SARS-CoV-2 and aerosols and ventilation

There has been discussion whether SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) can spread via aerosols, i.e. by particles much smaller than droplets from the mouth and sneezing. The main study is Van Doremalen et al. (2020) (April 16), who write:

“Our results indicate that aerosol and fomite transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is plausible, since the virus can remain viable and infectious in aerosols for hours and on surfaces up to days (depending on the inoculum shed).”

The study was done with a rotating Goldberg drum that turned for 3 hours so that the virus made quite some distance. These authors clearly state: “SARS-CoV-2 (…) can remain (…) infectious in aerosols”

On the other hand, there is RIVM, the Dutch CDC, and its outbreak management team (OMT). The view by RIVM is here (OMT May 15 and RIVM May 27). They refer to studies that would not prove influence with certainty, in particular for SARS-CoV-2, and then they conclude that, while there is some evidence, there still is insufficient evidence for such influence.

“In conclusion, there is currently insufficient evidence whether the virus can be spread over a longer distance, then is infectious indeed and can lead to infections.” (“Concluderend is er op dit moment nog onvoldoende bewijs of het virus over langere afstand verspreid kan worden, dan daadwerkelijk infectieus is en tot besmettingen kan leiden.”)

Remarkably, OMT / RIVM refer to Van Doremalen et al. (2020) but do not provide counter-evidence that the latter would be insufficient. Thus it is false when OMT / RIVM state that there would be “insufficient evidence”. OMT / RIVM gives a wrong summary of the literature.

What is happening here ?

Confusion by minks / ferrets at a small distance

Apparently OMT / RIVM got itself into a tangle on the situation that minks / ferrets in Holland were found to infect humans, see Richard et al. (2020) here. The researchers put ferrets in cages 10 cm apart and observed transmission by air. One of the authors of the Richard et al. (2020) is Marion Koopmans, who is also member of the OMT. OMT / RIVM state:

“In both studies, however, the distance between the ferrets was small, making it impossible to determine with certainty whether the dispersal was via aerosols or droplets.” (“In beide studies was de afstand tussen de fretten echter klein, waardoor niet met zekerheid kan worden vastgesteld of de verspreiding via aerosolen of druppels heeft plaatsgevonden.”)

However, here OMT / RIVM focus on the laboratory setup of Richard et al. (2020) with the limited range of 10 cm,  while they forget about the wider implications of the Van Doremalen et al. (2020) study valid for a larger distance. Apparently Richard et al. want to make sure that everybody understands that 10 cm is not 1.5 meter. However, they lose perspective.

It is rather curious that the Van Doremalen et al. (2020) study gets so misrepresented.

Distinction between having a property and showing a property

Both Richard et al. (2020) and OMT / RIVM refer to Van Doremalen et al. (2020). Richard et al. (2020) infer from the Van Doremalen et al. study:

“In a recent study, SARS-CoV-2 remained infectious in aerosols for at least 3h after aerosolization at high titers in a rotating drum, comparable to SARS-CoV [ref]. Although it is informative to compare the stability of different respiratory viruses in the air, our study provides the additional information that infectious SARS-CoV-2 particles can actually be expelled in the air and subsequently infect recipients.”

Thus, while Van Doremalen et al. (2020) speak about being “infectious“, Richard et al. (2020) claim that “actually infect” would be something different, as if “infectious” does not mean that the virus can infect.

It is like the distinction of an apple being nutritious and an apple actually nourishing me.

The verbal distinction of course exists. However, it has no material impact here.

Conclusion: OMT / RIVM distort the scientific evidence. Let them please repair.

Other evidence

For completeness, let us look at some other evidence.

1. In the actual mink / ferret farms, the corridor between the cages may well be 1.5 meters wide, see this picture. There was no report that ferrets got only infected in particular rows. Likely there was wholesale spread over entire barns, perhaps though spread by humans walking in the alleys.

2. There is the air ioniser. Dutchman Ton Rademaker claims that he alerted some Chinese hospitals to the problem of ventilation and the solution of ionisation and that they tried this and that it worked. Rather than dismiss this, one would want this checked. The wikipedia article on the air ioniser refers to this peer reviewed article on reducing air-borne transmission: Hagbom et al. (2015), who state: “Most importantly, we demonstrate that this technology can be used to prevent airborne-transmitted influenza virus infections.” See from there to articles about airborne infections.

Scientific curiosity

Potentially the discussions of OMT / RIVM involve so many people and aspects that the result becomes something like the product of a legal accountant. Instead, a scientific researcher would check the observational or experimental setups, check what information is missing, and design an experiment to prove or disprove the hypothesis. One would not take SARS-CoV-2 because of its potential lethal property but a common cold. Okay, if you want to kill ferrets, then you have a license to use SARS-CoV-2, and see whether you can create aerosols for a distance of 1.5 meter. One could calculate how much the experiment would cost and how long it would take. It is remarkable that OMT / RIVM does not show this scientific interest and doesn’t commission such research. One gets the impression that they were asked about their earlier view, and that they are only interested in restating their earlier view, instead of opening up to alternative views and searching for contrary evidence. In the above I only supposed that they were distracted by the 10 cm distance between the ferret cages, and wanted to make it really clear that 10 cm is no 1.5 meter. Still, it is a remarkable scientific error and perhaps there were also other influences.

(One might propose that if they really think that it hasn’t been proved, then infect the air conditioning system of the university with some virus, and see what happens. Ah yes, you cannot experiment on people, even if it is the common cold, but it is fully acceptable to allow a potentially lethal virus to run around in society with the purpose of “building up herd immunity”.)

Employer associations on air ventilation

It must be mentioned that Techniek Nederland and NVKL, organisations of producers and installers of ventilation systems, refer to the RIVM report. These organisations repeat the conclusion that it hasn’t been proven that such systems can transfer the virus. This is very much like arguing that it hasn’t been proven that the Virgin Mary didn’t have an immaculate conception because nobody, and especially not the Pope, provided evidence that it happened differently. Precisely the organisations that should provide customer support join RIVM in what runs against common sense. It is not necessarily in their interest: because adapting such installations would provide for much employment. Perhaps they are afraid for legal action that they are guilty of causing infections by selling unsafe installations ? Dutch TV on the evening of June 24 had the railways CEO explain that people cannot open the windows in the train but that the railways were looking for improvements of the ventilation system (apart from opening doors at stations). It is a serious issue, and RIVM makes a curious scientific error here.

Maurice de Hond

I came upon this topic via Maurice de Hond, an opinion pollster with a background in “human geography”. He is livid that RIVM denies the importance of aerosols, ventilation and air conditioning.

An important argument by De Hond refers to the observation that 10% of the cases might infect 80% of the next generation. Thus the R0 for the 10% will be much higher than the average. RIVM instead clings to the average:

“Also an R0 of 2-4 does not seem to indicate aerosol distribution and a substantial contribution to the direct human-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (ECDC rapid risk assessment April 23, 2020)” Dutch: “Ook een R₀ van 2-4 lijkt niet te wijzen op aerogene verspreiding en op een wezenlijke bijdrage aan de directe mens-op-menstransmissie van SARS-CoV-2 (ECDC rapid risk assessment 23 april 2020)”

Conclusion

The above explains the error by RIVM. Let they please correct.

(It would be interesting whether RIVM has been presenting this view with ECDC and what their reaction has been.)

Addendum June 26

It now appears that KNAW had a webinar on the issue on June 4, with moderator Detlef Lohse, and four other speakers on fluid dynamics. The Guardian referred to a report on the air cooling system of a German slaughterhouse. One would hope that RIVM comes around soon, and before the Fall when people spend more time indoors. A Dutch magazine report is here.

Addendum July 6

(1) RIVM updated its argumentation on June 30. They rephrase to:

“We state that, based on current insights, it is unclear whether aerosol transmission plays a role in the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Dutch: “We stellen dat op basis van de huidige inzichten onduidelijk is of aerogene transmissie een rol speelt in de verspreiding van SARS-CoV-2.”

This is a vacuous statement, using their authority only, since they do not state what condition must be satisfied before things are clear to them. It is unclear why RIVM rephrased their position while they say the same on content.

(2) There are Morawska et al. (2020) with 239 scientists who argue for more attention to aerosol transmission in the regulations of the various countries. Sadly, they weaken the case, by stating, without clarifying what would be missing:

“The evidence is admittedly incomplete for all the steps in COVID-19 microdroplet transmission, but it
is similarly incomplete for the large droplet and fomite modes of transmission. The airborne
transmission mechanism operates in parallel with the large droplet and fomite routes, e.g. [16] that
are now the basis of guidance. Following the precautionary principle, we must address every
potentially important pathway to slow the spread of COVID-19.”

Thus we see 239 scientists shooting themselves in the foot. What evidence is incomplete ? It is absurd to invoke the precautionary principle against murder when the dead body of the victim lies before you. There is a crucial distinction between science and philosophy, as a philosopher might ask: “What is “dead” ?”

PM. My attention to the 239 scientists was drawn by this article by (unreliable) Maarten Keulemans. He spoke with one of the Dutch signatories, Philomena Bluyssen:

“We believe that especially as we return to the old situation, aerosol transmission should be recognized as an equally relevant route.” Dutch “Wij vinden dat met name nu we weer teruggaan naar de oude situatie, aerosole transmissie als volwaardige route moet worden erkend.”

(3) Ab Osterhaus agrees with De Hond that measures against aerosol transmission may help, must be tried, and must not be discounted as an investment loss (Medisch Contact). This again is the precautionary motive, while De Hond points to the superspreading events, and the option that direct human contact (say between family members who visit their grandparents in a care home) might be feasible if other precautions are taken.

Addendum July 7

Jack Schijven et al. (2020) have this (non-peer-reviewed) article on medRxiv July 5: “Exposure assessment for airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 via breathing, speaking, coughing and sneezing”. This is a Monte Carlo simulation that uses observed (boundary) profiles and phenomena and their estimated parameters to run a model of how actually unobserved airborne transmission might occur. It is quite remarkable how the human biology may be modeled. A remarkable meta-observation is that the authors are affiliated with RIVM that has been hesitant in acknowledging aerosol transmission. My comments are:

(1) They state:

“Similarly, van Doremalen et al. (2020) also found that SARS-CoV-2 remained viable for hours in experimentally generated aerosols (reduction in infectious virus particles from 3100 to 500 per litre air in 3 hours).” (lines 90)

However, Van Doremalen et al. (2020) state that the virus remains *** infectious ***. Indeed, Schijven et al. later state:

“Because short time frames are considered, and SARS-CoV-2 has been observed to remain infectious in aerosols for hours (Fears et al. 2020; van Doremalen et al. 2020), decay over time is not modelled in this study. The exposure assessment will, in that regard, be conservative. ” (lines 250)

My suggestion is that they replace the first “viable” with “infectious” too, because there is a risk that you might be quoted selectively. If they don’t believe Van Doremalen et al. (2020), and want to change the latter “infectious” with “viable” too, Schijven et al. should first check with Van Doremalen et al. whether they did use e.g. a culture plate with human cells or lab animal indeed, and Schijven et al. then should report about this check with these authors.

In general a person is infected until the immune system clears the person (even when e.g. HIV goes into hibernation), and the default assumption is that Van Doremalen et al. (2020) are aware of this convention, until peer criticism shows that they have made an untenable claim.

(2) They state:

“To conclude: aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is possible and should not be disregarded.”

In my judgement, this already shows from Van Doremalen et al. (2020). Schijven ea. do not clarify what their own study adds to this earlier finding. A new study must be more specific about the difference between the earlier finding of “infectious aerosols” and the new finding of the same. If a new study cannot state a relevant criticism, then the new study must state that its finding supports their finding. Please do not leave the puzzle to others.

(3) Schijven ea. first state:

“Furthermore, it should be noted that it is unknown what fraction of airborne RNA-copies is infectious virus. Observational data on infectious virus in aerosols in various settings are needed to validate modelling efforts. No dose-response model is, as of yet, available for SARS-CoV-2. “

and then conclude the same:

“5.As long as it is uncertain what fraction of the airborne RNA copies relate to virus particles and how much of these are infectious and as long as a dose response relation is lacking, it is recommended to be precautious.”

(3a) Basically they now again question whether Van Doremalen et al. (2020) have been competent enough about their use of the word “infectious”.

I can imagine that a particular line of research uses RNA and Ct values to score outcomes and then wonder about the dose response relation, but in general a person is infected until the immune system clears the person, and the default assumption is that Van Doremalen et al. (2020) are aware of this convention, until peer criticism shows that they have made an untenable claim.

Thus, in general my impression is that, the dose-response relation relates to the severity of the disease (e.g. whether healthy nurses may die too), and not to the fundamental point that a person becomes infected.

(3b) What kind of “observational data” would Schijven ea. imagine that can be generated to validate models here ? Follow individually marked aerosols by camera ? Are people (or e.g. trains) to take air samples before people report sick ? It seems that Schijven ea. are imposing an impossible condition. It may indeed sound logical, that you actually want to see proof for something. But if you cannot prove the issue in any practical manner, then this phrasing may cause a lot of confusion, as if first something impossible must be proven. My suggestion is that Schijven ea. state what a practical proof would be, or otherwise clarify that such condition is impractical.

