http://chinese.wsj.com/gb/20081030/opn091840.asp?source=email
21世纪布雷顿会议 中国是否当年的美国
2008年10月30日08:37
Wall Street Journal
Sebastian Mallaby
1944年7月，当出席联合国货币和金融会议的44国代表入住华盛顿山饭店(Mount Washington Hotel)的时候，布雷顿森林实在是没什么可看的。坐落在新罕布什尔州的这家饭店被一片差不多有100万英亩的森林包围着，除了一些可口可乐自动售货机，就没什么可让代表们分神的了。
就在这处几乎与世隔绝的地方，168名政治家（和仅有的一位女政治家、来自Vassar学院的Mabel Newcomer）一起参与演出了这段在治理世界经济方面最着名的历史片断。这次会议为防范再次发生大萧条重塑了世界金融秩序，并创建了一家史无前例的国际银行来专注于战后重建与发展。
在最后的全体会议上，盛装的与会代表们全场起立向英国经济学家凯恩斯(John Maynard Keynes)鼓掌致意。他的思想渗透于为期三周的会议。凯恩斯爵士向富有远见的同僚们表示感谢，说他们完成了预言家或先知才能做到的事。
布雷顿森林会议此后便披上了一层神话色彩。对经济史爱好者来说，它堪比制宪会议上美国建国之父们的那次聚会。而对那些急切希望被世界铭记的政治家来说，它是一个让人无比艳羡的时刻。最近，在英国首相布朗(Gordon Brown)和法国总统萨科齐(Nicolas Sarkozy)呼吁举行新的布雷顿森林会议后，布什总统表示同意。电视媒体风闻此事纷纷出动，在当年的华盛顿山饭店旁驻扎守候，这里已完成了一次耗资5,000万美元的装修改建工程。不过，布雷顿森林会议实际上已经不是第一次闹“复活”了。事实上，历史上已有很多先例。
1982年的拉丁美洲债务危机爆发后，美国财政部长里甘(Donald Regan)就提出重新召开布雷顿会议以稳定西半球货币。第二年，因法郎发生三次贬值，当时的法国总统密特朗(Francois Mitterrand)宣称，“现在真的到了该考虑新的布雷顿森林会议的时候了。除此之外，别无他法。”接下来的两年时间里，密特朗一直大肆鼓吹这一主张，直到1985年撒切尔夫人(Margaret Thatcher)批评他的建议是“不切合实际的胡言乱语”，他才算偃旗息鼓。
1997-98年的新兴市场危机之后，布雷顿森林怀旧病再次爆发──这次是在后撒切尔时代的英国。时任英国首相的布莱尔(Tony Blair)认为：我们不应惧怕极端、颠覆传统的思想。为了新千年，我们今天需要致力于建立新的布雷顿森林体系。应该说，布莱尔的新千年构想的具体内容很模糊。但没有哪个国家的首脑会鲁莽地指出这一点。
在国际社会围绕治理经济采取的重大举措中，或许只有马歇尔计划被提及的频率超过布雷顿森林会议，比如，为冷战结束后的东欧制定马歇尔计划、针对非洲的马歇尔计划、针对内陆城市的马歇尔计划等多个版本。的确，每一个想让华盛顿花大钱的人都会发现，拿马歇尔计划说事是再便当不过的做法了。
但布雷顿会议具有更丰富的内涵和更罕见的声望。它关乎重新建立国际秩序，而不仅是为一项有意义的事业而稳定货币。并且，马歇尔计划是美国着名的单边主义的范例，布雷顿森林会议则是国际多边合作的胜利。当时参加布雷顿会议的甚至包括洪都拉斯、利比里亚和菲律宾等国的代表（凯恩斯曾就此不屑地说到，那是一次“最恐怖的耍猴馆般”的集会），但不包括韩国和日本这两个当今世界经济强国。
布雷顿会议这两方面的成就即使是今年看来似乎仍有相当的吸引力，不过，这两方面也都有不切实际的成份。会议创建的一项固定汇率体系重新确立了经济秩序。其目标是防止货币竞相贬值的局面重演。竞相贬值的典型范例是“黄油战争”。1930年，通过将本币贬值，新西兰出口的黄油在海外市场享受到价格优势，其出口黄油的主要竞争对手丹麦于是在1931年也采取了将货币贬值的做法。之后，这两个国家你追我赶，一路贬值，幅度越来越大。
这种损人利己的做法加剧了最终拖垮了整个世界的贸易保护主义，而布雷顿森林会议对这个问题的解决之道可谓简洁明了。二战后，美元钉住黄金、其他货币钉住美元。不再有浮动汇率机制，也就不再有贬值大战。为支撑这一系统，布雷顿森林体系的缔造者们还创立了国际货币基金组织(IMF)，相对同门师兄世界银行(World Bank)而言，IMF在实现其缔造者目标的过程中发挥的作用要大得多。如果固定汇率机制令一个国家陷入收支失衡的危机，那么IMF会出手相救，使其货币避免贬值。
如今成立新货币体制的理念在很大程度上仍可以借鉴这种观点。重创全球金融市场的信贷泡沫部分源于现行货币制度的双轨状态：一些国家允许货币自由浮动，另一些国家把本币与美元松散地挂钩在一起。在过去差不多五年的时间里，制度上的不统一制造了上世纪30年代的一个翻版：作为让本币钉住美元的最大经济体，中国将人民币汇率保持于低位，致使亚洲其他出口国也纷纷压低汇价。正是在这新一轮汇率操纵大战中，这些钉住美元的国家敛集了巨额贸易顺差。他们的收益不断回流至国际金融体系中，令信贷泡沫持续膨胀，在破灭后酿成今天的灾难。
说服中国改变其货币政策会是新布雷顿森林会议一个值得追求的目标。不过汇改问题在此次会议的议事日程上排名靠后（布什政府提议会议于11月15日举行，并将其定性为“20国集团会议”，对欧洲方面所谓的第二次布雷顿森林会议的说法置之不理）。力主召开此次会议的英、法领导人要求在会上讨论金融监管问题，例如何如完善评级机构、加强银行业透明度等等。很多相关议题对跨国合作的要求都很低。
如果欧洲闭嘴不提要求中国放松钉住美元政策的话，那或许是因为他们预见到了自己要为这一要求所做出的让步。中国是不会为了国际金融体系而放弃其出口拉动型经济增长政策的，除非这样能令它在该体系中获得更大利益──这意味着在IMF获得大得多的发言权，同时相应削弱欧洲原本过大的影响力。抛开有关银行业透明度的胡言乱语，这才是这次会议需要达成的核心协议。自然欧洲人不会提出这样的建议。
以何种形式将中国纳入多边机制核心的问题取决于中美这两个大国。这和第一次布雷顿森林会议时倒颇为相像──在多边谈判的表象下其实就是两个大国之间的讨价还价。二战之后，英国这个骄傲但负债累累的帝国需要美国人的存款来稳定货币体系，它付出的代价就是让美国人在IMF的设计及构架问题上拥有最终决定权。三十年河东，三十年河西，如今的美国必须扮演当年英国的角色，而今天的中国则必须扮演当年美国的角色。
然而，这里还有一个意想不到的转折。上世纪40年代时，衰落一方奉行的是帝国式贸易政策，崛起一方倡导的则是开放的全球经济模式。当罗斯福(Franklin Roosevelt)对邱吉尔(Churchill)说，实现自由贸易是英国获得战后援助的代价时，罗斯福是在要求终结殖民地政策、建立平等的商业竞争舞台；邱吉尔回答到：总统先生，我想你是想废除大英帝国，但尽管如此，我们知道美国是英国唯一的希望。
而今，崛起的一方一直在通过低汇率推行重商主义政策。坐拥2万亿美元巨额外汇储备的中国政府有可能答应为西方金融机构提供资金帮助，但条件是在IMF里扮演更重要的角色。但中国人也有可能对此兴趣全无。全球货币体系的未来取决于中国是否有心充当罗斯福──或者它宁愿做现代版的邱吉尔。
（编者按：本文作者Sebastian Mallaby是美国外交关系委员会(Council On Foreign Relations)地缘经济研究中心(Center for Geoeconomic Studies)主任。目前他正在撰写有关对冲基金历史的文章。）
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A 21st-Century Bretton Woods
汉 大 中 小2008年10月30日08:37
There wasn't much to see in Bretton Woods in July 1944, when delegates from 44 countries checked into the sprawling Mount Washington Hotel for the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference. Almost a million acres of New Hampshire forest surrounded the site; there were free Coca-Cola dispensers, but few other distractions.
