This morning Indiana's Democratic legislators followed their Wisconsin colleagues and departed the state to bring the Indiana legislature to a halt. Of course if one agrees with their opposition, this looks like a clever political strategy. But is it really? Is it the proper operation of a representative democracy?
In a representative democracy, people elect their representative, who gather and debate legislative proposals, and then vote on them. In general the vote favors the majority, as it should, since the majority were elected by (in theory) roughly the majority of the people they represent. The minority loses most votes, as they should, since in general they represent a minority of the population. If the public doesn't like what the majority is doing, they don't re-elect them, and power swings to the other party.
That is what happened in Wisconsin and a number of other states in the last election. Wisconsin Republicans ran on a platform of restoring fiscal sanity to the state budget. And they ran quite openly and specifically on the promise to control the public-sector unions. And the majority of the people put them in office with that promise, and no doubt expect them to keep it.
So when the minority opposition brings the legislature to a halt because they oppose proposed legislation, legislation which they know in advance will be passed by a majority elected by a majority of the citizens they represent, they are effectively attempting to break the representative democratic system -- to play outside of its rules (even a US Senate filibuster is still operating withing the rules of the Senate).
So I don't see this tactic as politically clever - I see it as a dangerous precedent threatening American representative democracy. If it works, all minority opposition groups will use it any time they want to block the majority will, and our legislative system will quickly become a shambles. And unions, well-organized, well-financed by the compulsory union dues their members must pay, and already exerting undue influence on Democratic politics, will no doubt be among the biggest users of this tactic.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
The problem with democracy
I see that several polls have been taken in recent days to try to gauge the amount of public support the Wisconsin Republicans have for their proposal to strip public workers of their union bargaining rights. Predictably, the union-supported polls show strong union support, and the Republican polls show strong support for the proposed legislation. Of course any good pollster can adjust the questions to get any desired result, as I am sure happened here.
But it does raise the general question of how valid public opinion is in a democracy. A healthy democracy depends upon an informed electorate. Otherwise democracy is just a form of mob rule. And just how informed is the American electorate? People certainly "think" they understand the issues, but since most of what they think they know has probably come from biased news and simplified "sound bites", and since most people only listen to news commentators they agree with, one wonders how informed the general public really is.
One way to judge this is to look at public reaction to obvious impending problems, like the debt crisis. It seems to me any rational, informed person would look at the current debt situation and conclude that drastic and immediate steps need to be taken to avert disaster. Is that the opinion of the general public? It doesn't seem so. Oh, there is a general unease at least among Tea Party conservatives about the issue. But no one seems to be reacting with the urgency the debt issue appears to require. Even Republican politicians are only proposing cosmetic cuts.
Or one could look at the two current wars in which we are engaged. It does seem to me an informed public who understood history, the economic cost of these wars, the political cost we are paying around the world, the strain on the military and their families, and the casualties we are taking, would conclude that an immediate exit was highly desirable. But I don't see that. The public seems content to trust Washington's repeated rosy view of how things are going - the same rosy view we have been given for almost a decade now under two administrations.
So I wonder if it really matters what the public thinks about the proposed legislation in Wisconsin. No one on either side seems to be making a closely-reasoned argument for their position. All I see are people on both sides trying to score cheap political points, as if this were simply a high school debate and the state wasn't billion of dollars in the red. It does make one wonder if the Democracy we seem to be so determined to spread around the world is really such a great system.
But it does raise the general question of how valid public opinion is in a democracy. A healthy democracy depends upon an informed electorate. Otherwise democracy is just a form of mob rule. And just how informed is the American electorate? People certainly "think" they understand the issues, but since most of what they think they know has probably come from biased news and simplified "sound bites", and since most people only listen to news commentators they agree with, one wonders how informed the general public really is.
One way to judge this is to look at public reaction to obvious impending problems, like the debt crisis. It seems to me any rational, informed person would look at the current debt situation and conclude that drastic and immediate steps need to be taken to avert disaster. Is that the opinion of the general public? It doesn't seem so. Oh, there is a general unease at least among Tea Party conservatives about the issue. But no one seems to be reacting with the urgency the debt issue appears to require. Even Republican politicians are only proposing cosmetic cuts.
Or one could look at the two current wars in which we are engaged. It does seem to me an informed public who understood history, the economic cost of these wars, the political cost we are paying around the world, the strain on the military and their families, and the casualties we are taking, would conclude that an immediate exit was highly desirable. But I don't see that. The public seems content to trust Washington's repeated rosy view of how things are going - the same rosy view we have been given for almost a decade now under two administrations.
