Barry and William had an interesting discussion in the ‘comments’ threads of Dr Rosi‘s post about Lenin. At the heart of the dialogue is whether or not Lenin thought Stalin was an incompetent fool. Here is Dr Stocker’s final response:
This all depends on accepting that a text written by Krupskaya was Lenin’s own view. Leaving that aside, Kotkin is very against the idea that Stalin was stupid and I don’t think we should equate Stalin’s crassness with stupidity. Even leaving aside Kotkin, it is clear that Stalin did intellectually demanding things over many years, with regard to political organisation, political journalism and writing on Marxist doctrine (particularly the national question and this was before the Revolution long before issues of Stalin getting people to write things for him).
General Secretary of the Party was a very influential job, which meant selecting the people to run the party and therefore the country along with a complex range of other tasks which require some intellectual capacity. If Lenin appointed Stalin believing that Stalin was not very bright and could therefore be given an unimportant job, he was bizarrely mistaken about the demands and influence of the party secretary, the head of the Party in a party-state. Lenin did not need this title as he was the undoubted leader and instigator of the October Revolution. After he was off the scene, the party secretary would inevitably be the most powerful person in Russia. Stalin was at all times crude, brutal, cunning, calculating and dishonest in his behaviour, but this is not same as intellectual lack.
As Robert Service, amongst others, have pointed out Trotsky portrayed himself as the great intellectual with the right to inherit Lenin’s mantle and needed to portray Stalin as stupid and maybe needed to believe that someone lacking in his formal education, knowledge of foreign languages and manners associated with intelligentsia culture really was stupid. Well Stalin won the power struggle and I think it had something to do with intelligence behind the crassness.
Lenin and Trotsky themselves have been exaggerated as Great Thinkers by their followers. Clearly they had some scholarship and intellectual capacity, but what did they write which anyone would care about if they hadn’t come to power in 1917? Interest in Lenin’s writings has dropped off in a quite extreme way since Leninism stopped being the official ideology of what used to be the USSR, allied regimes and some large allied political parties outside the socialist bloc. Sort of equalises the intellectual legacy of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin.
This is an observation found in the ‘comments’ threads of economist Mark Perry’s blog, Carpe Diem, on a post he did about the reaction of students at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor to their president’s remarks about Donald Trump.
(I’m not going to summarize it here, because you are all probably familiar with this storyline. You can read Perry’s whole post here.)
I wanted to highlight that this comment basically summed up my political experience on campus. I am by no means a conservative, but there was no way in hell I was going to pipe up in class discussions on alternative understandings of “neoliberalism” or even play the role of contrarian. Doing so would have hurt my GPA. It would have resulted in a loss of social standing. It would have invited accusations that I was racist, or sexist, or – gasp! – conservative.
So instead I started this blog and talked about sports or homework with my peers.
My guess is the guy who left this comment was a libertarian or conservative in college back in the 70s or 80s. Michelangelo recently blogged about his experience on campus, but has anyone else found that this is the norm on campuses in the West?
I understand that conservative and libertarian groups like to get obnoxious sometimes, by carrying out public demonstrations like “affirmative action bake sales” or whatever, but the fact that these don’t work (they do help promote a culture of toleration on campuses, albeit in an indirect manner, so I guess I should be thankful for that, but if this is the case then the drum-beating and chanting done by Leftists on campus does the same thing for me in this regard) in convincing the other side of their wrongness suggests that the quiet whisperers are the better thinkers.
It’s a fact that I feel pain in several parts of my body, including in parts I did not know I had. One of the sources of pain is permanent shingles. I only mention this in the hope that it will trigger some of you to get vaccinated or to get their aging parents vaccinated.
So, anyway, recently, someone who ought to know (if you know what I mean) convinced me to try cannabis for my pains. So, I went to the specialized doctor (at least, I think he is a doctor). I gave him $100 and I came out with a medical marijuana card.
I went straight to the dispensary and purchased some cookies, of the kind my adviser had previously let me taste. The effect on my pain was almost miraculous. I felt none from about five pm until I went to bed around 10 pm.
Several things sill trouble me. First, I can’t find a dose small enough to avoid getting a little high, which I would like to avoid. Second, it makes me hungry (surprise!). Third, what if frequent use re-ignites my passions, what then? Fourth, I am really, really pissed off about the $100 because it looks like Californians just passed a recreational cannabis law.
My sage adviser is an excellent auto mechanic in his spare time. You write me, I will give you his name. That would be for mechanical services, of course.
Para qualquer um que acompanhou as notícias pela grande mídia brasileira (leia-se especialmente Globo e Globonews) a eleição de Donald Trump para a presidência dos EUA parece ter sido em primeiro lugar uma surpresa imprevisível e em segundo lugar a maior desgraça que poderia se abater sobre aquele país e o mundo, quando ao mesmo tempo estes perderam a chance de serem agraciados com a primeira mulher presidente dos EUA, a imaculável Hillary Clinton. Para responder a esta avaliação, faço aqui algumas observações a respeito do sistema político e eleitoral dos EUA.
Há basicamente dois partidos políticos nos EUA: Democratas e Republicanos. Diferente de algumas bobagens que vi nos principais canais de notícias, o Partido Democrata não remonta a Thomas Jefferson. Remonta sim a Andrew Jackson, primeiro presidente populista dos EUA e notório assassino de índios. Ao longo do século 19 o Partido Democrata foi o grande defensor da escravidão, e com a abolição desta nefasta instituição tornou-se o grande defensor da segregação. Woodrow Wilson e Franklin Delano Roosevelt, famigerados presidentes democratas, muitas vezes tratados como grandes heróis da democracia, foram grandes expansores do governo federal e enfraquecedores da economia americana. Na década de 1960 o Partido Democrata criou uma versão norte-americana de Welfare State que desde então mais prejudica do que ajuda os mais pobres. Do século 19 ao 21, o Partido Democrata está sempre ao lado dos mais poderosos e contra os mais pobres, não importa se dizem o contrário.
