If Italy’s banking system is badly undercapitalised and the country’s democratically elected government wants to use taxpayer money to recapitalise it, why should some international agreement prevent it from doing so? Why should not countries that think that genetically modified crops are dangerous get to shield people from them? Why should the international community seek to prevent countries that wish to limit capital inflows from doing so? The issue in all these cases is not the merits. It is the principle that intrusions into sovereignty exact a high cost.
Pointer from Mark Thoma. My thoughts:
1. If Larry Summers has a natural affinity with ordinary people, then I was born to play in the NBA.
2. Note that he instinctively thinks that decisions should be made by governments. His concession to populism is that these decisions should be made by national governments rather than international bureaucrats.
3. I don’t think that we should sell free trade and increased legal immigration to people as “Take this pill, it will be good for you.” I think we should try to sell free trade by example, which means being willing to give up the protections against competition that we enjoy in our credentialist society.
This is more evidence for us to know it’s real, when the political savants start heading that way. It is not some great insight (though it seems almost like it must be among elites) that the amount of stuff you can get more people to agree to is less than the amount of stuff that you can get less people to agree to. But it is noteworthy that he is the one saying it.
Nothing profound to say. Wish there were a way to just “like” (love) posts like this one. The line about the NBA is priceless. I have the feeling that arguing for free trade in today’s political climate is akin to bailing on the Titanic using a teacup, but the battle must be fought nonetheless
On the other hand, the globalization wave is asymptoting, so maybe we just need to play prevent defense and run out the clock.
And I played graduate school ball for a while with a guy who looked a lot like Arnold who was amazing.
I’m surprised to hear you say this. Free trade seems like a relatively easy sell because it depends on completely willing buyers and sellers. When Paul Ryan stresses that he’s not so different from Trump on trade, I suspect Trump may not be as opposed to global trade as he sounds.
“which means being willing to give up the protections against competition that we enjoy in our credentialist society.”
I’ve always found this a bit strange. Let me offer a real life example.
One of the things that liberals always say is that inner city schools and neighborhoods are bad because white people move away from them. So this one couple I knew moved their young child into basically the ghetto. A shooting over drugs happened on the street corner.
Despite this action, the ghetto didn’t change at all. Even on the scale of the few people they interacted with it all seemed rather pointless. They were certainly sharing in the pain they had inflicted on others (say, by advocating section 8 to move ghetto people into middle class neighborhoods, or denying people the right to discriminate in who their neighbors are, or protesting the cops).
However, how does this pain sharing help a regular middle class person afford a good school for their kid? The prices of commutable distance real estate with well ranked schools on Zillow didn’t change, how did this action of shared sacrifice help anyone?
When people complain about elites walling themselves off from the effects of their policies its not that we want elites to suffer too. It’s that we want to stop suffering. You have good schools. We want good schools. Why can’t we all have good schools? Stop advocating policies that are disasters. The elite buying their way out of the effects of those disasters is the least of the problems, the criticism is meant to change the policy, not ask you to join in our suffering. Shame is being used to get the elite to admit to the truth, not double down on a destructive lie.
Credentialism should be ended in many cases because its created huge market distortions. Forget immigration and trade, it would increase domestic competition and eliminate a lot of protection rackets. Many of the most lucrative credential rackets also have social, language, network, and local knowledge barriers that would prevent foreign competition without any credentialing at all. Average global IQ levels mean that most foreigners aren’t even competition for high end professions. Their target is mostly domestic competition.
One of the things that liberals always say is that inner city schools and neighborhoods are bad because white people move away from them.
I think a better way to saying that is the inner city schools and neighborhoods are bad because the rich and middle class moved away. And let us be honest there has been been bad ghetteos in our history so let us not assume things are worse today than 50 and especially 100 years ago. (We have to remember more people in the 1950s lived like the Honeymooners instead of Father Knows Best.) So the African-American ghetteos were never in ‘good shape’ but diminished in the 1970s and 1980s when the end of segregation allowed middle class African-Americans to move to the suburbans. (I remember living in Maryland in 1978 and an African-American doctor family moving into the neighborhood.) Of course, simply complaining about the African-American ghetteos today is nothing like the 1990 Compton NWA days and crime in most big cities has dropped dramatically. It has been the poor white working class neighborhoods that we have seen the big increase in drug use the last 15 years. (My guess it has been a slower moving out of the Middle Class and Brain Drain of the areas. My guess crime is more ‘controlled’ as the area have less population density.)
