Catallaxy Files

A very thought-provoking piece from Steve Frank, picked up by a poster on the Dewey discussion group. He is responding to Obama’s rehetoric, recycled from the Progressive era a century ago when muck-raking and economically illiterate commentators managed to generate a reaction against the “Robber Barons” of the Gilded Age. The commentators did not make the essential distinction between market entrepreneurs who make their money by selling stuff that people want to buy (Gates, Apple) and political entrepreneurs who make their money from political connections and favoritism.

Teddy Roosevelt in 1910 delivered one of the most influential political speeches in American history, the one in which he announced his stand for a “square deal” for the common man and reaffirmed his belief in the responsibility of government to deal with social problems.

“When I say that I am for the square deal,” Roosevelt said, “I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the game but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity.”

So when Obama told the nation, “We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by, or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules,” I heard the echo of earlier times.

But Frank points out that Obama is being very selective about the issues that he picks up from TR. In the same speech TR went on…

Our government, national and state, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. . .. We must drive the special interest out of politics. That is one of our tasks today.

I think that Frank would like to see that fed into Obama’s autocue.  The point is that the outcome of the push for TR’s square deal and more involvement from the government is the way we are at present. However on a second reading, Frank’s piece contains mixed messages. He wants a debate that addresses the real issues but he seems to have a foot in the camp of the people who want the high flyers to pay more tax. That is a worry. I thought he was a fan of the Tea Pa;rty. So we have to re-run the debate from the Progressive era and make the distinction between the two types of entrepreneurs.

Frank seems to be impressed by the rhetoric about Buffet paying less tax than his secretaries. But who created the jobs of the secretaries and all the other people who Buffet employs. What if we credit him with the tax that they pay?

I should have said this before I left town for the day. I meant to give MORAL  credit for the tax paid as a result of the jobs that he created. I thought anyone with a three digit IQ would have read it that way. Thanks to the Montster for screwing up the thread.

While contemplating the state of climate science and the results we have obtained from massive public investment, my eye happened to fall upon a passage in a book that was written in New Zealand to refute the myth of historical determinism and the chosen people (or class, or race, or religion). That myth was the intellectual motor of Marxism/Leninism and possibly fascism, and possibly Radical Islam.

The passage was a part of a critique of the psychologial theory of human progress, that it is driven by the progressive tendency of the human mind. The author commented that there are other tendencies of the human mind like forgetfullness, indolence and dogmatism.

If we wish to replace this surprisingly naïve theory by a more tenable one, we have to make two main alterations. First, we have to attempt to find conditions of progress, and to this end we must try to imagine, for example, conditions under which progress would be arrested. This immediately leads to the realization that a psychological propensity alone cannot be sufficient to explain progress, since conditions may be found on which it may depend. Thus we must, next, replace the theory of psychological propensities by something better; I suggest, by an institutional (and technological) analysis of the conditions of progress.

He speculated about ways to arrest scientific and industrial progress, for example by closing down (or subjecting to political control) laboratories for research, scientific periodicals, congresses and conferences, universities and printing presses.  That process has made giant strides in Big Science funded by Big Government. So there is no need to be surprised by the climate scam, it was predictable!

The process is proceeding apace in the arts under our current “soviet” regime. As Tim Blair put it “Dance arts monkeys, dance! For money”

What about serious global cooling?

David Archibald, polymath, makes a bold prediction that temperatures are about to dive sharply (in the decadal sense). He took the  forgotten correlation that as solar cycles lengthen and weaken, the world gets cooler. He refined it into a predictive tool, tested it and published in 2007. His paper has been expanded on recently by Prof Solheim in Norway, who predicts a 1.5°C drop in Central Norway over the next ten years.

It helps to remember that the predictions of scary warming are not based on  trends of observed temperatures over time, they are fabricated from the abuse of models. And given the degree of uncertainty about the mechanisms involved in warming and cooling (what was that about the science being settled?) there is nothing inherently implausible about a scenario of cooling.

During the 1930s three men worked on the same problems in the methodology of the social sciences at the same time and they came up with practically the same solutions. Two of the three did the work as a recreational activity at the end of their busy working days. Karl Popper wrote his first book on the philosophy of science after teaching science and mathematics in school. The working title of the manuscript was “The Fundamental Problems of Epistemology”. With that book in press he turned to the problems of the social sciences. Not far away another public servant, Ludwig von Mises, spent his evenings writing a book on ”The Fundamental Problems of Political Economy”. On the other side of the world Talcott Parsons returned from postgraduate studies in London and Heidelberg and wrote “The Structure of Social Action” (1937).