A origem do Partido Republicano é menos antiga. O GOP (grand old party), como é chamado, foi formado pela união de vários movimentos abolicionistas, e seu primeiro presidente foi Abraham Lincoln. Em resposta à eleição de Lincoln, estados escravistas do sul dos EUA romperam com a União, dando início à Guerra Civil. Embora a história do GOP esteja cheia de controvérsias, o fato é que ao longo do tempo este partido foi mais inclinado ao livre mercado, defensor mais forte dos direitos individuais e menos populista do que seu adversário Democrata.
Para além dos partidos, a população dos EUA se divide basicamente em duas correntes políticas: liberais e conservadores. Diferente do que ocorre no Brasil ou na Europa, o termo liberal é utilizado nos EUA para indivíduos de esquerda. O termo liberal passou por uma mudança na virada do século 19 para o 20, sendo adotado por indivíduos do movimento progressivista (notoriamente o já citado presidente Woodrow Wilson), que defendia a expansão dos poderes do estado e menor liberdade de mercado. Eventualmente o termo liberal tornou-se associado aos Democratas.
Conservadores nos EUA são as pessoas que querem conservar o país como este foi fundado no final do século 18. Conservadores são mais constitucionalistas do que os liberais, defendem um governo mais limitado e maior liberdade de mercado. Em outras palavras, conservadores são liberais clássicos, enquanto que liberais deturparam este termo, quando deveriam se chamar de progressivistas (embora seja altamente questionável se sua posição promove algum progresso). Eventualmente conservadores também se tornou um termo ligado a cristãos, embora esta ligação seja menos necessária do que possa parecer. Conservadores estão particularmente ligados ao Partido Republicano.
Evidentemente é impossível que a população de um país grande como os EUA se encaixe perfeitamente em somente dois partidos políticos ou duas tendências ideológicas. Os liberais em geral defendem liberdades sociais (como legalização das drogas e união civil de homossexuais), mas são contra liberdades econômicas (como contratos livres entre trabalhadores e empregados). Conservadores são contra liberdades sociais e favoráveis a liberdades econômicas. Pessoas favoráveis aos dois tipos de liberdade sentem-se pouco representadas nos dois principais partidos, e, embora em geral optem pelo GOP, também tem como opção o Partido Libertário ou o movimento Tea Party (não um partido político formal, mas sim um movimento de protesto contra o crescimento do estado, em favor do retorno aos parâmetros constitucionais). Há também socialistas, ambientalistas, comunistas, e todo o tipo de tendência política nos EUA. O fato é apenas que somente dois partidos possuem uma representatividade nacional.
O fato de que os EUA possuiriam somente dois partidos políticos expressivos foi previsto bastante cedo por James Madison, um dos Pais Fundadores e principal autor da Constituição. No final do século 18, Madison previu que devido ao tamanho do país (ainda pequeno se comparado com as dimensões atuais) e sua diversidade, um partido de projeção nacional precisaria evitar extremismos e se focar em posições moderadas, que pudessem atender à população como um todo. Foi o que aconteceu. Ao longo de toda a sua história os EUA tiveram um sistema bipartidário, variando apenas os partidos que compõem este sistema. Republicanos e Democratas tem sido estes dois partidos desde meados do século 19.
Na primeira metade do século 19 outros partidos compuseram o sistema bipartidário previsto por Madison. Mudanças variadas levaram partidos antigos a perder relevância e serem substituídos por novos. É possível que o mesmo fosse ocorrer com Democratas e Republicanos, mas mudanças na lei eleitoral realizadas especialmente na década de 1970 tornaram mais difícil a entrada de competidores nas eleições. Estas mudanças são em parte responsáveis pela animosidade de grande parte do eleitorado, que não se sente representado por nenhum dos partidos, e consequentemente não se importa em votar. Este quadro é um alerta para pessoas que defendem uma genérica reforma política no Brasil, particularmente uma que limite a entrada de novos partidos.
Há em geral uma grande distância entre o que políticos falam em uma campanha e o que fazem uma vez nos cargos. Isto é particularmente verdade a respeito de Hillary Clinton. Graças à sua vasta experiência em cargos públicos, podemos dizer com segurança que Clinton é uma política profissional que busca angariar votos com argumentos que não necessariamente irão guiar suas ações uma vez no cargo. Trump é um político novato, e assim esta mesma avaliação torna-se impossível de fazer, mas há a impressão de que sua campanha foi conduzida como um dos reality shows de que ele fazia parte anos atrás: trata-se de uma realidade produzida com o objetivo de alcançar audiência, não de realidade real. É bastante provável que Trump presidente seja bem mais moderado do que Trump candidato, para o bem ou para o mal. Simpatizantes de Hillary podem se impressionar, assim como eleitores de Trump podem se sentir traídos.
By the way, I’m enjoying the crap out of John Oliver’s righteous indignation, but the truth is he’s probably doing more harm than good. Oliver panders to his dedicated fan base. Jon Stewart held his audience to a higher standard. He was biased, but he didn’t let his side get away with sloppy thinking.
