Let’s Give Trump Credit for This
It is absolutely amazing that Donald Trump has pulled off what I would have thought impossible just a few years ago: He has made it “cool” for someone on Fox to tear into the neocons.
Over at EconLog, David R. Henderson notes that Steven Chapman writes a whole article complaining about how Trump has somehow gotten the entire GOP to abandon its traditional hostility to Russia. Chapman thinks this is (self-evidently) a bad thing, whereas I would say, “Well, that’s definitely a positive outcome, notwithstanding a collection of negatives.”
Incidentally, I don’t think this is a case of Trump having millions of followers who will believe whatever he tells them. No, I think the rank and file Rush-Limbaugh-loving conservative doesn’t think “the Middle East is worth one drop of US blood.” But it took Trump to smash through the Imperial power structure of intellectuals, policy wonks, and major media.
EDIT: I don’t know much about Tucker Carlson; I don’t have a TV. I think he knows what the country is ready for, and is riding the wave. But my point is, Trump made this flipping of the GOP rank and file possible. (Also check out this story about the time Fox News went to war with Carlson when he worked for CNN.)
Vox Authors Are Too Smug For Me, Even When They Are Trying to Be Helpful
I realize this might be a case of me not taking “yes” for an answer, but you don’t come to Free Advice to read what everybody else is saying. You want the unique reaction that only I can provide…
So at Vox, Henry Farrell and Steven Teles give a gentle but firm critique of Nancy MacLean and her hit job on Public Choice economists. It is interesting because unlike the responses from David R. Henderson, Mike Munger, Don Boudreaux, Phil Magness, etc., these two authors are not obviously just circling the wagons and defending their own. (Disclaimer: I actually don’t know Farrell and Teles, so I’m just relying on the fact that Vox published them and that others are saying at least one of them is mildly a leftist.)
I have to say, I could barely concentrate on their main point, after reading this opening:
It’s always hard in politics for people to take their opponents’ views seriously, but it has become ever harder in Trump’s America. People are more engaged with politics, but only because they want to beat the other side, not understand it. This means scholars have a greater responsibility than ever to help ordinary citizens understand how the people with whom they disagree think, and what their political opponents are actually doing.
Most scholars get this. For example, political scientists and historians, who tend to range from the political center to the left wing, have written extensively about the origins and development of American conservatism. Rick Perlstein, the left-wing historian, has written intelligently and sensitively about the Barry Goldwater movement and the rise of the modern US right. Jefferson Decker at Rutgers University has carefully tracked how reaction against the role of the federal government in Western public lands gave rise to conservative public interest law.
Angus Burgin has thoroughly dug into the history of the Mont Pelerin Society, founded by Friedrich Hayek in 1947, showing how a transnational network of free market thinkers helped change the global conversation on political economy. One of us (Teles) devoted years to making sense of how conservative foundations helped shape the academic discipline of law and economics, build the Federalist Society, and, more recently, support criminal justice reform. And this barely scratches the surface of high-quality scholarship across multiple disciplines on conservatism.
This kind of work is not just important because it involves scholarly objectivity and generosity — although that is true. It’s also important because even when it doesn’t promote agreement, it promotes smarter politics. [Bold added.]
Am I the only one who thinks that’s really smug? They are literally calling the work of one of them “high-quality scholarship” that is “important” and “promotes smarter politics.” And the point of patting themselves on the back like this, is to then pivot and say that Nancy MacLean in her book on Buchanan is not engaged in the same type of high-quality scholarship that promotes smarter politics the way these guys do.
Not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but I am still astounded that they wrote that.
The Mosaic Law Put the Law Above Men
Leviticus 9 opens this way (bold is mine):
1On the eighth day Moses called Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel, 2and he said to Aaron, “Take for yourself a bull calf for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering, both without blemish, and offer them before the LORD. 3And say to the people of Israel, ‘Take a male goat for a sin offering, and a calf and a lamb, both a year old without blemish, for a burnt offering, 4and an ox and a ram for peace offerings, to sacrifice before the LORD, and a grain offering mixed with oil, for today the LORD will appear to you.’” 5And they brought what Moses commanded in front of the tent of meeting, and all the congregation drew near and stood before the LORD. 6And Moses said, “This is the thing that the LORD commanded you to do, that the glory of the LORD may appear to you.” 7Then Moses said to Aaron, “Draw near to the altar and offer your sin offering and your burnt offering and make atonement for yourself and for the people, and bring the offering of the people and make atonement for them, as the LORD has commanded.”