(3c) Their use of the word “precautious” is also in the “discussion” of their abstract. What do Schijven ea. mean by being “precautious” ? Do they mean precautious in saving the economy by not requiring more ventilation, or do they mean precautious in saving people by further locking down the economy before air ventilation has been improved ?

Their ambiguous use of the word “precautious” can be abused by selective quotation by persons or agencies who want to advocate the one or the other.

My suggestion is that authors do not try to think for readers, on what they ought to do or not, but that they give information. It suffices to support the conclusion by Van Doremalen et al. (2020) that there can be aerosol infection, so that agents can adapt guidelines. Agents in the economy then will be alerted to the newly identified risk, and take their own measures and do research until there is more clarity about their own particular situations.

(3d) These authors work at RIVM. I am annoyed that Richard et al. (2020) on ferrets, that they refer to, and that RIVM maltreat the Van Doremalen et al. (2020) study before too. See here:

https://boycottholland.wordpress.com/2020/06/25/sars-cov-2-and-aerosols-and-ventilation/

RIVM has a tendency of making judgements about cost-effectiveness and economic impact without modeling such aspects or consulting with experts on those issues. If RIVM accepts that such aspects are relevant, then widen the circle of such experts, or restrict yourself to what you can say.

(4) Allow me to suggest that Schijven et al. also refer to the website of Maurice de Hond. When you refer to the point that there has been discussion about aerosol transmission then this might be a good place to refer to such discussion in the public domain. De Hond already linked superspreading events to the aerosols and that 20% of people may cause 80% of infections so that their R0 is high and so that the counterargument of RIVM on the average R0 has no relevance. If you are looking for observational studies then you can find some such evidence in that SARS-CoV-2 here is basically like SARS-CoV-1 (Peter Borger).

Addendum July 8

Apparently WHO is now rethinking the role of aerosols. The BBC:

“The World Health Organization has acknowledged there is emerging evidence that the coronavirus can be spread by tiny particles suspended in the air. The airborne transmission could not be ruled out in crowded, closed or poorly ventilated settings, an official said. If the evidence is confirmed, it may affect guidelines for indoor spaces.”

What would they mean by “if the evidence is confirmed” when it has already been confirmed many times over ?

Letter to the board of NKWP, the Dutch Political Science Association

In May I joined NKWP, the Dutch Poltiical Science Association. I informed the board that “political science on electoral systems” is a pseudo-science, comparable to astrology, alchemy or homeopathy. The board informed me yesterday that they will do nothing on this. Thus I better put a stop to my membership. I should be no part of an association that claims to be for science but that doesn’t react to information about pseudo-science under their wings.

This is my farewell letter to the board of NKWP.

Fundamentalism, hiding as pluralism – continued

This continues from former weblog text.

In the past, Dutch society had the pillars, or segregation – though not in the extreme form of Apartheid – notably between Protestants and Catholics, but also for the socialist labour movement. People could live in their own community without the need to deal with other concepts or to develop a personal sense of tolerance and open-mindedness. Only the leaders of the pillars had to bargain with one-another, and this could be restricted to more practical issues.This pillarisation started to break down in the 1960s and 1970s with the increased welfare and freedom and the advent of television and “globalisation”. Yet, there are still relevant structures, e.g. in political party memberships and newsmedia subscriptions and such.

“In their search for the conditions of stable and democratic political rule most of these political scientists came to believe that political fragmentation of a society poses enormous obstacles to the realization of stability and democracy. In their view the cleavages or fragmentation, created by differing social, ethnic, religious, and cultural groups, had somehow to be overcome before there could be any prospect of a stable, democratic regime. About fifteen years ago this dominant belief among political scientists was challenged by the young Dutch Arend Lijphart. In 1968 he published his The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in The Netherlands. Both within the country and elsewhere (thanks to the English edition) the work was highly acclaimed. Its success was due, in large part, to his description of Dutch politics as a paradoxical case of strong social segmentation or pillarization which was also marked by stability and democracy. That is, contrary to expectations, Holland is both stable and democratic despite its extensive social cleavages.” (M. van Schendelen around 1985).

While the pillars have mainly disappeared, Dutch culture hasn’t developed yet the personal sense of tolerance and open-mindedness that is required for this new situation. Dutch people are no orphans without self-confidence, but the metaphor might be helpful. If I am correct, in the USA, there is now strong antagonism between strands of Democrats and (Tea Party) Republicans, but there is also an underlying idea of mutual respect, and the attitude that opponents have the right to speak their minds, which also involves the obligation to listen to them. Perhaps this is the pioneering spirit that relies on individual strength. Though, in Hollywood comedies, it are the eternal misunderstandings that cause most laughs. Whatever that be, my suggestion is that in Holland, discussions break down far too soon. One is treated at best with a smile but no longer listened to, with the hint that you should go and look for your own pillar to talk to.

Thus, Dutch people might seem open minded but actually there is fundamentalism, fueled by uncertainty and the need to cling on to something.

A course “Economics from a pluralistic perspective” (newspeak)

The example in this weblog entry concerns what professors Irene van Staveren and Rob van Tulder call “pluralism“. This appears to be Orwellian newspeak for something that excludes key information that proper pluralism would include. It is “Free of charge to follow the course, € 50 to get a certificate”, though apparently you still must register with Coursera.

“Wondering why economists have not predicted serious financial crises? Shocked by economic assumptions of human behavior as self-centered and focusing only on what can be measured? Asking yourself if there are no sensible economic alternatives to free markets? Then you are at the right place to learn economics! Economic pluralism means that a plurality of theoretical and methodological viewpoints is regarded as valuable in itself and is simply the best way in which economics can make progress in understanding the world. This MOOC will illustrate economic pluralism not only in substance but also in form.” (EUR website)

This case concerns science and education, and involves Van Staveren’s and Van Tulder’s suppression of scientific ideas that they apparently don’t want to hear and don’t want to tell their students about. A scientist might specialise, and no longer be able to see beyond the blinders of this specialisation. In that case the scientist is no different than any other lay person, except for a general training in methodology and integrity of science. In this case, we are dealing with pluralism and generalisation, which are the opposite of specialisation. Hence the omission of key information is a much more serious issue.

My analysis in 1990 was that the Trias Politica fails, and that democracy requires an Economic Supreme Court. The economic crisis 2007+ confirms this analysis. Now, fellow economists may have other analyses, but it would be unscientific not to mention my analysis. Certainly when you target for pluralism, then also the proper analysis better be mentioned.

The former weblog entry already mentioned some important elements. We continue with the list.

Sustainable Finance Lab

Irene van Staveren is member of the so-called “Sustainable Finance Lab” (SFL) at Utrecht University. There is no good reason to combine finance and sustainability, but it might be good marketing for some bankers, and fashionable for the news media and students looking for something to study. Former RABO banker Herman Wijffels can call himself a professor now, and redirect criticism on his former banking activities to his new image on sustainability. In Dutch there is this 2013 warning by me.

I alerted Van Staveren about the malconduct by Klaas van Egmond at SFL. Van Egmond is an engineer in food technology, who has insufficient background in economics, but who doesn’t care about this, since engineers know better. He switched to the issue of the environment, and became head of the Dutch research institute on the environment. There he maltreated Roefie Hueting’s analysis on environmental sustainability. With the 2007+ economic crisis, he presented Dutch parliament with a model exercise that flies in the face of economics. These two issues are discussed here. Van Staveren didn’t respond to my criticism though she could at least have asked her SFL partners to reply to the criticism.

Holland also has environmental researchers like Rob van Dorland who do serious work on the environment. I am afraid that they get so-called “information” about economics from confused Klaas van Egmond. When I alerted Van Dorland about this issue, he rejected my warning as “spam”. Well, this is curious. The email exchange is here. This was part of the exchange above, that Van Staveren neglects to look into. It would have been better when she had corrected Van Egmond and informed Van Dorland that my information and warning had been correct.

At SFL there is also Dirk Bezemer, who disinforms the world about economists who warned about the 2007+ crisis.

At SFL there is also Mark Sanders, who advises the scientific department of the political party D66. I have asked Sanders to look in the D66 claims on improved democracy with district voting, referenda, and direct elections of prime minister and mayors. He refused to do so, and didn’t transfer my request to other people at that D66 department so that my new analysis would be looked into. Dutch readers can look here. A recent discussion on voting theory on this weblog is here.

Poor families paying for environmental costs

With global warming and deteriorating environment, the costs of the environment rise, and thus also costs for families, either directly or via taxes. For some persons this might be an argument not to include environmental costs into prices, since it would increase poverty.

“In the near future, an average three-person household will spend about €90 a month for electricity. That’s about twice as much as in 2000.
Two-thirds of the price increase is due to new government fees, surcharges and taxes. But despite those price hikes, government pensions and social welfare payments have not been adjusted. As a result, every new fee becomes a threat to low-income consumers.” (Der Spiegel 2013)

“Americans can’t afford higher electricity prices.” (Forbes 2013)

However, this situation is not fundamentally different from the past, when families already faced the question of survival and subsistence. Let me thus refer to my analysis on unemployment and poverty in DRGTPE. A short text is “Don’t tax sweat“. Dutch readers might look at this.

However, for some students of environmental economics this still might seem to be a new issue. I don’t know whether this is the case with Van Staveren and Van Tulder. They neglect to respond, and thus I really don’t know. Given that they neglect me, I presume that they also neglect my work, so that they might have above confusion.

Unemployment and poverty in general

In 1996 Ruigrok & Van Tulder “The logic of international restructuring” presented the important insight that globalisation actually was regionalisation. Fears about global competition were exaggerated. For Dutch readers: see this. This analysis fitted an earlier study by Andre Middelhoek at CPB in an evaluation of the Treaty of Rome, that there was mainly intra-industry specialisation.

In 1998 I gave Van Tulder a copy of the Dutch book “Werkloosheid en armoede, de oplossing die werkt“ (W&A) (pdf online). Van Tulder would look into it and get back to me. He hasn’t.

Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998
To: Thomas Cool
From: Rob_van_Tulder
Subject: Re: Boekje over werkloosheid en armoede, i.v.m. uw analyse;  reactie?

Geachte mijnheer Cool,
ik heb uw boekje in goede orde ontvangen. Ik heb het slechts kunnen
doorbladeren. Momenteel is me weinig tijd gegeven voor enig substantieel
leeswerk. Dat zal in de komende weken z’n beslag kunnen nemen. Ik zal dan
graag contact met u nemen.
met vriendelijke groeten,
rob van tulder

Google Translate:

I have received your book in good order. I’ve been able to browse only. At present, I have little time for any substantial reading. That will be possible in the next few weeks. I will be happy to contact you.

Now I see that Van Tulder made a 2008 study about poverty for UNRISD, the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development. There is no reference to this book or my work.

“This paper addresses the way in which the largest firms in the world are coping with their involvement in the issue of poverty at home and abroad. It will be analysed in particular whether different ‘varieties of capitalism’ (VOC) or ‘business systems’ (Cf. e.g. Whitley, 1999; Jackson and Deeg, 2008) and different industries lead to different approaches towards poverty. The paper focuses on the one hundred largest firms in the world – as measured by 2006 turnover (see Annex). The sample contains sufficient representative firms from five industries and three different varieties of capitalism, to facilitate international comparison: (1) Anglo-Saxon (containing in particular US firms), (2) Continental European (in particular French and German firms) and (3) East Asian (in particular Chinese and Japanese firms). This paper is largely descriptive. It aims at identifying and documenting various strategies that can be and are employed by corporations to reduce poverty, it tries to come to a first assessment on the profoundness of these strategies, while also considering which variety of capitalism (and business leadership) seems to develop the most pro-active strategies towards poverty reduction.” (Van Tulder 2008, UNRISD)

The study targets businesses, but a key point for such a study would be:

• Business leaders should plea with the government for a general policy to alleviate poverty, since it is the government that can resolve main issues, including the prisoners’ dilemma for the individual companies.
• Resolution of poverty in OECD countries would be an important step, since it would set an example for countries with less democracy and resources.

Indeed Van Tulder in his chapter 2 presents a more general discussion how businesses are getting involved in the poverty issue, and W&A fits in this general framework, but isn’t referred to.

Why oh why did Van Tulder not get back to me about this book that I gave him ? It might be that he simply forgot ?

Wage moderation policy

Van Tulder (2000) (in Dutch) p178 & 180 refers to the Dutch wage moderation policy, but without the criticism given by Kleinknecht, see this earlier weblog entry.

The policy of wage moderation is also discussed in W&A as a key angle to understand unemployment and poverty in Holland and the OECD. See DRGTPE on exposed and sheltered sectors of the economy.

Reading DRGTPE

In 2010, I alerted Van Staveren about DRGTPE and the Dutch booklet DOK for a general public. Van Staveren indicated that she would look at it, so I sent her the relevant links. I haven’t received a reaction since. A 2014 discussion about the failure of the Trias Politica and need for Economic Supreme Courts is here.

From: “Staveren, I. van (Irene)”
To: ‘Thomas Cool / Thomas Colignatus’
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010
Subject: RE: Mijn analyse over werkloosheid en armoede

Geachte Thomas Cool,

Hartelijk dank voor uw mailtje en interesse in mijn werk. Als u me (een link naar) uw werk over de Trias Politica en uitbreiding met een Economische Hof zou willen toesturen, zal ik dat met belangstelling lezen.

