What's the Economy For? (Patel, The Value of Nothing, 2009)

Raj Patel. The Value of Nothing. (2009) Modern economic theory ascribes a value of $0 to externals. For example, treating effluent before discharging it into the nearest watercourse costs money, but untreated effluent costs nothing. More precisely, leaving the purification of effluent to natural processes costs nothing. 

Since we believe the aim of our economy is to maximise profit, we believe that the aim of our producers is to minimise cost, which in turn means to maximise externals. It also means minimising the provision of social goods, which cost money. Thus the drive to minimise taxes, which pay not only for necessities but also for amenities. Finally, the drive to maximise profits spurs the quest to privatise public goods such as education and parks, and to oppose the transfer of necessary services such as healthcare from private to public organisations.

Patel’s book is an extended discussion on the value of those external processes that suppsedly cost nothing. Hence the title. He begins by estimating the full cost of those zero-cost externals. An example is the $3.95 hamburger whose true cost is about $200.

Like many others who have meditated on the costs of using nature to do our dirty work, he concludes that these externals provide services of value, if only the monetary cost avoided by using them. From that starting point, he widens his discussion. The book is an argument for an economy that recognises that ecosystems are fundamental, and instead of treating them as zero-cost, treats them as the essential and hence most valuable part of the economy. He understands that any change to our economic systems entails changes to our politics, and discusses those as well, adducing examples of successful local, communal control.

Well, that’s a simplification of this book, which touches on everything that’s implied by the question What is the economy for? 

Recommended. ****

Ig Nobel Prizes: Laugh, then Think.

Marc Abrahams. The Ig Nobel Prizes 2 (2004) The Ig Nobel Prizes were devised at Harvard. They’ve grown in size and prestige. Many Nobel winners have happily participated in awarding them, and most winners of the Ig Nobels have felt honoured by the recognition of their research, which First makes you laugh, then makes you think. Traditions such as folding the event program into paper airplanes to be launched at the stage, and a rigidly enforced time limit on the acceptance speech, maintain the Goonish ambience.

Anyone can nominate anyone for an Ig Nobel. Some of the prizes are not so subtle satiric critiques of pseudoscience and other nonsense, but most are awarded for valid scientific discoveries, and many are more significant than a quick read my suggest. Like anecdotes, they may prompt deeper questions than the one they (may have) answered.

This collection is well worth whatever you pay for it. I found my copy at a yard sale, hence wildly under-priced compared to its value. A few examples:

2001 Ig Nobel for Astrophysics, to Rex and Rexella Van Impe, evangelists, for their discovery that black holes meet all the criteria for Hell.

2004 Ig Nobel for Public Health, to Jillian Clarke, high school student, for her investigation of the 5-Second Rule for food that falls on the floor. (It fails, but by how much depends on the floor covering).

2024 winners here: https://improbable.com/ig/winners/

A valuable reference work. Recommended ****

Le Carre, A Murder of Quality (1968)

 

John Le Carre, A Murder of Quality. (1968) A murder at a B-list public school brings Smiley out of retirement when Miss Brimley, a war-time colleague, receives a letter that disturbs her. The puzzle is nicely knotted and solved, but what kept me reading was Le Carre’s skewering of pseuds. Carne School prides itself on upholding standards of behaviour long past their relevance. This is the crack through which the light escapes and the darkness of murder seeps in.

Le Care’s other strength is characterisation. We want to know more about these people. Le Carre presents the characters as they present themselves, and I was deceived by the murderer and his victim as much as every other character in the story was, including Smiley himself. The final unravelling of the mystery satisfies psychologically, which is rare in mysteries that turn on deceptions that we wish to see punished. Odd, that we want both justice and justification.

Recommended. ***½

A Movie version (1991) is available on YouTube.

Guns, Guns, Guns: A History of Gun Violence (Lapham's Quarterly, 2018)

  Lapham’s Quarterly, A History of Gun Violence. (2018) A depressing read, with enough data to show that humans have generally expended more effort and skill on making effective weapons than any other tool. War has always been as much about the combatants’ ability to manufacture effective weaponry as about their mastery of strategy and tactics.

The perfection of the hand gun by Colt, Smith & Wesson and others has made gun violence almost as normal as bread. It has also made killing so easy that murder has become the default ingredient of many crimes that would be successful without it. The US Supreme Court’s misinterpretation of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution has encouraged a sense of personal entitlement that has spread into all other aspects of communal life, so that conflict is for many people now the prime mode of relating to others.

As usual, an excellent overview of the subject, consisting mostly of firsthand accounts and analyses based on knowledge of the history. But a melancholy read. The cover is an interpretation of the Gunfight at the OK Corral. Recommended. ****

Alligators in the Sewer (and other Folk Tales)

Thomas J. Craughwell. Alligators in the Sewer (1999) Folk tales, or real stories that happened to a friend of a friend, or FOAF. The compiler serves up relevant research into older versions of the tales. The plot generally remains the same, only details of technology and lifestyle change with the times. A first class potato-chip book, which I will dip into repeatedly as time and occasion offer. 

Recommended, if you can find a copy.

BTW, there are no alligators in the sewers of New York or any other city.

