Britain's early shift toward manufacturing; Daniel Klein on libertarians and Mr. Trump; Michael Strong on evolutionary mismatch and modern childhood; Dominic Cummings on institutional decay
"if you are as convinced as he is that the Democratic Party poses a definite threat to liberty."
It's not really in dispute, is it, that they have:
1. Overtly attempted to remove a candidate from the ballot
2. Selectively prosecuted that candidate for dubious crimes
3. Worked to eliminate transparency and controls from voting procedures
4. Wielded the power of government to publicize whole lot of demonstrably false information and suppress a lot of relevant true information.
To my knowledge, these things aren't in dispute by any reasonable person. Even those who are doing it, when pressed, will admit they're doing it. And each of them, by themselves, constitutes an unprecedented threat to liberty.
"I tried to ask the Devil’s Advocate questions and probe for weaknesses in his arguments for why Mr. Trump is the lesser evil from a libertarian perspective. In the end, I think you can agree with Klein if and only if you are as convinced as he is that the Democratic Party poses a definite threat to liberty."
I haven't yet listened to this but I would look at how Trump tried to reduce the administrative state by requiring rules to be torn up at a 2:1 rate to new ones being written. I'd certainly never call Trump a libertarian but he seemed to understand the problems of excessive regulation in a way that Biden (or whoever is pulling his strings) does not. Probably because Trump has actually run a business.
Re: The lucid, stimulating conversation with Dan Klein at YouTube, re: the 2024 election and the lesser evil.
1. As Arnold notes, it is an empirical question whether B is less evil than C. Prof. Klein shows that a number of Republican members of Congress have a better voting record than do all Democrats on legislation that favors liberty and prosperity. A lingering empirical question is whether that subset of Republican lawmakers tends to get swamped by a majority of Republican lawmakers who conform to the establishment and big government.
2. As Arnold likes to say, we decide what to believe by deciding whom to believe. I have come to trust Casey Mulligan (U. of Chicago) about economic policies that favor liberty and prosperity. Mulligan makes a case that Trump accomplished substantial positive deregulation -- and that Biden has done the opposite:
(If the link doesn't work, then search online for Casey Mulligan Congressional testimony June 2023.)
3. Arnold also sometimes reminds us, wisely, that the main value of elections is to establish orderly succession in government. I recall that Bryan Caplan somewhere made a case that Trump makes him nervous because Trump would push the "I am President forever button" if he could. Questions arise: Is this prudence or paranoia? Should this semi-hypothetical worry override the fact that, according to Mulligan, Biden is much the greater evil on heavy regulation?
4. It used to be conventional wisdom that Presidents have more elbow room in foreign policy than in domestic policy. Consequently, it was sensible to give greater weight to statesmanship and foreign-policy agenda when assessing who is the lesser evil among presidential candidates. In recent years, as Trump learned the hard way, it has become much less clear that a President has ample discretionary authority in foreign policy. Or so it seems about "the blob."
BTW, re: the paradox of voting (the question that Steve asked Dan Klein in the video). I have a little essay about the paradox of voting and the pressure to vote (via Kant's categorical imperative), at the Online Library of Liberty:
I agree with all of this, but I'd argue that this and the other Trump related comment are both focusing on ends when the question of a "threat to liberty" is ultimately one of means.
The question isn't whether Trump or a Democrat will govern "better" by deregulation, but whether they will govern legally, according to procedure.
To put it simply, regulation is stupid. When we vote for people that over-regulate us, we voluntarily give up our liberty. That's bad, but it's not a "threat". We do so voluntarily, and could, if we collectively chose to, undo it by the same voluntary means.
A threat is when the choice is taken away from us. When legal procedure is abandoned to eliminate the possibility of voluntary choice.. That seems to be what the Democrats are doing.
" I recall that Bryan Caplan somewhere made a case that Trump makes him nervous because Trump would push the "I am President forever button" if he could. Questions arise: Is this prudence or paranoia? Should this semi-hypothetical worry override the fact that, according to Mulligan, Biden is much the greater evil on heavy regulation?"
