Author: conversableeconomist

This blog is free in monetary terms. I don’t pay a fee to an internet company; readers don’t pay a fee to me.  The costs are mainly in terms of time: that is I spend time writing the blogs, and readers spend time looking them over. But while it’s comforting and even partially true to think that this blog is a public service provided for my own devious reasons, the software is provided and the hosting is done by Google. Thus, I’m working without a monetary return to draw your attention to Google, and you are providing your attention to Google.

All of which serves as a reminder of a saying that I’ve seen repeated a number of times in various forms during last few years: “If you’re not paying for it, you’re the product.”  Fortunately, I didn’t have to track down the origins of this quotation. because the Quote Investigator website already did it last summer.

The renaissance of this sentiment seems to trade back to a comment from the Metafilter website back in 2010:

Here is a similar sentiment from Adam Smith, a friend and admirer of Hume, from his first great work, the 1759 Theory of Moral Sentiments (part VII, book IV, paragraph 28):

\”Frankness and openness conciliate confidence. We trust the man who seems willing to trust us. We see clearly, we think, the road by which he means to conduct us, and we abandon ourselves with pleasure to his guidance and direction. Reserve and concealment, on the contrary, call forth diffidence. We are afraid to follow the man who is going we do not know where. The great pleasure of conversation and society, besides, arises from a certain correspondence of sentiments and opinions, from a certain harmony of minds, which like so many musical instruments coincide and keep time with one another. But this most delightful harmony cannot be obtained unless there is a free communication of sentiments and opinions. We all desire, upon this account, to feel how each other is affected, to penetrate into each other\’s bosoms, and to observe the sentiments and affections which really subsist there. The man who indulges us in this natural passion, who invites us into his heart, who, as it were, sets open the gates of his breast to us, seems to exercise a species of hospitality more delightful than any other. No man, who is in ordinary good temper, can fail of pleasing, if he has the courage to utter his real sentiments as he feels them, and because he feels them. It is this unreserved sincerity which renders even the prattle of a child agreeable. How weak and imperfect soever the views of the open-hearted, we take pleasure to enter into them, and endeavour, as much as we can, to bring down our own understanding to the level of their capacities, and to regard every subject in the particular light in which they appear to have considered it. … 

\”The man who eludes our most innocent questions, who gives no satisfaction to our most inoffensive inquiries, who plainly wraps himself up in impenetrable obscurity, seems, as it were, to build a wall about his breast. We run forward to get within it, with all the eagerness of harmless curiosity; and feel ourselves all at once pushed back with the rudest and most offensive violence.\”

In some ways, these sentiments seem deeply old-fashioned. But a number of Smith\’s phases hit home for me. This website is one long indulgence in one of my natural passions. In writing, I seek a kind of sincerity, although in my writing I often fall short of the \”unreserved\” sincerity recommended by Smith. My comments and views may be \”weak and imperfect\” at times, but I am trying hard not to wrap myself \”in impenetrable obscurity\”–which is always a specter lurking over discussions in economics. Now and again, I hope you can abandon yourself with pleasure to the selection of articles and insights provided here.

May the New Year bring you the pleasure of some genuinely open and honest conversations. May you even have the pleasure of \”achieving disagreement,\” which refers to the kind of disagreement that is not based in confusion, suspicion, and hostility, but instead a disagreement that is based on a full and sympathetic understanding of the alternative views.

Those of us who write about economics can only nod knowingly at a comment from John Maynard Keynes in 1934, in a a fragment of writing that was probably part of a draft of the preface for the General Theory. He wrote:

\”[A]n economic writer requires from his reader much goodwill and intelligence and a large measure of co-operation … In economics you cannot convict your opponent of error; you can only convince him of it.\” 

Happy New Year. And thanks to all the regular, semi-regular, occasional, and one-time readers for your goodwill, intelligence, cooperation–and for taking a look at this blog now and then.

The quotation from Keynes appears in volume XIII of the Collected Works of John Maynard Keynes, edited by Donald Moggridge and published in 1973 (pp. 469-471). Here\’s a fuller quotation from the passage, both worth reading for itself, and also to give some context:

When we write economic theory, we write in a quasi-formal style; and there can be no doubt, in spite of the disadvantages, that this is our best available means of conveying our thoughts to one another. But when an economist writes in a quasi-formal style, he is composing neither a document verbally complete and exact so as to be capable of a strict legal interpretation, nor a logically complete proof. Whilst it is his duty to make his premises and his use of terms as clear as he can, he never states all his premises and his definitions are not perfectly clear-cut. He never mentions all the qualifications necessary to his conclusions. He has no means of stating, once and for all, the precise level of abstraction on which he is moving, and he does not move on the same level all the time. It is, I think, of the essential nature of economic exposition that it gives, not a complete statement, which, even if it were possible, would be prolix and complicated to the point of obscurity but a sample statement, so to speak, out of all the things which could be said, intended to suggest to the reader the whole bundle of associated ideas, so that, if he catches the bundle, he will not in the least be confused or impeded by the technical incompleteness of the mere words which the author has written down, taken by themselves. 

