Author: Loquitur Veritatem

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Fooled by Non-Randomness

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in his best-selling Fooled by Randomness, charges human beings with the commission of many perceptual and logical errors. One reviewer captures the point of the book, which is to

explore luck “disguised and perceived as non-luck (that is, skills).” So many of the successful among us, he argues, are successful due to luck rather than reason. This is true in areas beyond business (e.g. Science, Politics), though it is more obvious in business.

Our inability to recognize the randomness and luck that had to do with making successful people successful is a direct result of our search for pattern. Taleb points to the importance of symbolism in our lives as an example of our unwillingness to accept randomness. We cling to biographies of great people in order to learn how to achieve greatness, and we relentlessly interpret the past in hopes of shaping our future.

Only recently has science produced probability theory, which helps embrace randomness. Though the use of probability theory in practice is almost nonexistent.

Taleb says the confusion between luck and skill is our inability to think critically. We enjoy presenting conjectures as truth and are not equipped to handle probabilities, so we attribute our success to skill rather than luck.

Taleb writes in a style found all too often on best-seller lists: pseudo-academic theorizing “supported” by selective (often anecdotal) evidence. I sometimes enjoy such writing, but only for its entertainment value. Fooled by Randomness leaves me unfooled, for several reasons.

THE FUNDAMENTAL FLAW

The first reason that I am unfooled by Fooled… might be called a meta-reason. Standing back from the book, I am able to perceive its essential defect: According to Taleb, human affairs — especially economic affairs, and particularly the operations of financial markets — are dominated by randomness. But if that is so, only a delusional person can truly claim to understand the conduct of human affairs. Taleb claims to understand the conduct of human affairs. Taleb is therefore either delusional or omniscient.

Given Taleb’s humanity, it is more likely that he is delusional — or simply fooled, but not by randomness. He is fooled because he proceeds from the assumption of randomness instead of exploring the ways and means by which humans are actually capable of shaping events. Taleb gives no more than scant attention to those traits which, in combination, set humans apart from other animals: self-awareness, empathy, forward thinking, imagination, abstraction, intentionality, adaptability, complex communication skills, and sheer brain power. Given those traits (in combination) the world of human affairs cannot be random. Yes, human plans can fail of realization for many reasons, including those attributable to human flaws (conflict, imperfect knowledge, the triumph of hope over experience, etc.). But the failure of human plans is due to those flaws — not to the randomness of human behavior.

What Taleb sees as randomness is something else entirely. The trajectory of human affairs often is unpredictable, but it is not random. For it is possible to find patterns in the conduct of human affairs, as Taleb admits (implicitly) when he discusses such phenomena as survivorship bias, skewness, anchoring, and regression to the mean.

A DISCOURSE ON RANDOMNESS

What Is It?

Taleb, having bloviated for dozens of pages about the failure of humans to recognize randomness, finally gets around to (sort of) defining randomness on pages 168 and 169 (of the 2005 paperback edition):

…Professor Karl Pearson … devised the first test of nonrandomness (it was in reality a test of deviation from normality, which for all intents and purposes, was the same thing). He examined millions of runs of [a roulette wheel] during the month of July 1902. He discovered that, with high degree of statistical significance … the runs were not purely random…. Philosophers of statistics call this the reference case problem to explain that there is no true attainable randomness in practice, only in theory….

…Even the fathers of statistical science forgot that a random series of runs need not exhibit a pattern to look random…. A single random run is bound to exhibit some pattern — if one looks hard enough…. [R]eal randomness does not look random.

The quoted passage illustrates nicely the superficiality of Fooled by Randomness, and (I must assume) the muddledness of Taleb’s thinking:

  • He accepts a definition of randomness which describes the observation of outcomes of mechanical processes (e.g., the turning of a roulette wheel, the throwing of dice) that are designed to yield random outcomes. That is, randomness of the kind cited by Taleb is in fact the result of human intentions.
  • If “there is no true attainable randomness,” why has Taleb written a 200-plus page book about randomness?
  • What can he mean when he says “a random series of runs need not exhibit a pattern to look random”? The only sensible interpretation of that bit of nonsense would be this: It is possible for a random series of runs to contain what looks like a pattern. But remember that the random series of runs to which Taleb refers is random only because humans intended its randomness.
  • It is true enough that “A single random run is bound to exhibit some pattern — if one looks hard enough.” Sure it will. But it remains a single random run of a process that is intended to produce randomness, which is utterly unlike such events as transactions in financial markets.

One of the “fathers of statistical science” mentioned by Taleb (deep in the book’s appendix) is Richard von Mises, who in Probability Statistics and Truth defines randomness as follows:

First, the relative frequencies of the attributes [e.g. heads and tails] must possess limiting values [i.e., converge on 0.5, in the case of coin tosses]. Second, these limiting values must remain the same in all partial sequences which may be selected from the original one in an arbitrary way. Of course, only such partial sequences can be taken into consideration as can be extended indefinitely, in the same way as the original sequence itself. Examples of this kind are, for instance, the partial sequences formed by all odd members of the original sequence, or by all members for which the place number in the sequence is the square of an integer, or a prime number, or a number selected according to some other rule, whatever it may be. (pp. 24-25 of the 1981 Dover edition, which is based on the author’s 1951 edition)

Gregory J. Chaitin, writing in Scientific American (“Randomness and Mathematical Proof,” vol. 232, no. 5 (May 1975), pp. 47-52), offers this:

We are now able to describe more precisely the differences between the[se] two series of digits … :

01010101010101010101
01101100110111100010

The first could be specified to a computer by a very simple algorithm, such as “Print 01 ten times.” If the series were extended according to the same rule, the algorithm would have to be only slightly larger; it might be made to read, for example, “Print 01 a million times.” The number of bits in such an algorithm is a small fraction of the number of bits in the series it specifies, and as the series grows larger the size of the program increases at a much slower rate.

For the second series of digits there is no corresponding shortcut. The most economical way to express the series is to write it out in full, and the shortest algorithm for introducing the series into a computer would be “Print 01101100110111100010.” If the series were much larger (but still apparently patternless), the algorithm would have to be expanded to the corresponding size. This “incompressibility” is a property of all random numbers; indeed, we can proceed directly to define randomness in terms of incompressibility: A series of numbers is random if the smallest algorithm capable of specifying it to a computer has about the same number of bits of information as the series itself [emphasis added].

This is another way of saying that if you toss a balanced coin 1,000 times the only way to describe the outcome of the tosses is to list the 1,000 outcomes of those tosses. But, again, the thing that is random is the outcome of a process designed for randomness.

Taking Mises and Chaitin’s definitions together, we can define random events as events which are repeatable, convergent on a limiting value, and truly patternless over a large number of repetitions. Evolving economic events (e.g., stock-market trades, economic growth) are not alike (in the way that dice are, for example), they do not converge on limiting values, and they are not patternless, as I will show.

In short, Taleb fails to demonstrate that human affairs in general or financial markets in particular exhibit randomness, properly understood.

Randomness and the Physical World

Nor are we trapped in a random universe. Returning to Mises, I quote from the final chapter of Probability, Statistics and Truth:

We can only sketch here the consequences of these new concepts [e.g., quantum mechanics and Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty] for our general scientific outlook. First of all, we have no cause to doubt the usefulness of the deterministic theories in large domains of physics. These theories, built on a solid body of experience, lead to results that are well confirmed by observation. By allowing us to predict future physical events, these physical theories have fundamentally changed the conditions of human life. The main part of modern technology, using this word in its broadest sense, is still based on the predictions of classical mechanics and physics. (p. 217)

Even now, almost 60 years on, the field of nanotechnology is beginning to hardness quantum mechanical effects in the service of a long list of useful purposes.

The physical world, in other words, is not dominated by randomness, even though its underlying structures must be described probabilistically rather than deterministically.

Summation and Preview

A bit of unpredictability (or “luck”) here and there does not make for a random universe, random lives, or random markets. If a bit of unpredictability here and there dominated our actions, we wouldn’t be here to talk about randomness — and Taleb wouldn’t have been able to marshal his thoughts into a published, marketed, and well-sold book.

Human beings are not “designed” for randomness. Human endeavors can yield unpredictable results, but those results do not arise from random processes, they derive from skill or the lack therof, knowledge or the lack thereof (including the kinds of self-delusions about which Taleb writes), and conflicting objectives.

An Illustration from Life

To illustrate my position on randomness, I offer the following digression about the game of baseball.

At the professional level, the game’s poorest players seldom rise above the low minor leagues. But even those poorest players are paragons of excellence when compared with the vast majority of American males of about the same age. Did those poorest players get where they were because of luck? Perhaps some of them were in the right place at the right time, and so were signed to minor league contracts. But their luck runs out when they are called upon to perform in more than a few games. What about those players who weren’t in the right place at the right time, and so were overlooked in spite of skills that would have advanced them beyond the rookie leagues? I have no doubt that there have been many such players. But, in the main, professional baseball abounds with the lion’s share of skilled baseball players who are there because they intend to be there, and because baseball clubs intend for them to be there.

Now, most minor leaguers fail to advance to the major leagues, even for the proverbial “cup of coffee” (appearing in few games at the end of the major-league season, when teams are allowed to expand their rosters following the end of the minor-league season). Does “luck” prevent some minor leaguers from advancement to “the show” (the major leagues)? Of course. Does “luck” result in the advancement of some minor leaguers to “the show”? Of course. But “luck,” in this context, means injury, illness, a slump, a “hot” streak, and the other kinds of unpredictable events that ballplayers are subject to. Are the events random? Yes, in the sense that they are unpredictable, but I daresay that most baseball players do not succumb to bad luck or advance very for or for very long because of good luck. In fact, ballplayers who advance to the major leagues, and then stay there for more than a few seasons, do so because they possess (and apply) greater skill than their minor-league counterparts. And make no mistake, each player’s actions are so closely watched and so extensively quantified that it isn’t hard to tell when a player is ready to be replaced.

It is true that a player may experience “luck” for a while during a season, and sometimes for a whole season. But a player will not be consistently “lucky” for several seasons. The length of his career (barring illness, injury, or voluntary retirement), and his accomplishments during that career, will depend mainly on his inherent skills and his assiduousness in applying those skills.

No one believes that Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Christy Matthewson, Warren Spahn, and the dozens of other baseball players who rank among the truly great were lucky. No one believes that the vast majority of the the tens of thousands of minor leaguers who never enjoyed more than the proverbial cup of coffee were unlucky. No one believes that the vast majority of the millions of American males who never made it to the minor leagues were unlucky. Most of them never sought a career in baseball; those who did simply lacked the requisite skills.

In baseball, as in life, “luck” is mainly an excuse and rarely an explanation. We prefer to apply “luck” to outcomes when we don’t like the true explanations for them. In the realm of economic activity and financial markets, one such explanation (to which I will come) is the exogenous imposition of governmental power.

ARE ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL OUTCOMES TRULY RANDOM?

They Cannot Be, Given Competition

Returning to Taleb’s main theme — the randomness of economic and financial events — I quote this key passage (my comments are in brackets and boldface):

…Most of [Bill] Gates'[s] rivals have an obsessive jealousy of his success. They are maddened by the fact that he managed to win so big while many of them are struggling to make their companies survive. [These are unsupported claims that I include only because they set the stage for what follows.]

Such ideas go against classical economic models, in which results either come from a precise reason (there is no account for uncertainty) or the good guy wins (the good guy is the one who is most skilled and has some technical superiority). [The “good guy” theory would come as a great surprise to “classical” economists, who quite well understood imperfect competition based on product differentiation and monopoly based on (among other things) early entry into a market.] Economists discovered path-dependent effects late in their game [There is no “late” in a “game” that had no distinct beginning and has no pre-ordained end.], then tried to publish wholesale on the topic that otherwise be bland and obvious. For instance, Brian Arthur, an economist concerned with nonlinearities at the Santa Fe Institute [What kinds of nonlinearities are found at the Santa Fe Institute?], wrote that chance events coupled with positive feedback other than technological superiority will determine economic superiority — not some abstrusely defined edge in a given area of expertise. [It would come as no surprise to economists — even “classical” ones — that many factors aside from technical superiority determine market outcomes.] While early economic models excluded randomness, Arthur explained how “unexpected orders, chance meetings with lawyers, managerial whims … would help determine which ones acheived early sales and, over time, which firms dominated.”

Regarding the final sentence of the quoted passage, I refer back to the example of baseball. A person or a firm may gain an opportunity to succeed because of the kinds of “luck” cited by Brian Arthur, but “good luck” cannot sustain an incompetent performer for very long.  And when “bad luck” happens to competent individuals and firms they are often (perhaps usually) able to overcome it.

