The Nature of Economies (Vintage)

Rating:
Summary: Jane's Dialogue...
Review: ...It doesn't have quite the same ring about it as does Plato's dialogues, and obviously, nowhere near the same significance. What THE NATURE OF ECONOMIES and Plato do have in common is the use of dialogue as a structure to allow debate and as a means of getting the point across. Here, the debate is among four fictional characters (Hiram seems to be the stand in for Ms Jacobs).

Does it work? Partially. Ms Jacobs methodology allows her to bring in different views from various fields of study: sociology, ecology, anthropology, history and, off couse - economics. I'm no engineer but I recognize when she tips her hat in that direction with referrences to feedback loops, codevelopments, and refueling.

Actually, the book reads like it would feel right at home in that specialist subject area known as systems theory. I think that's deliberate. The system that is referred to frequently throughout is nature. Her central argument is that economies behave like natural systems, and they can only be understood holistically and ecologically. As Hiram says "working along with natural principles of development, expansion, sustainability and correction, people can create economies that are more reliably prosperous than those we have now and that are also more harmonious with the rest of nature."

I said earlier that the dialogue format worked partially. It does a good job of bringing the central point across, but not such a good job of developing on it. Jane Jacobs is best known for taking contrarian positions on most traditional theories and this little book, under 200 pages, is too short to provide a proper sythesis, and to explain it sufficiently.

Rating:
Summary: Nature and economies
Review: A number of the other reviews critiscise the conversational form of this book. And one reviewer (who is clearly an investment analyst) critiscises one tiny sentence which makes a rather erroneous analogy between corporate and national behaviour.

But the central theme of the book, that economies must be defined by natural principles since they are the product of human beings, themselves merely a succesful product of nature, is crucial. Its enlightening and must be debated and fleshed out. It gets beyond the "hack" economics that suggests economies need to make exports in order to earn their keep. Instead, Jacobs says that exports are the output of economic systems, not the inputs. The real inputs are basic resources - e.g. weather, location, human skills & the depth and breadth of the existing economic system.

As an amateur economist I find the argument to be a strong one. Serious critiscisms of this book should be based on critiscisms of the central argument and its substantiveness, rather than of the formn of the book. I'd enjoy seeing such critiscism from professional economists.

Rating:
Summary: Biased and questionable analysis, smugly delivered.
Review: Although I have the deepest admiration for Jane Jacobs, a national treasure (of two countries!) and the author of an all-time classic book -- "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" -- I have to say that I found "The Nature of Economies" to be a real mixed bag...actually kind of a letdown.

First, I have to agree with other reviewers who found the "dialogue" in this book to be almost laughably bad. I mean, obviously no human being would possibly speak this way ("in sum," "to repeat," "to be sure") with friends -- or anyone else, I would hope! Second, the whole Socratic dialogue, pedantic monologue format here can get very tiresome at times. In fact, it's so bad that even its own characters keep nodding off! Third, most of these ideas, although interesting, are nothing original (as Jacobs' extensive endnotes prove), although obviously Jacobs has done a great deal of reading, and has synthesized or at least summarized other peoples' ideas fairly well, and that is nothing to sneeze at. Fourth, and more problematic in my opinion, is the high degree of abstraction, and apparent lack of practical utility, with much of Jacobs' ideas. I mean, it's fascinating and all that human economies are part of nature, but what are the real-life policy implications here? OK, so central planning is bad, but does that mean that Jacobs is in favor of an extreme laissez-faire capitalist approach by government? (I doubt it) Is Jacobs so optimistic to believe that if we just let things run their natural course, that everything will just all work out for the best? If she does believe this, is it naiveté or brilliance? Or is this just a bunch of Panglossian nonsense? After reading this book, I have to say that in many ways I have no idea exactly WHAT Jacobs is getting at here. Worst of all, "The Nature of Economies" begs the most important question, namely, WHAT ARE ECONOMIES FOR (Jacobs' unsatisfying answer - economies are for everything and everybody...huh?!?)?