So I wonder if it really matters what the public thinks about the proposed legislation in Wisconsin. No one on either side seems to be making a closely-reasoned argument for their position. All I see are people on both sides trying to score cheap political points, as if this were simply a high school debate and the state wasn't billion of dollars in the red. It does make one wonder if the Democracy we seem to be so determined to spread around the world is really such a great system.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Recommended: The Experience Economy
One again David Brooks has written a thoughtful, provoking piece called The Experience Economy in the Feb 14 New York Times. Well worth reading.
It has occurred to me a number of times that an economic model that depends on continuous expansion of markets, as our does, has a natural, almost Malthusian limit, and we may be approaching it. An economic model which relies instead on servicing a continuous market of more or less fixed size seems like a better long-term approach.
It has occurred to me a number of times that an economic model that depends on continuous expansion of markets, as our does, has a natural, almost Malthusian limit, and we may be approaching it. An economic model which relies instead on servicing a continuous market of more or less fixed size seems like a better long-term approach.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Visualizing Obama's proposed budget
The New York Times site today has an interesting graphic that helps one visualize where the money goes in President Obama's proposed budget. You can see it here.
The four biggest boxes are, of course, 1. Health and Human Services (mostly medicare and medicaid), 2. Social Security, 3. Defense, and 4. Treasury (mostly interest on the national debt). We can't do much about (4) except eventually pay down the debt. So clearly any meaningful cuts need to include 1, 2, and 3. But of course neither the Republican proposals nor President Obama's budget proposal touch 1 or 2.
The four biggest boxes are, of course, 1. Health and Human Services (mostly medicare and medicaid), 2. Social Security, 3. Defense, and 4. Treasury (mostly interest on the national debt). We can't do much about (4) except eventually pay down the debt. So clearly any meaningful cuts need to include 1, 2, and 3. But of course neither the Republican proposals nor President Obama's budget proposal touch 1 or 2.
Never-never land!
I have been taking the House Republicans to task in recent postings for failing to face up to the magnitude of the Federal debt problem and proposing small, ineffectual "cosmetic" cuts instead of getting real about the size of budget adjustments really needed. But as much as Republican proposals seem to be far too timid for the problem we face, the reaction of the political left to President Obama's equally "minor" cuts in his new budget proposal is positively unreal. (Running an annual deficit of over a trillion dollars, as his budget proposal does, is NOT budget cutting!)
When (if ever) is the political left going to learn that it doesn't matter how much we want something, or how moral it would be if we had it, if we simply can't afford to pay for it? Once again, I suggest the budget proposal start with projected government revenues, allocate them until they run out -- and STOP! That is all we can afford (actually it is already MORE than we can afford, because it doesn't keep any surplus to pay down the existing debt.)
When (if ever) is the political left going to learn that it doesn't matter how much we want something, or how moral it would be if we had it, if we simply can't afford to pay for it? Once again, I suggest the budget proposal start with projected government revenues, allocate them until they run out -- and STOP! That is all we can afford (actually it is already MORE than we can afford, because it doesn't keep any surplus to pay down the existing debt.)
Monday, February 14, 2011
Favorite quotation of the week
“The first law of economics is scarcity, and the first law of politics is to disregard the first law of economics"Thomas Sowell
Recommended: Mubaraks, Mamelukes, Modernizers and Muslims
We in America are too often ignorant of the historical context within which today's events are occurring. This may be a failing of other nations as well, but it is certainly a failing of our own society. With respect to the recent events in Egypt, Walter Russel Mead has a long and informative and thoughtful article entitled Mubaraks, Mamelukes, Modernizers and Muslims that is well worth reading and thinking about.
And by the way, Mead is part of an ongoing seminar on Grand Strategy being taught at Bard College, and one can follow the discussion and see the syllabus here. I am finding the discussion quite interesting and thought-provoking.
