A few years ago at a panel discussion on Iraq or some such thing, I was intrigued by one of the speakers, who mentioned the need for more progressive standpoint in the media. This is, of course, a dead horse, but he further pointed out the need for an emphasis on non-violent conflict resolution, not only in the the factual media (and I use that term loosely), but in entertainment as well. Far too many TV shows, movies and video games emphasize violent solutions to problems, even if and when they target "the right problems." This is, of course, when they even bother to address the problems in the first place. Video game companies, movie studios and so on typically respond that they make what sells. And if you think about it, what sells is conflict. Without conflict, there is not much of a story to tell. From when I used to play Dungeons and Dragons, I remember thinking about how to come up with different conflicts for the players. I came up with four major categories of problems for heroes to overcome. These were:
1. Environmental chalenges. A mountain to climb, an earthquake, a flood, these are all challenges whose source is totally external to the heroes and generally not subject to much in the way of manipulation. The challenge pretty much must be met or avoided.
2. Logistical issues. Boring as this sounds, these are a major meat-and-potato standby of a lot of role-playing and adventure games, including the infamous "fetch and carry" quests. There is too much of something or not enough of something or things are in the wrong places and need to be moved around. A lot of real life seems to be related to this type of issue.
3. Inter-group conflicts. Countries at war, companies competing or even species fighting over resources. These conflicts give much more room for nuance because they have underlying causes that can be targeted as well as effects that can be addressed.
4. Interpersonal conflicts. Arguments, fights and the like between individuals where groups are not typically involved. In this category you also might include conflicts between an individual and a group of which he is a member.
To these five, you might also add
5. Internal or psychological problems.
In any case, I think that most interesting stories can be seen as addressing one or more conflicts that fits into one or more of these categories. In this framework, I would argue that there are really three problems with most forms of popular entertainment. The first problem is that most of it tends to focus on type 3 and 4 conflicts while paying minimal if any attention to types 1, 2 and 5. The second is that a narrow range of usually violent solutions to these conflicts are presented as the only options. The third is that realistic outcomes and concequences are glossed over.
Take, for example, your standard action movie. This is usually presented as an un-vs.-them type 3 conflict. There are terrorists attacking the White House, we need to kill them or they will kill us. This type 3 conflict is not only very unlikely compared to others, but it is oversimplified to a very black and white type of conflict, a zero-sum game if you will. The possibility of intranecine disagreement, the origins of the group dynamics and the underlying causes of the conflict are all given short shrift. Because of this very topical treatment of the causes of the problem, it is unsurprising that only one solution (kill the terrorists) really occurs to the heros and that minimal concequences are portrayed.
So what is the solution? It is three-fold. First, we need more games, movies and shows that address environmental and logistical problems in a way that is interesting. There have been some notable sucesses, but they are notable more for being the exception than the rule: The Day After Tomorrow potrayed unlikely but exciting heroism in the face of abrupt climate change rather than unlikely but exciting heroism in the face of terrorists, the cult hit series of Harvest Moon video games challenged players to make a farm run instead of killing anonymous monsters. The second step is to provide more options for alternative (i.e. non-violent) solutions to the problems presented in many video games and to show these options in TV shows and movies. This should ideally go a step beyond the vigelante hero arresting the baddies instead of killing them. For this second step to be sucessful, what is really needed is a more complex view of the causes and effects. Some producers seem to think that kids are unable to handle anything but the most simplistic of story-lines, but the sucess of some pretty good shows, movies and games seems to indicate the contrary. There seems to be a positive trend in this respect:
Batman Begins is a little more complex, albeit a bit heavy-handed, in dealing with the causes of crime than many previous Batman movies, and it was a much better film as a result (well, and also because Christian Bale is a much more convincing Batman than Val Kilmer, let alone George Clooney)
Bully is a surprisingly complex treatment of the complexities of adolescent life. While the game does include its fair share of punching out rival gangs, its really a narrative about fitting in and helping kids. Certainly a step in the right direction from the producers of Vice City, a very, very entertaining game whose focus is the violent takeover of a drug empire. The fact that Bully is almost as fun as that blockbuster hit (and one of its biggest shortcomings is the lack of such a thrilling 80s soundtrack) is a good thing. Now they have started showing more complexity in their treatment of the causes of problems, they do need a little more realism in the outcomes.
On TV, my favorite show right now is Avatar. Its meticulously reserached pan-Asian feel reminds me a lot of Initiate Brother: the four (or five) elements are based on Hindu cosmogony by way of Buddhism; they have a kung-fu master on hand to help them choreograph the four different styles (based rather convincingly on Tai Chi, Ba Gua, Shaolin Kungfu and Hung Gar); the costumes (I use the word loosely for an animated show) of the four nations are very reminicent of Tibetan or Mongolian, Northern Chinese and Korean, Japanese and Inuit clothing; they have a caligripher to do the seal-script for them and so on. It also presents a more balanced view of group conflict (the prince of the Fire nation comes to disagree with his warmongering family) and of conflict resolution, which is often non-violent. And the animation is pretty nice.
Of course for every good show like Avatar, there is a steaming pile of crap like this one that couldn't even bother to use the proper English spelling of Shaolin. (Although even in this case, there are those who are convinced that this show is a clever spoof). But this really shows the difficulty in creating better programing. I am not at a point where I am willing to censor violent games like Grand Theft Auto (although in this case, I tend to love how well done the games are and consider them almost art), or even total drivel like Xiaolin Showdown. But there is only so much good progrmaing out there. It takes a lot more effort to create something original and showing depth of thought than it does to make a cheap knockoff. Perhaps the point that I'm trying to make, which it seems is already being made by others, is that complex, meaningful work can sell, especially when it is packaged as a kung-fu adventure romp.
And we definately can create more that addresses environmental issues and the like. I've mentioned before the idea of a national-defense push for sustainable energy. I'm sure that the space race fueled a lot of sixties-wave science fiction, and computers definately inspired cyber-punk, so it's not hard to imagine that a major national energy intiative might impress the next generation of science fiction writers.
Tuesday, October 31
Wednesday, October 25
Free market follies
What with all the silly little essays I've been writing for grad school apps and all, I've been thinking more about some of the paradoxes I saw when I was in China. In general terms, the biggest one is the incredible divide between the relatively stong concern for economic justice, at least in political discourse if not in actual policy, as juxtiposed against the very bad record on social justice type concerns. Many Chinese reformers are scheptical about democracy as a means of acheiving social justice. This is a position that I tend to agree with, consider that many democratic countries in the world have poor records of social and economic justice, consider as well that our policy of imposing democracy on formerly authoritarian regimes seems to lead almost universally to instability, terrorism or demogogery. Marx thought that socialism must first pass through a borgeouis phase, Kang Youwei thought that states need to pass through phases of authoritarianism and limited democracy before they will be able to function as a full democracy. Outside of the developed world, democracies tend to be very unstable, even in the developed world, democracy often gives way to demagoges and perpetuates economic injustice. On balance, I tend to think that economic justice is more important than social justice, although idealy you want both and stuff like this is just silly.
Anyway, here's another big paradox. Apparently, despite experiancing 9% annual growth recenlty, China would actually be loosing manufacturing jobs if not for jobs gained from the West, due largely to a 17% annual increase in productivity. And this is a continuing increase. This is just echoing changes around the world. There is much talk these days about the outsourcing of American jobs. This problem is in fact getting much and much worse, we are not only outsourcing manufacturing and other blue-collar jobs but high-tech jobs as well. My Macintosh laptop says on the back that it was designed in America and made in China. Twenty years ago, it's pretty likely it would have been made in America as well. Ten years from now, it will have been designed in China. But the really paradoxical thing is that the exporting of American jobs to places like China and India does not seem to be doing much to improve the job markets there.