This means, on the one hand, that an economic writer requires from his reader much goodwill and intelligence and a large measure of co-operation; and, on the other hand, that there are a thousand futile, yet verbally legitimate, objections which an objector can raise. In economics you cannot convict your opponent of error; you can only convince him of it. And, even if you are right, you cannot convince him, if there is a defect in your own powers of persuasion and exposition or if his head is already so filled with contrary notions that he cannot catch the clues to your thought which are trying to throw to him. 

The results is that much criticism, which has verbal justification in what the author has written, is nevertheless altogether futile and maddeningly irritating; for it merely indicates that the minds of authors and reader have failed to meet. ….

I ask forgiveness, therefore, if I have failed in the necessary goodwill and intellectual sympathy when I criticise; and to those minds to which, for whatever reasons, my ideas do not find an easy entry, I offer the assurance in advance that they will not find it difficult, where the country to be traversed is so extensive and complicated, to discover reasons which will seem to them adequate, for refusing to follow. Time rather than controversy … will sort out the true from the false. 

Cecilia Rouse was awarded the 2017 Bell Award from the American Economic Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, which \”recognizes and honors an individual who has furthered the status of women in the economics profession.\” Lisa Barrow has published a short \”Interview with Bell Award Winner Cecilia E. Rouse\” in the CSWEP News (2017, II, pp. 1, 12-13). I was struck by two bits of life advice offered by Rouse, worth mulling over as the new year approaches.

Barrow: \”Two things that I hear you say repeatedly are “careers are long” and “there are only 24 hours in a day.” Can you elaborate on what you mean?\”  

Rouse: \”These are probably my favorite and (from my perspective) most profound pieces of advice for women … and really everyone. By `careers are long\’ I mean that one cannot answer all questions in one single paper or dissertation. I so often see students struggle to bring their papers under control as they attempt to answer every question that might come up in the course of their research, which can often lead them away from the original question of the paper. Of course, some evolution is good and healthy. But I also remind students that if they choose a job that involves research, they will have a lifetime to address many questions. In fact, I also do not believe that any one paper is ever dispositive so it’s actually quite fruitless to try. Rather, we advance our understanding of the world by putting together pieces of evidence from many different places, researchers, and contexts and seeing the picture that emerges.

\”As for there being only 24 hours in the day, this is the piece of advice about which I feel the strongest, mostly because I see people trying to elude it every day. The saying itself should actually be quite familiar to economists as it’s really just a statement about a time constraint. But as we push with ever-improving technology and the illusion of multi-tasking, we believe that we can somehow beat it. However, while we can ease an income constraint by giving an individual more money, we have yet to find a way to give anyone more time (not that we don’t try!). This is really the hardest, most intractable of constraints. And it basically means that we all have to make choices— real choices. One cannot `have it all\’ (which is antithetical to the notion of a budget constraint) but one can maximize one’s utility subject to the time reality. Fundamentally this means that it is critical to identify our highest priorities and do them (and attempt to do them well) and learn to say no to others demands. One cannot do everything and it’s useless to try.\”

Barrow: \”Any last pieces of wisdom?\”

Rouse: ;\”Take time to enjoy the small moments of life. One of the highlights of my afternoon is dark chocolate with coffee.\”

The other day I found myself, as one does, reading speeches given 50 years ago by Edward Levi, who was then the president of the University of Chicago. Here are some thoughts from \”The University and the Modern Condition,\” which was delivered to the University of Chicago Citizen\’s Board on November 16, 1967, and reprinted in his 1969 collection Point of View: Talks on Education (magically available via Google Books). It is both comforting and disheartening that many of his comments could be delivered essentially unchanged by a speaker a half-century later.

\”Our society is flooded with communications. The acceptance of myths and aphorisms is not a new phenomenon, of course. But the increase in the printed word, the rise in literacy, the development of new means of communication all give rise to new burdens as well as opportunities. George Bernard Shaw had over his fireplace the motto, `They say. What say they? Let them say.\’ Instead of this skepticism, we ask: `How often do they say it?\’ and `How many say it?\’ The test of an idea becomes the frequency with which it is repeated. This is not a test which promotes rational discussion. It is a setting in which the waves and tides of popular thought, the acceptance of a false inevitability as to points of view, have magnified importance. It is a climate, and this is particularly true in matters dealing with education, where it is axiomatic that any poor idea will be catching. Popular discussion has never been enough, and it is tragic for a society if that is all the discussion there is.

