The economics of enough, de Coyle

Otro de esos libros que llevaba tiempo queriendo leer...y en este caso he tardado demasiado. Porque yo pensaba que el libro era más general, que iba a hacer propuestas sobre cómo lograr ese equilibrio necesario para la sostenibilidad, de una forma más sólida por ejemplo que Tim Jackson o Raworth. Y tenía muchas expectativas viniendo de Coyle, cuyo The Soulful Science me gustó mucho, y cuyas investigaciones sobre capital social valen mucho la pena. Pero no gestioné bien mis expectativas.

No porque el libro no contenga mucha sabiduría, que sí. Su diagnóstico sobre la situación es tremendamente actual, aunque esté escrito en 2011. Ya anticipa los problemas de polarización o de confianza en la política, y algunas de las cosas que dice sobre tecnología se pueden aplicar perfectamente al debate sobre la IA. También es muy actual su discusión sobre el decrecimiento.

Pero es que, aparte de que en algunas cosas como el debate climático se ha quedado algo anticuado, es que el libro es demasiado repetitivo, es más bien un ensayo demasiado estirado. Así que quizá valga la pena con leer su Manifiesto final, porque ahí resume el libro. Y, sobre todo, sus propuestas son demasiado genéricas.

En cualquier caso, os paso mi resumen de las ideas fundamentales:

La primera, su recordatorio sobre las amenazas para el estado del bienestar de una deuda creciente.

p4. In every OECD country the aginng of the population will inexorably increase government spending because state support of the elderly through one route or another is universal, whether it takes the form of pensions, subsidized health care, or other forms of social care.

The benefits they [the boomers] are enjoying are being paid for by mounting government debt, some of it acknowledged, but much of it simply implicit in the promises of what services the government will pay for. Those promises wil almost certainly be broken.

Ante esto, propone estas medidas algo genéricas (aunque seguramente correctas)

p12. How can a better balance between the present and the future be brought about? There are three elements needed to answer the challenge: measurement, values and institutions.

El decrecimiento no lo considera como una posible solución:

p267. And yet people still want the economy to grow. It is wishful thinking to claim that economic growth doesn't increase happiness. it would be dangerously complacent to plan policies on the basis that citizens won't mind sacrificing growth for the sake of the environment or social cohesion. To do so would be to sacrifice any hope of gaining political traction for change. What's more, poor countries need to keep growing to reduce poverty and satisfy natural aspirations to reach the living standards of the leading economies. Rich countries need economic growth because otherwise if won't be possible to avoid the debt trap and create the political conditions for a less unequal and higher trust society.

Su propuesta va más bien por mejorar el capital social, algo que primero define bien:

Social capital consists of the set of relationships between the individual members of a society. Some of the connections between us are impersonal and take place through a monetary transaction; others are nonmarket relationships, that is nonfinancial and personal ties of various degrees of importance and strength. The stronger these nonmarket mutual relationships are between different people in a particular society, the greater the social capital.
Social capital defined in this way brings benefits to the people who make up the society in question, but not necessarily to those outside it. So depending on the context, it can be good or bad for the economy as a whole.

Y luego plantea que tenemos que mejorar:

p183. But the profound social impacts of fundamental technical change, whether it's steam or computing, mean that innovation must also include the social rules that organize the way we live together and cooperate. The rules haven't kept up with the technology. Now, just as in the early Victorian era, the mismatch between the underlying technological structure of the economy and the institutions governing the economy is the source of political and social upheaval

Una de las cosas en las que tenemos que mejorar es en el diseño de los mercados, que, según ella, son imprescindibles, pero deben reflejar mejor nuestros valores:

p185. The benefits of markets in delivering good economic outcomes - the central claim of economics - depends on the values that structure those markets, because markets are social institutions that embody underlying values and cultural and social norms....Not all markets are immoral, but the operation of markets in recent times has become in some respects immoral.

p210. If desired social values are reflected in actual market institutions, markets remain the most powerful mechanism for delivering socially and economically beneficial outcomes. So one challenge now is to ensure that the way markets operate reflect fundamental social norms and values - how to make markets moral.

Y lo segundo en lo que tenemos que trabajar es en la justicia:

p234. Fairness is what makes the drive for an efficient economy politically legitimate