Monday, September 3, 2007

hi,there

thanks to Barkley for his self-defining broadside. I'm not very good at presenting myself that way. I usually respond to specific questions and/or answers. I'll try to introduce myself that way, in response to parts of Barkeley's statement.

I wasn't aiming to be totally anonymous. I just like the nickname "Econoclast," which I've been using on and off for 15 years or so. I'm Jim Devine and a profess economics at Loyola Marymount University, a Jesuit university in Los Angeles.

I may have to drop the nickname. Others use it on the web. Maybe we should have a contest to decide on a new nickname.

As for free trade: one of the main reasons I'm against "it" is that usually such agreements as the NAFTA aren't really about free trade at all. Rather, the NAFTA was about greater rights for capital and fewer for labor. Free trade works nicely in theory, but in practice it usually stinks. That's because the details and effects of actual laws reflect the balance of power in society. And capital has much more power than it used to (say, in the 1960s). It's used "free trade" to increase that power, as part of the neoliberal vicious circle. So now we have labor arbitrage, the gradual reduction of wages and conditions to the lowest common denominator.

as for liberty: I'm in favor of it. But the only true freedom is that created democratically. Locke- or Friedman- or Hayek-type freedom involves the freedom of the rich at the expense of the poor. Democratic freedom involves compromises amongst peers.

JD

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe we should have a contest to decide on a new nickname.

Obviously, it should be "Father Devine."

Anonymous said...

Damn this site. I just left an insightful comment, eaten by the system.

Anonymous said...

Let's try again.

"Democratic freedom involves compromises amongst peers."

Excellent, Jim. I am always amazed by the libertarians who think there is such a thing as "democracy" that has no economic consequences. Early American democratic thinkers would have been amazed to find devotees of "democracy" that lacked any component of egalitarianism.

The worst thing about George Bush's effort to "spread democracy" in the Middle East is not that it's insincere, or impractical or anything like that - it's that the democracy is the phony kind that allows the people to choose between tweedledum and tweedledee every few years, only so long as they accept that this has nothing to do with their material well-being - a fact not lost on the Iraqis.

Anyway, I'm a longtime fan of Max's, no kind of economist, and welcome this new site, which is off to a good start.

Anonymous said...

Dear George Bush Hater,

Was it wrong to spread democracy to Germany?, to Japan?, to South Korea?, to Italy? to the Phillipines? I can go on if you like. Self-rightous and narrow minded college students are are our biggest threat to democracy.

Econoclast said...

I don't hate George Bush (but then again, I have difficulty hating anyone). He's just the tip of the Cheney/Rove iceberg, the right-wing "Leninist" political machine. He's just their well-paid figurehead.

>Was it wrong to spread democracy to Germany?, to Japan?, to South Korea?, to Italy? to the Phillipines? I can go on if you like.<

It wasn't the US that spread democracy to S. Korea. Instead, it backed dictators like Syngman Rhee and bloody bastards like Park Chung Hee (look them up!). The US promoted capitalist industrialization in S Korea as a way to fight those evil Red Chinese (just as the Japanese occupiers had promoted agriculture there to feed their Imperial Army). The US promoted land reform as a way to win the S. Korean hearts and minds in the Cold War -- at the expense of the Japanese landlords (so it didn't offend US-based vested interests). This inadvertently created the conditions where S. Korean workers and students could push for real democracy. The US has been fighting that since it started (and since the late 1989s financial crisis, seems to be winning). Just like any democracy, it came from below rather than from some external occupying force.

I don't have the patience or time to inform our anonymous friends about the other cases that he or she brandishes like they were Eternal Truth. Anonymous, I think it would be better if you were to study the world before talking about it. You don't want to be like Ann Coulter, do you?
JD

Anonymous said...

anonymous

you need to read a little about our spreading of democracy to the Philippines.

i'd agree with you about the self righteous and narrow minded... but it's very hard for the self righteous and narrow minded to realize that they are.

how many of them do we get to kill while we're teaching them about democracy?

rosserjb@jmu.edu said...

anonymous,

Well, Germany actually had democracy prior to Hitler taking over, so it was a matter of simply returning it to what it had prior to him. The case can be made better for Japan, although in South Korea it did not arrive until the 1990s, and was brought by themselves. Park Chung Hee was no democrat. In Japan, of course, there had even been some democracy prior to WW II, with the Diet losing its power as the war mad Tojo and crew came to power.

