More on Keeping America's Edge
My article on Keeping America’s Edge has generated a decent amount of commentary. I thought I’d round it up and reply a bit in one place.
Among the first comments were those at The Daily Dish. Our own Conor Friedersdorf and Andrew Sullivan excerpted reasonable chunks of it, and generally had very kind things to say. Conor focused one of his posts on the immigration recommendation, which I think is the most radical recommendation, and something I believe in very strongly.
Arnold Kling at EconLog (implicitly) provided an excellent criticism:
But I do not know exactly what we mean by social cohesion. I mean, if you have a civil war, that would seem to represent a loss of cohesion, and clearly civil wars are very bad things. But beyond that, the concept has a vague, “I know it when I see it” connotation.
In other words, I never defined social cohesion well. Here is my working definition (that I should have made clear in the piece, and will do in the book): the widespread and irrational willingness and propensity to sometimes and to some extent sacrifice narrowly-defined rational self-interest to the needs of a greater collective, and the expectation that others will do the same. In general, in a capitalist democracy this does not mean the expectation that everyone (or even most people) will become martyrs to the Greater Good, but more that they will pursue narrow self-interest within the written and unwritten rules of the society which tend to channel self-interest “as if by an invisible hand” to the good of the society as a whole over time.
David Brooks, in his New York Times column on Tuesday, very generously named the piece one of the better articles published in 2009. Lots of things in life look easy – until you try them. As the guy who wrote the actual article, I can’t see how I would improve on his five sentence summary:
Jim Manzi’s essay, “Keeping America’s Edge,” in National Affairs, explores two giant problems. First, widening inequality; second, economic stagnation, the fear that without rapid innovation, the U.S. will fall behind China and other rising powers.
Manzi investigates a dilemma. Most efforts to expand the welfare state to tackle inequality will slow innovation. Efforts to free up enterprise, meanwhile, will only exacerbate inequality because the already educated will benefit most from information economy growth.
Finally, Steve Pearlstein devoted his column in today’s Washington Post to reacting to the article. In spite of confusing me with a different Jim Manzi, he had a very interesting take.
He writes:
But the debate, it seems to me, needs to go beyond simply determining where the pendulum should come to rest. For equally important is how effective the two sectors are in actually delivering all that social justice and growth-inducing innovation.
I agree entirely with this. He goes on to criticize, in a very even-handed way, the effectiveness of both businesses and governments in delivering the goods. I’ll focus on the criticisms of business in this comment, concerning which, he writes:
Americans understand that free markets are the best vehicle for generating innovative products and ever more efficient ways of producing them. But recent experience also reminds that innovation and the competitive dynamic are not always what they are cracked up to be.
When investors engage in herd behavior and deploy scarce capital merely to bid up the price of real estate or financial assets, that does nothing to improve economic output or efficiency.
…
What good is competition if it drives corporate executives to knowingly engage in increasingly risky behavior simply to boost short-term profits and stock prices even at the expense of long-term value creation?
What this seems to ignore (or at least discount) is the centrality of the knowledge problem. All real markets will have bubbles, speculative excess, obnoxious rich people who confuse luck with merit, and so on. This is because markets are a method for making decisions in the face of deep uncertainty. As I tried to go into in the piece, I believe that the trick is to construct a political economy that can withstand these problems, rather than one that tries to eliminate them.
Dr. Manzi:
Inequality is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s not nice, it’s not fair and wouldn’t it be nice if everyone was successful? However, equality is not only impossible, but no one wants to live in a society where everyone has equal outcomes. (And that’s what we’re talking about—outcomes, not equality). It’s been tried unsuccessfully. Who wants to live in a society where the rich don’t get richer? At the same time, the notion that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer is not a meaningful or helpful description of our circumstances. Poverty is not caused by another’s success.
It bothers me that Mr. Brooks buys into the notion that inequality is a “giant problem.” It’s a giant problem only in the sense that there is a large group of people who are envious and willing to follow people who demagogue envy. It’s giant problem if a large portion of the population starts to believe that some people have too much, that it’s ill-gotten and that it’s time to take it from them—maybe through violence. Envy has become an acceptable, but still deadly sin amongst a huge portion of our culture. Yet one party continues to use it to get elected.
— jd · Dec 30, 07:52 PM · #
Yet one party continues to use it to get elected.
Exactly! The ressentiment of the lower half of the bell curve for the upper half.
Dr. Manzi….no where do you address the core problem….white christian conservatism is an empty purse for half the country because of demographic and cultural evolution.
— matoko_chan · Dec 30, 08:11 PM · #
Two points: First, the behavior wasn’t risky. The feds were there telling those corporate executives they would back up all those “risky” loans. It wasn’t that they were more greedy than they’ve ever been, it’s just that they could add stupidity to their greed without suffering consequence.
Second, I don’t know anything about Steven Pearlstein, but unless he’s some kind of financial whiz who’s taking time out of his day job to write financial columns, who the hell is he to lecture anyone on creating “long-term value?” It’s like Obama telling corporate executives to break up into groups and “don’t come back to me until you have a solution” to the jobs crisis. God, what an arrogant asshole.
— jd · Dec 30, 08:16 PM · #
jd:
Some inequality is a good thing, and fair. Rising US income inequality, as I tried to emphsize in the article, is or will at some point will likley become a cause of deteriorating social cohesion, but it is much more a symptom of an underlying ste of problems (in the section of the article titled “Inequality as Symptom”).
You second comment gets to some of the issues I was trying to get to when I say that I thought that column didn;t take the knowledge problem seriously enough.
— Jim Manzi · Dec 30, 08:41 PM · #
Um, no. The vast majority of the “risky” loans weren’t ever covered under the CRA. In fact, loans given out under the CRA had a lower rate of default than average over the same period.
The government guarantees didn’t come until after Big Shitpile. The idea that the recession was caused by home loans to minorities is a persistent, if idiotic and racist, conservative myth. One of many, of course.
— Chet · Dec 30, 10:00 PM · #
Or get unelected, as it may be.
The whole issue of inequality is interesting from a statist point of view. That is to say, it’s a problem in need of a solution for the left and the right. As a broad concept, I can buy into the idea of reducing inequality, as long as it means creating a more level playing field for those striving to make themselves less (or more, as it may be) unequal than others. If reducing inequality translates as a means to stanch deteriorating social cohesion, I have to call bullshit on not only the cure, but the diagnosis as well. This is just another way for ideologues to use government power to cure their own pet peeves. In this case, to create a collective culture based on your values.
The presumption here is that people pursuing their own interests as they see fit are too much of a threat to the prosperity of the nation, and must be reigned in for the common good. An individualism that needs to be stifled for the public good. Yet there is a long history of of the US that seems contrary, a country with a tradition of allowing people to succeed (or fail) as they see fit, even managing to work around barriers that were erected to maintain unequal opportunities. I think you’d have a difficult case to make arguing we’re worse off for it.
— shecky · Dec 30, 10:08 PM · #
shecky:
You don’t see any tension at all between “people pursuing their own interests as they see fit” and people using common resources (national defense, roads, a law-abiding society, cultural norms around keeping your word, etc.) in order to pursue them?
— Jim Manzi · Dec 30, 10:37 PM · #
Tangential to the main issue, but suggested by the original post and other similar episodes: it is clear that THIS Jim Manzi should have his own wikipedia entry, since people are obviously turning to wikipedia to find out who he is and being misled.
I am not myself psychologically capable of engaging in a collective enterprise of that nature, or I would do it myself.
— y81 · Dec 30, 11:23 PM · #
y81:
As of a couple of days ago there is one (not done by me):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Manzi_(political_commentator)
— Jim Manzi · Dec 31, 12:10 AM · #
The USA will fall behind China no matter what.
They are four times larger population, and growing two to three times as fast during the catch-up phase of their industrial revolution.
What makes people think smart immigrants will continue to come to USA, when the action is in Asia?
If you project IMF Purchasing Power Parity GDP figures, then China will pass US GDP around 2018.
But if you consider year-on-year absolute growth – How much new wealth is created each year – Then China PASSED the USA around 2005!!!!!
Chinese GDP is only half the size, but growing much faster.
Most of the new wealth being created on Earth is being created in Asia. Is it any wonder that the markets have left poor old America and Europe far behind and now only see booming Asia? That’s where all the profit opportunities are.
The old industrial powers face problems like slow growth, high taxes, high debts, aging populations. Obsolete oil-dependant infrastructure in an increasingly post-oil world. Bloated military budgets.
— Keid A · Dec 31, 12:21 AM · #
Dr. Manzi,
I looked through your article again (I enjoyed it that much. :)), and I was wondering about one point regarding innovation. I often here conservative commentators talk about the lack of innovation in European economies, but I wonder how true that is. I am not really convinced by global output from 1970 to now. I mean, how much of that might be to low population growth? And what are you defining ‘Europe’ as? The collapse of the Soviet Union may have played a role in that. (And who knows how accurate the statistics collected in Soviet bloc countries were) I just wonder about this because the European Union as a whole has either about the same or greater GDP than the US. (from Wikipedia) Perhaps a comparison of GDP per capita or some other measure might be more appropriate? I just don’t know if total global output share really reflects ‘innovation’ but it’s not like that’s particularly easy to measure. Perhaps you address this in a little more detail in your book, but I’m just curious if you have more to say about that to a confused nonexpert.
— Aaron · Dec 31, 12:37 AM · #
Dr. Manzi:
In your question to Shecky you seem to imply that he is advocating for laissez-faire. I don’t know if that’s an accurate assessment of your question. However, I am troubled that those of us who are dead set against what Obama and LBJ and FDR have done are somehow in favor of laissez-faire (that’s the implication in the article you cited on the Knowledge problem). That is nowhere near the truth. This country has been on an ever increasing arc toward command and control economy for 70 to 80 years. Those of us who oppose the statists are not extreme. We are simply joining Bill Buckley standing athwart history yelling stop. I think you are probably of the same mind.
The Knowledge problem is something that simply doesn’t exist for people like Obama and his supporters. They actually believe they can run things better than the experts (dare I say elites?) who have been creating “value” and jobs and products and wealth for 200 years. They think they can guide the invisible hand. Their arrogance is unfathomable. They don’t seem to give a damn that the history of government meddling has had horrendous unintended consequences. What’s remarkable is how similar Obama’s “experimentation” mindset is to that of FDR’s. The uncertainty it has caused is similar as well, and has already had disastrous effects on the business climate.
— jd · Dec 31, 03:30 AM · #
I don’t don’t think you get part of the Perlstein piece. He is making an argument similar to Paul Volker: Most of the financial innovation of the last thirty years is creating speculative products that do not benefit the non financial sector of the economy.
When banks buy bonds with 40 to 1 leverage ratios how does that benefit the economy? How have credit default swaps helped the non financial economy? I don’t see how either has helped the average American. The profits from these products only benefited Wall Street. The costs are paid by the taxpayers.
Another bad effect of finance is that many of the country’s smartest people are designing products to speculate on Wall Street rather working in industry. If the best American mathematicians spent their careers betting on horse races it would be an improvement on the current situation. They would not be benefiting the economy but at least they would not be screwing up the banking system.
— Mercer · Dec 31, 05:32 AM · #
Some very quick comments:
Keid A:
That could be, but I think the future is hard to predict (correctly).
Aaron:
Thanks. I used OECD numbers. The collapse of the Soviet Union is part of the story and relative population growth is also part of the sotry – but neither of these is a statistical artifact (I don’t know how well the OECD has recalibrated data from the Soviet era to reflect the fact that that government basically lied about everything).
jd:
I oppose statism as well. I was only trying to point out that the tensions described in the article are IMHO real, a product of human nature, and not going away any time soon.
Mercer:
I did get that he was making that argument. I was responding by questioning how he knows that this financial innovation was not (on balance) productive. Here’s a good example: LBOs were widely derided at the time that were first employed at scale in exactly the terms you now use, but IMHO were a major factor in the creation of the market for corporate control which has had a very real and positive effect on the economy. It may or may not be that some specific more recent financial product helps or hurts the eocnomy (it’s hard to know at this point, no matter how sure people may sound when denouncing or praising it), but that is different than saying that the trial-and-error process of creating, testing and retaining or discarding purported innovations should be replaced by one in whihc experts select or prohibit them in advance.
— Jim Manzi · Dec 31, 07:32 AM · #
Of course. Lots. But probably not much more than we currently deal with. Question is, don’t you see any tensions developing at all getting the nation to conform to your version of the One True Way? There seems to be a pretty long and sometimes ugly record demonstrating the consequences of trying to impose social cohesion on people who are neither seeking nor needing such direction.
I have every reason to believe that people can choose for themselves the best course of action for their own lives, their values and the extent to which they accept or reject the collective values. I think the biggest difference between you and me is that I value the individual’s freedom much more than the collective’s cohesion. The collective social cohesion is only good if it makes sense for the individual to adopt. It seems to me you’d much more trust the collective’s direction for social cohesion. Of course, only if you get to control it’s direction.
— shecky · Dec 31, 07:41 AM · #
jd, I think you also pretty well describe the right, and perhaps our gracious host as well, with this characterization. (No offense, Manzi) I’m always suspicious of such one sided-ness, and think your palpable dislike for the left may betray your judgment.
I’m not here to cheerlead for one side or the other. I am here to point out that collectivism is collectivism whether favored by the arrogant left in power, or the insane right out of power, with inherent flaws that we all should recognize and wary of. I can almost certainly tell you ahead of time, when anyone someone espouses a plan that “we” need to adopt to ensure a more cohesive collective identity, I jump off that merry go round. I have yet to be sorry for following that instinct.