So who exactly is being helped by the free markets that are billed as the solution to all our ills. Pretty much only the financeers in rich countries (especially the US), and to a lesser degree, a compradore class in the developing world. Historically, the damage from free markets has been creeping up the economic pyramid from the lowest-level producers to the highest level. First the farmers, miners and other first-order factors of production were hurt by the opening of global grain markets in the decades following the first world war. Disposessed farmers were a major source of Nazi recruiting in the 20s and 30s, falling rice prices lead to tax problems and unrest in French Indochina while French farmers were loosing out at home due to the falling price of wheat. The booming 20s in America was a time of great investment gains for city-dwellers due in part to newly opened markets, but American farmers were already getting hurt a decade before the stock market crash and the great depression
Starting after the second world war, manufacturing began to move overseas and "made in Japan" became the first "made in China" which is now becoming "made in Bangladesh" and the like. In Japan, this started with cheap consumer goods and then moved to cheap electronics and cars. Electronics have barely been produced in America for the past decade, and US Automakers are going the same way. Korea is following in Japan's footsteps, with their electronics (especially mobile phones and other handhelds) beginning to overtake even the Japanese, and their cars catching up. Are Chinese cars next? Maybe not for another decade, but you'd better believe they're coming.
And we're beginning to see service jobs move overseas as well. Sure, it's starting with telephone helplines and the like, but Indian businesses are beginning to take over more and more sophisticated service jobs (India has a big advantage over China in this regard because it has a major English-speaking population). Soon, engineering, marketing and other glamour service jobs will be based largely overseas, leaving only non-movable service jobs (like house cleaning and sales) in America. How is this happening? Basically, the US has become more important as a consumer than as a producer. Look for this to start to happen to the rest of the world as well as we become more and more efficient at making things with fewer human factors of production.
According to these two sources, this tendency originates from Nixon ending the gold standard in 1971, as well as two misconceptualizations: that we live in a state of scarcity and that free markets will lead to gains through comparative advantage. Here is how these combine to form the strange leviathan that is our current state of globalization:
Scarcity
-The belief in scarcity leads us to seek to maximize production, largely through improving efficiency. If goods are scarce, it is reasonable to believe that increased production will find a captive market.
-But we don't live in a state of scarcity, rather one of overproduction. This means that producers must find or make markets for their goods. An increasing percentage of the workforce is employed in trying to find or make these markets as less and less of the workforce needs to be employed in actually producing it.
-Think about it this way: how many people do you know involved in producing a real good? Now how many people do you know involved in sales, marketing, distribution, packaging, patenting, protecting patents, etc. I bet for most people, the second group is much bigger. And I bet that fifty years ago, the first group would have been bigger.
-Or let's put it another way. Think about people you know. Do you think they are more important as a producer or as a consumer. You can even include goods and services in this, but don't consider the price, consider the time. I bet most people in America consume an order of magnitude more than they produce in terms of person-hours of services and person-hours poot into production and delivery of goods.
-That's right! Americans are more important as consumers than as producers. We can see this in many other ways but especially in the fact that most are employed in finding consumers for excess production, most consume more hours of work than they produce and even the fact that most are fat.
Free trade and comparative advantage
-Ok, so we already know that we are hyper-efficient at production to the point where most people are employed in finding markets for excess goods (if they are employed at all). So we don't really need more production gains through comparative advantage.
-Also, comparative advantage only works under the assumption of total employment. If there is not total employment, the open market will replace a worker with a lower-paid one rather than one who is nessisarily better-suited to the job.
-The world does not have anywhere near total employment. In fact, vast agricultural surplusses are causing a whole lot of un- or underemployed agricultural workers to seek other employment because they cannot find a market for their goods.
-So free trade agreements only serves to send jobs to countries with low labor costs. But it doesn't even help those countries because the dumping of the outside word's agricultural surplusses destroys local agriculture, creating...that's right...more unemployment everywhere!!
-We do gain lower prices. So I guess that's a good thing.
-Except that opening the markets drives down wages, so many wage-laborers actually have reduced purchasing power, even under falling prices (and things might be worse outside consumer goods markets in the US, see below). This is kinda like the opposite of Fordism
-So someone has to be making a profit, right? You can't have higher production and less jobs and lower labor costs without profits going up.
-That's right! Financeers are making the money off the back of workers. Henry Liu (second source above) estimates that every new millionare in China requires the loss of 100,000 Chinese manufacturing jobs. Wow.
The gold standard
-When the US came off the gold standard, it meant that the American dollar was no longer based on any hard exchange. Instead, it is now based in some sense of trust in the American government.
-Because the world currency system is based on the American dollar, it means that the American government can essentially disregard debt. All it needs to do is print more money. Printing money is essentially the US Government extending credit to itself.
-This dollar is then used to spur investment and consumption worldwide. Essentially the US is able to obtain capital based on some sense of trust in the dollar.
-Other economies are forever seeking dollars because dollars can reliably be exchanged for other currency or good like oil.
-The basis of the dollar now basically depends on the US ability to enforce it, i.e. the American military.
We are left with a situation where real jobs of pretty much any kind are being washed out by market forces pretty much everywhere. Is there a solution to this? Protectionism or totally closing off a market basically just leaves it to stagnate where it is for lack of investment dollars and other means of trying to skew the market in one country's favor (subsidies, currency control) tend to just send resources elsewhere (in the case of weak economies) or contribute to destroying weak economies while simultaneously costing jobs (in the case of strong economies). Are there other options? I need to read more. I'm still confused by this gold standard stuff in particular.
Finally, this video of a cellist playing a whole bunch of different parts is kinda cool.
Anyway, here's another big paradox. Apparently, despite experiancing 9% annual growth recenlty, China would actually be loosing manufacturing jobs if not for jobs gained from the West, due largely to a 17% annual increase in productivity. And this is a continuing increase. This is just echoing changes around the world. There is much talk these days about the outsourcing of American jobs. This problem is in fact getting much and much worse, we are not only outsourcing manufacturing and other blue-collar jobs but high-tech jobs as well. My Macintosh laptop says on the back that it was designed in America and made in China. Twenty years ago, it's pretty likely it would have been made in America as well. Ten years from now, it will have been designed in China. But the really paradoxical thing is that the exporting of American jobs to places like China and India does not seem to be doing much to improve the job markets there.
So who exactly is being helped by the free markets that are billed as the solution to all our ills. Pretty much only the financeers in rich countries (especially the US), and to a lesser degree, a compradore class in the developing world. Historically, the damage from free markets has been creeping up the economic pyramid from the lowest-level producers to the highest level. First the farmers, miners and other first-order factors of production were hurt by the opening of global grain markets in the decades following the first world war. Disposessed farmers were a major source of Nazi recruiting in the 20s and 30s, falling rice prices lead to tax problems and unrest in French Indochina while French farmers were loosing out at home due to the falling price of wheat. The booming 20s in America was a time of great investment gains for city-dwellers due in part to newly opened markets, but American farmers were already getting hurt a decade before the stock market crash and the great depression
Starting after the second world war, manufacturing began to move overseas and "made in Japan" became the first "made in China" which is now becoming "made in Bangladesh" and the like. In Japan, this started with cheap consumer goods and then moved to cheap electronics and cars. Electronics have barely been produced in America for the past decade, and US Automakers are going the same way. Korea is following in Japan's footsteps, with their electronics (especially mobile phones and other handhelds) beginning to overtake even the Japanese, and their cars catching up. Are Chinese cars next? Maybe not for another decade, but you'd better believe they're coming.
And we're beginning to see service jobs move overseas as well. Sure, it's starting with telephone helplines and the like, but Indian businesses are beginning to take over more and more sophisticated service jobs (India has a big advantage over China in this regard because it has a major English-speaking population). Soon, engineering, marketing and other glamour service jobs will be based largely overseas, leaving only non-movable service jobs (like house cleaning and sales) in America. How is this happening? Basically, the US has become more important as a consumer than as a producer. Look for this to start to happen to the rest of the world as well as we become more and more efficient at making things with fewer human factors of production.
According to these two sources, this tendency originates from Nixon ending the gold standard in 1971, as well as two misconceptualizations: that we live in a state of scarcity and that free markets will lead to gains through comparative advantage. Here is how these combine to form the strange leviathan that is our current state of globalization:
Scarcity
-The belief in scarcity leads us to seek to maximize production, largely through improving efficiency. If goods are scarce, it is reasonable to believe that increased production will find a captive market.
