Podcast
Grid Lines
Hosted by Darian Woods · EN
Grid Lines is a podcast about people who have pushed the boundaries of how we think about money, inequality, and markets. Some of these people are famous economists; most are not.
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4 Marilyn Waring
Aug 1, 2018Tap to summarizePhoto: Tara Hunt Marilyn Waring didn’t expect we’d still be talking about her book 30 years on. In 1988 bookstores around the world were stocking a 280-page essay on how women’s unpaid contributions are excluded from GDP. Counting For Nothing: What Men Value and What Women are Worth was the title. This book remains one of the most incisive critiques of how the economy is measured. Counting for Nothing draws from a decade of political battles, and weeks spent alone in a forgotten library at the United Nations in New York. Marilyn Waring, a former politician from New Zealand, makes the case that women are systematically excluded from measurements of value. Her arguments are backed up by extensive research but can also be understood by a broad audience. The book is angry. It’s also humourous. The famous feminist Gloria Steinem added the preface, writing that the book was like finally seeing the world with both eyes. Economist John Kenneth Gailbraith called it “splendid work.” Counting for Nothing is now cited throughout the world as countries change how they calculate Gross Domestic Product. Gross Domestic Product, GDP, is the best-known way to gauge the size of the economy. It’s the value of everything produced each year. It’s how rich a country is. And richer countries tend to be, on average, happier, safer and healthier. Gross Domestic Product, as we know it, traces back to work on national production by Cambridge economist, Colin Clark, in 1932. This was adapted to the American economy by Simon Kuznets in 1934. But even Kuznets warned that GDP was narrowly defined. And many others have pointed out that that this way of counting up the value of everything bought in the supermarket, every couch and chair ordered from a furniture shop, every bottle of milk drunk, anything that can be paid for with dollars doesn’t measure many things that we value but are done for free. Take, caring. Looking after Grandma at home does not add to GDP; send her to a rest home, and GDP rises. GDP doesn’t measure the value of clean air. And it counts some things most of us would consider to be bad. An earthquake can raise GDP because the clean-up costs are added. These arguments have all been made many times before. And so have the arguments that housework is undervalued. The same year that Simon Kuznets put together American national accounts, in 1934, a pioneering economist called Margaret Reid published a book called The Economics of Household Production. But it was Marilyn’s work that pointed a challenge directly to the UN, and every bureaucracy around the world that used their system. And her book inspired a new generation to add a potent dose of unadulterated feminism to economics. *** The American Economic Association holds its 1990 conference in Washington D.C. It’s the biggest event of the year. Inside from the cold December day, there are over 100 people, filling the room. People listen from the halls. A panel of women economists talk. The discussion is titled, “Can feminism find a home in economics?” Why now? It’s way past the feminist protests in the 1970s. 15 years after International Women’s Year in 1975. Why are the economists just now talking about feminism? One tributary to this overflowing meeting was a powerful book published two years earlier, in 1988, Counting for Nothing, which points out, with spirited humour, that economics is fundamentally biased against valuing the contributions of women. Writing Counting for Nothing, the founding text for feminist economics, is just one achievement of Marilyn Waring. It’s one of her many big moves. Marilyn is the youngest person to ever be elected to New Zealand’s Parliament. In 1984, she takes a stand against nuclear-powered American ships, which is the straw that topples the New Zealand Government. This is her story. *** Marilyn grows up in a small town called Taupiri. She told magazine The Monthly that the town “survived on voluntary work. If you had to paint lines on the tennis court or on the athletic track, nobody was being paid for it … people volunteered.” After completing her studies in political science and international politics, she thinks about putting feminist theory into practice. It’s 1975—international women’s year. She wants to be a candidate for the conservative National Party. That’s an unusual choice for a young, gay feminist. She later told Radio New Zealand that this was because of the Labour Party leader Norman Kirk’s homophobia. “Norman Kirk stood up and said it was evil and unnatural and he’d have nothing to do with it. And so I got up from the library, reading that in the paper, and walked down to Lambton Quay and joined the National Party.” She signs up for the Raglan electorate, which is a mostly rural district. It really is quite an odd fit. But the National Party has one key advantage for Marilyn: she would be free to “cross the floor.” Crossing the floor means voting on a topic against your party. The ability to vote as she wants means a lot to Marilyn. In fact, it will come to define her. In her quest for selection in Raglan, she’s up against 9 local men, and one woman to face the party. So she swots up on Raglan’s issues. At the Parliamentary library she reads through local newspapers. Marilyn visits each of the women on the final selection committee. At a visit to one of these women, Katherine O’Regan, Marilyn notices that Katherine’s toddler is crying while her mother is trying to cook scones and chat, and make tea for the men out in the farm. Katherine recalled this in an interview for the documentary Who’s Counting?: <span style="font-weight:400;"...