In this scene of rustic isolation, 168 statesmen (and one lone stateswoman, Mabel Newcomer of Vassar College) joined in history's most celebrated episode of economic statecraft, remaking the world's monetary order to fend off another Great Depression and creating an unprecedented multinational bank, to be focused on postwar reconstruction and development.
At the Final Plenary, a sea of black-tied delegates gave a standing ovation to British economist John Maynard Keynes, whose intellect had permeated the three weeks of talks. Lord Keynes paid tribute to his far-seeing colleagues, who had performed a task appropriate 'to the prophet and to the soothsayer.'
The Bretton Woods conference has acquired mythical status. To economic-history buffs, it's akin to the gathering of the founding fathers at the constitutional convention. To politicians anxious to make their marks upon the world, it's a moment to be richly envied. The recent calls from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy for a new Bretton Woods conference, to which the Bush administration has acceded, have caused TV crews to descend upon the old hotel, which has undergone a $50 million facelift. But Bretton Woods revivalism is nothing new. Indeed, it's a long tradition.
After the onset of the Latin debt crisis in 1982, U.S. Treasury Secretary Donald Regan floated the idea of a new Bretton Woods to steady the hemisphere's currencies. The following year, reeling from three devaluations of the franc, French President Francois Mitterrand declared, 'The time has really come to think in terms of a new Bretton Woods. Outside this proposition, there will be no salvation.' Mitterrand persisted in this grandiloquence over the next two years. He finally quieted down in 1985, when Margaret Thatcher dismissed his proposal as 'generalized jabberwocky.'
In the wake of the emerging-market crises of 1997-98, Bretton Woods nostalgia broke out again -- this time in post-Thatcher Britain. 'We should not be afraid to think radically and fundamentally,' Tony Blair opined. 'We need to commit ourselves today to build a new Bretton Woods for the next millennium.' The precise content of Mr. Blair's millennial ambition was, shall we say, vague. But no fellow leader was rude enough to say so.
Among acts of international economic statesmanship, perhaps only the Marshall Plan has been invoked more frequently. There have been calls for a Marshall Plan for postcommunist eastern Europe, a Marshall Plan for Africa, a Marshall Plan for the inner cities. Indeed, anybody wanting Washington to splurge finds Marshall exceedingly convenient.
But Bretton Woods has a richer and more rarefied cachet. It was about reordering the international system, not just mobilizing money for an enlightened cause. And whereas the Marshall Plan was an example of the unilateralism for which the U.S. is known, the Bretton Woods conference was a triumph of multilateral coordination. It featured countries as diverse as Honduras, Liberia and the Philippines (Keynes spoke disdainfully of a 'most monstrous monkey-house'), though it did not include South Korea or Japan, important voices in today's economic summitry.
Both sides of the Bretton Woods achievement seem alluring today, yet both may be chimerical. The conference rebuilt the economic order by creating a system of fixed exchange rates. The aim was to prevent a return to the competitive devaluations best illustrated by the 'butter wars.' In 1930 New Zealand secured a cost advantage for its butter exports by devaluing its money; Denmark, its main butter rival, responded with its own devaluation in 1931; the two nations proceeded to chase each other down with progressively more drastic devaluations.
This beggar-thy-neighbor behavior added to the protectionism that brought the world to ruin, and the Bretton Woods answer was simple. In the postwar era, the dollar would be anchored to gold, and other currencies would be anchored to the dollar: No more fluctuating money, ergo no competitive devaluation. To undergird this system, the Bretton Woods architects created the International Monetary Fund, which was far more central to their ambitions than their other legacy, the World Bank. If a country's fixed exchange rate led it into a balance of payments crisis, the IMF would bail it out and so avert devaluation.
Today the idea of another monetary rebirth has much to recommend it. The credit bubble that has wreaked havoc on the world's financial markets has its origins in a two-headed monetary order: Some countries allow their currencies to float, while others peg loosely to the dollar. Over the past five years or so, this mixture created a variation on the 1930s: China, the largest dollar pegger, kept its currency cheap, driving rival exporters in Asia to hold their exchange rates down also. Thanks to this new version of competitive currency manipulation, the dollar-peggers racked up gargantuan trade surpluses. Their earnings were pumped back into the international financial system, inflating a credit bubble that now has popped disastrously.
Persuading China to change its currency policy would be a worthy goal for a new Bretton Woods conference. But currency reform is low on the agenda of the summit that the Bush administration plans to host on Nov. 15. (The administration styles this gathering a 'G-20 meeting,' ignoring the European talk of a Bretton Woods II.) The British and French leaders who pushed for the meeting want instead to talk about financial regulation -- how to fix rating agencies, how to boost transparency at banks and so on. But many of these tasks require minimal multilateral coordination.
If the Europeans shrink from demanding that China cease pegging to the dollar, it's perhaps because they anticipate the concession that would be asked of them. China isn't going to give up its export-led growth strategy for the sake of the international system unless it gets a bigger stake in that system -- meaning a much bigger voice within the International Monetary Fund and a corresponding reduction in Europe's exaggerated influence. When you strip out the blather about bank transparency and such, this is the core bargain that needs to be struck. Naturally, the Europeans aren't proposing it.
It will be up to the two great powers -- the U.S. and China -- to fashion the deal that brings China into the heart of the multilateral system. Here, too, is an echo of the first Bretton Woods, for underneath the camouflage of a multilateral process there was a bargain between two nations. Britain, the proud but indebted imperial power, needed American savings to underpin monetary stability in the postwar era; the quid pro quo was that the U.S. had the final say on the IMF's design and structure. Today the U.S. must play Britain's role, and China must play the American one.
There's a final twist, however. In the 1940s the declining power practiced imperial trade preferences; the rising power championed an open world economy. When Franklin Roosevelt told Winston Churchill that free trade would be the price of postwar assistance, he was demanding an end to the colonial order and the creation of a level playing field for commerce. 'Mr. President, I think you want to abolish the British empire,' Churchill protested. 'But in spite of that, we know you are our only hope.'
Today it is the rising power that pursues mercantilist policies via its exchange rate. China's leadership, which sits atop an astonishing $2 trillion in foreign-currency savings, could trade a promise to help recapitalize Western finance for an expanded role within the IMF. But China may simply not be interested. The future of the global monetary system depends on whether China aspires to play the role of Roosevelt -- or whether it prefers to be a modern Churchill.
Sebastian Mallaby
(Sebastian Mallaby directs the Center for Geoeconomic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is writing a history of hedge funds.)
Friday, October 31, 2008
why it's tricky for developing countries to rely on raw materials to grow (III)
ALTERNATIVE ENERGY
Fortis/VM Group predict solar energy will boost silver demand
The Fortis/VM Group’s Silver Book says silver demand in solar energy is expected to almost triple by 2012. The solar industry is expected to be a major consumer of silver in ten years.
Author: Tessa Kruger
Posted: Wednesday , 08 Oct 2008
JOHANNESBURG -
The solar energy sector is expected to become a robust driver of the silver market in future as silver demand in solar energy is forecast to increase to about 1,270t by 2012.
The Fortis/VM Group's latest Silver Book says silver demand from the solar panel sector was only 432t in 2007 based on the assumptions of maximum silver loadings per installed wattage of 0.12g/W, 4GW production (2007) and a 10% market share of non-silver containing thin film PV units.
