J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 91
November 23, 2019
Yes, the Communist Manifesto Is Worth Reading. Why Do You Ask?
As you get ready to study for the final exam in Econ 105, let me make a suggestion: rather than going back over the (long and sometimes difficult) large selections from Capital assigned in the course syllabus, take a look at something else Marx wrote (with his BFF Friedrich Engels)���the Communist Manifesto. I recommend the Manifesto itself; an article by George Boyer (that I commissioned) on its historical context; the MEIA's brief sketch of the Communist League, the organization for which the Manifeso was written; and British economist Eric Hobsbawm's introduction to the 150-year-anniversary reprinting of the Manifesto. These pieces are all quick and lively, and they go back over the intellectual terrain and context of Capital and of Marx's ideas from a somewhat different ankle���thus making them excellent things to read as part of your studying process:
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848): Manifesto of the Communist Party https://delong.typepad.com/files/manifesto.pdf...
Marx/Engels Internet Archive: The Communist League https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/index.htm...
George Boyer (1998): The Historical Background of the Communist Manifesto https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.12.4.151...
Eric Hobsbawm (1998): The Communist Manifesto in Perspective https://www.transform-network.net/en/publications/yearbook/overview/article/journal-112012/the-communist-manifesto-in-perspective/: 'It is, of course, a document written for a particular moment in history. Some of it became obsolete almost immediately.... More of it became obsolete as the time separating the readers from the date of writing lengthened. Guizot and Metternich have long retired.... The Tsar (though not the Pope) no longer exists...
...The ���materialist conception of history��� which underlay this analysis had already found its mature formulation in the mid-1840s.... In this respect the Manifesto was already a defining document of Marxism. It embodied the historical vision, though its general outline remained to be filled in by fuller analysis.
How will the Manifesto strike the reader who comes to it for the first time in 1998? The new reader can hardly fail to be swept away by the passionate conviction, the concentrated brevity, the intellectual and stylistic force, of this astonishing pamphlet. It is written, as though in a single creative burst, in lapidary sentences almost naturally transforming themselves into the memorable aphorisms which have become known far beyond the world of political debate: from the opening ���A spectre is haunting Europe���the spectre of Communism��� to the final ���The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win���. Equally uncommon in nineteenth-century German writing: it is written in short, apodictic paragraphs, mainly of one to five lines���in only five cases, out of more than two hundred, of fifteen or more lines. Whatever else it is, The Communist Manifesto as political rhetoric has an almost biblical force. In short, it is impossible to deny its compelling power as literature....
What will undoubtedly also strike the contemporary reader is the Manifesto���s remarkable diagnosis of the revolutionary character and impact of ���bourgeois society���. The point is not simply that Marx recognised and proclaimed the extraordinary achievements and dynamism of a society he detested, to the surprise of more than one later defender of capitalism against the red menace. It is that the world transformed by capitalism which he described in 1848, in passages of dark, laconic eloquence, is recognisably the world in which we live 150 years later....
Two things give the Manifesto its force. The first is its vision... that this mode of production was not permanent, stable, ���the end of history���, but a temporary phase.... The second is its recognition of the... bourgeoisie... [and its] miracles ascribed to it in the Manifesto.... In 1850 the world produced no more than 71,000 tons of steel (almost 70 per cent of it in Britain) and had built less than 24,000 miles of railroads (two-thirds of these in Britain and the USA). Historians have had no difficulty in showing that even in Britain the Industrial Revolution (a term specifically used by Engels from 1844 on) had hardly created an industrial or even a predominantly urban country before the 1850s. Marx and Engels did not describe the world as it had already been transformed by capitalism in 1848; they predicted how it was logically destined to be transformed by it. We now live in a world in which this transformation has largely taken place, even though readers of the Manifesto in the third millennium of the Western calendar will no doubt observe that it has advanced even further since 1998...
#books #history #historyofeconomicthought #2019-11-23
Andy Matuschak and Michael Nielsen: How Can We Develop Tr...
