Market economies lack sufficient information-transmission bandwidth (& so does everything else); Turchin & Nefedov on decline and fall; Yglesias on moderate Democrats wandering in the wilderness...
We want more mutually beneficial market transactions between consenting adults that do not create any untaxed/unsubsidized negative/positive externalities (with some exceptions for transactions in addictive substances) and for some of the income generated from those mutually beneficial transactions taxed with a progressive consumption taxes and revenues used for redistribution and purchase of public goods, which expenditures passing an NPV>0 test with all inputs and outputs evaluated at Pigou tax/subsidy-inclusive prices .
That's a good definition of what you want, but I don't believe it applies to "centrists" generally. Most seem to have lots of interests beyond economics (race, abortion, foreign policy, etc.).
Race: A very tiny amount of affirmative action at every level of selection is justified in order to get, ex-post, the most meritorious person.
Abortion: Roe v Wade "Safe Legal Rare" and rare because of a lot of policies to mitigate factors that push some women to seek abortions.
Foreign Policy: Pax Americana w/o gratuitous invasions of random Mid East counties, pressure (maybe for several generations) on Israel and Palestine to negotiate a two state solution.
The problem with "centrism" as a concept is that it can either be (1) applied to many different issues as you've tried to do; or (2) applied with different weights to some issues rather than others; that is, one "centrist" might place more emphasis on foreign policy while another might place emphasis on abortion. The problem is that people can't vote on each specific issue to find a "centrist" position. They can only vote for candidates who have a mix of policy proposals.
It's also vague because there's no defined "center". Is it "halfway between the parties"? Or is it based on some philosophical principle that can be applied to any issue? If the first, then a fascist party can move the "center" to the right by being more extreme. If the latter, then I've never heard one that's both easy to articulate and easy to apply in specific circumstances; kind of like "free speech" in that way.
Exactly what problems are not being solved because market economies do not have sufficient information transmission bandwidth? Before microelectronics you could have said real-time pricing of urban street and road use. Externalities of social media use? Continuous Fed monetary policy instrument setting? What?
IMHO the last 30 years have shown clearly and repeatedly that the Washington DC Democrats who consider themselves "centrists" who should be running the party and the nation are similar to the 1970s feminists' description of men as fish: they swim through the waters of their conservative, Republican-leaning [1] ideology believing that they are perfectly neutral and have no ideology. The Washington Monthly is the perfect instantiation of this belief, but there are many others.
From a practical standpoint their actions have done huge damage to the nation, particularly to women but also to citizens in general (I'm, sorry, "consumers") with their backing of deregulation and love of Republican "I see no trusts to bust here" abandonment of antitrust enforcement. It is time for them to retire to the Virginia suburbs, pay for their own shrimp and cocktails at the grocery store, and let a younger generation find a better path.
[1] and today of course there is no way to be Republican-leaning without being Nazi-adjacent
I'm actually bullish on the moderates having a bit more influence -- in particular, with high prices being such a salient issue, I think free trade will start being evaluated more positively.
The interesting thing about the boy gender gap is that there is little evidence for it at the top. It's not hard to find well-qualified boys in elite colleges and many Ph.D. programs. (Okay, the Ph.D. students are men, not boys.) And this is not to mention the peaks of American aristocracy: finance and business. (Although too many of them are boys, not men.) The boy problem is all at the middle and bottom.
I'm always skeptical of calls for more "centrist" policy because usually the concept of "centrist" is poorly defined.
We want more mutually beneficial market transactions between consenting adults that do not create any untaxed/unsubsidized negative/positive externalities (with some exceptions for transactions in addictive substances) and for some of the income generated from those mutually beneficial transactions taxed with a progressive consumption taxes and revenues used for redistribution and purchase of public goods, which expenditures passing an NPV>0 test with all inputs and outputs evaluated at Pigou tax/subsidy-inclusive prices .
That's a good definition of what you want, but I don't believe it applies to "centrists" generally. Most seem to have lots of interests beyond economics (race, abortion, foreign policy, etc.).
OK that was just the Centrist economic policies.
Race: A very tiny amount of affirmative action at every level of selection is justified in order to get, ex-post, the most meritorious person.
Abortion: Roe v Wade "Safe Legal Rare" and rare because of a lot of policies to mitigate factors that push some women to seek abortions.
Foreign Policy: Pax Americana w/o gratuitous invasions of random Mid East counties, pressure (maybe for several generations) on Israel and Palestine to negotiate a two state solution.
Crime: More and better policing, prosecuting
University politics: FIRE
The problem with "centrism" as a concept is that it can either be (1) applied to many different issues as you've tried to do; or (2) applied with different weights to some issues rather than others; that is, one "centrist" might place more emphasis on foreign policy while another might place emphasis on abortion. The problem is that people can't vote on each specific issue to find a "centrist" position. They can only vote for candidates who have a mix of policy proposals.
It's also vague because there's no defined "center". Is it "halfway between the parties"? Or is it based on some philosophical principle that can be applied to any issue? If the first, then a fascist party can move the "center" to the right by being more extreme. If the latter, then I've never heard one that's both easy to articulate and easy to apply in specific circumstances; kind of like "free speech" in that way.
Exactly what problems are not being solved because market economies do not have sufficient information transmission bandwidth? Before microelectronics you could have said real-time pricing of urban street and road use. Externalities of social media use? Continuous Fed monetary policy instrument setting? What?
IMHO the last 30 years have shown clearly and repeatedly that the Washington DC Democrats who consider themselves "centrists" who should be running the party and the nation are similar to the 1970s feminists' description of men as fish: they swim through the waters of their conservative, Republican-leaning [1] ideology believing that they are perfectly neutral and have no ideology. The Washington Monthly is the perfect instantiation of this belief, but there are many others.
From a practical standpoint their actions have done huge damage to the nation, particularly to women but also to citizens in general (I'm, sorry, "consumers") with their backing of deregulation and love of Republican "I see no trusts to bust here" abandonment of antitrust enforcement. It is time for them to retire to the Virginia suburbs, pay for their own shrimp and cocktails at the grocery store, and let a younger generation find a better path.
[1] and today of course there is no way to be Republican-leaning without being Nazi-adjacent
"first, rubble; second, more rubble; third, more rubble" - needs more shrill. But well said.
"noncognitive behavioral factors" - ahem
Murderbot: a quotation from the current https://www.ebooks.com/en-us/book/210726667/system-collapse/martha-wells/: "... we proceeded down the stupid tunnel, into the stupid danger.”
There are more striking lines, and more striking developments, but I'm struck by the consistency of tone.
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I'm actually bullish on the moderates having a bit more influence -- in particular, with high prices being such a salient issue, I think free trade will start being evaluated more positively.
I hope, but to be nerdy, freer trade promotes long term growth, no effect on inflation; the Fed runs inflation.
The interesting thing about the boy gender gap is that there is little evidence for it at the top. It's not hard to find well-qualified boys in elite colleges and many Ph.D. programs. (Okay, the Ph.D. students are men, not boys.) And this is not to mention the peaks of American aristocracy: finance and business. (Although too many of them are boys, not men.) The boy problem is all at the middle and bottom.