BOOK REVIEW

B. Goudzwaard

J Tinbergen A livable earth. Agon-Elsevier, Amsterdam-Brussels 1970. 216 pages.

This recent book by J. Tinbergen is a significant publication. However, this does

not apply in the sense that professional economists can find in this publication a

wealth of information that they could not obtain in any other way, nor does it lie

in the fact that this book has advanced development economics by leaps and

bounds. Tinbergen's intention with this book was explicitly different.

In his foreword he himself says: “This book tries to kill two birds with one stone.... On

the one hand, it wants to familiarize a larger audience with how prosperity and well-being can be promoted, especially for the poorest countries. On the other hand, it wants to tell those who are interested in the fight against poverty something about what has been done at the international level in the last five years to organize this fight” : this is popularization, familiarizing a large audience with the aims and means of a well-targeted, systematically

conducted development policy.

And this is precisely where the special importance of this book lies.

Popularization may still be a luxury for some specialist sciences, but for the sub-

science of development economics it is a necessity. The reason for this is that

development economics is aimed from the outset on application, on operability,

and it can only achieve this operability when development planning based on

theoretical reflection is accepted and supported in its scope and consequences by a

large public. In other words, to make the development economy actually operable,

a double step is necessary: first the step from theoretical reflection to international

planning and then the step from reflection and planning to popularization, to

familiarizing the public. The fascinating thing about Tinbergen's life’s work is that

he - as one of the founders of development economics - wanted to take both

steps towards practical operability. He took the first step through his practical

development work and his acceptance of the chairmanship of the UNO Plan

Committee in preparation for the second development decade; and he has taken

the second step - indeed, by the writing of this very book.

One of the charms of this manuscript is that it contains the same wonderful

mixture of modesty and fascination that is also inherent in the author himself. It is

also dedicated to Geert Ruygers, a living member of the Labor Party faction in the

House of Representatives, who - as Tinbergen mentions in his dedication - has

given his life to the fight against poverty. The design is crystal clear and the

language used does not assume a broad development on the part of the reader;

just attention.

The first part of the manuscript - chapters 1 to 8 - popularizes the contribution

of development economics in the fight against world poverty. The basic premise is

that the fight against poverty, and to make our world livable, above all requires

greater production. The determinants of such greater production are the ‘

‘production makers’ - nature, capital, labor (including what arises from human

patterns of conduct) and scientific research, each of which is dealt with in a

separate chapter. This discussion of greater productivity is not presented in the

abstract, but very concretely. In the chapter on natural resources, he discusses,

among other things, the influence of oil reserves on the economic development of

the countries in the Middle East, as well as the disruption of the ecological balance

in Western and developing countries. In the chapter on the role of capital we find

an interesting intermezzo about the practical choice between labor-intensive and

capital-intensive production methods; and then in discussion of the influence of

human patterns of conduct, attention is paid to the inhibiting influences in

developing countries of socio-religious taboos (the caste system, rejection of birth

control, resistance to animal husbandry aimed at meat production). Tinbergen

adds the remark that we in Western Europe also have our sacred cows: our milk

production is subsidized to such an extent that the resulting butter production can

only be sold on the world market through dumping, and is thus detrimental to the

production of local tropical fats. The role of rapid population growth is also

discussed in this chapter.

Chapters 7 and 8 discuss international trade - which contains numerous artificial

obstacles to achieving an optimal distribution of production in the world - and the

role of the chosen social systems or the social system which will be chosen, which

also have an economic impact. growth rate can have an important influence for

good or bad.

The simple language that Tinbergen uses is potentially misleading insofar as the

reader may sometimes gets the impression that he or she has been provided with

comprehensive knowledge, while in fact complicated matters are discussed,

sometimes in a very original way. The aim of popularization does not prevent

Tinbergen from giving explanations on the theory of comparative costs and the

so-called paradox of Leontief, and on the basis of a Swedish study (Herman) on

the capital intensity of production in various industries. And so he is quite

concrete - albeit intended to be illustrative - and so makes suggestions about a

possible ‘best’ division of labor for various countries and continents.