Andy Matuschak and Michael Nielsen: How Can We Develop Transformative Tools For Thought? https://numinous.productions/ttft/: 'We have developed a website, http://quantum.country, which explores a new approach to explaining quantum computing and quantum mechanics. Ostensibly, Quantum Country appears to be a conventional essay introduction to these subjects. There is text, explanations, and equations.... But... Quantum Country is a prototype for a new type of mnemonic medium. Aspirationally, the mnemonic medium makes it almost effortless for users to remember what they read. That may sound like an impossible aspiration. What makes it plausible is that cognitive scientists know a considerable amount about how human beings store long-term memories...
...Indeed, what they know can almost be distilled to an actionable recipe: follow these steps, and you can remember whatever you choose. Unfortunately, those steps are poorly supported by existing media.... There are many ways of redesigning the essay medium to do that. Before showing you our prototype, please pause for a moment and consider the following questions: how could you build a medium to better support a person���s memory of what they read? What interactions could easily and enjoyably help people consolidate memories? And, more broadly: is it possible to 2x what people remember? 10x? And would that make any long-term difference to their effectiveness?
Let���s sketch the user experience of Quantum Country.... Embedded within the text of the essay are 112 questions about that text. Users are asked to create an account, and quizzed as they read on whether they remember the answers to those questions.... Note that this interaction occurs within the text of the essay itself.... A few days after first reading the essay, the user receives an email asking them to sign into a review session. In that review session they���re tested again....
So far, this looks like no more than an essay which integrates old-fashioned flashcards. But... questions start out with the... user... being tested as they read the essay. That rises to five days, if the user remembers the answer to the question. The interval then continues to rise upon each successful review, from five days to two weeks, then a month, and so on. After just five successful reviews the interval is at four months. If the user doesn���t remember at any point, the time interval drops down one level.... This takes advantage of a fundamental fact about human memory: as we are repeatedly tested on a question, our memory of the answer gets stronger, and we are likely to retain it for longer... With conventional flashcards it takes hours of review to achieve the same durability. Exponential scheduling is far more efficient.... The big, counterintuitive advantage of spaced repetition [is that] you get exponential returns for increased effort.... Every extra minute of effort spent in review provides more and more benefit....
This delayed benefit makes the mnemonic medium unusual in multiple ways. Another is this: most online media use short-term engagement models, using variations on operant conditioning to drive user behavior. This is done by Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and many other popular media forms. The mnemonic medium is much more like meditation ��� in some ways, the anti-product, since it violates so much conventional Silicon Valley wisdom ��� in that the benefits are delayed, and hard to have any immediate sense of. Indeed, with the mnemonic medium, the greater the delay, the more the benefit.... Early feedback from users makes us cautiously optimistic that they���re finding the mnemonic medium useful....
It���s still tempting to be dismissive. Isn���t this ���just��� an essay with flashcards embedded? At some level, of course, that���s correct. In the same way, wikis are just editable web pages; Twitter is just a way of sharing very short form writing; and Facebook is just a way of sharing writing and pictures with friends. Indeed, writing itself is just a clever way of ordering a small number of symbols on a page. While a medium may be simple, that doesn���t mean it���s not profound.... Flashcards are dramatically under-appreciated, and it���s possible to go much, much further in developing the mnemonic medium than is a priori obvious...
#noted #2019-11-23
Andy Matuschak: Why Books Don���t Work https://andymatusc...
Andy Matuschak: Why Books Don���t Work https://andymatuschak.org/books/: 'Books are easy to take for granted.... Words in lines on pages in chapters. And at least for non-fiction books, one implied assumption at the foundation: people absorb knowledge by reading sentences. This last idea so invisibly defines the medium that it���s hard not to take for granted, which is a shame because, as we���ll see, it���s quite mistaken.... Have you ever had a book...come up in conversation... [and] discover that you���d absorbed what amounts to a few sentences?... When someone asks a basic probing question, the edifice instantly collapses. Sometimes it���s a memory issue: I simply can���t recall the relevant details. But just as often, as I grasp about, I���ll realize I had never really understood the idea in question, though I���d certainly thought I understood when I read the book. Indeed, I���ll realize that I had barely noticed how little I���d absorbed until that very moment.... The books I named aren���t small investments. Each takes around 6���9 hours to read...
