Suppose that the other side is willing to use ruthless tactics. Suppose that we are not willing to do so. Suppose that these ruthless tactics work. That is asymmetric ruthlessness.
For example, Niall Ferguson in a vidcast with Dave Rubin, argues that conservatives are victims of asymmetric ruthlessness in the culture war. For example, on college campuses, left-wing professors are willing to make hiring and promotion decisions on ideological grounds, and conservatives do not counter.
I tend to think that the movement to increase the status of women in economics could well turn out to involve asymmetric ruthlessness on the part of the left. That is, I think it is unlikely that it will be conservative women whose status gets raised, and it is likely that the males who are pushed out at the margin will be conservatives.
But I am inclined to be very cautious about positing asymmetric ruthlessness. I think that each side can point to asymmetric ruthlessness on the other side, and that this becomes mutually reinforcing.
So you can think of a Type I error as failing to notice real asymmetric ruthlessness. You think that Hitler won’t really do all the horrible things he indicates he might do. You fail to take proper counter measures soon enough.
You can think of a Type II error as believing in asymmetric ruthlessness that isn’t there. You needlessly escalate the conflict. Yuval Levin worries that conservatives are making this sort of Type II error. In a way, Niall Ferguson worries about it, too, because he fears that the Brexit and the Trump Presidency could set in motion forces that bring Jeremy Corbyn and his American equivalent to power.
The imbalance between an authority, such as a health authority, and the individual is an example of asymmetric ruthlessness. The authority’s rules are very rigid, and employees have no personal responsibility with what they are told to to.
Patients are needlessly stressed. I know of one instance where an old lady had her dentures confiscated and never returned. When I was in a hospital my glasses were confiscated and not returned for several days.
These instances were all due to “rules”, whose author is anonymous. It is no small wonder that some hospitals have notices showing a picture of a prison officer and a nurse, with a caption to the effect that if you want to be looked after by the nurse, then do as you are told, however unreasonable you think it is.
“Come the revolution” every individual should be responsible for orders they obey, and all rules, terms of engagement, terms of use etc should have the authors’ names attached. This would cause more feedback up the chain of authority to produce a fairer society.
If we have two political poles, and if economic doesn’t provide its own gravitational pull on the governing of commerce, then what is the point? Discussions of asymmetric ruthlessness are just a way of having discussions of the failure of economics to contribute anything.
interesting. The concept of asymetric ruthlessness made me think of the writings on violence by microsociologist Randall Collins. He speaks of studying bar fights recorded on CCTV, and mentions that most of the “damage” done in fights happens during moments of asymmetrical emotional balance:
How does violence sometimes succeed in doing damage? The key is asymmetrical  confrontation tension. One side will win if they can get their victim in the zone of high arousal and high incompetence, while keeping their own arousal down to a zone of greater bodily control. Violence is not so much physical as emotional struggle; whoever achieves emotional domination, can then impose physical domination. That is why most real fights look very nasty; one sides beats up on an opponent at the time they are incapable of resisting.
here is the full speech:
http://sociological-eye.blogspot.com/2016/04/what-has-micro-sociology-accomplished.html
The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.
I think there’s a Hansonian, Elephant in the Brain point here.
We probably have a section of our brain evolved/reinforced to exploit asymmetric ruthlessness while hiding it from our Press Secretary. And another section to identify applications of asymmetric ruthlessness against us and urgently prod the Press Secretary to decry it.
One might argue Mitch McConnell employed “asymetrical ruthlessness” against the Obama administration for 6 years. And he “won.” The Meric Garland debacle was just the cherry on top.
What impact is the “culture war” when you have lost most of your ability to influence the direction of the country in all 3 branches of government? There are 4000 universities and accredited colleges and we hear a few anecdotes about incivility at a handful of them. There are plenty of right leaning academics with platforms from which they can exercise their academic freedoms. No need to play the victim here.
How could the MOST asymmetrically anti-ruthless religion become so dominant, then?
Moral superiority of true victims. Based on the “obvious injustice” of innocents being unfairly punished. I see lots of innocent conservatives/ libertarians, like Murray, who are being unfairly treated by Dems. Also Christian bakers, and the Little Sisters of the Poor. I don’t see in the last 2 years any innocent Dems being punished unfairly by conservatives (maybe some not-fully guilty Dem men, as well as Rep men, have been overly punished by #MeToo — but that’s Dem ruthlessness, not Rep.)
“each side can point to asymmetric ruthlessness on the other side,” << Arnold didn't point at any, tho Mitch McConnell holding up the Garland nomination is arguably one — yet the argument to wait until after the election had earlier been made by Dems with respect to a prior (not sure when) nomination.
In politics, if your side does some action when it has power, it's NOT "asymmetric" when the other side does the same thing; even if the other side does even more of the same thing.
Actually, Trump is pretty strongly avoiding, in action, ruthlessness — I would have preferred him to get Hillary indicted and get sent to jail. She's a crook, Crook, CROOK, and has been so well rewarded for being so. I don't see or know of any rich Reps so similarly unjustly enriched, certainly the Dem attempt to claim Romney was such is a case of Dem dishonest ruthlessness, that Romney failed to fight back against.
That almost seems ideal — have ruthless words, but reasonable actions. I claim there's no path obviously better, plus it looks like it's been working.
Of course, hysterical Dem Trump Derangement Syndrome helps amplify the power of Trump's tweets — but it's hard to claim the Dem megaphone screaming about Trump is really Trump ruthlessness. More like Trump teasing … and silly childish Dems reacting with temper tantrums. Far more than Reps ever did with Obama or Clinton or Carter or Johnson or Kennedy or … well, FDR was before WW II. And he was elected 4 times.
em attempt to claim Romney was such is a case of Dem dishonest ruthlessness, that Romney failed to fight back against.
