Current Events

A Warm Welcome

Brandon Christensen Current Events

Hello readers. I’d like to welcome Adam Magoon to consortium:

Adam is an on-again, off-again student focusing on history and economics.  First introduced to libertarianism in 2009, he quickly became fascinated with libertarian history stretching from Ron Paul today to the individualists of antiquity.  His own history has been wrought by individualist personalities and due to his blue-collar heritage one of his passions is destroying the myth that capitalism is harmful to the working class.  Other pursuits include amateur astronomy, cooking, writing short stories, and exploring the beautiful scenery of upstate New York.

You can find his posts here. I look forward to reading what he comes up with.

Around the Web: US-Iranian “Peace Accords” Edition

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links , , , , , , , ,
  1. Ezra Klein in the Washington Post
  2. Ed Krayewski in Reason
  3. John Allen Gay writing in the National Interest
  4. Daniel Larison in the American Conservative
  5. Stephen Walt has a great piece in Foreign Policy
  6. Angelo Codevilla on the Liberty Law blog

My own reaction is “great!”

This is fantastic news for everybody, including the Israelis. If the Israelis were smart, they’d jump on the opportunity and start forging ties with the Iranians again. Saudi Arabia, the state Israel is nudging closer and closer to, is the real terrorist factory in the Middle East and I don’t see how Israeli long-term interests would benefit from an alliance with the most vicious regime in the Arab world.

With that being said, I don’t know too many details about the deal. I know Tehran promised not to build a bomb (yeah right), but will sanctions end? If so, how soon?

To me sanctions are the most important issue here. Tehran getting a nuclear bomb is understandable given her neighborhood, so it’s not really a big deal when it gets the bomb. However, if sanctions are still around when Iran gets the bomb then you can bet Tehran is going to be much more bellicose than it is, and the people of Iran will give the regime the legitimacy it needs to wield its newfound power.

IP Anyone?

Tibor Machan Current Events, Law , , , , , ,

There is a debate afoot now about whether one ever owns the likes of a novel, poem, computer game, song, arrangement or similar “intellectual” items. Some argue, to quote the skeptic, Professor Tom Bell of Chapman University’s School of Law, “Copyrights and patents function as a federal welfare program of sorts of creators,” while others, such as James V. DeLong of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, hold that “It is difficult to see why intellectual property should be regarded as fundamentally different from physical property.” I want to suggest a way to come to terms with this dispute in this brief essay and offer a possible resolution.

A major issue that faces one who wishes to reach a sensible understanding of intellectual property is just what “intellectual” serves to distinguish among what surrounds us in the world and how that contrasts with other kinds and types of possible property. What quality does “intellectual” point to about something? In my list, above, I am assuming that whatever is an invention or creation of the human mind amounts to potential IP, while others would argue that nothing intellectual in fact can constitute property, let alone private property. But this is merely to start things off, in need of clarification and analysis.

Some have proposed that the major element distinguishing intellectual from other property is that it is supposed to be intangible. So, for example, home or car or land parcels are tangible, capable of being brought into contact with our senses. However, a musical score or arrangement or a romance novel is supposed to be intangible – such a thing cannot be touched, felt or otherwise brought into contact with our sensory organs. Yet an immediate problem this attempt to distinguish intellectual property is that there are tangible aspects to inventions, and there are intangible aspects to these other items that are supposedly all tangible. A home is not just some raw stuff but a building that is the result of a combination of ideas, some of them inventions. Even land isn’t own exactly as it occurs in the wild but is configured by the more or less elaborate design work of landscapers. The same with whatever so called tangible items that function is property. A watch is not just some metal, mineral, glass and such assembled randomly but some assembly of such materials designed to show time and otherwise be appealing as well. In turn, a novel, song or computer game is also a combination of tangible and intangible stuff – the paper, typewriter or pen and the lead or ink with which the novel is written – only the author, and only for a little while, encounters the novel in intangible form after which the novel becomes an often very tangible manuscript.

The tangible/intangible distinction is not a good one for what can and cannot be owned and, thus, treated as distinctive enough to be related to owners. Indeed, the distinction seems to derive from a more fundamental one, in the realm of philosophy and its basic branch, metaphysics. In a dualist world reality would come in either a material or a spiritual rendition. Our bodies, for example, are material objects, whereas our minds or souls are spiritual or at least immaterial ones.

This goes back to Plato’s division of reality into the two realms, actual and ideal, although in Plato particular instances of poems or novels belong to the actual realm. A less sophisticated version of dualism, however, suggests the kind of division that’s hinted at through the tangible-intangible distinction. In nature we may have physical things as well as stuff that lacks any physical component, say our minds or ideas. Yet much that isn’t strictly and simply physical is intimately connected with what is, such as our minds (to our brains) and ideas (to the medium in which they are expressed).

So, the tangible versus intangible distinction does not seem to enable us to capture the distinguishing aspect of intellectual property. What other candidates might there be?

One candidate is that unless government or some other force bearing agency bans the supply of some item of intellectual property, there is never any scarcity in that supply.

There is certainly something at least initially plausible about this view. What is tangible is more subject to delimitation and capable of being controlled by an owner than something that is intangible. A car or dresser is such a tangible item of property, whereas a novel or musical composition tends to be fuzzy or less than distinct. One cannot grab a hold of a portion of a novel, such as one of its characters, as one can of a portion of a house, say a dresser.

Yet intellectual property isn’t entirely intangible, either. Consider that a musical composition, on its face, fits the bill of being intangible, yet as it appears, mainly in a performance or on a recording, it takes on tangible form. Consider, also, a design, say of a Fossil watch. It is manifest as the watch’s shape, color, and so on. Or, again, how about a poem or musical arrangement? Both usually make their appearance in tangible form, such as the marks in a book or the distinctive style of the sounds made by a band. These may be different from a rock, dresser, top soil or building but they aren’t exactly ghosts or spirits, either.

It might also appear that the theological division between the natural and supernatural mirrors the tangible-intangible division but that, too, is misleading since no one who embraces that division would classify a poem or novel as supernatural. Thus it seems that there isn’t much hope in the distinction some critics of intellectual property invoke. The tangible-intangible distinction seems to be independent of the usual types of ontological dualism and so the case against intellectual property, then, seems unfounded. If there is such a distinction, between ordinary and intellectual property, it would need to be made in terms of distinctions that occur in nature, without recourse to anything like the supernatural realm. Supposedly, then, in nature itself there are two fundamentally different types of beings, tangible and intangible ones. Is this right?