Transcribe →3 Joan Robinson, Part II
May 28, 2018Tap to summarizeJoan Robinson was one of the most important contributors to economics in the 20th Century. She used theory and graphs, but she also used poetry to expound the great debates between capitalism and socialism over the 20th Century. This is part II of a two-part series on the life of Cambridge economist Joan Robinson. ________________________ Two key texts on Joan Robinson’s life are Nahid Aslanbeigui and Guy Oakes’ The Provocative Joan Robinson, and Marjorie Shepherd Turner’s Joan Robinson and the Americans. You can download an mp3 of this podcast episode here. Subscribe to Grid Lines on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or your favourite podcasting app. ________________________ References 2018. “Marshall, Alfred.” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Aslanbeigui, Nahid, and Guy Oakes. 2009. The Provocative Joan Robinson: The Making of a Cambridge Economist. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Blaug, Mark. 1992. Joan Robinson (1903-1983) and George Shackle (1903-1992). Aldershot: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited. Cairncross, Alexander. 1993. Austin Robinson: The Life of an Economic Advisor. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Chamberlin, Edward H. 1933. The Theory of Monopolistic Competition: A Re-orientation of the Theory of Value. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Harcourt, Geoffrey C., and Prue Kerr. 2009. Joan Robinson. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Harcourt, Geoffrey C., and Kriesler, P. 2011. “The influence of Michał Kalecki on Joan Robinson’s approach to economics.” In Microeconomics, Macroeconomics and Economic Policy: 153–169. London: Macmillan. Groenewegen, Peter. “Joan Robinson: 1903 – 1981.” Australian Left Review 86. Accessed from [http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1139&context=alr]. Keynes, John Maynard. 1930. A Treatise on Money. London: Macmillan. — 1936. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. London: Macmillan. Marcuzzo, Maria Cristina, and Annalisa Rosselli. 2008. “The history of economic thought through gender lenses.” In Frontiers in the Economics of Gender. Eds. Francesca Bettio, Alina Verashchagina. London: Routledge. Robinson, Joan. 1932. Economics is a Serious Subject: The Apologia of an Economist to the Mathematician, the Scientist and the Plain Man. Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons. — 1933. The Economics of Imperfect Competition. London: Macmillan. — 1937. Essays in the Theory of Employment. London: Macmillan. — 1942. An Essay on Marxian Economics. London: Macmillan. — 1956. The Accumulation of Capital. London: Macmillan. — 1975. Economic Management in China. London: Anglo-Chinese Educational Institute. Rima, Ingrid H. (Ed.) 1991. The Joan Robinson Legacy. New York: M. E. Sharpe, Inc. Shepherd Turner, Marjorie. 1989. Joan Robinson and the Americans. Abingdon: Routledge. Tullberg, Rita McWilliams. 1998. Women at Cambridge, Revised Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ________________________ Music This episode uses Divertissement, Flighty Theme, Enchanted Valley and Enchanted Journey by Kevin MacLeod. They are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Artist: http://incompetech.com/.
