In his important recent book Treading Softly – Paths to Ecological Order (see my earlier post on it) — Thomas Princen distinguishes among four “worldviews” in relation to the environment, that is, four different ways of “perceiving and conceiving and making sense of one’s world” (pg 164) within what he terms “the current industrial, commercial and expansionist order”. They are the “naturist, agrarian, mechanistic and economistic” worldviews, respectively.
Briefly, the “naturist” worldview conceives of the “environment” as everything that would be there even if there were no humans and its scope-limits are subatomic particles, on the one hand, and the entire universe on the other. Importantly, the “archetypal actors” of this worldview (biologists, chemists and physicists) typically generate knowledge needed for sound ecological practice, although their emphasis is not on practice.
For the “mechanistic” worldview, by contrast, the environment consists of a “system of interlocking pieces”, from atoms to water, organisms and minerals. As the name indicates, it supposes all of these to function like a machine and one which can, if necessary, be rebuilt and improved. In other words, according to this worldview virtually everything, from rivers to plants and mountains, can be manipulated, (re-)arranged and “managed” (one of the key-words of our era, with its built-in conceit that everything is “controllable”.) for human use. According to Princen the “archetypal actors” are “engineers, planners and architects” (pg 166).
The “agrarian” worldview has something in common with the mechanistic one, in so far as it is predicated on the ability to intervene in the environment (from water, soil, wheat, fruit and livestock to fish) and manipulate it for human benefit, except that here the knowledge to do so issues from agrarians’ and their communities’ practice. It also shares something with the “naturist” worldview, namely its tendency towards a holistic grasp of things and its long-term temporal focus, unlike the comparatively shorter-term approach of the mechanistic worldview. Here the actor archetypes are fishers, loggers and farmers (pg 166).
The “economistic” worldview also construes the environment in material terms but it is not concerned with it in its entirety, like the naturalist, mechanistic or agrarian worldviews (even if the latter always focuses on the natural environment “on a limited scale”). Its scope is restricted to the world of “human exchange, of producing and consuming … products and services are of interest, not atoms, molecules and energy, let alone living systems” (pg 167). These last words, “let alone living systems” are of crucial importance. But first Princen must be quoted further (pg 167):
“And it is all about transaction, about buying and selling, investing, pricing, retailing and purchasing. It is, above all, about the clearing of markets and the efficient allocation of resources, physical and human. Its field of view stretches from one side of the input-output model, where raw material enters production, to the other, where wastes exit — that is, from sources to sinks. If either sources or sinks become scarce, rising prices via the market stimulate new sources, new sinks, and substitutes. Its focus, therefore, is price. Its temporal scale is short-term, even instantaneous; it systematically discounts the future … and ignores the past. Archetypal actors are economists, planners, policy analysts, and investors.”
Princen adds that the economistic worldview of the (material) environment “has no natural or ecological component; everything of concern is reducible to money or hypothetical ‘utiles’, and all is substitutable”. (In this belief the economistic worldview draws on the knowledge of the mechanistic one but for its own purposes.) Needless to stress (and as Princen points out), the naturist worldview stands in stark contrast to the economistic one, since it is guided by an interest in knowledge of the pristine natural world while the economistic worldview is essentially indifferent to nature as such — hence the phrase, “let alone living systems”, foregrounded earlier.
What is easily overlooked, however, is that an interest in such knowledge of nature — manifested, for example, in David Attenborough’s exemplary cinematic celebrations of nature in all her variegated splendour — reveals, concomitantly, that nature and her creatures, from insects and plants to animals of all varieties, and even humans (although some of this most dangerous species of predators do not return the favour), are intrinsically valued, and not merely as an “investment”, that is, as something that is “reducible to money”.
Of these four worldviews the economistic one is dominant at present, as Princen remarks — perhaps redundantly; as the saying goes, it is obvious “for everyone who has eyes to see”. And yet, not everyone has eyes to see this, and more importantly, to see what the consequences of its dominance are as far as that wide area which escapes its limited scope (and covered by the other three worldviews, especially the naturist worldview) is concerned. The consequences are nothing short of it blindly (because it does not form part of its limited purview) undermining the very foundation of life on the planet, through “for-profit” activities like deforestation, and via by-products of industrial production such as the acidification of the oceans via often highly toxic industrial emissions into the sea.