\”Rational discussion itself is suspect. Our society is fascinated with the manipulative techniques of persuasion, coercion, and power. The sense of injustice, which all must prize, is subject to manipulation. The devastating reality and complexity of the problems to be faced, the unattainability of goals, and, tragically, even progress made–all feed the sense of injustice. The solutions call for the highest intellectual powers of man, but the excitement of victories, the frustrations of defeat, the comradeship of belonging, question these powers. The concept of reason itself appears as an artificial attempt to separate intellectual powers from the frustrations, emotions, and accidents which cause events; the concept of reason is viewed as a facade to prevent change. …

\”The position has been taken more than once that the purpose of a university is to be in effect a launching pad for a variety of political movements. … [T]he temptation to view students as an interesting resource is great. The response of universities to the characteristics of our era must take into account the purposes of universities and the kinds of contributions they can make. Universities are among the important institutions in our society, but there are other important institutions. … The fact that there is an unmet need does not mean that a university is best equipped to take it on. …

\”Perhaps, then, one should ask, `What is the service of this university?\’ The answer is traditional and old-fashioned. Its greatest service is in its commitment to reason, in its search for basic knowledge, in its mission to preserve and to give continuity to the values of mankind\’s many cultures. In a time when the intellectual values are denigrated, this service was never more required. …  The university\’s role is not based on a conception of neutrality or indifference to society\’s problems, but an approach to the problems through the only strength which a university is entitled to assert. It is a conservative role because it values cultures and ideas, and reaffirms the basic commitment to reason. It is revolutionary because of its compulsion to discover and to know. It is modest because it recognizes that the difficulties are great and the standards demanding.\” 

But I recently ran into the origin of the saying, and it turns out that the saying was not intended as a defense of of newspapers, but rather as part of an ironic and sarcastic commentary about the news media overreaching into private affairs, pretending to be more knowledgable than they are, and acting as judge and jury. The phrase comes from a 1902 essay titled \”Newspaper Publicity\” by Finley Peter Dunne, who gained considerable fame in his time by writing as \”Mr. Dooley\”–a made-up character who was the prototypical Everyman speaking truth to power, and doing so in a heavy-handed and over-the-top Irish dialect. Here\’s the relevant passage from Observations by Mr. Dooley (1902):

Th\’ newspaper is watchin\’ most iv us fr\’m th\’ cradle to th\’ grave an\’ befure an\’ afther. Whin I was a la-ad thrippin\’ continted over th\’ bogs iv Roscommon ne\’er an iditor knew iv me existence nor I iv his. … Nowadays th\’ larceny is discovered be a newspa-aper. Th\’ lead pipe is dug up in ye\’er back yard be a rayporther who knew it was there because he helped ye bury it. A man knocks at ye\’er dure arly wan mornin\’ an\’ ye answer in ye\’er nighty. `In th\’ name iv th law I arrist ye,\’ says th\’ man seizin\’ ye be th\’ throat. `Who ar-re ye, ye cry?\’  `I\’m a rayporther f\’r th\’ Daily Slooth.\’ says he. `Photty grafter, do ye\’er jooty.\’ Ye\’re hauled off in th\’ circylation wagon to th\’ newspaper office, where a con-fission is ready f\’r ye to sign; ye\’re thried be a jury iv th\’ staff, sintinced be th\’ iditor-in-chief an\’ at tin o-clock Friday th\’ fatal thrap is sprung be th\’ fatal thrapper iv th\’ fam\’ly journal.

Th\’ newspaper does ivrything f\’r us. It runs th\’ polis foorce an\’ th\’ banks, commands th\’ milishy,  conthrols th\’ ligislachure, baptizes th\’ young, marries th\’ foolish, comforts th\’ afflicted, afflicts th\’ comfortable, buries th\’ dead an roasts thim aftherward. They ain t annything it don\’t turn its hand to fr\’m explainin\’ th\’ docthrine iv thransubstantiation to composin\’ saleratus biskit.  Ye can get anny kind iv information ye want to in ye\’er fav\’rite newspaper about ye\’ersilf or annywan else. What th\’ Czar whispered to th\’  Imp\’ror Willum whin they were alone. how to make a silk hat out iv a wire matthress, how to settle th\’ coal sthrike, who to marry, how to get on with ye\’er wife whin ye\’re married, what to feed th\’ babies, what doctor to call whin ye\’ve fed thim as directed,–all iv that ye\’ll find in th\’ pa-apers.

They used to say a man\’s life was a closed book. So it is but it\’s an open newspaper. Th\’ eye iv th\’ press is on ye befure ye begin to take notice. Th\’ iditor obsarves th\’ stork hoverin\’ over th\’ roof iv 2978 B Ar-rchey Road an th\’ article he writes about it has a wink in it. `Son an\’ heir arrives f\’r th\’ Hon\’rable Malachi Hinnissy,\’ says th\’ pa-aper befure ye \’ve finished th\’ dhrink with th\’ doctor.\” 

The media people who have repeated the slogan of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable might reflect on the irony of repurposing an attack on the media to serve as a defense of the media.