While overplaying the role of luck in human affairs, Taleb underplays the role of competition when he denigrates “classical economic models,” in which competition plays a central role. “Luck” cannot forever outrun competition, unless the game is rigged by governmental intervention, namely, the writing of regulations that tend to favor certain competitors (usually market incumbents) over others (usually would-be entrants). The propensity to regulate at the behest of incumbents (who plead “public interest,” of course) is a proof of the power of competition to shape economic outcomes. It is loathed and feared, and yet it leads us in the direction to which classical economic theory points: greater output and lower prices.

Competition is what ensures that (for the most part) the best ballplayers advance to the major leagues. It’s what keeps “monopolists” like Microsoft hopping (unless they have a government-guaranteed monopoly), because even a monopolist (or oligopolist) can face competition, and eventually lose to it — witness the former “Big Three” auto makers, many formerly thriving chain stores (from Kresge’s to Montgomery Ward’s), and numerous other brand names of days gone by. If Microsoft survives and thrives, it will be because it actually offers consumers more value for their money, either in the way of products similar to those marketed by Microsoft or in entirely new products that supplant those offered by Microsoft.

Monopolists and oligopolists cannot survive without constant innovation and attention to their customers’ needs.Why? Because they must compete with the offerors of all the other goods and services upon which consumers might spend their money. There is nothing — not even water — which cannot be produced or delivered in competitive ways. (For more, see this.)

The names of the particular firms that survive the competitive struggle may be unpredictable, but what is predictable is the tendency of competitive forces toward economic efficiency. In other words, the specific outcomes of economic competition may be unpredictable (which is not a bad thing), but the general result — efficiency — is neither unpredictable nor a manifestation of randomness or “luck.”

Taleb, had he broached the subject of competition would (with his hero George Soros) denigrate it, on the ground that there is no such thing as perfect competition. But the failure of competitive forces to mimic the model of perfect competition does not negate the power of competition, as I have summarized it here. Indeed, the failure of competitive forces to mimic the model of perfect competition is not a failure, for perfect competition is unattainable in practice, and to hold it up as a measure of the effectiveness of market forces is to indulge in the Nirvana fallacy.

In any event, Taleb’s myopia with respect to competition is so complete that he fails to mention it, let alone address its beneficial effects (even when it is less than perfect). And yet Taleb dares to dismiss as a utopist Milton Friedman (p. 272) — the same Milton Friedman who was among the twentieth century’s foremost advocates of the benefits of competition.

Are Financial Markets Random?

Given what I have said thus far, I find it almost incredible that anyone believes in the randomness of financial markets. It is unclear where Taleb stands on the random-walk hypothesis, but it is clear that he believes financial markets to be driven by randomness. Yet, contradictorily, he seems to attack the efficient-markets hypothesis (see pp. 61-62), which is the foundation of the random-walk hypothesis.

What is the random-walk hypothesis? In brief, it is this: Financial markets are so efficient that they instantaneously reflect all information bearing on the prices of financial instruments that is then available to persons buying and selling those instruments. (The qualifier “then available to persons buying and selling those instruments” leaves the door open for [a] insider trading and [b] arbitrage, due to imperfect knowledge on the part of some buyers and/or sellers.) Because information can change rapidly and in unpredictable ways, the prices of financial instruments move randomly. But the random movement is of a very special kind:

If a stock goes up one day, no stock market participant can accurately predict that it will rise again the next. Just as a basketball player with the “hot hand” can miss the next shot, the stock that seems to be on the rise can fall at any time, making it completely random.

And, therefore, changes in stock prices cannot be predicted.

Note, however, the focus on changes. It is that focus which creates the illusion of randomness and unpredictability. It is like hoping to understand the movements of the planets around the sun by looking at the random movements of a particle in a cloud chamber.

When we step back from day-to-day price changes, we are able to see the underlying reality: prices (instead of changes) and price trends (which are the opposite of randomness). This (correct) perspective enables us to see that stock prices (on the whole) are not random, and to identify the factors that influence the broad movements of the stock market.
For one thing, if you look at stock prices correctly, you can see that they vary cyclically. Here is a telling graphic (from “Efficient-market hypothesis” at Wikipedia):

Returns on stocks vs. PE ratioPrice-Earnings ratios as a predictor of twenty-year returns based upon the plot by Robert Shiller (Figure 10.1,[18] source). The horizontal axis shows the real price-earnings ratio of the S&P Composite Stock Price Index as computed in Irrational Exuberance (inflation adjusted price divided by the prior ten-year mean of inflation-adjusted earnings). The vertical axis shows the geometric average real annual return on investing in the S&P Composite Stock Price Index, reinvesting dividends, and selling twenty years later. Data from different twenty-year periods is color-coded as shown in the key. See also ten-year returns. Shiller states that this plot “confirms that long-term investors—investors who commit their money to an investment for ten full years—did do well when prices were low relative to earnings at the beginning of the ten years. Long-term investors would be well advised, individually, to lower their exposure to the stock market when it is high, as it has been recently, and get into the market when it is low.”[18] This correlation between price to earnings ratios and long-term returns is not explained by the efficient-market hypothesis.

Why should stock prices tend to vary cyclically? Because stock prices generally are driven by economic growth (i.e., changes in GDP), and economic growth is strongly cyclical. (See this post.)

More fundamentally, the economic outcomes reflected in stock prices aren’t random, for they depend mainly on intentional behavior along well-rehearsed lines (i.e., the production and consumption of goods and services in ways that evolve over time). Variations in economic behavior, even when they are unpredictable, have explanations; for example:

  • Innovation and capital investment spur the growth of economic output.
  • Natural disasters slow the growth of economic output (at least temporarily) because they absorb resources that could have gone to investment  (as well as consumption).
  • Governmental interventions (taxation and regulation), if not reversed, dampen growth permanently.

There is nothing in those three statements that hasn’t been understood since the days of Adam Smith. Regarding the third statement, the general slowing of America’s economic growth since the advent of the Progressive Era around 1900 is certainly not due to randomness, it is due to the ever-increasing burden of taxation and regulation imposed on the economy — an entirely predictable result, and certainly not a random one.

In fact, the long-term trend of the stock market (as measured by the S&P 500) is strongly correlated with GDP. And broad swings around that trend can be traced to governmental intervention in the economy. The following graph shows how the S&P 500, reconstructed to 1870, parallel constant-dollar GDP:

The next graph shows the relationship more clearly.

090711_Real S&P 500 vs Real GDP

090711_Real S&P 500 vs Real GDP_2

The wild swings around the trend line began in the uncertain aftermath of World War I, which saw the imposition of production and price controls. The swings continued with the onset of the Great Depression (which can be traced to governmental action), the advent of the anti-business New Deal, and the imposition of production and price controls on a grand scale during World War II. The next downswing was occasioned by the culmination the Great Society, the “oil shocks” of the early 1970s, and the raging inflation that was touched off by — you guessed it — government policy. The latest downswing is owed mainly to the financial crisis born of yet more government policy: loose money and easy loans to low-income borrowers.

And so it goes, wildly but predictably enough if you have the faintest sense of history. The moral of the story: Keep your eye on government and a hand on your wallet.

CONCLUSION

There is randomness in economic affairs, but they are not dominated by randomness. They are dominated by intentions, including especially the intentions of the politicians and bureaucrats who run governments. Yet, Taleb has no space in his book for the influence of their deeds economic activity and financial markets.

Taleb is right to disparage those traders (professional and amateur) who are lucky enough to catch upswings, but are unprepared for downswings. And he is right to scoff at their readiness to believe that the current upswing (uniquely) will not be followed by a downswing (“this time it’s different”).

But Taleb is wrong to suggest that traders are fooled by randomness. They are fooled to some extent by false hope, but more profoundly by their inablity to perceive the economic damage wrought by government. They are not alone of course; most of the rest of humanity shares their perceptual failings.

Taleb, in that respect, is only somewhat different than most of the rest of humanity. He is not fooled by false hope, but he is fooled by non-randomness — the non-randomness of government’s decisive influence on economic activity and financial markets. In overlooking that influence he overlooks the single most powerful explanation for the behavior of markets in the past 90 years.

Beware of Libertarian Paternalists

I have written extensively about paternalism of the so-called libertarian variety. (See this post and the posts linked therein.) Glen Whitman, in two recent posts at Agoraphilia, renews his attack on “libertarian paternalism,” the main proponents of which are Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler (S&T). In the first of the two posts, Whitman writes:

[Thaler] continues to disregard the distinction between public and private action.

Some critics contend that behavioral economists have neglected the obvious fact that bureaucrats make errors, too. But this misses the point. After all, wouldn’t you prefer to have a qualified, albeit human, technician inspect your aircraft’s engines rather than do it yourself?

The owners of ski resorts hire experts who have previously skied the runs, under various conditions, to decide which trails should be designated for advanced skiers. These experts know more than a newcomer to the mountain. Bureaucrats are human, too, but they can also hire experts and conduct research.Here we see two of Thaler’s favorite stratagems deployed at once. First, he relies on a deceptively innocuous, private, and non-coercive example to illustrate his brand of paternalism. Before it was cafeteria dessert placement; now it’s ski-slope markings. Second, he subtly equates private and public decision makers without even mentioning their different incentives. In this case, he uses “bureaucrats” to refer to all managers, regardless of whether they manage private or public enterprises.

The distinction matters. The case of ski-slope markings is the market principle at work. Skiers want to know the difficulty of slopes, and so the owners of ski resorts provide it. They have a profit incentive to do so. This is not at all coercive, and it is no more “paternalist” than a restaurant identifying the vegetarian dishes.

Public bureaucrats don’t have the same incentives at all. They don’t get punished by consumers for failing to provide information, or for providing the wrong information. They don’t suffer if they listen to the wrong experts. They face no competition from alternative providers of their service. They get to set their own standards for “success,” and if they fail, they can use that to justify a larger budget.

And Thaler knows this, because these are precisely the arguments made by the “critics” to whom he is responding. His response is just a dodge, enabled by his facile use of language and his continuing indifference – dare I say hostility? – to the distinction between public and private.

In the second of the two posts, Whitman says:

The advocates of libertarian paternalism have taken great pains to present their position as one that does not foreclose choice, and indeed even adds choice. But this is entirely a matter of presentation. They always begin with non-coercive and privately adopted measures, such as the ski-slope markings in Thaler’s NY Times article. And when challenged, they resolutely stick to these innocuous examples (see this debate between Thaler and Mario Rizzo, for example). But if you read Sunstein & Thaler’s actual publications carefully, you will find that they go far beyond non-coercive and private measures. They consciously construct a spectrum of “libertarian paternalist” policies, and at one end of this spectrum lies an absolutely ban on certain activities, such as motorcycling without a helmet. I’m not making this up!…

[A]s Sunstein & Thaler’s published work clearly indicates, this kind of policy [requiring banks to offer “plain vanilla” mortgages] is the thin end of the wedge. The next step, as outlined in their articles, is to raise the cost of choosing other options. In this case, the government could impose more and more onerous requirements for opting out of the “plain vanilla” mortgage: you must fill out extra paperwork, you must get an outside accountant, you must have a lawyer present, you must endure a waiting period, etc., etc. Again, this is not my paranoid imagination at work. S&T have said explicitly that restrictions like these would count as “libertarian paternalism” by their definition….

The problem is that S&T’s “libertarian paternalism” is used almost exclusively to advocate greater intervention, not less. I have never, for instance, seen S&T push for privatization of Social Security or vouchers in education. I have never seen them advocate repealing a blanket smoking ban and replacing it with a special licensing system for restaurants that want to allow their customers to smoke. If they have, I would love to see it.

In their articles, S&T pay lip service to the idea that libertarian paternalism lies between hard paternalism and laissez faire, and thus that it could in principle be used to expand choice. But look at the actual list of policies they’ve advocated on libertarian paternalist grounds, and see where their real priorities lie.

S&T are typical “intellectuals,” in that they presume to know how others should lead their lives — a distinctly non-libertarian attitude. It is, in fact, a hallmark of “liberalism.” In an earlier post I had this to say about the founders of “liberalism” — John Stuart Mill, Thomas Hill Green, and Leonard Trelawney Hobhouse:

[W]e are met with (presumably) intelligent persons who believe that their intelligence enables them to peer into the souls of others, and to raise them up through the blunt instrument that is the state.