Ik neem aan dat u bekend bent met mijn boek waarin ik betoog dat er drie economische waardendomeinen zijn en dat een economie pas goed functioneert als die drie (vrijheid/ruil; rechtvaardigheid/herverdeling; zorgzaamheid/de gift) in evenwicht zijn? (Voor de zekerheid: Irene van Staveren, The Values of Economics – an Aristotelian Perspective. Routledge, 2001.)

Hartelijke groeten, Irene van Staveren.

Google Translate:

Thank you for your email and interest in my work. If you would like to send me a link to your work on the Trias Politica and expansion with an Economic Court, I will read that with interest.

I assume you are familiar with my book that I argue that there are three economic value domains, and that an economy only works well if those three (freedom / exchange, justice / redistribution, care / gift) are balanced? (For sure: Irene van Staveren, The Values ​​of Economics – An Aristotelian Perspective. Routledge, 2001.)

PM. I am aware of the work by Arjo Klamer and Deirdre McCloskey on (virtue) ethics. Van Staveren wrote her thesis with Klamer and McCloskey was in the thesis commission. It had been my intention to look at Van Staveren’s thesis, but this hasn’t been urgent for me to do so yet.

Closing off

This discussion already takes two weblog entries. Let me close this off now, with a salute to George Orwell, apparently born in the same year as Jan Tinbergen (1903-1994).

Eric Blair / George Orwell (1903-1950)

Fundamentalism, hiding as Dutch pluralist economics

Five years ago I discussed the “Dutch Taliban“. I can now include Dutch “pluralist economics” to this narrative.

There is this particular course “Economics from a pluralist perspective” in English though created by two Dutch professors Irene van Staveren (ISS) and Rob van Tulder (RSM) and a PhD student. I have no access to this course so I cannot check whether they refer to my analysis in DRGTPE and CSBH or not. I presume that I would have been informed if they had. The following is conditional on the probable assumption of neglect.

I will refer to some books that I haven’t read, and explain why I will not read them. One book by Van Staveren that I haven’t read deals with economists who aren’t read. I understand that she doesn’t include me as an economist who isn’t read.

I already wrote about “Economics as a zoo” in 2005, and pointed to the terms of orthodoxy and heterodoxy as inadequate. Much is plain old history of economic thought. Apparently the new term is “pluralism”. Also, I was one of the economists who warned before the 2007+ crisis, yet Dutch economists neglect my work and neglect my protest against censorship, and apparently I am in some other dimension than their “pluralism”.

I regard myself as a neoclassical economist, in the term as coined by Paul Samuelson. I am eclectic and open to ideas but for practical work there must be a model, using theory and tested by statistics. My work is not mainstream yet because my work has been hit by censorship. My work rejects neoliberal economics (Robert Lucas), but anyone can check that neoliberal economics is emperically untenable. Readers should not confuse neoclassical economics with neoliberal economics.

My impression is that “pluralist” economists might so much fear mainstream economics and also so much desire to be accepted, that they opt for versions of “pluralism” that are not really dangerous to mainstream economics. Which means that their “pluralism” is useless. But they can applaud each other greatly in their mutual admiration bubble.

Pluralist economics, before or after the crisis ?

The two professors cause the tantalising question whether pluralism starts before or after the 2007+ crisis.

The online course refers to Irene van Staveren’s matricola textbook Economics After the Crisis. An Introduction to Economics from a Pluralist and Global Perspective.  ($61.53) (Dutch: Managementboek).

The online course manual states clearly that this textbook is not necessary for the course itself. This is fine, since the book is rather expensive, and one would wish for open access books nowadays. (See here for a cheap solution for open access publishing.) They state that the book will be helpful if you want to read from paper. The professors apparently thus think that the economic crisis hasn’t been a natural experiment that explains which approach was empirically most relevant, but only provides a case for more pluralism, perhaps to allow for more natural experiments by economists who don’t know what to think because they have so many theories to choose from.

Pluralism as Orwellian newspeak

Dutch pluralist economics is Orwellian newspeak for anything fashionable, as long as it neglects the censorship of science since 1990 by the directorate of the Dutch Central Planning Bureau (CPB). Dutch pluralist economics has these fundamental tenets:

• Economics is an empirical science, and the censorship at CPB doesn’t exist so it cannot be observed. Any fact on this can be neglected. (If I worked there and there aren’t CPB publications to my name, then this must have another explanation than censorship.)
• Scientists will protest against censorship, and since scientists don’t protest then apparently there is no censorship. Hail to free society and the wisdom of Dutch government and Dutch economists. Except criticism for pluralism, of course.
• Errors by the directorate of the CPB might be made, but not on censorship and dismissals with untruths. If the Dutch legal system allows such censorship and untruths because judges assume that the Dutch government wouldn’t do such things, then this only proves that there is no censorship.
• The censorship has no consequences for policy making either, since something that doesn’t exist clearly can have no consequences.
• It is only possible to know what the censorship is about once it has been lifted, but since it doesn’t exist it must be about nothing.
• The economic crisis of 2007+ confirms my analysis of 1990, yet for Dutch economists there is the special task to completely neglect his work and his protest against censorship, since Thomas and his work do not exist, as proven in the above.
• Well, Thomas might exist as a lunatic, see his protest against this censorship by the directorate of CPB. Completely irresponsible about such a respected institute (even though the directorate goofed on the crisis and its treatment and the policy of wage moderation).

What might seem tolerant or pluralist appears to be another form of fundamentalism. Professors Irene van Staveren (ISS) and Rob van Tulder (RSM) show engaging smiles that however hide mental niqabs or beards. (There is no need to overdo the metaphor with Photoshop.)

Van Staveren is anabaptist and her answer to neighbourly love is that she selects which neighbour to love. Van Tulder has a book for students about the essential skills for studying. Indeed, in our knowledge society, studying is actually a job too, and I am in favour of a student wage. Van Tulder’s book has the advice: “Dare to build upon research from others” – and apparently he has found other others than me who he really dares to build upon for his version of pluralism.

 

Smiles that hide fundamentalism. (Source: RSM and wikimedia)

Amartya Sen, voting theory and the Brexit referendum question

Irene van Staveren states that she derives much inspiration from the work of Amartya Sen. Sen however is a very mainstream economist and is seriously misguided on some key issues, so that one wonders what Van Staveren finds so inspiring. Sen is famous and fashionable, true, but fame and fashion are not scientific criteria.

• One of my papers that got hit by the censorship deconstructs Kenneth Arrow’s impossibility theorem. (CPB internal memo 90-III-37, but better start now with my book Voting Theory for Democracy (VTFD).) Sen in his Collective Choice and Social Welfare gives a useful standard presentation of Arrow’s theorem. One can check that Sen doesn’t understand it. (Dutch readers can look here.) With Arrow, Sen actually helps to destroy democracy.
• One can check that Sen’s own theorem on the supposed impossibility of a Paretian liberal is misguided as well, see VTFD.
• Sen’s book Development as freedom is a collection of platitudes and open doors, comparable to “don’t give money but a fishing rod”.
• Sen contributed to the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi report, but this neglects the work by Tinbergen and Hueting on the economics of ecological survival (see my draft book).
• Sen’s argument that democracies have less famines than non-democracies is questionable, see India itself. It is a better argument that the Trias Politica model of democracy fails, also in the case of hunger, whence each democracy requires an Economic Supreme Court.

While Sen has a training as an economist and mathematician, all this suggests that he is more inclided to abstract thought as a mathematician and less as an empiricist. It is not clear to me what Van Staveren’s background w.r.t. mathematics is.

It are such uncritical professors like Irene van Staveren who cause that Sen has gotten such authority in some circles. This is not without consequences. Sen’s misconception on voting theory shows also in his article with Eric Maskin in the NY Review of Books on electoral reform in the USA. The key advice that voting theorists can give to democracies is to switch to proportional representation (PR) in the House of Commons of parliament, and the selection of the executive power (ministers including PM) by such a PR House of Commons. Instead, Maskin and Sen stick to direct election of the US President, which however is subject to many voting paradoxes as has been illuminated by Arrow’s theorem. They adopt the best way to destroy democracy, namely by using methods that are unconvincing for the general population. There are various techniques of voting, but these better be used by parliament itself, once parliament has been chosen by PR. (Compare Holland with the UK.) Thus, Maskin and Sen, in their lack of understanding of voting theory, keep the US caught in suboptimality and cynicism. If there are no good alternatives, then Trump perhaps really was the democratically best choice. Similarly for the UK and India indeed. And Van Staveren cheers on, finding inspiration in Sen, and neglecting the censorship of science by the directorate of the CPB w.r.t. my work that contains the scientifically correct analysis.

Another example is Brexit. Undoubtedly many UK policy advisors have been trained either directly or via their teachers on Sen’s Collective Choice and Social Welfare as well. See my article in the RES Newsletter, April 2017, and reproduced on the LSE Brexit blog.

Environmental sustainability

A bit more can be said about sustainability, apart from Sen. Rob van Tulder has a major teaching engagement on management of sustainability in businesses. If prices aren’t right, then companies might make amends themselves. It seems that he neglects Tinbergen and Hueting’s on environmental sustainability. It would be much more effective to argue that environmental costs are included in the prices, since companies should not do what only the government can do properly.

“Professor van Tulder is co-founder of RSM’s Department of Business-Society Management, a world-leading department on the issues surrounding sustainability. The department offers a highly successful master’s specialising in sustainability.”

Also, Irene van Staveren and Jan Peil have edited this Handbook of Economics and Ethics. (2009), £168.30 in a period where open access already was a known concept.

• Hans Opschoor there explains the topic of sustainability. I don’t have the text and would be interested to see what he states about Hueting’s work, since there are remarkable confusions about it. Opschoor coined the term “milieugebruiksruimte” (environmental carrying capacity) in 1989, but this is only an application of Hueting’s notion of environmental functions of 1974, after which Opschoor got citations that should have gone to Hueting. In this short text of 2016 Opschoor only refers to Hueting”s 1974 thesis but not to his later notion of environmentally sustainable national income (eSNI).
• My own analysis on Arrow’s impossibility theorem might be included too, since Arrow claims moral desirability for the demolition of democracy, while I use deontic logic to show that this is unwarranted, see VTFD chapter 9.2 on page 239. (And perhaps read “Deontology” by Mark D. White.)  Yet, why would my analysis be included in this book behind a paywall, as VTFD is already online ? Hopefully some of the authors refer properly.
• There is a chapter on Sen by Sabina Alkire, and hopefully she was aware of the above.
• There is a chapter on poverty by Andy Sumner and on minimum wages by Ellen Mutari, and I can only hope that they have been aware of the following below.

Unemployment and poverty

In 1998 I gave Van Tulder a copy of this Dutch book on unemployment and poverty. He would read it and get back to me. This didn’t happen. Perhaps Van Tulder did not like the book ? We can only guess. This is a nice review in Dutch at DISK (lay people) and this is a misguided and misleading review by a Dutch economist, Joan Muysken, which case I already discussed on CofFEE or latte. If Van Tulder had misgivings in 1998 he could have discussed those with me. My impression is that Van Staveren can be annoyed towards Van Tulder that his silence on this may have caused her the lost years of 1998-2017 of looking for a good analysis, and the rest of the world the actual crisis of 2007+.

The book is a text for the general public, and fellow economists can find the same analysis in DRGTPE. However, journalists Hans Hulst and Auke Hulst report also on some events w.r.t. CPB which isn’t in DRGTPE.

Van Staveren’s co-editor Jan Peil, from above book on economics and ethics, also collaborated on a Dutch book on poverty and social exclusion. Translation: “Almost a million people in Holland have to deal with poverty.” This is a review at DISK in Dutch of 2007. DISK has been abolished now. Above book W&A had been reviewed also by DISK, but the review might no longer be at their site. My impression is that various channels of information have not been used.

Economists who (almost) aren’t read anymore

Van Staveren also wrote a book (EUR 22.50) for the general public, in Dutch, about economists “who (almost) aren’t read anymore”. (The brackets are logically strange.) There exists already a Dutch translation of Heilbroner’s masterpiece, but Van Staveren wants to link up to the 2007+ crisis.

The book’s cover has a problematic claim. Let me use Google Translate for the fun of it, and it actually does a remarkable good job. The first sentence is that neoclassical economics seemed to be the only relevant theory.

“After the Cold War, the only relevant theory seemed to understand the economy and influence the neoclassical. Economists who thought otherwise were dismissed as naive, or worse, as stupid. The financial crisis has painfully shown that this limited look is unjustified and can even cause a lot of damage. Irene van Staveren therefore advocates a pluralistic approach to the economy.” (Google Translate of: “Na de Koude Oorlog leek de enige relevante theorie om de economie te begrijpen en te beïnvloeden de neoklassieke. Economen die anders dachten, werden afgedaan als naïef, of nog erger, als dom. De financiële crisis heeft op pijnlijke wijze laten zien dat deze beperkte blik onterecht is en zelfs veel schade kan toebrengen. Irene van Staveren pleit daarom voor een pluralistische benadering van de economie”)

It is incorrect to say that other thoughts were generally dismissed. Perhaps there were instances, but not over the board. Good economists have kept an interest in the history of economic theory. But not everything can be used at the relevant job at hand. When there has been bad policy, a main factor has been the failure of the Trias Politica model of democracy, with too much room for politicians to manipulate information. See my advice for an Economic Supreme Court.

