My Blog

Walter Williams on “Nonsense Ideas”

Walter Williams wrote an editorial confronting a few collectivist economic fallacies that we hear all to often in argument. Here he makes a poignant and slightly amusing remark on bleeding heart government regulations:

How many times have we heard: If it will save just one life, it’s worth it? The “it” could be bike helmet laws, childproof medicine bottles, or formaldehyde and asbestos safety regulations. A good economist cringes hearing such statements because they only consider the benefits of an action while ignoring the cost. Looking at benefits only, just about anything is worth doing because there’s usually a benefit. Let’s look at it.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, some 43,443 people were killed on the nation’s highways in 2005. If Congress were to enact a 10 miles per hour national speed limit, we’d save thousands of lives each year. You say, “Williams, that would be stupid and impractical!” My response to you is: But look at all the lives that would be saved. What you really mean by stupid and impractical is that preventing thousands of highway fatalities is not worth the cost and inconvenience that would result from having to poke along at 10 miles per hour. Of course, calling a 10 miles per hour law stupid and impractical is a more socially acceptable way of saying those saved lives aren’t worth it.

The contentions I’d essentially make against regulations and laws of the same spirit are:

1) Government changes the incentives present under the free market–that, you’re on your own and you get what you deserve (i.e. produce)–to “you get whatever the political climate sees fit.”

2) Most importantly: government has no right to tell me what to do with myself and my stuff (which also counts as myself insofar as I earned it and I own it).

Especially when you get into the narrow minded logic of “one life makes it all worth it” you run the risk of infinite waste and fiscal irresponability. As any honest man will acknowlege, you can have only a finite amount of economic resources at any given point in time. The goal of an economic system is to allocate that wealth in the most effecient and logical way. Once you apply the “one life” mentality you will justify plundering any amount of your resources on one problem without regard to what may be the present and future sideffects in other realms of the economy.

Gore and Gingrich leave 10% vacuum in each primary

Losers like me who have been paying close attention to the 2008 presidential race, including the polls, since at least two years before the election are already beginning to feel frisky. Looking at the polls (yes, I watch the polling 340 days before the first primary vote is cast) I noticed a glaring hole in the opinion of each party to date: about 10% of the each party says they support a candidate who is not running. For the Democrats, Al Gore (frm. VP); for the Republicans, Newt Gingrich (fmr. Speaker of House).

The point of this observation is that a significant portion of each party is swayed towards a particular point of view that will be up for grab assuming that their choice does not run, which in all likelihood (moreso for Gore) they will not. In two crowded primaries (primaries are always crowded) 10% is a large chunk of the vote, and it would be gold if any one of those running could pick up a large portion of that persuasion.

Now, the Newt constituency is probably less significant for a couple of reasons: (a) that Newt has a less ideologically defined following and (b) that Newt himself may run.

The former Speaker’s support comes from an array of strong, base (but not necessarily evangelical) conservatives–of the inside-the-beltway variety–who likes him because he has experience and is an intelligent conservative politician. But at the same time Gingrich is pragmatic and not even as ideological as others running within his own party. There is probably not any one candidate who would take a very large portion of Newt’s following, nor is there any one thing that any of the Republican candidates could do to take it. There are any number of capabilities not limited to Giuliani and/or McCain taking fiscal and/or hawkish conservatives, Huckabee or Brownback taking social conservatives, Duncan Hunter taking the boarder-enforcement interests, or even Ron Paul taking the libertarian wing of Newt’s constituency.

As we will see, a major theme of the GOP primary will be contenders jockeying for the support of institutional conservatives. Gingrich’s 10% represents much of this group. And if no one is able to court those voters it is not out of the question that we could see a late, dramatic entry from Speaker Gingrich for the Republican nomination.

On the democrat’s side, the Gore constituency may be far more important for the opposite reasons that Newt’s is probably less significant. Namely that (a) Gore’s following does have a definitive identity and (b) Gore will not run.

While Gingrich’s level of support makes more sense, because he has not ruled out a run, Gore has repeatedly said that he will not run. Why then has he consistently received 10% of the support in the polls including 14% in the latest poll (USA Today/Gallup)? Its because Gore’s following represents a devoted ideological interest: environmentalists. The environmentalist base is loyal and devoted–so devoted their support of the Green Party ironically cost Gore the election in 2000–and growing. Strangely, despite all the commotion about global warming none of the democratic candidates have really pushed the environmentalist stance to appeal to the green vote which is why Gore is still receiving such a large fraction in the polls. If any one of the Democrat candidates does go strong for the environmentalist vote it could make a very significant increase in support (try 7-8%), possibly big enough to put them over the top. Still, Mrs. Clinton’s lead appears to be very big and even an 8% for Edwards or Obama may not be enough.

 

Nuclear No More: N. Korea Abandons Nuclear Ambitions

The news is beginning to splash across the blogosphere and the AP wire that an agreement has been reached with North Korea about its nuclear programs.  Years of negotiations have failed to yield an agreement. After talks fell suspect to failure earlier in the week, noone expected an agreement in the coming days.  Negotiators have, however, proved skeptics wrong.  Assistant Secretary of StateChristopher Hill notes his jubilance at the agreement, claiming that he’s “encouraged by this that we were able to take a step forward on the denuclearization issue.”

The end of a 16-hour day full of negotiations has delivered an agreement.  The mainstream media has sparse details on the agreement, and news agencies like CNN are calling the agreement tentative.  Chinese Foreign ministry Spokesman Qin Gang followed up with a little bit more information, detailing that the parties “still have to make further consultation discussions so as to confirm the progress we made.”  Negotiations begin again tomorrow at 10:30AM Korean time, which equates to 9:30PM Monday ET.