The article does not seem especially well-known today, but it is the source of a couple of the most common quotations from Charles Dickens about \”political economy,\” as the study of economics was usually called at the time. Early in the piece, Dickens wrote: \”\”Political Economy was a great and useful science in its own way and its own place; but … I did not transplant my definition of it from the Common Prayer Book, and make it a great king above all gods.\” Later in the article, Dickens wrote: \”[P]olitical economy is a mere skeleton unless it has a little human covering and filling out, a little human bloom upon it, and a little human warmth in it.\”

But more broadly, the article is of interest because Dickens, telling the story in the first person, takes the position that in thinking about a strike taking place in the town of Preston, one need not take the side either of management or labor. Instead, Dickens writes, one may \”be a friend to both,\” and feel that the strike is \”to be deplored on all accounts.\” Of course, the problem with a middle-of-the-road position is that you can end up being hit by ideological traffic going in both directions. But the ability of Dickens to sympathize with people in a wide range of positions is surely part what gives his novels and his world-view such lasting power. The article goes into a fair amount of detail, and can be read on-line, so I will content myself here with a substantial excerpt. [Note: A version of this article first ran at this blog during in December 2014.]

Here\’s a portion of the 1854 essay by Dickens:

\”ON STRIKE\”

Travelling down to Preston a week from this date, I chanced to sit opposite to a very acute, very determined, very emphatic personage, with a stout railway rug so drawn over his chest that he looked as if he were sitting up in bed with his great coat, hat, and gloves on, severely contemplating your humble servant from behind a large blue and grey checked counterpane. In calling him emphatic, I do
not mean that he was warm; he was coldly and bitingly emphatic as a frosty wind is.

\”You are going through to Preston, sir?\” says he, as soon as we were clear of the
Primrose Hill tunnel.

The receipt of this question was like the receipt of a jerk of the nose; he was so short and sharp.

\”Yes.\”

\”This Preston strike is a nice piece of business!\” said the gentleman. \”A pretty piece of business!\”

\”It is very much to be deplored,\” said I, \”on all accounts.\”

\”They want to be ground. That\’s what they want to bring \’em to their senses,\” said the gentleman; whom I had already began to call in my own mind Mr. Snapper, and whom I may as well call by that name here as by any other. *

I deferentially enquired, who wanted to be ground?

\”The hands,\” said Mr. Snapper. \” The hands on strike, and the hands who help \’em.\”

I remarked that if that was all they wanted, they must be a very unreasonable people, for surely they had had a little grinding, one way and another, already. Mr. Snapper eyed me with sternness, and after opening and shutting his leathern-gloved hands several times outside his counterpane, asked me
abruptly, \” Was I a delegate?\”

I set Mr. Snapper right on that point, and told him I was no delegate.

\”I am glad to hear it,\” said Mr. Snapper. \”But a friend to the Strike, I believe?\”

\”Not at all,\” said I.

\”A friend to the Lock-out?\” pursued Mr. Snapper.

\”Not in the least,\” said I,

Mr. Snapper\’s rising opinion of me fell again, and he gave me to understand that a man must either be a friend to the Masters or a friend to the Hands.

\”He may be a friend to both,\” said I.

Mr. Snapper didn\’t see that; there was no medium in the Political Economy of the subject. I retorted on Mr. Snapper, that Political Economy was a great and useful science in its own way and its own place; but that I did not transplant my definition of it from the Common Prayer Book, and make it a great king above all gods. Mr. Snapper tucked himself up as if to keep me off, folded his arms on the top of his counterpane, leaned back and looked out of the window.

\”Pray what would you have, sir,\” enquire Mr. Snapper, suddenly withdrawing his eyes from the prospect to me, \”in the relations between Capital and Labour, but Political Economy?\”

I always avoid the stereotyped terms in these discussions as much as I can, for I have observed, in my little way, that they often supply the place of sense and moderation. I therefore took my gentleman up with the words employers and employed, in preference to Capital and Labour.

\”I believe,\” said I, \”that into the relations between employers and employed, as into all the relations of this life, there must enter something of feeling and sentiment; something of mutual explanation, forbearance, and consideration; something which is not to be found in Mr. M\’CulIoch\’s dictionary, and is not exactly stateable in figures; otherwise those relations are wrong and rotten at the core and will never bear sound fruit.\”

Mr. Snapper laughed at me. As I thought I had just as good reason to laugh at Mr. Snapper, I did so, and we were both contented. …

Mr. Snapper had no doubt, after this, that I thought the hands had a right to combine?

\”Surely,\” said I. \” A perfect right to combine in any lawful manner. The fact of their being able to combine and accustomed to combine may, I can easily conceive, be a protection to them. The blame even of this business is not all on one side. I think the associated Lock-out was a grave error. And
when you Preston masters—\”

\”I am not a Preston master,\” interrupted Mr. Snapper.

\”When the respectable combined body of Preston masters,\” said I, \” in the beginning of this unhappy difference, laid down the principle that no man should be employed henceforth who belonged to any combination—such as their own—they attempted to carry with a high hand a partial and unfair impossibility, and were obliged to abandon it. This was an unwise proceeding, and the first defeat.\”

Mr. Snapper had known, all along, that I was no friend to the masters.

\”Pardon me,\” said I; \” I am unfeignedly a friend to the masters, and have many friends among them.\”

\”Yet you think these hands in the right?\” quoth Mr. Snapper.