-But we don't live in a state of scarcity, rather one of overproduction. This means that producers must find or make markets for their goods. An increasing percentage of the workforce is employed in trying to find or make these markets as less and less of the workforce needs to be employed in actually producing it.
-Think about it this way: how many people do you know involved in producing a real good? Now how many people do you know involved in sales, marketing, distribution, packaging, patenting, protecting patents, etc. I bet for most people, the second group is much bigger. And I bet that fifty years ago, the first group would have been bigger.
-Or let's put it another way. Think about people you know. Do you think they are more important as a producer or as a consumer. You can even include goods and services in this, but don't consider the price, consider the time. I bet most people in America consume an order of magnitude more than they produce in terms of person-hours of services and person-hours poot into production and delivery of goods.
-That's right! Americans are more important as consumers than as producers. We can see this in many other ways but especially in the fact that most are employed in finding consumers for excess production, most consume more hours of work than they produce and even the fact that most are fat.
Free trade and comparative advantage
-Ok, so we already know that we are hyper-efficient at production to the point where most people are employed in finding markets for excess goods (if they are employed at all). So we don't really need more production gains through comparative advantage.
-Also, comparative advantage only works under the assumption of total employment. If there is not total employment, the open market will replace a worker with a lower-paid one rather than one who is nessisarily better-suited to the job.
-The world does not have anywhere near total employment. In fact, vast agricultural surplusses are causing a whole lot of un- or underemployed agricultural workers to seek other employment because they cannot find a market for their goods.
-So free trade agreements only serves to send jobs to countries with low labor costs. But it doesn't even help those countries because the dumping of the outside word's agricultural surplusses destroys local agriculture, creating...that's right...more unemployment everywhere!!
-We do gain lower prices. So I guess that's a good thing.
-Except that opening the markets drives down wages, so many wage-laborers actually have reduced purchasing power, even under falling prices (and things might be worse outside consumer goods markets in the US, see below). This is kinda like the opposite of Fordism
-So someone has to be making a profit, right? You can't have higher production and less jobs and lower labor costs without profits going up.
-That's right! Financeers are making the money off the back of workers. Henry Liu (second source above) estimates that every new millionare in China requires the loss of 100,000 Chinese manufacturing jobs. Wow.
The gold standard
-When the US came off the gold standard, it meant that the American dollar was no longer based on any hard exchange. Instead, it is now based in some sense of trust in the American government.
-Because the world currency system is based on the American dollar, it means that the American government can essentially disregard debt. All it needs to do is print more money. Printing money is essentially the US Government extending credit to itself.
-This dollar is then used to spur investment and consumption worldwide. Essentially the US is able to obtain capital based on some sense of trust in the dollar.
-Other economies are forever seeking dollars because dollars can reliably be exchanged for other currency or good like oil.
-The basis of the dollar now basically depends on the US ability to enforce it, i.e. the American military.
We are left with a situation where real jobs of pretty much any kind are being washed out by market forces pretty much everywhere. Is there a solution to this? Protectionism or totally closing off a market basically just leaves it to stagnate where it is for lack of investment dollars and other means of trying to skew the market in one country's favor (subsidies, currency control) tend to just send resources elsewhere (in the case of weak economies) or contribute to destroying weak economies while simultaneously costing jobs (in the case of strong economies). Are there other options? I need to read more. I'm still confused by this gold standard stuff in particular.
Finally, this video of a cellist playing a whole bunch of different parts is kinda cool.
Wednesday, October 18
Homeland security
Once again I'm a day late, although I doubt anyone has noticed.
First: this relates only slightly to my primary topic, but this is what Alex and I spent the majority of Iowa discussing.
I discovered this weekend that I'm not the only one concerned with the implications of factory farming practices. I can understand that most people don't care that much about how their food makes it too the table as long as it's easy. I can see how local foodies and slow foodies can easily be perceived as strange and elitist. I mean, even vegans can find mass-produced food comparatively easily, and local food is often more expensive and harder to find than the more commercial varieties. The thing is, local, organic, vegan-food eating, Prius-driving, train-taking pacifists are stronger on security than gun-toting pickup-driving hawks. Let me show you how.
First lets talk about local food. I've made arguments before about how this is largely because of subsidies, both on agricultural products themselves, and on fuel, thereby making transport cheaper (apparently the average transport distance of "fresh food" is 5,000 miles for that bought in England and over 1,000 miles in America). One of the main arguments against local food campaigns is that they hurt developing economies that rely on crop exports, but it seems to me that these developing economies are often more hurt by subsidies. This seems to me to be a case of rhetoric used to defend a failing system. For example, we are unafraid to slap a huge tariff on Vietnamese catfish to protect American catfish farmers but tend to dump our own exports on developing markets, decrying oposition to NAFTA or the WTO as anti-liberal. The solution may be food sovereignty. This is good not only for the developing world, but for the US as well.
See here's the thing. Our own reliance on commercial food is making us unhealthy in a number of ways. First, the cheapness and availability of corn derivatives makes processed junk food cheaper than healthier, simpler alternatives. Second, factory farming is subjecting us to mutated bacteria (and see my previous entry). But what Michael Pollan brings up is that we are also subjecting ourselves to terrorist attacks on our food. He tells us that "80 percent of America’s beef is slaughtered by four companies, 75 percent of the precut salads are processed by two and 30 percent of the milk by just one company." We have a very centralized supply train not to the military, but to the entire country! And clearly it's not a very secure one, given that weapons-grade E. coli is already a threat without external sources and that it took the investigation into the contamination a long time to figure out the origin of the problem.
The Department of Homeland Security is aware of this threat. It even puts out guidlines for keeping food from becoming contaminated (for example, pork products). Of course, this is treating the desease rather than preventing it. The mutant E. coli only develops in the stomachs of feedlot cattle, a peculiarity that is almost unique to the US. But instead of advising against keeping cattle in feedlots, or reducing the economic incentives to keep cattle in feedlots (i.e. corn subsidies), they come up with elaborate inspection and irradiation routines to destroy the bacteria that shouldn't have been there in the first place. These requirement, in turn, make it very difficult for small-scale producers to compete, despite the fact that they tend to be naturally safer than the large-scale producers. The price difference between small-scale, local meat and commerically produced meat is due to additional cost of producing graze-fed meat and the additional cost of processing in local plants (offset by the additional costs to ship commerical meat, which is, of course, subsidised to the point of being minimal). Because local meat plants have to meet the same requirements as much larger ones, but without the economies of scale, this is the single greatest factor in increasing the price of local food.
So local food is generally considered elitist because it tends to be more expensive and harder to get. It is more expensive largely due to FDA regulations which do not scale down well. These regulations are largely based on the dangers posed by factory farms and which are not present on smaller-scale and more natural operations. Factory farms are price-effective largely because they can use feedlots, which are based on subsidised grain, and transport cheaply, based on subsidised oil. Oil, of course, is subsidised not only in the immidiate sense, but also through our foreign policy, which tends to increase terror. So subsidies make the world a much more dangerous place. We need to end the subsidies and start rethinking the way we do agriculture. In fact, it may be benificial to think of agricultural products as something in between a tradeable good and a non-tradeable service.
Or maybe tariffs make more sense. On this otherwise objetionable site is an interesting analysis of how comparative advantage doesn't justify a lof of the free trade stuff that it is used to justify. In particular, exporting jobs to countries with nearly endless supplies of labor and unclear commitments to the market (i.e. China) doesn't seem to gain us much (although Paul Craig Roberts seems to ignore the fact that exporting manufacturing jobs overseas does net us cheaper goods). I am very scheptical what nativism and autarchy can net us as a country, but in some sectors, it does make sense to keep it local. I dont' care that much if consumer gadgets are being made in Shenzhen and phone help-lines are being run out of Bangalore. However, the loss of blue-collare jobs in America is a big, big problem.