I am unconvinced by Caplan regarding Trump. In fact I think there is a fair amount of evidence that the current Biden maladministration is in fact the Obama administration's third term. Moreover it seems to me that many of the DC bureaucrats blithely go their way no matter who the president is. If they feel threatened by a president or his appointees they find ways to neuter him via leaks etc (see Trump).
For most Libertarians, both parties are definite threats, so which is more of a threat is the Q.
The anti-establishment guy is almost always the answer. Had the Dems allowed RFK jr. to more honestly contest the Dem primaries, and had he become the Dem candidate, it would be a tougher call, which one is more anti-establishment. But now it’s clearly Trump. Who I support.
Between Biden & Trump, who is less bad on your criteria.
"B. Over the next 10-20 years a very different world will emerge and some of our regimes that seemed permanent, like the Soviets in 1980, will be replaced. Perhaps like the 1860s-70s new countries will be formed."
Is this compatible with the increasing autocratic tendencies we've seen in the last few years?
The fall of the Soviet Union seems precisely like an example of a turn towards less autocracy creating the conditions for the birth of new countries.
It may well be. Increasing autocracy tends to lead towards ever poorer performance, becoming unsustainable. Then the autocrats try to loosing things up a bit to improve performance. Then you get revolutions.
Alternately they do t loosen up, and either end up killing nearly everyone, or just get a revolution anyway.
The democrat party is the governing party, it has the potential to get more stuff done when it puts it's mind to it. Good stuff and bad stuff. Mostly bad stuff because bad ideas tend to prevail in the left wing market place of ideas.
I have little reason to think a would be 2nd Trump administration could do even a miniscule fraction of what its unnecessarily harsh rhetoric suggests. The null hypothesis is that most republican candidates are 1. not a threat 2. such that voting for them is a waste of time and energy.
There are some exceptions to the 'Gets nothing done' rule such as aid for Israel.
"I think you can agree with Klein if and only if you are as convinced as he is that the Democratic Party poses a definite threat to liberty."
I think one needs to replace "if and only if" to just "only if". Even if one is no fan of the Democratic Party, one must still ask which Republican Party is best for liberty: one that keeps choosing the likes of Trump over people like Nikki Haley, or vice versa. That's a Republican vs. Republican question, so Democratic whataboutism is irrelevant. About 85% of Trump's support in the primaries came from election deniers, while Haley was more popular than both Biden and Trump (nationally, not just among Republicans). Even if one thinks Biden caves too often to the far Left, the Dems still chose him in the last open (no incumbent) Democratic primary (2020) over the likes of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who are actually of the far Left. So, even if one views the Dems as a "threat to liberty", one can still see the lesser evil as defeating Trump to give the sane wing of the Republican Party the best chance of recapturing it and, in the long term, provide the most viable opposition to the Dems. One can hope that losing twice in a row (four times if one counts 2018 and 2022 midterms) will finally vanquish Trump for good but, if Trump wins, then his supporters will see that as vindication of Jan. 6, election denial, and the rest of it.
Mr. Cummings argues that “a huge incentive asymmetry makes it hard for institutions to act and almost impossible for any individual to affect them much.”
I have been working in government for decades. In my experience the discrepancies between the self-interests of the employees and the business are genuine. Executives can only tout what happens during their tenure which incentivizes short term focus. We follow federal regulations on the surface but we are not achieving the intended result because of disconnects further down the chain. Old, obsolete technologies are sometimes entrenched and modernizing can be slow. Doing better often equates with more work and many people dislike more work. It clearly could be better. Nevertheless, over time there have been significant improvements. There is still long term planning. Modernization happens. It is semi-dysfunctional, but it does function and it does improve. He is overstating the problems.
The first Cummings quote is just him talking about himself, positioning himself as the virtuous visionary genius who bore the consequences for trying to make things better for the future. The 'odd character' he characterises is just how he sees himself and rationalised what happened over the last five years.
Excellent: "The problem is that unlike in the private sector, where organizations in the process of decay get driven out of business, decay within government organizations seems to lead them to expand. Their natural response to adversity is to seek more power."