Anyway, it is good to see the increase movement against ‘credentialist economy’ but I with Matt Yglesias most of the changes would have minor effects on the economy. (For instance ending hair dressing licenses would have much impact here. Would $.25 off per haircut be any kind of giant change?)
The only thing worse than white flight is gentrification.
I have to give proper credit for that joke to the left.
Why is gentrification so bad?
I think its a joke.
You don’t hear all the whining over gentrification?
Now you will notice it.
So where does the friction come from? We are watching as the analog world we all grew up in melts away. What happens when 1800 jobs disappear in a small town overnight? Will a society with very little economic friction achieve reasonable equilibriums and make everyone healthier or will it spin out of control?
I don’t think we should be so sanguine about this.
One question Arnold never addresses is, why do we need “increased legal immigration”? He, like the elites Summers is talking about, regards it as an unquestionable, absolute good, regardless of the consequences for Americans unlike himself. I suppose he thinks the aforementioned question is absurd, because he does believe in “we,” a concept that cannot be reduced to economics. This is epistemic closure.
Arnold does not even suggest a way to sell open borders to the public. As to free trade, nobody cares about the “example” the elites set for them (which would work how – anyone can open up a medical clinic?). People care about their own lives and their children’s prospects. Explain to them that the sort of trade wars proposed by Trump would just make things worse – for them. Is that so hard? And perhaps new “trade” deals like TPP deserve some skepticism. What kind of “trade” would they open up for the US – helping consulting firms open more foreign offices? And are they really about “trade” at all?
Making fun of Summers’ odd personality, as if this undercuts his point, is a cheap shot. He’s not putting himself forward as the new William Jennings Bryan or pretending to be a blue-collar tailgater.
The criticism that Summers thinks “decisions should be made by governments” is silly, because we are talking about what government policy should be. Whatever level of legal immigration we have, and however much or little international trade is regulated, government is making the decision. What Summer is suggesting is that the main criterion for these decisions should be the interests of the existing national society. Apparently, that is enough to get a person dismissed as a “populist” now.
“One question Arnold never addresses is, why do we need “increased legal immigration”? ”
I assume he doesn’t address it because we don’t think that way. It isn’t something that happens because we decide we do or don’t need it. The impetus to migtate isnt a spigot you turn on or off depending on how much rhw government deems it necessary. To the extent migration happens absent positive or negative incentives resulting from coercion then if it happens it happens.
I think in terms of what one would call immigration neutrality. So, things like not vesting immigrants with monetary entitlements or voting rights, or permanent status for some time period make perfect sense to me. Once we achieve neutrality of policy on the front end, then negative externalities of migration can be addressed, but they certainly aren’t showstoppers.
Exactly how do you deny people entitlements and voting rights? This has zero track record of actually working. California passed Prop 187 and it was simply overturned by the courts.
As asdf points out, denying immigrants entitlements is just not a viable path in this country, and, at a minimum, their kids born here are going to vote. We are not going to create a caste system in the US, whatever the idiots at the Chamber of Commerce might think. But aside from that, you and Arnold don’t think “that way” – you don’t ask yourselves whether a higher or lower level of immigration is in the interests of the existing society – because you don’t really care about the existing society as a society. You only see atomized individuals holding “rights” to pursue their individual interests through consensual dealings with other individuals. As far as you and Arnold are concerned, who cares if most of the existing citizenry suffers as a result, or if the cultural foundation on which the government and economy rest is eroded. You have no concept of the common good. Thanks for acknowledging that.
The above was intended as a reply to Andrew’ @ 11:06 am.
“because you don’t really care about the existing society as a society. You only see atomized individuals holding “rights” to pursue their individual interests through consensual dealings with other individuals.”
Exactly! You pass the Ideological Turing Test.
I’ll put it another way. It is clearly the case that some interactions produce externalities, and most libertarians (though not most anarchists) believe that these externalities should be addressed in some way.
However, “it hurts my feelings when I see two men kissing” or “I don’t like it when the 7-11 clerk doesn’t speak much English” or “the kids in my neighborhood play soccer instead of baseball” are not typically considered externalities in the libertarian world-view… they are just preferences, and others are under no obligation to conform to your preferences.
Ricardo, you’re no one to talk about not passing a Turing test. I don’t care what libertarians deign to designate as an externality, but I would consider the negative externalities of excess immigration to include reducing the existing citizenry’s income (and their children’s future prospects), diminishing the quality of the public services on which they rely (particularly education and healthcare), increasing the burden on state and local governments, and inflating the cost of housing in good neighborhoods. I don’t care whether kids play soccer or baseball, but it does bother me that the government no longer encourages, and even actively discourages, immigrants to assimilate culturally into America
Your gratuitous injection of “men kissing,” which has nothing to do with the issues discussed here (and does not even have anything to do with the gay marriage issue), deserves a prize for silly virtue signaling.