Again, it may seem at first inspection that it is. We have, say, a brick, on the one hand, and a poem, on the other. But we also have something very unlike a brick, for example, smoke or vapor or clouds. In either case it’s not a problem to identify and control the former, while the latter tend to be diffused and allusive. We also have liquids, which are not so easy to identify and control as bricks but more so than gases. Indeed, it seems that there is a continuum of kinds of beings, from the very dense ones to the more and more diffused ones, leading all the way to what appear to be pure ideas, such as poems or theater set designs.

So, when we consider the matter apart from some alleged basic distinction between tangible and intangible stuff, one that seems to rest on certain problematic philosophical theories, there does not appear to be any good reason to divide the world into tangible versus intangible things. Differentiation seems to be possible in numerous ways, on a continuum, not into two exclusive categories. Nor, again, does it seem to be the case that there is anything particularly intellectual about, say, cigarette smoke or pollutants, albeit they are very difficult to identify and control. They are, in other words, not intellectual beings, whatever those may be, yet neither are they straightforwardly tangible.

I would like to explore the possibility of a very different distinction, namely, one between what is untouched by human meaning and whatever is subject to it. For example, there would be no poems without intentions, decisions, deliberations and so forth. There would, however, be trees, rocks, fish or lakes. Is it the point of those who deny that intellectual property is possible that when people produce their intentional or deliberate objects, such as poems, novels, names, screenplays, designs, compositions, or arrangements, these things cannot be owned? But this is quite paradoxical.

The very idea of the right to private property is tied, in at least the classical liberal tradition – starting with William of Ockham, to John Locke and Ayn Rand – to human intention. It is the decision to mix one’s labor with nature that serves for Locke as the basis for just acquisition. In the case of such current champions of this basic individual right, such as James Sadowsky and Israel Kirzner, it is the first judgment made by someone to invest something with value that serves to make something an item of private property.

However all of this comes out in the end, one thing is certain: the status of something as property appears to hinge on it’s being in significant measure an intentional object. But then it would seem that so called intellectual stuff is a far better candidate for qualifying as private property than is, say, a tree or mountain. Both of the latter are only remotely related to human intentions, whereas a poem or novel cannot have their essential identity without having been intended (mentally created) by human beings.

Of course, in becoming owned, a tree and mountain does become subject to intentionality, as when someone decides to make use of such a thing for his or her purposes. And, conversely, even in the case of a poem, there are words that are as it were pre-existing and only their particular concatenation is a matter of intention.

I am not certain what the outcome should be from these and related reflections. They do suggest something that is part of both the ordinary and the so called “intellectual” property traditions, namely, that when human beings are agents of creation, when they make something on their own initiative – when they invest the world with their distinctive effort, they gain just possession of what they have produced. And if there is anything that they produce more completely than such items as poems or computer games, I do not know what it might be.

For me, then, the issue is this: When one designs and produces something novel that one has thought up, some gadget or machine or such, does one then own this design/product? And if someone else copies it, did they take something from the former against his or her will? If the answer is yes to the former, then I think the answer must be yes to the latter.

Whether the protection of one’s property occurs via this or that legal device — patent, contract, trademark, what have you — seems a secondary issue and detail. The first is ownership. Also, what one’s owning something one conceives and makes may mean for others who may be thinking up the same thing later is irrelevant, no less so than if one finds a piece of land and appropriates it and then later others, too, find it and would like to appropriate it but now may not.

Those, by the way, who complain that governments enforce patents and copyright laws, should realize that governments also enforce property rights in societies with governments. Governments in such societies are akin to body or security guards. Certainly, taxing others for this enforcement is unjust but that isn’t the essential idea behind the enforcement, not if one understands that copyright and patents could be protected without government, as well, just as other private property can be protected without government. But until it is government that protects — not establishes but protects — rights, it will also protect the right to intellectual property, if there be such a distinct thing in the first place. Taxation for such protection is irrelevant since taxation for the protection of other types of property is also beside the point.

Finally, that patents run out may be compared to the fact that ownership can cease with death, too. Of course, patents or trademarks or copyrights could all be reassigned from one to another owner, just as property in anything can be reassigned upon voluntary exchange or transfer. There is nothing necessarily odd about this, simply because the matter hasn’t developed very smoothly and consistently.

Bad News Bears: Ukraine, Russia and the West

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Politics , , , , , , , , , , , ,

No, I’m not talking about the Bruins choking in Pasadena earlier tonight. I’m talking about the Ukrainian government’s decision to balk at the latest Western offer for integration.

Well, at least I think it’s bad. The New York Times has all the relevant information on what happened between Kiev and the West. According to the Grey Lady, Kiev either balked at an IMF offer or had its arm twisted by Moscow. Both scenarios seem plausible, but I’d like to dig a bit deeper.

Ukrainians have been hit hard by this global recession, and last year they elected a government that is much more pro-Russia than it is pro-West. Unfortunately, I think the economy is only a small fragment of what ails the people in the post-colonial, post-socialist state of Ukraine (some people have started labeling “post-” states as “developmentalist” states; I like it but I’m not sure readers would). First of all, here are some relevant maps:

Ethno-linguistic map of Ukraine
2012 presidential election results in Ukraine
Map of per capita income in Ukraine

Notice a pattern? Yeah, me too. Basically, Ukraine is split along ethnic lines between Russians and Ukrainians and instead of recognizing this fact and focusing on property rights reforms first and foremost, the Ukrainians have decided to try their hand at democracy (on the inability of democracy to solve political problems in multi-ethnic states, see Ludwig von Mises’s Nation, State and Economy 72-84).

The conflation of democracy with property rights as freedom has been the single biggest mistake of all societies in the post-war world. From Ghana to Indonesia to Iraq to India to Ukraine, elites have focused their efforts on implementing democracy rather than property rights, and the inevitable, unfortunate results (“dictatorship and poverty”) continue to frustrate me. I’m sure the people who actually have to live under these conditions don’t like it much either.

Wouldn’t it be better if the current Ukrainian state  split into (at least) two independent states? I ask because it seems to me that having (at least) two different states will cut the number of losers in half (losers of elections in “post-” societies truly are losers; it’s nothing like having to “live under” Obama or Bush) and make the new, smaller governments more accountable and more accessible to the people.

The other aspect of Kiev’s rejection of Western integration that troubles my mind is that of the attitudes towards liberalization of Ukrainian society that many people obviously harbor.

For example:

  • Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians overwhelmingly support more integration with the West. There are demonstrations (and I use this term loosely; riots may soon start) against the government’s decision to balk at the West going on right now.
  • And Russian-speaking Ukrainians (being Ukrainian can be either an ethnic thing or political thing [“citizenship”], which just goes to show you how stupid anything other than individualism is, but I digress) overwhelmingly support Moscow.

Yet it seems to me that both sides take the “pro-” and “anti-” stances that they do more out of spite for the other side than out of an understanding of what liberalization actually entails (I base this hunch on my watching of the recent elections here in the US). It’s also not clear to me that a pro-Western tilt would actually lead to more liberalization.

