Module 2 moves on to an offshoot, or symptom, or maybe cause of quantification, as we consider the disproportionate role of economic thinking in how we consider the future, and the ways in which economics and sci-fic are similar. (Hint: lots of economics is imaginary too)
(Reminder: you can read the full syllabus here malkaolder.wordpress.com/2020/12/17/syl… I'm making minor edits as I review for the lectures, such as adjusting discussion questions)
(and here is the thread for Module 1:
https://twitter.com/m_older/status/1342436831003029509?s=20)
In Berman, Elizabeth Popp, "Not Just Neoliberalism: Economization in US Science and Technology Policy" Science, Technology, & Human Values 2014, Vol. 39(3) 397-431 2013, @epopppp examines the push to see everything (or at least science and tech) in relation to the economy 
This makes me angry about the "It's the economy, stupid!" line (oh, it was Carville? yeah) & the way we now act like that's the only policy area that matters, but notice also the link to quantification: the economy is numbers and measurable, therefore we can make claims about it
Easier to say "this policy will raise the GDP by 2 points" than "this policy will make people happier." & the \beauty of it is that even tho it seems measurable, you can still fudge the numbers about what the GDP has done & why so easily, you don't have to worry about being wrong
"THE MAIN PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT"
and there's a rationale behind this, right? because there's an idea that money is fungible, that if economy grows people can use it however to be happy.
Turns out that doesn't work. Both focus on growth above all & that money can do anything
and there's a rationale behind this, right? because there's an idea that money is fungible, that if economy grows people can use it however to be happy.
Turns out that doesn't work. Both focus on growth above all & that money can do anything
Also note the phrase "the larger economy". Because there are lots of economies. We'll look at macro-economics in the next reading, but consider that what is allegedly good for " larger economy" might not be good for all the component pieces. & again, depends on numbers you choose
1 of Berman's main points in this article is that economization does not only come from neoliberal politics, or from the right, and this is really important. Lots of bemoaning of polarization right now, but consider what happens when both sides agree on such basic assumptions...
& when I say "both sides" I mean: major actors allowed to have a voice in our political sphere. At that point who is questioning the focus on growth w/ alternative approach of "support[ing] science because it will improve medicine, serve military needs, or address climate change"
⬇️ if nothing else, I hope this course makes people suspicious of anything "neutral"
okay I don't want to screenshot the whole article but this right here
err, and this. economic theory can teach us many useful things and has a powerful language for certain phenomena, and one of them is opportunity cost.
seems relevant
And since this is a course about the stories we tell about the future, notice the assumptions about the future inherent in the idea that economic growth will make everything better.
Great (terrifying) section title
again, these policy decisions were decisions about the future, attempts to maneuver the present into leading towards a specific future. The parameters chosen for doing so were those of economization.
imagine a time when there was a policy area not concerned with its impact on "the economy"
Think about how this conceptualization affects our politics and policy, and also how many political promises and pronouncements would sound very different if they were about "industry" instead of ✨"the economy"✨
The (absolutely stupid and unconscionably common) false dichotomy between environment and the economy would sound very different if it were portrayed, slightly more accurately (but still false) as between environment and industry.
it didn't just happen. there were steps to getting to this place:
Economization happens not only b/c we are focused on economic prosperity as a goal, but also because we think we know how to do it. We're wrong. But we think we can predict the economic future based on policy decisions, & that belief is baked in to a lot of writing on policy.
and still salient in 2020
The next reading is Pilmis, Olivier, "Foreseeing in the Dark : Macroeconomic Forecasting in a Health Crisis", available here: spire.sciencespo.fr/hdl:/2441/q75k… although on reflection I think I'd put this first, since it's shorter and more explicitly about the future #MalkaGTD598
It's a brief, current piece published in April, during France's first lockdown, that asks how and why the countries' economic authorities do projections during so much uncertainty.
Pilmis notes the link between forecasting and action; forecasting is an action in itself - as Berman and Hirschman reminded us last week, people worked on those numbers - but also a suggestion that the government is doing something or prepared to.
Pilmis notes that, like LeGuin's science fiction, financial acts are not predictions so much as bases for common discussion - in fact, fictions (dang I should have put Beckert on the syllabus too - but already crowded)
People don't *believe* in the guesses that underlie the bill so much as agree to use them
The premises in the bill might be unsubstantiated guesswork, but they are necessary, because without some imagination of the future, Pilmis says, it's impossible to act.
This reminds me of something one of my informants told me about the Japan tsunami, a local govt official who remembered how immediately after the tsunami they had no idea of the situation, no comms, and they had to *imagine* the situation to decide what to do
A reminder of the problems of using the past to predict the future - even though (as Pilmis notes at the beginning) we have plenty of previous crisis situations, including epi- and pandemic based, from which to draw
Pilmis titles the first section "Forecasting is Governing", and we should consider how much of governing - what we expect from our States, what we get from them - is based on imagined futures. Then, the last sentence: we need those imaginings even more when they are least certain
This essay, by Ha-Joon Chang, is better on the economics part than the sci-fi part, maybe because all the sci-fi referenced is from a limited male spectrum, and there's a cringey aside about the civil war, but newhumanist.org.uk/articles/5329/…
it's useful to have an economist writing stuff like this
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