Time being scarce the last few weeks, I'd originally planned on writing a post of this format about one of the Senate bills, but since the House bill (HR 3962: Affordable Health Care for America Act) is currently the one in the news, I'm focusing on that. The purpose here is to try my best to cut through the hysteria and hype coming from both sides and take a realistic look about what changes we would notice as US citizens if the House health care reform bill becomes law.
The first thing to keep in mind is that nothing much happens until 2013. This could probably called the "keep incumbents from being hurt by this act, especially Obama" provision. Whether the long term effects of the bill are good or bad, change often causes pain and confusion at first, and one of the key ways of getting legislators on board for the bill is to assure them that they're unlikely to be immediately booted out of office by voters upset about their premiums. This kind of cynicism is hardly unique to this one bill or to either party -- it just is what it is. So take the below as a discussion of how thing would be under HR 3962 in the period 5-6 years from now, assuming that is passes and there are no changes made between now and then.
The bill provides several new regulations on insurance companies and on you, which you'll notice quite clearly.
1) You will be legally required to purchase insurance. If you don't (and unless you fit criteria for financial hardship as defined in the bill) you will be fined either 2.5% of you income, or the average cost of the plans in the lowest tier of the health insurance exchange. So, if you make 40k/yr, you would be fined $1000. If you make 60k/yr, you would be fined $1500. If you refuse to pay your fines, you'll be treated exactly like any other tax evader (which means you can potentially be sent to jail.) The Senate bill specifically exempted non-payers from being sent to jail, but the House bill fails to differentiate those who refuse to pay health care fines from those who refuse to pay other taxes, so it is believed that standard tax evasion rules would apply. There will also be penalties placed on employers who do not offer their employees health insurance.
2) Health insurance companies will not be allowed to turn you down for coverage because of any pre-existing conditions you may have, nor will they be allowed to refuse to cover care related to those conditions.
3) Health insurance companies will be required to charge all people the same for the same plan -- not charge people with existing health problems more and vastly limits the amount that insurers can charge more to insure older people.
4) Provides subsidies for most American citizens if they are buying individual health insurance, in order to make complying with the individual mandate more affordable.
So what happens to you? Well, if you've one of the roughly 80% of Americans who currently health insurance through your employer: nothing much. If your employer wasn't providing coverage to some of its employees before, and decides to comply with the employer mandate rather than paying the relevant fines, it may seek to recoup the costs of expanding health coverage by increasing the share of your health benefits you have to pay for. Given that the average employer provided family health care plan currently costs about $13,000/yr, it's likely that there's a lot of room for your employer to push more of that cost in your direction. (And when it comes to cost savings, most of us would prefer that to layoffs.) In Massachusetts, which passed similar health care reform in the past, employer plan premium have been rising at almost twice the national average rate over the last few years. If the cost to you of your employer's insurance plan increases to beyond 12% of your annual income (for example: $400/mo for a family making 40k/yr) you would be eligible for subsidies from the government, but otherwise you would be on your own.
If, on the other hand, you currently do not have health insurance or have individual health insurance, you would be greatly affected by the bill. You would become eligible to buy your insurance through the national insurance exchange (and if you didn't buy coverage, you'd be fined, see above.) Among these plans would be the much discussed "public option", which would essentially be the same as a private health insurance plan except that it would be administered by a government agency. Adoption of the public options plans is not expected to be high, as the CBO estimates that their premiums will be higher than the average of the private plans in the exchange offering the same benefits.
The plans on the exchange are not necessarily cheap, but you will know pretty clearly what level of coverage you are getting as the plans will have to meet government defined levels of coverage. If you feel daunted by researching what an insurance plan does or does not cover, this might be a major benefit. If not, it might reduce flexibility for you. The average "basic" exchange plan for an individual is expected to cost $5,300 per year, the average for a family of four is expected to be $15,000. In addition to these premiums, you could expect to pay about 2,000 a year in co-pays and deductibles as an individual, or $5,500 as a family. (Obviously, if you get very little care, this would be less. My own family has deductibles similar to the exchange levels on our employer-based health care plan, and our total out of pocket last years was under $1000.)
However, you also receive a scaling set of subsidies in order to offset your costs, depending on how much money you make. Here are a few examples (these are directly from the CBO subsidy analysis):
A single person making $20,600 would pay an annual premium of $900 ($75/mo) and would pay no more than $600 in out of pocket expenses for the year. If he didn't buy insurance, he'd pay a fine of $515.
A single person making $38,300 would pay an annual premium of $4,300 ($358/mo) and would pay no more than $1,800 in out of pocket expenses for the year. If he didn't buy insurance, he'd pay a fine of $957.
A family of four making $42,000 would pay an annual premium of $1,900 ($158/mo) and would pay no more than $1,200 in out of pocket expenses for the year. If they didn't buy insurance, they'd pay a fine of $1050.
A family of four making $66,000 would pay an annual premium of $6,300 ($525/mo) and would pay no more than $3,700 in out of pocket expenses for the year. If they didn't buy insurance, they'd pay a fine of $1650.
These subsidies are currently designed to scale according to the enrollee's income, not according to the cost of the plan, so from what I can tell customers would be cushioned initially from any drastic increases in the cost of coverage (such as Maine, Massachusetts and other states passing similar regulations have experienced). However, that might potentially change if the cost of the program spiralled rapidly out of control due to the increased cost of providing insurance under this model.
In this regard, it might almost be a benefit to have the public option in play, as it would make it much harder for people to claim "it's all because of insurance company profiteering" if the public options premiums continue to run higher than private plan premiums as the CBO projects.
A few useful sources, though not everything in this post is derived from them alone:
The CBO analysis of the House bill.
The official summary of the House bill. (This copy of the file is at the Heritage Foundation, but the actual file is the one the House Democrats put out.)
CBO analysis of subsidies.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Friday, November 13, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009
I Want One Of Them Stimulous Jobs
There is something in me which, when it sees to related numbers, wants to immediately do a calculation, so when I saw a news story stating that the $215 billion in stimulous money given out thus far had resulted in 640,329 jobs, my first question was, "How much is that per job?"
Answer? $312,339.44
Not too shabby, eh? I'd like one of them jobs just fine.
Now that I've had my sticker shock fun, let me be fair: if you're going to try to create jobs by flooding money into a set of projects, the cost if obviously much more than the cost of a salary. Say I decide to help a bakery create jobs by buying doughnuts. Buying $5000/month worth of doughnuts doesn't create a $60k/yr at the doughnut shop, because although there's need for more work, there's also need for dough, and cooking oil, and glaze, and more doughnut machines, etc. I might well have to spend $200k per year at the bakery in order for them to add $100k to their payroll, perhaps even more.
But what that emphasizes is that simply spending money like a drunken sailor (no disrespect to our naval readers) is not a very efficient way to help people who are out of work in the near term. The two most direct ways to help people out of work would be through providing longer unemployment benefits (and more programs to help people in problem industries to get new training) and to provide companies with direct payroll relief by reducing employer contributions to payroll taxes.
This is something we'll do well to keep in mind as Democrats on Capitol Hill start to get itchy for a second round of stimulous in order to emphasize that they are "doing something" about the increasingly grim job numbers.
Answer? $312,339.44
Not too shabby, eh? I'd like one of them jobs just fine.
Now that I've had my sticker shock fun, let me be fair: if you're going to try to create jobs by flooding money into a set of projects, the cost if obviously much more than the cost of a salary. Say I decide to help a bakery create jobs by buying doughnuts. Buying $5000/month worth of doughnuts doesn't create a $60k/yr at the doughnut shop, because although there's need for more work, there's also need for dough, and cooking oil, and glaze, and more doughnut machines, etc. I might well have to spend $200k per year at the bakery in order for them to add $100k to their payroll, perhaps even more.
But what that emphasizes is that simply spending money like a drunken sailor (no disrespect to our naval readers) is not a very efficient way to help people who are out of work in the near term. The two most direct ways to help people out of work would be through providing longer unemployment benefits (and more programs to help people in problem industries to get new training) and to provide companies with direct payroll relief by reducing employer contributions to payroll taxes.
This is something we'll do well to keep in mind as Democrats on Capitol Hill start to get itchy for a second round of stimulous in order to emphasize that they are "doing something" about the increasingly grim job numbers.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
More Than Intentions
Don Boudreaux of Cafe Hayek makes a good point which is too often glossed over in political debate:
Generally speaking, Y is a very general positive sentiment while X is a very specific prescription. Examples:
"You don't support abolishing NAFTA, because you don't care whether ordinary Joes can make a decent wage in America."
"You don't support school vouchers, because you don't care whether poor kids can get a good education."
"You don't support the current health care reform legislation, because you don't care whether poor people can see a doctor when they're sick."
What this approach ignores is that the topic of dispute in politics is often not whether some general good should be achieved, but whether a particular proposal will actually contribute to the general good -- and if so whether its effects will be more positive than negative. This type of intention-based argumentation is an attempt to shut down any discussion on whether a proposal will have the desired effect (and whether its negative side effects will outweigh its intended benefits), and as such it strikes at the very root of reasonable political discussion.
Writing about health-care, Paul Krugman asserts that “conservatives … don’t want Americans to have universal coverage” (”The Defining Moment,” Oct. 30).This is perhaps the most common fallacy of all in political argument for people to follow the form: I support bill/candidate X because I think it will have good result Y. You don't support X. Therefore you don't care about Y.
Among the earliest lessons that I teach my freshman economics students are (1) intentions are not results, and (2) to oppose a government program is not necessarily to object to the intentions stated by that program’s advocates.
Paul Krugman obviously teaches his students differently, for he clearly believes that (1) if government intends for Americans to have universal health coverage, then the result will be that Americans actually get universal health coverage, and (2) anyone who opposes a government program promising universal health coverage is a person who objects to Americans actually getting universal health coverage.
Generally speaking, Y is a very general positive sentiment while X is a very specific prescription. Examples:
"You don't support abolishing NAFTA, because you don't care whether ordinary Joes can make a decent wage in America."
"You don't support school vouchers, because you don't care whether poor kids can get a good education."
"You don't support the current health care reform legislation, because you don't care whether poor people can see a doctor when they're sick."
What this approach ignores is that the topic of dispute in politics is often not whether some general good should be achieved, but whether a particular proposal will actually contribute to the general good -- and if so whether its effects will be more positive than negative. This type of intention-based argumentation is an attempt to shut down any discussion on whether a proposal will have the desired effect (and whether its negative side effects will outweigh its intended benefits), and as such it strikes at the very root of reasonable political discussion.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
The Bi-Partisanship Fallacy
There's a school of thought which greatly admires "bi-partisan" approaches to solving political problems. The idea of representatives and senators putting aside their differences to "reach across the aisle" and work together seems admirably, if only because our social training all points towards the importance of compromise in order to get along with others.
However, I'd like to question whether there are often pieces of legislation which are genuinely bi-partisan.
Some legislation is essentially non-partisan. Instituting a national alert system to help track down kidnapped children, for instance, is hardly something which has a major political faction aligned against it.
In other cases, there's legislation which applies to factions within each party -- a result of the fact that our two major political parties include sub-factions which disagree with each other on major issues. For instance, "bi-partisan" immigration reform might draw support both from the business faction within the GOP and the pro-immigration faction within the Democratic Party, while being opposed by labor focused Democrats and immigration focused Republicans.
Often, though, a supposedly bi-partisan bill is actually a bill which is very much of one political philosophy or the other, but which is for some reason able to draw enough support from the most "moderate" members of the other party, sometimes by watering down its provisions.
For instance, on the current health care legislation, the bill itself is pretty clearly a bill coming from a Democratic Party mindset. It rests on the four pillars of guaranteed issue, individual insurance mandate, community rating and subsidies for those who can't afford their own coverage. Once the idea of a "public option" (which had been a sop of sorts to those on the left who would much rather have seen a single payer plan) was dropped, there's really not much else that can be done within the context of the bill's structure to make it less expensive or more amenable to a conservative approach. The changes which have been made in the name of bi-partisanship (reducing fines for ignoring the mandate and not having insurance, etc.) don't really make the structure any more attractive to conservatives, but do make it less likely to work if liberals are actually correct that such a system could work. (Rather than being a dud as it's been in Massachusetts.)
Similarly, in the fight over the stimulus package -- the "bi-partisan" solution offered to bridge between those who thought there should be a massive spending-based stimulus and those who didn't was, "How about if we make it a little less massive." But really, if your two positions are, "We need to have a massive spending-based stimulus" and "We don't need any stimulus, and the debt will hurt the country" saying "We'll spend 700B instead of 1T" isn't really a compromise between those two positions.
To the extent that the two parties really do represent different political philosophies, bi-partisan solutions are in fact pretty rare. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, since if two governing philosophies suggest two different solutions based on differing ideas of what works -- something situated halfway in between (or a half-gutted implementation of one party's idea) is less likely to be satisfactory than either extreme.
However, I'd like to question whether there are often pieces of legislation which are genuinely bi-partisan.
Some legislation is essentially non-partisan. Instituting a national alert system to help track down kidnapped children, for instance, is hardly something which has a major political faction aligned against it.
In other cases, there's legislation which applies to factions within each party -- a result of the fact that our two major political parties include sub-factions which disagree with each other on major issues. For instance, "bi-partisan" immigration reform might draw support both from the business faction within the GOP and the pro-immigration faction within the Democratic Party, while being opposed by labor focused Democrats and immigration focused Republicans.
Often, though, a supposedly bi-partisan bill is actually a bill which is very much of one political philosophy or the other, but which is for some reason able to draw enough support from the most "moderate" members of the other party, sometimes by watering down its provisions.