...Human progress in the era of mass communication makes clear that some readers really do absorb deep knowledge from books, at least some of the time. So why do books seem to work for some people sometimes? Why does the medium fail when it fails?... People [who] do absorb knowledge from books... are the people who really do think about what they���re reading. The process is often invisible. These readers��� inner monologues have sounds like: ���This idea reminds me of���,��� ���This point conflicts with���,��� ���I don���t really understand how���,��� etc. If they take some notes, they���re not simply transcribing the author���s words: they���re summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing. Unfortunately, these tactics don���t come easily... fall into a bucket which learning science calls ���metacognition.��� The experimental evidence suggests that it���s challenging to learn these types of skills, and that many adults lack them....
Where is the book in all this? If we believe that successful reading requires engaging in all this complex metacognition, how is that reflected in the medium? What���s it doing to help?... Great authors earnestly want readers to think carefully about their words. These authors form sophisticated pictures of their readers��� evolving conceptions. They anticipate confusions readers might have, then shape their prose to acknowledge and mitigate those issues. They make constant choices about depth and detail using these models. They suggest what background knowledge might be needed for certain passages and where to go to get it. By shouldering some of readers��� self-monitoring and regulation, these authors��� efforts can indeed lighten the metacognitive burden.
But metacognition is an inherently dynamic process, evolving continuously as readers��� own conceptions evolve. Books are static. Prose can frame or stimulate readers��� thoughts, but prose can���t behave or respond to those thoughts as they unfold in each reader���s head. The reader must plan and steer their own feedback loops...
#noted #2019-11-23
Price Fishback: World War II in America: Spending, Defici...
Price Fishback: World War II in America: Spending, Deficits, Multipliers, and Sacrifice https://voxeu.org/article/world-war-ii-america-spending-deficits-multipliers-and-sacrifice: 'The US became the ���arsenal of democracy��� by producing a massive amount of military goods that raised real GDP by 72% between 1940 and 1945. Yet, multiplier estimates for this expansion in government spending are less than one. Long-range studies at subnational levels show that military spending was associated with small effects on per capita activity. Military spending in the context of a quasi-command economy crowded out private consumption and investment and forced people into the military. In essence, Americans sacrificed heavily to win the war, while their Allies sacrificed even more...
#noted #2019-11-23
Comment of the Day: Kansas Jack on Mark Knopfler: Good On...
Comment of the Day: Kansas Jack on Mark Knopfler: Good On You Son https://www.bradford-delong.com/2019/11/mark-knopfler-good-on-you-son-for-the-weekend.html?cid=6a00e551f0800388340240a4c2a9ab200d#comment-6a00e551f0800388340240a4c2a9ab200d: 'Agree with all this. Knopfler is like the tectonic plates moving. It's huge, but mostly unseen and unappreciated. Such smooth guitar and subtle lyrics. And when unsubtle...well, "Money for Nothin'" gets sanitized (even on Sirius) but the offending lyric is exactly how a lot of guys in the 80s talked, which is the whole point. Every time a radio station skips that line I tell myself, "Hey, Huckleberry Finn gets banned over a bad word too but Twain uses that word to point out the evil." Knopfler's solo album Shangri-La was welcomed with mixed reviews (Rolling Stone gave it 3.5 stars which is typically the clearest signal it is a 5-star record) but go back and listen to how easily he makes those chords, lets a few notes just hang in the air, he's a story teller. It is folk and blues and just a classic. Kick back and listen to the lyrics and his haunting guitar expertise. His take on Ray Kroc is so understated and cool, "If they're gonna drown stick a hose in their mouth," he has Ray mumbling about his buying out the McDonald brothers. I dare anyone to listen to the song about Sonny Liston and not be moved. And a juxtaposition of gangsters and coal miners with lyrics like, "There beneath a bridge comes to a giant car/A shroud of snow upon the roof. A Mark X jag-u-ar./Thought the man was fast asleep./Silent still and deep./ No. Both dead and cold./Shot through with bullet hoooooooooles." I just typed that from memory, excuses if I missed a word or two. Knopfler's music is poetry...