Finally, I am the great grandson of an immigrant storekeeper who, I assume, spoke English with an accent. I never met him, but I’m pretty sure he was appropriately grateful to be allowed the privilege of immigrating to this country and of becoming a naturalized citizen here.
What about when the two dudes have bath house orgies and then both get Medicaid to pay for their six figure STD meds. Does it matter that the homosexual community is so fucked up that STDs from extreme hedonism are normalized? The gay community couldn’t exist without subsidy to save them from themselves.
Does it matter that gay marriage isn’t really about marriage, but mostly about finding the one Christian baker in your community and then terrorizing and bankrupting them?
Does it matter that by normalizing that kind of behavior bleeds over into the straight community. From my experience fag hags tend to adopt many of the attitudes and practices of their gay friends…and they aren’t socially positive ones. Cheating, narcissism, hedonism, substance abuse. Why wouldn’t you start to become more like the people you hang out with and emulating what you see in popular media? That’s natural human behavior. Let’s not even get into the rampant chicken hawking and pedophilia in the gay community.
Does it matter that within two years of gay marriage we are now teaching transgenderism to kids in school. A process with no benefits that is comprised primary of people mutilating themselves, regretting it, and later killing themselves. Yes, let’s extend that to transitioning children, and purge anyone who disagrees.
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/02/fight-over-trans-kids-got-a-researcher-fired.html
Does it matter that the 7-11 clerk is bankrupting the local hospital with free ER treatment? Does it matter that his kid is involved in the local gangs and stole your kids bike? Does it matter that his inability to speak english and poor behavior disrupts the classroom of anyone that has to share a school with such people? Does it matter that nearly all wage gains went straight into bidding up real estate, mostly so people could avoid the externalities related to such immigrants in large cities?
Does it matter that in Europe immigrants completely reject all western values? Do all the women that have been raped in the name of free movement of people matter? I guess the leaders of Germany are right, those women were asking for it!
Does it matter that immigrant voting patterns indicate a permanent corrupt leftist majority likely to reshape the political and cultural environment of the entire country? Do you like how South America or the Middle East operate? Do you want to re-create that here? You don’t think that kind of change has a huge impact on people’s lives?
This is exactly the kind of glib attitude people are rebelling against. Libertarianism is little more then the desire to spend down social capital to support a short spurt of novelty driven hedonism before you third world-ify your country. It’s so autistic, selfish, and short sighted its mind boggling.
There is more to life then cheap landscapers and curry restaurants. Some of us want a bright future for our children. All libertarians can offer is barrios and beans.
Hello djf,
“Ricardo, you’re no one to talk about not passing a Turing test”
No, I said you *did* pass the test, and it was meant as a compliment. You have accurately captured the libertarian viewpoint. Most critics are unable to articulate the other side’s position… which is why Arnold’s blog subtitle is “taking the most charitable view of those who disagree.”
I believe you are sincere in your concerns that “excess” immigration will lead to a diminished standard of living for you and for future generations. The libertarian point is that even if this were true, it would be irrelevant. Libertarians view liberty — the liberty to buy a home from a willing seller, the liberty to accept a job offer from a willing employer — to be more important than other social goals. Of course you are free to hold the opposite belief.
I didn’t mean to give strawman examples. I meant to illustrate that in the libertarian view, “protecting one’s culture” is a matter of preferences. So if I built a factory, and it polluted a river… yes, libertarians see that as a “bad” externality. But if I built a factory, and it drove your factory out of business… that’s not a “bad” externality.
I am happy to concede that there are other ways of viewing the world. For example, one might argue that so long as you “play by the rules,” you should be guaranteed a certain level of security, and even of satisfaction. Perhaps factories should be protected against competition from other factories… perhaps it is “unfair” for people to lose their jobs because others can do them more efficiently. I don’t believe so, but I understand how people with good intentions might feel that way.
Anyway, I didn’t mean to offend.
Ricardo,
You’re basically advocating the deontological libertarian position. Start from a set of first principles (these don’t have to be proven, they are merely given, like revelation). Then evaluate a particular decision based on those first principles without a care for their real world effects.
Even liberty itself isn’t at issue, because doing something that violated first principles, even if it had the real world utilitarian effect of increasing net liberty, would be viewed as not allowed. The particular action in front of someone can’t be the anti-liberty one in the immediate here and no moment, regardless of ultimate effects down the road.