And that is precisely the mistake that lies at heart of what we now call “liberalism” or “progressivism.”  It is the three-fold habit of setting oneself up as an omniscient arbiter of economic and social outcomes, then castigating the motives and accomplishments of the financially successful and socially “well placed,” and finally penalizing financial and social success through taxation and other regulatory mechanisms (e.g., affirmative action, admission quotas, speech codes, “hate crime” legislation”). It is a habit that has harmed the intended beneficiaries of government intervention, not just economically but in other ways, as well….

The other ways, of course, include the diminution of social liberty, which is indivisible from economic liberty.

Just how dangerous to liberty are S&T? Thaler is an influential back-room operator, with close ties to the Obama camp. Sunstein is a long-time crony and adviser who now heads the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, where he has an opportunity to enforce “libertarian paternalism”:

…Sunstein would like to control the content of the internet — for our own good, of course. I refer specifically to Sunstein’s “The Future of Free Speech,” in which he advances several policy proposals, including these:

4. . . . [T]he government might impose “must carry” rules on the most popular Websites, designed to ensure more exposure to substantive questions. Under such a program, viewers of especially popular sites would see an icon for sites that deal with substantive issues in a serious way. They would not be required to click on them. But it is reasonable to expect that many viewers would do so, if only to satisfy their curiosity. The result would be to create a kind of Internet sidewalk, promoting some of the purposes of the public forum doctrine. Ideally, those who create Websites might move in this direction on their own. If they do not, government should explore possibilities of imposing requirements of this kind, making sure that no program draws invidious lines in selecting the sites whose icons will be favoured. Perhaps a lottery system of some kind could be used to reduce this risk.

5. The government might impose “must carry” rules on highly partisan Websites, designed to ensure that viewers learn about sites containing opposing views. This policy would be designed to make it less likely for people to simply hear echoes of their own voices. Of course, many people would not click on the icons of sites whose views seem objectionable; but some people would, and in that sense the system would not operate so differently from general interest intermediaries and public forums. Here too the ideal situation would be voluntary action. But if this proves impossible, it is worth considering regulatory alternatives. [Emphasis added.]

A Left-libertarian defends Sunstein’s foray into thought control, concluding that

Sunstein once thought some profoundly dumb policies might be worth considering, but realized years ago he was wrong about that… The idea was a tentative, speculative suggestion he now condemns in pretty strong terms.

Alternatively, in the face of severe criticism of his immodest proposal, Sunstein merely went underground, to await an opportunity to revive his proposal. I somehow doubt that Sunstein, as a confirmed paternalist, truly abandoned it. The proposal certainly was not off-the-cuff, running to 11 longish web pages.  Now, judging by the bulleted list above, the time is right for a revival of Sunstein’s proposal. And there he is, heading the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. The powers of that office supposedly are constrained by the executive order that established it. But it is evident that the Obama adminstration isn’t bothered by legal niceties when it comes to the exercise of power. Only a few pen strokes stand between Obama and a new, sweeping executive order, the unconstitutionality of which would be of no import to our latter-day FDR.

It’s just another step beyond McCain-Feingold, isn’t it?

Thus is the tyranny of “libertarian paternalism.” And thus does the death-spiral of liberty proceed.

There Is Hope in Mudville

Barack Obama’s achieved his electoral “landslide” in 2008 by grabbing only 9 of the 31 States won by G.W. Bush in 2004. Obama managed his less-than-impressive feat by running against the weakest candidate fielded by the GOP since 1996. (I don’t mean to suggest that G.W. Bush was a world-beater.)

How weak was John McCain? He beat Obama in his (McCain’s) home State of Arizona by 8.5 only percentage points. In 2004, Bush beat John Kerry in Arizona by 10.5 percentage points.

How weak is Obama at this moment? His net approval rating has dropped to -5, the lowest since his inauguration. And he’s less than 6 months into his presidency.

Hint to the  GOP: Stop playing nice and start attacking Obama in earnest: on his foreign policy, his defense policy, his profligate spending, his plans to socialize health care, his Supreme Court nominee, etc., etc., etc. Don’t attack Obama emotionally, attack him on the merits, with facts and figures. Do it hard and do it often, until the message sinks into the minds of all those swing voters out there.

What about 2012? Can the GOP beat Obama? Why not? A 9-State swing would do the job, and Bush managed a 10-State swing in winning the 2000 election. If Bush can do it, almost anyone can do it — well, anyone but another ersatz conservative like Bob Dolt or John McLame.

Why Is Entrepreneurship Declining?

Jonathan Adler of The Volokh Conspiracy addresses evidence that entrepreneurial activity is declining in the United States, noting that

The number of employer firms created annually has declined significantly since 1990, and the numbers of businesses created and those claiming to be self-employed have declined as well.

Adler continues:

What accounts for this trend? [The author of the cited analysis] thinks one reason is “the Wal-Mart effect.”

Large, efficient companies are able to out-compete small start-ups, replacing the independent businesses in many markets. Multiply across the entire economy the effect of a Wal-Mart replacing the independent restaurant, grocery store, clothing store, florist, etc., in a town, and you can see how we end up with a downward trend in entrepreneurship over time.

That may be true. It seems to me that another likely contributor is the increased regulatory burden. It is well documented that regulation can increase industry concentration. Smaller firms typically bear significantly greater regulatory costs per employee than larger firms (see, e.g., this study), and regulatory costs can also increase start-up costs and serve as a barrier to entry. While the rate at which new regulations were adopted slowed somewhat in recent years at the federal level (see here), so long as the cumulative regulatory burden increases, I would expect it to depress small business creation and growth.

Going further than Adler, I attribute the whole sorry mess to the growth of government over the past century. And I fully expect the increased regulatory and tax burdens of Obamanomics to depress innovation, business expansion, business creation, job creation, and the rate of economic growth. As I say here,

Had the economy of the U.S. not been deflected from its post-Civil War course [by the advent of the regulatory-welfare state around 1900], GDP would now be more than three times its present level…. If that seems unbelievable to you, it shouldn’t: $100 compounded for 100 years at 4.4 percent amounts to $7,400; $100 compounded for 100 years at 3.1 percent amounts to $2,100. Nothing other than government intervention (or a catastrophe greater than any we have known) could have kept the economy from growing at more than 4 percent.

What’s next? Unless Obama’s megalomaniac plans are aborted by a reversal of the Republican Party’s fortunes, the U.S. will enter a new phase of economic growth — something close to stagnation. We will look back on the period from 1970 to 2008 [when GDP rose at an annual rate of 3.1 percent] with longing, as we plod along at a growth rate similar to that of 1908-1940, that is, about 2.2 percent. Thus:

  • If GDP grows at 2.2 percent through 2108, it will be 58 percent lower than if we plod on at 3.1 percent.
  • If GDP grows at 2.2 percent for through 2108, it will be only 4 percent of what it would have been had it continued to grow at 4.4 percent after 1907.

The latter disparity may seem incredible, but scan the lists here and you will find even greater cross-national disparities in per capita GDP. Go here and you will find that real, per capita GDP in 1790 was only 3.3 percent of the value it had attained 201 years later. Our present level of output seems incredible to citizens of impoverished nations, and it would seem no less incredible to an American of 201 years ago. But vast disparities can and do exist, across nations and time. We have every reason to believe in a sustained growth rate of 4.4 percent, as against one of 2.2 percent, because we have experienced both.

Selection Bias and the Road to Serfdom

Office-seeking is about one thing: power. (Money is sometimes a motivator, but power is the common denominator of politics.) Selection bias, as I argue here, deters office-seeking and voting by those (relatively rare) individuals who oppose the accrual of governmental power. The inevitable result — as we have seen for decades and are seeing today — is the accrual of governmental power on a fascistic scale.

Selection bias

most often refers to the distortion of a statistical analysis, due to the method of collecting samples. If the selection bias is not taken into account then any conclusions drawn may be wrong.

Selection bias can occur in studies that are based on the behavior of participants. For example, one form of selection bias is

self-selection bias, which is possible whenever the group of people being studied has any form of control over whether to participate. Participants’ decision to participate may be correlated with traits that affect the study, making the participants a non-representative sample. For example, people who have strong opinions or substantial knowledge may be more willing to spend time answering a survey than those who do not.

I submit that the path of politics in America (and elsewhere) reflects a kind of self-selection bias: On the one hand, most politicians run for office in order to exert power. On the other hand, most voters — believing that government can “solve problems” or one kind or another — prefer politicians who promise to use their power to “solve problems.” In other words, power-seekers and their enablers select themselves into the control of government and the receipt of its (illusory) benefits.

Who is self-selected “out”? First, there are libertarian* office-seekers — a rare breed — who must first attain power in order to curb it. Self-selection, in this case, means that individuals who eschew power are unlikely to seek it in the first place, understanding the likely futility of their attempts to curb the power of the offices to which they might be elected. Thus the relative rarity of libertarian candidates.

Second, there are libertarian voters, who — when faced with an overwhelming array of power-seeking Democrats and Republicans — tend not to vote. Their non-voting enables non-libertarian voters to elect non-libertarian candidates, who then accrue more power, thus further discouraging libertarian candidacies and driving more libertarian voters away from the polls.

As the futility of libertarianism becomes increasingly evident, more voters — fearing that they won’t get their “share” of (illusory) benefits — choose to join the scramble for said benefits, further empowering anti-libertarian candidates for office. And thus we spiral into serfdom.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

__________
* I use “libertarian” in this post to denote office-seekers and voters who prefer a government (at all levels) whose powers are (in the main) limited to those necessary for the protection of the people from predators, foreign and domestic.

The Indivisibility of Economic and Social Liberty

John Stuart Mill, whose harm principle I have found wanting, had this right:

If the roads, the railways, the banks, the insurance offices, the great joint-stock companies, the universities, and the public charities, were all of them branches of government; if in addition, the municipal corporations and local boards, with all that now devolves on them, became departments of the central administration; if the employees of all these different enterprises were appointed and paid by the government, and looked to the government for every rise in life; not all the freedom of the press and popular constitution of the legislature would make this or any other country free otherwise in name.

From On Liberty, Chapter 5

Friedrich A. Hayek put it this way:

There is, however, yet another reason why freedom of action, especially in the economic field that is so often represented as being of minor importance, is in fact as important as the freedom of the mind. If it is the mind which chooses the ends of human action, their realization depends on the availability of the required means, and any economic control which gives power over the means also gives power over the ends. There can be no freedom of the press if the instruments of printing are under the control of government, no freedom of assembly if the needed rooms are so controlled, no freedom of movement if the means of transport are a government monopoly, etc. This is the reason why governmental direction of all economic activity, often undertaken in the vain hope of providing more ample means for all purposes, has invariably brought severe restrictions of the ends which the individuals can pursue. It is probably the most significant lesson of the political developments of the twentieth century that control of the material part of life has given government, in what we have learnt to call totalitarian systems, far?reaching powers over the intellectual life. It is the multiplicity of different and independent agencies prepared to supply the means which enables us to choose the ends which we will pursue.

From part 16 of Liberalism
(go here and scroll down)

Secession Redux

In “Secession,” I wrote:

The original Constitution contemplates that the government of the United States might have to suppress insurrections and rebellions (see Article I, Section 8), but it nowhere addresses secession. Secession, in and of itself, is not an act of insurrection or rebellion, both of which imply the use of force. Force is not a requirement of secession, which can be accomplished peacefully.

Therefore, given that the Constitution does not require a subscribing State to pledge perpetual membership in the Union, and given that the Constitution does not delegate to the central government a power to suppress secession, the question of secession is one for each State, or the people thereof, to determine, in accordance with the Tenth Amendment. The grounds for secession could be … the abridgment by the United States of the “rights, privileges and immunities”of its citizens.

What about Texas v. White (U.S. Supreme Court, 1868), in which a 5-3 majority anticipated … arguments for a mystical bond of Union; for example:

When … Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration, or revocation, except through revolution, or through consent of the States.

Considered therefore as transactions under the Constitution, the ordinance of secession, adopted by the convention and ratified by a majority of the citizens of Texas, and all the acts of her legislature intended to give effect to that ordinance, were absolutely null. They were utterly without operation in law. The obligations of the State, as a member of the Union, and of every citizen of the State, as a citizen of the United States, remained perfect and unimpaired. It certainly follows that the State did not cease to be a State, nor her citizens to be citizens of the Union.

It would have been bad — bad for slaves, bad for the defense of a diminished Union — had the South prevailed in its effort to withdraw from the Union. But the failure of the South’s effort, in the end, was owed to the superior armed forces of the United States, not to the intentions of the Framers of the Constitution.