So here is one suggestion. I don't care that much about industries that can be clearly grouped as consumer luxuries. But things like the automotive industry are a little different (and a bigger factor in job losses). Oil dependance is another major way in which our country is making itself much less secure. Again, through both domestica nd foreign policy, the government tends to do things that make it worse. If oil prices were not subsidised, if they were stabalized and taxed, this would provide and incentive for citizens to become less dependant on oil. This in turn would create a strong impetus to investigate alternative fuel sources. This strikes me as one way in which we could return some strength to the American economy, including both technical and manufacturing jobs. Consider, for instance, taking advantage of the existing military-industrial complex to fund research and development of wind and solar power and hydrogen fuel cells. Consider using public funds to build and subsidise more and better public transportation, ranging from alternative-fuel busses to better train service. Car travel is effectively subsidised by the tax-payer not only through oil subsidies, but also road construction and maintenance. And putting money into R&D and construciton of new power and transportation alternatives will provide jobs. The construction, at the very least, is nessisarily local, and if we consider alternative fuels to be a national defense objective, that will give us reason to keep it domestic, helping to provide more tech and blue collar jobs.
This has become kinda uncentered, so I wanted to conclude by demonstrating a central focus. Certain types of liberals: conservationists, pacifists, vegitarians and the like, have difficulty attracting wider followings because the foci of their creeds tend to be ascetic. It is hard to convince everyday people to give up conveniance, style, taste and the like with no provided alternative. What has been convincingly demonstrated to me is that these goals are not individual goals, but collective ones. Furthermore, they are not centered around vague notions of what is better for our children's children, but ones of what makes us safe now. Agricultural subsidies and factory farming makes us unsafe. Local farming makes us safer. Dependence on oil makes us unsafe. Alternative technologies make us safer. These can be centered as well around what provides jobs right now. Small farms keep money in the hands of local, middle-class people. Commercial agriculture puts money in the hands of big plutocrats and migrant laborers. Alternative fuel development can provide tech and blue-collar jobs in America. Oil puts money in the hands of Texas fat-cats and international despots. It is time that liberals get serious and claim that they are strong on security because of their environmentalism.
First: this relates only slightly to my primary topic, but this is what Alex and I spent the majority of Iowa discussing.
I discovered this weekend that I'm not the only one concerned with the implications of factory farming practices. I can understand that most people don't care that much about how their food makes it too the table as long as it's easy. I can see how local foodies and slow foodies can easily be perceived as strange and elitist. I mean, even vegans can find mass-produced food comparatively easily, and local food is often more expensive and harder to find than the more commercial varieties. The thing is, local, organic, vegan-food eating, Prius-driving, train-taking pacifists are stronger on security than gun-toting pickup-driving hawks. Let me show you how.
First lets talk about local food. I've made arguments before about how this is largely because of subsidies, both on agricultural products themselves, and on fuel, thereby making transport cheaper (apparently the average transport distance of "fresh food" is 5,000 miles for that bought in England and over 1,000 miles in America). One of the main arguments against local food campaigns is that they hurt developing economies that rely on crop exports, but it seems to me that these developing economies are often more hurt by subsidies. This seems to me to be a case of rhetoric used to defend a failing system. For example, we are unafraid to slap a huge tariff on Vietnamese catfish to protect American catfish farmers but tend to dump our own exports on developing markets, decrying oposition to NAFTA or the WTO as anti-liberal. The solution may be food sovereignty. This is good not only for the developing world, but for the US as well.
See here's the thing. Our own reliance on commercial food is making us unhealthy in a number of ways. First, the cheapness and availability of corn derivatives makes processed junk food cheaper than healthier, simpler alternatives. Second, factory farming is subjecting us to mutated bacteria (and see my previous entry). But what Michael Pollan brings up is that we are also subjecting ourselves to terrorist attacks on our food. He tells us that "80 percent of America’s beef is slaughtered by four companies, 75 percent of the precut salads are processed by two and 30 percent of the milk by just one company." We have a very centralized supply train not to the military, but to the entire country! And clearly it's not a very secure one, given that weapons-grade E. coli is already a threat without external sources and that it took the investigation into the contamination a long time to figure out the origin of the problem.
The Department of Homeland Security is aware of this threat. It even puts out guidlines for keeping food from becoming contaminated (for example, pork products). Of course, this is treating the desease rather than preventing it. The mutant E. coli only develops in the stomachs of feedlot cattle, a peculiarity that is almost unique to the US. But instead of advising against keeping cattle in feedlots, or reducing the economic incentives to keep cattle in feedlots (i.e. corn subsidies), they come up with elaborate inspection and irradiation routines to destroy the bacteria that shouldn't have been there in the first place. These requirement, in turn, make it very difficult for small-scale producers to compete, despite the fact that they tend to be naturally safer than the large-scale producers. The price difference between small-scale, local meat and commerically produced meat is due to additional cost of producing graze-fed meat and the additional cost of processing in local plants (offset by the additional costs to ship commerical meat, which is, of course, subsidised to the point of being minimal). Because local meat plants have to meet the same requirements as much larger ones, but without the economies of scale, this is the single greatest factor in increasing the price of local food.
So local food is generally considered elitist because it tends to be more expensive and harder to get. It is more expensive largely due to FDA regulations which do not scale down well. These regulations are largely based on the dangers posed by factory farms and which are not present on smaller-scale and more natural operations. Factory farms are price-effective largely because they can use feedlots, which are based on subsidised grain, and transport cheaply, based on subsidised oil. Oil, of course, is subsidised not only in the immidiate sense, but also through our foreign policy, which tends to increase terror. So subsidies make the world a much more dangerous place. We need to end the subsidies and start rethinking the way we do agriculture. In fact, it may be benificial to think of agricultural products as something in between a tradeable good and a non-tradeable service.
Or maybe tariffs make more sense. On this otherwise objetionable site is an interesting analysis of how comparative advantage doesn't justify a lof of the free trade stuff that it is used to justify. In particular, exporting jobs to countries with nearly endless supplies of labor and unclear commitments to the market (i.e. China) doesn't seem to gain us much (although Paul Craig Roberts seems to ignore the fact that exporting manufacturing jobs overseas does net us cheaper goods). I am very scheptical what nativism and autarchy can net us as a country, but in some sectors, it does make sense to keep it local. I dont' care that much if consumer gadgets are being made in Shenzhen and phone help-lines are being run out of Bangalore. However, the loss of blue-collare jobs in America is a big, big problem.
So here is one suggestion. I don't care that much about industries that can be clearly grouped as consumer luxuries. But things like the automotive industry are a little different (and a bigger factor in job losses). Oil dependance is another major way in which our country is making itself much less secure. Again, through both domestica nd foreign policy, the government tends to do things that make it worse. If oil prices were not subsidised, if they were stabalized and taxed, this would provide and incentive for citizens to become less dependant on oil. This in turn would create a strong impetus to investigate alternative fuel sources. This strikes me as one way in which we could return some strength to the American economy, including both technical and manufacturing jobs. Consider, for instance, taking advantage of the existing military-industrial complex to fund research and development of wind and solar power and hydrogen fuel cells. Consider using public funds to build and subsidise more and better public transportation, ranging from alternative-fuel busses to better train service. Car travel is effectively subsidised by the tax-payer not only through oil subsidies, but also road construction and maintenance. And putting money into R&D and construciton of new power and transportation alternatives will provide jobs. The construction, at the very least, is nessisarily local, and if we consider alternative fuels to be a national defense objective, that will give us reason to keep it domestic, helping to provide more tech and blue collar jobs.
This has become kinda uncentered, so I wanted to conclude by demonstrating a central focus. Certain types of liberals: conservationists, pacifists, vegitarians and the like, have difficulty attracting wider followings because the foci of their creeds tend to be ascetic. It is hard to convince everyday people to give up conveniance, style, taste and the like with no provided alternative. What has been convincingly demonstrated to me is that these goals are not individual goals, but collective ones. Furthermore, they are not centered around vague notions of what is better for our children's children, but ones of what makes us safe now. Agricultural subsidies and factory farming makes us unsafe. Local farming makes us safer. Dependence on oil makes us unsafe. Alternative technologies make us safer. These can be centered as well around what provides jobs right now. Small farms keep money in the hands of local, middle-class people. Commercial agriculture puts money in the hands of big plutocrats and migrant laborers. Alternative fuel development can provide tech and blue-collar jobs in America. Oil puts money in the hands of Texas fat-cats and international despots. It is time that liberals get serious and claim that they are strong on security because of their environmentalism.
