Shawn Darling, a very left-wing Facebook friend, believes I have not spent enough time on this blog discussing racism. I have pointed out to him that I do not do so because race is not something I am particularly concerned with. I am interested in a wide variety of things, and while I consider racism to be evil, racism has nothing to do with many of the things I regularly write about, such as free market economics, so I don't really discuss it that much. But just for Shawn, I will discuss the foundation and evolution of racism.
Humans are biologically xenophobic. Our closest relative, the chimpanzee, goes to war against other troupes, killing all the male members (and even the female ones at times). To the chimpanzee, the out-group chimpanzee is one who can be killed and even eaten.
Humans are similarly programmed. It makes evolutionary sense. Those who were racist killed those not related to them when they saw them, which would include any non-racist people. Since the non-racist people wouldn't kill anyone, while the racist people would kill anyone who was not like them, any non-racist people would have been wiped out. What is left is a fundamentally racist foundation for human behavior.
If this is the case, how did we get to the state we are in, where racism is seen by many as a despicable world view? Well, there are several factors at work. The first is the emergence of trade, which encouraged people to trust others. This probably emerged first between tribes that were related, then expanded to less and less related tribes. The other is not entirely unrelated, which involves the splintering of groups that retained cultural identity. As more and more people had the same cultural identity, it became harder and harder to identify in a concrete way who was not a member of one's tribe. Symbols emerged to facilitate this -- but when expansionist religions emerged, into which people could convert, people were able to become symbolic members of one's tribe. Since there was a shared ideology, racism decreased. What was once racism was converted into more expansive forms of tribalism, such as religious discrimination. (One can see just how much this is true by the absurd accusation of anti-Jew Arab Moslems of being "anti-Semitic" when Arabs are Semites -- what is meant is that the Arab Moslems are anti-Jew, but the religion has been confounded with the race.)
The expansion of the idea of who is in your tribe continued until it reaches its pinnacle in classical liberalism, which considered all people, regardless of race or sex, to be equals. Of course, that attitude took time to spread (as did ideas of expanding tribal membership to those who practice the same religion), but spread it did. Now racist attitudes in places where liberalism has been dominant for a long time are increasingly rare. However, this does not mean that they are gone. In fact, since racism is a kind of collectivism -- where you consider not the individual, but the group -- collectivist thinking has a tendency to lead people down the path to racism. Historically, socialists were anti-Semites, since Jews were associated with the banks and finance. National Socialism, of course, took this attitude to its logical conclusion, making anti-Semitism at least officially unpalatable for the anti-liberal left since the end of WWII.
Of course, none of this addresses specific issues of race. Rather, it deals with the fact that racism is a fact of human psychology and history. Racism is the standard way of thinking of humans, and it takes effort to overcome it as a species. By raising our children among other races, our children learn to see them as "self" rather than "other," and thus is racism overcome. But this does not mean that other "others" may not arise. We distinguish ourselves in a variety of ways, and we do so in ways that are similar to how others do so. Thus, it is possible for collectivists to come along and insist that this or that group is inferior or superior. For Marx the proletariat was superior to the bourgeoisie. We have those who think the poor superior to the rich, the rich superior to the poor; politicians superior to businessmen (or the average person); left superior to the right, right superior to the left, both superior to liberals, liberals superior to both (which would in fact be anti-liberal for a liberal to think); etc. The racism present today may be less obviously racist, since it is not tied to ancient notions of race, but to other groups. But collectivism is collectivism -- such thinking posits "us" vs. "them," with all the consequences thereof.
As for the specific racial problems of the present day in the United States, one can certainly begin with slavery -- as one should. Afterwards, we had the rise of racist laws to prevent racial minorities from competing with the majority. (Anti-competitive laws are of course anti-market.) These laws were designed to keep a variety of groups from competing, be they black, Hispanic, Irish, Chinese, etc. Unions in particular pushed for these laws, to protect white union members from competition. They no longer do this explicitly, but instead push for increased minimum wage laws, which have the same effect, negatively impacting youths and minorities, particularly blacks and Hispanics. Their push for trade and immigration restrictions are similarly motivated. (It is ironic, then, that the unions do not support the GOP more, since the GOP wants immigration restrictions that would benefit the unions.) Anti-immigrant and anti-trade attitudes have their source in humans' residual racist attitudes. Even well-intentioned programs, such as affirmative action, are based on a racist belief that minorities cannot get ahead without the good, wise white man ensuring their path on the race is all downhill. (This is also based on the primitive belief that the world is a zero sum game, that where there are winners, there must be losers.) Welfare falls too into this category -- less so in places like Europe, perhaps, but certainly targeting blacks and Hispanics in this country. The more our government has tried to "help" minorities (outside of eliminating racist laws -- which amounts to the elimination of an evil once perpetuated by the government), the worse off they have typically become. Those who have refused the help and rather chose to participate in what little bit of a free market economy we have left are those whose lives have in fact improved. In fact, this situation is so apparent that those who have chosen the economy over government -- people like the Chinese, Indians, and Japanese -- now face discrimination by our government against them and in favor of those who have turned to that government rather than to the economy. Of course anybody who knows anything about public choice is not in the least surprised by this fact. Of course, "benefit" is a generous term, since the only way the government can ensure a group continues to support them is if they make sure the group thinks they need the government. Keep them poor so they still need to be helped. (This is why I would never vote for anyone who considered the poor to be their constituent -- it is in the best interest of any politician to expand their constituency!)
Notwithstanding the occasional return to fundamentally racist collectivism, the trend has been away from racist attitudes precisely because we have been expanding our ideas about who is in our tribes. This has been driven the most by free markets and free trade, which make people have to interact with each other to such a degree that they learn that the other is in fact a person, just like them. Thus, those who are anti-market oppose this development.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Culture, Markets, and Patterns in Psychology, Society, and History
I have written previously on Gravesean psychology, most recently here (at which there are links to more of my musings on the subject). To recap the theory: individuals' psychologies undergo increasing complexity -- when there are enough with that level of psychological complexity, a new kind of society emerges -- those new life conditions allow for the emergence of yet more complex psychologies -- etc. The theory further states that these psychosocial states go from collectivist to individualist to collectivist, etc. Collectivist tribalism to heroic individualism (think Homeric heroes and society) to collectivist authoritativism (think Medieval European society) to individualistic liberalism (pro-market, etc.) to collectivist egalitarianism (Marxism, etc.). There are more psychological levels beyond this, but these do represent the societies we now see. Further, there are mixtures. The transition from Medievalism to liberalism passed through the Renaissance, the guild system, and mercantilism. One could see fascism/crony capitalism/corporatism as the Hegelian synthesis of liberal and egalitarian economics (proving that the dialectical movement is not necessarily progressive), once egalitarianist economics proved untenable (at best).
I am now reading Arthur Pontynen and Rod Miller's Western Culture at the American Crossroads, in which they discuss Philip Rieff's idea from My Life Among the Deathworks
Let me restate the situation. The collectivist social levels are social orders approaching equilibrium/stasis (note I say "approaching," as true equilibrium is impossible). The individualist social levels are in fact far-from-equilibrium states that emerge in the transition from one equilibrium to another. As Stuart Kauffman points out in The Origins of Order, though, such states are in fact stable. One can see this if one understands life itself as being in such a state. Among the features of the far from equilibrium state is that it is both individuating and creative.
This then brings me to another book I am reading, Keith Roberts' The Origins of Business, Money, and Markets. Roberts' book is about the earliest evidence of economic activity -- which happens to have emerged during the heroic individualist era. More, his story ends right when the Medieval world emerged. Why? The final chapter's title says it all: "The Downfall of Ancient Business." I would argue that it is no coincidence that ancient business ended in a real sense when the Medieval world view became dominant. Stasis is anti-economic. More, the very feature of a market economy is that it is creative. That requires it emerge during creative periods, which I have already identified with far from equilibrium states. The dream of socialism is the dream of stasis, of equilibrium. Nothing new is created, only what has already been invented is produced.
Of course, the more complex a society, the more likely there are to be many people of different levels, and the more likely there are to be subcultures of different social levels. This in fact makes it more difficult to have a pure system -- socialism is impossible for many reasons, among which is the fact that not everyone is at the psychological level necessary for its acceptance. Nor will everyone be, since we have to pass through each level to get to the next. There is no jumping levels. More, the egalitarian level is not the final one, meaning people are going to evolve beyond that, further disrupting the stasis such people desire. Thus society is increasingly in a state of disequilbrium, with areas of equilibrium and far from equilibrium. The complexity is growing more and more.
To return to Pontynen and Miller, their thesis is that the SecondWorld culture is preferable to ThirdWorld culture, so we need to return to it. However, they modify this recommendation by also recommending the Anglosphere's emphasis on society as a spontaneous order -- which really results in a culture somewhat closer to that which emerged in the Liberal era (though they complain about this era, and identify it as the beginning of the problems we now face culturally). I argued that this model describes the eras of stasis -- which in essence seems to argue that times of business are times we move away from culture, while moves back toward culture are times that are anti-business (suggesting Nietzsche was right to criticize the market economy in his consistent support of culture). Of course, this only applies if we are talking about culture as a stable social condition. If that is how we identify a culture as being a culture, then far from equilibrium eras are culturally disruptive and are thus not cultures in this sense. They are periods of transition from one culture to the next. Many have discussed the current state of the arts, observing that nobody is doing anything new. Well, that's the main feature of a stable culture. Not many people were doing much "new" during the Medieval era in Europe, either. The transition -- which is in a far from equilibrium state -- is going to result in many new things, a proliferation of new forms, styles, etc., until a new stasis is achieved. We are now in that stasis, and thus have achieved culture in the sense being discussed.
In integrating the ideas of these writers, I think I have discovered some interesting historical patterns. They are patterns however are more like those found in a spontaneous order, meaning they are complex and not really predictable in a real sense. We can predict kinds of patterns -- the emergence of collectivist and individualist thinking -- but not how they will be realized. Further, we can predict whether there will be pro-market or pro-culture attitudes, and see why. These are mostly preliminary thoughts, but I think I'm onto something.
I am now reading Arthur Pontynen and Rod Miller's Western Culture at the American Crossroads, in which they discuss Philip Rieff's idea from My Life Among the Deathworks
that there are three ontologically distinct modes of culture, each with its own methodology. What he calls FirstWorld cultures are pagan, in which human struggle to reconcile knowledge with fate and the gods. SecondWorld cultures seek via reason and faith to obtain wisdom, the realization of which results in a sacred order. ThirdWorld cultures center on power and self-interest. Rieff associates postmodern cultures with that view. (46)Rieff thus seems to argue that there are three cultures, which I would argue map onto each of the collectivist social levels. But what, then, do we make of the individualistic social levels?
Let me restate the situation. The collectivist social levels are social orders approaching equilibrium/stasis (note I say "approaching," as true equilibrium is impossible). The individualist social levels are in fact far-from-equilibrium states that emerge in the transition from one equilibrium to another. As Stuart Kauffman points out in The Origins of Order, though, such states are in fact stable. One can see this if one understands life itself as being in such a state. Among the features of the far from equilibrium state is that it is both individuating and creative.
This then brings me to another book I am reading, Keith Roberts' The Origins of Business, Money, and Markets. Roberts' book is about the earliest evidence of economic activity -- which happens to have emerged during the heroic individualist era. More, his story ends right when the Medieval world emerged. Why? The final chapter's title says it all: "The Downfall of Ancient Business." I would argue that it is no coincidence that ancient business ended in a real sense when the Medieval world view became dominant. Stasis is anti-economic. More, the very feature of a market economy is that it is creative. That requires it emerge during creative periods, which I have already identified with far from equilibrium states. The dream of socialism is the dream of stasis, of equilibrium. Nothing new is created, only what has already been invented is produced.
Of course, the more complex a society, the more likely there are to be many people of different levels, and the more likely there are to be subcultures of different social levels. This in fact makes it more difficult to have a pure system -- socialism is impossible for many reasons, among which is the fact that not everyone is at the psychological level necessary for its acceptance. Nor will everyone be, since we have to pass through each level to get to the next. There is no jumping levels. More, the egalitarian level is not the final one, meaning people are going to evolve beyond that, further disrupting the stasis such people desire. Thus society is increasingly in a state of disequilbrium, with areas of equilibrium and far from equilibrium. The complexity is growing more and more.
To return to Pontynen and Miller, their thesis is that the SecondWorld culture is preferable to ThirdWorld culture, so we need to return to it. However, they modify this recommendation by also recommending the Anglosphere's emphasis on society as a spontaneous order -- which really results in a culture somewhat closer to that which emerged in the Liberal era (though they complain about this era, and identify it as the beginning of the problems we now face culturally). I argued that this model describes the eras of stasis -- which in essence seems to argue that times of business are times we move away from culture, while moves back toward culture are times that are anti-business (suggesting Nietzsche was right to criticize the market economy in his consistent support of culture). Of course, this only applies if we are talking about culture as a stable social condition. If that is how we identify a culture as being a culture, then far from equilibrium eras are culturally disruptive and are thus not cultures in this sense. They are periods of transition from one culture to the next. Many have discussed the current state of the arts, observing that nobody is doing anything new. Well, that's the main feature of a stable culture. Not many people were doing much "new" during the Medieval era in Europe, either. The transition -- which is in a far from equilibrium state -- is going to result in many new things, a proliferation of new forms, styles, etc., until a new stasis is achieved. We are now in that stasis, and thus have achieved culture in the sense being discussed.
