Tag: Wealth inequality

The Ideological Assault on Society

Posted on by Kevin Lively

by Kevin Lively

Helpful information leaflets distributed by the Ad Council in their 1976 campaign to educate the average American.

“-isms” are dangerous things. Weighty ideologies with wide sweeping narratives packed into a neat little bundle, whose slogans are repeated ad-nauseam until the word itself becomes the message and any empirical weight the narrative may have had recedes into the background. Capitalism, Marxism, Constitutional Originalism, Fascism, Liberalism, Socialism, Anarchism, Statism or Nihilism. Thinking in such terms, or worse self-identifying with them, is often the death knell of actual thought. Much more ominously: action in defense of the ideology gains a higher moral prerogative than the consequences of the action itself. The only reasonable course in drawing inspiration from such streams of thought is to choose to consciously grapple with the inherent messiness of the fact that no fixed system of beliefs will ever offer permanent solutions in a human society living on an exponential technological slope. Looking at population growth from a Malthusian perspective, an English lord who died almost a hundred years before the discovery of penicillin, seems almost as daft as criticizing labor relations in China for being Communist, where it doesn’t seem like the workers have much control over the means of production.

A striking aspect of very strong “-ism” people is how they tend to consciously or unconsciously mirror their supposed ideological rivals. For example, one of the best sources of quantitative Marxist analysis on wealth and power in society is the leading business newspaper the Financial Times (FT); with the caveat that all the values are reversed. This point is repeatedly brought up by the hosts of the alternative media outlet Novara Media who alternate between self-identifying as either Socialist or Communist, yet whose diverse roster of guests on their Downstream podcast from across the political spectrum almost all concur that FT is the world’s leading source of news. For college students, maybe these “-isms” are not so dangerous, unless they happen to hold green-cards and their “-isms” run afoul of the present US administration. The real danger to society at large is when people wielding inordinate amounts of power and influence and who, crucially, are unaccountable to the public, are true believers in one “-ism” or another. Read more »

Tuesday, February 4, 2025

What Was So Great About America Again?

Posted on by Kevin Lively

by Kevin Lively

The re-election of Donald Trump has prompted a spectrum of reactions among those who are . . . unenthusiastic . . . at this outcome. One common reaction I’ve observed among progressive friends and those who enthusiastically rather than grudgingly vote Democrat is confusion. Many reactions are understandable: dread about the implications for climate change, concern for the human rights of undocumented migrants in the US, or a low-grade panic over the fact that the Supreme Court has literally vested the office with immunity against legal persecution for assassinations, although apparently Obama’s assassinations of US citizens get a pass. Confusion, however, is only explicable as a consequence of a media ecosystem which rarely manages to coherently discuss many of the serious issues in American society, and crucially the role of policy choices by the government under both Democratic and Republican leadership which either failed to address or directly exacerbated these problems.

As any very stable genius glancing at a red hat in public can tell you, the appeal which won Mr. Trump his first democratic victory is ultimately rooted in nostalgia. But nostalgia for what exactly? Was American really greater in the past than it is now? And if so what changed and why?

Well this is a layered question. There is of course the obvious fact that for a non-negligible share of Trump voters this nostalgia is rooted in a time before the Civil Rights Act extended de jure if not de facto equal rights to non-white, non-christian, non-heteronormative non-men. If nothing else one can look at the day one rescinding of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility programs across the federal government and its contractors as an appeasement to that crowd. However, while this discrimination is indisputably a crucial aspect of American society and will continue to severely negatively affect human rights in the US, it is also not the only reason for Trump’s election. This in evidence from the increases Trump made among non-white voters, although the total numbers are still biased towards white men.

For the moment however, I do not want focus specifically on the very important issue of racism and discrimination, and instead look to other causes for support for Trump, although the USA being what it is, it will still permeate the discussion. Let’s start with the short term. Assuming there was a modicum of greatness in Trump’s first term we can look to an April 2024 New York Times / Sienna poll for what voters remembered about 2017-2021. Read more »

Monday, August 7, 2023

Let the Unrigging Begin

Posted on by Jerry Cayford

by Jerry Cayford

The rigged rules that govern our economy are being rewritten right now. And the fight is fierce. “The most powerful agency you’ve never heard of” (as the media calls the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs) is revising its main guidance telling federal agencies how to structure regulations. That is, OIRA is rewriting the rules that federal agencies must follow in writing their own rules that govern the industries they regulate.

What makes this rulemaking earthshaking is that the people doing it are trying to unrig decades of rigged rules, and getting pushback from powerful players. The magnitude of the stakes can be seen in the public comments on OIRA’s revision of its guidance, Circular A-4. It’s complicated, obviously, but there is one point on which everything else turns—OIRA’s most controversial and consequential proposal. I am going to explain that central point.

Here is a thumbnail. Agencies are required to use Cost–Benefit Analysis (CBA) to justify their regulations as increasing overall social welfare. A huge contributor to the rigged rules in our society is that this formally mandated Cost–Benefit Analysis has a logical fallacy at its core that systematically favors the wealthy: it defines social welfare as increased by more total wealth (productivity), regardless of who gets the money. This definition of welfare forces federal agencies to design their regulations to maximize wealth, which inevitably favors those who already have it, for many reasons that I throw together under the adage “It takes money to make money.” Think of wealth production as an industry with economies of scale and barriers to entry.

The new proposal changes the rules. It tweaks CBA to weight the dollars a policy generates according to who gets them (and who pays them), instead of just counting the total. It is not a new idea, but it is a radical one, and the hornets’ nest is buzzing. Read more »