From the monthly archives:

December 2008

Jacob Levy has a very interesting bloggingheads exchange with Will Wilkinson. At least it’s interesting if you want to understand what the hell just happened up in Canada, politically. That whole ‘didn’t the queen shut down parliament, or something?’ thing. If that interests you.

Next: there has been some indignation in response to Gerecht’s piece in the NY Times, defending torture and extraordinary rendition. Yglesias starts like so: “Because Reuel Marc Gerecht adheres to an appalling and cruel ethical system and the people who decide what runs on major newspaper op-ed pages have no ethics whatsoever …” [click to continue…]

They Bellow ‘Til We’re Deaf

by Henry Farrell on December 16, 2008

This “piece”:http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=1308 by Benjamin Kunkel (whom I usually have time for), is really, _really_ annoying.

The literary novel illuminates moral problems (including sometimes those that are also political problems) at the expense of sentimental consolation, while genre fiction typically offers consolation at the expense of illumination. … The main formal consequence, then, of a withered moral imagination has to do not with subject matter (love, crime, the future) but with character. Fictional character derives from moral choices made, contemplated, postponed, or ignored—morality is the page on which the stamp of character appears—and the signal formal trait of genre fiction is nothing so much as its lack of complex characters. This deficit entangles even an acknowledged generic triumph like Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968, and the basis of the 1982 movie Blade Runner) in a certain incoherence. The ironic burden of Dick’s novel is to stick up for the warm-blooded humanity of androids (read: clones), and in this way imply the cold-bloodedness of any society that denies fully human status to some category of person. The rub, of course, is that such sci-fi humanism is quickly overcome with another irony, this one unintentional, since it is the hallmark of genre fiction to treat characters instrumentally, putting them through the paces of the plot according to their function as the embodiment of some general psychological or social category and failing or refusing to endow them with the individuality to be found among the livelier inhabitants of the traditional realist novel and, for that matter, the real world. [click to continue…]

Freeman replies

by Chris Bertram on December 16, 2008

Samuel Freeman “has replied in comments to my post about his response to cosmopolitan critics of Rawls”:https://crookedtimber.org/2008/12/10/language-requires-what/#comment-260984 . It is a genuinely helpful and clarifying response, for which I’m grateful. I could quibble about the semantics of “invariably”, but I won’t. Rather, I’d highlight just two points in Freeman’s remarks. The first concerns the non-identity of “state” with “people” and “society”. Of course, I agree with Freeman that they on sensible construals of either term they would be non-identical, but I’d argue that Rawlsian fastidiousness in this respect merely highlights something rather evasive about their view. For what is it that picks out a Rawlsian “people” as distinct from other “peoples”, as a distinctive cooperative unit? Usually, it is their legal and institutional unity. In fact, this is normally the only thing, since state boundaries are rarely congruent with ethnic, religious or linguistic boundaries. Rawlsians may want, given the morally dubious history of nationalisms, to promote this as a feature rather than a bug. But it is questionable, then, whether Rawlsian peoples are really distinct from the states that organize them as such. (And, somewhat counterintuitively, lots of peoples fail to be “peoples” – the Kurds, for example.) (I hereby promise a proper post about Rawlsian “peoples” soon: Rawlsians want to be neither “statist” nor “nationalist”, but I’m sceptical about the existence of the middle ground.)

The second concerns Freeman’s concession (though “concession” is unfair of me) that what is key to the notion of social-cooperation is not coercive enforcement, but rather the inescapability, for individuals, of compliance with social rules. This seems to me to open up two difficulties for Freeman. The first, which I won’t develop here, is the blurring of the distinction between a society’s “basic structure” and its “ethos”, a distinction that Freeman needs be sharper for another dispute (that with G.A. Cohen). The second is brought out by the following statement:

bq. compliance with the rules of basic social institutions, even if generally voluntary, is unavoidable for the members of a society, since these rules are inescapable and structure their daily lives in innumerable ways (unlike members of other societies, whose lives are structured by their own system of basic institutions).

Perhaps something special is meant here by “structured”, since if it means that people’s lives are shaped in systematic ways that open some opportunites and deny others, then it can hardly be denied that, for example, Malian cotton producers are subject to a good deal of structuring by the US government. And, of course, one can make a similar point with respect to the lives of would-be economic migrants from poor countries to rich ones. Systematic structuring, then, doesn’t do the job of dividing insiders from outsiders in the way Freeman needs it to.

Ghostwritten

by John Q on December 16, 2008

This New York Times article on the (apparently widespread) practice of drug companies drafting and ghostwriting scientific articles favorable to their products, and then arranging for academics to publish the articles under their own names, focuses, reasonably enough, on the potential for such practices to mislead doctors and other readers.

As an academic, though, I was particularly struck by the stress that the drug company Wyeth laid on the fact that the nominal authors of these articles were not being paid and endorsed the contents. In reality, having someone write articles for you amounts to not doing the job for which, as an academic, you are paid and, if the articles are sufficiently numerous and well-placed, promoted. It would be far more ethical (or less unethical) to pay academics for product endorsements, published as commercial advertisements.