And if this systematic, blinkered pursuit of “financial wealth” (which is not really “wealth” in the encompassing sense, because it promotes the destruction of the conditions of life itself) is not enough, the very same economistic worldview is blind to, and worse, promotes, the ongoing destruction of living creatures worldwide. These range from animals like deer, bears, wolves, rhinos, tigers and lions, to sea mammals like whales and dolphins, all of which are mercilessly hunted for a variety of reasons (despite earlier wildlife-protective laws, in the US for instance), ranging from their “market value”, to the atavistic need, on the part of mindless macho hunters, for “trophies”.
Those among us who still have a modicum of sympathy, if not empathy, left for animals and plants, owe it to them, the planet and to ourselves to do whatever we can to stop this mindless destruction, which is implicitly sanctioned by “the economy”. After all, they are our relatives — as Carl Sagan points out in his television series (and book), Cosmos, an examination of the DNA of a tree will confirm that we share common genetic roots; in fact, all forms of life on earth do.
If you need some evidence of what I have argued above, have a look at the following — one a link to a video on a variety of unpardonable, destructive practices by people; the other to an article on the disappointing stance on the part of Barack Obama (in whom many of us, myself included, had such confidence when he was elected president of the US) regarding ecological concerns, specifically deep-sea drilling for oil, deforestation and wildlife.
@HD: Oops! Only saw the first half of your post after posting
My 2c on Rothbard’s appeal for a coalition with ‘the Left’ is that it’s as disingenuous as Trotskyists appealing for a coalition with anarchists (which happens annoyingly often).
And yes, of course Kinsella and some others are more ‘liberal’ and I like that some of them are against intellectual property, even if their arguments in this regard operate within the same paradigm I (and Bert) are critiquing.
@Garg: You say, “Graeber says currency did not originate with a barter trade to currency to credit pattern like Menger and Smith speculated, but followed a credit to barter to currency pattern.”
Not really, no. The ‘pattern’ is credit -> currency -> barter, actually, with barter not being a step in a sequence really, but an ad-hoc response to periods where currency is not available *in contexts where it was previously employed*.
And no, Graeber doesn’t discredit some vast field called ‘economics’; he simply draws attention to some of its more problematic aspects. And demonstrates the existence – historical, contemporary, possible – of qualitatively different alternatives.
But hey, perhaps if you actually read the book?
PS: I’m glad you’ve finally found new fap material in Gresham’s Law; I’m sure you were getting tired of Coase’s Theorem.
PPS: And yes, *that* was an ad hominem. Well spotted!
@Garg: Given the context (i.e., the exact-same context I pulled the quote from) pretty damn racist, I’d say. Saying that races differ in *talent* and *capability* is a pretty clear statement.
@Aragorn
“Scientists are calling it the sixth great extinction crisis.”
Good for them… so there have been 5 previous great extinction crises and yet here we are, live planet and all.
“I suspect it’s fair to say that we’re ‘killing the planet’ if we regard ‘the planet’ as shorthand for the rich ecosystemic diversity and range of species we currently share the planet with.”
It’s fair to say “I agree with you” if we regard “I agree with you” as shorthand for “well that’s entirely beside the point I was making, but I don’t actually have the time or inclination to argue with you”.
@Aragorn23:
It was I who claimed you don’t know what you’re talking about and that you love burning straw men, and you haven’t given any indication that you have a fundamental understanding of economics. In fact, it appears that you haven’t even read Graeber.
This is Graeber himself summarising his Debt (oh joy for condensed versions!). Where does it start? Bullion coins and markets that are not markets because they rely on credit, even though we’re trading goods and services for goods and services and using silver and grain as the standard for currency at the very first instance he mentions and credit merely means ‘I’ll give you your silver and grain at harvest time’, while the records are there.
Interesting, perhaps more so if that’s your kind of fapping material, more so if that represents fundamental economical problems to you. More interesting because this supposedly debunks the order of credit/barter/currency, yet starts with currency as an “Iron Age innovation — most likely, invented to pay mercenaries”. They must’ve been heavily indebted or seriously tired of bartering to accept bullion as payment? Like I’ve stated, the order is immaterial and does not present a fundamental economic problem.
@Havelock: You say, “so there have been 5 previous great extinction crises and yet here we are, live planet and all.”
Thanks for underscoring my point.
@Garg: No, actually I have read almost all of Graeber’s books (some of which I actually distribute – click on me to buy them). The few I haven’t read, like Direct Action: An Ethnography, are sitting on my partner’s shelf where I can flick through them with ease. I’ve also been on several mailing lists with the dude and shared a couple of beers with him a year or two back, but that’s just trivial anecdote, I suppose.
