The central political problem for conservatives is maintaining virtue; for liberals equality; and for libertarians liberty — or avoiding government tyranny.
She argues against Tyler Cowen’s view that a culture that encourages individual gun ownership goes along with a culture of military adventurism. One point that she could have made is that many of our military adventures have been launched under Democratic Administrations, and those also tend to support gun control.
Not my area of expertise, of course. But Neerav Kingsland, also not an expert, wrote this post on the Ian Morris book, which I have not read, and he wondered if I had thoughts. First, some excerpts from Neerav’s post:
Morris’ thesis is this:
1. Government is the primary source of the reduction of violence in societies.
2. Wars caused societies to merge, thereby increasing the scope, scale, and efficacy of government.
3. It would have been great if societies had figured out a way to merge without war, but this, unfortunately, has rarely happened.
4. So, like it or not, war has been the driver of government innovation.
5. Therefore, wars have been the primary cause of our long-term decline of violence.
…Generally, massive war breaks out when a superpower declines.
My thoughts:
1. If you’re a libertarian having a hard time getting your mind around this, think of war as a way of achieving open borders. That is, before they fight, country X and country Y have borders. After they fight, the winner takes over all the territory, and the borders no longer matter.
2. If you are a Hobbesian, then you believe that only a strong government can produce peace. You might regard the U.S. Navy as the force that made the last 70 years of globalization possible.
3. In the wake of the attacks in Paris and San Bernadino, you would think that Congress should declare war on somebody.
Instead, we have this vague “authorization to use military force.” The most charitable reading I can give of that is that it allows the President maximum flexibility to wage war in a very ambiguous setting, in which enemies do not wear uniforms and they are embedded with civilians. But I personally do not like this approach. Here are two alternatives that I think are better, although it should be clear on reflection that there are major problems with every possible approach.
a) Get rid of the authorization to use military force and legislate a strict non-interventionist policy. I think that has at least two things going for it. First, it is a clear, unambiguous policy. Second, it does not run all of the risks of flawed execution and unintended consequences that flow from interventions. However, it does mean that whatever advantage there is/was from having the U.S. as hegemonic power gets tossed away. For example, we might go through a period of de-globalization, as various conflicts spin out of control.
b) Get rid of the generic authorization to use military force and instead declare war on the Islamic State. One advantage of this is that it designates a specific enemy and implies a finite objective. We would stop sending drones all over the map and instead focus on taking over the territory that now belongs to barbarians. The disadvantages are that this increases casualties in the short run and it probably means that we would have to undertake a long-term military occupation, which has many pitfalls. It exerts no leverage against Syrian President Assad (it probably helps him). It ignores any barbarism that originates elsewhere.
Recall that the three choices were:
a) I would be concerned that Muslim intolerance of non-Muslims threatens our way of life.
b) I would be concerned that backlash against Muslims will get worse, empowering radicals and provoking more conflict.
c) I would be concerned that the media will blow the incident out of proportion and that politicians will use it as an excuse to expand surveillance, restrict gun rights, or restrict immigration.
Yes, (a) is meant to reflect the Conservative civilization-barbarism axis, (b) is meant to reflect the Progressive oppressor-oppressed axis, and (c) is meant to reflect the Libertarian freedom-coercion axis. However, note that I use the three-axes model to characterize people’s preferred language. People’s thinking is more complex.
That said, I would allocate my own chips this way:
a) 30 b) 10 c) 59
Explanation:
1. Because there are reasonable people who would favor each of the three choices, I do not think it would be wise for me to put less than 10 chips on any one choice.
2. I find choice (c) most compelling. What do media do other than blow incidents out of proportion? What do politicians do other than take advantage of Fear Of Others’ Liberty (FOOL) to expand their coercive powers? Incentives dictate such behavior.
3. I think that many libertarians would rank (b) higher than (a). I imagine that the “liberaltarian” types would. Those libertarians who are descended from Rothbard might want to put a lot of chips on (b). You will find some who fault the U.S. for the Cold War and perhaps even for its role in WWII.
4. Choosing between (a) and (b) depends on what type of error we might be making about “the other.” Usually, you err on the side of thinking that “the other” is worse than what it really is. The accounting people think that the marketing people are out to screw the company, and the marketing people think the same of the accounting people, when both are just doing their jobs as best they can. So I think that looking at the most probable error, (b) wins over (a).
