Downs: Economic Theory of Democracy and Kornai: Soft-Budget Constraint, both staples of liberal economic tradition. NOL tribute to Foldvary (shorter, but more timely), by Brandon, here.
Individuals, from infants to old people, resent or fail to show any interest in anything initially presented to them through discipline, regulation or instruction which is another aspect of authority…Even temptation, the gentlest form of compulsion, does not work because human beings, even children, recognize carrots for what they ultimately mean; we have at least progressed beyond the donkey!
No, not Hayek, a bunch of physicians – same era, though
This comes from a report (Biologists in search of material, 1938) that summarized the findings of a social investigation “designed to determine whether people as a whole would, given the opportunity, take a vested interest in their own health and fitness and expend effort to maintain it” (the Peckham Experiment). The report was even covered in the prestigious Nature magazine.
Duuune!
I am a fan of the novel (of the dabbler kind, not a balls-out groupie) and hinted at it some time ago (the title of this comes from a Dune character, smuggler Tuek. Since I feel I have to explain it, the reference was either brilliantly subtle, or just lame).
The CHOAM conglomerate flag: Libertarian socialism with a liberal background? (colors per Wikipedia) – source
It contains more than a few pop-culture icons (and the inspiration for others), like the Sandworms, the stillsuits, the CHOAM, the Sardaukar and so on. Plus, a Greek staple: House Atreides, supposedly tracing back to this family, the source of Oresteia.
The author, Frank Herbert, had one thing or two to say about Big Government, but my favorite is an inscription at the Emperor’s Palace, in the city of Corrinth (which gets its name from the ruling House Corrino, but also vaguely reminds of another Greek word). I still ponder its meaning:
Law is the ultimate science
House Corrino motto
One of the pillars of Dune society is the Spacing Guild, basically a monopolist of faster-than-light interstellar travel. Speaking of close ops:
Guilds of Florence: Rent-seeking, but with style – source
The guilds generally stifled competition and promoted rent-seeking. The system fizzled out as liberal institutions – democracy, free markets – took hold.
Adam Posen is hardly an inflation alarmist. UK, 10 years ago. A nascent recovery and an inflation surge had Bank of England split on the way forward. He alone, as a member of the institution’s monetary policy committee, argued for more stimulus, deeming – correctly, with the benefit of hindsight – the inflation overshoot as temporary. That was in a world still relatively new in lowflation, central bank QE programs and suppressed interest rates, mind you. Today, he thinks quite different for the US.
A ghost in the shell of German constitution haunts Berlin – the ghost of socialization. Article 15, which enables it, “has survived the decades, preserved and untouched and peculiarly history-less: no cases, no judgments, hardly any academic, economic and political interest”. Until now.
On pissed off French and their fighting chops (indeed, the Hellenic Military Academy, seemingly one of the world’sfinest, was founded on French standards back in 1828). The author somehow missed that the French national anthem, La Marseillaise, is a literal call-to-arms.
About the famous work of a not-so-famous, disillusioned liberal in the freshly unified Italy of latter 19th century. Sheds some light at the sinister backdrop of the era (poverty, child labor and the like).
Also, armchair public policy analysis. Caveat emptor: may contain BS
Not posting here could be due to good reasons, or nasty reasons. Fortunately, it was a very good reason that kept me from posting for few weeks (hint: it was expected, and involves diapers). The (invisible to the naked eye) gap was covered via a spontaneous, à la WWE tag team display by Brandon (who, btw, restarted nightcapping, yay! And then got tarpitted again, nay).
A take on the recent abortions slugfest. A decisive overturn of the post – 70s judicial status will probably spell similar changes elsewhere. The shadows have been stirring, the battlefront is wide, the divisions remain deep. Only recently, a proxy “skirmish” took place in Greece: A so-called “1st Panhellenic Conference on Fertility” or something got cancelled, after its anachronistic/ derogatory undertones provoked a digital uproar:
I have not read the book (nor watched the series), but this mock-Latin line rings timely and has an interesting history itself.