The unread ones are supposedly: Karl Marx, Hyman Minsky, Keynes, Frank Knight, Barbara Bergmann, Thorstein Veblen, Amartya Sen, Gunnar Myrdal, Adam Smith and Joan Robinson.

Why doesn’t Van Staveren mention my work as largely unread ? For an answer, she only allows the categories that I would be naive or stupid. This doesn’t strike me as logically and empirically sound. Her book must be the product of a severely deluded bubble.

I wonder whether I should show Van Tulder’s “Dare to build upon research from others” to give some indications about these authors. I can spend only a line on each, and this might strike the reader as dismissive and disrepectful, while the fellow economist might have worked hard most of his or her life to contribute to economic science. I wouldn’t want that my own work would be dismissed disrespectfully either. Yet, Van Staveren’s selection strikes me as rather curious:

• Of these fellow economists, I had never heard of Barbara Bergmann before. Apparently she looked at gender in economics, and this hasn’t been my topic of interest. I suppose however that she is well read by economists who deem gender an important aspect. (E.g. on risk taking.)
• Karl Marx is only interesting for history, in the same way as one would read Julius Caesar.
• Perhaps Gunnar Myrdal isn’t much read nowadays, but that requires a longer explanation, including the lifting of the censorship at CPB.
• Hyman Minsky of course is the celebrated case, but the description about his lack of influence is more complicated than mere dismissal. He really was a professor of economics, and I am not. I wonder whether there weren’t more standard neoclassical authors who said much of the same, so that Minsky’s main advantage is that he now is the best known “neglected” one. The main point is not neglect, but the failure of the Trias Politica model of democracy.
• Keynes would not be read ? Well, one might say that many neoliberals didn’t read much of Keynes before 2007, but Ben Bernanke was chairman of the US Fed in 2006-2014, and we can be assured that Bernanke read Keynes, and that he responded admirably to the crisis, for otherwise the world had imploded. Let me also mention the biography by Skidelsky, that generated a renewed interest in Keynes, starting in 1983.
• Frank Knight gave wrong definitions of uncertainty and risk, see DRGTPE. What was relevant however got reworked by Keynes. The 2007+ crisis caused a renewed interest in the Chicago Plan, indeed. See the comment on Minsky.
• Thorstein Veblen wasn’t read ? I cannot believe this.
• Amartya Sen has been amply read, see above discussion. Van Staveren wants to portray him as unread only to promote her bubble.
• Adam Smith unread ? I cannot believe this. Contrary to Marx, he is still quite relevant, see Heilbroner.
• Joan Robinson ? Apparently her contribution on “imperfect competition” has been included in neoclassical economics. In heterodoxy, her writings have some popularity, but it is not clear to me why she should be read more widely. Her work never seemed to matter for my own work and I haven’t really read her. Perhaps she is relevant for other fields of economics, but I would not know.

Above indication isn’t intended to mark these authors in a particular manner. The only intention is to argue that Van Staveren’s selection is rather curious. Most likely the title of her book is plain wrong. The present title might be much of a marketing ploy. A neutral title might have been: Views from the history of economics on the economic crisis.

It matters a great deal how the issue is presented (framed):

• My analysis is that economics already contained ample information, so that the crisis has been caused by failure of the Trias Politica by abuse by policy makers. For example, policy makers could and can cherry pick an economist to defend a particular policy. My advice is an Economic Supreme Court, so that such cherry picking is no longer possible, for the ESC will weigh arguments on content.
• Irene van Staveren puts the blame of the crisis on the economics profession itself, also at the academia, instead of the policy makers. She wants the whole of the economics profession to function as an Economic Supreme Court. This is a category mistake, since the academia do not have the task to support policy making but to generate new insights and criticism.

Misleading the public

In her bubble, Van Staveren neglects my work, doesn’t mind about the censorship, and misleads the public.

A lay person’s review shows that Van Staveren partly did a good job in reaching out to the public.

“A few jumping points from the book: Not only did many scientists see the 2007 financial crisis, the same people predict that the weather will go wrong. According to them, nothing has changed, such as the strict separation of savings banks and business banks and insurance. Taxpayers have to pay billions to save banks that were too big to fail, the banks are still too big to fail and still sell incomprehensible and uncontrollable products, so soon we have to dock again. If we all agree to vote On politicians who send themselves through the bank lobby because we just do not understand well, we have to pay for our intellectual laziness.” (Google translate from: “Een paar springende punten uit het boek: niet alleen zagen veel wetenschappers de financiële crisis van 2007 aankomen, dezelfde mensen voorspellen dat het weer mis zal gaan. Er is volgens hen niks wezenlijks veranderd, zoals het strikt scheiden van spaarbanken en zakenbanken en verzekeringen. Belastingbetalers hebben miljarden moeten betalen om banken die too big to fail waren te redden, de banken zijn nog steeds too big to fail en verkopen nog steeds onbegrijpelijke en oncontroleerbare producten, dus binnenkort moeten we weer dokken. Als we met z’n allen blijven stemmen op politici die zich door de bankenlobby laten sturen, omdat we het gewoon niet goed begrijpen, zullen we dus voor onze intellectuele luiheid moeten boeten.”)

However, this message could also have been given without this particular book.

This lay person shows a confusion between neoclassical economics and neoliberal economics. Perhaps Van Staveren has this too ? Also, this lay reviewer states to have gotten an interest in Amartya Sen because of Van Staveren’s praise. Ouch.

More points tomorrow

There are some more points, see the next blog entry.

From trauma at TU Delft to collapse of the Euro

This discussion continues with the exchange of Flassbeck & Lapavitsas versus Storm.

My own position is as follows. Holland creates its own unemployment since 1970 by a wrong policy on taxes and premiums. Holland has the entrenched government policy of “solving” this by wage moderation and exporting its own unemployment to other nations. I present my alternative analysis since 1990. Economists at TU Delft have been arguing against this policy of wage moderation for decades too. They overlook the cause in taxes and premiums, and focus on technology. Schumpeterian innovation requires higher wages to get rid of obsolete technology. Now that Germany has had wage moderation too (because of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Mark = Mark policy) the discussion on wage moderation moves to center stage for the survival of the Euro. Servaas Storm at TU Delft enters the European discussion again with arguments about technology, and again neglecting taxes and premiums, and neglecting the censorship of science by the Dutch government (what this weblog is about). Storm has an innovation in his analysis by including banking, and how international credits drive international trade, yet, he seems to neglect the phenomenon that trade surpluses generate funds that look for opportunities, often by providing credits that generate more surpluses. Thus Dutch and German wage moderation would be causally more important than bank credits.

PM. See also former IMF director Johannes Witteveen’s lecture on the Dutch export surplus and a need for an investment policy. There is also my discussion in 2009 with a chart of the Dutch export surplus in 1971-2010 (forecast). This is already 8 years ago.

Let me restate some basic economics for some readers who lack this.

Basic macro-economics

• Let real national output (GDP) be y and the price level be p.
• Let labour input be x and the wage be w.
• Then labour productivity is λ = y / x and the Labour Income Quote is LIQ = w x / (p y).
• Let there be a Cobb-Douglas production function: y = β x^α, with β containing capital and technology.
• When producers maximize their profits π = p y – w x subject to labour input x, then we can derive:
• The first order condition: dπ / dx = 0 gives p β α x^(α – 1) – w = 0.
• Or the wage can be set at w = p β α x^(α – 1) = p α y / x = p α λ, since the national labour supply is given as x.
  
• This w = p α λ is the rule mentioned by Flassbeck & Lapavitsas: let wages grow with labour productivity and the agreed target of inflation of 2%.
• From w = p α λ we can derive α = w x / (p y) or α = LIQ.
• Unit labour costs are ULC = w x / y = w / λ = p LIQ. Thus alternatively w = p LIQ λ or w = ULC λ.

The assumption of the Cobb-Douglas function seems somewhat specific, but given the relatively small changes that we are considering the approximation is often so good that we almost seem to have a definition. The LIQ has the character of a structural parameter α, at least for annual changes.

If prices p and wages w and labour input x remain the same from one year to the other, and productivity rises by rate g, so that y  =  (1 + g) y[-1], then α = LIQ = w x / (p y) = w x / (p (1 + g) y[-1]) = LIQ[-1] / (1 + g) = α[-1] / (1 + g). For example, if α[-1] = 80% and g = 2% then α ≈ 78%. In this case α would be stable if wages would rise by 2% too.

The w = p α λ condition is not in the EMU rules. The Eurozone countries apparently are less aware of the notion of “national bargaining” (as in the Dutch Polder model) and have been hesitant to include national wage agreements in the EMU and Stability & Growth Pact (SGP) and its updates. (Check for the word “wage” on this wiki page.)

Another possible rule might be a tax of 5% on the three year cumulative trade surplus (which may be seen as 15% for a single year), to be invested in productive capacity in the deficit countries via national investment banks. Such a tax would not be on export items (like a tariff) but levied on the Eurozone member governments of surplus countries. (At this applet, set the color bar to a score of 0, and slide over the years.)

It is unavoidable to think about such rules. Holland has been moderating its wages long before Germany did. The policy put pressure on the exchange rate of the guilder, but this was resolved by joining the Euro. Holland still is a small country and the impact wasn’t much felt. Now, Europe must explain to Germany that a raise of German wages is required, whatever they fear about inflation. It should help Germany to grow aware that my analysis (see DRGTPE) allows full employment at stable prices, not only by exports but also by stimulating the domestic market.

Shifting the blame

Both North and South Europe deviated from w = p α λ. Some Northerners blame the South, and some accept some blame themselves.

• Sinn and Schäuble argue that Southern Europe should moderate their wages like Germany.
• Bofinger and Flassbeck & Lapavitsas argue that Germany (and Holland) should raise their wages.

As Storm states:

“Their main point is that there would not have been large unsustainable current account imbalances within the Eurozone, and consequently no sovereign debt crisis in the deficit countries, if all member states had kept their nominal wage growth equal to labor productivity growth plus 2% (the inflation target). Professor Wren-Lewis (2016) has been making the same point. In this account, this delicate equilibrium has been deliberately upset by nominal wage moderation in mercantilist Germany, with a growing German trade surplus just being the flipside of the growing trade deficit in Southern Europe. It is rather ironic, in my opinion, that a similar logic is used by mainstream observers such as Sinn (2014) or even Mr. Schäuble himself, with this difference: Sinn and Schäuble argue that the current account imbalances were caused by a failure of the crisis countries to follow Germany’s successful example in cutting down their unit labor costs.”

Towards a collapse of the Euro

Sinn and Schäuble want to control inflation and they lack instruments to make sure that Southern Europe adheres to the EMU rules. Thus Sinn and Schäuble take the hard line that it is up to Southern Europe to choose themselves:

• either unemployment because of high wages
• or internal devaluation, and subsequent unemployment because of deficient internal demand.

Hence we can understand Flassbeck & Lapavitsas:

“Germans ought to know better than all others about the difficulties caused by wage divergences in a currency union. The deviation of East German wages as measured in international currency, following the German Monetary Union of 1990, destroyed East German industry and forced a transfer union. Unfortunately, for the EU and the EMU the option of a transfer union is simply not available. As long as Germany persists with its policy of wage moderation, the only future for the EMU is collapse.”

Check how I criticised Angela Merkel for her deceit at the German elections in 2013. Given German policies on wage moderation, standard economic theory allows her the choice between a transfer union or a breakup, but she kept silent about this. Of course there is my amendment to the theory of the optimal currency area, see MPRA or RWER, but as long as German policy makers do not indicate that they understand his amendment, we must conclude that they disinform their electorate.

How does Storm handle this ?

How does Storm handle this reference to basic economics ? He misstates the argument, and then rejects it.

“(…) that Eurozone imbalances were driven by (exogenous) losses or gains in unit labor cost competitiveness (…) is a myth (…)”

Storm’s problem is on causality: “what drives what”. Yet this is not quite what this discussion is about. What Storm calls a myth are basically accounting rules.

• Use GDP = Y = p y = C + I + G + X – M, with consumption C, investments I, government G, exports X and imports M.
• The current account CA = X – M is also the increase in foreign assets FA = X – M (NY FED).
• National income, employment and wage translate into LIQ and λ. This is mere accounting.
• Compare two situations for the same country with only a difference in M. In the first situation there is Y1 with a surplus on the current account, or M < X. In the second situation there is Y2 with a deficit or M > X. Thus Y1 > Y2. Assume the same output price p and working force x so that y1 / x > y2 / x, or λ1 > λ2. The productivity with a surplus is higher than with a deficit. For example, in the second case the country worked as hard as usual, but also imported a car by borrowing from abroad. Mere accounting causes that observed productivity drops. Similarly we have w x / y1 < w x / y2 or ULC1 < ULC2, or that the deficit situation has higher unit labour costs.

Economics is about causality and not about accounting, but it is important to be aware of accounting effects. Regressions with statistical data that contain these accounting effects must be judged carefully.

In above example of importing a car, causality seems to run from first importing to secondly a statistical observation on productivity. This is Storm’s view. But this is not the only causal possibility. Sinn and Schäuble might argue that higher productivity might have been feasible if the car hadn’t been imported but e.g. produced in the country itself with a creditor in the country itself. Thus there seems to be more complexity than Storm allows for (though he already makes a complex case). And Sinn and Schäuble might state more clearly that they also plea for the demise of the German car industry.

