 HOW DOES ECONOMICS FIT THE SOCIAL WORLD? David R. Harvey, School of Agriculture, Food

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS April, 2004 HOW DOES ECONOMICS FIT THE SOCIAL WORLD? David R. Harvey, School of Agriculture, Food & Rural Development University of Newcastle upon Tyne. OUTLINE. What’s the Problem? What does Economics do? So, how should we do Social Science?

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PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS April, 2004 HOW DOES ECONOMICS FIT THE SOCIAL WORLD? David R. Harvey, School of Agriculture, Food

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  1. PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS April, 2004 HOW DOES ECONOMICS FIT THE SOCIAL WORLD? David R. Harvey, School of Agriculture, Food & Rural Development University of Newcastle upon Tyne

  2. OUTLINE • What’s the Problem? • What does Economics do? • So, how should we do Social Science? • Reconsidering Government & Governance • Illustrations from RELU • The food chain • Multifunctional agriculture. • Conclusions.

  3. THE PROBLEM (1)The decline & fall of economics • Falling student numbers & courses • Falling numbers of post-graduate students • Applied research opportunities either too pedestrian or too complex for rigour (& publications) • Rigour ≠ Relevance • Management = the future? But the science? ECONOMICS RULES OK? OR ECONOMICS IS MARGINAL?

  4. THE PROBLEM (2): What’s the use of Economics? “When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. …. All kinds of social customs and economic practices, … which we now maintain at all costs however distasteful and unjust they may be in themselves, because they are tremendously useful in promoting accumulation of capital, we shall be free, at last to discard.” (Keynes, 1947) -> As people become richer, so the intellectual and phenomenal appeal of simple economics will diminish. Economics is marginalised, ironic for a subject which relies on marginal conditions

  5. WHAT DOES ECONOMICS DO?

  6. WHAT DOES ECONOMICS DO?

  7. WHAT DOES ECONOMICS DO?

  8. WHAT DOES ECONOMICS DO?

  9. WHAT DOES ECONOMICS DO?

  10. WHAT DOES ECONOMICS DO?

  11. HOW TO DO SOCIAL SCIENCE? • “Postmodernism is the antithesis of the Anglo-American analytical thesis. Out of the resulting dialectical synthesis, however, an enriched new philosophy of science could emerge” (Tweeten & Zulaf, 1999) • “There remains a common theme for a science of human society, and that while much progress has been made in developing its various facets and aspects, it is still important to try and tie the parts together - not in search of a ‘world formula’ but to make sense of the social habitat in which we live, have lived and are likely to live”. Dahrendof, 1995 • Social Science must believe there to be underlying patterns to social behaviour - • so what might the synthesis or common theme look like?

  12. NATURE OF SOCIAL TRUTH? Philosophers have four major definitions & associated criteria: • VERACITY - confirmed by facts/experiment - CORRESPONDENCE (CONSISTENCY) • VALIDITY - confirmed by rules of logic - COHERENCE • VALUE - confirmed by faith - PERFORMATIVE/PRAGMATIC as good or bad • VERNACULAR - confirmed by habit & experience - EXPEDIENT, as right or wrong (in current contexts) Social Science Methodological Quarrels are essentially between these four dimensions of “truth”: • Positivists (Quantitative) concerned with Veracity and Validity - CLASSICAL SCIENCE - epistemology & ontology • Relativists (Qualitative) concerned with Values and Vernaculars - POSTMODERN SCIENCE - ethics & morals

  13. THE REAL WORLD? • WHERE DOES OUR DATA COME FROM? • We generate it through our behaviours • Which are ultimately founded on: • Rules (our given outside determinants (g.o.ds)) - as consistent with our societies (validity) • Reason - as intelligibly coherent (veracity) • Faith (our personal beliefs and values)- as worthwhile (value) • Or are essentially Habitual - vernacular (to be ultimately discarded or adapted if fundamentally at odds with rules, reason or faith)

  14. How do we behave (1)? We communicate and interact as social animals on the basis of our hearts and minds and our trust in our neighbours & friends & we generate social (informal) contracts, networks, shared understandings &trust as a result By common CONSENT

