Left vs Right

From time to time I wrestle with the question of the philosophical underpinnings of left wing and right wing politics. I understand the principles of the right, but the principles of the left have proven elusive. Happily, I’ve made great progress by reading this essay. Here’s the key bit:

Limited government, in the sense of constitutional government, is opposed to the political assumptions of the modern state, which arose after the New Deal. Those assumptions came largely from the political science of the Progressive era, whose proponents argued that the Founders’ limited government was an 18th century nostrum that was powerless to solve 20th century problems. From this point of view, natural rights were an immature form of genuine right, enshrining egoism and individualism that might have been necessary for frontier farmers but made no sense in an interdependent, industrial society. The Progressives believed that freedom did not come from nature or God, but instead is a product of the state and is realized only in the modern state. Far from being the people’s servant and, therefore, a possible threat to freedom—because servants can be unfaithful—the state is the full ethical expression of a people. The state is the people and the people are the state. This strange use of the term represents the Progressive attempt to translate the German concept of der Staat into American politics. America did not have a state theory of this sort until the Progressive era. Conservative and most libertarian anti-statism arose in opposition to this innovation; but too often, in recent years, hostility to der Staat has been confused with opposition to government per se.

To put the difference more plainly, consider Woodrow Wilson’s insistence that “living political constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice.” In short, it is not the limited Constitution of the Founders, but the living Constitution, which is the ideal of Progressives and of modern liberal theory and practice. A fixed or limited Constitution would make sense if human rights are fixed and unchanging, as the Declaration affirms. But if human rights are essentially historical or evolutionary, then we should want a Constitution that is free to adapt and evolve along with them. In theory, then, no a priori limitations on government power—whether property rights, speech rights, or even religious freedom—can be allowed to impinge on government’s ability to bring about historical liberation. The old or natural rights have to be sacrificed in order to achieve the new rights of self-fulfillment. Thus for the Progressives—as for Barack Obama and many liberals today—political tyranny is no longer the ever-present threat that it was considered to be by James Madison or Alexander Hamilton. In liberal eyes, the real political threat is not tyrannical government or even the tyranny of the majority, but the well-connected capitalists, the “economic royalists” hiding behind the façade of democracy, who manipulate things to their advantage. Liberals ever since the New Deal have argued that limited government must become unlimited, in order to prevent the few from becoming tyrannical.

A new theory of the Constitution corresponded to this new theory of rights. FDR put it memorably in his 1932 Commonwealth Club Address: Government is a contract under which “rulers were accorded power, and the people consented to that power on consideration that they be accorded certain rights.” According to this view, we give the rulers power and the rulers give us rights. In other words, rights are no longer natural or God-given, but emerge from a bargain struck with the government. And it is up to liberal statesmen or leaders to keep the bargain current, redefining rights constantly—adding new rights and subtracting some of the old ones—in order to keep the living Constitution in tune with the times. Entitlement rights—rights created and funded by government—replace natural rights. Given this new relationship of people and government, we don’t need to keep a jealous eye on government anymore, because the more power we give it, the more rights and benefits it gives us back—Social Security, Medicare, prescription drug benefits, unemployment insurance, and on and on.

I am in Mr. Kessler’s debt.

Higher Ed, Lower Benefits

This interesting editorial points out what’s seriously wrong with our nation’s approach to higher education. Of course, one of our local politicos has proclaimed that “every child deserves a college education”. That’s part of the problem - the public has been seduced into believing that a bachelor’s degree is the ticket to a good life. It can help, but it can also be a terrible and costly error. Not everyone benefits from a college education. For that matter, I’m not so sure that secondary education benefits everyone. Where did these ideas come from?

It Costs HOW Much?

Wow! I thought the carbon emission goals being discussed were quite ambitious, but I had no idea just how outlandish they are. I’m sure the average person has no clue. And I’m also sure that no politician who values his hide would promote such draconian reductions in well-being if they thought their constituents understood. Stopping global warming looks like a non-starter. We need to think more (and do more) about this.

Clorox Hunger

It’s good to see indignation about our policies on biofuels causing starvation and death. This kind of reaction is showing up on the left and on the right. To me, there’s no question about this - if we have to choose between global warming or starving people, then bring on the warming!

The people who created our biofuel policies didn’t intend to cause mass starvation (I hope). But they certainly didn’t analyze and foresee the consequences of their actions. Maybe they couldn’t. But one thing is clear: broad policy measures can have unintended consequences, and tragic ones at that. Good policy change requires humility. It’s difficult, or perhaps impossible, to predict consequences. Policy change should be approached gradually, allowing time to assess the consequences and sometimes change direction.

Of course, such a common sense approach probably couldn’t get a person elected.

Mythical Fears and Hopes

Hmmm.

