Reducing Social Divisions and Inequality: When Liberal Pundits Fight

Do you increase social cohesion and reduce social inequality by reducing income inequality through taxation,  or by limiting cultural and racial diversity, for example, by limiting immigration?  Follow the Links  to read about some in-fighting among liberals* on this issue.  Starting off, conservative/libertarian Tom Maguire points out that the same data can lead to different conclusions if you haven't accounted for all variables:

Yesterday Nick Kristof delivered a daft column invoking income inequality as a proxy for social inequality and arguing that inequality is stressful and bad. . .

The obvious conclusion, based on the examples presented by Kristof, is that racial diversity creates undesirable social stress. An obvious public policy implication is that immigration should be discouraged. Believe it or not, Kristof did not reach those conclusions, since they don't fit his narrative. Instead, he rode the data to his preconceived destination, which is that we need to tax the rich and spread the wealth. Yeah, yeah - if you aren't going to let the data tell its story, why send it on stage? Or, if the data leads to unacceptable conclusions, maybe the premises are wrong (e.g., maybe social stress is bad but it is a necessary consequence of achieving other goods.)

Well. As if on cue, the Times has a front-pager telling us how they reduce income inequality and maintain social cohesion in laudable Japan - they kick out foreigners, thereby propping up wages. . .

OK, it looks like national suicide to me and it could never work in America (nor should it be attempted at this level, although we need stricter border control and workplace enforcement), but this is a country Nick Kristof is holding up as our goal.

Mickey Kaus notes differences between the famous New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and less famous  liberal (and libertarian/liberal) commentators on the issue of immigration. Some of whom seem to have a tendency toward name-calling.

Somewhat-related Graphs: Median income vs. incomes for the top 1% in America over time.  Update:  Tom Maguire has no mercy.

* Well, Mickey Kaus is more moderate than the rest - with some libertarian leanings. I sure wish his Democratic primary challenge to Barbara Boxer had been more successful. But he made some good points with very little money.

Southern Europe's Young See Little Benefit in Education

THE NEW YORK TIMES REPORTS on a "Doomed Generation" of highly educated young Europeans who can't find work??? Pigs fly.

Young people in Europe start to understand the looming demographic crisis.

With pensioners living longer and young people entering the work force later — and paying less in taxes because their salaries are so low — it is only a matter of time before state coffers run dry.

“What we have is a Ponzi scheme,” said Lawrence Kotlikoff, an economist at Boston University and an expert in fiscal policy.

Glenn Reynolds: "Funny how it seems to work out this way everywhere that high-tax, high-regulation schemes are tried, but young people are usually dumb enough not to realize who gets hurt the most. And what happens when a higher education bubble bursts:"

In Italy, Ms. Esposito is finishing her lawyer traineeship at a private firm in Lecce. It pays little but sits better on her conscience than her unpaid work for the government.

“I’m a repentant college graduate,” she said. “If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t go to college and would just start working.”

John Hinderaker:"It seems to me that the Times conflates several rather distinct issues in chronicling the malaise of Europe's young. It is not obvious that accumulating "certificates" is the optimum path to gainful employment. Europe has long tended to prize credentials over actual productivity, but that is probably a secondary issue in the current crisis. . .

That is what happens when government inserts itself into every employment decision and when labor unions are given quasi-official powers and status. The result is economic disaster, a disaster first suffered by the young. What has happened in Europe, especially Southern Europe, is a flashing red alert, warning the United States not to follow the same path of government interventionism and union empowerment"

Instapundit reader concerning the demographic problems discussed in the New York Times article:

Mark Steyn  has been warning about this for years, most notably in his book America Alone. Except when he broaches the subject he’s accused of being a right-wing lunatic.

Reynolds: "Well, yes. As with the Hitler/Stalin pact, one must not only have the right opinions, one must have them at the correct time."

Wretchard has additional thoughts on the Times piece, including the phenomenon of educated Europeans moving to Latin America for job opportunities:

So for some Europeans it is Costa Rica or bust; where one of the virtues, in common with most of the Third World, is that there are almost no rules. The absence of regulation must make the non-Western world something like the frontier, where both disaster and great fortune seem to lurk right around the corner. . . .

