Krugman is off saying silly things again:
"Look, the Austrian/Ron Paul types made some very strong predictions about inflation — and rightly, given their model of how the world works. In their version of reality, it really isn’t possible to triple the monetary base without dire effects on the price level. In my version of reality, of course, that’s not only possible but what the model predicts in a liquidity trap."
Apparently Krugman does not take several things into consideration in his model.
The first thing one should consider is that, in a recession, there is real deflation. That means that monetary inflation is of course going to be partially offset by that deflation. Krugman should know that. And, of course, he does. This is the entire basis of his argument. It may account for the small trickle of money that has actually entered the economy, but certainly not all of it.
Krugman forgets two other facts. The second thing one should consider is that the banks are not releasing the created money into the economy, but are sitting on it. They are waiting for better lending conditions before the lend the money they have. Bernanke is hoping he can get all that money back before that happens. I wouldn't hold my breath. Finally, third, there is the fact that money doesn't go into the economy equally, but rather enters it in one or two places. Like housing -- which is what happened last time, and helped create the housing bubble. Where is the money entering now? Look for one or two sectors where there is inflation -- that's likely to be your entry point. Inflation spreads from there.
So, considering all three things are in play, we shouldn't be surprised we don't see inflation yet. Yet. Of course, Austrian economics helps us understand the second and third points are in play -- points Krugman is apparently ignorant of. Which is why his analysis is way off.
Once the economy does get going -- if it is allowed to get going through all the continued distortions going on, all of which Krugman approves -- we will see that inflation the Austrians and Ron Paul have been predicting. I am sure Krugman will have some other explanation for it when it comes, though.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Why Your Boss Cannot Coerce You in a Free Market
I have often heard opponents of free markets argue that, like government, which is necessarily coercive, that free markets are coercive as well. They point to things like bosses firing employees as being an example of this. But is a boss firing -- or threatening to fire -- an employee truly coercive?
In a free market, "if you do something good for me, I will do something good for you." In government, which, as noted, is necessarily coercive, "unless you do something good for me, I will do something bad to you." This is the very nature of policing and the military. It is the very nature of taxation.
And what of the boss threatening to fire an employee. Well, that is a case of "If you cease to do something good for me, I will cease to do something good for you." This is NOT the same as "unless you do something good for me, I'll do something bad to you." People think they are the same, and thus free markets are coercive, but they are not. Those are completely different kinds of relationships.
Threatening to end a relationship is not the same as using threats to keep you in one.
In a free market, "if you do something good for me, I will do something good for you." In government, which, as noted, is necessarily coercive, "unless you do something good for me, I will do something bad to you." This is the very nature of policing and the military. It is the very nature of taxation.
And what of the boss threatening to fire an employee. Well, that is a case of "If you cease to do something good for me, I will cease to do something good for you." This is NOT the same as "unless you do something good for me, I'll do something bad to you." People think they are the same, and thus free markets are coercive, but they are not. Those are completely different kinds of relationships.
Threatening to end a relationship is not the same as using threats to keep you in one.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Hayek In Mind: Hayek's Philosophical Psychology
The issue of Advances in Austrian Economics I am in, Hayek in Mind: Hayek's Philosophical Psychology, is now published! You can find it here, where you can download each individual chapter. My chapter, which is titled "Getting to the Hayekian Network", is the final chapter of the book. The book itself can be purchased here. Enjoy!
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Basic Income Guarantee, Negative Income Tax, and Austrian Economics
I was invited to submit a paper for a book on the idea of the Basic Income Guarantee. The editor, Guinevere Liberty Nell, is still working on getting full permission to do the book, but she says things are looking good. In any case, here is the proposal, which has been accepted:
Civil society is made up of a variety of spontaneous orders, including the economic order and the democratic order. Each has its own values and its own ways of communicating information – and different orders can come into conflict with one another. What is good economics may not be good democratically, and vice versa. And this is certainly most clear when dealing with programs that touch on both orders, such as welfare programs. There is a very large amount of literature out there proving that welfare programs are bad, economically. However, welfare programs are still popular democratically. One could just chalk this up to economic ignorance on the part of the populace – or, one could consider the fact that there are values other than those found in and promoted by the market economy, including social values, that people find just as important. When looked at in this manner, a different set of arguments opens up.