Of course, in a world where a $50 billion (or maybe $17 billion, who can tell?) fraud barely makes the front page, and a $100 million rip-off is buried somewhere behind the shipping news, it seems a bit precious to worry about (allegations of) goldbricking academics passing off corporate propaganda as their own work. But at least I can understand how this scam works, as opposed to how a massive Ponzi scheme can be operated for decades under the noses of what are supposed to be the world’s most sophisticated fnancial markets and regulators.

Ricardian Effects

by Henry Farrell on December 16, 2008

The _Financial Times_ published an article based on an interview with Jean-Claude Trichet today (the article itself seems to be borked, along with the rest of the FT’s website, but the interview itself, which is more informative in any event, is available “here”:http://www.ecb.int/press/key/date/2008/html/sp081215.en.html ). In the interview, Trichet suggests that large scale deficit spending is a bad idea because of ‘Ricardian effects.’

Consider the Ricardian effects, the level of confidence or the lack of confidence that you observe in the various constituencies of economic agents, particularly at the level of households: they suggest that there are certain situations where if you do not behave properly you might lose more in terms of confidence than what you are supposed to gain through the additional spending.

and

Every nation has its own Ricardian effects and its own assessment of the situation. I do not want to comment on any particular country, because my duty is to look at the continent of 320 million fellow citizens as a whole. But I fully accept that there are differences in the capacity of households in various cultures to accept a deterioration of their situation, and again, the Ricardian channel tells us that one might lose more by loss of confidence than one might gain by additional spending.

Is this plausible? The broad political economy literature on consumer behaviour that I’m aware of would suggest that this argument rests on some fairly heroic assumptions about individual information (and in particular their awareness of the possible long term consequences of government spending – and this leaves aside the claim that for some reason they will systematically _overestimate_ the consequences tomorrow of deficit spending today). As best as I’ve been able to tell from a quick glance at the WWW, the claim that Trichet is making is a controversial one, which lacks solid empirical support. But then, my understanding of macro theory is based on fast-disappearing memories of my BA coursework. So is there any solid empirical basis for the claim that strong Ricardian effects exist and are a real issue for policy makers? Or is this just a theoretical figleaf to cover over the less abstract political-economic reasons (to do with institutional prerogatives, inter-state relations, worries about defection etc) why the European Central Bank really wants to keep controls on national spending? This is not a rhetorical question – I honestly don’t know the answer, and would appreciate information from those who know this literature better than I do.

Kast Skoen

by Scott McLemee on December 16, 2008

A Norwegian website allows you to throw a shoe at George Bush.

My best aim seems to be with “Vinkel” set at 15 and “Styrke” at 50, which clobbers him with a dramatic “Midt I Fleisen!” Otherwise Bush just sort of ducks or doubles over, or else the shoe drops to the ground.

Outliers

by Harry on December 15, 2008

I rarely read bestsellers. I’d like to think that it is because I’m a snob, but the truth is that it is mainly because I lack the sense of urgency needed to trigger the purchase/acquisition. They’re bestsellers for goodness sake, which means there are tens of thousands of them around and they’ll be widely reviewed, so if, in a few years time, they still seem good and relevant I can get hold of them then and see what I think. I read two this year. I’ll write about Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), which I loved, later; for now I’ll recommend Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success (UK) (one of my dad’s Christmas presents this year; I’m also getting him Austerity Britain, 1945-1951 and The Complete Ivor The Engine, lucky man — you can tell how confident I am that he never reads anything I write; I’m pretty sure he hasn’t even read my draft of the pamphlet we’re writing together).

[click to continue…]

Mainly its servants

by Henry Farrell on December 15, 2008

“Robert J. Samuelson”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/14/AR2008121401811_pf.html turns the stupid up to 11.

A second myth is that lobbying favors the wealthy, including corporations, because only they can afford the cost. As a result, government favors the rich and ignores the poor and middle class. Actually, the facts contradict that. Sure, the wealthy extract privileges from government, but mainly they’re its servants. The richest 1 percent of Americans pay 28 percent of federal taxes, says the Congressional Budget Office. About 60 percent of the $3 trillion federal budget goes for payments to individuals — mostly the poor and middle class. You can argue that those burdens and benefits should be greater, but if the rich were all powerful, their taxes would be much lower. Similarly, the poor and middle class do have powerful advocates. To name three: AARP for retirees; the AFL-CIO for unionized workers; the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities for the poor.

Should people pretend to take this sort of horseshit seriously? One, could, for example, point out to serious academic research that completely contradicts Samuelson’s claims, such as Larry Bartels’ finding that “[US] senators are consistently responsive to the views of affluent constituents but entirely unresponsive to those with low incomes.” (p.275, Bartels 2008; Bartels also finds that Republicans are roughly twice as responsive to the views of high income constituents as Democrats)? Or should people just point at the silly man, and laugh (Samuelson’s claims are so pig-ignorantly ridiculous that they’re _not even competent hackery_ )? I’m genuinely of two minds.

Update: Bartels speaks further to this at “Ezra Klein’s blog”:http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=12&year=2008&base_name=the_weak_and_the_rich.