In any event, the real jurisprudential issue in Texas v. White was not the constitutionality of secession; it was the right of the post-Civil War government of Texas to recover bonds sold by the secessionist government of Texas. Moreover, as Justice Grier noted in his dissent,

Whether [Texas is] a State de facto or de jure, she is estopped from denying her identity in disputes with her own citizens. If they have not fulfilled their contract, she can have her legal remedy for the breach of it in her own courts.

The majority’s ruling about the constitutionality of secession can be read as obiter dictum and, therefore, not precedential.

Clifford P. Thies makes a similar case in “Secession Is in Our Future“:

The US law of secession is thought to have been decided by the US Supreme Court in White v. Texas, following the Civil War. The actual matter to be decided was relatively insignificant. The Court used the occasion to issue a very broad decision. Chief Justice Chase, speaking for the Court, said,

The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States.

…

The first sentence I just quoted invokes words such as “perpetual,” and in so doing may create the impression that the Supreme Court decreed that no [S]tate could ever secede from the Union. But, on careful reading, the relationship between Texas and the other [S]tates of the Union is merely “as indissoluble as the union between the original States.” In other words, Texas, having been a nonoriginal [S]tate, has no greater right of secession than do the original [S]tates. As to how [S]tates might secede, the second sentence says, “through revolution or through consent of the States.”

As to why a [S]tate might secede, … Chief Justice Chase presciently discusses the … 10th Amendment[] to the US Constitution, which reserve[s] to the [S]tates and to the people thereof all powers not expressly granted to the federal government, and that the design of the Union, implicit in the very name “United States,” is the preservation of the [S]tates as well as of the Union:

the preservation of the States, and the maintenance of their governments, are as much within the design and care of the Constitution as the preservation of the Union and the maintenance of the National government.

In other words, the federal government abrogates the Constitution when it fails to honor Amendment X:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Thies puts it starkly:

The so-called United States of America ceases to exist when the political majority of the country attempts to rule the entire country as a nation instead of as a federal government. In such a circumstance, the “indestructible union of indestructible [S]tates” of which the Court speaks is already dissolved.

I would put it this way: The legal basis for the perpetuation of the United States disappears when the federal government abrogates the Constitution. Given that the federal government has long failed to honor Amendment X, there is a prima facie case that the United States no longer exists as a legal entity. Secession then becomes more than an option for the States: It becomes their duty, both as sovereign entities and as guardians of their citizens’ sovereignty.

See “The Constitution: Myths and Realities“.

Fascism and the Future of America

Many commentators, including me, have said that our government is either fascistic or well on its way to being fascistic. What I mean when I refer to fascism in America — and what most commentators mean — is this:

[A] system in which the government leaves nominal ownership of the means of production in the hands of private individuals but exercises control by means of regulatory legislation and reaps most of the profit by means of heavy taxation. In effect, fascism is simply a more subtle form of government ownership than is socialism.

The central point is the scope of government power, which in recent months has gone from big to bigger, with the threat of becoming biggest.

Whether the United States has, at last, descended into full-blown fascism (as defined above) is less important a question than whether and how we might ascend to a better place. I will visit the possible future after assessing our present condition and its causes.

FASCISM OR SOFT DESPOTISM?

Soft despotism is simply a more polite term than fascism (or socialism) for pervasive government control of our affairs:

Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by “a network of small complicated rules” might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called ‘hard despotism’) in the sense that it is not obvious to the people. Soft despotism gives people the illusion that they are in control, when in fact they have very little influence over their government. (Source: Wikipedia.)

Soft despotism is “soft” only in that citizens aren’t dragged from their houses at night and executed for imaginary crimes against the state — though they are hauled into court for not wearing seatbelts, for smoking in bars, and for various other niggling offenses to the sensibilities of nanny-staters.

Despite the absence of arbitrary physical punishment, soft despotism is despotism, period. It can be nothing but despotism when the state holds sway over your paycheck, your retirement plan, your medical care, your choice of associates, and thousands of other details of your life — from the drugs you may not buy to the kind of car you can’t drive, from where you can build a house to the features that your house must include.

“Soft despotism,” in other words, is too soft a term for the regime under which we live. I therefore agree with Tom Smith: “Fascism” is a good descriptor of our present condition, so I’ll continue to use it.

THE CAUSES OF OUR PRESENT CONDITION

In spite of my preference for “fascism” to describe our present system of governance, I do concede an advantage to Tocqueville’s usage: It suggests the mechanism by which we got to where we are, that is, “overrun by ‘a network of small complicated rules’.” (Well, the rules aren’t small, but we are overrun by a network of them.) By “we” I don’t mean to imply concerted action on the part of the whole populace. There is a more insidious mechanism at work, which I call the interest-group paradox:

…Pork-barrel legislation exemplifies the interest-group paradox in action, though the paradox encompasses much more than pork-barrel legislation. There are myriad government programs that — like pork-barrel projects — are intended to favor particular classes of individuals. Here is a minute sample:

  • Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, for the benefit of the elderly (including the indigent elderly)
  • Tax credits and deductions, for the benefit of low-income families, charitable and other non-profit institutions, and home buyers (with mortgages)
  • Progressive income-tax rates, for the benefit of persons in the mid-to-low income brackets
  • Subsidies for various kinds of “essential” or “distressed” industries, such as agriculture and automobile manufacturing
  • Import quotas, tariffs, and other restrictions on trade, for the benefit of particular industries and/or labor unions
  • Pro-union laws (in many States), for the benefit of unions and unionized workers
  • Non-smoking ordinances, for the benefit of bar and restaurant employees and non-smoking patrons….

You may believe that a particular program is worth what it costs — given that you probably have little idea of its direct costs and no idea of its indirect costs. The problem is that millions of your fellow Americans believe the same thing about each of their favorite programs….

It is the interest-group paradox which has brought us to our present condition. Since the advent of American fascism in the New Deal, both of the major parties have vied for votes by promising more things to more interest groups. Many interest groups have been mollified, if not satisfied, but most of their members — not to mention the vast, silent minority of unrepresented voters — have in fact been made worse off because the price of their mollification is the mollification of other interest groups.

Thus we have become freighted with massive tax and regulatory burdens. The cumulative effect of the twin burdens is astoundingly large, and is likely to grow under the present regime:

Had the economy of the U.S. not been deflected from its post-Civil War course [by the advent of the regulatory-welfare state around 1900], GDP would now be more than three times its present level…. If that seems unbelievable to you, it shouldn’t: $100 compounded for 100 years at 4.4 percent amounts to $7,400; $100 compounded for 100 years at 3.1 percent amounts to $2,100. Nothing other than government intervention (or a catastrophe greater than any we have known) could have kept the economy from growing at more than 4 percent.

What’s next? Unless Obama’s megalomaniac plans are aborted by a reversal of the Republican Party’s fortunes, the U.S. will enter a new phase of economic growth — something close to stagnation. We will look back on the period from 1970 to 2008 [when GDP rose at an annual rate of 3.1 percent] with longing, as we plod along at a growth rate similar to that of 1908-1940, that is, about 2.2 percent. Thus:

  • If GDP grows at 2.2 percent through 2108, it will be 58 percent lower than if we plod on at 3.1 percent.
  • If GDP grows at 2.2 percent for through 2108, it will be only 4 percent of what it would have been had it continued to grow at 4.4 percent after 1907.

The latter disparity may seem incredible, but scan the lists here and you will find even greater cross-national disparities in per capita GDP. Go here and you will find that real, per capita GDP in 1790 was only 3.3 percent of the value it had attained 201 years later. Our present level of output seems incredible to citizens of impoverished nations, and it would seem no less incredible to an American of 201 years ago. But vast disparities can and do exist, across nations and time. We have every reason to believe in a sustained growth rate of 4.4 percent, as against one of 2.2 percent, because we have experienced both.

These numbers are only a proxy for the loss of liberty associated with the massive growth of government in the U.S. Economic stagnation is the inevitable outcome of punitive taxes and burdensome regulations, all adopted in the name of one or another “good” cause. Those who cannot stand to see others rise above them are doomed to suffer the consequences of leveling, unless they happen to be co-conspirators in the erection of the fascistic state (or whatever you want to call it).

ANOTHER VIEW OF HOW WE GOT HERE, AND WHERE WE’RE HEADED

James V. DeLong, in a recent article (“The Coming of the Fourth American Republic,” The American, April 9, 2009), advances a similar view as to the causes of our present condition:

[T[he New Deal … radically revised the role of government. The process of economic growth was tumultuous, and the losers and dislocated were constantly appealing against the national political commitment to “let us do.” The crisis of the Great Depression provided a great opportunity, and it was seized. Starting in the 1930s, the theoretical limitations on the authority of governments—national or state—to deal with economic or welfare issues were dissolved, and in the course of fighting for this untrammeled power governments eagerly accepted responsibility for the functioning of the economy and the popular welfare.

…Remaining limits on governmental authority were eliminated by the dialectic of the civil rights revolution, in which the federal power over commerce was expanded to meet moral imperatives, and the new standards were then fed back into regulation of commerce.

Inherent in the expansion of governmental power was the complicated question of how this unbridled power would be exercised. As the reach of any institution expands, especially anything as cumbersome as a government, it becomes impossible for the institution as a whole to exercise its power. Delegation to sub-units is necessary: to agencies, legislative committees and subcommittees, even private groups.

The obvious issue is how these subunits are controlled and directed. The theoretical answer had been provided by the Progressive movement (the real one of the early 20th century, not the current faux version). Much of the Progressive movement’s complaint was that special interests, often corporate, captured the governmental process, and its prescriptions were appeals to direct democracy or to administrative independence and expertise on the theory that delegation to technocrats could achieve the ideal of “the public interest.”

The real-world answer imposed by the New Deal and its progeny turned out to be special interest capture on steroids. Control comes to rest with those with the greatest interest or the most money at stake, and the result was the creation of a polity called “the Special Interest State” or, in Cornell University Professor Theodore Lowi’s terms, “Interest Group Liberalism.” Its essence is that various interest groups seize control over particular power centers of government and use them for their own ends.

It is this combination of plenary government power combined with the seizure of its levers by special interests that constitutes the polity of the current Third American Republic. The influence of “faction” and its control had been a concern since the founding of the nation, but it took the New Deal and its acolytes to decide that control of governmental turf by special interests was a feature, not a bug, a supposedly healthy part of democratic pluralism.

In DeLong’s analysis, the First American Republic, which lasted until the Civil War, was  the “alliance-of-[S]tates polity.” In the Second American Republic, following the victory of the Unionist cause in the Civil War,

sovereignty belong[ed] to the nation first and the [S]tate second, and … the nation rather than the [S]tate claim[ed] a citizen’s primary loyalty…. The shift [from the First Republic] was traumatic and took decades to complete, but eventually the [S]tates became largely instruments of federal policy, except for a few areas in which conformity is unnecessary or special interests have managed to preserve [S]tate autonomy for their own purposes.

What lies beyond the Third Republic’s special-interest state? According to DeLong, it goes like this:

This Third Republic has had a good run. It was wobbling in the late 1970s, but got bailed out by a run of good luck—Reagan; the fall of the USSR; the computer and information revolution; the rise of the Asian Tigers and the “BRICs”; the basic dynamism and talent of the American people—that kept the bicycle moving and thus upright.

It could continue. It is characteristic of political arrangements that they go on long after an observer from Mars might think that surely their defects are so patent that they have exhausted their capacity for survival…. The culture, the people, are astonishingly creative and productive, and may demonstrate a capacity to keep the bicycle moving faster than the demands of the Special Interest State can throw sand in the gears.

But it is more likely that the Special Interest State has reached a limit.

This may seem a dubious statement, at a time when the ideology of total government is at an acme, but it is not unusual for decadent political arrangements to blaze brightly before their end. Indeed, the total victory of the old arrangements may be crucial to bringing into being the forces that will overthrow it. In some ways, the grip of the aristocracy on 18th-century France tightened in the decades leading up to 1789, and the alliance-of-states idea could have lasted a while longer had the Confederacy not precipitated the crisis. So the utter triumph of the Special Interest State over the past 15 years, and particularly in the recent election, looks like the beginning of its end.

A catalogue of its insoluble problems includes:

Sheer size. The usual numbers concerning the size of government in the United States are that the Feds spend about 20 percent of GNP and other levels of government at least another 16 percent. These do not reflect the impact of tax provisions, regulations, or laws, however, so an accurate estimate of how much of the national economy is actually disposed of by the government is impossible. Whatever it is, it is growing apace, and the current administration is determined to increase it considerably.

Responsibility. As the government has grown in size and reach, it has justified its claims to power by accepting ever more responsibility for the economy and society. Failure will result in rapid loss of legitimacy and great anger…. And as the government’s reach extends, any chance that it will meet its self-proclaimed responsibilities declines.