The Hard Left's Latest Ideas for Improving Society

Honored professor of sociology and political science Frances Fox Piven, co-author of the Cloward-Piven Strategy, has some timely advice for the unemployed in America. She wants to foster again what they call over at Protein Wisdom the "blind rage of Cloward-Piven":

they have to develop a proud and angry identity and a set of claims that go with that identity. They have to go from being hurt and ashamed to being angry and indignant

You might think of it as encouraging a generalized, emotional sort of covetousness for revolutionary purposes. Ron Radosh:

What she is calling for is nothing less than the chaos and violence engulfing Europe.

The Cloward-Piven Strategy was one part of American history about which I knew very little until a couple of years ago, when people started pointing out that some of its ideas had contributed to the financial meltdown. ACORN's* agitation for home loans for high-risk borrowers helped to  crash the real estate market in the U.S., and very nearly the financial system of much of the West. Of course, they had big assists from brilliant Ivy League computer modelers on Wall Street and their friends in Government, with their slick computer models for the bundling of bad loans with good loans (and all the reckless behavior which accompanied the acceptance of those models).  Of course, you can't discount  government borrowing and fractional lending by banks. (Too bad American banks were not allowed, or even encouraged, to be as realistic as Canadian banks.) 

But the West's financial system is still limping along.  So far, the hoped-for (by Cloward-Piven types) Rise of the Proletariat Masses to build a glorious new world on the ashes after their planned collapse of the structure of Western civilization has failed to materialize. Even if they did succeed in bankrupting New York City back at the height of their influence. I remember news stories about the bankruptcy of New York City and its relationship to high welfare costs. I DON'T remember hearing that there was a deliberate movement to overload the welfare system. I wonder why the press suppressed this bit of information?

Wall Street and Government financial hotshots (in the recent financial crisis) and the Cloward-Piven bunch (in their dreams to change the world) exhibited a remarkable lack of forecasting abilities. This gives one slight pause about revolutionizing the entire world's economy based on Global Warming computer models and utopian plans for redistributing wealth. Apparently the recent Cancun Climate Conference was more about Climate Justice than about reducing greenhouse gasses.  Even though some UN bureaucrats seem to have some doubts about giving all that money to corrupt, brutal African dictators (or perhaps even to common uneducated Africans). And they may have a point, given the irresponsible reactions of Greeks to the money flowing to their government from other European counties. Although poor, Greece was not exactly a third-world country when the money started flowing in without much effort on the part of the populace.  And when the government ran out of money  --  REALLY ran out of money -- the reaction was rage.  Would not even more irresponsibility be expected if third-worlders were suddenly awash in money they didn't earn?

The trouble is that the Hard Left has always been better at taking over and/or destroying existing institutions than at building new ones.

Frances Fox Piven can look to recent models for her dream of an angry identity-formation from Americans who have been hurt financially by the economic crisis. Richard Fernandez (nom de blog: Wretchard) provides some additional education on the  rise of ANARCHY, once again, in Europe.

In fine anarchists are Red Guards of the European Left, a collection of dupes formed inside the vast and creaky infrastructure of Marxism to advance the interests of one faction against another faction. It is impossible to understand the politics of the Left without grasping that it is all about deniable intimidation. The real problem European anarchism solves is how to send bombs without seemingly sending them, or how to trash the Tory party headquarters in London without really doing it.

Just as Mao’s Red Guards were never about themselves, always about Mao, anarchists are about a larger political question: what is the correct political line? Once the Red Guards of China had resolved that in Mao’s favor they were allowed to rampage for a time to bring hatred down upon themselves and subsequently suppressed, hapless tools to the very end.

Read the whole thing. Wretchard was once part of a genuine rebellion himself (in the Philippines)  and he interacted with revolutionaries who had various ideological reasons for participating in the rebellion.  Some of these revolutionaries seemed more threatening to him than the corrupt, autocratic government against which he was rebelling.