****

Darwin Awards 3 (2003)

 Wendy Northcutt. The Darwin Awards III (2003) A Darwin Awards are given posthumously to people who have removed themselves from the gene pool by means less than wise, and have thereby presumably removed deleterious genes. The tales recounted here raise a mix of laughter, astonishment, and pity, but never in the same proportions.

An example: In Finland, in October 2001, a group of friends were stranded by the side of the freeway after running out of gas. No one stopped to help, so one of them lay down the middle of the roadway, expecting traffic to stop. It didn’t, and his unwise attempt to help caused his demise. Confirmed.

The editors are careful to distinguish between confirmed cases, probably true ones, and personal accounts. Mildly amusing illustrations add to the charm of the book. And it is oddly charming: The generally high level of confidence displayed by the award winners before physics and chemistry interfered with their aims is admirable.

Recommended if you can find a copy. ***

Poppies (photo)

The oriental poppies are in bloom. They are about 10-15cm (4-6 inches) across. Photo taken after rain, 19th June 2025.

Frontier Woman (L'Amour, The Cherokee Trail)

 Louis L’Amour. The Cherokee Trail (2012) A posthumous work, prepped for publication by L’Amour’s heirs. The gaps in the story show, but don’t affect the overall impression. Unusually, the protagonist is a woman, who establishes her cred by horse-whipping the incompetent operator of the stagecoach station whom she’s replacing.  Her husband was supposed to take the job, but he was killed by a renegade rebel officer. A quiet fellow-passenger signs on to help out, and of course eventually “sparks fly”, as the current cliche has it. All in all, a workaday job of entertainment. It would make a good basis for a video, assuming the makers were willing to pick up on the hints about the self-reliance of pioneer women. Not up to L’Amour’s usual standard, but I liked it.

**½

Jake and the Kid (W. O. Mitchell, 1961)

W. O Mitchell. Jake and the Kid (1961) A selection of the short stories based on the radio series that Mitchell wrote for the CBC. Mitchell’s Crocus, Saskatchewan, is very like Leacock’s Mariposa. Like Leacock, Mitchell hides a sometimes bitter satiric insight under slathers of sentiment, poetic justice, and a laid-back style of yarning. I recall listening to some of the radio series when we first came to Canada.

This collection is termed ‘A Novel’, which stretches the concept a bit. The stories do form a kind of a plot around the conflict between Jake Turner and Miss Henchbaw, the schoolteacher who persists in correcting the Kid’s understanding of history as told by Turner. There is a kind of resolution when Miss Henchbaw revises the Kid’s nomination for Golden Jubilee Citizen.

Mitchell has an excellent ear for dialogue, and understands human nature only too well. He does tend to soften his depiction of human evil into mere mischief or pardonable error. But he never glamourises virtue. Jake is the Kid’s hero, but we, who see past and through the Kid’s hero-worship, see Turner’s flaws. This use of the innocent eye also resembles Leacock. It’s a Canadian thing, I guess.

An enjoyable read. Recommended. ***

The Crime of the Century (Amis, 1975)

 Kingsley Amis. The Crime of the Century (1975) Amis wrote this as a serial for the Sunday Times. Skillful, nicely plotted, with occasional flashes of satire, but not a classic of the genre. Retired Det. Supt Barry is called in on the caser of serial killing. The unknotting of the case is wordy, and while the clues have been fairly planted, there aren’t enough of them to justify the solution.

It’s not exactly a page-turner, but I did want to know how it all turned out. Perhaps its brevity (130 pages in paperback) is the reason for the mild disappointment. There’s large cast of interesting characters, but Amis sticks strictly to procedure. I would have liked to read a more expansive narrative, with back stories and intersecting plots. Oh well, Amis wrote it to order, and he delivered as contracted. I suppose an Amis fan or student should read this. For the mystery fan, it’s passable, just. **

Does Anything Eat Wasps? (New Scientist, 2005)

 New Scientist). Does Anything Eat Wasps (2005) Yes, lots of things eat wasps! Even other wasps eat wasps. You will find long (but incomplete) list on pages 82 to 84 of this wonderful collection of questions asked by readers of New Scientist.

For example, How much does a human head weigh? (About 10 lbs/5kg, which helps explain neck pain, but not the kind triggered by annoying cousins and neighbours). How many species of microbes live on and in the human body? (Nobody knows for sure, and since the question was asked, DNA surveys suggest it’s in the thousands at least. As for population, it’s likely in the trillions.)

Other readers (some of them even experts) provide the answers. An index makes this not only fun but useful. Highly recommended. Only downside: Once you’ve found an answer to a question, you just have to read the next question and its answers. And the next one.... ****

It's a Good Life... (Seth, 2004)

 Seth (G. Gallant). It’s a Good Life, if you Don’t Weaken. (2004) A collection of stories collected into a novella. The plot is the eventually successful search for information about Kalo, a Canadian New Yorker cartoonist who seems to have disappeared from history.

Seth writes graphic novels. His drawings are essential to his story. Their elegiac ambience supports the hero’s view of life as a series of losses. He likes old things, imagining that life in the Olden Days was simpler and morally easier than now. His search for Kalo is semi-successful. He finds the rest of Kalo’s work, and discovers where and why he retired from cartooning. It’ a humdrum story of having to make a living, but in the context of Seth’s unease about his own purpose in life, humdrum takes on existential significance. The title of the story is one way to express that significance.

I liked this novella, and will likely read it again. (This was a second reading.)****