Lack of any limiting principles. There is no limit on the areas in which special interests will now press for action, nothing that is regarded as beyond the scope of governmental responsibility and power. Furthermore, special interests are not limited, cynically trying to get an undeserved economic edge or subsidy…. Inevitably, special interests try to convert themselves into moral entitlements to convince others to agree to their claims. The problem is that many have convinced themselves, which means that no half loaf satisfies. The grievance remains sharp, and compromise immoral….

Conflicts. The Special Interest State could get along quite well when it simply nibbled at the edges of the society and economy, snipping off a benefit here and there, and when the number of victorious interests was limited. But the combination of moral entitlement, multiplication of claimants, and lack of limits on each and every claim is throwing them into conflict, and rendering unsustainable the ethic of the logrolling alliances that control it.

The guiding principle is that no member of the alliance will challenge the claims of any fellow member. But this principle has a limit, in that unlimited claims cannot help but impinge eventually on each other….

We are in a crisis of legitimacy. The concept of legitimacy, the right to rule, is the single most important factor in political life. The particulars of how it is gained and lost are infinitely varied, according to the culture and history of the polity….

In the United States, legitimacy is conferred by elections, but it is not total. Through the ages, the basic question mark about democracy as a form of government has been that 51 percent of the electorate can band together to oppress the minority—“the tyranny of the majority” is a valid concern. To address it, the United States has a formal written Constitution to guarantee basic rights, but it also has an unwritten constitution that sets limits on how far the winners can push their victories….

Over the past few years, political winners have become increasingly aggressive, culminating in President Obama’s recent “We won” as an assertion of an unlimited mandate. Losers have become increasingly restive, ready to attack the legitimacy of the winners’ victory….

[I]f each party is regarded by the other as a principle-free alliance of special interests, eager to claim the government so as to loot the other side, then a large chunk of legitimacy is lost. All that remains of that concept depends on the government’s ability to deliver overall economic prosperity and national defense, and if the rulers falter in either of these realms, they will receive no slack. Nor should they.…

Given these trajectories, and the lack of any mechanisms for altering them, it is hard to see how the polity of the Third Republic can continue, and, as former Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Herbert Stein said: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” The question is whether the landing will be hard or soft….

[I]t is difficult to see any self-correcting mechanisms in the Special Interest State. Quite the reverse; the incentives all seem to be pushing the accelerator rather than the brake….

So what will the Fourth American Republic look like, and how will it come about? The answers are shrouded in the mists of a highly plastic future, and depend to a large extent on the outcome of the current economic crisis. If that grows severe, the change will be quick and explosive. As noted, an American government that presides over a depression will immediately lose the Mandate of Heaven—the Lady will reclaim the sword.

If this immediate crisis is alleviated, then change may have to await the next one, which will certainly come as more and more sand gets thrown in the gears of the Special Interest State and the bicycle eventually stops….

Two possibilities for change seem most promising. The first is a third political party that explicitly repudiates the present course and requires that its members eschew the legitimacy of the Special Interest State. This would require a certain almost religious fervor, but the great tides of history and politics are always religious in nature, so that is no bar.

This second would be more bottom-up. The Constitution has a residue of the original alliance-of-[S]tates polity that has never been used. Two-thirds of the [S]tate legislatures can force Congress to call a constitutional convention, and the results of that enterprise can then be ratified by three-quarters of the [S]tates. So reform efforts could start at the grassroots and coalesce around [S]tates until two-thirds of them decide to march on the Capitol….

IS THERE LIFE BEYOND FASCISM?

In my view, the Third Republic is unlikely to end soon, unless:

  • Obama’s “stimulus” policies — including his efforts to nationalize a large part of the auto industry and all of the health-care industry — fail spectacularly (e.g., we slip deeper into recession, there is a massive backlash against health-care nationalization).
  • Obama continues to follow the path of accommodation and appeasement in foreign and defense policy, and the United States suffers a devastating setback (e.g., a terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11 or worse). (The setback need not be a direct result Obama’s policies; it would nevertheless be perceived as such.)
  • One of the preceding occurs on the watch of Obama’s successor — presumably a Democrat, if Obama doesn’t fall on his sword.

Absent a débâcle, the special-interest state will not run its course until some of its main constituencies turn from cooperation to conflict — which they will do when their collective greed for an ever-larger share of an ever-weakening economy turns them against each other.

There is a temptation — perhaps born of conflict-avoidance or a fear of seeming callous — to hope against débâcle and for a graceful dénouement. But there will be no graceful dénouement, just a long, messy descent into harder times, harder despotism, and perhaps even subjugation by an coalition of opportunistic enemies. So, for the sake of my grandchildren, I hope for an early débâcle.

The Principles of Actionable Harm

A NEW VERSION OF THIS POST IS HERE.

Utilitarianism vs. Liberty

This post has moved.

 

A Point of Agreement

Timothy Sandefur and I have disagreed about as often as we’ve agreed, despite the fact that both of us are “libertarians.” (Sandefur is, or was, an Objectivist; I am, to use my terminology, a radical-right-minarchist.)

In any event, Sandefur and I have tended to agree about matters of defense and foreign policy. A good case in point is his post of earlier today, “Cato’s foreign policy, don’t speak up for freedom’s defenders,” in which he says:

One thing you can usually expect from the Cato Institute’s foreign policy experts is that America shouldn’t use military force to defend freedom against tyranny in other countries. While I often find myself disagreeing with that position, it’s at least one that reasonable people can take in various cases. What I find much harder to take is the idea that the United States should not even cheer on freedom’s defenders from the sidelines, or speak up for the rights of democracies to do perfectly innocent things. I noted last year Ted Galen Carpenter and Justin Logan making a really deplorable argument that it is somehow “antagonistic” to the People’s Republic of China for Taiwan to seek to change the name of its airline to “Taiwan Airlines” or to put “Taiwan” on its passports. For Carpenter to say that these things are “antagonistic” to the PRC is nothing short of taking the side of a totalitarian communist dictatorship against the perfectly legitimate rights of a democracy that has never for even a minute of its history been governed by the PRC.

Well, here we are again: Logan argues that “President Obama should keep quiet on the subject of Iran’s elections.” Not that the United States should hold off from intervening in any direct or military way—again, a reasonable position—or that the United States should be wary of Mousavi, who is probably not the “moderate” he’s called on CNN. No, Logan’s argument is that the United States should “keep quiet” while a totalitarian theocratic dictatorship sends its masked thugs to shoot and beat demonstrators who seek some minor degree of political freedom. This he characterizes as “narcissism,” and he ridicules the idea of “anoint[ing] from afar one side as the ‘good’”—a word he puts in scare quotes…..

How sad that libertarians, supposedly America’s most consistent defenders of liberty, are so eager to avoid the possibility of military confrontation that they will adopt and even encourage cravenness and appeasement to the egos of totalitarian dictators. We should reject that approach. John Quincy Adams famously said we were “friends of freedom everywhere; defenders only of our own.” We may disagree at times over the second half of that proposition, but we should never waver on the first.

I couldn’t put it better. Sandefur captures the outrage I felt when I read Justin Logan’s post.

Cato, for all of the wisdom it dispenses on economic matters, is institutionally stupid on matters of defense and foreign policy. Cato isn’t alone on the “libertarian” anti-war flank, which mistakes defense for aggression, and bows slavishly toward non-aggression — as if anything other than last-ditch defense is an act of aggression.

There are times when it is necessary to fight in the defense of liberty. Taking a step backward, then, a lack of preparedness can be fatal to liberty. Taking another step backward, a lack of forthrightness toward those who would “bury us” is too easily taken as a sign that we are unwilling and even unprepared to fight. (We were attacked on 9/11, in part, because bin Laden perceived us as “soft” and unwilling to defend ourselves.)

We cannot afford to let acts of tyranny slide by without a peep, nor should we if we are to stand for liberty and against tyranny. Thus Sandefur is exactly right to call out Cato in the matter of the Iranian elections.

There are several issues on which many a “libertarian” shares ground with Leftists. Defense is one of those issues. What I say in “The Media, the Left, and War” also could be said of most “libertarians.” See also “Parsing Political Philosophy,” where I point out the similarity of left-minarchists (a.k.a. left-libertarians) to left-statists (a.k.a. “liberals”).

Finally, I should note that I have taken to putting “libertarian(s)” and “libertarianism” in quotation marks because “libertarianism” — in its internet-dominant strains (anarchist and left-minarchist) — is a recipe for the destruction of civil society, and thence the ascension of a truly oppressive regime. For more on the fatuousness of  the dominant strains of “libertarianism,” see “On Liberty” and “The Meaning of Liberty.”

I have posted before on the obdurate, head-in-the-sand, Chamberlainesque attitude exemplified by Cato and other “libertarian” organizations:
Libertarian Nay-Saying on Foreign and Defense Policy
Libertarianism and Preemptive War: Part I
Right On! For Libertarian Hawks Only
Understanding Libertarian Hawks
More about Libertarian Hawks and Doves
Sorting Out the Libertarian Hawks and Doves
Libertarianism and Preemptive War: Part II
Give Me Liberty or Give Me Non-Aggression?
More Final(?) Words about Preemption and the Constitution
Thomas Woods and War
“Peace for Our Time”
How to View Defense Spending
More Stupidity from Cato
Anarchistic Balderdash
Cato’s Usual Casuistry on Matters of War and Peace

A Bargain with the Devils of “Liberalism”

I have said many times that government should (a) stay in the marriage business and decline to honor homosexual “marriage,” and (b) reverse Roe v. Wade to allow the criminalization of abortion. My views are distilled here, where I say that

“rights” like abortion and homosexual “marriage” [are] government-imposed social innovations with potentially harmful consequences for civil society. If social custom, as embodied in legislative acts, rejects such things as abortion and homosexual “marriage,” it does so because those things undermine the fabric of society — the bonds of mutual respect, mutual trust, and mutual restraint that enable a people to live and work together in peace.

I am still against homosexual “marriage” and abortion, but I am willing to trade my support of government involvement in both matters for the cessation of government action in a multitude of other matters. Now, if I could persuade the other several million opponents of homosexual “marriage” and abortion to do the same, here is the deal we would offer:

We, the nation’s right-minarchists and right-statists, are willing to accept the possibility that some states will allow homosexual “marriage” and abortion. We are willing to do so, and end our attempts to regulate homosexual “marriage” and abortion at the federal level, if you, the nation’s left-minarchists and left-statists, will accede to the following conditions:

  • Eliminate all federal departments, and their functions, excepting justice, defense, state, and treasury.
  • Roll back all regulatory enactments and enabling laws to their status as of 1900.
  • Do the same with the federal tax code.
  • Except for the core federal functions of justice (in truly federal matters), defense, and foreign policy (which ought to serve our defense needs), devolve all federal functions to the States. (“Homeland security” is properly a  defense function, as are matters having to do with veterans’ benefits.)
  • The citizens of each State, through their legislatures and other avenues consistent with republicanism, shall determine questions such as access to marriage (if it remains in the purview of a State) and abortion, as well as such other matters as agricultural policy, regulation of commerce, provision of education, energy policy, justice (intra-State), health care regulation and subsidies, housing subsidies, labor policies, the disposition and use of public lands, urban affairs and transportation (including agreements with neighboring States about the construction and maintenance of highways and other means of transportation), and welfare (including State-level equivalents of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid).

I wouldn’t expect left-minarchists to want States in the driver’s seat on marriage and abortion. Nor are left-statists likely to give up on the idea of pressing every citizen into the same, Washington-dictated mold. But left-minarchists might be attracted by the opportunity for some States to offer their citizens more liberty. And left-statists might be willing to accept certain victory for dictatorial “liberalism” in many States, especially as they hail from the States most likely to give them all the “liberalism” they can stand.

I, for one, would welcome the opportunity to live in a State that rejects homosexual “marriage” and abortion, along with the imprisoning, impoverishing baggage of modern “liberalism.” Surely, there would be at least a dozen to choose from, right off the bat.

Why would I be willing to allow some States to legalize homosexual “marriage” and abortion if I am so strongly against those two things. One way of looking at it is this: The world is never going to be perfect, so you make the best you can of it. In this case, making the best of it allows some States to swim against the tide homosexual “marriage” and abortion.

It is likely that those same States, freed from the shackles of Washington, would take other actions to restore civil society and thus advance liberty. I suspect that the policies of those States would be so popular that other States would follow suit to avoid massive emigration and its result: a fiscal death spiral, à la Michigan.