However, future projects appeared very promising for silver demand in solar energy and therefore silver demand in the solar sector was forecast to increase to almost 1,270tby 2012 at 22GW of production. This forecast was based on the assumption of an annual 5% decrease in silver loadings per watt as efficiencies improve and market share of thin film technology rising to 25%.
The Silver Book said its conservative estimate for photovoltaic (PV) growth to 2012 was 13GW, which brought its estimate of silver demand for that year down to 1,111t. But the most aggressive industry forecast was 52GW, which would imply 4,446t of silver.
Photovoltaic (PV) or solar cells are used to convert sunlight to electricity. PV cells are semiconductor devices that produce electricity as long as light shines on them.
"Like any high and low forecast, the truth would probably lie somewhere in between, but we can say that this industry is going to represent a robust and growing item in the future silver supply/demand balance," the VM Group said.
The group based its forecast on a number of assumptions and factors, such as bringing down higher PV costs per watt relative to the traditional energy sector, governments offering incentives to embrace the environmentally clean source of energy and the continued market dominance of silver-loaded crystalline silicon cells. Crystalline silicon cells currently account for 90% of the PV market.
"While we expect reduced silver loadings, due to improved efficiencies and the ramp up in market share of thin film modules, we also believe that within the next ten years the solar energy sector will be a major consumer of silver, over and above previous forecasts," said the book.
The Silver Book added it expected the recycling of PV systems to be insignificant over the next 10-15 years, due to the relative youth of the industry, the long life of PV units and the huge cost and logistical effort needed for collection of these panels.
"Of greater threat to the industry would be a collapse in fossil fuel prices and/or the appearance of superior non-silver conducting media, which would write silver's future out of this sector." The book noted that so far there was no sign of this happening but the solar energy sector was a fast-moving industry in a rapidly changing world.
The recent growth in the PV sector should be sustained on the back of high oil and gas prices and the knock-on effect on retail energy prices.
The Silver Book said the era of cheap electricity generated from fossil fuels was over; even though the world probably had at least 500 years of coal reserves, the climate cost of burning carbon was becoming "unsupportable". It said alternative energy sources will increasingly become a way of life.
Fortis/VM Group predict solar energy will boost silver demand
The Fortis/VM Group’s Silver Book says silver demand in solar energy is expected to almost triple by 2012. The solar industry is expected to be a major consumer of silver in ten years.
Author: Tessa Kruger
Posted: Wednesday , 08 Oct 2008
JOHANNESBURG -
The solar energy sector is expected to become a robust driver of the silver market in future as silver demand in solar energy is forecast to increase to about 1,270t by 2012.
The Fortis/VM Group's latest Silver Book says silver demand from the solar panel sector was only 432t in 2007 based on the assumptions of maximum silver loadings per installed wattage of 0.12g/W, 4GW production (2007) and a 10% market share of non-silver containing thin film PV units.
However, future projects appeared very promising for silver demand in solar energy and therefore silver demand in the solar sector was forecast to increase to almost 1,270tby 2012 at 22GW of production. This forecast was based on the assumption of an annual 5% decrease in silver loadings per watt as efficiencies improve and market share of thin film technology rising to 25%.
The Silver Book said its conservative estimate for photovoltaic (PV) growth to 2012 was 13GW, which brought its estimate of silver demand for that year down to 1,111t. But the most aggressive industry forecast was 52GW, which would imply 4,446t of silver.
Photovoltaic (PV) or solar cells are used to convert sunlight to electricity. PV cells are semiconductor devices that produce electricity as long as light shines on them.
"Like any high and low forecast, the truth would probably lie somewhere in between, but we can say that this industry is going to represent a robust and growing item in the future silver supply/demand balance," the VM Group said.
The group based its forecast on a number of assumptions and factors, such as bringing down higher PV costs per watt relative to the traditional energy sector, governments offering incentives to embrace the environmentally clean source of energy and the continued market dominance of silver-loaded crystalline silicon cells. Crystalline silicon cells currently account for 90% of the PV market.
"While we expect reduced silver loadings, due to improved efficiencies and the ramp up in market share of thin film modules, we also believe that within the next ten years the solar energy sector will be a major consumer of silver, over and above previous forecasts," said the book.
The Silver Book added it expected the recycling of PV systems to be insignificant over the next 10-15 years, due to the relative youth of the industry, the long life of PV units and the huge cost and logistical effort needed for collection of these panels.
"Of greater threat to the industry would be a collapse in fossil fuel prices and/or the appearance of superior non-silver conducting media, which would write silver's future out of this sector." The book noted that so far there was no sign of this happening but the solar energy sector was a fast-moving industry in a rapidly changing world.
The recent growth in the PV sector should be sustained on the back of high oil and gas prices and the knock-on effect on retail energy prices.
The Silver Book said the era of cheap electricity generated from fossil fuels was over; even though the world probably had at least 500 years of coal reserves, the climate cost of burning carbon was becoming "unsupportable". It said alternative energy sources will increasingly become a way of life.
why it's tricky for developing countries to rely on raw materials to grow (II)
MORE ENERGY CAPACITY NEEDED
4.2m tonnes of nickel reserves could transform Burundi's economy
Officials say nickel resources could transform Burundi's economy, which now relies mostly on coffee and tea exports.
Author: Patrick Nduwimana
Posted: Wednesday , 08 Oct 2008
BUJUMBURA (REUTERS) -
Burundi said on Wednesday its reserves of nickel were about 4.2 million tonnes, which should allow for exploitation over half a century.
But Mines and Energy Minister Samuel Ndayiragije told Reuters in an interview that mining of the metal could not start for five years due to insufficient energy.
After that, "research studies showed that our nickel could be exploited in a period of 50 years", he said.
The minister said the central African nation needed between $300 and $400 million to build a 60 megawatt-capacity hydroelectric dam to power nickel exploitation. That is nearly double national capacity of 32.5 MW.
The government has already presented the energy project to World Bank and African Development Bank.
"Nickel research and exploitation is not an easy task and it takes a long time. This is the reason why we need support from donors," the minister said.
Burundi has three nickel deposits in the southeast and central parts of the country. The authorities have so far issued six research permits to multinational miners.
Officials say nickel resources could transform Burundi's economy, which now relies mostly on coffee and tea exports. (Editing by Christopher Johnson)
4.2m tonnes of nickel reserves could transform Burundi's economy
Officials say nickel resources could transform Burundi's economy, which now relies mostly on coffee and tea exports.
Author: Patrick Nduwimana
Posted: Wednesday , 08 Oct 2008
BUJUMBURA (REUTERS) -
Burundi said on Wednesday its reserves of nickel were about 4.2 million tonnes, which should allow for exploitation over half a century.
But Mines and Energy Minister Samuel Ndayiragije told Reuters in an interview that mining of the metal could not start for five years due to insufficient energy.
After that, "research studies showed that our nickel could be exploited in a period of 50 years", he said.
The minister said the central African nation needed between $300 and $400 million to build a 60 megawatt-capacity hydroelectric dam to power nickel exploitation. That is nearly double national capacity of 32.5 MW.
The government has already presented the energy project to World Bank and African Development Bank.
"Nickel research and exploitation is not an easy task and it takes a long time. This is the reason why we need support from donors," the minister said.
Burundi has three nickel deposits in the southeast and central parts of the country. The authorities have so far issued six research permits to multinational miners.
Officials say nickel resources could transform Burundi's economy, which now relies mostly on coffee and tea exports. (Editing by Christopher Johnson)
why it's tricky for developing countries to rely on raw materials to grow (I)
Automakers turn to 'nanotechnology' as precious metal prices soar
The world’s automotive manufacturers have gone well beyond the basic concept of PGM substitution, and are now looking to nanotechnology to reduce the use of precious metals.
Author: Chang-Ran Kim, Asia Autos Correspondent
Posted: Thursday , 26 Jun 2008
TOKYO (REUTERS) -
Reeling from a relentless rise in precious metal prices, Japanese automakers are banking on new know-how, including nanotechnology, to clean up car exhausts in place of platinum and related metals.