— shecky · Dec 31, 08:21 AM · #
shecky:
I think a description of what I have proposed (e.g., rolling back the stimulus program, selling off ownership in GM, deregulation of public schools to emphasize choice, regulating financial services into tiers to avoid public subsidization of private risk, talent-based immigration policies, etc.) as the “getting the nation to conform to my version of the One True Way” or “collectivism” is a bit of a stretch.
— Jim Manzi · Dec 31, 09:23 AM · #
“In spite of confusing me with a different Jim Manzi,”
You should probably use a middle initial or call yourself James to differentiate yourself from the former head of the Lotus software company, who has been in the public eye as Jim Manzi for at least a couple of decades. You’ll recall I made the same mistake a few years ago.
— Steve Sailer · Dec 31, 10:18 AM · #
Shecky:
Please explain how I have described the right by characterizing the left as statists who favor command and control. And please don’t give me examples of some supposed conservative doing something obviously statist. We’re talking ideology here and I would like to know how the right’s philosophy could possibly be characterized like Obama and his supporters.
— jd · Dec 31, 02:08 PM · #
Dr. Manzi:
Just one more comment on your definition of social cohesion: That seems like a pretty careful attempt and I agree with it. It is conservative because it includes the idea of social cohesion. The fact is that we have had cultural norms that have at times bound us together in causes larger than ourselves. Sometimes those causes are good, sometimes not. But it is conservative, IMHO, to applaud cohesion when it’s good and to fight it when it leads to mayhem. Shecky seems to think being in favor of social cohesion means favoring planned “community.” It ain’t necessarily so. That is the fatal conceit of progressives, that we can plan social cohesion. No we can’t!!! People can encourage it, but the government has no place in it.
— jd · Dec 31, 05:18 PM · #
Oh, I see. It doesn’t matter what conservatives actually do, just what they pretend to believe. That’s a pretty nice scam you have going there, jd.
— Chet · Dec 31, 05:26 PM · #
Am I the only one who pictures Chet as the sociopathic older brother played by Bill Paxton in Weird Science? Seems to be of the same temperment.
— BrianF · Dec 31, 06:31 PM · #
Sociopathy?
Color me confused, I guess. People reply to jd’s foaming nonsense like he’s said something true or intelligent, but my calm corrections of his mistakes of fact are treated like howls at the moon. It’s topsy-turvy time at TAS, I guess.
— Chet · Dec 31, 07:04 PM · #
Jim,
Firstly, ‘cohesion’ is too difficult to operationalize; it might not even be appropriate since what you’re looking for is organized chaos. Coherence is much better in context, particularly since you’re talking about emergent properties like the invisible hand.
Also: I’m sure you’re aware, but your definition of cohesion turns on whether the written/unwritten rules do in fact channel disparate, self-interested pursuits in ways which elevate the general welfare, and, of course, it turns on how we conceive the general welfare (more on that below).
Thirdly, it seems like your definition of cohesion could be interpreted minimally, that is, as the willingness to pay taxes into a redistributive regime. Is that enough for ‘cohesion’?
Fourthly, let me return to the problem with using ‘cohesion’. Cohesion is a structural property, which is inadequate when evaluating living systems. Structurally, a dead human body and a living one are the same; both have the same level of ‘cohesion’, but the former is functionally inert.
Now, you can complicate this and say that cohesion is simply one aspect of a healthy society, and that’s true as far as it goes. But that leaves us where we started, without a working definition of ‘healthy’. A managed autoplectic system, perhaps, with a parameterized free market where the State manipulates the parameters to keep the system on the edge of order and chaos (which with Anisotropic or Hierarchical Voting Rules — translated into a regulation regime — should allow the system to evolve toward a deep state containing internal evidence of a long history). This is health from the State’s perspective, though; it still leaves you with the problem of how to appease the psychology of the subject, i.e., it leaves you with the problems of justice (the affecting perception of) and legitimacy.
Finally, it might help you to think about the problem in terms of vertical codependencies. You hint at this by focusing your analysis on a species of society called a ‘capitalist democracy’. Clearly, the willingness to sacrifice narrow self-interest for the greater good will depend on how the greater good is abstracted and sold to the public, which will in turn depend on the biases and moods of the people, which will depend on the standard of living and education of the individual, which will depend on the relative success of the State and how well the ‘rules’ channel various activities into a rising tide, etc. etc. Another variable will our genidentity, our values contextualized by our national narrative or founding myth. On the latter, we must also know how well it compresses, how common are its emphases, how morally and cognitively attractive it is, how widespread its purchase, and how the people rate our current fidelity to it.
