The quote from Noah Smith reminds me yet again why I don't find him worthwhile to read: his political opinions are *so* bad. It is simply not the case that liberals need to "accomodate" (read "appease") conservatives, particularly under the threat of conservatives adopting "reactionary illiberal" options. No, conservatives have agency too, not just liberals; it's conservatives who need to accept (not just "accomodate") democracy. "Reactionary illiberal" options are *never* on the table, certainly not as a threat.
What makes his comment still worse is that he's vague about what issues liberals need to "surrender" while implying that abortion and trans rights are 2 of them. But both of those involve fundamental human rights, as well as a rejection of state control over personal medical decisions. Surrender on those issues would simply permit conservatives to aim at other targets until they reach the "reactionary illiberalism" that Smith doesn't demand they reject.
Many conservatives are not opposed to liberal democracy--it's just that they're mostly in places like Continental Europe and Japan. "Conservative"≠"fascist." These conservatives also believe in fundamental human rights. They just have a slightly different menu, stressing rights to strong organic institutions more than their more atomistic friends on the left. In America, we can see this strain of conservatism with the reformicons, who are worth reading even though they have absolutely no political power.
I did not read the excerpts from Mr. Smith’s post as advocating a surrender to conservatism. That didn’t sound like him based on his other pieces and his podcasts with Prof. DeLong. So I went to read the article.
He was responding to Peter Thiel’s argument that liberalism doesn’t offer a concrete reply to Chinese techno-authoritarianism, Islamism and European environmentalism. Mr. Smith disagrees and lays out his vision for a concrete liberalism. But he notes, ”The divisions within the democratic world [liberals vs. conservatives] are the primary reason why the autocratic powers are able to make their case at all….To say that ensuring a place for conservatives in a liberal future is ‘difficult’ would be the understatement of the year….The rise in the salience of cultural issues since FDR’s day makes it difficult to imagine that we can table those conflicts while we address economic and geopolitical challenges…..I don’t really have all the answers here. Key pieces of the liberal democratic future vision remain to be filled in, and doing so will be a difficult and fraught process.”
Thus, I don’t think it accurate that he advocates trading abortion for unions. He’s observing that somehow we need to draw in the conservative side because erasing them from the debate is impossible. It’s a sensible point. Annoying perhaps, galling even, but sensible.
See, that's where I disagree. If conservatives only accept the democratic process when they win and *don't accept the results* when liberals win, then they are not conservatives but authoritarians. It's not a matter of liberals "drawing in" the conservatives, it's a matter of conservatives exercising their own agency and making a choice. My bet is that they will choose "reactionary illiberalism", but that just means they were never willing to be part of the democratic project.
Also, Thiel's argument is incoherent and intellectually dishonest.
I bought both the paper and kindle versions of Slouching. It's interesting to see on Kindle what passages people are highlighting. "North Atlantic economies had invented invention" is a turn of phrase that 35 people seem to have liked, for example.
"("why are you wasting your time doing that, you should be working on AI safety", said by someone who thinks they know about AI, but does not, and has no ideas of any value about AI safety)"
I see the promotion of EA as not meaningful different from the push from the 'moderate right' for UBI. UBI was popular with them because it was indirect attack on existing systems and might result in the promised land of lower taxes for 'moderate right-wingers' i.e. rich people i.e. them. EA is focused entirely on doing the minimum for people very far away, which can then be used as social leverage for a vertical attack on poor people (and importantly, the welfare state) in the 'rich countries'. Both of them amount to kicking down. (I don't see EA as any different from the early nineties drive to minimize government contributions to foreign countries because that money was 'wasted' (on black people). EA is just coming from the mirror image direction - not unlike the YIMBY's with the tolerance signs in the front yard going all in on opposition to new development.
(None of which should be taken to suggest I'm opposed to giving money to poor people overseas (efficiently, even!) or poor people at home. One just notes the constant reduction of charitable cash to the poor since 1990, even as the talk about doing something is ever-increasing. Me, I just do charity the most inefficient way: I give folding green dollars to homeless people on the street.)