I listened to most of the Daniel Klein interview, just not the questions. I think he makes some good points. I remain unlikely to vote for Trump.
More specific to Klein, I'm not sure I want someone who get a 100% rating from whatever pro-business or anti-regulation group he was showing. I'd have to see the specifics. Speaking more generally, I don't want to be too far out on any of the three "language" axes. I don't think all regulation is bad. I'm glad Ralph Nader did what he did to result in more crash resistant cars. I don't think we would have gotten nearly as much reduction in auto deaths by market forces, as argued for by people like Milton Freidman (likely my biggest disagreement with Friedman), Now, did Nader eventually go to far on some issues? That's probably true too. Maybe if I went into the specifics I'd agree with all the votes that got the 100% but something tells me 100% isn't any better than 0%. To that point, I also think despite all the improvements, we still have too much water and air pollution and there's probably more need for strengthening than removing regulation in that area.
Perhaps Mr. Cummings ought to reflect on his role in Brexit, the cause for which he served as campaign director of "Vote Leave", and which he calls a sign of the doom loop.
After working tirelessly to get Britain to leave the EU, which led to lower trade, lower investment, lower GDP growth compared to major EU countries, and not a single solitary forecasted benefit coming true, he warns the world about "collapsing trust".
"I think you can agree with Klein if and only if you are as convinced as he is that the Democratic Party poses a definite threat to liberty."
That might be true regarding agreeing with Klein but it doesn't seem to me that the threats to liberty the left might present are dependent on who is President. Maybe with a majority in both houses but I don't really see it even then.
"4. Have little or no opportunities for meaningful work in their community and no adult responsibilities until 18 or even into their 20s."
I was much happier at my job than at high school.
In general, kids that you see working, seem happy. For certain jobs like food service or running a summer-oriented concession, it's a perfect fit. It's especially enjoyable if they are "running the joint" with their peers.
It's kinda sad that you see moms going on NextDoor asking the neighbors to employ their kids to do yard work. That would have been the default in some places at one time. Now it comes with an unstated, "instead of hiring the crew of illegal immigrants that is in and out in an hour".
Oddly, I expect you could pay the kid less - (and no, perhaps your yard wouldn't look quite like it had had a buzzcut, and left sterile and leafless*) - which goes to show that something can become institutionalized after its purported economic reason no longer operates.
*I think this is funny. My parents' lawn crew religiously blow every scrap of potential humus out of the "flowerbed" areas. As a result her aspidistra adjacent to the front picture windows - yes, aspidistra in all its pointlessness ;-) - is perennially shredded to bits from the force of the blower. It's almost like a wabi-sabi aesthetic thing at this point, having been this way for 20 years. She mentions it to them from time to time, but the crew members turn over all the time, and anyway you've gotta stay on autopilot to get the job done in lightning-quick time. "Keep Flaying Your Aspidistra!"
I should add, though, in fairness, that because my father loves at this point in his life nothing more than handing out tips to people, they are "special customers" who have an excellent relationship with the head honcho of the outfit, even if they never get to know the crew. They pay well and like being able to ask the guys for help bringing something down from the attic, or hanging a Christmas garland or spray painting some lawn furniture or whatnot.
Thus the honcho and some others *waded* in, after Harvey, and had their carpet pulled up and fans going before any of the neighbors.
I think that excerpt was just a longer version of the old observation that two types of people staff any organization, those dedicated to the organization's mission (or product) and those dedicated to the survival of the organization. Over time, the second group will always gain control of the organization, and the organization's mission will be abandoned.
"if you are as convinced as he is that the Democratic Party poses a definite threat to liberty."
It's not really in dispute, is it, that they have:
1. Overtly attempted to remove a candidate from the ballot
2. Selectively prosecuted that candidate for dubious crimes
3. Worked to eliminate transparency and controls from voting procedures
4. Wielded the power of government to publicize whole lot of demonstrably false information and suppress a lot of relevant true information.