I know of two systematic attempts to measure the relative influence of affluent, middle-class, and poor people on government policy. One is in the next-to-last chapter of Unequal Democracy, where senators’ roll call votes are moderately strongly affected by the preferences of high-income constituents, less strongly affected by the preferences of middle-income constituents, and totally unaffected by the preferences of low-income constituents. That’s the more optimistic view. My Princeton colleague Marty Gilens (in a 2005 article in Public Opinion Quarterly and a book-in-progress) has a parallel analysis focusing on aggregate poilcy shifts over two decades. He also finds no discernible impact of low-income preferences, but argues that middle-class people also get ignored when they happen to disagree with rich people.

As Ezra says:

Bartels explains his research in further detail “here”:http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/05/16/a_political_system_utterly_unr/. Marty Gilens’ work is “here”:http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/research.html. I’d be interested to hear Samuelson respond to their findings, or describe which aspects of their analysis he finds insufficiently rigorous.

Deck the halls with siphonophorae

by John Holbo on December 14, 2008

averyhaeckelchristmassmall

It’s a Flickr set. Plus I set up a CafePress thingy.

I started some of this last year: “And so in the end it was the littlest shoggoth of all who guided Santa’s sleigh that night.” Made some printables and gift tags They’re still there, if you want ’em. But if you want to do anything with the images, downloading the images from Flickr is probably simplest. I put them up under a CC license.

This took way too long.

Stockings Hung From the Top Shelf With Care

by John Holbo on December 13, 2008

I link to Top Shelf Comics whenever they have one of their $3 sales. Because their stuff is great. Because you should support your independent small publishers. (Well, that is what I have always assumed, and I see no reason to change my mind.)

They have another sale, until tomorrow – December 14 – offering you free shipping on new release orders over $40, plus on orders from that $3 bin that is still pretty full.

You know. Think about how this goes.

Stockings always get stuffed with care with cheap stuff that seems sort of funny for a moment but isn’t actually that interesting. Think how much more baffled your family members will be by mysteriously Santa-provided copies of “Magic Boy and Robot Elf”, not to mention two of my favorite comics that would fit into a stocking: Dan James’ “The Octopi and the Ocean” and “Mosquito”. It makes me sad that these two titles continue to languish in the remainder bin. (Go ahead. Check out the previews.)

New stuff that looks good: Veeps, a comic book people’s history of the all those who were a heartbeat away from the Presidency. Kids will love Owly and the Korgi books. Alex Robinson’s new one is supposed to be good. (I like his old stuff. Haven’t tried the new yet.) There’s a new volume of Jeff Lemire’s Essex County series. (Possibly these names mean very little to you. Perhaps you should amend that situation.)

OK, something fun to talk about. [click to continue…]

Workers’ Republic

by Scott McLemee on December 12, 2008

The Labor Beat video group is putting together a documentary about the victorious occupation of the Republic Windows and Doors factory in Chicago. The filmmakers were — unless I’m mistaken — the only media group given constant access to the inside of the factory during this action. They’ve put up a ten minute selection of footage on YouTube:


[click to continue…]

Twittery

by Kieran Healy on December 12, 2008

As you may know, Stephen Fry, John Cleese, The Cassini Probe, Britney Spears, Shaq, 10 Downing St and, more tenuously, Darth Vader and the Fucking Pope are all on Twitter. But who is responsible for crookedtimber? Not me. The fact that the one person CT follows is a blocked account makes me suspicious.

By the way, if you neither like nor understand Twitter, that’s perfectly OK: no-one is making you follow anyone.

A glimmer of good news

by Henry Farrell on December 12, 2008

on an otherwise dismal day. The UFCW has “finally succeeded”:http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=312956 in unionizing the Smithfield meatpacking plant.

Workers at Smithfield Packing Co. voted in favor of unionizing, a stunning victory for labor organizers who have waited 16 years to gain a presence in the world’s largest hog processing plant. … Tonight’s victory marks a major inroad for organized labor in North Carolina. … After the union was defeated in the 1990s, the voting results were challenged with allegations that management harassed and intimidated workers. In May 2006, a federal court ruled that Smithfield must stop anti-union tactics and allow a vote.

(Longtime CT readers may remember a “disgracefully dishonest”:https://crookedtimber.org/2006/06/16/ducking-under/#more-4799 _Economist_ story on how great the Smithfield plant was for immigrants from a couple of years back and a series of “increasingly”:https://crookedtimber.org/2006/06/17/asymmetrical-information/ “ludicrous”:https://crookedtimber.org/2006/06/21/up-to-a-point-lord-copper/#more-4820 posts from Megan McArdle, then writing at said journal, defending same)

The Politics of Pragmatism

by Henry Farrell on December 12, 2008

Chris Hayes has a “nice piece”:http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081229/hayes/single in _The Nation_ about how the term ‘pragmatism’ is used in US public debate.
[click to continue…]

A photograph of Jesus

by Chris Bertram on December 11, 2008

Via “The Online Photographer”:http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/blog_index.html , Laurie Hill’s film about the things people request from the Hulton Archive: