Dynamism is a new label for a new political philosophy, a philosophy that Virginia Postrel explains in her 1998 book, ‘The Future and Its Enemies – The Growing Conflict over Creativity, Enterprise and Progress’, has given us greater wealth, opportunity and choice than at any time in history.
According to Postrel many conservatives and social liberals (members of the right and left of politics) have much in common as they want to control the future while Dynamists believe in the capacity of human beings to improve their lives through trial and error, spontaneous adjustment, adaptation and evolution.
That’s some of what I wrote in Part 1, of ‘Why I am a Dynamist’. I thought some of the comments in the thread that followed were interesting with Gavin suggesting that “dynamic change could lead to chaos.”
It is worth remembering, the evolution of life on earth has been a dynamic process with no-one in control and yet it has not lead to chaos.
Dynamists see the same potential in human enterprise provided there is a reliable foundation on which to build complex, ever-adapting structures that incorporate local knowledge.
Postrel suggests that some of those structures will be elaborate new schemes of rules:
“But the rules will be voluntarily subscribed to, allowed to evolve, and able to incorporate detailed knowledge of particulars. … and they should not be confused with the fundamental rules that, in fact, allow such specific-purpose rules to develop.”
Postrel suggests that respect for local knowledge and rules can avoid the tragedy of the commons:
“Grazing land and fishing sites are classic examples of commons. Economic theory predicts that such common property will be overused, since everyone has an incentive to draw as much as possible from it rather than to conserve. But Elinor Ostrom [Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Cambridge University Press, 1990] finds many examples of cooperative institutions evolving to regulate commons use effectively, to everyone’s benefit … developed through trial-and-error learning, with the rules made by the same people who must abide them.”
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Jen, repost, try again, call it what you like, it is simply a mostly useless but seductive straw dichotomy for the desperate and disenchanted. You said you were a dynamist, then you said you just floated that to get stuff for your review, then you were an empiricist, then you reclaimed dynamist. What the blood heil are you?. Can you give us a few randomly picked examples where an underpinning dynamist philosophy actually improved an outcome for society and not just some interest group.?
“the evolution of life on earth has been a dynamic process with no-one in control and yet it has not lead to chaos”
Jennifer: Who says it’s NOT chaos?
We had a rather interesting review of the Moon landing on ABC TV last night
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/guide/netw/200802/programs/ZY9091A001D11022008T212000.htm
At times we hang on only by a thread
Bazza,
I fit the dynamist label as regards political philosophy.
I fit the empiricist label when it comes to approach to science.
I fit the atheist label when it comes to religion.
As regards, interest groups and dynamism, I shall quote Postrel quoting Jonathan Rauch:
“Where you [the dynamist] see a government restraint on private competition, look for a way to get rid of it … where you see a government agency sheltered from competition, look for a way to expose it. In every case, you will weaken interest groups and stimulate adaptation.”
There is no way to avoid interest-group politics but the dynamist approach acknowledges the problem and avoids creating institutions that feed it.
Now, I am looking for examples that support the idea that local knowledge and trial and error can result in rules that avoid the trajedy of the commons …
“Grazing land and fishing sites are classic examples of commons. Economic theory predicts that such common property will be overused, since everyone has an incentive to draw as much as possible from it rather than to conserve. But Elinor Ostrom [Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Cambridge University Press, 1990] finds many examples of cooperative institutions evolving to regulate commons use effectively, to everyone’s benefit … developed through trial-and-error learning, with the rules made by the same people who must abide them.”
Jen – in Australian ecology, empiricism is likely to lead you down the garden path – I think Bazza may have once said that all empirical experiments are inherently prisoners of sites and seasons.
So you would get a very different viewpoint from measuring field biology this year in Central Queensland compared to 2006. Can you extrapolate your small temporal and spatial sampling of the world?
You might also see droughts come and go but never work out why – you may even think that they are totally random in origin. And of course you may jump to conclusions that sunspots can forecast climate when maybe they don’t. You might even be puzzled with an “apparent” lack of correlation of temperature with CO2.
Indeed you might tend to overuse correlations.
Dynamism may work if starting positions are relatively even, full accounting of externalities not just internalities are undertaken, and the participants play relatively fair. But why should we think that efficiency through good natured competition and philosophical altruism be a preferred model.
How about rorting the system, killing the opposition, getting more than your share, being a monopoly, exploiting loopholes, and not accounting for externalities.
Why not? Anything for the shareholders?
Economic theory not only predicts common property will be overused – our real world experience confirms such.
Perhaps full-on dynamism simply leads to sub-prime chaos?