Also, Japan attacked the US, and the US officially declared war on Japan, bringing about a total surrender after nuking them. In the case of Iraq, they did not attack us and we did not declare war on them. I happen to support supporting the democracy that they have now, (no push from the outside to dump Mailiki), but what we have there is obviously a disastrous mess, and the current claims that the "surge" is working are based on false comparisons, such as US deaths between May and August of this year (down) rather than between May of 2006 with May of 2007 and also Autust 2006 with August of 2007, both up.

Barkley Rosser

rosserjb@jmu.edu said...

Oh yes, Father D., regarding free trade, which I said I was not going to go on about, I agree that a lot of the recent agreements have been more about free capital movements than free trade. My position is a lot like that of Jagdish Bhagwati. He supports free trade, but he also supports reasonable restrictions by poorer countries on free capital mobility, which can clearly harm them. Heck, one of the less advertised facts out there is that the good economic performance of Chile only got going after it imposed restrictions on capital mobility and undid some other policies installed by the "Chicago Boys."

Anonymous said...

econoclast

we all believe in freedom. then some of us get a little older and see that adolescent freedom is an impossibility...and a disaster when tried.

trouble is, its a nice word to point at something we do see as an ideal. and that allows the bad guys, or the self-deluded, to use it mislead the foolish into disaster.

i'd hesitate even with your formula bout Democratic freedom involves compromises. Yes, that's true. But more than that it involves thought.

Econoclast said...

me: >>Maybe we should have a contest to decide on a new nickname.<<

a better anonymous contributor: >Obviously, it should be "Father Devine."<

Father Divine was the Black Sheep of our family.
JD

Anonymous said...

Hey, anonymous:

You talkin to me?

Ever hear of the Marshall Plan? Are you comparing the "plans" we pushed on Iraq to what we did to help Japan, Italy and Germany rebuild? That's a ridiculous comparison.

Whatever their faults, FDR and Truman weren't so stupid as to believe that just spouting off about "democracy" was going to be enough to win the hearts and minds of those countries. But then, that's exactly my point - that democracy had some real meat on the bones. The basic economic policy behind the Iraq war was "kick their ass, take their gas." Didn't work out to anyone's benefit (other than Halliburton, etc.) that I can see.

As for South Korea, and the Philippines, these cases are far more problematic, as others have noted.

And, anonymous, just so you'll know, my last contact with college was dropping my son off there a few days ago. More than 30 years since I graced those same halls.

Anonymous said...

One more thing, anonymous.

I DO agree with you that wet-behind-the-ears college students and recent grads probably aren't the ones to whom important policy-making positions should be granted. They simply lack the experience needed to do the job.

Of course, that was a lesson the Bush administration doesn't seem to have absorbed in all cases. See, for example
this classic.

Anonymous said...

"Democratic freedom involves compromises amongst peers."

Understanding of course, that some peers are more equal than others.

Anonymous said...

Barkley, or should I now say RosserJB,

Oversimplifying, overstating,

Is it correct that in his youth, Bhagwati gained some recognition for his work on terms of trade and 'immiserizing growth' whereas, having properly matured, any thoughts of trade-based unequal exchange fell away in favor of globalization's benefits even as he recognizes the necessity of capital controls in some cases?

Anonymous said...

JD & Barkley,

Pardon my use of the term 'trade-based' when, as you both know, that's too one-sided.

Anonymous said...

anonymous:

"Democratic freedom involves compromises amongst peers."

Understanding of course, that some peers are more equal than others.


I think you miss the point - which, at least as I see it, is that to the extent that "some peers are more equal than others" - in other words to the extent that they aren't peers at all - to that extent, the compromises that get made are inherently NOT democratic.

I fail to see how your snippet is an argument against Devine. Isn't it the libertarians who keep insisting, against all evidence, that all employment contracts are always made, by definition, voluntarily, between peers.

Anonymous said...

stivo

i think i could turn your argument about emplyment contracts against your argument about "democratic."

employment contracts are in the real world never "voluntary" in a meaningful sense, and certainly not between peers.

but when you go looking for "democratic equality" you find that people are not created equal (except perhaps in a Christian sense). and lots of people have the vote who think The Enquirer is a real newspaper. And I would bet you read things every day written by people who have the vote, or to such people, that make you tear your hair.

I don't know that I am disagreeing with you, but I find I am not so eager about creating perfect democratic equality... though god knows the one's who are so proud of their education are often the worst.

rosserjb@jmu.edu said...

juan,

Actually, "Barkley" is the best way to go. I just happened to get stuck with my email address for my google account due to my own incompetence and bungling.