For instance, on the current health care legislation, the bill itself is pretty clearly a bill coming from a Democratic Party mindset. It rests on the four pillars of guaranteed issue, individual insurance mandate, community rating and subsidies for those who can't afford their own coverage. Once the idea of a "public option" (which had been a sop of sorts to those on the left who would much rather have seen a single payer plan) was dropped, there's really not much else that can be done within the context of the bill's structure to make it less expensive or more amenable to a conservative approach. The changes which have been made in the name of bi-partisanship (reducing fines for ignoring the mandate and not having insurance, etc.) don't really make the structure any more attractive to conservatives, but do make it less likely to work if liberals are actually correct that such a system could work. (Rather than being a dud as it's been in Massachusetts.)
Similarly, in the fight over the stimulus package -- the "bi-partisan" solution offered to bridge between those who thought there should be a massive spending-based stimulus and those who didn't was, "How about if we make it a little less massive." But really, if your two positions are, "We need to have a massive spending-based stimulus" and "We don't need any stimulus, and the debt will hurt the country" saying "We'll spend 700B instead of 1T" isn't really a compromise between those two positions.
To the extent that the two parties really do represent different political philosophies, bi-partisan solutions are in fact pretty rare. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, since if two governing philosophies suggest two different solutions based on differing ideas of what works -- something situated halfway in between (or a half-gutted implementation of one party's idea) is less likely to be satisfactory than either extreme.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Freak Show
Megan McArdle links to a Financial Times piece by Clive Cook which includes the following quote:
One of the annoying qualities of national debate over the last several months (which seems to increase as Democrats become more desperate about their flagship legislation) is the attempt to find the very looniest possible elements of the right and portray them as being mainstream. Recent weeks have seen left wing commentators pretending that one of the major GOP issues is President Obama's birth certificate and dredging up "right wing militias", and inspired renouned prose stylist Harry Reid to create the ringing phrase "evil mongers" for those who question their legislators in town hall meetings. It's been a staple of "enlightened" liberal commentary since the election that the Republican party is now a spent force, a bankrupt regional party whose only adherants are a few inbred racists who can't read well enough to find their way out of the trailer park and join the local Hope & Change brigade.
Reality is, of course, a bit different. The number of set adherants of each party has remained roughly the same -- elections in the modern US swing not so much on committed partisans changing their minds but on the profoundly un-ideological (and sometimes just plain un-informed) middle swinging one way or the other based on their worries and affections every other November.
In that sense, all this posturing is irrelevant. But I can't help thinking that it does the general body politic harm when either major party either embraces the nuttier of its own members, or intentionally picks out the very nuttiest of its oppenents fringe members and treats them as if they were representative. Honestly, the 9/11 Truthers, the Trig Truthers, the Birthers, and such (not to mention even fringier elements such as militias and those who actively advocated fighting on the side of Al Qaeda) do not deserve to be paid attention to in sane society. Those who think they are helping their cause right now by trying to bring this parade of horribles into the mainstream in order to pin it to their opposition will hurt not only the country as a whole in the long run, but themselves too.
The gap between the right of the Republican party, which is providing the angriest critics of the reforms, and the left of the Democratic party, which thinks the proposals too timid, is unbridgeable. These groups do not merely disagree. They despise each other. Their differences are only secondarily about policy. They hold each other’s values in contempt.
These snarling extremes are nonetheless somewhat alike. They have an equal and opposite penchant for conspiracy theories. Almost a third of Republicans, according to a recent poll, believe the unsupported story that Mr Obama was not born in the US (in which case he would be disqualified from serving as president). But remember that more than a third of Democrats subscribe to the even more outlandish theory that the Bush administration knew about the attacks of September 2001 in advance.
One of the annoying qualities of national debate over the last several months (which seems to increase as Democrats become more desperate about their flagship legislation) is the attempt to find the very looniest possible elements of the right and portray them as being mainstream. Recent weeks have seen left wing commentators pretending that one of the major GOP issues is President Obama's birth certificate and dredging up "right wing militias", and inspired renouned prose stylist Harry Reid to create the ringing phrase "evil mongers" for those who question their legislators in town hall meetings. It's been a staple of "enlightened" liberal commentary since the election that the Republican party is now a spent force, a bankrupt regional party whose only adherants are a few inbred racists who can't read well enough to find their way out of the trailer park and join the local Hope & Change brigade.
Reality is, of course, a bit different. The number of set adherants of each party has remained roughly the same -- elections in the modern US swing not so much on committed partisans changing their minds but on the profoundly un-ideological (and sometimes just plain un-informed) middle swinging one way or the other based on their worries and affections every other November.
In that sense, all this posturing is irrelevant. But I can't help thinking that it does the general body politic harm when either major party either embraces the nuttier of its own members, or intentionally picks out the very nuttiest of its oppenents fringe members and treats them as if they were representative. Honestly, the 9/11 Truthers, the Trig Truthers, the Birthers, and such (not to mention even fringier elements such as militias and those who actively advocated fighting on the side of Al Qaeda) do not deserve to be paid attention to in sane society. Those who think they are helping their cause right now by trying to bring this parade of horribles into the mainstream in order to pin it to their opposition will hurt not only the country as a whole in the long run, but themselves too.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
I Really Hate This Part...
If I've seemed a bit reclusive on all the recent fuss over the health care bill, town hall meetings, etc., it's because the debate over the current reform package has now entered the phase of American politics that I really don't like. There's an early stage in which ideas are discussed and bills are drafted. People try to put coallitions together, compromises are discussed, and various groups push their policy recommendations. That's the realm I find interesting, and in my small corner of the blogsphere, I enjoy participating, in a strictly informal fashion, in the debate.
But then there's a point when an actual bill (or bills) are on the table, and the democratic melee is let loose. Over the last week I've been reading Alessandro Barbero's The Battle: A New History of Waterloo
, and in light of that it strikes me that there's a certain Napoleonic-battle aspect to all this. A month or two ago we were staring at maps and discussing the merits of different formations, but now everything is shrouded in smoke while innumerable combatants in this democratic struggle (most of whom, on both sides, honestly have a fairly rudimentary understanding of the overall debate) slug it out until we find out which side will hold the field and which will break and run.
In a democratic republic, this is a necessary part of our political process. The people have a strong voice in what will eventually happen -- regardless of how many actually understand the issues at state -- and this is the stage where the people fight it out, with the leaders left on the sidelines, trying to affect the ebb and flow by sending couriers with orders into the frey. Color me elitist, but while I think it an important process (and I hope that "my side" wins -- which in this case would mean going back to the drawing board in regards to any health care reform this time around) I don't enjoy following this part in much detail. And it being a free country I don't. (Never watching TV news helps a lot in this -- reading the WSJ when I have time and keeping up with a few of my favorite political blogs at a sporadic level is a more civilized way of watching without getting too spun up about things.)
But a few thoughts on the frey:
- It's darkly amusing to hear progressives doing the "how dare they demagogue issues which aren't relevant to the bill" routine. Remember how you won the public relations war on the Patriot Act and Social Security Reform, guys? Remember back when "congressmen didn't read the Patriot Act" and "this is an unprecedented assault on our Bill of Rights" and "they'll take away your social security and give it to Wall Street" were by-words, and no one in the Democratic Party minded much if they weren't true so long as they served to win the debate? Well, it's not admirable coming from either side, but given that half your own legislators can't describe the issues that are and aren't covered by the current bill clearly, you can hardly be surprised when people float all sorts of things around so long as they work. Clarity and transparancy would be a good defense. How about a shorter bill with clear goals next time?
- Trust is one of the big issues here. The administration tried to deal with the tough issues concerning what would and would not be covered under the regulated plans by saying there would be a "panel of experts" to figure that out later. Well, those people who've been relentlessly mocked as "hicks" and "theo-crats" by progressive writers in recent years naturally assume that this panel of experts appointed by the administration will disagree with them on issues like abortion and euthenasia. Fair enough. Did Democrats ever trust the "trust us to police ourselves" argument from Bush? Really, if intentions were good, how much would it have cost for them to put a clause into the famously long bill pledging not to cover elective abortion or euthenasia? It's called compromise, and it involves giving up something you might otherwise not want to in order to get what you say your main priority is. If health care really is a top priority for progressives, they should be willing to include safeguards in regards to life issues explicitly.
- Something politicians on both sides really need to learn is that people are increasingly uneasy with the complexity of government programs. Sure, big systems have to be complex, but if our democracy is going to survive people are going to have to start putting some work into coming up with structures which are basically intelligable and communicable. Coming up with insanely complex bills and then trying to sell them with simplistic slogans that have little to do with the content destroys trust in democracy.
- Democrats also need to keep in mind that while the majority of Americans voted for Obama, they majority of Americans also don't trust "the government" very much, and think of it as "them" not "us". As such, people are a lot less comfortable with the government deciding what is a legitimate medical need than with having private insurance and demanding that the government require that insurance cover everything. Of course, this means that Americans are to a great extent at the root of their own health care cost problems. But the solution to this which most appeals to progressives (have the government decide fairly how much health care everyone needs) just doesn't fly with most people. Sorry...
I'll close with a prediction: Public support for this bill will fall low enough that it won't pass. Eventually, an even more modest bill will be cobbled together very fast and passed, which will satisfy nobody and cover very few additional people. (And probably help the middle class more than the poor.) But the administration and congress will be desperate enough to pass something before the 2010 elections that they'll insist it is a great first step.
But then there's a point when an actual bill (or bills) are on the table, and the democratic melee is let loose. Over the last week I've been reading Alessandro Barbero's The Battle: A New History of Waterloo
, and in light of that it strikes me that there's a certain Napoleonic-battle aspect to all this. A month or two ago we were staring at maps and discussing the merits of different formations, but now everything is shrouded in smoke while innumerable combatants in this democratic struggle (most of whom, on both sides, honestly have a fairly rudimentary understanding of the overall debate) slug it out until we find out which side will hold the field and which will break and run.In a democratic republic, this is a necessary part of our political process. The people have a strong voice in what will eventually happen -- regardless of how many actually understand the issues at state -- and this is the stage where the people fight it out, with the leaders left on the sidelines, trying to affect the ebb and flow by sending couriers with orders into the frey. Color me elitist, but while I think it an important process (and I hope that "my side" wins -- which in this case would mean going back to the drawing board in regards to any health care reform this time around) I don't enjoy following this part in much detail. And it being a free country I don't. (Never watching TV news helps a lot in this -- reading the WSJ when I have time and keeping up with a few of my favorite political blogs at a sporadic level is a more civilized way of watching without getting too spun up about things.)
But a few thoughts on the frey:
- It's darkly amusing to hear progressives doing the "how dare they demagogue issues which aren't relevant to the bill" routine. Remember how you won the public relations war on the Patriot Act and Social Security Reform, guys? Remember back when "congressmen didn't read the Patriot Act" and "this is an unprecedented assault on our Bill of Rights" and "they'll take away your social security and give it to Wall Street" were by-words, and no one in the Democratic Party minded much if they weren't true so long as they served to win the debate? Well, it's not admirable coming from either side, but given that half your own legislators can't describe the issues that are and aren't covered by the current bill clearly, you can hardly be surprised when people float all sorts of things around so long as they work. Clarity and transparancy would be a good defense. How about a shorter bill with clear goals next time?
- Trust is one of the big issues here. The administration tried to deal with the tough issues concerning what would and would not be covered under the regulated plans by saying there would be a "panel of experts" to figure that out later. Well, those people who've been relentlessly mocked as "hicks" and "theo-crats" by progressive writers in recent years naturally assume that this panel of experts appointed by the administration will disagree with them on issues like abortion and euthenasia. Fair enough. Did Democrats ever trust the "trust us to police ourselves" argument from Bush? Really, if intentions were good, how much would it have cost for them to put a clause into the famously long bill pledging not to cover elective abortion or euthenasia? It's called compromise, and it involves giving up something you might otherwise not want to in order to get what you say your main priority is. If health care really is a top priority for progressives, they should be willing to include safeguards in regards to life issues explicitly.
- Something politicians on both sides really need to learn is that people are increasingly uneasy with the complexity of government programs. Sure, big systems have to be complex, but if our democracy is going to survive people are going to have to start putting some work into coming up with structures which are basically intelligable and communicable. Coming up with insanely complex bills and then trying to sell them with simplistic slogans that have little to do with the content destroys trust in democracy.
- Democrats also need to keep in mind that while the majority of Americans voted for Obama, they majority of Americans also don't trust "the government" very much, and think of it as "them" not "us". As such, people are a lot less comfortable with the government deciding what is a legitimate medical need than with having private insurance and demanding that the government require that insurance cover everything. Of course, this means that Americans are to a great extent at the root of their own health care cost problems. But the solution to this which most appeals to progressives (have the government decide fairly how much health care everyone needs) just doesn't fly with most people. Sorry...
I'll close with a prediction: Public support for this bill will fall low enough that it won't pass. Eventually, an even more modest bill will be cobbled together very fast and passed, which will satisfy nobody and cover very few additional people. (And probably help the middle class more than the poor.) But the administration and congress will be desperate enough to pass something before the 2010 elections that they'll insist it is a great first step.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
White House Meeting Ferments Beer Brew-hahha
It's not unusual for people attempting to smooth over a contentious discussion to say that they'd of course be willing to get together for a friendly beer some time. Apparently, when one has the resources and media visibility of the President, it's possible to actually pull this off, but trouble can ensue.
When President Obama called Cambridge police officer Crowley last week to try to smooth over tension resulting from Obama's declaration that Crowley's arrest of Professor Gates had been "stupid", Officer Crowley suggested that the three men should get together for a few beers. It seems that Obama thought this was a good idea, and a beer summit between the three men is currently scheduled to take place are scheduled to get together at a White House and knock back a couple cold ones.
However, this morning's Wall Street Journal reveals that peace making is never simple, American brewers are upset over the likely offering at the beer fest:
Not to add to the frey, but the ale which most immediately springs to my mind is Avery Brewing Company's "Collaboration Not Litigation Ale".
No one seems to be aiming that high, however. Some advocate of hope and change to be planning to drink the famously making-love-in-a-canoe Bud Light. But perhaps it's indicative that beer is truly the drink of the working man that Officer Crowley actually have the highest grade beer tastes -- though as quality beers go I'd see Blue Moon as more of a filler than a headliner.