This deontological libertarian view is held by very few people. It’s even held by a minority of libertarians (most of whom appear to lean towards the consequentialist side of libertarianism).
I myself am unable to understand deontological libertarianism. I can understand consequentialist libertarianism the same way I understand consequentialist anything. And I can understand deontological arguments rooted in theology, but not ones rooted in materialism.
If we put aside that deontological libertarianism is simply self serving or illogical, how would you try to get someone to accept it?
Well put, asdf.
I wouldn’t try to argue that deontological libertarianism is superior to, say, utilitarianism. As you said, we are talking about first principles… by definition you can’t derive a first principle.
Like most people, I don’t really have a single first principle… I mix and match according to circumstances. But 90% of the time I find myself coming down on the side of liberty. My rule of thumb is that I give the presumption to liberty unless there is a “compelling” argument otherwise — with “compelling” defined circumstantially.
It would make me uncomfortable to think that the only way I can get what I want is to threaten violence — or to ask the government to threaten violence on my behalf.
Again, I realize that not everyone is comfortable with the freedom/coercion framing that I use.
I want to “do right” by the people in my society. Liberty and “doing right by” are often synonymous, for reasons anyone with any libertarian background could defend, but they are not synonymous.
My criticism of libertarians is that they ignore empirical reality too much. I was originally attracted to libertarianism because I thought it offered a framework that was more empirically sound then most of the political and cultural programs I saw as on offer when I was young. In some ways this probably had more to do with the weak competition then libertarianism itself.
As I’ve grown older libertarianism seems ideologically driven and unconcerned with results. If you’ll allow a Bible analogy, it seems pharisaical. The pharisees follow the rules, but they don’t care if the rules actually help anyone. Jesus actually cares about people’s well being. While God (Jesus) certainly believes in sin and has laws, the laws are in service of a goal rather then the goal in and of itself.
I’m more attracted to empirical pragmatists. Lee Kuan Yew was probably my favorite. When I was young I associated Singapore with libertarianism because as a result of his empirical pragmatism Lee often advocated pro-liberty policies (low taxes, business friendly, lowest level of outright transfer welfare possible). He also provided pro liberty things only government can provide (low crime, crime being a non-governmental infringement of liberty).
I’ve been told though that LKY and Singapore are not a good example of libertarianism because of XYZ statist things LKY did. Even though those things seemed practical and successful. Also in the current environment his HBD and anti-immigration stance put him to the right of Hitler in the libertarian imagination.
If a success story like LKY can’t be appreciate and learned from because he failed idealogical litmus tests that are empirically proven to fail, why would I respect libertarianism.
I have always had a soft spot in my heart for both Singapore and LKY — noting the shortcomings that you mentioned.
I don’t disagree with you. I hear those arguments and begin to waver. I would love to see chewing gum outlawed, and I completely approve of fines for not flushing the toilet.
But… I simply do not trust my fellow man to wield that power wisely. They *might*, and sometimes they *have* (you cited some examples). But they also *might not*, and at times they certainly *have not*.
If government is good with probability P, and produces utility U, I am willing to give up P*U(good) in order to avoid (1-P)*U(bad). Perhaps you disagree; perhaps you estimate P to be much higher than I do, or perhaps your U is shaped differently than mine. Well, fair enough. But so what? So what if our utility functions are different? Can’t we coexist? The libertarian view is: go ahead and give others power over your life, if doing so makes you happy. But why must you force that on me?
Surely, surely this is the electoral cycle that proves the point. If you are a Trump supporter, the last thing you want is for Clinton to be a powerful president; if you a Clinton supporter, vice versa. The case for limited government has never been easier to make!
Your assuming “limited government” is even some kind of option. That if you choose limited government it “just happens”.
Limited government is something that imperfectly existed in a single part of the world at a single time. I find libertarians assume limited government “makes itself” if we just put our faith in some principles/documents (the constitution).
I find this puzzling because libertarians tend to assume a materialist/evolutionary framework when talking about mankind, but nothing in evolution makes it seem like limited government or the constitution are natural equilibriums. Sentiment for the constitution takes on a religious quality (it is good because it is good, and if we have faith it will see us through). There is far less un-sentimental discussion of materialist man as he actually is and what real world policies are likely to lead to limited government, which is strange for a formally agnostic group.
Limited government was also based on certain circumstances without which you aren’t going to get limited government. As those have eroded we have less limited government. Some of those things we had no control over, some we did/do, and many are a mix of the two. Probably the strongest argument against modern libertarianism is that it advocates policies which create circumstances under which its own principles are likely to be undermined.
