Everything one does has elements of self definition, even when acquiescing to social norms and/or power structures that define a set of rules that we must work within (since one may either choose not to oppose them or make their decisions in accordance with these norms or structures). If that acquiescence is purely intentional, then one may very well have the capacity to self definition without needing to diverge from norms.
Although social convention may tend to act somewhat against self definition in the strictest sense, it is also a required context for identity since, as social beings, we ultimately define ourselves in relation to our own community and other communities. After all, what sort of genuine individuality could be expressed by defining oneself in comparison to a monkey? We define ourselves in comparison to, and in contradiction to, other humans.
Economic factors may exclude some people from self definition if they must spend all their time working for basic survival and have no remaining energy to explore their being as a creative and thinking entity.
Trying to define self definition is, truly, a self-defeating thing to try to do, since it would suppose that some individual could understand what that would mean for each person. It would refer to things that are contingent on one’s own passions, sense of rationality, and their current context and past experiences.
Being influenced or guided by social convention is not in itself a bad thing. Being aware of the ways in which we are shaped by our social circumstance allows us to be more intentional about how we choose to define our own social, political and economic context. Many people read Foucault and decide to reject the social and political power structures or regimes that they face in society. I do not think this is what he was trying to do. I think he was trying to make us more aware of them so we contemplate how to maintain our capacity to self definition without compromising our willingness to play an active role in maintaining the practical economic benefits offered by being a part of a society where people respect rules and conventions.
The capacity to self definition could arguably be the ideal goal of democratic ideals. This is certainly more meaningful than the principle of 50% +1 majoritarian principles, although they do tend to be a convenient shortcut to making some kinds of decisions.
In short, the possibility of genuine spiritual and economic freedom may exist even when bound by sets of rules and conventions that shape one’s daily decisions. That scope of potentiality, however, generally only exists when the individual’s ability to participate in efforts to shape those very rules and conventions is presumed to be a legitimate and desirable use of one’s spiritual, political and economic self.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
to meat or not to meat. Is it natural?
I just read an article on Alternet that claims that eating meat is not natural. I'm not a meat eater, and sincerely believe that steering clear of the stuff is a much better way to live one's life. In any case, this is what I had to say about the article, which was riddled with half truths bordering on falsehoods.
To start with:
- eating meat IS natural. Humans are designed expressly to be able to eat either meat or other types of products. Hence being called omnivores, not herbivores. This is the same argument that I make when people try to tell me it's natural to eat meat. That's wrong too. It's natural to be able to do one or the other, and we have the choice.
- access to protein is a key ingredient for growth. When we started to hunt, we got the ability to access concentrated packets of protein. (We can now do so by cultivating plants with a high concentration of protein.) Getting so much bang for your buck in terms of protein would have been a huge advantage for any group of early humans who learned to hunt, since they could grow bigger and faster, and out-compete their neighbours (until farming came along, of course, which is arguably much less "natural" than eating meat).
- animals that eat plant products have long digestive systems because it takes so long for our enzymes to act on plant materials to be able to digest them. The logic of the argument that carnivores have short intestines to get rid of toxins quickly is back-asswards. Carnivores have short intestinal systems because, after chewing, meat degrades and can be digested quickly (not to dispel rotting flesh quickly.) This has been proven by comparative physiology that looks at the concentration of nitrogen (read protein) and materials that are hard to digest, such as cellulose, in animals diets, compared with properties of animal digestive systems. We need long digestive systems to be able to digest plants, not the other way around (although there are many more specifics to the story).
- also, the idea of bringing heart disease and cancer related to meat eating into an evolutionary argument is a joke. Heart disease and cancer, especially when correlated with meat eating, generally affect people well after their child bearing years, and therefore has limited (if any) relevance to an evolutionary argument.
- our hands may not be designed to tear flesh, but our opposable thumb is designed to make and use tools that do the job for us, while our large brain can figure out how best to close in for the kill. As such, the argument that our difficulty of shredding prey with our bare hands is evidence that eating meat is unnatural bears little relation to our biological and social evolution as humans.
Finally, I do believe that the vegetarian diet, if it follows some basic principles of variety, can be far more healthy than a diet that includes meat.
Eating meat is perfectly natural, but so is not eating meat, but given the health complications of eating meat and incredible inefficiency of producing protein in the form of meat, the choice not to do so is better for both us and the planet.
To start with:
- eating meat IS natural. Humans are designed expressly to be able to eat either meat or other types of products. Hence being called omnivores, not herbivores. This is the same argument that I make when people try to tell me it's natural to eat meat. That's wrong too. It's natural to be able to do one or the other, and we have the choice.
- access to protein is a key ingredient for growth. When we started to hunt, we got the ability to access concentrated packets of protein. (We can now do so by cultivating plants with a high concentration of protein.) Getting so much bang for your buck in terms of protein would have been a huge advantage for any group of early humans who learned to hunt, since they could grow bigger and faster, and out-compete their neighbours (until farming came along, of course, which is arguably much less "natural" than eating meat).
- animals that eat plant products have long digestive systems because it takes so long for our enzymes to act on plant materials to be able to digest them. The logic of the argument that carnivores have short intestines to get rid of toxins quickly is back-asswards. Carnivores have short intestinal systems because, after chewing, meat degrades and can be digested quickly (not to dispel rotting flesh quickly.) This has been proven by comparative physiology that looks at the concentration of nitrogen (read protein) and materials that are hard to digest, such as cellulose, in animals diets, compared with properties of animal digestive systems. We need long digestive systems to be able to digest plants, not the other way around (although there are many more specifics to the story).
- also, the idea of bringing heart disease and cancer related to meat eating into an evolutionary argument is a joke. Heart disease and cancer, especially when correlated with meat eating, generally affect people well after their child bearing years, and therefore has limited (if any) relevance to an evolutionary argument.
- our hands may not be designed to tear flesh, but our opposable thumb is designed to make and use tools that do the job for us, while our large brain can figure out how best to close in for the kill. As such, the argument that our difficulty of shredding prey with our bare hands is evidence that eating meat is unnatural bears little relation to our biological and social evolution as humans.
Finally, I do believe that the vegetarian diet, if it follows some basic principles of variety, can be far more healthy than a diet that includes meat.
Eating meat is perfectly natural, but so is not eating meat, but given the health complications of eating meat and incredible inefficiency of producing protein in the form of meat, the choice not to do so is better for both us and the planet.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
the rare I told you so
I'm not usually the kind of person to say "I told you so", especially since it can ring false in hindsight. However, there are a couple of interesting cases that I feel like noting: first has to do with the financial crisis and the second has to do with a topic that is very much related to what I'm working on for my masters' thesis these days.
As for the financial crisis? Well, to my knowledge I was the first candidate for any political party anywhere in the world to state on the record (in a televised debate during which I more or less massacred the French language) that resolving the problems in financial markets would require a coordinated global response in terms of stimulus plans and easing problems in credit markets. (Actually, I am very much NOT a politician, but when offering to volunteer for the Green party before the last election, I was asked to be a candidate). In any case, this was ultimately the action that most governments ended up doing, in some part under pressures from experts at international institutions.
As for my particular area of interest? Well, I'm curious about the relations between violent conflict and agriculture. I happened to read last week that the recent revolution in Madagascar was largely a response to efforts to lease out land to foreign owners. The problem is that this would have pushed farmers off of land that they currently cultivate, but over which they have no secure rights. Somewhat against the primary thrust of what I'm working on was that they engaged in conflict to ensure their property rights, but the idea that the prospect of reduced certainty about tenure can have a vicious feedback cycle still rings through. In fact, the model that I'm working towards would exactly have predicted that the strategy being used in Madagascar would have increased the probability of conflict.
This is especially important because there are a large number of similar deals presently being negotiated. The benefits, of course, are the influx of foreign capital, which are important. But, without addressing the needs and 'rights' of traditional land users, the effects could be colossal. These negotiations will either have to take care of the interests of farmers who will lose their land or look towards moving to a draconian police state to prevent major civil conflict. The question might be: which types of institutions are likely to imply that governments would prefer the first approach to the second? Not exactly what I'm working on right now (which I figured out yesterday how to explain in precisely 12 words), but it is an important question nonetheless.
Anyways, there's an "I told you so" about two huge issues, the second of which is still enormously in play.
As for the financial crisis? Well, to my knowledge I was the first candidate for any political party anywhere in the world to state on the record (in a televised debate during which I more or less massacred the French language) that resolving the problems in financial markets would require a coordinated global response in terms of stimulus plans and easing problems in credit markets. (Actually, I am very much NOT a politician, but when offering to volunteer for the Green party before the last election, I was asked to be a candidate). In any case, this was ultimately the action that most governments ended up doing, in some part under pressures from experts at international institutions.
As for my particular area of interest? Well, I'm curious about the relations between violent conflict and agriculture. I happened to read last week that the recent revolution in Madagascar was largely a response to efforts to lease out land to foreign owners. The problem is that this would have pushed farmers off of land that they currently cultivate, but over which they have no secure rights. Somewhat against the primary thrust of what I'm working on was that they engaged in conflict to ensure their property rights, but the idea that the prospect of reduced certainty about tenure can have a vicious feedback cycle still rings through. In fact, the model that I'm working towards would exactly have predicted that the strategy being used in Madagascar would have increased the probability of conflict.
This is especially important because there are a large number of similar deals presently being negotiated. The benefits, of course, are the influx of foreign capital, which are important. But, without addressing the needs and 'rights' of traditional land users, the effects could be colossal. These negotiations will either have to take care of the interests of farmers who will lose their land or look towards moving to a draconian police state to prevent major civil conflict. The question might be: which types of institutions are likely to imply that governments would prefer the first approach to the second? Not exactly what I'm working on right now (which I figured out yesterday how to explain in precisely 12 words), but it is an important question nonetheless.
Anyways, there's an "I told you so" about two huge issues, the second of which is still enormously in play.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
how not to find peace - how to travel the world - the real roots of the crisis
Some people have difficulty understanding why the Palestinians are pissed off. Consider the following quote, relating to a piece of legislation that is on the table in Israel at the moment:
"Palestinian Israelis who mark Israel's independence day as their people's nakba (catastrophe) "exploit the democratic and enlightened character of the State of Israel in order to destroy it from within" - and would be punishable under the bill by up to three years in prison."
My question is simple: does this bill reduce or increase the probability that some individual Palestinians will be interested in joining violent militias.
Targeting civilians is always wrong, whether the perpetrator is a suicide bomber or state. I am also quite sympathetic to arguments of Israel's right to self defence. But sorry, when sand is thrown in the eyes of the prospective terrorist, don't be surprised at the results. Palestinians must learn to live with Israeli's as neighbours in their community, at the household and regional level. The converse is clearly the case as well. The bill outlined by the above quote is in no way illustrative of a people who wish to live in peace with their neighbours.
The historical suffering of the Jews is a reality. Let its memory not be abused to justify the suffering of another group of dispossessed people.
____________________________
Some people have sometimes wondered how it is that someone who has never earned more than 20k in any year (typically much less than that) has managed to travel substantial parts of the world before their 30th birthday. Well, it didn't hurt that money from my grandmother almost entirely paid of my student loan after my first year of university, but aside from that ...
The answer is very simple: I don't own a car and am almost completely indifferent to luxury.
________________________________________
Digging deeper into history for factors leading to the present economic crisis ...
Here is the argument - the move to flexible exchange rate regimes in Asia in the 80s and 90s is an important factor to consider when looking to the roots of the current financial crisis. I should explicitly say that this is not an argument against flexible exchange rate systems. I think the benefits outweigh the costs, but the costs may have been overlooked to some extent, due to the effects that they may have when countries look to reduce capital flight exchange rate risks associated with a flexible rate system.
The argument is actually fairly simply. Asian countries move to a flexible exchange rate system. This makes the Asian financial crisis possible because it allows credit market problems to multiply risks under capital flight, because Asian central banks had too little foreign currency on hand to ride through the crisis. After 1998, their strategy to minimize risks of capital flight and speculation under a flexible exchange rate regime was to pile on foreign reserves (especially US dollars). Had Asian central banks not, as a group, bought trillions of dollars worth of US treasury bills and bonds, the low interest rate policy following the 2001-2002 recession would never have worked, since there would not have been enough demand for these bonds at such low rates. Quite importantly, people who are looking for the historical roots of the crisis often look to that extended period of low interest rates as the cause of the subprime crisis because it underpriced risk in US mortgage markets.
Don't see the connection? Let's try it in reverse chronological order this time. The current crisis was largely triggered by the subprime crisis (although it was multiplied by the amount of leverage that financial institutions took out through various forms of derivatives). The subprime crisis was only possible with an extended regime of very low interest rates (although securitization very much exacerbated the problem). The extended regime of low interest rates was only possible due to the enormous appetite that Asian central banks had for foreign currency reserves, especially for US dollars. This appetite for foreign reserves was a byproduct of the Asian financial crisis. Especially, the desire to use foreign currency reserves to hold out against the risk of a speculative attack on a currency. Such risks are only possible in a flexible exchange rate regime. Hence, the introduction of flexible exchange rate regimes in Asia as a necessary (although clearly not sufficient) cause for the present global crisis.