The Media, the Left, and War

Ralph Peters writes:

The phenomenon of Western and world journalists championing the “rights” and causes of blood-drenched butchers who, given the opportunity, would torture and slaughter them, disproves the notion—were any additional proof required—that human beings are rational creatures. Indeed, the passionate belief of so much of the intelligentsia that our civilization is evil and only the savage is noble looks rather like an anemic version of the self-delusions of the terrorists themselves. And, of course, there is a penalty for the intellectual’s dismissal of religion: humans need to believe in something greater than themselves, even if they have a degree from Harvard. Rejecting the god of their fathers, the neo-pagans who dominate the media serve as lackeys at the terrorists’ bloody altar. (“Wishful Thinking and Indecisive Wars,” Journal of International Security Affairs, Spring 2009.)

Seems about right to me. As I once said of an American “intellectual,”

He and his ilk cannot satisfy their power-lust in the real world, so they retaliate by imagining a theoretical world of doom. It is as if they walk around under a thought balloon which reads “Take that!”

It is the politics of adolescent rebelliousness:

The Left is in an arrested state of adolescent rebellion: “Daddy” doesn’t want me to smoke, so I’m going to smoke; “Daddy” doesn’t want me to drink, so I’m going to drink; “Daddy” doesn’t want me to have sex, so I’m going to have sex. But, regardless of my behavior, I expect “Daddy” to give me an allowance, and birthday presents, and cell phones, and so on….

Persons of the Left simply are simply unthinking, selfish adolescents who want what they want, regardless of the consequences for others.

And now that they are “in charge,” that’s precisely what they’re doing. Where will it all end? I reflected here on the following passage from an essay by Thomas Sowell:

When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.

Peters has a similar thought:

Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media. [Emphasis added, with glee.] Perceiving themselves as superior beings, journalists have positioned themselves as protected-species combatants. But freedom of the press stops when its abuse kills our soldiers and strengthens our enemies. Such a view arouses disdain today, but a media establishment that has forgotten any sense of sober patriotism may find that it has become tomorrow’s conventional wisdom….

He concludes:

The point of all this is simple: Win. In warfare, nothing else matters. If you cannot win clean, win dirty. But win. Our victories are ultimately in humanity’s interests, while our failures nourish monsters.

In closing, we must dispose of one last mantra that has been too broadly and uncritically accepted: the nonsense that, if we win by fighting as fiercely as our enemies, we will “become just like them.” To convince Imperial Japan of its defeat, we not only had to fire-bomb Japanese cities, but drop two atomic bombs. Did we then become like the Japanese of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere? Did we subsequently invade other lands with the goal of permanent conquest, enslaving their populations? Did our destruction of German cities—also necessary for victory—turn us into Nazis? Of course, you can find a few campus leftists who think so, but they have yet to reveal the location of our death camps….

Of all the enemies we face today and may face tomorrow, the most dangerous is our own wishful thinking.

The wishful thinking is for quick, clean wars, and preferably, no wars at all — because we can avoid wars through “dialogue” and “understanding.” Bosh! As Peters says,

The violent, like the poor, will always be with us, and we must be willing to kill those who would kill others.

Moreover, we must be prepared for long, dirty wars. With whom? It doesn’t much matter, as Peters suggests:

It may not be China that challenges us, after all, but the unexpected rise of a dormant power. The precedent is there: in 1929, Germany had a playground military limited to 100,000 men. Ten years later, a re-armed Germany had embarked on the most destructive campaign of aggression in history, its killing power and savagery exceeding that of the Mongols.

Which nation or stateless power will be the next Germany or Japan? We don’t know and can’t know. All we can do — and must do — is prepare for the inevitable rise of the next butcher state.

The question is whether we can survive a political regime that is hell-bent on bread, circuses, and surrender.

Gains from Trade

I’ve been pondering a bunch of recent posts about international trade by Keith Burgess-Jackson. The posts (dated from March 11, 2009, to June 8, 2009) are at KBJ’s eponymous blog. In the posts, KBJ attacks international trade (or some of it), because (in his view) it affects certain aspects of life in the United States.

I’ve read and re-read the various posts, trying to make sense of them. But I have been unable to do so so because, at every turn, I am confronted by flawed logic and unfounded assertions. I’m left in awe at the chutzpah of a tenured associate professor of philosophy (with a law degree, to boot) who commits the kinds of errors for which (I hope) he would chastise his students.

Anyway, to begin at the beginning, there’s this (March 11):

Free trade has been, and will continue to be, a disaster for this country.

A “disaster for this country” would be an event (or a related set or sequence of events) that inflicts unmitigated harm on great masses of Americans. The Great Depression was a “disaster for this country,” as was 9/11. How is “free trade” a “disaster for this country” when, thanks to the lowering of barriers to trade, but not their abandonment (thus “free trade”), millions of Americans now own better automobiles, electronic gadgets, and other goodies than they had access to before “free trade.” Not only that, but they have been able to purchase those goodies to which they had access before “free trade” at lower real prices than in the days before “free trade.” On top of that, millions of Americans make a better living than than they did before “free trade” because of their employment in industries that became stronger or rose up because of “free trade.”

Okay, so KBJ issues a qualified version on March 12:

Dr John J. Ray, my polymathic friend Down Under, replies to my post about free trade. I should clarify my stance. I’m not saying there should be no trade. That would be crazy. I’m saying that we Americans should protect certain of our industries, such as steel and automobiles. Yes, there is a price to be paid for these protectionist measures, but I, like Pat Buchanan, deem it a price worth paying.

Having recognized that “free trade” may be good for many Americans, KBJ now wants to protect certain industries. But why? KBJ doesn’t say. And I’m at a loss to guess the answer. After all, if we protect an industry we are, in effect, subsidizing those who earn a living in that industry, from the loftiest chairman of the board to the lowliest floor sweeper. Why should Americans be forced, for example, to subsidize people who work for GM and Chrysler when “Japanese” auto makers employ Americans who also make cars?  Even if GM and Chrysler were to go out of business, there would still be an American auto industry — one whose “Big Three” would be Ford, Toyota, and Honda. I’m not so sure about Ford, but Toyota, Honda, and other “Japanese” makes have proved more than adequate to the task of delivering well-made autos at reasonable prices.

I would make the same argument even if “Japanese” cars truly were Japanese, from topsail to keel and stem to stern. Even then, it would not be entirely a question of favoring certain Japanese at the expense of certain Americans. It would also be a question of favoring certain Americans (those employed by auto companies of any stripe) over other Americans (those who would prefer Japanese autos for various reasons, not least of which is value for the dollar). KBJ seems to acknowledge as much in a post of March 16, where he gives a bit more ground:

Free trade is efficient, in the sense that it increases (or even maximizes) aggregate material welfare. The key words are “aggregate” and “material.” As for the first of these words, free trade produces losers as well as gainers. The gainers could compensate the losers, but they are not made to do so. I’m concerned about the losers. In other words, I care about justice (how the pie is distributed) as well as efficiency (how big the pie is). As for the second word, there is more to life than material welfare. Free trade has bad effects on valuable nonmaterial things, such as community, culture, tradition, and family. As a conservative, I care very much about these things.

There’s more of the same on March 17:

Here is a video that explains how free trade increases (or even maximizes) aggregate material welfare. Notice that there is no mention of two things that matter to conservatives: (1) how the increase is distributed; and (2) how free trade affects nonmaterial welfare.

KBJ focuses on American losers, but there are many, many American gainers from free trade, as discussed above. Are their communities, cultures, traditions, and families of no import to KBJ? It would seem so. On what basis does he prefer some Americans to others? Or, to put it more crudely, who died and left KBJ, Pat Buchanan, and their ilk in charge of defending the Rust Belt?

And why should we care whether autos and steel are made in the U.S.? Is it a matter of national pride? What price pride? Whatever the price, it seems that KBJ, Pat Buchanan, and their ilk are willing for millions of Americans to pay it.

Maybe it’s a question of national defense — the bogeyman that is so often conjured in relation to our supposed dependence on foreign oil. Just as those “Arabs” might cut off our oil (though to do so would be to risk our wrath and their wealth), perhaps the Russians, Chinese, or Hottentots will someday amass so much military power that they can cut off all our imports, leaving us poor and powerless — inasmuch as we would no longer possess an industrial base to mobilize for war.

So, maybe their reasoning goes like this: America would be (has been?) deprived of significant chunks of its industrial base by the migration of manufacturing overseas (ignoring the fact that auto-making has migrated mainly from one part of the U.S to other parts of the U.S., while the U.S. remains the number 3 steel-making country in the world). And if our industrial base disappears, we won’t be able to mobilize for a prolonged war — one that would require more military stuff than our puny (hah!) industrial base would be capable of emitting. But our industrial base isn’t disappearing, it’s just becoming smaller in relation to our service sector and far less labor-intensive (i.e., more labor-productive) than it used to be (thus the “loss” of manufacturing jobs over time). See, for example, these Federal Reserve graphs of U.S. industrial capacity and production from the mid-1960s to the present. (The main page is here.) In spite of dips related to recessions, the trends are upward.

Getting back to the question of defense, we already have much larger conventional forces and stockpiles of parts and munitions in relation to the forces and stockpiles of our potential enemies than was the case before we entered WWII. If that demanding war is the benchmark for preparedness, then we have plenty of time to convert existing industrial facilities to war production, and to build new war-production facilities. In any event, you would think that the prospect of a major conventional war would become evident in ample time for mobilization, despite the periodic decimation of our intelligence services.

If unpreparedness for a major conventional war is the bogeyman that haunts the dreams of KBJ and company, their real fear can’t be the loss of our industrial base because of “free trade,” inasmuch as we haven’t lost our industrial base and show no signs of doing so. No, their real fear must be the caliber of our political leaders. Sell-outs will sell us out even when we have strong defenses and the wherewithal to build and maintain those defenses, as we have learned in the decades since the Vietnam War, which devastated our resolve to deal with military problems militarily. Those decades were punctuated only briefly by Reagan’s defense buildup, Bush I’s mistakenly truncated Gulf War, and Bush II’s hamstrung war in Iraq. We are now preparing for future wars (not!) and fighting current ones (while retreating) on terms dictated by an obstructive Congress (one of whose members was our new, Chamberlainesque president), an over-reaching Supreme Court, and other Leftists (to call them American Leftists would be an insult to America). But none of that has anything to do with “free trade.”

Returning to the issue at hand, KBJ seems to ignore the fundamental fact of life that human beings try to better their lot in ways that often, and inescapably, result in change. Human beings do want economic progress, and they have proved that they are willing, at times, to pay for in in “nonmaterial ways,” that is, by allowing it do affect “community, culture, tradition, and family.”

But that fact has never kept sentimentalists from decrying the loss of the “good old days.” KBJ’s tune is an old one, a version of which goes “How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they seen Paree?”

Perhaps (in KBJ’s view) it was a mistake for early man to have discovered fire-making, which undoubtedly led to new communal alignments, cultural totems, traditions, and even familial relationships. Methinks, in short, that KBJ has been swept away by a kind of self-indulgent romanticism for a past that was not as good as we remember it. (I’ve been there and done that, too.)

If “nonmaterial things” are so important, one wonders why KBJ ever left Michigan. And if he left Michigan for good reasons, as I’m sure he did, why is it bad for others to leave Michigan for the promise of warmth and employment? If “nonmaterial things” are so important, college attendance between ages 18 and 22 ought to be outlawed, for that is where (college) and when (18 to 22 years of age) large portions of the populace lose their attachment to “community, culture, tradition, and family.”

Anyway, how is it that economic dislocation — gradual as it is when an industry shifts its locus from one region to another — devastates “community, culture, tradition, and family”? If there has been any devastation of “community, culture, tradition, and family” in the Rust Belt — where auto- and steel-making once were dominant industries — it has been going on for decades, due to the combined influences of higher education; mobility (as the young seek greener pastures and the old seek warmer climes); the rise of impersonal entertainment and forms of communication (in lieu of family togetherness); and the natural breakdown of old-country cultures and traditions, as generation succeeds generation.

Shifting gears: On March 19, KBJ says this:

Those of you who consider yourselves conservative but support free trade might want to reconsider. The editorial board of the New York Times supports free trade. So does Barack Obama. So do the Clintons. So does Paul Krugman.

KBJ’s (risible) implication seems to be this: Something can’t be good if your political enemies think it’s good; or, you can’t really be a conservative if you agree with certain scurrilous liberals on a particular issue. By such reasoning, I wonder that KBJ can be against “free trade” when its opponents include Leftists:

I’m with Dennis Kucinich on free trade. (March 24)

On March 25, KBJ merely rehashes earlier posts:

There is no mention in this New York Times story of why people are losing their jobs. Can you say “free trade”? Jobs are being outsourced to China and other parts of the world, where labor is cheap. What good are cheap goods if you don’t have a job? Free trade will be the death of the West. A hundred years from now, if the West survives that long, people will look back at this time as the time of idiocy.