Anyway, what he’s actually trying to say in ‘Debt’ is that the State and the market are – in most readings – seen as towering above all else as diametrically opposed principles, whereas historical reality reveals that they were born together and have always been intertwined. The one thing that all these misconceived readings have in common, according to him, is that they tend to reduce all human relations to exchange, as if our ties to society, even to the cosmos itself, can be imagined in the same terms as a business deal.
He also critiques the Smithian view that humans, if left to their own devices, will inevitably begin swapping and comparing things and that this is just what humans do, reducing even logic and conversation to the logic of trade, wherein humans will always try to seek their own best advantage…to seek the greatest profit they can from each exchange.
@Garg: Another key argument in Debt is the *qualitative* distinction between human economies (that operate using social currencies) and market economies. If you can, it’s worth getting hold of the book just for this.
@Aragorn23:
How does Graeber explain bartering as it arose from Zimbabwe? Just a currency hangover? But wait! This market exists despite the state (those Neo-Luddites are taking great care of their environment?). Or how does he explain shell money? (I can’t see cowry or shell money in his links).
This does not present a problem to the Smithian view, as Smith states that the market without a state is a new notion (one the central points of Wealth of Nations, though Smith does not oppose the state).
Is Somalia suffering from a currency hangover too? Is Xeer a case of qualitative, social currency, but people buying Gucci sunglasses isn’t?
Left to our own devices, we’d easily opt for qualitative social currency, but somehow there is a distinction between markets and IOUs, which contrary to the economistic view are both in essence qualitative and social trade too (a point Smith makes very well). It’s just a difference means of tallying, but tallying alone does not make it quantitative (if it did, Graeber’s first example of debt falls on its face), and both confirm the idea that trading is part of human nature. Debt from an economic view is a medium of exchange. Credit is just deferred payment. Money just expresses the price but does not determine it.
@Aragorn23:
By the way, you are describing a rational agent (maximise profits, minimise losses), which is not the way Smith portrayed humans in trade. Smith’s notion is based on that of John Stuart Mill, who merely states that people will try to be the best they can be – they will try to gain the most they can reasonably gain, which evidently is not the case for the Occupy Wall Street movement? This merely means people act in their own interest, NOT that people are acting to maximise profit.
You are confusing Smith’s view with Homo economicus or rational agents, which relies on complete knowledge of an environment. Rational agents are used in artificial intelligence to make game AI, but isn’t the view held by Smith or the Austrian school about human behaviour (see saltwater and freshwater economists).
@Garg: *groan* For about the fifth time, I’m not confusing homo economicus with the view held by the Austrian school. I do grok this basic distinction – after all it forms part of the basis of their entire project!
No, what I’m critiquing is the Austrian Enlightenment humanist subject (and the subject of Mills); the same subject critiqued by the Frankfurt school and those dreaded poststructuralists.
Please try obtain a copy of Debt, even if it’s a PDF. It’s a bit silly having a detailed discussion about it when you haven’t read it!
Yes, I would not want to be painted as a racist. I am just always reminded of the comment by Steven Pinker in “How the Mind Works”, where he recalls how the political correct brigade changed their position on homosexuality once scientist connected a specific gene with homosexuality. Politics and ideology is everywhere…
Just take the latest post on Coordination Problem. Difficult to know how you get to some of your views on Austrians if you regularly read stuff like this:
http://www.coordinationproblem.org/2012/01/central-banking-and-knowledge-problems.html
@Garg
Yes, easy to shoot down the straw men especially when most of the stuff you read are built on these carrictures of classic economist and free market economist.
@Aragorn
Underscoring your point? Um, not really (or not intentionally anyway)…
Your point:
The view that we’re killing the planet is supposedly supported by scientists calling this the 6th great extinction event.
My response:
If there have been 5 previous great extinction events (apparently roughly equivalent to the supposed current one), and the planet is still alive, why would you think that supports the view that the 6th will kill the planet?
How does that underscore your point? Please elaborate… it’s possible that I’m not bright enough to understand straight away, so I’d appreciate some clarification.
One thing I have noticed though is that you completely avoided addressing the substance of my previous comment (Bert’s blaming the economic system rather than anything else) and attacked the incidental (a bit of pedantry in my part about being accurate in describing the problem). Trying to score cheap points, or unable to argue the substance?