Storm’s five arguments

Storm has five arguments that we may indicate shortly. Apparently he repeats himself at points, but this is okay since we look at the arguments and not their number.

1. Banks in Northern Europe lent to customers in Southern Europe, assuming that loans in Euro were safe anywhere. (Comment: True. However, if there hadn’t been surpluses on the Northern current accounts, then these banks would have had less funds. We are not speaking about a single year, but a prolonged period of surplus funds looking for “investment” opportunities.)
2. “German firms, producing high-tech, high value-added, high-priced and mostly very complex manufacturing goods, do not directly compete with Spanish, Portuguese, Greek or even most Italian firms, which are specializing in lower-tech, lower value-added, low-price and less complex goods (Simonazzi et al. 2013).” (Comment: This is not relevant, since differences in quality are corrected by differences in wages, whence we compare w1 / λ1 and w2 / λ2.)
3. Four empirical “facts”. (a) Elasticities. (b) In Spain imports grew while exports were unaffected. (c) World income explains exports, and national income explains imports. (Costs might have a one-time effect but then are stable.) (d) There were first the imbalances and only later the worse ULCs. (Comment: Basically agreed on (a)-(c). However, this (d) is the same as (1). We are not speaking about a single year, but about a prolonged period of imbalance and funds looking for profit.)
4. A more theoretical discussion of (3c), with the example of (2). “These asymmetric growth patterns are the direct consequence of structural differences in productive specialization (Simonazzi et al. 2013).” (However, see (2). Obviously, the EMU doesn’t have an exchange rate regime to correct sustained imbalances. Apparently governments must impose what otherwise would have been done by exchange rate markets.)
5. “Higher Wages and Higher Inflation in Germany Will Not Help.”

Storm on point 5:

“German exports and imports, as I argued above, are not very sensitive to changes in relative unit labor costs, however, and hence there will be only a limited amount of expenditure switching (away from German products and toward foreign goods), as has also been convincingly shown by Schröder (2015). Let me repeat for clarity’s sake that I am strongly in favor of higher nominal wage growth (in excess of labor productivity growth plus 2%) in Germany. It will definitely help Germany. But it will not help the crisis-countries of the Eurozone.”

“The assumption is that German GDP increases by € 100 billion (which means German GDP is growing at 3.7%). Through global production chains, [my emphasis] German growth creates € 29.5 billion of income in the rest of the world and about € 7 billion in the selected European countries listed in Table 1.”

This looks at production chains (Germany, USA, Korea) ! This may well be. But higher German wages would also mean higher German imports for consumption.

Storm’s view on the real issues (again)

Storm repeats what he regards as the real issues:

“(…) the common currency and monetary unification have led to a centrifugal process of structural divergence in terms of structures of production, employment and trade (as explained in my earlier notes).”

“German wage moderation mattered a lot, not through its supposed impact on cost competitiveness, but via its negative impacts on (wage-led) German growth and inflation, which in turn prompted the ECB to lower the interest rate in the first place.” (Comment: This “negative impact” is TU Delft slang for the idea that low wages reduce the need for Schumpeterian innovation.)

“The consequent crisis of the Eurozone is a deep crisis of inadequate aggregate demand in the short run and unmanageable structural divergence between major member states in the long run.”

I wonder. If Germany provided the European industrial zone and Southern Europe provided the European vineyards, olive trees and universities, then this might still work and everyone might be happy, provided that the prices of cars, wine, olive oil and Ph. D. doctorates would be right. Wage levels in Southern Europe might still be lower, but with a purchasing power parity (PPP) living standards might still be quite comparable. Sinn and Schäuble might like an argument that EU support for investments in Southern Europe should not be competitive to the German car industry (see here on the restauration of the Colosseum).

But this is not the full story. The Po valley has fine cars and machinery too. Italy itself has a North-South problem. Spain has the difference between Catalunya and Andalusia. And Germany has Laender who don’t do as well as Bayern.

Closing this review

This exchange started with Bofinger’s argument that German wages should be raised. This argument is fine. It will stimulate Germany’s domestic economy and imports. The obvious ceiling is provided by risks of unemployment and inflation, but the rule of a wage rise with productivity and the target of 2% inflation is fine too. Germany also has some catching up to do.

It is correct that German exports might not be much affected, and thus neither employment in the exporting sector, because the productivity growth in the exporting sector likely is larger than this growth in the domestic sector. But the rise of imports would still help in reducing the surplus on the external account.

Storm’s arguments on competitiveness & wage moderation are a different subject. This is basically the subject of investments and regional development, and the role of banking. Germany is advised to focus on domestic investments.

Economic analysis would be served by having another indicator alongside GDP, namely a correction of GDP for borrowed funds. The X – M correction works fine for foreign assets, but a correction for domestic borrowing would be helpful too. If one buys a domestic car with credit, then this domestic car really has been produced, but it would be indicative to know whether 10% or 25% of GDP would be from credit.

Overall I can repeat that my analysis of 1990 is still very relevant for understanding and solving the Great Stagflation since 1970. There are DRGTPE dating before the 2007+ crisis and CSBH after it. DRGTPE already has a chapter on the distinction between the exposed and sheltered sectors, and CSBH has a refinement of that argumentation.

It is unfortunate that our fellow economists at TU Delft have been neglecting that analysis since 1990, whence they still lack the full picture. But every day starts with a new sunrise.

Disinformation and trauma at TU Delft

This is a remarkable exchange of articles:

• Peter Bofinger in VoxEu on “German wage moderation and the EZ Crisis“, 2015-11-30
• Servaas Storm (TU Delft, economics of productivity) with a critical review of this, 2016-01-08
• Bofinger’s response – “Friendly Fire“, 2016-01-20
• Servaas Storm’s reponse again, 2016-01-20
• Heiner Flassbeck and Costas Lapavitsas who take issue with Storm too, 2016-01-28
• Storm who replies again, 2016-01-28

Storm’s criticism shows some kind of trauma at TU Delft. Like Germany has the trauma of hyperinflation, TU Delft has the trauma of wage moderation. The Dutch government has an entrenched policy of wage moderation, and the research group at Delft TU has been arguing against this for so long, that when they hear the term “wage moderation” then they automatically argue against this. The research group and everyone else better be warned that this hangup better be resolved. Economists in the world are being disinformed.

Readers would be advised to first read the two articles by Bofinger (VoxEU and “Friendly Fire”), then below discussion, and then Storm’s articles to verify that there must be something like this trauma at TU Delft indeed.

Supportive material would be Storm on how Brexit challenges economic thinking, 2016-06-26. Storm indicates that he still is looking for the proper analysis, so that we can infer that his position on wage moderation forms only part of a puzzle.

“We desperately need a new paradigm to reform the system and make it work for the majority (…) Unless there is serious new economic thinking beyond austerity, deregulated finance, and a corporate dominated politics and state, social and political tensions will continue to build up within the E.U.”

Bofinger’s “Friendly fire” response contains a graph that shows the close connection of German productivity per person and per hour. Presuming that this also holds for other countries then this distinction need not confuse the argument.

Storm’s earlier key statement

In July 2015, Storm & Naastepad of TU Delft already presented this key statement:

“Myths, Mix-ups and Mishandlings: What Caused the Eurozone Crisis?

The Eurozone crisis has been wrongly interpreted as either a crisis of fiscal profligacy or of deteriorating unit-labour cost competitiveness (caused by rigid labour markets), or a combination of both.
 
Based on these diagnoses, crisis-countries have been treated with the bitter medicines of fiscal austerity, drastic wage reductions, and far-reaching labour market deregulation—all in the expectation that these would restore cost competitiveness and revive growth (through exports), while at the same time allowing for fiscal consolidation and private-sector debt deleveraging. The medicines did not work and almost killed the patients. The problem lies with the diagnoses: the real cause of the Eurozone crisis resides in unsustainable private sector debt leverage, which was aided and abetted by the liberalization of (integrating) European financial markets and a “global banking glut”.”

Thus, curiously, the TU Delft researchers of productivity repeat the finding by our colleagues who look for restructuring debt and financial markets. In itself I support the diagnosis that 1981-2007 are Keynesian years. I also support notions of restructuring of money and finance, see my paper Money as gold versus money as water. Yet,my point for this current weblog entry is that the TU Delft has a hangup on wage moderation, and that this causes disinformation and needless discussion, in a similar fashion as the German hangup on hyperinflation. Economic advisors might be in need of psychiatrists who help them deal with their anxieties.

Supplementary

Supplementary, there is my own text on the myth on German wage bargaining.

German readers might benefit from this text by Kleinknecht & Kleinknecht (2015) (in German), “The Erosion of “Made in Germany”: What Germans Should (Not) Learn From the Dutch“,  ZBW – Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft.

Dutch readers would look at this 1996 discussion of mine on the three approaches: CPB, me, and Kleinknecht. Useful is also Bomhoff, NRC 1994-10-24.

Alfred Kleinknecht and his focus on wage moderation

The TU Delft research group had been started by Alfred Kleinknecht (1951), now emeritus.

Kleinknecht had started originally at VU Amsterdam. His institute got financial support from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. The Ministry was clearly interested in economic analysis of technological development.

At that time, Dutch economic analysis was dominated by the VINTAF model at the Central Planning Bureau (CPB). This combined a “keynesian” demand side with a capital vintage supply function. There was no direct substitution between capital and labour, but a Leontief technology per vintage that increased the vintage effect. A high wage would cause the elimination of older technologies, and a subsequent reduction of the wage would not be able to restore what had been eliminated.

Kleinknecht has been arguing much of the same during his career: Higher wages will increase productivity, partly by eliminating older techniques and partly by spurring innovation. Kleinknecht’s argument is not always based upon the assumption of vintages, and rather upon Schumpeter’s “creative destruction” and more often upon empirical research that is neutral on assumptions on particular technologies. His recent estimate on 19 OECD countries for 1960-2004 is that 1% wage increase might cause 0.4% increase in productivity (“Erosion”, p 409), for me with some doubt of the causal order. It would be important that other researchers replicate that finding.

One might assume that the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs would embrace Kleinknecht. The opposite happened. They withdrew all subsidies, and Kleinknecht had to look for another place to work.

• From the VINTAF discussion, Dutch policy makers including the labour unions concluded to a policy of wage moderation. Maintaining employment was more important than increase in productivity.
• Kleinknecht published articles that criticised this policy of wage moderation, for causing lower welfare in the long run. Apparently, the Ministry did not enjoy this criticism.

Eventually, Kleinknecht was able to restart at TU Delft to proceed with his analysis. He also kept singing the same song, and was often ridiculed by other economists for not supporting the conventional wisdom of wage moderation. Yet his work was published in major journals, and we can observe that he has a major track record.

There are people who are critical about the EU austerity after the 2007+ financial and euro crises. Such arguments are often less developed with vague references to say Keynes and demand management. The criticism by Kleinknecht et al. is much more specific, with also strong arguments. For example, the EU encourages labour market flexibility and the abolition of various arrangements, but Kleinknecht points to the importance of stability on the labour market. Companies must make risky investments in new technology, and they require workers who commit themselves. Bomhoff, referred above, argues that new companies entering the market should be able to pay lower wages, but this is an argument rather on wage structure and not on flexibility.

PM. Another positive point about Kleinknecht is that he warned in 2007 about the risk of an “earthquake on financial markets” (see here). There is Dutch Dirk Bezemer (also at INET) who wrote about such warnings by economists, but Bezemer doesn’t mention Kleinknecht, just like Bezemer doesn’t mention my work.

How a focus causes a blind spot

As I already explained in 1996 (Dutch article) Kleinknecht wasn’t aware back then of my alternative analysis and criticism of the policy of wage moderation. Given my analysis, Kleinknecht’s analysis on technology is supportive but not crucial.

Apparently, Kleinknecht has never wanted to study my analysis. Part of his reluctance can be understood, since my analysis has also been hit by censorship so that there are key parts that are not available yet. Part may be that Kleinknecht didn’t want to have another clash with the establishment. He already had his own struggle and didn’t need another one for someone else. Yet the censorship by the directorate of CPB exists since 1990 and Kleinknecht had his inaugural lecture at VU only in 1994.

I can only speculate what his motivation might be, since he hasn’t been willing to discuss this with me, and there is no need for speculation. It suffices to observe, and check above ZBW 2015:

• Kleinknecht has his focus on technology and wage moderation
• he doesn’t refer to my work on the Great Stagflation in the OECD, including the Dutch policy of wage moderation
• and he doesn’t inform other scientists about the censorship of science since 1990 by the directorate of the Dutch CPB.

The TU Delft research group

In the past I sent an occasional update email to Kleinknecht, since he was the director of the TU Delft research group. I did not communicate with his co-authors. It is unclear to me to what extent Kleinknecht has communicated to others about my work. Thus, now that he has retired, and when I see that Servaas Storm repeats some of the arguments, I wonder whether this might mean that there is scope for a fresh restart, or that the hangup on wage moderation has become part of the TU Delft paradigm.

A note on VINTAF

For the record: The VINTAF model died a soft death at CPB and was replaced by models without vintages. The major industrial effect in the Dutch economy was the demise of the industry of clothing and textiles. Once this had happened, there wasn’t cause to presume a major vintage effect. In my own analysis, the demise of the clothing and textile industry can also be explained by a wrong management of the wage structure. My criticism on VINTAF is also my criticism on Kleinknecht et al. They neglect the impact of taxation and social premiums on the wage structure. Low tax exemption causes high minimum wages, while this industry might have adapted better with lower wage costs and thus high tax exemption. Holland would be served by differential management of wages and taxes. The domestic market requires lower taxes and thus lower wage costs (for barbers and gardeners) and the export market can allow for higher taxes and higher wages (for high tech industry and agriculture). This can be regulated by high exemption for taxes and premiums, and a VAT at 1%. This alternative analysis started at CPB itself by Marein van Schaaijk and Anton Bakhoven. I supplemented this with the analysis of the tax void, dynamic marginal tax rate, shift of the Phillipscurve, and the need for an Economic Supreme Court, see DRGTPE.

Return to the beginning

The reader may now return to the beginning of this weblog entry. One may check what the exchange is all about.

My take on this

Let me also give you my take on this. In my perception, Storm is fighting Kleinknecht’s Dutch ghosts from the past.

Storm 2016-01-08 states:

“The sad truth, however, is that Bofinger and Wren-Lewis are right for the wrong reason—hence their interventions are less than helpful, because rather than knocking out the remaining errors in the “consensus diagnosis”, they help perpetuate a mistaken doctrine: that relative unit-labor-costs matter [?] are the prime determinant of a country’s international competitiveness, current account balance, and foreign indebtedness. “

This confuses description and cause. Statistics show such differences. If Southern Europe doesn’t invest in technology as Germany does, then we can observe such relative unit labour costs (ULC). The cause would be investments.

“Rising relative unit labor costs supposedly killed Southern Europe’s export growth, raised current account deficits, created unsustainable external debts and reduced fiscal policy space, and hence, when the crisis broke, these countries lacked the resilience to absorb the shock. It follows in this story that the only escape from recession is for the Southern European countries rebuild their cost competitiveness—cutting wage costs (because Eurozone members cannot devalue their currency) by as much as 30% (as proposed by Sinn 2014), which requires in turn that their labor markets be thoroughly deregulated.”

This looks like a chicken-egg problem. Who would invest in Southern Europe if wage costs are so high ? If there is wage restraint, then investments would not be so large to generate sufficiently low unit labour costs.

“Secondly, of course it is true that Germany and German wage moderation bear part of the responsibility for bringing about the Eurozone crisis. Bofinger and Wren-Lewis have the best intentions while making this point (alas, the road to hell is paved with good intentions ….), but their single-minded emphasis on the importance of relative unit labor cost competitiveness is misguided for at least the following three reasons.”

When Bofinger and Wren-Lewis point to a particular factor, one cannot call this “single-mindedness”. The model is obviously larger than a single variable. First Storm grants part of their argument and then denies all of it.

(1) “Unit labor costs make up less than 25% of the gross output price, while a second reason is that firms in general do not pass on all (but mostly only half of) unit labor cost increases onto market prices.  (…) Germany excels in non-price (technology-based) competitiveness and does not engage (much) in price competition.” It may be doubted that Germany could simply raise the prices of its quality export products without a dent in their exports. Thus the prices and labour costs matter. 

(2) “It was German engineering ingenuity, not nominal wage restraint or the Hartz “reforms”, which reduced its unit labor costs. Any talk of Germany deliberately undercutting its Eurozone neighbors is therefore beside the point. ” The point was that wage moderation had an important contribution, and this is not negated by pointing to something else.

(3) “The only rational explanation for the observed time-sequence is that Southern Europe first experienced a debt-led growth boom, which then led to higher imports and higher capital inflows leading only after a lag of many quarters to lower unemployment and higher wage growth in excess of labor productivity growth (see Storm and Naastepad 2015c).” He might have mentioned that low domestic demand in Germany also reduced the scope for exports by Southern Europe to Germany (like holidays). The German balance of payment surplus had to be invested abroad, simply because of accounting rules. Thus if Germany had targeted for a external balance, Southern Europe would have faced a different situation.

According to Storm German wage moderation would be a factor but not the key one:

“In a nutshell, since the mid-1990s, Germany has become stronger and more productive in high-value-added, higher-tech manufacturing (in conjunction with outsourcing to Eastern European countries), while Southern European countries became more strongly locked into lower-tech, lower value-added and, often, non-tradable activities (Storm and Naastepad 2015c).”

“Cheap credit in the South created unsustainable asset bubbles and facilitated untenable debt accumulation which fed into higher growth, lower unemployment and higher wages—but all concentrated in the non-dynamic and often non-tradable sectors of their economies.”

This repeats point (3) above, and is the common critique about irresponsible banks, who did not take proper account of the creditworthiness of their customers (or the system of central banks, that did not take account of these systemic effects).

Storm is a student of the economics of technology, but arrives at issues of finance:

“What is the appropriate interest rate for the structurally divergent “core” and “periphery” in a one-size-fits-all monetary union? And how can banks, the financial sector and capital flows be made to contribute to a process of convergence (rather than divergence)”

“(…) ditch the dangerous myth that unit labor cost competitiveness is the prime problem”

In reply:

• Nobody put the notion of “primacy” on the table. The model has more variables. Storm seems to fear such primacy because of the TU Delft research group hangup on wage moderation.
• He overlooks the observation by Keynes, and repeated by Bofinger, that surplus countries have a responsibility too. Bofinger explicitly argues for a rise of wages in Germany while those in Southern Europe are restrained. Bofinger’s analysis is targeted at explaining that German wages should rise, and the argument is sound.
• Does Storm really imagine a banking system that facilitates investments in Southern Europe even when unit labour costs guarantee a capital loss ? (Though levels are important rather than changes. E.g. compare hourly wage costs in Germany about 34 and Spain about 22 EUR per hour, which then must be met with productivity.)

Political fall-out

Dutch Wikipedia reports that Kleinknecht in 2007-2008 was member of a committee that advised the GreenLeft political party about its programme principles. Potentially one might understand Kleinknecht’s hesitance as a scientist to study my analysis and join the protest against the censorship of science since 1990 by the directorate of the CPB, yet such hesitation also affects such advise in such political environments. The first is worse, since the second is politics only, and the GreenLeft might be deluded anyway, yet it overall makes one wary about the anatomy of Holland and the spillover effects on Europe and the world.

On Flassbeck and Lapavitsas later on.

The Dutch general elections of March 15 2017

Wikipedia (a portal and no source) gives an overview of the Dutch general elections of March 15 2017. For the interpretation of the vote, there is this paper: “The performance of four possible rules for selecting the Prime Minister after the Dutch Parliamentary elections of March 2017“.

The abstract of the paper is:

“Economic policy depends not only on national elections but also on coalition bargaining strategies. In coalition government, minority parties bargain on policy and form a majority coalition, and select a Prime Minister from their mids. In Holland the latter is done conventionally with Plurality, so that the largest party provides the chair of the cabinet. Alternative methods are Condorcet, Borda or Borda Fixed Point. Since the role of the Prime Minister is to be above all parties, to represent the nation and to be there for all citizens, it would enhance democracy and likely be optimal if the potential Prime Minister is selected from all parties and at the start of the bargaining process. The performance of the four selection rules is evaluated using the results of the 2017 Dutch Parliamentary elections. Plurality gives VVD. VVD is almost a Condorcet winner except for a tie with 50Plus. Borda and BordaFP give CU as the prime minister. The impossibility theorem by Kenneth Arrow (Nobel memorial prize in economics 1972) finds a crucially different interpretation.” (Paper)

The paper uses the estimate of March 16, and the official allocation of seats presented on March 21 was the same. Here is a letter (in Dutch) to the Speaker of the House with these results and a summary statement.

Relevance for the world

In addition to that paper, let me mention some other points.

• The Dutch system of proportional representation (PR) with a threshold of 1 seat is most democratic, and is much better than district representation (DR) or the use of high thresholds. (See this other paper.) The low threshold allows the flexible entry and exit of contestants. For example, in Germany, economics professor Bernd Lucke started the originally decent AfD, didn’t get their 5% threshold, and was ousted by extremist members in his party. For the upcoming elections, France and Germany best adopt the Dutch election model, but likely they will not have time to do so.
• Within the Dutch system, there still is room for even more democracy. Coalitions can be inclusive or exclusive. Politicians tend to think that a minimal majority is most stable, but in all likelihood voters are better served by a larger majority.
• The news media of the world tended to focus on the Dutch outcome that Geert Wilders didn’t succeed in getting most seats. Incumbent prime minister Mark Rutte got 33 seats and Wilders only 20. This was interpreted as that the threat of populism in Europe might have a turning point. However, Rutte dropped from 41 to 33 and Wilders rose from 15 to 20 seats, so the gap of 26 seats was halved in favour for Wilders. There is also the new right wing lunatic FvD with 2 seats, and the move to the right by other parties feeling the hot breath by Wilders. Overall, the picture is more mixed than the world news media seem to have reported. A bit more background w.r.t. the Dutch reputation of tolerance is in this earlier weblog text.

Some additional findings on turnout

The official results of March 21 2017 allow an additional statement on turnout. The key data are in the following table.

The Dutch House of Commons has 150 seats. With the turnout of 81.9% actually only 120 seats were fully taken. 27 Seats were lost to no-shows, 2 seats were lost to the dispersion of small parties and 1 seat was lost on blank or invalid votes. One might argue that 30 seats should remain unused, so that the parties that were elected in the House would find it tougher to create a coalition of 76 seats or 50%+1. Alternatively, when the 30 seats are still allocated to the elected parties, then one might raise the majority criterion to 94 seats. Instead, however, the elected parties take the 30 seats anyway and still apply the 76 seats majority rule. See this paper for a discussion w.r.t. an earlier election.

A Dutch – Turkish clash

The vote took place while there was a clash between Holland and Turkey – see the scene on Haberturk TV reported on by Euronews. Much has been said about this elsewhere, but here we continue testing the quality of Google Translate: “They protested the Netherlands by squeezing oranges”.

The Turks should however beware that the House of Orange claims Russia, and you wouldn’t want an orange bear on your doorsteps.

Euronews relaying Haberturk TV. “Hollanda’yı portakal sıkarak protesto ettiler…”

Some Dutch had been prepared for this

In the months before, visionary artist Inez Lenders had already created the artistic reply to maltreatment of oranges. In the match on creativity, the score is 1 – 1.

Art and Photography by Inez Lenders, Nijmegen 2017

The Dutch Official News with a false suggestion

The site Joop.nl calculated that the elections generated 5 MP’s with Turkish roots and 8 MP’s with Moroccan roots, and 0 with roots in Suriname. We may include one Turkish-Kurdish MP, so a total of 14 or 9.3% of relatively new immigrants. There are 4 German names, 2 French and 1 Jewish. Thus a total of 21 MP’s or 14% immigrant names.

Notwithstanding such a composition in the new House of Commons, president Tayyip Erdogan fulminated about descendents of nazi’s, though he is right that the Dutch record in World War II is not so good.

When Angela Merkel and other Europeans supported Dutch premier Mark Rutte, then Erdogan presented a statement for which it is important to provide the right translation. Reuters seems to be okay:

“Erdogan warns Europeans ‘will not walk safely’ if attitude persists” (March 22 2017)

This is a fairly decent warning. The age of European imperialism till 1945 is over. In the world population the European share is dwindling. If the world wants to maintain the idea of safe international travel then we need rules and regulations and consistent implementation.

• Reuters gives a fair representation that Erdogan warns about the effect of arrogance.
• Dutch national television turned this into a report that Erdogan threatened Europeans. On this NOS website, the official heading and weblink contain the phrase “Erdogan warns” but the picture on that page has the phrase “Erdogan threatens” (Dutch “bedreigt”) (wayback machine).

I have informed NPO Ombudsman Margo Smit about the difference between warning and threatening, but they haven’t changed it yet.

Official Dutch television NOS falsely states that president Erdogan issues a threat that no European in any part of the world can safely walk on the street. In truth he only warns.

A new low in the Low Countries

Geert Wilders used a tweet with a photoshopped picture of Alexander Pechtold. The picture displays Pechtold as demonstrating for the introduction of Sharia in Holland. The political message is that Pechtold would be a fellow-traveller and part of the 5th column for political islam, intending to destroy freedom and democracy. Normally Wilders merely says this but a picture tells more than a thousand words.

This falsely portraying of a political opponent is a new low in the Low Countries.

The photoshopped picture would exist since 2009 but there are general elections for the Dutch House of Commons on March 15 which may be the reason why Wilders uses it now. Wilders might have limited campaign funds and the abuse of this picture is politically cunning, since hords of people, including me, are discussing it now. Attention is half of the job, and Wilders knows how to get attention. And when there is a terrorist attack, then he can claim that he has been warning all along.

Yet, the downside of this is, that there are feeble minds on the radical right, like Anders Breivik, who worship Wilders, and who might take this portrayal as an invitation to target Pechtold. The UK saw the assassination of Jo Cox in 2016. Holland already saw a smear campaign against Pim Fortuyn in 2002 who then got assassinated by an activist on the left. Yet a gunman in 2011 who killed six people was a sympathiser of Wilders. Journalist Peter Breedveld has been reporting consistently that the political climate in Holland is getting heated, repressive and threatening of violence. Pechtold is alarmed. He warned that Wilders is deliberately rousing up his followers. One sympathiser of Wilders already threatened Pechtold to kill him, and Pechtold informed reporters that he had to testify in court to get the man convicted. A close political friend of Pechtold, Els Borst, has been murdered by a lunatic in 2014, apparently without political motivation, but it still has an impact.

