RedStateEclectic

Egoism, Altruism, and the Welfare State

Jaana Woiceshyn offers an interesting take on the dichotomy of egoism and altruism. In the below article, she makes an observation whose implications I find highly disturbing. If people stop learning (in term of moral discernment) in their "best" years, and if by then the majority are steeped in politically correct altruism, liberty has a naturally restricted target groups, in fact, a tiny one, indeed.

Research shows that most people do not think about ethics explicitly after their late teens or early twenties, implicitly choosing instead to follow cultural norms and the values they were taught at home, if any. The closest they come to choosing an “obvious” moral code is to follow cultural norms—which means subscribing to the moral code dominant around the world: altruism.

The entire article.

David Kelly gives an excellent presentation on the "moral" underpinnings of our radically altruistic welfare state.

 

Hormesis versus Leviathan

Radiation hormesis hypothesis compared with LNT and linear model with threshold. In all 3 graphs, x-axes represent radiation dose and y-axes represent magnitude of health effect. Zero-equivalent point (ZEP) represents level of health effect in absence of radiation. The quadratic model of Figure 1 approximates threshold graph of this figure. A threshold model would imply no effects of radiation up to certain level, after which risk rises linearly with dose. The radiation hormesis model, in contrast, shows beneficial effect at low levels of exposure as it drops below ZEP.

Dr. Calabrese presents his (highly generalisable) findings about the nature of dose response in the low dose zone, discovering that longstanding "scientific" standards underlying regulatory rulings systematically ignore the true reaction pattern, thereby introducing massive bias. The key insight presented by Dr. Calabrese seems to me to consist in the fact that rather than following a linear pattern, dose responses are characterised by two phases such that at low doses they may act in a stimulating way, only to display inhibiting effects at higher doses - (hence the terms "biphase" or "hormetic"). Low doses of radiation for instance may stimulate healthy reactions in the human body, thus actually improving their well-being, while causing harm only at higher doses.

For more on what hormesis is, consult my post Hormesis and Regulation Failure. See also Hiroshima Victims Live Longer.

 

Eco-Theocracy

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Theocracy: a system of government by priests claiming a divine commission

It looks as if we are being increasingly ruled by an eco-(hypocracy)-theocracy:

They represent a rapidly expanding, increasingly powerful government class that is determined to control what we eat, say, do and buy.

In the environmental arena, these would-be czars and czarinas want to regulate what kinds of energy we can produce and use, cars we can drive, and jobs and living standards we can have. They are the vanguard of a dangerous alliance of eco-imperialism and vulture environmentalism.

[...]

Driven by utopian, Deep Ecology and global governance ideologies, elected and unelected ruling elites pass laws, promulgate regulations and issue edicts, based on faulty to fraudulent science and unsupported proclamations about dangerous manmade global warming, resource depletion and sustainable development. They seek to radically and fundamentally transform the energy, economic and social fabric of our nation and world – in the name of “social justice” and “saving the planet.”

They operate with little or no transparency or debate, often with vague or minimal legislative or constitutional authority, and with virtually no accountability for the false pretexts they use to justify their intrusive actions, or the harm they cause to people and wildlife. Their attitudes and actions often reflect a callous disregard for environmental values and people’s property, civil rights, jobs, health and even lives.

Our courts give them almost limitless discretion to impose laws and regulations, select pseudo-scientific “facts” to justify them, and ignore both the imaginary benefits and substantive harm they cause. They allow and encourage sweetheart “sue and settle” legal actions between regulatory agencies and activist groups, capricious agency inaction on mineral leases and permits, and arbitrary bureaucratic waivers of endangered species and other environmental laws for gigantic wind and solar projects.

Make sure to read the entire article.

The Economics of Lushness

In a strand of his argument, Matt Ridley seems to imply that man-made global warming is of a significant magnitude. Which puzzles me, as the evidence available to me seems to suggest that anthropogenic contributions are minute compared to non-human drivers of CO2 emissions. Be that as it may, I like the gist of the presentation:

 

The source is the excellent PERC - Property and Environment Research Center.

Recidivism

I just bumped into him again - Theodore Dalrymple. Electronically, that is. We first met in Bodrum, Turkey, last September. His lovely French wife was the first person I got to talk to in the hotel's luscious garden, after I had arrived late and hungry and glad to find myself amongst a crowd of diners. Soon Theodore appeared, back from a buffet prowl, I seem to remember. We were also joined by the historian Professor Norman Stone, formerly of Oxford university, who now teaches at universities in Istanbul and Ankara. With the three of them, I spent a wonderfully convivial evening of a British and a pronounced academic flavour. I would be only too happy to fall into relapse.

A retired prison doctor and psychiatrist, Theodore writes:

I was on my way a few days ago to France via the Eurostar, the train that goes from the center of London to the center of Paris via the Channel Tunnel, and bought Le Figaro, the French newspaper of conservative posture, to read on the way. Its lead story was about the plans of the French Minister of Justice, Christiane Taubira, to suppress short prison sentences in favor of such penalties as probation, community service and the wearing of electronic bracelets, to release substantial numbers of prisoners before their prison sentences were completed, to give future prisoners the automatic right of release after serving two thirds of their prison sentences, and to remove certain crimes (unspecified) from the penal code. My heart sank; we’ve tried all that in Britain, with results that only an intellectual with years of training to prevent him from being able to see what is in front of his nose would or could find surprising.

The entire article.

Idioms

The source.

Out of the frying pan into the fire - the German equivalent is: out of the rain into the gutter - vom Regen in die Traufe.

What could come closer to the opposite of the English idiom than staying out of the slaughterhouse to end up in a frozen swimming pool.

