Spontaneous Order and Far-From-Equilibrium Systems

In atomic-chemical environments, we have three states of matter: solid, liquid, and gas. This is what people generally understand to be true, but it's in fact only 3/5 of the picture. In fact, we have transition states between solid and liquid and between liquid and gas. Crystals, for example, are solid and orderly. Water is of course liquid between just above 0 C and just below 100 C. But there is a transition state between crystal order and liquid chaos known as liquid crystals. Another feature of this transition state is that it is far-from-equilibrium, meaning the parts interact in a dynamic fashion, creating strange atractors and, thus, complex dynamics, in their interactions. This is a dynamic order of a different kind than that of crystals, but which appears disordered relative to the simple crystal order. What has all these fatures, of dynamic, far-from-equilibrium liquid crystal order? Living cells, of course. As Peter T. Macklem in "Emergent Phenomena and the Secrets of Life" observed, "We the living exist in a complex regimen in the phase transition between order and chaos. We are there because that is the only place we can be both ordered but adaptable, stable but able to evolve. Crystals are stable and ordered but cannot adapt or evolve. Weather evolves but is unstable and cannot survive" (J. Appl. Physiol. 104: 1844-1846, 2008). However, as we can see from the way I have described it, Macklem is only partly right. Life is not in the transition state between crystals and weather, but between crystals and water. There is in fact something in the transition state between water and weather, and those are known as hurricanes. One will note that hurricanes can and do in fact survive sometimes for days or even weeks at a time. In both kinds of order that occur in the phase transitions, there is a "narrow range of energy consumption over which phase transition occurs" (Macklem). Hurricanes occur if and only if the exact right conditions occur. But if we consider the number of tropical storms and hurricanes in any given year, we can see how often the exact right conditions can in fact occur. And clearly the right conditions occured for the emergence of life becasue, well, here we are.

Of course, what we are talking about here is phase transitions between states of matter. This region will of course be more orderly in the region between solid and liquid than it will be between liquid and gas. The stability of the order between solid and liquid will create more opportunities for the development of strange attractors to create more complex order within such a system. This level of stability is probably why simple cells are able to develop into more complex organisms -- the greater order creates more structural possibilities.

One such structural possibility comes about with the brain. The brain is a complex network of communicating cells with a pretty tight and complex level of communication. Information is able to be transmitted across the entire network of neurons in a more rapid way than a muscle cell in the toe could communicate information to a skin cell on the scalp without neurons (i.e., it would have to rely on chemical diffusion, or at best transmission through the blood stream -- both of which are highly imprecise). The brain is thus more complex than any other organ. Other organs are more orderly -- but it is precisely the brain's disorderliness, pushing it into the realm of phase transition, that makes it more complex. Indeed, the human brain probably lies in the phase transition between order and chaos. A human brain too orderly is likely to be more like an animal's brain, while a human brain too chaotic is likely to exhibit features of mental illness. More creative people perhaps lie closer to the chaotic region, where the brain is farthest-from-equilibrium without falling into complete chaos, allowing them to be highly creative. Indeed, the far-from-equilibrium region is the region of maximum creativity. The healthy human brain thus lies in the phase transition between order and chaos. Too much disorder, the the system falls apart -- gets thrown into chaos (and mental illness in the brain); too much order, and the system rigidifies. How do we get too much order in a complex system? Simplfying processes create too much order. As the system simplifies, it first enters into more and more regular rhythms, becoming more and more predictable in its behavior, until it collapses into a more rigid order lacking growth and creativity. The closer it approaches simple order and, thus an equilibrium state, the closer it approaches death. In the cell this means dying. In the brain, this means collapse into animalistic behaviors.

And what of the kinds fo systems which arise out of the interactions of people? As with each of the systems mentioned, you have to have a certain number of elements before you are able to achieve complex dynamics. This varies from system to system. But one reaches a point where there are enough elements interacting in complex enough fashion that a phase transition occurs, and one gets far-from-equilibrium states with complex dynamics. F. A. Hayek called this spontaneous order. We can find it in social orders of all kinds -- from the arts to morality to language to the economy. Societies range in structure from rigid order to chaos. From a global perspective, a state of wandering tribes would constitute "chaos". Constructivist societies -- various forms of socialism, for example -- would likely consider "rigid order" in this definition. The kind of society that would emerge in the phase transition, made up of networks of people of high enough concentration and population size, would constitute spontaneous orders. Such an economy, for example, would neither be one of rigid order (that is, an economy at equilibrium) nor of chaos. We can compare the state of an economy to that of the brain. One with too much chaos does not have enough structure. It flies apart -- or, more likely, has never come into being. One at equilibrium is dead (one may note that an economic theory where equilibrium is assumed is an economic theory of a dead economy). One approaching equilibrium is dying -- and the first indication of its dying is that it has entered into regular cycles. Of course, an economy may not die at one go. Rather, it may emerge into a less complex state -- move from a typical unemployment rate of 5% to one of 10%, say. Something as complex as an economy could simply ratchet itself into rigidity and death.

A healthy economy, on the other hand, is one with complex dynamics, a network structure that is far-from-equilibrium, structured by both positive aand negative feedback and, as a consequence, creative. Prices, goods, labor, capital do not reach equilibrium and, as a result, create entrepreneurian opportunities. Goods are moved to where they are needed and new products are invented. Resources, including labor and capital, are thus properly allocated within relatively short periods of time. This is a theory of a real economy.

Polanyi on "Life's Irreducible Complexity"

I recently discovered an old article by Michael Polanyi, "Life's Irreducible Structure" in the 21 June 1968 Science in which he discusses complexity and emergence in relation to biology. It is amazing how far ahead of his time Polanyi was -- it took almost 30 years for Polanyi's ideas (which are further developments of Bertalanffy's ideas from before WWII on complex systems) to become fairly well-established facts and to increasingly become mainstream ideas, at least in the sciences. They ought to be mainstream ideas in the human sciences, including economics, but alas they are mainstream only among the Austrian economists.

Consider Polanyi's observation that a complex system with emergent properties "is subject to dual control: (i) control in accordance with the laws that apply to its elements in themselves, and (ii) control in accordance with the powers that control the comprehensive entity formed by these elements" (1311).

In biological terms, the biochemical cycles give rise to the cell, which in turn determines what biochemistry can and will take place. You need to understand both to understand biochemistry and cell biology. But let us consider this too from the standpoint of economics. You need to understand human action to understand how an economy can emerge out of those interactions. In turn, the economy that emerges affects the kinds of actions people will engage in. That economy is going to have strctures and patterns that cannot be reduced to the interactions of acting humans, yet necessarily emerge from those interactions. Or, as Polanyi observes, "the operations of a higher level cannot be accounted for by the laws governing its particulars on the next-lower level" (1311).

But there is more to it than this. As I observed, the higher level sets a boundary to what the lower level actions can be within that higher level system. "Each level relies for its operations on all the levels below it. Each reduces the scope of the one immediately below it by imposing on it a boundary that harnesses it to the service of the next-higher level, and this control is transmitted stage by stage, down to the basic inanimate level" (1311). To put it concretely: the kind of economy we act within will affect our mental state, which will affect our biological state, which will affect our biochemical state, which will affect our atomic state. At the same time, atomic behavior affects chemical behavior affects biological behavior affects mental behavior affects the economy. How this latter works, according to Polanyi, is that each lower level "evokes the ontogenesis of higher levels, rather than determining these levels" (1311). In other words, new levels of complexity are evoked, while those higher levels encourage the behaviors of the lower levels. There may be a kind of determinism within a level -- but it is a determinism appropriate only to that level. The determinism of physics is thus appropriate to that level and only to that level.

One of the consequences of this is that emergence reverses the drive toward nihilism inherent in the deterministic, entropic world view. As Polanyi observes, "a boundary condition which harnesses the principles of a lower level in the services of a new, higher level establishes a semantic relation between the two levels. The higher comprehends the workings of the lower and thus forms the meaning of the lower" (1311). One gets more and more meaning the higher the level. Those who recognize the economy as a spontaneous order emerging from the interactions of individual human beings thus recognize the meaningfulness of that system; nihilism vanishes with each emerging level of complexity. But those who seek to reduce the economy to a lower level -- who think of it as deterministic, able to be controlled or even nudged in the "right" direction -- seek to reduce meaning in the world, are seeking to reduce the economy to less than it really is; nihilism emerges with such attempts to eliminate its complexity. Such people are no different from anyone who would seek to "improve" a living organism by reducing its complexity -- turning it into a pile of chemicals and, thus, killing it.

The Tragic Institutions

An old article is back: The Tragic Institutions

Nature's God

Those who search for God outside themselves will never find Him.

How to Collapse a Complex System: Stop Change

Here is an interesting short article on ecosystems as far-from-equilibrium systems. Most notable is the observation that without mutations, the entire system collapses, while even a small mutation rate allows the system to remain robust. Change "mutation" to "technological innovation" or "ability to adapt" and this applies equally to the economy.