  15. How do we behave (2)? We club together to agree social rules and rulers, and generate ‘ocracies (autocracy, plutocracy, bureaucracy, theocracy and (finally?) democracy (with faith, rules and reason adjusted to fit) By (political) CONVENTION

  16. How do we behave (3)? We then need the force of Law, to enforce and police at least some of our social contracts and behaviours By COERCION (the fundamental property of the state)

  17. How do we behave (4)? And, of course, we specialise & trade, and practice economics Resulting in a system of CONTRACT

  18. SO WHAT? • FOUR MAJOR TRANSACTIONS SYSTEMS: • CONSENT • COERCION • CONVENTION • CONTRACT • Interact to generate our social systems and phenomena

  19. SO WHAT? • FOUR MAJOR TRANSACTIONS SYSTEMS: • CONSENT • COERCION • CONVENTION • CONTRACT • Interact to generate our social systems and phenomena Which is not so fantastic: Boulding and others have been here before, by a different route.

  20. SO WHAT? • FOUR MAJOR TRANSACTIONS SYSTEMS: • CONSENT • COERCION • CONVENTION • CONTRACT • Interact to generate our social systems and phenomena Which generates our socially constructed truths - our observable social worlds - OUR GROUND TRUTHS

  21. Our Ground Truths are socially constructed. SO WHAT? Re-orient, if faith is not your apex. It all depends on circumstance, context, character and culture. Give them any spin you like, if you can get away with it. Just what the post-modern story says. • EXCEPT: • Here is a structure, a metaphysic, to ‘explain’ the condition

  22. HOW DOES THIS HELP? Social Behaviour needs to reconcile private

  23. HOW DOES THIS HELP? Social Behaviour needs to reconcile private and public lives

  24. HOW DOES THIS HELP? Social Behaviour needs to reconcile private and public lives: With Economics being very distinctly limited in its scope.

  25. HOW DOES THIS HELP? Social Behaviour needs to reconcile private and public lives: With Economics being very distinctly limited in its scope.

  26. HOW DOES THIS HELP? Social Behaviour needs to reconcile private and public lives: With Economics being very distinctly limited in its scope.

  27. HOW DOES THIS HELP? Social Behaviour needs to reconcile private and public lives: With Economics being very distinctly limited in its scope.

  28. HOW DOES THIS HELP? Social Behaviour needs to reconcile private and public lives: BUT some major institutions are MISSING:

  29. E.g. Management & Marketing Kay’s Corporate Success depends on: • Competitive Advantage of products: rare, inimitable, non-substitutable, valuable • Distinctive Capabilities of supply chain • Strategic assets (patents, raw materials etc.) • Architecture - Charity? • Reputation - Commitment & Care? • Innovative Capacity - Curiosity? • Corporate Success depends on harnessing these elements into coherent and sustainable whole.

  30. e.g. - the food chain (1) • Producers Strategic Asset: Location = Originality • But requires: Innovation; Architecture; Reputation

  31. e.g. - the food chain (2) • But, what about the power of the supermarkets, especially under free-trade? • Differentiation in food sector = speciality & bespoke service - not a supermarket • But a Super Market - franchised store space to craft local/specialist producer-retailer chains, with home cooking services? • Using the surviving distinctive capabilities of the supermarket - logistics, data accumulation & management, billing & inventory control? • Why not?

  32. e.g. - CARE and Multi-functionality • [CARE - Conservation,Amenity, Recreation, Environment] • Care markets incomplete • Care products & services originally specific • Care markets do NOT fail - they work • Problem is organisation & exchange of information between providers and users/enjoyers • Can bureaucracy & central control solve these problems? • Only if you believe in central planning • Why not use Charitable Trusts?

  33. CONCLUSIONS • Economics is important, • But primitive - survival of the fittest - and we don’t tell it well. • And we decide, through our remaining transaction systems, what counts as socially responsible rather than simply commercially viable. • We need an integrating framework (Dahrendorf’s more common story) for our social sciences. • This is mine. WE SHOULD DROP THE AGRI FROM OUR TITLE AND PRACTICE CULTURAL ECONOMY • If you have a better story or framework, please tell me. OVER TO YOU

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