"‘Ukraine seems likely to bag thousands of prisoners in Lyman, and another pocket could collapse in Kherson, in the next few weeks, yielding many more. In both cases, Putin refused permission to withdraw…"
Putin did NOT refuse permission to the units in Lyman to withdraw, he just made them wait until he got the propaganda push rolling. I strongly suspect that the issue around Kherson is simply that if those units withdrew, that command suspects withdrawal would result in those units collapsing and the entire episode turning into a rout à la the Russian retreat at Austerlitz. Which would be very bad for the public image of the RF. (I really wish Putin had not spent so much time taking notes on the Bush administration's PR, we might not have so many dead people lying around.)
"‘Part of what makes dictatorships dictatorships is that questioning the official line is dangerous. At the same time, autocratic regimes have a strong incentive to report healthy growth.... Citizens in dictatorships often assume they are being lied to. Outsiders should be similarly sceptical."
One notes that the great and the good keep insisting that China will have a larger economy than the US at some future date, just as economists insisted the Soviet Union would have the world's largest economy at some point between 1950 and 1980. Curiously enough, the right-wingers who were (rightly!) very insistent on pointing out Soviet fraud, are spinning crickets when it comes to China and CCP fraud. (Unless they can go all racist about something.)
"“A bit wordy.” Hah! At over 600 pages, it is not a book for a flight from Dublin to Frankfurt or a ferry ride to Liverpool. Think “transoceanic” instead.""
I have purchased your literary product in deadtree form, finally. I think it will be a quick read since I've read 80-90% of it already, but really, highly-credentialed people quailing at 600 pages... that's something.
elm
has read an entire state criminal code in its entirety
Thanks to the link to Alex on Keynes and the “schools” and intellectual trends in economics after the General Theory. Now I know where the masterful (and amusing) chart came from that was in your prior newsletter.
The quote from Noah Smith reminds me yet again why I don't find him worthwhile to read: his political opinions are *so* bad. It is simply not the case that liberals need to "accomodate" (read "appease") conservatives, particularly under the threat of conservatives adopting "reactionary illiberal" options. No, conservatives have agency too, not just liberals; it's conservatives who need to accept (not just "accomodate") democracy. "Reactionary illiberal" options are *never* on the table, certainly not as a threat.
What makes his comment still worse is that he's vague about what issues liberals need to "surrender" while implying that abortion and trans rights are 2 of them. But both of those involve fundamental human rights, as well as a rejection of state control over personal medical decisions. Surrender on those issues would simply permit conservatives to aim at other targets until they reach the "reactionary illiberalism" that Smith doesn't demand they reject.
Many conservatives are not opposed to liberal democracy--it's just that they're mostly in places like Continental Europe and Japan. "Conservative"≠"fascist." These conservatives also believe in fundamental human rights. They just have a slightly different menu, stressing rights to strong organic institutions more than their more atomistic friends on the left. In America, we can see this strain of conservatism with the reformicons, who are worth reading even though they have absolutely no political power.
I agree with this. It's the ones who are ready to abandon democracy when they don't prevail who are the problem.
Yes...
I did not read the excerpts from Mr. Smith’s post as advocating a surrender to conservatism. That didn’t sound like him based on his other pieces and his podcasts with Prof. DeLong. So I went to read the article.
He was responding to Peter Thiel’s argument that liberalism doesn’t offer a concrete reply to Chinese techno-authoritarianism, Islamism and European environmentalism. Mr. Smith disagrees and lays out his vision for a concrete liberalism. But he notes, ”The divisions within the democratic world [liberals vs. conservatives] are the primary reason why the autocratic powers are able to make their case at all….To say that ensuring a place for conservatives in a liberal future is ‘difficult’ would be the understatement of the year….The rise in the salience of cultural issues since FDR’s day makes it difficult to imagine that we can table those conflicts while we address economic and geopolitical challenges…..I don’t really have all the answers here. Key pieces of the liberal democratic future vision remain to be filled in, and doing so will be a difficult and fraught process.”
Thus, I don’t think it accurate that he advocates trading abortion for unions. He’s observing that somehow we need to draw in the conservative side because erasing them from the debate is impossible. It’s a sensible point. Annoying perhaps, galling even, but sensible.
See, that's where I disagree. If conservatives only accept the democratic process when they win and *don't accept the results* when liberals win, then they are not conservatives but authoritarians. It's not a matter of liberals "drawing in" the conservatives, it's a matter of conservatives exercising their own agency and making a choice. My bet is that they will choose "reactionary illiberalism", but that just means they were never willing to be part of the democratic project.
Also, Thiel's argument is incoherent and intellectually dishonest.
I bought both the paper and kindle versions of Slouching. It's interesting to see on Kindle what passages people are highlighting. "North Atlantic economies had invented invention" is a turn of phrase that 35 people seem to have liked, for example.
"("why are you wasting your time doing that, you should be working on AI safety", said by someone who thinks they know about AI, but does not, and has no ideas of any value about AI safety)"
I see the promotion of EA as not meaningful different from the push from the 'moderate right' for UBI. UBI was popular with them because it was indirect attack on existing systems and might result in the promised land of lower taxes for 'moderate right-wingers' i.e. rich people i.e. them. EA is focused entirely on doing the minimum for people very far away, which can then be used as social leverage for a vertical attack on poor people (and importantly, the welfare state) in the 'rich countries'. Both of them amount to kicking down. (I don't see EA as any different from the early nineties drive to minimize government contributions to foreign countries because that money was 'wasted' (on black people). EA is just coming from the mirror image direction - not unlike the YIMBY's with the tolerance signs in the front yard going all in on opposition to new development.
(None of which should be taken to suggest I'm opposed to giving money to poor people overseas (efficiently, even!) or poor people at home. One just notes the constant reduction of charitable cash to the poor since 1990, even as the talk about doing something is ever-increasing. Me, I just do charity the most inefficient way: I give folding green dollars to homeless people on the street.)
"‘Ukraine seems likely to bag thousands of prisoners in Lyman, and another pocket could collapse in Kherson, in the next few weeks, yielding many more. In both cases, Putin refused permission to withdraw…"
Putin did NOT refuse permission to the units in Lyman to withdraw, he just made them wait until he got the propaganda push rolling. I strongly suspect that the issue around Kherson is simply that if those units withdrew, that command suspects withdrawal would result in those units collapsing and the entire episode turning into a rout à la the Russian retreat at Austerlitz. Which would be very bad for the public image of the RF. (I really wish Putin had not spent so much time taking notes on the Bush administration's PR, we might not have so many dead people lying around.)
"‘Part of what makes dictatorships dictatorships is that questioning the official line is dangerous. At the same time, autocratic regimes have a strong incentive to report healthy growth.... Citizens in dictatorships often assume they are being lied to. Outsiders should be similarly sceptical."
One notes that the great and the good keep insisting that China will have a larger economy than the US at some future date, just as economists insisted the Soviet Union would have the world's largest economy at some point between 1950 and 1980. Curiously enough, the right-wingers who were (rightly!) very insistent on pointing out Soviet fraud, are spinning crickets when it comes to China and CCP fraud. (Unless they can go all racist about something.)
"“A bit wordy.” Hah! At over 600 pages, it is not a book for a flight from Dublin to Frankfurt or a ferry ride to Liverpool. Think “transoceanic” instead.""
I have purchased your literary product in deadtree form, finally. I think it will be a quick read since I've read 80-90% of it already, but really, highly-credentialed people quailing at 600 pages... that's something.
elm
has read an entire state criminal code in its entirety
Thanks to the link to Alex on Keynes and the “schools” and intellectual trends in economics after the General Theory. Now I know where the masterful (and amusing) chart came from that was in your prior newsletter.