When President Obama called Cambridge police officer Crowley last week to try to smooth over tension resulting from Obama's declaration that Crowley's arrest of Professor Gates had been "stupid", Officer Crowley suggested that the three men should get together for a few beers. It seems that Obama thought this was a good idea, and a beer summit between the three men is currently scheduled to take place are scheduled to get together at a White House and knock back a couple cold ones.
However, this morning's Wall Street Journal reveals that peace making is never simple, American brewers are upset over the likely offering at the beer fest:
Late Wednesday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs hinted the presidential cooler will likely be stocked with what he understood to be the two guests' own personal favorites -- Red Stripe and Blue Moon.
"The president will drink Bud Light," Mr. Gibbs added.
The problem is that all three beers are products of foreign companies. Red Stripe is brewed by London-based Diageo PLC. Blue Moon is sold by a joint venture in which London-based SABMiller has a majority stake.
And Bud Light? It is made by Anheuser-Busch -- which is now known as Anseuser-Busch InBev NV after getting bought last year by a giant Belgian-Brazilian company.
Among rival brewers, the news fell flat. "We would hope they would pick a family-owned, American beer to lubricate the conversation," said Bill Manley, a spokesman for the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., a California-based brewer that happens to be family-owned.
Jim Koch, founder of Boston Beer Co., which brews Samuel Adams, decried "the foreign domination of something so basic and important to our culture as beer."
Genesee Brewery, Rochester, N.Y., released a statement congratulating the president for having beer at the meeting but adding: "We just hope the next time the President has a beer, he chooses an American beer, made by American workers, and an American-owned brewery like Genesee."
...
For the past several days, David von Storch, co-founder of Capitol City Brewing Company -- which owns a brewpub just a few blocks from the White House -- has been lobbying the administration to serve his company's "Equality Ale."
"What better beer to have them drink than the only beer brewed in the District of Columbia, Capitol City Brewing Company Equality Ale!" Mr. von Storch wrote in an email he sent Tuesday to several White House staffers.
...
When questioned by reporters on Tuesday, Mr. Gibbs, the White House spokesman, tackled the beer issue head-on. "As I understand it -- I have not heard this, I've read this, so I'll just repeat what I've read, that Professor Gates said he liked Red Stripe, and I believe Sergeant Crowley mentioned to the president that he liked Blue Moon. So we'll have the gamut covered tomorrow afternoon. I think we're still thinking, weather permitting, the picnic table out back. All right?"
Dan Kenary, president of Boston-based Harpoon Brewery, said he wanted to make a run at getting some of his beer into the meeting but couldn't find any intermediaries with close White House contacts. "I think just showing up at the gate with a case of Harpoon would make them look at us funny," he said.
Not to add to the frey, but the ale which most immediately springs to my mind is Avery Brewing Company's "Collaboration Not Litigation Ale".
No one seems to be aiming that high, however. Some advocate of hope and change to be planning to drink the famously making-love-in-a-canoe Bud Light. But perhaps it's indicative that beer is truly the drink of the working man that Officer Crowley actually have the highest grade beer tastes -- though as quality beers go I'd see Blue Moon as more of a filler than a headliner.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Book Review: Empires of Trust (Part II)
[Empires of Trust, review Part I]
Review of: Empires of Trust: How Rome Built--and America Is Building--a New World
My apologies for taking so long to get back with a second part to this review. In the first installment, I covered the history of Rome's early expansion, and how its commitment to establishing a safe horizon of allies, and defending those allies against any aggression, led the city of Rome to effectively rule all of Italy. From southern Italy, Rome was drawn into Sicily, which in turn made it a threat to Carthage and drew those two superpowers of the third century BC into a series of wars that would end with the total destruction of Carthage as a world power.
With the power of Carthage effectively neutralized after the end of the Second Punic War in 201 BC, Rome immediately became an attractive ally for states throughout the world which sought a superpower ally. That same year, ambassadors from Pergamum and Rhodes arrived in Rome seeking aide against two of the major Hellenistic kings who had recently made an alliance, Philip V of Macedon and Antiochus III of the Seleucid Empire (based in modern Syria). Since the time of Alexander the Great (125 years before) the Eastern Mediterranean had been dominated by several large and incredibly wealthy Hellenistic kingdoms. The more ancient Greek city states were in the main still free, but were no match for the military power of the Hellenistic kingdoms ruled by Macedonian dynasties if they should exert themselves to conquer them.
The Romans admired Greek learning and culture, and also admired their ideals of freedom. However, it was next to impossible to argue that the Macedonians and Seleucids presented any danger at all to Rome, and there was controversy in the Roman senate as to whether agreeing to help the Greeks would be legal, given the requirements in Roman Law that only defensive wars be fought. The case for a "defensive" war against the Hellenistic kingdoms was pretty tenuous, but those who idealized the freedom of ancient city states such as Athens won out, and Rome's legions landed in Greece where they handily defeated Philip in 200-197, driving Macedonian forces out of Greece.
Having expelled him from Greece, the Romans left Philip in power in Macedonia, and in 196 issued a proclamation at the Isthmian Games declaring all the Greek city states (including those that had fought with Macedon against Rome) to be politically independent and free of any tributary obligations to Rome. The Roman historian Livy recounts what Greeks were saying of this:
Doubtless the Romans felt the warm glow of a visibly grateful world and patted themselves on the backs a bit, as when Americans read about the throngs turning out to cheer President Wilson when he attended the peace conference after the Great War. Like the Americans after the Great War, Rome pulled all its soldiers out of Greece. However, the peace was even less lasting. Four years later in 192, The Aetolian League of Greek city states allied itself with King Antiocus III and set about attacking other Greek city states in Asia Minor. Rome sent legions back to Greece and across into Asia Minor, where it defeated the Aetolian League and the Seleucid Empire in the Seleucid War of 192-188 BC. At the end, however, Rome declared all Greek city states in Asia Minor free, and once again withdrew all its troops back to Italy.
By this point, Rome was clearly the hegemonic power in a monopolar world. The major Hellenistic kingdoms of Macedonia, Asia Minor and Egypt were no match for it, Carthage and been decisively defeated, and powers on the edge of the Mediterranean world such as the Parthian Empire were not a significant threat. However, up till this point Rome directly controlled very little territory outside of Italy. It was engaged in frequent wars to protect various allies, but did not rule them directly.
This situation did not last. One of the freedoms which the Greek city states had traditionally treasured was the freedom to wage small scale wars against one another on the slightest pretext. And as Rome repeatedly stepped in and used its overwhelming military superiority to demand that hostilities be broken off, the Greeks came increasingly to resent Roman power, even if it was wielded from afar and in the cause of peace. This caused many of the Greeks to support Perseus of Macedon (Philip's son) in 171 BC when he moved to invade Greece. Polybius (a Greek who wrote one of the best works on the history and political organization of the Roman Republic) writes that the simple novelty and excitement of seeing a power with the apparent ability to mount a military challenge to Rome that the Greeks supported Perseus without thinking of the consequences that would follow should he actually succeed in conquering Greece. (Polybius 30.29, Empires of Trust, Page 145) Some may, Madden certainly does, see parallels to the American and European elites (people with no interest in living under an extreme Islamic regime themselves) who gleefully speculated that Taliban or Iraqi forces would stymie the American military in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Rome defeated Perseus, and once again declared the Greek city states free, though it took the precaution of helping pro-Roman political parties to power in key city states first. In 150-148, Macedon sought to take over Greece again, and the Romans reconquered Macedon and simply stayed. The Greeks continued to fight among themselves, with the Achaean League attacking Sparta against Roman demands for peace. A group of Roman senators sent to Corinth to negotiate the issue in 147 were beset by rioters who pelted them with rocks and excrement -- with the senators barely escaping with their lives. At last Rome had enough, not only did it take over Greece and make it a directly ruled province, but it sacked Corinth and leveled it. After fifty years, Rome had decided to be a conquering power and rule foreign dominions directly. Within the next 200 years, most of the known world would come under its direct control -- sometimes as a result of local kings leaving their dominions to Rome in their wills, in other cases when the Romans tired of local unrest and decided to administer areas directly. The empire of trust model was not wholly abandoned, Rome seldom openly conquered new territories (with the exception of "uncivilized" areas such as Gaul and Britain), but after 150 BC it quickly lost its hesitance to exert direct rule over territories outside of Italy.
Although similar events were taking place throughout the Mediterranean world in the second century BC, the events in Greece and Asia Minor are particularly interesting because they highlight to key elements of Roman power:
1) Rome tried repeatedly over a fifty year period to turn the conflict-loving Greeks into peaceful but self-ruling allies.
2) In the end, when no other solution would bring peace, Rome seized direct control.
However, as long as it could, Rome maintained peace through its allies, and stepping in only when regional wars broke out.
Madden points to several interesting similarities between the history of Rome in this era, and that of the US in the 20th century.
- The relationship between Rome and the Hellenistic world has some similarities to that between the US and Western Europe in the 20th century. Twice the US was drawn into massive wars that began in Europe, ending the wars, but leaving both allies and vanquished as independent states. However, after the failure of post-Great War isolationism, the US remained in Europe after World War II (though scrupulously leaving all European countries politically independent) and encouraged a situation in which all Western European militaries atrophied, while the US provided manpower to keep the peace.
- Like Rome after the Second Punic War, the US has not fought a truly defensive war in sixty years, however it has repeatedly fought regional wars to protect its allies and remove regimes causing regional instability. If the US is to continue to fill a similar role in the modern world to that of Rome after 200 BC, we should expect to see this continue. (For Catholics, this poses important questions about the nature of just war, reviving a situation which has not been seen since the flourishing of the supra-national empires such as the Holy Roman Empire, and in some ways not since Rome itself.)
- Rome did, overall, have the effect of bringing peace to those parts of the world which came thoroughly into its sphere of influence. Similarly, those parts of the world which have come fully into the US sphere has stabilized, while wars continue to be found at the periphery of the US sphere. This leaves one to ask: Is hegemonic power in fact the greatest force for peace? Is it in fact the sphere of the hegemonic power which has the effect that was hoped for from international organizations such as the UN?
- The above points will mostly be appreciated by American conservatives, with the exception of those "paleo-cons" who endorse a modern isolationism, but Madden makes another point which may be less congenial to many conservatives in regards to international organizations. The operation of an empire of trust, such as Rome in the 2nd century BC or the US in the 21st century, relies upon the existence of independent leagues of allies and unaligned nations for legitimacy. After all, while exerting power which is in many ways imperial, neither empire saw/sees itself as acting as an empire, but rather as a strong state with allies. In this regard, international organizations, whether of close allies such as NATO or more open ones such as the UN, serve as a legitimating force. At a pragmatic level, the UN is headquartered in US territory and its missions seldom succeed without being made up primarily of US troops, but the fact that the UN is independent enough to provide a forum for other nations to denounce the US both serves as a legitimizing force and as a forum for nations to blow off steam against the US harmlessly. Much though some may see room for the US to act alone to right international wrongs if necessary, according to Madden's analysis it would violate the very paradigm which has allowed the US to become an empire for trust for it to act without the consent and assistance of a number of allies in any given situation. The US may not actually need those allies in a practical sense, but for the US to be what it is, to be a hegemonic empire of trust and thus a force for peace in order in the wider world, it must remain reluctant to enter any conflict without a number of regional allies.
Next in Part III: Rome and Palestine, an empire of trust confronts terrorism.
Review of: Empires of Trust: How Rome Built--and America Is Building--a New World
My apologies for taking so long to get back with a second part to this review. In the first installment, I covered the history of Rome's early expansion, and how its commitment to establishing a safe horizon of allies, and defending those allies against any aggression, led the city of Rome to effectively rule all of Italy. From southern Italy, Rome was drawn into Sicily, which in turn made it a threat to Carthage and drew those two superpowers of the third century BC into a series of wars that would end with the total destruction of Carthage as a world power.
With the power of Carthage effectively neutralized after the end of the Second Punic War in 201 BC, Rome immediately became an attractive ally for states throughout the world which sought a superpower ally. That same year, ambassadors from Pergamum and Rhodes arrived in Rome seeking aide against two of the major Hellenistic kings who had recently made an alliance, Philip V of Macedon and Antiochus III of the Seleucid Empire (based in modern Syria). Since the time of Alexander the Great (125 years before) the Eastern Mediterranean had been dominated by several large and incredibly wealthy Hellenistic kingdoms. The more ancient Greek city states were in the main still free, but were no match for the military power of the Hellenistic kingdoms ruled by Macedonian dynasties if they should exert themselves to conquer them.
The Romans admired Greek learning and culture, and also admired their ideals of freedom. However, it was next to impossible to argue that the Macedonians and Seleucids presented any danger at all to Rome, and there was controversy in the Roman senate as to whether agreeing to help the Greeks would be legal, given the requirements in Roman Law that only defensive wars be fought. The case for a "defensive" war against the Hellenistic kingdoms was pretty tenuous, but those who idealized the freedom of ancient city states such as Athens won out, and Rome's legions landed in Greece where they handily defeated Philip in 200-197, driving Macedonian forces out of Greece.
Having expelled him from Greece, the Romans left Philip in power in Macedonia, and in 196 issued a proclamation at the Isthmian Games declaring all the Greek city states (including those that had fought with Macedon against Rome) to be politically independent and free of any tributary obligations to Rome. The Roman historian Livy recounts what Greeks were saying of this:
There is but one nation which at its own cost, through its own exertions, and at its own risk has gone to war on behalf of the liberty of others. It renders this service not to those across its frontiers, or to the peoples of neighboring states, or to those who dwell on the same mainland, but it actually crosses the seas in order that nowhere in the wide world may injustice and tyranny exist, but that right and equity and law may be everywhere supreme.