Of course the reality is Romney (47%+) got a higher percentage of votes than Trump (46%+). And Romney was running against a strong and more popular opponent…Obama was an incumbent President who was very popular within his Party and most people were in better shape in 2012 than 2008 when the Financial Crisis hit during the election. So it seems to hard to suggest Trump 2016 that much better than Romney 2012.
What Trump did well was win the right set of voters, more Midwest WWC versus losing SW right center conservatives, in 2016 and pull off an Electoral College win despite losing the popular vote by 2%. What made Trump win was:
1) He campaigned hard on Immigration and Trade against HRC. Romney private equity business literally outsource thousands of jobs to China while Obama did have the auto bailout to protect jobs in Ohio and Midwest. (Note Trump did better with low wage Hispanic American citizens.)
2) Trump ran on protecting Social Security and Medicare in which the Democrats could use against Romney/Ryan in 2012.
These are anti-Bobo conservative ideas.
@tom G
1. Which religion is that?
2. Little sisters could have signed a short form. They preferred to go to the mat. Who is being ruthless here?
3. What charges are you going to throw at Clinton that Trump hasn’t been guilty of in spades. Has a president ever settled $25 million in fraud cases just before inauguration before? Marco Rubio called Trump a con artist. He was right.
4. You dont think Trumps tweets are a problem. Your prerogative.
Immigration is the ultimate in asymmetric warfare. It’s the only thing that will matter to our children, and is consistantely the one thing the left is willing to go nuclear over compared to all other things.
The left tyrannical and wants domination, but has been held back by the silent majority. In response it imported a new majority. Soon nothing will hold it back.
Personally I find Democrats to be vile, despicable people full of hate and fascist to the core and I prefer to avoid contact with them whenever possible. The absence of anything resembling a professional journalist in the US media which has degenerated to to becoming their house outrage shilling machine only inflames their noxious self-righteousness. Nevertheless I am sympathetic to their self-serving whinging about being locked out of control of the federal government. The imminet threat they pose to human dignity and decency and the prosperity of ordinary US citizens would best be neutralized through a constitutional convention replacing winner-take-all with proportional representation and a parliamentary system in which members of the legislature have a vested interest in the competence of the executive branch. The Republicans are too lethargic to act upon this reality however and it is they that who will suffer most severely when the pendulum swings and it is there turn on the outside. It is most embarassing to be a US citizen. Even Cubans can liberalize their constitution: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-44836358 Emigration looks like the best option many young people will have to avoid the coming terror.
Asymmetric ruthlessness was too frequent in the past. We are mostly paying for it today in the high debt levels resulting from government insurance against asymmetric ruthlessness in the past.
Well, Niall Ferguson appears to be an awful person rationalizing his actions to pursue wrong tactics. Yes both sides on ruthlessness and conservatives elected the leader of the birther movement in 2011. Anyway the Parties of Left & Right are slightly re-aligning from the 2000 – 2015 alignments so some tactics are at a loss.
I still assume the increasing degree of left professors over generations is mostly due to (male) conservatives increasing going into the private sector. In 1990 I remember that Economic Master Degree earned more than Economic PHd due to the self-selection bias. (That taught in my stats class) And this is not new as colleges usually leaned left since WW2. (Also haven’t the BLM and these college protest diminished a lot in the Trump administration.) Anyway, one check of the Democrat Primaries, they are overwhelming being won by women who were teachers so expect more teacher union tactics.
In thinking about the Brexit and Trump anti-Bobo conservative movement what is the end game? The current British PM can’t catch a break on Brexit because the Merkel/Macron EU team is playing hardball and using these negotiations to break some London’s European financial center dominance. (They working to create new financial jobs in Paris, Berlin and Brussels.)
And what is the end game of Trump? The immigration battle really can go so far unless he targets small employers (which won’t happen) and his trade tariffs is beginning to increase the CPI higher than wage increases so average Americans are earning less. (Although a lot of the CPI is oil increases right now but real wages have not increased since Trump administration started.) Also, the loss aversion with Trump actions is now on the side of Free Traders as a lot employers are slowing hiring due to less exports. The car industry announcing slowdowns due to steel tariffs and who knows what happens to Iowa or Minnesota with loss of Soybean sales.
Marcuse was a philosopher of ruthlessness. Michael Oakeshott was the opposite. Saul Alinsky? Ruthless. G.K. Chesterton? Not ruthless. Marx himself was scabrous. Whereas Burke, as florid as his rhetoric was, is not known for his invective. Milton Friedman and George Stigler were witty, but they weren’t the insult comics of the economics department. That’s Krugman. Then there’s the viciousness with which Sartre and Merleau-Ponty attacked Camus. Popper’s philosophy isn’t a philosophy of ruthlessness. Hayek’s neither. Ayn Rand was ruthless. But not Isaiah Berlin or Joseph Schumpeter or Ludwig von Mises. Deirdre McCloskey is an Episcopalian.
Dear Arnold,
I find interesting how Mr Ferguson et al seem worried about the future hypothetical “American equivalent” of Corbyn. I’d be more concerned with a commander-in-chief who calls groups of people (ethnicity, nationality) rapists and demeans those protesting against new-nazis/white supremacists (violence on both sides? Same during WW2, but we know which side we want to be on!).
Or to stay within economics and economic history (Mr Ferguson’s turf), I wonder he and this blog would be saying if Obama or the imaginary “American equivalent” that he worries about would deploy “asymmetric ruthless” on trade negotiations and tariffs.
Funny how conservatives (including this blog, which I used to enjoy more) will keep wondering about imaginary threats coming from the “left”…
Uh huh. Tell me Roberto, at what point on to the road to Venezuela is it ok to start worrying about the Socialists?