It may be easy for the Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians to integrate and work with the West, but I think the Russian-speaking Ukrainians have good cause to look upon pro-Western deals with suspicion. After all, the Russian speakers are the richest faction in Ukraine, and freer trade with the West  would seriously undermine their political power (why do you think Russian-speaking Ukrainians have all the good jobs?).

Perhaps Evgeniy can enlighten us on the Russian perspective.

If Evgeniy doesn’t have the time you could just read Daniel Larison’s thoughts on the matter (Dr Larison is a historian with a PhD from the University of Chicago who specializes in the Slavic world).

New Mexico’s Police Breaking Badly

Fred Foldvary Current Events, Liberty , , , , ,

by Fred Foldvary

The AMC television channel recently concluded the drama “Breaking Bad.” The series was about a high-school chemistry teacher who has terminal cancer and “breaks bad” by making methamphetamine to get money for his treatments and for his family. The episodes take place in New Mexico, and some of the scenes occur in the desert.

Now the state government of New Mexico is breaking into real-life evil. Its police are stopping drivers and forcing them to submit to intrusive body searches and medical tests for drugs, including X-rays and colonoscopies. The hospitals then bill the victims for the involuntary procedures.

The State of New Mexico is establishing the principle that the state may force people to undergo medical procedures that they then must pay for. The worst aspect of governmental medical provision is that the health of individuals becomes a governmental matter, and therefore the state takes control over medical decisions. The federal and state governments may, in the future, force people to adopt preventive measures and periodic tests. The government will not only force citizens to have medical insurance, but also force people to submit to procedures such as anti-smoking treatments and colonoscopies.

One of the victims of medical coercion is suing the City of Deming in a U.S. District Court for being forced to submit to X-rays, enemas, and a colonoscopy. The police and doctors did not find any drugs in his body. As justification, the police claim that the driver was clenching his buttocks after being stopped for a traffic violation and ordered out of his car.

After that lawsuit was registered, it was reported that another man was probed for drugs in a New Mexico hospital after his car was stopped by police for failure to signal. The news media are now reporting that other drivers in New Mexico are being searched after getting stopped for alleged traffic violations. The police suspect the drivers of drug violations due to their appearance or due to dog sniffing, often with untrained dogs, and obtain warrants for the intrusive drug tests and body searches. In the case of the driver suing the state, the warrant was not even valid for the county and the time in which the colonoscopy took place.

The police in other states have been doing similar things. In Tennessee, the police took a man cited for an expired car licence to a hospital for drug tests, after a sniffing by a drug dog. A woman in Texas was strip-searched and double-probed by the police and by doctors.

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution states, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Unfortunately it is easy for the police to evade the Fourth Amendment because they can claim that their searches and seizures are reasonable. and some judges will routinely issue warrants if a dog, even if untrained, growls or points at the victim, or perhaps if the victim seems nervous.

Long ago, and still in some countries, highways were dangerous because robbers would halt a carriage or train and steal from the riders. Now, in the USA, the highwaymen are the police who are not content to merely issue citations, but use traffic violations as an excuse to enforce the drug laws. Driving in New Mexico is now dangerous because of the police predators.

Ecology is the relationship of living beings to one another and the environment. Evolution seems to generate predator-prey ecologies. Now that large predators such as lions and wolves have been eradicated from human habitat, ecology has generated human predators such as hijackers. Government is supposed to protect the public from such predators, but the drug laws have turned the police into yet another set of predators.

The German philosopher Nietzsche wrote that the “will to power” is the strongest human motivator. Individuals who seek the thrill of exerting power now become traffic officers, because they can stop any driver and have power over and into his body. This police predation is legalized rape.

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links , , , , ,
  1. John Locke, President Bush and the Jesus Pushers
  2. (More) on the legality of the latest ObamaCare fix
  3. Israel is wigging out; One of the fairest assessments of Israeli foreign policy I’ve seen since my own musings!
  4. Has Barack Obama told the biggest (dumbest) lie ever?
  5. Are real rates of return negative? Is the “natural” real rate of return negative?

The French revolution

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , ,

The French are rebelling in large numbers. They wear red wool hats as a signal of rebellion (elegant, this!) and to rally one another. I am told by French connections I trust much of the time that the rebellion is not along political lines, that it includes left, right and center.

There seems to be two main targets. First, on the surface, it began as a manifestation of opposition against an “ecotax,” a tax on big trucks intended to fight global warming. (Good for the French! See my many essays on this blog on the myth of global warming. More coming.)

Second, but this is an interpretation, there seems to be a widespread feeling that the French nanny state is finally coming to an inglorious end. This is an interpretation because the French media do not articulate clearly this link:

generous free social services→ high taxes→ stagnant economic life, high unemployment, poor everything, sense of doom, low fertility, etc.

Many ordinary French people are simply disgusted with the poor quality of everyday life in their country, and, especially, with low employment with no end in sight. Many envision no future for their children. Many of their children say they want to emigrate, leave France for good.

It does not mean that the French are poor, overall. They are much richer than say, Mexicans. Yet, impressionistically, subjectively, urban Mexicans are much merrier than urban French people. It seems to me that it’s because the ones, living with reasonable economic growth, have hope, while the others, living at a higher level but with no growth, despair.

You can’t fool all the people all the time. And the people can’t even fool themselves forever, not the French, not anyone!

Une culture politique du n’importe quoi.

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , , , , , ,

L’autre soir, j’ai capté brièvement “On n’est pas couché”, une émission télévisée que j’aime assez bien. J’ai eu juste le temps d’entendre un des hommes les plus durables de la vie politique francaise de gauche dire à peu près ceci:

Le “big business” américain c’est arrangé pour désindustrialiser l’Amérique.

L’auteur de cette déclaration péremptoire: Jean-Pierre Chevènement, un socialiste qui n’a pas la réputation d’un extrémiste, il me semble.

Deux gros problèmes en une seule petite phrase:

1 On ne voit pas très bien comment cette abstraction; “big business américain” se serait arrangé pour effectuer quoi que ce soit de cette manière volontariste. Comment s’y prennent-ils au juste? Ils tiennent des réunions dans une arrière-salle de café en pendant un écriteau à la porte:

“Big Business Only – No Admittance for Medimum-Size and Small Businesses” ? Et si ce n’est pas la cas, le big business n’aurait -il pas été surpris en flagrant délit de désindustrialisation criminelle? Les syndicats n’auraient-ils pas gueulécomme des putois; personne ne se serait plaint? Et ce projet obscène auraitéchappé à la censure des élections? (Ou bien, les élections americaines sont-elles toutes plus ou moins truquées?)