To my knowledge, these things aren't in dispute by any reasonable person. Even those who are doing it, when pressed, will admit they're doing it. And each of them, by themselves, constitutes an unprecedented threat to liberty.
I'll dispute then all. :)
1 sure
2 I think many would deny that.
3 I don't know what this is referring to, particularly the transparency part. mail-in ballots? Resistance to voter ID?
4 I think many would deny that.
"I tried to ask the Devil’s Advocate questions and probe for weaknesses in his arguments for why Mr. Trump is the lesser evil from a libertarian perspective. In the end, I think you can agree with Klein if and only if you are as convinced as he is that the Democratic Party poses a definite threat to liberty."
I haven't yet listened to this but I would look at how Trump tried to reduce the administrative state by requiring rules to be torn up at a 2:1 rate to new ones being written. I'd certainly never call Trump a libertarian but he seemed to understand the problems of excessive regulation in a way that Biden (or whoever is pulling his strings) does not. Probably because Trump has actually run a business.
Re: The lucid, stimulating conversation with Dan Klein at YouTube, re: the 2024 election and the lesser evil.
1. As Arnold notes, it is an empirical question whether B is less evil than C. Prof. Klein shows that a number of Republican members of Congress have a better voting record than do all Democrats on legislation that favors liberty and prosperity. A lingering empirical question is whether that subset of Republican lawmakers tends to get swamped by a majority of Republican lawmakers who conform to the establishment and big government.
2. As Arnold likes to say, we decide what to believe by deciding whom to believe. I have come to trust Casey Mulligan (U. of Chicago) about economic policies that favor liberty and prosperity. Mulligan makes a case that Trump accomplished substantial positive deregulation -- and that Biden has done the opposite:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?477119-4/casey-mulligan-president-trumps-economic-record
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/hoc_testimony_mulligan_20230614-1.pdf
(If the link doesn't work, then search online for Casey Mulligan Congressional testimony June 2023.)
3. Arnold also sometimes reminds us, wisely, that the main value of elections is to establish orderly succession in government. I recall that Bryan Caplan somewhere made a case that Trump makes him nervous because Trump would push the "I am President forever button" if he could. Questions arise: Is this prudence or paranoia? Should this semi-hypothetical worry override the fact that, according to Mulligan, Biden is much the greater evil on heavy regulation?
4. It used to be conventional wisdom that Presidents have more elbow room in foreign policy than in domestic policy. Consequently, it was sensible to give greater weight to statesmanship and foreign-policy agenda when assessing who is the lesser evil among presidential candidates. In recent years, as Trump learned the hard way, it has become much less clear that a President has ample discretionary authority in foreign policy. Or so it seems about "the blob."
BTW, re: the paradox of voting (the question that Steve asked Dan Klein in the video). I have a little essay about the paradox of voting and the pressure to vote (via Kant's categorical imperative), at the Online Library of Liberty:
https://oll.libertyfund.org/publications/reading-room/2023-10-21-alcorn-what-if-everyone-did-that-kant
I agree with all of this, but I'd argue that this and the other Trump related comment are both focusing on ends when the question of a "threat to liberty" is ultimately one of means.
The question isn't whether Trump or a Democrat will govern "better" by deregulation, but whether they will govern legally, according to procedure.
To put it simply, regulation is stupid. When we vote for people that over-regulate us, we voluntarily give up our liberty. That's bad, but it's not a "threat". We do so voluntarily, and could, if we collectively chose to, undo it by the same voluntary means.
A threat is when the choice is taken away from us. When legal procedure is abandoned to eliminate the possibility of voluntary choice.. That seems to be what the Democrats are doing.
" I recall that Bryan Caplan somewhere made a case that Trump makes him nervous because Trump would push the "I am President forever button" if he could. Questions arise: Is this prudence or paranoia? Should this semi-hypothetical worry override the fact that, according to Mulligan, Biden is much the greater evil on heavy regulation?"
