White Vanning For No Apparent Reason

Such horrifying tales are common in Sri Lanka, where 26 years of ethnic conflict ended with the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in 2009. In the past century the country has also experienced two Marxist insurgencies in the south, and several anti-Tamil pogroms. In May Mangala Samaraweera, the foreign minister, admitted that it had one of the world’s largest caseloads of missing people. The armed forces, the Tamil Tigers and other insurgents are all to blame.

Figures vary hugely, depending on the source. The UN puts Sri Lanka second only to Iraq, with 5,731 outstanding cases. But Dhana Hughes of Durham University, who has studied the two southern insurgencies, estimates that thousands vanished during the second one alone, in the late 1980s. Under the authoritarian Mahinda Rajapaksa, president from 2005 to 2015, who defeated the Tamil Tigers, snatches like that of Mr Sundararaj were so common that they were dubbed “white-vanning”. Not only terrorism suspects but political opponents were targets. Some, like Mr Sundararaj, were taken for no apparent reason. Thousands more went missing from war zones.

"Sri Lanka's missing people: Refusing to give up hope," The Economist, August 6th-  August 12th, 2016, Accessed on August 10th, 2016, http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21703404-new-government-tries-give-certainty-grieving-relatives-refusing-give-up-hope

The old chaos. The normal madness.

Against Democracy

Empirical work generally shows that participating in politics makes us worse: meaner, more biased, more angry. Ideally, I argue, we’d want to minimize our degree of political participation. Further, I examine about twelve major arguments for the claim that we’re owed the right to vote, and find them all lacking. In the end, the right to vote isn’t so much about giving individuals power over themselves, but power over others. The problem is that because individuals matter so little, most individuals use what little power they have unwisely. As a result, democracies tend to make bad decisions. Against the third chair, I suggest that epistocracy—a constitutional, republican form of government in which political power is to some degree, by law, apportioned according to competence—may outperform democracy.

[...]

The best places to live right now are almost all liberal democracies. So, the point isn’t to argue that democracy is a disaster. But it’s not the end of history either. In my view, democracy has the same kind of value a hammer has. It’s an instrument for producing just and efficient outcomes, according to procedure-independent standards of justice. If we can find a better hammer, we should feel free to use it.

[...]

Most of us think a jury owes the defendant (or owes the rest of us) a competent decision. They should decide a criminal trial by 1) being aware of the relevant facts, 2) processing those facts in a rational way, and 3) deciding on good faith rather than out of prejudice, malice, or bias. Similarly, I argue, any group that wields political power must act out competently and in good faith. Just as it would be unjust to enforce a jury decision if the jurors paid no attention to the fact and decided on whim, it would be unjust to enforce a vote made out of ignorance, misinformation, or whimsy.

[...]

I use [the terms Hobbits, Hooligans and Vulcans] to describe three classes of voters. In the Lord of the Rings, Hobbits are simply folk who don’t care much about the outside world, and just want to eat, drink, and be merry. The political analogue would be a person who doesn’t care much about politics, doesn’t have strong opinions, doesn’t know much, and doesn’t participate much. Roughly half of Americans are political hobbits. Think the typical non-voter.

Hooligans are the rabid sports fans of politics. Consider: Soccer hooligans are pretty well informed about soccer, but they are biased and mean. They tend to be nasty toward fans from other teams. They only accept information that makes their team look good. Political hooligans are like that about Team Republican or Team Democrat. They have more information, and they participate frequently. But they are biased, and only accept evidence that confirms their own pre-existing views. They tend to think anyone who disagrees with them is mean or stupid. Roughly half of Americans are political hooligans. Think your typical activist or party member.

Vulcans are dispassionate, scientific thinkers. They have high knowledge, but are also aware of what they don’t know. They change their minds when the evidence calls for it. In the US, hardly anyone is a Vulcan.

Most political theories that defend democracy inadvertently do so by imagining how democracy would work if only we were all Vulcans (or on our way to becoming Vulcans). But we’re not Vulcans; we’re hobbits and hooligans. And so many proposals for making democracy better actually make it worse. For example, democratic deliberation not only fails to deliver the results political theorist say it would, but backfires.

