Branko Milanovic — Kate Raworth’s economics of miracles

Review of Kate Raworth’s Doughnut economics: Seven ways to think like the 21st-century economist. 

Good read. Is Kate Raworth being utopian?

I would say that Kate Raworth's work is similar to Mariana Mazzucato's in that they both propose out of the box solutions to addressing contemporary challenges. They are significant in that they are starting points for reflection, inquiry, conversation and debate. 

Raworth challenges the growth model of conventional economics and Mazzucato challenges the negative attitude toward government and its ability to influence the economy positively. 

No one book is likely to have the answer or all the answers. We need to talk about this intelligently as a body politic.

Milanovic makes some goods points.

Global Inequality
Kate Raworth’s economics of miracles
Branko Milanovic | Visiting Presidential Professor at City University of New York Graduate Center and senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), and formerly lead economist in the World Bank's research department and senior associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Branko Milanovic — Robotics or fascination with anthropomorphism

Branko tells us to get over it. Technology results in greater prosperity if distributed socially and more potential for leisure including for creative pursuits. This is what intelligent beings do. Robots are our friends.

Robotics leads us to face squarely three fallacies.

Global Inequality
Robotics or fascination with anthropomorphism
Branko Milanovic | Visiting Presidential Professor at City University of New York Graduate Center and senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), and formerly lead economist in the World Bank's research department and senior associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Sandwichman — Denial, Then and Now: "Is the End of the World at Hand?" "Is the Economic System Self-Adjusting?"

Of course the economic system is self-adjusting if you model on assumptions that yield this result. The question is the degree to which the model corresponds with reality. This is what distinguishes science from formal disciplines like logic and mathematics on one hand, and the creation of fictional worlds on the other. If a model's assumptions are not sufficiently realistic, the likelihood of that is low that the model will be very representational other than as a caricature.

The problem with what generally passes for economics is based on assumptions of classical liberalism that don't hold in the real world and likely never could be instituted with the necessary rigor to make the world conform to the model. But that doesn't stop economists from using policy arguments based these assumptions to make the world match the model. That's engineering and not science. Moreover, it is bad engineering because engineering is based on science rather than science on engineering. Time to 'fess up and get real.

"I would like to say why I think that the Doomsday Models are bad science and therefore bad guides to public policy," -- Robert M. Solow, 1973

 1973 was 42 years ago and 42 just happens to be the answer "to Life, the Universe and Everything," according to Deep Thought in Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe. When challenged, the computer replied that he had "checked it very thoroughly and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is."

Econospeak
Denial, Then and Now: "Is the End of the World at Hand?" "Is the Economic System Self-Adjusting?"
Sandwichman