Word: memos
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...spectre is haunting Harvard—the spectre of the Summers Memo. Over the past few months, president-elect Lawrence H. Summers 1991 World Bank memo on pollution trading has been forwarded, without comment, across several campus e-mail lists. The lack of meaningful discussion accompanying the letters seemed to be an attempt at shocked silence, letting the memo’s statements—notably, its assertion that “the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable”—speak for themselves. I had never...
There has been some question as to whether Summers wrote the memo, or just signed it, or sent it tongue-in-cheek. I don’t know what Summers actually thinks on the issue, and frankly, I don’t care. As president of Harvard, Summers will be the last person on earth with power over international trade in toxic waste. What concerns me is that students at Harvard are preferring to wave the memo rather than debate...
...proposition the memo offers—to pay lower-wage countries to accept our pollution—is rather straightforward. Consider a machine that could magically suck grime and litter off the streets of Los Angeles and deposit it in Calcutta. Given that the Calcutta city government has more important things to worry about, it seems reasonable that it might value clean streets somewhat less than we do and be willing to take a little bit of grime for the right fee—a fee that could be immediately redirected into other, more pressing priorities, such as saving scores...
This need to put a price on invaluables becomes the sticking point when the topic shifts from grime to toxic waste. The earlier questions—transportation, agency, moral hazard—increase their importance dramatically, but that’s not what’s behind the memo forwards. Instead, the unspoken sentiment appears to be that toxic waste is horrible stuff, and we don’t like to think of it being produced or stored anywhere near people. But it has to be stored somewhere, and although we may not want economic power to influence the distribution...
...wrong: there are plenty of arguments against trade in toxic waste, some of which may very well be compelling. I count six of them in this column alone. But rather than engage the question, the protestors who held signs and chanted outside Loeb House have preferred to use the memo as a moral bludgeon, perversely changing the subject to Harvard’s labor policies. I support a living wage, but assuming Summers must atone for his views on toxic waste, why would giving $10.25 an hour to Harvard workers be the proper penance? Just because it?...