Homeland security
Once again I'm a day late, although I doubt anyone has noticed.
First: this relates only slightly to my primary topic, but this is what Alex and I spent the majority of Iowa discussing.
I discovered this weekend that I'm not the only one concerned with the implications of factory farming practices. I can understand that most people don't care that much about how their food makes it too the table as long as it's easy. I can see how local foodies and slow foodies can easily be perceived as strange and elitist. I mean, even vegans can find mass-produced food comparatively easily, and local food is often more expensive and harder to find than the more commercial varieties. The thing is, local, organic, vegan-food eating, Prius-driving, train-taking pacifists are stronger on security than gun-toting pickup-driving hawks. Let me show you how.
First lets talk about local food. I've made arguments before about how this is largely because of subsidies, both on agricultural products themselves, and on fuel, thereby making transport cheaper (apparently the average transport distance of "fresh food" is 5,000 miles for that bought in England and over 1,000 miles in America). One of the main arguments against local food campaigns is that they hurt developing economies that rely on crop exports, but it seems to me that these developing economies are often more hurt by subsidies. This seems to me to be a case of rhetoric used to defend a failing system. For example, we are unafraid to slap a huge tariff on Vietnamese catfish to protect American catfish farmers but tend to dump our own exports on developing markets, decrying oposition to NAFTA or the WTO as anti-liberal. The solution may be food sovereignty. This is good not only for the developing world, but for the US as well.
See here's the thing. Our own reliance on commercial food is making us unhealthy in a number of ways. First, the cheapness and availability of corn derivatives makes processed junk food cheaper than healthier, simpler alternatives. Second, factory farming is subjecting us to mutated bacteria (and see my previous entry). But what Michael Pollan brings up is that we are also subjecting ourselves to terrorist attacks on our food. He tells us that "80 percent of America’s beef is slaughtered by four companies, 75 percent of the precut salads are processed by two and 30 percent of the milk by just one company." We have a very centralized supply train not to the military, but to the entire country! And clearly it's not a very secure one, given that weapons-grade E. coli is already a threat without external sources and that it took the investigation into the contamination a long time to figure out the origin of the problem.
The Department of Homeland Security is aware of this threat. It even puts out guidlines for keeping food from becoming contaminated (for example, pork products). Of course, this is treating the desease rather than preventing it. The mutant E. coli only develops in the stomachs of feedlot cattle, a peculiarity that is almost unique to the US. But instead of advising against keeping cattle in feedlots, or reducing the economic incentives to keep cattle in feedlots (i.e. corn subsidies), they come up with elaborate inspection and irradiation routines to destroy the bacteria that shouldn't have been there in the first place. These requirement, in turn, make it very difficult for small-scale producers to compete, despite the fact that they tend to be naturally safer than the large-scale producers. The price difference between small-scale, local meat and commerically produced meat is due to additional cost of producing graze-fed meat and the additional cost of processing in local plants (offset by the additional costs to ship commerical meat, which is, of course, subsidised to the point of being minimal). Because local meat plants have to meet the same requirements as much larger ones, but without the economies of scale, this is the single greatest factor in increasing the price of local food.
So local food is generally considered elitist because it tends to be more expensive and harder to get. It is more expensive largely due to FDA regulations which do not scale down well. These regulations are largely based on the dangers posed by factory farms and which are not present on smaller-scale and more natural operations. Factory farms are price-effective largely because they can use feedlots, which are based on subsidised grain, and transport cheaply, based on subsidised oil. Oil, of course, is subsidised not only in the immidiate sense, but also through our foreign policy, which tends to increase terror. So subsidies make the world a much more dangerous place. We need to end the subsidies and start rethinking the way we do agriculture. In fact, it may be benificial to think of agricultural products as something in between a tradeable good and a non-tradeable service.
Or maybe tariffs make more sense. On this otherwise objetionable site is an interesting analysis of how comparative advantage doesn't justify a lof of the free trade stuff that it is used to justify. In particular, exporting jobs to countries with nearly endless supplies of labor and unclear commitments to the market (i.e. China) doesn't seem to gain us much (although Paul Craig Roberts seems to ignore the fact that exporting manufacturing jobs overseas does net us cheaper goods). I am very scheptical what nativism and autarchy can net us as a country, but in some sectors, it does make sense to keep it local. I dont' care that much if consumer gadgets are being made in Shenzhen and phone help-lines are being run out of Bangalore. However, the loss of blue-collare jobs in America is a big, big problem.
So here is one suggestion. I don't care that much about industries that can be clearly grouped as consumer luxuries. But things like the automotive industry are a little different (and a bigger factor in job losses). Oil dependance is another major way in which our country is making itself much less secure. Again, through both domestica nd foreign policy, the government tends to do things that make it worse. If oil prices were not subsidised, if they were stabalized and taxed, this would provide and incentive for citizens to become less dependant on oil. This in turn would create a strong impetus to investigate alternative fuel sources. This strikes me as one way in which we could return some strength to the American economy, including both technical and manufacturing jobs. Consider, for instance, taking advantage of the existing military-industrial complex to fund research and development of wind and solar power and hydrogen fuel cells. Consider using public funds to build and subsidise more and better public transportation, ranging from alternative-fuel busses to better train service. Car travel is effectively subsidised by the tax-payer not only through oil subsidies, but also road construction and maintenance. And putting money into R&D and construciton of new power and transportation alternatives will provide jobs. The construction, at the very least, is nessisarily local, and if we consider alternative fuels to be a national defense objective, that will give us reason to keep it domestic, helping to provide more tech and blue collar jobs.
This has become kinda uncentered, so I wanted to conclude by demonstrating a central focus. Certain types of liberals: conservationists, pacifists, vegitarians and the like, have difficulty attracting wider followings because the foci of their creeds tend to be ascetic. It is hard to convince everyday people to give up conveniance, style, taste and the like with no provided alternative. What has been convincingly demonstrated to me is that these goals are not individual goals, but collective ones. Furthermore, they are not centered around vague notions of what is better for our children's children, but ones of what makes us safe now. Agricultural subsidies and factory farming makes us unsafe. Local farming makes us safer. Dependence on oil makes us unsafe. Alternative technologies make us safer. These can be centered as well around what provides jobs right now. Small farms keep money in the hands of local, middle-class people. Commercial agriculture puts money in the hands of big plutocrats and migrant laborers. Alternative fuel development can provide tech and blue-collar jobs in America. Oil puts money in the hands of Texas fat-cats and international despots. It is time that liberals get serious and claim that they are strong on security because of their environmentalism.
First: this relates only slightly to my primary topic, but this is what Alex and I spent the majority of Iowa discussing.
I discovered this weekend that I'm not the only one concerned with the implications of factory farming practices. I can understand that most people don't care that much about how their food makes it too the table as long as it's easy. I can see how local foodies and slow foodies can easily be perceived as strange and elitist. I mean, even vegans can find mass-produced food comparatively easily, and local food is often more expensive and harder to find than the more commercial varieties. The thing is, local, organic, vegan-food eating, Prius-driving, train-taking pacifists are stronger on security than gun-toting pickup-driving hawks. Let me show you how.
First lets talk about local food. I've made arguments before about how this is largely because of subsidies, both on agricultural products themselves, and on fuel, thereby making transport cheaper (apparently the average transport distance of "fresh food" is 5,000 miles for that bought in England and over 1,000 miles in America). One of the main arguments against local food campaigns is that they hurt developing economies that rely on crop exports, but it seems to me that these developing economies are often more hurt by subsidies. This seems to me to be a case of rhetoric used to defend a failing system. For example, we are unafraid to slap a huge tariff on Vietnamese catfish to protect American catfish farmers but tend to dump our own exports on developing markets, decrying oposition to NAFTA or the WTO as anti-liberal. The solution may be food sovereignty. This is good not only for the developing world, but for the US as well.