Le propos de Monsieur Chevènement ne veut litéralement rien dire. Ou plutôt si, il signifie quelquechose au second degré. C’est le genre de conte de monstres dont on se servait jadis pour forcer les enfants à rester dans leurs lits: “La-bas, plus loin, dans les collines, y’a le Grand Méchant Loup. Restez bien au chaud les petits.”

2 Ce n’est pas vrai. L’Amérique n’est pas désindustrialisée du tout. En fait, la production manufacturière américaine a atteind son niveau le plus haut l’année dernière (ou l’année d’avant, peu importe). C’est vrai qu’on fabrique ici moins de crayons et moins de pièges à rat qu’il y a quinze ans. Quel malheur! C’est un autre sujet, il vaut d’en parler. Il vaut plus qu’un phrase simpliste jettée à la sauvette.

Les Français sont soumis par leur gauche politique à un régime constant de bêtises sans liens avec la réalité, un réalité aujourd’hui pourtant facilement vérifiable grâce à l’Internet. M. Chevènement, par exemple, continue à dire n’importe quoi, comme si les faits n’étaient pas devenus beaucoup plus accessibles qu’au temps de sa jeunesse militante. Je me demande pourquoi les grandes publications francaise, à commencer par Le Monde, ne mettent que si rarement la pendule a l’heure. J’ai souvent l’impression, de loin, que les Français se soucient peu de la réalité.

A Warm Welcome

Brandon Christensen Current Events

Hello dear readers (all three of you). I’ve been a bit behind in my introductions, and I apologize for that, so without further adieu I’d like to introduce Dr Claudio Shikida and Edmund Cotter to the team.

Dr Shikida received his PhD in economics from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and now teaches economics at IBMEC-Minas Gerais. He has taught and performed research at numerous universities around the world, including UCLA. He also blogs at De gustibus non est disputandum.

You can find Dr Shikida’s first post here. We are honored to have him join with us in experimenting with a multilingual blog. Libertarianism is an international creed, and I think that exposing more people to more languages and more worldviews (worldviews based around the freedom of the individual, I might add) will help contribute in some small way to a better world.

Ed has a B.A. in Communications from George Mason University. He believes in the creation of a broad coalition of the Liberty Movement with greens, progressives, and technocrats. He supports the off-the-grid and sustainability movement as he believes it is the most tactical way to support libertarian causes. He is a small-scale produce farmer. The issues he considers most important are the Federal Reserve and the foreign policy in the Middle East. He is currently working on a book and several screenplays for the libertarian cause.

George Mason is, of course, is known for its free market bias among universities. I found Edmund plying his trade on the Young American for Liberty blog and thought he’d be a great addition to the team here. You can find his thoughts here.

From the Comments: Is US Economic Stagnation A Myth?

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Politics , , , ,

The short answer is “yes.”

In the ‘comments’ section of Dr Delacroix’s recent article on the myth of American economic stagnation, Dr Amburgey, who works at the University of Toronto’s business school, dropped three arguments at my feet. I gave him three responses and he chose to address Issue #2 first. I will await his responses to Issues #1 and #3 respectively, but I want to make sure that we are all on the same page before we get to Issues #1 and #3.

At the heart of this discussion lies Dr Delacroix’s observation:

So, the implication here is that when it comes to the unequal distribution or real economic growth you have to do two things:

A You have to slow down and make sure you understand what’s being said; it’s not always easy. Examples below.

B You have to decide whether the inequality being described is a moral problem for you or, otherwise a political issue. (I, for one, would not lose sleep over the increased poverty of the stock exchange players in my fictitious example above. As for the lady typists, I am sorry but I can’t be held responsible for people who live under a rock on purpose.)

With this in mind I think it is important to point out that because what we are discussing brings out a lot of passion, it is easy for people to look at some numbers and believe them just on principle. For example, Dr Amburgey writes:

The numbers I use come from [here]. Median household income for 1975-2012 in constant (2012) dollars. There is a picture on the wikipedia entry I gave above [found here – bc] that charts GDP per capita and median household income. Go look at it. It’s pretty much flat for median household income. In other words pretty stagnant. Numbers wise in 1975 its $45788. In 2012 it’s $51017 (less than it was in 1989 by the way). Plug the numbers into my handy dandy econometrics software and regress median household income on year and the average annual change is $232.32 per year.

I suppose ‘stagnant’ is in the eye of the beholder but I’d say that’s 38 years of economic stagnation for the American economy as a whole.

Can you see why Dr Amburgey’s statement above is untrue? I can spot two big errors in his logic (feel free to correct me or add your own in the ‘comments’ section):

  1. Median household income has, on paper, indeed stagnated. Yet this says nothing about economic decline or stagnation in the US because median household income cannot tell us what such income has been able to buy in the past 40 years. That is to say, the measurement used by Dr Amburgey, and the ensuing numbers they produced, tells us nothing about the purchasing power of the American consumer.
  2. This second error is huge in my mind. Dr Amburgey and others are plainly stating that the American economy has been economically stagnate for 40 years. This is a good example of looking superficially at some numbers and then kowtowing to proper social norms. After all, Dr Amburgey’s handy-dandy econometrics software was around in 1973, right?

None of what I am arguing denies that the US economy sucks today. I am not blaming this on the Obama administration (though it has certainly kicked us while down). Nor am I denying that there are real structural issues that need to be addressed. What I am arguing, and what I think Dr Delacroix is arguing, is that the numbers and the issues used by Leftist factions to push their beliefs through the political process are based on faulty assumptions and even faultier logic.

I am still waiting for Issues #1 and #3 to be addressed. Dr Amburgey actually has access as an author on this blog, so maybe Christmas will come early for me this year and I’ll be able to read one of his posts here at NOL.

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links , , , , , , , ,
  1. College football metrics: machines say the Pac-12 is the strongest football conference, humans erroneously believe the SEC is stronger
  2. Ken White on the cultural implications of the War on Drugs
  3. Orin Kerr on the case that sparked Ken White’s analysis I linked to above
  4. Ali Ezzatyar, a lawyer at UC Berkeley’s Program on Entrepreneurship and Development in the Middle East, makes The Case for Kurdistan
  5. A Barton Hinkle, echoing Dr Delacroix’s recent work, advises us to ‘cheer up’ because things are getting better (thanks to capitalism)

The Meaning of Social Science: Ideology, Private Life, and the Internet

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Law , , , , , , , , , , , ,

[Note: This is a guest essay by Dr Peter Miller, who is a sociologist (PhD, Berkeley), a longtime resident of Japan, a non-participant observer of the American scene, and (since 1991) one of the world’s few practitioners of original photogravure etching, whose semi-abstract Japan-influenced prints are in private and museum collections in Japan, Europe, Russia, and the United States. His websites can be found here & here]

Social-science expertise has been missing from current discussions of government-led spying on private citizens and the proper role of government in general. Ideologies, which is to say gut reactions, have corrupted the public debate; but there is nevertheless a role for sociological analysis of these phenomena.

Social science in its modern form started as a mostly European effort to explain the origins of the horrible totalitarianism that engulfed Europe, and to deduce the structure of institutions that would prevent it from arising again. The Nazi, Soviet, and Fascist systems were all characterized by total State-control of all aspects of life, including the most private aspects of life. Whether the ostensible purpose was re-casting human nature into the ‘new Soviet man’ or an embodiment of the German ‘volk’, they quickly evolved into an apparatus for murdering large numbers of their citizenry. Of course the prospective victims had to be identified before they could be murdered. For this purpose a State apparatus of domestic spying and information-gathering was devised. Primitive by today’s standards, the forced wearing of Jewish stars and the forced confessions by purported enemies of the State were crudely effective in generating large numbers of victims. Social scientists asked ‘How did this happen? What can be done to prevent its recurrence?’

The essential answer to the first question, distilled from reams of scholarship, is: De-legitimization of private life. All the social space traditionally separating individuals from the State was systematically removed. Private enterprise was abolished. All universities and schools in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were taken over by government, run by political appointees, and staffed exclusively by those who would do their bidding. The same for the media, the churches (co-opted in Germany, eliminated in the Soviet Union), youth groups (Hitler Youth, Young Pioneers), and welfare organizations. All intermediary organizations that had previously functioned autonomously were either taken over by government, co-opted, intimidated into conformity, or forced out of existence. The sequence from privacy-deflation to total State control to mass murder progressed in roughly 15 years in the Soviet Union. In Nazi Germany, with more intensive propaganda and ‘education’, this sequence took only five years.

From this historical record, social scientists deduced that properly functioning democracies require lively intermediary organizations — churches, labor unions, 4-H clubs, PTAs, bowling clubs, whatever. Re-reading Tocqueville and Madison, social scientists re-discovered with these sages a high regard for such humble institutions (not that there were bowling clubs in Madison’s day, but you get the idea). The Austrian School (Hayek et al) added private enterprise to this list of freedom-enhancing entities. And from Vienna also came Lazarsfeld who posited ‘cross-pressures’ — conflicting loyalties — as the essential building-blocks of democracy. His big idea was that a healthy democracy needed unpredictability, where a person’s ethnicity, race, religion, education, or social class did not necessarily determine his voting preferences or consumer choices.

Since the 1970s, American and Western European societies have tolerated and even encouraged a progressive tribalization of their societies. Race, ethnicity, and sexual-identity have become increasingly salient in the distribution of government largesse, and consequently in the determination of political and consumer choices. Both public and private universities rely increasingly on government funding, and thus take their orders from the State, in research priorities, curricula, staffing, and extra-curricular activities. With some exceptions and counter-trends, the period since the 1970s has witnessed a progressive weakening of the autonomous mediating organizations that sociologists identified as essential to the working of democracy.

Separately, the growth of the Internet has deflated the private sphere, at first due in large part to the apparently voluntary choices of Internet users themselves. Only a few years ago the fad of the moment was 24/7 live webcams turned on oneself for the world to see. Now security cameras that do the same thing outdoors are all-pervasive. The collective mantra, highly promoted by the giant Internet companies, is ‘If you have nothing to hide, why be concerned?’ This is the tradeoff for ‘serving you better’. Mobile phones with geo-tracking are surely a great improvement in the quality of life, as is the proliferation of answers to life’s unanswered questions, and the blessings of instant communication. In return for all that, what does the loss of privacy matter?

I always doubted the business model of Internet-tracking. It never seemed plausible to me that a teen-ager with zits who happens to be in a drugstore is any more likely to buy zit-off after getting zapped with an ad on his geo-tracked mobile at that moment than if he weren’t zapped. The whole business of click-tracking, Web-tracking, and the like never made commercial sense to me. It was always hype — good for securing VC funding and not much else. But investors in these large-scale personal-data-gathering companies were not stupid. Behind our backs, these companies were getting paid by governments to sell users’ data. Their business model was not based on the supposed commercial utility of precise ad-targeting, but on secret NSA demands for indiscriminate personal data. Governments, under the banner of fighting terror, and shielded from Congressional or public scrutiny, have unlimited taxpayer funds to finance these transactions.

With the Snowden revelations, we now have a better understanding of the extent of Internet and telecom surveillance. Of course, this cannot have been a complete surprise. Nevertheless the near-universal scale of the surveillance, plus the technological capacity to sort and search the data, make for a real game-changer. As one security expert said in a recent interview:

The most shocking aspects of Edward Snowden’s courageous revelations is the scale of surveillance. Every one of us involved in this field, I think it’s fair to say, has not been surprised by what is possible but had assumed perhaps out of hope or fear that they were limited in what they did and were proportionate, and that although we didn’t believe they would just stick to terrorism they would not try to reach for everything.

But every single document, speech and slideshow shows that a bunch of juvenile lunatics have taken over the asylum and are drunk and exuberant on their capabilities to spy on everything all the time and that is what they want to do. They have lost every sort of moral compass and respect for civic values.

The problem is that many European countries, notably Britain but not exclusively Britain, have been complicit in these activities as a result of favours, trade or encouragement. Basically the NSA has, over years with Britain’s assistance, essentially tried to subvert companies and governments into a surveillance empire which is almost a supranational enterprise of their own.

The question is, to what end? As we know in sociology, not everything is what it seems. Just as the indiscriminate sweeping-up of personal data lacked a plausible commercial basis, though it still made business sense if the data were sold to government spy agencies, it is likewise implausible that all that data has much utility in fighting terror. What then is it good for?

I think that question has yet to be answered; that the answer will depend on what use the new owners of that data make of it. The meaning of the massive loss of privacy that has occurred is immanent, it will emerge as further events unfold. As far as I am aware, the central-conspiracy model does not fit the case. What we have is a set of disparate elements that as yet have not coalesced into any coherent order. Among these elements are the increasing tribalization of society, de-legitimizing of autonomous intermediary organizations, and deflation of the private sphere. These are exactly the conditions that gave rise to the totalitarian horrors of the mid-20th century. It does not appear that any current Western leader has it in him to become another Hitler or Stalin. But the elements are there, awaiting a moment — perhaps another terrorist attack or financial crisis — that will call forth a charismatic savior.

Yet one must be especially careful with historical analogies to avoid the ‘generals-fighting-the-last-war’ syndrome. Things are very different now, compared with analogous conditions 80 years ago. The greatly expanded human freedom, communication, and educational prospects empowered by the Internet may overwhelm the efforts of governments to use it as an instrument of State control. This will be a titanic struggle, with the outcome still unclear. And that’s where I’ll leave it for now, pending further sociological inquiry into what-all this may portend.

From the Comments: Populism, Big Banks and the Tyranny of Ambiguity

Brandon Christensen Comments, Current Events, Law, Politics , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Andrew takes time to elaborate upon his support for Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Native American law professor from Harvard who often pines for the “little guy” in public forums. I loathe populism/fascism precisely because it is short on specifics and very, very long on generalities and emotional appeal. This ambiguity is precisely why fascist/populist movements lead societies down the road to cultural, economic and political stagnation. Andrew begins his defense of populism/fascism with this:

For example, I still have more trust in Warren than in almost anyone else in Congress to hold banks accountable to the rule of law.

Banks have been following the rule of law. This is the problem libertarians have been trying to point out for hundreds of years. See Dr Gibson on bank regulations and Dr Gibson again, along with Dr Foldvary, on alternatives. This is why you see so few bankers in jail. Libertarians point to institutional barriers that are put in place by legislators at the behest of a myriad of lobbying groups. Populists/fascists decry the results of the legislation and seek a faction to blame.

If you wanted to be thought of as an open-minded, fairly intelligent individual, which framework would you present to those who you wished to impress: the institutional one that libertarians identify as the culprit for the 2008 financial crisis or the ambiguous one that the populists wield?

And populism=fascism=nationalism is a daft oversimplification. I’ll grant that there’s often overlap between the three, but it’s far from total or inevitable overlap. Populists target their own countries’ elites all the time.

Sometimes oversimplification is a good thing, especially if it helps to clarify something (see, for example, Dr Delacroix’s work on free trade and the Law of Comparative Advantage). One of the hallmarks of fascism is its anti-elitism. Fascists tend to target elites in their own countries because they are a) easy and highly visible targets, b) usually employed in professions that require a great amount of technical know-how or traditional education and c) very open to foreign cultures and as such are often perceived as being connected to elites of foreign societies.

The anti-elitism of fascists/populists is something that libertarians don’t think about enough. Anti-elitism is by its very nature anti-individualistic, anti-education and anti-cooperative. You can tell it is all of these “antis” not because of the historical results that populism/fascism has bred, but because of its ambiguous arguments. Ambiguity, of course, is a populist’s greatest weapon. There is never any substance to be found in the arguments of the populist. No details. No clarity. Only easily identifiable problems (at best) or ad hominem attacks (at worst). Senator Warren is telling in this regard. She is known for her very public attacks on banks and the rich, but when pressed for details she never elaborates. And why should she? To do so would expose her public attacks to argument. It would create a spectacle out of the sacred. For example, Andrew writes:

Still, I’d rather have people like Warren establish a fuzzy and imperfect starting point for reform than let courtiers to the wealthy and affluent dictate policy because there’s no remotely viable counterpoint to their stances […] These doctrinaire free-market orthodoxies are where the libertarian movement loses me. There are just too many untrustworthy characters attached to that ship for me to jump on board.

Ambiguity is a better alternative than plainly stated and publicly published goals simply because there are “untrustworthy characters” associated with the latter? Why not seek plainly stated and publicly published alternatives rather than “fuzzy and imperfect starting points for reform”?

Andrew quotes a man in the street that happens to be made entirely of straw:

“Social Security has gone into the red, but instead of increasing the contribution ceiling and thoughtfully trimming benefits, let’s privatize the whole thing and encourage people to invest in my company’s private retirement accounts.”

Does the libertarian really argue that phasing out a government program implemented in the 1930s is good because it would force people to invest in his company’s private retirement accounts? I’ve never heard of such an example, but I may just be reading all the wrong stuff. Andrew could prove me wrong with a lead or two. There is more:

This ilk of concern trolls (think Megan McArdle: somewhat different emphasis, same general worldview) is one that I find thoroughly disgusting and untrustworthy and that I want absolutely no part in engaging in civil debate. Their positions are just too corrupt and outlandish to dignify with direct responses; I consider it better to marginalize them and instead engage adversaries who aren’t pushing the Overton Window to extremes that I consider bizarre and self-serving. They’re often operating from premises that a supermajority of Americans would find absurd or unconscionable, so I see no point to inviting shills and nutters into a debate […].

Megan McArdle is so “disgusting and untrustworthy” that her arguments are not even worth discussing? Her name is worth bringing up, of course, but her arguments are not? Ambiguity is the weapon of the majority’s tyranny, and our readers deserve better. They are not idiots (our readership is still too small!), and I think they deserve an explanation for why McArdle is not worthy of their time (aside from being a shill for the rich, of course).

I think populism/fascism is often attractive to dissatisfied and otherwise intelligent individuals largely because its ambiguous nature seems to provide people with answers to tough questions that they cannot (or will not) answer themselves. Elizabeth Warren’s own tough questions, on the Senate Banking Committee, revolve around pestering banks for supposedly (supposedly) laundering money to drug lords and terrorists:

“What does it take, how many billions of dollars do you have to launder from drug lords and how many economic sanctions do you have to violate before someone will consider shutting down a financial institution?” Warren asked at a Banking Committee hearing on money laundering.

Notice how the populist/fascist simply takes the laws in place for granted (so long as they serve her desires)? The libertarian would ask not if the banks were doing something illegally, but why there are laws in place that prohibit individuals and organizations from making monetary transactions in the first place.

Senator Warren’s assumptions highlight well the difference between the ideologies of populism/fascism and libertarianism: One ideology thinks bludgeoning unpopular factions is perfectly acceptable. The other would defend an unpopular faction as if it were its own; indeed, as if its own freedom were tied up to the freedom of the faction under attack.

French Musings on Veterans’ Day

Jacques Delacroix Current Events , , , ,

France was one of the least ill-treated countries in Nazi occupied Europe for reasons that are mostly too shameful to recall. In August 1944, in my mother’s arms, I saw one of the first, large contingents of American troops enter Paris. Their presence put an end to the slow process of starvation of most French people. You can see in side by side photographs that my parents, then in their early thirties, looked older in 1943 than they looked in 1946. Before the liberation of Paris, malnutrition was written all over their faces. Keep in mind that slowly starving people was one of the least objectionable actions of the Nazis in Europe.

American soldiers, and behind them, American might, American willingness to get involved, though late, probably saved me from starvation. Today just as it was then, just as it was during the Cold War, American military power is the main guarantee of common decency in the world. I only deplore that it’s not used as often as it should be. After many years of unrelenting leftist propaganda, many otherwise intelligent Americans are vaguely embarrassed about the same American military power.