Whatever the economic argument are against welfare programs, from the point of view of the democratic order, they are beside the point. If they are beside the point in one sense, because the populace want such programs, it then behooves us to try to figure out what kinds of programs are least economically problematic. It is from this perspective that I will be comparing welfare as currently constituted in the United States, and comparing it to both the idea of a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) and to Milton Friedman’s proposal for a Negative Income Tax (NIT). There were some experiments with NIT during the 1970’s that resulted in it being abandoned as an idea, but I will be considering some problems that would necessarily have to be taken into consideration in analyzing those results. I will also be comparing how such programs could be set up, the costs of such programs, etc., to try to suggest which one would produce the best social results at the cheapest costs. Along these lines, I want to pay particular attention to the unseen elements as much as the seen, as replacing all of our welfare programs with one program is going to affect the nature and extent of the current system in place. What will happen if we can eliminate a significant portion of those working in the welfare bureaucracy at both the public and private levels? The natural assumption is that all of those people will now be laid off, but the fact of the matter is that they will be freed to pursue other economic avenues, which may in fact contribute to economic growth and the creation of even more wealth, now that they are no longer participating in non-wealth-creating activities. One has to look down the road quite a bit to truly understand why a program may be either desirable or undesirable. This is the approach I will be taking in analyzing all three – current welfare, BIG, and NIT.
I am sure my regular readers will be a bit surprised at the above proposal. My answer to them: there's always room for second-best ideas. In any case, I'll be writing this paper as a good scientist investigating the interface of two spontaneous orders rather than as the polemicist I can sometimes be here on my blog. There is and should be room for both in one's life.
Civil society is made up of a variety of spontaneous orders, including the economic order and the democratic order. Each has its own values and its own ways of communicating information – and different orders can come into conflict with one another. What is good economics may not be good democratically, and vice versa. And this is certainly most clear when dealing with programs that touch on both orders, such as welfare programs. There is a very large amount of literature out there proving that welfare programs are bad, economically. However, welfare programs are still popular democratically. One could just chalk this up to economic ignorance on the part of the populace – or, one could consider the fact that there are values other than those found in and promoted by the market economy, including social values, that people find just as important. When looked at in this manner, a different set of arguments opens up.
Whatever the economic argument are against welfare programs, from the point of view of the democratic order, they are beside the point. If they are beside the point in one sense, because the populace want such programs, it then behooves us to try to figure out what kinds of programs are least economically problematic. It is from this perspective that I will be comparing welfare as currently constituted in the United States, and comparing it to both the idea of a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) and to Milton Friedman’s proposal for a Negative Income Tax (NIT). There were some experiments with NIT during the 1970’s that resulted in it being abandoned as an idea, but I will be considering some problems that would necessarily have to be taken into consideration in analyzing those results. I will also be comparing how such programs could be set up, the costs of such programs, etc., to try to suggest which one would produce the best social results at the cheapest costs. Along these lines, I want to pay particular attention to the unseen elements as much as the seen, as replacing all of our welfare programs with one program is going to affect the nature and extent of the current system in place. What will happen if we can eliminate a significant portion of those working in the welfare bureaucracy at both the public and private levels? The natural assumption is that all of those people will now be laid off, but the fact of the matter is that they will be freed to pursue other economic avenues, which may in fact contribute to economic growth and the creation of even more wealth, now that they are no longer participating in non-wealth-creating activities. One has to look down the road quite a bit to truly understand why a program may be either desirable or undesirable. This is the approach I will be taking in analyzing all three – current welfare, BIG, and NIT.
I am sure my regular readers will be a bit surprised at the above proposal. My answer to them: there's always room for second-best ideas. In any case, I'll be writing this paper as a good scientist investigating the interface of two spontaneous orders rather than as the polemicist I can sometimes be here on my blog. There is and should be room for both in one's life.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Why Do People Defend Unjust, Inept, and Corrupt Systems?
Here is an interesting article on why people defend unjust, inept, and corrupt systems. It turns out that there are "four situations that foster system justification: system threat, system dependence, system inescapability, and low personal control." One wonders where ideology comes into play in all this.
Those of us who support spontaneous orders need to consider this: "The less control people feel over their own lives, the more they endorse systems and leaders that offer a sense of order." Often people feel like they do not have much control over their lives in a spontaneous order, like free markets, and thus look toward those who promise "a sense of order," such as welfare statists, interventionists, and even socialists. How do we help foster a sense that we have control over our lives in spontaneous orders? The fact is that we do in fact have more control over our lives in spontaneous order systems than in those ordered by others -- it just does not feel that way. And how it feels matters. What can we do to help people feel more at home, more in charge, in spontaneous order network systems?
Those of us who support spontaneous orders need to consider this: "The less control people feel over their own lives, the more they endorse systems and leaders that offer a sense of order." Often people feel like they do not have much control over their lives in a spontaneous order, like free markets, and thus look toward those who promise "a sense of order," such as welfare statists, interventionists, and even socialists. How do we help foster a sense that we have control over our lives in spontaneous orders? The fact is that we do in fact have more control over our lives in spontaneous order systems than in those ordered by others -- it just does not feel that way. And how it feels matters. What can we do to help people feel more at home, more in charge, in spontaneous order network systems?
Businessmen Do Not Necessarily Understand the Economy
Last night in the Republican debate, Mitt Romney argued that, contra Newt Gingrich, he had spent time in the private sector and, therefore, he understood how the economy works. While I will hardly defend the knowledge of economics held by a historian who spent most of his life in government, the fact that Mitt Romney ran a business does not mean that he understands economics. Indeed, the proclamations of people such as Warren Buffet and Bill Gates on economics proves business people do not necessarily understand how the economy works.
How does this make sense, that someone who can successfully run a business can, nevertheless, be generally ignorant of how an economy works?
The knowledge needed to run an organization such as a firm -- or a government -- is not the same as that needed to understand an ateleological scale-free self-organizing network process. For one, organizations are teleological and have hierarchical network structure. They are designed orders. This may allow a business person to run a government agency -- another teleological, hierarchical, designed organization -- but it hardly argues that they are uniquely positioned to understand the economy qua economy. It is likely they know what business people would like to happen, but what business people would like to happen is good for their businesses, but not necessarily for the economy per se. This argues that Mitt Romney would be good for crony capitalism or mercantilism, but not necessarily for the spontaneous order economy.
The problem is that the skills needed to know how to run a good organization are not the same skills needed to understand how an economy works, including what to do (or not to do) to ensure one has a long-term healthy economy. Contrariwise, one who understands the working of an economy is not necessarily in the position to run the government organization -- which includes, of course, knowing what it can and cannot do, what it should and should not do.
This can be solved if one were to get a politician who is able to run an organization and also has the wisdom to understand that he does not understand how the economy works, and hires good economists as advisors to make up for that shortcoming. But note that knowing one is ignorant requires wisdom (is wisdom, according to Socrates), and there are few who are both arrogant enough to run for office and humble enough to admit ignorance. Things are worse yet if you have someone who has been in business, because they are even more certain they understand how the economy works.
How does this make sense, that someone who can successfully run a business can, nevertheless, be generally ignorant of how an economy works?