Dire Straits: Money For Nothing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAD6Obi7Cag:
Dire Straits: Money for Nothing Lyrics: "Now look at them yo-yo's, that's the way you do it
You play the guitar on the MTV
That ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Money for nothin' and your chicks for free...
...Now that ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Lemme tell ya, them guys ain't dumb
Maybe get a blister on your little finger
Maybe get a blister on your thumb
We got to install microwave ovens, custom kitchen deliveries
We got to move these refrigerators, we gotta move these color TV's
See the little faggot with the earring and the make up
Yeah buddy that's his own hair
That little faggot got his own jet airplane
That little faggot he's a millionaire
We got to install microwave ovens, custom kitchen deliveries
We got to move these refrigerators, we gotta move these color TV's
We got to install microwave ovens, custom kitchen deliveries
We got to move these refrigerators, we gotta move these color TV's
I shoulda learned to play the guitar
I shoulda learned to play them drums
Look at that mama she got it stickin' in the camera man
We could have some-
And he's up there, what's that?
Hawaiian noises?
Bangin' on the bongos like a chimpanzee
That ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Get your money for nothin', get your chicks for free
We got to install microwave ovens, custom kitchen deliveries
We got to move these refrigerators, we gotta move these color TV's
Listen here
Now that ain't workin' that's the way you do it
You play the guitar on the MTV
That ain't workin', that's the way you do it
Money for nothin' and chicks for free
Money for nothin' chicks for free
Money for nothin' chicks for free
Money for nothin' chicks for free
Money for nothin' chicks for free
Money for nothin' chicks for free
Money for nothin' get your chicks for free
Money for nothin' and the chicks for free
Money for nothin' and the chicks for free
Look at that, look at that
Money for nothin' chicks for free (I want my, I want my MTV)
Money for nothin' chicks for free (I want my, I want my MTV)
Money for nothin' chicks for free (I want my, I want my MTV)
Money for nothin' chicks for free (I want my, I want my MTV)
Easy, easy money for nothin' (I want my, I want my MTV)
Easy, easy chicks for free (I want my, I want my MTV)
Easy, easy money for nothin' (I want my, I want my MTV)
Chicks for free (I want my, I want my MTV)
That ain't workin'
Money for nothing, chicks for free
Money for nothing, chicks for free...
#commentoftheday #2019-11-23
Adam Smith & Poverty
2.4) Adam Smith & Poverty: Adam Smith loathes poverty.
Adam Smith is eager to create a society in which there is no poverty.
Adam Smith spends a substantial amount of time investigating the course of poverty over time. For example, he takes time and care to write:
During the course of the last century, taking one year with another, grain was dearer in both parts of the united kingdom than during that of the present���. It is equally certain that labour was much cheaper. If the labouring poor, therefore, could bring up their families then, they must be much more at their ease now. In the last century, the most usual day-wages of common labour through the greater part of Scotland were sixpence in summer, and fivepence in winter.��� Through the greater part of the Low country, the most usual wages of common labour are now eight pence a-day; tenpence, sometimes a shilling, about Edinburgh���. In England, the improvements of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, began much earlier than in Scotland. The demand for labour, and consequently its price, must necessarily have increased with those improvements. In the last century, accordingly, as well as in the present, the wages of labour were higher in England than in Scotland. They have risen, too, considerably since that time, though, on account of the greater variety of wages paid there in different places, it is more difficult to ascertain how much���. Not only grain has become somewhat cheaper, but many other things from which the industrious poor derive an agreeable and wholesome variety of food have become a great deal cheaper. Potatoes��� cost half the price which they used to do thirty or forty years ago. The same thing may be said of turnips, carrots, cabbages; things which were formerly never raised but by the spade, but which are now commonly raised by the plough. All sort of garden stuff, too, has become cheaper���. The great improvements in the coarser manufactories of both linen and woollen cloth furnish the labourers with cheaper and better clothing; and those in the manufactories of the coarser metals, with cheaper and better instruments of trade, as well as with many agreeable and convenient pieces of household furniture���
Which he then cross-checks with elite gossip:
The common complaint that luxury extends itself even to the lowest ranks of the people, and that the labouring poor will not now be contented with the same food, clothing, and lodging which satisfied them in former times, may convince us that it is not the money price of labour only, but its real recompense, which has augmented���
Having established that poverty has diminished, he next launches a full-bore attack on all those who claim this is a bad thing:
Is this��� to be regarded as an advantage or as an inconveniency?��� Servants, labourers, and workmen��� make up the far greater part���. What improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable���
And then he makes a strong appeal to human solidarity, and to the reciprocal obligations humans undertake by entering into the gift-exchange relationships that knit society together:
It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged���
���It is but equity, besides������ This is a very strong appeal to human solidarity. It is coming from someone often seen as and sometimes dismissed as an apostle of human self-interest.