See here's the thing. Our own reliance on commercial food is making us unhealthy in a number of ways. First, the cheapness and availability of corn derivatives makes processed junk food cheaper than healthier, simpler alternatives. Second, factory farming is subjecting us to mutated bacteria (and see my previous entry). But what Michael Pollan brings up is that we are also subjecting ourselves to terrorist attacks on our food. He tells us that "80 percent of America’s beef is slaughtered by four companies, 75 percent of the precut salads are processed by two and 30 percent of the milk by just one company." We have a very centralized supply train not to the military, but to the entire country! And clearly it's not a very secure one, given that weapons-grade E. coli is already a threat without external sources and that it took the investigation into the contamination a long time to figure out the origin of the problem.
The Department of Homeland Security is aware of this threat. It even puts out guidlines for keeping food from becoming contaminated (for example, pork products). Of course, this is treating the desease rather than preventing it. The mutant E. coli only develops in the stomachs of feedlot cattle, a peculiarity that is almost unique to the US. But instead of advising against keeping cattle in feedlots, or reducing the economic incentives to keep cattle in feedlots (i.e. corn subsidies), they come up with elaborate inspection and irradiation routines to destroy the bacteria that shouldn't have been there in the first place. These requirement, in turn, make it very difficult for small-scale producers to compete, despite the fact that they tend to be naturally safer than the large-scale producers. The price difference between small-scale, local meat and commerically produced meat is due to additional cost of producing graze-fed meat and the additional cost of processing in local plants (offset by the additional costs to ship commerical meat, which is, of course, subsidised to the point of being minimal). Because local meat plants have to meet the same requirements as much larger ones, but without the economies of scale, this is the single greatest factor in increasing the price of local food.
So local food is generally considered elitist because it tends to be more expensive and harder to get. It is more expensive largely due to FDA regulations which do not scale down well. These regulations are largely based on the dangers posed by factory farms and which are not present on smaller-scale and more natural operations. Factory farms are price-effective largely because they can use feedlots, which are based on subsidised grain, and transport cheaply, based on subsidised oil. Oil, of course, is subsidised not only in the immidiate sense, but also through our foreign policy, which tends to increase terror. So subsidies make the world a much more dangerous place. We need to end the subsidies and start rethinking the way we do agriculture. In fact, it may be benificial to think of agricultural products as something in between a tradeable good and a non-tradeable service.
Or maybe tariffs make more sense. On this otherwise objetionable site is an interesting analysis of how comparative advantage doesn't justify a lof of the free trade stuff that it is used to justify. In particular, exporting jobs to countries with nearly endless supplies of labor and unclear commitments to the market (i.e. China) doesn't seem to gain us much (although Paul Craig Roberts seems to ignore the fact that exporting manufacturing jobs overseas does net us cheaper goods). I am very scheptical what nativism and autarchy can net us as a country, but in some sectors, it does make sense to keep it local. I dont' care that much if consumer gadgets are being made in Shenzhen and phone help-lines are being run out of Bangalore. However, the loss of blue-collare jobs in America is a big, big problem.
So here is one suggestion. I don't care that much about industries that can be clearly grouped as consumer luxuries. But things like the automotive industry are a little different (and a bigger factor in job losses). Oil dependance is another major way in which our country is making itself much less secure. Again, through both domestica nd foreign policy, the government tends to do things that make it worse. If oil prices were not subsidised, if they were stabalized and taxed, this would provide and incentive for citizens to become less dependant on oil. This in turn would create a strong impetus to investigate alternative fuel sources. This strikes me as one way in which we could return some strength to the American economy, including both technical and manufacturing jobs. Consider, for instance, taking advantage of the existing military-industrial complex to fund research and development of wind and solar power and hydrogen fuel cells. Consider using public funds to build and subsidise more and better public transportation, ranging from alternative-fuel busses to better train service. Car travel is effectively subsidised by the tax-payer not only through oil subsidies, but also road construction and maintenance. And putting money into R&D and construciton of new power and transportation alternatives will provide jobs. The construction, at the very least, is nessisarily local, and if we consider alternative fuels to be a national defense objective, that will give us reason to keep it domestic, helping to provide more tech and blue collar jobs.
This has become kinda uncentered, so I wanted to conclude by demonstrating a central focus. Certain types of liberals: conservationists, pacifists, vegitarians and the like, have difficulty attracting wider followings because the foci of their creeds tend to be ascetic. It is hard to convince everyday people to give up conveniance, style, taste and the like with no provided alternative. What has been convincingly demonstrated to me is that these goals are not individual goals, but collective ones. Furthermore, they are not centered around vague notions of what is better for our children's children, but ones of what makes us safe now. Agricultural subsidies and factory farming makes us unsafe. Local farming makes us safer. Dependence on oil makes us unsafe. Alternative technologies make us safer. These can be centered as well around what provides jobs right now. Small farms keep money in the hands of local, middle-class people. Commercial agriculture puts money in the hands of big plutocrats and migrant laborers. Alternative fuel development can provide tech and blue-collar jobs in America. Oil puts money in the hands of Texas fat-cats and international despots. It is time that liberals get serious and claim that they are strong on security because of their environmentalism.
Wednesday, October 11
Incomplete thoughts
Since I'm already writing late and between periods at work, I'm not gonna manage anything like a consistant line of argument today, let alone something backed up with extensive sources. Instead, some random thoughts that I've been having.
First, re: the North Korea nuke test, I think that we are playing precisely into their hands by reacting strongly and potentially forcing more sanctions. I don't like sanctions (as you may have read in a previous post) and our current regime of sanctions doesn't seem to be doing very much anyway. This situation seems vaguely analagous to a petulant child breaking things while on timeout and forcing his parents to come up with a harsher punishment that they are actually willing to carry out. North Korea is already an incredibly poor country moving backwards (if anything) in pretty much every respect but its nuclear program. This gives them a reduced set of options that looks more and more like capitulation or something drastic with nothing in between. We should not be surprised that a cornered and starving animal is going to do something drastic.
And I wouldn't count on China to get us out of this. The Chinese government is very good at keeping up the appearance of helping us out on this type of international issue, but it is probable that they like having North Korea as their proxy irrantant. If the US overreacts, they can take a moral high ground; if the Koreans overreach, they can deny involvement and play mediator. The Chinese street is pretty anti-American right now, and the North Korea status quo lets the Chinese leaders play both sides.
Another thing I've been thinking about is the need for positive role models. I wrote a few entries ago about the absence of such models for a lot of inner-city blacks, but it goes much beyond that. When violence breaks out, especially in suburban communities, people are quick to offer as scapegoats violent movies, music and other pop culture. And also to call for stiffer gun laws and stronger enforcement. The latter I can strongly agree with. As to the former, a convincing and fun alternative is nessisary to draw the audience away from violent media. An abstinance model does not work, whether you are talking about sex, violence, drugs or other such behaviors. An alternative is what is nessisary. In other words, we need to come up with books, movies, tv shows, video games and such that are non-violent (or show realistic and balanced outcomes of violence) but are still fun. This is not an easy task. THe reason video game makers make violent games is because they sell. With the major exception of the Sims type games, the big sellers are always violent or sports-related games. Given the latters' tendency to further the cult of sports, I would count them as negative as well. So what can we offer that will sell as well?
Time for class.
First, re: the North Korea nuke test, I think that we are playing precisely into their hands by reacting strongly and potentially forcing more sanctions. I don't like sanctions (as you may have read in a previous post) and our current regime of sanctions doesn't seem to be doing very much anyway. This situation seems vaguely analagous to a petulant child breaking things while on timeout and forcing his parents to come up with a harsher punishment that they are actually willing to carry out. North Korea is already an incredibly poor country moving backwards (if anything) in pretty much every respect but its nuclear program. This gives them a reduced set of options that looks more and more like capitulation or something drastic with nothing in between. We should not be surprised that a cornered and starving animal is going to do something drastic.
