Russell Roberts's Blog, page 88

October 16, 2022

Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

Tweet

… is from page 67 of Steven Landsburg’s excellent 2009 book, The Big Questions:

It takes a lot of intellectual contortion to deny the obvious, but never underestimate the contortions of the intellectual.

 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on October 16, 2022 01:15

October 15, 2022

Some Links

(Don Boudreaux)

Tweet

Juliette Sellgren talks with Timothy Sandefur about Frederick Douglass.

Isaac Schorr isn’t buying the facile ‘exoneration’ of Princeton University plagiarist Kevin Kruse.

Scott Lincicome busts the ludicrous myth of the omniscient authoritarian. Three slices:


There’s a frequent excuse for all sorts of government interventions in the market: While they may be costly, risky, and counter to standard economic theory, they are nevertheless essential to counter a foreign authoritarian threat—one that, so the theory goes, suffers none of the failings of our decadent liberal democracy. Dictators and central planners, we’re told, can “play the long game” (or “plan for the long view”), ignore (or crush) domestic opposition, quickly implement decisive economic or military action, and willingly absorb any resulting side effects or casualties. Thus, it’s imperative that the United States urgently pass and implement policy X, even though it might not make much economic sense.


Having grown up during the Cold War, lived through the Japan hysteria of the 1980s and 1990s, and long been a fan of free markets and liberal democracy (for all their warts), I’ve long been baffled by this theory, which has nevertheless proven popular with the last two presidential administrations and scores of wonks and pundits. Yet recent events show why we still should be skeptical of supposedly omniscient authoritarian regimes and of those once again claiming we must abandon Western capitalism to save it.


…..


Other problems, beyond the long-term demographic issues and others we’ve already discussed, have also emerged. For example, after spending about $1 trillion on loans to numerous developing countries, China’s once-vaunted Belt and Road initiative (which many U.S. wonks wanted to copy) is now hemorrhaging cash, laden with bad debts, and getting rebranded as “Belt and Road 2.0.” Zero COVID and Xi’s crackdown on tech and other private companies, meanwhile, have caused entrepreneurs to flee the country. And they’re fleeing Hong Kong, too. Now come the inevitable purges of various party apparatchiks for their totally-not-sketchy “crimes” of “disloyalty” and “graft.”


…..


As my Cato colleague Marian Tupy and co-author Gale Pooley summarized in their book Superabundance (which I reviewed here), institutional makeup affects much more than just GDP:


Inclusive economic institutions rely on the existence of political institutions characterized by power-sharing and wide distribution of decision making among the elites, businesses, civil society, and, ultimately, individuals. The elite are, in a word, constrained. Unconstrained decision making, in contrast, centralizes power in the hands of a small elite or, in extreme cases, in one individual. The former fosters competition, coalition building, and accountability. The latter fosters elite predation.


Vance Ginn reports what is, sadly, unsurprising: Economic freedom in America is significantly declining.

My intrepid Mercatus Center colleague Veronique de Rugy ponders divided government in the U.S. in 2022.

Here’s my GMU Econ colleague Dan Klein’s Foreword to a new Czech translation of Adam Smith’s great 1759 book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. A slice:

Today, Smith scholars agree on some important things. They generally agree that The Wealth of Nations (WN) should be seen as an extension of, or annex to, TMS. They also generally agree that, although the two great works differ greatly in certain aspects, such as the language used and the distance or warmth of the author’s voice, there is no underlying tension between the two works. The two works emphasize different things, and to some extent treat different things, but there is no inconsistency between them. Indeed, most of the Smithian contrarieties—that is, seemingcontradictions—that have engaged scholars are either intra-TMS or intra-WN.

Brendan O’Neill and Lionel Shriver discuss “the hysteria of the elites.”

The Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal decries the Biden administration’s inexcusable inconsistency about the state of covid. A slice:

Certain work requirements for food stamps are also on hold. Yet businesses need help. Unemployment is 1.9% in Minnesota, 2% in New Hampshire, and 2.5% in Missouri. Maybe Mr. Biden hopes to keep the emergency going until the end of the next recession.

