Martin Wolf on the threat of neofascist kleptocracy; Sal Kahn on ChatBots as educational tool; Dobbs and female voter registration; Lynley on the Langchain ChatBot framework, Iber on Chile as exemp...
Cider: It's going to take more than this to persuade me that Steven Pinker is an Enemy of the People or even one of the useful idiots of the anti-democratic Right. :)
Two other key books for understanding the crisis of democratic capitalism: Gary Gerstle, The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order and Helen Thompson, Disorder
"If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people…"
Ah ha ha ha ha. So in other words, the will of the Group of Seventeen was the will of everyone.
Barro: it is disappointing, although hot surprising that Barro does not include tax increases as a way of putting the debt ceiling issue permanently behind us or even as the central point of the negotiation that should not occur.
”Jim Crow U.S. South from 1876-1965. It was less than half as rich as the rest of the United States for almost a complete century.”
Still is, although the geographic grouping is different: in 2016 and 2020 the Clinton and Biden counties accounted for two thirds of GDP, i.e. Trump counties were half as rich.
I particularly enjoyed reading Wolf's clear explanation that "Democratic Socialism" is an oxymoron:
[In a socialist state] "those who control the state will also control the economy. Since they will control both the economy and the government, they will control politics. There can then be no fair competition either for political power or in economic activity. Thus, the idea of a socialist democracy is a chimera, a will-o'-the-wisp."
True, except that "Democratic Socialists" may not really want socialism at all, they may just want a cooler label for their left-populist policies that "Democratic Capitalism."
The problem with that statement is that Democratic Capitalism makes no more sense for similar reasons. As we have seen during the Gilded Age and more recently, those who control the economy also control the state. Since they will control both the economy and the government, they will control politics. There can be no fair competition either for political power or in economic activity. Thus, the idea of a capitalist democracy is a chimera, a will-o'-the-wisp. The problem with that statement is that control lies along a gradient, not just at two extremes.
While socialist nations may control the economy, most of them allow a fair bit of business freedom. A true capitalist would argue against government enforcement of contracts, something even libertarians reject.
Just about every society has to choose where they fall on the gradient. (Should the government charter business collectives or disallow them as in England early in the Industrial Revolution? Should they only be chartered for a particular purpose or should they be granted general economic powers?) In democratic nations, those choices are made, ideally, with the consent of the governed.
The Gilded Age, rooted on the wealth of trusts and monopolies, ended when individual capitalists, who had a strong personal interest in strengthening themselves by reigning in the power of trusts, were able to muster enough political and economic power to suppress those trusts through the Sherman Act, court rulings, and a variety of other regulations or laws. While the Gilded Age monopolists may have enjoyed temporary effective control of the state, that control was weakened dramatically once the monopolists had sufficiently over-stepped the line of what others could tolerate. On the other hand, in a socialist system, with the economy both owned and operated by the state, there is no class of either political or economic actors with a sufficient interest in ensuring more vigorous competition. When economic power is a state monopoly, the economy will inevitably become dominated by state-sponsored monopolies.
You say: "A true capitalist would argue against government enforcement of contracts."
Nothing could be further from the truth. Without contract enforcement there can be no capitalism, only thuggery. A true and wise capitalist must argue for rule of law and for regulations that enable competition. The idea that "true capitalism" requires rapacious behavior certainly serves the interests of various demagogues, but it is no more necessary than "mob rule" is the necessary result of democracy.
You suggest: "control lies along a gradient." Certainly that is true. Even in the US, we have a "mixed economy" composed mostly of market-driven enterprises but which also includes many sectors, such as the utilities, which are very much under state control and sometimes even state ownership. Ideally, we would ensure market-driven enterprise wherever competition can be effective (e.g. where natural monopolies are not inevitable) and state-control whenever competition can't work effectively. But, both the capitalist and the "socialist" components of our economy must be well regulated.
"Democratic Capitalism" makes sense. "Democratic Socialism" is an oxymoron.
Lucas had a reasonable critique of theories of macro policy that depended on fooling workers into thinking they were being paid more than they were. DSEG models might (yet) yield insights into setting of optimal inflation targets and how rapidly to return to them after a sufficiently large shock has produced a deviation. But that is not the way Lucas's thinking went.
There is something in the plutopopulist story, but it does not work perfectly. Too much of the populism is harmful to plutocrats, too. Trade and immigration (at least/especially merit immigration) restrictions are as harmful to plutocrats as to everyone else. Plutocrats have decedents that will suffer from our not having a tax on net CO2 emissions as much as anyone else.
.The problem with fiscal rules is that they restrain investment more than they require revenue increases. This is perverse because the sense of a rule is to promote the investment whether by taxing private consumption or by public investment. Future generations pay for debt by not receiving the income from investment not made today.
Cider: It's going to take more than this to persuade me that Steven Pinker is an Enemy of the People or even one of the useful idiots of the anti-democratic Right. :)
Two other key books for understanding the crisis of democratic capitalism: Gary Gerstle, The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order and Helen Thompson, Disorder
Iber: If the golden years in Chile were the center-left version of neo-liberalism,
why is its demise something to celebrate?
"If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people…"
Ah ha ha ha ha. So in other words, the will of the Group of Seventeen was the will of everyone.
Barro: it is disappointing, although hot surprising that Barro does not include tax increases as a way of putting the debt ceiling issue permanently behind us or even as the central point of the negotiation that should not occur.
”Jim Crow U.S. South from 1876-1965. It was less than half as rich as the rest of the United States for almost a complete century.”
Still is, although the geographic grouping is different: in 2016 and 2020 the Clinton and Biden counties accounted for two thirds of GDP, i.e. Trump counties were half as rich.
I particularly enjoyed reading Wolf's clear explanation that "Democratic Socialism" is an oxymoron:
[In a socialist state] "those who control the state will also control the economy. Since they will control both the economy and the government, they will control politics. There can then be no fair competition either for political power or in economic activity. Thus, the idea of a socialist democracy is a chimera, a will-o'-the-wisp."
True, except that "Democratic Socialists" may not really want socialism at all, they may just want a cooler label for their left-populist policies that "Democratic Capitalism."
The problem with that statement is that Democratic Capitalism makes no more sense for similar reasons. As we have seen during the Gilded Age and more recently, those who control the economy also control the state. Since they will control both the economy and the government, they will control politics. There can be no fair competition either for political power or in economic activity. Thus, the idea of a capitalist democracy is a chimera, a will-o'-the-wisp. The problem with that statement is that control lies along a gradient, not just at two extremes.
While socialist nations may control the economy, most of them allow a fair bit of business freedom. A true capitalist would argue against government enforcement of contracts, something even libertarians reject.
Just about every society has to choose where they fall on the gradient. (Should the government charter business collectives or disallow them as in England early in the Industrial Revolution? Should they only be chartered for a particular purpose or should they be granted general economic powers?) In democratic nations, those choices are made, ideally, with the consent of the governed.
The Gilded Age, rooted on the wealth of trusts and monopolies, ended when individual capitalists, who had a strong personal interest in strengthening themselves by reigning in the power of trusts, were able to muster enough political and economic power to suppress those trusts through the Sherman Act, court rulings, and a variety of other regulations or laws. While the Gilded Age monopolists may have enjoyed temporary effective control of the state, that control was weakened dramatically once the monopolists had sufficiently over-stepped the line of what others could tolerate. On the other hand, in a socialist system, with the economy both owned and operated by the state, there is no class of either political or economic actors with a sufficient interest in ensuring more vigorous competition. When economic power is a state monopoly, the economy will inevitably become dominated by state-sponsored monopolies.
You say: "A true capitalist would argue against government enforcement of contracts."
Nothing could be further from the truth. Without contract enforcement there can be no capitalism, only thuggery. A true and wise capitalist must argue for rule of law and for regulations that enable competition. The idea that "true capitalism" requires rapacious behavior certainly serves the interests of various demagogues, but it is no more necessary than "mob rule" is the necessary result of democracy.
You suggest: "control lies along a gradient." Certainly that is true. Even in the US, we have a "mixed economy" composed mostly of market-driven enterprises but which also includes many sectors, such as the utilities, which are very much under state control and sometimes even state ownership. Ideally, we would ensure market-driven enterprise wherever competition can be effective (e.g. where natural monopolies are not inevitable) and state-control whenever competition can't work effectively. But, both the capitalist and the "socialist" components of our economy must be well regulated.
"Democratic Capitalism" makes sense. "Democratic Socialism" is an oxymoron.
Lucas had a reasonable critique of theories of macro policy that depended on fooling workers into thinking they were being paid more than they were. DSEG models might (yet) yield insights into setting of optimal inflation targets and how rapidly to return to them after a sufficiently large shock has produced a deviation. But that is not the way Lucas's thinking went.
There is something in the plutopopulist story, but it does not work perfectly. Too much of the populism is harmful to plutocrats, too. Trade and immigration (at least/especially merit immigration) restrictions are as harmful to plutocrats as to everyone else. Plutocrats have decedents that will suffer from our not having a tax on net CO2 emissions as much as anyone else.
.The problem with fiscal rules is that they restrain investment more than they require revenue increases. This is perverse because the sense of a rule is to promote the investment whether by taxing private consumption or by public investment. Future generations pay for debt by not receiving the income from investment not made today.
% of Republican women did *what* in the aftermath of Dobbs? Register Dem? Unclear