8So Aaron drew near to the altar and killed the calf of the sin offering, which was for himself.
In his commentary on the Bible, David Guzik writes (and he first quotes verse 8):
a. Aaron therefore went to the altar and killed the calf of the sin offering, which was for himself: This was a display of honesty and humility before the people. Aaron, before offering a sacrifice of atonement for the people, publicly offered one for himself, identifying himself with the people. This sacrifice told the nation, “I am a sinner who needs atonement also.”
Believe me, I understand why modern secular writers argue that theocracies were ways of enhancing men’s power, by convincing the people that God (or the gods) had installed the ruler. But the implementation of the Mosaic Law certainly didn’t elevate the rulers to be “above the law.” They had to acknowledge their own sin, just as the rest of the people.
As I remarked to my study partner: Imagine if the framers of the Constitution not only put in checks and balances, but also required that the winner of a U.S. presidential election had to spend the lame duck session in federal prison, serving time for his crimes before his inauguration. That would definitely change the tone of the incoming administration.
Three Times Interventionists Moved the Goal Posts
At the Independent Institute’s blog I have 3 posts up:
In the third installment, make sure you don’t miss how slippery Ezra Klein was. For example:
Cass recently summarized the Oregon results for his readers by writing, “In a randomized trial in Oregon that gave some individuals Medicaid while leaving others uninsured, recipients gained no statistically significant improvement in physical health after two years.”
Cass’s language was quite precise and accurate. This is how the Oregon researchers themselves(including Jonathan Gruber) summarize their results: “In the first one to two years of coverage, Medicaid improved self-reported health and reduced depression, but had no statistically significant effect on several measures of physical health.”
And yet, Ezra Klein argued that Oren Cass was wrong in his claims about the Oregon experiment. Thus, Klein is implicitly arguing that the Oregon researchers themselves didn’t understand their results as well as Klein did. (Also note that Klein edited his original article, so now you have to scroll to the bottom to see him talking about Oren Cass.)
How to “Automate Congress” Using Blockchain Technology
I get lots of people contacting me with their “one simple trick to restore liberty!” But I met with this guy and I think there might be something here. Let me know your thoughts in the comments. I think Donnie can also swoop in to field questions if you want to post them here.
The Private Production of Roads
My topic at EconLib. My favorite part:
It is true that roads form part of a network and that it would be confusing and dangerous if the different owners had different rules, such as a green light sometimes meaning “go” on one road and “stop” on another.
Yet in the private sector, all sorts of standards arise spontaneously and foster coordination, even without a powerful third party enforcing compliance. Screwdrivers and screws fit together; printer paper fits into printers; and software companies develop programs that work on computers that they didn’t build.
Clarifying Paris, Parts 1 and 2
The sequel to my post on the Paris Agreement is now up at IER. For your reference, here is Part 1 and now here is Part 2.
In this latest article, I focus on the 2 degrees Celsius target, which is the centerpiece of the Paris Agreement. Some surprising stuff in here. For example:
As the diagram indicates, even if all governments satisfied the climate policy pledges they’ve made, the globe would still warm by an estimated 2.8°C (with an uncertainty band of 3.5°C on the high end and 2.3°C on the low end).
What’s worse, if we look at the current policies of the world’s governments, then this website estimates warming of 3.6°C, with an upper bound of 4.9°C and a lower bound of 2.6°C.
So to reiterate, the notion that the world was doing just fine, until Donald Trump came along and ruined the fight against climate change, is simply not true. Whether we look at what the other governments have promised or we look at what they’ve actually put into place, the world was not anywhere close to respecting the 2°C target.
Potpourri
==> LAST CHANCE! Remember there’s a great discount for my student text and teacher’s manual of Lessons for the Young Economist. Offer expires today (June 30, 2017).
==> You know, people like Krugman criticize me for refusing to grapple with the surprising inflation results after 2008. It’s like he never saw the publication:
Murphy, Robert. (2014) “Explaining Inflation in the Aftermath of the Great Recession,” Journal of Macroeconomics, Vol. 40, pp. 228-244.
==> My latest explaining the case against ObamaCare “saving tens of thousands of lives annually.” I rely heavily on Oren Cass’s original research, but one of my contributions is to actually chart the mortality data:
Source: CDC WONDER Database
Recent Comments