And by the way, Mead is part of an ongoing seminar on Grand Strategy being taught at Bard College, and one can follow the discussion and see the syllabus here. I am finding the discussion quite interesting and thought-provoking.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
The Myth of Multiculturalism
A couple of paragraphs from Victor David Hanson’s Feb 5, 2011 article The Middle East and the Multicultural Nightmare make some valid points about the naïve “multiculturalism” now fashionable among the chattering classes:
Where did multiculturalism come from? It is a bastard child of Marxism, of course, inasmuch as it is anti-capitalist and judges left-wing or pseudo-left-wing totalitarians far less harshly than right-wing authoritarians (e.g., Obama is more sympathetic to the crowds in Cairo than he was to those in Teheran). It is also a byproduct of Western affluence, which alone provided the margin of safety and affluence to indulge in fantasies. One reports on the noble Palestinians by staying in nice places in Israel; one is an advocate of the “other” in Harlem from the Harvard Lounge and Upper West Side; the yuppie actor praises Chavez and his forced redistributive housing schemes, but would never turn over his vacation Malibu beach house to homeless illegal aliens who cut his lawn.
Finally, multiculturalism is a form of political and historical ignorance. The multiculturalist is an ahistorical fool, who confuses the cultural periphery with the core. Thus the United States is enriched by “multicultural” music, food, fashion, art, and literature from a Mexico or Kenya or Egypt. Fine, wonderful, all the better. But one, in the spirit of “diversity,” does not wish to embrace the Mexican judiciary, the Kenyan economic system, or the Arab attitude to women. Multiculturalism is a fraud of sorts, as the activist who wears the serape to campus never quite agitates for adopting the protocols of the Mexican police or the Mexico City elite’s approach to Indian peoples. We do not see signs blaring out: “We want Nigerian speech codes,” “Treat women as they do in Saudi Arabia,” “Look to the Iranians for gay rights,” “Arabs had the right idea about slavery,” etc. When I do radio talk show interviews, usually the harshest US critics are transplanted Middle Easterners who in their furor at American foreign policy never quite explain why they left and do not go back to places that they now idolize — as if the economic, political, and cultural protocols they enjoy here would appear in Gaza or Yemen like dandelions after a rain if it were not for US imperialism.
Recommended: Sun Tzu: The Enemy of the Bureaucratic Mind
Following in the same line of thought as my previous recommendation of George Friedman's The Next Decade, Walter Russel Mead has an interesting February 8, 2011, posting in his American Interest blog, Sun Tzu: The Enemy of the Bureaucratic Mind
Recommended: The Next Decade
George Friedman’s previous book, The Next 100 Years (2009), argued that while details couldn’t be predicted, the overall effects of the impersonal forces of geography and geopolitics, demographics, cultural tendencies and technological and military evolution are reasonably predictable. And from those forces Friedman projected the likely shape of the next 100 years.
Friedman’s latest book, The Next Decade, argues that while in the long term individual leaders make little difference to the shape of history, in the short term – the next decade – they make a great deal of difference. He is particularly concerned that America, having become an empire without intending to, needs to learn how to manage this empire without losing the republic. A political realist unhampered by the ideological myths of the left or right, Friedman argues that to survive America needs presidents who have learned more than a little from Machiavelli, and who, like Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan, can keep their focus on the important ultimate national objectives and do what it takes, even if unpleasant and/or deceitful, to achieve them.
In general, he feels America’s overall policy should be to establish and support regional balances of power that assure that no other nation or coalition of nations becomes powerful enough to threaten or destroy the U.S.A. This may sound cynical, but in fact throughout recorded history this has been the single most successful strategy of national survival, from the early Greek city states right down to the British Empire. And in fact it was the essence of the strategy that won the Cold War.
Friedman argues that we badly need leaders with a balance of ideals and pragmatism. Too much idealism leads to unrealistic foreign policy (like thinking we can turn Afghanistan into a western-style democracy). But pragmatism without a moral foundation leads to shallow thinking and incomplete strategies. And he thinks that the American public, now adolescent in its outlook, needs to grow up and expect reality-based adult behavior from its leaders (something notably lacking in the current debates about the Federal deficit).
This is a worthwhile book to read and ponder. His nation-by-nation assessment of the world and of the existing regional balances-of-power, and his discussion of strategy alternatives available to the US in various regions, are very enlightening.
Friedman’s latest book, The Next Decade, argues that while in the long term individual leaders make little difference to the shape of history, in the short term – the next decade – they make a great deal of difference. He is particularly concerned that America, having become an empire without intending to, needs to learn how to manage this empire without losing the republic. A political realist unhampered by the ideological myths of the left or right, Friedman argues that to survive America needs presidents who have learned more than a little from Machiavelli, and who, like Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan, can keep their focus on the important ultimate national objectives and do what it takes, even if unpleasant and/or deceitful, to achieve them.