Here the full files are���unfinished: https://www.icloud.com/pages/0howtV7CndvjkSCCLmtjmq_SA
And the course slides:
https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0osOOsPvSrTaiK4__D5MghPVA
#books #highlighted #history #historyofeconomicthought #moralphilosophy #politicaleconomy #2019-11-23
John Quiggin: Russia or California? http://crookedtimber....
John Quiggin: Russia or California? http://crookedtimber.org/2019/11/23/russia-or-california/: 'Most Republican voters don���t yet realise the path they are following. But if you had told them, in 2015, that they would be cheering Trump a few years later, they would have laughed. There���s no sign yet of any improvement. In this context, it���s interesting to look back at the claims of Jonathan Haidt that conservatives understood liberals better than vice versa. His method was to compare the views liberals imputed to conservatives (essentially that they were Trumpists) with the self-descriptions of conservatives. As it���s turned out, liberals knew conservatives better than conservatives knew themselves*. Haidt���s own trajectory, from progressive concern troll to the ���Intellectual Dark Web��� illustrates this. The standard defense now is that conservatives were so outraged at being called racists that they became racists just so they could trigger the libs...
Paul Waldman: Look What You Made Them Do https://prospect.org/power/look-made/: 'Bari Weiss... "When conservatives, classical liberals or libertarians are told by the progressive chattering class that they���or those they read���are alt-right, the very common response is to say: Screw it. They think everyone is alt-right. And then those people move further right." I don't know about you, but I can't recall ever changing my ideological beliefs because I got criticized for my current ideas (which happens plenty). But whenever a conservative finds themselves the target of criticism for the substance of what they say, other conservatives are sure to rally to their defense by saying: This is how you got Trump, you stupid liberals.... For years, conservatives have been treated to a steady diet of race-baiting from their most beloved news outlets and media stars. The likes of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News continually tell their audiences that African Americans, immigrants, and Muslims present a profound threat to everything they hold dear, and they should remain in a constant state of fear and rage about it. They spent eight years arguing that Barack Obama was oppressing white people with his radical black nationalist agenda, and that every policy he pursued was actually about punishing the white people he supposedly hated so much. That's the rancid stew the right has been simmering in for the last decade. And now we're supposed to believe that the increased prominence of neo-Nazis and white supremacists is the fault of liberals being insufficiently polite, that whites gravitated to Trump because liberals were rude to them, and that if Trump gets re-elected the people who voted for him won't be responsible for their own choice but instead the blame will rest at the feet of the left? Please...
#noted #2019-11-23
Duncan Black: What Was It All About https://www.eschatonb...
Duncan Black: What Was It All About https://www.eschatonblog.com/2019/11/what-was-it-all-about.html: 'There isn't going to be much soul-searching from New York Times journalists about how they, specifically, were the marks for this Ukraine stuff. Donald Trump is the stupidest man in America, but he is smart enough to know that the New York Times would run with "battling accusations of corruption" every time they mentioned Candidate Biden. And I mean the New York Times. They were the target. Whether they are active players or dumb saps is another question...