Also by the way, Malcolm Gladwell had a nice episode that (if I’m remembering this right) nicely reflected the sort of ideological pluralism that Jonathan Haidt promotes. A recent video of Haidt has prompted a lot of my recent thinking on this issue.
We could have elected Hitler and it wouldn’t have turned out significantly worse than if Clinton had won.
The left and right aren’t speaking the same language, and whoever fails to take the first step (which is to not blame the other side) shares the larger share of the blame.
I just listened to the post election episode of the excellent series, The United States of Anxiety. Two interviews stand out: the Trump supporter who fails (I think) to understand the genuine (albeit overblown) fear of a black teenager, and the Trump opponent who fails to understand that trump supporter. (There was also a notably boring interview with another Trump opponent, some hand wringing by the hosts, and some genuinely insightful commentary from Chris Arnade stuffed into the back corner of the episode.)
Maybe I’m in a privileged position because I used to see myself as part of the right and now see myself as part of the left (what’s left of it). Many people on the left are being sore losers about this election and they’re making things worse. I’m talking about humans, not (necessarily) politicians. That’s what’s really disappointing.
To be fair, it’s a common pool problem. We each get social capital brownie points for being angry (“10 reasons you should be angry” gets more Internet points than “difficult social science that requires you to do things you don’t like“), and we don’t get the same rewards for sober reflection (or maybe NOL is a sensible echo chamber? Agree with me in the comments.).
The fact remains that in-group signalling trumps ideological inclusion. The result could mean wild swings of power between the right and the left with due process (and the blessings of civilization… like tolerance, economic growth, freedom, and social mobility) being steamrolled in the process.
It’s fun to blame Facebook, the media, politicians, or anyone else but ourselves. The truth is, consumer sovereignty is far stronger a force than is commonly accepted. We aren’t the victims, we’re the perpetrators. It feels good to have an ideologically tight-knit Internet cocoon and so we spend more time listening to our podcasts (talk radio) while driving our Priuses (pickups) past the coast (vast ocean of farms).
And we’ll always have some of that, but we’ve got important disagreements that we have to resolve… not permanently, but for the next generation or so. All sides (libertarians have to participate too; I don’t think we’re to blame, but some people do) have to eat some humble pie and try to genuinely understand what the others are talking about. They aren’t all morons (and we aren’t all geniuses).
What really struck me in those interviews (mostly the second, longer, better quality one by the well spoken liberal academic) was that they weren’t speaking as though they were really trying to convince their intellectual opponents. Patty (Trump supporter) was happy and felt like she was finally part of the decision making process in DC (whether that’s true is another issue). He was speaking to a liberal
Both sides need to try to adopt the language of the other side. You should be trying to convince them! Why should you expect any degree of success when you say shit like “just look at the evidence [you big dummy!]” as though they don’t think they’ve been looking at legitimate evidence. You’re both falling for confirmation bias.
The way forward is intellectual humility. Will that happen? Not a chance, but that’s all the more reason for me to shout into the void. Culture changes slowly.
People will always disagree, and always should. Ideologies have blind spots and need to depend on critics from the other ideologies to account for them. The policy we get reflects the desires of those who might do something about it. Even dictators have to walk a thin line to stay in power. What seems to be at issue here is meta-policy (Buchananian constitutional issues… not the literal constitution, but informal shared understandings about how government wields power). Right now the position from the two big camps is “to the victor go the spoils.” That’s happening because each camp has closed themselves off to the other. It’s similar to what Bastiat said; when we don’t get gains from ideological trade and cooperation, we get political strife.
Everything will be fine
Eight years ago I identified more with the right. Obama represented a charismatic leader with scary ideologies and an uncertain background. (McCain represented a very old man who didn’t seem to care much about freedom.) Obama had a cult of personality and looked ready to dismantle society.
What do I think now? I think he’s handled his position gracefully (though I haven’t been following too closely… gov’t is ~1/5 of the economy and I intend to keep it <1/5 of my life), and he’s done a good deal of harm (further entrenching the role of insurance in health care finance, drone strikes, etc.). But I don’t think he did any more harm than a Republican candidate in his position. The world didn’t end, and despite a big recession, freedom ultimately proved to be a hearty weed rather than a delicate flower.
I think Trump will follow a similar trajectory. He’ll make things worse, but the outcome won’t be dramatically different (overall) than if Clinton had won. Different special interests will be rewarded, and different special interest groups will suffer. But overall, four years from now we’ll be a little less free, a bit more rich (though probably going through a recession… that would have happened under either candidate), and ready for some more political change.
Bill Burr’s got it right: nothing’s going to change. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Two months ago, London’s iconic Fabric nightclub was shut-down by Islington Council on the dubious grounds that it had failed to adequately search club-goers for drugs. Fabric, a sprawling multi-level concrete venue, is dear to the heart of many Londoners. Its dramatic closure came as a shock. David Nutt blamed our hypocritical drug laws, while others spied conspiracies to turn the venue over to housing developers. In response to the public outcry, this month, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has appointed Amy Lamé as ‘night tzar’ (some use the even grander title Night Mayor) with the task of reviving London’s nightlife and especially trying to save venues like Fabric.
Tzars sound great in theory but tend to fail in practice. They are meant to break-up bureaucratic silos and join-up policymaking so that it conforms to a grand plan in a particular policy area. Rather than following rules regardless of outcomes, they have an outcome that the executive asks them to pursue remorselessly. However, I argue that this is precisely the opposite of what you want if your goal is a sustainable, thriving night-life culture. London night-life has suffered because of its politicization, not from a lack of it. The answer is strong rights for entrepreneurs to provide entertainment to willing consumers. This means reforming of government powers to license venues and prohibit development on arbitrary grounds. While ending drug prohibition is of deep importance, here the drug-use excuse was the face of a more pernicious power that local governments have to shut down successful businesses on arbitrary grounds.