Again, this is not an argument against flexible exchange rate regimes. They are a key ingredient for markets to find "efficient" prices. However, the argument does point to the fact that the indirect effects that shifts between exchange rate regimes have on global macroeconomic disequilibria have received rather insufficient attention.
Why is this important? Well, one of the largest issues on the table concerning global macroeconomic disequilibria is China's lack of interest in adopting a flexible exchange rate regime. What would China's optimal holdings of various international currencies be under a flexible exchange rate regime, and how would this affect risk evaluations among other market actors? What are possible long term effects of these decisions?
I don't think that history can precisely repeat itself, but that's not to say that we can't learn a whole lot from it. Let's not rush into a flexible exchange rate regime for the Yuan until central bankers in the world's largest currency areas (US, China, Japan, EU) have had a chance to carry out cooperative analysis of possible long term effects of a fully convertible Yuan.
"Palestinian Israelis who mark Israel's independence day as their people's nakba (catastrophe) "exploit the democratic and enlightened character of the State of Israel in order to destroy it from within" - and would be punishable under the bill by up to three years in prison."
My question is simple: does this bill reduce or increase the probability that some individual Palestinians will be interested in joining violent militias.
Targeting civilians is always wrong, whether the perpetrator is a suicide bomber or state. I am also quite sympathetic to arguments of Israel's right to self defence. But sorry, when sand is thrown in the eyes of the prospective terrorist, don't be surprised at the results. Palestinians must learn to live with Israeli's as neighbours in their community, at the household and regional level. The converse is clearly the case as well. The bill outlined by the above quote is in no way illustrative of a people who wish to live in peace with their neighbours.
The historical suffering of the Jews is a reality. Let its memory not be abused to justify the suffering of another group of dispossessed people.
____________________________
Some people have sometimes wondered how it is that someone who has never earned more than 20k in any year (typically much less than that) has managed to travel substantial parts of the world before their 30th birthday. Well, it didn't hurt that money from my grandmother almost entirely paid of my student loan after my first year of university, but aside from that ...
The answer is very simple: I don't own a car and am almost completely indifferent to luxury.
________________________________________
Digging deeper into history for factors leading to the present economic crisis ...
Here is the argument - the move to flexible exchange rate regimes in Asia in the 80s and 90s is an important factor to consider when looking to the roots of the current financial crisis. I should explicitly say that this is not an argument against flexible exchange rate systems. I think the benefits outweigh the costs, but the costs may have been overlooked to some extent, due to the effects that they may have when countries look to reduce capital flight exchange rate risks associated with a flexible rate system.
The argument is actually fairly simply. Asian countries move to a flexible exchange rate system. This makes the Asian financial crisis possible because it allows credit market problems to multiply risks under capital flight, because Asian central banks had too little foreign currency on hand to ride through the crisis. After 1998, their strategy to minimize risks of capital flight and speculation under a flexible exchange rate regime was to pile on foreign reserves (especially US dollars). Had Asian central banks not, as a group, bought trillions of dollars worth of US treasury bills and bonds, the low interest rate policy following the 2001-2002 recession would never have worked, since there would not have been enough demand for these bonds at such low rates. Quite importantly, people who are looking for the historical roots of the crisis often look to that extended period of low interest rates as the cause of the subprime crisis because it underpriced risk in US mortgage markets.
Don't see the connection? Let's try it in reverse chronological order this time. The current crisis was largely triggered by the subprime crisis (although it was multiplied by the amount of leverage that financial institutions took out through various forms of derivatives). The subprime crisis was only possible with an extended regime of very low interest rates (although securitization very much exacerbated the problem). The extended regime of low interest rates was only possible due to the enormous appetite that Asian central banks had for foreign currency reserves, especially for US dollars. This appetite for foreign reserves was a byproduct of the Asian financial crisis. Especially, the desire to use foreign currency reserves to hold out against the risk of a speculative attack on a currency. Such risks are only possible in a flexible exchange rate regime. Hence, the introduction of flexible exchange rate regimes in Asia as a necessary (although clearly not sufficient) cause for the present global crisis.
Again, this is not an argument against flexible exchange rate regimes. They are a key ingredient for markets to find "efficient" prices. However, the argument does point to the fact that the indirect effects that shifts between exchange rate regimes have on global macroeconomic disequilibria have received rather insufficient attention.
Why is this important? Well, one of the largest issues on the table concerning global macroeconomic disequilibria is China's lack of interest in adopting a flexible exchange rate regime. What would China's optimal holdings of various international currencies be under a flexible exchange rate regime, and how would this affect risk evaluations among other market actors? What are possible long term effects of these decisions?
I don't think that history can precisely repeat itself, but that's not to say that we can't learn a whole lot from it. Let's not rush into a flexible exchange rate regime for the Yuan until central bankers in the world's largest currency areas (US, China, Japan, EU) have had a chance to carry out cooperative analysis of possible long term effects of a fully convertible Yuan.
Monday, June 1, 2009
the early retirement subsidy - the undesirability of Too Big To Fail
When the CPP started, life expectancy was 67. Today it is nearly 80, but the CPP continues to pay out as of one`s 65th birthday. Combined with rising health costs, we are paying through the teeth to subsidize our elder's early retirement.
Medical advances, most of which cost a lot of money, allow us to live longer and generally better lives. This gain has largely been transformed into a gain for those who benefit from subsidized early retirement. The solution, as proposed numerous times before, is that retirement ages have to go up. People can still retire when they want, but it should not be seen as a public right that the rest of us should have to subsidize an early retirement.
I don't propose significant changes to health care costs associated with an aging population, rather, that our social safety net should not be set up in a way that encourages people not to plan for their own retirement, all the while encouraging them to go into retirement when they may well continue to fruitfully labor on.
Unfortunately, many people have already made savings decisions that rely on assumptions about the nature of public income provisions beyond the age of 65. As such, any changes to the age where people become eligible for old age income supports, and perhaps also the CPP, should rise fairly slowly. It would be quite unreasonable to suppose that we should say to people who are presently 63 years old that their planned retirement date should move back by 2 or 5 years. A month or two would be much easier to swallow, and if they already had fixed plans then all they would be missing out on would be a couple of months of CPP payments. Perhaps a one month per year over 60years would be reasonable. Given ongoing medical developments and greater public knowledge of lifestyle choices that are conducive to a long and healthy life, presumably the life expectancy in Canada will be higher in 2070 than it is today, making a retirement age of 70 years old reasonable by that point in time.
Until some such changes are put into action, the Canadian tax code will continue to subsidize early retirement at a significant cost to the younger tax-paying generation as well as economic potential. Given concerns about the effects of declining population growth on the labour market, such a policy a) mitigates the undesirable side effects of slowing population growth, allowing society to benefit from the skills and experience that older workers have developed through their careers and b) limits the cost of subsidized early retirement to the tax-paying youth of today.
____________________________
I read an argument that Germany's financial sector is at a disadvantage because regulations limit mergers in the sector.
I have one main thing to say. "To big to fail" is not a feature of a desirable market structure.
How desirable has that proven to be? Economies of scale in marketing and synergies in operation aside, it seems that once again, a childhood expression yields insight that persists over the years. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. German banks may, on average, be somewhat less profitable than their more aggregated international peers, but German taxpayers will presumably never not face the burden of hundreds of billions of Euros for bailouts for companies that were too big to fail.
Their smaller banks also face greater incentive to differentiate themselves and experiment in innovative marketing and business methods. It seems to me, particularly when faced with evidence of the enormous failures of the highly aggregated American financial system, that placing limits on bank size carries certain benefits in terms of limiting risks and encouraging banks to become profitable through offering tailored products to market segments.
In short, I am doubtful that the benefits of banks that are "too big to fail" outweigh the costs. Perhaps we could learn something from the German model of financial markets, much like the world could learn something from the Canadian regulatory framework.
Medical advances, most of which cost a lot of money, allow us to live longer and generally better lives. This gain has largely been transformed into a gain for those who benefit from subsidized early retirement. The solution, as proposed numerous times before, is that retirement ages have to go up. People can still retire when they want, but it should not be seen as a public right that the rest of us should have to subsidize an early retirement.
I don't propose significant changes to health care costs associated with an aging population, rather, that our social safety net should not be set up in a way that encourages people not to plan for their own retirement, all the while encouraging them to go into retirement when they may well continue to fruitfully labor on.
Unfortunately, many people have already made savings decisions that rely on assumptions about the nature of public income provisions beyond the age of 65. As such, any changes to the age where people become eligible for old age income supports, and perhaps also the CPP, should rise fairly slowly. It would be quite unreasonable to suppose that we should say to people who are presently 63 years old that their planned retirement date should move back by 2 or 5 years. A month or two would be much easier to swallow, and if they already had fixed plans then all they would be missing out on would be a couple of months of CPP payments. Perhaps a one month per year over 60years would be reasonable. Given ongoing medical developments and greater public knowledge of lifestyle choices that are conducive to a long and healthy life, presumably the life expectancy in Canada will be higher in 2070 than it is today, making a retirement age of 70 years old reasonable by that point in time.
Until some such changes are put into action, the Canadian tax code will continue to subsidize early retirement at a significant cost to the younger tax-paying generation as well as economic potential. Given concerns about the effects of declining population growth on the labour market, such a policy a) mitigates the undesirable side effects of slowing population growth, allowing society to benefit from the skills and experience that older workers have developed through their careers and b) limits the cost of subsidized early retirement to the tax-paying youth of today.
____________________________
I read an argument that Germany's financial sector is at a disadvantage because regulations limit mergers in the sector.
I have one main thing to say. "To big to fail" is not a feature of a desirable market structure.
How desirable has that proven to be? Economies of scale in marketing and synergies in operation aside, it seems that once again, a childhood expression yields insight that persists over the years. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. German banks may, on average, be somewhat less profitable than their more aggregated international peers, but German taxpayers will presumably never not face the burden of hundreds of billions of Euros for bailouts for companies that were too big to fail.
Their smaller banks also face greater incentive to differentiate themselves and experiment in innovative marketing and business methods. It seems to me, particularly when faced with evidence of the enormous failures of the highly aggregated American financial system, that placing limits on bank size carries certain benefits in terms of limiting risks and encouraging banks to become profitable through offering tailored products to market segments.
In short, I am doubtful that the benefits of banks that are "too big to fail" outweigh the costs. Perhaps we could learn something from the German model of financial markets, much like the world could learn something from the Canadian regulatory framework.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
minimum wages - just equilibria - uniqueness of the moment
Been pretty busy for a while. Haven`t even been writing down stuff that I plan to write about, but in any case here are a couple thoughts that stuck, in short form. It would be interesting to develop them more thoroughly later on.
______________________________
First:
Increasing minimum wages may be good for long term economic growth.
The logic? A simple economic argument and three lines (plus a dotted one) on a graph can be used to show that increasing the minimum wage will increase short term unemployment. This means that there are more workers competing for jobs. This gives them incentives to go and improve their skills, either through education or apprenticeships or whatever. Since wages are higher, and it is harder to find those jobs, they face an absolutely higher incentive to improve their productivity. Productivity is, at the root, the sole basis of long term per capita economic growth. When people are more skilled they can be more efficiently combined with capital, making returns to capital higher. This also acts as an incentive to investment in technology. ALL of which are good for productivity. Again, the basis of per capita economic growth.
However, there is an important effect pulling against this. Higher wages also have a marginal effect of reducing returns to capital in the short run. This reduces the funds available to companies for investment. It is certain that this effect will be larger for SOME companies in the mid to long term than the effect of having more talented workers in the labour pool, but which effect is larger is a matter of debate. Incidentally, higher wages themselves act as a direct incentive to investment in technologies to save money on labour. When technological progress is achieved, each hour of labour can become more valuable.
THUS, there is a very solid argument in favour of the proposition that increasing a minimum wage can be beneficial for long term economic growth via its effects on technical progress (people need to improve skills, companies want to spend on technology, and technology companies have more reason to suppose that there will be markets for products that they will invest in producing).
Obviously this does not mean that minimum wages should be raised ad infinitum. It does, however, imply that the economically optimal level of unemployment, as determined by minimum wages, is likely to be quite a bit higher than full employment. Not, as sometimes argued, because a pool of unemployed cheap labour is good for business, rather, because this creates incentives for workers and companies to take steps to become more productive.
________________________________
This one is tougher ...