For a former student of Tinbergen, it is also fascinating to see how this book in

certain respects also contains a further elaboration of the basic ideas of his

theoretical work. I am not only thinking of his now almost universally known

system of government policy objectives and instruments, which can also be found

in this book, but also of the connection between his original thoughts on

‘centralization and decentralization in economic policy’ and of the consideration

he gives in this book to both ‘convergence theory’ (regarding the convergence of

socialist and capitalist economic systems), as well as to the desirability of a world

government.

The second part of the book - chapters 9 to 13 - provides a fascinating

overview of the ‘organization’, on the international level, of the fight against

poverty since the Second World War. In short, this second part is a kind of

compendium of the still short history of the design of an international

development strategy, both in terms of organizational work and international

planning and reporting activities (Jackson report, Pearson report and Tinbergen

report in preparation for the second development decade). Here too, it is striking

that Tinbergen does not write all this for the sake of history, but to make this

recent past operational for the future. And for Tinbergen that future is: a second

development decade, in which the fight against poverty will actually make progress,

and in the further future: a restructuring of the entire international society, which,

in the words of the author, is now ‘the most old-fashioned institution we have.’ (p.

189), because it is not the interest of the weak, but the right of the strongest that

sets the tone.

Anyone who would expect that Tinbergen would ‘float’ in this part of his book

and indulge in thin reflections would be mistaken: here too, a concrete program

emerges, entirely in Tinbergen’s style. Although this program has some still empty

spots, these do not owe their origin to the unwillingness of the author, but rather

to the fact that overconfidence is foreign to him. The closing sentence of Chapter

12 also forms the apotheosis of the book: ‘Our attitude should not be too small for these

times. Not too small in space, because forces throughout the world determine our future. Not too small in time, because the future is already being recorded for decades. Not too small in terms of social system, because no system remains the same and every system has elements that will perish, in addition to elements that will determine the future. Our attitude will, as the saying goes, have to be based on the realization that the future citizens of this world will live together or suffer together.’

Criticism? Oh, yes, on some points. For example, I consider Tinbergen’s

confidence in the possibility of finding the (!) ‘best social order’ through scientific

means to be too great, and in my opinion he sticks too much to the description of

the determinants of the transition from a feudal to a capitalist social structure,

which - according to Marx’s sociology - form part of the so-called ‘substructure’,

or of the relationships between the factors of production. However, these possible

points of criticism do not significantly detract from the scope of the book, which

is why I only mention them in passing.

Finally, this: A livable earth is not an optimistic book. In the chapter on

‘Preparations for DD2’ (second development decade), Tinbergen even lets slip:

‘The picture is extremely bleak.’ (p. 154) ‘If we want to save anything from the future for all of

us, we will a completely different policy is needed.’ (p. 155) Tinbergen notes with concern

an increasing tendency towards isolationism, towards turning away from the

problems of the developing countries, partly as a result of disappointments from

the past, partly due to overlooking existing ones or concentrating upon domestic

problems (poverty), partly due to the emergence of new ‘welfare’ problems

(welfare diseases, air and water pollution); he might also have mentioned the role

of increasing industrial advertising, which orients the needs of citizens not to the

needs of others, but primarily to their own welfare gaps, whether fictional or

otherwise. In our country too, recent surveys indicate a declining interest in

actually giving priority to the fight against world poverty. The author places his

hope in the influence of the leaders or pioneers in the fight against poverty,

mentioning in particular some scientists, international civil servants, spiritual

leaders, figures from the business community and especially the young people at

home. ‘A number of politicians are closing the ranks.’ (p. 181)

I would have liked to see that Tinbergen, especially in view of this threatening

isolationism, had addressed in this book in more detail the question of the

connection between the necessary change in mentality in the West on the one hand

and the current Western social structure on the other, a question that is particularly

younger ‘frontrunners’ in the fight against world poverty. But perhaps this

question amounts to a request for nothing less than a second book, which

primarily examines the problem of the fight against poverty as a challenge to the

Western mentality and Western social systems.

All in all, this recent book by Tinbergen is a textbook example for every

economist faced with the task of popularizing his views; In addition - and more

importantly - it is a courageous attempt to prepare a larger public to accept the

renewed challenge that comes to us in the second development decade of the

United Nations.

Trans and edited: B C Wearne

24.9.2024