Having said all of this, I still think the book is worth reading, mainly because it is filled with interesting, thought-provoking ideas - whoever came up with them - two of the biggest ones being that humans (and their economies) are part of nature, and that the more they "biomimic" (imitate nature) the better off we will all be. Of course, the counterargument to mimicking nature is that nature isn't just a bed of roses, so to speak! As the curmudgeon character Armbruster puts it, all this happy talk of "cooperation, symbiosis, interdependence" seems to ignore the fact that nature is very much "red in tooth and claw." Instead, it ends up sounding "like a barn raising," not the nasty survival of the fittest ("and the devil take the hindmost" in Armbrusters' words) that is part and parcel of nature, as much as we try to romanticize or ignore it. I DO very much like Jacob's emphasis on the benefits of a complex web of interrelationships, and also on the importance of working ALONG with natural principles, not against them. In general, Jacobs' view that life at its best is a hustling beehive (or tropical rainforest) of activity and diversity, as in the crooked streets and serendipitous mixings of a thriving city, is strong and positive. I also agree with her that non-serendipitous, sterile suburbia, with its de facto separation of different kinds of people - rich/ poor, white/black/hispanic, gay/straight, etc. (see the 2000 US Census for proof of this), its often de jure separation of commercial (and cultural) activities from residential areas, and its monocultures of identical houses in subdivisions surround by wide, fast, straight roads (which serve to reduce pedestrian traffic, force utter dependence on automobiles, and prevent healthy development of community), is not good at all, and simply maintained by massive government subsidies (of roads, gasoline, utilities, etc.).

So, the bottom line is that - even in her 80s -- Jane Jacobs still has a lot to say and contribute, even though she said it far better 40 years ago. So, sure, read "The Nature of Economies," but even better, go back and read (or reread) the Jacobs' classic work - "The Death and Life of Great American Cities!"

Rating:
Summary: Nice concept - shame about the delivery
Review: I am a fan of Jane Jacobs and have great respect for her work. The concepts explained in this book are so well explained that I need add nothing more. I will just mention one gripe that prevents me from giving this book a full five stars. When Tolstoy had a theory, namely that history was an inexorable process that man cannot influence, he wrote War and Peace. He explained his theory through the lives of believable characters, and the message was easier to relate to. Now if I were a philosopher and wanted to get my message across, there would be three approaches.

1 - Do it the Tolstoy way with a believable story that shows concrete examples of the theory in action.

2 - Write a bland book explaining the theory in all of its abstract and general terms, making it nigh on impossible for a lot of people to take in.

3 - Try and explain the theory in the form of a story of two people sitting at a table discussing the theory.

Method 1 is the most effective, method 2 is ineffective, and method 3 is nearly as bad as method 2. Ms Jacobs has chosen method 3 for this work, and as other reviewers have mentioned, the characters are flat, stilted, and unbelievable. I felt no affinity for them; if a meteorite smashed into their living room and killed them all I would not feel one bit upset. I found it difficult to tell the characters apart, so much so that I found myself just ignoring their names and concentrating on what they were saying. The 'storyline' of this book, a series of long drawn-out coffee mornings (during which one of the characters falls asleep, unsurprisingly) is so contrived and one-dimensional that it merely distracts from the point that the author is trying to make.

That said, it should still be required reading for anyone with influence on public policy.

Rating:
Summary: Dialogue Loop
Review: I highly recommend this book. I read it in nearly one sitting. The structure of the book is Platonic dialogue/'My Dinner with Andre.' The conversations of five friends are the entirety of the book. It deals with complex philosophical ideas on economies and natural systems in a highly readable way. The book centers on the idea of biomimicry, in which natural phenomena are imitated (engineered) in such a way that using natural principles creates efficiency. Essentially it is the notion that there are basic principles to which all systems naturally adhere, and understanding those systems can help us frame economics more rationally and sustainably. Jacobs discusses notions of positive-feedback loops, negative-feedback stops, dynamic stability. All this within the idea that evolutionary processes, interdependencies, and natural tensions and tendencies are the basis of economic interaction.

Rating:
Summary: Definitely worth reading
Review: If you pass chapter 1, you will find it more interesting. You may have already known many ideas presented in the book, but Jacobs integrates all those ideas and tries to apply them for general purposes. I felt like I was reading a poem. You may know all the words and their meanings, but how they rhyme and how they finally capture your feeling artfully make it a great poem. "The Nature of Economies" is just like that for both sides of your brain.

