Author Archives: Arnold Kling

Bari Weiss and Yuval Levin on building

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Coincidentally, I picked up at about the same time their latest books.

Bari Weiss’ is How to Fight Anti-Semitism. On p. 167, she writes,

I suddenly saw all of the debates and hand-wringing inside the Jewish community about the latest boycott of Israeli hummus at the local food co-op, or the right response to Israeli Apartheid Week, or the proper approach to the appearance of a swastika on campus. . .as not just a waste of our precious time but a betrayal of what we were meant to do and be. I began to realize that building was better than begging, affirming better than adjuring. Not just better strategically, but better for Jew emotionally and intellectually and spiritually.

She cites this essay by Ze’ev Maghen, which I recommend.

Levin’s is A Time to Build, and it will not come out until next January. He sent me an advance copy. In a Martin Gurri world (my terminology), he argues that we need to work to build up institutions. p. 41:

Our challenge is less to calm the forces that are pelting our society than to reinforce the structures that hold it together. That calls for a spirit of building and rebuilding, more than of tearing down. It calls for approaching broken institutions with a disposition to repair so as to make them better versions of themselves.

Out of context, that probably sounds bland. Hardly a passage that would entice you. But the book is actually a must-read, with a lot for you to sink your teeth into. If I count it as 2019, it will make my list of best books of the year.

Skilled workers + democracy = good government?

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My latest essay is on a book by Torben Iversen and David Soskice that makes such a case.

With both labor and capital committed to specific locations in order to take advantage of skill clusters, there is a significant share of the population that has an interest in electing a government effective at providing public goods. In A.O. Hirschman’s terms, these citizens cannot exit their jurisdictions. They therefore have an incentive to use “voice” in a democratic system. They make up a constituency that will demand education and other public goods and that will reward politicians who enact economic policies that foster competition and growth.

I find this too much of a Pollyanna story, and so my conclusion raises doubts.

Reductionist progressivism

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1. Robby Soave writes about a math curriculum proposal in Seattle,

This is verbatim from the proposal: Students will be able to “identify the inherent inequities of the standardized testing system used to oppress and marginalize people and communities of color,” “explain how math has been used to exploit natural resources,” and “explain how math dictates economic oppression.” Each of these statements are debatable, but they are not being presented as such. It would be one thing to hold a class discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of standardized testing, but what’s happening here is that students are being trained to reject standardized testing due to its “inherent inequity,” which is asserted as some kind of proven fact.

2. Philip Carl Salzman writes,

no one was quicker to adopt grievance “social justice” than university administrators, who have hired thousands of “diversity and inclusion officers,” including at the highest levels of administration for salaries up to half a million dollars a year, to police thoughts and speech among students and faculty. A sideline is enforcing Obama administration Title IX demands that they persecute male students that any female complains about. With their “social justice” police force in place, administrators have gone on to establish racial segregation in housing, eating facilities, and university salaries, and well as to admit, fund, hire and promote on the basis of sex, gender, race, and ethnicity. Every American criterion of merit, universal values, democracy, and due process has been thrown out by just about every university administration.

If you are in the mood for a rant, read Salzman’s entire essay.

3. And if you are in a mood for another rant, there is Victor Davis Hanson.

A typical college-admission application is loaded with questions to the high-school applicant about gender, equality, and bias rather than about math, language, or science achievements. How have you suffered rather than what you know and wish to learn seems more important for admission. The therapeutic mindset preps the student to consider himself a victim of cosmic forces, past and present, despite belonging to the richest, most leisured, and most technologically advanced generation in history. Without a shred of gratitude, the young student learns to blame his ancestors for what he is told is wrong in his life, without noticing how the dead made sure that almost everything around him would be an improvement over 2,500 years of Western history.

He just takes off from there.

I never meant for the oppressor-oppressed axis to define progressivism. Eliminating consideration of all other causal factors in the world might be termed reductionist progressivism.

Two articles on white privilege

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Both from Quillette, which is what you should be reading instead of political posts on Twitter or Facebook. Both from the same authors, Vincent Harinam and Rob Henderson

First, they write

In general, the percentage of white liberals who perceived discrimination against blacks to be a “very serious problem” increased from 25 percent in 2010 to 58 percent in 2016, with 70 percent believing the criminal justice system was biased against blacks. Compare this to the 75 percent of minorities that reported rarely or never experiencing discrimination in their day-to-day lives.

Second, they write

In the case of white privilege, there are a number of variables which, when taken together, better explain differences in group outcomes. Here, we share four potential factors: geographic determinism, personal responsibility, family structure, and culture.

Read the whole essays, particularly the second.

Two articles on assortative mating

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Both from Quillette, which is what you should read instead of Twitter or Facebook.

1. Branko Milanovic summarizes a variety of findings, including

high-earning young American men who in the 1970s were just as likely to marry high-earning as low-earning young women now display an almost three-to- one preference in favor of high-earning women. An even more dramatic change happened for women: the percentage of young high-earning women marrying young high-earning men increased from just under 13 percent to 26.4 percent, while the percentage of rich young women marrying poor young men halved. From having no preference between rich and poor men in the 1970s, women currently prefer rich men by a ratio of almost five to one.

