1) As returns to IQ increase, meritocracy (liberty) will increase inequality.
2) The most important form of equality today is the breakdown of social norms. Belmont vs Fishtown. Giving wage subsidies to FIshtown will not in and of itself solve the fact that Fishtowners don't get married for instance.
Hollebecque called this "the extension of the domain of struggle". Basically, the applying of meritocracy to the family and sexual relations (which naturally causes huge inequality, Christian marriage is not biologically natural but a form of sexual socialism).
Extending liberty to the social realm has mostly made things more unequal. When you tell people they can have all the drugs, sex, and implicitly violence and crime that they want it turns out Fishtown is a hellhole. This gets worse and worse the more you try to liberate the aberrant.
This is something that libertarians* can't quite come to grips with. The answer seems to be "well, if they implode that's their own problem. This never really works out (when they implode it affects everyone around them, and its empirically inevitable that the government ends up getting involved.)
*Murray is more a conservative that respects libertarian solutions in many cases. He may or may not favor legalized pot, but he would probably scold rather than encourage people in Fishtown to smoke pot.
There are of course many reforms to laws we could make on these issues, but fundamentally I think that the current divide between the Upper/Middle/Lower makes a kind of sense. The Upper wants relaxation of the old standards so they can indulge, but generally this doesn't destroy them (I'd argue it lessens them, but the effect is more in opportunity cost than gutter). The middle would prefer the old standards. The lower wants no standards even if it destroys them because they can't plan ahead and they see little hope anyway. Government and cultural outcomes therefore tends to favor the upper (that can manipulate it) and the lower (which can ignore it and get paid off), though not always to long term benefit.
“The biggest contradiction in liberalism is between its main two values: liberty and equality.” A misunderstanding surely? True Liberals know the only equality it is possible to ensure is equality (and equity) before the Law under the Rule of Law. Liberals (true) understand that social and economic equality is not possible without force and thus contrary to the principle of Liberty - which is freedom from arbitrary control, obligation, restrictions, limiting of choice. There is no contradiction in liberalism, just those who don’t know what it is.
The challenge of Liberty and Equality is really just one example of the broader tension between Liberty and Virtue. Equality just happens to be the one virtue that remains for many progressives.
Liberty and Virtue are both necessary for a stable pluralist society, and there is an inherent tension between the two. Ideally, and maybe this was the case earlier in US history, Liberty and Virtue serve as checks on the other to maintain a balance. For example, Liberty ensures that laws are not passed that violate the beliefs of minority groups. And Virtue checks Liberty to ensure decency, safety, and institutions that lead to a healthy and prosperous society.
Today, except perhaps in the modern sense of equality, Virtue has been cast to the side and Liberty has taken on distorted proportions. You might also say equality as the sole remaining virtue has itself taken on distorted proportions. Now we have two monsters, twisted forms of their original nature, battling for supremacy.
It really really really surprises me that you don't openly call out Torenberg's nonsense. Liberalism has never, and can never, value equality of outcome. There is no tension, other than balancing everyone's equal liberty.
I would argue, quite seriously, that giving women the vote did indeed create a tension between liberty and equality -- because politically, the century that began in 1920 has been a century of nanny-statism, and women voters have had everything to do with that fact, from Prohibition onward. The suffragettes and temperance movement were mostly the same people. Indeed, the only reason the 18th Amendment preceded the 19th was that several large states, including New York, had already given women the vote before the 19th was enacted.
I do not believe the trade-off was worth it in this case. YMMV.
Maybe I have been too immersed in Razib and Robin Hanson, but it would seem that sometimes Liberty and Equality seem to go together and sometimes they are in too much tension. That there is an epicyclical movement between the two and there is a story to be told with regard to the construal level and status with regard to when they become closer and when they are moving apart.
I have trouble with the portrait of the past and the characterization of the present that underlies the predictions. As I see it, the past linked status with responsibility under a system of peer accountability mixed with upward accountability. Revolutions openly aimed at some 'downward accountability' to balance the upward accountability, which had led to abuses. However, revolutions in due course turned to instead 'flattening' the status structure permanently [or equality] rather than simply purging the elites of bad actors. Later accounts suggest the revolutions were mostly aimed at status inversion by subsections of the elites that were discontented with their own strata within the elites. Unfortunately, these flattening revolutions tended to also break the systems of responsibility (liberty) which the status systems had supported. The idea had been to loose the bonds of the oppressed, so to speak, but as new elites, those former oppressed should have shouldered the load of the community. Instead, the new elites were unoccupied by caring for dependent subordinates, and were only busy evading responsibilities as if they were somehow oppressive.
In short, the idea of having people who pay taxes also have the right to vote has nothing to do with oppression or inequality. Votes could even be proportional to taxation, and it satisfies the battle cry of the American Revolution. It creates a peer group of the financial contributors to the community, with rights and responsibilities to match. Having only rights and no responsibilities...