Think Bentham's panopticon, J S Mill's discussion of behaviour as limited by socially acceptable norms, Foucault and docile bodies and the state's ability to control behaviour just by surveiling the public, the conspiracy theory movie called "Enemy of The State", China's use of online monitoring, Britain's use of CCTVs, and finally, the enormous power held in the hands of the global public via the internet and mobile telephony.
Conclusion?
Well ... Technology has significantly increased the state's ability to impose it's power by surveiling the public. This carries certain risks. However, technology has increased the public's power to monitor, record and disseminate information about actions of the state. (Clearly this is not absolute, but surely more so than before). It has also increased the public's power to maintain some level of panopticon-like social observation, with the sheer number of cameras on phones, etc, around the world, that can instantly transmit information just about anywhere.
The result is perhaps a fairly just equilibrium, with a balance achieved with the combination of society's ability to maintain soft social pressure via perceived possibility of observation, society's ability to observe and disseminate information about the government, and the state's ability to use its surveiling capacity such that the dominant forces in society can feel sufficeintly comforted that they will not wish to impose more draconian forms of state intrusion that carry the risk of driving the public to turn things upside down.
All, of course, with two implicit assumptions: first, that the arms of the state are fairly accepted or tolerated by a fairly substantial portion of society, and that they also generally represent the public interest including at least some diversity of groups, and second, that there exists some mechanism through which society's ability to monitor the state places either implicit or direct limits on the state's use of coercive power such that it is not deemed as unacceptable (at least not sufficiently unacceptable to drive revolutionary fervour) by a substantial portion of the society
Of course, if the state limits the ability of citizens to disseminate information or filters such information (with reasonable allowances for state security, etc), then no such equilibrium can be achieved.
That is to say that I think we are not particularly far from this just equilibrium (at least here in Canada), but that both the public and the state should remain vigilant to ensure that we do not sway too far either way. Neither the chaos of unlimited freedoms nor the chains of imposed order are desirable. As Rousseau argued, we are in a sense forced to be free by social and state rules. At the end of the day, the subtle nature of social coercion in the information age may leave a space for us all to be more free, so long as this just equilibrium is maintained.
_______________
Think Douglas Adams and the improbability drive. Think infinite time and infinite numbers of particles, each of which are made of a finite number of constituents in a finite number of states. Consider any given object as being defined in physical or conceptual relation to, or opposition to, all other entities.
Is it possible for the same thing to happen twice?
What are the ontological implications of an answer to the negative as opposed to an answer to the affirmative?
What parameters are needed to answer these questions? Can it be supposed that empiricism has anything meaningful to offer to such contemplation?
______________________________
First:
Increasing minimum wages may be good for long term economic growth.
The logic? A simple economic argument and three lines (plus a dotted one) on a graph can be used to show that increasing the minimum wage will increase short term unemployment. This means that there are more workers competing for jobs. This gives them incentives to go and improve their skills, either through education or apprenticeships or whatever. Since wages are higher, and it is harder to find those jobs, they face an absolutely higher incentive to improve their productivity. Productivity is, at the root, the sole basis of long term per capita economic growth. When people are more skilled they can be more efficiently combined with capital, making returns to capital higher. This also acts as an incentive to investment in technology. ALL of which are good for productivity. Again, the basis of per capita economic growth.
However, there is an important effect pulling against this. Higher wages also have a marginal effect of reducing returns to capital in the short run. This reduces the funds available to companies for investment. It is certain that this effect will be larger for SOME companies in the mid to long term than the effect of having more talented workers in the labour pool, but which effect is larger is a matter of debate. Incidentally, higher wages themselves act as a direct incentive to investment in technologies to save money on labour. When technological progress is achieved, each hour of labour can become more valuable.
THUS, there is a very solid argument in favour of the proposition that increasing a minimum wage can be beneficial for long term economic growth via its effects on technical progress (people need to improve skills, companies want to spend on technology, and technology companies have more reason to suppose that there will be markets for products that they will invest in producing).
Obviously this does not mean that minimum wages should be raised ad infinitum. It does, however, imply that the economically optimal level of unemployment, as determined by minimum wages, is likely to be quite a bit higher than full employment. Not, as sometimes argued, because a pool of unemployed cheap labour is good for business, rather, because this creates incentives for workers and companies to take steps to become more productive.
________________________________
This one is tougher ...
Think Bentham's panopticon, J S Mill's discussion of behaviour as limited by socially acceptable norms, Foucault and docile bodies and the state's ability to control behaviour just by surveiling the public, the conspiracy theory movie called "Enemy of The State", China's use of online monitoring, Britain's use of CCTVs, and finally, the enormous power held in the hands of the global public via the internet and mobile telephony.
Conclusion?
Well ... Technology has significantly increased the state's ability to impose it's power by surveiling the public. This carries certain risks. However, technology has increased the public's power to monitor, record and disseminate information about actions of the state. (Clearly this is not absolute, but surely more so than before). It has also increased the public's power to maintain some level of panopticon-like social observation, with the sheer number of cameras on phones, etc, around the world, that can instantly transmit information just about anywhere.
The result is perhaps a fairly just equilibrium, with a balance achieved with the combination of society's ability to maintain soft social pressure via perceived possibility of observation, society's ability to observe and disseminate information about the government, and the state's ability to use its surveiling capacity such that the dominant forces in society can feel sufficeintly comforted that they will not wish to impose more draconian forms of state intrusion that carry the risk of driving the public to turn things upside down.
All, of course, with two implicit assumptions: first, that the arms of the state are fairly accepted or tolerated by a fairly substantial portion of society, and that they also generally represent the public interest including at least some diversity of groups, and second, that there exists some mechanism through which society's ability to monitor the state places either implicit or direct limits on the state's use of coercive power such that it is not deemed as unacceptable (at least not sufficiently unacceptable to drive revolutionary fervour) by a substantial portion of the society
Of course, if the state limits the ability of citizens to disseminate information or filters such information (with reasonable allowances for state security, etc), then no such equilibrium can be achieved.
That is to say that I think we are not particularly far from this just equilibrium (at least here in Canada), but that both the public and the state should remain vigilant to ensure that we do not sway too far either way. Neither the chaos of unlimited freedoms nor the chains of imposed order are desirable. As Rousseau argued, we are in a sense forced to be free by social and state rules. At the end of the day, the subtle nature of social coercion in the information age may leave a space for us all to be more free, so long as this just equilibrium is maintained.
_______________
Think Douglas Adams and the improbability drive. Think infinite time and infinite numbers of particles, each of which are made of a finite number of constituents in a finite number of states. Consider any given object as being defined in physical or conceptual relation to, or opposition to, all other entities.
Is it possible for the same thing to happen twice?
What are the ontological implications of an answer to the negative as opposed to an answer to the affirmative?
What parameters are needed to answer these questions? Can it be supposed that empiricism has anything meaningful to offer to such contemplation?
Saturday, March 21, 2009
6 in 1
A few interesting observations/conclusions/events this week:
___________________________________
“Keynesian” policies that make public investments should be highly effective at restoring economic growth when the economy is running below “full employment.” Otherwise, such policies should have little or no effect, being marginally positive in the long run if the returns to public investment is greater than returns to the resources remaining for investment after consumption, and marginally negative in the long run if the crowding out effect results in generally lower rates of technical progress.
Given the general assumption that entrepreneurship and technical innovation is more likely in private markets (regardless of whether they receive public support), I conclude that “Keynesians” may generally be more right than wrong in hard times and more wrong than right in good times.
(quotation marks used because what is generally called “Keynesian” economics is barely true at all to the actual works of Keynes, and is used as a blanket term to describe all economic arguments that favour public spending, often referred to in conjunction with the 1970s crises to discredit such approaches)
___________________________________
Consumption taxes should, in sum, after counting for other effects, be marginally effective at stimulating investment, since savings (which are then invested, in some manner or another) become relatively more valuable in relation to consumption.
This realization makes me happy for several reasons:
a) I have long argued for a revenue-neutral increase in consumption taxes, in order to fund lower income taxes. I like this because lowering taxes on labour improves the relative value of returns to investments in productivity, while increasing consumption taxes similarly increases the relative returns to investments in productivity,
b) productivity growth is the only basis for long term growth, and such an approach both improves private returns to productivity growth and acts as a disincentive to excessive consumption, a cause of significant environmental damage as well as enormous long-term fiscal disequilibria for private and public consumers,
c) there no is question whatsoever that the savings rate must rise in the medium term in most Western economics, and such a policy can accomplish a) and b) while simultaneously providing governments with the financial resources to provide services and improving the savings rate,
d) I have an ideological preference for taxing consumption rather than income (presuming that transfers are tweaked accordingly, such that real income remains unchanged), since it offers greater freedom for consumers to decide whether to save or spend their income. An income tax offers no choice on the matter, whereas a consumption tax allows the consumer to make the choice between savings and consumption. This is consistent with the micro-economic principle that the greater the portion of income that consumers are left to allocate independently, the more they are able to maximize their satisfaction according to their preferences, yielding a net improvement in the social outcome and consumer satisfaction, and
e) Finally, I’m happy about this because such a policy was just announced in Quebec. I have long railed against Harper and friends for being knobs for using an increase in income taxes to pay for a decrease in consumption taxes (the GST), and have hoped that provinces would take this chance to undo this move, either as a tool to improve public finances (the case for Quebec) or to decrease income taxes.
___________________________________
I was shocked to receive a grade of 0% on an essay exam written about the cancellation of the re-enactment on the Plains of Abraham. (and rest assured, it's not going to stay that way).
In general, I find that the people I meet in Quebec are quite respectful of various cultures, more so than I had supposed given the legal status of non-French rights in Quebec, as well as the media attention given to a handful of attempted xenophobic measures in certain municipalities. However, this is the first time that I have submitted something that was critical of the potential dark sides of Quebec nationalism (except for this article , which has been read by not a soul, to my knowledge). As such, I am left to conclude, for now, that I have been correct to express my concern in many-a-conversation over the years that Quebec nationalism risks becoming a negative vent for frustrations rather than a channel whereby the history and culture of this region can become a meaningful source of pride and identity.
My parody of an informative essay, which itself played with words and events surrounding this contentious re-enactment, was designed to be inflammatory on the one hand, but largely as an exploration of how the challenge of maintaining an strong, unique and independent culture in Quebec such that the act of celebration can itself become an effective cultural ambassador for the Quebecois.
___________________________________
An interesting example of journalistic manipulation on Radio-Canada I heard this morning: the first announcement of a $100 million dollar federal project to repair tourist destinations in Quebec City is immediately followed by a complaint that they didn’t even spend more money on some other project, then, an immediate a rapid switch, with barely the pause of a breath in between to… Four soldiers killed in Afghanistan, eight injured, including plenty of mentions of war and suffering.
The following program is about a francophone author from Manitoba, Gabriella Roy, who is presented as perhaps the best Canadian writer ever. Fine. Dandy. Second mention of $100 million of federal funding coming to Quebec City, immediately followed by complaints that they didn’t even provide more funding for some other projects, then, with a half a second pause … 15 year-old child killed in scooter accident. Awful, terrible. Suffering. War… goes on.
Already, after the first ploy, the immediate image that came to mind as they mentioned the project for the second time was the four dead soldiers that were tied to the project in the first announcement. I am readily susceptible to association by suggestion, but am typically being well aware of it when it happens.
I support journalistic freedom as a bedrock principle or a free society, but it seems to me that some of the producers and/or announcers at Radio-Canada in Quebec City are abusing their privilege of access to a large audience promote bad sentiment towards anything to do with any federal project or politician. This is something I had already noticed with the morning announcer (who is my alarm in the morning), who cuts off anyone who is on the verge of saying something that has positive connotations for anything federal, and then goes on to mock the argument or comment that was about to be said.
That would all be fine and dandy on a private network, but the notion of announcers, paid with federal money, using their access to manipulate an audience against all things federal, just rings wrong to me. In the interests of national unity, it is certainly not a smart idea to cut funding for the programs, but perhaps some directives of more objective reporting and commentary would be nice.
I suggest the following approach for the “journalist” to imbue their bias into today’s announcement: $100 million for repairs of tourism destinations in Quebec. The announcer, if he were up to date with local opinion surveys, could then accomplish his goal by alluding to the fact that these reconstructions will take place not far from the proposed site of the Plains of Abraham, leaving listeners to colour the story with their own preconceptions. However, the way that this was brazenly carried out this morning was certainly in breach of journalistic ethics, in the way that it overtly manipulated listeners’ mental associations with this sizeable public investment in tourist facilities in Quebec City.
___________________________________
I have long preferred to think of “problems” as “solutions waiting to happen.” However, there are numerous cases where this outlook is naïve, with complete solutions being unlikely or impossible. As such, I am generally a proponent of managing many kinds of problems rather than supposing that we can eradicate them.