Advanced Austrian Economics

I just got back from a great week in New York. I was at the Advanced Austrian Economics Seminar put on by the Foundation for Economic Education. I saw a few people I already knew: Bill Butos, Peter Lewin, Steve Horwitz, Bruce Caldwell, and (if meeting someone for literally a minute is knowing someone) Pete Boettke. More, I got to meet several others, including Israel Kirzner ( a brilliant, brilliant mind!), Chrispher Coyne, Peter Leeson, Mario Rizzo, Lawrence White, and Larry Reed. I learned a lot. More, I was stimulated in my thinking on some of my own projects investigating spontaneous orders. Especially involving the use of the concept of the entrepreneur. I think that will be a very fruitful development of my thinking of the spontaneous orders of the arts. I was also encouraged by Pete Lewin to pursue further my idea on self-organized criticality and cycles. Overall, a good week. Now I just need to get enough published to get invited to be on the other side of the desk.

Kristen Hauck's Short Story Blog

Go check out Kristen Hauck's short story blog. From now on it will also be in my blogroll. If I didn't think it was worth reading, it wouldn't be there. The stories capture you and make you want to go back and reread them. There is no higher compliment for a work of literature than to say that it makes you want to read it again.

Food Insurance at Mises

I have a new article at mises.org titled Suppose There Were Food Insurance.

Economics: Creationist, Intelligent Design, or Scientific?

I was raised a Baptist in rural Kentucky. So it should not surprise anyone that I was a creationist when I entered college. Of course, considering that I majored in recombinant gene technology, it should also not surprise anyone that I encountered a bit of cognitive dissonance. The first solution was to become a believer in intelligent design – though I didn’t know at the time there was in fact such a movement afoot. But then, by the time I graduated, the understanding I had of living things as evolving complex systems had made me a full-fledged Darwinian.

All of this means that I understand the world views of each of these positions. The creationist sees order in the universe and believes there must be an orderer who keeps constant control over everything. The intelligent designist is willing to admit to some chaos in the universe which can contribute to some order, but they still insist that there must be some higher intelligence to intervene periodically to fix things and to make more complex elements in the overall system. The evolutionist – particularly the cosmic evolutionist – believes order emerges naturally, self-organizing out of the interaction of less complex elements. Chaos gives rise to order naturally, and simple elements can give rise to complexity. These are the three main ways to understand the natural order. The first is religious; the second purports to be scientific, but in the end is really faith-based and, therefore, religious; the last is purely scientific and requires nothing external for order to arise.

The latter view is the one I had almost completely embraced by the time I took the Intro. to Philosophy class that changed my life. It was taught by Ronald Nash, a Christian free market philosopher who taught his book Poverty and Wealth and, thus, introduced me to free market economics. That the economy should be a free market was immediately obvious to me, as it was clear that a free market, like an ecosystem or an organism, was an evolving complex system requiring no one to give it order. Nature gave rise to ever more species over time through evolution; the free market gave rise to ever more goods over time through a similar process. All of this was perfectly clear to me. I was a Hayekian before I’d read a word of Hayek.

It has since become clear to me that these three world views – creationism, intelligent design, and cosmic creationism – are equally applicable to understanding why people hold different theories of economic organization.

Economic creationism is socialism. The socialist looks at the free market and sees nothing but chaos. Naturally, order is to be preferred to chaos and, since order requires an orderer in this world view, the economic planning of socialism is what is required. That, at least, was the position of the socialists prior to the socialist calculation debate that was definitely answered by Mises and Hayek. The socialist is now left in the same position as many theists who, unable to believe in the divine creative orderer, now believe in the divine creative moralist – meaning, they believe that creationism is still a necessary belief in order to have a moral society. Another reaction to science having pulled the rug out from under creationism is to seek order in the workings of some secretive group or other. This is why so many arguments from the Left sound like conspiracy theories (rich oppressing the poor, men oppressing women, the West oppressing everyone else, the capitalists oppressing the workers) – because they are. As such, as we will see, they are disconnected from reality.

Those who find they cannot help but believe in reality, yet insist upon holding on to their faith often become intelligent deisgnists. The economic interventionist argues that, of course the free market works better than outright socialism, but there are market failures and moral issues which require intervention in the economy. If it weren’t for government regulations, welfare, and subsidies, the market would fall into chaos. There is no fundamental difference between this belief and that of intelligent design. One is applied to the economy, and thus the control is assigned to people; the other is applied to living things, and thus must be controlled by a higher power. That is all. Both agree, though, that the designer must be smarter, wiser, and more ethical than the rest of us. On this those who believe in biological intelligent design have a stronger case than do those who believe in economic intelligent design, the interventionists. They also don’t need to have nearly as much faith.

This then leaves us with the theory that the economy is a self-organizing , evolving, complex system. This is the view of the economy supported by the Austrian school of economics, and given the name of spontaneous order by Hayek. In this theory, no one is in charge, and no one needs to be in charge. Lower order interacting elements give rise to higher order patterns of order. New things emerge naturally and, literally, as quickly as physically possible in such a system. Natural selective forces choose what survives and what does not. Creation can happen even more quickly in an economic spontaneous order than a biological one because the brain acts faster than does biological evolution, and because we can retain past bad inventions and use them in the future if they prove useful later. When something is lost in the ecosystem, it is lost forever and cannot be retrieved. One can have a series of failures and learn from each one (consider Edison’s track record with the light bulb). A spontaneous order economy is thus the most powerful wealth-creating system possible.

For someone who understands evolution and self-organizing complex systems, the truth of biological evolution is overwhelming. So why, then, do we still have people who believe in creationism or intelligent design? There are many answers to this. Some find it simpler to understand. Others believe any order requires an orderer, and haven’t learned what is necessary to learn otherwise. Still others believe it is the only way to ensure a moral universe (something which is rapidly being answered by the work of such people as Marc Hauser and other evolutionary psychologists). But in the end, no matter what the reason, it all boils down to choosing faith over reality.

When someone expresses a belief in cosmic creationism, many who believe in biological evolution express shock that anyone would believe such a thing. Battles are fought in schools and courts over the teaching of such beliefs. And yet, many – if not most – of the believers in biological evolution are economic intelligent designists, or even economic creationists. Though this belief arguably has a more widespread and more negative effect on peoples’ lives and well-being than the belief in cosmic creationism, there are not only few if any battles fought in our schools and courts over it, it is in fact accepted by a majority of people. And really, ignorance is no excuse. Far more people believe in evolution than understand it; but with the free market economy, the only people who truly believe in it are those who understand it. Worse, this is true not just in the general populace, but among academics in the field itself. This should be a scandal. It would be as though 90% of biologists were intelligent designists of various levels of faith, with another 5% or so being creationists. No doubt biology would have advanced in the 20th century about as much as economics has had that fact been the case.

The medieval world view was creationist through and through. God gave order to the universe, to life, and to the mind or soul of man, as well as to the economy, culture, and political structures – though these last three were typically through His representatives on earth (from the religious to the royal hierarchies). But then the arts broke free in the Renaissance – Shakespeare’s plays show characters ordering the play rather than the play ordering the characters, as happened with Medieval plays. The economy, whose new order was recognized by Adam Smith, eventually followed. Then governments, with the emergence of representative democracies. Finally, it was recognized as existing in the living world by Darwin, and then in the physical world (whose increasing disorder was recognized before its increasing order was). Ironically, as nature was increasingly recognized as being a spontaneous order, Medievalist notions of economy, culture, and politics returned – only this time, replacing God with Man. As a result, the Inquisition of the Communists was far worse than that of the Medieval Catholic Church.

If the universe is a self-organizing, evolving system and every complex system in the universe, from living cells to brains to ecosystems, economies, and cultures, are self-organizing, evolving systems, then classical liberalism is the world view most accurate to how the world really works. Indeed, the classical liberal position is the same as belief in the world as a spontaneous order. The classical liberal accepts the fundamental nature of reality, seeking to understand it so we can learn how to best adapt to it. As the collapse of Communism and the current decline of the socialist and welfare economies of the West show, one can only ignore reality for so long. We must fight against those who believe in political and economic creationism and intelligent design for the same reason their cosmological and biological siblings must be fought against: so that truth may be known and the lives of people around the world improved.

Secular Free Verse vs. Religious Formal Verse

I think there are good reasons why formal poetry the world over preceded free verse. Those reasons are likely to be biological than directly connected to religion, but the ancient naturalness of both seem to be connected to each other.

