Review of Jane Jacobs' new book (long)

[Chris Corrigan]

Hi friends:

What follows is a review (taken from the New York Times) of Jane Jacobs'
new book "The Nature of Economies."  I thought some folks on this list
would be interested, as Jacobs' book deals with economies as
self-organizing systems inextricably linked to ecosystems.  If you are
not interested, sorry about the length.

There is a much beeter review in last Saturday's Toronto Globe and Mail
by Lewis Lapham which captures the Open Space nature of Jacobs' theory,
but it's not online yet.

I haven't got the book yet, but it's moved to the top of my reading
list.

Our house is dealing with spring flu right now...hope everyone else is
doing well, and no autumnal diseases have stricken our antipodal
colleagues...

Chris

______________________________



Seeing Humans as Cogs In the Wheel of Nature

          Date: March 2, 2000, Late Edition - Final
          Byline: By CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT
          Lead:


          THE NATURE OF ECONOMIES
          By Jane Jacobs
          190 pages. The Modern Library. $21.95.

          There's a play on words in the title of Jane Jacobs's
illuminating new book, ''The Nature of
          Economies,'' that doesn't become evident until you understand
what she's up to in her text.
          When you first see the title, you take her to mean that her
book is about the character of
          economies. Then, as you begin reading, you realize she means
that economies are part of
          nature.

          In fact, she sounds this theme immediately when she writes in
her foreword that ''the basic
          premise'' on which her argument is constructed ''is that human
beings exist wholly within
          nature as part of natural order in every respect.'' She
continues, ''Readers unwilling or unable
          to breach a barrier that they imagine separates humankind and
its works from the rest of
          nature will be unable to hear what this book is saying.'' As
we will shortly see, those works
          include economies.


          Text:

          At first, this seems a departure for Ms. Jacobs, who is still
best known for her first book, ''The
          Death and Life of Great American Cities,'' in which she argued
passionately and influentially
          that cities, essential to the economic life of societies, must
be allowed to develop freely and
          spontaneously. In her subsequent books, among them ''The
Economy of Cities,'' ''Cities and the
          Wealth of Nations'' and ''Systems of Survival,'' she has
worked to develop a theoretical
          framework for the practical case made in ''Death and Life.''

          Like ''Systems of Survival,'' her new book takes the form of
conversation among a small group of
          fictional intellectuals. Two of them, Armbruster, a retired
publisher, and Kate, an editor at a
          science magazine, meet in a coffee shop and express concern
that Armbruster's niece,
          Hortense, has taken up with another ecologist, one Hiram
Murray IV, her previous one, Ben,
          having been one of those people who ''thought everything
industrial or technological was
          unnatural and that everything unnatural was bad.'' Let's meet
this Hiram, says Kate, and so
          they do.

          Of course their meeting is just an excuse for Ms. Jacobs to
record their unspontaneous
          conversation, full of phrases like ''to be sure'' and ''in
sum.'' Hiram turns out to be exploring the
          field of biomimicry, or ''trying to develop products and
production methods learned from
          nature.'' Explaining biomimicry gets him started on how rooted
in nature even human
          economies are.

          Development can be defined as ''differentiation emerging from
generality,'' Hiram explains,
          citing 19th-century embryologists and evolutionists.
''Economic development is a version of
          natural development,'' not ''a collection of things but rather
a process that yields things.'' (''The
          Thing Theory,'' he adds, ''supposes that development is the
result of possessing things such as
          factories, dams, schools, tractors, whatever -- often bunches
of things subsumed under the
          category of infrastructure.'')

          Systems expand by capturing and using transient energy, Hiram
goes on. ''The more different
          means a system possesses for recapturing, using, and passing
around energy before its
          discharge from the system, the larger are the cumulative
consequences of the energy it
          receives.''

          This principle applies to both ecosystems and economies of
human settlements, which in the
          book's perspective amount to the same thing. ''Diverse
ensembles expand in a rich
          environment, which is created by the diverse use and reuse of
received energy.'' Human cities
          are such diverse ensembles, and both imports and natural
resources are considered to be
          received energy.

          Unfortunately, a summary of Hiram's arguments leaves out how
concretely Ms. Jacobs
          illustrates his points, using examples ranging from biology to
technology to commerce. But a
          discerning eye will see what Ms. Jacobs is driving at, namely
that both biomasses and
          economies grow most richly when nature is allowed to take its
course. In short, in ''The Nature
          of Economies,'' Ms. Jacobs has found the most theoretical
possible way to frame the vision she
          presented so concretely in ''The Death and Life of Great
American Cities.''

          Her theory works as a weapon too, with her characters
challenging thinkers like Marx, Adam
          Smith and even Keynes, and policies like protectionism and
full-employment programs. It also
          suggests why Los Angeles added jobs in the 1940's despite
declines in exports and why Detroit
          lost jobs even as its automotive export work boomed.

          Unfortunately, she can't finally clinch her case, because, as
her characters concede, no one
          has yet bothered to measure the vitality of cities by the
gauges she would prefer economists
          to use. Moreover, her conclusion lets you down a bit by
debating what economies are for (''I
          think economic life is for teaching our species it has
responsibilities to the planet and the rest
          of nature,'' remarks Kate), as if something Ms. Jacobs has
argued at length is wholly a natural
          process could be judged to have any purpose in the first
place. Unless of course you believe
          that nature itself has some purpose.

          Still, her book does leave unusual cause for optimism.
Discussing evolution, her characters
          point out that all successful species possess the capacity
both to dominate their ecological
          niches and to preserve them, as parasites live off their hosts
without killing them. Since
          humans are both entirely part of nature and supremely
successful as a species, then we can
          expect to benefit from this paradox. We may well continue to
exploit our environment and yet
          somehow use it to survive.

--
CHRIS CORRIGAN
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