Wretchard's commenters often have some interesting ideas, too.  If you make a comment which he thinks brings something important to the conversation, he may comment on it, as well.  Glenn Reynold notes a few clarifying comments from others on various types of anarchists - some more responsible than others.  A "true anarchy" doesn't sound at all appealing.

I wonder how many generations ahead Fox Pivens was thinking when she called for this angry, indignant reaction from the unemployed in America?  Has she ever considered Thomas Sowell's perpetual question to the utopian thinker, "And then what?"

BLAST FROM THE PAST (circa 1980), Thomas Sowell takes on Frances Fox Piven in the last part of this 6-minute video. He was really feisty back then. Sowell and Fox Piven don't seem to have persuaded each other much in the intervening years.

Additional reading: Life and Death in Shanghai is the story of a remarkable woman's experiences with the Red Guard and the Maoist government after being identified as an "enemy of the people".

Wretchard  comments on VDH's latest piece comparing the behavior of the Left in Greece and California. Can the Left be brought to understand to the reality of the dire situation they are in?

So Hanson says, why not let them have it but make it clear that the state will have to pay for it? Let them see for themselves where the path leads if they won’t listen to reason. . . . .

Maybe they won’t listen to experience either, just as certain types of people keep trying the same thing while hoping for different results. They will press on despite failure, despite debacles and just press the keys harder. But under no circumstances will “sorry, we won’t loan you anything at any interest rate, so please by all means riot all you wish” get anyone else off the hook. Because other people are permanently on the hook. The whole point of socialism is precisely that it’s built on somebody else’s money. If it were built with their money it would be capitalism.

WH Auden observed that “all sins tend to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is damnation.” If the Left the world over has reached the point where they have got to have their fix, then neither reason nor experience will be persuasive. . .

The Hard Left aside, even more moderate young Social Democrats of Europe are starting to wake up to the consequences of not asking Sowell's question, "And then what?"   in their social planning. As reported by the NEW YORK TIMES?  Similar education bubble coming to a state near you.  Demographic issues may be a little different.

Video showing the lighter side of Marxism in NYC linked at the bottom of this post.

* Does ACORN really have BILLIONAIRE supporters who need to be informed of their business plans like, maybe, George Soros? Seems odd for a group focused on financial equality.  But then, Soros has justified destroying currencies in his stated quest to create more equitable governments.

UPDATE:  An old Stalinist is also delighted by the world's financial difficulties.   Even Fox-Piven had evolved beyond loving Stalin, I believe.

Predictions for 2011

Predictions are perilous things. It's usually best not to take yourself too seriously when you make them, because hubris is often followed by nemesis. But never mind, it was always about social control, anyway. "Titillated by coercion"?

The pundits at National Review seem to have a sense of this as they make their predictions. John Derbyshire's predictions about China might not be what you would expect. His wife is from China. Conflicting information here and here. Follow the link on the Instapundit posts.

YouTube University: Milton Friedman Explains Libertarianism

Although currently allied with conservatives, libertarians are not exactly like the typical conservative. The late Milton Friedman explains libertarianism in a 1999 interview with Peter Robinson. You can watch the whole thing a one time, or in shorter segments. You might want to consider where you fall on the continuum between supporting the maximum possible individual liberty on one hand OR mandating equality of outcome as well as providing safety, services, etc. through government action on the other hand.

Peter Robinson looks "inauthentic" on a motorcycle. But in this classic interview he asks Milton Friedman some tough questions about his libertarian positions. A college semester in 25 minutes.

Want shorter classes?

What is a libertarian?

What produced the dark and dirty London of Charles Dickens?

Are regulators like the FDA necessary to safeguard consumers? I could tell some stories to support either a yes or no position.

Should the government mandate that nutritional labels be placed on food packaging?

Of 14 cabinet departments, Milton Friedman says he would only keep a handful.

MORE: The kinds of interviews you don't see on TV anymore (radio interviews sometimes still provide this kind of exchange):

GREED 2 minutes. Kudos to Phil Donahue for asking good questions, then listening.