The moral evaluation of the State, in other words, which depends, again, on the apperception of the persons doing the judging (are we Spartans or Athenians or Samaritans or Sodomites?), and on the information being produced by the actions of the State and the visibility of its leaders.
So, uh, it’s really complicated (as you know). I like what you’ve done so far. (And yes, I can’t stay away. This site is too good a workaday timewaster for me to give up easily.)
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Dec 31, 07:08 PM · #
Aside: it always helped me to think in terms of Bakhtin. In a complex society, as with a living language, there are centripetal and centrifugal forces interacting in a chaotic way:
To prioritize ‘cohesion’ is to find and maintain a center of gravity strong enough to keep everything else in its orbit; it is to cultivate the centripetal in the midst of the centrifuge. For America, this ‘unitary language’, this metacultural solvent, is (probably) our Lockean individualism, our fidelity to the law, and our empathetic and universal humanism. In other words, the principles of our founding interpreted by the better angels of our nature.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Dec 31, 07:41 PM · #
KVS:
Excellent comments, as always.
What I mean by ‘cohesion’ has a day-to-day meaning of something playing by the formal and informal rules, and an at-time-of-crisis meaning of something like being willing to go get shot at to protect the society.
I agree that some rule sets are more – to use the evolutionary biology concept – vicariously adaptive than others.
You say that:
I agree with this strongly, but think that this kind of abstract concept inspires at best some loyalty in most of the population, and blood-and-soil is actually very important for most people.
— Jim Manzi · Dec 31, 11:17 PM · #
Dr. Manzi…. white christian conservatism is a failed paradigm.
Please slink off and die quietly, or reinvent yourselves for the 21st century.
You can convince no one that the same techniques that have so recently and so spectacularily failed our country are going to rescue us.
You need a fresh paradigm….
— matoko_chan · Jan 4, 03:38 PM · #
“To prioritize ‘cohesion’ is to find and maintain a center of gravity strong enough to keep everything else in its orbit;”
KVS, that is impossible, since white christian conservatism is an empty purse for half the country.
Demographic evolution and cultural evolution have rendered the exclusively white christian party of non-hispanic caucs obsolete.
Hispanics, blacks, women, jews, the college-educated, and youth are immune to the gravity well of white xian conservative ‘cohesion’.
— matoko_chan · Jan 4, 03:45 PM · #
Jim, that “widespread and irrational willingness and propensity to sometimes and to some extent sacrifice narrowly-defined rational self-interest to the needs of a greater collective” isn’t irrational at all since the ability of the human animal to survive and adapt nature to meet its needs depends upon cooperation and that depends upon social cohesion. To be successful as a capitalist depends upon the cooperation of others as you well understand. To use that success to buy politicians and deny others the right to participate in defining the common good as the current oligarchic political system does free-rides on cooperation and increasingly destroys social cohesion. A relatively cursory study of evolutionary biology makes this plain.
— Bruce Smith · Jan 4, 04:36 PM · #
Bruce:
I agree entirely that such social organization is adaptive – “vicariously adaptive” – as the evolutionary biologists would have it. What I mean by irrational that everybody’s rational icentive is to cheat and free-ride on everybody else. If the only reason people don;t cheat is fear of getting caught and punished, that is if following such mores is viewed as a sucker’s game, then these ruels break down. External enforcement (alone) is not enough. This feeling that “I don’t like myslef if I act like a jerk” is essential for a society to function. In a day-to-day sense, this is rule-following; in a crisis it is the awillingness to risk death to preserve the society.
This was a key point of my article. Another key point was that IMHO many of the obvious methods to address this problem create terrible problems of their own.
— Jim Manzi · Jan 4, 05:49 PM · #
Dr. Manzi…..I have for years been a contributor to a blog debating the Single Shot Platonia Dilemma from Hoefstadters book……he selected the original set of players from people he percieved to be like him.
SBH (social brain hypothesis) dictates homo sapiens sapiens expenses social capital only to maintain social status in groups percieved as peer groups. For example white christian conservatives oppose welfare or citizen rights given to non-white, non-christians.
The variable that you continue to studiously ignore is that cheater detection and altruism and the IPD and EGT only apply to genetic or memetic kingroups.
White Christian Conservatism can simply no longer serve the needs of this country, as long as it remains solely white and christian. Don’t cite evo bio and EGT unless you are prepared to follow though with the logical consequences of your analysis.