I am unconvinced by Caplan regarding Trump. In fact I think there is a fair amount of evidence that the current Biden maladministration is in fact the Obama administration's third term. Moreover it seems to me that many of the DC bureaucrats blithely go their way no matter who the president is. If they feel threatened by a president or his appointees they find ways to neuter him via leaks etc (see Trump).
" ... Klein if and only if you are as convinced as he is that the Democratic Party poses a definite threat to liberty."
MORE of a threat than the Republican party and Trump himself
For most Libertarians, both parties are definite threats, so which is more of a threat is the Q.
The anti-establishment guy is almost always the answer. Had the Dems allowed RFK jr. to more honestly contest the Dem primaries, and had he become the Dem candidate, it would be a tougher call, which one is more anti-establishment. But now it’s clearly Trump. Who I support.
Between Biden & Trump, who is less bad on your criteria.
"B. Over the next 10-20 years a very different world will emerge and some of our regimes that seemed permanent, like the Soviets in 1980, will be replaced. Perhaps like the 1860s-70s new countries will be formed."
Is this compatible with the increasing autocratic tendencies we've seen in the last few years?
The fall of the Soviet Union seems precisely like an example of a turn towards less autocracy creating the conditions for the birth of new countries.
It may well be. Increasing autocracy tends to lead towards ever poorer performance, becoming unsustainable. Then the autocrats try to loosing things up a bit to improve performance. Then you get revolutions.
Alternately they do t loosen up, and either end up killing nearly everyone, or just get a revolution anyway.
The democrat party is the governing party, it has the potential to get more stuff done when it puts it's mind to it. Good stuff and bad stuff. Mostly bad stuff because bad ideas tend to prevail in the left wing market place of ideas.
I have little reason to think a would be 2nd Trump administration could do even a miniscule fraction of what its unnecessarily harsh rhetoric suggests. The null hypothesis is that most republican candidates are 1. not a threat 2. such that voting for them is a waste of time and energy.
There are some exceptions to the 'Gets nothing done' rule such as aid for Israel.
"I think you can agree with Klein if and only if you are as convinced as he is that the Democratic Party poses a definite threat to liberty."
I think one needs to replace "if and only if" to just "only if". Even if one is no fan of the Democratic Party, one must still ask which Republican Party is best for liberty: one that keeps choosing the likes of Trump over people like Nikki Haley, or vice versa. That's a Republican vs. Republican question, so Democratic whataboutism is irrelevant. About 85% of Trump's support in the primaries came from election deniers, while Haley was more popular than both Biden and Trump (nationally, not just among Republicans). Even if one thinks Biden caves too often to the far Left, the Dems still chose him in the last open (no incumbent) Democratic primary (2020) over the likes of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who are actually of the far Left. So, even if one views the Dems as a "threat to liberty", one can still see the lesser evil as defeating Trump to give the sane wing of the Republican Party the best chance of recapturing it and, in the long term, provide the most viable opposition to the Dems. One can hope that losing twice in a row (four times if one counts 2018 and 2022 midterms) will finally vanquish Trump for good but, if Trump wins, then his supporters will see that as vindication of Jan. 6, election denial, and the rest of it.
Mr. Cummings argues that “a huge incentive asymmetry makes it hard for institutions to act and almost impossible for any individual to affect them much.”
I have been working in government for decades. In my experience the discrepancies between the self-interests of the employees and the business are genuine. Executives can only tout what happens during their tenure which incentivizes short term focus. We follow federal regulations on the surface but we are not achieving the intended result because of disconnects further down the chain. Old, obsolete technologies are sometimes entrenched and modernizing can be slow. Doing better often equates with more work and many people dislike more work. It clearly could be better. Nevertheless, over time there have been significant improvements. There is still long term planning. Modernization happens. It is semi-dysfunctional, but it does function and it does improve. He is overstating the problems.
The first Cummings quote is just him talking about himself, positioning himself as the virtuous visionary genius who bore the consequences for trying to make things better for the future. The 'odd character' he characterises is just how he sees himself and rationalised what happened over the last five years.
Excellent: "The problem is that unlike in the private sector, where organizations in the process of decay get driven out of business, decay within government organizations seems to lead them to expand. Their natural response to adversity is to seek more power."
