A traveling exhibition about the sounds and songs of life
2010, Francesco Bonami and Gary Carrion-Murayari’s Whitney Biennial, is essentially a Whitney Biennial calibrated for the times: small at 55 artists and altogether humble. This humility, and the fact that one needn’t contend with an overwrought curatorial concept, allows viewers a more cogent experience than past, sprawling, thesis-driven Biennials could offer. Several works, rooms and motifs make good impressions. Not many are impressive enough to make an indelible impact—but a few are. Judging by the past couple decades, the task of this biennial of American art seems insurmountable, and there is no urgency to fault this edition for hitting the target and missing the bulls-eye. While the levelness here is exciting as an indicator of a playing field for post-boom artistic production, the devil’s advocate wonders, perhaps unfairly, if there isn’t something ultimately more exciting about a splashy Biennial that fails stupendously.
In the absence of an overarching conceit, why not start with a premise that did precede itself a bit: the third floor as a dedicated space for film and video. Considering the continued expansion of film and video practices throughout the art world, the idea seemed gimmicky at best—easily the curators could fill a floor, but why ghettoize? Then, come February 25, visitors stepping off the elevator and onto floor three were greeted by a tapestry by Pae White, freezing a frame of interlaced wisps of smoke in a vast expanse of fabric. Mercifully this is not a plain LCD screen (as it turns out, the floor showcases a variety of mediums), but as a piece that meditates on materiality, medium and time, it serves as an excellent banner to welcome visitors to the area of the exhibition that is most concentrated on media. The projects therein attending to these matters soar.
Among them is Erika Vogt’s Secret Traveler Navigator, a small dark room featuring a 16mm projector and two abstract, figurative drawings reminiscent of the images that manifest in the film. Onscreen, silhouetted players gesture with ambiguous instruments both blunt (wands and other prostheses) and delicate (a drawing compass). They are recorded, projected and re-recorded, back and forth between video and film. Other simple deviations—for instance, a mirror held before the camera during a joint recording/playback session, thus reflecting projected light onto the shadow cast by the mirror—collapse layers of ritualized mark-making and physical processing into the finished film, which imparts a heavy, hollow feeling of magic.
Kerry Tribe, H.M., 2009Another standout work is Kerry Tribe’s H.M., a double-projection of a single film about a man whose memory was truncated to 20 seconds after an experimental 1950s brain surgery. The two loops run 20 seconds out of sync, mimicking the patient’s synaptic handicap. Tribe masters this rhythm and finds in it the generative potential to blur the lines of perception and memory.
Other works misappropriate qualities of moving image mediums via their simplicity, to ends that are not subversive but dull. Kate Gilmore’s bird’s-eye-view video of the artist busting into and then through, up and out of a drywall column lacks contemporary relevance and formal excitement (the retrograde feminist interpretation provided in the wall text adds insult to injury). To make his videos, Rashaad Newsome removes vogue dancers from their rich, cultural contexts, choreographs and records them voguing in an empty, silent room. While the attempt is to isolate and abstract the dancers’ motions, perhaps strip them down to a new level of intimacy, the videos do not dodge feeling flat and, plucked from the club and dropped into the museum, benignly ethnographic. Though more considered, Kelly Nipper’s video is another performance-for-camera piece following a minimal aesthetic that also feels underwhelming. While these works don’t give enough, some on the second floor give way too much. Edgar Cleijne and Ellen Gallagher’s Gordian film installation with sliding walls, projections of painted slides, and the holographic head of JFK—all wrapped in a paintjob of appropriated, polemical text—resists any intuitive reception. Nearby, Marianne Vitale’s vituperative tape, a supposed parody of authoritarian rhetoric, is the exhibition’s nadir of gravitas.
High above in the firmament of social, political and marketing ideals, Barack Obama is the chief figure of the curators’ text. The essay characterizes the last two years of American art-making as aligned with the renewed interest in collective action ushered in by his campaign, and the corresponding politic of community-building that begins with an individual. (He also appears on the cover of the catalog in a cowboy hat.) One artist, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, incorporated Obama’s image in her work, plastering her childhood couch in Obama newspaper clippings to create a monument to public and personal histories.