The knowledge needed to run an organization such as a firm -- or a government -- is not the same as that needed to understand an ateleological scale-free self-organizing network process. For one, organizations are teleological and have hierarchical network structure. They are designed orders. This may allow a business person to run a government agency -- another teleological, hierarchical, designed organization -- but it hardly argues that they are uniquely positioned to understand the economy qua economy. It is likely they know what business people would like to happen, but what business people would like to happen is good for their businesses, but not necessarily for the economy per se. This argues that Mitt Romney would be good for crony capitalism or mercantilism, but not necessarily for the spontaneous order economy.
The problem is that the skills needed to know how to run a good organization are not the same skills needed to understand how an economy works, including what to do (or not to do) to ensure one has a long-term healthy economy. Contrariwise, one who understands the working of an economy is not necessarily in the position to run the government organization -- which includes, of course, knowing what it can and cannot do, what it should and should not do.
This can be solved if one were to get a politician who is able to run an organization and also has the wisdom to understand that he does not understand how the economy works, and hires good economists as advisors to make up for that shortcoming. But note that knowing one is ignorant requires wisdom (is wisdom, according to Socrates), and there are few who are both arrogant enough to run for office and humble enough to admit ignorance. Things are worse yet if you have someone who has been in business, because they are even more certain they understand how the economy works.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Spontaneous Order Auto Design
The future of design is crowdsourcing -- another word for "spontaneous order" -- as we can see in this story on Local Motors. Of course, of equal note is the brilliant way they have managed to get around all of the laws that make new car companies impossible to start: if you want it, you have to come help build it, so it can be considered a "kit car."
Agglomeration economy theory could easily be used to explain why there are only a few, very large auto makers in the U.S. -- and the world -- but one should also wonder at the costs imposed by regulations, too, which ensure that only the auto makers already in existence can afford to make automobiles. If auto production were truly a self-organizing system, you would expect to see a power law distribution of auto makers -- many small ones, a medium number of medium-sized ones, and a small number of large ones. Of course, if we consider parts makers as part of this -- as one should -- one should expect them to add to the variety. Probably the auto industry, this broadly conceived, comes a bit closer -- but the industry is still unhealthy from a self-organizing process point of view.
One would expect to see auto parts producers supplying small, local auto makers and inventors. The broader distribution of auto makers would drive innovation, and there may even be a viable electric car by now -- or something even better. But because our laws have resulted in the centralization of the auto industry into a few well-protected crony companies, innovation is slow at best.
The good news is that Local Motors exists, and they are using spontaneous order theory to design their automobiles. Competition is a discovery procedure. Our auto companies need more competition so we can discover better ways of making automobiles.
Agglomeration economy theory could easily be used to explain why there are only a few, very large auto makers in the U.S. -- and the world -- but one should also wonder at the costs imposed by regulations, too, which ensure that only the auto makers already in existence can afford to make automobiles. If auto production were truly a self-organizing system, you would expect to see a power law distribution of auto makers -- many small ones, a medium number of medium-sized ones, and a small number of large ones. Of course, if we consider parts makers as part of this -- as one should -- one should expect them to add to the variety. Probably the auto industry, this broadly conceived, comes a bit closer -- but the industry is still unhealthy from a self-organizing process point of view.
One would expect to see auto parts producers supplying small, local auto makers and inventors. The broader distribution of auto makers would drive innovation, and there may even be a viable electric car by now -- or something even better. But because our laws have resulted in the centralization of the auto industry into a few well-protected crony companies, innovation is slow at best.
The good news is that Local Motors exists, and they are using spontaneous order theory to design their automobiles. Competition is a discovery procedure. Our auto companies need more competition so we can discover better ways of making automobiles.
Thursday, December 08, 2011
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
More on Hayek as Macroeconomist
My posting below seems to be pretty popular. I even managed to get a posting over at Cafe Hayek.
Things That Never Happened In The History of Phlogiston
Mikhail Lomonosov is not an important figure in the history of phlogiston.
These days, you constantly see articles that make it seem as if there was a great debate in the 1700s between Robert Boyle and Lomonosov, and that this debate has continued through the generations. Nothing like this happened. Lomonosov essentially made a fool of himself early in the 1750's, and his ideas vanished from the professional discussion.