Their combined efforts offered a framework for the study of economics and the other human sciences which could have:

1. Maintained sociology and economics as an integrated discipline.

2. Sponsored partnerships between economists and students of all social institutions  – law, politics, literature, religion and cultural studies at large.

3. Ensured that “high theory” and empirical studies inform, enrich  and correct each other.

4. Contributed to good public policy, especially by checking the results of increased regulation and intervention in the marketplace and the impact of the erosion of the “bourgeoise virtues”. This work could have commenced when the role of government was much smaller and less entrenched.

There was a window of opportunity for the these three leading figures in their respective  fields , plus their followers, to form a united front across the disciplines of sociology, economics and philosophy to promote the ideas that they shared and to debate the views that they did not share.

This did not happen.  The defective ideas which all three identified in the 1930s became embedded in the rapidly growing community of academics and researchers after the war.

Who dropped the ball?

We take somber note of the reality that in 1933 Europe contained the world’s largest Jewish community.  Until that time, Progressive Jews participated actively and productively in European society, adding much to the quality of life in science, art, music, medicine, law, teaching, commerce and many other fields.  In the ensuing 12 years, six million Jews were wiped out, and the people of the world — with many laudable exceptions — watched in silent assent.

A reminder from the World Union for Progressive Judaism.

Not entirely happy with the idea that the people of the world watched in silent assent. How many people of the world knew what was happening?

What are the lessons of the Holocaust?  Nowadays we know about dreadful crimes of religous persecution that happen in many places around the world, practically every day, but can we react more effectively than the world managed to do in the 1930s?

A late addition, thanks to Peter Patton, a nice piece by  Peter Craven on being proud of our cultural achievements. It just shows how smart we can be in some areas while we have blind spots in other areas. Hence the importance of civil dialogue across party lines.

That commentary reminds me of a  beautiful paper written years ago bythe late Len Hume about the so-called cultural cringe. It first appeared in an academic journal, was reprinted as a pamphlet by CIS and I put it on line by arrangement with Hume’s widow.

Pete Craven mentioned Barry Humphries as one of our cultural treasures, there is a section about him in one of the Rathouse Revivalist issues with a picture by Kilmeny Niland and a report on the little-noticed encounter when Karl Popper met Barry Mackenzie.

Dumb research on “Australian racism“. Sorted out by Lorenzo Warby. 

In what is wrong with this “research” effort, the only question is where to begin. First, 102 people is a tiny sample. Second, agreeing that the White Australia Policy “saved Australia from many problems experienced by other countries” does not demonstrate racism. One can agree that monoculturalism has advantages without being racist. Moreover, a majority of flag-fliers did not agree with the statement. So, tagging an activity which a majority of those engaged in where found not to be racist as associated with racism is slander by correlation. (As is typical, the media reporting is worse than the actual study.)

Keith Windschuttle defends the Constitution from charges of racism.

Far from being a racist document, the Australian Constitution … puts all Australians on an equal footing, no matter when they or their ancestors arrived here. Indeed, it would be not only racially discriminatory but also socially divisive to endorse this report and give some Australians status and privileges not available to others simply because of their ancestry.

At the review of the Fair Work Act. Just don’t mention the war  productivity. And don’t involve the Productivity Commisssion!

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In 1956 Popper gave a memorial lecture which he called “The History of Our Time: An Optimist’s View”.  He considered that optimism had rarity value at the height of the Cold War when many people thought that the end of the world was near.

Go John Roskam!  John is Number 9 on a list of Power People prepared by the publishers of Crikey (would you buy a list from them?).

Some are academics, some run think tanks and policy organisations, others are writers and public thinkers. What they have in common is high prominence on the public stage of ideas and the ability to be taken seriously by other powerful people. A kind of knock-on power and influence.

Here is John’s profile and the other people on the list.

What were Karl Popper’s formal qualifications when he was appointed as the (sole) lecturer in Philosophy at the Canterbury College in Christchurch? Actually he had no additional formal qualifications when he was appointed to a Chair in Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics. (Hint. They were not in Philosophy).

Peter Craven is one of Australia’s best known critics and cultural commentators. He was also the founding editor of  Quarterly Essays, a device to tranfer generous quantities of  money from Morrie Schwartz to the pockets of the politically correct.

It was reported that he went to an IPA event or some such gathering recently and was gobsmacked to find that the people looked quite normal (no forked tails) and said some quite reasonable things. What did he expect?

Well what do you expect a leftwing intellectual to expect?

Imagine that a brilliant young Australian journalist became a supporter of national socialism, travelled to the Continent and became a lifelong editor and reporter for the cause.  At some stage he parts company with the official organization of the movement but he maintains his rage and never repents. He writes a memoire, called something like Come the Revolution: A Memoire. What sort of reception would this book receive by critics and commentators in Australia?

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