But what if radical Muslims really are like Nazis? Most Muslims are not radicals, but did it help that most Germans were not Nazis? Even if it is unlikely that we are under-estimating the Muslim threat, the consequences of making that mistake could be quite dire. So my own inclination is to weight (a) more than (b). In terms of the axes, I suppose I am more susceptible to civilization-barbarism language than to oppressor-oppressed language.
5. I can understand someone putting the majority of their chips on (b), but I would not trust a progressive who puts 90 or more of their chips on (b). To go that far toward denying the validity of (a) and (c) strikes me as dogmatic. Ironically, a progressive who did put 90+ chips on (b) probably would think of himself or herself as showing superior nuance and sophistication. And, yes, I worry that the President is one of those. And, yes, I also would worry about a President who puts 90+ chips on (a), or even on (c).
Imagine that there is another San Bernardino. This might raise a number of concerns. Three of these concerns are listed below. Decide which ones matter the most to you. Mentally, take 99 chips and place them on the concerns. You could put all 99 on one concern, or you could spread them in varying amounts among the three. You cannot put less than 0 chips on any option. You cannot add a fourth option or modify the wording of the three options. If you don’t like the game, then you don’t have to play.
a) I would be concerned that Muslim intolerance of non-Muslims threatens our way of life.
b) I would be concerned that backlash against Muslims will get worse, empowering radicals and provoking more conflict.
c) I would be concerned that the media will blow the incident out of proportion and that politicians will use it as an excuse to expand surveillance, restrict gun rights, or restrict immigration.
In the comment section, just say how you allocated your chips and how well your allocation lines up with where you see yourself on the three-axes model.* Please do not add other comments. Please do not leave multiple comments. On Sunday, I will give my own answers in the comment section and perhaps add a post with further remarks.
*If you are not familiar with the three-axes model, just say that. If you want to become familiar with it, you can look at previous posts in the category (scroll down to get to older posts) or get the Kindle edition of the book.
There are the libertarians, who hate martial culture on the international scene, but who wish to allow it or maybe even encourage it (personally, not through the government) at home, through the medium of guns. They are inconsistent, and they should consider being more pro-gun control than is currently the case. But I don’t expect them to budge: they will see this issue only through the lens of liberty, rather than through the lens of culture as well. They end up getting a lot of the gun liberties they wish to keep, but losing the broader cultural battle and somehow are perpetually surprised by this mix of outcomes.
To put his post in matrix terms, suppose that we have
| low-profile foreign policy | high-profile foreign policy | |
|---|---|---|
| anti gun control | Reason supporters | Trump supporters |
| pro gun control | Bernie Sanders Democrats | Hillary Clinton Democrats |
Tyler’s claim is that only the diagonal positions are culturally consistent. The upper right quadrant is into defending personal honor and national honor. The lower right quadrant is into Kumbaya pacifism. The off-diagonal positions face the problem of cultural dissonance. One likes to see Americans use guns abroad but not at home. The other likes the reverse.
My thoughts:
1. You can see the Presidential candidates in the off-diagonal boxes struggling with the awkwardness of this cultural dissonance. Reason fave Rand Paul is soft-pedaling his anti-interventionism, in what seems to be an unsuccessful attempt to avoid alienating the upper right quadrant. Hillary Clinton will not concede that intervention in Libya and Syria had adverse consequences. (As Bryan Caplan puts it, politicians are adept at “packaging even their worst actions in conventional moral garb.” ) But I bet that you will not see her trying to put foreign policy on the top of the debate agenda within the Democratic Party.
2. The quadrants do not quite map to Walter Russell Mead’s four foreign policy types. The Bernie Sanders Democrats might be Mead’s virtue-seeking Jeffersonians. The Hillary Clinton Democrats might be Mead’s safe-for-democracy Wilsonians or his safe-for-capitalism Hamiltonians. The Trump supporters might be his Jacksonians. The Reason supporters are Jeffersonian in spirit, but they do not get along with the Bernie Sanders Democrats.
3. I will say it again. This is not a libertarian moment. Still, I think that libertarians have a lot to contribute to the public debate. What we should do is remind others that (a) the political process almost never adopts an ideal policy or executes a policy well and (b) policies that seem good today can have unintended consequences tomorrow.
4. I do not see any guaranteed solutions here. If you think that unrestricted gun ownership promotes freedom, are you prepared for the police powers that the public will gladly accept in order to prevent more mass shootings? If you think that gun control is the answer, do you have a credible enforcement strategy? If you want more intervention in the Middle East, are you prepared for the winners that we back to turn out to be not such good guys? If you want less intervention in the Middle East, are you prepared for what the bad guys might do?