You can’t assume that because you “do onto others” that they will also “do onto you.” They may or may not reciprocate the sentiment based on a number of factors. If you choose not to use government power against them, it is no guarantee they won’t use it against you. This should be obvious.
Rather then simply having faith that others will follow your lead, it makes more sense to study how human beings actually behave and take a realistic assessment of what actions are likely to create the proper incentives for the participants. This is of course hard and messy, and few people want to get down into the “sausage making” of society.
I didn’t say we didn’t have a socialism problem.
Okay, so we’ll just keep them out then.
Oops, that didn’t work either. Time to try giving up then.
I never sit around wringing my hands deciding between principles and consequences.
Deciding your principles post hoc has problems too.
It mostly seems like a waste of time because the principles are based on consequences and vice versa.
Most people mix deontological and consequentialist ethics ad-hoc. They use a mix of intuition and reason to try and glue them together, and it doesn’t always make sense to others or even themselves. There does tend to be a kind of logic behind it all, though results of such formulations vary.
Since most morality is often the vague result of trial and error social forces, experimenting in new moralities, often the result of trying to over abstract and systematize some moral sentiments, tends to end in failure more often then success.
As with all trial and error, you want to avoid experiments whose possible negative results can be long lasting, far reaching, and hard to reverse. Demographic replacement is a good example of such an experiment (no going back if your wrong). Screwing with the family is probably another (long term effects trickle down the generations).
Personally I think there is more then enough data at this point to recognize many of the experiments elites came up with over the last few decades were a mistake, but people rarely want to admit their own errors and relinquish power. What few non-violent mechanisms we have for trying to correct elite mis-steps (democracy) are being neutered in the courts and elsewhere. Elite controlled media and educational apparatuses are also very busy controlling the narrative and punishing crime thinkers in order to sway public opinion.
Ignoring feedback to plow ahead with an idealogical program and forcing it through rarely ends well. The ideologues always think they knew best though, and you’ve got to break a few eggs to make an omelette.
Free global trade is based on trades with completely willing buyer and seller. And if it doesn’t work well, we can always change the laws next year. This seems an easy sell. I voted for Cruz, btw, who advocated free trade.
Immigration is a whole different story. It’s far more permanent, risky, and really only offers choice to the migrant and maybe their employer, and involves a host of other major risk factors. I see immigration success stories, I know many immigrants who are amazing desirable people, but I’ve seen the reverse with immigrants who introduce problems to a host community and any voice of protest is suppressed.
I deeply admire Kling for being far more cautious than his contemporaries on the immigration issue.
Also, great original post. I’m interested to hear more on #3.
The specific examples he discusses are a little odd, but nevertheless, I more or less agree with his general sentiment. If nationalism is what we are going to get (and it looks like we are), then can it please be a sober, serious, nationalism with a respectable absence of foam around the mouth? A little more MLK and a little less Huey Newton, please? Probably too much to ask, I know.
By the way, for those who haven’t seen it yet, Jonathan Haidt’s latest piece is excellent, as usual:
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/07/10/when-and-why-nationalism-beats-globalism/
I think we should try to sell free trade by example, which means being willing to give up the protections against competition that we enjoy in our credentialist society.
I always thought the easiest way to argue for free trade is remind people of the US car industry of the 1970s and simply show photos of the ugliest freckin’ ever made in the US. You will never lose an argument that one.
People like trade between equals where the other person is simply better at providing a superior product. When the other person competes on lower wages, environmental destruction, and other race to the bottom measures to mostly turn out low quality goods and try to compete solely on price people become wary. Japan was another county with first world wages and standards that was simply better. Even then, protectionism did force them to open plants here and train many American workers in their productive ways so they could produce value for themselves.
The fact that China’s currency has been manipulated to create a huge current account bubble and massive mis-investment both here and in China (google ghost cities), that China’s poor savers where saddled with negative real interest rates and American’s took on a bunch of debt they can’t repay for not much lasting in exchange, and that our trade deal with them is the usual thousands of pages of lobbyist protectionism rather then “free trade” escapes a lot of people.
As Thomas Freidmen wrote, he doesn’t actually read free trade agreements, if they have “free trade” in the name then he is automatically for them no matter the contents. That’s about the level of critical thinking libertarians bring to the trade issue.
If you had been listening, you would have heard only libertarians like me saying things you heard from nobody else like that treasury deficits are not free trade.
Consequentialism is a front runner.