On the other hand, free verse and the non(anti)-formalist verse that followed seem to be distinctly secular in manmade-and-therefore-unnatural fashion. The antiformalists all argued (absurdly) that formal verse was antidemocratic, indeed, elitist — while their verse (which the masses hated, loving formal verse) was democratic and anti-elitist. Of course, the opposite was in fact true. People prefer lyrical rock, country, and rap songs to surrealist, LANGUAGE, and postmodern poetry. With the addition of such music especially, formal verse seems to tap into a deep Dionysian element that 20th century free verse and other antiformalist poetry discards completely. Formal verse seems to tap into the very rhythms of the universe — including our mental/neural universe — which makes it deeply religious in its experience. This is something free verse, etc. cannot create, whatever other interesting elements they may have. In this sense nonformalist poetry is deeply secular insofar as it cannot connect us to those deep rhythms which we describe as religious.

Of course, as I have pointed out elsewhere (my dissertation, for one), poetry is likely to have its origins in song, which is the reunion of language and music from a primate mating song (think gibbons). Indeed, we know that The Iliad and The Odyssey were sung, and these were religious texts. It seems likely that many initial songs were connected to religion as well. Of course, if you want to get right down to it, songs and dancing were both likely connected to mating calls and sexual demonstrations (as they still do). At the same time, I am convinced that the emergence of language gave rise to the simultaneous emergence of religion. Which may be why the earliest narratives are religious texts. This double origin of poetry -- in sexual music and language-giving-rise-to-religion is probably why there is so much tension with religion and sex in poetry.

Darwinian Classical Liberalism at Cato Unbound

There has been an interesting discussion over at Cato Unbound. The first article is by Larry Arnhart, who argues for a Darwinian Liberalism. This is followed up by P.Z. Meyers' Evolution is Far Freer than Classical Liberalism, Lionel Tiger's Much Work Left to Be Done in Connecting Politics and Evolution, and Herbert Gintis' Reflections on Arnhart's Darwinian Liberalism.

Arnhart touches on several ideas I've been thinking about, including ideas for a paper I am writing for one of the Advances In Austrian Economics series on Hayek's philosophical psychology, where I talk about the relationship between Hayek's spontaneous order theory of the mind and the moral order. I am of the opinion that spontaneous order theory is the true foundation of what libertarians want, which is a society of liberty. More, we can see how supporting a moral order (in the form of the spontaneous moral order) is not inconsistent with a libertarian world view. This is a place where many libertarians get themselves in trouble.

P.Z. Meyers' followup to Larry Arnhart's article connecting Darwinism with classical liberalism does not address the specifics of Arnhart's article -- in fact, except that both are about evolution and politics, I would be hard-pressed to point out how this refers to Arnhart's article at all. His arguments are vague, rambling, and inconsistent. Myers argues that "evolution" is no defense of classical liberalism, but Arnhart never said it was. He was arguing that humans evolved in such a way that classical liberalism is the best social organization for humans to thrive. If this is the best criticism of Arnhart's position (and I don't think it is -- we still have Herbert Gintis' to come), then Darwinian liberalism is in good shape. Of course, a good criticism will actually strengthen the position, so I always look forward to good criticism of his position. This just wasn't it.

Lionel Tiger gives a very entertaining rejoineder to Arnhart's essay though, again, I think it falls far short of Arhnart's essay. This is not to say that he doesn't raise some interesting questions, which libertarians need to address. He also brings up the (horrifying, in my opinion) observation that the new family (abut 40% of births) consists of a mother, a child, and a bureaucrat. Considering that bureaucrats are the parasitic class of modern society (not just failing to create wealth, but in fact actively destroying it), this cannot but necessarily have a negative effect. A true single parent household is to be much more preferred!

All in all, the first two responses were disappointing. Herbert Gintis', on the other hand, is a great response. Well-informed and thoughtful. The first thing I would note, though, is that at the end, Gintis is talking more about a certain kind of libertarian who is so libertarian that they won't criticize anyone's actions or beliefs than he is Arnhart, who explicitly says he is a conservative rather than a libertarian precisely because he thinks virtue is necessary for a free society.

Another big argument I have with Gintis is his statement that, "The notion that mutual tolerance and adjudication of moral differences emerges spontaneously in civil society is implausible." With all due respect to Gintis, he needs to familiarize himself with the history of civilization, which shows precisely this happening. More, there has been actual scientific research proving that this phenomenon actually occurs. People actually do spontaneously treat each other better and fairer in denser, wide-ranging societies with market economies. I suspect that this is as much a reflection of modern liberal pessimisim (an irony, since golden-age thinking is reactionary, not liberal) as anything. Darwin himself notes this occurance, and even provides an explanation for it. From this perspective, this idea is as Darwinian as one can get. On the other hand, it is also likely to be a reflection of his not really understanding the nature of the spontaneous order. If he is expecting such behavior to emerge "spontaneously" from people living their lives as islands, then he is right. But that is not what spontaneous order says happens. First, spontaneous order theory requires humans be social mammals, interacting with each other. It in in and through those interactions that "mutual tolerance and adjudication of moral differences emerges spontaneously in civil society." Gintis (and everyone else) needs to familiarize himself more with the spontaneous order literature.

I will say this, though: Gintis is right that evolution does support many forms of governance. But network theory and complex adaptive systems theory, combined with human universals/evolutionary psychology demonstrate that only a spontaneous order -- democracy, catallaxy, and even virtue ethics in the Aristotlean tradition -- allows people to live freer, more prosperous lives. It may not be the only political-economic system, but it is the best one for a social mammal with a population as large and dominant as ours -- the one in the end most suited for a species such as ours to live the best life possible.

From Self-Organized Criticality to Cycles

One of the intentions of government regulations of the economy is to reduce unpredictability in the economy. Certainly the Federal Reserve was put in place with that stated purpose -- the Fed is supposed to reduce economic uncertainty. However, unpredictability and uncertainty are features of complex adaptive systems. And the economy is a complex adaptive system. When you simplify a dynamic system, you move it from the region of self-organized criticality, where new things are created, into a state of periodicity -- cycles. In other words, the effect of government regulations, including those involving the Federal Reserve, that are intended to simplify and reduce unpredictability and uncertainty, in fact cause economic cycles. The cure is the cause of the illness of business cycles. Worse, further simplification to remove uncertainty and unpredictability further only works to calcify the system -- until it is no longer a system, let alone a complex adaptive system.

This is a fancy, scientific way of saying that the Austrian economists were right about business cycles.
_______________
Brad DeLong blogged on how our cyclic pattern has turned structural. This is very bad. The economy is rigidfying -- as one would predict from systems theory. This is the original post, by Dave Altig.

Connecting Good Workers With Good Jobs

The current system doesn't seem to do a very good job of making sure that the best people are getting the best jobs -- or that the best positions are getting the best people. This may be true locally, but in the age of the global internet, it seems antiquated for it to still be only locally true.

I'm not seeing a lot going on on the internet, either. Unless you're a middle manager looking for another middle manager job, I haven't found things like Monster to be of much use. I'm getting tired of being offered jobs selling insurance!

It seems to me that someone could make a fortune with a search engine that could do a global search of job postings online and match them with resumes/C.V.'s and put both parties in contact with each other. Maybe combine it with personality tests, etc. that could further refine searches. If anyone does this, don't forget whose idea it was! I'm not greedy -- 1% of the profits would do just fine. :-)

Deirdre McCloskey on the Arts and Economics

Economist Deirdre McCloskey on the arts and economics. Some really interesting ideas here. A challenge to artists to represent more of the world than we typically do.

Happy Birthday, America!

Happy Birthday, America! You're 236 years old today, which is very old for a democratic republic. That makes you the oldest in history. Very notable. I hope you can remain in good health, though I see you have grown very weak in your old age. I blieve you could be vibrant. I believe you could be reborn! Please resist those who would pull the plug on you, who deeply desire you accept euthanasia. Those people are evil. While you haven't always been good, you have been better than almost everyone else. When I chastise you, I do it out of love, wanting you to be better. Resist those who do not love what is deeply, truly you: liberty, true equality (not the evil that is egalitarianism), true individualism (as proposed by the Scottish Enlightenment philosophers, not the false one proposed by the Continental European philosophers), and spontaneous orders (democracy, free market economy, freedom of speech and press and beliefs). Happy Birthday, America. I hope you recover. I hope you get well. I home you come back stronger than ever, on the things that made you strong and are the only things that can make you strong again.

What Makes a Leftist a Leftist

"The Grand March is the splendid march on the road to brotherhood, equality, justice, happiness; it goes on and on, obstacles notwithstanding, for obstacles must be if the march is to be the Grand March.

The dictatorship of the proletariat or democracy? Rejection of the consumer society or demands for increased productivity? The guillotine or an end to the death penalty? It is all beside the point. What makes a leftist a leftist is not this or that theory but his ability to integrate any theory into the kitsch called the gramd march."

Milan Kundera, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," pg. 257

And remember, for Kundera, kitsch is the denial of shit.

What a World We Live In

More rational optimism over at The Freeman courtesy of Steve Horowitz.

Politics and Culture

Special Evolutionary Issue of Politics and Culture. Exciting stuff!