Just musing …
This discussion of rules is most interesting: “Dynamists see the same potential in human enterprise provided there is a reliable foundation on which to build complex, ever-adapting structures that incorporate local knowledge.
Postrel suggests that some of those structures will be elaborate new schemes of rules:
“But the rules will be voluntarily subscribed to, allowed to evolve, and able to incorporate detailed knowledge of particulars. … and they should not be confused with the fundamental rules that, in fact, allow such specific-purpose rules to develop.”
Postrel suggests that respect for local knowledge and rules can avoid the tragedy of the commons”
Flexibility is a rare virtue in practice and I shudder at the thought of high minded policy advisors running any show.
Experience shows us that very few people (and authorities too) can act effectively in response to rapid change in our complex society. The Moon landers were lucky, some on the fringe of Canberra in Jan. 2003 were less so when local knowledge was ignored.
Re: space travel, understanding earth’s weather should have come first.
Let’s look at when we are fully extended as groups and as individuals. Apollo 11 is a fair place to start in understanding our limits. At that time we had only a few dozen engineers or technicians in Australia capable of plumbing high pressure vessels and reactors to the standards required for industry let alone NASA and I doubt we have changed that much. Try finding a reliable mobile broadband connection in the bush today. Trial and error in communications was never more haphazard at the political level. Try finding a domestic cat with a well developed sense of humor instead. We are “ruled” by our expectations.
At the leading edge of “technology” we are often on the fringe of our practical experience, rocket motors, communications, medicine even investment however IMHO its language that’s our main handicap. The trap is in believing the rhetoric generated outside the problem or the event. Respect initial perceptions when it comes to understanding the elements of chaos.
Recall, our brains develop according to individual needs.
Gavin, ‘at times we hang only by a thread’
Do you imply that America should be blamed for pursueing the Apollo programme.? The ‘primative computer technology of the 60’s was worlds best at the time. In another 40 yrs. our present technology will be regarded as primative.
Are the risks of the Apollo 11 mission any different than say, those associated with the First Fleet setting out from England for Australia?
Methinks both examples represent dynamism rather then chaos. Otherwise we would still be living in caves.
Dynamism sounds like a bit of pop sociology to me. There’s plenty of existing labels to pigeon hole the philosophy without inventing a new one. Although in the US people holding these views would be called “Conservatives” or maybe “Libertarians”. Perhaps Postrel doesn’t want to be labelled as either.
BTW, the argument that “It is worth remembering, the evolution of life on earth has been a dynamic process with no-one in control and yet it has not lead to chaos,” is fallacious. The fallacy in it is that you think it was meant to be this way because you are here to observe it, but that doesn’t take account of the cases where it didn’t happen and no-one was there to observe it.
Jennifer,your quote ‘Where you [the dynamist] see a government restraint on private competition, look for a way to get rid of it’does hilight a bit of bias. If you delete the word government it is a more defensible statement, but in any case you need riders for market failures of various kinds. I am all for limiting the role of government, and keeping an eye on the private sector where there is always a major incentive to reduce competition by fair means or foul or donations to political parties.
Graham,
In the context of looking for solutions to environmental issues: Libertarian and conservatives both fall back on the idea of property rights. Property rights are the claimed solution to everything. While a dynamist would have more time for rules, particularly rules developed from the bottom-up, through trial and error.
And as regards evolution and chaos: we can observe the history of the evolution on life on earth and it has not been chaotic.
Sid, living in caves is our likely fallback position given the earth’s crust is fairly stable.
I worked with guys at various places who traveled about a mile underground every day. Rock falls were uncommon due to careful team work 24 x 7. Space missions and sailing fleets may well have had higher mortalities and greater close up supervision.
I also worked with a fair bit of technology developed for the space race and gained considerable respect for our collective advances but I’m saying it’s not for everybody yet.
Hey when you cat smiles keep it with you cause it understands our mutual predicament. We probably both depend on what’s left free range on the common.
“we can observe the history of the evolution on life on earth and it has not been chaotic”
Well that depends whether you’re in between, or in the middle of an extinction event?
Luke,
Disagree.
During and after the mass extinction of the late Permian, and irrespective of whether you subscribe to the mass poisoning or one of the other more popular theories, adaptation occurred and it was not chaotic.
PS and here’s the recent post on the permian mass extinction http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002756.html
Well that’s OK if you’re one of the adaptees. Lots of species failed to adapt and depends how many millenia you’ve got spend too.
What Graeme Young is telling you.
Evolution does not have to produce outcomes congenial with our human outlook. Adaptation does not have to select for intelligent outcomes unless there is an advantage in it.
As has been said – we hominids only got a chance at the big time from a bit of good luck.
It was not good luck, it was adaptation and natural selection – oh and competition – all based on particular rules. But ofcourse it was not by design.