Daniel McDonald, The Crossing: Passengers Must Pay Toll In Order To Disembark (Michael Jackson, Charon & Uncle Sam), 2009Two artists invoke the likeness of another African American icon, whose cultural significance similarly is both pivotal to and transcendent of race: the recently departed Michael Jackson. Lorraine O’Grady’s four diptychs pairing Jackson with Charles Baudelaire, The First and Last of the Modernists, depict both poets at defining moments in their lives, from their halcyon days through to their epic declines. The very first work encountered in the museum’s lobby is Daniel McDonald’s The Crossing: Passengers Must Pay Toll in Order to Disembark (Michael Jackson, Charon and Uncle Sam), in which the eponymous scene is staged with carefully arranged action figures, the Jackson figure struggling to hoist a colossal, shiny penny before Charon; Uncle Sam meanwhile is broke and passed out. A number of variations on the American economy and economic crisis can be read into this allegorical tableaux, which also alludes, obliquely, to an economy (and crisis?) of contemporary art materials and meanings, with these plastic figurines accentuated by kitschy smoke and resting upon a mirrored, white plinth.
Between the extremes of the President of the United States and the King of Pop, other figurations of America occur throughout the exhibition. Perhaps the most prevalent is not human but architectural—houses figure into many works, from Maureen Gallace’s spare, oneiric paintings of coastal New England residences; to Robert Williams’ watercolor subtitled “astrophysically modified real estate,” showing quaint homes being sucked into a vortex of spiraling sky; and James Casabere’s large scale, aerial photographs of miniature suburban sets, rendered in an Easter egg palette and gloomed by a haunting chiaroscuro.
The Casabere pictures are the face of the floor two lobby and they couple poignantly with the Ari Marcopoulos video in the screening room immediately to their right. Titled Detroit, it is a recording of less than ten minutes spent in the vibrant playroom of two little boys who mix feedback signals, sirens and other assorted electronic noise into a cacophony of decay and alarm emblematic of their gritty, crumbled city—and yet the video conveys an air of inner peace as a portrait of their rambunctious, imaginative inner worlds. While Casabere presents a pretty image bestowing a sense of dread, Marcopoulos’s dissonance produces calm. This reversal underlines the American maxim: never judge a book by its cover—and its subsequent: maybe do judge, then invert your determinations, as taught by the nerd who becomes a hunk in any teen movie.
Josephine Meckseper, Mall of America, 2009The German, New York-based artist Josephine Meckseper contributes a video that is part stirring critique of consumerism, part dispassionate gaming of its loopy, anguished appearances. The artist edits documentary footage shot at The Mall of America—from sale signs, to native American moccasins, a flight simulator, and glances of Lake Wobegon U.S.A, the Garrison Keillor store—into a highly subjectivized and menacing account evocative of madness (Perfumania!), desperation (40% off entire store!) and commodified violence.
Perhaps the work that most overtly takes America as its subject is The Bruce High Quality Foundation’s melancholic memoir of her dilution, projected from within a vintage, white hearse-cum-ambulance onto its windshield. Titled We Like American and America Likes Us, a pluralized riff on Beuys, it is a popular exhibit with prime placement just to the left of the fourth floor lobby (where probably many are compelled to flee Piortr Uklanski’s room-sized opus of burlap and bloody lacquer). Like the collective, the project is undeniably clever, and a bit mercurial, luring high-minded audiences to plop down and watch TV, in the headlights of an oncoming car.
Viewers watch mash-ups of found sound and image pulled from West Side Story, Taps, Ghostbusters, Radiohead, WWF, the morph sequence of Michael Jackson’s Black or White, and more flippant, questionable combinations such as the Rodney King beating scored by the theme song to America’s Funniest Home Videos. The video casts America in the nostalgic archetypes of the aloof father, the picked-on kid, the one that got away… and is narrated by a pensive, wistful female voice in the spirit of a Wonder Years eulogy—that is, with a distinct recognition of the entertainment value of pathos, particularly of that which is rooted in pop cultural tropes. As usual, the group’s work is described here by the curators as a “critique” of the art world. It more clearly resembles the knowing, jaded complacency of a high concept ad campaign. It’s possible to connect the dots between the two, but only time will tell.