In integrating the ideas of these writers, I think I have discovered some interesting historical patterns. They are patterns however are more like those found in a spontaneous order, meaning they are complex and not really predictable in a real sense. We can predict kinds of patterns -- the emergence of collectivist and individualist thinking -- but not how they will be realized. Further, we can predict whether there will be pro-market or pro-culture attitudes, and see why. These are mostly preliminary thoughts, but I think I'm onto something.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
We Should All Observe the Sabbath and Keep It Holy
I am reading a wonderfully dense, incredibly complex and difficult book ostensibly on art, but which lays out such a through philosophical world view first that they have yet to get to art per se (by pg. 45, Ch. 3). It is Western Culture at the American Crossroads by Arthur Pontynen and Rod Miller. I will probably write more on this book as I'm reading it (and as soon as I pin down exactly what they are arguing -- they have managed to first make me sure of where they are going, only to then make a statement that makes me no longer sure, a sufficient number of times that I know better than to say what they are saying until I am finished with the book), but I wanted to note something that has particularly struck me for some reason. Consider the following:
Of course, there are different kinds of contemplation. The average person needs time alone to think. No T.V., no radio, nobody talking to him. Someone like me needs time alone to think, with a pen and paper at hand. The scholar should be contemplative in this active sense, writing down the thoughts, thinking those thoughts through, revising thought thoughts, revising revisions. The scientist, the scholar, the artist all need time to contemplate if they are going to do anything other than what has already been done, if they are going to think new thoughts, if they are going to add to the world. And we need to be joined by everyone else. Everyone needs to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy -- in thus contemplating, one will find oneself, improve oneself, and, improving oneself, find the energy and virtue to understand and improve the world.
Several things come to mind. First, their point about the Sabbath democratizing culture -- the arts -- supports my contention that the arts are now a spontaneous order in their own right, since equal access is an essential feature of spontaneous orders. Second, the point about the importance not just of leisure, but of a particular kind of leisure -- one that allows for contemplation -- is very suggestive. How many of us have that kind of leisure? We fill our time with work, "leisure activities," family, friends, noisy protests, social networks, endless chatter. We keep busy, busy, busy, and thus have no time to sit and think. As a culture we no longer have a day of contemplation. Thus, we are moving back toward more elitist culture -- only the elites are in many ways self-selected. It thus becomes aristocratic, but not necessarily in the sense of aristos meaning "the best" (though those with Ph.D.'s in the humanities may think otherwise of themselves). Rather, the ones who rise to the top are the ones best able to parrot what everybody already knows -- thus is true contemplation discouraged, lest one come to different conclusions. Better to fill one's time with endless chatter, avoid contemplation.
culture is the product of leisure and the object of our thoughts.
The Puritan refers to such leisure as the Sabbath, a day not just of rest but of reflection as well. The Sabbath, or leisure, is associated with the rise of culture because it permits us the time to reflect on the world and our place in it. The Puritan thus democratizes participation in the liberal arts, once the privilege of the aristocratic class. Active reflection on the purpose of life makes possible responsible freedom by the exercising of conscious deliberate choice as such it is deemed the finest activity humans can engage in. Such reflection is self-conscious, a realization that we think, we live, we experience death---and perhaps more. Between life and death occur guilt about the past, boredom with the present, and anxiety about the future. Self-conscious reflection has an object: to understand what meaning, what hope and joy, transcends guilt, boredom, anxiety, and even death. That transcendent goal is the ground for the liberal arts, the arts of the Sabbatical mind, and responsible freedom. (26-7)
Of course, there are different kinds of contemplation. The average person needs time alone to think. No T.V., no radio, nobody talking to him. Someone like me needs time alone to think, with a pen and paper at hand. The scholar should be contemplative in this active sense, writing down the thoughts, thinking those thoughts through, revising thought thoughts, revising revisions. The scientist, the scholar, the artist all need time to contemplate if they are going to do anything other than what has already been done, if they are going to think new thoughts, if they are going to add to the world. And we need to be joined by everyone else. Everyone needs to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy -- in thus contemplating, one will find oneself, improve oneself, and, improving oneself, find the energy and virtue to understand and improve the world.
Thursday, November 03, 2011
Failure Is Not an Option
John sat in the visitation area across from his father, Carl.
"Well, son, was it worth it? They're going to execute you tomorrow. Was it worth it?"
John leaned forward across the table. "I think so," he said. "You know, I was doing what I loved, and if failing at it resulted in this, then so be it. I was doing what I loved."
"That seems an odd thing to say. You were greedy, son, and that's what got you here."
"No, not greedy. Ambitious. I was ambitious. I wanted to be in charge, and I was in charge. I wanted to succeed, and I succeeded . . ."
"Until you didn't."
"Yes, until I didn't." John leaned back and looked at the gray ceiling. "But until then, it was glorious. I was the best, and that's why I made it. I was the best. I have no regrets."
"What about your family? Your wife? Angela and Adam? Your mom and me?" A tear ran down Carl's cheek. "You were selfish. You are selfish. They're going to lose their father."
John leaned across the table and almost whispered his reply. "Dad, I'm not the one who made the law that if you fail, you lose your life. Everyone supports you so long as you succeed. Nobody, not even you, accused me of being greedy or selfish for as long as I was succeeding. You said you were proud of me when they made me coach. As well you should have been. You don't get to take all that back now that I'm in this situation. You knew as well as I did the consequences of failure. We lost. We lost, so here I am. And tomorrow . . ."
"And tomorrow I can't even bury you, because they won't let you be buried."
"I lost the championship. I failed. That's how it goes. You know you can't fail in this country. You succeed, or else. No do-overs. Ever."
"It's not fair."
"I suppose not. But would it have been fair if I had won and been declared a national hero? I surely wouldn't have turned down the trophy, the accolades, the parades, and lord knows what else. Refusing to turn down all that, how can I turn down the consequences?" John sat up straight in his chair. "It is my destiny. It is the consequences. I did not enter this ignorant of the consequences. I can't complain now."
A guard approached. John looked up at him.
"Well, dad, looks like I have to go. Give my love to mom, Barbara, Angela and Adam. I understand why they couldn't come."
John stood. Carl remained seated. The guard grabbed John by the arm and led him out of the visitation area, the first to leave. The room echoed with continued murmuring. Carl watched in silence as he watched John disappear with the guard through the iron door.
"Well, son, was it worth it? They're going to execute you tomorrow. Was it worth it?"
John leaned forward across the table. "I think so," he said. "You know, I was doing what I loved, and if failing at it resulted in this, then so be it. I was doing what I loved."
"That seems an odd thing to say. You were greedy, son, and that's what got you here."
"No, not greedy. Ambitious. I was ambitious. I wanted to be in charge, and I was in charge. I wanted to succeed, and I succeeded . . ."
"Until you didn't."
"Yes, until I didn't." John leaned back and looked at the gray ceiling. "But until then, it was glorious. I was the best, and that's why I made it. I was the best. I have no regrets."
"What about your family? Your wife? Angela and Adam? Your mom and me?" A tear ran down Carl's cheek. "You were selfish. You are selfish. They're going to lose their father."
John leaned across the table and almost whispered his reply. "Dad, I'm not the one who made the law that if you fail, you lose your life. Everyone supports you so long as you succeed. Nobody, not even you, accused me of being greedy or selfish for as long as I was succeeding. You said you were proud of me when they made me coach. As well you should have been. You don't get to take all that back now that I'm in this situation. You knew as well as I did the consequences of failure. We lost. We lost, so here I am. And tomorrow . . ."
"And tomorrow I can't even bury you, because they won't let you be buried."
"I lost the championship. I failed. That's how it goes. You know you can't fail in this country. You succeed, or else. No do-overs. Ever."
"It's not fair."
"I suppose not. But would it have been fair if I had won and been declared a national hero? I surely wouldn't have turned down the trophy, the accolades, the parades, and lord knows what else. Refusing to turn down all that, how can I turn down the consequences?" John sat up straight in his chair. "It is my destiny. It is the consequences. I did not enter this ignorant of the consequences. I can't complain now."
A guard approached. John looked up at him.
"Well, dad, looks like I have to go. Give my love to mom, Barbara, Angela and Adam. I understand why they couldn't come."
John stood. Carl remained seated. The guard grabbed John by the arm and led him out of the visitation area, the first to leave. The room echoed with continued murmuring. Carl watched in silence as he watched John disappear with the guard through the iron door.
Wednesday, November 02, 2011
FSSO 2011
This weekend I presented a paper, "The Theater of Tensions," at the Fund for the Study of Spontaneous Orders. It was a fantastic conference, with a wide variety of ideas and world views -- it was a broad swathe of classical/traditional liberal thinking. The people were great -- it is nice to be able to have discussions with people with whom one disagrees where the level of respect nevertheless remains high. This doesn't mean that there weren't heated arguments, or that there weren't misunderstandings of positions or arguments, but even if someone unfairly misattributed an argument against, say, socialized medicine, as an argument for the current system, such misattributions were quickly and clearly settled, and thus the real argument was able to take place. (This is something we all do: we meet someone who is against X; we know people who are against X and for Y; therefore we assume that new person is for Y, even though it is possible to be against both X and Y.)
Respect. It was observed at the conference that respect is an ur-value, underlying rights. We respect our friends. We respect our family (in healthy families, anyway). We extend respect to strangers -- and in so doing, extend rights to them. We have moved from a species that killed strangers to one that traded with strangers, and thus extended respect to him. Respect was central at the conference, both topically (unstated and, later, stated) and in our disagreements. Sadly, we see less and less of this in civic society -- if you disagree with me, you aren't just wrong, but evil! (and I of course could never be wrong!). One should be able to get into even a heated discussion of ideas, and at the end of the day, shake hands, wish each other well, and be happy to see each other next time around. But of course, this also requires people to be more interested in learning what the truth really is rather than in being seen by everyone as right, whether you are in fact right or not. And that is one of the advantages of such a conference, where everyone there was a scientist first, and an ideologue second (though sometimes a close second). We were there to try to understand spontaneous orders better, and to try to understand whether they are in fact better for humans to live in than other social systems. Such questions are of course going to raise questions and result in heated debate (such as whether or not spontaneous orders were "natural," and if not, why we were "advocating" them). Naturally, our arguments resulted in some convergence, divergence, greater certainty, and greater uncertainty. Which is as it should be. If you don't come back from a conference without all of those things happening, it wasn't very valuable for you.
Respect. It was observed at the conference that respect is an ur-value, underlying rights. We respect our friends. We respect our family (in healthy families, anyway). We extend respect to strangers -- and in so doing, extend rights to them. We have moved from a species that killed strangers to one that traded with strangers, and thus extended respect to him. Respect was central at the conference, both topically (unstated and, later, stated) and in our disagreements. Sadly, we see less and less of this in civic society -- if you disagree with me, you aren't just wrong, but evil! (and I of course could never be wrong!). One should be able to get into even a heated discussion of ideas, and at the end of the day, shake hands, wish each other well, and be happy to see each other next time around. But of course, this also requires people to be more interested in learning what the truth really is rather than in being seen by everyone as right, whether you are in fact right or not. And that is one of the advantages of such a conference, where everyone there was a scientist first, and an ideologue second (though sometimes a close second). We were there to try to understand spontaneous orders better, and to try to understand whether they are in fact better for humans to live in than other social systems. Such questions are of course going to raise questions and result in heated debate (such as whether or not spontaneous orders were "natural," and if not, why we were "advocating" them). Naturally, our arguments resulted in some convergence, divergence, greater certainty, and greater uncertainty. Which is as it should be. If you don't come back from a conference without all of those things happening, it wasn't very valuable for you.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
On Choosing Not to Choose
One of the great benefits of slavery is that you don't have to make any choices and you don't have to make any distinctions (without distinctions, you don't have to make choices). All the choices are made for you. It is a great psychological relief.
Freedom, on the other hand, means you have to make distinctions and choices. That is the joy and curse of freedom. It can be psychologically taxing at times.
Sartre once said one of his favorite times was when he was in the German prison camp when he was captured. He said he loved the camaraderie in the camp. It was why, he said, he became a communist. He became a communist because he loved prison life? That is perhaps the most honest reason ever given by anyone. Removed from him was choice, the need to make distinctions. One simply had to exist. To Sartre, this was glorious.
Beware anyone who argues we should not make distinctions.
Beware anyone who wants to take away your choices.
They are arguing for slavery -- and intend to be the slave masters.
Not all slavery is explicit, obvious, clear. There are many, more subtle, versions of it. One can even be free in one area of life, but enslaved in another. And choosing to restrict one's choices voluntarily (such as, say, though entering into a contract with someone) is not the same as slavery, as you always have the choice to get out (if you can't get out, it's not a contract). Thus, there is no such thing as "wage slavery" in a free market economy. It only exists under socialism in it various guises. Like with the socialists' constant accusations of "materialism" on the part of market supporters, the accusations of "wage slavery" is simply projection on their parts. They are the worst things that they claim to fight.
Freedom, on the other hand, means you have to make distinctions and choices. That is the joy and curse of freedom. It can be psychologically taxing at times.
Sartre once said one of his favorite times was when he was in the German prison camp when he was captured. He said he loved the camaraderie in the camp. It was why, he said, he became a communist. He became a communist because he loved prison life? That is perhaps the most honest reason ever given by anyone. Removed from him was choice, the need to make distinctions. One simply had to exist. To Sartre, this was glorious.
Beware anyone who argues we should not make distinctions.
Beware anyone who wants to take away your choices.
They are arguing for slavery -- and intend to be the slave masters.
