I doubt it; Larry Summers would presumably be aware that Mexico is an OECD country, and was in 1994.

I wish he’d explained before he left why he didn’t feel the need to respond to anyone else’s specific points, or why he waited until his very last post to reveal to us that the reason why he defended Summers is that he is in basic agreement with Summers, and that the other stuff he’s been talking about has just been tactical.

I’d be perfectly happy to have “these tradeoffs made by democratically elected governments” of the LDCs (in the cases where they exist) while at the same time opposing imposing standards-they-can’t-afford so they won’t compete with DCs’ industries. But sometimes environmental standards are imposed on LDCs as a form of indirect trade protection (since under WTO rules direct trade protection is a no-no) and sometimes they are even “voluntarily” adopted by target countries, democratic or not, through political pressure.
In terms of net effect on environmental quality there’s two things going on here; requiring certain kinds of environmental standards that cannot possibly be met by poor countries to price them out of the world markets and at the same time insisting on keeping other kinds of environmental standards low so that DC firms can move there and produce at low cost. To be a bit cynical, it’s probably the case that the LDCs probably get the shaft on both counts. Of course both of these shafts are voluntarily adopted by their democratically elected governments.

Oh, I totally agree, that’s why I got distracted with Conan some way back. But hey, that’s how you generate almost 150 comments on a thread. Everybody gets to talk about their feelings.

Problem is, notsneaky, orthodox politics of a certain stripe says it’s OK to paint this as “orthodox theory is something you don’t need to know in much detail, because it’s just an elaborate rationalization for industrialists in developed world countries to poison LDC people instead of themselves.”

Actually, there’s more. In defense of poor people in LDCs against the ghastly deadly tide of globalization, it’s OK to

(1) never admit you were wrong when you were proven wrong,
(2) avoid obvious connections where it’s inconvenient to see them,
(3) lay stress on very strained connections where that’s convenient,
(4) wildly distort your opponents’ positions on other questions if that helps you make the ad hominem case.

As an example of how somebody just went after me with (4), in comments on Michael Berube’s exchange with Peter Singer, I mused (admittedly rather vaguely) in ways that I assumed would be construed as follows: (1) We’re direct descendants of cro-magnons. (2) Cro-magnons might have wiped out Neanderthals. (3) One could speculate (and many have) that we thrived and they are extinct for a not very flattering reason—that we have genocidal tendencies that they didn’t have. (4) The concentration of the mentally retarded in institutions, to the very likely detriment (at least for a while) of their health and welfare compared even to the previous laissez faire environment (brutal enough) might have both brought out and facilitated the expression of cro-magnon-rooted genocidal tendencies, in this case against a people who weren’t even a race in any sense. (5) The theories that Down syndrome people might be Neanderthal “throwbacks” could be considered a sort of romanticization of the long travails of an oppressed people, hardly a new narrative, in fact very derivative, but in this case with a scientific veneer that would be very appealing in a kind of science-fictional way. If anything, Dr. Down might be considered a kind of mythic hero or Moses figure for this notional “people”, even though he pointed to the expression of “mongoloid” and “ethiope” facial features in DS children of a variety of races to argue in favor of the idea that racial differences must actually be very superficial, and against a common argument of the time that the human race was not really one family.

Anyway, that’s a direction or thread of the discussion that I thought might develop.

But lemuel sarcastically pounds this down into: “[Michael’s] off explaining to Berube that his son is actually a Neanderthal.”

Why? Because I’m evil and/or stupid, and by hardly more than mere association with the evil and/or stupid Larry Summers.

Need an example of (2)? I believe if you asked Summers what he thought his most important contribution to LDC public health was, he’d at least considering answering: “Successfully arguing for bailing out Mexico after the peso crash, and helping to get it through against public opposition.” Why? As he argued (with Lance Pritchett) while at the World Bank, income is the dominant factor in health, it can’t be explained as little more than “healthier workers make more money.” Bailing out Mexico might have saved hundreds of thousands of Mexican lives by keeping its economy from crashing seriously.

But dsquared says I’m just picking random nice things to say about Larry Summers, as if incomes had no possible relation to public health, which is, after all, most of what we’re concerned with when we concern ourselves with toxic dumping in LDCs, isn’t it? (Or did I miss a whole Singer-esque point here, that Summers is guilty of valuing homo sapiens over other species? Of supporting an “impeccable” economic logic that’s actually flawed because it’s species-ist?)

Anyway, notsneaky, I’m gonna go out and get run over by a trolley now. I’m sure that would be more fun than staying here with you and arguing with these people.

Gotta give lots of points for self-awareness on that one. I’m envious, actually.

the great thing about this extract from a memo is that we can all make up our own context for it, so I’m not sure that this particular debate is going anywhere.

Actually, let me pause here and inquire if you agree with this idea

I can see both sides, but am of the opinion that since I don’t live in an LDC, it’s not really my business to have a strong opinion one way or t’other. If I worked for the World Bank I think I’d be quite strongly of the view that these tradeoffs were to be made by the democratically elected governments concerned rather than being imposed by external technocrats.

No, I’m working from the premise that there were people at the time who thought that “forcing developed country standards” on LDC’s WAS the World Bank’s job and that the memo can be seen as a reply to those people.

And while this is true:
“it’s actually quite orthodox economics to suggest that LDCs ought to have lower standards of environmental regulation than developed countries”

it’s not the same as
” face-ing up to the fact that the orthodox economic position on enviromental protections in LDCs is
a) accurately summarised in the infamous memo””

Orthodox theory would say that since in order to industrialize you’ll pretty much have to pollute (and if you don’t, then, hey, that’s great!) and that if there’s something like diminishing marginal utility of income (i.e. an extra dollar of income is worth a LOT to a very poor person) then trading off some environmental quality for more income in poorer countries – industrializing and developing – is worth it.

Actually, let me pause here and inquire if you agree with this idea – given that there really is a trade off between environmental quality and income at low level of development (you can’t have both), is there anything wrong with this statement?

Ok. Anyway, the memo says something else – in particular 1) and 2) and 3) in the memo are talking about something completely different, make different kind of (faux) “arguments”.

Not only is he tactless but he’s also rather dim,
For there’s eleven of us and there’s only one of him

Of all people, economists should not exaggerate their own views for comic effect.

Both of which can be ironic in their own ways. The irony defense loses by winning and wins by losing.

He’s off explaining to Berube that his son is actually a Neanderthal.