Livy 33.33 (page 131)
Doubtless the Romans felt the warm glow of a visibly grateful world and patted themselves on the backs a bit, as when Americans read about the throngs turning out to cheer President Wilson when he attended the peace conference after the Great War. Like the Americans after the Great War, Rome pulled all its soldiers out of Greece. However, the peace was even less lasting. Four years later in 192, The Aetolian League of Greek city states allied itself with King Antiocus III and set about attacking other Greek city states in Asia Minor. Rome sent legions back to Greece and across into Asia Minor, where it defeated the Aetolian League and the Seleucid Empire in the Seleucid War of 192-188 BC. At the end, however, Rome declared all Greek city states in Asia Minor free, and once again withdrew all its troops back to Italy.
By this point, Rome was clearly the hegemonic power in a monopolar world. The major Hellenistic kingdoms of Macedonia, Asia Minor and Egypt were no match for it, Carthage and been decisively defeated, and powers on the edge of the Mediterranean world such as the Parthian Empire were not a significant threat. However, up till this point Rome directly controlled very little territory outside of Italy. It was engaged in frequent wars to protect various allies, but did not rule them directly.
This situation did not last. One of the freedoms which the Greek city states had traditionally treasured was the freedom to wage small scale wars against one another on the slightest pretext. And as Rome repeatedly stepped in and used its overwhelming military superiority to demand that hostilities be broken off, the Greeks came increasingly to resent Roman power, even if it was wielded from afar and in the cause of peace. This caused many of the Greeks to support Perseus of Macedon (Philip's son) in 171 BC when he moved to invade Greece. Polybius (a Greek who wrote one of the best works on the history and political organization of the Roman Republic) writes that the simple novelty and excitement of seeing a power with the apparent ability to mount a military challenge to Rome that the Greeks supported Perseus without thinking of the consequences that would follow should he actually succeed in conquering Greece. (Polybius 30.29, Empires of Trust, Page 145) Some may, Madden certainly does, see parallels to the American and European elites (people with no interest in living under an extreme Islamic regime themselves) who gleefully speculated that Taliban or Iraqi forces would stymie the American military in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Rome defeated Perseus, and once again declared the Greek city states free, though it took the precaution of helping pro-Roman political parties to power in key city states first. In 150-148, Macedon sought to take over Greece again, and the Romans reconquered Macedon and simply stayed. The Greeks continued to fight among themselves, with the Achaean League attacking Sparta against Roman demands for peace. A group of Roman senators sent to Corinth to negotiate the issue in 147 were beset by rioters who pelted them with rocks and excrement -- with the senators barely escaping with their lives. At last Rome had enough, not only did it take over Greece and make it a directly ruled province, but it sacked Corinth and leveled it. After fifty years, Rome had decided to be a conquering power and rule foreign dominions directly. Within the next 200 years, most of the known world would come under its direct control -- sometimes as a result of local kings leaving their dominions to Rome in their wills, in other cases when the Romans tired of local unrest and decided to administer areas directly. The empire of trust model was not wholly abandoned, Rome seldom openly conquered new territories (with the exception of "uncivilized" areas such as Gaul and Britain), but after 150 BC it quickly lost its hesitance to exert direct rule over territories outside of Italy.
Although similar events were taking place throughout the Mediterranean world in the second century BC, the events in Greece and Asia Minor are particularly interesting because they highlight to key elements of Roman power:
1) Rome tried repeatedly over a fifty year period to turn the conflict-loving Greeks into peaceful but self-ruling allies.
2) In the end, when no other solution would bring peace, Rome seized direct control.
However, as long as it could, Rome maintained peace through its allies, and stepping in only when regional wars broke out.
Madden points to several interesting similarities between the history of Rome in this era, and that of the US in the 20th century.
- The relationship between Rome and the Hellenistic world has some similarities to that between the US and Western Europe in the 20th century. Twice the US was drawn into massive wars that began in Europe, ending the wars, but leaving both allies and vanquished as independent states. However, after the failure of post-Great War isolationism, the US remained in Europe after World War II (though scrupulously leaving all European countries politically independent) and encouraged a situation in which all Western European militaries atrophied, while the US provided manpower to keep the peace.
- Like Rome after the Second Punic War, the US has not fought a truly defensive war in sixty years, however it has repeatedly fought regional wars to protect its allies and remove regimes causing regional instability. If the US is to continue to fill a similar role in the modern world to that of Rome after 200 BC, we should expect to see this continue. (For Catholics, this poses important questions about the nature of just war, reviving a situation which has not been seen since the flourishing of the supra-national empires such as the Holy Roman Empire, and in some ways not since Rome itself.)
- Rome did, overall, have the effect of bringing peace to those parts of the world which came thoroughly into its sphere of influence. Similarly, those parts of the world which have come fully into the US sphere has stabilized, while wars continue to be found at the periphery of the US sphere. This leaves one to ask: Is hegemonic power in fact the greatest force for peace? Is it in fact the sphere of the hegemonic power which has the effect that was hoped for from international organizations such as the UN?
- The above points will mostly be appreciated by American conservatives, with the exception of those "paleo-cons" who endorse a modern isolationism, but Madden makes another point which may be less congenial to many conservatives in regards to international organizations. The operation of an empire of trust, such as Rome in the 2nd century BC or the US in the 21st century, relies upon the existence of independent leagues of allies and unaligned nations for legitimacy. After all, while exerting power which is in many ways imperial, neither empire saw/sees itself as acting as an empire, but rather as a strong state with allies. In this regard, international organizations, whether of close allies such as NATO or more open ones such as the UN, serve as a legitimating force. At a pragmatic level, the UN is headquartered in US territory and its missions seldom succeed without being made up primarily of US troops, but the fact that the UN is independent enough to provide a forum for other nations to denounce the US both serves as a legitimizing force and as a forum for nations to blow off steam against the US harmlessly. Much though some may see room for the US to act alone to right international wrongs if necessary, according to Madden's analysis it would violate the very paradigm which has allowed the US to become an empire for trust for it to act without the consent and assistance of a number of allies in any given situation. The US may not actually need those allies in a practical sense, but for the US to be what it is, to be a hegemonic empire of trust and thus a force for peace in order in the wider world, it must remain reluctant to enter any conflict without a number of regional allies.
Next in Part III: Rome and Palestine, an empire of trust confronts terrorism.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
The Abortion Issue as Pressure Without an Outlet
I have an reflexive admiration for writers who writers who actively think through questions and come to conclusions which are not necessarily indicated by their initial commitments -- even though this effect is usually achieved by the writer disagreeing with me on at least some basic elements of worldview. Megal McArdle, who blogs for The Atlantic, is often one such, and she has a very interesting set of posts dealing with the murder of abortionist George Tiller.
The War on The War on Abortion
A Really Long Post About Abortion and Reasoning By Historical Analogy That is Going to Make Virtually All of My Readers Very Angry At Me
One More Post on Abortion
There are a couple more as well, but these struck me as the most fascinating. McArdle is basically pro-choice, and an economic libertarian, though in most ways was more an Obama supporter than a McCain one. But her take on this is event is a characteristically interesting one:
McArdle is the kind of writer who thinks historical analogies through, and she she sees she doesn't like:
And yet the reaction she sees among many fellow urban elite pro-choicers seems to run counter to this historical indication:
I think that McArdle rightly identifies why abortion has remained such a toxic issue for so long -- Roe used judicial fiat to create an abortion regime significantly more liberal than that of any country in Western Europe, and did so in such a way as to put the issue effectively beyond the democratic process. In doing so, it closed the pressure valve that democratic action usually provides to out polity. If you feel passionately about a topic, you can campaign to have the law changed. Except that around abortion, our ability to do that is signficantly reduced because we either need to flip the Supreme Court majority (and even so get only a potentially temporary victory) or pass a constitutional ammendment, which requires a massive super-majority of national support. This removes the ability to compromise, and when the ability to compromise is taken away, it necessarily empowers the extremists. As pro-lifers, we may not like the anology, but I don't think her comparison to the Middle East is entirely misplaced:
The War on The War on Abortion
A Really Long Post About Abortion and Reasoning By Historical Analogy That is Going to Make Virtually All of My Readers Very Angry At Me
One More Post on Abortion
There are a couple more as well, but these struck me as the most fascinating. McArdle is basically pro-choice, and an economic libertarian, though in most ways was more an Obama supporter than a McCain one. But her take on this is event is a characteristically interesting one:
if you actually think late-term abortion is murder, then the murder of Dr. Tiller makes total sense. Putting up touching anecdotes about people he's helped find adoptions, etc, doesn't change the fact that if you think late-term abortions are murder, the man was systematically butchering hundreds of human beings a year--indeed, not merely butchering them, but vivisecting them without anaesthetic. I'm sure many mass murderers have done any number of kind things over the course of their lives, to which the correct response, if you're trying to stop the murders, is "so?"
Imagine a future in which the moral consensus has changed, and our grandchildren regard abortion the way we regard slavery. Who will the hero of history be: Tiller, or his murderer? At the very least, they'll be conflicted, the way we are about John Brown.
McArdle is the kind of writer who thinks historical analogies through, and she she sees she doesn't like:
But in this case, I think the analogy to slavery is important, for two reasons. First of all, it was the last time we had an extended, society-wide debate about personhood. And second of all, as now, there were structural political reasons that it was much harder--nearly impossible--to change slavery through the existing political process.
Listening to the debates about abortion, it seems to me that really broad swathes of the pro-choice movement seem to genuinely not understand that this is a debate about personhood, which is why you get moronic statements like "If you think abortions are wrong, don't have one!" If you think a fetus is a person, it is not useful to be told that you, personally, are not required to commit murder, as long as you leave the neighbors alone while they do it.
Conversely, if Africans are not people, then slavery is not wrong. Or at least it's arguably not wrong--if Africans occupy some intermediate status between persons and animals**, then there is at least a legitimate argument for treating them like animals, rather than people.
The difference between our reaction to the two is that now we know Africans are people. It seems ridiculous to think that anyone ever thought they might not be people. They meet all the relevant criteria for personhood in twenty-first century America.
But of course, those criteria are socially constructed. The definition of personhood (and, related, of citizenship) changes over time. It generally expands--as we get richer, we can, or at least do, grant full personhood to wider categories. Except in the case of fetuses. We expanded "persons" to include fetuses in the 19th century, as we learned more about gestation. Then in the late 1960s, for the first time I can think of, western civilization started to contract the group "persons" in order to exclude fetuses.
But that conception was not universally shared. And rather than leave it to the political process, the Supreme Court essentially put it beyond that process. Congress, the President, the justices themselves, have been fighting a thirty-five year guerilla war over court seats. Presidents try to appoint candidates who will support their theory of Roe, Congress strategically blocks change, and the justices refuse to retire until they know they will be replaced by someone who supports their side. To change the outcome, a pro-life political coalition would have to gain a supermajority in Congress for twenty years--long enough for a few liberal justices to die in office.
It is theoretically possible that this could happen, just as it was theoretically possible to come to some political accomodation over slavery. But a combination of supreme court rulings and the peculiar federalist structure of American meant that the only way for either side to gain decisive results was violence. At every turn, the pro-slavery forces no doubt slyly congratulated themselves on their political acumen, while also solemnly and sincerely believing that they preserved an important right. But they made war inevitable.
If you interpret this murder as a political act, rather than that of a lone whacko, than this should be a troubling sign that the political system has failed. So why do so many people think that the obvious answer is simply to more firmly entrench laws that are rightly intolerable to someone who thinks that a late term fetus is a person?
And yet the reaction she sees among many fellow urban elite pro-choicers seems to run counter to this historical indication:
Still, I am shocked to see so many liberals today saying that the correct response is, essentially, doubling down. Make the law more friendly to abortion! Show the fundies who's boss! You know what fixes terrorism? Bitch slap those bastards until they understand that we'll never compromise!
Well, it sure worked in Iraq. I think Afghanistan's going pretty well, too, right?
Using the political system to stomp on radicalized fringes does not seem to be very effective in getting them to eschew violence. In fact, it seems to be a very good way of getting more violence. Possibly because those fringes have often turned to violence precisely because they feel that the political process has been closed off to them.
We do not punish murderers by changing large sections of American law. We certainly don't punish them by, in essence, shouting "nya, nya, nya, we're killing more babies!!!!"* We punish murderers by sending them to jail, where they belong. If any of these changes to current law are justified, they're justified on their own merits, not because they'll piss off Tiller's nemesis.
* I understand that those advocating such changes do not perceive themselves to be saying this. But if you're trying to punish the gunman, and deter others, it's their perception that matters. And what bothers them is that they think you're killing more babies.
I think that McArdle rightly identifies why abortion has remained such a toxic issue for so long -- Roe used judicial fiat to create an abortion regime significantly more liberal than that of any country in Western Europe, and did so in such a way as to put the issue effectively beyond the democratic process. In doing so, it closed the pressure valve that democratic action usually provides to out polity. If you feel passionately about a topic, you can campaign to have the law changed. Except that around abortion, our ability to do that is signficantly reduced because we either need to flip the Supreme Court majority (and even so get only a potentially temporary victory) or pass a constitutional ammendment, which requires a massive super-majority of national support. This removes the ability to compromise, and when the ability to compromise is taken away, it necessarily empowers the extremists. As pro-lifers, we may not like the anology, but I don't think her comparison to the Middle East is entirely misplaced:
My argument is that abortion, like slavery, is becoming in this country an issue upon which people have no reasonable political recourse. I'll go further, and say that the process by which 7 judges enforced their consciences on the American public was itself borderline illegitimate; it was first, not in their proper job description, and second, a bad way to run a government.Historical analogies can only take one so far, but I think that the comparison that McArdle is making in regards to slavery and abortion is good enough that it ought to be in the interests of all Americans to get the issue back into the democratic process and allow it to be fought out with ballots rather than bullets.