Wilders and Pechtold have a history of feeding on each other

Geert Wilders and Alexander Pechtold have a history of feeding on each other. They are each other’s best enemies. While Wilders finds great profit in demonising Pechtold as the fellow-traveller of political islam, Pechtold finds great profit in portraying Wilders as indecent and “over the top”. Their political clash was the motor for their rise to public attention in 2006-2010. In the elections of 2010, Pechtold jumped from 3 to 10 seats, and Wilders from 9 to 24 seats.

The following graph shows the number of seats of Wilders (PVV, red) and Pechtold (D66, blue) in the Dutch House of Commons, with a total of 150 seats. (Source: Wikipedia, here adapted.)

• Wilders started in 2004 as a one-man separation of the Dutch conservative party VVD. The official line of VVD was that Turkey might eventually join the European Union, but Wilders disagreed, and wished to have the freedom to say so. The letters VVD stand for the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, but party leader Gerrit Zalm denied Wilders his freedom of expression. In 2006 Wilders got 9 seats, in 2010 he jumped to 24, and in 2012 got 15. (Incidently: Gerrit Zalm had also participated in the smear campaign against Pim Fortuyn, labeling him as a “dangerous man”. Zalm also was the director of the CPB who in 1990 censored my work at CPB and who dismissed me there with falsehoods, the very issue that this weblog is about.)
• In 2006, D66 had been reduced from 24 seats to 3, and Pechtold began as the new leader. There was talk about ending the party, yet Pechtold managed to get the party back to 10 seats. His strategy was to oppose Wilders.
• As said, in the elections of 2010, Pechtold jumped from 3 to 10 seats, and Wilders from 9 to 24 seats.
• In 2010-2012 there was the 1st Rutte Cabinet, a minority government with support by Wilders. This cabinet failed and collapsed, and at the subsequent elections in 2012 Wilders got 15 seats.

There is a major problem with D66

The major problem with D66 is that its party elite and its voters cannot think straight. The name D66 is an abbreviation of “Democrats 1966”, and the idea of founder Hans van Mierlo (1931-2010) was to improve democracy. Van Mierlo was from the Catholic south of Holland, and he was inspired by JFK in the USA. (See my weblog text on the Dutch Taliban.) Thus he suggested that Holland copied democratic conventions from the USA, like district voting, direct elected president and mayors, and referenda. Unfortunately, Van Mierlo had a degree in law and worked as a journalist, and he never really studied democracy. The membership of D66 are mostly lawyers too. They are mostly concerned about the “rule of law”, and less about what the law is about. By now, it should be obvious that Van Mierlo’s ideas about democracy have always been perverse, and actually reduce democracy. Yet, D66 doesn’t openly say so, and they still claim that they and their proposals would improve democracy. Thus D66 is a fossilised lie about democracy.

• Direct elections with districts causes that in the Bush, Gore and Nader elections, Bush got elected (and we got the lie on Iraq), and that with the Clinton & Trump election, that Trump got elected, while in terms of percentages Gore would have beaten Bush, and Clinton would have beaten Trump.
• For referenda, see this discussion about Brexit.

See my book Voting theory for democracy and this article about multiple seats elections.

Thus, when D66 collapsed to 3 seats, I hoped that D66 would be abolished, and that there would be room for a new political initiative, to combine sound ideas about democracy with sound ideas about economics and sound ideas about social compassion. Yet, there was Pechtold. He has a degree in art history and a working background as auctioneer, and developed further as a career politician. D66 apparently allows it, and eventually is grateful to him for “saving the party”, as if that would be so useful.

From disaster into greater catastrophy

D66 has been applying its great logical capacities, that they already showed on democracy, also on the issue of Wilders and immigration. Supposedly Pechtold attacked Wilders, but he actually made him bigger. D66 and Pechtold cannot see this fact and this logic, since Pechtold “saved D66” by that jump from 3 to 10 seats. Clearly the attack by Pechtold on Wilders was a great success, namely see the growth of D66 ! Thus they keep themselves deliberately blind about that jump of Wilders from 9 to 24 seats.

The best answer to Wilders would be a party that combines sound ideas about democracy with sound ideas about economics and sound ideas about social compassion. Yet, Pechtold and D66 block this, because of their perverse ideas about democracy and their perverse claim that they have success in attacking Wilders.

Well, it is Holland. Boycott this country till it develops a respect for science so that it lifts the censorship of science since 1990 by the directorate of the Dutch Central Planning Bureau (CPB).

Letter to VSNU and others on membership dues and open access publishing

The last weblog text on open access publishing caused me to write this letter to VSNU and other bodies in Holland. VSNU is the platform at which Dutch universities collaborate.

Letter to VSNU and others on membership dues and open access publishing.

Addendum October 17 2016: There is a spreadsheet example now with rough data for mathematics education in Holland.

• It would cost school employers an additional EUR 50 per mathematics teacher to compensate teachers for memberschip of NVvW (the Dutch association of mathematics teachers) and turn Euclides (its journal) into an open access journal.
• Employers have already agreed to compensation. It is just that (mainly 2nd degree) teachers do not join up.
• For publishers, schools already have contracts for access, such that a teacher only has to activate the account. Similarly, schools might see it as a contract with NVvW, and teachers only have to activate their membership. (NVvW thinks of itself as an association only and not as a publisher too.)
• Employers cannot say what association their teachers should join. The closed shop should not be with a particular association but with a default association. The individual teacher decides whether to join an association and which one. The decision to join is only made easier via “complementary subscription” and the “activation of membership”.

Secondly, I had to think about what Timothy Gowers wrote when announcing “Discrete Analysis” while using the Scholastica platform.

(a) He uses arXiv.org that accepts submissions from all over the world. But this would be difficult to create for each discipline. Best is that the institute where you graduate also supports your follow-up.

(b) In that line of argument: It appears that arXiv rejects some papers because they are second-guessing universities whether you are a “true” scientist or not. Papers of mine have been rejected as if I were a crackpot. See my protest about how they can handle this. But I have a degree of econometrics from Groningen (1982) and teacher of mathematics from Leiden (2008). I am quite dismayed that arXiv starts judging on quality while they don’t have the background to judge. See also Richard Gill’s experience on a similar strange rejection, the paragraph “Quantum crackpots”.

(c) Gowers wants “quality” for his journal on “Discrete Analysis”, as if this would be a criterion for open access publishing. This is really no argument but misunderstood vanity. An editor for “peer review” should check on clarity and scientific nature, and that is it. The discussion on quality might be done at a second stage, and is a different kind of discussion. Such decisions actually are new articles, in which an editor-author may argue why some paper or analysis has quality. Gowers identifies these “judgements on quality” as “editorial comments”. Those however should also be submitted to peer review, and they generate citations (namely when such an author refers to proper sources). Gowers now generates the strange phenomenon that some people might make the inference “It was rejected by Discrete Analysis and thus it doesn’t have enough quality”, while that very topic of quality should be subject to peer review at least.

Addendum 2016-10-13: Thus, there might be three types of journals while Gowers has only one. Note the word type. With three types, there can still many different titles, also on Discrete Analysis.

(c1) A journal type “Proofreadings for Discrete Analysis”, consisting of links to submissions (abstracts and full texts) and links to the referee reports.

(c2) A journal type “Recommendations for Discrete Analysis”, with again a list of links, likely introduced by the abstracts. The meaning of this journal is that editors perform as 2nd stage proofreaders, who judge on the articles and referee reports, and provide recommendation by inclusion in the list. It would be best to specify which editor does the recommendation, since we cannot presume that all have read it. Potentially, though, editors hide in the herd to secure anonimity. Editor reports are entered as 2nd stage referee reports in the repository, both for recommended and rejected articles.

(c3) A journal type “Discussion of the recommendations for Discrete Analysis”, in which editors of (c2) given an overview clarification of their recommendations and rejections. Basically these texts have first been published in (c1), and the selection for (c3) is done by another group of editors than for (c2). Editor reports of (c3) are again included in the repository, with links to the underlying original papers.

(d) We should not confuse open-access with open-minded. I wonder whether Gowers is aware that mathematicians have a mortal fear for crackpots. Will his journal be open-minded or will it be another exercise by mathematicians to abuse others as crackpots ? An example of abuse is given in the former weblog text w.r.t. a paper on a new algebraic approach to the derivative.

Let Higher Education (HE) create Working Paper Archives (WPA) for alumni

Let each institute of higher education (HE) – university or college – create a working paper archive (WPA) for its alumni.

The alumni can be at the level of bachelor, master or PhD, see the Bologna Process at ECAHE for a description of the quality levels.

For example, one of the qualifications for a master’s degree is:

“have demonstrated knowledge and understanding that (…) provides a basis or opportunity for originality in developing and/or applying ideas, often within a research context;”

If a university deems someone worthy of a master’s degree then it would be logical to assume that the new master might develop some new ideas, and then it would be useful when those could be archived. Let the institute that granted the degree create such an archive for its alumni.

The alumni would not be obliged to use this archive, but having such an opportunity would be a great service to the world. Creating such an archive would serve the purposes of universities and colleges and their libraries on the recording and distribution of knowledge.

It would be better when the archive would not only contain drafts for articles submitted to peer reviewed journals, but also versions, research notes and comments, or links to those.

These higher education HEWPAs would form the basis of what would be called the “publishing process”.

• Submission to the database would make the results public. Everyone should be able to read the submission. Potentially there might be an option to time-stamp an idea and keep it secret for a while, but such ideas should become public after the author’s death plus some years. Potentially there might be a protocol for patenting as well.
• The copyright remains with the author. Submitted material can be read by others but can only be reused with permission for which types of contracts are available.
• There would be monitoring of citations, comments, versions, and so on.
• Groups of editors might form journals to serve particular interest groups. They might choose to list only the abstracts with links to the WPA, or assist the author in a new version or new layout. These would be scientific journals and hence open access. There would be no additional costs for publishing or distribution, since the costs of the WPA are paid for by institute of HE. If editing is seen as part of an academic job, then these editors are paid for the institutes as well. The commenting on work by others forms part of scientific research indeed. Trying to make your journal “the best” might be part of unavoidable vanity.
• The archive function is intermediate between library and press. Many elements in the datebase can be printing on demand. For some publications there can be volume printing, as now happens at university presses. One would suppose that many readers would appreciate quality control by editors for expensive outlays in print.
• Alumni can also join scientific societies and associations. When these unions are professionally relevant, then the employers would pay for the membership dues. When these dues would be used to support a journal – like the Econometric Society has Econometrica – then this means that the employers would ultimately pay for the editing (or that academia pay for their own editing).

This is how it always should have been. There is no need for “commercial scientific publishing”. The current situation with commercial scientific publishing, pay walls and even scientific associations that put their journals behind pay walls to encourage membership to cover costs, are a deviation from sound management of science.

It is true that a commercial publisher can put out advertisements and use fancy labels and claims like “this is the best journal” while a scientist is supposed to remain modest. Thus we can understand from historical reasons that we got where we are now, and that scientists washed their hands and allowed publishers to take control, but those are not good reasons.

Example 1. Dispersion over various archives and lack of some

Currently, for example, I use (1) my website, (2) this weblog, (3) EconWPA in the past and now the Munich Personal RePEc Archive (MPRA) for my economics papers, (3) I have some papers at arXiv.org on statistics and mathematics history and overview, (4) for time stamps I also used vixra.org, (5) recently I discovered an archive for Dutch educational materials that also allows English (leermiddelenplein.nl), (6) and there are the “official publications” with their archives.

This means that economic texts in Dutch are only archived on my own website, and not indexed etcetera. Will foreigners be able to find the English educational material ? This also means that most of my work on education and didactics of mathematics are achived only on my website, and not indexed as such.

For mathematics education there is this curious observation:

“Robert’s last recommendation is to have a preprint server for math education research. As he notes, this is a road we’ve tried to go down before and we didn’t get very far. I don’t think the problem has nearly as much to do with policy or categories of the arXiv as it does with the lack of a “preprint culture” in mathematics education. What I learned in those previous preprint discussions, and in my observations as a developing scholar, is that math educators regularly and happily share work in progress — with a select group of people. In math ed, there doesn’t seem to be widespread faith in anything like Linus’ Law,   the open source software dictum that says, “With enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.” I think the math wars led to a lot of distrust, and some of it is very rational. It’s safer to only share preliminary work with a few scholars who share similar methods and theoretical frameworks, and then refine the work after peer review before publication in a journal whose readership is likely to understand the work. Maybe it shouldn’t be this way, but to move forward we’re going to have to confront some of these beliefs.” (Raymond Johnson, August 2014)

Example 2. Horrible effects of paywalls

I am already member of the Dutch association of teachers of mathematics NVvW, but for access to the journals of the English ATM or US NCTM I would have additional member fee charges or reading fees, while the Dutch council on education research NRO doesn’t provide subsidies for the kind of research (PROO) that I am doing (letter). Fortunately, my work is so creative that I don’t have to rely on extensive search in the literature, but alternatively put, since I cannot do such extensive search, I focus on what I can do, which is being creative. The snag is that my creative work again hits the pay wall, when “open access” journals again require submission fees and/or transfer of copyrights. My impression is that my membership of the Dutch Royal Library should be sufficient to gain access to information all over the world. Why not ?