In the United Kingdom, land development and property-use decisions have essentially been nationalized since 1947. While building still takes place, it only happens following detailed, expensive consultation with local planning authorities with significant input from local residents. As a result, the supply of building amenities has become unmoored from demand. The most noticeable impact has been rising house prices and rents in areas where the economy is growing. This is a boon to landlords lucky enough to own property in areas of high demand. But it causes those without property to suffer significantly higher living costs. It has led to bizarre developments such as it being easier to open a new golf course in the South-East than to start a new housing development.
While the majority of people feel the strain primarily through higher rents, less visible is the impact on businesses who are equally constrained by planning laws. They struggle to find suitable buildings for their commercial activities. Competitors and local residents can use the planning process to block new construction or changes to lawful uses for particular venues. Businesses lack legitimate expectations about where they will be allowed to expand. Those that do succeed need to invest heavily in lobbying and legal support. The result is that people end up travelling further to get to shops and to their places of work.
Club venues face a number of additional biases in this process. Local officials are more likely to be blamed for noise and crime associated with clubs but not praised for their fun and economic benefits. This fosters risk-aversion amongst local policymakers. At the same time, club-goers may outnumber local residents but most are not able to vote in local council elections. Residents might well have originally moved into a central London location precisely to experience fun, exciting nightlife. But once there, perhaps especially as they get a little older, their priorities change. They realize that they may want to live in an exciting city, but just so long as their particular neighborhood is a little less exciting. Rather than move to a quieter area, they express their preferences through the political process and demand that venues that have been around a lot longer than they have be closed.
Unfortunately, if too many residents in the city come to the same conclusion, you end up shutting down historic clubs on the slightest pretext. When it comes to hosting unlawful activities, businesses can be presumed guilty, with no secure way of ever proving their innocence.
In this context, having a tzar is an understandable response as a counter-balance to the call of the NIMBYs. But it doesn’t solve the core problem which is a system that cannot adequately represent revelers but augments complaints. The tzar can champion venues but will be silenced once these entrenched interests turn up the noise. Instead, we need a system that recognizes the presumptive right of businesses to market entertainment to willing consumers. Only provable nuisance should be cause to fine or eventually close venues. Once established, entertainment venues should not have to regularly prove their social worth to a licensing committee (the fact that they have willing customers is sufficient warrant for that).
Most importantly, complaints from recent arrivals against historic venues that have always hosted loud parties should be discounted. This works in a fashion in Tokyo, where mixed development is widely permitted (no one stops people from taking up residence in an otherwise commercial district) but without any assumption that those residents can then alter the make-up of their community through the political process.
What’s that you say? The election is over? In fact, the presidential election will be held on December 19, at which time each state’s chosen electors will meet in their respective state capitals to cast their votes. The results are due in Washington about a week later.
Did you really think you voted for President? In California, you voted for a slate of 55 electors who were appointed by your favorite party. You can find their names online.
The number 55 comes from the number of senators plus representatives. In Maine and one or two other states, each congressional district picks its own elector, and two more are selected at large. Maine’s delegation is split 3/1 for Clinton. That seems like a fair way to go. California, like most other states, is a winner-take-all state. Boo!
Does all this make any difference? I say it ain’t over till it’s over. There have been a few scattered instances of electors jumping ship, most recently Roger McBride, a Republican elector who changed his vote from Republican to Libertarian in 1972. Trump now has 290 electoral votes plus 16 more likely for a total of 306. If 37 of those people could be persuaded to change their votes, Trump would fall below the 270 needed to win. If that put Clinton over 270, she would win. If some of the votes went to Johnson or Sanders or Donald Duck, the election would be thrown into the House where each state would get one vote. Then the fireworks would start!
Why would they change their votes? I wouldn’t put it past the Clintonistas to resort to bribes or threats. A long shot to be sure, but stay tuned!
These are my obligatory thoughts about this Trump fiasco;
These past twenty four hours have been an emotional roller coaster for me.
I am an illegal alien. I have been able to do accomplish some great things these past few years because I was granted deferred action, a temporary suspension of deportation, and work authorization by the Obama administration. This has allowed me to work with the Cato Institute, the Reason Foundation, the Property and Environment Research Center, among others. I have been able to meet several of my intellectual heroes. I went from having been stuck to Los Angeles to travelling through most of the United States (with the notable exception of the south). I have formed countless friendships that would have been unimaginable to me a few years prior. I am today one of a handful of illegal aliens who have gone to do their doctoral study. If you read through NoL’s archives you’ll quickly realize I’m not terribly bright and I have a long way to go intellectually, but I’ve done well for myself I think.
Prior to deferred action I was in a dark place mentally. I was about to finish my undergraduate studies, but had no work experience unless you counted under the table odd jobs. How could I have any experience? Up till then it had been illegal to employ me. Once I graduated I had no idea what I could do. Become a gardener? I had no future. It didn’t help me that the longest romantic relationship I had been in ended because my significant other couldn’t stand my (lack of) legal status anymore. Deferred action gave me the chance to give my life meaning.
It is highly likely that, due to its discretionary nature, Trump will cancel deferred action once he enters the White House. I honestly don’t know what I will do. It is very likely that my life has reached a dead end. Upon hearing that Trump had won I spent several hours crying. I wept for all the things that I am likely to never have. I wept for the fact that I am unlikely to ever become a US citizen. I wept for the fact that I am unlikely to ever find a wife or have children. After crying though I decided that it was pointless to let myself be consumed by it any further.