The key to success is how do you handle failure.
I couldn't get into the Zoom meeting with Daniel Klein even though I signed in minutes before the hour.
I listened to most of the Daniel Klein interview, just not the questions. I think he makes some good points. I remain unlikely to vote for Trump.
More specific to Klein, I'm not sure I want someone who get a 100% rating from whatever pro-business or anti-regulation group he was showing. I'd have to see the specifics. Speaking more generally, I don't want to be too far out on any of the three "language" axes. I don't think all regulation is bad. I'm glad Ralph Nader did what he did to result in more crash resistant cars. I don't think we would have gotten nearly as much reduction in auto deaths by market forces, as argued for by people like Milton Freidman (likely my biggest disagreement with Friedman), Now, did Nader eventually go to far on some issues? That's probably true too. Maybe if I went into the specifics I'd agree with all the votes that got the 100% but something tells me 100% isn't any better than 0%. To that point, I also think despite all the improvements, we still have too much water and air pollution and there's probably more need for strengthening than removing regulation in that area.
Perhaps Mr. Cummings ought to reflect on his role in Brexit, the cause for which he served as campaign director of "Vote Leave", and which he calls a sign of the doom loop.
After working tirelessly to get Britain to leave the EU, which led to lower trade, lower investment, lower GDP growth compared to major EU countries, and not a single solitary forecasted benefit coming true, he warns the world about "collapsing trust".
https://www.economist.com/britain/2023/01/03/the-impact-of-brexit-in-charts
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/brexits-long-run-effects-john-van-reenen.pdf
https://www.economicsobservatory.com/how-has-brexit-affected-business-investment-in-the-uk
My guess is Mr. Cummings would call this a "weird mix of creating and spreading lies then believing their own lies".
"I think you can agree with Klein if and only if you are as convinced as he is that the Democratic Party poses a definite threat to liberty."
That might be true regarding agreeing with Klein but it doesn't seem to me that the threats to liberty the left might present are dependent on who is President. Maybe with a majority in both houses but I don't really see it even then.
"4. Have little or no opportunities for meaningful work in their community and no adult responsibilities until 18 or even into their 20s."
I was much happier at my job than at high school.
In general, kids that you see working, seem happy. For certain jobs like food service or running a summer-oriented concession, it's a perfect fit. It's especially enjoyable if they are "running the joint" with their peers.
It's kinda sad that you see moms going on NextDoor asking the neighbors to employ their kids to do yard work. That would have been the default in some places at one time. Now it comes with an unstated, "instead of hiring the crew of illegal immigrants that is in and out in an hour".
Oddly, I expect you could pay the kid less - (and no, perhaps your yard wouldn't look quite like it had had a buzzcut, and left sterile and leafless*) - which goes to show that something can become institutionalized after its purported economic reason no longer operates.
*I think this is funny. My parents' lawn crew religiously blow every scrap of potential humus out of the "flowerbed" areas. As a result her aspidistra adjacent to the front picture windows - yes, aspidistra in all its pointlessness ;-) - is perennially shredded to bits from the force of the blower. It's almost like a wabi-sabi aesthetic thing at this point, having been this way for 20 years. She mentions it to them from time to time, but the crew members turn over all the time, and anyway you've gotta stay on autopilot to get the job done in lightning-quick time. "Keep Flaying Your Aspidistra!"
I should add, though, in fairness, that because my father loves at this point in his life nothing more than handing out tips to people, they are "special customers" who have an excellent relationship with the head honcho of the outfit, even if they never get to know the crew. They pay well and like being able to ask the guys for help bringing something down from the attic, or hanging a Christmas garland or spray painting some lawn furniture or whatnot.
Thus the honcho and some others *waded* in, after Harvey, and had their carpet pulled up and fans going before any of the neighbors.
I think that excerpt was just a longer version of the old observation that two types of people staff any organization, those dedicated to the organization's mission (or product) and those dedicated to the survival of the organization. Over time, the second group will always gain control of the organization, and the organization's mission will be abandoned.