\”By no means,\” said I; \” I fear they are at present engaged in an unreasonable struggle, wherein they began ill and cannot end well.\”

Mr. Snapper, evidently regarding me as neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, begged to know after a pause if he might enquire whether I was going to Preston on business?

Indeed I was going there, in my unbusinesslike manner, I confessed, to look at the strike.

\”To look at the strike!\” echoed Mr. Snapper fixing his hat on firmly with both hands. \”To look at it! Might I ask you now, with what object you are going to look at it?\”

\”Certainly,\” said I. \” I read, even in liberal pages, the hardest Political Economy—of an extraordinary description too sometimes, and certainly not to be found in the books—as the only touchstone of this strike. I see, this very day in a to-morrow\’s liberal paper, some astonishing novelties in the politico-economical way, showing how profits and wages have no connexion whatever; coupled with such references to these hands as might be made by a very irascible General to rebels and brigands in arms. Now, if it be the case that some of the highest virtues of the working people still shine through them brighter than ever in their conduct of this mistake of theirs, perhaps the fact may reasonably suggest to me—and to others besides me—that there is some little things wanting in the relations between them and their employers, which neither political economy nor Drum-head proclamation writing will altogether supply, and which we cannot too soon or too temperately unite in trying to
find out.\”

Mr. Snapper, after again opening and shutting his gloved hands several times, drew the counterpane higher over his chest, and went to bed in disgust. He got up at Rugby, took himself and counterpane into another carriage, and left me to pursue my journey alone. …

In any aspect in which it can be viewed, this strike and lock-out is a deplorable calamity. In its waste of time, in its waste of a great people\’s energy, in its waste of wages, in its waste of wealth that seeks to be employed, in its encroachment on the means of many thousands who are labouring from day
to day, in the gulf of separation it hourly deepens between those whose interests must be understood to be identical or must be destroyed, it is a great national affliction. But, at this pass, anger is of no use, starving out is of no use—for what will that do, five years hence, but overshadow all the mills in
England with the growth of a bitter remembrance? —political economy is a mere skeleton unless it has a little human covering and filling out, a little human bloom upon it, and a little human warmth in it. Gentlemen are found, in great manufacturing towns, ready enough to extol imbecile mediation with dangerous madmen abroad; can none of them be brought to think of authorised mediation
and explanation at home? I do not suppose that such a knotted difficulty as this, is to be at all untangled by a morning-party in the Adelphi; but I would entreat both sides now so miserably opposed, to consider whether there are no men in England above suspicion, to whom they might refer the matters in dispute, with a perfect confidence above all things in the desire of those men to act justly, and in their sincere attachment to their countrymen of every rank and to their country.

Charles Dickens wrote what has become one of the iconic stories of Christmas day and Christmas spirit in A Christmas Carol. But of course, the experiences of Ebenezer Scrooge are a story, not a piece of reporting. Here\’s a piece by Dickens written for the weekly journal Household Words that he edited from 1850 to 1859. It\’s from the issue of January 26, 1856, with his first-person reporting on \”A Nightly Scene in London.\” Poverty in high-income countries is no longer as ghastly as in Victorian England, but for those who take the time to see it in our own time and place, surely it is ghastly enough.

Economists might also wince just a bit at the reaction of some economists to poverty, who Dickens calls \”the unreasonable disciples of a reasonable school.\” Dickens writes: \”I know that the unreasonable disciples of a reasonable school, demented disciples who push arithmetic and political economy beyond all bounds of sense (not to speak of such a weakness as humanity), and hold them to be all-sufficient for every case, can easily prove that such things ought to be, and that no man has any business to mind them. Without disparaging those indispensable sciences in their sanity, I utterly renounce and abominate them in their insanity …\” [Note: A version of this post first appeared on Christmas Day 2014.] Here\’s Dickens:

A NIGHTLY SCENE IN LONDON

On the fifth of last November, I, the Conductor of this journal, accompanied by a friend well-known to the public, accidentally strayed into Whitechapel. It was a miserable evening; very dark, very muddy, and raining hard.

There are many woful sights in that part of London, and it has been well-known to me in most of its aspects for many years. We had forgotten the mud and rain in slowly walking along and looking about us, when we found ourselves, at eight o\’clock, before the Workhouse.

Crouched against the wall of the Workhouse, in the dark street, on the muddy pavement-stones, with the rain raining upon them, were five bundles of rags. They were motionless, and had no resemblance to the human form. Five great beehives, covered with rags— five dead bodies taken out of graves, tied neck and heels, and covered with rags— would have looked like those five bundles upon which the rain rained down in the public street.

\”What is this! \” said my companion. \”What is this!\”

\”Some miserable people shut out of the Casual Ward, I think,\” said I.

We had stopped before the five ragged mounds, and were quite rooted to the spot by their horrible appearance. Five awful Sphinxes by the wayside, crying to every passer-by, \” Stop and guess! What is to be the end of a state of society that leaves us here!\”

As we stood looking at them, a decent working-man, having the appearance of a stone-mason, touched me on the shoulder.