The first application of this concept resulted from readings on the strategies to deal with criminality over the ages. One theme seems to be separating the deviants from society and the other is the idea that criminals can be rehabilitated, or at least forced to conform to social norms. In the absence of any convincing evidence that severity of punishment is an effective deterrent for most crimes (possibly because most offenders think they will get away with it), and ignoring the proclivity towards punishment as an animalistic reaction of vengeance rather than any sort of genuine solution towards deviant behaviour, I am left with segregation and rehabilitation as the dichotomous approaches. In the end, I reject this dichotomy in preference of managing deviance rather than abolishing or healing deviants.
This led to a months long project to evaluate GPS monitoring bracelets for non-dangerous offenders as a way to save money, improve inmates freedom and privacy (which could hardly be more impaired than it is in a prison), improves a societies productive potential, reduces the damaging effects that some criminality may have on children due to a ‘lost’ parent, and as a way to deter many types of crimes (just think, would you rather spend a month behind bars or three being tracked with a GPS bracelet.
This is only a minor technical modification of the conditional sentence, but one that makes conditional sentences rather than prison term practical for a greater number of cases. The costs and benefits, however, are hard to pin down, and it may be a politically difficult program to implement. Ironically, my laptop was stolen before I completed the project. Since then, I have never gone more than a few days without making a backup copy of all my work.
In any case, I only mention this project because it is where I came across the general notion that, given an enormous variety of behaviours among humans and differing views of what is acceptable, we should look to “manage deviants, rather than suppose that we can eradicate deviance.”
The main logic that drives this conclusion is that it is easier to influence (or even control) deviant or risky behaviours if they are in the open than if they are driven underground, outside public view. Of course, there are concerns on the outside limits that such a program could be abused to Orwellian proportions, which makes me hesitant to endorse GPS monitoring of criminal offenders on a large scale.
The logic that I came across is hardly original (although it was to me at the time). The most I can say is that it repackages common intuition from risk-management in enterprise and in finance into a language that may make it seem more applicable to other social or security problems.
A handful stand out to me, the last two of which are the main reason I jotted this down…
Given: we cannot eliminate risk in international financial systems, so we should look to regulatory systems that manage levels of systemic risk rather than trying to eliminate it.
Given: the production and consumption of drugs will not be eliminated any time soon, as evidenced by the near-total failure of incredibly expensive and draconian war on drugs, as well as thousands of years of experimentation with drugs across nearly all societies over history. Therefore, we should manage or regulate the production and consumption of drugs, bringing this social issue within the scope of public influence rather than driving it into the black market where the public has little or no influence.
Given: the risk of terrorism cannot even be eliminated entirely therefore we should look to manage the problem by reducing incentives for terrorism. This probably means taking measures to enhance education and economic opportunities among the populace in regions that tend to export terrorists. It also sensibly points to the need for some domestic security measures (roughly in proportion to the risk), but the impossibility of completely eradicating the risk implies that we rapidly reach a point where it is not worth it to allow our government to usurp ever more control and surveillance over the citizenry.
Given: the nascent Afghan state will not be a replica of American, British, German or Swiss democracy. Therefore, resolving the insurgency implies that any central authority in Afghanistan will have to manage the realities of shifting inter-tribal linkages and alliances, traditional preferences among many Afghani civilians and the fact that radical groups of Islam are a part of the present-day social milieu in Afghanistan. Economic development will not happen without security, but security will remain uncertain as long as Kabul is unable to manage the reality that political self-determination in Afghanistan has always (or at least for a very long time) been something that happens on a very localized level. Trying to supplant these traditional political structures gives local leaders something to fight for, so we must recognize that law develops as a combination of “what is” and “what ought to be”. Refusing to recognize the first of these phrases is a sure recipe for failure.
In short, manage reality wherever imposing the ideal “solution waiting to happen” is bound to fail.
___________________________________
Finally, a few short words of strategy in negotiating with terrorists in any case where a ransom is being considered at all: never, ever, consider a policy that directly or indirectly funnels money into terrorist hands. That’s nothing new (but points to an amazing absurdity in international drug laws).
However, I suggest that we should be prepared to give ground and carry out negotiations where militant groups are willing to specify their constituency, with the idea that engaging in public works for such a constituency acts as both an act of good faith and exposes the falsity of any claim to representing a constituency when a militant group is unwilling to engage in said style of negotiation.
Not always appropriate, but managing a conflict in such a manner may almost be consistent with the principle of viewing the world as a place that is full of “solutions waiting to happen.”
___________________________________
“Keynesian” policies that make public investments should be highly effective at restoring economic growth when the economy is running below “full employment.” Otherwise, such policies should have little or no effect, being marginally positive in the long run if the returns to public investment is greater than returns to the resources remaining for investment after consumption, and marginally negative in the long run if the crowding out effect results in generally lower rates of technical progress.
Given the general assumption that entrepreneurship and technical innovation is more likely in private markets (regardless of whether they receive public support), I conclude that “Keynesians” may generally be more right than wrong in hard times and more wrong than right in good times.
(quotation marks used because what is generally called “Keynesian” economics is barely true at all to the actual works of Keynes, and is used as a blanket term to describe all economic arguments that favour public spending, often referred to in conjunction with the 1970s crises to discredit such approaches)
___________________________________
Consumption taxes should, in sum, after counting for other effects, be marginally effective at stimulating investment, since savings (which are then invested, in some manner or another) become relatively more valuable in relation to consumption.
This realization makes me happy for several reasons:
a) I have long argued for a revenue-neutral increase in consumption taxes, in order to fund lower income taxes. I like this because lowering taxes on labour improves the relative value of returns to investments in productivity, while increasing consumption taxes similarly increases the relative returns to investments in productivity,
b) productivity growth is the only basis for long term growth, and such an approach both improves private returns to productivity growth and acts as a disincentive to excessive consumption, a cause of significant environmental damage as well as enormous long-term fiscal disequilibria for private and public consumers,
c) there no is question whatsoever that the savings rate must rise in the medium term in most Western economics, and such a policy can accomplish a) and b) while simultaneously providing governments with the financial resources to provide services and improving the savings rate,
d) I have an ideological preference for taxing consumption rather than income (presuming that transfers are tweaked accordingly, such that real income remains unchanged), since it offers greater freedom for consumers to decide whether to save or spend their income. An income tax offers no choice on the matter, whereas a consumption tax allows the consumer to make the choice between savings and consumption. This is consistent with the micro-economic principle that the greater the portion of income that consumers are left to allocate independently, the more they are able to maximize their satisfaction according to their preferences, yielding a net improvement in the social outcome and consumer satisfaction, and
e) Finally, I’m happy about this because such a policy was just announced in Quebec. I have long railed against Harper and friends for being knobs for using an increase in income taxes to pay for a decrease in consumption taxes (the GST), and have hoped that provinces would take this chance to undo this move, either as a tool to improve public finances (the case for Quebec) or to decrease income taxes.
___________________________________
I was shocked to receive a grade of 0% on an essay exam written about the cancellation of the re-enactment on the Plains of Abraham. (and rest assured, it's not going to stay that way).
In general, I find that the people I meet in Quebec are quite respectful of various cultures, more so than I had supposed given the legal status of non-French rights in Quebec, as well as the media attention given to a handful of attempted xenophobic measures in certain municipalities. However, this is the first time that I have submitted something that was critical of the potential dark sides of Quebec nationalism (except for this article , which has been read by not a soul, to my knowledge). As such, I am left to conclude, for now, that I have been correct to express my concern in many-a-conversation over the years that Quebec nationalism risks becoming a negative vent for frustrations rather than a channel whereby the history and culture of this region can become a meaningful source of pride and identity.
My parody of an informative essay, which itself played with words and events surrounding this contentious re-enactment, was designed to be inflammatory on the one hand, but largely as an exploration of how the challenge of maintaining an strong, unique and independent culture in Quebec such that the act of celebration can itself become an effective cultural ambassador for the Quebecois.
___________________________________
An interesting example of journalistic manipulation on Radio-Canada I heard this morning: the first announcement of a $100 million dollar federal project to repair tourist destinations in Quebec City is immediately followed by a complaint that they didn’t even spend more money on some other project, then, an immediate a rapid switch, with barely the pause of a breath in between to… Four soldiers killed in Afghanistan, eight injured, including plenty of mentions of war and suffering.
The following program is about a francophone author from Manitoba, Gabriella Roy, who is presented as perhaps the best Canadian writer ever. Fine. Dandy. Second mention of $100 million of federal funding coming to Quebec City, immediately followed by complaints that they didn’t even provide more funding for some other projects, then, with a half a second pause … 15 year-old child killed in scooter accident. Awful, terrible. Suffering. War… goes on.
Already, after the first ploy, the immediate image that came to mind as they mentioned the project for the second time was the four dead soldiers that were tied to the project in the first announcement. I am readily susceptible to association by suggestion, but am typically being well aware of it when it happens.
I support journalistic freedom as a bedrock principle or a free society, but it seems to me that some of the producers and/or announcers at Radio-Canada in Quebec City are abusing their privilege of access to a large audience promote bad sentiment towards anything to do with any federal project or politician. This is something I had already noticed with the morning announcer (who is my alarm in the morning), who cuts off anyone who is on the verge of saying something that has positive connotations for anything federal, and then goes on to mock the argument or comment that was about to be said.
That would all be fine and dandy on a private network, but the notion of announcers, paid with federal money, using their access to manipulate an audience against all things federal, just rings wrong to me. In the interests of national unity, it is certainly not a smart idea to cut funding for the programs, but perhaps some directives of more objective reporting and commentary would be nice.
I suggest the following approach for the “journalist” to imbue their bias into today’s announcement: $100 million for repairs of tourism destinations in Quebec. The announcer, if he were up to date with local opinion surveys, could then accomplish his goal by alluding to the fact that these reconstructions will take place not far from the proposed site of the Plains of Abraham, leaving listeners to colour the story with their own preconceptions. However, the way that this was brazenly carried out this morning was certainly in breach of journalistic ethics, in the way that it overtly manipulated listeners’ mental associations with this sizeable public investment in tourist facilities in Quebec City.
___________________________________
I have long preferred to think of “problems” as “solutions waiting to happen.” However, there are numerous cases where this outlook is naïve, with complete solutions being unlikely or impossible. As such, I am generally a proponent of managing many kinds of problems rather than supposing that we can eradicate them.
The first application of this concept resulted from readings on the strategies to deal with criminality over the ages. One theme seems to be separating the deviants from society and the other is the idea that criminals can be rehabilitated, or at least forced to conform to social norms. In the absence of any convincing evidence that severity of punishment is an effective deterrent for most crimes (possibly because most offenders think they will get away with it), and ignoring the proclivity towards punishment as an animalistic reaction of vengeance rather than any sort of genuine solution towards deviant behaviour, I am left with segregation and rehabilitation as the dichotomous approaches. In the end, I reject this dichotomy in preference of managing deviance rather than abolishing or healing deviants.
This led to a months long project to evaluate GPS monitoring bracelets for non-dangerous offenders as a way to save money, improve inmates freedom and privacy (which could hardly be more impaired than it is in a prison), improves a societies productive potential, reduces the damaging effects that some criminality may have on children due to a ‘lost’ parent, and as a way to deter many types of crimes (just think, would you rather spend a month behind bars or three being tracked with a GPS bracelet.
This is only a minor technical modification of the conditional sentence, but one that makes conditional sentences rather than prison term practical for a greater number of cases. The costs and benefits, however, are hard to pin down, and it may be a politically difficult program to implement. Ironically, my laptop was stolen before I completed the project. Since then, I have never gone more than a few days without making a backup copy of all my work.
In any case, I only mention this project because it is where I came across the general notion that, given an enormous variety of behaviours among humans and differing views of what is acceptable, we should look to “manage deviants, rather than suppose that we can eradicate deviance.”
The main logic that drives this conclusion is that it is easier to influence (or even control) deviant or risky behaviours if they are in the open than if they are driven underground, outside public view. Of course, there are concerns on the outside limits that such a program could be abused to Orwellian proportions, which makes me hesitant to endorse GPS monitoring of criminal offenders on a large scale.
The logic that I came across is hardly original (although it was to me at the time). The most I can say is that it repackages common intuition from risk-management in enterprise and in finance into a language that may make it seem more applicable to other social or security problems.
A handful stand out to me, the last two of which are the main reason I jotted this down…
Given: we cannot eliminate risk in international financial systems, so we should look to regulatory systems that manage levels of systemic risk rather than trying to eliminate it.
Given: the production and consumption of drugs will not be eliminated any time soon, as evidenced by the near-total failure of incredibly expensive and draconian war on drugs, as well as thousands of years of experimentation with drugs across nearly all societies over history. Therefore, we should manage or regulate the production and consumption of drugs, bringing this social issue within the scope of public influence rather than driving it into the black market where the public has little or no influence.
