The green jobs argument, circa 1845

From Bastiat’s candlemakers’ petition against the sun, which I mentioned here but is too good not to excerpt on its own:

First, if you shut off as much as possible all access to natural light, and thereby create a need for artificial light, what industry in France will not ultimately be encouraged?

If France consumes more tallow, there will have to be more cattle and sheep, and, consequently, we shall see an increase in cleared fields, meat, wool, leather, and especially manure, the basis of all agricultural wealth.

If France consumes more oil, we shall see an expansion in the cultivation of the poppy, the olive, and rapeseed. These rich yet soil-exhausting plants will come at just the right time to enable us to put to profitable use the increased fertility that the breeding of cattle will impart to the land.

Our moors will be covered with resinous trees. Numerous swarms of bees will gather from our mountains the perfumed treasures that today waste their fragrance, like the flowers from which they emanate. Thus, there is not one branch of agriculture that would not undergo a great expansion.

The same holds true of shipping. Thousands of vessels will engage in whaling, and in a short time we shall have a fleet capable of upholding the honour of France and of gratifying the patriotic aspirations of the undersigned petitioners, chandlers, etc.

But what shall we say of the specialities of Parisian manufacture? Henceforth you will behold gilding, bronze, and crystal in candlesticks, in lamps, in chandeliers, in candelabra sparkling in spacious emporia compared with which those of today are but stalls.

There is no needy resin-collector on the heights of his sand dunes, no poor miner in the depths of his black pit, who will not receive higher wages and enjoy increased prosperity.

It needs but a little reflection, gentlemen, to be convinced that there is perhaps not one Frenchman, from the wealthy stockholder of the Anzin Company to the humblest vendor of matches, whose condition would not be improved by the success of our petition.

Hap tip to the inimitable Tyler Cowen.

The danger of the "green jobs" argument

“Green jobs” is, for better or worse, becoming the rallying cry and focal point of the fight over climate change legislation in Congress. I’ve generally had reservations over this approach because:

1. The point of the climate bill is climate, not jobs, and it is hard to do both at the same time
2. I worry that the green jobs argument is being oversold
3. If the case that the bill will create jobs is shown to be flawed, it tremendously weakens the public argument for the bill (even though it loses none of its urgency)

Given that preamble... Tyler Cowen links to a study on the cost of green jobs in Spain. Here are some choice quotes from the study:

Spain’s experience cited by President Obama as a model reveals with high confidence, by two different methods, that the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about 9 jobs lost for every 4 created, to which we have to add those jobs that non-subsidized investments with the same resources would have created.

The study calculates that since 2000 Spain spent €571,138 to create each “green job”, including subsidies of more than €1 million per wind industry job.

And here is Tyler’s commentary:

To be sure, there are very real benefits from limiting climate change. But if it takes more jobs to produce "green energy," that is a net cost to the economy, not a benefit... We're dealing now with something beyond the Keynesian short run and so those extra jobs are a drain of resources from elsewhere. If you wish, sub out the word "energy" and sub in the word "agriculture" and then reevaluate the sentence from the vantage point of 1900. Would it truly create net jobs -- much less good jobs -- to trash tractors and industrial fertilizer? The ideal situation would be a technology where very few jobs were required to create and distribute the nation's energy supply.

The idea that directed government spending is important to private sector job creation in the long term flies in the face of most capitalist ideology and economic theory. It is, in effect, economic populism with socialist implications (and with all due respect to socialism, I don't think that's what most American voters would aim for if the argument were laid out transparently). But the green jobs meme is so attractive politically, given the state of the economy, that it’s lured lawmakers like a Siren... and I worry how things will turn out once the economic evidence is examined in the light of day.

Tyler also links to Bastiat's candlemakers' petition against the sun, which is both quite funny and quite apropos.