Immigrants like me and other who have some real experience of other countries, rarely share in this prejudice, I think. And, as I always say, it’s possible to make the argument that Finland, for example, is more virtuous than the US. Alas, alas, the Finns and their neighbors in Scandinavia are nowhere near to proposing to replace the US as guarantors of humanity! On the other hand, Iran is about to volunteer (arguing that the frequency of stoning of adulterous women there a has been greatly exaggerated by Islamophobic media).

Speaking of Iran, this weekend, it seems the French alone saved the free world from a big mistake of accommodation with its cruel, expansionist, inhumane regime. Perhaps, Pres. Hollande very low ratings give him superior freedom of action. (He has little to lose.) Yet, even lower ratings are not about to help Pres. Obama grow a backbone. Fortitude is not his problem. He really thinks that there is something evil about America’s strength. And his Secretary of State often pretends to be French but he remains an unreconstructed peacenick whose sole recognized talent is in marrying rich women.

PS The media are full of references to an “epidemic” of military suicides. I suspect there is no such thing either in the active military or in t veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Will someone direct me to real data?

Unequal Poverty: Tricks (Part Two of two)

Jacques Delacroix Comments, Current Events, Economics , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In the previous installment:

I explained how the general standard of living in America, denoted by real income, grew a great deal between 1975 and a recent date, specifically, 2007. This, in spite of a widespread rumor to the contrary. The first installment touched only a little on the following problem: It’s possible for overall growth to be accompanied by some immobility and even by some regress. Here is a made-up example:

Between the first and the second semester, grades in my class have, on the average, moved up from C to B. Yet, little Mary Steady’s grade did not change at all. It remained stuck at C. And Johnny Bad’s grade slipped from C to D.

Flummoxed by the sturdiness, the blinding obviousness of the evidence regarding general progress in the standard of living, liberal advocates like to take refuge in more or less mysterious statements about how general progress does not cover everybody. Or not everybody equally, which is a completely different statement. They are right either way and it’s trivial that they are right. Let’s look at this issue of unequally distributed economic progress in a skeptical but fair manner.

It’s awfully hard to prevent the poor, women and minorities from benefiting

I begin by repeating myself. As I noted in Part One, it’s too easy to take the issue of distribution of income growth too seriously. Some forms of improvements in living standard simply cannot practically be withheld from a any subgroup, couldn’t be if you tried. Here is another example: Since 1950, mortality from myocardial infarctus fell from 30-40% to 5-8%. (from a book review by A. Verghese in Wall Street Journal 10/26 and 10/27 2013). When you begin looking at these sort of things, unexpected facts immediately jump at you.

Fishing expeditions

The US population of 260 millions to over 300 million during the period of interest 1975-2007 can be divided in an infinity of segment, like this: Mr 1 plus Mr 2; Mr 2 plus Mrs 3; Mr 2 and Mrs 3 plus Mr 332; Mr 226 plus Mrs 1,000,0001; and so forth.

Similarly, the period of interest 1975 to 2007 can be divided in an infinity of subperiods, like this: Year 1 plus year 2; year 1 plus year 3; years 1, 2, 3 plus year 27; and so forth. You get the idea.

So, to the question: Is there a subset of the US population which did not share in the general progress in the American standard of living during some subperiod between 1975 and 2007?

The prudent response is “No.” It’s even difficult to imagine a version of reality where you would be right to affirm:

“There is no subset of the US population that was left behind by general economic progress at any time during the period 1975- 2007.”

Let me say the same thing in a different way: Given time and good access to info, what’s the chance that I will not find some Americans whose lot failed to improve during the period 1975 to 2007? The answer is zero or close to it.

This is one fishing expedition you can join and never come back empty-handed, if you have a little time.

Thus, liberal dyspeptics, people who hate improvement, are always on solid ground when they affirm, “Yes, but some people are not better off than they were in 1975 (or in _____ -Fill in the blank.)” The possibilities for cherry-picking are endless (literally).

Everyone therefore has to decide for himself what exception to the general fact of improvement is meaningful, which trivial. This simple task is made more difficult by the liberals’ tendency to play games with numbers and sometimes even to confuse themselves in this matter. I will develop both issues below.

To illustrate the idea that you have to decide for yourself, here is a fictitious but realistic example of a category of Americans who were absolutely poorer in 2007 that they were in 1975. You have to decide whether this is something worth worrying about. You might wonder why liberals never, but never lament my subjects’ fate.

Consider any number of stock exchange crises since 1975. There were people who, that year, possessed inherited wealth of $200 million each, generating a modest income of $600,000 annually. Among those people there were a number of stubborn, risk-seeking and plain bad investors who lost half of their wealth during the period of observation. By 2007, they were only receiving an annual income of $300,000. (Forget the fact that this income was in inflation shrunk dollars.) Any way you look at it, this is a category of the population that became poorer in spite of the general (average) rise in in American incomes. Right?

Or, I could refer to the thousands of women who were making a living in 1975 by typing. (My doctoral dissertation was handwritten, believe it or not. Finding money to pay to get it typed was the hardest part of the whole doctoral project.) One of the many improvements brought about by computers is that they induced ordinary people to learn to do their own typing. Nevertheless, there was one older lady who insisted all along on making her living typing and she even brought her daughter into the trade. Both ladies starved to death in 2005. OK, I made them up and no one starved to death but you get my point: The imaginary typists fell behind, did not share in the general (average) improvement and their story is trivial.

So, I repeat, given some time resources, I could always come up with a category of the US population whose economic progress was below average. I could even find some segment of the population that is poorer, in an absolute sense, than it was at the beginning of the period of observation. Note that those are two different finds. Within both categories, I could even locate segments that would make the liberal heart twitch. It would be a little tougher to find people who both were poorer than before the period observation and that would be deserving of liberal sympathy. It would be a little tough but I am confident it could be done.

So, the implication here is that when it comes to the unequal distribution or real economic growth you have to do two things:

A You have to slow down and make sure you understand what’s being said; it’s not always easy. Examples below.

B You have to decide whether the inequality being described is a moral problem for you or, otherwise a political issue. (I, for one, would not lose sleep over the increased poverty of the stock exchange players in my fictitious example above. As for the lady typists, I am sorry but I can’t be held responsible for people who live under a rock on purpose.)

Naively blatant misrepresentations

A hostile liberal commenter on this blog once said the following:

“Extreme poverty in the United States, meaning households living on less than $2 per day before government benefits, doubled from 1996 to 1.5 million households in 2011, including 2.8 million children.”

That was a rebuttal of my assertion that there had been general (average) income growth.

Two problems: first, I doubt there are any American “households” of more than one person that lives on less than $2 /day. If there were then, they must all be dead now, from starvation. I think someone stretched the truth a little by choosing a misleading word. Of maybe here is an explanation. The commenter’s alleged fact will provide it, I hope.