Given: the risk of terrorism cannot even be eliminated entirely therefore we should look to manage the problem by reducing incentives for terrorism. This probably means taking measures to enhance education and economic opportunities among the populace in regions that tend to export terrorists. It also sensibly points to the need for some domestic security measures (roughly in proportion to the risk), but the impossibility of completely eradicating the risk implies that we rapidly reach a point where it is not worth it to allow our government to usurp ever more control and surveillance over the citizenry.
Given: the nascent Afghan state will not be a replica of American, British, German or Swiss democracy. Therefore, resolving the insurgency implies that any central authority in Afghanistan will have to manage the realities of shifting inter-tribal linkages and alliances, traditional preferences among many Afghani civilians and the fact that radical groups of Islam are a part of the present-day social milieu in Afghanistan. Economic development will not happen without security, but security will remain uncertain as long as Kabul is unable to manage the reality that political self-determination in Afghanistan has always (or at least for a very long time) been something that happens on a very localized level. Trying to supplant these traditional political structures gives local leaders something to fight for, so we must recognize that law develops as a combination of “what is” and “what ought to be”. Refusing to recognize the first of these phrases is a sure recipe for failure.
In short, manage reality wherever imposing the ideal “solution waiting to happen” is bound to fail.
___________________________________
Finally, a few short words of strategy in negotiating with terrorists in any case where a ransom is being considered at all: never, ever, consider a policy that directly or indirectly funnels money into terrorist hands. That’s nothing new (but points to an amazing absurdity in international drug laws).
However, I suggest that we should be prepared to give ground and carry out negotiations where militant groups are willing to specify their constituency, with the idea that engaging in public works for such a constituency acts as both an act of good faith and exposes the falsity of any claim to representing a constituency when a militant group is unwilling to engage in said style of negotiation.
Not always appropriate, but managing a conflict in such a manner may almost be consistent with the principle of viewing the world as a place that is full of “solutions waiting to happen.”
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Could wishful thinking guide physicists too?
It is more or less a requisite part of studying any amount of international relations that one should come across the idea of “wishful thinking”. In short, I’d say that this is the idea that our surroundings conform to a false reality that would be conducive to a particular strategy being carried out towards a desired end. Similarly, it can lead us to refute incoming information when it forces us to confront a reality that we don’t want to be true, or that is so entirely inconsistent with our preconceptions that we are unable to consider its veracity.
This goes hand in hand with the idea of incomplete information, which is a typical problem in political systems with few informational feedbacks, often due to an overly assertive leader. The possible result is that false conclusions are reached due to false assumptions that are reflected back when the inquisitor looks out to the world. This may be the result of assuming that reality behaves in some particular way, that it will work the way we desire it to, and that these assumptions seem perfectly reasonable to us, regardless of how they may fail to stand up to what is really going on in the world that exists outside of our head.
To some extent, this is an inescapable problem in every field of inquiry. What I am wondering is if such wishful thinking may have led a particularly famous physicist to a wrong conclusion? The reason that I think it is interesting to take this issue up is that another particularly famous physicist has much more recently used this possibly false conclusion to propose a theory of “cyclical big banging”, if I may be permitted to invent such a term, as an explanation for where the big bang came from. I have been altogether too vague so far, so let me get directly to the topic matter at hand.
As far as I recall, Einstein believed that the space-time continuum was circular. By that I mean that I am lead to believe that he believed that there was some curvature in the universe that essentially meant that if an object of some mass were to continue uninterrupted in one direction for an infinite amount of time, that the this object would return to its starting point. It should be explicit that I do not understand this to mean that he questioned the infinitude of the potential size of the universe. (Perhaps it could have ever further rings of continuum, or some such thing, but in any case, the details are not important for my argument).
Allow me to change tack for a moment and offer some context with a brief outline of some issues with the big bang, what it allows us to explain and a major problem that this theory poses for the universe if it is true.
Upon noticing some particular patterns in waves beaming to the earth, some physicists observed a few decades ago that all the other galaxies in the universe appear to be getting further away from ours. This is the centerpiece of evidence that leads us to believe that the universe started as an incredibly dense ball of matter that exploded into every direction.
Thing is, the further other galaxies are away from us, the greater the difference in this “wave signature”, à la doppler effect, which amounts to evidence that the universe continues its outward spread. This led to the “great cool down” theory, which basically states that the universe is in continual expansion. (The opposing theory being that gravity would eventually be enough to stop this and bring us flying back together, with equally catastrophic consequences… unfortunately, or fortunately, I’m not sure which, it appears that things are already way to far apart and are moving way too fast).
The great cool down is no great secret, but in case it has escaped your attention, this means that as everything spreads further and further apart, the heat becomes more spread out, and we trend towards the theoretical limit of absolute zero, where the inner bits of particles stop moving, at about -273.15C. One final point before continuing is that time is the fourth dimension. This is a very deep statement. It has ginormous implications in terms of the way that the universe can be conceived, but I have absolutely no intentions of getting into any in depth discussion of the philosophical or mathematical implications of relativity (the second of which is beyond me at this point in time anyways).
OK, back to the main point. Einstein proposed that the space-time continuum could be curved such that we may be able to return to the point of origin by apparently continuing in one direction.
Stephen Hawking takes up on this in his ‘Brief History of Time’ to suppose that this would allow for recurring big bangs. The idea would be that everything would continue expanding to the point that space-time curved back in on itself, leading straight from the great cool down back into the next agglomeration of matter/energy, leading to yet another big bang.
Two interesting things that come from this idea: first, that the big bang is the beginning of time for all intents and purposes, since it would obviously destroy all forensic record of what came before it (including, say, another intelligent species which had discovered the secrets of the universe). Second, and similarly, there would be no way to know how many big bangs there had been.
What I particularly take issue with here is that, to my knowledge, there is no reason whatsoever to believe it’s true. The theory appeals to me for a lot of reasons though. Paramount being that, even if all the evidence we see points to a great cool down, I have a far easier time, in a spiritual sort of sense, dealing with the implications of recurring big bangs than a great cool down. It leaves so much more to the imagination. Nature itself, for all its contradictions (perhaps you should read “dynamic equilibria” within ever-changing surroundings, or “constructive tensions” in place of that word), cannot be anything other than what it is.
A recurring big bang leaves plenty of theoretical space for one to suppose that nature has meaning. That nature has a future. That, whatever happens, even if life ends, it can begin again. That there is a cycle. That there is equilibrium. Balance. Direction. Meaning. At the outside edge, even if all religion and theism is nothing more than a confused attempt by human individuals and societies to construct a sense of psychological order within an apparently chaotic reality, that even in the case of the end of the universe, there is always a new beginning.
The opposite of such a hypothesis, of course, would be that nature can have no meaning. That nature has no future. That, whatever happens, when the continuum of life reaches an end, it will never begin again. That there is no cycle of the universe. That the trend to equilibrium means a progression to what is, at the outside limit, essentially pure nothingness.
What I am saying is that, in the lack of evidence, I have to wonder if Hawking’s recurring big bang is nothing but a case of wishful thinking, in the face of the sheer weight of the alternative.
_____________________________
But, think of a drop of oil in water. Now … just imagine that there was some force that would make it suddenly shoot to all directions in a pot of moving water. Both experience and simple scientific explanations tell us that the oil will eventually rejoin into one drop when surrounded by water. We know that energy (aka matter) is attracted to itself in some sort of way, almost certainly some sort of force almost identical to what we understand as gravity.
Which brings me to the even greater question, which has led many physicists to postulate the existence of dark matter … Is it not possible that there is not some analogy for Van der Waals forces at the macro level? I have no reason to believe this is the case, except that following Lyell’s principle of uniformatarianism, if we have reached such a conclusion at the level of particles, then I would think that some such phenomenon may be at least as reasonable as the postulation of dark matter that is all the rage in theoretical physics these days. The present argument can easily be rejected by simply saying that different laws apply to small bodies (particles) and large bodies (say, stars and galaxies), but I just don’t find that to be an entirely satisfying rejection. If you don’t know what Van der Waals discovered, then don’t worry about it. Otherwise, that’s more than just a bit of food for thought.
________________________________________
On another note, I have reached a troubling conundrum.
I have spent the last few days in a somewhat of a state of heightened awareness of the fact that everything is made of stuff (i.e., is made of parts). This has brought an enormous sense of liberation, in almost the opposite of the Foucault-ian concept of “docile bodies” which are used by producers in ever-more-specialized ways to better ever-better producers or ever-more-efficient soldiers, etc. Rather, with more of an artisan sort of outlook (perhaps more ‘natural’ for humans, but certainly not more competitive in the evolutionary sense when connecting productive capacity to military capacity at the societal level), it is a sort of liberation, knowing that the ‘things’ around me are all within the realm of possibility were I to wish to cultivate the skill of making any of those constituent things.
The conundrum, however, comes with the shocking realization that nothing really exists. At least, not in the conventional way. I mean, I’ve known the nature of Van der Waals forces since high school chemistry, but a recent discussion led me to some contemplation of the way that (at the atomic or molecular level) material, or mass, that makes up an object doesn’t so much occupy a space, as it demarcates a space that excludes almost the entire probability mass of another object or bit of mass from simultaneously sharing any bit of that space.
Everything is made of stuff, but that stuff really isn’t anything in particular in the first place.
In closing, let me say that allowing common sense and experience to guide choices is about the only sensible thing to do for practical purposes, but it is only one of many ways that we questioning beings have at our disposal to inquire about the reality of nature.
This goes hand in hand with the idea of incomplete information, which is a typical problem in political systems with few informational feedbacks, often due to an overly assertive leader. The possible result is that false conclusions are reached due to false assumptions that are reflected back when the inquisitor looks out to the world. This may be the result of assuming that reality behaves in some particular way, that it will work the way we desire it to, and that these assumptions seem perfectly reasonable to us, regardless of how they may fail to stand up to what is really going on in the world that exists outside of our head.
To some extent, this is an inescapable problem in every field of inquiry. What I am wondering is if such wishful thinking may have led a particularly famous physicist to a wrong conclusion? The reason that I think it is interesting to take this issue up is that another particularly famous physicist has much more recently used this possibly false conclusion to propose a theory of “cyclical big banging”, if I may be permitted to invent such a term, as an explanation for where the big bang came from. I have been altogether too vague so far, so let me get directly to the topic matter at hand.
As far as I recall, Einstein believed that the space-time continuum was circular. By that I mean that I am lead to believe that he believed that there was some curvature in the universe that essentially meant that if an object of some mass were to continue uninterrupted in one direction for an infinite amount of time, that the this object would return to its starting point. It should be explicit that I do not understand this to mean that he questioned the infinitude of the potential size of the universe. (Perhaps it could have ever further rings of continuum, or some such thing, but in any case, the details are not important for my argument).
Allow me to change tack for a moment and offer some context with a brief outline of some issues with the big bang, what it allows us to explain and a major problem that this theory poses for the universe if it is true.
Upon noticing some particular patterns in waves beaming to the earth, some physicists observed a few decades ago that all the other galaxies in the universe appear to be getting further away from ours. This is the centerpiece of evidence that leads us to believe that the universe started as an incredibly dense ball of matter that exploded into every direction.
Thing is, the further other galaxies are away from us, the greater the difference in this “wave signature”, à la doppler effect, which amounts to evidence that the universe continues its outward spread. This led to the “great cool down” theory, which basically states that the universe is in continual expansion. (The opposing theory being that gravity would eventually be enough to stop this and bring us flying back together, with equally catastrophic consequences… unfortunately, or fortunately, I’m not sure which, it appears that things are already way to far apart and are moving way too fast).
The great cool down is no great secret, but in case it has escaped your attention, this means that as everything spreads further and further apart, the heat becomes more spread out, and we trend towards the theoretical limit of absolute zero, where the inner bits of particles stop moving, at about -273.15C. One final point before continuing is that time is the fourth dimension. This is a very deep statement. It has ginormous implications in terms of the way that the universe can be conceived, but I have absolutely no intentions of getting into any in depth discussion of the philosophical or mathematical implications of relativity (the second of which is beyond me at this point in time anyways).
OK, back to the main point. Einstein proposed that the space-time continuum could be curved such that we may be able to return to the point of origin by apparently continuing in one direction.
Stephen Hawking takes up on this in his ‘Brief History of Time’ to suppose that this would allow for recurring big bangs. The idea would be that everything would continue expanding to the point that space-time curved back in on itself, leading straight from the great cool down back into the next agglomeration of matter/energy, leading to yet another big bang.
Two interesting things that come from this idea: first, that the big bang is the beginning of time for all intents and purposes, since it would obviously destroy all forensic record of what came before it (including, say, another intelligent species which had discovered the secrets of the universe). Second, and similarly, there would be no way to know how many big bangs there had been.
What I particularly take issue with here is that, to my knowledge, there is no reason whatsoever to believe it’s true. The theory appeals to me for a lot of reasons though. Paramount being that, even if all the evidence we see points to a great cool down, I have a far easier time, in a spiritual sort of sense, dealing with the implications of recurring big bangs than a great cool down. It leaves so much more to the imagination. Nature itself, for all its contradictions (perhaps you should read “dynamic equilibria” within ever-changing surroundings, or “constructive tensions” in place of that word), cannot be anything other than what it is.