Yes, in theory pro-lifers could pass an amendment. And in theory, the Palestinians have access to the political process too, as right wing blogs often point out--all they need to do is elect a coherent government that Israel is willing to negotiate with. Most Obsidian Wings posters and commenters don't have much trouble discerning that a sufficiently remote possibility of political access is not political access, and that the individual Israeli actions which might be justified in a democratic government acting on an enfranchised population, are problematic when Israel does them to the Palestinians. After all, we bulldoze peoples' homes, too--we just call it eminent domain.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Book Review: Empires of Trust (Part I)
It may seem like overkill to write a multi-part book review, but historian Thomas F. Madden's new Empires of Trust: How Rome Built--and America Is Building--a New World explores a thesis I've been interested in for some time, which has significant implications for our country's foreign policy and the wider question of what our country is and what its place in the world ought to be.
The US has been often accused, of late, of being an empire. Madden effectively accepts that this is the case, but argues that this is not necessarily a bad thing at all. Among his first projects is to lay out three different types of empire: empires of conquest, empires of commerce, and empires of trust.
An empire of conquest is one spread by military power, in which the conquering power rules over and extracts tribute from the conquered. Classic examples would include the empires of the Assyrians, Persians, Mongols, Turks, Alexander's Hellenistic empire, Napoleon's empire and to an extent the Third Reich, Imperial Japan and Soviet Union. Empires of conquest are spread by war, and conquered territory is ruled either by local puppet rulers or by a transplanted military elite from the conquering power.
An empire of commerce is interested only in securing enough of a political foothold in its dominions to carry on trade, and is less concerned over political control or tribute. Examples would include the British and Dutch empires; in the ancient world the Pheonicians and Athenians; and later, medieval Venice. Empires of commerce are typified by a network of far-flung colonies directly controlled by the home country, at locations which are strategic for exploiting natural resources or trading with regional powers. They are less focused on conquering large swathes of territority than with controlling enough of a foothold (and enforcing enough stability in the surrounding area) to carry on their commerce.
The book, however, is primarily concerned with a third type of empire, the empire of trust, of which Madden gives only two examples: Rome and the United States. The term "empire of trust" itself requires some unpacking. Madden explains:
Among the cultural values identified as leading to Rome's empire of trust are listed its strong (indeed, literally religious) emphasis on the household as the essential social building block, an ideal of small farmer citizen-statesman, a strong emphasis on martial skill and duty, a suspicion of kingship and absolute rule, and a basic isolationism combined with a fierce desire to secure the horizon in order to keep the homeland safe from invasion -- something which became a near obsession for Rome after the Gauls sacked it in 390BC, and their care resulted in Rome not being entered by a foreign army again for 800 years, until 410AD.
In the wake of the Gaulic invasion of 390BC, Rome was the greatest military power in central Italy (the Etruscans, who a century or two before had dominated over Rome, never really recovered from the attack). However, the Rome of 390BC was little more than a large-is city state. In an effort to provide security against future attacks, the Romans formed tight alliances with the city states surrounding them. There was much strife between neighboring city states in the wake of the Gaulic invasion, and as Rome established or re-established treaties with the surrounding city states in Latium (central Italy), it defended it's allies in a series of local wars. The end result was a Latin League of city states, tied together by all their individual treaties with Rome, and thus prevented from falling into war with each other since Rome would protect any ally that was attacked.
This Latin League fielded a strong enough joint military force that it repelled subsequent Gaulic attacks, but Rome's obvious power over the confederation (although it was theoretically composed of equal states) resulted in a rebellion/civil war in 340BC. Rome won this war with the Latin League, but rather than anexing the conquered cities it re-accepted them as allies with independant local government, though in the process Rome developed a sliding scale of alliances which bound different allies to Rome with varying levels of political unity.
With the rebellion of the Latin League behind it, Rome resumed it's policy of forming alliances at the frontiers, and then defending those new allies in any wars. With Rome's military prowess established, city states on the edge of its sphere of influence began to seek out Rome as an ally, thus drawing Rome into more quarrels. In 343BC, Capua formed an alliance with Rome in order to get aid against the Samnite hill peoples. In 327BC, the Greek city (Greeks had established colonies throughout southern Italy and Sicily in the centuries prior) of Neapolis (modern Naples) was in a state of civil war. One faction brought in a Samnite garrison to support them, the other sought an alliance with Rome, which the Senate granted, expelling the Samnite garrison and adding Neapolis to the growing list of Roman allies.
In 285-275BC, Rome's alliance with the small city of Thurii in southern Italy drew them into conflict with the major Greek city of Tarentum, further south in the boot of Italy, when the Tarentines assaulted and sacked Thurii. The Tarentines employed the famous Greek general Pyrrhus, who landed with a professional army of 25,000 men and twenty war elephants. Pyrrhus won several incredibly costly victories (giving us the phrase "Pyrrhic victory") but was eventually beaten and driven from Italy by Rome and her Latin allies. This show of force soon brought all of southern Italy into alliance with Rome, but that in turn made Sicily Rome's next doorstep, and drew Rome into the ongoing war between the north African kingdom of Carthage and the Greeks inhabiting Sicily.
It should start to become obvious the sorts of similarities which Madden sees to the experiences of the United States in the 20th and 21st centuries. Take, for instance, one recent series of events. In 1990, Iraq invades Kuwait, a minor American ally (but one with a major natural resource) who in turn applied to the US for assistance, along with neighbors such as Saudi Arabia. The US leads a large coalition (which in fact consisted mainly of US troops) in liberating Kuwait, and in return is given garrisons in both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Iraq continues to flout the treaty that ended the war, and the American presence in the region is used as a pretext for terrorist attacks against the US by Al Qaeda, which is under the protection of the Taliban government of Afghanistan. The US invades both Afghanistan and Iraq (again with the help of a number of allies, though their numerical contribution is small) and attempts to turn them into independent allied governments. However, this in turn increases tensions with/in the neighboring countries of Iran and Pakistan, with the danger that the US and Iran may be drawn into a war, or that the US-ally government of Pakistan will be overthrown by an anti-US faction, resulting in war there.
As with the Romans, territory is not being conquered and then ruled by the empire of trust itself, but once a major power gains a reputation for being willing to go to war to protect allies while leaving them essentially independent, there comes to be a draw on the power which pulls its security horizon out further and further until it either meets its match or -- as in the case of the US by 1990AD and of Rome by 150BC -- becomes the world's sole superpower. In this process, what eventually creates the "pull" which drives expansion of the empire is the trust that it will defend its allies against all external threats while allowing them to retain their autonomy in all things other than hurting the empire or other allies. This, combined with a track record for turning former enemies into allies, provided every reason to work with Rome, and few reasons to fight against it.
[Two more installments of this review to come.]
explores a thesis I've been interested in for some time, which has significant implications for our country's foreign policy and the wider question of what our country is and what its place in the world ought to be.The US has been often accused, of late, of being an empire. Madden effectively accepts that this is the case, but argues that this is not necessarily a bad thing at all. Among his first projects is to lay out three different types of empire: empires of conquest, empires of commerce, and empires of trust.
An empire of conquest is one spread by military power, in which the conquering power rules over and extracts tribute from the conquered. Classic examples would include the empires of the Assyrians, Persians, Mongols, Turks, Alexander's Hellenistic empire, Napoleon's empire and to an extent the Third Reich, Imperial Japan and Soviet Union. Empires of conquest are spread by war, and conquered territory is ruled either by local puppet rulers or by a transplanted military elite from the conquering power.
An empire of commerce is interested only in securing enough of a political foothold in its dominions to carry on trade, and is less concerned over political control or tribute. Examples would include the British and Dutch empires; in the ancient world the Pheonicians and Athenians; and later, medieval Venice. Empires of commerce are typified by a network of far-flung colonies directly controlled by the home country, at locations which are strategic for exploiting natural resources or trading with regional powers. They are less focused on conquering large swathes of territority than with controlling enough of a foothold (and enforcing enough stability in the surrounding area) to carry on their commerce.
The book, however, is primarily concerned with a third type of empire, the empire of trust, of which Madden gives only two examples: Rome and the United States. The term "empire of trust" itself requires some unpacking. Madden explains:
By that I mean that they were not only trusted by friends and foes alike with a responsible use of power, but that their empire itself came about as a direct result of that trust. Many people have an image of the Romans as lords of a brutal Empire of Conquest, built by marching legions crushing all opposition to them. That is wrong. As numerous scholarly histories of Roman expansion have made clear, the image of the Romans as brutal conquerors does not reflect the actual dynamics at work at all. The simple fact is that the Romans acquired their empire slowly and with great reluctance. As the Roman historian Ernst Badian once remarked, conquest is history's norm and requires no explanation. "What does call for an explanation, when it appears in history, is that relatively high level of sophistication that rejects opportunities for the expansion of power." It was actually that rejection that made the Romans seem trustworthy to others, that formed the basis of their Empire of Trust. The Romans did not want an empire, which is precisely why they got one."Trust" and "empire" are not two words usually heard together, and Madden's interpretation runs contrary to most popular perceptions of the Roman Empire, so most of the first few chapters are spend on a review of Roman culture and history, and how Rome became a world power. In this project, Madden relies heavily on Roman primary sources: Livy, Polybius, Dio Cassius, Appian, Cicero, Josephus, Tacitus, etc.
Empires of Trust, (page 5) [emphasis in original]
Among the cultural values identified as leading to Rome's empire of trust are listed its strong (indeed, literally religious) emphasis on the household as the essential social building block, an ideal of small farmer citizen-statesman, a strong emphasis on martial skill and duty, a suspicion of kingship and absolute rule, and a basic isolationism combined with a fierce desire to secure the horizon in order to keep the homeland safe from invasion -- something which became a near obsession for Rome after the Gauls sacked it in 390BC, and their care resulted in Rome not being entered by a foreign army again for 800 years, until 410AD.
In the wake of the Gaulic invasion of 390BC, Rome was the greatest military power in central Italy (the Etruscans, who a century or two before had dominated over Rome, never really recovered from the attack). However, the Rome of 390BC was little more than a large-is city state. In an effort to provide security against future attacks, the Romans formed tight alliances with the city states surrounding them. There was much strife between neighboring city states in the wake of the Gaulic invasion, and as Rome established or re-established treaties with the surrounding city states in Latium (central Italy), it defended it's allies in a series of local wars. The end result was a Latin League of city states, tied together by all their individual treaties with Rome, and thus prevented from falling into war with each other since Rome would protect any ally that was attacked.
This Latin League fielded a strong enough joint military force that it repelled subsequent Gaulic attacks, but Rome's obvious power over the confederation (although it was theoretically composed of equal states) resulted in a rebellion/civil war in 340BC. Rome won this war with the Latin League, but rather than anexing the conquered cities it re-accepted them as allies with independant local government, though in the process Rome developed a sliding scale of alliances which bound different allies to Rome with varying levels of political unity.
The closest Latin towns would receive Roman citizenship, with full voting rights and the right to run for Roman offices. Although they maintained local state governments, the big decisions for the region were made in Rome. Others, particularly non-Latin allies, were given citizenship without voting rights. They, too, supported the common military and allowed Rome to deal with matters of warfare and foreign affairs, but they retained more local autonomy. The lowest rung were "equal allies" who were not citizens, but could do business with Romans, although not with others without Rome's approval.
(page 75)
With the rebellion of the Latin League behind it, Rome resumed it's policy of forming alliances at the frontiers, and then defending those new allies in any wars. With Rome's military prowess established, city states on the edge of its sphere of influence began to seek out Rome as an ally, thus drawing Rome into more quarrels. In 343BC, Capua formed an alliance with Rome in order to get aid against the Samnite hill peoples. In 327BC, the Greek city (Greeks had established colonies throughout southern Italy and Sicily in the centuries prior) of Neapolis (modern Naples) was in a state of civil war. One faction brought in a Samnite garrison to support them, the other sought an alliance with Rome, which the Senate granted, expelling the Samnite garrison and adding Neapolis to the growing list of Roman allies.
Pick up any history of the Roman Republic and there is one phrase that you will find over and over again: "They appealed to Rome for aid." Those six words explain the central dynamic by which the Romans expanded. A people would get into trouble. They would appeal to Rome for aid. The Romans would agree, gaining a new ally, but also a new war into the bargain.
(page 78)
In 285-275BC, Rome's alliance with the small city of Thurii in southern Italy drew them into conflict with the major Greek city of Tarentum, further south in the boot of Italy, when the Tarentines assaulted and sacked Thurii. The Tarentines employed the famous Greek general Pyrrhus, who landed with a professional army of 25,000 men and twenty war elephants. Pyrrhus won several incredibly costly victories (giving us the phrase "Pyrrhic victory") but was eventually beaten and driven from Italy by Rome and her Latin allies. This show of force soon brought all of southern Italy into alliance with Rome, but that in turn made Sicily Rome's next doorstep, and drew Rome into the ongoing war between the north African kingdom of Carthage and the Greeks inhabiting Sicily.
It should start to become obvious the sorts of similarities which Madden sees to the experiences of the United States in the 20th and 21st centuries. Take, for instance, one recent series of events. In 1990, Iraq invades Kuwait, a minor American ally (but one with a major natural resource) who in turn applied to the US for assistance, along with neighbors such as Saudi Arabia. The US leads a large coalition (which in fact consisted mainly of US troops) in liberating Kuwait, and in return is given garrisons in both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Iraq continues to flout the treaty that ended the war, and the American presence in the region is used as a pretext for terrorist attacks against the US by Al Qaeda, which is under the protection of the Taliban government of Afghanistan. The US invades both Afghanistan and Iraq (again with the help of a number of allies, though their numerical contribution is small) and attempts to turn them into independent allied governments. However, this in turn increases tensions with/in the neighboring countries of Iran and Pakistan, with the danger that the US and Iran may be drawn into a war, or that the US-ally government of Pakistan will be overthrown by an anti-US faction, resulting in war there.