Read the whole essay.

2. Daniel Friedman writes,

A spot-check of a few dozen elite and selective schools suggests that there is near gender parity at the most elite private universities, and perhaps a slight tilt toward women among selective private schools and public flagships, but not one nearly as dramatic as the nationwide numbers would lead you to believe.

…In fact, it is the least selective schools that are driving the national gender gap in bachelor’s degrees. For example, at for-profit colleges, most of which have very low admissions standards, 63 percent of students are female.

He argues that the least selective schools do not confer such high status. He claims that a woman who graduates with a nursing degree or a teaching degree is not higher status than a man who becomes an electrician without a college degree. In terms of income, this may be true. But will the teacher be willing to marry the electrician?

In any case, I don’t think Friedman’s analysis is inconsistent with Milanovic’s data.

Re-starting Twitter Echo

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I have decided to re-start the practice of echoing my blog posts to Twitter. I still don’t participate in Twitter in any other fashion. If you direct a tweet at me, I probably will see it, but I will not respond.

Two reasons for re-starting.

1. I have been thinking lately that going off Twitter did not provide me with much benefit, other than letting me feel that I was making a statement.

2. I like that Jack Dorsey wants to refuse to take political ads on Twitter. I realize that this is a complicated issue. But I am hoping that, even though Dorsey does not intend it this way, that people see this as an indicator that social media and politics are a toxic mix.

I have to say that I don’t know how he is going to enforce it. If somebody pays for an ad campaign to de-fund Planned Parenthood, that might be construed as a political ad campaign. But if so, then wouldn’t a fund-raiser for Planned Parenthood also be a political ad campaign?

So I understand that Facebook’s approach, of not censoring political ads, is easier to implement. But I hope that someday political discourse migrates to other forums that encourage reasonableness rather than posturing, snark, and anger.

The party changes, the policy doesn’t

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Matt Grossman writes,

once they’re in power, the two parties tend to move policy only marginally in the direction they want and the effects of those policy changes are often smaller than anticipated. Republicans’ increased political power did not reverse either the size or scope of state government through the 1990s and 2000s.

Pointer from Tyler Cowen.

What would explain this?

1. Tyler suggests the median voter theorem, which is that parties compete for centrist voters. But I am not sure that the median voter in all of these states wants big government.

2. My ;ate father’s favorite political scientist, Murray Edelman, would have said that politicians satisfy their base on symbolic issues, but they satisfy interest groups on substantive issues. In fact, Grossman points out that

Republicans were especially effective at passing legislation across multiple states on social issues like education, abortion and guns.

This fits with a Public Choice story, in which the interest groups dominate regardless. Teachers’ unions want more spending on education, and they get it.

3. One can argue that this is consistent with an increase in affective polarization (people having an emotional stake in political outcomes) without strong differences on policy.

Labor market elasticities

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John Cochrane writes,

Thus, you can’t simultaneously be for higher minimum wages and for wage subsidies. That is cognitive dissonance. Or, inconsistency. Or wishful thinking. And very common.

He is commenting on a post from Tyler Cowen. My thoughts:

1. Greg Mankiw likes to point out that a higher minimum wage is like a combination of a subsidy to labor supply and a tax on labor demand. A wage subsidy does away with the tax on labor demand, which is why Mankiw prefers it. An occupational licensing fee strikes me as a tax on labor supply.

If labor demand is inelastic, that means that large changes in labor costs are accompanied by small changes in workers employed. If labor demand is elastic, that means that small changes in labor costs prompt large changes in labor demand.

If labor demand is inelastic, then a higher minimum wage will raise labor income. Think of employers just absorbing the cost (although that is only one possible reason for inelastic labor demand). But if labor demand is inelastic, then a wage subsidy will not raise worker income. Think of employers as just pocketing the subsidy (again, assuming that this is the reason by which labor demand is inelastic).

If labor demand is elastic (the more likely case, in my view), then a wage subsidy will work to increase labor income, while a higher minimum wage will fail.

2. Cochrane’s point is that economists sometimes argue for one policy that works with high elasticity of labor demand and another policy that works with low elasticity of labor demand, without apologizing for the inconsistency. An example that I have used is arguing for a higher minimum wage (which works with low elasticity of labor demand) and for more immigration (which will depress wages if there is low elasticity of labor demand). Tyler uses that example as well.

3. Tyler’s point is that if you think that labor demand is inelastic, then occupational licensing requirements, acting as a tax on labor supply, will not affect employment very much. Again, I am inclined to think that labor demand is elastic, so I think that occupational licensing requirements do adversely affect employment.

I think that on the immigration issue and the occupational licensing issue, economists of all stripes prefer to implicitly make the elastic-demand assumption. On the minimum-wage issue, economists on the left prefer to implicitly make the inelastic-demand assumption. On the immigration issue, some conservative economists prefer to implicitly make the inelastic-demand assumption. I think that libertarian economists tend to implicitly make the elastic-demand assumption in all cases. So at least we are consistent.