\”This is an awful sight, sir,\” said he, \”in a Christian country!\”

\”GOD knows it is, my friend,\” said I.

\”I have often seen it much worse than this, as I have been going home from my work. I have counted fifteen, twenty, five-and-twenty, many a time. It\’s a shocking thing to see.\”

\”A shocking thing, indeed,\” said I and my companion together. The man lingered near
us a little while, wished us good-night, and went on.

We should have felt it brutal in us who had a better chance of being heard than the working-man, to leave the thing as it was, so we knocked at the Workhouse Gate. I undertook to be spokesman. The moment the gate was opened by an old pauper, I went in, followed close by my companion. I lost no
time in passing the old porter, for I saw in his watery eye a disposition to shut us out.

\”Be so good as to give that card to the master of the Workhouse, and say I shall be glad to speak to him for a moment.\”

We were in a kind of covered gateway, and the old porter went across it with the card. Before he had got to a door on our left, a man in a cloak and hat bounced out of it very sharply, as if he were in the nightly habit of being bullied and of returning the compliment.

\”Now, gentlemen,\” said he in a loud voice, \”what do you want here?\”

\”First,\” said I, \” will you do me the favor to look at that card in your hand. Perhaps you may know my name.\”

\”Yes,\” says he, looking at it. \” I know this name.\”

\”Good. I only want to ask you a plain question in a civil manner, and there is not the least occasion for either of us to be angry. It would be very foolish in me to blame you, and I don\’t blame you. I may
find fault with the system you administer, but pray understand that I know you are here to do a duty pointed out to you, and that I have no doubt you do it. Now, I hope you won\’t object to tell me what I want to know.\”

\”No,\” said he, quite mollified, and very reasonable, \” not at all. What is it?\”

\”Do you know that there are five wretched creatures outside?\”

\”I haven\’t seen them, but I dare say there are.\”

\”Do you doubt that there are?\”

\”No, not at all. There might be many more.\”

\’\’Are they men? Or women?\”

\”Women, I suppose. Very likely one or two of them were there last night, and the night before last.\”

\”There all night, do you mean?\”

\”Very likely.\”

My companion and I looked at one another, and the master of the Workhouse added quickly, \”Why, Lord bless my soul, what am I to do? What can I do ? The place is full. The place is always full—every night. I must give the preference to women with children, mustn\’t I? You wouldn\’t have me not do that?\”

\”Surely not,\” said I. \”It is a very humane principle, and quite right; and I am glad to hear of it. Don\’t forget that I don\’t blame you.\”

\”Well!\” said he. And subdued himself again. …

\”Just so. I wanted to know no more. You have answered my question civilly and readily, and I am much obliged to you. I have nothing to say against you, but quite the contrary. Good night!\”

\”Good night, gentlemen!\” And out we came again.

We went to the ragged bundle nearest to the Workhouse-door, and I touched it. No movement replying, I gently shook it. The rags began to be slowly stirred within, and by little and little a head was unshrouded. The head of a young woman of three or four and twenty, as I should judge; gaunt with want, and foul with dirt; but not naturally ugly.

\”Tell us,\” said I, stooping down. \”Why are you lying here?\”

\”Because I can\’t get into the Workhouse.\”

She spoke in a faint dull way, and had no curiosity or interest left. She looked dreamily at the black sky and the falling rain, but never looked at me or my companion.

\”Were you here last night?\”

\”Yes, All last night. And the night afore too.\”

\”Do you know any of these others?\”

\”I know her next but one. She was here last night, and she told me she come out of Essex. I don\’t know no more of her.\”

\”You were here all last night, but you have not been here all day?\”

\”No. Not all day.\”

\”Where have you been all day?\”

\”About the streets.\”

\’\’What have you had to eat?\”

\”Nothing.\”

\”Come!\” said I. \”Think a little. You are tired and have been asleep, and don\’t quite consider what you are saying to us. You have had something to eat to-day. Come! Think of it!\”

\”No I haven\’t. Nothing but such bits as I could pick up about the market. Why, look at me!\”

She bared her neck, and I covered it up again.

\”If you had a shilling to get some supper and a lodging, should you know where to get it?\”

\”Yes. I could do that.\”

\”For GOD\’S sake get it then!\”

I put the money into her hand, and she feebly rose up and went away. She never thanked me, never looked at me— melted away into the miserable night, in the strangest manner I ever saw. I have seen many strange things, but not one that has left a deeper impression on my memory than the dull impassive way in which that worn-out heap of misery took that piece of money, and was lost.

One by one I spoke to all the five. In every one, interest and curiosity were as extinct as in the first. They were all dull and languid. No one made any sort of profession or complaint; no one cared to look at me; no one thanked me. When I came to the third, I suppose she saw that my companion
and I glanced, with a new horror upon us, at the two last, who had dropped against each other in their sleep, and were lying like broken images. She said, she believed they were young sisters. These were the only words that were originated among the five.