A recurring big bang leaves plenty of theoretical space for one to suppose that nature has meaning. That nature has a future. That, whatever happens, even if life ends, it can begin again. That there is a cycle. That there is equilibrium. Balance. Direction. Meaning. At the outside edge, even if all religion and theism is nothing more than a confused attempt by human individuals and societies to construct a sense of psychological order within an apparently chaotic reality, that even in the case of the end of the universe, there is always a new beginning.
The opposite of such a hypothesis, of course, would be that nature can have no meaning. That nature has no future. That, whatever happens, when the continuum of life reaches an end, it will never begin again. That there is no cycle of the universe. That the trend to equilibrium means a progression to what is, at the outside limit, essentially pure nothingness.
What I am saying is that, in the lack of evidence, I have to wonder if Hawking’s recurring big bang is nothing but a case of wishful thinking, in the face of the sheer weight of the alternative.
_____________________________
But, think of a drop of oil in water. Now … just imagine that there was some force that would make it suddenly shoot to all directions in a pot of moving water. Both experience and simple scientific explanations tell us that the oil will eventually rejoin into one drop when surrounded by water. We know that energy (aka matter) is attracted to itself in some sort of way, almost certainly some sort of force almost identical to what we understand as gravity.
Which brings me to the even greater question, which has led many physicists to postulate the existence of dark matter … Is it not possible that there is not some analogy for Van der Waals forces at the macro level? I have no reason to believe this is the case, except that following Lyell’s principle of uniformatarianism, if we have reached such a conclusion at the level of particles, then I would think that some such phenomenon may be at least as reasonable as the postulation of dark matter that is all the rage in theoretical physics these days. The present argument can easily be rejected by simply saying that different laws apply to small bodies (particles) and large bodies (say, stars and galaxies), but I just don’t find that to be an entirely satisfying rejection. If you don’t know what Van der Waals discovered, then don’t worry about it. Otherwise, that’s more than just a bit of food for thought.
________________________________________
On another note, I have reached a troubling conundrum.
I have spent the last few days in a somewhat of a state of heightened awareness of the fact that everything is made of stuff (i.e., is made of parts). This has brought an enormous sense of liberation, in almost the opposite of the Foucault-ian concept of “docile bodies” which are used by producers in ever-more-specialized ways to better ever-better producers or ever-more-efficient soldiers, etc. Rather, with more of an artisan sort of outlook (perhaps more ‘natural’ for humans, but certainly not more competitive in the evolutionary sense when connecting productive capacity to military capacity at the societal level), it is a sort of liberation, knowing that the ‘things’ around me are all within the realm of possibility were I to wish to cultivate the skill of making any of those constituent things.
The conundrum, however, comes with the shocking realization that nothing really exists. At least, not in the conventional way. I mean, I’ve known the nature of Van der Waals forces since high school chemistry, but a recent discussion led me to some contemplation of the way that (at the atomic or molecular level) material, or mass, that makes up an object doesn’t so much occupy a space, as it demarcates a space that excludes almost the entire probability mass of another object or bit of mass from simultaneously sharing any bit of that space.
Everything is made of stuff, but that stuff really isn’t anything in particular in the first place.
In closing, let me say that allowing common sense and experience to guide choices is about the only sensible thing to do for practical purposes, but it is only one of many ways that we questioning beings have at our disposal to inquire about the reality of nature.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Consider this:
1) I propose that there is a 1% chance of a giant fire burning down your house, killing some family members and forcing the rest to live on the streets. Do you a) spend a small portion of your income, perhaps 1%, protecting against this possibility, or b) do nothing and hope there's no fire.
2) I propose that there is a 99% chance that there will be a small fire in your house, causing some damages, possibly killing one family member and certainly forcing your uncle onto the streets for an extended period of time. Do you a) spend a small portion of your income trying to minimize damage, or b) do nothing and hope there's no fire?
The next question is: is global warming a type 1 scenario or a type 2 scenario.
(hint, a pair of pears would just be too much in about two seconds).
1) I propose that there is a 1% chance of a giant fire burning down your house, killing some family members and forcing the rest to live on the streets. Do you a) spend a small portion of your income, perhaps 1%, protecting against this possibility, or b) do nothing and hope there's no fire.
2) I propose that there is a 99% chance that there will be a small fire in your house, causing some damages, possibly killing one family member and certainly forcing your uncle onto the streets for an extended period of time. Do you a) spend a small portion of your income trying to minimize damage, or b) do nothing and hope there's no fire?
The next question is: is global warming a type 1 scenario or a type 2 scenario.
(hint, a pair of pears would just be too much in about two seconds).
Saturday, February 7, 2009
language and experience
If language can only imperfectly communicate experience or reality, then what's the significance of the experience of communication?
Apple. Picture it. Imagine tasting it. Pick one. Do it, in your mind. Is it really an apple? Of course not.
Now think about another person doing each of the same things. Do you think they are thinking about the same apple, or even the same kind of apple? Enjoying the imaginary apple in the same kind of way?
Here I am talking about a very simple thing. An apple. Yet, rest assured, we already find great divergence in what we are talking about. If we can't even agree on a precise meaning of simple things, then how are earth are we to communicate clearly when it comes to deeper communication?
In my mind, I consider every act of communication to be an act of miscommunication, although sometimes we are not far off the mark. This can be a source of great consternation, as we try to share our experience of life with the people around us, but it can also be a great source of pleasure, as we explore our social surrounding.
At the end of the day though, I cannot get inside your head and you cannot get inside mine. Words may be out in the open, but the listener may presume to understand something, according to their experience, whereas the speaker may presume that the listener understood the communication according to the way the the speaker themself had intended it.
So, in a sense, we can escape all this quite easily by forgetting about words and getting to actions. I may eat an apple. I may share an apple. I might eat an apple that looks and tastes the same as another one, eaten by another person. But, did I eat it alone? With someone? Was our experience of eating the apple similar?
OK, so a largely identical experience may carry differing significance for two people. No problem then. Experience must be the loci of meaning then. No original statement there, after all, that's where the phenomenologists ended up. But, I am not thinking of the pathway through exploration of the meaning of experience that follows from cognition through to psychoanalysis. This was a path that seemed to carry a significant portion of philosophy and psychology over the last century much farther from reality and truth than closer to it.
What is the significance of experience? of AN experience that is. The apple. Looking at it. Eating it. Picking it, etc. When does it become more than than just the act in itself?
When is eating an apple more than eating an apple? I suggest, perhaps, when it takes on a social nature. Eating an apple is a thing that any apple-eating animal can do. Doing so as a human, well that's a different story.
It is something that can be done together. The very fact that it is done alone may also have a particular signifiance, or none. Whatever the case is, we can go beyond the action itself. It goes beyond the shared or solitary experience of doing so. More than simple objective reality, transformed into a symbol, a word, it becomes the paranormal, something more than reality. An experience we share, or may talk about. And in the act of communication, it may be something that may take on all sorts of additional meanings, and bring us to much deeper levels of self- and social-consciousness.
Still, I am really referring to that very simple apple, all the while aware that much more can be pulled from the word, all of which goes well beyond the object as it is in material reality, and belongs in the scope of social REALITY that we construct, within and between and among ourselves.
The word is not the thing, but the word is a thing unto itself.
An experience is not a word, but can be transformed into a word in its own right.
The experience of a word, or many of them, in communication, is not just a word, not just an experience of something that is in nature, when abstracted from humans, but is something more.
What then of a note, the stroke of a brush, a step of a dance, a flicker of a smile. All, much more than they seem to be. More than nature, because their nature is social.
Apple. Picture it. Imagine tasting it. Pick one. Do it, in your mind. Is it really an apple? Of course not.
Now think about another person doing each of the same things. Do you think they are thinking about the same apple, or even the same kind of apple? Enjoying the imaginary apple in the same kind of way?
Here I am talking about a very simple thing. An apple. Yet, rest assured, we already find great divergence in what we are talking about. If we can't even agree on a precise meaning of simple things, then how are earth are we to communicate clearly when it comes to deeper communication?
In my mind, I consider every act of communication to be an act of miscommunication, although sometimes we are not far off the mark. This can be a source of great consternation, as we try to share our experience of life with the people around us, but it can also be a great source of pleasure, as we explore our social surrounding.
At the end of the day though, I cannot get inside your head and you cannot get inside mine. Words may be out in the open, but the listener may presume to understand something, according to their experience, whereas the speaker may presume that the listener understood the communication according to the way the the speaker themself had intended it.
So, in a sense, we can escape all this quite easily by forgetting about words and getting to actions. I may eat an apple. I may share an apple. I might eat an apple that looks and tastes the same as another one, eaten by another person. But, did I eat it alone? With someone? Was our experience of eating the apple similar?
OK, so a largely identical experience may carry differing significance for two people. No problem then. Experience must be the loci of meaning then. No original statement there, after all, that's where the phenomenologists ended up. But, I am not thinking of the pathway through exploration of the meaning of experience that follows from cognition through to psychoanalysis. This was a path that seemed to carry a significant portion of philosophy and psychology over the last century much farther from reality and truth than closer to it.
What is the significance of experience? of AN experience that is. The apple. Looking at it. Eating it. Picking it, etc. When does it become more than than just the act in itself?
When is eating an apple more than eating an apple? I suggest, perhaps, when it takes on a social nature. Eating an apple is a thing that any apple-eating animal can do. Doing so as a human, well that's a different story.
It is something that can be done together. The very fact that it is done alone may also have a particular signifiance, or none. Whatever the case is, we can go beyond the action itself. It goes beyond the shared or solitary experience of doing so. More than simple objective reality, transformed into a symbol, a word, it becomes the paranormal, something more than reality. An experience we share, or may talk about. And in the act of communication, it may be something that may take on all sorts of additional meanings, and bring us to much deeper levels of self- and social-consciousness.
Still, I am really referring to that very simple apple, all the while aware that much more can be pulled from the word, all of which goes well beyond the object as it is in material reality, and belongs in the scope of social REALITY that we construct, within and between and among ourselves.
The word is not the thing, but the word is a thing unto itself.
An experience is not a word, but can be transformed into a word in its own right.
The experience of a word, or many of them, in communication, is not just a word, not just an experience of something that is in nature, when abstracted from humans, but is something more.
What then of a note, the stroke of a brush, a step of a dance, a flicker of a smile. All, much more than they seem to be. More than nature, because their nature is social.
Net potential
The potential pitfalls of excessive focus on public debt in times of trouble...
The logic here is simple: the number that really matters is the debt to GDP ratio. Let me say it again for emphasis - it is the debt to GDP ratio, not the absolute amount of debt, that is significant when considering the ability of future generations to pay off our debt.
A typical fiscal conservative is concerned, among other things, that governments are in danger of building up too much debt when fighting recessions, which would then have negative long term effects due to the deteriorating position of public finances. In particular, right wingers in Canada seem to share a particular proclivity to citing Rae's difficulties in the recession in the early 90s as proof that government spending is not an effective way to reduce the extremes of recession. (Actually, they say that "you can't spend your way out of recession", whereas I am rephrasing this, to make it clear that, in fact, government spending clearly reduces the extremes of recessions, at least in the short term).
The important question then, is this: does additional public spending during recessionary periods a) improve, or b) damage, long term prospects for both the health of public books and economic growth.
My argument is simple, although I do not take it as a foregone conclusion that it is correct in each case. This argument should be correctly applicable in some cases, but not in others.
Here it is: long term productivity growth, which, in the knowledge economy, is largely driven by human capital accumulation, is particularly threatened by the extremes of recessions because workers shift to sectors where their acquired skills are underused or useless.
The intuition that comes from this, in more poignant terms? Fiscal stimulus must be big enough to prevent an enormous decline in long term potential growth that would result from a misallocation of skills that would take place during an extended period of recession.
I don't typically think it's worth writing something unless it points to the fallacy of a certain school of orthodox thinking, and in this case I think it's important to be explicit about which argument I'm taking on. Let me move from the orthodox to the unorthodox in discrete steps: 1) Government spending in recessions increases public debt and prevents the markets from doing their magic of downsizing or eliminating ineffcient economic activity; 2) Economic growth continues on a trend, so a period below the trend may not be too much to stress about because there is always a rebound; 3) but recessions also eliminate jobs in otherwise healthy industries; 4) These otherwise healthy industries rely on a certain body of skills and experience to maintain ongoing economic growth, 5) The misallocation of labour skills or loss of skills over time, that occurs as people find other occupations, reduces potential GDP, and 6) MOST IMPORTANTLY, a lower potential GDP growth rate means that the debt to GDP ratio is higher, EVEN IF TOTAL DEBT IS LOWER!