@Havelock: You underscore my point by comparing the sixth extinction crisis to the last five in an attempt to diminish the importance Bert ascribes to it by referring to it as the ‘killing of the planet’. However, these first five extinction crises were the most massive, catastrophic shifts in the nature of life on the planet and thus, if we’re facing a sixth one, it warrants the gravest concern, not the absurdly dismissive plea of ‘oh well, microbes will survive’.
As for the substance of your previous comment, I don’t have a Marxist reductionist analysis and thus I don’t think that the economic system is the *only* cause of the compounded crises we face, although I do think it’s a reasonably obvious contributor. Instead, like Bert I suspect, I view the causes as resulting from a certain distribution of power – an extended kyriarchy, if you wish.
@HD & Garg: I’ve clarified my views yet you continue to respond as though I make no distinction between the fundamental assumptions of Austrian and mainstream economics. I tire of the back and forth and the pedantry though, so I’m done. If you’d like more, perhaps you can troll some of Ivo’s posts on the Daily Douche, or ask Leon Louw when the next climate denialist lobby group beerfest is (make sure to keep separate tabs for each satisficer – no splitting bills and strictly calculated tips, you hear!)
@Aragorn23:
Again, no. You said:
“He also critiques the Smithian view that humans, if left to their own devices, will inevitably begin swapping and comparing things and that this is just what humans do, reducing even logic and conversation to the logic of trade, wherein humans will always try to seek their own best advantage to seek the greatest profit they can from each exchange”.
You are conflating ‘seek their own best advantage’, or self-interest of Smith, with ‘seeking the greatest profit they can from each exchange’. Trade occurs because I have something you value more than I value it, subjectively. Thus, a central point is that trade is not quantitative, but qualitative, which Graeber confirms. Additionally, when people are left to their own devices, we see that they do trade. There is no nominal difference between Graeber’s debt and money as you can plainly see from Graeber’s description of debt and Rothbard’s description of money. They are the same qualitative social construct and serve the same social purpose, namely indirect exchange.
Rothbard states how quickly indirect exchange must have developed, given its advantages and social role. Again, Graeber offers no surprises. How is ‘Nice cow! I want it, IOU1!’ different from indirect exchange?
@HD:
So you’re saying that it’s easy to play cricket when you keep showing up with a soccer kit and keep shooting own goals in moving posts?
Dear Havelock – As you seem bent on entering the game here seriously, it generally helps to be aware that it is not so much that the goalposts are in a state of perpetual motion but that there are not any rules, no field and definitely nothing so restrictive as goalposts and never were and that even if there had been the term ‘goalposts’ would convey nothing more than a convention or sound as meaningful as the piping of a nocturnal frog though lacking that signal’s straightforwardness and uncontaminated passion for pure existence.
After that, it is all very instructive and useful, if not always thoroughly enjoyable.
@Garg: I suppose I should mention at this point that the post of mine you’re quoting from consists solely of quotes pulled pretty much verbatim from Debt.
Read the book, maybe?
@Garg: And, amazingly, Debt also contains a critique of the theory of the emergence of indirect exchange you linked to.
You’re hitting at balls that haven’t been bowled.
@HD: Here’s a brief aside:
I wasn’t going to respond to your gay gene thing, but I just can’t help myself. It must be in my genes. The research Pinker is referring to was challenged and retracted shortly after publication. The discussion continues and is a *lot* more nuanced than either he, or you, imply. Here’s a short summary of recent research: http://omim.org/entry/306995
Aragorn23 – We are on the same wavelength.
@Aragorn23:
Well done! You’re finally getting it. Debt criticises speculations concerning the emergence of money (which is a means of exchange, it does not matter whether it is cowry, gold coins or a tablet filled with IOUs). This should not be confused with a criticism of monetary systems, or a criticism of indirect exchange, or a description of ‘fundamental economical problems’, because economic theories do not rely on how money emerged, but on why.
Again, feel free to point out specifics and let’s get pedantic, because merely rejecting theories off-hand firstly does not constitute a critical assessment of them and secondly does not support the hollow claims that have an understanding of them. You’re not bowling any balls, you’re playing paddywack.
I provided you with a direct link to your ‘racist’ quotation of von Mises. Context means check what comes before that and check what comes after that, then perhaps reconsider your von Mises straw man. I also provided you with direct links to Graeber’s own summaries of his views, which is as good as I can manage considering that you don’t have his book in stock and the blurbs I’ve read fail to live up to the hype.
As Havelock mentioned, you keep shooting from the hip and you keep dodging the issues. Both shoes are off and I’m running out of toes.