#noted #2019-11-23
Gregory Meyer: Why US farmers Are Falling Out Of Love wit...
Gregory Meyer: Why US farmers Are Falling Out Of Love with Donald Trump https://www.ft.com/content/41b3c728-0a11-11ea-b2d6-9bf4d1957a67?shareType=nongift: 'As impeachment gathers momentum, anger over ethanol policy threatens the president in the Corn Belt.... Siouxland is a biofuel refinery, taking corn by the truckload from some of the nation���s best land and brewing it into ethanol for car engines. Built with local farmers��� capital and political muscle, these plants have established a market for excess grain supplies over the past 15 years and helped cut US reliance on foreign oil. But this autumn, the plant laid idle for six weeks, one of dozens to have slowed or halted their operations even as demand for transport fuel creeps higher. Plant owners blame government waivers that allow smaller oil refineries to ignore quotas requiring biofuel use. The policy shift has capped demand growth and pressured prices for corn and soyabeans. The resulting pain for farmers is now creating a problem for Donald Trump. ���We pretty much supported President Trump in the last election,��� says Kelly Nieuwenhuis, one of 391 local farmers with a stake in Siouxland. ���I know the polls say he has still got a lot of strong [farmer] support, but I���ve heard a lot of people that won���t support him again because of biofuels.��� The anger highlights the Trump administration���s difficulty satisfying rival constituencies in the Corn Belt and oilfields. The number of ���small refinery exemptions���, or SREs, has shot up since 2017 and shaved 7.4 per cent from the government biofuel target in the latest round, according to the Energy Information Administration. The government says low-volume oil refineries are entitled to such waivers if they can prove hardship from biofuels quotas. This obscure policy shift, conducted in the shadow of national news about impeachment, is now weakening Mr Trump���s standing in a core voting bloc ahead of the 2020 elections...
#noted #2019-11-23
November 22, 2019
And over in Britain, the quality of governance is even wo...
And over in Britain, the quality of governance is even worse than here in America: Martin Wolf: Why I Want Another Hung Parliament https://www.ft.com/content/863c9b96-fca0-11e9-a354-36acbbb0d9b6: 'Victory by fanatics on a modest share of votes is all too likely under the UK���s first-past-the-post system, with several parties in competition. Since the two biggest parties are likely to be an English nationalist party and a hard-left socialist party, the outcome of the December 12 election might harm Britain irreparably.... One explanation for the weakness of investment is uncertainty over when, how, or even whether the UK is going to leave the EU. Some will argue that it is essential, for just this reason, to get it done. That is not so: first, the deal reached by Mr Johnson is a really bad one; second, it will not end uncertainty, precisely because it is a bad one.... The notion that a new trade deal would be finished by the end of 2020 is also a fantasy. It is likely to take many years, with more cliff edges threatening a ���no-trade deal��� option along the way.... Since ���getting it done��� quickly is a fantasy, I am delighted Mr Johnson has put his bad deal on ice to pursue the alternative of a general election, even though it is likely to be dreadful.... Electoral Calculus currently predicts... a 52 per cent chance of a Conservative majority, an 11 per cent chance of a Labour majority and a 37 per cent chance of a hung parliament. This last possibility is enticing.... Under the Tories, the UK would get a hard Brexit, prolonged uncertainty and a regulatory race to the bottom... under Labour, it would get a softer Brexit, but a government that wants to take the UK out of the west politically (Mr Corbyn���s goal) and economically (that of John McDonnell, shadow chancellor). How can a country dependent on the confidence of global investors survive a government committed to expropriation? Policy Exchange is persuasive on these risks. Yet, under a hung parliament, the UK could negotiate a new deal and then put it to the people for confirmation. The sillier ideas of the two main parties would also have to be abandoned. After such a sobering failure, both the Tories and Labour might even consider moving away from some of their more extremist posturing...
#noted #2019-11-22
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