As with the Romans, territory is not being conquered and then ruled by the empire of trust itself, but once a major power gains a reputation for being willing to go to war to protect allies while leaving them essentially independent, there comes to be a draw on the power which pulls its security horizon out further and further until it either meets its match or -- as in the case of the US by 1990AD and of Rome by 150BC -- becomes the world's sole superpower. In this process, what eventually creates the "pull" which drives expansion of the empire is the trust that it will defend its allies against all external threats while allowing them to retain their autonomy in all things other than hurting the empire or other allies. This, combined with a track record for turning former enemies into allies, provided every reason to work with Rome, and few reasons to fight against it.
Clearly the Romans did believe that defeated enemies should be treated with respect and dignity. More than that, as we shall see, the Romans, like Americans, were famous for making friends out of enemies, rebuilding and restoring them after militarily defeating them. As the Roman statesman Cicero once noted, "By defending our allies our people have gained the whole world." [De re publica, 3.25] Empires of Trust,(page 11)
[Two more installments of this review to come.]
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Unreasonable Compensation
With people focused on the economic downturn, many have found it a good time to give a little extra thought to whether other people are making more than they ought to. The president has spoken out several times against "excessive compensation" of executives, and a number of people have floated the idea of adjusting the top marginal income tax rate to effectively cap total compensation at ten million dollars a year. MZ tackled the question somewhat humorously here.
Beyond question, $10 million is a lot of money. Most of us will never see anything like that much money, and so it seems entirely reasonable to demand: Why should anyone be paid so much? What's so special about CEOs and actors and baseball players that they deserve tens of millions of dollars? Aren't they running off with the money that we should be getting instead?
I certainly wouldn't claim that executives are not often paid more than they are worth. A board of directors is still a group of people with emotional commitments (including wanting to assure themselves that they made the right pick in choosing the current CEO) and they will certainly not always do what is in their own best interest. Though we may be comforted that in a free economy the incentives are in place to automatically punish them for not doing so.
To look at an example of the impact of high executive compensation, I consulted the handy Executive PayWatch Database which my friends at the AFL/CIO put together for me. I picked Hewlett-Packard Company to look at. CEO Mark Hurd made $34,031,021 in total compensation in 2008. This, the AFL/CIO helpfully calculates for me is the same as 836 years worth of salary for the average worker. Should we be outraged?
Well, if we look at Hewlett-Packard's financial results from 2008, we find that HP had 118.4 billion in gross revenue with 8.3 billion in profits. The CEO's total compensation is equal to 0.03% of gross revenue, and if his pay were reduced to $100k that would increase profits by 0.41%
If they took the CEO's pay down to 100k and spread the savings out as raises to all of HP's 321,000 workers, each worker would make $105.70 more per year: $8 per month.
So is all the money being siphoned off by executives? No.
But why pay them so much? The answer is basically that people get these absurdly high sums of money when they are in a position to affect a lot of money. Brad Pitt makes absurd amounts of money because whether or not he is in a movie can make a difference in $100 million in box office gross. (Or at least, that's what the studio is betting based on historicals.) Baseball and football players make vast sums because professional sports franchises produce huge amounts of wealth, and the players think that if their playing is what produces all that money, they deserve a decent percentage of it. And CEOs and other highly placed executives make a lot of money because the difference between having a good CEO and a bad CEO can be billions of dollars in revenues and profits. It doesn't make sense to ask, "What exactly is it that anyone can do that's worth $130,888 per day?" when it's not the actions of sitting in meetings, looking at spreadsheets, and talking on conference calls that result in CEO pay being so high. Sure, anyone could sit in those meetings and look at those presentations. However, the difference between a CEO who picks good goals and hires good executives, and one who ignores important opportunities and hires idiots, can be billions of dollars in growth and tens of thousands of jobs.
I don't deal with C-level executives in my company, but just thinking of the VPs and directors that I have visibility to, there are some who are very, very good -- and others that I would happily make a $100/mo paycheck contribution to have fired. The difference between a good or bad executive could be company growth or losses that allow me to get a raise, or cost me my job. And if I care at my level, it's no surprise that boards of directors care as well.
Now, I think there's a deeper question here. At a pragmatic level, if a company has to pay $40 million instead of $10 million to get the CEO who will allow them to grow and prosper, that makes sense for them to do in order to make profits for their investors and jobs for their employees. However, there's a cultural element here as well which we might well question. Who much is it reasonable for a single person to ask for in compensation, even if it is in the interest of the company to offer much more?
I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand, even if it's of marginal impact to each individual employee, I find myself wanting to say there's simply a limit to how much personal wealth anyone needs. On the other hand, if that wealth ends up in the hands of one person, it allows him or her to direct the use of that money for good -- whether that means founding a school, sending medicines to Africa, or starting yet another company which gives better livelihoods to thousands of people.
However, either way, I don't see the crusade to limit executive pay by law as a reasonable one. The current system allows companies to pay executives according to the benefit they expect to get from them, and use that money as a motivation to get the executives they think they need. If all CEOs were capped at the same level, that would simply mean that companies would have to find other ways to compete for top talent, and I don't see how that would be an improvement.
Beyond question, $10 million is a lot of money. Most of us will never see anything like that much money, and so it seems entirely reasonable to demand: Why should anyone be paid so much? What's so special about CEOs and actors and baseball players that they deserve tens of millions of dollars? Aren't they running off with the money that we should be getting instead?
I certainly wouldn't claim that executives are not often paid more than they are worth. A board of directors is still a group of people with emotional commitments (including wanting to assure themselves that they made the right pick in choosing the current CEO) and they will certainly not always do what is in their own best interest. Though we may be comforted that in a free economy the incentives are in place to automatically punish them for not doing so.
To look at an example of the impact of high executive compensation, I consulted the handy Executive PayWatch Database which my friends at the AFL/CIO put together for me. I picked Hewlett-Packard Company to look at. CEO Mark Hurd made $34,031,021 in total compensation in 2008. This, the AFL/CIO helpfully calculates for me is the same as 836 years worth of salary for the average worker. Should we be outraged?
Well, if we look at Hewlett-Packard's financial results from 2008, we find that HP had 118.4 billion in gross revenue with 8.3 billion in profits. The CEO's total compensation is equal to 0.03% of gross revenue, and if his pay were reduced to $100k that would increase profits by 0.41%
If they took the CEO's pay down to 100k and spread the savings out as raises to all of HP's 321,000 workers, each worker would make $105.70 more per year: $8 per month.
So is all the money being siphoned off by executives? No.
But why pay them so much? The answer is basically that people get these absurdly high sums of money when they are in a position to affect a lot of money. Brad Pitt makes absurd amounts of money because whether or not he is in a movie can make a difference in $100 million in box office gross. (Or at least, that's what the studio is betting based on historicals.) Baseball and football players make vast sums because professional sports franchises produce huge amounts of wealth, and the players think that if their playing is what produces all that money, they deserve a decent percentage of it. And CEOs and other highly placed executives make a lot of money because the difference between having a good CEO and a bad CEO can be billions of dollars in revenues and profits. It doesn't make sense to ask, "What exactly is it that anyone can do that's worth $130,888 per day?" when it's not the actions of sitting in meetings, looking at spreadsheets, and talking on conference calls that result in CEO pay being so high. Sure, anyone could sit in those meetings and look at those presentations. However, the difference between a CEO who picks good goals and hires good executives, and one who ignores important opportunities and hires idiots, can be billions of dollars in growth and tens of thousands of jobs.
I don't deal with C-level executives in my company, but just thinking of the VPs and directors that I have visibility to, there are some who are very, very good -- and others that I would happily make a $100/mo paycheck contribution to have fired. The difference between a good or bad executive could be company growth or losses that allow me to get a raise, or cost me my job. And if I care at my level, it's no surprise that boards of directors care as well.
Now, I think there's a deeper question here. At a pragmatic level, if a company has to pay $40 million instead of $10 million to get the CEO who will allow them to grow and prosper, that makes sense for them to do in order to make profits for their investors and jobs for their employees. However, there's a cultural element here as well which we might well question. Who much is it reasonable for a single person to ask for in compensation, even if it is in the interest of the company to offer much more?
I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand, even if it's of marginal impact to each individual employee, I find myself wanting to say there's simply a limit to how much personal wealth anyone needs. On the other hand, if that wealth ends up in the hands of one person, it allows him or her to direct the use of that money for good -- whether that means founding a school, sending medicines to Africa, or starting yet another company which gives better livelihoods to thousands of people.
However, either way, I don't see the crusade to limit executive pay by law as a reasonable one. The current system allows companies to pay executives according to the benefit they expect to get from them, and use that money as a motivation to get the executives they think they need. If all CEOs were capped at the same level, that would simply mean that companies would have to find other ways to compete for top talent, and I don't see how that would be an improvement.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Krugman's Foundation
This Newsweek article about Nobel Prize-winning economist and NY Times columnist Paul Krugman contained an interesting biographical detail:
This struck me because I read Asimov's original three foundation novels several times when I was in high school, yet the one thing that always really bothered me about the books was the idea that Hari Seldon and his psychohistorians could calculate out with precision everything that would happen for centuries. And even granted this determinist vision, it bothered me even more that the one great unpredictable factor was the character named The Mule, whom Seldon's equations could not predict the actions of because the Mule was a mutant and thus inherently a creature of randomness rather than predictability. The absurd premise and the absurd exception to it gnawed at me, though the great virtue of the books is that they are among the small number of science fiction books with the sort of grant historical sweep which a devotee of history cannot help but enjoy.
It's interesting to me that it was precisely the element of Foundation which I always disliked which attracted Krugman. And perhaps allows me to claim that my political aversion to the idea of the centralized technocratic view of politics is a philosophy that runs fairly deep.
Krugman says he found himself in the science fiction of Isaac Asimov, especially the "Foundation" series—"It was nerds saving civilization, quants who had a theory of society, people writing equations on a blackboard, saying, 'See, unless you follow this formula, the empire will fail and be followed by a thousand years of barbarism'."
His Yale was "not George Bush's Yale," he says—no boola-boola, no frats or secret societies, rather "drinking coffee in the Economics Department lounge." Social science, he says, offered the promise of what he dreamed of in science fiction—"the beauty of pushing a button to solve problems. Sometimes there really are simple solutions: you really can have a grand idea."
This struck me because I read Asimov's original three foundation novels several times when I was in high school, yet the one thing that always really bothered me about the books was the idea that Hari Seldon and his psychohistorians could calculate out with precision everything that would happen for centuries. And even granted this determinist vision, it bothered me even more that the one great unpredictable factor was the character named The Mule, whom Seldon's equations could not predict the actions of because the Mule was a mutant and thus inherently a creature of randomness rather than predictability. The absurd premise and the absurd exception to it gnawed at me, though the great virtue of the books is that they are among the small number of science fiction books with the sort of grant historical sweep which a devotee of history cannot help but enjoy.
It's interesting to me that it was precisely the element of Foundation which I always disliked which attracted Krugman. And perhaps allows me to claim that my political aversion to the idea of the centralized technocratic view of politics is a philosophy that runs fairly deep.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Nationalism and the Problems of the Middle East
One of the books I've been reading off and on over the last year has been Avi Shlaim's The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World
. Shlaim is a one of the Israeli New Historians, which is essentially a "post-Zionist" revisionist school of Israeli history, who criticize the "old historians" of Israel of being too personally involved in the 1948 war and its aftermath, and thus writing history which is essentially apologetics for Israel.
There are places where I get the feeling Shlaim is leaning too hard in the other direction (for instance he spends a good deal of time on the expulsion of Palestinians from Israel in 1948, but glosses over the expulsion of Jews from surrounding Arab countries.) However, given that you know where his leanings are, it's a fascinating read because it's closely based on documented sources, and it focuses on the very real problem of Israel's relationship with the Arab world. Among the things it made me realize, however, was how alien the modern sense of nationalism is to citizens of the US.
This may seem a strange conclusion at first, as it's become a commonplace of a certain kind of rhetoric to accuse the US of being highly nationalistic. This determination is generally made through the simple equation which many modern commentators (especially, it often seems, of a progressive variety) that "patriotic" = "nationalist". So if you think well of your country for any reason at all, you're a nationalist. However nationalism has a definition other than "being fond of your country", and knowing that definition is important because nationalism has played such an important role in the last 150 years of world history.
Nationalism might be defined as that way of thinking according to which regional, cultural, racial or religious groups have a right to political self determination and/or statehood based upon that shared sense of identity. Nationalism seemed a particularly attractive way of thinking to freedom advocates and reformers in the late 19th and early 20ths centuries, confronted as they were with a number of gradually weakening empires with extensive colonial holdings. Italy and Germany had unified in the middle of the 19th century, movements which were given force by a nationalistic sense that there was "One Italy" and "One Germany" in some powerful cultural sense. The Austro-Hungarian and Turkish empires, old rivals which each held dominion over many disparate cultures and regions most of which had at various points in the past been independant countries, were faced with numerous regional independence movements, many of them fuelled by a nationalistic sense that each regional people (Greeks, Bosnians, Serbs, Coatians, etc) should rule itself. In the more robust colonial empires of France and Britain, local populations were also increasingly demanding independence based on a sense of national identity and desire for self determination.
As people placed an ever greater emphasis on those cultural elements which were seen as providing a unifying nationality, it is hardly surprising that Jewish intellectuals, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, began to feel that the Jewish people would be perpetually out of place. Significant Jewish minorities were present throughout Europe, yet nowhere did they form a majority, and they had no homeland to congregate in. As the countries in which they lived placed ever greater emphasis on national identity, they naturally felt ever more the outsiders.
In 1896 Theodor Herzl, a secular Jewish intellectual living in Vienna, published a book titled The Jewish State (Der Judenstaat) in which he argued for the creation of a Jewish homeland and made two suggestions as to where it could be done: either in Palestine, because of its historic associations with the Jewish people, or in a vacant area of Argentina. Herzl went on to organize the First Zionist Congress which met in Basil, Switzerland in 1897 and produced the resolution: "The aim of Zionism is to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by law."
