Whoops, so sorry

From EconoSpeak:

Thomas A. Debrowski is Mattel's executive vice president for worldwide operations. After a meeting with Chinese product safety chief Li Changjiang, Mr. Debrowski decided his company should take a lot of the responsibility for the recent product recalls:

"Our reputation has been damaged lately by these recalls," Debrowski told Li in
a meeting at Li's office at which reporters were allowed to be present. " And Mattel takes full responsibility for these recalls and apologizes personally to you, the Chinese people, and all of our customers who received the toys," Debrowski said … The recalls have prompted complaints from China that manufacturers were being blamed for design faults introduced by Mattel. On Friday, Debrowski acknowledged that "vast majority of those products that were recalled were the result of a design flaw in Mattel's design, not through a manufacturing flaw in China's manufacturers." Lead-tainted toys accounted for only a small percentage of all toys recalled, he said, adding that: "We understand and appreciate deeply the issues that this has caused for the reputation of Chinese manufacturers." In a statement issued by the company, Mattel said its lead-related recalls were "overly inclusive, including toys that may not have had lead in paint in excess of the U.S. standards. [emphasis added]

Seems a little late, doesn't it? After all, one Chinese executive was found hanged [1] after a resulting export ban. The original lead paint problem was discovered by a "European retailer ", and subsequent problems were discovered by Mattel themselves. Of course, following this, the Consumer Product Safety Commission jumped in on the act -- I'm sorry, what value did they add to the process?

But American companies are using the resulting furor to full advantage as they push for import restrictions, something that plays well to the Lou Dobbs nativists, the anti-globalization left, and ... corporations who still have some domestic production. Domestic food producers, for example, as reported by the WSJ (Food Makers Get Appetite for Regulation):

The Grocery Manufacturers Association, the industry's largest trade group, tomorrow will unveil a proposal to beef up federal oversight of imported food and ingredients. Under a public-private partnership, the system would require the industry to adopt food-safety measures such as product tests and checks on foreign suppliers. [emphasis added]

So, they're in favor of regulation, but not of everyone, just of foreign suppliers. Wow, what do you call it when the Baptists are the Bootleggers? And what does it mean when the CPSC aids in the China-bashing?


----------------------------
[1] Given the way the Chinese treat executives making high level mistakes, I think it's important to distinguish between "hanged himself" and "was found hanged".

Clint Eastwood is a vegan?

I'm totally making these stats up because I'm too lazy to look them up, but let's pretend ...

Camera on Clint at a table, enjoying a meal of vegetables, fruits, and (yuck) tofu

As it zooms in, Clint looks up and sets his fork down, steely eyes on the camera. He says:

Y'know, every year 8 million people die of colon cancer, 15 million women die of breast cancer, millions more die of other cancers. Medical science is gradually coming to the conclusion that there is a strong link between cancer and the consumption of animal products. So the next time you bite into that steak or drink that glass of milk, you need to ask yourself one question: do I feel lucky?

Well, do ya punk?

This message brought to you by PETA, the same people we can thank for this (be sure to check the link in the comments, too).

Shilling for plutocrats

It is frequently charged that libertarians are shills for plutocracy because they oppose the taxes and government regulation which keep criminals, corporations, and other problems in check. Some of these criticisms are not only entertaining, they are valid and enlightening: wishing for a world in which large multinational corporations are unfettered by regulation is not only inconsistent because corporations rely on the state for their existence, but also dangerous precisely because it fails to recognize the source of their size and scope. A more consistent approach would start with the recognition of the problems created at the state-corporate nexus and then proceed to dismantle it and them. The libertarians who criticize government without this recognition are labeled "vulgar libertarians" by Kevin Carson, and rightly so. The rest of us classical liberals should be as much opposed to them as to the anti-libertarians.

Although anti-libertarians' claims of shilling by libertarians are generally strawmen, there is an element of truth to them both because of the vulgar libertarians and because of the plutocrats who don liberal clothing [1]. I offer as a typical example this essay. In comments on various blogs, the author has been making the claim that because Charles Koch supports the GMU Economics program, then they must be shilling for him. Among other unsupported (and mostly unsupportable) assertions, the author has also been lumping libertarians in with neo-cons and Objectivists and claiming that the super wealthy are libertarian.