I think it better to concentrate on counting my blessings.
I am not a US citizen, and I am likely to never become one. Truth be told though I don’t feel like a stranger in this country. I have friends, family, and work colleagues that have extended a helping hand to me in the worst of times. I am grateful beyond words for that. Thank you. I love you all for it.
I may never be recognized as a son of America and I cannot claim to be a blood descendant from American heroes like Thomas Jefferson, Frederick Douglas, or Milton Friedman. I am however an intellectual descendant of them. I am a son of liberty.
Mind you an American conception of liberty. I think that government, in so far as it exists, should exist to minimize social conflict by promoting disputes to be resolved through non-violence. I think that society should judge people by their actions, not incidents of birth. I think that the market is the best mechanism for peaceful coordination of production of goods, services, ideas, and love. I emphasize that word because love only matters when it is felt voluntarily. Forced love is not love.
The common interpretation of Trump’s victory is that his supporters were a collection of racists, bigots, and pigs. While I am sure there are genuine racists mixed among his supporters, I think such a view too simplistic because it fails to consider why this racism has fermented.
Racism, in its many forms, is an inherit condition of man. Due to evolution we human beings have a built-in system of distinguishing between in and out groups, between those who are ‘us’ and those who are alien. This trait was necessary to allow early hunter-gatherers to form bands and survive. I do not pretend to be exempt from this; I’ve told my share of racist jokes over the years and am more inclined to help others that share similarities to myself. Racism, to the extent we see currently, however is not due to natural conditions.
I think that today’s level of racism is due to us forcing fake love down people’s throats. There is nothing wrong with celebrating diversity. Pizza, one of mankind’s greatest achievements, is the ultimate symbol of diversity. It’s core ingredients could not have been combined until relatively recently. Pizza is born of the union of the old world (Europe, Africa and Asia) and the new world (the Americas). There is nothing wrong with praising pizza.
The problem is that when we try to force others to eat a specific type of pizza. If someone won’t eat pineapple with their pizza we consider them bigots and exclude them from our social group. We tell them they’re subhuman and banish them far away. Should we be surprised then if, upon being ostracized, they come to resent pineapple pizza? In the past they simply didn’t care for pineapple, but now they hate it because it reminds them of how they were rejected in the past for holding unpopular views.
In our pursuit of celebrating pizza we ended up forgetting the great thing about pizza – choice. Pizza comes in countless varieties from plain cheese to pepperoni or a mix of vegetables and meats. Pizza doesn’t even need to have tomato sauce or cheese to be a pizza. Pizza is the ultimate manifestation of choice. It is no wonder that we Americans, in our love for liberty, love pizza.
Diversity is great. However if someone doesn’t like to be around blacks, homosexuals, or Jews we are not advancing the cause by making them feel like awful people. They may come from a background where they only interacted with others like themselves. They may feel uncomfortable in diverse environments, but we should not presume it to be because of bigotry. It is better to give them the benefit of the doubt. If diversity is great it will win them over time – they will voluntarily come to love diversity.
If we force them to love something however we deny them the opportunity to fully understand why diversity matters. We also force them to be hypocrites that claim to love something they don’t care for. We set up the groundwork for someone to come along and offer them a chance to get back at those who dehumanized them if they vote for him.
It is easy to want to punch people and force them to agree with you. I know full well the temptation of violence. Again, in the past day my life has come to an end. It would be easy to fuel my emotions into anger. It wouldn’t solve things though.
If we want to live in a better world we need to break this cycle of hatred and concentrate on what brings us together, our love for pizza.
Despite disagreeing with many (most?) of my friends on political issues I don’t think I’ve lost any Facebook friends this election. Let me share my secrets.
Step 1: Empathize. Life is hard, and few of us are trained for political life.
Step 2: Listen. We all have the same goal… getting other people to agree with us. You’re not going to be successful by telling people their stupid. You’ll get lots of Internet points… but only from people who already agree with you. You’re actually making things worse because fewer people will listen to people who are apparently incapable of treating them like a decent human being (and most people outside the Beltway are, in fact, decent and human).
Step 3: Filter. (This is the big one.) You’re not going to convince everyone. For good or ill, morality isn’t about rationality for most people. So click that little “V” in the top right of your idiot friend’s post and tell Facebook to hide it.
Step 4: Relax. This stuff works by osmosis. You’re not going to change anyone’s mind over night (certainly not anyone over the age of 25). Be like the Colorado river. You don’t get a Grand Canyon of tolerance by refusing to trickle over land that doesn’t already agree with you.
Step 5: Step back. The government is about 20% of the economy. Try not to let it be more than 20% of your life. Your attention is scarce. Political life matters, but don’t let it get out of proportion. The Internet isn’t just for getting angry, it’s also for adorable gifs and pictures of pigs wearing boots.
Meta-intolerance doesn’t work. Take the worst case scenario: you’re Facebook friends with actual Hitler. You’ve got three options: A) Argue with him constantly. B) Unfriend him. C) Ignore his hateful posts and like his posts about his art. Which will do the most good for the world? Alright, potential employers and friends would probably prefer to avoid Hitler’s friends. But they’ll be more tolerant of your crazy uncle Rudy and you’ll do more good by being an occasional voice of reason in his feed than by stepping out of his Internet bubble entirely.