Automakers use platinum, palladium and rhodium in varying amounts in autocatalysts to filter out carbon monoxide and particulate emissions.
While only a few grams go into every car -- compared with more than 2,000 pounds (900kg) of steel -- the high prices result in a cost of roughly $200 per vehicle on average for the platinum group metals (PGMs).
With about 55 million cars sold globally last year, that equates to roughly $10 billion of PGMs, and demand is growing.
Driven by tighter emissions laws, auto industry use of platinum rose more than 8 percent last year and now accounts for some 60 percent of total demand for the metal, which is also used for jewellery.
Platinum prices have doubled in the past two years, jumping by 50 percent from the start of 2008 alone to a record $2,290 an ounce in early March, due mainly to supply shortages from major producer South Africa.
Other precious metals such as palladium and rhodium have also shot up in value.
Japanese automakers have tried to minimise the impact of soaring prices by substituting cheaper palladium for platinum and rhodium and locking in long-term supply contracts.
But with limited financial hedging available to counter rising prices, most work is going into developing methods to use less or none of the expensive materials.
NANOTECHNOLOGY TO THE RESCUE
The fruits of those efforts are due to appear soon.
Nissan Motor Co, Japan's No.3 automaker, has developed a catalyst for gasoline cars that halves the use of precious metals components by employing nanotechnology.
Using particles as small as a few billionths of a metre, nanotechnology prevents fine metal particles from clustering in catalysts, enabling engineers to use less precious metals to clean exhaust emissions.
Nissan, which plans to share the technology with European partner Renault, will start employing it early next year on all new gasoline models.
Joji Tagawa, corporate vice president in charge of the automaker's treasury department, said Nissan held back from applying a forward rate contract for platinum this year.
"The reason we were a bit hesitant is that we knew that this technological breakthrough would lead to a significant reduction of platinum usage," he told Reuters.
Mazda Motor Corp, owned one-third by Ford Motor Co, has achieved a similar feat using single-nanotechnology, which will allow it to slash platinum and palladium use by up to 90 percent. Mazda has not said when the technology would be put to use.
Honda Motor Co Chief Executive Takeo Fukui said technology, though not yet perfect, also existed to replace precious metals altogether. Honda used a class of minerals called perovskites in an earlier version of the Step Wgn, a minivan sold mainly in Japan, but ditched it due to problems with durability.
"It was infinitely cheaper than precious metals, but difficult from a durability standpoint," he said. "But we're engaging in all kinds of trials to test technology like that."
Other promising alternatives are on the horizon.
Japan's Mitsui Mining and Smelting Co told Reuters last month it aimed to start commercial production in three years' time of a new catalyst that applies silver rather than platinum in diesel vehicles, at almost $2,000 an ounce cheaper.
Further ahead, Daihatsu Motor Co, Toyota's minivehicle unit, could develop a platinum-free fuel-cell vehicle after it said last year it had found a way to use less costly metals such as cobalt or nickel. Hydrogen fuel-cell cars in development today use an estimated 100 grams of platinum, costing thousands of dollars, to separate protons from electrons in hydrogen atoms.
TUG-OF-WAR
The spread of hybrid cars could also reduce usage of PGMs.
Takeshi Uchiyamada, an executive vice president at Toyota and father of the Prius hybrid, said such gasoline-electric cars use less platinum than vehicles that run solely on gasoline because they give off fewer emissions to begin with. Harmful exhaust gases are emitted most during acceleration in gasoline cars, while hybrids use or get assistance from an electric motor during the process.
Toyota and Honda both expect about a tenth of their vehicles to be hybridised by the mid-2010s.
Still, Uchiyamada noted the reduction of platinum use in hybrids was somewhat offset by the use of neodymium, a rare-earth magnet mainly sourced in China, in the motor for the hybrid system, again raising the need to find a comprehensive and drastic solution to the use of scarce materials.
"The issue of rare metals and rare earth materials is going to be a huge concern for the manufacturing sector," he told Reuters in a recent interview.
"When you consider (the) growth in demand, the solution in the end-game has to be to go precious-metals-free." (Editing by Lincoln Feast)
The world’s automotive manufacturers have gone well beyond the basic concept of PGM substitution, and are now looking to nanotechnology to reduce the use of precious metals.
Author: Chang-Ran Kim, Asia Autos Correspondent
Posted: Thursday , 26 Jun 2008
TOKYO (REUTERS) -
Reeling from a relentless rise in precious metal prices, Japanese automakers are banking on new know-how, including nanotechnology, to clean up car exhausts in place of platinum and related metals.
Automakers use platinum, palladium and rhodium in varying amounts in autocatalysts to filter out carbon monoxide and particulate emissions.
While only a few grams go into every car -- compared with more than 2,000 pounds (900kg) of steel -- the high prices result in a cost of roughly $200 per vehicle on average for the platinum group metals (PGMs).
With about 55 million cars sold globally last year, that equates to roughly $10 billion of PGMs, and demand is growing.
Driven by tighter emissions laws, auto industry use of platinum rose more than 8 percent last year and now accounts for some 60 percent of total demand for the metal, which is also used for jewellery.
Platinum prices have doubled in the past two years, jumping by 50 percent from the start of 2008 alone to a record $2,290 an ounce in early March, due mainly to supply shortages from major producer South Africa.
Other precious metals such as palladium and rhodium have also shot up in value.
Japanese automakers have tried to minimise the impact of soaring prices by substituting cheaper palladium for platinum and rhodium and locking in long-term supply contracts.
But with limited financial hedging available to counter rising prices, most work is going into developing methods to use less or none of the expensive materials.
NANOTECHNOLOGY TO THE RESCUE
The fruits of those efforts are due to appear soon.
Nissan Motor Co, Japan's No.3 automaker, has developed a catalyst for gasoline cars that halves the use of precious metals components by employing nanotechnology.
Using particles as small as a few billionths of a metre, nanotechnology prevents fine metal particles from clustering in catalysts, enabling engineers to use less precious metals to clean exhaust emissions.
Nissan, which plans to share the technology with European partner Renault, will start employing it early next year on all new gasoline models.
Joji Tagawa, corporate vice president in charge of the automaker's treasury department, said Nissan held back from applying a forward rate contract for platinum this year.
"The reason we were a bit hesitant is that we knew that this technological breakthrough would lead to a significant reduction of platinum usage," he told Reuters.
Mazda Motor Corp, owned one-third by Ford Motor Co, has achieved a similar feat using single-nanotechnology, which will allow it to slash platinum and palladium use by up to 90 percent. Mazda has not said when the technology would be put to use.
Honda Motor Co Chief Executive Takeo Fukui said technology, though not yet perfect, also existed to replace precious metals altogether. Honda used a class of minerals called perovskites in an earlier version of the Step Wgn, a minivan sold mainly in Japan, but ditched it due to problems with durability.
"It was infinitely cheaper than precious metals, but difficult from a durability standpoint," he said. "But we're engaging in all kinds of trials to test technology like that."
Other promising alternatives are on the horizon.
Japan's Mitsui Mining and Smelting Co told Reuters last month it aimed to start commercial production in three years' time of a new catalyst that applies silver rather than platinum in diesel vehicles, at almost $2,000 an ounce cheaper.
Further ahead, Daihatsu Motor Co, Toyota's minivehicle unit, could develop a platinum-free fuel-cell vehicle after it said last year it had found a way to use less costly metals such as cobalt or nickel. Hydrogen fuel-cell cars in development today use an estimated 100 grams of platinum, costing thousands of dollars, to separate protons from electrons in hydrogen atoms.
TUG-OF-WAR
The spread of hybrid cars could also reduce usage of PGMs.