And now let me close this terrible account with a redeeming and beautiful trait of the poorest of the poor. When we came out of the Workhouse, we had gone across the road to a public house, finding ourselves without silver, to get change for a sovereign. I held the money in my hand while I was speaking to the five apparitions. Our being so engaged, attracted the attention of many people of the very poor sort usual to that place; as we leaned over the mounds of rags, they eagerly leaned over us to see and hear; what I had in my hand, and what I said, and what I did, must have been plain to nearly all the concourse. When the last of the five had got up and faded away, the spectators opened to let us pass; and not one of them, by word, or look, or gesture, begged of us.

Many of the observant faces were quick enough to know that it would have been a relief to us to have got rid of the rest of the money with any hope of doing good with it. But, there was a feeling among them all, that their necessities were not to be placed by the side of such a spectacle; and they opened a
way for us in profound silence, and let us go.

My companion wrote to me, next day, that the five ragged bundles had been upon his bed all night. I debated how to add our testimony to that of many other persons who from time to time are impelled to write to the newspapers, by having come upon some shameful and shocking sight of this description. I resolved to write in these pages an exact account of what we had seen, but to
wait until after Christmas, in order that there might be no heat or haste. I know that the unreasonable disciples of a reasonable school, demented disciples who push arithmetic and political economy beyond all bounds of sense (not to speak of such a weakness as humanity), and hold them to be all-
sufficient for every case, can easily prove that such things ought to be, and that no man has
any business to mind them. Without disparaging those indispensable sciences in their sanity, I utterly renounce and abominate them in their insanity; and I address people with a respect for the spirit of the New Testament, who do mind such things, and who think them infamous in our streets.

My family always had real Christmas trees when I was growing up. I\’ve always had real trees as an adult. Living in my own little bubble, it thus came as a shock to me to learn that, of the households that have Christmas trees, over 80% use an artificial tree, according to Nielsen survey results commissioned by the American Christmas Tree Association (which largely represents sellers of artificial trees). But in a holiday season where the focus is often on whether we are naughty or nice, what choice of tree has greater environmental impact?

There seem to be two main studies often quoted on this subject: \”Comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Artificial vs. Natural Christmas Tree,\” published by a Montreal-based consulting firm called ellipsos in February 2009, and\”Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of an Artificial Christmas Tree and a Natural Christmas Tree,\” published in November 2010 by a Boston consulting firm called PE Americas on behalf of the aforementioned American Christmas Tree Association.Both studies assume the artificial tree is manufactured in China and transported to North America. (If readers know of other recent published studies, please send me a link!)

(Note: This post first appeared on December 24, 2012. It has been slightly edited since then.)

Here are some of the main messages I take away from these studies:

1) One artificial tree used for one year has greater environmental impact than one natural tree. However, an artificial tree can also be re-used over a number of years. Thus, there is some crossover point, if the artificial tree is used for long enough, that its environmental effect is less than an annual series of trees. For example, the ellipsos study finds that an artificial tree would need to be used for 20 years before its greenhouse gas effects would be less than those of an annual series of natural trees. The PE Americas study offers a wide range of scenarios, and summarizes, but here is the situation \”for the base case when individual car transport distance for tree purchase is 2.5 miles each way. Because the natural tree provides an environmental benefit in terms of Global Warming Potential when landfilled, and Eutrophication Potential when composted or incinerated, there is no number of years one can keep an artificial tree in order to match the natural tree impacts in these cases. … For all other scenarios, the artificial tree has less impact provided it is kept and reused for a minimum between 2 and 9 years, depending upon the environmental indicator chosen.\”

2) The full analysis needs to look at effects across all the full life-cycle of the tree, whether natural or artificial. This seems to involve the following steps.

Under what conditions is the tree manufactured or cultivated, with what use of energy, fertilizer, and logging methods? By what combination of transportation mechanisms is the finished tree moved to the home? A substantial share of artificial trees are manufactured in China and then shipped to North America. What are the different issues in use of the tree, including use of water and emissions of fumes? What is the end-of-life for the tree? For example, the carbon in a natural tree will be stored for some decades if the tree goes into a landfill, but not if if is composted or incinerated.

3) The full analysis also needs to look at a range of possible effects. For example, the PE America study looked at \”global warming potential (carbon footprint), primary energy demand, acidification potential, eutrophication potential, and smog potential.\” Here\’s a figure showing 14 categories of analysis from the ellipsos study, with a comparison between natural and artificial trees on a number of dimensions.

The ellipsos study sums up this way: \”When aggregating the data in damage categories, the results show that the impacts for human health are approximately equivalent for both trees, that the impact for ecosystem quality are much better for the artificial tree, that the impacts for climate change are much better for the natural tree, and that the impacts for resources are better for the natural tree …\”

4) In the context of many other holiday and everyday activities, the environmental effects of the tree are small. The studies offer some comparisons of the environmental effects of the tree compared with the electricity used to light the tree, the driving by a household to pick up the tree, and even the environmental effect of the tree stand.

