:Fixed Point

Don Boudreaux writes

I must be explicit that I have long been skeptical of “green.” Unlike “green” folks, I am not especially inspired by nature. Yes, often nature is pretty and soothing to visit. But to get my blood pumping with excitement and awe you must show me a cityscape — Manhattan’s skyline, above all — and not forests or mountains or beaches. My tastes run decidedly in favor of those amenities of civilization that allow me to escape nature.

Don’s piece is actually about ‘greens’ who turn their preference for nature into a moral crusade, but I want probe his apathy at nature in general. Perhaps he’s being deliberately provocative; placing some (disappearing) acres of rain forest between himself and the green movement, to contrast his free market principles with the presumably reddish greens.

I don’t know, but I do find it odd that a lover of the free market finds no inspiration in nature - the epitome of self-organisation and order, from the selfish pursuit of individual needs; yet a beautifully imperfect system, full on inequality and order, temporary disruption and equilibrium. And what of ourselves? Products of that same evolutionary force; a species in which the tendencies to trust, reciprocate and behave atruistically, in the pursuit of our own selfish ends, created our enlarged brains. An organ whose primary intelligent purpose is knowing the minds of others, so we can keep in check our selfish pursuits and the need to cooperate without cheating. An ongoing process that has allowed us, not the other apes, to create and benefit from mutual exchange from trade.

Do you see where I’m going with this? Nature has created our (natural?) economic system; our economic system as we know it is the product of our evolution. Our economic system is as much the result of genes as your eye colour.

And what about cities? Granted I can’t speak knowledgeably of Manhattan, but as a Londoner I empathise with Don’s feelings for New York. Aren’t cities the ultimate example of the ingenuity of man set free to pursuse his dreams and creativity? Aren’t they the ultimate response to Hobbes’ pessimistic philosophy? Aren’t they wonders of engineering and design that surpasse, for all their greatness, even the Pyramids?

I thought about this the other day when an entire electricity sub-station failure wiped out the power in several parts of London and I had to work from a coffee shop, much as entrepreneurs and financiers did in the same city 200 years ago. In that time, I think London, and New York, were perfect examples of the infinite wisdom and creativity of cities. Individuals largely free from restraint built the wealth of an empire. But about the same time, the demands placed upon them turned cities into something else: a planners paradise. Not the old style planning of Wren or Houseman (for Paris) which were inspired by competition, but the politicised planning that emerged, for example, with the County of London and later, the London County Council.

When I walk around London today, I see, with sepia-tinted spectacles, the bustling and free metropolis. but I can’t ignore the politic and strangled regulation that ocassionally threatens. When I need reminding of how individual pursuits lead to an imperfect, but impressive and unbeatable harmony, I find inspiration in nature*. Don Boudreaux, evidently, has a fondness for City Hall.

An important caveat - of course we can’t be as free as nature and of course we need control, but please forgive me a little poetic license; I think my general point still stands.

-william