Most people are basically good even if they’ve got silly opinions about how to be good. And communication is hard. We speak different languages when we talk about politics and few of us have the tools to properly express ourselves. When people support politicians or policies you dislike, it might just be that they think that’s the lesser of two evils. (I’ve got opinions on why it’s sad that people think they’re “wasting” their vote by voting with their conscience, but I can hardly be mad at them for learning the fallacious reasoning that’s been foisted on them since high school civics. Let me add that if Vermonters had voted Stein and New Hampshirtonians had voted Johnson, then maybe next cycle we’ll get better options and we might push out of this two party system so many people dislike.)
I promised you Facebook lifehacks. They all boil down to this: tend your Internet bubble. You can do this with three easy steps:
Like more non-controversial stuff than controversial stuff.
Ignore and hide infuriating posts from people you’d rather respect (and imagine that you live in a world of respectable but flawed people instead of a world of evil charlatans).
Media will finally start doing its job after 8 years of hanging all over Obama’s nuts.
Bad
The GOP has control of the executive branch and both houses of Congress.
Ugly
The ugly part is over. Trump won’t be as bad as the Left wants him to be (the Left might even like his protectionism), but he’ll still be plenty bad by libertarian standards. We’ve got a lot of work to do, if we’re to make his job as president as hard as possible.
Although President Dilma Rousseff was impeached, and the PT (the Worker’s Party) suffered great losses in the municipal elections some weeks ago, it is still clear that PT in particular and socialism at large still has strong support among the population, especially in intellectual, cultural, and political circles. The Brazilian political spectrum often intrigues observers both from inside and outside the country: among the 35 registered political parties, almost none presents itself consistently as liberal or conservative. The only one to do so is the newly created Partido Novo (literally New Party). Other parties present themselves as socialist, social democrats, or don’t talk about this at all. To use the infamous left-to-right political spectrum, all political parties present themselves either as left or center. To present itself as right is still taboo for Brazilian political parties. Things surely seem to be changing as the already mentioned Partido Novo enters the scene and some individual politicians, such as Jair Bolsonaro, present themselves openly as right-wing. Also, social movements such as Movimento Brasil Livre and think tanks such as and Instituto Von Mises Brasil help create momentum for a new right in the country. It is possible that in future elections conservative and liberal candidates will gain seats, especially in the legislative chamber, but as parties are concerned, the right is still mostly a wasteland in Brazil. But why is that so?
Many analysts blame two factors for the lack of party representation for the Brazilian right. First, there’s the military government, from 1964 to 1985. Although statist both in political and economical terms (as it would be expected in a military government), this period was consistently identified as “right.” Therefore, to identify someone as right is still usually understood as to identify as a supporter of the military regime. Second, there is the successful work of the left, especially in the propaganda arena. The main reason for the 1964 coup was the threat of a communist revolution, such as in Cuba. The military was successful in fighting the communist guerrilla insurgency in the countryside, but were mostly unaware of the intellectual struggle in schools, universities, and other places (despite much talk of censorship to this day). Related to that or not, the fact is that the right is still underrepresented in intellectual and cultural spheres.
I’m not saying that either of the above explanations is wrong, but I’d like to suggest an alternative that goes much further in the past: Brazil is the country of socialism today because it was the country of slavery yesterday. When slavery was abolished in 1888, Brazil was the last country in the Western world to do so. An estimated four million slaves had been imported from Africa to Brazil, 40% of the total number of slaves brought to the Americas. This is ten times as many as were trafficked to North America and far more than the total number of Africans who were transported to all of the Caribbean and North America combined. According to the only national census accomplished during the monarchy, in 1872, Brazil had a population of about 10 million people. 15.24% were slaves, and 84.8% were free. It is most likely that this census doesn’t reflect the reality of the whole monarchical period, as successive laws against slavery, immigration, and other factors moved these percentages over time.
José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva, a major figure in Brazilian politics of the time, praised freedom in his writings, but kept slavery in place, even with British pressure to abolish it and subsequent promises to help. He did that because he needed the slave owners’ money and thought that abolition wasn’t politically wise. Bernardo Pereira de Vasconcelos, founder of the Conservative Party, was a slave owner and even rented his slaves for public works. Many subsequent leaders of the Conservative Party, such as Paulino José Soares de Sousa, were part of the Fluminense slave-owning aristocracy either by birth or by marriage. Anyway, the Conservative Party wasn’t in a hurry to abolish slavery. The lack of revenue and the political implications were matters of much greater concern than the humanitarian cause. When they finally passed the gradual laws for abolition (and ironically they passed them all) it was to appease the liberal opposition, not for the sake of the cause. Conservatives were also unwilling to employ the Africans as free workers or to treat immigrants as free individuals: their plan was to gradually abolish slavery and to substitute it with a cheap immigrant labor force in large estates through laws restricting access to land. To their surprise, this plan never succeeded. Their last effort, to bring supposedly naïve Chinese in to substitute slaves, was barred by the liberals.
The legacy is that the country of slavery yesterday is the country of socialism today. As Herbert Spencer once said, “All socialism involves slavery.” Even better, Alexis de Tocqueville said that “Socialism is a new form of slavery.” Both share the same thought: slavery is forced labor of one individual to another. Socialism is forced labor of everyone to everyone else. When “rights” abound, it’s worth asking how they will be paid. Brazil is a country of rights, but not of duties or responsibilities. Just as it was the right of the elites of the past to have the slaves working for them, it’s the right of people today to receive social benefits from everyone else. People can (maybe naïvely) defend socialism as much as people in the past defended slavery, but to treat adults as infants is neither moral nor wise. Sure, Brazil still has a population that suffers from the mistakes of the past. But two wrongs don’t make a right.