Takeshi Uchiyamada, an executive vice president at Toyota and father of the Prius hybrid, said such gasoline-electric cars use less platinum than vehicles that run solely on gasoline because they give off fewer emissions to begin with. Harmful exhaust gases are emitted most during acceleration in gasoline cars, while hybrids use or get assistance from an electric motor during the process.
Toyota and Honda both expect about a tenth of their vehicles to be hybridised by the mid-2010s.
Still, Uchiyamada noted the reduction of platinum use in hybrids was somewhat offset by the use of neodymium, a rare-earth magnet mainly sourced in China, in the motor for the hybrid system, again raising the need to find a comprehensive and drastic solution to the use of scarce materials.
"The issue of rare metals and rare earth materials is going to be a huge concern for the manufacturing sector," he told Reuters in a recent interview.
"When you consider (the) growth in demand, the solution in the end-game has to be to go precious-metals-free." (Editing by Lincoln Feast)
A new home for the Nano
India's car industry
A new home for the Nano
Oct 9th 2008 DELHI
From The Economist print edition
Protesters force Tata Motors to abandon a car factory in West Bengal
AP
West Bengal’s first and last NanoEACH year India’s Bengalis celebrate the goddess Durga, offering prayers before dazzling religious tableaux called pandals. This year Santosh Mitra square in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) hosted an unusual example: a yellow replica of the Nano, the small car touted by Tata Motors as the world’s cheapest. It stood in front of a forlorn factory (pictured), made of plywood, fibreglass and plaster, and girdled by a huge padlock and chain. Alas, the Nano will not be built in West Bengal. On October 3rd Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata Group, said his firm would abandon its factory in the state, which has been pinned down for months in “political crossfire”.
The Nano is an icon of Indian ingenuity and entrepreneurialism. Selling for just 100,000 rupees ($2,100), it seeks to reach a new class of customers through frugal engineering. But India’s politicians also have a keen eye for a gap in the market. Mamata Banerjee, leader of the main opposition party in West Bengal, drummed up a campaign on behalf of farmers who opposed the project. Many had refused the compensation the state government offered when it hurriedly expropriated their land to make room for the Tata Motors plant. Whatever the justice of its cause, the campaign became shrill and intimidating. It has undone West Bengal’s efforts to court industrial investment, and may have done wider damage to India’s reputation. If the Tatas, one of India’s most venerable business houses, cannot build a factory without political grief, why should foreign investors take the risk?
Farming accounts for less than 18% of India’s output, but carries far greater political weight. The difficulty of acquiring land, which is often either treasured by farmers or hoarded by the state, has become a constraint on India’s growth. Industrialists are converting over 466,000 acres into business-friendly “special economic zones”. But not without fuss. In Maharashtra the government should soon release the results of a farmers’ referendum on a project outside Mumbai championed by Mukesh Ambani, head of Reliance Industries, India’s biggest company by market capitalisation. In Goa the government renounced all such zones amid popular concerns about the changing character of the state.
In fact, only the setbacks grab the headlines. India has enjoyed an astonishing boom in manufacturing investment, despite all these obstacles. The acrimony that dogged the Tatas in West Bengal did not stop at least four other states from rushing to offer alternative sites. The company chose a location in Gujarat, one of India’s most industrialised states, which instantly granted more land (1,100 acres) than was on offer in West Bengal. Not for long were the Tatas “orphans looking for a home”, as Mr Tata put it to the Times of India.
Gujarat’s chief minister, Narendra Modi, is an unapologetic Hindu nationalist who sits at the opposite end of the ideological spectrum from Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the Marxist intellectual who governs West Bengal. And yet both chief ministers are equally dedicated to the cause of industrialisation.
The Nano’s exit may even give Ms Banerjee and her sympathisers pause for thought. For as long as the Tatas endured her rallies and blockades, she could have her cake and eat it. She could champion the cause of farmers without damaging the prospects of the thousands of Bengalis who hoped to gain employment as a result of the project. But the Tatas’ departure will force Ms Banerjee to count the cost of her political venture. The replica sitting in Santosh Mitra square is, sadly, the only Nano the Bengalis will now get to build.
A new home for the Nano
Oct 9th 2008 DELHI
From The Economist print edition
Protesters force Tata Motors to abandon a car factory in West Bengal
AP
West Bengal’s first and last NanoEACH year India’s Bengalis celebrate the goddess Durga, offering prayers before dazzling religious tableaux called pandals. This year Santosh Mitra square in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) hosted an unusual example: a yellow replica of the Nano, the small car touted by Tata Motors as the world’s cheapest. It stood in front of a forlorn factory (pictured), made of plywood, fibreglass and plaster, and girdled by a huge padlock and chain. Alas, the Nano will not be built in West Bengal. On October 3rd Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata Group, said his firm would abandon its factory in the state, which has been pinned down for months in “political crossfire”.
The Nano is an icon of Indian ingenuity and entrepreneurialism. Selling for just 100,000 rupees ($2,100), it seeks to reach a new class of customers through frugal engineering. But India’s politicians also have a keen eye for a gap in the market. Mamata Banerjee, leader of the main opposition party in West Bengal, drummed up a campaign on behalf of farmers who opposed the project. Many had refused the compensation the state government offered when it hurriedly expropriated their land to make room for the Tata Motors plant. Whatever the justice of its cause, the campaign became shrill and intimidating. It has undone West Bengal’s efforts to court industrial investment, and may have done wider damage to India’s reputation. If the Tatas, one of India’s most venerable business houses, cannot build a factory without political grief, why should foreign investors take the risk?
Farming accounts for less than 18% of India’s output, but carries far greater political weight. The difficulty of acquiring land, which is often either treasured by farmers or hoarded by the state, has become a constraint on India’s growth. Industrialists are converting over 466,000 acres into business-friendly “special economic zones”. But not without fuss. In Maharashtra the government should soon release the results of a farmers’ referendum on a project outside Mumbai championed by Mukesh Ambani, head of Reliance Industries, India’s biggest company by market capitalisation. In Goa the government renounced all such zones amid popular concerns about the changing character of the state.
In fact, only the setbacks grab the headlines. India has enjoyed an astonishing boom in manufacturing investment, despite all these obstacles. The acrimony that dogged the Tatas in West Bengal did not stop at least four other states from rushing to offer alternative sites. The company chose a location in Gujarat, one of India’s most industrialised states, which instantly granted more land (1,100 acres) than was on offer in West Bengal. Not for long were the Tatas “orphans looking for a home”, as Mr Tata put it to the Times of India.
Gujarat’s chief minister, Narendra Modi, is an unapologetic Hindu nationalist who sits at the opposite end of the ideological spectrum from Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the Marxist intellectual who governs West Bengal. And yet both chief ministers are equally dedicated to the cause of industrialisation.
The Nano’s exit may even give Ms Banerjee and her sympathisers pause for thought. For as long as the Tatas endured her rallies and blockades, she could have her cake and eat it. She could champion the cause of farmers without damaging the prospects of the thousands of Bengalis who hoped to gain employment as a result of the project. But the Tatas’ departure will force Ms Banerjee to count the cost of her political venture. The replica sitting in Santosh Mitra square is, sadly, the only Nano the Bengalis will now get to build.
Book Review: Herbert Spencer and the Invention of Modern Life
Mark Francis, _Herbert Spencer and the Invention of Modern Life_.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007. xiv + 434 pp. $45 (cloth),
ISBN: 978-0-8014-4590-3.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Sandra J. Peart, Jepson School of Leadership
Studies, University of Richmond.
This is a wonderful book, filled with detail, substance and purpose.
Mark Francis, professor of political science at the University of
Canterbury, rightly informs us that Spencer has been misinterpreted over
the years. Francis acknowledges that Spencer himself is partly
responsible for those misinterpretations, having been careless about how
his arguments might be used by others (p. 285). Consequently, the
biographer of Spencer faces “an intriguing task” (p. 330) -- how to
correct the misconceptions while preserving what is worth preserving in
the enormous amount of Spencer scholarship that followed upon Spencer’s
work.