Federal Reserve and the New Deal, Chrysler bailout in 1979, automobile industry. 10 minutes.

Economics of medical care 9 minutes

Why it isn't necessary to change elected officials in order to change government. One minute.

The four ways to spend money.3 minutes

Local vs. Federal Government Spending, increasing production of goods and services (what the Greens want us to keep to a minimum). 3 minutes

Auld Lang Syne

Elizabeth Scalia on her remembrances of the Kennedy years and Auld Lang Syne.  She also links a piece on food shortages here in the Central Valley, one of the great food-producing regions of the world.  It is relevant to some of our personal challenges, and those of our friends.  Peggy Noonan talked with several people about their impressions of the song we sing every year:

"Auld Lang Syne" — the phrase can be translated as "long, long ago," or "old long since," but I like "old times past"—is a song that asks a question, a tender little question that has to do with the nature of being alive, of being a person on a journey in the world. It not only asks, it gives an answer. . . .

But "the interesting, more serious message in the song is that the past is important, we mustn't forget it, the old has something for us."

So does the present, as the last stanza makes clear. The song is not only about those who were in your life, but those who are in your life. . . .

A lot of food for thought on New Years Eve day. Hope everyone is looking forward to a wonderful New Year.

Michael Crichton, Science and Global Warming

The late Michael Crichton describes the "nasty, unfair, brutal" response of his fellow liberals in the Global Warming camp to his book, State of Fear. He supported a traditional scientific approach over the post-normal approach to science favored by global warming alarmists. Entire interview is here. Critique of An Inconvenient Truth here. Note that Crichton died before Climategate confirmed many of the points he made in these videos.

Michael Crichton talks with high school students:

1. Although he does not name the Sierra Club, he gently explains to students how the lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club helped lead to the deaths of 30 million people - "more people than Hitler and Stalin together killed". People of color.

2. Should environmentalism be a religion?

3. His personal interest in people's attraction to totalitarianism.

4. Second-hand smoke

Richard Fernandez looks back at the alarmism concerning Global Cooling in the 1970s, to which Crichton made reference.  Prominent Global Warming alarmist James Hansen was just a lowly computer model developer back in those days of global cooling alarmism.  I don't think he got nearly as much publicity (or money) then as he does now.

. . . . .   Can a New Ice Age be blamed on America? If it can, then it’s real. Otherwise it is false. Over the coming years and beyond my lifetime, historians may wish to apply this formula: V = American Policy multiplied by the absolute value of any variable. It’s always America’s fault.

And of course, whatever problem with the climate emerges in the future, The Left Must Be Put In Charge.

Because the Liberal Elite is always right.  Somewhat brutal, but hilarious. There are a lot of people just  like this on the Left.  Especially in academia.

Mao's Great Leap to Famine

Just a reminder that, at one time, Chinese peasants were escaping to North Korea to avoid starvation, rather than the other way around. Aside from the deaths during the revolution, the "cultural revolution", etc.,

In all, the records I studied suggest that the Great Leap Forward was responsible for at least 45 million deaths.

Between 2 and 3 million of these victims were tortured to death or summarily executed, often for the slightest infraction. People accused of not working hard enough were hung and beaten; sometimes they were bound and thrown into ponds. Punishments for the least violations included mutilation and forcing people to eat excrement.

Yet more than a decade later, thousands of students at American universities were still reverently carrying around Mao's Little Red Book. And even today, many intellectuals continue to believe that Marxism could work if only the right people were in charge. The New York Times recently ran a puff piece on Marxists pontificating and playing in New York City.

Glenn Reynolds:

Communists are as bad as Nazis, and their defenders and apologists are as bad as Nazis’ defenders, but far more common. When you meet them, show them no respect. They’re evil, stupid, and dishonest. They should not enjoy the consequences of their behavior.

Dennis Prager: "The bigger the government, the more of its citizens' lives it 'owns'."