The above may sound familiar if you have read Krugman's critique of Hayek's place in the history of macroeconomics. As Mario Rizzo observes, this is almost entirely beside the point, since Hayek in many ways outright rejected macroeconomics. As well he should. It's equivalent to phlogiston theory -- and just as unneeded.
Actually, it is Brad DeLong who put it in such a way that his position can actually be critiqued:
The first thing it suggests is that the macroeconomics mythology he believes in blinds him to the world's reality. There are underlying mechanisms to larger economic patterns. If you don't understand those, you can't understand the larger patterns. DeLong and Krugman (though I know Krugman should know better) are like doctors who think that one can completely understand a patient without understanding that there are organs, tissues, and cells one needs to understand first to understand how the person works at these levels. They take the temperature, find a fever, and recommend bleeding and leeches. Or, to switch analogies, they are the Lysenkos of economics, thinking the social is the important thing, and not the underlying individual's behaviors.
Little do they understand, their macroeconomics is doomed for extinction. It is headed for the ashcan of history, where all wrong theories go. The irony, at least for them, is that it will be replaced by improvements on ABCT and Hayek's spontaneous order theory.
These days, you constantly see articles that make it seem as if there was a great debate in the 1700s between Robert Boyle and Lomonosov, and that this debate has continued through the generations. Nothing like this happened. Lomonosov essentially made a fool of himself early in the 1750's, and his ideas vanished from the professional discussion.
The above may sound familiar if you have read Krugman's critique of Hayek's place in the history of macroeconomics. As Mario Rizzo observes, this is almost entirely beside the point, since Hayek in many ways outright rejected macroeconomics. As well he should. It's equivalent to phlogiston theory -- and just as unneeded.
Actually, it is Brad DeLong who put it in such a way that his position can actually be critiqued:
I often find the economic reasoning skills of economists like DeLong astonishingly bad. Let's analyze this statement. First, Hayek et al did not say that the "necessary thing to do was to shutter" factories. But we should not be surprised if we find that we have less money than we thought we did that we also do not have enough money to repurpose our factory. If you find you have less money than you thought, first cut costs. That is likely going to mean cutting wages, or cutting wage earners. Once you get costs back below income, you can begin to repurpose. The fact that this is apparently completely off the radar screen for DeLong says volumes about him as an economist.
Friedrich von Hayek is only a very minor and very unproductive figure in the work of macroeconomics. He--and Schumpeter, von Mises, and the rest of them--spent a lot of time figuring out why it might be that when you learned that you had overinvested and overborrowed, the natural and necessary thing to do was to shutter (rather than repurpose) factories and send your workers home to eat Cheetos and watch "The Real Housewives of Galt's Gulch".
The first thing it suggests is that the macroeconomics mythology he believes in blinds him to the world's reality. There are underlying mechanisms to larger economic patterns. If you don't understand those, you can't understand the larger patterns. DeLong and Krugman (though I know Krugman should know better) are like doctors who think that one can completely understand a patient without understanding that there are organs, tissues, and cells one needs to understand first to understand how the person works at these levels. They take the temperature, find a fever, and recommend bleeding and leeches. Or, to switch analogies, they are the Lysenkos of economics, thinking the social is the important thing, and not the underlying individual's behaviors.
Little do they understand, their macroeconomics is doomed for extinction. It is headed for the ashcan of history, where all wrong theories go. The irony, at least for them, is that it will be replaced by improvements on ABCT and Hayek's spontaneous order theory.
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
Clearly Melissa Gorga Was a Stripper
There is nothing that says that Melissa Gorga of The Real Housewives of New Jersey was a stripper than the fact that she's mortally offended at being accused of being a stripper. Otherwise, it's just silly rumors. And who says a bar maid can't be a stripper?