Lynn Parramore at INET argues that modern libertarians tend to overlook the subject, while the likes of Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard were assertive in defending the right to abortion as part of the self-determination of one’s body/ life in general:
INET is not particularly fond of the liberty creed, but still, the picture is disheartening. What’s worse, it fits my own troubling perception (incomplete as it is, based on limited observations) that this kind of intrusion into individual freedom ranks lower than others. The whole issue seems mostly relegated to a “feminist” or “gender” only thing, bogged down by religion and politics, an underdog among individual rights (Scott Lemieux over at Lawyers, Guns & Money also notes something along this lines. LGM has been consistently slamming the Texas law and the SCOTUS response). And that’s why I did not exactly lament the conference cancellation, even if it borderline breached freedom of speech. It rhymed with an underway underhandundoing of that underdog.
A post in RCL (picked by Brandon here) makes an interesting case regarding the feasibility of free choice for both parts of the equation, doctor and patient. However, it also reminded me of this haunting story, and the possibility of a gap between elegant theory and brutal reality:
The FT article also showcases the heavy information asymmetries that plague healthcare services-at-large, which serve as a foundation for state intervention, be it regulation, public supply or whatnot. At least in the realm of textbook econ as I remember it.
The other day, I used the same apparatus – old reliable econ – peppered with some basic public choice insights to smite a couple of state initiatives (in my head, that is).
(1) The Greek government recently ramped-up the vaccination push through mandates, prohibitions and fines. More heavy – handed intervention will beget more bottom-up webs that game the system, I decreed (right, late Mancur Olson documented this in his Power and Prosperity book, especially if the public’s trust is lacking, just pushing open an already unbarred door here). As it turns out:
(2) A law enacted in early 2020 awards a one-off allowance of EUR 2,000 (that would be like four times the Greek minimum wage) for every childbirth (there are some conditions to be met, income level, residence etc, but they are quite lax). So, a generous gesture, meant to incentivize people to have children, and also to offer support with child-rearing costs, according to the relevant explanatory memorandum. The law is seated in the state’s duty to protect “family…motherhood and childhood”, somewhere in the underbelly of our Constitution’s list of individual and social rights.
At the face of all these, the free-market credo in my econ grasp whispered:
I will not fail in my strike, warrior. I will not fail in my strike.
I unfolded my offensive in two lines. First, the smell test: Nudging a life-changing decision with just a hand-out seems overstretched (a scheme of consistent financial aid is a different beast). And second, the econ-kick-in: This subsidy (you can actually feel my contempt here) will have the fate of other transfers that mess with the price mechanism. Will not the maternity services providers just jack-up prices to take a slice? Presto! (I left the actual cost – organizing/ funding – of implementing the policy plus the arbitrariness of the sum out, as too easy targets).
Well, the jury is still out about the first part, since it’s mostly an issue of empirical analysis. It surely made a nice PR exercise (that could also have a positive effect, and maybe this was the main point from the start). My price call went out of the window, though. The relevant costs have barely budged from the last time we needed maternity services, few years ago. First-hand observation is not statistics, but it did the trick. Nice, neat and clean inferences can still be BS, obviously.
On film choruses. There is so much behind this curtain. An excerpt:
I wanted to find out who among this massive group would be the one to say “hey, let’s add a chorus and have it sung in Sanskrit” or something along those lines. The answer turns out to be: Pretty much any of them can and sometimes do. What film choruses offer us is a perfect synecdoche for the collective, frenzied, and deeply mercenary magic that creates movies in the first place. It’s as likely that a director had the screenwriter invent specific lyrics early in post-production as that a subcontractor, assistant composer, or orchestrator jotted down some words or went on a Wikipedia deep-dive eight weeks out from release in a desperate late-night quest for a non-copyrighted text to use with a cue that might please a bunch of suits half a world away.
Notes On Liberty 