Nina Berman, Ty With Gun, 2008 (From Marine Wedding, 2006/2008.)The inclusion of the work of two photojournalists, Nina Berman and Stephanie Sinclair, sets the bar awfully high for more abstract critiques of America. Berman’s portraits show a young Marine sergeant, critically disfigured while serving in Iraq, with his fiancé in the weeks leading up to their wedding. Sinclair’s photos document women in Afghanistan whose absolute despair led them to inflict fire upon their own bodies. Both series are disturbing, enthralling and painful to see. It is to the curators credit that they do not feel tokenized in the greater context of the exhibition; in fact, they are contextual touchstones that remind viewers of the roles identity, figuration and performance play in the real and everyday traumas of the world.
As Biennial artist Hannah Greely explains in the catalog, in reference to her installation’s modern day integration of a pay phone, “When an object is no longer useful in an obvious way, it becomes something closer to art.” A general success of this biennial is the refusal of a thesis that would demand the art works to assume an intellectual support function; to serve such an obvious use might, by extension of Greely’s comment, distance the works from their status as art. Still, so much of the art in 2010 can’t escape serving a purpose, even if it is one that is interchangeably tacit and manifest: they represent American art, and by extension America. Accordingly, one would hope for each work to be so uniquely exceptional as to be unable to stand for a broader constituency. That may be asking too much, but it’s the desire that fuels perennial interest in shows like this.
Kevin McGarry is a writer and curator based in Brooklyn, New York. He is a co-director of Migrating Forms, an annual festival of new experimental film and video, whose 2010 edition will run May 14-23 at Anthology Film Archives.
Photos: Jason Houston
To say that I love coffee is
a big, fat lie. I need coffee in a chemically dependent way. Its effect upon
me is essentially the reverse of those faces-of-meth photos.
There are two things that can
really screw up a good coffee buzz (OK, three if you count skim milk). First
is the fact that conventionally grown coffee is an environmental bummer. To
quote Umbra Fisk,
“Conventional coffee production involves chemicals, deforestation, and
mistreated workers and dead birds.”
So to avoid songbird blood on your
hands first thing in the morning, buy coffee with organic, fair trade, and shade-grown certifications.
(Super-extra bonus points for triple-cert!) You’ll pay a premium for this
coffee, but it’s worth it.
But just because a coffee is
principled doesn’t mean it tastes heavenly. The second thing that can ruin a
good cup of coffee? Bad taste. I don’t know about you, but bad coffee makes me
feel like this. In order to
spare you such an experience (AHHAIAHH! So many coffees! Why is there no good
coffee? I want good coffee!), I assembled a panel of four other coffee lovers
and headed to my neighborhood roaster, Barrington Coffee. There, founders Barth
Anderson and Gregg Charbonneau hosted—but, in the interests of strict
neutrality, did not participate in—my tasting in their chic “cupping room.”
This blind tasting provided a
“sensorial analysis” of five organic French roasts. Under Gregg and Barth’s
careful tutelage, we evaluated the dry grounds for appearance and aroma. Then,
after hot water was poured over each, we waited two minutes and then noted an
aromatic impression at “crust break”—you break up surface grounds with spoon
and sniff “dangerously close.” Next, Gregg skimmed the floating grounds, and we
tasted by aspirating a spoonful over the palate: a procedure that allows
grownups to make the very fun, loud slurping sound we’re always telling our
kids to stop making. Lastly, we let the coffee cool down and tasted it again.
(More slurping.)
And now, the results ...
Full Circle French Roast
Price: $7.49 per pound
Eco cred: USDA Organic and Fair Trade certified. A portion of every
sale is donated to Coffee Kids.
Feedback: Despite the slogan for Price Chopper’s in-store brand of
French roast—“Deep, Dark, A Perfect Ending”— this joe was described as “mellow” by one taster and “thin”
by a few. One said it was like “truck stop coffee that’s been sitting for an
hour.” (Had this taster, who was stylishly dressed and sporting pearl earrings,
ever been to a truck stop? We’ll never know.) One comment could be have been
construed as both praise or criticism: “It’s like Starbucks.” Kindest comment:
“I could almost drink this without
cream.”
Jim’s Organic Coffee French Roast
Price: $11.95 per pound, purchased in bulk
Eco cred: Certified Organic by Quality Assurance International.
Feedback: The Web marketing copy describes this coffee as “Big,
full flavor with slightly carbonized taste.” OK, I know “carbonized” means
scorched, but the Internet also defines it as a “Swedish avant garde death
metal band.” I like “Swedish death metal band taste” much better!
One taster particularly liked
the chocolaty smell of this coffee, which he also described as “winy.”