Not all slavery is explicit, obvious, clear. There are many, more subtle, versions of it. One can even be free in one area of life, but enslaved in another. And choosing to restrict one's choices voluntarily (such as, say, though entering into a contract with someone) is not the same as slavery, as you always have the choice to get out (if you can't get out, it's not a contract). Thus, there is no such thing as "wage slavery" in a free market economy. It only exists under socialism in it various guises. Like with the socialists' constant accusations of "materialism" on the part of market supporters, the accusations of "wage slavery" is simply projection on their parts. They are the worst things that they claim to fight.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Humans' Love For Collaboration Gives Rise to Spontaneous Orders
One of the things that distinguishes humans from other animals, including our closest relatives, the chimpanzees, is that we like to collaborate, while chimpanzees do not -- even though chimpanzees obviously do collaborate when necessary (they are social mammals, after all). The big difference, though, is that humans prefer to collaborate than to work alone (a few of us artists notwithstanding -- but even then, we like to hash out ideas with others, get feedback, etc.). This preference for collaboration makes our social orders far more complex than chimpanzees'. Indeed, without this trait, there would be no such thing as spontaneous social orders, which both make use of our natural tendency to cooperate, and help us to better coordinate our activities, making us increasingly social.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Where Fault Lies in the Recession or, Why We Will Never Get Justice
According to Austrian business cycle theory, artificially low interest rates create bad information which causes people to make bad decisions even as they are acting rationally given the information they have. We can see this in the housing bubble, and we can see it in the education bubble, with low-interest student loans driving it. Cheap money creates false signals. Distorted prices cause people to make what turn out to be bad decisions, made worse when the bubble bursts.
Now, if a business were to do this, were to misinform people about what they were getting, this would be considered fraud, and the business would be held responsible, not the victim of the fraud. However, we have people who were defrauded into buying houses and getting educations that have turned out not to have the value they thought they did, who bought houses and educations with cheap money, thinking they would have the value advertised, and who have seen that value disappear -- along with their jobs in many cases -- but who now are told that they "should have been responsible" and not gotten things they couldn't afford. But what if they could afford them at the time? Circumstances change. And, worse, they were able to afford something, at the time, that was said to have more value at the time than it turned out to have, while now they cannot afford this same thing that has decreased in value, but whose costs must still be paid. They have been defrauded -- but who is paying for it?
The Occupy Wall Street crowd think they have the answer: banks and Wall Street. However, these are but the secondary players, the secondary cause. They were acting rationally given their own bad information -- not to mention pressure from the primary players. It does no good to protest the secondary cause -- we have to protest the primary cause, the government and Federal Reserve which actively worked to create artificially low interest rates and have pushed for more higher education and more people in houses. To get what they wanted, the government created false price signals, including cheap money, to get the behaviors they wanted. Thus, they are responsible for this mess. And they should pay, and they should be the ones made to get us out of our bad situations -- again, something the OWS crowd have intuited to some degree, but without much economic understanding behind it.
The problem is of course that the government does not have its own money. It must tax or borrow (and tax in the future) to get the money needed to make things right. And of course everything they have done to date has done nothing more than maintain the status quo and continue to distort prices. Thus, in a financial sense, one cannot hold the government responsible for its idiotic behavior, because all we would be doing would be taking water from one end of the pool to pour it into the other end. Further, there is the problem of moral hazard, as people would begin to think that every so often the government will bail them out when they have made bad decisions (assuming everyone has made the same bad decisions, which only takes place when the government distorts prices). Of course, the banks are in such a moral hazard situation, knowing that the government will bail them out whenever there's a downturn. This makes it such that the banks are less interested in trying to overcome price misinformation, and are often willing partners in it.
Further, the government has screwed us over on being able to get out from under debt. Don't try to get out of either credit card or student loan debt, because it's not going to happen. Bankruptcy won't save you. And the government has made it harder and harder for the average person to declare bankruptcy, all to the benefits of the banks. This is something that has to change.
Those who have made what turned out to be bad decisions because they were lied to because of distorted prices (and, sometimes, directly), deserve justice. But the government, which is supposed to be where justice is meted out, is the culprit. Where, then, does one turn to justice?
Now, if a business were to do this, were to misinform people about what they were getting, this would be considered fraud, and the business would be held responsible, not the victim of the fraud. However, we have people who were defrauded into buying houses and getting educations that have turned out not to have the value they thought they did, who bought houses and educations with cheap money, thinking they would have the value advertised, and who have seen that value disappear -- along with their jobs in many cases -- but who now are told that they "should have been responsible" and not gotten things they couldn't afford. But what if they could afford them at the time? Circumstances change. And, worse, they were able to afford something, at the time, that was said to have more value at the time than it turned out to have, while now they cannot afford this same thing that has decreased in value, but whose costs must still be paid. They have been defrauded -- but who is paying for it?
The Occupy Wall Street crowd think they have the answer: banks and Wall Street. However, these are but the secondary players, the secondary cause. They were acting rationally given their own bad information -- not to mention pressure from the primary players. It does no good to protest the secondary cause -- we have to protest the primary cause, the government and Federal Reserve which actively worked to create artificially low interest rates and have pushed for more higher education and more people in houses. To get what they wanted, the government created false price signals, including cheap money, to get the behaviors they wanted. Thus, they are responsible for this mess. And they should pay, and they should be the ones made to get us out of our bad situations -- again, something the OWS crowd have intuited to some degree, but without much economic understanding behind it.
The problem is of course that the government does not have its own money. It must tax or borrow (and tax in the future) to get the money needed to make things right. And of course everything they have done to date has done nothing more than maintain the status quo and continue to distort prices. Thus, in a financial sense, one cannot hold the government responsible for its idiotic behavior, because all we would be doing would be taking water from one end of the pool to pour it into the other end. Further, there is the problem of moral hazard, as people would begin to think that every so often the government will bail them out when they have made bad decisions (assuming everyone has made the same bad decisions, which only takes place when the government distorts prices). Of course, the banks are in such a moral hazard situation, knowing that the government will bail them out whenever there's a downturn. This makes it such that the banks are less interested in trying to overcome price misinformation, and are often willing partners in it.
Further, the government has screwed us over on being able to get out from under debt. Don't try to get out of either credit card or student loan debt, because it's not going to happen. Bankruptcy won't save you. And the government has made it harder and harder for the average person to declare bankruptcy, all to the benefits of the banks. This is something that has to change.
Those who have made what turned out to be bad decisions because they were lied to because of distorted prices (and, sometimes, directly), deserve justice. But the government, which is supposed to be where justice is meted out, is the culprit. Where, then, does one turn to justice?
Thursday, October 13, 2011
The Inevitable Triumph of Spontaneous Orders
Timothy Ferris argues in The Science of Liberty that it was the emergence of the spontaneous order of science that laid the groundwork for the emergence of economics as a spontaneous order and of liberal democracy. Naturally, he does not quite use these terms, but if you have read Butos and McQuade on science as a spontaneous order, there is no question what Ferris is talking about. Further, the democratic spontaneous order, by valuing spontaneous orders themselves, keeps science a spontaneous order, thus keeping it alive. Dictatorships such as Fascism, National Socialism, and Communism/International Socialism try to turn spontaneous orders into organizations and, thus, destroy them. This includes science. Scientists in the scientific order combined with entrepreneur/inventors in the economic order create more and better technology -- something that is gradually lost in socialist systems such as those listed above. As a result, countries with such systems fall farther and farther behind, and are continually outstripped by spontaneous order societies. The fact that the U.S. and Britain were both spontaneous order societies allowed them to defeat Fascism/Nazism and, later, Communism. To the extent that we are liberal spontaneous order societies, we will continue to grow and succeed; to the extent that we move away from such a system, we face continued degradation.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
An Open Letter to the Millionaires and Billionaires Expressing Support for the Occupy Wall Street Protesters
Dear Millionaires and Billionaires Expressing Support for the Occupy Wall Street Protesters,
Why don't you hire us and shut up. You have money to invest, so invest it. Arguing for raising taxes on the rich will, as you well know, do nothing more than remove money from your competitors. There is nothing worse and more pathetic than envious rich people trying to get the government to take more money from other rich people just to make them worse off than yourselves. If you are a millionaire or billionaire who supports Occupy Wall Street, I have some debt -- including mortgage debt -- you could pay off for me which would free up a lot of money for me to spend in the economy. Do feel free to contact me, and I will tell you how large a check to write for me. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Troy Camplin
Why don't you hire us and shut up. You have money to invest, so invest it. Arguing for raising taxes on the rich will, as you well know, do nothing more than remove money from your competitors. There is nothing worse and more pathetic than envious rich people trying to get the government to take more money from other rich people just to make them worse off than yourselves. If you are a millionaire or billionaire who supports Occupy Wall Street, I have some debt -- including mortgage debt -- you could pay off for me which would free up a lot of money for me to spend in the economy. Do feel free to contact me, and I will tell you how large a check to write for me. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Troy Camplin
Monday, October 10, 2011
Instincts, Game Theory, and Spontaneous Orders
Social scientists would do well to learn more than a bit from animal behavior studies. Take for example Robert Sugden's article Spontaneous Order. He tells about a practice on the Yorkshire coast where there was an unwritten rule about collecting driftwood on the beach. The first to collect the wood and put two stones on them got the wood, so long as they retrieved it within two days, after which time, it belonged to whoever came to get it. Sugden uses game theory to explain how this came about, which is good as far as it goes. He essentially argues that there is a hawk-dove mixed strategy at work, but this strategy is not just a product of spontaneous orders, but has deeper origins than that. As it turns out, it is a general rule of any territorial species to default Hawk when protecting one's own territory, and to default Dove when entering another's territory. This prevents most conflicts. It thus turns out that this pre-human instinctual behavior is what underlies the emergence of these kinds of property rights rules -- including the emergence of property rights themselves. Certainly this does not negate the use of game theory, as evolutionary biologists have made use of it for many decades now -- but it may suggest that our use of it may need to go deeper than we usually go with it. Game theory explains how a set of behaviors emerged, but natural selection explains how a set of behaviors gets set in as instincts, creating a platform for more complex behaviors -- which, if it turns out to have long-term benefits, is likely to become internalized as an instinct, allowing it to emerge more quickly, and any learning associated with it to occur more quickly. Citing John Maynard Smith's work, Segden does approach this insight, without quite getting there. I do believe more work needs to be done on the connection between our instincts and our different spontaneous orders.
Sunday, October 09, 2011
On the Wall Street Protestors -- The 99% Who Don't Understand Economics
Someone needs to tell the Occupy Wall Street protestors that, while it may make some sense to be upset at the banks, etc. that were involved in the actions that led to the economic crash, that these were but secondary players. They ought to be protesting the primary cause, the primary players who created this crisis. That would be Washington, D.C. That would be the federal government and the Federal Reserve.
To believe the protestors, greed magically and suddenly, for no reason anyone can discern, surged all at once, and we ended up in an economic crisis. It is more likely that the amount or level of greed remains the same across time, meaning it cannot explain the crisis. What one has to seek out, then, is why so many people acted exactly the same way at the same time. How is it possible that everyone can be misinformed in exactly the same way, at exactly the same time?
More than that, the protestors also have to explain why and how it is that "greedy corporate fat cats" can benefit from a bad economy. Poor people can't buy as much as wealthy people. Thus, greedy businessmen want more wealthy people, as that means more people buying their stuff, meaning more profit. Only a complete idiot -- or a believer the economy is a zero-sum game -- believes otherwise. The protestors must believe this nonsense, or they would not be out protesting corporations now, three years into the crisis, rather than in 2008. What they do not realize is that it is not the corporations per se that are at fault for the continuing economic crisis, but the government because of the bailouts and stimulus plans and continued distortion of information. The markets try to adjust, and the government keeps feeding people bad information. Thus, it cannot adjust. The protestors ought to be blaming the people who are giving out the bailout money more than the people who accept it (who doesn't want free money? -- other than the banks that did not want to participate, but were threatened and forced to by the Bush administration, which are the same banks, ironically, being protested against now). Of course, these same protestors are asking for their own government handout -- so it's not that surprising they are not protesting their potential benefactors.
In other words, this protest is confused precisely because the protestors do not know what happened, do not want to protest those who caused the problems because they want those same people to give things to them, and because they do not have the least understanding of economics. They are the 99% alright. They are the 99% who don't understand economics (but, because they buy and sell things, think they do).
To believe the protestors, greed magically and suddenly, for no reason anyone can discern, surged all at once, and we ended up in an economic crisis. It is more likely that the amount or level of greed remains the same across time, meaning it cannot explain the crisis. What one has to seek out, then, is why so many people acted exactly the same way at the same time. How is it possible that everyone can be misinformed in exactly the same way, at exactly the same time?
More than that, the protestors also have to explain why and how it is that "greedy corporate fat cats" can benefit from a bad economy. Poor people can't buy as much as wealthy people. Thus, greedy businessmen want more wealthy people, as that means more people buying their stuff, meaning more profit. Only a complete idiot -- or a believer the economy is a zero-sum game -- believes otherwise. The protestors must believe this nonsense, or they would not be out protesting corporations now, three years into the crisis, rather than in 2008. What they do not realize is that it is not the corporations per se that are at fault for the continuing economic crisis, but the government because of the bailouts and stimulus plans and continued distortion of information. The markets try to adjust, and the government keeps feeding people bad information. Thus, it cannot adjust. The protestors ought to be blaming the people who are giving out the bailout money more than the people who accept it (who doesn't want free money? -- other than the banks that did not want to participate, but were threatened and forced to by the Bush administration, which are the same banks, ironically, being protested against now). Of course, these same protestors are asking for their own government handout -- so it's not that surprising they are not protesting their potential benefactors.
In other words, this protest is confused precisely because the protestors do not know what happened, do not want to protest those who caused the problems because they want those same people to give things to them, and because they do not have the least understanding of economics. They are the 99% alright. They are the 99% who don't understand economics (but, because they buy and sell things, think they do).
