The Economics of Life

The Economics of Life

The often interesting Everyday Economics column in Slate yesterday discussed the case of Tirhas Habtegiris, a woman who died after being taken off life support because she could not pay her medical bills. While this case deserves more national attention, the Slate column by Steven E. Landsburg is an example of economic thinking at its worst. Landsburg claims that the removal of the woman’s ventilator was a compassionate act because the money could that would have gone to the young woman’s care could be better spent in other ways. This is a false choice.

Landsburg claims, "A policy of helping everyone who needs a ventilator is a policy of spending less to help the same class of people in other ways." Give me a break. Does Landsburg really think the money that was saved went to other programs to help people in need? If he could show that was what happened then he would have at least some argument to make.

This line of reasoning suggests the more significant problem with Landsuburg’s argument. He turns the issue into an abstraction and then makes a universal claim. He goes so far as to say that “economic considerations are the basis of true compassion.” Economics may have something to say about how we put compassion in to action but the claim that compassion arises from the economic is ridiculous. As is often the case, rhetorical emphasis, in this case the use of “true”, points to the weakness of the argument. Landsburg wants the reader to believe that he knows what compassion is. Since his claim is weak, he throws in true to make his case sound strong.

Argentina in the NY Times

Yesterday’s NY Times article on Argentina was sloppy and generally disappointing. The article tries to be a catch all on recent news from Argentina by covering Argentina’s decision to pay off all its IMF debt, Kirchner’s popularity and solidification of power, and the general move left in Latin America. The broad outlines are on target but the details consistently miss the mark. It is unfortunate that the Larry Rohter, a reported based in Buenos Aires, could not do a better job.

Some points are misleading. Rohter suggests Kirchner has become more popular since he was elected: “Mr. Kirchner, 55, took office in May 2003 having won less than a quarter of the popular vote.” This low vote total does not reflect the story of Kitchner’s support. He received less that a quarter of the vote in a multi-candidate field but would have received 70% or perhaps even 80% of the vote in a runoff. His support was so overwhelming that his opponent, Menem, dropped out. He entered office as a bit of an unknown figure but with a clear mandate.

Others statements are wrong: start a conversation with anyone in Buenos Areas and see if the last three years have “erased memories” of the crisis. The crisis still is very much present in the minds of the people, especially much of the middle and lower class for whom a few years of strong growth haven’t even come close to allowing them to recover their economic position. In fact, Rohter contradicts himself, as he argues that people still blame the IMF for the crisis. If the crisis were forgotten Kirchner’s paying off the debt would not be so popular.

Some arguments are just silly, like using a quote from a political scientist who trots out a weak environmental argument about personality: “‘For someone like Kirchner,’ a native of frigid Patagonia ‘who doesn't have an extroverted character, Chávez is too tropical.’”

Rohter’s reference to Bolivia is a red herring: “if Mr. Morales's promised transformation were to go awry and degenerate into class, regional or racial conflict that, in the worst case, would send refugees spilling across Argentina's northern border and constrict the flow of natural gas to Argentina.” Sure this scenario is possible but it is farfetched. The leftist positions cited by Rohter are more likely to keep gas flowing to Argentina. And it seems unlikely that things would be come so much worse in Bolivia that it would lead to a large refugee problem. It is not as if Bolivia is in great shape now.

The number of weak arguments is a relatively short is just unfortunate, particularly in a piece such as this one that does not have to be written on the spot. Rohter had time to get the details right. Sloppy work from the newspaper of record.

De Young Museum

Museums have a vexed relationship to their surroundings. They are constructed as important public buildings yet the requirement of protecting the works that they contain causes the insides of museums to be closed off from the public space outside. As a result, the outside and inside of museums often are incongruous: when one views a museum from the outside, the building is in relation to its surroundings; when inside, one feels little relation to the outside world.

San Francisco’s de Young Museum, which reopened in October housed in a new building designed by Herzog & de Meuron, presents a special case of this problem. Located in Golden Gate Park the museum in surrounded by urban park. The primary feature of the building is the eight story copper tower that calls to mind a modest skyscraper and the tower of a fort.

Neighbors have objected to the broken sight lines caused by the tower. Undoubtedly, the contrast between the brown metallic tower and the trees is jarring. Golden Gate Park, however, is not a pure natural environment but a constructed urban space. Like Olmstead’s Central Park, GG Park was a response to the urban environment. Developed in the last decades of the nineteenth century by John McLaren, the park was created through extensive planting of what had been barren, windswept sand dunes. Thus the park it is as much artifice as any skyscraper.

The de Young tower reminds us of this relationship. Just a bit taller than the surrounding trees, the top of the tower stands in a playful relationship to the park. Its twist suggests the organic possibilities in built architecture. And while the neighbors can see the tower, when one looks from the surrounding neighborhood, trees hide the majority of the building’s mass. This playful relationship carries over to the interior of the building where rooms look out on interior gardens. The city encloses the park, the park encloses the museum, the museum encloses the park.