The Web

The spider wove its web across the door. The spider, black and gold, sits still above the zig-zag on the web while Sarah, black and blue, stands tense before it, uncertain, frightened in either direction. She feels his breath on her shoulder. She feels his hand on her arm. If she jerks away, her hand will shoot into the web, become enwrapped in the silk. She feels her silk nightgown slip off her shoulder. His soft lips replace the soft fabric. She faints into his arms.

The web flutters in the breeze of the closing door. The garden spider sits, unmoved.

Tragic Hope

Does lack of destiny kill tragedy?
The Age of Great Napoleon brought forth
No tragedies. And Stalin's Russia, too,
Produced no Aeschylus of their far north.

But they believed in Destiny! They ruled
Two countries who believed in Destiny.
Instead of Shakespeare, all we saw was death --
Blood flowed with every promise we'd be free.

Perhaps it isn't destiny, but hope --
No Golden Age behind us, future bright
Instead -- the promise of emergence with
The dangers still in sight -- but we will fight.

This is the promise and the threat of hubris --
The tragic hero must be born in hope --
And he must struggle to break free and stretch
Us to new worlds while tethered to a rope.

This isn't Destiny. This isn't death
That just destroys, inhuman, in its good
Intentions. No. It's growing tall so lightning
Rounds off our top -- a massive, tall redwood.

I pray then that we're ripe for tragic art,
That we are pregnant now with future, not
A Destiny that destroys man and cuts
Him off from his humanity, to rot.

Poll

So, asccording to the poll I had at the bottom of my blog, out of 24 voters, 9 are smart-alecs (my hotel auditor position does not require a Ph.D.). In fact, only 11 voted correctly that only spontaneous order scholar requires a Ph.D. Adjunct professor at a community college only requries a Master's Degree. And anyone can be a poet or playwright.

Now, time for a new poll...

Little Father Time

When little Father Time looks grimly at
The tick-tock time of bubbles bursting blank,
He's certain what he has to do. His love
Misplaces death. He thinks that we will thank

Him for this sacrifice that he intends
To free us with. Instead, it just transforms
Us, drives us into what we hate. The school
House shuts its doors; life hides out in its dorms.

The cold rain shivers us to death, or so
We like to claim when we in fact give up
On life and cut short time. What suicide
Will bring, what murder fills the marble cup

We kept our hope in, hoping we could learn
The secrets of the word. Oh, Father Time,
Why did you take the best of all I made?
Oh why, my love, did you commit this crime?

Some Thoughts On Constutitional Culture

In the latest issue of the Review of Austrian Economics, Nicolai Wenzel of Hillsdale College argues that Constutitions survive only when there is a strong constitutional culture. So long as the culture supports the constitution, one can expect the constitution of a particular country to be supported, the government to be stable, etc. But if the culture does not support it, then the government won't abide by it, and we get political and economic chaos.

This suggests a particular rhetorical strategy. It does little good to argue that something should not be done because the Constitution prohibits it if the person you are arguing with cares more about the issue than the Constitution. We see this all the time, especially among people in our government (which means they are violating their oaths of office, but, again, this only matters if there is a strong constutional culture). What we need to do instead is argue principles, and get more and more people to agree with those princples. If we can do that, people will apply those princples to specific issues.

For example, consider the principle of rule of law. Under the principle of rule of law, every person has to abide to the same laws, no matter who they are. This would include politicans and bureaucrats. Once you get people to agree with that, you then point out that we do in fact have laws that apply to the average citizen, but not to members (and former members) of the government. Why would legislators exclude themselves from a law? If a law is good enough for you and me, shouldn't it be good enough for them? From there, one can then move on to specific laws, if you want.

This suggests an entirely new approach to arguing for libertarians, including campaigning for Libertarians. If we want to be more successful and realize a freer future, we need to use rhetorical tactics that will work. It also puts particular importance on libertarian artists to produce great works (meaning, not vapid, polemical works) that contribute to the creation of a constitutional culture.

Relief, A Poem

Is that a crocus peeking through the snow?
The winter melts away around the bloom
Of tender promise in light indigo.
I'm thankful for the disappearing gloom.

Mario Rizzo on the Future of the Welfare State

Apparently Mario Rizzo at NYU agrees with me on the future of the welfare state.

The Collapse of the Social Welfare State

In the same way the fall of European Communism began with Poland, it seems that the fall of European socialism is beginning with Greece. The social welfare state is inherently unsustainable. The problem right now is that the people of Greece are rioting to keep a system that is necessarily collapsing. The aftermath of that is likely to be an economic system that is less rather than more free, for Greece to move in the direction of communism and dictatorship. Of course, since Greece is a member of the EU, I cannot imagine that the EU will let them do that. I don't know what the EU has set up to deal with such a problem, but it seems that Greece is rapidly moving toward civil war. If it does, how can we prevent a wider war? And it looks more and more like Spain is not far behind Greece. And how many others?

In the meantime, our President and Congress are rapidly pushing the U.S. to being more like Greece and Spain. More debt, more social welfare programs that require higher taxes and more debt.

Zoning Laws Destroy Communities

I have an article at the Ludwig von Mises Institute: Zoning Laws Destroy Communities.

“I do think at a certain point you've made enough money."

In Quincy, Illinois yesterday President Obama told an audience, “I do think at a certain point you've made enough money." Really? And exactly how much would that be? And who is he to decide how much that is? And if we do learn what he thinks is "enough," why is it that amount and not some other? It's entirely arbitrary. If I have enough money to pay someone a million dollars a year, or two million, or 10 million, what business is it of his that I do so? And if I make a product that a lot of people want, and I am able to make millions or even billions of dollars, who is he to decide that I don't deserve what people have volunteered to pay me for what I made for them? I am so sick of this attitude from ignorant, selfish, power-hungry jerks like him. He and the other jerks we keep electing and re-electing need to keep their greedy hands out of everyone else's pockets. If these people weren't elected to office, we'd call them what they are: muggers! And we're idiots for thinking they are anything else, and for continuing to elect and re-elect such people.

How to Teach Students to Write

Today I asked some of my English composition students when was the last time they were taught grammar in school. The answer was that, other than spending a week to refresh, the last time they had grammar had been 6th grade.

6th grade.

I asked them, "What if the last time you learned anything about science had been in 6th grade?" Or math? Or, one could add, history, social studies, etc.? COuld you imagine? Based on what logic do we stop teaching grammar to students in 6th grade when we have enough sense not to stop teaching them science in 6th grade?

Grammar is no longer taught in high school, it seems. More, I know for a fact that colleges no longer require it. Somehow we are supposed to teach students how to write without teaching them any of the actual rules of sentence construction. And it shows.

There is little doubt that this state of affairs has come about because of the absurdly ridiculous notion that imposing rules somehow stifles creativity. What utter nonsense. I am so sick and tired of that lie. And yes, it's a lie. I'm also sick and tired of giving people the benefit of the doubt when they support policies that don't work and have been proven over and over not to work. But that's another issue for another time.

Here is what we need if we want to teach students how to write and think clearly.

First, students need to be taught grammar all the way through high school, and they need at least one semster of college grammar. Not a week of it every year, but the rules taught throughout the year. They should be able to construct any kind of sentence you can name to them on the spot by the end of high school. That's the level of mastery they should have of grammar.

Second, students need to be taught formal logic all the way through high school, and they need at least one semester of logic in college. This is not required at all now. Not surprisingly, most students cannot think. My experience is that most are overwhelmed by even the lightest hint of a logical argument -- and they don't know how to deal with illogical ones. This is an incredibly dangerous situation -- such a population is ripe for a cult of personality dictatorship.

Third, students need to be taught formal poetics/rhetoric throughout high school, and they need at least one semester of poetics in college. Every students should be able to write an iambic pentameter line, to understand metaphor, symbolism, imagery, the use of pathos and ethos (meaning, to have the last one, they also need ethics), syntax, style, etc.

For college students, once they have their semester of grammar, logic, and poetics, THEN they should be required to take a writing class where they are required to write a research paper. Only then will they actually be able to write a successful research paper. Teachers might even have time to actually teach students how to actually do research. (Along with this, how about we get rid of the collections of "topical" essays that in fact bore students out of their minds? -- I have far more engagement from the students on the readings in my literature-based composition class than I do in my composition classes that use the essays popular in most composition textbooks nowadays.)

The Decentralized Power of the Tea Party Movement

Ed Rendell, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, said of the Tea Party movement, “It reflects what people feel, but the actual movement itself has no infrastructure, has no ability to bring a lot of people to key sites at key moments in time." This statement shows both why the Democrats as a whole don't understand the Tea Party movement, and why they don't understand economics. He is basically being dismissive because it wasn't organized from the top-down by some person or committee of people. He thinks that, in order to have a large number of people show up in one place at one time, you have to have some central organizer -- but what he doesn't seem to realize is that the internet has contributed to decentralized organization probably more than any one thing in history. All you have to do is have the Tea Party members connected to each other in a network, and they can self-organize and show up anywhere you want, whenever you want.