Thursday, October 06, 2011
Property as a Spontaneous Order
Larry Arnhart has an excellent post on property rights. Of note is his observation that "the property claims of the [California gold] miners moved through three levels--natural possession, customary rules, and formal laws. This manifests the general structure of Darwinian social order as the joint product of natural desires, cultural practices, and deliberate judgments." This is spontaneous order in a nutshell.
It Is Not Virtue to Use Force
It is not virtue to first use force, or even first to threaten force, to try to reach one's goals. To do so is to act just like a child does -- the two year old who cannot say too much, and pushes others thinking that will get his way; the spoiled brat who throws a fit as threat so she can get her way. These tactics are not virtue; these tactics are what children have before they have the social skills and language needed to live a life of virtue. To go to force or threat to get your way is to act like a child at best. There is no virtue in it.
As Aristotle says, for one to act with virtue you must first aim for the beautiful. The beautiful is both variety with unity, the golden mean's creative ratio. To aim thus at the beautiful is thus to aim at a society with great complexity -- that's unified and various, that uses limits proper to make healthy growth. But force or threat of force does not make social bonds -- these only break our social bonds and make us have a simpler society. It's one thing to appreciate the differences among us all as individuals and as subcultures and as cultures, too, but it's another to divide us all with but the purpose of division and destruction. Factions are not virtuous as difference with respect must truly be.
To act with virtue, then, you have to understand the true path to a truly beautiful society -- society where social bonds are made, where growth and creativity is present, where force and threats of force are not the first, or second, third or fourth or fifth on any list of how to deal with anything. Force is how you deal with force, and that is all -- the actions of an undeveloped child must be met on their terms -- but when you have a person who can reason, reason is the way to deal with them, the path of virtue. Are we adults or children? Will we allow ourselves to put mere children, whose first thoughts are force or threats, in charge of us? Will we resort to children's actions first? Or are we all adults, whose choice is virtue and whose aims are always for the beautiful?
As Aristotle says, for one to act with virtue you must first aim for the beautiful. The beautiful is both variety with unity, the golden mean's creative ratio. To aim thus at the beautiful is thus to aim at a society with great complexity -- that's unified and various, that uses limits proper to make healthy growth. But force or threat of force does not make social bonds -- these only break our social bonds and make us have a simpler society. It's one thing to appreciate the differences among us all as individuals and as subcultures and as cultures, too, but it's another to divide us all with but the purpose of division and destruction. Factions are not virtuous as difference with respect must truly be.
To act with virtue, then, you have to understand the true path to a truly beautiful society -- society where social bonds are made, where growth and creativity is present, where force and threats of force are not the first, or second, third or fourth or fifth on any list of how to deal with anything. Force is how you deal with force, and that is all -- the actions of an undeveloped child must be met on their terms -- but when you have a person who can reason, reason is the way to deal with them, the path of virtue. Are we adults or children? Will we allow ourselves to put mere children, whose first thoughts are force or threats, in charge of us? Will we resort to children's actions first? Or are we all adults, whose choice is virtue and whose aims are always for the beautiful?
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Variety Necessary for Social Change
One of the most dangerous things that can take place for a species is for it to become a "monoculture," meaning it has very little if any genetic diversity. When this happens, the species is in danger of becoming extinct, from either disease or environmental change. Cheetahs, unfortunately, are a genetic monoculture.
For natural selection to work, there has to be variety from which to select. And there is no telling what may be needed or useful, so it is important (as least as far as the species is concerned) that all sorts of varieties emerge from which selections can be made. The choice is extinction or evolution into something else. Extinction means the complete loss of all the potential of that genetic line.
With the exception of the last line, all of this is equally true at the social level for humans. A healthy society is one with a high level of variety, from which options can be selected. Without options, there are no choices (this seems obvious, but it appears not to be so for many who advocate monopoly-creation, whether through government takeover of government preferences/barriers to entry/etc.). Thus, without options, there is no social evolution. A monoculture may be productive for a time, but it does not take long before it grows stagnant, and even dies. A society needs variety -- a variety of cultures and subcultures, a variety of educational opportunities and styles and outcomes, a variety of scientific theories, a variety of arts and literatures, a variety of entrepreneurs, a variety of people starting firms, a variety (even) of quality. Without variety, we have no options, and no social evolution can take place.
Is it not ironic that many of those who say they are for social change in fact support few ideas/programs/policies that would in fact support and promote in social change, but would in fact give rise to social stagnation worse than even the conservatives want?
For natural selection to work, there has to be variety from which to select. And there is no telling what may be needed or useful, so it is important (as least as far as the species is concerned) that all sorts of varieties emerge from which selections can be made. The choice is extinction or evolution into something else. Extinction means the complete loss of all the potential of that genetic line.
With the exception of the last line, all of this is equally true at the social level for humans. A healthy society is one with a high level of variety, from which options can be selected. Without options, there are no choices (this seems obvious, but it appears not to be so for many who advocate monopoly-creation, whether through government takeover of government preferences/barriers to entry/etc.). Thus, without options, there is no social evolution. A monoculture may be productive for a time, but it does not take long before it grows stagnant, and even dies. A society needs variety -- a variety of cultures and subcultures, a variety of educational opportunities and styles and outcomes, a variety of scientific theories, a variety of arts and literatures, a variety of entrepreneurs, a variety of people starting firms, a variety (even) of quality. Without variety, we have no options, and no social evolution can take place.
Is it not ironic that many of those who say they are for social change in fact support few ideas/programs/policies that would in fact support and promote in social change, but would in fact give rise to social stagnation worse than even the conservatives want?
Monday, October 03, 2011
Rousseau, Sociopath?
From everything I have read of Rousseau's biography, one has to come to the conclusion, based on the latest work on sociopathology, as summarized by Martha Stout in The Sociopath Next Door, that Rousseau was a sociopath. What other philosophy can a sociopath create other than one that is itself sociopathological? Is it any wonder, then, that the romantic leftism he spawned has always been sociopathological? -- i.e., the French Revolution, the various communist revolutions.
This is hardly an ad hominem attack. I am not saying that one cannot recover from even a sociopath legitimate ideas -- the Montessori method was inspired by Rousseau, after all, even if the disaster that is U.S. education was/is as well. But do we really want to base society, or a view of man, on that of a sociopath?
This is hardly an ad hominem attack. I am not saying that one cannot recover from even a sociopath legitimate ideas -- the Montessori method was inspired by Rousseau, after all, even if the disaster that is U.S. education was/is as well. But do we really want to base society, or a view of man, on that of a sociopath?
Saturday, October 01, 2011
Impeach Obama!
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. -- 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence. -- 6th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
These two amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America were violated by the President of the United States, Barack Husein Obama, in the assassination of the naturally-born American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen. He was not killed in battle, nor even in a war zone. He was targeted for assassination in a foreign country rather than arrested and tried, as is the right of every American citizen, according to two amendments in our Bill of Rights. Anwar al-Awlaki was tried, found guilty, and executed by one man, the President of the United States. This is an impeachable offense, and the President should be impeached, convicted, and imprisoned for this crime against the American people in this direct violation of the Constitution, which he swore to uphold. Anyone who defends this action is in direct and unambiguous opposition to the Constitution of the United States, and is thus not fit for office and should resign immediately.
Everyone who agrees with me, spread this message far and wide. Lovers of liberty, defenders of the Constitution, and anyone who does not want to live in a country where the political leaders are allowed to assassinate their own citizens must stand against this act of tyranny.
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence. -- 6th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
These two amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America were violated by the President of the United States, Barack Husein Obama, in the assassination of the naturally-born American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen. He was not killed in battle, nor even in a war zone. He was targeted for assassination in a foreign country rather than arrested and tried, as is the right of every American citizen, according to two amendments in our Bill of Rights. Anwar al-Awlaki was tried, found guilty, and executed by one man, the President of the United States. This is an impeachable offense, and the President should be impeached, convicted, and imprisoned for this crime against the American people in this direct violation of the Constitution, which he swore to uphold. Anyone who defends this action is in direct and unambiguous opposition to the Constitution of the United States, and is thus not fit for office and should resign immediately.
Everyone who agrees with me, spread this message far and wide. Lovers of liberty, defenders of the Constitution, and anyone who does not want to live in a country where the political leaders are allowed to assassinate their own citizens must stand against this act of tyranny.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Happy Birthday Mises!
Today is the 130th anniversary of the birth of one of the great defenders of freedom, one of the great theorists of classical liberalism, Ludwig von Mises. He is one of the clearest, most persuasive free market thinkers who has ever written. I don't know how anyone can read Human Action and not come away with both a much clearer understanding of economics and persuaded of liberalism. His methodology is, to my mind, well ahead of its time. Indeed, that has been part of the problem with Austrian economics, that its way of understanding the economy is so far ahead of the rest of economics that it is not really understood at all by mainstream economics. The good news is that, with the introduction of complexity, self-organization, complex adaptive systems, etc. into mainstream economics, the mainstream is in fact moving more and more toward where the Austrian school is already. Which is a nice gift for such a great man.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Converging Dates
According to the Jewish calendar, next year is the year 6000.
That of course is the year 2012, which is the same year the Mayan Calendar says the “world will end.” Of course, for the Mayans, the world ending really means a radical transformation of the world into something new.
Nevertheless, let us consider the fact that there is a strand of Christian theology that maps the 7 days of creation onto a thousand year cycle, with Christ being born in 4000 (which would actually push his birth back from the now accepted 4 B.C.). Now, if we look at what God created on Day 5, he created the fish and other sea creatures – is the fish image representing Jesus, then, coincidental? On Day 6, God created the land animals and humans. Have not the last 1000 years been the time of Man? The argument from this strand of Christian theology is that at the end of this 6000 year cycle, Christ shall return and set up His kingdom. The end result is a 1000 year reign of Christ. This of course coincides with what, then, happens on the 7th day, when God rests. What does it mean that God rests? What does it imply for the next 1000 years following 2012?
When Christ came, he fulfilled God’s plan, but what not at all what anyone expected in the Messiah coming. I suspect the same will be true of Christ’s return. It will be in such a way, with such a result, as no one can imagine. I suspect that there will be many people disappointed – the same way they were disappointed the first time around. I intend not to be one of the disappointed.
A change is coming. What it is cannot be predicted. Will it be on the Mayan/Jewish/Christian schedule? Is it a mere coincidence that so many theologies agree on the date?
That of course is the year 2012, which is the same year the Mayan Calendar says the “world will end.” Of course, for the Mayans, the world ending really means a radical transformation of the world into something new.
Nevertheless, let us consider the fact that there is a strand of Christian theology that maps the 7 days of creation onto a thousand year cycle, with Christ being born in 4000 (which would actually push his birth back from the now accepted 4 B.C.). Now, if we look at what God created on Day 5, he created the fish and other sea creatures – is the fish image representing Jesus, then, coincidental? On Day 6, God created the land animals and humans. Have not the last 1000 years been the time of Man? The argument from this strand of Christian theology is that at the end of this 6000 year cycle, Christ shall return and set up His kingdom. The end result is a 1000 year reign of Christ. This of course coincides with what, then, happens on the 7th day, when God rests. What does it mean that God rests? What does it imply for the next 1000 years following 2012?
When Christ came, he fulfilled God’s plan, but what not at all what anyone expected in the Messiah coming. I suspect the same will be true of Christ’s return. It will be in such a way, with such a result, as no one can imagine. I suspect that there will be many people disappointed – the same way they were disappointed the first time around. I intend not to be one of the disappointed.
A change is coming. What it is cannot be predicted. Will it be on the Mayan/Jewish/Christian schedule? Is it a mere coincidence that so many theologies agree on the date?
The Future is Complexity
The economic blogosphere has spend months discussing Tyler Cowen's book The Great Stagnation, in which Cowen argues that we have seen decades of worldwide economic stagnation because we have harvested all the low-hanging technological fruit. I think he is right, precisely because almost all of our technological advances have been in the simplest of sciences: physics. Take all of our technological advances -- the steam engine, the internal combustion engine, the telephone, various sound recording devices, film and now digital image reproduction, refrigerators, electric ovens, dishwashers, microwaves, computers, the internet, printers, air planes, trains, space transportation, etc. -- and one can see that they are all exercises in physics. It seems that most of the theoretical advances in physics have been made, even if we are still in search for a Grand Unified Theory. Serial computing is about as good as it can get, and speeds will soon reach the upper limit of the speed of light (recent discoveries of neutrinos going faster notwithstanding). We seem to have reached the upper part of an S-curve.
At least in the simple sciences. And physics -- and most chemistry -- are simple sciences. I would even argue that the few places in which we have made advances in biotechnology reflect the advances of the simple sciences. Few genes have a 1:1 effect. But we have taken advantage of those.
In the meantime, there have been many advances in complexity, though most of them have been under the radar. Though starting off as a complex science, most economics has been dominated in the 20th century by simple ideas from math and physics, but there has been Austrian economics making complexity arguments for over a century now, with mainstream economics beginning to take complexity seriously and, thus, moving ever closer to Austrian economics. Sociology has been mostly dominated by the reductionist views of Marxist/predictive theory, but culture studies is beginning to move things in the right direction, toward concepts of spontaneous order (see Habermas' work as an example of this). Even the humanities went through reductionist periods before emerging into more complex notions. Certainly biology has been dominated by ideas of complexity from Darwin on. But with the introduction of complexity theory, self-organization, and emergence, we are seeing a new paradigm in biology emerging -- a Newer Synthesis, so to speak.
