#66 November/December 2003
The Washington Free Press Washington's Independent Journal of News, Ideas & Culture
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Toward a Toxic-Free Future

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Features

Ducky Detritus
Rubber duck flotilla will likely be lamely floating ashore upside-down

The History and Development of Rubber Ducks

Rubber Duck Essay Contest Rules

Abysmal Amtrak Rail Security
by Joel Hanson

Bush-Pushed Tax Cuts
Just more jabs, or the death of democracy?
by Rodger Herbst

I wouldn't mind...
Ironic grammar exercise by Styx Mundstock

Our Media, Ourselves
Another perspective on why mainstream news reportingis so darn rotten
opinion by Doug Collins

Who Killed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr? (part 1)
interview of King family attorney William F. Pepper
by Joe Martin

Enviroment

China 'At War' with Advancing Deserts
by Lester R. Brown

Killing with Kindness
Removing a Lawn Without Herbicides
by Philip Dickey

Economy

It's the Economics Model, Stupid

George W. News Brief
forwarded from Scentposts

WTO ShutDown in Mexico
firsthand account by Peter Rosset

Nature

Free the white tigers
Animals Are Not Actors
from People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)

Population

Albertsons Agrees To Provide Birth-Control Coverage
from Planned Parenthood of Western Washington

Do You Really Want 'Growth' in Your Town?
by Renee Kjartan

Workplace

Time To Act
Overworked Americans
by Paul Rogat Loeb

Law

WA Police Need Warrant for GPS Surveillance
from ACLU of WA

Lesbian/Gay Employment Rights Victory
Illegally fired hospital worker receives settlement
from ACLU of WA

The Crime of Being Poor, part 2
by Paul Wright, editor, Prison Legal News

Health

Fluoride Quiz
from Emily Kalweit

CA Dental Board Strengthens Policy on Mercury Toxicity
from Dr. Paul Rubin

Herd Immunity or Herd Stupidity?
Vaccination Decisions - part 2
by Doug Collins

Sweet Stuff
by Doug Collins

Politics

Tom Delay Ambushes Texas--And America
by Steven Hill and Rob Richie

Slogans for Bush/Cheney Re-election Campaign

Signs
photoessay by Kristianna Baird

Books

Uncle Sam's Marijuana
book notice by Christopher Largen

It's the Economics Model, Stupid

"To them that hath shall be given" --King James Bible

Brian Arthur was among the first economists to recognize that modern economies are complex systems that at times may be governed by the law of increasing returns. In a 1999 article for Science, Arthur notes "...standard economics usually assumes diminishing returns. If one firm gets too far ahead in the market, it runs into higher costs or some other negative feedback and the market is shared at a predictable, unique equilibrium. When we allow positive feedbacks, or increasing returns, a different outcome arises....

"The outcome actually reached is not predictable in advance;... it is not necessarily the most efficient economically; it is subject to the historical path taken; [and] while the companies may start equal, the outcome is asymmetrical." (Complexity and the Economy: Science, 2 April 1999, 284, 107-109)

Interestingly, Arthur's ideas on increasing returns, developed in the early 1990's, were then shunned by most US economists. "I could talk about these ideas in Caracas, no sweat whatever. I could talk about them in Vienna, no sweat. But whenever I talked about these ideas in the United States, there was hell to pay. People got angry at the very notion that anything like this could happen." (Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos; Mitchell Waldrop, Touchstone Books,1992.)

Things are changing though. Arthur argues that Complexity economics is more general than static Neo-Classical economics, and that the new approach is making itself felt in every area of economics, including the theory of money and finance, economic history, the evolution of trading networks, the stability of the economy, and political economy. "It is helping us understand phenomena such as market instability, the emergence of monopolies, ... [and] the persistence of poverty...". (Science, 2 April 1999, 284, 107-109). Could it be that our entrenched Neo-classical economics model has obscured these phenomena?

Rodger Herbst



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