Better per institute than discipline

Originally, Bob Parks had an initiative EconWPA at WUStL, modeled after arXiv.org. This worked fine, but WUStL stopped it for administrative reasons. One can imagine that it requires an investment to archive papers in a field for the whole world. I am very grateful to Bob for his efforts in the past, and grateful to MPRA to take it over.

This indeed causes the question whether it is useful to archive per discipline or per graduating institute. My impression is that it is better to have the archives at the institutes. They have granted the diploma, and the story starts from there. Over the years an author might shift into a new field but on occasion it would be useful to time-stamp the qualification for that new field.

There are “academic social media” initiatives like ResearchGate, Academia.edu and Mendeley, of which Gaudeamus states: “Too bad they aren’t specialized in socializing the process of publishing in scholarly journals, both to editors and authors.”

Example 3. Article on algebraic approach to the derivative

Having an alumni WPA would mean that I could submit this article to a WPA at Leiden University, where I graduated in mathematics teaching. The article explains the algebraic approach to the derivative as originated for education, and provides a bridge for research mathematicians who might be interested to see whether they can develop it further mathematically.

Currently, the article is only on my website and not at any archive where it can be indexed etcetera.

The article is in English and thus not relevant for the journal Euclides of the Dutch teachers of mathematics.

I submitted the article to “Nieuw Archief voor Wiskunde” (NAW), which is the journal of the Dutch society of mathematics, who are mostly research mathematicians (working at the academia).

The referee wrote an abusive report. While I referred to the domain of the reals, which are a Field, he or she gave a “counterexample” with a Ring. There are some more abuses. See my letter of protest.

The editors of NAW rejected the paper while referring to this referee report. I asked the editors whether they had actually read the submitted paper. I received no reply to this. When they had read the paper, then they could have seen themselves that the report was abusive, and that the referee was dysfunctional, especially when I had pointed out the abuse. This is an abysmal manner of editing.

Thus, the paper still is only at my website. If it were at a Working Paper Archive at Leiden University, then editors could be hunting for material, and discover the paper via indexes and abstract and quality of the author. I would not have to look for journals and submit it, and be exposed to such abuse, but quality editors would locate it. The world would be quite different.

A bit more on this example 3

I wrote my protest the same day when the report arrived. My response is to the point. It expresses sheer intellectual outrage. It doesn’t express the emotions that one feels when one’s work is abused, but it expresses the rational outrage that can be substantiated with arguments. The arguments in my response of October 3 suffice.

It is useful to explain a bit more about it. The discovery of the algebraic approach to the derivative dates from 2007 when I retyped “A logic of exceptions” and programmed this in Mathematica, and included a section on the “paradoxes by division by zero”. It is quite a horror show how the mathematics community in Holland has responded to this for almost 10 years now. I have a lot of praise for Richard Gill and Christiaan Boudri but am quite weary w.r.t. others.

With this present paper and referee report: had I waited with my response a few days longer, then I might have added the following. It would have made for a longer reply so it is better that I dispatched my response immediately. Yet, let us look at the additional arguments why the referee report is below standard. The referee refers to “sin x“.

I already wrote my response that the referee could have asked me before rejecting the article. I could have pointed to “Conquest of the Plane” (COTP) (2011) where this is explained, or the review of COTP by Richard Gill in NAW 2012. Those are both in the list of references, and thus the referee was too lazy to look for this, or ask this. Apparently he or she found sufficient satisfaction in having insulted me for not thinking about trigonometry as the most obvious answer for his or her state of ignorance.

However, I would deem that the admission that the algebraic approach would work for polynomials would already be a major reason for publication. The common perception is that limits are required, but if they are not required for polynomials then this is a major step ahead. The referee could have pointed out that the stated objective of the paper is to provide a bridge from education to research mathematics, and then have concluded that the further development might be something for research mathematicians. However, the referee doesn’t see how important this admission is.

However, the referee might also have realised that Sin has a Taylor expansion as a polynomial. Obviously, this expansion uses the limit of n → 0, but not the limit  Δx → 0 as required for the derivative. My analysis on the algebraic approach to the derivative doesn’t reject limits per se, but only argues the limit Δx → 0 is superfluous. The required information for the derivative is already in the formula for f[x], and it suffices to use algebraic methods. Thus, if the referee had had a first year course in analysis, then he or she should not have made that remark as quoted above.

Obviously, the Taylor expansion uses the derivatives themselves, and thus there is the question how this feat of Baron von Münchhausen is achieved. Again, the referee could have pointed out that the stated objective of the paper is to provide a bridge from education to research mathematics, and then have concluded that the further development might be something for research mathematicians.

However, I refer to COTP for the deduction. Richard Gill’s review suggests that there is hidden use of limits again in squeezing of values, but, there is actually an application of logic only.

Note also that the referee writes “sin x“. However, the sine is defined as the y-value on the unit circle of arc φ on that unit circle, and Cos[φ] is defined as its x-value. Thus “sin x” is gibberish as if x = φ. See my earlier suggestion for a didactic presentation of trigonometry.

A hypothesis for social psychology: an autistic fear for crackpots

The problem is rather that the world suffers from mathematicians and their fear for crackpots.

Let me quote form here, page 2:

There are ample indications that this hostile attitude is not uncommon in the world of mathematics. A mathematician wrote to me on March 7 2012:

“Once  you have irritated old-style mathematicians (…) they turn, of course, into crackpot interception mode. Start nit-picking, misunderstanding, finding real small errors, maybe some big ones, but  certainly consistently misunderstanding what you are trying to say. We all get letters and papers from crackpots who are squaring the circle, proving that Bell’s theorem is wrong, or solving the P=NP problem. (…) It’s quite a sport to show in public to your mathematical friends that these crackpots are a public nuisance. (…) You drew attention to yourself, you got attention, and now several Delft mathematicians are thoroughly enjoying a little group-crackpot-ridiculization. Bu t I could say (and in fact do) that one could say that you asked for this! Never mind. Remember Gandhi: first they ignore you, then they fight you, then you win.”

I object that I “asked for it”. The quote above concerned “Conquest of the Plane” (COTP) (2011) but the issue is the same for the current paper on the algebraic approach.

The paper that I submitted to NAW is an excellent review of both the algebraic approach and the current state of research on this. It fits the stated objectives of NAW to publish the article. The algebraic approach to the derivative a world class discovery, and it deserves to be treated with respect and be published. I never claimed that everyone should agree with everything. The ideas of publication is dissemination and does not imply that the editors agree with the analysis. They would have a useful role in checking on clarity and relevance for the readership. Competition with other articles is less relevant for digital publishing (though NAW is also on paper).

I am an empirical scientist and no psychologist. I have a bit more leeway than a psychologist to hypothesize about what is happening here.

Earlier I already applied a lay reader’s understanding of social psychology to the world of economics (here or local file). Let me now indicate this for mathematics.

My impression is that mathematicians are further up in the autistic spectrum and have difficulty in dealing with conflicting information. They know that everyone in their peer group hunts for crackpots. In the case of conflicting information they consider it their best protection to accuse others of being a crackpot, rather than confront their peers and be accused of being a crackpot too. They have a mortal fear of being associated with crackpots, and then can no longer think straight or treat someone with respect.

Addendum 2016-10-11: I now located an actual “autistic spectrum”, namely the AQ questionnaire by Simon Baron-Cohen, see also wikipedia (a portal and no source), and Telegraph 2015. Presumably as a scientist I would be scoring higher on this too, but my point would be that mathematicians are trained to look at formulas at the neglect of empirics, language and humans.

In this case mathematicians have been trained to think that limits are required for the derivative (excepting perhaps non-standard analysis). An article claiming otherwise thus provides conflicting information. For me, the referee is anonymous, but he or she is not anonymous for the editors. When they would say “You really liked that article from that crackpot ?” then the referee might feel exposed. For the referee psychological survival dictates the “crackpot-intercepting mode”, with misrepresentation, slander and neglect.

For me as a non-psychologist this is a fair description of the mathematics community as I have experienced it throughout my whole life.

There is a difference between “(research) mathematics” and “mathematics education”. Research mathematicians, like very likely the editors of NAW and their referee, focus on abstraction, and will have less experience with the empirics of education. Teachers of mathematics have to deal with real-life students, but when those teachers originally have been trained as mathematicians, then those teachers suffer cognitive dissonance, and they resort to traditional ways, that however have not been designed for didactics. The educational programme in mathematics gives ample proof that it is not didactic. This situation can only be caused by teachers who do not observe what is happening with students.

Check the evidence.

As in 2008 I advise each country to have a parliamentarian enquiry into mathematics education. For Holland, a petition is here.

Playing the ball and not the man

Obviously, this involves social psychology, and it is not fair to use the argument “ad hominem”, in which one plays the man and not the ball, like in: “He is a mathematician and thus an autist and thus cannot be trusted.” My argument is quite different. My argument observes the facts of an abusive referee report and a abysmal way of editing, relates this to earlier observations, and arrives at the inference that there must be a common factor. The suggestion that the common factor would be a low quality of my work can be rejected, check some other reviews, and, appreciate the point that this concerns mathematics education so that you can check a lot of formulas and arguments yourself. Society has a serious problem in dealing with the human quality of dealing with abstraction.

Effect of name-calling in the community of mathematics education

The hypothesis that mathematicians are higher up in the autistic spectrum, and far too easily resort to the “crackpot-interception mode” (as it euphemistically is called, as it actually involves misrepresentation and slander), fits the observation that name-calling has such a devastating effect within the community of mathematics education.

Some people have the attitude that this is just “name-calling”, and that grown-ups should be able to neglect it. I have indeed been accused of being overly sensitive to such “name-calling”. However, in the community of mathematics education, such name-calling is a “call to arms” and invitation to all to get into the “crackpot-interception mode”. I find it only sensible to protest against it, because we are dealing with a community that stops reading well once the first rock has been thrown.

The algebraic approach to the derivative was discovered and published in 2007 and the first “review” was in 2010, when Ger Limpens reviewed the book “Elegance with Substance” (EWS) (2009, 2015) in Euclides, the journal of the Dutch association of teachers of mathematics. Euclides is not a scientific journal, but one would hope for fair representation. However, Limpens finds it necessary to wonder whether I would be a wierdo. The Dutch word is “zonderling” and the English translation is “wierdo”, since the English word “eccentric” still has a somewhat favourable sound. Eccentrics may be respected in England but in Holland they are abhorred. The idea that Holland would be a tolerant country is a fairy tale. Limpens found it necessary to inform the readers that the cover of the book reminded him of Don Quixote. The editors of Euclides refused to publish my answer. I am rather convinced that Limpens’s misrepresentation, name-calling and slander about EWS made it easier for others and perhaps inspiration for some to throw other rocks. In the present case, I cannot write to the editors of NAW that Limpens gave a positive review, and in fact, as a scientist I must provide all information and report that Limpens took from the book that I would think that Newton and Leibniz would be dumb people. This, alas, is what the editors of Euclides saw fit to print, and of which I must assume that most of my colleague teachers of mathematics have read.

Recently, there was another case of name-calling and reference to Don Quixote, now with respect to the issue when pi or tau “should” be the standard. See my former weblog text on this.

Blind or double blind refereeing need not be wise

Anonymous refereeing as NAW does is an invitation to start misrepresenting. Editors should however also keep in mind that there should be decent treatment of a submitted paper. The latter is important for the citations and career perspectives of the author. Simply referring to other publication possibilities is awkward when a journal like NAW has a monopoly position in Holland. It are my collagues who might wonder: why wasn’t it published in NAW, if it would be so important ?

If I were paranoid then I would argue that the editors of NAW already decided that I would be a crackpot, and that they themselves quickly wrote such an anonymous excuse to block the paper, or asked some of their crackpot-intercepting buddies to write such an excuse. But I am not paranoid and only wonder why such a referee should remain anonymous.

Above I explained that reviewing the work by others is part of your academic job. Thus let it be known who is performing so badly. This is part of the Elo-rating like in chess, where scores are adapted from game results.

The editors of NAW might refer to the case of Limpens. His name is known and I can protest about his maltreatment. The editors of NAW might argue that they want to protect their referees from such protests, as if these referees would only honestly report about their findings when they would have such protection. I doubt whether this is all fair and square. When referees don’t misrepresent, don’t name-call and slander, and don’t neglect or burke, then there should be no problem with arguments pro and con. Then there will be a scientific discussion, as we should all hope for.

(For Dutch readers I can refer to “forum theory” by De Groot, that should be translated into English a.s.a.p.)

Earlier texts on the publishing process

I already wrote on some aspects before.

• This text in 2014 suggested to replace arXiv with vixra and PressForward.
• This is its sequel.
• See here on Timothy Gowers and his boycott of Elsevier 2012. Interestingly, Gowers has now started a journal using the Scholastica platform. Gowers uses arXiv as the farming base, but obviously arXiv can be needlessly selective (in a fear of crackpots), and such a base is lacking for many disciplines, and thus it makes sense to propose that each institute of HE creates its WPA.

Boycott Elsevier, designed by Michael Eisen 2012