Indeed, complexity is the new paradigm being established. With it, we will see the emergence in new technologies -- complexity technologies -- we have never seen and perhaps cannot begin to predict. Indeed, unpredictability is central to complexity. We have to become far more comfortable with unpredictability if we are going to have complex technologies. Of course, we are only now becoming comfortable with complexity as a science or as a way of understanding the world itself. One can hope complexity will come to dominate soon -- one can hope that part of what is happening with this recession is a change in paradigm, moving us toward a new way of conceiving the world and of creating new things. Only then will we be ready for a real revolution in biotechnology. More than that, we will be ready to create complex computers that are less precise, but more able to be creative. True A.I. is in the complexity paradigm, not the simple one.
The good news is that there is one technology that is the bridge to this future: the internet. It is built on the simple science of the past, but the outcome was a complex, self-organizing network (in no small part because that is the result of human interactions, and humans are the most important element in the internet). A result is that we are beginning to look at society and technology in different ways. It is time to jettison our old ways of thinking. They served us well for a while, giving us all the technology we enjoy today (but also the reductionist social experiments of socialism, fascism, and communism, with the widespread destruction of individuals and societies that necessarily come from attempting to simplify complex networks) -- but if we are going to move forward, if we are going to have the kinds of advances we had over the last century and a half, if we are in fact going to move well beyond such simple advances and into technologies that will make us wealthier than we could ever imagine, then we will have to move into the complexity paradigm, and soon. Those who do so will be the first great founders, the great scientists and technologists, the great billionaires of their time -- making people like Carnegie and Vanderbilt look like unimaginative paupers.
At least in the simple sciences. And physics -- and most chemistry -- are simple sciences. I would even argue that the few places in which we have made advances in biotechnology reflect the advances of the simple sciences. Few genes have a 1:1 effect. But we have taken advantage of those.
In the meantime, there have been many advances in complexity, though most of them have been under the radar. Though starting off as a complex science, most economics has been dominated in the 20th century by simple ideas from math and physics, but there has been Austrian economics making complexity arguments for over a century now, with mainstream economics beginning to take complexity seriously and, thus, moving ever closer to Austrian economics. Sociology has been mostly dominated by the reductionist views of Marxist/predictive theory, but culture studies is beginning to move things in the right direction, toward concepts of spontaneous order (see Habermas' work as an example of this). Even the humanities went through reductionist periods before emerging into more complex notions. Certainly biology has been dominated by ideas of complexity from Darwin on. But with the introduction of complexity theory, self-organization, and emergence, we are seeing a new paradigm in biology emerging -- a Newer Synthesis, so to speak.
Indeed, complexity is the new paradigm being established. With it, we will see the emergence in new technologies -- complexity technologies -- we have never seen and perhaps cannot begin to predict. Indeed, unpredictability is central to complexity. We have to become far more comfortable with unpredictability if we are going to have complex technologies. Of course, we are only now becoming comfortable with complexity as a science or as a way of understanding the world itself. One can hope complexity will come to dominate soon -- one can hope that part of what is happening with this recession is a change in paradigm, moving us toward a new way of conceiving the world and of creating new things. Only then will we be ready for a real revolution in biotechnology. More than that, we will be ready to create complex computers that are less precise, but more able to be creative. True A.I. is in the complexity paradigm, not the simple one.
The good news is that there is one technology that is the bridge to this future: the internet. It is built on the simple science of the past, but the outcome was a complex, self-organizing network (in no small part because that is the result of human interactions, and humans are the most important element in the internet). A result is that we are beginning to look at society and technology in different ways. It is time to jettison our old ways of thinking. They served us well for a while, giving us all the technology we enjoy today (but also the reductionist social experiments of socialism, fascism, and communism, with the widespread destruction of individuals and societies that necessarily come from attempting to simplify complex networks) -- but if we are going to move forward, if we are going to have the kinds of advances we had over the last century and a half, if we are in fact going to move well beyond such simple advances and into technologies that will make us wealthier than we could ever imagine, then we will have to move into the complexity paradigm, and soon. Those who do so will be the first great founders, the great scientists and technologists, the great billionaires of their time -- making people like Carnegie and Vanderbilt look like unimaginative paupers.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Left, Right, and Liberal
Why do I typically complain about the Left/Progressives and not say much about the Right/Conservatives. Well, first, the fact that the Right is illiberal is sufficiently clear to most everyone, especially those on the Left. What is less clear to many is the illiberality of the Left. Further, "Conservative" isn't an ideology -- it is a stance. Today's Progressive is (when their programs are passed) tomorrow's Conservative. Conservatives in the 1960's opposed Medicare and Medicaid. Conservatives today defend Medicare and Medicaid and seek ways to fix and save the programs. Bush II even expanded Medicare considerably. And his Republican Congress was the one that passed the bill to do so. When Conservatives are actively expanding Progressivist programs, one comes to understand the exact relationship between Conservatives and Progressivism. Classical liberals have consistently opposed Progressives' government programs. They do so not because they "hate the poor" or some such nonsense. No, they are in fact concerned about the poor -- and want their intentions to match the outcomes of their actions. Good intentions are not good enough, as is the case with Progressives. More, classical liberals understand that the knowledge problems that explain why central planning cannot work in the economy, why central planning can never give rise to a creative, dynamic scientific community, and why central planning cannot give rise to a creative, dynamic artistic/literary community also explain why central planning of philanthropy does not work well.
Conservatives are traditionalists who want to conserve whatever exists now (or, perhaps, a decade or two ago). They do not want change, they typically believe that people have to be kept in order by a strong government, do not really trust people to do what is right for them, and believe society has a purpose (to conserve the culture). Progressives want to ignore history, ignore the culture, and rationally construct everything, and do so as an example of how compassionate they are -- no matter what the real world outcomes may be. They want radical change unconnected to what currently exists, that people are controlled by their social environments (which is why it must be overthrown and replaced with a better one), that people cannot be trusted to do what is in their own best interest, and believe society has a purpose/goal (the "just society," as conceived by someone). Classical liberals are traditionalists who favor change -- just not change for the sake of change, nor change unconnected to the current culture, but change that is consistent with the institutions in place, changing as conditions change. We believe in changes on the margin, that people will interacting peacefully if given the chance, that people can be trusted to know their local conditions better than someone who is not there and does not know them, that society does not have a goal or purpose, but that our culture is foundational to everything else in society.
The real issue is whether or not society has a purpose. If it does, humans can and should be harnessed to fulfill that purpose. If it does not, then humans should be left alone to fulfill their own purposes. A social institution with a purpose is known as an organization. If one can freely leave that organization (as one can do with a firm one works for), there is no problem with such organizations being in existence. But if one cannot freely leave (as with a state), then one is enslaved. Oddly, the Progressives who complain about those organizations we can freely leave are typically the same people who think we should submit ourselves to organizations we cannot freely leave.
Conservatives are traditionalists who want to conserve whatever exists now (or, perhaps, a decade or two ago). They do not want change, they typically believe that people have to be kept in order by a strong government, do not really trust people to do what is right for them, and believe society has a purpose (to conserve the culture). Progressives want to ignore history, ignore the culture, and rationally construct everything, and do so as an example of how compassionate they are -- no matter what the real world outcomes may be. They want radical change unconnected to what currently exists, that people are controlled by their social environments (which is why it must be overthrown and replaced with a better one), that people cannot be trusted to do what is in their own best interest, and believe society has a purpose/goal (the "just society," as conceived by someone). Classical liberals are traditionalists who favor change -- just not change for the sake of change, nor change unconnected to the current culture, but change that is consistent with the institutions in place, changing as conditions change. We believe in changes on the margin, that people will interacting peacefully if given the chance, that people can be trusted to know their local conditions better than someone who is not there and does not know them, that society does not have a goal or purpose, but that our culture is foundational to everything else in society.
The real issue is whether or not society has a purpose. If it does, humans can and should be harnessed to fulfill that purpose. If it does not, then humans should be left alone to fulfill their own purposes. A social institution with a purpose is known as an organization. If one can freely leave that organization (as one can do with a firm one works for), there is no problem with such organizations being in existence. But if one cannot freely leave (as with a state), then one is enslaved. Oddly, the Progressives who complain about those organizations we can freely leave are typically the same people who think we should submit ourselves to organizations we cannot freely leave.
Monday, September 26, 2011
When You're on the Left, This is What You Really Mean
Do you believe in the "will of the people"?
Believe the government ought to take care of you?
I have already written about the fact that Progressivism had eugenics as a cornerstone of its founding.
"Against individualism, the fascist conception is for the State; and it is for the individual in so far as he coincides with the State... It is opposed to Classical Liberalism, which arose as a reaction to absolutism and exhausted its historical function when the State became the expression of the conscience and will of the People. Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the true reality of the individual... In this sense Fascism is totalitarian... The Fascist State, the highest and most powerful form of personality, is a force, but a spiritual force, which takes over all the forms of the moral and intellectual life of man. It cannot therefore confine itself simply to the functions of order and supervision as Liberalism desired."—Benito Mussolini, 1932
Believe the government ought to take care of you?
"We provide for each slave, in old age and infancy, in sickness and in health, not according to his labor, but according to his wants....A southern farm is the beau ideal of Communism."—George Fitzhugh, defending slavery, 1854
I have already written about the fact that Progressivism had eugenics as a cornerstone of its founding.
Western Australia
It’s on the other side of Earth
And, though I hear there is a dearth
Of neighbors, I would fly its girth
And give my country a wide berth.
And though this is in partial mirth,
I’m sure that I would find rebirth –
I think that I would gain in worth –
If I could only move to Perth.
And, though I hear there is a dearth
Of neighbors, I would fly its girth
And give my country a wide berth.
And though this is in partial mirth,
I’m sure that I would find rebirth –
I think that I would gain in worth –
If I could only move to Perth.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Hayek and YAL at UNT
Had a great time talking about Hayek and spontaneous order theory to the Young Americans for Liberty group at UNT.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
It's (Going to Be) a Boy!
It is official. We are having a boy. Now we just need to come up with a name. Preferably sometime before the middle of February. Until then, he's Cletus the Fetus.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Owing Society
We do not owe society anything.
If I borrow something from you, I owe it back to you. The idea that you owe something to "society" means that you borrowed something from that society. But what can that even mean?
The idea that the rich owe society something stems from the belief that economics is a zero sum game. It's not. The wealth creators do not borrow anything, but are creating value. Thus, they contribute to society. It would be like borrowing $10 from me, then insisting that I owe you $5. We do not hear anyone speaking about how novelists owe society anything for the novels they write. Why not? Because it becomes obvious nonsense. The novelist does not take anything out of society that requires any pay back -- but they do produce something that contributes to the society.
The fact of the matter is that one cannot owe society anything. One can owe particular people. So there is also a problem in anthropomorphizing society and treating it as teleological. From this perspective, saying someone owes society is just plain speaking nonsense.
If I borrow something from you, I owe it back to you. The idea that you owe something to "society" means that you borrowed something from that society. But what can that even mean?
The idea that the rich owe society something stems from the belief that economics is a zero sum game. It's not. The wealth creators do not borrow anything, but are creating value. Thus, they contribute to society. It would be like borrowing $10 from me, then insisting that I owe you $5. We do not hear anyone speaking about how novelists owe society anything for the novels they write. Why not? Because it becomes obvious nonsense. The novelist does not take anything out of society that requires any pay back -- but they do produce something that contributes to the society.
The fact of the matter is that one cannot owe society anything. One can owe particular people. So there is also a problem in anthropomorphizing society and treating it as teleological. From this perspective, saying someone owes society is just plain speaking nonsense.
Uncertainty and Spontaneous Orders
When a society moves from epistemological certainty to uncertainty, the outcome is liberty and the emergence of spontaneous order.
When a society moves from epistemological uncertainty to certainty, the outcome is enslavement and the attempt to transform that society into an organization.
Different social orders are affected differently at different times. Theological uncertainty gave us the Reformation and the eventual emergence of a religious spontaneous order (at its most developed stages in the present-day U.S.). Cosmological uncertainty gave us the Scientific Revolution and the eventual emergence of a scientific spontaneous order. Economic uncertainty gave us Capitalism and the eventual emergence of a market spontaneous order. Mythic uncertainty gave us a literary spontaneous order. Political uncertainty gave rise to the emergence of democratic spontaneous orders.
In turn, though, the misuse of science gave rise to certainty in the economy, which gave rise to the idea of central planning and, thus, to socialism and communism. The return of political certainty gave rise to dictatorships like Hitler's and Stalin's. And statements like "The science of anthropomorphic global warming is settled" is a bad sign for science, which can no more survive under that kind of certainty than can free markets under economic certainty or democracy under political certainty.
Postmodern uncertainty leads to nihilism; absolute certainty leads to totalitarianism. In between we have the kind of recognition of one's own ignorance and the possibility of knowledge that leads to spontaneous orders in religion, science, economics, the arts, and even governance. Only to the extent that members of a society accept their necessary ignorance in most things can that society be free.
When a society moves from epistemological uncertainty to certainty, the outcome is enslavement and the attempt to transform that society into an organization.
Different social orders are affected differently at different times. Theological uncertainty gave us the Reformation and the eventual emergence of a religious spontaneous order (at its most developed stages in the present-day U.S.). Cosmological uncertainty gave us the Scientific Revolution and the eventual emergence of a scientific spontaneous order. Economic uncertainty gave us Capitalism and the eventual emergence of a market spontaneous order. Mythic uncertainty gave us a literary spontaneous order. Political uncertainty gave rise to the emergence of democratic spontaneous orders.
In turn, though, the misuse of science gave rise to certainty in the economy, which gave rise to the idea of central planning and, thus, to socialism and communism. The return of political certainty gave rise to dictatorships like Hitler's and Stalin's. And statements like "The science of anthropomorphic global warming is settled" is a bad sign for science, which can no more survive under that kind of certainty than can free markets under economic certainty or democracy under political certainty.