With this aim set, Herzl embarked on a flurry of diplomatic activity, meeting with the Ottoman Sultan, the German Emperor and representatives of the Russian and British governments in an attempt to achieve state sponsorship for creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine, which was then a loosely controlled province of the Ottoman Empire. The looming difficulty with the Zionist project, however, was expressed by a group of rabbis from Vienna who went on an exploratory trip to Palestine and cabled back, "The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man."
Seeing as by 1900 most attractively habitable (to European culture) parts of the world were already occupied by one people or another, this was the great difficulty for a people in search of a homeland. (The British in 1903 made the Zionist Congress an offer referred to as The Uganda Programme, suggesting that they take a 5,000sq/mi region of modern-day Kenya as a Jewish homeland, but among other difficulties, that region too was populated by other people who had no desire for an influx of outsiders.)
Thus, while encouraging both piecemeal Jewish immigration into Palestine and diplomatic attempts to secure sponsorship of a Jewish homeland in Palestine from one of the great powers, the early Zionists mostly attempted to assure themselves that the sparse Arab population in the area would be glad to see them. Herzl published a speculative novel entitled The Old New Land in 1903 charting out the way in which the founding of a Jewish state might go, and in it presented a local Arab character who said of the new state, "The Jews have made us prosperous, why should we be angry with them? They live with us as brothers, why should we not love them?" In the novel, political rights of Jews and non-Jews were the same, and local Arabs gladly adopted the hybrid Jewish-European culture of the new country.
Of course, as increasing numbers of Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine and started making concrete moves towards achieving their own state, things did not work out like this -- to a great extent because the local Arab population was undergoing its own birth of national identity, vastly accellerated by the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the Great War, and aided by the thought of European Orientalists such as T. E. Lawrence. There was a Syrian-Palestinian Congress in 1921 which issued a demand for national self-determination by Arabs in the region.
Here we find the source of the intractibility in the conflicts of the Middle East: Arab nationalists want the region of Palestine to be ruled by a country that is specifically Arabic in culture and population. Jewish nationalists want a homeland for Jews in Palestine which is of a politically viable size. And arguably, the 1947 UN-proposed boarders of Israel and the Arab-Palestinian state did not provide either with a viable territory. The map as originally proposed bears a certain resemblance to two squid locked in mortal struggle.
The 1949 armistice map does, arguably, provide Israel with a viable territory, but does not really do so for the Palestinians -- at least, not as Palestinians qua Palestinians. Here we run into nationalism yet again. According to the 1949 armistace, what are now the "occupied territories" in the West Bank were made part of Jordan (itself a new country resulting from the partitioning of former Ottoman lands by the British in 1946).
Jordan was among the countries that attacked Isreal in the 1967 War, and after the war Isreal kept the West Bank, which was strategically positioned and contained both water resources and important historical sites in the history of ancient Isreal. Thus, a large population of Arab-Palestinians (some of them in turn people who had been expelled from Isreali territory back in 1948) found themselves under Israeli control for forty years -- providing plenty of time for fostering a sense of nationality and grievance.
As I said, I think modern Americans are often peculiarly ill-suited to understand these long-simmering (and at times outright flaming) conflicts fed by nationalism, because we are ourselves quite explicitly a large country made up of many diverse ethnic and cultural groups. Certainly, there is a unifying American culture, and attachment to that is one of the characteristics that it at times labeled as American nationalism. But we clearly lack any sense in our national experience that it is necessary for one to live in a country which is defined both by one's cultural and regional identity.
To me, with my American background, it seems obvious that the Palestinians should either seek to re-unify with Jordan and simply be happy as Jordanians, or else seek full integration into Israel and enjoy being Israeli-Arab citizens. And if those in that part of the world could somehow be cleansed of nationalism, those would seem to be the two options that would most lend themselves to peace. (A two state solution could potentially work as well -- but given the small size and strategic importance of the West Bank, not to mention its recent history, it seems hard to imagine a stable, prosperous and friendly government coming into being there.) But short of that there is an intractible situation with no obvious solution. The Israelis (not surprisingly given what the Jewish people has suffered in the last century) want to have a state they can call home in Palestine, and the Palestinian Arabs want to have a state which is a Palestinian Arab state in precisely the same place. There is not a way to reconcile those two desires.
. Shlaim is a one of the Israeli New Historians, which is essentially a "post-Zionist" revisionist school of Israeli history, who criticize the "old historians" of Israel of being too personally involved in the 1948 war and its aftermath, and thus writing history which is essentially apologetics for Israel.There are places where I get the feeling Shlaim is leaning too hard in the other direction (for instance he spends a good deal of time on the expulsion of Palestinians from Israel in 1948, but glosses over the expulsion of Jews from surrounding Arab countries.) However, given that you know where his leanings are, it's a fascinating read because it's closely based on documented sources, and it focuses on the very real problem of Israel's relationship with the Arab world. Among the things it made me realize, however, was how alien the modern sense of nationalism is to citizens of the US.
This may seem a strange conclusion at first, as it's become a commonplace of a certain kind of rhetoric to accuse the US of being highly nationalistic. This determination is generally made through the simple equation which many modern commentators (especially, it often seems, of a progressive variety) that "patriotic" = "nationalist". So if you think well of your country for any reason at all, you're a nationalist. However nationalism has a definition other than "being fond of your country", and knowing that definition is important because nationalism has played such an important role in the last 150 years of world history.
Nationalism might be defined as that way of thinking according to which regional, cultural, racial or religious groups have a right to political self determination and/or statehood based upon that shared sense of identity. Nationalism seemed a particularly attractive way of thinking to freedom advocates and reformers in the late 19th and early 20ths centuries, confronted as they were with a number of gradually weakening empires with extensive colonial holdings. Italy and Germany had unified in the middle of the 19th century, movements which were given force by a nationalistic sense that there was "One Italy" and "One Germany" in some powerful cultural sense. The Austro-Hungarian and Turkish empires, old rivals which each held dominion over many disparate cultures and regions most of which had at various points in the past been independant countries, were faced with numerous regional independence movements, many of them fuelled by a nationalistic sense that each regional people (Greeks, Bosnians, Serbs, Coatians, etc) should rule itself. In the more robust colonial empires of France and Britain, local populations were also increasingly demanding independence based on a sense of national identity and desire for self determination.
As people placed an ever greater emphasis on those cultural elements which were seen as providing a unifying nationality, it is hardly surprising that Jewish intellectuals, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, began to feel that the Jewish people would be perpetually out of place. Significant Jewish minorities were present throughout Europe, yet nowhere did they form a majority, and they had no homeland to congregate in. As the countries in which they lived placed ever greater emphasis on national identity, they naturally felt ever more the outsiders.
In 1896 Theodor Herzl, a secular Jewish intellectual living in Vienna, published a book titled The Jewish State (Der Judenstaat) in which he argued for the creation of a Jewish homeland and made two suggestions as to where it could be done: either in Palestine, because of its historic associations with the Jewish people, or in a vacant area of Argentina. Herzl went on to organize the First Zionist Congress which met in Basil, Switzerland in 1897 and produced the resolution: "The aim of Zionism is to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by law."
With this aim set, Herzl embarked on a flurry of diplomatic activity, meeting with the Ottoman Sultan, the German Emperor and representatives of the Russian and British governments in an attempt to achieve state sponsorship for creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine, which was then a loosely controlled province of the Ottoman Empire. The looming difficulty with the Zionist project, however, was expressed by a group of rabbis from Vienna who went on an exploratory trip to Palestine and cabled back, "The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man."
Seeing as by 1900 most attractively habitable (to European culture) parts of the world were already occupied by one people or another, this was the great difficulty for a people in search of a homeland. (The British in 1903 made the Zionist Congress an offer referred to as The Uganda Programme, suggesting that they take a 5,000sq/mi region of modern-day Kenya as a Jewish homeland, but among other difficulties, that region too was populated by other people who had no desire for an influx of outsiders.)
Thus, while encouraging both piecemeal Jewish immigration into Palestine and diplomatic attempts to secure sponsorship of a Jewish homeland in Palestine from one of the great powers, the early Zionists mostly attempted to assure themselves that the sparse Arab population in the area would be glad to see them. Herzl published a speculative novel entitled The Old New Land in 1903 charting out the way in which the founding of a Jewish state might go, and in it presented a local Arab character who said of the new state, "The Jews have made us prosperous, why should we be angry with them? They live with us as brothers, why should we not love them?" In the novel, political rights of Jews and non-Jews were the same, and local Arabs gladly adopted the hybrid Jewish-European culture of the new country.
Of course, as increasing numbers of Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine and started making concrete moves towards achieving their own state, things did not work out like this -- to a great extent because the local Arab population was undergoing its own birth of national identity, vastly accellerated by the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the Great War, and aided by the thought of European Orientalists such as T. E. Lawrence. There was a Syrian-Palestinian Congress in 1921 which issued a demand for national self-determination by Arabs in the region.
Here we find the source of the intractibility in the conflicts of the Middle East: Arab nationalists want the region of Palestine to be ruled by a country that is specifically Arabic in culture and population. Jewish nationalists want a homeland for Jews in Palestine which is of a politically viable size. And arguably, the 1947 UN-proposed boarders of Israel and the Arab-Palestinian state did not provide either with a viable territory. The map as originally proposed bears a certain resemblance to two squid locked in mortal struggle.
The 1949 armistice map does, arguably, provide Israel with a viable territory, but does not really do so for the Palestinians -- at least, not as Palestinians qua Palestinians. Here we run into nationalism yet again. According to the 1949 armistace, what are now the "occupied territories" in the West Bank were made part of Jordan (itself a new country resulting from the partitioning of former Ottoman lands by the British in 1946).
Jordan was among the countries that attacked Isreal in the 1967 War, and after the war Isreal kept the West Bank, which was strategically positioned and contained both water resources and important historical sites in the history of ancient Isreal. Thus, a large population of Arab-Palestinians (some of them in turn people who had been expelled from Isreali territory back in 1948) found themselves under Israeli control for forty years -- providing plenty of time for fostering a sense of nationality and grievance.
As I said, I think modern Americans are often peculiarly ill-suited to understand these long-simmering (and at times outright flaming) conflicts fed by nationalism, because we are ourselves quite explicitly a large country made up of many diverse ethnic and cultural groups. Certainly, there is a unifying American culture, and attachment to that is one of the characteristics that it at times labeled as American nationalism. But we clearly lack any sense in our national experience that it is necessary for one to live in a country which is defined both by one's cultural and regional identity.
To me, with my American background, it seems obvious that the Palestinians should either seek to re-unify with Jordan and simply be happy as Jordanians, or else seek full integration into Israel and enjoy being Israeli-Arab citizens. And if those in that part of the world could somehow be cleansed of nationalism, those would seem to be the two options that would most lend themselves to peace. (A two state solution could potentially work as well -- but given the small size and strategic importance of the West Bank, not to mention its recent history, it seems hard to imagine a stable, prosperous and friendly government coming into being there.) But short of that there is an intractible situation with no obvious solution. The Israelis (not surprisingly given what the Jewish people has suffered in the last century) want to have a state they can call home in Palestine, and the Palestinian Arabs want to have a state which is a Palestinian Arab state in precisely the same place. There is not a way to reconcile those two desires.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Freedom as a Political Good
Historically the Catholic Church has had, or has been perceived to have, a rocky relationship with "freedom" in the sense that the term has come to be used in a political and cultural sense since the Enlightenment.
Freedom in the modern sense is often taken to mean, "I'm free to do whatever I want without anyone telling me what to do." The Church, on the other hand, generally takes freedom to mean, "Freedom to do that which is good." The Church sees sin as enslaving and as reducing one's capacity to choose freely in the future, and as such even where acting contrary to the good is in no way forbidden, doing wrong is not seen by the Church as exercising "freedom".
So the in the moral sense, the Church does not hold "freedom" in the sense of simply doing whatever you want to be a good. Rather, the Church holds doing the good to be the good, and freedom to be the means of achieving that.
I speak above in the moral sense. However, let us look now at the political question of freedom. There are several senses of "freedom" that one can speak about politically. Sometimes we talk about a country being "free" in that it is not a dictatorship or more specifically in that it has a free press and a moderately democratic form of government. However the sense that I'd like to examine is "freedom" in the sense of "not legislating morality" or more generally erring on the side of not restricting personal action even in cases where one is sure that the action in question is wrong.
The argument for using the state to restrict people from doing things that are wrong is pretty straight forward: Generally when we refer to something as being "wrong" we are talking about something which causes injury to others, or at least to the actor himself. For example, it is wrong to steal, and it is illegal to steal because stealing causes injury both to the person who is stolen from and also (though this is of more interest to the moralist than the lawmaker) because stealing causes damage to the person who steals as well.
Generally, when people argue against making something destructive illegal, they do so on one of two bases:
1) Outlawing the activity would cause social destruction greater than the activity itself.
2) Outlawing the activity would set a dangerous precedent because of disagreements in society as to the definition of what is destructive.
A good example of the first of these is the debate over whether the ban on drugs causes more damage than simply having drugs legally available would. This is an interesting prudential debate, but what I'm interested in looking into more deeply is the second reason.
One of the classic examples that occurs to me in this regard is the sort of case that comes up every so often in which parents with religious beliefs against some particular medical procedure are in conflict with doctors who want to save the life of their child by means of the forbidden procedure. Now, from my position as someone confident that the parent's beliefs about blood transfusion or chemo therapy or heart surgery or what have you, my initial thought would be that the parents should be prevent from inflicting the damages resulting from incorrect beliefs upon their child.
However, given that our society has an ever decreasing degree of consensus as to which beliefs are erroneous and which are correct, this strikes me as a dangerous precedent to set. If today I support the strong arm of the government being used to overrule the beliefs of another set of parents because I am certain their beliefs are erroneous, it's not inconceivable that at some point in the future the majority of the population will decide that my beliefs are erroneous and take away my ability to make decisions about my children.