Rating:
Summary: An enlightening dialogue
Review: Jane Jacobs' compelling little book deals with fundamental issues concerning how economies work. It is written as a Socratic dialogue among a group of friends. This format allows for a very engaging and insightful treatment of some fairly complex topics, but at the same time it makes it difficult to place the dialogue in the rich academic literature on these topics. Jacobs focuses her effort in this dialogue on the basic functioning of economic systems, and the fundamental observation that they must obey the same laws of physics, chemistry, and evolutionary biology, as any other complex adaptive system. Jacobs is most famous for her work demolishing the doctrinaire views of city planners and forcing them to look at the way real cities really work (Jacobs, J. 1961. The death and life of great American cities. Random House). In this book she does the same thing to economists, forcing the confrontation of unquestioned theory with reality. She also emphasizes some important philosophical positions that distinguish conventional from a more "ecological" economics. The most basic of these is the idea that humans and their artifacts are just as much a part of nature as any other organism. The Cartesian dualism that underlies conventional economics (and much of conventional science) assumes that humans are somehow fundamentally different from the rest of nature. This sets up a basic (and false) environment vs. economy dichotomy and leads to a host of other conceptual difficulties. The truth is that humans and their artifacts behave much like all other complex adaptive systems. The book is a treatise on how complex adaptive economic systems work (especially urban systems) and the kind of science and policy that flow from this understanding.

Rating:
Summary: a book unlike any other
Review: This is a truly unique book--a serious book on a critical topic written with much insight, originality, and an unbelievable amount of imagination. I've heard much talk of the author before--especially her seminal book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities"--but "Nature of Economies" is the first book by Jacobs I've ever read. I'm glad to report that all the positive things I've heard about the author is true: she is as sharp and thoughtful a thinker as they come. What's even more endearing (for me anyway) is that she eschews the jargons and pompous prose of academy and writes with simplicity and grace so that anyone and everyone can understand her points. (I can't remember the last time that I've read a book on economics or sociology and not been put off by the awful language.)

Another special thing about this book, as most of you've probably heard by now, is that Jacobs has cast her thoughts in the dialogue form: conversations between 5 intimate friends. I must say it's quite strange to come upon a serious treatise on economics and nature, written and published in the first year of the 21st century, that uses what seems (to me) an 18th- or 19th-century format (I'm thinking in particular of those philosophical dialogues on religion, morality, etc., written by the likes of David Hume and Giacomo Leopardi, not to mention all those "philosophes" of the Enlightenment), which was in turn an imatation of the Platonic dialogues. Well, why not? After all, Jacobs has the brilliance of mind and sharpness of wit to get away with it. (Though it does mean getting some used to for an average reader like me.)

As for what the book is trying to say, I'm still trying to figure it out. It's such a tiny little book but yet I'm not embarrassed to say that I've not fully grasped all her points. But I do know that this book has all the trappings of a classic (in the best sense of the word) and it'll be read and reread, debated over and written about, again and again, in the years to come.

So is Jacobs the new Hume or Leopardi? Maybe. The last "philosophe" of our modern era? Definitely.

Rating:
Summary: Not at all what I expected!
Review: To my amazement - especially after reading all the other reviews -I was stunned to find that this book is NOT * primarily * about either economics or ecology! It blew me away to discover "The Nature of Economies" is above all about systems theory! ---- Both the economic and ecological issues (compared, contrasted, etc) are subsets of ideas that I first came upon in my meanderings through fractal geometry, non-linear systems, chaos theory, and related areas! [For those who have never read Benoit B. Mandelbrot, get hold of his opus "The Fractal Geometry of Nature, Updated and Augmented"! And for a less technical introduction, read James Gleick's "Chaos'.] ------ What Jacobs has done is apply the richness of contemporary non-linear math and systems theory to the two areas of economic development and ecological systems! This is her contribution! Her method is what one might call `cross-pollination': to use examples from each of these spheres to elucidate matters in the other. It has been used from time immemorial because it works! ---- I would caution readers that this work is - like those of Eric Hoffer, the Tofflers, Charles Darwin, and other creative people - merely an introduction to a new way of looking at things. It is certainly NOT a textbook, nor are the ideas developed exhaustively. But it gets one's thought out of the ruts and back on the prairie. I am glad I read it! ---- Incidentally, I expected the `pentalogue' stylistic approach to be annoying; I was pleasantly surprised to discover it was NOT in the least either distracting or irritating. (Maybe I was so entranced by Jacobs' ideas that I wasn't noticing)...