Unfortunately, no one liked the taste. “It’s sweet but not a good sweet”
scowled one lady, while another noted its “synthetic flavor.” If you like your
French roasts real smoky, this coffee might be the one for you. One taster,
struggling for words, sipped and mused, “If you take a flip-flop and put it in
the fire ... ” The damning comments continued: “Reminds me of robusta!”—straight to a coffee snob’s heart. And, even worse: “Like instant.”
Newman’s Own Organics French
Roast
Price: $7.99 for 10 oz
Eco cred: This coffee is sourced and roasted by Green Mountain Coffee,
a Vermont roaster with a corporate ethic that includes fighting climate change,
which is good because some coffee growers are going to get hosed by it. It
is also USDA & QAI Organic and Fair Trade certified; while it’s not
certified bird friendly, it “typically is grown under a shade
canopy,” emailed a spokesperson.
Feedback: It seems wrong to speak critically of the dead, especially when the late Mr.
Newman has given $250 million to charities worldwide. But technically, only the
dead’s coffee got dissed badly. The kindest comment for this java—billed as
“a dignified dark roast with a passionate French undercurrent”—came at the
cool-down: “It gets worse with time, but this one would be OK by me.” Disparate
comments: “sourish” ... “funny tongue-feel”
... “dirty.” The most damning comment was from a cranky taster who skipped her
morning coffee in order to participate in the tasting: “I wouldn’t even drink
this after a hangover. It’s bitter and shitty.”
Sun Coffee Roasters Organic
French Roast
Price: $5.99 per 10 oz (on sale! regularly $7.49)
Eco cred: USDA Organic, Fair Trade certified, and Bird Friendly,
which is good considering that the term “sun coffee” means coffee that is the
opposite of shade-grown. For those of us in southwestern Massachusetts, this is
regional coffee roasted in nearby Connecticut, 55 miles away.
Feedback: “It has chocolate in the nose! I’d drink it!” exclaimed
one participant, who said this coffee was the “richest.” The cranky taster (see
“shitty” comment, above) said, “It’s the only one I’d drink.” Another said,
“Nice chocolaty flavor.” But its noirish-ness may have been too much for one
detractor, who said it “desperately needs cream.”
Equal Exchange
Price: $9.19 per 10 oz
Eco cred: Organic certification by Oregon Tilth and
Fair Trade certified. Not shade grown,
but Web FAQ says the company is “currently exploring the range of
options for shade-grown certification that are now available to us.”
Feedback: This coffee, according to a wine-loving taster, “had more
structure.” Another concurred that it had “some depth.” More than one panelist
described it as “rich,” and its smell offended no one. Cranky lady pronounced it “ashy.”
Strangest comment of the day: “Skunky smell, but in a really good way!”
The bottom line
After the tasting the above
coffees, we tried Barrington Coffee’s in-house
organic French roast, which had been roasted the prior day. The
results were quite shocking: The panel unanimously found it to be delicious.
And it wasn’t because Barth and
Gregg were our gracious hosts. (Trust me—this group had Tourette’s-like
honesty.) This fresh stuff was straight-to-your-brainstem yummy: smooth, rich,
chocolaty.
The point worth remembering here is that coffee is perishable;
freshly roasted stuff is best. So, if you are able and lucky, find yourself a
small, local roaster. The coffee will not only be fresher, but your direct
relationship with them will allow to you ask questions to determine whether or
not its production is sustainable. Some smaller roasters such as Barrington may
source their beans from small growers who lack certifications, but whose
practices are nonetheless praiseworthy.
Short of that, reach for Equal
Exchange, which our panel ranked the highest. (Although, strangely enough, the
comments toward Sun were kinder. So, gas up your morning tank with that one, too.) And despite the
grumpiness of this panel, it should be noted that the ranked coffees were more
alike than different—so much so that one taster gave up and essentially
dropped out of the tasting, declaring “I can’t make heads or tails of any of
these, and I’m wearing gay* coffee shoes.”
But really, no matter what your
taste, you’re off to great start by choosing environmentally principled coffee.
*This
comment was in no way meant to offend the gay community. Trust me; I
pinkie-swear that this particular Massachusetts panel fully supports gay
marriage. And while we’re at it, we’re all really sorry about Scott Brown. And apropos
of nothing but the spirit of fending off potentially pissy comments: This
tasting was vegan. We didn’t oppress a cow by taking her cream.