I'm not going to make a point-by-point refutation to his numerous claims. I have long been fascinated by the belief that libertarian=rich and vice versa. I'm sure Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, John Kerry, John Edwards, and Ted Turner would be surprised to hear about their libertarian leanings. Further, there is a high correspondence between voting patterns and the areas in which wealth congregates (New York, California). Yes, there are contrary claims, but the point is that "libertarian" and "wealthy" are not synonymous. Further, an unusually high number of classical liberals are academics, further disrupting the wealth link, but most academics are not libertarian.

Many such anti-libertarians have a strange propensity to vigorously defend even the most indefensible government policy. The only point of contention seems to be whether a "D" or an "R" should follow the name of the Chief Executive. Whether Charles Koch has any real power is a matter of debate; whether the government has any power is not. So I'm pretty sure that defending every action of the government is the definition of "shilling for plutocracy".

Beware when you see statements like this:

The simple fact is that iodized salt has been known to solve goiter for decades, but that's not enough for markets to solve the problem. Why? well, we can speculate a whole bunch, but frankly I'd just point out that it's a historical fact that markets don't solve certain problems well, and that government solves those problems better. Defense, roads, iodization, social insurance, etc.

Note the list at the end, which smuggles plutocratic policies in the same package with public goods. Defense is a clear public good, one that even anarchists will agree is a tough problem [2]. Roads were once provided privately, but in the state-capitalist era they have become publicly provided. The need to do so is dubious; it is largely an populist over-reaction to the excesses of previous eras of such tinkering and in part a subsidy to the oil, trucking, and automobile industries. Iodized salt has been privately provided for nearly a century in the developed world and for decades in parts of the developing world. In some cases it has been prescribed by state authorities, in others it has been over-prescribed. In India, state mandates concerning salt are very controversial due in part to the inherent symbolism of tyranny. In other places, the "market" consists of a state-granted monopoly to manufacture salt. Claiming that "government solves those problems" is a substantially oversimplified and mostly incorrect statement, failing to recognize the complex legal, economic, and social environment in which government policies are carried out. Social insurance is a mixed bag, though it mostly does not benefit plutocrats directly. However, the fact that the government is involved does not mean that private social insurance never existed. It could be argued that the government does a better job now than they did then, but that does not mean that the private institutions that it has displaced would not have improved. A serious comparison will show that private poverty relief programs, being less bureaucratic and more personal, will be better suited to a wide variety of problems. The quoted list discusses none of these issues in the hopes that the reader will accept the idea that since the government claims to deliver those goods, that it (1) does, and (2) should. Beware of such lists being used to smuggle invalid conceptual frameworks under the cover of scoring minor debate points. Remember what they are implicitly arguing for as well as what they are arguing against.


--------------------------------------------------
[1] "Liberal" in all of its senses: the powerful can show sympathy with all manner of politics in order to get where they are going, whether that be to the boardroom, the White House, or the dacha. That doesn't mean that they are actually progressives or classical liberals.

[2] That doesn't mean that the existing military-industrial complex is actually a defensive system.

Public employee unions

Why is it that public employee unions are virtually the only growth area for unions, and that they consistently send a majority of cash to Democratic candidates [1]? The answer to the first part runs completely counter to traditional explanations of unionism, the answer to the second runs counter to traditional explanations of public policy creation.

The traditional explanation of unionism is that the companies they work for and their owners/managers are only interested in profit. They therefore exploit their workers in various ways (underpay, exposure to unsafe conditions and chemicals, fire them just before they are eligible for pension, etc.). But the government is supposedly not motivated by profit. The government lavishes pay [2], benefits, and lifetime employment upon its employees.

The traditional explanation of policy creation is either that we elect a set of policies or that we elect people who promise to enact those policies. The politicians then enact legislation that is carried out by a selfless group of employees (public servants) dedicated to seeing out the public's desire. But then why would those same employees want to influence the outcome?