As for trade, I know it is such a hot button issue that a bunch of people here are going to want to pick a fight with me over it, which, frankly, I am not all that up for. For the record, I fully recognize a whole long list of well-known and textbook exceptions to the general case for free trade being welfare-improving, including infant industry, externalities, economies of scale, and that old goody, the set of rather specifi and peculiar conditions that give one Bhagwati's immiserizing growth story.

Econoclast said...

coberly wrote:
>we all believe in freedom. then some of us get a little older and see that adolescent freedom is an impossibility...and a disaster when tried.<

"adolescent freedom" = the vision of freedom that self-styled libertarians embrace? That's right

> trouble is, [freedom is] a nice word to point at something we do see as an ideal. and that allows the bad guys, or the self-deluded, to use it mislead the foolish into disaster.

> i'd hesitate even with your formula bout Democratic freedom involves compromises. Yes, that's true. But more than that it involves thought.<

yes, it should. Part of democracy is adequate education for everyone, though education is only necessary, not sufficient.

coberly wrote:
>but when you go looking for "democratic equality" you find that people are not created equal ...<

yes, I'm better than you are.
;-)

> and lots of people have the vote who think The Enquirer is a real newspaper. And I would bet you read things every day written by people who have the vote, or to such people, that make you tear your hair.<

I know why people read the ENQUIRER (though I doubt anyone thinks it's real news). It's for much the same reason why people (including yours truly) read the sports or the comics pages of the newspaper before we get to the news. It's good to have entertainment dealing with nice safe, noncontroversial, topics. In addition, if you're working class, there's a good chance you feel that your opinions do not count at all in determining the outcome of public affairs. (UMC types like me feel much more empowered.) If you have no power, then why not read the ENQUIRER?

The educational level is really bad these days. The GOPsters seem to hate education (except for their own) and they've been starving it. One thing is that the only way we'll ever get democratic freedom is to have a mass political movement. That involves a tremendous amount of mass self-education. Of course, neither then Repugs nor the Demoncrats would like that. But the point remains that people are not stuck with poor education forever.

> I don't know that I am disagreeing with you, but I find I am not so eager about creating perfect democratic equality... though god knows the one's who are so proud of their education are often the worst.<

perfect democratic equality is an ideal. It represents ethical values which can be made real. Without those values, which values are you going to embrace?
JD

Anonymous said...

Free trade works nicely in theory, but in practice it usually stinks. That's because the details and effects of actual laws reflect the balance of power in society.

Doesn't this also apply to protectionism? See the Bush tariffs for examples.

Anonymous said...

JD -

"perfect democratic equality is an ideal. It represents ethical values which can be made real. Without those values, which values are you going to embrace?"

exactly so.

coberly -

"I don't know that I am disagreeing with you, but I find I am not so eager about creating perfect democratic equality"

who said anything about eagerness? I don't believe I said anything to indicate I thought that "most democratic" necessarily equalled "best".

No, my point was and continues to be a different one:

The claim of libertarianism to be the very apex of democratic thought is nonsense. "Inegalitarian democracy" is an oxymoron. Inegalitarianism may even be good - but it isn't - by definition - democratic. This is what I insist upon.

Doesn't mean I'm FOR the most radical kind of levelling - I'm not - but I do refuse to cede the "democracy" franschise to libertarian elitism.

Econoclast said...

me: >> Free trade works nicely in theory, but in practice it usually stinks. That's because the details and effects of actual laws reflect the balance of power in society.<<

digamma said: >Doesn't this also apply to protectionism? See the Bush tariffs for examples. <

that's right. Both free trade and protectionism makes most sense when instituted when the labor movement and other non-capitalist forces are strong and not on the defensive.
JD

Kevin Carson said...

I enjoy the new blog--except, obviously, for the glaring absence of Max.

You do well to put "free trade" in ironic quotes, Econoclast, because what the neoliberals falsely call "free trade" must have Cobden spinning in his grave.

I dispute your implication that economic liberalism is anti-democratic or anti-egalitarian. In fact there is a strong left-wing free market tradition, and a great deal of Locke's, Friedman's, and Hayek's stated principles (if not their visceral sympathies) are compatible with it.

To grasp the egalitarian implications of economic liberalism, one helpful concept is Oppenheimer's distinction between the "economic" and "political" means. The former is voluntary production and exchange between equal producers. The latter is privilege, by which the state intervenes in the market to benefit a privileged class at the expense of producers.