Francis correctly re-orients our interpretation of Spencer on a number
of important fronts, emphasizing that Spencer was first and foremost a
philosopher as opposed to a biologist or psychologist. Though the
literature has stressed Spencer’s role in the development of
professional science, Francis emphasizes Spencer’s major contributions
to the philosophy of science (p. 233). Spencer was the “most consistent
evolutionary theorist among the founding fathers of modern social
science” (p. 78). But he “was not pursuing the same goals as Darwin,”
Francis writes, and so “It was therefore painless for him to admit that
he and Darwin had used evolution in different ways” (p. 189). Spencer
introduced evolutionary theory “to prop up the intuitionist part of his
common-sense philosophy” (p. 175).
In this account Spencer’s defense of liberalism rested neither on
libertarianism nor socialism. Instead it is a unique doctrine
intertwined with ethics: “His doctrine was an ethical and humane
approach to future social development, which prohibited dominance and
aggression towards dependent persons or groups, even if it could be
demonstrated that the long-term result would be beneficial” (p. 337).
Economists will find Spencer’s ideas on progress most interesting.
Throughout his life he insisted that the goal of human progress was an
altruistic one. But his views on progress changed over time; in
Francis’ telling, “from the late 1850’s he began to cast aside his
philistine faith in the dreams of progress through hard work and the
renunciation of pleasure” (p. 48). Was progress a biological notion of
improvement for Spencer? The common misconception has Spencer defending
“progress” where some perish in the name of overall human flourishing.
Francis rightly presents a contrary argument that reconciles
evolutionary change with flourishing for all. His solution to this
quandary, Francis argues, “was to say that with progress drawing them
forwards, future human beings would remain part of the natural world
(and thus experience evolutionary change); yet, at the same time, they
would be above it and thus able to avoid its perils. His vision had
humanity ultimately evolving to the point where individuals avoided the
cruelty and destruction that the demands of hunger and reproduction had
imposed on other organisms” (p. 243).
Spencer’s writings on politics fit with some difficulty into his
philosophical system. Francis opposes the commonly-held view that
Spencer’s liberalism was fundamentally concerned with limiting social or
political control over the individual. In Francis’ view, Spencer was no
classical liberal (p. 250). More than this, he has been ill-served by
ethicists who take his later ideas as conservative or individualistic.
Instead, Francis emphasizes the originality of Spencer’s evolutionary
theory in which progress was determined by the planning of individuals
who increasingly moved into correspondence with each other (pp. 291-92). In this telling, justice rightly limits the sphere of the individual
for Spencer (p. 251).
Francis’ re-orientation of our thinking on Spencer raises the question
of whether we have correctly characterized classical liberalism at all. Our misconceptions about Spencer may simply be a severe example of our
misconception of classical political economists one and all.[1]
Political economists from Adam Smith through John Stuart Mill held that
individuals were connected to each other through sympathy. More than
this, they held that people are morally constrained by these
connections, in addition to the constraints imposed by the legal system.
Indeed, Smith characterized humans as unique among animals because they
connect with others through trade and discussion. From this
characterization of humans as sympathetically connected, he developed
his system of natural liberty in which individuals come to do the right
thing, to care for others as a result of the imaginative process of
changing position with each other. Sympathy was a staple of eighteenth
and nineteenth century theory of mind as developed by Scottish
philosophers, including Smith’s colleague, Dugald Stewart, and two
generations of Stewart’s students, James and John Stuart Mill. These
philosophers foresaw an extension of the range of sympathy to all
mankind (Mill, 1829, 2:278) and, as such, they became identified with
philanthropy.
So, too, Spencer held that as sympathy flourishes “natural selection” is
superseded by another, human law of social development (Peart and Levy,
2005, 220-22). For Spencer, the extension of sympathy to encompass
universal concern for others is evidence of a fully developed race.
Humans become civilized through the development of language and
sympathy. Spencer explicitly rejected social Darwinism entailing racial
development through misery induced by competition for resources and
argued to the contrary that individuals who have developed sympathetic
tendencies toward one another will come to reduce misery by reducing
births (Peart and Levy, 2005, 222).
But as we know, Spencer has been interpreted quite differently. As
Francis points out, when W. G. Sumner taught sociology using Spencer’s
_The Study of Sociology_, he omitted an analysis of Spencer’s final
chapter, on altruism (p. 189). And the device of sympathy was
successfully attacked by social commentators, such as the co-founder of
eugenics, W. R. Greg, who wished to see natural selection in humans
unimpeded by concern for others, the “unfit” (Peart and Levy 2005,
63-64). With the demise of sympathy as an analytical device late in the
century, the phrase “survival of the fittest” came to mean fittest
_absent concern_ for others. As Francis has demonstrated so
convincingly, this was a re-orienting of our interpretation of Spencer.
When sympathy disappeared from the toolkit of economics, we also began
to misremember classical political economy.
Note:
1. This of course is not to say that political economists spoke with one
and the same voice throughout the nineteenth century. It is, instead,
meant to suggest that from Smith through J. S. Mill, the dimension of
sympathy is important in their analyses.
References:
Mill, James. [1829] 1869. _Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human
Mind_ (edited by John Stuart Mill). London: Longmans, Green, Reader and
Dyer.
Peart, Sandra J. and David M. Levy. 2005. _The “Vanity of the
Philosopher”: From Equality to Hierarchy in Post-Classical Economics_.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Sandra J. Peart is dean of the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at
the University of Richmond. Previously, she was on the economics faculty
at the College of William and Mary, and Baldwin-Wallace College. She is
the past President of the History of Economics Society and, with David
Levy, co-directs the Summer Institute for the History of Economic
Thought. With David Levy, Peart has written on classical political
economy and the rise of eugenics in the nineteenth century. Her most
recent book, edited with David Levy, is _The Street Porter and the
Philosopher: Conversations on Analytical Egalitarianism_.
Copyright (c) 2008 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be
copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the
author and the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net
Administrator (administrator@eh.net; Telephone: 513-529-2229). Published
by EH.Net (October 2008). All EH.Net reviews are archived at
http://www.eh.net/BookReview.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007. xiv + 434 pp. $45 (cloth),
ISBN: 978-0-8014-4590-3.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Sandra J. Peart, Jepson School of Leadership
Studies, University of Richmond.
This is a wonderful book, filled with detail, substance and purpose.
Mark Francis, professor of political science at the University of
Canterbury, rightly informs us that Spencer has been misinterpreted over
the years. Francis acknowledges that Spencer himself is partly
responsible for those misinterpretations, having been careless about how
his arguments might be used by others (p. 285). Consequently, the
biographer of Spencer faces “an intriguing task” (p. 330) -- how to
correct the misconceptions while preserving what is worth preserving in
the enormous amount of Spencer scholarship that followed upon Spencer’s
work.
Francis correctly re-orients our interpretation of Spencer on a number
of important fronts, emphasizing that Spencer was first and foremost a
philosopher as opposed to a biologist or psychologist. Though the
literature has stressed Spencer’s role in the development of
professional science, Francis emphasizes Spencer’s major contributions
to the philosophy of science (p. 233). Spencer was the “most consistent
evolutionary theorist among the founding fathers of modern social
science” (p. 78). But he “was not pursuing the same goals as Darwin,”
Francis writes, and so “It was therefore painless for him to admit that
he and Darwin had used evolution in different ways” (p. 189). Spencer
introduced evolutionary theory “to prop up the intuitionist part of his
common-sense philosophy” (p. 175).
In this account Spencer’s defense of liberalism rested neither on
libertarianism nor socialism. Instead it is a unique doctrine
intertwined with ethics: “His doctrine was an ethical and humane
approach to future social development, which prohibited dominance and
aggression towards dependent persons or groups, even if it could be
demonstrated that the long-term result would be beneficial” (p. 337).
Economists will find Spencer’s ideas on progress most interesting.