An irony is that there's arguably an untapped slice of the liberty/equality-promoting venn diagram, that could in principle (but doesn't in fact) get consensus across the red/blue divide: zoning reform, occupational licensing reform, school choice/charters, progressive consumption taxation.
There are tradeoffs, but I don't think they are what mainly stand in the way of polices to promote growth and prosperity: taxes on CO2 emissions, congestion taxes for streets and roads, skilled based immigration, lower fiscal deficits, less restrictive land use policies. And redistributionist measures like higher EITC or CTC have low growth inhibiting effects.
It is unfortunate that _equality before the law_ gets shortened to _equality_. We want the former. We can even approach it, such that we can inhibit the powerful from legally oppressing the weak.
A similar thing was at work with economic regulation. Only very late in the day did it occur to anyone that the state would regulate _in favor of_ a poorer or less powerful group. But today we actually have to look at things case by case.
Early Gen X-ers at least had real civics classes that included some foundational philosophical concepts. I don't remember if it was jr. high or high school, but I remember talking about utopias and equality of opportunities vs. outcomes.
That's all been thrown out the window and even some of the silent generation conveniently forget what they've learned. It really grates the nerves when Biden talks about "3 co-equal branches of government".
Throughout my lifetime, probably much longer, liberty and equality have been increasing and decreasing in various ways, both via government and the actions of other groups and individuals. The extent to which these changes are net positive or negative is not only highly subjective but also based on individual experience. To me, it seems obvious the changes are a net positive for the vast majority even if the trend is bad in some ways and for some groups or individuals. Whatever one's opinion it is important to remember we can't be certain whether liberty or equality is increasing or decreasing except maybe in rather extreme circumstances. I don't think it can be argued we've had an extreme drop in liberty or equality in the US in a very long time, if ever.
It's worth noting that when people are surveyed about various harms in the world they often have a rather negative view because they believe others have been harmed more than themselves. This suggests a rather profound misperception of the world in which we live.
"To effectively reduce inequality in income and education, we cannot simply add to liberty of people at the bottom. We would have to take away liberty from people at the top."
Which is exactly what we are in the process of doing, with one caveat- those in the government exempt themselves.
Murray noted two things on inequality:
1) As returns to IQ increase, meritocracy (liberty) will increase inequality.
2) The most important form of equality today is the breakdown of social norms. Belmont vs Fishtown. Giving wage subsidies to FIshtown will not in and of itself solve the fact that Fishtowners don't get married for instance.
Hollebecque called this "the extension of the domain of struggle". Basically, the applying of meritocracy to the family and sexual relations (which naturally causes huge inequality, Christian marriage is not biologically natural but a form of sexual socialism).
Extending liberty to the social realm has mostly made things more unequal. When you tell people they can have all the drugs, sex, and implicitly violence and crime that they want it turns out Fishtown is a hellhole. This gets worse and worse the more you try to liberate the aberrant.
This is something that libertarians* can't quite come to grips with. The answer seems to be "well, if they implode that's their own problem. This never really works out (when they implode it affects everyone around them, and its empirically inevitable that the government ends up getting involved.)
*Murray is more a conservative that respects libertarian solutions in many cases. He may or may not favor legalized pot, but he would probably scold rather than encourage people in Fishtown to smoke pot.
There are of course many reforms to laws we could make on these issues, but fundamentally I think that the current divide between the Upper/Middle/Lower makes a kind of sense. The Upper wants relaxation of the old standards so they can indulge, but generally this doesn't destroy them (I'd argue it lessens them, but the effect is more in opportunity cost than gutter). The middle would prefer the old standards. The lower wants no standards even if it destroys them because they can't plan ahead and they see little hope anyway. Government and cultural outcomes therefore tends to favor the upper (that can manipulate it) and the lower (which can ignore it and get paid off), though not always to long term benefit.
"Why wasn’t the trade-off between liberty and equality more obvious two hundred years ago?"
It was obvious two hundred years ago. Tocqueville wrote a great deal about this and predicted equality would eventually triumph over liberty.
“The biggest contradiction in liberalism is between its main two values: liberty and equality.” A misunderstanding surely? True Liberals know the only equality it is possible to ensure is equality (and equity) before the Law under the Rule of Law. Liberals (true) understand that social and economic equality is not possible without force and thus contrary to the principle of Liberty - which is freedom from arbitrary control, obligation, restrictions, limiting of choice. There is no contradiction in liberalism, just those who don’t know what it is.
The challenge of Liberty and Equality is really just one example of the broader tension between Liberty and Virtue. Equality just happens to be the one virtue that remains for many progressives.
Liberty and Virtue are both necessary for a stable pluralist society, and there is an inherent tension between the two. Ideally, and maybe this was the case earlier in US history, Liberty and Virtue serve as checks on the other to maintain a balance. For example, Liberty ensures that laws are not passed that violate the beliefs of minority groups. And Virtue checks Liberty to ensure decency, safety, and institutions that lead to a healthy and prosperous society.