Of course, the reason why a Democrat cannot understand this is precisely because they don't understand how the economy works, either. The economy works as a self-organizing system, meaning it is decentralized and doesn't need anyone to control it. The Democrats tend to think that the economy requires control and, thus, controllers.

My hope, in the meantime, is that the Democrats don't come read this blog and learn the truth of how the Tea Party organizes and why it's in fact so powerful and efficient. They need to learn that only when it's too late.

10 Important Writers Who Went to Jail for Their Work

Here is a nice reminder of the real courage of many writers:10 Important Writers Who Went to Jail for Their Work

The Imperialist, Expansionist Bureaucratic State

Here is an interesting piece about the relationship between government bureaucracy and imperialist expansion. It seems that, throughout history, regardless of culture, when a state reached a certain level of development, it developed a bureaucracy and, once that bureaucracy was created, the bureaucratic state became expansionist.

This raises some very interesting questions, which could make for an interesting research program for someone who studies institutions.

The most obvious question is, why does this happen? It may be that it is because bureaucracies are inherently expansionist. They expand to continue to justify their existence. When extended beyond the bureaucracy per se, we get expansionist policies. Those expansionist policies may be into the economy of the state itself, or it may be into other countries. It may also be due to the fact that when there is a bureaucracy, nobody is in charge, meaning nobody is responsible, meaning many more unethical actions may be undertaken.

Now, considering that government bureaucracies inevitably result in corporate bureaucracies -- mostly to deal with the government's rules -- the next question to ask is: do corporate bureaucracies cause corporations to act the same way? In other words, do corporations with large bureaucracies engage in things like corporate takeovers more often than those with small or no bureaucracies? Might this then be the main contributing factor to the creation of megacorporations -- including those that are infamously "too big to fail"?

Finally, as the U.S. government becomes ever more bureaucratic, does that mean the U.S. will become ever more prone to imperialistic expansion? Might imperialistic expansion be seen as a way to solve our debt problem? Such policies are not unprecidented in history.

Expanding on The Arts as Spontaneous Orders

The relationship between works of art and criticism evolved over time, eventually becoming a spontaneous order. In the oral tradition, the poet would have had immediate audience feedback, to which he would have adjusted his performance. The critic was the audience. IN many cased, they directly participated in the performance. When the arts became increasingly specialized, a full-fledged spontaneous order emerged. Outside of buying and selling, the readers/viewers/listeners ceased being critics -- precisely because there was little face-to-face feedback. The artists were freed to be more adventurous, and the professional critic arose to explain to everyone -- reader/viewer/listener and artist alike -- what it was they were encountering. In this way, criticism provides feedback -- but the question is if it acts within the spontaneous order, or if it acts as imminent criticism which arises out of the spontaneous order of the arts. For example, Reader Response criticism makes sense as being immanent criticism if the reader is included in the literary spontaneous order. Art criticism is imminent criticism if it address the complete order. Thus, reader response, canon criticism, cultural criticism, etc. that take on the system as a whole, or at least consider individual works as parts within that whole, represent imminent criticism, while critical stances that dealt with individual works might more aptly be included within the spontaneous order itself. If we were to place this kind of criticism within the spontaneous order, then metacriticism would be included in the realm of imminent criticism. For example, one might consider Frederick Turner's "The Culture of Hope," "Beauty," and "Natural Classicism" immanent criticism, but essays and collections that deal with specific works, like "Literature and the Economics of Liberty," Paul Cantor and Stephen Cox, eds. as being within the spontaneous order itself (although the introductory essay by Cantor would more properly be considered immanent criticism).

The Spontaneous Orders of the Arts

I have a new article published: The Spontaneous Orders of the Arts. It's at the bottom of the page. Read the rest, too.

FROM THE SENSORY ORDER TO THE MORAL ORDER: BRIDGING HAYEK TO HAYEK (PART I)

I have a new scholarly article published in Nomoi, "FROM THE SENSORY ORDER TO THE MORAL ORDER: BRIDGING
HAYEK TO HAYEK (PART I)" on pg. 3. The journal is in Spanish and English, but my article is in English.

Cellular Networks Resemble Social Networks

Here is an interesting article that points out that the molecular biology of cells are structured similarly to societies, and that the least complex systems employ more top-down gene-regulatory structures, while the most complex systems employ decentralized, polycentric, democratic structures. I wonder if this sort of structure might mirror social structures as well. I wonder . . .

My Top 10 Most Influential Books

1. Nietzsche -- Thus Spoke Zarathustra
2. Ayn Rand -- Atlas Shrugged
3. Frederick Turner -- The Culture of Hope
4. Milan Kundera -- The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
5. Dostoevski -- Crime and Punishment
6. J. T. Fraser -- Time, Conflict, and Human Values
7. Don Beck and Christopher Cowan -- Spiral Dynamics
8. Sophocles -- Three Theban Plays
9. Walter Williams -- The State Against Blacks
10. Goethe -- The Sorrows of Young Werther

Evo Lit Theory in the NYT

Well, my field of research finally made it into the New York Times. Maybe some English departments will finally start to take us seriously. And take me seriously enough to give me a job.
________________________

Steven Horowitz at Coordination Problem also talks about the NYT piece. Richard Ebling's comments are most interesting -- and important. Might be a good way to think about a more robust Austrian approach to literary analysis.

Ph.D. in Night Auditing

I see somebody decided to be funny in my poll at the bottom of the page. Night auditor, indeed!

Shelley, Spontaneous Order, and Beauty

Rereading Percy Bysshe Shelley's Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, I noticed in the first stanza that Shelley seems to be describing a spontaneous order:

The awful shadow of some unseen Power
Floats through unseen among us, -- visiting
This various world with as inconstant wing
As summer winds that creep from flower to flower, --
Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower,
It visits with inconstant glance
Each human heart and countenance;
Like hues and harmonies of evening, --
Like clouds in starlight widely spread, --
Like memory of music fled, --
Like aught that for its grace may be
Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.

This certainly sounds like Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand," or Hayek's Spontaneous Order. Most striking is that Shelley connects this to beauty:

Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate
With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon
Of human thought or form, -- where art thou gone?

In connection to this, I would direct you to my posting where I connect beauty and spontaneous order.

Perhaps it is not surprising that the poet who said that "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world" in his A Defense of Poetry should have had this insight.

Performed Being

An old article by Frederick Turner, but well worth reading, over at the Oral Tradition Journal: Performed Being: Word Art as a Human Inheritance.

Mating Ritual

The sun shined sliver from its gold-orange
Sphere, breaking through the trees as to avenge

The makers of Stonehenge, tied to the sun
And sun-made oaks, in cloaks that hands had spun,

Ensuring purity with their pure hands,
Hands pure from human blood as the demands

Of deity are met, to find the one
That does not rhyme a match -- or is there none? --

A match that doesn't match and therefore makes
A more engaging mate, until it takes

Its final line of light below the lip
Of land and light releases its last grip.

Paul Cantor on His New Book on Spontaneous Order and Literature

A Sad Day for Liberty

On a day like today, when liberty has been gagged, bound, beaten, raped, and shot by our Congress, I find it very hard to care about political matters, deciding that it doesn't really matter: as Thoreau said, voting for (or even supporting) the right is doing nothing for it.

What can I do but sit around and wait for the inevitable collapse of all our institutions? Shall I, like Sartre, just sit around and write my plays and philosophy, ignoring the occupation of my country by those whose intent is nothing but evil? And, like Sartre, do I really have a choice? What other can I really do but try to create works that may be able to persuade people to support what is right and just and good?

Is Congress and the Fed Merely Bad, or Actually Evil?

A few things occur to me in regards to the upcoming health insurance bill vote and, in fact, any legislation involving economic matters.

We know central planning does not work. That was proven theoretically by Mises and Hayek, and proven historically in the collapse of communism. So why do we have central banks invoved in the central planning of money and interest rates?

We know interventionism does not work. Mises in particular proved it does not have the desired effects, and Hayek proved that we cannot have the knowledge necessary to know how to regulate anything to get the desired outcomes. Mises' praxeology in fact shows that if we understand human action, we can prove that most things our governments will do in regulating the economy will have negative repurcusions.

We know Keyneseanism doesn't work. Wasn't the 1970's stagflation enough? Especially the collapse of African and Central and South American economies?

Both history and a proper understanding of our evolved human nature, including human action properly understood, prove the supriority of the free market as an economic system when it comes to wealth creation for all people, providing maximum liberty for everyone, and protection of people's lives and property over every other system.

The above being demonstrated and demonstrable facts, why do we have a Congress doing what it is doing in the economy, and in health insurance in particular? And why do we have a Fed? And, having a Fed, why does it continue to do the very things that caused the economic collapse in the first place?

A good person is someone who knows what the good is and does it.
A bad person is someone who does not know what the good is and therefore does not do what is good out of ignorance.
An evil person knows what the good is and chooses to do what is bad anyway.