Vinay Prasad tweets: (HT Martin Kulldorff)

Now that most schools are reopen with most kids unvaccinated, no masks in sight, and no $100000 hepa ventilation -maybe we can admit that these were all unnecessary for schools to open safely, a lesson we could have taken from Sweden circa April 2020

 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on October 15, 2022 04:30

Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

Tweet

… is from page 70 of the late Anthony de Jasay‘s brilliant 1995 paper “Frogs‘ Legs, Shared Ends, and the Rationality of Politics,” as this paper is reprinted in the 1997 collection of some of de Jasay‘s writings, Against Politics (footnote deleted):

Needless to say, value judgments as such are not disreputable. What is disreputable is to dress them up as findings of fact, for which evidence could in principle be found, or (as the classical utilitarians imagined) as the products of rational thought, deduced from self-evident propositions.

DBx: Indeed so.

Society is not a science project. Your values, like my values, are real. But they are ultimately subjective, and neither right nor wrong in any way that can be determined by science. Nor is it possible for science to determine just how my values should, when necessary, be traded off against your values. The answer to that question is simply not one that is objectively answerable.

 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on October 15, 2022 01:30

October 14, 2022

Bonus Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

Tweet

… is from page 124 of Paul Dragos Aligica’s, Peter Boettke’s, and Vlad Tarko’s 2019 book, Public Governance and the Classical-Liberal Perspective:

The goal is not to look for the best way to aggregate values into a single coherent system but instead to seek the best way in which heterogeneous, incommensurable, and incomparable values can coexist and if not enrich at least not undermine each other.

DBx: Beautifully said.

What is described here is a core goal of liberalism. The liberal understands that society can be peaceful and prosperous despite its members having different values. The liberal understands that attempts to compel everyone to possess – or, rather, to behave as if he or she possesses – the same values as everyone else in society is tyrannical. The liberal understands the meta-value of tolerance and the attitude of live and let live. Only the liberal understands what are the prerequisites for a society to be sustainably peaceful, prosperous, creative, and free.

 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on October 14, 2022 08:30

Some Links

(Don Boudreaux)

Tweet

Art Carden reviews some economic essentials … and some economic errors.

Also from Art Carden is this favorable review of my GMU Econ colleague Bryan Caplan’s book Labor Econ Versus the World: Essays on the World’s Greatest Market. A slice from Art’s review:

His posts on Keynesian nominal wage inflexibility are especially interesting, and he argues that before we look for active fiscal and monetary policy solutions we would do well to eliminate institutional and structural barriers that keep people from adjusting to changing conditions on their own. In the last fifty years, labor markets have been buried under mountains of regulation and miles of red tape (John W. Dawson and John J. Seater estimate the effects in this 2013 paper).

Randy Holcombe favorably reviews my GMU Econ colleague Jim Bennett’s latest book, Highway Heist.

GMU Econ alum Alex Nowrasteh criticizes some recent estimates, from the Center for Immigration Studies, on immigrant criminality.

Washington Post columnist Charles Lane reports on the massive rent-seeking-induced wastes of California’s bullet crazy train. A slice:

Special interests ranging from Silicon Valley’s tech industry to Los Angeles County supervisor Mike Antonovich intervened to change the bullet train’s route through the state, which accordingly ended up in a suboptimal configuration “not based on technical and financial criteria,” as a former official told the Times.

Also writing on California’s crazy train is David Boaz.

Before reading this EconLog blog post by GMU Econ alum Nathan Goodman, I’d never heard of ska punk – but Nathan draws from its development sound economic lessons.

Jessica Hockett offers data that contradict the popular belief that NYC hospital emergency rooms were, in Spring 2020, overwhelmed by visits.

TANSTAFPFC (There Ain’t No Such Thing As Free Protection From covid.)

Don’t miss this interview of Jay Bhattacharya and Gigi Foster.