So says Richard Pipes, in a very concise 10-minute speech. Recommended by Alberto Mingardi.
The Gates-led Breakthrough Energy Coalition will be investing over $1 billion dollars, the Wall Street Journal reports. The exact dollar amount pledged is unknown, but a Gates spokesperson told Tech Insider that “it represents many billions of dollars in willing capital.”
The report links to an essay by Gates, who writes,
Today’s batteries also have a far lower energy density—that is, they store much less by weight—than fossil fuels. Coal provides 37 times more energy per kilogram than the best lithium-ion batteries available today. Gasoline provides 60 times more
Like the Obama Administration, Gates thinks that throwing money at firms attempting to solve this and other problems related to energy is a good idea. I do not think that either Obama’s people or Gates are particularly skilled at this sort of investment, but I have much more respect for Gates because he is throwing money that he and other investors are providing voluntarily, rather than appropriating taxpayers’ money to fund his dubious scheme.
Unfortunately, elsewhere in the essay, Gates touts the virtues of government-funded research and development. He should read Matt Ridley’s analysis of that in The Evolution of Everything. Ridley offers a refutation of Gates’ recycled cliches.
For another optimistic take on batteries, see Seth Borenstein’s article.
His talk is here.
He says that voice tends to be less democratic than exit. Even though everyone has a right to vote, political influence tends to be highly concentrated.
I tried to make the same point, probably less well, in the widely-unread Unchecked and Unbalanced. For a more concise version of the arguments there, see my essay on competitive government. That essay and Martin’s talk go well together.
Cato’s Marian Tupy has praise.
In 1970, the first year for which data is available, Singapore had the third freest economy in the world (behind Hong Kong and Canada). Singapore maintained a high degree of economic freedom over the next 45 years and ranks as the second freest economy in the world today (behind Hong Kong). As late as 1970, per person income in Singapore was 54 percent of the global average. Today it is 321 percent of the global average.
And yet, I once met (At long-time Cato chairman Ed Crane’s annual Salmon fest) an ex-Singaporean who had very negative things to say about the military service requirement and other coercive policies there.
It is called The Evolution of Everything. He contrasts decentralized trial-and-error evolution with top-down control in many arenas, from biology to technology to culture. My first thoughts.
1. He offers full-frontal libertarianism. On money, he cites Selgin. On education, he cites Tooley. etc. Incidentally, on culture he cites Henrich, whose book I interrupted to read Ridley’s and who does not seem to grasp the libertarian implications of his own work.
2. He cites a legal scholar with whom I was not familiar: Oliver Goodenough. Actually, I met Oliver a couple of times through a mutual friend–more than 40 years ago.
3. On the evolution of marriage, he writes that hunter-gatherer societies are mainly monogamous.
But as soon as farming came along, 10,000 years ago, powerful men were able to accumulate the resources to buy off and intimidate other men, and to attract low-status women into harems. . .If only to try to satisfy the low-status men, societies that allowed widespread polygamy tended to be very violent toward their neighbors. This was especially true of pastoral societies reliant on sheep, goats or cattle, whose wealth was mobile and showed scale economies. . .herders from Asia and Arabia not only experienced chronic violence, but kept erupting into Europe, India, China and Africa to kill men and abduct women.
…The transition to monogamy is a big theme of Christianity. . .The winners from the re-emergence of monagamy in late antiquity would have been the high-born women, who got to monopolize their husbands, and the much more numerous low-born men, who got to have sex at all.
4. On the advantage of urbanization for specialization and trade,
In America as a whole, nearly twice as many people work in grocery stores as in restaurants. In Manhattan, nearly five times as many work in restaurants
5. On the inexorable rise of economic well-being,
Stagnationism has its fans in every generation.
6. On technology, he argues strongly for context as a causal factor (“the adjacent possible”) and against individual agency (the heroic inventor). One implication:
having argued for the incremental, inevitable and collective nature of innovation, I am not a fan of patents and copyright laws. They grant too much credit and reward to individuals
7. Speaking of technology’s evolution, when he writes
The internet revolution might have happened ten years earlier if academics had not been dependent on a government network antipathetic to commercial use.
he is blowing smoke. The arrival of the commercial Internet is instead an example of context. Telecommunications pre-internet used circuit-switching networks. The Internet uses packet switching. Until relatively recently, circuit switching was much less expensive (the cross-over point was roughly the year 2000). Packet switching became economical only after sufficient iterations of Moore’s Law had taken place. In 1985, the cost of building out a mass-market Internet would have been astronomical.