The initial enthusiasm may be short lived, however.  Several of the nations involved in the talks, including Japan, expressed doubt at the agreement.  Kenichiro Sasae, chief envoy from Japan, said it was “too early to tell” if the agreement was one that would be satisfactory to all parties.  North Korea’s demands were viewed as slightly excessive by South Korea and Japan.  It will be interesting to see how much of a compromise North Korea has made in order to reach this agreement.  The Arms Control Associaton provides aconcise history of the conflict.  Previous negotiations with North Korea have resulted in successful agreements that broke apart because of North Korean noncompliance.  The original “Agreed Framework” can also be viewed courtesy of the ACA.  The agreement broke down in late 2002 after North Korea admitted to a nuclear program after being confronted with evidence by the US.

Needless to say, any sort of agreement with the North Koreans is big news for the American people and for the entire world.  The dismantling of the North Korean nuclear program leaves one country left on the US “Axis of Evil”: Iran.  News about North Korea’s nuclear program died down after their claimed underground nuclear test on October 9, 2006.  Tensions with Iran were high this week as the US accused the country of arming insurgents in Iraq.  Newsweek did a special on the looming conflict with Iran, with a cover touting “America’s Hidden War with Iran.”  The Guardian, meanwhile, cited examples of US provocations.  A second US battle group was sent to the Gulf in anticipation of a conflict with Iran.  The report concluded that the “present military build-up in the Gulf would allow the US to mount an attack by the spring.”  Iran has vehemently dismissed American accusations and the Washington Postreports today that Bush has “softened his rhetoric on Iranian relations.”  In the report, Ahmadinejad calls for peace,

“We shy away from any kind of conflict, any kind of bloodshed,” Ahmadinejad told ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “As we have said repeatedly, we think that the world problems can be solved through dialogue, through the use of logic and a sense of friendship. There is no need for the use of force.”

Bush Softens Rhetoric on Iran Relations - washingtonpost.com

While the conflict with Iran seems far from reconciliation, the North Korean problem appears to have been solved, if only for a brief period of time.  The American people should expect to hear a lot about Christopher Hill’s success in North Korea, as it’s one of the few diplomatic successes the US government has had abroad in recent years.  We’ll be back with more commentary as more news is available.

Chavez further consolidates power

I think its safe to say that my warning last week about utilitarian socialism in Venezuela is perpetuating itself. Earlier today Venezuela centralized political power to the brink of dictatorship. The Venezuelan congress voted to sacrifice its power legeslative check to President Hugo Chavez so to expedite the nationalization of key sectors of the economy in the broader movement towards socialism.

Al Jazeera reports ‘Chavez granted rule by decree’:

Venezuela’s congress has granted Hugo Chavez, the president, powers to rule by decree–enabling him to push through plans to nationalise key industries as part of his “socialist revolution”.

The special powers, which las for 18 months, will enable him to transform 11 broadly-defined areas including the economy, energy, and defence.

Roberto Hernandez, the congressional vice-president, said: “We in the national assembly will not waver in granting President Chavez an enabling law so he can quickly and urgently set up the framework for resolving the grave problems we have.”

Concentrating power, it must be said, is not in and of itself evil but it leaves room for any extent of evil to be committed. The reason we have checks and balences in our constitution is to keep the government in line, and to power from being centralized on a single whim. Making Chavez, in effect, a temorary autocrat is not dangerous just for the reason of puting the fate of every Venezuelan’s freedom soly in his hand, but it is outright suicidal when we see why it is being done.

The same article observes that,

The president has already said that he will use the law to decree nationalisations of Venezuela’s largest telecommunications company and the electricity sector, impose new taxes on the rich and greater state control over the oil and natural gas industries.

Chavez’s supporters deny the law constitutes an abuse of power and say radical steps are necessary to accelerate the creation of a more egalitarian society.

The opposition accuses Chavez of being a tyrant in the making, taking a slow approach in following Fidel Castro…

Once again we see the corolation between the tyrannical means (dictatorship) and the tyrannical ends (socialism). Nor is it a suprise that Chavez has received the ardent support of his people in concentrating his power. Pure democracy and pure autocracy are not opposites but they are conceptually the same, insofar as they have in common an abscence of checks on power. In an unlimited democracy, where the majority rules, there is no force stopping the majority from doing anything they want; in a autocracy there is no force stopping what the autocracy wants. In Venezuela the majority has perpetuated the move to socialism and also excused Chavez’s consolidation of power in doing so–either way, there was never any check on power.

Too often Democracy is misconceived as an inherent value, but it is not. President Bush, for one, has perpetuated this idea in his foreign policy and he continues to apply the same idea to Venezuela:

George Bush, the US president, said Chavez’s expanded powers and possible plans to nationalise key economic interests left him worried about Venezuelan democracy.

“I’m concerned about the Venezuelan people, and I’m worried about the diminution of democratic institution(s), as well as nationalisation efforts that may or may not be taking place,” Bush told Fox News television.

Asked whether Chavez, a perennial thorn in Washington’s side, posed a military threat to US interests, Bush replied: “I think the bigger threat is the diminution of democratic institutions.”

But in the same way that he was mistaken in thinking that democracy could bring freedom to Iraq, he is also mistaken in thinking that they serve as cause and effect, respectively, in Venezuela. Whether or not a law is passed by a majority or by a single ruler does not change whether it is right or wrong. Freedom can as easily be destroyed by democracy as it can by dictatorship. There is no inexorable connection between the policy and the mode of government, and thus the policy–whether or not a country is free–must be what is judged in evaluating the morality of a government. The evil is not in the means of government–although it is indicative of it; the evil we see is in the progressively totalitarian ends which are being perpetuated by unchecked power (first democracy, now dictatorship). Its about time the world recognized that socialist governments such as Venezuela are immoral by their nature, whether or not a majority of the country’s population agrees.