And I wouldn't count on China to get us out of this. The Chinese government is very good at keeping up the appearance of helping us out on this type of international issue, but it is probable that they like having North Korea as their proxy irrantant. If the US overreacts, they can take a moral high ground; if the Koreans overreach, they can deny involvement and play mediator. The Chinese street is pretty anti-American right now, and the North Korea status quo lets the Chinese leaders play both sides.
Another thing I've been thinking about is the need for positive role models. I wrote a few entries ago about the absence of such models for a lot of inner-city blacks, but it goes much beyond that. When violence breaks out, especially in suburban communities, people are quick to offer as scapegoats violent movies, music and other pop culture. And also to call for stiffer gun laws and stronger enforcement. The latter I can strongly agree with. As to the former, a convincing and fun alternative is nessisary to draw the audience away from violent media. An abstinance model does not work, whether you are talking about sex, violence, drugs or other such behaviors. An alternative is what is nessisary. In other words, we need to come up with books, movies, tv shows, video games and such that are non-violent (or show realistic and balanced outcomes of violence) but are still fun. This is not an easy task. THe reason video game makers make violent games is because they sell. With the major exception of the Sims type games, the big sellers are always violent or sports-related games. Given the latters' tendency to further the cult of sports, I would count them as negative as well. So what can we offer that will sell as well?
Time for class.
Tuesday, October 3
The United States of Michael Vick or Taking Stock of Options' Futures
We'll see if I can keep this flowing and logical. I've been meaning to write about sanctions for a while, but I've been having some difficulty keeping a coherent argument.
First, to be clear, I don't like sanctions, and I don't think that they work. If you look at this list of current and recent sanctions, only Yugoslavia stands out as a country where sanctions may have done any good. Advocates of sanctions love to point out the popular ouster of Milosevic as an example of the way they are supposed to work: everyday people get fed up with the treatment they receive from their government and as a result of their government, so they get rid of it. Most importantly, sanctions are supposed to provide a middle ground of punishment, between doing nothing and instituting a bombing campaign, for example. But looking at the list again, it's not entirely clear what this middle option gains us: many of the countries now or previously under US sanctions have been invaded anyway (c.f. various Balkan states, Iraq, Afghanistan), and others have been threatened with this possibility of military intervention (Iran, North Korea, Sudan).
Game theorists tell us (for example in The Strategy of Conflict) that there are strategic advantages in bargaining to be gained by withholding or disallowing a middle option. Let's posit a situation in which sanctions are disallowed by official US policy. If Evil Dictator is faced with an ultimatum like "stop ethnic cleansing or we'll invade and remove you from power," and if this threat is credible, they have a reduced set of choices: concede or prepare for war. Given the power of the American military, the former seems more likely. Now consider this threat with sanctions a clear option; Evil Dictator is faced with a spectrum of possibilities. They often choose the hardest line that is unlikely to trigger immidiate invasion (*cough* Iran *cough*). Especially given the pressures of the international community, the US is unlikely to immidiately follow up on an ultimatum because they have a less harsh punishment available. A punishment that happens to target the wrong people at the wrong time and in the process give our Evil Dictator some great propaganda fodder.
See, the problem is that sanctions are not a clear punishment. Operant conditioning theory tells us that punishment (or reinforcement) should meet four conditions to be effective - it needs to be satiating, immidiate, contingent and sizeable. Sanctions tend to fail on several or even all of these lines. In the case of a country that is already poor, removing trade will simply make reductions in an already low standard of living. If sanctions are not universally imposed by a country's trading partners, it will simply substitute other options and see little real decline. It is only when sanctions will drop a country below a line of comfort or subsitance (and do we really want to do the latter?) that it meets the criterion of satation (or in the case of this type of negative punishment, whatever the removal of satiation is called). On the second point, sanctions are rarely imposed quickly enough to meet any sort of standard of immidiacy; sanctions usually follow substantial debate in national or international decision-making apperati. Furthermore, the effects of sanctions tend to aggregate over time, making them feel like cruelty or discrimination, rather than a contingent punishment. Really, sanctions are not contingent at all. Usually the people who feel the worst initial squeeze are small and medium businesses and consumers, while the higher-ups who make the real decisions are usually able to maintain their own living standards through personal connections and the black market. And finally, as addressed before, sanctions, espcially to those higher-ups, will not feel like a sizeable punishment, espeically given the threat of worse. Sanctions punish the wrong people for things their leaders did, generally with poor control over the size of the impact. A punishment lacking contingency and immidiacy is cruel and unusual and unsurprisingly ineffective.
Furthermore,reinforcement has been shown to be more effective when it is done over varied ratios. This means it is more effective to give a dog a treat on average every five times he sits (sometimes after two sits, sometimes after eight, sometimes after five...) than it is to reward him exactly every five times he sits. It is even more effective to reward a dog on average every five times than every time. This is why gambling is so addictive: lets see...I don't know about satiating (I guess that depends on how much you need the money), but the reward is immidiate, contingent, generally substantial and on a variable ratio schedule (if you bet at 5 to 1 odds, you don't know for sure that you will win every five times, but you will average a win every five times). Sanctions are on a fixed ratio because presumably a relatively fixed proportion of trade will be shut down. Again, not a very effective schedule of reinforcement.
Of course, sanctions are a punishment, not a reward, so they're a little different than sitting for a treat or betting on football. But punishments work a similar way. As I've mentioned before, the Gestapo were very effective because they used what is, in essence, a varied ratio punishment scheme. Not everyone got punished every time they did something wrong, but there was enough visibility of punishment with a fairly uniform, if random, distribution to make punishment an effective deterent. And of course the size of punishment was substantial. This is why Gestapo tactics were pretty effective at keeping the population under control but speeding tickets are not very effective at preventing speeding: the size of the fine is not a very effective deterent for most people, at least given their likelyhood of being pulled over. Of course, by the lines I have been arguing earlier, the possibility that a cop will let you off with a warning or a ticket for not buckling your seatbelt (a middle option, right Mike?) rather than a speeding ticket makes their bargaining position and their threat less tenable. And, as speeding tickets help us demonstrate, punishments tend to, at best, stop negative behavior rather than promoting positive behavior; at worst they just make people avoid getting caught. Even in animals, punishment is much more likely to create non-reinforced behavior. And again, speeding tickets and Gestapo arrests are contingent, immidiate and on a variable ratio schedule, making them that much more effective than sanctions.
So what am I proposing? Quite simply to take sanctions off the table. Cancel all existing sanctions and make a real commitment to not using them in the future, complete with a convincing mechanism to avoid opting out of the commitment. By limiting our bargaining position in terms of threats, we actually make it stronger. One of the (few) advantages of the Bush presidency, at least with respect to this, is that he has repeatedly made credible his threats to invade. If we remove our potential middle-ground, these threats gain more power. Of course the problem is that our military is already overtaxed and threats alone are not a very conveniant or friendly way to do foreign policy.
That's why we need more development aid. As Senator Shumer has stated with respect to Afghanistan, especially the opium poppy-Taliban connection, we need to give an alternative to negative behavior. Terror, the drug trade and street crime all thrive in environments where there are few opportunities. In Freakanomics we see that most drug dealers would much rather be janitors. Certainly poppy farmers would rather be almost anything else. So we need to give that opportunity. Investing in infrastructure, weather in the inner city or in Palestine or Afghanistan, gives people something better to do. It just makes sense to give replacement opportunities. When people become vegitarian, a common first step is to simply make the same meals while replacing meat. There exist dozens of different stop-smoking aids that replace cigarettes with another source of nicotine or another oral fixation. My best attempt to end my late-night snacking has been to replace it with late-night stretching. Replace poppies with another crop, replace black-market jobs with legitimate ones, replace terrorist-funded schools and hospitals.
So how does this all fit together? It's all about options. More positive options, less negative ones. Fewer options for punishment makes the threat of other punishments more credible. More options for development makes the possibility of change more real.