Today, except perhaps in the modern sense of equality, Virtue has been cast to the side and Liberty has taken on distorted proportions. You might also say equality as the sole remaining virtue has itself taken on distorted proportions. Now we have two monsters, twisted forms of their original nature, battling for supremacy.
It really really really surprises me that you don't openly call out Torenberg's nonsense. Liberalism has never, and can never, value equality of outcome. There is no tension, other than balancing everyone's equal liberty.
I would argue, quite seriously, that giving women the vote did indeed create a tension between liberty and equality -- because politically, the century that began in 1920 has been a century of nanny-statism, and women voters have had everything to do with that fact, from Prohibition onward. The suffragettes and temperance movement were mostly the same people. Indeed, the only reason the 18th Amendment preceded the 19th was that several large states, including New York, had already given women the vote before the 19th was enacted.
I do not believe the trade-off was worth it in this case. YMMV.
Maybe I have been too immersed in Razib and Robin Hanson, but it would seem that sometimes Liberty and Equality seem to go together and sometimes they are in too much tension. That there is an epicyclical movement between the two and there is a story to be told with regard to the construal level and status with regard to when they become closer and when they are moving apart.
I have trouble with the portrait of the past and the characterization of the present that underlies the predictions. As I see it, the past linked status with responsibility under a system of peer accountability mixed with upward accountability. Revolutions openly aimed at some 'downward accountability' to balance the upward accountability, which had led to abuses. However, revolutions in due course turned to instead 'flattening' the status structure permanently [or equality] rather than simply purging the elites of bad actors. Later accounts suggest the revolutions were mostly aimed at status inversion by subsections of the elites that were discontented with their own strata within the elites. Unfortunately, these flattening revolutions tended to also break the systems of responsibility (liberty) which the status systems had supported. The idea had been to loose the bonds of the oppressed, so to speak, but as new elites, those former oppressed should have shouldered the load of the community. Instead, the new elites were unoccupied by caring for dependent subordinates, and were only busy evading responsibilities as if they were somehow oppressive.
In short, the idea of having people who pay taxes also have the right to vote has nothing to do with oppression or inequality. Votes could even be proportional to taxation, and it satisfies the battle cry of the American Revolution. It creates a peer group of the financial contributors to the community, with rights and responsibilities to match. Having only rights and no responsibilities...
An irony is that there's arguably an untapped slice of the liberty/equality-promoting venn diagram, that could in principle (but doesn't in fact) get consensus across the red/blue divide: zoning reform, occupational licensing reform, school choice/charters, progressive consumption taxation.
Left liberals get it:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/04/opinion/science-evidence-merits.html
Post-liberal progressives don't:
https://www.newsweek.com/removing-mcat-could-improve-diversity-medicine-opinion-1775471
There are tradeoffs, but I don't think they are what mainly stand in the way of polices to promote growth and prosperity: taxes on CO2 emissions, congestion taxes for streets and roads, skilled based immigration, lower fiscal deficits, less restrictive land use policies. And redistributionist measures like higher EITC or CTC have low growth inhibiting effects.
It is unfortunate that _equality before the law_ gets shortened to _equality_. We want the former. We can even approach it, such that we can inhibit the powerful from legally oppressing the weak.
A similar thing was at work with economic regulation. Only very late in the day did it occur to anyone that the state would regulate _in favor of_ a poorer or less powerful group. But today we actually have to look at things case by case.
Early Gen X-ers at least had real civics classes that included some foundational philosophical concepts. I don't remember if it was jr. high or high school, but I remember talking about utopias and equality of opportunities vs. outcomes.
That's all been thrown out the window and even some of the silent generation conveniently forget what they've learned. It really grates the nerves when Biden talks about "3 co-equal branches of government".
Throughout my lifetime, probably much longer, liberty and equality have been increasing and decreasing in various ways, both via government and the actions of other groups and individuals. The extent to which these changes are net positive or negative is not only highly subjective but also based on individual experience. To me, it seems obvious the changes are a net positive for the vast majority even if the trend is bad in some ways and for some groups or individuals. Whatever one's opinion it is important to remember we can't be certain whether liberty or equality is increasing or decreasing except maybe in rather extreme circumstances. I don't think it can be argued we've had an extreme drop in liberty or equality in the US in a very long time, if ever.
It's worth noting that when people are surveyed about various harms in the world they often have a rather negative view because they believe others have been harmed more than themselves. This suggests a rather profound misperception of the world in which we live.
Kling wrote:
"To effectively reduce inequality in income and education, we cannot simply add to liberty of people at the bottom. We would have to take away liberty from people at the top."
Which is exactly what we are in the process of doing, with one caveat- those in the government exempt themselves.