 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on October 14, 2022 04:29

Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

Tweet

… is from page 176 of my late Nobel-laureate colleague Jim Buchanan’s 1978 paper “Public Choice and Ideology,” as this paper is reprinted in James M. Buchanan, Politics as Public Choice (2000), which is volume 13 of the Collected Works of James M. Buchanan:

To the extent that these social “scientists” among us really think that the problems of living together in organized community lend themselves to scientific solution, I think they are seriously deluded.

DBx: Unfortunately, our world today, far more so than that of 1978, teems with people who are seriously deluded.

Two recent hysterias – that of climate change and that of covid – reinvigorated the old Progressive fallacy that society is an engineering project best ‘solved’ by ‘experts.’ In this dystopian vision, the masses – for their own good – are to obey silently, and thankfully, the commands of the ‘experts.’ And anyone who dissents from The Plan is to be labeled both a science denier and an enemy of the people.

 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on October 14, 2022 01:30

October 13, 2022

Bonus Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

Tweet

… is from page 53 of the late Yale Brozen’s September 1978 paper “The Attack on Concentration,” as this paper is reprinted in Brozen (1980), Is Government the Source of Monopoly? and Other Essays:

In this modern day, we are no longer subject to the kind of superstitions that led the early colonists to hang witches when they were troubled by forces they did not understand. Instead, in this enlightened age, when we seek to rid ourselves of inflation and other mysterious ailments, we pillory dominant firms or the Big Fours in concentrated, and not so concentrated, industries.

DBx: Yale Brozen was brilliant. And he here accurately describes the late 1970s casting of blame for inflation on “monopolists” as the result of a superstition no more credible as was the superstition that led our ancestors several centuries ago to cast blame for their suffering on people suspected of being witches. Alas, the ignorant superstitions of the late 1970s continue to haunt us nearly a half-century later. Especially loud promoters today of these superstitions include people who, with unintentional comedy, applaud themselves for being progressive and devoted to ‘the science.’

 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on October 13, 2022 08:45

Resisting the Woke Doesn’t Require Rejecting Free Markets

(Don Boudreaux)

Tweet

Here’s a letter to the editor of The Federalist:


Editor:


If the arguments against woke progressivism offered by Rachel Bovard and other members of today’s “New Right” are to be taken seriously by serious people, Ms. Bovard & Co. should stop repeating myths about economic matters – and in particular about free trade – that, while convenient for natcon propaganda, are demonstrably false.


One such myth repeated by Ms. Bovard in her essay “The 1980s Called. They Want Their Foreign Policy Back And Republicans To Finally Wake Up” (October 12) is that America has suffered “deindustrialization.” Perhaps worrisome if true, but this assertion is blazingly backwards: Industrial production in America is today at an all time high, while America’s industrial capacity hit its all-time high just before covid and is now almost fully recovered to that record level.


Another myth repeated by Ms. Bovard is that of the “China shock,” which is the alleged unprecedented economic “shock” to the American heartland from U.S. trade with China since the latter country gained Permanent Normal Trade Relations status with America in 1999. And indeed the size of America’s alleged total job losses to Chinese imports over the 13 years of the so-called “China Shock” (1999 through 2011) sounds big at 2.4 million – which is an average of 15,385 lost jobs each month. But this number of monthly job losses is a mere one percent of the total number of jobs now destroyed each month in the U.S. by the ordinary employment churn of our dynamic economy. Singling out increased U.S. trade with China as a uniquely disruptive economic force is a politically and ideologically convenient attention-grabber, but it’s also deeply misleading.


I share Ms. Bovard’s disgust with woke progressivism. But in seeking to counter this noxious infestation, she and other ‘New Rightists’ are unnecessarily and dangerously – and ignorantly – renouncing the core case for free markets and globalization without which a free and prosperous society cannot long survive.


Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030


 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on October 13, 2022 07:44

Russell Roberts's Blog

Russell Roberts
Russell Roberts isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but they do have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from their feed.
Follow Russell Roberts's blog with rss.