Postmodern uncertainty leads to nihilism; absolute certainty leads to totalitarianism. In between we have the kind of recognition of one's own ignorance and the possibility of knowledge that leads to spontaneous orders in religion, science, economics, the arts, and even governance. Only to the extent that members of a society accept their necessary ignorance in most things can that society be free.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Moral Governance; Immoral Government
Only if governance takes place in a spontaneous order is it moral. That is because one does not have to participate. One can opt out -- and one can pursue one's own goals. Organizations are designed to help people to pursue their goals. If you do not participate in helping the organization achieve that goal, then you are not needed. You and the organization can and should go your separate ways. If you are forced to participate in an organization, that is immoral. It is slavery to that organization. So long as one participates -- or chooses not to participate -- in spontaneous order governance, that governance is moral. But governments consist of instrumental organizations that people do not have a choice but to participate in. Only if one can opt out of any particular government organization can it be considered moral.
Friday, September 16, 2011
New Poll at the Bottom of the Blog
There's a new poll. It's a bit USA-centric, but why should that prevent you from voting? :-)
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Books that Make Us Human
Books that make us human? I'm not so sure about that. I have wonder about his oversupply of utopian and dystopian works (I consider them to both be the same thing).
I would probably include Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations in a longer list -- or if we weren't including fiction. Quite frankly, some of the books made us less humane, not more. Particularly Marx, who was wrong about just about everything. The list may be those that most influenced the course of events in the 20th century, but that's a different list.
What made us most human? Well, I would include Genesis, The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Nicomachean Ethics, The Divine Comedy, Hamlet, Paradise Lost, Faust, The Origin of Species, and Genesis (Frederick Turner, bringing things full circle, title-wise).
Sarah Skwire has a much more thoughtful piece in response over at Modified Rapture.
I would probably include Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations in a longer list -- or if we weren't including fiction. Quite frankly, some of the books made us less humane, not more. Particularly Marx, who was wrong about just about everything. The list may be those that most influenced the course of events in the 20th century, but that's a different list.
What made us most human? Well, I would include Genesis, The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Nicomachean Ethics, The Divine Comedy, Hamlet, Paradise Lost, Faust, The Origin of Species, and Genesis (Frederick Turner, bringing things full circle, title-wise).
Sarah Skwire has a much more thoughtful piece in response over at Modified Rapture.
Happy Birthday Daniel!
Today is Daniel Jesus Camplin's 2nd birthday! Today we'll just be hamming it up with the Ham Bone.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
This Is What Economic Equilibrium Really Looks Like
Here is what I think is going on in the economy right now:
Employees like to hire people who already have a job. So most of the jobs created are going to people who already have jobs. One can argue that this just frees up that position, but the fact is that either the company will try to fill the absent position with either someone else who already has a job or promote someone from within to fill the position, or feel relieved that they can get rid of someone without having to fire them. Of course, losing someone to another company is costly -- you lose that person's knowledge, which cannot be truly regained even with training. So if a company does hire someone new, they will have to be trained for the position. This is why government stimulus doesn't work. All it does is reshuffle labor -- causing loss of wealth as companies lose people who know what they are doing.
Also, stimulus money allows companies to invest in more efficient technologies than they might otherwise have been able to afford. Of course, if your machines are more efficient, you don't have to hire as many people. So it is very likely that the stimulus money actually caused job losses. Of course, the businesses that got the money are now making high profits as well, for that very reason.
Companies are afraid to invest for several reasons. One is that they have no idea what Obama's health insurance plan is going to cost them. And you never know when the Obama administration will go after a company, prevent a merger (or allow it), etc. Nobody can figure out the rhyme or reason for any of their decisions (mostly because nobody knows exactly who are cronies for the Obama administration -- and note that cronyism isn't unique to the Obama administration, either). This is known as regime uncertainty. Who knows what will happen? Who knows what rules are coming down the pike? Who knows what regulations are coming our way? Best, then, to hunker down and, if anything, pay off debt. Many sensible companies -- and individuals -- are doing just that.
In fact, the fact that many people are preferring to pay down debt rather than spend more money is likely a factor in the economy's sluggish growth.
So investment has slowed, consumption has slowed, and savings too has slowed -- all to pay off debt. In fact, if this family did not have the debt it has, we would be investing, consuming, and saving. We can do none of the above because of both high debt and insufficient income. I have little doubt we are not the only ones in this situation. I have little doubt this is true of businesses and individuals. The only one not acting that way is the government (except the saving part -- they haven't done that for a long, long, long time -- if ever). No, the government is certainly spending -- and their "investments" do nothing more than distort the markets, making recovery take even longer.
I suspect that when people get out of debt, we will see more economic activity in this country. But that has to take place first. It probably wouldn't hurt if companies felt less uncertain about the future as well.
Employees like to hire people who already have a job. So most of the jobs created are going to people who already have jobs. One can argue that this just frees up that position, but the fact is that either the company will try to fill the absent position with either someone else who already has a job or promote someone from within to fill the position, or feel relieved that they can get rid of someone without having to fire them. Of course, losing someone to another company is costly -- you lose that person's knowledge, which cannot be truly regained even with training. So if a company does hire someone new, they will have to be trained for the position. This is why government stimulus doesn't work. All it does is reshuffle labor -- causing loss of wealth as companies lose people who know what they are doing.
Also, stimulus money allows companies to invest in more efficient technologies than they might otherwise have been able to afford. Of course, if your machines are more efficient, you don't have to hire as many people. So it is very likely that the stimulus money actually caused job losses. Of course, the businesses that got the money are now making high profits as well, for that very reason.
Companies are afraid to invest for several reasons. One is that they have no idea what Obama's health insurance plan is going to cost them. And you never know when the Obama administration will go after a company, prevent a merger (or allow it), etc. Nobody can figure out the rhyme or reason for any of their decisions (mostly because nobody knows exactly who are cronies for the Obama administration -- and note that cronyism isn't unique to the Obama administration, either). This is known as regime uncertainty. Who knows what will happen? Who knows what rules are coming down the pike? Who knows what regulations are coming our way? Best, then, to hunker down and, if anything, pay off debt. Many sensible companies -- and individuals -- are doing just that.
In fact, the fact that many people are preferring to pay down debt rather than spend more money is likely a factor in the economy's sluggish growth.
So investment has slowed, consumption has slowed, and savings too has slowed -- all to pay off debt. In fact, if this family did not have the debt it has, we would be investing, consuming, and saving. We can do none of the above because of both high debt and insufficient income. I have little doubt we are not the only ones in this situation. I have little doubt this is true of businesses and individuals. The only one not acting that way is the government (except the saving part -- they haven't done that for a long, long, long time -- if ever). No, the government is certainly spending -- and their "investments" do nothing more than distort the markets, making recovery take even longer.
I suspect that when people get out of debt, we will see more economic activity in this country. But that has to take place first. It probably wouldn't hurt if companies felt less uncertain about the future as well.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Thoughts on "Politics" by W. B. Yeats
Politics
'In our time the destiny of man presents its meaning in political terms.' -- Thomas Mann
How can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman or on Russian
Or on Spanish politics?
Yet here's a travelled man that knows
What he talks about,
And there's a politician
That has read and thought,
And maybe what they say is true
Of war and war's alarms,
But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms!
This poem was of course written during the rise of Communism and its identical cousin Fascism -- we see references to Italian Fascism/Mussolini, Soviet Communism/Stalin, and Spanish Fascism/Franco. It seems odd that he fails to mention the most obvious hyperpolitical country, Nazi Germany -- except that Germany is in fact mentioned in the Mann quote. (A terrible thing for Mann to thus represent Nazi Germany, especially considering Mann's own work from that period, Dr. Faustus -- but the quote is exactly right for the poem, and is a proper sign of the times.) That was a time when politics dominated the world, more so than anything else. Fascism and Communism were supposedly about economics, but were in fact all about politics -- they were economics politicized and, in Germany, race politicized.
And here we are now, with so much of America politicized. Race, gender, economics -- all are politicized. Is that not a danger? Is not Yeats pointing out this danger? And what is politics in this sense? What is it compared to what is really important (what Yeats points out, the love of someone else -- love! the opposite of politics!).
Yet, man is a political animal, is he not? Well, there is politics in the sense of the social games we necessarily play in order to live together, and there is politics in the sense of power held over others. The two are different things, even as they are not unrelated. But when the latter sense overwhelms, takes over a society, we end up with the kinds of dangerous, ugly regimes as we saw in the first half of the 20th century. Why, then, do we turn toward such hyperpoliticization ourselves? Is it, as it was with Fascism in Europe, the nihilistic result of the collapse of the welfare state?
Do not mistake me: I am not claiming we are Nazifying America or some such. There are indications that we are fighting exactly those fascist tendencies that seem to naturally arise in such situations as we find ourselves in. But in waging that fight, many are becoming politicized as well who never were before. As such, they threaten those who want to keep power, who are promising that the government will save them, if only we give more and more police and economic power over to the government. And thus we all become ever-more politicized. As such, those of us who just want to be left alone are dragged into the fray, made what we hate in our politicization. Politicization fractionalizes, we are made into Us and Them -- we are tribalized, and morality thus degrades. That is the end result of this kind of politicization. This is the great evil of such politics.
The world (or is it just the U.S.? -- which seems to be the world when you are a citizen of the U.S., considering the news coverage) is increasingly imbalanced in the way it was during the Great Depression. Where are we headed? Do we have the wherewithal to resist it again?
The world needs more than just politics. When we overbalance toward politics, we fall into evil, as that is the necessary outcome of pure power-seeking that constitutes the political. We need aesthetics/beauty. We need economics/wealth. We need science/truth. We need philanthropy/gift-giving. We need education/knowledge. We need religion/philosophy/wisdom. We need them all in equal measure, balancing each other out. Only thus can politics find its proper place, proper balance, and become a realm of justice rather than power (which uses the rhetoric of justice for unjust means).
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Potential Openings for Literary Theorists
I am currently reading The Art of Immersion by Frank Rose, and I cannot recommend it highly enough for those into stories, games, and the internet. It has inspired me to write Googling Facebook, a blog novel.
However, what caught my attention most recently was the observation that
Actually, this sounds like the job of the literary critic -- it ought to be the job of a literary critic. In theory, isn't that what literary theorists are supposed to be able to do? Someone who is well versed in traditional stories, particularly epics, ancient plays, and mythology -- that is, someone in tune with the species' deep knowledge and emotional connections -- would be able to do precisely the job descried above. I wonder if that has occurred to anyone. If it hasn't, places like Starlight Runner Entertainment are missing out on where the talent for what Gomez described really lies -- and literary theorists are missing out on a lucrative new opening in their field. Many, I am sure, would think it below them to work in such an industry, but many won't. I'm sure not one of them. What could be better than to have a great job doing what you love? Who cares if it's not in a university?
However, what caught my attention most recently was the observation that
In too many cases--Star Wars being an obvious exception--the producers of a movie or a television show or a video game haven't plumbed their story deeply enough even to identify its message, much less whatever underlying myth it may embody. "So the message changes and the audience becomes frustrated," he [Jeff Gomez of Starlight Runner Entertainment] went on. "It's out job to figure that out. And to do that you have to crack the IP"--the intellectual property, the core of the story. "That means immersing ourselves in it and figuring out what makes it timeless and relevant. There's an aha! moment that's very specific to each property. It's the moment when I've found the true emotional connection."
Actually, this sounds like the job of the literary critic -- it ought to be the job of a literary critic. In theory, isn't that what literary theorists are supposed to be able to do? Someone who is well versed in traditional stories, particularly epics, ancient plays, and mythology -- that is, someone in tune with the species' deep knowledge and emotional connections -- would be able to do precisely the job descried above. I wonder if that has occurred to anyone. If it hasn't, places like Starlight Runner Entertainment are missing out on where the talent for what Gomez described really lies -- and literary theorists are missing out on a lucrative new opening in their field. Many, I am sure, would think it below them to work in such an industry, but many won't. I'm sure not one of them. What could be better than to have a great job doing what you love? Who cares if it's not in a university?
Monday, August 22, 2011
Credit in Education
I have been thinking about higher education as a spontaneous order for an upcoming colloquium on that topic. One of the things I have been thinking about is the nature of the "currency" in the educational order. In science we have reputation, in democracy we have votes, and in economics we have, of course, money. What is it in education that would be equivalent? The knee-jerk reaction would of course be that it is "grades." But this isn't true. Schools aren't graded, and grades do not transfer directly. No, the currency of education is "credit." You can sign up for a 1 or 3 or even 5 credit course, and the grades are distributed by credit. It is more important to have an A in your 5 credit cell biology and lab course than your 1 credit intro. to chemistry lab. Further, colleges are "accredited." They, too, receive credit -- though theirs is typically from a central accrediting authority in the state the college is in.
Of course, the analogy of credits to other forms of currency, particularly money, is not perfect. In colleges, the credit transfer is one way -- from teacher to student. The same is true of accreditation -- from the accreditation board to the college. These credits are not transferable from person to person, but only from college to college -- thus they are really institutional. When you graduate, nobody cares about the number of credits you have, only that you have a degree and what major and minor you had. Of course, it is the credits which "purchase" the degree -- and the major and the minor.
Once we understand the nature of the currency of education as credit, we can begin to suggest ways of reforming higher education that would benefit students the most. I have discussed Arnold Kling's solution to credit and accreditation here. One of the benefits of outsourcing -- really, creating a new institution -- credits is that students would no longer seek out the "easy" professor, but would begin to seek out the best teacher. The best teachers would of course be those who can best communicate complicated or complex ideas in a way that students can best understand it. If professors were paid according to the number of students who showed up under this new way of getting credits, there would be an incentive to be a good teacher.