The Church learned this the hard way in regards to religious freedom. For much the Church's history in Europe, it had strongly supported governments providing their backing to enforce tithing, stamp out heresy, etc. This seems a right and obvious thing to do when the societal consensus was that the Church represented theological truth -- and thus only erring sects suffered pressure from the state. However, when the Reformation and Enlightenment brought other religious groups and anti-religious groups into power, the Church found the tradition of using the state to stamp out error turned against it.
Given that modern society has seen the increased breakdown of social consensus on a wide variety of moral and religious topics (or a vast increase in diversity, depending on how you want to spin it) and at the same time an ever increasing ability of the central state to regulate everyday life, it seems necessary to ask: Should we consider political freedom (defined as the refusal to use the power of the state to regulate behavior) to be a positive good, or should we simply consider it a temporary compromise to be used in those areas where we are concerned that the societal tide is shifting away from us?
To take the latter position is to open ourselves up for accusations of hypocrisy, though the difference between pragmatism and hypocrisy is sometimes narrow. To take the former is admit to ourselves more bluntly than we are often willing to do that we as a state and a society are unable to "stamp out evil" in our midst -- because we are unable to agree on what evil is.
For now, I think my own conclusion is perhaps closer to the latter, though with deference to the former: If the state is at all to be seen as a protector of the common good, it must at times restrict the freedom of people to do what they want, based on a social consensus that what they want is bad for them and for others. However, we must be hesitant to use that power too much, and principledly so, because it is a weapon that can at any time be turned back upon us on our dearest beliefs. And so we must always be seeking the correct balance between combating the most socially destructive wrongs, while being hesitant enough to restrict others' freedom that we can avoid being oppressed overmuch when we find ourselves in the minority.
Freedom in the modern sense is often taken to mean, "I'm free to do whatever I want without anyone telling me what to do." The Church, on the other hand, generally takes freedom to mean, "Freedom to do that which is good." The Church sees sin as enslaving and as reducing one's capacity to choose freely in the future, and as such even where acting contrary to the good is in no way forbidden, doing wrong is not seen by the Church as exercising "freedom".
So the in the moral sense, the Church does not hold "freedom" in the sense of simply doing whatever you want to be a good. Rather, the Church holds doing the good to be the good, and freedom to be the means of achieving that.
I speak above in the moral sense. However, let us look now at the political question of freedom. There are several senses of "freedom" that one can speak about politically. Sometimes we talk about a country being "free" in that it is not a dictatorship or more specifically in that it has a free press and a moderately democratic form of government. However the sense that I'd like to examine is "freedom" in the sense of "not legislating morality" or more generally erring on the side of not restricting personal action even in cases where one is sure that the action in question is wrong.
The argument for using the state to restrict people from doing things that are wrong is pretty straight forward: Generally when we refer to something as being "wrong" we are talking about something which causes injury to others, or at least to the actor himself. For example, it is wrong to steal, and it is illegal to steal because stealing causes injury both to the person who is stolen from and also (though this is of more interest to the moralist than the lawmaker) because stealing causes damage to the person who steals as well.
Generally, when people argue against making something destructive illegal, they do so on one of two bases:
1) Outlawing the activity would cause social destruction greater than the activity itself.
2) Outlawing the activity would set a dangerous precedent because of disagreements in society as to the definition of what is destructive.
A good example of the first of these is the debate over whether the ban on drugs causes more damage than simply having drugs legally available would. This is an interesting prudential debate, but what I'm interested in looking into more deeply is the second reason.
One of the classic examples that occurs to me in this regard is the sort of case that comes up every so often in which parents with religious beliefs against some particular medical procedure are in conflict with doctors who want to save the life of their child by means of the forbidden procedure. Now, from my position as someone confident that the parent's beliefs about blood transfusion or chemo therapy or heart surgery or what have you, my initial thought would be that the parents should be prevent from inflicting the damages resulting from incorrect beliefs upon their child.
However, given that our society has an ever decreasing degree of consensus as to which beliefs are erroneous and which are correct, this strikes me as a dangerous precedent to set. If today I support the strong arm of the government being used to overrule the beliefs of another set of parents because I am certain their beliefs are erroneous, it's not inconceivable that at some point in the future the majority of the population will decide that my beliefs are erroneous and take away my ability to make decisions about my children.
The Church learned this the hard way in regards to religious freedom. For much the Church's history in Europe, it had strongly supported governments providing their backing to enforce tithing, stamp out heresy, etc. This seems a right and obvious thing to do when the societal consensus was that the Church represented theological truth -- and thus only erring sects suffered pressure from the state. However, when the Reformation and Enlightenment brought other religious groups and anti-religious groups into power, the Church found the tradition of using the state to stamp out error turned against it.
Given that modern society has seen the increased breakdown of social consensus on a wide variety of moral and religious topics (or a vast increase in diversity, depending on how you want to spin it) and at the same time an ever increasing ability of the central state to regulate everyday life, it seems necessary to ask: Should we consider political freedom (defined as the refusal to use the power of the state to regulate behavior) to be a positive good, or should we simply consider it a temporary compromise to be used in those areas where we are concerned that the societal tide is shifting away from us?
To take the latter position is to open ourselves up for accusations of hypocrisy, though the difference between pragmatism and hypocrisy is sometimes narrow. To take the former is admit to ourselves more bluntly than we are often willing to do that we as a state and a society are unable to "stamp out evil" in our midst -- because we are unable to agree on what evil is.
For now, I think my own conclusion is perhaps closer to the latter, though with deference to the former: If the state is at all to be seen as a protector of the common good, it must at times restrict the freedom of people to do what they want, based on a social consensus that what they want is bad for them and for others. However, we must be hesitant to use that power too much, and principledly so, because it is a weapon that can at any time be turned back upon us on our dearest beliefs. And so we must always be seeking the correct balance between combating the most socially destructive wrongs, while being hesitant enough to restrict others' freedom that we can avoid being oppressed overmuch when we find ourselves in the minority.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
The Obamarama begins
John J. Reilly of The Long View has some thoughts on an Obama presidency:
As readers of this space will know, I have been a keen supporter of President Elect Obama for as long as he has been on the national stage. I look forward with unmitigated eagerness to his brilliant Administration. Indeed, in order that there may be no misunderstanding on this score, I celebrated Election Night by shredding any documents in my possession that might in any way be misconstrued to cast doubt on my enthusiasm for the next and best presidency. I plan to implement a similar editorial upgrade to my online material as soon as I figure out how to disable some intrusive Web-based archiving functions. Until then, readers are advised to attribute any confusing statements on this site to subversive hackers. I would, of course, be pleased to reveal to the newly progressive authorities the names, addresses, and personal details of actual malcontents.
In any case, splendid though the Obamarama will be, it will in many ways surprise both its proponents and that minority of persons who still await full conversion. Here are just a few points...
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Reflections on a Defeat
So we lost. I don't like it a bit, but it's not exactly a surprise, and there it is. What is one to make of it all?
The Historic Moment
A great many people have commented on the historic nature of a black man being elected president of the United States -- when in some states he would not have been served at many lunch counters fifty years ago.
I'm glad that those who are deeply inspired by that are having their moment -- people should realize that skin color is not a barrier to achievement in the US and if that helps people (black, brown and white) realize that, all to the good. I must admit, as a 29-year-old who grew up in the working class suburbs of Los Angeles, I've figured for basically all my life that it's simply a matter of time till we had our first black president, our first hispanic president, out first female president, etc.
And I can't help feeling a certain cynicism about this because I can't imagine that if a Clarence Thomas type figure had been running for the GOP and won, there would be all this rejoicing at "barriers coming down". Sure, I'd consider it an extra bonus if a candidate whom I supported and who belonged to a once-oppressed minority won the presidency, but I'd care a lot more about him (or her) being someone I thought would be a good president than about the color of his skin. Call me colorblind, but there it is.
Divided We Remain
I'm already very tired of hearing people tell me what a wonderful day it is for America and how we can now all come together and heal the divisions of the last eight years. I hate to disappoint those who imagine that we're standing on the brink of some sort of brave new world in which all is peachy and keen, but the fact is that elections are pretty much a zero sum game. The fact that you won means that slightly less than half the country lost. Those of us who did are in no more mood to come together and rejoice over the result than you were in 2000 or 2004. So stop telling us you're looking forward to rejoicing in dawning of Obamerica with us -- it makes us cranky.
That said, for those of us who do find ourselves sorely disappointed with the country's leadership for the next four years (and especially the next two) perspective and even a little bit of graciousness is in order. We lost. We know how incredibly annoying, offensive stupid people looked who couldn't stop shouting that Bush-chimp was Hitler for the last eight years. We must not be those people.
And if we can avoid the excesses of shrillness and conspiracy theorizing that some conservatives fell into during the Clinton years, we stand a much better chance of keeping our time in the wilderness short.
Obama-voting Pro-Lifers
Some professed pro-lifers seem to think this is exactly the moment when Obama could be persuaded to reach out to them for some kind of middle ground:
“Now is the time to dialogue with Obama on the issue of life. Now that he is victor, the next stage is to work with him. This also means to be critical, to be sure, but also to engage what he has said. I think a petition or letter which quotes ALL that he has said positive about working with pro-lifers for removing the causes of abortion, and even of his support for restrictions on late-term abortion, needs to be made, before he is in office, and somehow got to him. It needs to suggest that 1) FOCA and his quotes do not go hand and hand, and 2) better postpone FOCA and let the dialogue happen and see what comes from it, especially since it would contradict his notion that abortion can be restricted. The time is now. “Yeah, well, good luck with that.
I strongly suspect that Obama has now heard all that he wants to hear out of his pro-life supporters until around August, 2012. If Obama takes any positive act specifically towards reducing abortion (other than coincidental factors like the economy starting to improve in late 2009 -- which is roughly when I would expect a recovery regardless of who won) I will happily eat a hat of your choosing.
Where Obama Finds Himself
He won, and won convincingly. Given that the stock market is down 40% for the year, unemployment is rising, the incumbent's approval ratings sit under 30%, and the Republican brand is rocked by scandal and corruption over the last few years -- it would have been pretty pathetic if he'd lost. And indeed, that the fact the election was even competitive underscores that the Obama candidacy was very nearly an over-reach for the Democrats. They bet their best chance since Watergate that they could get in their ideal candidate rather than a compromise centrist, and their bet paid off.
Obama now finds himself a president elect with a strong majority in both houses of Congress and a very, very enthusiastic base. However, he's run as a sort of hybrid candidate, promising a few goodies for the political and cultural left (card check, Freedom of Choice Act), promising a big give away to the broad center (you can keep your current health care and I'll make it cheaper -- or if you can't get any I'll give you something great from the government), and even making traditionally conservative promises which are popular with the wider population (a broad tax cut for most Americans, reducing spending, balancing the budget). His problem now is that his promises are mutually contradictory, especially given that the current recession will probably not level off in terms of safety net expenses for another year, and tax revenues will plummet as the rich (who provide most of the tax dollars) take a hit.
There's no question that Obama is a very smart guy, and I'm sure that he doesn't want to repeat Bill Clinton's mistakes by overreaching in his first two years. He'd probably like to stick with fairly popular ideas for the first couple years. However, his most popular ideas are all very expensive. That leaves him the option of either doing fairly little during his first few years in office (and goodness knows, he's proved himself adept at looking good while doing very little indeed) or else appeasing his base by signing a bunch of highly partisan liberal priorities. If he does the latter, I suspect that the mid-term elections will go hard for him.
Perhaps he could just tour Europe for a few years? They're supposed to love us now.
Is This The End of Center-Right America?
One thing is for sure, come January we shall have a government somewhere between center-left and just plain left. And yet in the same final Pew poll that showed Obama sailing to victory, far more Americans described themselves as "conservative" than as "liberal". Add to that the fact that Obama ran, on paper, a hybrid left/right campaign in which he consistently hammered the Republican nominee for not cutting enough people's taxes or having the right approach to balancing the budget, and it seems hard to argue that the outcome of the election represented a significant shift to the left.
And yet, while Obama did not run as a leftist, his actual record certainly suggests that he actually is one. And there's no question but what the Democratic congress at his back will be eager for left wing legislation -- though we've been spared the embarrassment of having Al Franken in the Senate making things even more absurd there than they normally are.
So clearly the US is in for a period of center-left rule, though I think the country is arguably still clearly center-right now. The question is, will the country come to like center-left rule over the coming years, and thus become a center-left country, or will it remain essentially center-right in orientation?
I think it's rather early to start imagining that the US will become a Sweden or even a France any time soon, though. Recall that in the thirty years since 1980 the right has managed to define the viable political spectrum on a number of issues: taxes, welfare to work, gun control, capital punishment, etc. Other areas are hardened into seemingly permanent strife: abortion, gay issues. Few issues have settled into a leftist status quo.
Whither Conservatism?
Well, that's the question, isn't it, and one probably addressed in future whole posts than in the last section of this long one. However, one thing seems clear to me: While the country is still clearly open to conservative ideas, the old standards which have been milked for the last eight years are running out of steam.
Taxes have already been cut to the point where they can't go down much more until America kicks its addiction to government programs -- something which is still very much in the future at this point.
There is still a constituency (even in "blue" states) for social conservatism, but a significant number of those who hold traditional views on social issues are Hispanic or African American. The GOP would be especially wise to find a way to appeal to socially conservative Hispanics. The best way of doing this would probably be getting behind an agenda of massively simplifying the immigration process, increasing immigration quotas (especially for Central and South America), and at then enforcing the law rigorously.
Conservatives need to find a way to seem like they care (and the amounts of time and money conservatives put into social issues show that they do care) without advocating big government solutions to local problems. Bush simply went the big government route, with programs like No Child Left Behind and the Prescription Drug Benefit. What we need is instead an approach to a range of "safety net" issues which, like charter school and vouchers have done for education, can be a national issue yet a force towards localization.
As Reagan said after losing the primary in '76: It's time to get to work.
[Cross Posted]
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