In general, he feels America’s overall policy should be to establish and support regional balances of power that assure that no other nation or coalition of nations becomes powerful enough to threaten or destroy the U.S.A. This may sound cynical, but in fact throughout recorded history this has been the single most successful strategy of national survival, from the early Greek city states right down to the British Empire. And in fact it was the essence of the strategy that won the Cold War.
Friedman argues that we badly need leaders with a balance of ideals and pragmatism. Too much idealism leads to unrealistic foreign policy (like thinking we can turn Afghanistan into a western-style democracy). But pragmatism without a moral foundation leads to shallow thinking and incomplete strategies. And he thinks that the American public, now adolescent in its outlook, needs to grow up and expect reality-based adult behavior from its leaders (something notably lacking in the current debates about the Federal deficit).
This is a worthwhile book to read and ponder. His nation-by-nation assessment of the world and of the existing regional balances-of-power, and his discussion of strategy alternatives available to the US in various regions, are very enlightening.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Obama's High-Speed Rail Initiative
Even in the face of a massive and exploding federal deficit, and a Republican-controlled House that wants to to cut billions from the Federal budget, President Obama is proposing a six-year, $53 billion plan to expand high-speed rail in the US.
We have indeed neglected infrastructure projects in the US, so in general, even in this budget-cutting era, I am in favor of trying to find ways to bring our infrastructure up to date. But is high-speed rail really one of the essential infrastructure components?
Let's be clear - high speed rail is for passengers, not freight. Only passengers care that much about getting somewhere in a hurry - freight can travel at modest speeds and still get where it needs to go on time. But in fact trains are not very efficient for passengers. Train transportation is most efficient for dense bulk products, like coal or iron ore or densely-packed containers. People, in contrast, take up a lot of room for very little weight.
Or put another way, one has to haul many tons of passenger car along just to carry a few people, and that isn't actually very cost-effective, which is why in the end passenger service declined in the US -- it really isn't economically competitive. Today's Amtrak passenger train weights work out to around 1.75 tons per seat (train watchers figure these things out), which is a lot of weight to haul across the country just to carry one person. And of course fuel usage climbs non-linearly as speed increases, and track maintenance costs increase sharply the higher the operating speed.
So in fact high-speed rail travel is a little like supersonic passenger planes - very sexy, good for the national image, great for the jet-set elite, but economically just a big drain that needs heavy subsidies to even survive. I am disappointed that the Obama administration is so easily sold on such a questionable venture. Even old, slow Amtrak needs hefty subsidies to survive (About $32 per passenger as of 2010), even with ticket prices that approach air travel, so one can imagine the level of subsidies that will be needed to keep a high-speed rail line operating.
We would do far better to invest in better low-tech rail freight improvements than in this pie-in-the-sky high-speed passenger service. It would pay far better dividends in the end.
We have indeed neglected infrastructure projects in the US, so in general, even in this budget-cutting era, I am in favor of trying to find ways to bring our infrastructure up to date. But is high-speed rail really one of the essential infrastructure components?
Let's be clear - high speed rail is for passengers, not freight. Only passengers care that much about getting somewhere in a hurry - freight can travel at modest speeds and still get where it needs to go on time. But in fact trains are not very efficient for passengers. Train transportation is most efficient for dense bulk products, like coal or iron ore or densely-packed containers. People, in contrast, take up a lot of room for very little weight.
Or put another way, one has to haul many tons of passenger car along just to carry a few people, and that isn't actually very cost-effective, which is why in the end passenger service declined in the US -- it really isn't economically competitive. Today's Amtrak passenger train weights work out to around 1.75 tons per seat (train watchers figure these things out), which is a lot of weight to haul across the country just to carry one person. And of course fuel usage climbs non-linearly as speed increases, and track maintenance costs increase sharply the higher the operating speed.
So in fact high-speed rail travel is a little like supersonic passenger planes - very sexy, good for the national image, great for the jet-set elite, but economically just a big drain that needs heavy subsidies to even survive. I am disappointed that the Obama administration is so easily sold on such a questionable venture. Even old, slow Amtrak needs hefty subsidies to survive (About $32 per passenger as of 2010), even with ticket prices that approach air travel, so one can imagine the level of subsidies that will be needed to keep a high-speed rail line operating.
We would do far better to invest in better low-tech rail freight improvements than in this pie-in-the-sky high-speed passenger service. It would pay far better dividends in the end.