Transcribe →2 Joan Robinson, Part I
Apr 29, 2018Tap to summarizeIn 1933, Joan Robinson popularised a word. That word was monopsony. It’s when you have only a single person or business that can buy something. This theory was outlined in Joan Robinson’s 1933 book, The Economics of Imperfect Competition. Joan was 29 years old. She had just released a book of original insights into market competition. This was her first major achievement in what would come to be a remarkable career in economics. ________________________ Two key texts on Joan Robinson’s life are Nahid Aslanbeigui and Guy Oakes’ The Provocative Joan Robinson, and Marjorie Shepherd Turner’s Joan Robinson and the Americans. You can download an mp3 of this podcast episode here. Subscribe to Grid Lines on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. ________________________ References Anon. 2018. “Marshall, Alfred.” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Aslanbeigui, Nahid, and Guy Oakes. 2009. The Provocative Joan Robinson: The Making of a Cambridge Economist. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Blaug, Mark. 1992. Joan Robinson (1903-1983) and George Shackle (1903-1992). Aldershot: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited. Cairncross, Alexander. 1993. Austin Robinson: The Life of an Economic Advisor. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Harcourt, Geoffrey, and Prue Kerr. 2009. Joan Robinson. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Groenewegen, Peter. “Joan Robinson: 1903 – 1981.” Australian Left Review 86. Accessed from [http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1139&context=alr]. Keynes, John Maynard. 1930. A Treatise on Money. London: Macmillan. — 1936. The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. London: Macmillan. Marcuzzo, Maria Cristina, and Annalisa Rosselli. 2008. “The history of economic thought through gender lenses.” In Frontiers in the Economics of Gender. Eds. Francesca Bettio, Alina Verashchagina. London: Routledge. Robinson, Joan. 1932. Economics is a Serious Subject: The Apologia of an Economist to the Mathematician, the Scientist and the Plain Man. Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons. Robinson, Joan. 1933. The Economics of Imperfect Competition. London: Macmillan. Rima, Ingrid H. (ed.) 1991. The Joan Robinson Legacy. New York: M. E. Sharpe, Inc. Shepherd Turner, Marjorie. 1989. Joan Robinson and the Americans. Abingdon: Routledge. Tullberg, Rita McWilliams. 1998. Women at Cambridge, Revised Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ________________________ Music This episode uses Divertissement, Flighty Theme, Enchanted Valley and Enchanted Journey by Kevin MacLeod. They are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
Transcribe →1 Bill Phillips
Mar 14, 2018Tap to summarizeEvery economist knows the Phillips Curve. It’s this fundamental relationship in the economy. This surprisingly strong connection between inflation and employment. Prices go up, there are more jobs. Rein back inflation, and more people are out work. It’s hotly debated what this all means. The author of the Phillips Curve, Bill Phillips, is almost unknown in his home country. But he has a crazy story. Bill Phillips was a crocodile hunter in Australia. He was an Air Ministry engineer in Singapore in World War II. For three-and-a-half years he was a prisoner of war, calmly building secret radios. And that was before he even saw a supply and demand graph. Bill Phillips brought new insights that helped change the direction of the whole discipline of economics in the 1950s. He was one of a few pioneering academics who brought in engineering equations to answer questions like: can governments control unemployment? Why do the price of groceries keep going up? To understand Bill and how he changed economics, you can look through his history, right to his childhood in rural New Zealand. Childhood in Te Rehunga A waterwheel lights up the farm house. Unlike most New Zealand farmers in the 1910s, the Phillips family is electrified. Bill, Reg, and his sisters Carol and Olive grow up playing cartoons on a device called a Zoetrope. They make a crystal radio set. They watch a magic lantern playing moving images from America and Britain. Their kitchen doubles as a dark room. They read books late into the night, until they hear the squeak of their father pulling a winch. The waterwheel stops. Everything goes black. Bill Phillips helps milk the cows. Then violin practice. Deer hunting. Homework. BB