Capitalism is not a free market. It is a system of privilege in which the state intervenes in the market on behalf of capitalists and landlords. Thanks to privilege--namely, entry barriers that create artificial scarcity of land and capital--the owning classes draw scarcity rents on land and capital.

In a truly free market, without such privilege, the normal tendency for reproducible goods is for price to fall to cost. In such a free market, absent privilege, the normal tendency is for market exchanges to be exchanges of effort between producers.

Short-term scarcity rents while the market catches up to unmet demand, may cause temporary deviations from this value. Innovators, and the more astute entrepreneurs who accurately predict shifts in demand, may make short-term entrepreneurial profits. But when market entry is free, those profits will be modest and temporary.

The amount of profit and wealth in the present system, on the other hand, results entirely from privilege: a privileged class is enabled to erect toll-gates against free market entry, and thereby collect tribute on the labor of others.

The classical liberal movement started out as a radical critique of privilege--the privilege of the landed oligarchy and mercantilists. After the victory of capital against the Old Regime, the mainstream of classical liberalism shifted its orientation to the defense of privilege, and eventually became apologists for the modern institution that most resembles the Whig oligarchy in its privilege: the giant corporation.

But by no means all of the classical liberal movement shifted to "vulgar political economy." It's left wing, adopting a radical interpretation of Ricardian economics, persisted in the thought of Thomas Hodgskin in Britain, and the individualist anarchists and Georgists (among others) in the U.S. The individualist anarchists, in particular, occupied both the radical fringe of the free market movement, and the market wing of socialism.

In my opinion, this radical free market tradition is much more consistent with free market principles than are the Randroids and Catoids who write boilerplate in defense of big business.

Anonymous said...

JD

stivo

of course you are better than me.

The Enquirer may not have been the best example. For all I know everyone who reads that understands it's some kind of parody.

But I have had experience with people, even as a teacher who desperately wanted to teach kids, and had no obvious "systemic" impediment, that leaves me not optimisitic about any project to educate a voting public to the level of "intelligent voters."

I think the genius of democracy may be that even the least intelligent voter can tell you when it hurts. And of course when you count votes you are also counting potential soldiers, so you can avoid all the mess and economic losses of a violent answer to the question of who is the biggest dog.

in case it's not clear, i have loads of contempt for the Ayn Rand and, I think Cato, versions of libertarian "philosophy." and contrary to the impression i may have created here, I "believe in" democracy. it's just that i am not at all happy with the idea of the voting masses electing George Bush Imperator if he comes back from Iraq with the laurels of victory. and i am not at all happy with the "freedom" of Americans to choose either their sacred way of health care, or their sacred way of trasportation cum sex symbol.

i am not suggesting some institutional limit on democracy, though i once thought the american constitution provided a pretty good limit. the apparent abiltiy of the congress to be bought, the voting to be stolen by thugs and supreme court, the power of motivational research, and the horrible realization that there is no Constitutional way to stop Bush from attacking Iran...

all leave me with "doubts about democracy." and doubts about "education."

Anonymous said...

in case it's not obvious, what "they" mean by freedom is "freedom for us" or "freedom for me" (usually the business owner)

freedom for workers is an obvious absurdity.

as ridiculous as giving people the freedom to break the laws

that "we" make.

Anonymous said...

There is certainly a constitutional means by which Bush can be stopped. It requires that the Congress not be in league with the behaivor of the Executive. The voters spoke with relative clarity, but the voters maintain the naive concept that their intentions will be the basis of an elected government's behavior.

There is no good rationale to further limit the democratic nature of our society. The problelm isn't too much democracy, eg too much individual choice. The problem is rather the limitations already in place, as described above by Kevin Carson. There is a priviledged class in the US and much of the world. They represent a minute percentaage of each country's population, but as a result of their wealth the are catered to in the structure of ouor economic system and its rules and regulations. As Bruce Webb said in another thread, it is high time for the government to start acting like a democracy and implement an economic system that does not provide the artificial means by which labor can be abused and the wealthy can continue to escape their financial debt to the Treasury.

Myrtle Blackwood said...

Glad to meet you Jim Divine.

What about 'Econoclasp' or Econograsp' for your new nickname. It has a contemporary ring to it?

I'm also against free trade. I think that if you trade stuff you need to pay for it!

Anonymous said...

jack

ah, yes, high time.

if it's high time, it should be easy to get the government to start acting like a democracy.

all you have to do is persuade the people.


me, i had a lot of trouble with equality in the classroom. and i'm still trying to figure out how to teach the people to think clearly about Social Security so they don't cut off their heads to save themselves the cost of living for the rest of their lives.