Monday, February 7, 2011
The Next Decade
I have just started reading George Friedman's new book "The Next Decade". In due course I'll write a more complete review, but I thought a couple of paragraphs in the introduction deserved special note immediately:
I invite readers to consider two themes. The first is the concept of the unintended empire. I argue that the United States has become an empire not because it intended to, but because history has worked out that way. The issue of whether the United States should be an empire is meaningless. It is an empire.This promises to be a very interesting, and highly relevant, book.
The second theme, therefore, is about managing the empire, and for me the most important question behind that is whether the republic can survive. The United States was founded against British imperialism. It is ironic, and in many ways appalling, that what the founders gave us now faces this dilemma. There might have been exits from this fate, but these exits were not likely. Nations become what they are through the constraints of history, and history has very little sentimentality when it comes to ideology or preferences. We are what we are.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Favorite quotation of the week
A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.George Bernard Shaw
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Recommended: JFK and the Unspeakable
James Douglass’ book JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, is a complex book. President Kennedy’s assassination has spawned a number of conspiracy theories over the years, some wilder than others, but none have been as convincing, nor as meticulously documented, as this one. Douglass argues, quite persuasively, that Kennedy was assassinated by hard-line cold war elements of the US government who opposed his secret moves with Soviet Premier Khrushchev to de-escalate the cold war. This may sound far-fetched, but Douglass meticulously assembles his evidence, much of it in documents and testimony not available until recently, and when it is all assembled, I find it pretty convincing. Interestingly enough, this is not really a book about conspiracy theories, nor is it an anti-establishment book. Douglass is really dealing with a much subtler, deeper and more fundamental issue of morality and faith in a world with weapons that can destroy human civilization.
This is an important book at a time when America is mired in decades-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that are bankrupting the nation, decimating our military preparedness elsewhere in the world, and breeding lasting enmity toward the US throughout the Middle East. If Douglass’ description of a military-industrial-government coalition grown so powerful that it can subvert and destroy a President who tried to limits its power is in any way accurate, one has to wonder how much of today’s difficulties are related.
Americans have a faith, perhaps naïve, that their government, while certainly sometimes inept, is not fundamentally sinister (though strangely enough, we are quite willing to believe that the governments of other nations, particularly those that oppose us, are sinister). This book makes one re-examine that belief. Humans, after all, are pretty much the same everywhere, and as Lord Acton famously remarked “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Why should we expect those in high places in our own government to be immune from this universal failing?
Not that Douglass thinks the primary movers in the tragedy were self-serving. Indeed, most of them apparently really believed they were saving the nation from a naïve, weak President who endangered the security of the nation. And I am sure the architects of our Iraq and Afghanistan adventures were equally sure they are doing what was in the best interests of the nation. But as the old saying goes “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”.
This is an important book to read. The reader can decide for her/himself whether in the end the evidence about Kennedy’s assassination is convincing or not. But irrespective of that issue, the documented trail of rogue elements within the government operating on their own, without the knowledge of the President and often in direct defiance of orders from the President, is sobering.
This is an important book at a time when America is mired in decades-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that are bankrupting the nation, decimating our military preparedness elsewhere in the world, and breeding lasting enmity toward the US throughout the Middle East. If Douglass’ description of a military-industrial-government coalition grown so powerful that it can subvert and destroy a President who tried to limits its power is in any way accurate, one has to wonder how much of today’s difficulties are related.
Americans have a faith, perhaps naïve, that their government, while certainly sometimes inept, is not fundamentally sinister (though strangely enough, we are quite willing to believe that the governments of other nations, particularly those that oppose us, are sinister). This book makes one re-examine that belief. Humans, after all, are pretty much the same everywhere, and as Lord Acton famously remarked “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Why should we expect those in high places in our own government to be immune from this universal failing?
Not that Douglass thinks the primary movers in the tragedy were self-serving. Indeed, most of them apparently really believed they were saving the nation from a naïve, weak President who endangered the security of the nation. And I am sure the architects of our Iraq and Afghanistan adventures were equally sure they are doing what was in the best interests of the nation. But as the old saying goes “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”.
This is an important book to read. The reader can decide for her/himself whether in the end the evidence about Kennedy’s assassination is convincing or not. But irrespective of that issue, the documented trail of rogue elements within the government operating on their own, without the knowledge of the President and often in direct defiance of orders from the President, is sobering.
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