Luke: I liked the bit from the Apollo story where each of the guys aboard the space ship experienced hundreds of flashes. Whether its “sensitive” information or technology we are using it’s a bit of a thrill only some of the time. I recall some of the guys saying when touching the granite deep down they wondered each time how thick it really was. Apparently it gets a lot warmer way below. I recall too farmers playing with their new age chemicals and wondering about their skin. Back then we were told every day smoking was good for our image.
We live in a thin veneer of stability.
Jen – what rules – “luck” means probability and chance. Many episodic events are not in our control. An episodic event – asteroid impact, climate shift, volcanism, opening or closing of land bridges, or major droughts, wildfires, or a growing pandemic of humanity at the wrong or right time may change the course of natural history. Between those episodic events in relatively calmer periods, evolutionary principles do their work but without guarantees.
And the course of events redefines the “rules”. The “rules” themself evolve. Not all rules are optimal and God doesn’t always come up with the best mechanisms either. Some adaptations seem almost perverse. God’s little jokes.
You are really sounding like you’ve discovered the meaning to life and that that evolution on a geological time scale is quite orderly. The fossil record looks pretty messy to me.
Jen, I’d define myself as a Liberal in the classical sense of the word, and I’d see the right to own property as being but one of many rights. Conservatives would see it similarly, and so would most Libertarians. So I don’t think you can say that any of those ideologies bring everything back to property. You might say they bring everything back to rights, but with the exception of some extreme libertarians I don’t think too many would assert that rights can exist without systems and rules.
Most would also understand property rights as being a construct of rules. For example, I may have a right to own a stick, but I may forfeit that right if I use it to injure someone else.
Luke, nothing orderly, but as Charles Darwin explained there are a few basic principles …Postrel would have probably called them rules.
PS. you lost me on the God stuff. remember I’m an atheist and I don’t see evolution as having been necessarily ‘good’ but it has tended to the more complex.
Graham,
Perhaps the only way to understand where I am coming from (rightly or wrongly) is by way of an environmental example – a trajedy of the common’s type example. And to consider how a dynamist versus a classic liberal might deal with the problem. I might think of a good example for another post on this issue (Part 3).
Jen – “God stuff” – tongue in cheek – in the vein, but not quite, of Einstein or Hawking – “Does God play dice with the Universe”.
Einstein said “God does not play dice” whereas Hawking said “God does definitely play dice, but He sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can’t be seen”.
Not sure if these guys were/are dynamists ?
http://www.hawking.org.uk/pdf/dice.pdf
In response to Sid and John:
The most reliable information on how the conditions surrounding the Great Barrier Reef have changed comes from the work of Dr Janice Lough at the Australian Institute of Marine Science. You can find a very nice summary of this work in chapter 2 of the Vulnerability Assessment produced by Great Barrier Reef experts last year (http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/22590/chapter02-climate-scenarios.pdf). There are a number of other references that you might want to read by digging deeper. Though these changes to water temperature look small, they are large relative to the rate of change over the past 420,000 years. An analysis of this can be found in Table 1 of a recent science article which we compiled with 16 other experts (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/318/5857/1737).
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/318/5857/1737
http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/22590/chapter02-climate-scenarios.pdf
Jen, back a bit you claimed we got here by ‘adaptation and natural selection – oh and competition – all based on particular rules’.
The sociobiologists would have a bone to pick with you and your selfish free marketeers. Competition is necessary but not sufficient.’Selfishness beats altruism within groups; altruistic groups beat selfish groups.’ ( every thing else is commentary!)
Please find a unique perspective on where our Western so called dynamism has INEVITABLY brought the entire world—“dynamism” is really just a euphemism for the drive to total power and control or objectification at the root of the entire western “cultural” project.
A project that has totally objectified everything including human beings. The so called “culture” that Randian “objectivists” celebrate as the most “advanced” form of human culture, thus far.
1. http://www.ispeace723.org/realityhumanity2.html
2. http://www.ispeace723.org/youthepeople4.html
Jen,a few years ago in The Bulletin there was a cartoon. Two guys in hell on the rock pile with the devil standing over them, pitchfork at the ready.So one fellow says to the other “Imagine there I was… an atheist” It made it to the fridge door.
Sounds to me like Postrel is one of those people who deny the universe was made in seven days and God meant it to run in a steady-state situation with culture and technology remaining at the level it initially attained at ca. 5,000 BC.
Deniers and skeptics. This is a bad state of affairs.
Has anyone noticed there’s a world-wide shortage of caves to live in? People are living in apartments and things, that’s how bad it is.
Dynamist? I think you may have misspelled “Denialist”?