There’s more of the same old stuff on March 26, along with a couple of new assertions:

The editorial board of the New York Times is adamantly opposed to “protectionism.” In other words, it adamantly supports free trade. Note the reason given. The board—which is composed of cosmopolitans—is concerned about poor people in other countries. Free trade raises the standard of living for nonAmericans at the expense of Americans, many of whom are suffering terribly as a result of lost jobs, which adversely affects not just them but their families and communities. Free trade is a worldwide leveler of wealth. This is why conservatives (as opposed to libertarians) oppose free trade. In their view, Americans come first. Cosmopolitan progressives and libertarians support free trade, albeit for different reasons. The former support it because it redistributes wealth from rich nations to poor nations. The latter support it because they worship individual liberty. Free trade has been a boon to wealthy American entrepreneurs, who now have a worldwide pool of cheap labor. It has devastated working-class and middle-class Americans.

The notion that “[‘free trade’] redistributes wealth from rich nations to poor nations” is completely devoid of logical and empirical content. “Free trade” works because there are gains to all participants. If that weren’t the case, Americans wouldn’t buy foreign goods and foreigners wouldn’t buy American goods. Moreover, “free trade” has been a boon to American consumers and workers (though not always the workers KBJ seems to be worried about). To the extent that “wealthy American entrepreneurs” have gained from “free trade,” it’s because they’ve risked their capital to create jobs (in the U.S. and overseas) that have helped people (in the U.S. and overseas) attain higher standards of living. The “worldwide pool of cheap labor” is, in fact, a worldwide pool of willing labor, which earns what it does in accordance with the willingness of Americans (and others) to buy its products.

Finally, on June 8, KBJ says:

Europeans are starting to see the folly of free trade.

Actually, if you read the article, you’ll find that it portrays Europeans as wrong-headedly provincial — just like KBJ and company.

I may have left out a post or two, but I hope that, by now, you get the idea. “Free trade” helps Americans — perhaps not always the Rust-Belt Americans KBJ seems to be fixated on.

It might surprise KBJ to know that everyone’s income can grow, and grow faster, because of trade — not in spite of it. Foreigners earn more now than they used to, in part, because they are employed in more productive pursuits than they were before “globalization.”  The more foreigners earn, the more American-produced products they buy. Many of those same foreigners also help to underwrite our government’s deficits, thus reducing Americans’ taxes.

If “free trade” is such a bad thing, I wonder if KBJ buys anything that’s not made in Texas, where he lives. Trade between the States, after all, is about as “free” as it gets (except when government bans something, of course). Suppose Texas were to be annexed suddenly by Mexico. Would KBJ immediately boycott everything that’s made in the remaining 49 States? Would it have suddently become unclean?

Opposition to “free trade” — of the kind voiced by KBJ and company — is pure, unadulterated, mindless yahooism. It has no more validity than rooting for, say, the University of Texas Longhorns just because you live in Austin (as I do). People who have not the slightest connection with UT can be seen wearing burnt orange (UT’s colors for those of you who are blissfully unaware) and celebrating drunkenly after UT victories. It just makes me want to puke. And so does anti-international trade yahooism, which is like rooting for union-dominated firms like GM and Chrysler, which we are now subsidizing to the nth degree. (I’ll bet that makes KBJ puke.)

Putting an end to “free trade” would make Americans poorer, not richer. And I doubt that it would do anything to halt the natural evolution of “community, culture, tradition, and family” away from the forms sentimentalized by KBJ and toward entirely new but not necessarily inferior forms.

The biggest threat to “community, culture, tradition, and family” lies in the non-evolutionary imposition of new social norms bythe Left. That’s where the ire of KBJ and company should be directed.

Utilitarianism, “Liberalism,” and Omniscience

Utilitarianism is sort of under debate in the blogosphere (see here). But all the hifalutin’ philosophising misses the main point about utilitarianism: Those who practice it are arrogant pretenders to omniscience.

The appeal of utilitarianism rests on two mistaken beliefs:

  • There is such a thing as social welfare.
  • Transferring income and wealth from the richer to the poorer enhances social welfare because redistribution helps the poorer more than it hurts the richer.

Having disposed elsewhere of the second belief, I here address the first one.

The notion of a social welfare function arises from John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism, which is best captured in the phrase “the greatest good for the greatest number” or, more precisely “the greatest amount of happiness altogether.” From this facile philosophy grew the patently ludicrous idea that it might be possible to quantify each person’s happiness, sum those values, and arrive at an aggregate measure of total happiness for everyone.

Utilitarianism, as a philosophy, has gone the way of Communism: It is discredited, but many people still cling to it under other names — “social welfare” and “social justice” being perennial favorites among the “liberal” intelligentsia.

How can supposedly rational “liberals” imagine that the benefits accruing to some persons (unionized employees of GM and Chrysler, urban developers, etc.) cancel the losses of other persons (taxpayers, property owners, etc.)? There is no realistic worldview in which A’s greater happiness cancels B’s greater unhappiness; never the twain shall meet.  The only way to “know” that A’s happiness cancels B’s unhappiness is to put oneself in the place of an omniscient deity — to become, in other words, an accountant of the soul.

It seems to me that “liberals” (most of them, anyway) reject God because to acknowledge Him would be to admit their own puniness and venality.

Checking In

UPDATED, 08/11/10

About four years ago (at Liberty Corner) I drew on the archives of Dead or Alive? to list a number of erstwhile celebrities who were then alive at the age of 90 or older. Here’s how the list looks today:

Charles Lane 102, George Kennan 101, George Beverly Shea 101, Max Schmeling 99, Eddie Albert 99, Michael DeBakey 99, Luise Rainer 100, Gloria Stuart 100, Dale Messick 98, John Wooden 99, Mitch Miller 99, John Kenneth Galbraith 97, Ernest Gallo 97, John Mills 97, Estée Lauder 97, Al Lopez 97, Karl Malden 97, Art Linkletter 97, Risë Stevens 97, Fay Wray 96, Kitty Carlisle 96, Jane Wyatt 96, Tony Martin 96, Kevin McCarthy 96, Irwin Corey 96, Henri Cartier-Bresson 95, Peter Rodino, Jr. 95, Joseph Barbera 95 ,Jack LaLanne 95, Harry Morgan 95, Herman Wouk 95, Byron Nelson 94, Constance Cummings 94, Lady Bird Johnson 94, Robert Mondavi 94, Sammy Baugh 94, Les Paul 94, Sargent Shriver 94, Eli Wallach 94, Olivia de Havilland 94, Artie Shaw 93, Frankie Laine 93, Ruth Hussey 93, Richard Widmark 93, Robert McNamara 93, Ernest Borgnine 93, Zsa Zsa Gabor 93, Vera Lynn 93, Oleg Cassini 92, Ralph Edwards 92, Lena Horne 92, Ernie Harwell 92, Herbert Lom 92, Patti Andrews 92, William Westmoreland 91, Frances Langford 91, John Profumo 91, Geraldine Fitzgerald 91, Archibald Cox 91, Julia Child 91, Bob Feller 91, Billy Graham 91, Monte Irvin 91, Jane Wyman 90.

For many, many more names, go to “People Alive Over 85” at Dead or Alive?

A New, New Constitution

I have further revised my revision of the Constitution of the United States (earlier version here). The new, new version is below the fold.

Another blogger once said of such efforts that

[a]ll the Constitution really needs is some well-placed “And we mean it!” clauses:

–The Ninth Amendment…and we mean it!

—Privileges or Immunities…and we mean it!

–Taking property only for public use…and we mean it!

And so on.

Maybe abolish the well-intentioned but subsequently corrupted Necessary & Proper Clause, clarify the meaning of “regulate” in the Commerce Clause to return it to its intended denotation (i.e., “to make regular,” or “to standardize”) and of “commerce” to “that which is not agriculture or manufacturing” (i.e., trade).

The rest is all bells and whistles.

Au contraire: The devil, as they say, is in the details. The main problem with the Constitution is not what it means but what meanings can be imputed to it because of vagueness and ambiguity. What the Constitution really needs is a lot of loophole-closing and more checks on the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, all of which have subverted and twisted the Constitution‘s intended meanings.

“My” (unitalicized) Constitution (as distinguished from the real Constitution, to which deference is owed but too seldom given) is not only far more specific than the original — and more restrictive of the powers of government — but it also includes more checks on those powers. Specifically, there is this provision in Article V:

A judgment of any court of the United States of America may be revised or revoked by an act of Congress, provided that such any revision or revocation is approved by two-thirds of the members of each house and leads to a result that conforms to this Constitution.

Then there are Articles VII and VIII, Keeper of the Constitution and Conventions of the States, which open thusly:

The responsibility for ensuring that the legislative, executive, and judicial branches adhere to this constitution in the exercise of their respective powers shall be vested in a Keeper of the Constitution. The Keeper may review acts of Congress, the executive branch, and judicial branch that have the effect of making law and appropriating monies.

*    *    *

Delegations of the States shall convene every four years for the purpose of considering revisions to and revocations of acts of the government that is established by this constitution. Such conventions (hereinafter “convention of the States”) may revise and/or revoke any act or acts and/or any holding or holdings, in the sole discretion of a majority of State delegations present and voting.

On top of that, there is Article IX, which authorizes petitions and subsequent elections for the revocation of a broad range of governmental acts and the expulsion of members of Congress, the President, Vice President and justices of the Supreme Court. Also, a constitutional convention may be called pursuant to a successful petition.

To the extent that Articles VII, VIII, and IX would inhibit presidential and congressional ventures into unconstitutional territory, so much the better. Gridlock is good thing when it clogs Washington’s corridors of power.

The new Constitution also provides for secession, the threat of which might further help to preserve its original meaning. Continue reading “A New, New Constitution” →

Toward a Constitutional “Monarchy”

As I happened across The Monarchist (via Occam’s Carbuncle*), I remembered that I hadn’t staked out a place for monarchism in my post, “Parsing Political Philosophy.” I had meant to do so, but had second thoughts.

The place for monarchism is found in what I call radical-right-minarchism (R-R-M),

where “radical” means favoring the restoration of the Constitution to its original meaning. What sets R-R-M apart from other types of [minarchists] is their understanding that it is no longer possible to slay or tame Leviathan through electoral politics-as-usual, that the Constitution itself must be reinvigorated. (There are more radical alternatives, a military coup and secession, neither of which has much chance of success, and both of which could backfire. [Randy] Barnetts’s and my proposals would not, if adopted in the way outlined in the third through fifth paragraphs of Barnett’s article.)

Monarchism would be consistent with my idea of a new constitution, which includes, among many things, an Article VIII, Conventions of the States, which opens with this:

Delegations of the States shall convene every four years for the purpose of considering revisions to and revocations of acts of the government established by this Constitution. Such conventions (hereinafter “Convention of the States”) may revise and/or revoke any act or acts and/or any holding or holdings, in the sole discretion of a majority of State delegations present and voting.

Perhaps, instead of unreliable quadrennial conventions, we should have a constitutional “monarch,” to be called (more palatably) “Keeper of the Constitution.” The Keeper’s sole power and duty would be to veto unconstitutional acts of Congress, the executive branch (including “independent” regulatory agencies), and the Supreme Court — as and when such acts occur.

The Keeper, in other words, would be a fourth branch of the federal government — a sorely needed check on the other three branches, which have failed miserably to protect, preserve, and defend the Constitution.

The creation of a Keeper would do much the same thing as the establishment of quadrennial conventions: Push the federal government toward constitutional rectitude with the threat of embarrassing it by very publicly undoing its unconstitutional deeds.

The idea of adding a negatively omnipotent fourth branch raises several tough questions:

  • How should the Keeper be chosen?
  • How long should the Keeper be allowed to serve?
  • What if the Keeper vetoes an act that was in fact constitutional? In other words, who (or what) defends us against an errant or arrogant Keeper?

In answer, I conjure the following constitutional language, beginning with the duties and powers of the Keeper:

1. a. The responsibility for ensuring that the legislative, executive, and judicial branches adhere to this constitution in the exercise of their respective powers shall be vested in a Keeper of the Constitution. The Keeper may review acts of Congress, the executive branch, and judicial branch that have the effect of making law and appropriating monies. The term “making law” includes — but is not limited to — a legislative, executive, or judicial interpretation of an existing law or laws. Covered acts of the judicial branch include — but are not limited to — denials of appeals or writs of certiorari. The Keeper’s purview does not extend to declarations of war; statutes, appropriations, regulations, or orders pertaining directly to the armed forces and intelligence services of the United States; or the employment of the armed forces and intelligence services of the United States. Nor does the Keeper’s purview extend to appointments made by or with the consent of the legislative, executive, or judicial branches.