Now, there are those who would no doubt object that such a way of paying professors would encourage lots of English Composition classes, which everyone needs, and discourage those such as senior-level classes on epic literature in the 20th century. The solution is simple enough: to pay more per student for higher level courses than for lower level ones. There would still be a difference in pay, but in essence the professor would end up having to pay a little to offer a course he loves without being outright punished for it. Thus, we encourage professors to pick up the lower-level classes, but do not punish them for offering more advanced classes. And the students would be able to vote for who is the best professor with their dollars, while the new way of giving credits would discourage teachers from being too easy.
Of course, I don't think the outside creditor should be the only source. There should still be homework, etc. in classes. And that should count. The solution to that is for the grades to count if the student passes the creditor final test or essay. Thus, the credit is transformed into a grade. I would then further suggest that the grades be turned into credit themselves. For example, one could have a system where for a 3 credit course, an A gets you 3, a B gets you 2, a C gets you 1, a D gets you 0.5, and of course an F gets you 0 credits. This would alter the number of credits one gets, and make students have to take more classes in a field they have not done well in, thus increasing their knowledge (which is, after all, supposed to be the goal of education). So if you are supposed to have 9 hrs in a social studies area, and you got an A in all three 3 hr classes, you are good to go. But if you got a B in your classes, you would have to take 5 classes to reach the maximum hours. And if you got a C in your classes, you would have to take 9 classes. (Keeping in mind that mixed grades are more likely.) This, too, would encourage students to study harder to get higher grades. Again, this is in combination with Kling's idea for giving credits.
I think there is little doubt that these few changes would have significant consequences on higher education and the way it is done. And I think they would be mostly positive for education as a whole, particularly in helping students to actually achieve what education is supposed to be about: gaining knowledge. The goal for education should be gaining knowledge, not gaining credit. The latter should only be a means to facilitate the former.
Of course, the analogy of credits to other forms of currency, particularly money, is not perfect. In colleges, the credit transfer is one way -- from teacher to student. The same is true of accreditation -- from the accreditation board to the college. These credits are not transferable from person to person, but only from college to college -- thus they are really institutional. When you graduate, nobody cares about the number of credits you have, only that you have a degree and what major and minor you had. Of course, it is the credits which "purchase" the degree -- and the major and the minor.
Once we understand the nature of the currency of education as credit, we can begin to suggest ways of reforming higher education that would benefit students the most. I have discussed Arnold Kling's solution to credit and accreditation here. One of the benefits of outsourcing -- really, creating a new institution -- credits is that students would no longer seek out the "easy" professor, but would begin to seek out the best teacher. The best teachers would of course be those who can best communicate complicated or complex ideas in a way that students can best understand it. If professors were paid according to the number of students who showed up under this new way of getting credits, there would be an incentive to be a good teacher.
Now, there are those who would no doubt object that such a way of paying professors would encourage lots of English Composition classes, which everyone needs, and discourage those such as senior-level classes on epic literature in the 20th century. The solution is simple enough: to pay more per student for higher level courses than for lower level ones. There would still be a difference in pay, but in essence the professor would end up having to pay a little to offer a course he loves without being outright punished for it. Thus, we encourage professors to pick up the lower-level classes, but do not punish them for offering more advanced classes. And the students would be able to vote for who is the best professor with their dollars, while the new way of giving credits would discourage teachers from being too easy.
Of course, I don't think the outside creditor should be the only source. There should still be homework, etc. in classes. And that should count. The solution to that is for the grades to count if the student passes the creditor final test or essay. Thus, the credit is transformed into a grade. I would then further suggest that the grades be turned into credit themselves. For example, one could have a system where for a 3 credit course, an A gets you 3, a B gets you 2, a C gets you 1, a D gets you 0.5, and of course an F gets you 0 credits. This would alter the number of credits one gets, and make students have to take more classes in a field they have not done well in, thus increasing their knowledge (which is, after all, supposed to be the goal of education). So if you are supposed to have 9 hrs in a social studies area, and you got an A in all three 3 hr classes, you are good to go. But if you got a B in your classes, you would have to take 5 classes to reach the maximum hours. And if you got a C in your classes, you would have to take 9 classes. (Keeping in mind that mixed grades are more likely.) This, too, would encourage students to study harder to get higher grades. Again, this is in combination with Kling's idea for giving credits.
I think there is little doubt that these few changes would have significant consequences on higher education and the way it is done. And I think they would be mostly positive for education as a whole, particularly in helping students to actually achieve what education is supposed to be about: gaining knowledge. The goal for education should be gaining knowledge, not gaining credit. The latter should only be a means to facilitate the former.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Howard Schultz: Brave or Naive?
I hope Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, understands what he's bringing on himself by calling for a campaign donation boycott. He is apparently naive enough to believe that such donations are in fact voluntary. Under crony capitalism, one does not get to choose whether or not one is one of the cronies. You may rest assured that anti-trust proceedings or some sort of investigation by the justice department will take place rather soon. There is an example to be made here, and you may rest assured it will be made.
If and when it happens, will people's eyes finally be opened as to what the real situation is in this country?
If and when it happens, will people's eyes finally be opened as to what the real situation is in this country?
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Online Novel
I have an idea for an online novel. I will keep you, my dear readers, informed when it comes to fruition. It will be something like an episodic-epistolary novel. I just need my characters and a foundation from which to build.
Sunday, August 07, 2011
The Revolution in Education is Afoot
Alex Tabarrok over at Marginal Revolution discusses the coming education revolution, where he also mentions Arnold Kling's "A Means A." I am increasingly convinced my idea about free-lance professors is an idea of its time.
Tabarrok mentions the issue of teaching inequality -- with the range from average adjuncts to superstar lecturers. There is no getting out of this. In fact, it is a natural result of distribution of talents (of teachers as well as students). I think free-lance professors would actually help in this filtering process, as the students would decide who the superstars are, rather than universities pre-selecting possible superstars.
To cite Metafilter (cited by Tabarrok):
Either way you look at it, 10,000 students is amazing. The revolution is afoot.
Tabarrok mentions the issue of teaching inequality -- with the range from average adjuncts to superstar lecturers. There is no getting out of this. In fact, it is a natural result of distribution of talents (of teachers as well as students). I think free-lance professors would actually help in this filtering process, as the students would decide who the superstars are, rather than universities pre-selecting possible superstars.
To cite Metafilter (cited by Tabarrok):
Stanford’s ‘Introduction to Artificial Intelligence’ course will be offered free to anyone online this fall. The course will be taught by SebastianThrun (Stanford) and PeterNorvig (Google, Director of Research), who expect to deal with the historically large course size using tools like Google Moderator.
There will two 75 min lectures per week, weekly graded homework assignments and quizzes, and the course is expected to require roughly 10 hours per week. Over 10,000 students have already signed up.
Either way you look at it, 10,000 students is amazing. The revolution is afoot.
Saturday, August 06, 2011
A Means A
After posting about the idea of free lance professors, I had a lot of blowback about problems of credibility, etc. Well, it seems that Arnold Kling has solved the problem.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Negative Externalities and Government
Statist thinking is lazy thinking. The solution to everything: have the government do it. Libertarian thinking is much more difficult (which is probably why few people do it). First, assume anarchy. Then, figure out what institutional arrangements will emerge to replace the state apparatus.
For example, when faced with the issue of pollution as a negative externality, too many immediately assume the government should solve the problem. Ignoring all the problems of governments as the main polluters in the history of the world and of corruption, let us look at what may be a better solution even if we assume the government is able to do what is good for the sake of doing good.
FIrst, you have to face the fact that there is a problem with externalities because of the fact of the subjectivity of values. The same amount of pollution will have a high negative externality for one, a low negative externality for another, and a positive externality for yet another. If a certain amount of pollution bother you more than it bothers me, by all means, feel free to sue -- but don't sue on my behalf, or pretend that you are doing me a favor when I could care less. When you do that, you are attempting to impose your values on me.
There is a perfectly reasonable solution that has nothing to do with government imposing its values on everyone. I do not think the government is the only answer, or the best answer, to solve the problem. It is possible to solve the problem of negative externalities through the use of lawsuits. If you have a person who is convinced that your pollution is imposing on his property rights, then he can certainly sue for damages -- and he should get those damages. I am against government restrictions on lawsuits precisely because they (purposefully?) undermine this process. The role of lawsuits is to reduce negative externamities and to create a real cost on errors. The only laws you have to have in place for this system to work are those protecting property rights and making the initiation of force and fraud illegal. With those in place, and a legal system that respects equality under the law, and you have the solution to negative externalities without having a bunch of do-gooders more interested in power than actually doing good foisting their values on everyone else. You may not be able to completely do away with the incursion of others' values on yourself and others, but you can certainly minimize it by getting government out of the business of imposing values and replacing it with the above system.
For example, when faced with the issue of pollution as a negative externality, too many immediately assume the government should solve the problem. Ignoring all the problems of governments as the main polluters in the history of the world and of corruption, let us look at what may be a better solution even if we assume the government is able to do what is good for the sake of doing good.
FIrst, you have to face the fact that there is a problem with externalities because of the fact of the subjectivity of values. The same amount of pollution will have a high negative externality for one, a low negative externality for another, and a positive externality for yet another. If a certain amount of pollution bother you more than it bothers me, by all means, feel free to sue -- but don't sue on my behalf, or pretend that you are doing me a favor when I could care less. When you do that, you are attempting to impose your values on me.
There is a perfectly reasonable solution that has nothing to do with government imposing its values on everyone. I do not think the government is the only answer, or the best answer, to solve the problem. It is possible to solve the problem of negative externalities through the use of lawsuits. If you have a person who is convinced that your pollution is imposing on his property rights, then he can certainly sue for damages -- and he should get those damages. I am against government restrictions on lawsuits precisely because they (purposefully?) undermine this process. The role of lawsuits is to reduce negative externamities and to create a real cost on errors. The only laws you have to have in place for this system to work are those protecting property rights and making the initiation of force and fraud illegal. With those in place, and a legal system that respects equality under the law, and you have the solution to negative externalities without having a bunch of do-gooders more interested in power than actually doing good foisting their values on everyone else. You may not be able to completely do away with the incursion of others' values on yourself and others, but you can certainly minimize it by getting government out of the business of imposing values and replacing it with the above system.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Two Projects Down
I have just finished the final draft of my paper "Getting to the Hayekian Network" and the first draft of "The Far From Equilibrium City," each for different editions of Advances in Austrian Economics. I have enough time to read the first one a few more times, and enough time to read the second one once, before I send them out, but the hard work on each is done!
Now I just have to work on my paper on theatres as institutions in overlapping spontaneous orders for a Fund for the Study of Spontaneous Orders conference, a paper on education as a spontaneous order for a FSSO colloquium, and a paper on Sophocles' Antigone for a conference on free markets and education. And in my spare time, I'm also writing a play. "President Faust," anyone?
Now I just have to work on my paper on theatres as institutions in overlapping spontaneous orders for a Fund for the Study of Spontaneous Orders conference, a paper on education as a spontaneous order for a FSSO colloquium, and a paper on Sophocles' Antigone for a conference on free markets and education. And in my spare time, I'm also writing a play. "President Faust," anyone?
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Poetry Contest Winner
Congratulations to the winner of the Austrian Economics and Literature poetry contest, Stephanie Herman, for her poem "Ode to the Labor Theory of Value".
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Poetry Contest Error
I made an error in my email address on the poetry contest. It should have been:
zatavu1@aol.com
Since it is likely others have tried and failed with that email address, I am extending the contest until Saturday, July 9 (just to make it the end of the week).
zatavu1@aol.com
Since it is likely others have tried and failed with that email address, I am extending the contest until Saturday, July 9 (just to make it the end of the week).
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Today is My Birthday
Happy Birthday to Me! :-)
Free day! Discuss what you want!
And as a present for me, get 5 of your friends to come read the blog!
Free day! Discuss what you want!
And as a present for me, get 5 of your friends to come read the blog!
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Steve Horwitz on Excellence
Here is an excellent piece by Steve Horwitz on excellence.
One of the claims I have actually heard against the market is that it doesn't reward excellence. As Horwitz observes, this is simply not true. In the market it is up to the individual to discover his or her own excellence, whether they are born with it or need to develop it -- or, more likely, both. Outside of the market, you have to rely on others to discover and help you develop your excellence. Such top-down discovery methods are going to overlook the vast majority of people and their talents.
Why were there so many more poets during and after the Renaissance than before? It was because the Guttenberg press democratized publishing and, thus, writing. Prior to the Renaissance, you had to have a patron to be able to write poetry. Copies had to be made by scribes, which was a time-consuming, costly process. All of this had to be supported by rich patrons. But once the printing press was invented, more and more people could write and get their works copied at much lower costs. Thus, the number of poets blossomed. Sure, the number of scribes decreased dramatically. But which would you prefer: a culture full of great scribes, or a culture full of great poets? It is clear which the market chose. Creative talent was chosen over mechanical skill. Calligraphy now mostly survives as a hobby and a craft.
Of course, Horwitz makes a point that it is not just the artists (or great sports figures) who demonstrate excellence. A gardener who takes pride in the fact that the grass is even across the lawn and the edges are trimmed to perfection demonstrates excellence -- and will likely be rewarded for it. A trucker who drives safely and gets everything he ships there on time or early demonstrates excellence. A teacher who gets her students to learn and does not destroy the love for learning of those who came in loving to learn, and who teaches those who don't care about learning to love to learn demonstrates excellence. It is the market which rewards excellence. We hear complaints about teachers and not short order cooks precisely because if the later consistently do a horrible job, they will get fired, while in our government-controlled schools, nothing bad will happen at all. Thus, excellence is not rewarded, but undermined. The results are predictable.