If our members of Congress who support this health care bill, bailouts, various economic interventions, etc. do so out of ignorance, they are unqualified to hold office and should resign immediately. The same is true of thoese in the Federal Reserve in regards to their actions.

If our members of Congress who support this health care bill, bailouts, various economic interventions, etc. do so knowing what the good is and choose to do these things anyway, they prove themselves to be evil. The same is true of those in the Federal Reserve in regards to their actions. It is doubtful that evil people will resign. What, then, is the proper way to deal with evil?

Ronald Nash

Morality of the Market from FEE on Vimeo.

Ronald Nash on the relationship among the free market economy, Christianity, and ethics. There is no end to my debt to Ronald Nash, who died several years ago. I took Intro. to Philosophy with Nash at Western Ky Univ. the last semester he was there, before he retired. He introduced me to both philosophy and to free market economic thinking. Because of him I became a libertarian, fell in love with philosophy and economics, turned away from molecular biology and toward creative writing and literature, and now have a M.A. in English and a Ph.D. in the Humanities.

"An Immorality" by Ezra Pound

An Immorality

Sing we for love and idleness,
Naught else is worth the having.

Though I have been in many a land,
There is naught else in living.

And I would rather have my sweet,
Though rose-leaves die of grieving,

Than do high deeds in Hungary
To pass all men's believing.

When considering the meaning behind this poem by Ezra Pound, we must first consider the fact that the title is "An Immorality." And, if we are not to ascribe the ideas of the poem to the author himself, we have two narrators (one of which is the author,if we do ascribe one level of the ideas to the author). The first narrator is the one who titles the work "An Immorality." If this is the title, then it follows that what follows it is considered by that narrator to be "immoral." Thus, singing a song of "love and idleness" is, to this narrator, immoral. But who is doing the singing? That would, of course, be the second narrator, whose ideas the first narrator considers to be immoral. Clearly the second narrator sees love and idleness to be the highest things in life:

Though I have been in many a land,
There is naught else in living.

He is a man who simply wants love and peace (he does NOT want to do high deeds in Hungary). But the first narrator calls this "an immorality." What is immoral about such liberal sentiments? That they are liberal sentiments? If this is an immorality, then the opposite must be morality: action and war.

Next, we must also consider the date of its publication, in 1912, in Ripostes. What was happening around the time Pound likely wrote this poem -- around 1910-11 -- in Hungary? And why are we to contrast it with "love and idleness"?

To begin with, my own quick survey of Hungarian history around this time period uncovered nothing much worth noting. With one exception: serious tension with the Jews living there. Of particular note, one of the main controversies surrounding the Jews involved the issue of language. Whether the Jews learned the Hungarian langauge Magyar or not, they managed to anger somebody living in Hungary. What "high deeds" might Pound have in mind in Hungary? This may be a hint at Pound's antisemitism. Indeed, the implicit identity of action and war with morality in this poem points early on to Pounds incipient fascism -- and certainly to his antiliberalism. Indeed, Ludwig von Mises, in his 1927 book "Liberalism", points to a certain breed of antiliberal thinker who "believe it is through war and war alone that mankind is able to make progress" and that "Man degenerates in time of peace. Only war awakens in him slumbering talents and powers and imbues him with sublime ideals. If war were to be abolished, mankind would decay into indolence and stagnation" (5). Certainly if this is true of war, then a love of peace and idleness is immoral. Who would support stagnation, degeneration, burying our talents and powers and ideals, and indolence (idleness)? This too was an idea later promoted by the fascists, including the Italian Futurists.

One might find here an implicit criticism of a particular theory of culture as well. Pound's mention of "idleness" suggests Thorsten Veblen's thesis in "The Theory of the Leisure Class," published in 1899, where Veblen suggests that only with the emergence of a "leisure class" could artistic culture emerge. But he also argued that this same class held power through coersion and maintaining a monopoly on warfare. For Veblen, idleness is necessary in order to have an artistic culture at all. Did Pound know Veblen's work when he wrote "An Immorality"? Well, he certainly knew it when he wrote his pro-fascist diatribe Jefferson and/or Mussolini. Both were antiliberal, though certainly in different ways, and Pound may have by this point found some things in common with Veblen's ideas. Of course, I do not know for certain that Pound had read Veblen by this point, so both men's antiliberalism may have merely resulted in parallel conclusions -- it would be up to a far more serious Pound scholar than myself to answer the question of what Pound had read by around 1910.

It seems then that the title of the poem acts as a critique of what follows in the body of the poem. If we just take the body of the poem, it seems like a lovely little romantic poem extolling love and idleness. But if we take the title into consideration, we have to understand that the first narrator -- the one giving the title -- sees what follows as immoral. As such, we can see in it the narrator's (Pound's, most likely) antiliberalism.

I suppose that it's not much of an interpretation to find fascism in Pound's work, but what if, in fact, that is all there really is in this poem?

On The Twilight of the Elites

In Time magazine, Christopher Hayes argues that it is The Twilight of the Elites. Not surprisingly, he simultaneously gets things exactly right and completely wrong.

He is right that we are facing an institutional crisis. We are facing crises in our universities, our governments, our megacorporations, our government-run schools, our banks, the Federal Reserve, etc. But what do all of these institutions have in common?

Here is where Hayes fails. He fails to recognize that each of these institutions are planned, "rationally" constructed instutitions. None of them emerged spontaneously as a part of human action, but not of human design. Each of these are designed down to the last detail -- yes, even the megacorporations and banks, which are increasingly centralized, cartelized, and given increasing protection by government. They are all designed -- and run -- from the top-down, with little if any real feedback from the bottom-up. Thus, they are unnatural organizations, both in their organization and in their structures. The government solution to the problems it has caused is to keep doing all the things that caused the problems in the first place -- just harder, faster, more. And the people may not be able to understand it in such a way as to be able to articulate what they understand to be the problem -- but they do understand that more of the same thing is hardly the solution. Only the elites think it is.

Hayes' solution is to include astroturf organizers in these institutions. But that's more of the same. I hate to say it, but the only real solution is going to be the complete collapse of many of our institutions, so that natural ones can arise in their places. Others, such as the Federal Reserve, being purely destructive institutions, should go the way of the dodo.

I have been witnessing the destruction of many of our institutions at the very hands of the elites in charge for a while now. I've seen it coming because I am in the humanities, and the postmodernist elites in the humanities have been actively trying to destroy their own fields. Stanley Fish and others argue that there is no value to what they do, though Fish does observe that the humanities professors he knows are hardly the paragons of the virtues they are supposed to study. This is much like the stupidity of CEOs who fail dismally at being greedy because they follow a corrupt path that leads to their losing everything. We see the same pattern right now with the Democrats in Congress, who are determined to pass a bill that is so unpopular that Massachusetts elected a Republican Senator and there looks to be little hope the Democrats will hold onto power in either house of Congress. The Democrats are so power-hungry and certain of their superiority that they are pushing through something that is going to make them lose power. Regardless of your position on health insurance reform, you have to admit that this is bizarre behavior for elected officials. But this is what happens with constructivist elites in power.

And that is the bottom line: the elites in power in all of these failing institutions are constructivists. They believe they know enough to construct society -- ignoring Hayek's repeated proofs to the contrary. We cannot ever have enough knowledge or information to construct society -- or even the major institutions of society. Those who think otherwise -- which are those that have taken over our institutions -- destroy everything through their ignorance of their ignorance and necessarily uninformed actions.

We like to think that our elites, being so educated, will know enough to be able to run things well. But as Socrates discovered for himself -- and which we desperately need to rediscover today -- is that wisdom is knowing what (and that) you do not know. Wise elites know they do not know enough to run your life. Wise elites will be busy trying to understand the world, to try to help people to make good decisions on their own, for themselves and those closest to them, rather than trying to run the world. They cannot know enough to do so. The world runs itself. And it runs itself most effectively and efficiently if allowed to do so without interruption and interference by those who know nothing and whose arrogance leads them inevitably into corruption.

Robert Frost on How We Make Decisions -- The Road Not Taken

Rereading Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken," I noticed something particularly interesting about the poem, which is that Frost seemed to have anticipated what we have since learned about how humans actually make decisions, and the relationship between the stories we tell ourselves about our decisions that in fact come after those decisions and what we decide.

People often misinterpret the poem as being about regretting not having taken the other path, or as being about being brave enough to have taken the "road less traveled by." But Frost himself often commented that people didn't really understand the poem. Let us take a look at the poem, and analyze it stanza by stanza:

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Here the narator is faced with a decision and, to try to make that decision, he looks as far into the future as possible, trying to calculate the consequences of that decision. But it is in the next stanza where Frost presents us with his insight into the after-the-fact justification of our decisions research into human decision-making (and morals, for that matter) tell us to be what really happens when we make a decision (including a moral action, with justification afterwards).