— matoko_chan · Jan 4, 07:34 PM · #
Matoko, center of gravity qua our founding principles. These are strong enough to absorb any decent race, color or creed, and strong enough to subvert and kill off the pernicious others — given time, given America at her best.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Jan 4, 07:52 PM · #
I read the “Edge” piece. Bismarckian conservatism at its finest. I mean this as praise, not censure. It’s good to have a smart voice on the right that isn’t straight libertarian. I’m more on the pinko end of things, but “He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.” Thank you.
— Joe S. · Jan 4, 08:00 PM · #
KVS, the founders and framers were white protestants….soon to be << 50% of the electorate.
My point being, the founding principles delivered citizen rights to only white protestant males.
White christian conservatism is no longer culturally or demographically relevent.
As women became citizens, as blacks became citizens, as hispanics became citizens, white protestant male conservatism never gained a real majority constituency in the new demes.
Like I said, evo bio and games theory only work in memetic and genetic kingroups.
Social cohesion is like peer pressure….it only works in peer groups.
If everyone was an American first….praps some of Dr. Manzi’s strats might work.
They aren’t ……race, religion, ethnicity, all trump nationalism.
Look at the current instantiation of WEC conservatism…..anyone that disagrees with the “tea party patriots” is an anti-american traitor.
What do you suppose the percentage of WECs (white evangelical christians) is among the teabaggers?
95%? 99%?
— matoko_chan · Jan 4, 08:23 PM · #
Joe S:
Thanks for the compliment. I was literally just looking up a very similar quote from JS Mill, when I saw your comment. I had forgotten that quote (from Burke?), so thanks.
— Jim Manzi · Jan 4, 08:35 PM · #
The way I see it…..KVS….it is the founding principles of democratic representation in a meritocratic republic that are killing off white christian conservatism as a political philosophy….the framers insistance on citizen representation. Once non-whites and women became citizens of the Republic, white christian conservatism was doomed.
lol.
— matoko_chan · Jan 4, 08:37 PM · #
Ditto what Chet said. It’s time to put this piece of crap article to bed.
— Ray Butlers · Jan 4, 09:52 PM · #
Yes, progress has been made by appealing to the principles of our white protestant founders, by new people claiming these global principles as their own and using them against the hypocrites who, by design or habit, didn’t want to share.
Plagiarism is a sign of memetic success. So far so good.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Jan 4, 10:40 PM · #
KVS, we agree!
white christian conservatism is doomed.
so how does white christian conservatism become multi-ethnic, multi-racial conservatism?
Aye, theres the rub.
;)
— matoko_chan · Jan 4, 10:45 PM · #
<blockquote>Um, no. The vast majority of the “risky” loans weren’t ever covered under the CRA. In fact, loans given out under the CRA had a lower rate of default than average over the same period.
The government guarantees didn’t come until after Big Shitpile. The idea that the recession was caused by home loans to minorities is a persistent, if idiotic and racist, conservative myth. One of many, of course.</blockquote>
Well, it isn’t clear what JD is referring to in saying “all those risky loans were guaranteed” but it can’t be the CRA since that isn’t a guaranty program at all.
The government did cast an implicit guaranty of trillions of dollars of Fannie and Freddie guarantees, as well as a continuing explicit guaranty of Ginnie Mae, which is backing a brand new $700B in crappy loans. Or JD might be referring to the “Greenspan put” which, ironically, seems to have become a super-sized Bernanke Put.
But either way, you may find that simultaneously calling people racists and botching the subject matter isn’t as effective as you hope.
— "Mindles H. Dreck" · Jan 4, 11:22 PM · #
matoko_chan,
The demographic takeover you predict may be delayed as a result of unforseen circumstances.
— Keid A · Jan 5, 12:29 AM · #
I can hardly help it if jd is such a piss-poor troll he doesn’t even know which talking points he’s using.
— Chet · Jan 5, 04:29 AM · #
Late to the discussion. I think the original “Keeping America’s Edge” attributed too much of the decline in social cohesion to innovation and vague social and economic forces.
In fact, many specific laws are responsible for the decline and suppression of the old order that discouraged illegitimacy and other forms of social breakdown.
For instance, laws once were designed to privilege the working man trying to support a wife and kids. Even in those laws’ absence, employers were free to discriminate in this way.
Allan Carlson’s essay “THE SOCIAL CONSERVATIVE CASE FOR THE NEW DEAL” goes into more detail on this, as do essays on his site profam.org. I’m disappointed Ross Douthat and Jim Manzi appear not to have engaged with Carlson, since he is very focused on issues like family formation.