Second, and more importantly, as far as real income is concerned, government benefits (“welfare”) matter a great deal. Including food stamps, they can easily triple the pitiful amount of $2 a day mentioned. That would mean that a person (not a multiple person- household ) would live on $1080 a month. I doubt free medical care, available through Medicaid, is included in the $2/day. I wonder what else is included in “government benefits.”

The author of the statement above is trying to mislead us in a crude way. I would be eager to discuss the drawbacks of income received as benefits in- instead of income earned. As a conservative, I also prefer the second to the first. Yet, income is income whatever its source, including government benefits.

The $2/day mention is intended for our guts, not for our brains. Again, this is crude deception.

Pay attention to what the other guy asserts sincerely about economic growth.

Often, it implies pretty much the reverse of what he intends. In an October 2013 discussion on this blog about alleged increasing poverty in the US, I asked the following rhetorical question:

“Or have Americans’ standard of living only improved as the gap [between other countries and the US] closed?“

I meant to smite the other guy because the American standard of living has only increased, in general, as we have seen (in Part One of this essay posted). A habitual liberal commenter on my blog had flung this in my face:

“….Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households…” (posted 10/23/13)

(He means in the US. And that’s from a source I am not sure the commenter identified but I believe it exists.)

Now, suppose the statement is totally true. (It’s not; it ignores several things described in Part One.) The statement says that something like roughly 60 million Americans are richer than they, or their high income equivalents were in 1975. It also says that other households may have had almost stationary incomes (“practically”). The statement does not say in any way that anyone has a lower income in 1975. At best, the statement taken literally, should cause me to restate my position as follows:

“American standards of living have remained stationary or they have improved….”

You may not like the description of income gains in my translation of the liberal real statement above. It’s your choice. But the statement fails to invalidate my overall assertion: Americans’ standard of living improved between 1975 and 2007.

What the liberal commenter did is typical. Liberals always do it. They change the subject from economic improvement to something else they don’t name. I, for one, think they should be outed and forced to speak clearly about what they want to talk about.

Big fallacies in plain sight

Pay attention to seemingly straightforward, common liberal, statist assertions. They often conceal big fallacies, sometimes several fallacies at once.

Here is such an assertion that is double-wrong.

“In the past fifteen years the 20% of the population who receive the lowest income have seen their share of national income decrease by ten percentage points.” (Posted as a comment on my blog on 10/21/13)

Again, two – not merely one – strongly misleading things about this assertion. (The liberal commenter who sent it will assure us that he had no intention to mislead; that it’s the readers’ fault because, if…. Freaking reader!)

A The lowest 20% of the population of today are not the same as those of fifteen years ago, nor should you assume that they are their children. They may be but there is a great deal of vertical mobility in this country, up and down. (Just look at me!) The statement does not logically imply that any single, one recognizable group of social category became poorer in the interval. The statement in no way says that there are people in America who are poor and that those same people became poorer either relatively or in an absolute sense. Here is a example to think about: The month that I was finishing my doctoral program, I was easily among the 20% poorest in America. Hell, I probably qualified for the 5% poorest! Two months later, I had decisively left both groups behind; I probably immediately qualified for the top half of income earners. Yet, my progress would not have falsified the above statement. It’s misleading if you don’t think about it slowly, the way I just did.

I once tried to make the left-liberal vice-president of a Jesuit university understand this simple logical matter and I failed. He had a doctorate from a good university in other than theology. Bad mental habits are sticky.

B Percentages are routinely abused

There is yet another mislead in the single sentence above. Bear with me and ignore the first fallacy described above. The statement is intended to imply that the poorer became poorer. In reality, it implies nothing of the sort. Suppose that there are only two people: JD and my neighbor. I earn $40, neighbor earns $60. In total, we earn $100. Thus my share of our joint income is 40%, neighbor’s is 60%. Then neighbor goes into business for himself and his income shoots up to $140. Meanwhile, I get a raise and my income is now $60.

In the new situation, my share of our joint income has gone down to 30% (60/60+140), from 40%. (Is this correct? Yes, or No; decide now.) Yet, I have enjoyed a fifty percent raise in income. That’s a raise most unions would kill for. I am not poorer, I am much richer than I was before. Yet the statement we started with stands; it’s true. And it’s misleading unless you pay attention to percentages. Many people don’t. I think that perhaps few people do.

My liberal critic was perhaps under the impression that his statement could convince readers that some Americans had become poorer in spite of a general (average rise) in real American income. I just showed you that his statement logically implies no such thing at all. If he want to demonstrate that Americans, some Americans, have become poorer, he has to try something else. The question unavoidably arises: Why didn’t he do it?

Was he using his inadequate statement to change the subject without letting you know? If you find yourself fixating on the fact that my neighbor has become even richer than I did because he more than doubled his income, the critic succeeded in changing the subject. It means you are not concerned with income growth anymore but with something else, a separate issue. That other issue is income distribution. Keep in mind when you think of this new issue that, in my illustration of percentages above, I did become considerably richer.

Liberals love the topic of unequal progress for the following reason:

They fail to show that, contrary to their best wish, Americans have become poorer. They fail almost completely to show that some people have become absolutely poorer. They are left with their last-best. It’s not very risky because, as I have already stated, it’s almost always true: Some people have become not as richer as some other people who became richer!

Policy implications of mis-direction about income growth

The topic matter because, in the hands of modern liberals any level of income inequality can be used to call for government interventions in the economy that decrease individual liberty.

Here are a very few practical, policy consequences:

A Income re-distribution nearly always involves government action that is, force. (That’s what government does: It forces one to do what one wouldn’t do out of own inclination.) That’s true for democratic constitutional governments as well as it is for pure tyrannies. In most countries, to enact a program to distribute the fruits of economic growth more equally it to organize intimidation and, in the end, violence against a part of the population. (For a few exceptions, see my old but still current journal article: “The Distributive State in the World System.“ Google it.) This is a mild description pertaining to a world familiar to Americans. In the 1920s, in Russia, many people (“kulaks”) were murdered because they had two cows instead of one.

Conservatives tend to take seriously even moderate-seeming violations of individual liberty, including slow-moving ones.

B Conservatives generally believe that redistribution of income undermines future economic growth. With this belief, you have to decide between more equality or more income for all, or nearly all (see above) tomorrow?

It’s possible to favor one thing at the cost of bearing the travails the other brings. It’s possible to favor the first over the second. This choice is actually at the heart of the liberal/conservative split. It deserves to be discussed in its own right; “Do your prefer more prosperity or more equality?” The topic should not be swept under the rug or be made to masquerade as something else.

If you are going to die for a hill, make sure it’s the right hill.

PS: There is no “income gap.”