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

Here the narrator has clearly made a snap decision to take the other path. We see an immediate justification of the decision: "Because it was grassy and wanted wear," implying that the decision was based on his wanting to take the path fewer people had taken. However, note that in the last line he withdraws that claim by stating that, in all honesty, both paths were worn "really about the same." The narrator doesn't want to admit to himself that his choice was apparently quite arbitrary. Thus, he tells himself a story: that he was chosing a path fewer people had taken. But that is just a story. The truth is that both paths were identical in wear, meaning the same number of people had passed down both paths. The justification for the decision was thus made after the fact, after the narrator had already decided which path to take. We don't like to think there is no reason why we took any given action, so we rationalize -- we create a reason why we took it, placing that reasoning before the decision rather than after, when the reasoning actually took place. The narrator thus tells himself a story of his decision, created after the fact.

We see in the next stanza a continuation of the observation that both paths were (un)trodden equally:

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

He even tells himself that he will come back to walk the other one, and then is honest with himself yet again, saying that he doubted he ever would. This then leads us to the final stanza, where he imagines himself in the future:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Here he admits that in the future he will stick to his story he told himself about why he made the decision he made: that it was becasue it was the road less traveled by. Indeed, he will in the future only remember the decision this way: that it was a conscious decision to take a road less traveled by, rather than a gut decision he rationalized after the fact. That is the story of his life he tells himself, and it is the one that he tells because it is the most satisfying (thus the sigh of satisfaction). This observation is quite Nietzschean (Nietzsche observed that we are the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and, thus, we can edit them as well). More, it is in agreement with what neuopsychologists agree to be how we actually make decisions -- and what we do after we make those decisions. They also have shown that when we make a snap decision, we are typically more satisfied with that decision than we are with one where we have done a lot of research beforehand. Even if we do research afterwards on the choices we had. Thus, the narrator of the poem is satisfied with his decision -- precisely because it was a snap decision that was rationalized afterwards rather than a reasoned-out decision. What is most amazing is that Frost understood our decision-making processes better than any psychologist for 80 years after the poem was written.

Ae Freislighe for My Love

My love for you ever grows –
A flower beautiful
In the garden never knows
How it is so plentiful.

My life is a paradise
Since I fell in love with you –
I will always bear a price
Unless I make our myth true.

I’m on a tall garden post,
A coiling snake, my dry glove
Slaking off – please pardon most
Metaphors for my love.

Interest Rates Redux

In two separate posts here and here, I talked about the role of artificially low interest rates on the current financial crisis. Here is a working paper by economist John P. Taylor that makes the same argument. Of course, I was only making the same argument as Hayek, whose ideas on interest rates were fairly typical of the other Austrian economists. What? The Austrian economists are right yet again?

The Evolutionary Review

Here's some very exciting news. Joseph Carroll and Alice Andrews are the editors of a new scholarly journal, The Evolutionary Review. The editorial board is a who's who of some of the most important thinkers in evolutionary approaches to the arts and humanities. I'm very excites about it, and I just ordered it, so I can't wait for my first issue.

On "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Re-reading "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," by T.S. Eliot for a class I'm teaching, I suddenly realized that every analysis I have read of this poem is completely wrong. Most analyses read the poem as Prufrock being uncertain of himself. Others have seen it as Prufrock preparing for a wedding. Neither of these are true. J. Alfred Prufrock is busy trying to seduce a woman of high society, trying to get her to have sex with him. This makes sense if we understand the poem mostly as a series of responses to the woman in question, whose responses are absent in the poem. In a few locations, we have some action, and in others, Prufrock's thoughts. If we add the seduced woman's responses, we can see that Prufrock is in fact a rather clever man, sure of himself and his ability to seduce this woman.

The poem begins with a quote from Dante's Inferno:

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo
fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti
rispondo.

These lines are from a sufferer in Hell, who is saying to the narrator of the Inferno, "If I thought I was talking to someone who might return to earth, this flame would cease; but if what I have heard is true, no one does return; therefore, I can speak to you without fear of infamy."

In the context of the poem, we can imagine Prufrock quoting this to the woman he is trying to seduce. If so, he is telling the woman that because he is talking to her his flame won't cease -- the flame of lust, in this case. Further, he is telling her that he feels like he can tell her what he is going to tell her -- that he wants to have sex with her -- without fear of her telling anyone. This becomes clear over the course of the poem. More, this establishes that Prufrock is an educated man, seeing that he can quote Dante from memory to the woman. More, it shows that she is an educated, high society woman, because she can understand it in Italian. This establishes what is then necessary for a proper seduction to occur. One must be indirect:

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

Here Prufrock (in)directly proposes what he has in mind. Of course, he says it in such a way that it is suggested rather than stated outright. What are you going to do at a "one-night cheap hotel" that would cause your night to be restless? Already, we have a response from her after the ". . ." Here he has been interrupted by her. His repsonse tells us what she asked, which is, "What is it?" He calls her out on her coyness and then is more direct: "Let us go and make our visit."

The couplet that follows is action that interrupts their conversation:

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

This shows that they are in a house where some sort of social function is going on. He stops speaking as the women come into the room and leave. The conversation is about Michelangelo, suggesting their education and being members of high society. We then get a description of what it is like outside. This is, after all, turn of the 20th century London, an industrial town. Outside is yellow smog. Soot falls from the sky:

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

It is the kind of environment a society woman might object to going out into, perhaps using the excuse that "but will we have enough time to get there and back?":

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

Thus does Prufrock answer her objection. Before either can go on, they are interrupted once again:

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

He then continues on with his argument against their not having enough time:

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”—
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

Here he has moved on to argue that if they spend too much time on the question, she will begin to wonder if she dare do this thing. But Prufrock argues that he's getting too old to waste time (thus, the thinning hair and thinning body). It is here where it is believed that Prufrock is wondering if HE should dare disturb the universe. But look at the structure of the sentence. He is telling her that waiting will make it so that there will be time for her to question, "Do I dare?" He interrupts this thought with the description of him getting old, then returns to finish the question he is afraid she will ask "Do I dare / Disturb the universe?" But of course, by pointing this out, he is pointing out the absurdity of the question "Do I dare?" He expands "Do I dare go have sex with Mr. Prufrock?" to "Do I dare disturb the universe?" to convince her that such an action as having sex will do nothing of the sort. He ends by pointing out that any decision she makes she may want to revise and reverse in the next, so she may as well stick to a decision that she will likely change her mind about later anyway. He then goes on to argue that he knows all about being cautious and changing one's mind:

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And where has being cautious gotten him? He leaves that as a rhetorical question. Then he asks himself (we know there is a change because of the indentation) how he should presume, which is defined here as "to act or proceed with unwarrantable or impertinent boldness." The fact that the word "presume" is used certainly undermines those interpretations that see Prufrock as indecisive. Rather, he sees himself as proceeding at this point with "impertinent boldness." So how shall he presume? Well, first he argues that she shouldn't be concerned about potential gossip, because he has experience gossip before:

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

He argues that gossip shouldn't prevent him -- and, by extension, her -- from doing what they want to do. He goes further, answering her apparent concern at her inexperience by pointing out that he is quite experienced, has felt the embrace of other women:

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

And he is back again, asking how he should presume, and now, how he should truly begin the seduction. And so, he begins:

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

Here he further argues his experience at this, suggesting that he can make it a success. He then interrupts himself with a self-congratulating thought:

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

Here he compares himself to a crab. Crabs walk sideways, of course. He is not taking a direct approach, but approaching things from the side, like a crab. After congratulating himself on his approach, he continues his arugment to her. He first argues that she will feel incredibly relaxed afterwards, but then it seems obvious that he has seen fear on her face or that she has expressed fear about going through with this:

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

He tries to comfort her by pointing out that he, too, has been afraid. But he returns to the issue of time passing and being wasted. He has even seen death, and was afraid. Of course, compared to death, what fear can you have of allowing yourself to be seduced? Here she seems to bring up the issue of others gossiping about them, and he answers:

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

He argues here that if people gossip, just smile at them, ignore it. Or, if they continue, brag about it: "I am Lazarus," and "I shall tell you all." The result, he argues, is that those who had been gossiping will in fact be jealous, that they will lie down at night and complain about the fact that they had not had her experience. He then goes on to argue that she most definitely won't regret her decision of going to bed with him:

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”

He here in fact argues that it would be worth it to have the affair just to make those gossiping women jealous. She next apparently argues that he is a too-important person for her to get involved with, so he responds that he is anything but:

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

As she continues to resist, he brings up his age again, and the loss of time:

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

He is portraying himself as a fool again, as a middle-classed man dressing like the young people. Is the woman he is addressing closer to his age, and would thus be horrified at the thought of this gentleman dressing like a youth to try to seduce the young?

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

Again, references to youth and risk. He is asking her not to make him take risks at his age. This is a continuation of the seduction. Does she want to put him in the position of looking like a fool, trying to seduce younger women? He tries to evoke sympathy:

I do not think that they will sing to me.