And a preview of next time, maybe: while we're replacing things: we need to stop thinking about world politics as a game for leaders. One of the fallacious roots of sanction theory is that citizens make a good proxy for their leaders. This is a bad assumption in a democracy and a worse one anywhere else. Whipping boys are not a good punishment for leaders lacking in compassion. And what's worse, by invoking sanctions, we fall into the leader's trap, we conflate him with the country. This is nothing more than a cult of personality. If we do want another punishment option, maybe this one makes sense: instead of sanctions (starving the whipping boy) or war (killing the whipping boy), why don't we ever consdier assassination? If we truly believe a leader singularly responsible for his country's ills, why not just take him out? If this doesn't make sense to you, maybe the assumption of leader as pied piper is a flawed one. Anyway, more on the leader/people fallicy next time, maybe...
First, to be clear, I don't like sanctions, and I don't think that they work. If you look at this list of current and recent sanctions, only Yugoslavia stands out as a country where sanctions may have done any good. Advocates of sanctions love to point out the popular ouster of Milosevic as an example of the way they are supposed to work: everyday people get fed up with the treatment they receive from their government and as a result of their government, so they get rid of it. Most importantly, sanctions are supposed to provide a middle ground of punishment, between doing nothing and instituting a bombing campaign, for example. But looking at the list again, it's not entirely clear what this middle option gains us: many of the countries now or previously under US sanctions have been invaded anyway (c.f. various Balkan states, Iraq, Afghanistan), and others have been threatened with this possibility of military intervention (Iran, North Korea, Sudan).
Game theorists tell us (for example in The Strategy of Conflict) that there are strategic advantages in bargaining to be gained by withholding or disallowing a middle option. Let's posit a situation in which sanctions are disallowed by official US policy. If Evil Dictator is faced with an ultimatum like "stop ethnic cleansing or we'll invade and remove you from power," and if this threat is credible, they have a reduced set of choices: concede or prepare for war. Given the power of the American military, the former seems more likely. Now consider this threat with sanctions a clear option; Evil Dictator is faced with a spectrum of possibilities. They often choose the hardest line that is unlikely to trigger immidiate invasion (*cough* Iran *cough*). Especially given the pressures of the international community, the US is unlikely to immidiately follow up on an ultimatum because they have a less harsh punishment available. A punishment that happens to target the wrong people at the wrong time and in the process give our Evil Dictator some great propaganda fodder.
See, the problem is that sanctions are not a clear punishment. Operant conditioning theory tells us that punishment (or reinforcement) should meet four conditions to be effective - it needs to be satiating, immidiate, contingent and sizeable. Sanctions tend to fail on several or even all of these lines. In the case of a country that is already poor, removing trade will simply make reductions in an already low standard of living. If sanctions are not universally imposed by a country's trading partners, it will simply substitute other options and see little real decline. It is only when sanctions will drop a country below a line of comfort or subsitance (and do we really want to do the latter?) that it meets the criterion of satation (or in the case of this type of negative punishment, whatever the removal of satiation is called). On the second point, sanctions are rarely imposed quickly enough to meet any sort of standard of immidiacy; sanctions usually follow substantial debate in national or international decision-making apperati. Furthermore, the effects of sanctions tend to aggregate over time, making them feel like cruelty or discrimination, rather than a contingent punishment. Really, sanctions are not contingent at all. Usually the people who feel the worst initial squeeze are small and medium businesses and consumers, while the higher-ups who make the real decisions are usually able to maintain their own living standards through personal connections and the black market. And finally, as addressed before, sanctions, espcially to those higher-ups, will not feel like a sizeable punishment, espeically given the threat of worse. Sanctions punish the wrong people for things their leaders did, generally with poor control over the size of the impact. A punishment lacking contingency and immidiacy is cruel and unusual and unsurprisingly ineffective.
Furthermore,reinforcement has been shown to be more effective when it is done over varied ratios. This means it is more effective to give a dog a treat on average every five times he sits (sometimes after two sits, sometimes after eight, sometimes after five...) than it is to reward him exactly every five times he sits. It is even more effective to reward a dog on average every five times than every time. This is why gambling is so addictive: lets see...I don't know about satiating (I guess that depends on how much you need the money), but the reward is immidiate, contingent, generally substantial and on a variable ratio schedule (if you bet at 5 to 1 odds, you don't know for sure that you will win every five times, but you will average a win every five times). Sanctions are on a fixed ratio because presumably a relatively fixed proportion of trade will be shut down. Again, not a very effective schedule of reinforcement.
Of course, sanctions are a punishment, not a reward, so they're a little different than sitting for a treat or betting on football. But punishments work a similar way. As I've mentioned before, the Gestapo were very effective because they used what is, in essence, a varied ratio punishment scheme. Not everyone got punished every time they did something wrong, but there was enough visibility of punishment with a fairly uniform, if random, distribution to make punishment an effective deterent. And of course the size of punishment was substantial. This is why Gestapo tactics were pretty effective at keeping the population under control but speeding tickets are not very effective at preventing speeding: the size of the fine is not a very effective deterent for most people, at least given their likelyhood of being pulled over. Of course, by the lines I have been arguing earlier, the possibility that a cop will let you off with a warning or a ticket for not buckling your seatbelt (a middle option, right Mike?) rather than a speeding ticket makes their bargaining position and their threat less tenable. And, as speeding tickets help us demonstrate, punishments tend to, at best, stop negative behavior rather than promoting positive behavior; at worst they just make people avoid getting caught. Even in animals, punishment is much more likely to create non-reinforced behavior. And again, speeding tickets and Gestapo arrests are contingent, immidiate and on a variable ratio schedule, making them that much more effective than sanctions.
So what am I proposing? Quite simply to take sanctions off the table. Cancel all existing sanctions and make a real commitment to not using them in the future, complete with a convincing mechanism to avoid opting out of the commitment. By limiting our bargaining position in terms of threats, we actually make it stronger. One of the (few) advantages of the Bush presidency, at least with respect to this, is that he has repeatedly made credible his threats to invade. If we remove our potential middle-ground, these threats gain more power. Of course the problem is that our military is already overtaxed and threats alone are not a very conveniant or friendly way to do foreign policy.
That's why we need more development aid. As Senator Shumer has stated with respect to Afghanistan, especially the opium poppy-Taliban connection, we need to give an alternative to negative behavior. Terror, the drug trade and street crime all thrive in environments where there are few opportunities. In Freakanomics we see that most drug dealers would much rather be janitors. Certainly poppy farmers would rather be almost anything else. So we need to give that opportunity. Investing in infrastructure, weather in the inner city or in Palestine or Afghanistan, gives people something better to do. It just makes sense to give replacement opportunities. When people become vegitarian, a common first step is to simply make the same meals while replacing meat. There exist dozens of different stop-smoking aids that replace cigarettes with another source of nicotine or another oral fixation. My best attempt to end my late-night snacking has been to replace it with late-night stretching. Replace poppies with another crop, replace black-market jobs with legitimate ones, replace terrorist-funded schools and hospitals.
So how does this all fit together? It's all about options. More positive options, less negative ones. Fewer options for punishment makes the threat of other punishments more credible. More options for development makes the possibility of change more real.
And a preview of next time, maybe: while we're replacing things: we need to stop thinking about world politics as a game for leaders. One of the fallacious roots of sanction theory is that citizens make a good proxy for their leaders. This is a bad assumption in a democracy and a worse one anywhere else. Whipping boys are not a good punishment for leaders lacking in compassion. And what's worse, by invoking sanctions, we fall into the leader's trap, we conflate him with the country. This is nothing more than a cult of personality. If we do want another punishment option, maybe this one makes sense: instead of sanctions (starving the whipping boy) or war (killing the whipping boy), why don't we ever consdier assassination? If we truly believe a leader singularly responsible for his country's ills, why not just take him out? If this doesn't make sense to you, maybe the assumption of leader as pied piper is a flawed one. Anyway, more on the leader/people fallicy next time, maybe...
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