Finally, we’d better mention Nan Goldin, a photographer whose body of work is the antithesis of Plachy’s (and who has famously shed her coat—as well as the rest of her clothing—for a series of nude, postcoital self-portraits). Goldin has internalized the personal-is-political mantra of Sixties feminism to spin intimate stories shot in tight, interior spaces. Drawn to the social underbelly, she explores it through pictures of herself and her close friends; her photo diary is both an intimate snapshot and the portrait of an era. One Goldin series documents the trajectory of her relationship with an abusive partner; another chronicles the demise of a friend from AIDS; still others capture the world of drugs and drag. The beloved poster child of the seedy counterculture, Goldin is not likely to age into an adorably feisty guest on the Jay Leno show. CELEBRITY
Last and least among photographers are the paparazzi. But while it’s perfectly all right to hold them in contempt, it’s not OK to ignore them; they know where life is going, and for that matter Life (or what’s left of it), People, and Vanity Fair. Andy Warhol predicted that someday everybody would be famous for fifteen minutes—the paparazzi work hard at reducing that to 1/125th of a second. Valedictorian of all celebrity photographers is Ron Galella, who has been sued by Jackie Onassis, punched by Marlon Brando, and deplored by even the most deplorable of his subjects. None of this has affected him adversely. Jackie and Brando are gone, and Ron, whose photos have recently been legitimized by an expensive art book, a major gallery show, a museum retrospective, and the sheer passage of time, now gets star treatment himself. Let’s face it—celebrity snappers may be pond scum, but pond scum evolved into the likes of Albert Einstein and Greta Garbo, so there’s still hope. On the other hand, in the age of Rupert Murdoch and reality TV, the ever-smarmier paparazzi would have to catch Al and Greta doing the nasty in the back of a Hummer to win a few minutes of audience attention. So much for evolution.
Now, What Exactly Is Economics,and What Do Economists Do, Again?
Economists are fond of saying, with Thomas Carlyle, that economics is “the dismal science.” As with much that economists say, this statement is half true: It is dismal.
An equally helpful definition of economics was offered by American economist Jacob Viner, who said, “Economics is what economists do.”
More to the point, perhaps, is the fact that economics concerns itself with the use of resources. It is about changes in production and distribution over time. It is about the efficiency of the systems that control production and distribution. It is, in a word, about wealth. This alone should be enough to engage our attention.
Over the past several decades, economics has experienced a substantial surge of interest and notoriety. Suddenly economists have found themselves not only studying wealth but also enjoying it. This is largely a result of their relationship with politicians. Where once rulers relied on oracles to predict the future, today they use economists. Virtually every elected official, every political candidate, has a favorite economist to forecast economic benefits pinned to that official’s or candidate’s views.
Besides, even if being in a position to feel on top of current events doesn’t constitute a sufficient lure, people still want to be able to understand why their neighbors are all rushing out to buy mutual funds. Not that, as contributor Alan Webber is about to show, the economists are necessarily ready to tell them.
EcoSpeak
One reason economics is so hard to get a grip on is that economists speak in tongues whenever possible. They are, after all, being paid to come up with a lot of fancy guesswork, and they know how important it is to keep everyone else guessing about what they’re guessing about since, in the end, your guess is as good as theirs. Anyway, here’s what a few of their favorite terms really mean.
CETERIS PARIBUS: One of the things economists like to do is analyze a complicated situation involving a huge number of variables by changing one and holding the rest steady. This allows them to do two things: first, focus on the significance of that one particular element, and second, prove that a pet theory is correct. “Ceteris paribus” is the magic phrase they mutter while doing this. It means, literally, “Other things being equal.”
COMMODITIES: Commodities generally fall into two categories: goods, which are tangible, and services, which are not. An easy way to remember this distinction: These days, goods are Chinese and services are American; they make textiles, we make lawyers.
CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION: Consumption is what happens when you actually use commodities; production is what happens when you make them.
EXTERNALITIES: Effects or consequences felt outside the closed world of production and consumption—in other words, things like pollution. Economists keep their own world tidy by labeling these messes “externalities,” then banishing them.
FACTORS OF PRODUCTION: Ordinary people talk about resources, the things— like land, labor, or capital—used to make or provide other things. Economists talk about factors of production.
FREE- MARKET ECONOMY VS. PLANNED ECONOMY: In the former, decisions made by households and businesses, rather than by the government, determine how resources are used. Vice versa and you’ve got the latter. As long as you are living in the United States, it’s probably a good idea to associate a free-market economy with the good guys, a planned economy with the bad guys. If you find yourself in Cuba or parts of Cambridge, Massachusetts, simply reverse the definition to get with the prevailing theology.
GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT (GNP) VS. GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP):GNP is a dollar amount (in the United States, an enormous one) that represents the total value of everything produced in a national economy in a year. If the number goes up from year to year, the economy is growing; divide that number by the number of people living in the country and you get per capita income. An alternative measure, GDP, leaves out foreign investment and foreign trade and limits the measure of production to the flow of goods and services within the country itself. As a result, some economists believe it affords a more accurate basis for nation-to-nation comparisons. Either way, GNP or GDP, the basic idea is that more is better.
HUMAN CAPITAL: At first blush, “human” and “capital” may seem like strange bedfellows. But in the land of economics, human capital refers to the investments that businesses make in their workers, such as training and education, or, more broadly, to the assets of the firm represented by the workers and their skills.
INDIFFERENCE CURVE: This shows all the varying combined amounts of two commodities that a household would find equally satisfactory. For example, if you’re used to having ten units of peanut butter and fifteen of jelly on your sandwich, and you lose five units of the peanut butter while gaining five of the jelly, and the new sandwich tastes just as good to you as the old one, you’ve located one point on an indifference curve.
INFLATION: One of the traditional villains of current events, inflation is most simply understood as a rise in the average level of all prices. Getting the definition down is one thing; getting the rate of inflation down once it has started to levitate is another.
LAISSEZ- FAIRE: It seems that whenever economists want to describe an imaginary world, they turn to a foreign language (see “ceteris paribus,” above, or try to read the Annual Report of the Council of Economic Advisors to the President). Literally translated “let do,” this phrase invokes the notion of an economy totally free of government intervention, one in which the forces of the marketplace are allowed to operate freely and where the choices driving supply and demand, consumption and production are arrived at naturally, or “purely.” A kind of economic fantasyland.