Indeed, he is aware of the young ladies, with their seductive voices. He has seen them, too:

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

But then, alas! it is too late:

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

They spent too much time talking, too much time talking about things like the sea and mermaids. Now human voices -- the women speaking of Michaelangelo? -- have interrupted them permanently. They are drowned by those voices, as are their plans. They will no longer be able to sneak off together. It is too late.

This makes the poem very much in the tradition of Donne's The Flea and Marvell's To His Coy Mistress. Once we recognize that there is an absent voice, we see that this is a poem of seduction, well within the tradition of poems of seduction. A more ambiguous poem, needless to say, than the other two -- precisely because of the absent answers of the missing mistress -- but a poem of seduction by a man who is very confident of himself. And it is this latter insight that overturns most interpretations of the poem.

The Missing Goddess

In Athens, land of Athena, I see
The most beautiful goddess is not here –
The one I worship – sacred Anna – know
I will return to you, don’t ever fear.

My Aphrodite, you no longer live
In Greece – how were you reborn in Texas?
Yet your features are just as delicate
And lovely as this ancient Grecian lass.

The Muses, all nine, are now turned to one –
Embodied every one in you – you bring
Inspiration to my thoughts – I create
Everything for you, every song I sing.

You pluck the feathers of all the sirens,
They cannot lure me the way that you do –
Nothing can lure me from the course I’ve set,
To ensure that I will return to you.

Yes, I am your Odysseus – I will
Return to you – I’ll fight off all monsters
And giants – none but you shall ever do –
I’ll return home, defeat all imposters.

Justice and Dehumanizing People

A proposed definition of justice: the equal treatment of fellow human beings.

Another way of putting it: do unto other human beings as you would have them do unto you as a fellow human being.

If justice is indeed equal treatment, then equal outcomes are impossible. To get equal outcomes, you have to have unequal treatment of people. Thus, equal outcome, by the above definition of justice, is unjust.

A government that does anything to promote equality of outcome, including redistribution, is unjust.

Anyone who treats one member of their own society -- that is, those who are considered to be human -- differently than they treat another member acts unjustly. This does not mean that we do not take into consideration people's differences. Quite the contrary. But taking people's differences into consideration doesn't mean you don't treat everyone as a human being.

This is the soul of ethics. In fact, I would argue that any individual cannot treat unethically anyone they see as a fellow human being. The first step in treating someone unethically is to dehumanize them.

For example, murder. To murder is to kill a fellow human being. Traditionally, only those who are a member of your tribe or society are considered to be fellow human beings. As we have globalized, many of us have extended who we consider to be fellow human beings to include everyone. To the extent we do that, we become more ethical.

So how do we make sense of murder? Well, it depends on if you see it from the point of view of the killer or of the society the killer is a member of.

A sociopath doesn't see anyone as being a fellow human being.

If you catch your spouse cheating on you, in that momeny you no longer see that person as a fellow human being -- and the law typically reflects that (you have to kill them in the moment for it to not be 1st degree murder because any time to reflect and plan makes it first degree murder).

The mugger sees you as a mark, not a fellow human being.

The assassin sees you as a job, not a fellow human being.

More, societies have typically had rituals that allow us to remove people from their societies, allowing those societies to kill them.

Thus, it is allowable to kill people in war, because when war is declared, one ritualistically separates out the people one is as war with from yourself and the rest of the world. Things like the Geneva Convention nevertheless ensure we try to keep most of the people in the country we are at war with considered fellow human beings. That is why murder, rape, and theft are much less common in war now than it has been in the past (where it was expected).

Further, we can make sense of human sacrafice because a religious ritual is performed to first remove the person from the society so they can legitimately be killed.

Finally, we can make sense of capital punishment here as well if we consider the trial as a ritual to remove the offender from society so that the person can be legitimately killed.

Now, one may in fact disagree that these rituals actually perform these functions. That is what is really at stake in the opposition to capital punishment, for example. But it helps to know what you are really against: the performance of a ritual to dehumanize a fellow human being.

One can apply this to theft, rape, or lying as well. Well, the latter is a bit more complex than that, as it oftentimes requires that you deeply understand the one you are lying to as a fellow human being to lie to them. The issue with lying may lie more in why one is lying.

Who Poses the Greater Threat

Walter Williams, as usual, gets it right.

On How to Be a Man: A Poem

Son, stand and be a man, responsible
And virtuous and kind. You will not find
A man of worth who’s listless, cold, and cruel,
Who lives a life reptilian, not of mind.

Don’t live an anesthetic life; embrace
The senses, beauty of the world and life
And art; reject the bodiless and soulless,
The hatred of the world in strifeless strife.

A man of action is a man of words;
A man of words will always listen well;
The poetry of thought will see its source
To train you so that you can always tell

The wisest way to walk, traverse the waves,
And fly on falcon wings when you are sure
Your feathers formed, both soft and firm, for both
Are needed if life you will endure.

A man of wisdom is a man of worlds –
The worlds of simplest physics, chemistry –
The complex worlds of life, emergent systems –
All; cultures, art, and true economy.

A healthy man is one of healthy loves
And life; a life of beauty unifies
Diversity, transforms each soul it meets
To light, gives feathered wings so each one flies.

The opposite of manliness is not
The feminine. The feminine is truly
The complement of manliness. The boy,
So irresponsible, unkempt, unruly,

Is the true opposite of manliness.
Embrace the fullness of both sides of life,
The feminine and masculine, and you
Will have the truest virtue, not one rife

With hardness when you really need to show
You flow and bend and, flowing, show your strength,
Nor softness when you must stand firm and show
That you won’t always bend to any length.

Yes, son, to be a man you have to stand
For right and virtue, knowing when to bend
With strength and knowing when to love. Be true
And good, a soul of beauty to the end.

A Tale of Two Inflations

The one thing Keyneseanism is devastatingly, destructively wrong about -- and the thing Keyneseans seem to promote the most -- is inflation. Keynes believed that inflation causes a strong economy, but the fact is that a strong economy causes inflation. And it matters quite a bit which one is true.

1. Natural Inflation

Let us say that we have an economy with 10 objects (X) and 10 objects (Y) in it, that both were in equal demand, and $200 was all the money in the economy. That would make each object worth $10. Now let us say that the consumers in the economy wanted more of X. Competition among consumers would drive up the price of X relative to Y, which would go down in price. Thus, we would see inflation for X. Businesses would then produce more X, redirecting resources and labor toward producing what consumers want. More business would come in to produce more X as well. This would then drive down the price of X. With the same amount of money in the economy and more objects, prices would drop over the long term. Further, we would have more people working, and they would also demand more product, which would drive up prices, leading to a virtuous circle of price increase/decrease that ultimately leads to lower prices for many products. In other words, we would have natural deflation for certain products. Of course, we see exactly that with new technology. Those buying something the first year it comes out pay much more than those in subsequent years, especially if the product is popular.

2. Artificial Inflation

Let us return to our artificial economy of 10 X, 10 Y and $200, with X and Y worth $10 each. Now let us double the money supply by, say, printing it. Now we have 10 X, 10 Y and $400, with X and Y worth $20 each. Companies do not know where the price increases are coming from, and most companies would interpret any price increase as consumer competition for their products, meaning they need to produce more. Established companies would probably notice that their inventory hasn't gone down, but others would see the high prices and definitely interpret that as a signal that they should enter the market to produce more of that object. Thus, there would be money and labor directed toward the production of both X and Y, when there has been no increase in demand for either one. Inventories of X and Y would increase and increase -- especially as the higher prices disocuraged people from buying as much as they had in the past. After a while, companies, faced with large inventories, would stop production. That would mean they would need to lay off people. Now people aren't working, prices are dropping because companies are trying to get rid of inventories (thus, 50% and more off sales), and the economy has entered a recession caused by the economic bubble created by inflation.

3. And Then There Is Interest Rates

I have already discussed the problems created by interest rate manipulation by the Fed. In sum, low interest rates tell (encourage) people to take more risks; high interest rates tell (encourage) people to take fewer risks. When money is cheap, people are more willing to take financial risks. When money is expensive, people are less willing to do so. Further, low interest rates discourage people from putting money into savings accounts. Money in savings accounts is money the bank now has to loan out. High interest rates encourage people to put money into savings accounts. Now, if you have low interest rates, you will have fewer people saving money at the same time you will have more people borrowing. Both savers and borrowers have an effect on interest rates in a natural economy. But when the Federal Reserve artificially drives down interest rates, you have banks lending more money than they have (after all, you also have the Fed guaranteeing the bank's holdings, providing even more incentive for the banks to take risks). A crisis is bound to occur.

4. The Marriage of Artificially Low Interest Rates and Artificial Inflation

To "combat" the current economic downturn, the Fed has printed more money and is continuing to keep interest rates artificially low. (I do not argue the Fed should push interest rates up or reduce the money supply, as those will also have devastating effects on the economy.) Any guesses as to what is bound to happen? If this recession isn't going to take us down, the next one the Fed is creating most definitely will.