Political history is largely an account of mass violence and of the expenditure of vast resources to cope with mythical fears and hopes. - Murray Edelman

I wasn’t familiar with Murray Edelman until I read this thought provoking post. His thesis seems tightly coupled with my thoughts of the oligarchical nature of society. I hope to synthesize some of these ideas before too long. In the meantime, you can read one of Edelman’s books here.

Bad Numbers, Bad Policy

Arnold Kling analyzes income disparity numbers and has “a few nits to pick”. The errors cooked into the numbers seem like more than a few nits to me! Here are the two facts from Mr. Kling that should make you stop and think:

1. New families (immigrants and young families) tend to join the income escalator at the bottom.
2. If a household breaks into two households, due to divorce, average household income plunges by 50 percent, even though nobody’s income has changed. Trends in household income tend to look worse than trends in income per person.

Being an election year, politicians want to make you feel like you’ve been wronged and that they can fix it. Otherwise, I don’t understand the near hysterical ranting about “income inequality” and the collapse of the middle class in the absence of meaningful numbers.

Democratic Economics

I’m afraid that this article on the consequences of an Obama presidency is correct. It would result in a far more regulated, far less prosperous nation offering far less opportunity. And it’s not just Senator Obama - this is pretty much the economic direction of the Democratic Party in general.

But why?

It’s taken me some time to dig into this. Political parties are not known for publishing intellectual arguments. The Republicans benefit from their years in the wilderness when many “conservative” think tanks were created. It’s fairly easy to find the intellectual thrust behind Republican economic policies. The intellectual underpinnings of “Democratic economics” are harder to find - but they exist.

My digging took me to various economists and political scientists from the nineteenth century. I won’t bore you with the details, but here’s my conclusion.

When a company is profitable, the some of the profits go to the owners of the company and some are re-invested back into the company itself. This re-investment is what allows companies to grow.

Workers in the company would like to be paid more. But, if they are paid more, the company is less profitable. This is to the detriment of the owners and the company’s own growth. Nevertheless, one can argue that workers are better off if they are paid more and the company’s growth is slowed.

Of course, this strategy has huge risks. A competitor, with lower wages, can cause the high wage company to shrink or even fail altogether, costing workers their jobs. A high-wage, low-profit strategy depends upon all competitors having the same environment, the so-called “level playing field”. This is why Democrats emphasize unionization and trade restrictions. With strong enough unions and trade restrictions, workers can be paid a lot more.

Of course, there is a down side. That is, without profits, innovation slows. New products and product improvements take longer. New products and technologies can have great social benefits and those benefits are delayed when workers are paid more.

This is an example of a cross-cutting cleavage. The future beneficiaries of investment of profits are the same workers who want higher wages now. Yet the higher wages are now, the fewer the future benefits.

Astute readers may note that this is an example of Mises’ time preference problem.

The real societal choice is between more consumption now at the expense of future benefits or less consumption now with greater future benefits. Many people will favor a “bird in the hand” approach because there is no guarantee of future benefits. These are Democrats.

There is no right or wrong in this - only time preference.

Fixing Schools

There has recently been a very interesting exchange of essays regarding education reform. There are many facets to the problem, but most people agree that we indeed have a problem. Independent of the essay exchange, I think George Will gets it right. Schools cannot compensate for the disintegration of the traditional American family.

The bottom line is that each of us is responsible for our own education and the education of our children. It’s helpful that public schools are there to assist, but assistance is what they’re about. Early childhood education is very demanding and may require great sacrifice by parents, but there is no other way. I think we have less of an education crisis and more of a lack of personal accountability crisis. No government program is going to fix that. In fact, it’s largely government programs that have encouraged the lack of personal accountability.

Schools won’t get better until we stop relying on schools.

Do Institutions Persist?

I have always thought that institutions are endowed with a strong bias toward self-preservation. I may have been wrong, or at least off key. The WSJ editorial about the Olin Foundation made me pause, as did my recent exposure to the Iron Law of Oligarchy. And, in the business world, it’s not uncommon to see one company be purchased by another, thereby disappearing into history. So what’s the right way to think about it? I posit this: institutions will persist as long as they best serve the interests of those in charge and those in charge are able to convince other participants that their interests are also being served.

Assortative Behavior

I was not familiar with the term “assortative behavior” until I read blog entries about assortative mating and assortative living. I don’t want to give this too much weight, but it does make sense to me that people prefer to be around others with something in common. Some of this is economic necessity: the house you own depends (until recently) upon your income, so people tend to live in neighborhoods where their neighbors have similar incomes. People also tend to socialize with others in the same profession or having some of the same interests. Some stratification and segregation of society seems inevitable as long as people are allowed freedoms of choice.