I take the liberty to point out a small number of issues that I am told are important to women. I do it because I used to be a respectable social scientist and because I have been retired for ten years which gives me plenty of time to stay informed.
Women voters have been misled for years by propaganda explicitly pointed at them. It wasn’t necessarily a conspiracy though but a kind of uncritical cultural convergence. Many of those who spread misinformation believe it themselves. So, in a way, they are morally innocent. That’s no reason to follow them down the wrong path, and down the cliff. Below are five topics about which you may have received false information that has been repeated over and over until it sounded true.
The first female president
There is a widespread feeling among American women that it’s time finally to elect a female president. For some, it’s a sort of symbolic restitution. I can’t speak to this because I am only a man. Other voters, both females and males, seem to think that a female presidency would result in significant improvements in the lives of American women. A relevant reminder: Eight years ago, Americans elected the first African-American president. For many, it was a vote filled with hope for positive change in the area of race. After two Obama administrations, almost eight years later, it’s time to take stock. However you evaluate the Obama administrations in general, two facts stand out. First, race relations in American have not improved (to say the least). Second, African-Americans are not better off than they were eight years ago. In fact, they are slightly worse off economically. (My own position on having a woman President is straightforward: I would vote for Stanford Professor Condoleeza Rice, for President, in a heartbeat.)
Abortion
The 1973 Roe vs Wade decision made abortion on demand available throughout the territory of the United States. Candidate Trump has provided a list of potential nominees to the Supreme Court . Some of those nominees are pro-life. This raises the question of what would happen in the unlikely event that Roe vs Wade were overturned by a new Supreme Court. You may have been led to believe that abortion would become illegal. That’s simply not true. Legislation on abortion – if any – would revert to the individual states as the Constitution requires (same as murder, theft, sequestration, and spitting on the sidewalk). The likelihood that all fifty states would forbid abortion on demand is simply zero. The likelihood that half of them would is also zero, I believe. The worst case scenario is that abortion would become geographically inconvenient. (In case you wonder, I believe, just like former President Bill Clinton, that abortion should be legal, safe, and rare.) There is no chance that not electing Mrs Clinton will make abortion illegal.
Pay disparities
We have been told that women received interior pay for equal work for so long that it has almost become the truth. Even my local female Republican candidate for Congress uses this line. It’s not the truth. The reality is that women receive unequal pay for unequal work. There are various reasons why this is. (A broader treatment of this matter is on my blog and accessible through these twolinks.) In fact, paying women unequal pay for equal work has been against federal law for more than thirty years. Doing it is an invitation to costly class action suits. It’s probably important not to vote for someone on the basis of “facts” that are not facts at all. And then, there is the issue of why anyone would mislead you so badly. (Myself, I am going to vote for the Republican lady candidate for Congress although I think she should check her facts better.)
Immigration
Candidate Clinton has said clearly that she is is for open borders. This may come from a generous heart. Yet there are too many people from poor countries who want to come to the US to live. Even, if all of them are good people, the USA is like a lifeboat: If too many climb aboard, the boat capsizes and everybody drowns, the original passengers (Americans as well as existing immigrants) and the newcomers (would-be immigrants). To remain a decent society, a generous society, the US has to somehow restrict admission. Open borders is not a possible policy, it’s a dangerous fantasy. (In case you are wondering: I am an immigrant myself, so is my wife.)
Civility
Candidate Trump bragged – thirteen years ago – about making crude sexual gestures. There has not been a single formal complaint or any charge brought against him on this account. That’s although – unlike former Pres. Bill Clinton at the same stage – he has temptingly deep pockets, the kind of pockets that would give fighting courage to any moderately aggressive attorney. Candidate Trump often also has a filthy mouth, and he occasionally uses sexist language, that’s a fact. Candidate Clinton is good friends with and approves of, and patronizes artists who routinely sing of perpetrating gross sexual violence on women (including in the last days of her campaign). They too use obscene words. They do so routinely, every time they perform. (I don’t use such language myself but my wife of forty years does, another story, obviously.)
In 1991, sixteen Khmer families from Cambodian refugee camps (mostly from Khao I Dang) received asylum in the Netherlands. This Saturday, November 5, we will celebrate the 25th anniversary. To commemorate our stay in the Netherlands, I would like to share some of my early childhood memories about being born in a Cambodian refugee camp in 1986.
I understand that my story is just one small, but essential part of my family’s overall journey for safety from the civil war (1967-1975), Khmer Rouge (1975-1979) regime, and the subsequent Vietnamese occupation. According to some estimates, 2 million out of 8 million people died during this long period. This figure has been contested many times. I don’t think anyone knows how many people have actually died, but if I look at the family members of my parents’ households: 40% from my mum’s side died and 25% from my dad’s side.
Khao I Dang, the refugee camp where I was born
My parents were forced to work in labour camps in the countryside in Battambang by the Khmer Rouge. They eventually met each other while fleeing from Battambang to the Thai border when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia. As with most fleeing Cambodians, my parents decided to get together – not out of love, but more out of the need and desire to share their hardships. This was after all, a months-long journey through the heart of the Cambodian jungle in which my father lost his father, the granddad I never came to know. My mother lost her brother and her father. As my mother was separated from her brother early on during the Khmer Rouge regime and never witnessed his death, she had always held hope that one day she would find him again.