You do realise that we are engaged in a voluntary, quantitative exchange here? No IOUs? So the score is Adam Smith 1 and David Graeber -1 in debt.
Er….do you mind me pointing out that the “European Debt Crisis” actually started in America with the rest of the world buying American debt (sub-prime loans) under the misapprehension they were assets, and guarenteed by the USA government?
And that the reason that Clinton came up with this crazy idea that the poor should have houses they could not afford to pay back was that, as a politician, he could not face telling his people the truth – that their labour was too expensive to compete with Asia!
@Garg: Debt is a criticism of both the how and the why. Apart from interrogating the usual economist myths of ‘how’ (origin myths derived from Smith and co., which anthropology finds no evidence for), Graeber also explores *why* money (and relations of exchange in general) emerged. His conclusions are rather different to what you might expect.
The direct link you provided to the Mises quotation is a link to exactly the same place I got it from. And yes, I did read what comes before and after. All of it. I understand that you find it perplexing that I’m reading the same words you are, in the same order, and yet seeing something rather different to what you’re seeing. I don’t think we’ll get past this point though: you’re probably convinced that I’m applying some sort of hermeneutic license in my reading and, I suspect, equally convinced that your reading is provably correct.
PS: It does appear that we’re out of stock of Debt. You’ll find the entire book online though, if you know where to look (which I’m sure you do). Alternatively, we’ll have more copies in by the end of the month. In the interim, why not peruse some of our other titles?
And now, you may have the last word if you so wish.
@Aragorn23:
“His conclusions are rather different to what you might expect”.
Feel free to present them.
“I understand that you find it perplexing that I’m reading the same words you are, in the same order, and yet seeing something rather different to what you’re seeing”.
In context, it becomes clear that von Mises presents the pseudo-scientific race theories of the time, then proceeds to state that i) they’ve been debunked time and again (he mentions cranial index) and ii) that even if talent etc differ on aggregate, there is still much to be gained by both the more talented and the least talented races by voluntary exchange in a market (your quote, referring to a qualitative trade whereby each party gains).
Furthermore, from the Darwinism section: “In society there is no struggle for existence. It is a grave error to suppose that the logically developed social theory of liberalism could lead to any other conclusion”.
From the Conflict and Competition section: “Since all men are equal, they are supposed to have a natural claim to be treated as members of society with full rights, and, because everybody has a natural right to live, it would be a violation of right to try to take his life. Thus are formulated the postulates of the all-inclusiveness of society, of equality within society, and of peace”.
I could go on, but apparently you’ve read it?
It’s not about the last word, it’s about your failure to present arguments and offering empty…
@Aragorn
Interesting link. Thanks. I don’t really care that much if it is nature/nature – I am cool with “it” either way. The reason a brought this up was that Pinker commented on how the political correct crowd always denied genetic explanations for why humans were naturally violent, sexual, have races difference etc. – preffering to ascribe it to nuture (socialisation, culture, socio-economic circumstances). This of course meant that with the right intervention human behaviour can be altered and of course you can see why that would be politically appealing. Any way, Pinker commented on how these same academics (mostly sociologist and other social scientist) quickly embraced the gene theory of homosexuality because it gave them more pc cover.
@Aragorn
Thanks for clarifying. As I said though, it’s the pedant in me coming up and shouting about accuracy, and it’s also my way of expressing my view that we’re not so special as a species that we should get away with the arrogance of describing a human-habitable environment as the criteria for a “living planet”. Sure, a 6th great extinction event would be a tragedy, but frankly to me it’s just the natural progression in the cycle of a dominant species overreaching itself… I suppose many would think that humanity should be above this kind of thing, but in all honesty we’re just too stupid as a species right now to really have any chance of long-term success.
And here let me reiterate what I’ve said before: the more intelligent of the human race understand how little they know. This makes them ineffective as leaders, particularly in a democracy (autocracy brings other, more challenging problems), because your average Joe wants a leader who says “Yes We Can” and is dumb enough to believe it, rather than someone who says “actually I’m not sure, but this looks like it might be a promising idea, although it’s likely that I’m wrong”. So the “Yes We Can” leaders implement idiocy on a massive scale, causing enormous damage. This is another reason I favour severely limited government on as local a scale as possible, enforcing nothing but freedom from coercion… that way, mistakes are small, damage is limited, and lessons can be learned on a…
@Paul Whelan
Everyone is very quick to point out the evils of capitalism and the economists view – including myself. But let me ask you this: Do you have savings in the bank, do you have a pension, do you use a vehicle, do you optimise your money, do you buy from foreign retailers, do you spend money of unnatural goods (eg technologies), do you earn a salary and spend it on yourself and family only.