I propose that neither of the traditional explanations are very complete or useful. Taken together, it would seem that the public employee unions serve the purposes of their own members in a way that is contrary to the public interest. To the extent that they are successful at affecting the policies, the government is not acting in the interest of the electorate. However, I am implicitly defining the public interest as the state of affairs without public employee union lobbying, a not entirely fair assessment since they, too, are members of the public. But it does seem that public employees have more influence over policy because they have both direct and indirect influence: direct by choosing what to carry out and how strongly, indirect by buying representation.

Are we experiencing the same effect in governance that Berle and Means warned about with respect to corporations? Their warning was that public corporations were gaining control over more of the nation's wealth, that ownership was becoming too diffuse for any one or any small number of owners to influence the activities of the corporation, and therefore the management was gaining more control over the direction of the corporation and by extension the nation's wealth. With respect to the state, there appear to be three similar trends: the state's authority is constantly expanding, while the control we the owners have over the state is constantly diminishing, and the career public employees are therefore gaining more influence over the state, and by extension, over the lives of the rest of us.

This is not intended to argue that the same is true of all unions; many serve very useful purposes that are both in their own and the public interest.

This is old hat; why should anyone care?

Well, first, that I think it shows that bureaucrats do, on average or in the aggregate, act in their own self-interest and second, that this is not a good thing. They literally thwart the public will, as traditionally understood.

Ah, well, it's for our own good, I suppose. Just ask them.


---------------------------------------
[1] Both assertions are easily proved with the Statistical Abstract and a glance through the relevant sections at OpenSecrets.org.

[2] No, not at the executive level, so don't compare Bill Gates to the POTUS.

I, Government

Er, this seems obvious, but I only found two similar references, and nobody actually doing it like this:

1. A government may not injure a citizen or, through inaction, allow a citizen to come to harm.
   
2. A government must obey orders given to it by citizens except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
   
3. A government must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

I think (1) translates as "Don't be a tyranny and don't let citizens face risks." (2) is "be democratic, but break the violence of faction", which is just Federalist X. (3) is "be a strong government, but not too strong", which is Montesquieu. Anarchists would reject all three. I suggest that most non-anarchists will agree with (2) and (3), but there will be considerable disagreement over (1). The second part of (1) sounds either utopian or fascist/paternalist to my ears.

However, does the plot-theme of the Will Smith movie not follow from acceptance of all three?

-------------------------

Let's not stop with that, though: confirmation bias is the mind-killer.

What if you replace the faceless "government" with "bureaucrat", an individual? I think applying such rules to agents of the state expects too much of them, including taking orders and going beyond the law at their discretion (becoming a rogue).

What if you replace "government" with "corporation" and "citizens" with "shareholders" or "customers" -- does any of it make sense? Or suppose we replace "government" with "market" and "citizen" with "producer or seller"? Again, I think assertions of moral agency by a corporation or market sound flat. I think this shows that we expect the state to be a moral agent, but that we expect corporations and markets to be amoral.

That's interesting ... that's very interesting....

-- Captain Jack Sparrow

What if we replace both "government" and "citizen" with "neighbor"? In that case, (2) sounds like slavery. This suggests that we regard government as a servant. Suppose we use "boss" and "employee" - again, this places too much on the shoulders of the employee.

Like I said, this seems obvious. And pointless. And yet, for those of you who agree with all three rules above, I ask again whether the movie plot does not follow (I'm not providing spoilers, I'm sure you can find the relevant details or write me to ask and I'll explain it). The movie's point was about technology, but I find that many people seem to regard the regulatory state as an engineering problem that simply needs the right tweaks. That's what the whole Scientism/Efficiency Movement/Technocracy thing was about, wasn't it? Ordem e Progresso, my friends, Ordem e Progresso.

Models of models

I understand now why Tyler likes Megan: she is contrarian without being a jackass.

Megan says,

First, your model of the individual is very likely based on you. It is possible that everyone acts just like you, and also that you can accurately predict your own behaviors and motivations. But that is far from certain. When you argue for a policy that would work best for a country of people who are just like you, you should have some reason to believe you are the right model of the individual.