Now here’s how the old order was suppressed:
Anti-discrimination laws protecting sex or marital status have destroyed customary workplace discrimination in favor of married men. The federal Title VII laws originally were designed to integrate blacks into the paternalist status quo ante. However, Southern segregationists cynically added anti-sexist provisions in an attempt to torpedo the civil rights legislation. They ended up unleashing the feminist revolution.
As for cohabitation, landlords, hoteliers and neighborhood organizations are now prohibited by law in many (all?) states from refusing housing to unmarried couples. This deprives moral conservatism of a geographical, economic and political base as a “respectable” part of town.
I’m sure anti-discrimination laws even destroyed the larger single-sex boarding houses, many of which served to preserve conservative mores among unmarried but independent women and men.
The larger function of these anti-discrimination laws was to disestablish the WASP/Catholic consensus on family culture. No men were allowed to run their businesses in the traditional pro-patriarchy way.
Non-judgmentalism became the established creed. It also became the orthodoxy of opinion-setting institutions like colleges and entertainment and media outlets not through “cultural change,” but by force of law.
Newspapers, too, can be sued for sexism.
If there is any energy left in social conservative-libertarian fusionism, I suggest a focus on repealing these kinds of culture-killing laws.
— Kevin J Jones · Jan 5, 05:31 AM · #
Ah, I just noticed Douthat and Salam referred to Carlson in Grand New Party. Good, but I wish there was more interaction.
— Kevin J Jones · Jan 5, 05:38 AM · #
Kevin, its too late for Carlson….you cant unring the bell.
Culture has moved on.
There isnt a culture war…there has been an evolution of culture event, like the extinction event at the K-T boundary or an ice age. Social conservatives are like dinosaurs trying to fight glaciation.
6% of scientists are republicans, 65% of post-baccs are democrats….who teaches in unis? post-baccs and teaching research scientists. What do uni graduates do? They produce culture….media, arts, academe, professions, management…..Hollywood is literally painted blue….the 13 yr olds that are watching Avatar today will be 19 yr old voters in 2016.
Marriage and the family have evolved….if conservatives value the family they should be attempting to find ways to support the new forms instead of whining about the end of the patriarchy and trying to deny citizen rights to homosexual citizens.
white christian conservatism is a failed paradigm.
Culture doesn’t shape people…. as much as people shape culture according to their needs.
Conservatism can evolve too, or go extinct.
I think you and Manzi favor extinction….but at least you will be true to core conservative values.
;)
— matoko_chan · Jan 5, 02:40 PM · #
If I were to pick out the way that conservatism is most dying out, I would say that religion is gradually being replaced worldwide, in all the industrial societies, by secularism.
Yet you, “progressive” matoko, have not only chosen one of the most reactionary religions; you have chosen a gnostic mystical version of it. Arguably a heresy that is even more ancient than the mainstream.
In your rejection of secularism, you are one of the most conservative people I know. And you can’t even see that religion is the most conservative force in society.
It’s not just WECs that are conservatives, matoko_chan, it is essentially all historical religions.
Only secular humanism is dedicated to permanent revolutionary change. Because it sees the self-improvement of Man as its revolutionary goal.
Secularism alone denies that there is any ancient wisdom – Seeking truth forever in the future – and above all in revolutionary science and technology.
I for one, will never take you seriously as a radical progressive until you adopt the full project of secular humanism.
As long as you cling to the ancient beliefs, you are a true conservative to me.
“Transhumanism” is merely the most radical form of eschatalogical secular humanism.
“Faith” is the ultimate core conservative value. LOL.
— Keid A · Jan 5, 03:23 PM · #
Pfft.
Spock you are so blinkered.
I’m passionately interested in exploring the borders between the quantum and classical worlds…al-Islam, SBH, and Hamerhoff/Penrose q-consciousness are all part of my explorers toolset.
wahdat al wujud
;)
— matoko_chan · Jan 5, 03:43 PM · #
You matoko_chan are a fraud.
You have one foot in both camps.
When you have the courage to let go of “daddy” entirely, and stand before the cosmos mortal, alone, and unafraid; then you will be truly free.
— Keid A · Jan 5, 04:07 PM · #
Nah.
There is only one camp.
That is the meaning of wahdat al wujud
;)
— matoko_chan · Jan 5, 04:16 PM · #
Mysticism is the most esoteric form of masturbation.
And you have no right to assume it’s a “creation” until science proves it.
But like all true believers you must cling to your sophistries. How else to avoid the implications of finiteness?
You have been a great disappointment to me matoko_chan.
I really thought you would see through it by now.