So, to sum this up in a few nice words ... When private demand collapses, public stimulus can have the net effect of improving our capacity to repay future debt by ensuring that human capital, i.e., acquired skills and talents, are not destroyed for all practical purposes when shifting to other sectors.
This argument doesn't even count for (a more common argument that) the fact that public spending may improve the debt to GDP ratio, even in the short term. This is simply due to the fact that spending 2% of GDP may sufficiently prop up demand that the decline in corporate and income tax receipts will have less of an impact on the total fiscal balance cmopared to doing nothing.
Between my present argument and the more standard one, let me conclude that it is no foregone matter that public efforts to spend our way out of recession have long term negative impacts on either public finances or long term growth. This is not to deny that the orthodox arguments must be carefully considered before a government decides to prop up aggregate demand as an anti-cyclical tool. It is, as I often say, a matter of debate for any givn case. Do not let anti-Keynesian dogmatism undermine our net potential.
The logic here is simple: the number that really matters is the debt to GDP ratio. Let me say it again for emphasis - it is the debt to GDP ratio, not the absolute amount of debt, that is significant when considering the ability of future generations to pay off our debt.
A typical fiscal conservative is concerned, among other things, that governments are in danger of building up too much debt when fighting recessions, which would then have negative long term effects due to the deteriorating position of public finances. In particular, right wingers in Canada seem to share a particular proclivity to citing Rae's difficulties in the recession in the early 90s as proof that government spending is not an effective way to reduce the extremes of recession. (Actually, they say that "you can't spend your way out of recession", whereas I am rephrasing this, to make it clear that, in fact, government spending clearly reduces the extremes of recessions, at least in the short term).
The important question then, is this: does additional public spending during recessionary periods a) improve, or b) damage, long term prospects for both the health of public books and economic growth.
My argument is simple, although I do not take it as a foregone conclusion that it is correct in each case. This argument should be correctly applicable in some cases, but not in others.
Here it is: long term productivity growth, which, in the knowledge economy, is largely driven by human capital accumulation, is particularly threatened by the extremes of recessions because workers shift to sectors where their acquired skills are underused or useless.
The intuition that comes from this, in more poignant terms? Fiscal stimulus must be big enough to prevent an enormous decline in long term potential growth that would result from a misallocation of skills that would take place during an extended period of recession.
I don't typically think it's worth writing something unless it points to the fallacy of a certain school of orthodox thinking, and in this case I think it's important to be explicit about which argument I'm taking on. Let me move from the orthodox to the unorthodox in discrete steps: 1) Government spending in recessions increases public debt and prevents the markets from doing their magic of downsizing or eliminating ineffcient economic activity; 2) Economic growth continues on a trend, so a period below the trend may not be too much to stress about because there is always a rebound; 3) but recessions also eliminate jobs in otherwise healthy industries; 4) These otherwise healthy industries rely on a certain body of skills and experience to maintain ongoing economic growth, 5) The misallocation of labour skills or loss of skills over time, that occurs as people find other occupations, reduces potential GDP, and 6) MOST IMPORTANTLY, a lower potential GDP growth rate means that the debt to GDP ratio is higher, EVEN IF TOTAL DEBT IS LOWER!
So, to sum this up in a few nice words ... When private demand collapses, public stimulus can have the net effect of improving our capacity to repay future debt by ensuring that human capital, i.e., acquired skills and talents, are not destroyed for all practical purposes when shifting to other sectors.
This argument doesn't even count for (a more common argument that) the fact that public spending may improve the debt to GDP ratio, even in the short term. This is simply due to the fact that spending 2% of GDP may sufficiently prop up demand that the decline in corporate and income tax receipts will have less of an impact on the total fiscal balance cmopared to doing nothing.
Between my present argument and the more standard one, let me conclude that it is no foregone matter that public efforts to spend our way out of recession have long term negative impacts on either public finances or long term growth. This is not to deny that the orthodox arguments must be carefully considered before a government decides to prop up aggregate demand as an anti-cyclical tool. It is, as I often say, a matter of debate for any givn case. Do not let anti-Keynesian dogmatism undermine our net potential.
Monday, February 2, 2009
economic protectionism south of the border
re: concerns that a proposed bill in the US is protectionsist
I recently read about a proposd bill in the US that would dictate that any money spent on stimulus measures should be supplied by American producers.
Apparently there are concerns that this is amounts to a protectionist measure. For those who don't know their economic history, this harkens to the days of the Smoot-Hawkley tariff act in 1930, a piece of legislation that is sure to get more airtime in coming months. Many economists see this as the trigger that turned the asset crisis following the 1929 bust into the Great Depression.
My main point? Don't worry about! There's no reason to think that this is specifically protectionist at this point in time. (However, if we can paint it as somewhat so, then those who demand protectionist measures can possibly be appeased by these measures and we can avoid the potential worst that could come from escalating tariffs).
One may wonder how this could be seen as not protectionist. Then again, one might also wonder how it could be seen as protectionist. The second one first ... This could be seen as protectionist becasue it favours American industry at the expense of foreign producers, which effectively goes against the principles of free trade.
Let me offer an analogy before I make my argument that, considering the times, this can justly be considered as falling within the scope of free trade.
Imagine that some parents wants to support their child's university education. Should they send the cheque to the child, or to a fund at the university that will distribute money among the student body? Obviously, their cheque will have the desired effect of supporting their child's education if they send the check directly to the child.
I don't know if the connection is obvious here, since the US (the parent, which is not meant to imply paternalism) is much bigger, and there are many people. But, if we consider the American economy as the student, and other economies as the other students, then I could ask the question again. What's the best way to get the money to the kid?
It's not as though anyone is proposing that the US make things directly more difficult for the competition in the school of life, in the world economy, by charging higher taxes against foreign goods.
Just think - if the US wants to stimulate their economy to prevent a collapse, then why on earth should anyone expect materials for public projects to come from anywhere but the US?
Also, and this is the resounding punch - at the aggregate level, this is simply a handout the the American private sector: the government will buy up all the most expensive construction materials, while all the cheapest imports will go to the private sector. This probably does frontload the stimulus to American producers, but at the back end of the plan we see hidden incentives that may help some construction firms get back on their feet because the best deals will be left for them.
Whether the WTO, the international orgnization that is charged with maintaining and promoting trade agreements, would agree with me is a different questino altogether. Either way, I think that threatening, or even pursuing WTO actions should be seriously considered by those who are concerned about the consequences of even wider preferential measures for America's industries. Not, mind you, with the goal of winning, but with the goal giving American policy makers and politicians the ability to tell their populace that they have even gone into the face of international opposition to protect American industries, but in the interests of improving national security by maintaining good relations in these trying times, that anything more is simply not on the table.
The risks? That foreign politicians, in need of scapegoats for problems at home, will be all too effective at convincing their electorate they have fought hard for national interests, and trade relations will degenerate as we all get used to zero sum, or less, games as we all get too focused on national interest. Also, there's the risk that the WTO suit would piss off enough Americans that political pressures would rise for more protectionism.
But, I don't think that these risks, combined, outwiegh the risk of the protectionist crowd in the US, once getting the bit in their mouth, deciding to run off with a repeat of the 1930 tariff act. That, my friends, would be a surefire way to erase a generation of economic growth and increase the risk of global conflict.
Bring the suit on, fight bravely, tell the public we're fighting hard for the national interest, and then before the nationalist fervour festers into mob mentality, every political ledaer can declare that they have fought hard on our behalf in the international trade arena, and most importantly, American protectionist sentiments can be satiated with some costly American steel and lumber for new infrastrucutre, and the world can breathe a sigh of relief that this is as far as protectionism will go.
The rest of us consumers and businesses will still have the right to choose our goods based on price, ethics, sustainability, or whatever, without paying a greater premium for the geographic origin of the product.
I recently read about a proposd bill in the US that would dictate that any money spent on stimulus measures should be supplied by American producers.
Apparently there are concerns that this is amounts to a protectionist measure. For those who don't know their economic history, this harkens to the days of the Smoot-Hawkley tariff act in 1930, a piece of legislation that is sure to get more airtime in coming months. Many economists see this as the trigger that turned the asset crisis following the 1929 bust into the Great Depression.
My main point? Don't worry about! There's no reason to think that this is specifically protectionist at this point in time. (However, if we can paint it as somewhat so, then those who demand protectionist measures can possibly be appeased by these measures and we can avoid the potential worst that could come from escalating tariffs).
One may wonder how this could be seen as not protectionist. Then again, one might also wonder how it could be seen as protectionist. The second one first ... This could be seen as protectionist becasue it favours American industry at the expense of foreign producers, which effectively goes against the principles of free trade.
Let me offer an analogy before I make my argument that, considering the times, this can justly be considered as falling within the scope of free trade.
Imagine that some parents wants to support their child's university education. Should they send the cheque to the child, or to a fund at the university that will distribute money among the student body? Obviously, their cheque will have the desired effect of supporting their child's education if they send the check directly to the child.
I don't know if the connection is obvious here, since the US (the parent, which is not meant to imply paternalism) is much bigger, and there are many people. But, if we consider the American economy as the student, and other economies as the other students, then I could ask the question again. What's the best way to get the money to the kid?
It's not as though anyone is proposing that the US make things directly more difficult for the competition in the school of life, in the world economy, by charging higher taxes against foreign goods.
Just think - if the US wants to stimulate their economy to prevent a collapse, then why on earth should anyone expect materials for public projects to come from anywhere but the US?
Also, and this is the resounding punch - at the aggregate level, this is simply a handout the the American private sector: the government will buy up all the most expensive construction materials, while all the cheapest imports will go to the private sector. This probably does frontload the stimulus to American producers, but at the back end of the plan we see hidden incentives that may help some construction firms get back on their feet because the best deals will be left for them.
Whether the WTO, the international orgnization that is charged with maintaining and promoting trade agreements, would agree with me is a different questino altogether. Either way, I think that threatening, or even pursuing WTO actions should be seriously considered by those who are concerned about the consequences of even wider preferential measures for America's industries. Not, mind you, with the goal of winning, but with the goal giving American policy makers and politicians the ability to tell their populace that they have even gone into the face of international opposition to protect American industries, but in the interests of improving national security by maintaining good relations in these trying times, that anything more is simply not on the table.
The risks? That foreign politicians, in need of scapegoats for problems at home, will be all too effective at convincing their electorate they have fought hard for national interests, and trade relations will degenerate as we all get used to zero sum, or less, games as we all get too focused on national interest. Also, there's the risk that the WTO suit would piss off enough Americans that political pressures would rise for more protectionism.
But, I don't think that these risks, combined, outwiegh the risk of the protectionist crowd in the US, once getting the bit in their mouth, deciding to run off with a repeat of the 1930 tariff act. That, my friends, would be a surefire way to erase a generation of economic growth and increase the risk of global conflict.
Bring the suit on, fight bravely, tell the public we're fighting hard for the national interest, and then before the nationalist fervour festers into mob mentality, every political ledaer can declare that they have fought hard on our behalf in the international trade arena, and most importantly, American protectionist sentiments can be satiated with some costly American steel and lumber for new infrastrucutre, and the world can breathe a sigh of relief that this is as far as protectionism will go.
The rest of us consumers and businesses will still have the right to choose our goods based on price, ethics, sustainability, or whatever, without paying a greater premium for the geographic origin of the product.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
They can't all be wrong - or can they?
I have read a similar analysis in a fiscally conservative but socially liberal magazine, a rather middle of the road newspaper and a decidedly left wing news outlet, that the ongoing nature of our economic woes, despite the bailouts across the world, are evidence that the bailouts didn’t work.
I say nonsense to that! And wow, would things ever be a disaster if if they had done nothing.
I see these results of evidence that, had governments reacted as they did 75-80 years ago, we would quite likely have faced a Depression-like outcome. As it stands, we can take comfort in that it is not nearly so bad: we’re only looking at the worst recession in the industrial world (possibly) since world war 2, rather than one that is on par with the worst recession ever.
The argument that the present status of the economy is evidence that bailouts don't work brings the following picture of a literal bailout to mind (and if I were an artist of any sort, I would surely offer up an actual visual rendition of it).
Two sailors in a rapidly sinking boat with sharks swirling around... One of them is bailing water for all he's worth, and says “I’ve got this covered for a minute. You mind figuring out how to patch things up?” The other stands by idly, saying “I can`t see why he even bothers. With all this water left in the boat, he’s wasting his time.”
Hey, we need to let the shitty boats sink sometimes, but when the whole fleet springs a leak at the same time, it would be pretty stupid to take ongoing problems as evidence that all the bailers should be sent packing.
I say nonsense to that! And wow, would things ever be a disaster if if they had done nothing.
I see these results of evidence that, had governments reacted as they did 75-80 years ago, we would quite likely have faced a Depression-like outcome. As it stands, we can take comfort in that it is not nearly so bad: we’re only looking at the worst recession in the industrial world (possibly) since world war 2, rather than one that is on par with the worst recession ever.