Related Links:
Ask Umbra on down comforters, soapy gray water, and canned tomatoes
Coffee hit by global warming, growers say
USDA releases strict new pasture rules for organic dairy
If you’ve ever wondered how Grist’s famous (and mysterious) pun machine works, wonder a little less. We present you with a glimpse into its inner workings: a list of rejected punny headlines scooped up from the last week’s digital cutting room floor. Please, enjoy the witticisms and groan at the miss-icisms.
Story: James Cameron: I’m the greenest director of all time!
Rejects:
Titanic balls
Titanic ego
Winner: Opening Pandora’s box office
Story: Common weed killer chemically castrates frogs, study finds
Rejects:
Ampheminist revolution
No balls in his court
Weed whack her
You’ve got (no) male
My chemical romance
Chemical attraction
Winner: The wrong kind of chemistry
Story: The latest musical trend is annoying the Senate into climate action
Rejects:
It’s the E.N.D. of the world as we know it
Tonight’s gonna be a good fight
I’ve gotta feeling
Face the music
Winner: Democra-peas
Story: British scientist in climate controversy admits emails were ‘awful’
Rejects:
Hit unsend
Discard draft
But not (unl)awful?
Electronic disappointment
Winner: Electric slide into infamy
Story: Garden Girl TV: indoor gardening, part three
Rejects:
Hour of power tools
Start your power tool engines
Tool time
Winner: Drill baby drill
Story: Fifteen states have polluter-driven resolutions to deny climate threat
Rejects:
Dirty state of affairs
State of change
Legis-hate
Winner: Legis-hating change
Story: Peepoo bags help the developing world take off a load
Rejects:
A quick and feces solution
Feces to fix
Dropping off the kids at the Peepool
A load of crap
Unloading excess baggage
Making the biodegrade
Peepoo de toilet
Winner: Fecal matters
Story: Tech startup’s pollution detector aids enviro justice group
Rejects:
Drive by methane
Drive by polluting
Drive by justice
Track test
Action tracked
Breathe analyzer
Google fracks
Breath analyzer
Winner: Frackin’ busted
Story: Is ‘Birdemic’ the best/worst apocalyptic thriller of all time?
Rejects:
There is no cure
Birds on the brain
Bird brained
Terror in the flight
Flock you
Birds of a feather flock things up
Winner: Flocked up
Related Links:
A treat for your Valentine: grass-fed steak in red-wine sauce
Welcome Grist Friends with Benefits
Last week, I documented that the public supports trains and auto efficiency standards and renewable requirements, along with other policies sometimes slandered as “command & control” over emissions pricing. This week: some historical perspective on why the public is right, and mainstream environmental groups are wrong.
Historically U.S. infrastructure, the basis on which this nation developed, was never some magical response to supply and demand.
The Erie Canal would not have been built without rights of way given away to the builders. Land given to homesteaders and farmers made us one of the world’s great farming nations. Railroads were built because the great railway companies were granted land a mile out from their tracks to compensate for construction costs. Or think of the telegraph, one of the first types of public infrastructure to receive not only grants of rights of way, but massive direct public cash subsidies. And it is worth remembering that none of this was built on empty land; American Indians were slaughtered or driven away for every one of these things. Much of the work on that stolen land was done by slaves. I can’t imagine a “green tax” that could have compensated for that.
And that is not something that ended in the 19th century. Airports and water ports are mostly built with public funds and mostly built on public land and water. Utilities use public rights of way. Water pipes and sewer pipes, electricity lines, gas lines, old school phone lines, broad band fiber optic lines, television, radio, cell phone, and other wireless spectra all use public resources and are often built with public money. Any transport more advanced than a deer path also depends on right of way grants. Not just trains, but automobiles, bikes. Even walking paths need some construction and maintenance.
Any society that needs infrastructure more complicated than that built by hunter-gatherers will need public involvement, whatever “public” means in that particular society. And there is no way for such public infrastructure to be technologically neutral. Let’s take the automobile as an example.