It didn’t take me that long.
— Keid A · Jan 5, 04:36 PM · #
Matoko writes: “white christian conservatism is a failed paradigm.”
“Destroyed” is a better word than “failed.” Christian conservatism’s largest failures have been magnanimity or indifference in the face of both unintended consequences and determined, malevolent opposition.
Also many rank-and-file Democrats would be amenable to a full-blown maternalist program. The New Deal is still a source of nostalgia, Hispanics tend to have very traditional aspirations in family life, and more women want to stay at home.
If social decline worsens, lower-class families will welcome the ability to segregate themselves from their dysfunctional countrymen. We’re at the point where maternalism/patriarchy isn’t an old-guard reaction but a novel proposal.
— Kevin J Jones · Jan 5, 05:23 PM · #
I’ll agree with destroyed.
Maternalism might be a workable paradigm….it has been successful for the Jews, lol.
But you, Kevin, and Dr. Manzi, both ignore the raw inequality horror of slavery, which sowed the seeds of destruction for white christian conservatism.
Not only did non-whites becoming citizens destroy the social cohesion of the white patriarchy, but brought down the federalist devil welfare state on your sorry white asses.
Hayek was wrong…the growth of the welfare state doesnt cause socialism….it causes secularism.
When the feds had to intervene to deliver civil rights and civil welfare to non-white citizens….that caused the death of the local welfare providers….the churches.
The churches could not compete with federal welfare.
The invisible hand of the market, lol.
— matoko_chan · Jan 5, 08:35 PM · #
And the problem with your rosy scenario, Kevin, is that conservatives ARE racists.
This is obvious to both hispanics and blacks.
Sheesh, even Larison is a member of the League of the South, designated a “white supremacist” organization by the SPLC.
Otherwise you would have more people of color in your party than Malkin, Keyes and Steele.
In the coming election year your “tea party” constituents are going to do such horrific damage to the conservative brand with hispanics and latinos that I can’t imagine you will ever be able to recover.
And those conservatives that aren’t racists? Well, they will pay for all that dogwhistle racebaiting they employed to stay in power.
Like conservatives are paying for the dogwhistle IQ-baiting and elite-bashing and anti-intellectualism with the irrevocable and permanent loss of academe.
— matoko_chan · Jan 5, 08:50 PM · #
There is a close relation between unsustainable bubble economies and so-called innovation.
Whereas the introduction of appliances like washing machines & refrigerators led to a domestic revolution that persisted for 100 years, the introduction of digital innovations creates much shorter commercial success runs, often a year or less… to date none lasting an entire decade.
A 100 year sustained market for hard goods enables predictable lives to center on their production, and around their use, building society.
A mere single year sustained market lacks the power to uphold lives, and can be rightly called a fad.True, a series of interlocking fads, each of short duration, but in total sustaining over several decades, can appear in aggregate similar to the former revolutions, but with each promotion lacking the longevity that could create universal kept wealth, it becomes clear the “digital revolution” is nothing more than a series of induced bubbles.
Inured to a repetitious series of bubble promotions, society loses cohesion not over wealth disparities, or ethnic disparities, but rather over the inability of the ordinary citizen to develop lifeways teachable to younger generations, younger generations seeing only the latest bubble as relevant, and all other aspects of life as less relevant.
Assaulted on all sides by the trivially new, younger generations hear no message of persistence, sacrifice, dependability… and discount these qualities as being of no merit. With no teaching of forebearance in any of its aspects, society drifts to the rags-to-riches paradigm as a root mythos, generating reality TV stars by the sickening dozens, millionaire athletes lacking basic socialization skills, and politikoes dedicated to the art of pandering to the delusions of the naive.
Rather than the putative “National Guilt” described by Mr. Manzi, I see the driven search for “Bubble Next” as the main acid dissolving society from the middle down, creating a gated wealth-world for stars & bubble kings, and a paltry desert of hand-held digital trinkets for all the impoverished rest.
— Harry Springer · Jan 5, 10:03 PM · #
but rather over the inability of the ordinary citizen to develop lifeways teachable to younger generations
Pfft.
“traditional wisdom” is obsolete too.
google it.
;)
— matoko_chan · Jan 5, 10:06 PM · #
matoko_chan,
“traditional wisdom” is obsolete too.
This is when you are a true hypocrite.
It is only their traditional wisdom you despise.
What about yours?
— Keid A · Jan 5, 11:10 PM · #
The delusion of projective confirmation
— Keid A · Jan 6, 04:32 AM · #
…he said, on the Internet.
— Chet · Jan 6, 08:10 AM · #