If you can answer yes to many of those, I think you need to do some internal reasoning of your role in economics. Everything I have listed involves using natural resources to obtain / retain the income without putting back socially or environmentally. It is not the business owner who is using the resources, it is the consumer.
The consumer / individual needs to change the way they operate to support their complaints about society. I don’t know how, but we need some kind of “monetary” system that works socially, environmentally and economically.
Deirdre – you obviously have not read Joel Kovel on this issue; suffice it to say (echoing Kovel), we don’t have much of a choice in today’s society. If I did have the choice, I would gladly not live a money-dependent life. Like Che Guevara, I despise money, but at the moment cannot avoid using it for satisfying basic needs. At least I minimize its use in my life; I have read Marcuse on this, and agree with him that, in a capitalist economy, most people cannot distinguish between genuine needs and those needs (like: I MUST have the latest cellphone) assiduously constructed by the capitalist propaganda-machine, a.k.a. the advertising industry. I am immune to it. That said, there are all kinds of promising signs that a growing number of people are seriously invesigating alternatives to a money economy – in Cape Town there is a growing number of individuals who eschew money as far as possible and engage in a mutual service-economy.
@Bert:
But what about your existential freedom? You have obviously not read Sartre..
But seriously, what you are describing there is exactly what Deirdre described! Money relies on faith, for lack of a better term. If there are less consumers of money, the demand for money goes down, and money would become worth less. A situation where services are exchanged directly for other services is direct exchange (in other words, bartering). Bartering is more resource intensive than indirect exchange, because you need this service ready at the same time the other service is ready, which is a more direct exploitation of resources. If you’ve read some economics works, you’d realise that you are aiming for a coincidence of wants here, which does not necessarily mean less growth or less strain on resources (contrary to Neo-Luddite claims, it just means less efficient use of resources).
I’m also curious as to who shall decide on behalf of consumers what they should like better than something else?
@Garg & Bert
Yet another example why people need to actually read a bit of economics to avoid sticking their foot in their mouths. As usual it is only Bert & Marcuse that can distinguish between real needs – the rest of us plebs are just ignorant and misguided by capitalist propaganda and need to be guided by our betters. .
@ Garg Thanks that makes what I was trying to say a bit more clear.
My comments were not indented to be personal but general as I too am very much guilty on the topic (as I am sure most of us are). People need to grow up and take some responsibility for their consuming behaviour before anything will change… and certainly some guidance is needed on the topic – something still in its infancy.
In the same light that prostitution exists purely because there is a market, so too, our current situation exists because there is a market. Both involve exploitation and ethical dilemmas. Unless we feed directly back into the source of life, we are part of the problem no matter which ‘category’ we form part of. How many loggers plant another tree once they have chain sawed it down? This is due to the monetary / service exchange being one direction only unlike the rhythmic nature of life.
I don’t believe that “we don’t have much of a choice in today’s society”. That is a cop-out. Certainly, it is time to explore a bit further on how we can change the ‘choices’ and behaviours. It is part of a collective effort on the ground and could possible lead to a violent ‘green’ revolt should appropriate leaders not emerge with tangible solutions.
Back to Princen:
“And it is all about transaction, about buying and selling, investing, pricing, retailing and purchasing. It is, above all, about the clearing of markets and the efficient allocation of resources, physical and human”.
Yes, and markets are more efficient than central planners. This is not an ideologically motivated point, this is a verifiable fact.
“Its field of view stretches from one side of the input-output model, where raw material enters production, to the other, where wastes exit — that is, from sources to sinks”.
Most goods that get produced follow this pattern, but services do not. A dentist does not produce goods, but delivers a service. A very skilled service, but delivering this service is not as tied to sources at it is to sinks. Same goes for finance sector workers and tenured professors.
“If either sources or sinks become scarce, rising prices via the market stimulate new sources, new sinks, and substitutes. Its focus, therefore, is price”.
That does not follow. Price alone does not provide enough incentive to yield more alternatives, as any heavily inflated nation shows. Engineers get paid very well, but there isn’t a steady supply of these, at least not as steady as humanities graduates. The focus is therefore not price alone, but incentives, risks nad behaviour. Different people respond to different incentives and risks differently. Doctors I know work to help people, engineers to avoid people.