Modern zoning requirements pretty much forbid housing and retail and government services to mix together in the right ratios to a community truly walkable. Further, the requirement that housing developments supply a certain amount of parking, along with the requirement of setbacks from the streets, make it even more difficult to design communities that are really suitable to live in for people who don’t want to drive. A lot of the so-called new urbanism is simply relaxing some of the restrictions that forbid creating walkable developments. And all the rules about parking and setbacks and so on are also huge subsidies to automobiles. I’ve heard figures that various parking regulation provide subsidies in the form of free parking of about $5,000 per automobile per year. And that is just parking. I wonder how much developer built roads, and city built streets funded from property taxes add to this, not to mention street maintenance also funded from property taxes.
If you ever wonder why new urban neighborhoods are so seldom real neighborhoods, it is because that is not allowed. If you wonder whatever happened to small town main street, the answer is: they outlawed it.
If any right wing libertarians have made it this far, they probably are shouting “yes, yes, oh god yes, get big gubmint out of the way and everything will be fine!” Unfortunately it is not that simple.
Yes there have been some really bad choices in these regulations, but that does not mean we can leave development unregulated. Hate zoning? OK, but do you want to allow a toxic waste dump next door to your house? Would you be OK with an all night strip club, with loud music keeping you awake, and drunks who stagger out to vomit on your porch? And you’d probably prefer that any home you rent or own meet fire safety standards, have climate control and ventilation that works. I personally prefer the earthquake codes that saved lives in Chile to the lack of such regulations that killed hundreds of thousands in Haiti. And when it comes to appearance, if you have a block filled with lovely 19th century homes, you probably don’t want a glass pyramid plopped in the middle of them.
We can’t do without regulations. We can’t make such regulation “neutral”. The best we can do is explicitly choose what we want regulation and public investment to accomplish, and focus our rules and our public investments on those goals. The minimal state is not an option and never has been. Adam Smith, the inventor of the term “the invisible hand” favored fire regulations, free public education, building safety codes, and (in emergencies) wage and price controls. As someone concerned with supporting an infant capitalism, and overthrowing the remnants of feudalism, he would have laughed at the idea of capitalism without a strong state. And yes, Adam Smith was overoptimistic about the ability of such regulation to contain the dark side of capitalism. But, given when he wrote, he may be excused his errors, especially since even then he was a far clearer thinker than the fuzzy headed right wing libertarians who consider themselves his true heirs today.
I think he did invent (or at least promote) a fundamental error that explains why the role price can play in replacing other forms of regulation is often overlooked. He thought of price as reflecting a balance between supply and demand. To some extent price does reflect those things. But price also reflects power. In Adam Smith’s time, price often reflected the ability to kill people, seize their land by force, and then work that land with slaves. Today the price of a pound of rice reflects in part the Haitian market for that rice developed by applying financial pressure to a series of Haitian governments, and forcing them to destroy their domestic capacity to produce their own rice. The price of sugar in the United States reflects in part the embargo against Cuban competition. (Protecting the American sugar industry is not the only reason for that embargo. But it would be naïve to think that is not a serious motivation in U.S. Cuba policy.)
That is why we have to see “getting prices right”, whether through a carbon fee or other means as marginal in making change. It is not useless, is even necessary. But “getting prices right” can never be the main driver of change. It can never be of equal importance with other types of policy.
I know that in today’s world people often find historical arguments unconvincing. “Why you talking about old stuff?” So the next post will contain contemporary data showing that right now, at this very moment, price is a weak driver of change.
Related Links:
On rooftops worldwide, a solar water heating revolution
A messy but practical strategy for phasing out the U.S. coal fleet
Challenging conventional wisdom on renewable energy’s limits
Last week, I documented that the public supports trains and auto efficiency standards and renewable requirements, along with other policies sometimes slandered as “command & control” over emissions pricing. This week: some historical perspective on why the public is right, and mainstream environmental groups are wrong.
Historically U.S. infrastructure, the basis on which this nation developed, was never some magical response to supply and demand.
The Erie Canal would not have been built without rights of way given away to the builders. Land given to homesteaders and farmers made us one of the world’s great farming nations. Railroads were built because the great railway companies were granted land a mile out from their tracks to compensate for construction costs. Or think of the telegraph, one of the first types of public infrastructure to receive not only grants of rights of way, but massive direct public cash subsidies. And it is worth remembering that none of this was built on empty land; American Indians were slaughtered or driven away for every one of these things. Much of the work on that stolen land was done by slaves. I can’t imagine a “green tax” that could have compensated for that.