guns. In hindsight, this is practice for what’s to come. As he cycles over dirt roads for hours to get to Dannevirke High School he knows that’s time wasted. So he fits a bookstand to his bicycle handlebars. That’s not entirely satisfactory. So, with the persistent ingenuity that will come to define him, he fixes up an old truck, which he drives to school without a drivers license. Bill graduates high school early, in the top of the class. But the price of butter suddenly halves. What does this mean for Bill? Well it’s 1929. The waves of the Great Depression are breaking all over the world. His parents tell him the news. They can’t afford to pay for him to go to university. So Bill moves out of home to work at Tuai Powerstation, a new hydro dam. After that, Australia. He shoots crocodiles, fixes motors, and studies engineering. He learns his first differential equation while lying under the shade of a transformer in a gold mine. He decides to catch a Japanese ship to Shanghai. But after a day on board, Japan declares war on China. So he’s diverted to Yokohama. When Bill’s in Japan he takes photos of some troops. The police take him in for questioning. He’s lucky. They just confiscate the photos and let him go. But all through Korea and Manchuria he’s now stopped at every checkpoint, and taken in to a special supervised hotel for night. He takes takes the train from China to Russia to London. And along the way he’s asking for jobs in the Soviet mines. (He thought it would be interesting to work in a planned economy.) This starts to sound made up. But it gets crazier. World War II World War II starts. Bill signs up for the Air Ministry. He’s taken to Singapore where his job is to add machine guns to these clunky old fighter planes called Buffalos. He times the machine guns to shoot perfectly in between the airplane rotors. In 1942 the Japanese take over Singapore. And as Bill is making an escape on a boat, the ship is bombed. He finds a huge machine gun, but it only shoots sideways, not up to the sky. So with explosions and gunfire around him, he calmly builds a new mounting, and fires back up at the bombers for three-and-a-half hours. It’s a thin escape. Bill is in Java now as the Japanese are descending down South East Asia. He sets up a small camp on a hill overlooking the south coast, facing Australia. He and two others try to find a boat to sail across the Indian ocean. They even try to repurpose an old bus into a makeshift raft. One day Bill and his colleague are walking back up the green scrubby hillside. They see their colleague keeping watch. There are two Japanese soldiers either side of him. Bill turns and runs, and jumps off a sea cliff. He described this like a Walt Disney character running over thin air before falling. Bill’s sister Carol said, “Later we would realise it was not really funny, but an absolutely petrifying experience.” We can only imagine how many times Bill would replay this scene in his head. Walking through the palm trees and banana plants. Vines and saplings crunching beneath. Slogging up the slope. The Japanese soldiers. The cliffside. The Prisoner of War camp in Bandoeng is brutal. Here, morale is almost as important as food rations. They have no idea what’s ahead. Will the allies win the war? If they do win, when? And they do, are the Japanese going to simply massacre the prisoners and burn down the camp? So over three years of captivity in worse and worse conditions, Bill puts his childhood love of crystal radios to use. He makes secret receivers to keep up with progress on the war outside. He knows he could get killed if the radio sets are discovered by the Japanese guards. He makes one under the kitchen floor, one in a chair, one in a pair of wooden clogs. Eventually over the years the radios fail as the valves blow. He needs a new acorn valve. So in the night he watches guard while another prisoner breaks into a Japanese lieutenant’s office to steal some parts for their radio. Under a mosquito net over three nights he repairs the radio in the clog. He presses it to his ear, and — that night — he is the first in the camp to hear of the atomic bomb exploding in Hiroshima. “It worked, Colonel, it worked!” Bill whispers in the dark. As the war ends, Bill Phillips returns to the family farm in New Zealand. His sister Carol says he is “woefully thin.” He makes a joke about the camp. “She wasn’t so bad once you got used to her. And I got to work on my Chinese.” <sp...
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