Interesting - is this a self-recursive model? Is your model of the modeling individual "someone who models individuals based on themselves" because *you* model modellers based on your modeling?

Progressives are seduced by this because they like to think conservatives are armed, beer-swilling, uneducated rednecks; libertarians are intelligent middle class white male plutocrats; and progressives are cosmopolitan altruists. Thus, in their narrative, conservatives want to base policies on NASCAR commercials, libertarians want to base policies on intelligent middle class white male plutocrats who can make complex decisions for themselves, and progressives want policies that balance complex issues in favor of multiple outliers in intelligence, culture, race, capability. This ignores basic problems, like the fact that academia is dominated by intelligent middle class white males -- self-identified as progressives -- who largely search for novel arguments in defense of the status quo (state capitalism). Or that many of the policies favored by libertarians are more accessible and democratic than those that involve the selection and navigation of politicians, policies, agencies, and rules to create the required balance.

I'm sure it is tempting for libertarians and others for similar, mirror-image reasons. Libertarians think of conservatives roughly the same way as progressives, except perhaps with more respect for their belief in moral values; of progressives as people who have a propensity to place more weight on intent than outcome and to signal their own morality by spending other people's money; and of themselves as economic literates with a deep sense of the morality inherent in freedom. Thus, in their narrative, conservatives want to base policies on what "everyone" knows from Sunday morning sermons, progressives want to base policies on things which perpetuate the state, and libertarians want to base policies on whatever lets people find the best answer for themselves (emphasis on private action, but accepting state action where it is the least worst solution).

Conservatives think of themselves as highly moral people, of progressives as possibly insane but definitely immoral, and of libertarians as the same, only worse. In their narrative, conservatives want to base policies on what is best for everyone, progressives want to base policies on the worst in man, and libertarians don't want any policies standing between themselves and complete debauchery.

The discussion also begs the question - what should the model of the individual be? When we assume that it should be people of average intelligence and capability, and then make policy decisions on that, we are largely eliminating the needs of both the most and least capable. That's politically palatable because we can speak for the least capable without actually speaking with them, and the most capable will find work-arounds.

In other news

Listening to Bob & Tom talk about Idaho Senator Larry Craig's escapades in the Minneapolis airport bathroom the other day, I thought of something that could either be a legitimate press release from his office, or an Onion article. After they complained about the long layovers in Minneapolis, a Bob & Tom contributor called in to talk about his experiences in that same bathroom back in the 1980s. Then it hit me:

Sociologists attribute high incidence of homosexual activity in Minneapolis Airport to long layovers (AP, Minneapolis-St. Paul)

In the wake of Idaho Senator Larry Craig's recent misunderstanding in the Airport bathroom, an investigation into the incident revealed a disturbing pattern going back for at least three decades. Researchers found an unusually high incidence of homosexual encounters between heterosexual men, some of whom were strongly hetero or even strongly violent homophobes. In many cases, the cause was apparently "boredom arising from excessively long layovers."

One victim, a "John Smith" of Utah, summarized his experience for investigators: "I was there so long, I had lost any conscious knowledge of myself as a person, an individual. It wasn't just my sexuality I had begun to question: it was my metaphysical being. If you don't exist, does it matter which side of the Glory Hole you're on?" Other victims noted that since they had given up hope of ever actually leaving the airport, they didn't see any harm in experimenting with sides of their sexuality that had lain dormant. "With my wife, obviously I'm usually the pitcher, but I have always wondered what it was like to have a [female reproductive system]. I don't have one, so I [played catcher]."

Senator Craig's office, quick to respond to this new information, issued a press release detailing the Senator's efforts to obtain additional funding for the FAA in order to relieve the congestion and his work to reform the more aggressive tactics used by TSA officers. Few other restroom victims complained about the TSA pat-downs. While some did note the horrific styling of their uniforms, others seemed to think that they aided in the presentation of authoritative, or "butch", persona.

In other news, The Onion reports that nobody can tell whether the Wikipedia entry for Dadaism has been vandalized or not. Maybe the new Wiki-scanner will help? Or not.