For example, in comparing Primary Energy Demand for the tree and the energy demand for lighting the tree. For an artificial tree, the PE Americas study reports: \”The electricity consumption during use of 400 incandescent Christmas tree lights during one Christmas season is 55% of the overall Primary Energy Demand impact of the unlit artificial tree studied, assuming the worst‐case scenario that the artificial tree is used only one year. For artificial trees kept 5 and 10 years respectively, the PED for using incandescent lights is 2.8 times and 5.5 times that of the artificial tree life cycle.\” For a natural tree: \”The life cycle Primary Energy Demand impact of the natural tree is 1.5 ‐ 3.5 times less (based on the End‐of‐Life scenario) than the use of 400 incandescent Christmas tree lights during one Christmas season.\”

In comparing the environmental effects of driving with those of the tree, ellipsos writes: \”Due to the uncertainties of CO2 sequestration and distance between the point of purchase of the trees and the customer’s house, the environmental impacts of the natural tree can become worse. For instance, customers who travel over 16 km from their house to the store (instead of 5 km) to buy a natural tree would be better off with an artificial tree. … [C]arpooling or biking to work only one to three weeks per year would offset the carbon emissions from both types of Christmas trees.\”

The PE Americas report strikes a similar theme: \”Initially, global warming potential (GWP) for the landfilled natural tree is negative, in other words the life cycle of a landfilled natural tree that is a GWP sink. Therefore, the more natural trees purchased, the greater the environmental global warming benefit (the more negative GWP becomes). However, with increased transport to pick up the natural tree, the overall landfilled natural tree life cycled becomes less negative. When car transport becomes greater than 5 miles (one‐way), the overall life cycle of the natural tree is no longer negative, and there is a positive GWP contribution.\”

Even the tree stand for a natural tree has an environmental cost that can be considered in the same breath with the costs of a natural tree. PE Americas: \”The tree stand is a significant contributor to the overall impact of the natural tree life cycle with impacts ranging from 3% to 41% depending on the impact category and End‐of‐Life disposal option.\”

I would add that the environment effect of the ornaments on the trees may be as large or greater than the effect of the tree itself. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that America imported $1 billion in Christmas tree ornaments from China (the leading supplier) between January to September 2012, but only $140 million worth of artificial Christmas trees. Thus, spending on ornaments is something like six times as high as spending on trees. The choice of what kind of lights on the tree, or whether to drape the house and front yard with lights, is a considerably more momentous environmental decision than the tree itself.

Of course, these kinds of comparisons don\’t even try to compare the environmental cost of the tree with the cost of the presents under the tree, or the long-distance travel to attend a family gathering. Thus, the PE Americas study concludes: \”Consumers who wish to celebrate the holidays with a Christmas tree should do so knowing that the overall environmental impacts of both natural and artificial trees are extremely small when compared to other daily activities such as driving a car. Neither natural nor artificial Christmas tree purchases constitute a significant environmental impact within most American lifestyles.\” Similarly, ellipsos writes: \”Although the dilemma between the natural and artificial Christmas trees will continue to surface every year before Christmas, it is now clear from this LCA study that, regardless of the chosen type of tree, the impacts on the environment are negligible compared to other activities, such as car use.\”

Certainly, celebrations at holidays and big events can sometimes be exorbitant and over the top. But the use of a Christmas tree, and the choice between a natural tree or an artificial tree, is a small-scale luxury. If the environmental issue is bothering you, even knowing these facts, make a resolution to use your artificial tree for a few more years, rather than replacing it, or to save some energy in January by driving less or being more vigilant about turning off unneeded lights. Gathering around the tree should be one less reason for moralizing around the holidays, not one more. So celebrate with good cheer and generous moderation.

Throughout my lifetime, China has been the most populous country in the world. But India has nearly caught up, and should overtake China in the next year or so.

Here\’s a figure of population totals for the two countries. Back in 1970, China\’s population was 818 million, while India\’s was 553 million. By 2000, the gap had narrowed to \”only\” 150 million or so, with China\’s population of 1,262 million and India\’s of 1,053 million. By 2016, the gap was down to about 60 million, with 1,378 million in China and 1,324 million in India.

Population growth rates have slowed substantially in both China and India, but India\’s population growth rate has been higher since the mid-1970s (after China adopted an extremely aggressive family planning program in the early 1970s). The population growth rates have converged somewhat, but India\’s annual rate of population growth remains about 0.5% per year higher, so it closes the population gap by about 6-7 million people each year. In about a decade, India\’s total population will overtake that of China.

The total population figures mask another difference: China is aging much more rapidly than India. For example, here\’s a figure showing the \”age dependency\” ratio, which is calculated as the number of elderly divided by the working population. Thus, in China the age-dependency ratio has already reached 14% and is rising sharply, while in India it is at 8% and rising more slowly.

As the saying goes, China seems likely to face the problem of getting old without first having become rich. For India, the key question is how to help its large and growing working-age population be economically productive, before India\’s age-dependency ratio rises, too.