The argument that the present status of the economy is evidence that bailouts don't work brings the following picture of a literal bailout to mind (and if I were an artist of any sort, I would surely offer up an actual visual rendition of it).
Two sailors in a rapidly sinking boat with sharks swirling around... One of them is bailing water for all he's worth, and says “I’ve got this covered for a minute. You mind figuring out how to patch things up?” The other stands by idly, saying “I can`t see why he even bothers. With all this water left in the boat, he’s wasting his time.”
Hey, we need to let the shitty boats sink sometimes, but when the whole fleet springs a leak at the same time, it would be pretty stupid to take ongoing problems as evidence that all the bailers should be sent packing.
Monday, January 19, 2009
A recent cause of discontent in Florida
There was a recent story about an Islamic group in Florida who put up a bunch of ads on buses promoting Islam. An ensuing public discussion saw a Muslim leader in the community say that, in his view, since all Muslims are people of God, then Abraham, Moses and Jesus must also have been Muslim.
I think the whole notion is ridiculous to start with, since there was no such thing as Islam when these guys were alive, but it got me thinking about something.
Only a misinformed Christian (i.e. most of them) is unaware of the fact that Muslims explicitly worship the same God as Christians (although this depends on whether you think God 'sans Jesus' is the same God). However, nearly every Muslim is aware of this, since the Koran states early on that they are following the tradition of the teachings of the Jews and the Christians. The main difference is that they see Mohammed as the last prophet.
So what did I get thinking? Well, just imagine this...
We come to an agreement that all Christians and Jews are "people of God." We then come to an agreement that Muslims are also "people of God", but that we don't agree that Mohammed was a prophet.
Muslims can then also agree that all Muslims are "people of God" and that the Jews and Christians are also "people of God", but with the knowledge that the Jews and Christians are greviously mistaken in their disbelief of the virtue of Mohammed's sacred nature.
Rather than discussing theological sounding, technical sorts of phrases, such as "Ambrahamic faiths", or "people of the book" (which refers to the Torah and emphasizes differences), we can begin to embrace a common ground that we are all people of God.
With such a striking commonality, we can then see each other somewhat more as humans before getting back to the nitty gritty of details such as whether prayer must be towards Mecca, priests must intercede between us and God, or more importantly whether one's decision to accept the word of one holy man or another as God's most recent message is a legitimate basis for eternal harmony or damnation. After all, these are mere details, right? What really matters is that we Jews, Muslims and Christians can commune together in a spiritual development that questions what God would really want our societies to make of themselves.
As for me? I largely see religion as an evolutionary factor in social and cultural development that promotes social cohesion. I'm not too concerned if that sounds like mumbo jumbo, 'cause it makes sense to me and I'm not really interested in explaining myself for now. But why on earth should my atheism get in the way of the "people of God" seeking some commonality?
Of course, there's nothing particularly original in what I'm saying. I'm just using different words to say it. As Freud discussed, with respect to his concept of "the narcissism of small differences", I'm not sure that accepting our commonalities would solve much - after all, much more insignificant theological differences between sects of Christianity were historically quite sufficient cause to mobilize the populace to fight foreign nations. All the same, I don't expect rejoicing our commonality as "the people of God" could make things worse.
Since Florida was the lead-in ... I just have to say that I can no longer point to the ongoing rise on coastal property values in Florida as one of the most costly results of global warming denial among Americans. Perhaps I will have to write a piece knocking Floridian home owners when the housing markets sorts itself if coastal property values join the rise. Then again, I guess if you plan to be dead before the house gets flooded out then it doesn't really matter, right? Or does it?
I think the whole notion is ridiculous to start with, since there was no such thing as Islam when these guys were alive, but it got me thinking about something.
Only a misinformed Christian (i.e. most of them) is unaware of the fact that Muslims explicitly worship the same God as Christians (although this depends on whether you think God 'sans Jesus' is the same God). However, nearly every Muslim is aware of this, since the Koran states early on that they are following the tradition of the teachings of the Jews and the Christians. The main difference is that they see Mohammed as the last prophet.
So what did I get thinking? Well, just imagine this...
We come to an agreement that all Christians and Jews are "people of God." We then come to an agreement that Muslims are also "people of God", but that we don't agree that Mohammed was a prophet.
Muslims can then also agree that all Muslims are "people of God" and that the Jews and Christians are also "people of God", but with the knowledge that the Jews and Christians are greviously mistaken in their disbelief of the virtue of Mohammed's sacred nature.
Rather than discussing theological sounding, technical sorts of phrases, such as "Ambrahamic faiths", or "people of the book" (which refers to the Torah and emphasizes differences), we can begin to embrace a common ground that we are all people of God.
With such a striking commonality, we can then see each other somewhat more as humans before getting back to the nitty gritty of details such as whether prayer must be towards Mecca, priests must intercede between us and God, or more importantly whether one's decision to accept the word of one holy man or another as God's most recent message is a legitimate basis for eternal harmony or damnation. After all, these are mere details, right? What really matters is that we Jews, Muslims and Christians can commune together in a spiritual development that questions what God would really want our societies to make of themselves.
As for me? I largely see religion as an evolutionary factor in social and cultural development that promotes social cohesion. I'm not too concerned if that sounds like mumbo jumbo, 'cause it makes sense to me and I'm not really interested in explaining myself for now. But why on earth should my atheism get in the way of the "people of God" seeking some commonality?
Of course, there's nothing particularly original in what I'm saying. I'm just using different words to say it. As Freud discussed, with respect to his concept of "the narcissism of small differences", I'm not sure that accepting our commonalities would solve much - after all, much more insignificant theological differences between sects of Christianity were historically quite sufficient cause to mobilize the populace to fight foreign nations. All the same, I don't expect rejoicing our commonality as "the people of God" could make things worse.
Since Florida was the lead-in ... I just have to say that I can no longer point to the ongoing rise on coastal property values in Florida as one of the most costly results of global warming denial among Americans. Perhaps I will have to write a piece knocking Floridian home owners when the housing markets sorts itself if coastal property values join the rise. Then again, I guess if you plan to be dead before the house gets flooded out then it doesn't really matter, right? Or does it?
It wouldn't be a slogan if it wasn't short
I was thinking about how it would be good for the environment if people would use their resources to buy a smaller amount of really high quality goods and services rather than a large quantity of low quality goods and services. Hiding within are the seeds of a pro-domestic goods slogan that one would never wish into formal trade policy discussions, and a subculture reference that may appeal to potheads and should innocently bypass just about anyone else. Without wasting any more words, here it is
Go green with the good stuff! Buy quality, not quantity.
Go green with the good stuff! Buy quality, not quantity.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Back at it ... The Absurdity of Eugenics
After a gloriously unproductive hiatus, I'm back at it with an article on eugenics that I planned to finish up before the break. Actually, it’s more like a list of points, since there isn’t a whole lot of structure.
Evolution is not directional. (Not in nature, that is. I suppose we could make it that way ... but I suggest considering the final two lines of this piece for some reflection about how much direction we could offer.) We should certainly try to survive as a species, but we don't know what attributes will help us the best.
However, as pointed out by Marx, we both create our (social) environment and face evolutionary pressures from it. Sure, we can influence all aspects of our environment, but reality is way to complex to know exactly what will happen.
If reality is too complex at the macro level, then eugenics is eternally bound to be useless, except as a morally corrupted tool to enhance the benefits of some particular social group (who define their own characteristics as being the most fit, then try to make it true by imposing their vision on people). It is therefore eminently beyond our ability to figure out which specific bits of the complex whole should become the target of any such eugenics-minded project.
Even if we were to disregard the distasteful elements of eugenics, I quite strongly believe that an absolute precondition would have to be perfect equality of opportunity. Any other starting point would bias the whole process and lead to suboptimal results. (Haha... eat that! Pure socialism as a logical and necessary pre-condition to eugenics. If that’s the precondition, I’d like to know just how many of these neo-Nazis would still embrace the project.)
___________________________________________________
While we can conceptually grasp the pieces of the whole (individuals) and think we can understand it, and we can also grasp the whole (humanity, and the infinite ways that it relates to our environment), and think we understand it, each of these are filled with uncertainty and poor knowledge.
To then suppose that the individual (the eugenicist) is able to unite such completely flawed packets of information so as to find the most 'perfect' ways that they must match up, counting for all possible future effects, is not exactly an endearing example of the sort of intelligence they claim to favour. The sheer absurdity of the proposition is, in fact, my primary thrust. This paragraph largely constitutes my entire argument.
____________________________________________________
Consider the following possibility ... In the year 2100, a person with a low IQ but great sensitivity to social situations becomes a political leader and staves off what would otherwise have been a nuclear holocaust. The leader on the other side agrees, because his schizophrenic nephew, on new meds, was full of a certain joie de vie during a recent visit, which rubbed off on the guy and made him more conciliatory.
YOU JUST DON'T KNOW! My God, how much more clear can I get! There is only one group of people that I find more frustrating than hard-core fundamentalists, and that's hard core eugenicists. Let me tell you why.
A fundamentalist is typically unshakable in their position and takes honour in such. They see such inherent truth in their views that it would never cross their mind to pretend that you might be half-way right just to turn around and try to convince you. But the eugenicist will pretend to agree with you in any way that is conducive to opening the space for an argument that makes eugenics sound palatable.
Self-censorship and social admonition with respect to reproduction? Sure, sounds great. Our evolutionary direction is almost sure to be affected by "sexual selection" (in the Darwinian sense) that includes greater knowledge about our genetic composition. Individuals will, or will not, choose to have babies. Certain social and economic incentives affect these choices. However, I'm hard pressed to think of anything that is more fundamentally an inherently natural right, as a living organism, be it a cell or a rabbit, let along a human being, than the right to enter the market of sexual activity and reproduction, if one so chooses.
Evolution is not directional. (Not in nature, that is. I suppose we could make it that way ... but I suggest considering the final two lines of this piece for some reflection about how much direction we could offer.) We should certainly try to survive as a species, but we don't know what attributes will help us the best.
However, as pointed out by Marx, we both create our (social) environment and face evolutionary pressures from it. Sure, we can influence all aspects of our environment, but reality is way to complex to know exactly what will happen.
If reality is too complex at the macro level, then eugenics is eternally bound to be useless, except as a morally corrupted tool to enhance the benefits of some particular social group (who define their own characteristics as being the most fit, then try to make it true by imposing their vision on people). It is therefore eminently beyond our ability to figure out which specific bits of the complex whole should become the target of any such eugenics-minded project.
Even if we were to disregard the distasteful elements of eugenics, I quite strongly believe that an absolute precondition would have to be perfect equality of opportunity. Any other starting point would bias the whole process and lead to suboptimal results. (Haha... eat that! Pure socialism as a logical and necessary pre-condition to eugenics. If that’s the precondition, I’d like to know just how many of these neo-Nazis would still embrace the project.)
___________________________________________________
While we can conceptually grasp the pieces of the whole (individuals) and think we can understand it, and we can also grasp the whole (humanity, and the infinite ways that it relates to our environment), and think we understand it, each of these are filled with uncertainty and poor knowledge.
To then suppose that the individual (the eugenicist) is able to unite such completely flawed packets of information so as to find the most 'perfect' ways that they must match up, counting for all possible future effects, is not exactly an endearing example of the sort of intelligence they claim to favour. The sheer absurdity of the proposition is, in fact, my primary thrust. This paragraph largely constitutes my entire argument.
____________________________________________________
Consider the following possibility ... In the year 2100, a person with a low IQ but great sensitivity to social situations becomes a political leader and staves off what would otherwise have been a nuclear holocaust. The leader on the other side agrees, because his schizophrenic nephew, on new meds, was full of a certain joie de vie during a recent visit, which rubbed off on the guy and made him more conciliatory.
YOU JUST DON'T KNOW! My God, how much more clear can I get! There is only one group of people that I find more frustrating than hard-core fundamentalists, and that's hard core eugenicists. Let me tell you why.
A fundamentalist is typically unshakable in their position and takes honour in such. They see such inherent truth in their views that it would never cross their mind to pretend that you might be half-way right just to turn around and try to convince you. But the eugenicist will pretend to agree with you in any way that is conducive to opening the space for an argument that makes eugenics sound palatable.
Self-censorship and social admonition with respect to reproduction? Sure, sounds great. Our evolutionary direction is almost sure to be affected by "sexual selection" (in the Darwinian sense) that includes greater knowledge about our genetic composition. Individuals will, or will not, choose to have babies. Certain social and economic incentives affect these choices. However, I'm hard pressed to think of anything that is more fundamentally an inherently natural right, as a living organism, be it a cell or a rabbit, let along a human being, than the right to enter the market of sexual activity and reproduction, if one so chooses.
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