A small example of what happens when government officials implement their great ideas about how to achieve "progress":

Mao encouraged the establishment of small backyard steel furnaces in every commune and in each urban neighborhood. Huge efforts on the part of peasants and other workers were made to produce steel out of scrap metal. To fuel the furnaces the local environment was denuded of trees and wood taken from the doors and furniture of peasants' houses. Pots, pans, and other metal artifacts were requisitioned to supply the "scrap" for the furnaces so that the wildly optimistic production targets could be met. Many of the male agricultural workers were diverted from the harvest to help the iron production as were the workers at many factories, schools and even hospitals. As could have been predicted by anyone with any experience of steel production or basic knowledge of metallurgy, the output consisted of low quality lumps of pig iron which was of negligible economic worth.

. . . According to his private doctor, Li Zhisui, Mao and his entourage visited traditional steel works in Manchuria in January 1959 where he found out that high quality steel could only be produced in large scale factories using reliable fuel such as coal. However he decided not to order a halt to the backyard steel furnaces so as not to dampen the revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses. The program was only quietly abandoned much later that year.

Substantial effort was expended during the Great Leap Forward on large-scale but often poorly planned capital construction projects, such as irrigation works often built without input from trained engineers. . . . .

Despite these harmful agricultural innovations, the weather in 1958 was very favorable and the harvest promised to be good. Unfortunately, the amount of labor diverted to steel production and construction projects meant that much of the harvest was left to rot uncollected in some areas. This problem was exacerbated by a devastating locust swarm, which was caused when their natural predators were killed en masse as part of the Great Sparrow Campaign.

Although actual harvests were reduced, local officials, under tremendous pressure from central authorities to report record harvests in response to the new innovations, competed with each other to announce increasingly exaggerated results. These were used as a basis for determining the amount of grain to be taken by the state to supply the towns and cities, and to export. This left barely enough for the peasants, and in some areas, starvation set in. During 1958-1960, China continued to be a substantial net exporter of grain, despite the widespread famine experienced in the countryside, as Mao sought to maintain "face" and convince the outside world of the success of his plans.

Even more democratic nations can face serious unintended problems due to the sincere efforts of government officials and their favored business allies to implement their good intentions. Especially when the government exempts itself from criticism.

Illustrative Video: GREAT MOMENTS IN UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

Note that the tragic dimension of unintended consequences attaches itself like a lamprey to public-sector derring-do rather than quaint lab accidents and kitchen-based discoveries.

Bipartisanship, "No Labels"

Some interesting developments in the "tax deal between Obama and the GOP":

1. At the joint press conference between President Obama and former President Clinton, President Obama left to attend a Christmas party, leaving Clinton to defend his positions. Paul Gigott:

“I love the symbolism of two Democratic presidents — not one, but two — endorsing Bush tax cuts, saying, ‘We need them crucially to help the economy’.”

During the press conference, President Clinton called conservative Charles Krauthammer's piece (calling the tax deal "the swindle of the year")"brilliant". Krauthammer quipped:

The fact that he praised me means that my career is basically over, although perhaps — I think NPR has an opening, I think the Juan Williams spot. …

Or I could return to psychiatry. The House Democrats could really use someone right now. They’re very agitated. I would go into that caucus and just do a Valium spray and get all of ‘em at once.

2. Bernie Sanders, the declared socialist in Congress, decided to filibuster. Other progressives are also up in arms. But on the other hand, they have been pushing the "No Labels" meme. President Obama starts a "charm offensive" with new Republican leadership in private, while promising to fight them in public.

President Obama made one especially deceptive statement about the Republicans' position on tax cuts which totally destroys any possibility of bipartisan good will:

"When they expire in two years, I will fight to end them," Obama said. "Just as I suspect the Republican Party may fight to end the middle-class tax cuts that I've championed and that they've opposed."

He's apparently still a class warrior at heart. He has indicated several times that he considers his role that of a "community organizer" (although one who is a "strong leader" rather than one who stays in the background while pushing power down to the people according to Saul Alinsky's "rules for radicals".)