One of the claims I have actually heard against the market is that it doesn't reward excellence. As Horwitz observes, this is simply not true. In the market it is up to the individual to discover his or her own excellence, whether they are born with it or need to develop it -- or, more likely, both. Outside of the market, you have to rely on others to discover and help you develop your excellence. Such top-down discovery methods are going to overlook the vast majority of people and their talents.
Why were there so many more poets during and after the Renaissance than before? It was because the Guttenberg press democratized publishing and, thus, writing. Prior to the Renaissance, you had to have a patron to be able to write poetry. Copies had to be made by scribes, which was a time-consuming, costly process. All of this had to be supported by rich patrons. But once the printing press was invented, more and more people could write and get their works copied at much lower costs. Thus, the number of poets blossomed. Sure, the number of scribes decreased dramatically. But which would you prefer: a culture full of great scribes, or a culture full of great poets? It is clear which the market chose. Creative talent was chosen over mechanical skill. Calligraphy now mostly survives as a hobby and a craft.
Of course, Horwitz makes a point that it is not just the artists (or great sports figures) who demonstrate excellence. A gardener who takes pride in the fact that the grass is even across the lawn and the edges are trimmed to perfection demonstrates excellence -- and will likely be rewarded for it. A trucker who drives safely and gets everything he ships there on time or early demonstrates excellence. A teacher who gets her students to learn and does not destroy the love for learning of those who came in loving to learn, and who teaches those who don't care about learning to love to learn demonstrates excellence. It is the market which rewards excellence. We hear complaints about teachers and not short order cooks precisely because if the later consistently do a horrible job, they will get fired, while in our government-controlled schools, nothing bad will happen at all. Thus, excellence is not rewarded, but undermined. The results are predictable.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Stephen Metcalf, Idiot
Apparently this gross example of misinformation is all over the blogosphere. Others have done their jobs of pointing out the endless factual errors. I am going to focus, rather, on this statement:
What libertarian would disagree with this statement. The question is, do these things arise in a libertarian world or from government? Were civil rights imposed from above, or won from the bottom-up against government-imposed laws restricting women and minorities? Were democratic institutions handed down to us from the monarchs they replaced, or did they emerge from the bottom-up, as a new spontaneous order form of government? Is educational capital granted by government, or earned by individuals who decide whether or not they want to learn? Is social trust created through more policing and the creation of orderly neighborhoods by government planners, or do they emerge as Jane Jacobs described, spontaneously in complex neighborhoods that emerged naturally, without government interference in the growth process? Is consumer choice dictated by government, or created through market competition? Does government create economic opportunity by taxing companies and interfering in pricing and production, or does the free market create economic opportunity?
Government creates monopoly, thus undermining both economic opportunity and consumer choice. Government subsidizes companies, thus undermining economic opportunity and consumer choice. Government creates barriers to entry in a variety of ways, thus undermining economic opportunity and consumer choice. If he wants these things, he should support the free market, meaning libertarianism. If he wants social trust, he will help us get rid of the laws that undermine it. If he wants to increase educational capital, then he will work to ensure people are getting a real education rather than supporting a system that creates an education bubble that will burst, wreck havoc, and which undermines true learning. If he wants democratic institutions and civil rights, he will work to get rid of those laws that undermine and violate them. But I suspect he doesn't want to do any of that. Which means, he doesn't actually want any of those things. They are slogans to him, and nothing more.
Metcalf is an idiot.
When I think with my own brain and look with my own eyes, it's obvious to me that some combination of civil rights, democratic institutions, educational capital, social trust, consumer choice, and economic opportunity make me free.
What libertarian would disagree with this statement. The question is, do these things arise in a libertarian world or from government? Were civil rights imposed from above, or won from the bottom-up against government-imposed laws restricting women and minorities? Were democratic institutions handed down to us from the monarchs they replaced, or did they emerge from the bottom-up, as a new spontaneous order form of government? Is educational capital granted by government, or earned by individuals who decide whether or not they want to learn? Is social trust created through more policing and the creation of orderly neighborhoods by government planners, or do they emerge as Jane Jacobs described, spontaneously in complex neighborhoods that emerged naturally, without government interference in the growth process? Is consumer choice dictated by government, or created through market competition? Does government create economic opportunity by taxing companies and interfering in pricing and production, or does the free market create economic opportunity?
Government creates monopoly, thus undermining both economic opportunity and consumer choice. Government subsidizes companies, thus undermining economic opportunity and consumer choice. Government creates barriers to entry in a variety of ways, thus undermining economic opportunity and consumer choice. If he wants these things, he should support the free market, meaning libertarianism. If he wants social trust, he will help us get rid of the laws that undermine it. If he wants to increase educational capital, then he will work to ensure people are getting a real education rather than supporting a system that creates an education bubble that will burst, wreck havoc, and which undermines true learning. If he wants democratic institutions and civil rights, he will work to get rid of those laws that undermine and violate them. But I suspect he doesn't want to do any of that. Which means, he doesn't actually want any of those things. They are slogans to him, and nothing more.
Metcalf is an idiot.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Space vs. Time Morality II
Robin Hanson has more on space vs. time morality. He suggests that "far" = "abstract." Of course, one can come up with all sorts of utopian solutions in the abstract -- and commit all sorts of mass murders to realize those utopias, once conceived. This may suggest that there are tragic consequences to attempting to impose one's temporal morals on spatial reality. Such a tragic connection would not have surprised time philosopher J.T. Fraser, who believed that tragic art was the art form that most embodied time in its complex fullness. Nor, do I suspect, this would have surprised another proponent of tragic art: Nietzsche.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
The More, the Merrier (and Wealthier)
Bryan Caplan has an interesting post on network products. A network product is one that improves simply because more people use it. He gives the examples of phones and Facebook, both of which improve the more people there are who use it. He points out that
But wait, a spontaneous order is also a network. Shouldn't any network have this effect? May it not be the case that free markets improve in quality when they expand in size, whether it be through population growth or by more people being included in the market economy? May it not also be the case that the market economy can in fact do more precisely because they expand in size? In other words, for the market economy as a whole, quantity is quality.
How might this help us understand the nature of the market economy as a spontaneous order? Or at least help us understand why and how the market economy necessarily improves life for everyone the more people are involved in it?
He finally concludes that "Quantity Is Quality."
Economists (and people generally) underestimate true economic growth for all expanding network products. When you measure the quality of network products, you can't simply look at them in isolation. You have to measure what you can do with them.
But wait, a spontaneous order is also a network. Shouldn't any network have this effect? May it not be the case that free markets improve in quality when they expand in size, whether it be through population growth or by more people being included in the market economy? May it not also be the case that the market economy can in fact do more precisely because they expand in size? In other words, for the market economy as a whole, quantity is quality.
How might this help us understand the nature of the market economy as a spontaneous order? Or at least help us understand why and how the market economy necessarily improves life for everyone the more people are involved in it?
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
The Resurrection of a Saleman
I cannot tell you how long it has been since I have seen door to door salesmen. I haven't seen any almost all my adult life, and I have lived in this house I am living in for over 4 years now, and this Spring was the first I have seen any.
Today I had a meat salesman come by (all overpriced, but made reasonable when the price was cut by half and some chicken tenders thrown in), and recently I had a man try to sell us on a different home security system (we kept our original one after we got an upgrade from them, since the monthly price was cheaper with the one we had). We sometimes get different electric companies come by as well.
It seems strange that door to door salesmen have reappeared on the scene. Is this a reflection of the economic situation? If people won't go out to buy anything, the companies will start coming to us? It is an interesting reversion to an older way of selling. I would be curious to hear what others think, if they have experienced anything like this too, and what this may say about the economic conditions.
Today I had a meat salesman come by (all overpriced, but made reasonable when the price was cut by half and some chicken tenders thrown in), and recently I had a man try to sell us on a different home security system (we kept our original one after we got an upgrade from them, since the monthly price was cheaper with the one we had). We sometimes get different electric companies come by as well.
It seems strange that door to door salesmen have reappeared on the scene. Is this a reflection of the economic situation? If people won't go out to buy anything, the companies will start coming to us? It is an interesting reversion to an older way of selling. I would be curious to hear what others think, if they have experienced anything like this too, and what this may say about the economic conditions.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Did Detroit Die Because of Population Growth?
I am reading The Spatial Economy by Fujita, Krugman, and Venables, and they point out that a country's population growth can result in a city becoming depopulated. That seems counterintuitive, but it actually makes sense if you understand what is going on.
In a low population country, it makes sense for manufacturing to be in a single city. Make everything there and ship it out to the rest of the country. But as the population increases and becomes denser, it makes sense to distribute your companies around the country, since shipping costs are thus made cheaper.
Consider Detroit. It made sense to make all the cars in Detroit because of increasing returns and because it was close to the rust belt, where iron and steel was being made. However, as the population increased, it made more and more sense to build factories elsewhere. This, in combination with competition from foreign car makers (who eventually began making their cars in the U.S. as well), redistributed auto manufacturing from Detroit through the rest of the country (and world). Thus, Detroit became depopulated as the main jobs disappeared.
In other words, simple population increase can explain the depopulation of Detroit. You cannot hold the economy still. And many things contribute to patterns of manufacturing.
In a low population country, it makes sense for manufacturing to be in a single city. Make everything there and ship it out to the rest of the country. But as the population increases and becomes denser, it makes sense to distribute your companies around the country, since shipping costs are thus made cheaper.
Consider Detroit. It made sense to make all the cars in Detroit because of increasing returns and because it was close to the rust belt, where iron and steel was being made. However, as the population increased, it made more and more sense to build factories elsewhere. This, in combination with competition from foreign car makers (who eventually began making their cars in the U.S. as well), redistributed auto manufacturing from Detroit through the rest of the country (and world). Thus, Detroit became depopulated as the main jobs disappeared.
In other words, simple population increase can explain the depopulation of Detroit. You cannot hold the economy still. And many things contribute to patterns of manufacturing.
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Space, Time, Morality
Robin Hanson and Katja Grace propose an extremely interesting idea that I will have to spend a great deal more time thinking about. Read it, then consider:
Do you subscribe to time morality or space morality?
What about space-time morality?
Do you subscribe to time morality or space morality?
What about space-time morality?
I'm In Disequilibrium
an equilibrium situation is one in which individual plans are fully coordinated. Each plan can be successfully executed. Means are exactly matched to ends. (Peter Lewin, Capital In Disequilibrium)
If this is the definition of equilibrium (which he derives from Hayek's definition), then I have never once found myself in a situation one could define as equilibrium.
Monday, June 06, 2011
The Atavists – A Didactic Poem
The Atavists – A Didactic Poem
You think you are so radical
When you’re in fact inert
Your positives are negatives
And you’ll one day revert
To what you have rebelled against
Conservative you are
Embracing childhood protection
So you won’t reach too far
Nor feel the pressure to achieve
While others reach the peak
Their energy creating more
Then you could ever seek
You say you break things to make bonds
Among your fellow men
But bonds are broken everywhere
Your selfish hands have been
You play at being radical
But when the time has come
To make the world a better place
You’re deaf and blind and dumb
You think you are so radical
When you’re in fact inert
Your positives are negatives
And you’ll one day revert
To what you have rebelled against
Conservative you are
Embracing childhood protection
So you won’t reach too far
Nor feel the pressure to achieve
While others reach the peak
Their energy creating more
Then you could ever seek
You say you break things to make bonds
Among your fellow men
But bonds are broken everywhere
Your selfish hands have been
You play at being radical
But when the time has come
To make the world a better place
You’re deaf and blind and dumb
Friday, June 03, 2011
Nietzsche and Good Economics
Here is a very good piece on Nietzsche and Good Economics. The author uses Nietzsche as Nietzsche intended he be used, using the methods Nietzsche himself used -- though an expansion of and proper use of his metaphors. The criticism of the few places Nietzsche actually discussed economics is apt -- but Nietzsche was a better economist when he wasn't trying to be an economist.
Thursday, June 02, 2011
Free Books
National Academies Press has just put its entire catalog online for free. Three cheers for free knowledge!
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Shame, Honor, and the Spontaneous Orders
Not long ago I wrote on guilt as increasing social cooperation. Well, to this we can include shame and honor. The research discovered that "the threat of shame and promise of honour each increased cooperation by as much as 50 per cent." Frederick Turner pointed out in The Culture of Hope that shame-avoidance is a signature of leftist thinking. These same leftists embrace the individualism developed by the Continental European philosophers that leads to collectivism rather than the true individualism of the Scottish Enlightenment philosophers that sees people as deeply social. Shame and honor are both downplayed by the left -- more, shame is considered a great evil by them. Of course, if shame contributes so social cooperation, then undermining shame results in a reduction in social cooperation. As social cooperation decreases, one begins to need someone to step in to increase such cooperation. The answer for the left is, of course, the government. Which is convenient, since they have since contributed to undermining social cooperation through their helping to eliminate shame from society.
Of course, cooperation is necessary for free markets to work as well. Shame, guilt, and honor all contribute to the conditions necessary for spontaneous orders to emerge, such as free markets, non-profits, and culture. Turner equates shame with beauty. Considering my connection between beauty and spontaneous orders, I am increasingly convinced he is correct.
Of course, cooperation is necessary for free markets to work as well. Shame, guilt, and honor all contribute to the conditions necessary for spontaneous orders to emerge, such as free markets, non-profits, and culture. Turner equates shame with beauty. Considering my connection between beauty and spontaneous orders, I am increasingly convinced he is correct.
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