Allgemeinbildung

There is a monstrosity of a term in German: Allgemeinbildung - general education or educational background. What turns the German term - for me - into a monstrosity is its historical and institutional background. For Lincoln's dictum certainly holds true in the case of Germany, where homeschooling is a crime and institutions of private education are strictly content-controlled by the state:

“The philosophy of the classroom will be the philosophy of the government in the next generation.”

Nothing could be more antithetic to the idea of genuine education than a monopoly on asserting what it is.

Education is the ability to acquire, handle and advance human knowledge. For these purposes, freedom and competition are of the essence.

Instead those who ought to be protected against any kind of conscription are being conscripted into a behemoth broadcaster of prejudices - as Arthur Schopenhauer said:

The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.

Robert E. Peterson at The Freeman offers an account of a far better model:

The results of colonial America’s free market system of education were impressive indeed. Almost no tax money was spent on education, yet education was available to almost anyone who wanted it, including the poor. No government subsidies were given, and inefficient institutions either improved or went out of business. Competition guaranteed that scarce educational resources would be allocated properly. The educational institutions that prospered produced a generation of articulate Americans who could grapple with the complex problems of self-government. The Federalist Papers, which are seldom read or understood today, even in our universities, were written for and read by the common man. Literacy rates were as high or higher than they are today. A study conducted in 1800 by DuPont de Nemours revealed that only four in a thousand Americans were unable to read and write legibly.

See also Sapere Aude.

Glaciers of Peace

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“There are people who call government an evil, although a necessary evil. However, what is needed in order to attain a definite end must not be called an evil in the moral connotation of the term. It is a means, but not an evil. Government may even be called the most beneficial of all earthly institutions as without it no peaceful human cooperation, no civilization, and no moral life would be possible. In this sense the apostle declared that ‘the powers that be are ordained of God.’”

(Mises, L. von. 2010 [1944]. Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War. Yale University Press, New Haven.)

There appear to be good theoretical grounds to suppose that the state, especially the modern state, has been a key factor in dramatically reducing violence amongst human beings.

Following up on How Much Destructiveness Can Man Afford?, What Noble Savage?, and Prosperity and Violence, in the below video Steven Pinker marshals intriguing evidence on the development path of violence throughout human history. The lecture starts at time mark 8:00.

 

War Economy

It looks to me as if The Coyote is getting it right once again. This time on the question whether war "helps" the economy.

Though, I would slightly qualify his argument: if war is considered necessary, say, for reasons of self-defence, we are likely to be thereby inviting a planning regime that is strictly incommensurable with a free economy. The best you can do is to ponder if the "war economy" could be run more efficiently than it is, or not.

In fact, a "war economy" isn't really an economy. For it is simply an attempt to turn the economy proper into a single purpose project or organisation amenable to comprehensive planning. Not surprisingly it does perform a lot worse in terms of the criteria we would apply to measuring the effectiveness of a free economy. At best, it can give us the materially most effective way of attaining a specific objective - winning a war.

By contrast, the whole point and beauty of a free economy is to serve as a facilitator for as many goals as its participants may desire to attain - none of which goal commanding per se a higher rank of validity than any other.

See also Liberty - The All-Purpose Order.

One of the reasons that people often believe that war "improves" the economy is that they are looking at the wrong metrics. They look at unemployment and observe that it falls.  They look at capacity utilization and observe that it rises. They look at GDP and see that it rises.

But these are the wrong metrics. What we care about is if people are better off: Can they buy the things they want? Are they wealthier?

These outcomes are hard to measure, so we use unemployment and GDP and capacity utilization as proxies for people's economic well-being. And in most times, these metrics are reasonably correlated with well-being. That is because in a free economy individuals and their choices guide the flow of resources, which are dedicated to improving what people consider to be their own well-being. More resources, more well-being.

But in war time, all this gets changed. Government intervenes with a very heavy hand to shift a vast amount of the resources from satisfying people's well-being to blowing other people up. [...]

What we find is that in war time, unemployment is down, but in part because young people have been drafted (a form of servitude) to fight and die.  Are they better off so employed?  Those who are left find themselves with jobs in factories with admittedly high capacity utilization, but building things that make no one better off (and many people worse off).  GDP skyrockets as government goes deeply in debt to pay for bombs and rockets and tanks.  This debt builds nothing for the future -- future generations are left with debt and no wealth to show for it, like taking out a mortgage to buy a house and then having the house burn down uninsured.  This is no more economically useful than borrowing money and then burning it.  In fact, burning it would have been better, economically, as each dollar we borrowed in WWII had a "multiplier" effect in that it destroyed another dollar of European or Asian civilian infrastructure.

Sure, during WWII, everyone in the US had a job, but with war-time restrictions and rationing, these employed people couldn't buy anything.  Forget the metrics - in their daily lives Americans lived poorer, giving up driving and even basic staples.  This was the same condition Soviet citizens found themselves facing in the 1970s -- they all had jobs, but they could not find anything to buy.  Do we consider them to have been well off? [...]

The entire post.

Beggars' Banquet

Take some common human propensities, say envy and greed, add a measure of misinformation, stir the ingredients a little, and you have another feast of political scarcity. But don't get confused.

For the currently less fortunate members of society, the costs of envy can be especially high when it misdirects their conceptions and energies. Where poorer people are lacking in human capital – skills, education, discipline, foresight – one of the sources from which they can acquire these things are more prosperous people who have more of these various forms of human capital. This may happen directly through apprenticeship, advice, or formal tutelage, or it may happen indirectly through observation, reflection, and imitation. However, all these ways of advancing out of poverty can be short-circuited by an ideology of envy that attributes the greater prosperity of others to “exploitation” of people like themselves, to oppression, to bias, or unworthy motives such as “greed,” racism, and the like. Acquisition of human capital in general seems futile under this conception and acquisition of human capital from exploiters, the greedy, and racists especially distasteful.

The source.