And that is not something that ended in the 19th century. Airports and water ports are mostly built with public funds and mostly built on public land and water. Utilities use public rights of way. Water pipes and sewer pipes, electricity lines, gas lines, old school phone lines, broad band fiber optic lines, television, radio, cell phone, and other wireless spectra all use public resources and are often built with public money. Any transport more advanced than a deer path also depends on right of way grants. Not just trains, but automobiles, bikes. Even walking paths need some construction and maintenance.
Any society that needs infrastructure more complicated than that built by hunter-gatherers will need public involvement, whatever “public” means in that particular society. And there is no way for such public infrastructure to be technologically neutral. Let’s take the automobile as an example.
Modern zoning requirements pretty much forbid housing and retail and government services to mix together in the right ratios to a community truly walkable. Further, the requirement that housing developments supply a certain amount of parking, along with the requirement of setbacks from the streets, make it even more difficult to design communities that are really suitable to live in for people who don’t want to drive. A lot of the so-called new urbanism is simply relaxing some of the restrictions that forbid creating walkable developments. And all the rules about parking and setbacks and so on are also huge subsidies to automobiles. I’ve heard figures that various parking regulation provide subsidies in the form of free parking of about $5,000 per automobile per year. And that is just parking. I wonder how much developer built roads, and city built streets funded from property taxes add to this, not to mention street maintenance also funded from property taxes.
If you ever wonder why new urban neighborhoods are so seldom real neighborhoods, it is because that is not allowed. If you wonder whatever happened to small town main street, the answer is: they outlawed it.
If any right wing libertarians have made it this far, they probably are shouting “yes, yes, oh god yes, get big gubmint out of the way and everything will be fine!” Unfortunately it is not that simple.
Yes there have been some really bad choices in these regulations, but that does not mean we can leave development unregulated. Hate zoning? OK, but do you want to allow a toxic waste dump next door to your house? Would you be OK with an all night strip club, with loud music keeping you awake, and drunks who stagger out to vomit on your porch? And you’d probably prefer that any home you rent or own meet fire safety standards, have climate control and ventilation that works. I personally prefer the earthquake codes that saved lives in Chile to the lack of such regulations that killed hundreds of thousands in Haiti. And when it comes to appearance, if you have a block filled with lovely 19th century homes, you probably don’t want a glass pyramid plopped in the middle of them.
We can’t do without regulations. We can’t make such regulation “neutral”. The best we can do is explicitly choose what we want regulation and public investment to accomplish, and focus our rules and our public investments on those goals. The minimal state is not an option and never has been. Adam Smith, the inventor of the term “the invisible hand” favored fire regulations, free public education, building safety codes, and (in emergencies) wage and price controls. As someone concerned with supporting an infant capitalism, and overthrowing the remnants of feudalism, he would have laughed at the idea of capitalism without a strong state. And yes, Adam Smith was overoptimistic about the ability of such regulation to contain the dark side of capitalism. But, given when he wrote, he may be excused his errors, especially since even then he was a far clearer thinker than the fuzzy headed right wing libertarians who consider themselves his true heirs today.
I think he did invent (or at least promote) a fundamental error that explains why the role price can play in replacing other forms of regulation is often overlooked. He thought of price as reflecting a balance between supply and demand. To some extent price does reflect those things. But price also reflects power. In Adam Smith’s time, price often reflected the ability to kill people, seize their land by force, and then work that land with slaves. Today the price of a pound of rice reflects in part the Haitian market for that rice developed by applying financial pressure to a series of Haitian governments, and forcing them to destroy their domestic capacity to produce their own rice. The price of sugar in the United States reflects in part the embargo against Cuban competition. (Protecting the American sugar industry is not the only reason for that embargo. But it would be naïve to think that is not a serious motivation in U.S. Cuba policy.)
That is why we have to see “getting prices right”, whether through a carbon fee or other means as marginal in making change. It is not useless, is even necessary. But “getting prices right” can never be the main driver of change. It can never be of equal importance with other types of policy.
I know that in today’s world people often find historical arguments unconvincing. “Why you talking about old stuff?” So the next post will contain contemporary data showing that right now, at this very moment, price is a weak driver of change.
Related Links:
A messy but practical strategy for phasing out the U.S. coal fleet
On rooftops worldwide, a solar water heating revolution
Challenging conventional wisdom on renewable energy’s limits