Throughout his life he insisted that the goal of human progress was an
altruistic one. But his views on progress changed over time; in
Francis’ telling, “from the late 1850’s he began to cast aside his
philistine faith in the dreams of progress through hard work and the
renunciation of pleasure” (p. 48). Was progress a biological notion of
improvement for Spencer? The common misconception has Spencer defending
“progress” where some perish in the name of overall human flourishing.
Francis rightly presents a contrary argument that reconciles
evolutionary change with flourishing for all. His solution to this
quandary, Francis argues, “was to say that with progress drawing them
forwards, future human beings would remain part of the natural world
(and thus experience evolutionary change); yet, at the same time, they
would be above it and thus able to avoid its perils. His vision had
humanity ultimately evolving to the point where individuals avoided the
cruelty and destruction that the demands of hunger and reproduction had
imposed on other organisms” (p. 243).
Spencer’s writings on politics fit with some difficulty into his
philosophical system. Francis opposes the commonly-held view that
Spencer’s liberalism was fundamentally concerned with limiting social or
political control over the individual. In Francis’ view, Spencer was no
classical liberal (p. 250). More than this, he has been ill-served by
ethicists who take his later ideas as conservative or individualistic.
Instead, Francis emphasizes the originality of Spencer’s evolutionary
theory in which progress was determined by the planning of individuals
who increasingly moved into correspondence with each other (pp. 291-92). In this telling, justice rightly limits the sphere of the individual
for Spencer (p. 251).
Francis’ re-orientation of our thinking on Spencer raises the question
of whether we have correctly characterized classical liberalism at all. Our misconceptions about Spencer may simply be a severe example of our
misconception of classical political economists one and all.[1]
Political economists from Adam Smith through John Stuart Mill held that
individuals were connected to each other through sympathy. More than
this, they held that people are morally constrained by these
connections, in addition to the constraints imposed by the legal system.
Indeed, Smith characterized humans as unique among animals because they
connect with others through trade and discussion. From this
characterization of humans as sympathetically connected, he developed
his system of natural liberty in which individuals come to do the right
thing, to care for others as a result of the imaginative process of
changing position with each other. Sympathy was a staple of eighteenth
and nineteenth century theory of mind as developed by Scottish
philosophers, including Smith’s colleague, Dugald Stewart, and two
generations of Stewart’s students, James and John Stuart Mill. These
philosophers foresaw an extension of the range of sympathy to all
mankind (Mill, 1829, 2:278) and, as such, they became identified with
philanthropy.
So, too, Spencer held that as sympathy flourishes “natural selection” is
superseded by another, human law of social development (Peart and Levy,
2005, 220-22). For Spencer, the extension of sympathy to encompass
universal concern for others is evidence of a fully developed race.
Humans become civilized through the development of language and
sympathy. Spencer explicitly rejected social Darwinism entailing racial
development through misery induced by competition for resources and
argued to the contrary that individuals who have developed sympathetic
tendencies toward one another will come to reduce misery by reducing
births (Peart and Levy, 2005, 222).
But as we know, Spencer has been interpreted quite differently. As
Francis points out, when W. G. Sumner taught sociology using Spencer’s
_The Study of Sociology_, he omitted an analysis of Spencer’s final
chapter, on altruism (p. 189). And the device of sympathy was
successfully attacked by social commentators, such as the co-founder of
eugenics, W. R. Greg, who wished to see natural selection in humans
unimpeded by concern for others, the “unfit” (Peart and Levy 2005,
63-64). With the demise of sympathy as an analytical device late in the
century, the phrase “survival of the fittest” came to mean fittest
_absent concern_ for others. As Francis has demonstrated so
convincingly, this was a re-orienting of our interpretation of Spencer.
When sympathy disappeared from the toolkit of economics, we also began
to misremember classical political economy.
Note:
1. This of course is not to say that political economists spoke with one
and the same voice throughout the nineteenth century. It is, instead,
meant to suggest that from Smith through J. S. Mill, the dimension of
sympathy is important in their analyses.
References:
Mill, James. [1829] 1869. _Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human
Mind_ (edited by John Stuart Mill). London: Longmans, Green, Reader and
Dyer.
Peart, Sandra J. and David M. Levy. 2005. _The “Vanity of the
Philosopher”: From Equality to Hierarchy in Post-Classical Economics_.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Sandra J. Peart is dean of the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at
the University of Richmond. Previously, she was on the economics faculty
at the College of William and Mary, and Baldwin-Wallace College. She is
the past President of the History of Economics Society and, with David
Levy, co-directs the Summer Institute for the History of Economic
Thought. With David Levy, Peart has written on classical political
economy and the rise of eugenics in the nineteenth century. Her most
recent book, edited with David Levy, is _The Street Porter and the
Philosopher: Conversations on Analytical Egalitarianism_.
Copyright (c) 2008 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be
copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the
author and the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net
Administrator (administrator@eh.net; Telephone: 513-529-2229). Published
by EH.Net (October 2008). All EH.Net reviews are archived at
http://www.eh.net/BookReview.
Book Review--Free Trade Nation: Commerce, Consumption and Civil
Frank Trentmann, _Free Trade Nation: Commerce, Consumption and Civil
Society in Modern Britain_. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. xiv +
450 pp. £25/$50 (cloth), ISBN: 978-0-19-920920-0.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Peter J. Cain, Department of History, Sheffield
Hallam University.
In discussions and analyses of trade regimes in Britain from the late
nineteenth century through to the 1930s, protectionist campaigns have
hogged most of the attention of historians and free trade -- the ruling
regime before the 1930s -- has been relatively neglected. For that
reason alone, Frank Trentmann’s account of free trade and its supporters
would be a welcome addition to the literature: the bonus is that author,
Professor of History at Birkbeck College in London University, has not
only added a great deal to our knowledge through painstaking research
but has written about it with verve and energy and produced a most
readable volume on a subject that can be very dull indeed.
Trentmann’s case is that support for free trade in Edwardian Britain did
not mainly rely on calculations of interest, though he does not totally
ignore that, but was driven by a highly emotional, even passionate,
commitment akin to nationalist or religious fervor, and was seen by its
advocates as a crucial element in defining what they thought of as
Britishness. He admits that around 1900 the free trade movement was in
poor shape as foreign manufactured imports mounted and foreign tariffs
rose, and that some form of protectionism was being discussed even at
government level. Chamberlain’s tariff campaign starting in 1903 changed
all that. Faced with a clear and open challenge, the free trade cause
gathered an astonishing momentum which swept the previously ailing
Liberal party into office in 1906 and helped to keep them there through
two further elections. Masterminded by the Free Trade Union (which,
ironically, learned much from its rival the Tariff Reform League) the
electorate was aroused by a campaign of propaganda that successfully
associated protection with poverty by reminding the nation of the
“Hungry Forties” when protection had last held sway. The free traders
also succeeded in accusing protectionists of attempting to revive an
oppressive state; of undermining free trade’s natural tendency to bring
peace through economic interdependence; and of serving the interests of
a minority of landed and business elites whom they branded as selfish
vested interests, intent on creating monopolies and cartels that would
exploit the majority of the nation. As Trentmann acutely notes, the
campaign had a great effect in politicizing women as key consumers and,
more widely, in putting consumers’ interests at the center of policy,
something that anticipates many modern political movements. All this
made for a very lively politics that sometimes erupted into violence and
which led to extraordinary organizational developments, such as the
great series of lectures and entertainments that the FTU took to the
seaside towns of Britain.
After 1914, that momentum proved increasing hard to sustain. The war
shook faith in laisser-faire and made state control and big business
seem much more natural. Under state auspices, some protection was
introduced to regulate imports and ensure that they served the cause of
winning the war: free trade thus began to appear as a policy that
ministered to individual needs rather than to the national interest.
That encouraged the idea of “safeguarding” key industries after the war
in case conflict should erupt again; and the much higher unemployment
rates in the 1920s also undermined the long-held idea that free trade
naturally meant prosperity. Again, the rise of nutritional science meant
that more stress was placed on health and the need for the state to
improve it, rather than on the “cheapness” lauded by free traders that
now began to seem synonymous with undernourishment and poverty.