My parents’ long journey towards Thailand brought them to the Sa Kaeo camp which was the first organized refugee camp that opened in 1979. Within just 8 days, the refugee population grew to 30,000. The camp eventually closed down half a year later, because of unfavorable conditions. The drainage in the campsite was for example so poor that several refugees, too weak to lift their heads, drowned from a flood as they laid on the floor in tents made of plastic sheets.
One month after the opening of Sa Kaeo, the Khao I Dang camp was opened and many people were repatriated into Khao I Dang. My parents eventually ended up there as well.
Khao I Dang camp
Khao I Dang was a refugee camp on the Thai-Cambodian border where I was born. It was a bamboo village with dirt roads, barbed wire, and armed guards. Within just 5 months, the camp’s population reached 160,000. Population wise, this would make the camp the 11th largest municipality in the Netherlands.
Although the camp gave us more safety, violence and theft ran rampant.
Religion and death
People continued their religious activities and some houses were transformed into places for Buddhist ceremonies. In this picture you see my two brothers, my father, and I wearing our best clothes. We just came back from a visit to a local ‘temple’. The husband of my aunty, who had just been allowed to find refuge in Australia, had recently died in the camp.
My two brothers, me, and my father
Behind me is a grave of him. My father hired a photographer to take this picture so that he could send it to my aunty. I am the one barefooted.
Hospital
My father worked at the hospital. The hospital was a large hall with beds placed next to each other. I remember that I visited the hospital where I was given a doctor’s gloves to play with. I would blow it and enjoy a child’s kick out of it.
Hospital in Khao I Dang
Night raids
I remember that during some nights, rebels with guns would raid people’s houses to steal their belongings. Often, the word about night raids spread faster than the rebels themselves, and so most of the times we were warned before the rebels reached us. I remember very well one incident when we did not flee early enough.
My brothers and I ran after my father, while my mother took my baby sister in her arms to flee in separate directions. My father brought us into a nearby canal to hide there. When the Thai patrolling soldiers within the camp arrived at the scene, shooting between the two groups erupted. When I think back to this moment, I can still clearly feel the fear I had. I wanted to cry, but my father put his hands tightly on my mouth so that I would not make any sound. We then fled to the hospital where my father was working, and stayed there during the night. We were too afraid to go back home, and waited until the next morning.
In another incident, our neighbors were too late to flee and somehow for reasons unknown, a rebel threw a hand grenade inside their little home that killed the whole family.
Kindergarten
Despite the violence and misery, people tried to rebuild their normal lives. I went to kindergarten and remember so well one incident that I played hooky.
I was 4 years old and walking to school by myself, I stopped and decided to return home to my mother’s small shop. This is an incident that I am personally extremely proud of. As long as I can remember, I have always detested school. I hated to sit still and to be told what to do and what not to do. I took this attitude with me to the Netherlands, and still today I am very critical of schooling. My mother, a soft young woman, let me stay with her at the shop. But then my father came by, got angry with me, and spanked me for not going to school. Until this day I still don’t think that I did anything wrong.
Our little shop
Trade went on. Although it was illegal, industrious people were trying to make money by starting small businesses. This shows to me that entrepreneurship is natural to us human beings, and that economics and trade are naturally emerging processes as people are always looking for ways to improve their lot and to fulfill their needs.
Thai merchants would come to the fences, away from the Thai soldiers who were patrolling, in order to sell food to the refugees inside. Such activities occurred during night-time. When Thai soldiers would find out that we were trading with outsiders, they would beat us and take away our belongings. We, refugees, were also not allowed to get outside of the camp or we would risk being shot dead by Thai soldiers.
My mother, my brothers and I at our little shop. I am the one in the blue jersey
During day-time, people inside the camp would expose their new belongings and small shops would emerge. My mother sold small products of convenience. Some of it was smuggled by Thai people into the camps that we, Cambodians, were selling to other Cambodians. Other things like oil and sugar were given to us as part of a food relief program that we used sparingly so that we could sell it further. With the money we earned, we could then buy other goods that we needed more.
Other ways through which we made money was by brewing alcohol made from rice and apples. Although alcohol was illegal, it did not stop my parents from brewing it. Whenever a Thai soldier would come to our house for inspection – I don’t think you can really hide the alcoholic odor that was surrounding our little house when we were brewing alcohol – my parents would bribe him with money so that he would leave us alone.
Continuing story
These are some of my childhood memories of our lives in Khao I Dang. Maybe next time I can tell more about our life in the camp, share some of my older brothers’ memories, our cat that was lost, killed and eaten by someone or my first encounter with inspiring Superman and Spider-Man comic books. Maybe, I will also write about our continuing journey to the Netherlands and the psychological impact my experiences in Khao I Dang had on me. I can tell about the nightmares that haunted me until my teenage years, how I always felt alienated from the people here and the inferiority complex towards Dutch people that I developed as a little child for feeling different. Feeling different made me feel insecure. Every time I met someone, and I think it lasted until my later teenage years, I would always ponder whether the person would kill me if he would be put in similar circumstances as those many killers from the Khmer Rouge period. In other words: as a child, I already wondered excessively about the “banality of evil”. These thoughts were of course extremely unhealthy, especially when you are as young as 4 or 5 years old.
The biggest lesson I have learned from my childhood is that both good and bad experiences are important in our lives. Happiness, in my opinion, is very much overrated and hardship is at least as valuable.
I have not written this so that people pity me. Pity, and in particular self-pity, is an extremely damaging emotion. It multiplies our suffering and reveals an extremely pathological egoism. When I look back at the hardships my family has overcome, I like to remind myself of Haruki Murakami’s saying that “only assholes feel sorry for themselves”.
Notes On Liberty 