1. b. The Keeper may nullify any act that lies within his purview, as defined in section 1.a, provided that the act occurred no more than one year before the date on which he nullifies it. The Keeper shall signify each nullification by informing the speaker of the House of Representatives, president pro-tempore of the Senate, president of the United States, and chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of his decision and the reason(s) therefor. The Keeper shall, at the same time, issue a public notice of his decision and the reason(s) therefor. The affected branch(es) of government shall, in each case, act promptly to implement the Keeper’s decision. Each implementing act shall be subject to review, as specified in sub-section 1.a.

As for choosing the Keeper:

2. a. The speaker of the House of Representatives and president of the United States, acting jointly, shall nominate a Keeper of the Constitution to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court shall vote on a nominee no later than thirty days after receiving notice of a nomination. A nominee shall become Keeper upon the approval by three-fourths of the then-sitting justices of the Supreme Court.

2.b. If a nominee is rejected by the Supreme Court, the speaker and president, acting jointly, shall nominate a different person as Keeper, and shall send this second nomination to the House of Representatives and Senate. The House of Representatives and Senate shall, within thirty days of receiving notice of the nomination, meet as a single body to vote on the nominee. The nominee shall become Keeper upon approval by two-thirds of the total number of Representatives and Senators then present and voting.

2.c. If a nominee is rejected by both the Supreme Court and combined membership of the House of Representatives and Senate, the speaker and president, acting jointly, shall nominate a different person as Keeper, and shall send this third nomination to the Senate. The Senate shall, within thirty days of receiving notice of the nomination, meet to vote on the nominee. The nominee shall become Keeper upon approval by a majority of Senators then present and voting.

2.d. If the Keeper shall resign, die in office, or become unable to hold office because of a physical or mental condition attested to in writing by a unanimous panel of three doctors of medicine appointed jointly by the speaker of the House of Representatives, the president pro-tempore of the Senate, the president of the United States, and three-fourths of the then-sitting justices of the Supreme Court, a successor shall be appointed in accordance with the preceding sub-sections of this section 2.

The progressively easier method of choosing the Keeper provides an incentive for the Supreme Court to confirm the first nominee, rather than let the choice fall to the legislative branch. The provision for a third nomination is designed to ensure that the office won’t stand vacant.

I next address the term of office and related ways of keeping the Keeper “honest”:

3. a. The Keeper shall hold office during good behavior for a term of three years. The same person may not hold the office of Keeper more than once.

3.b. The Keeper may be removed from office only as follows: The speaker of the House of Representatives and president of the United States shall jointly apply to the Supreme Court of the United States for removal of the Keeper, specifying the instance(s) of official misfeasance or malfeasance that prompted their application. The Supreme Court, upon the receipt of such an application, and with due deliberation, shall vote on its merits. If  three-fourths of the then-sitting justices of the Supreme Court approve the application, the Keeper shall thereupon forfeit his office; otherwise, the Keeper then in office shall retain his position until a proper application for his removal is approved by three fourths of the then-sitting justices of the Supreme Court, or his term of office expires.

3.c. Upon removal of the Keeper from office by the foregoing procedure, a new Keeper shall be appointed, in accordance with the procedures of sub-sections 2.a, 2.b, and 2.c. Upon the appointment of a new Keeper, he shall enter upon a three-year term of office, which he may hold during good behavior.

Finally, some “housekeeping” details:

4. The Keeper shall be paid a salary of $1 per annum, but may be reimbursed for reasonable, personal expenses related to the execution of his duties. Congress shall appropriate monies for the reimbursement of the Keeper’s reasonable, personal expenses; for the reasonable compensation of the Keeper’s staff; and for the procurement, operation, and maintenance of  those facilities, equipment, and services that the Keeper and his staff may require for the execution of the Keeper’s responsibilities. The total cost of the foregoing shall not exceed $100 million per annum, which amount shall increase on the anniversary of the date of the adoption of this amendment by the same percentage as the most recent increase (if any) in cost-of-living adjustments to the pensions of veterans of the armed forces.

That’s my idea of a constitutional “monarchy” — one with real but limited power. Imagine the kind of person it would take to gain acceptance (or banishment) by three-fourths of the sitting justices of the Supreme Court (i.e., by seven of the nine). Even at the worst of times, constitutionally, I would expect there to be three or four justices on hand to ensure against the appointment of a pushover for the “living Constitution” —  which is not the Framer’s Constitution.

__________

* Now defunct and sorely missed.

Modernism in the Arts and Politics

David Friedman has a theory about the “modern” movement:

Suppose you are the first city planner in the history of the world. If you are very clever you come up with Cartesian coordinates, making it easy to find any address without a map, let alone a GPS—useful since neither GPS devices nor maps have been invented yet.

Suppose you are the second city planner. Cartesian coordinates have already been done, so you can’t make your reputation by doing them again. With luck, you come up with some alternative, perhaps polar coordinates, that works almost as well.

Suppose you are the two hundred and ninetieth city planner in the history of the world. All the good ideas have been used, all the so-so ideas have been used, and you need something new to make your reputation. You design Canberra. That done, you design the Combs building at ANU, the most ingeniously misdesigned building in my personal experience, where after walking around for a few minutes you not only don’t know where you are, you don’t even know what floor you are on.

I call it the theory of the rising marginal cost of originality—formed long ago when I spent a summer visiting at ANU.

It explains why, to a first approximation, modern art isn’t worth looking at, modern music isn’t worth listening to, and modern literature and verse not worth reading. Writing a novel like one of Jane Austen’s, or a poem like one by Donne or Kipling, only better, is hard. Easier to deliberately adopt a form that nobody else has used, and so guarantee that nobody else has done it better.

In other words, if you can’t readily do better than your predecessors, you take the easy way out by doing something different — ugly as it may be. And you call it “progress.” As I wrote here:

In the early decades of the twentieth century, the visual, auditory, and verbal arts became an “inside game.” Painters, sculptors, composers (of “serious” music), choreographers, and writers of fiction began to create works not for the enjoyment of audiences but for the sake of exploring “new” forms. Given that the various arts had been perfected by the early 1900s, the only way to explore “new” forms was to regress toward primitive ones — toward a lack of structure…. Aside from its baneful influence on many true artists, the regression toward the primitive has enabled persons of inferior talent (and none) to call themselves “artists.” Thus modernism is banal when it is not ugly.

Painters, sculptors, etc., have been encouraged in their efforts to explore “new” forms by critics, by advocates of change and rebellion for its own sake (e.g., “liberals” and “bohemians”), and by undiscriminating patrons, anxious to be au courant. Critics have a special stake in modernism because they are needed to “explain” its incomprehensibility and ugliness to the unwashed.

The unwashed have nevertheless rebelled against modernism, and so its practitioners and defenders have responded with condescension, one form of which is the challenge to be “open minded” (i.e., to tolerate the second-rate and nonsensical). A good example of condescension is heard on Composers Datebook, a syndicated feature that runs on some NPR stations. Every Composers Datebook program closes by “reminding you that all music was once new.” As if to lump Arnold Schoenberg and John Cage with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven.

All music, painting, sculpture, dance, and literature was once new, but not all of it is good. Much (most?) of what has been produced since 1900 is inferior, self-indulgent crap.

As it was in the arts, so it was in politics. Yes, there was sleaze before 1900, and plenty of it. But presidents, members of Congress, and justices of the Supreme Court generally remained faithful to the Constitution, especially its restraints on the power of the federal government. Then along came populism and “progressivisism” — the twin pillars of political modernism in the United States — and down went liberty and prosperity.

The “Big Five” and Economic Performance

The “Big Five” doesn’t comprise Honda, Toyota, Ford, GM, and Chrysler (soon to become the become the “Big Four”: Honda, Toyota, Ford, and GM-Chrysler-Obama Inc.). The “Big Five” refers to the Big Five personality traits: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.

I discussed the Big Five at length here, and touched on them here. Now comes Arnold Kling, with an economic analysis of the Big Five, which draws on Daniel Nettle’s Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are. Kling, in the course of his post, discusses Nettle’s interpretations of the Big Five.

Regarding Openness, Kling quotes Nettle thusly:

Some people are keen on reading and galleries and theatre and music, whilst others are not particularly interested in any of them. This tendency towards greater exploration of all complex recreational practices is uniquely predicted by Openness….

High Openness scorers are strongly drawn to artistic and investigative professions, and will often schew traditional institutional structure and progression in order to pursue them.

Precisely. For example,  a high Openness scorer (93rd percentile) progressed from low-paid analyst (with a BA in economics) to well-paid VP for finance and administration (with nothing more than the same BA in economics), stopping along the way to own and run a business and manage groups of PhDs. The underlying lesson: Education is far less important to material success than intellectual flexibility (high Openness), combined with drive (high Conscientiusness and Neuroticism), and focus (low Extraversion and Agreeableness).

Kling says this about Conscientiousness (self-discipline and will power):

I think that people with low Conscientiousness annoy me more than just about any other type of people.

Me, too (Conscientiousness score: 99th percentile). I find it hard to be around individuals who always put off until tomorrow what they could do in a minute, who never read or return the books and DVDs you lend them, who are always ready to excuse failings (theirs and others), and who then try to cast their lack of organization (and resulting lack of personal accomplishment) as a virtue: “Life is too short to sweat the small stuff.” Yeah, but you never sweat the big stuff, either; look at the state of your house and your bank account. The small stuff and big stuff come in a single package.

According to Kling, “Nettle thinks of Extraversion as something like lust for life, sensation-seeking, and ambition.” More from Nettle:

We should be careful in equating Extraversion with sociability… shyness is most often due to … high Neuroticism and anxiety….

…The introvert is, in a way, aloof from the rewards of the world, which gives him tremendous strength and independence from them.

Right on, says this introvert (Extraversion score: 4th percentile).

Kling says this about Agreeableness:

To be agreeable, you have to be able to “mentalize” (read the feelings of others, which autistic people have trouble doing) and empathize (that is, care about others’ feelings, given that you can read them. Sociopaths can read you, but they don’t mind making you feel bad.)

On average, women are more agreeable than men. That is why Peter Thiel may have been onto something when he said that our country changed when women got the right to vote. If people project their personalities onto politics, and if agreeability goes along with more socialist policies, then giving women the right to vote should make countries more socialist.

Thiel is on to something. Although socialism gained a foothold in the U.S. during TR’s reign (i.e., long before the passage of Amendment XIX to the Constitution), it’s important to note that women were prominent agitators and muck-rakers in the early 1900s. Among other things, women were the driving force behind Prohibition. That failed experiment can now be seen as an extremely socialistic policy; it attempted to dictate a “lifestyle” choice, just as today’s socialists try to dictate  “lifestyle” choices about what we smoke, eat, drive, say, etc. — and with too-frequent success. If socialism isn’t a “motherly” attitude, I don’t know what is. (Full disclosure, my Agreeableness score is 4th percentile. Just leave me alone and I’ll live my life quite well, without any help from government, thank you.)

Finally, there’s Neuroticism, about which Nettle says:

There are motivational advantages of Neuroticism. There may be cognitive ones too. It has long been known that, on average, people are over-optimistic about the outcomes of their behaviour, especially once they have a plan… This is well documented in the business world, with its over-optimistic growth plans, and also in military leadership, where it is clear that generals are routinely over-sanguine about their likely progress and under-reflective about the complexities….

…Professional occupations are those that mainly involve thinking, and it is illuminating that Neuroticism tended to be advantageous in these fields and not in, say, sales.

Neuroticism (also known as Emotional Stability) is explained this way by an organization that administers the “Big Five” test:

People low in emotional stability are emotionally reactive. They respond emotionally to events that would not affect most people, and their reactions tend to be more intense than normal. They are more likely to interpret ordinary situations as threatening, and minor frustrations as hopelessly difficult. Their negative emotional reactions tend to persist for unusually long periods of time, which means they are often in a bad mood. These problems in emotional regulation can diminish a ones ability to think clearly, make decisions, and cope effectively with stress.

Take a person who is low in Emotional Stability (my score: 12th percentile), low in Extraversion, but high in Conscientiousness and Openness. Such a person is willing and able to tune out the distractions of the outside world, and to channel his drive and intellectual acumen in productive, creative ways — until he finally says “enough,” and quits the world of work to enjoy the better things in life.