Am I the only one posting this to see if her idiot lawyer will sue me for saying Melissa Gorga used to be a stripper? I mean, I've never met her, been to the strip club she worked at, or anything, so how could I know? I think the fact that one could get sued for saying such things about someone one doesn't know and who one could not know is ridiculous. And suing me for saying Melissa Gorga was a stripper is only going to make me get my 15 minutes of fame.
I mean, seriously, who actually cares if she was or wasn't? How is that going to affect her reputation? All of those Real Housewives shows merely show us that there are rich people who act just as bad as trailer trash. That is all. Many of those women were strippers too. And many of them weren't. Who cares?
Am I the only one posting this to see if her idiot lawyer will sue me for saying Melissa Gorga used to be a stripper? I mean, I've never met her, been to the strip club she worked at, or anything, so how could I know? I think the fact that one could get sued for saying such things about someone one doesn't know and who one could not know is ridiculous. And suing me for saying Melissa Gorga was a stripper is only going to make me get my 15 minutes of fame.
I mean, seriously, who actually cares if she was or wasn't? How is that going to affect her reputation? All of those Real Housewives shows merely show us that there are rich people who act just as bad as trailer trash. That is all. Many of those women were strippers too. And many of them weren't. Who cares?
Thursday, December 01, 2011
Student Loans Drive College Costs, Driving Student Loans
James Banks raises the question Can the Humanities Be Saved? He recommends some interesting ideas at the end -- one I had not thought of is price differentials among majors (put a little supply and demand at work). But I would like to look at how he starts off his piece, with “formal statement” issued by the Modern Language Association (MLA):
Public attention has been directed recently to the educational debt students accumulate in the course of undergraduate, as well as graduate, study. A major contributing factor has been the increasing portion of educational costs students must bear in the form of loans. To reduce debt burdens in the future, we call on Congress, state legislatures, and institutions of higher education to calibrate educational costs and student aid in ways that will keep student debt within strict limits. We also call on them to hold in check tuition increases, which often far outpace inflation, and to ensure that degree programs allow for timely completion.I suppose one should not be surprised that the MLA is ignorant of economics and, thus, they don't understand the real problem is with the loans themselves. The loans make university education artificially cheap -- with artificially low interest rates and delay of payments for people who have short time horizons, due to their age. This drives up prices in the same way similar programs drove up housing prices during the housing bubble. Further, almost all of the increase in costs go to bureaucracy -- much of which is needed to deal with the government, including the loans, etc. Does the MLA really believe that the price reductions won't be sent their way first, rather than to the bureaucracies? In other words, those at the MLA need to learn a little cause-and-effect. Sure, I know that goes against their pomo proclivities, but it's time they grew up and rejoined the real world anyway.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Right to Privilege?
The natural historical state of humans is poverty. Thus, poverty is not what needs to be explained, but wealth.
The natural historical medicine available to humans has been local herbs and magic. Modern medicine is a recent technological development, and it is a wonderful development that has given us longer and better lives. But like all technological advancements that improved our lives, it is a privilege to have it. Does it make sense to argue that one has a right to a privilege?
The natural historical medicine available to humans has been local herbs and magic. Modern medicine is a recent technological development, and it is a wonderful development that has given us longer and better lives. But like all technological advancements that improved our lives, it is a privilege to have it. Does it make sense to argue that one has a right to a privilege?
Friday, November 18, 2011
Justice vs. Social Justice
A good piece on Justice versus Social Justice. Hayek argued that social justice is a non-concept. Leonard Read argued that it's the very antithesis of justice. They are probably both right. It is a non-concept because it is incoherent, yet it is used to destroy justice. Why? Because there is no such thing as collective or social justice -- there are only unjust acts committed by an individual against an individual. There is no excusing "I was only doing my duty" or "It was my job." To knowingly enforce an unjust law (which was conceived of by an individual and voted on by individuals and enforced by individuals) is immoral. To obey an unjust law is immoral. To advocate unjust laws under the guise of social justice, too, is immoral.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
A Few Thoughts on Racism
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.
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.
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.
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