Moreover, free trade had clearly failed to keep the peace
internationally and radicals who had once been fervent Cobdenites were
thinking, by the 1920s, much more of the need for international
organizations like the League of Nations to regulate international
intercourse rather than relying on the invisible hand of the market. As
visions of world peace and prosperity under free trade were challenged,
empire increased in appeal and, naturally enough, greater stress was
placed on the need to bind the empire to Britain through tariffs. All
this served to undermine the great cultural movement that had
transformed the Edwardian political scene and by the time the world
economy began to collapse in the early 1930s, free trade was viewed not
as the cement binding the nation together but as the belief of a
relatively few staunch individualists who were out of touch with the
times.
There is far more in this fine book than can be represented here and
Trentmann makes a powerful case for his interpretation of the evidence.
It may be, however, that he underestimates the fragility of the
commitment to free trade before 1914, thus making its decline in the
1920s seem more precipitous than it was. Trentmann recognizes that
Chamberlain was a godsend to free traders but he does not say enough
about how easy he made it for them. Firstly, he split the Conservative
party thus making it impossible for them at the 1906 election; secondly,
in highlighting imperial preference he failed to garner the level of
support that a more wholehearted commitment to domestic protection would
have given. It may be true, as Trentmann contends, that effective
organization by free traders was crucial to victory in the 1910
elections: but it is still the case that the Liberals only won the two
elections of that year by a whisker, despite the fact that protectionism
was still hobbled by disunity. Protectionists were also unlucky in their
timing: Chamberlain launched his campaign just at the beginning of the
long Edwardian boom. Support for protection increased sharply in the
brief downturn of 1908-09, and if economic times had been harder free
trade might have disappeared sooner. If this is so, it may put in
question the depth of the moral commitment to free trade that Trentmann
lays such stress upon. It may also suggest the need for a
counterbalancing reinvestigation of the importance of interest in
maintaining free trade before 1914 and in undermining it after that date.
Peter J. Cain is Professor of History at Sheffield Hallam University,
UK. E-mail: p.j.cain@shu.ac.uk He is the author of _Hobson and
Imperialism: Radicalism, New Liberalism and Finance, 1887-1938_ (Oxford,
2002).
Copyright (c) 2008 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be
copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the
author and the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net
Administrator (administrator@eh.net; Telephone: 513-529-2229). Published
by EH.Net (October 2008). All EH.Net reviews are archived at
http://www.eh.net/BookReview.
Society in Modern Britain_. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. xiv +
450 pp. £25/$50 (cloth), ISBN: 978-0-19-920920-0.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Peter J. Cain, Department of History, Sheffield
Hallam University.
In discussions and analyses of trade regimes in Britain from the late
nineteenth century through to the 1930s, protectionist campaigns have
hogged most of the attention of historians and free trade -- the ruling
regime before the 1930s -- has been relatively neglected. For that
reason alone, Frank Trentmann’s account of free trade and its supporters
would be a welcome addition to the literature: the bonus is that author,
Professor of History at Birkbeck College in London University, has not
only added a great deal to our knowledge through painstaking research
but has written about it with verve and energy and produced a most
readable volume on a subject that can be very dull indeed.
Trentmann’s case is that support for free trade in Edwardian Britain did
not mainly rely on calculations of interest, though he does not totally
ignore that, but was driven by a highly emotional, even passionate,
commitment akin to nationalist or religious fervor, and was seen by its
advocates as a crucial element in defining what they thought of as
Britishness. He admits that around 1900 the free trade movement was in
poor shape as foreign manufactured imports mounted and foreign tariffs
rose, and that some form of protectionism was being discussed even at
government level. Chamberlain’s tariff campaign starting in 1903 changed
all that. Faced with a clear and open challenge, the free trade cause
gathered an astonishing momentum which swept the previously ailing
Liberal party into office in 1906 and helped to keep them there through
two further elections. Masterminded by the Free Trade Union (which,
ironically, learned much from its rival the Tariff Reform League) the
electorate was aroused by a campaign of propaganda that successfully
associated protection with poverty by reminding the nation of the
“Hungry Forties” when protection had last held sway. The free traders
also succeeded in accusing protectionists of attempting to revive an
oppressive state; of undermining free trade’s natural tendency to bring
peace through economic interdependence; and of serving the interests of
a minority of landed and business elites whom they branded as selfish
vested interests, intent on creating monopolies and cartels that would
exploit the majority of the nation. As Trentmann acutely notes, the
campaign had a great effect in politicizing women as key consumers and,
more widely, in putting consumers’ interests at the center of policy,
something that anticipates many modern political movements. All this
made for a very lively politics that sometimes erupted into violence and
which led to extraordinary organizational developments, such as the
great series of lectures and entertainments that the FTU took to the
seaside towns of Britain.
After 1914, that momentum proved increasing hard to sustain. The war
shook faith in laisser-faire and made state control and big business
seem much more natural. Under state auspices, some protection was
introduced to regulate imports and ensure that they served the cause of
winning the war: free trade thus began to appear as a policy that
ministered to individual needs rather than to the national interest.
That encouraged the idea of “safeguarding” key industries after the war
in case conflict should erupt again; and the much higher unemployment
rates in the 1920s also undermined the long-held idea that free trade
naturally meant prosperity. Again, the rise of nutritional science meant
that more stress was placed on health and the need for the state to
improve it, rather than on the “cheapness” lauded by free traders that
now began to seem synonymous with undernourishment and poverty.
Moreover, free trade had clearly failed to keep the peace
internationally and radicals who had once been fervent Cobdenites were
thinking, by the 1920s, much more of the need for international
organizations like the League of Nations to regulate international
intercourse rather than relying on the invisible hand of the market. As
visions of world peace and prosperity under free trade were challenged,
empire increased in appeal and, naturally enough, greater stress was
placed on the need to bind the empire to Britain through tariffs. All
this served to undermine the great cultural movement that had
transformed the Edwardian political scene and by the time the world
economy began to collapse in the early 1930s, free trade was viewed not
as the cement binding the nation together but as the belief of a
relatively few staunch individualists who were out of touch with the
times.
There is far more in this fine book than can be represented here and
Trentmann makes a powerful case for his interpretation of the evidence.
It may be, however, that he underestimates the fragility of the
commitment to free trade before 1914, thus making its decline in the
1920s seem more precipitous than it was. Trentmann recognizes that
Chamberlain was a godsend to free traders but he does not say enough
about how easy he made it for them. Firstly, he split the Conservative
party thus making it impossible for them at the 1906 election; secondly,
in highlighting imperial preference he failed to garner the level of
support that a more wholehearted commitment to domestic protection would
have given. It may be true, as Trentmann contends, that effective
organization by free traders was crucial to victory in the 1910
elections: but it is still the case that the Liberals only won the two
elections of that year by a whisker, despite the fact that protectionism
was still hobbled by disunity. Protectionists were also unlucky in their
timing: Chamberlain launched his campaign just at the beginning of the
long Edwardian boom. Support for protection increased sharply in the
brief downturn of 1908-09, and if economic times had been harder free
trade might have disappeared sooner. If this is so, it may put in
question the depth of the moral commitment to free trade that Trentmann
lays such stress upon. It may also suggest the need for a
counterbalancing reinvestigation of the importance of interest in
maintaining free trade before 1914 and in undermining it after that date.
Peter J. Cain is Professor of History at Sheffield Hallam University,
UK. E-mail: p.j.cain@shu.ac.uk He is the author of _Hobson and
Imperialism: Radicalism, New Liberalism and Finance, 1887-1938_ (Oxford,
2002).
Copyright (c) 2008 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be
copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the
author and the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net
Administrator (administrator@eh.net; Telephone: 513-529-2229). Published
by EH.Net (October 2008). All EH.Net reviews are archived at
http://www.eh.net/BookReview.
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