Liese, Debra. "Jason Brennan: Justice Isn't 'Whatever Democracy Decides,'" Princeton University Press Blog, Accessed on August 9th, 2016, http://blog.press.princeton.edu/2016/08/01/jason-brennan-justice-isnt-whatever-democracy-decides/

This is from an interview with Jason Brennan about his upcoming book, Against Democracy. 

Pre-ordered.

R>G=BS?

Mr. Piketty hypothesized that income inequality has risen because returns on capital—such as profits, interest and rent that are more gleanings of the rich than the poor—outpaced economic growth.

The evidence modern capitalism foments inequality, the former adviser to French Socialist Party candidate Ségolène Royal argued, was in capital’s rising share of income at the expense of labor’s contribution over the last four decades.

But Mr. Piketty’s thesis, posed by the French economist in his controversial 2013 tome “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” isn’t proved by historical data, says International Monetary Fundeconomist Carlos Góes.

“There is little more than some apparent correlations the reader can eyeball in charts,” Mr. Góes says in a new paper published by the IMF. “While rich in data, the book provides no formal empirical testing for its theoretical causal chain.”

Mr. Góes tested the thesis against three decades of data from 19 advanced economies. “I find no empirical evidence that dynamics move in the way Piketty suggests.”

In fact, for three-quarters of the countries he studied, inequality actually fell when capital returns accelerated faster than output.

Those findings support previous work by Daron Acemoglu of theMassachusetts Institute of Technology and political scientistJames Robinson, now of the University of Chicago, suggesting Mr. Piketty’s thesis was far too simplistic for the complexities of real-world economies that are affected by politics and technology.

Mr. Góes says his study also provides evidence that Mr. Piketty’s assumption that saving rates remain stable is flawed. Rather, the data shows changes in the savings rate are likely to offset most of the effects of an increase in capital share of national income.

Talley, Ian. "'No Empirical Evidence' for Thomas Piketty's Inequality, IMF Economist Argues," The Wall Street Journal., Real Time Economics, August 5, 2016, Accessed on August 8, 2016, http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/08/05/no-empirical-evidence-for-thomas-pikettys-inequality-theory-imf-economist-argues/

I'd Like to Believe

New research by Harvard economist Dale Jorgenson offers a cheerier outlook for both them and economic growth. 

His new study, which breaks down the forces propelling U.S. growth since 1947—the year the transistor was invented—and projects them forward to 2024, anticipates a boom in low-skilled work that rekindles economic growth to the tune of 2.49% a year from now till then, a little above the 2.34% experienced from 1990 to 2014. 

Those workers will fill service jobs in a growing economy, he suggests.

While the average quality of the labor force will begin to flat-line, the number of hours worked will rebound as employment-participation rates flick back to near where they were before the Great Recession, the paper says.

Creighton, Adam. "How Low-Skilled Workers Could Rescue the World Economy," The Wall Street Journal., Real Economics Blog, Accessed on August 3, 2016, http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/08/02/how-low-skilled-workers-could-rescue-the-u-s-economy/

I'd like to believe it but you just can't predict in complex systems like a world economy. Such hubris to think you can. And we all know what my man Taleb has to say about economists and their projections. 

Her History Books Told Her That They Were Always So

Miss R. The gentleman neither looks nor talks like a bad man - Not a very bad man; as men go.  

As men go!- Poor Miss Rawlins, thought I - And dost thou know, how men go? 

Cl. Oh madam, you know him not! - He can put on the appearance of an angel of light; but has a black, a very black heart!- 

Poor I! - 

Miss R. I could not have thought it, truly!- But men are very deceitful nowadays!

Nowadays! - a fool! - Have not her history books told her that they were always so? 

Richardson, Samuel. Clarissa. New York: Penguin Classics, 2004, 790.

What emerges from this initial reading of Clarissa is how pessimistic Richardson is about human nature. There's so much rudeness, violence and indecency in this novel. It paints a picture of an ultimately corrupted humanity by means of the brutal ruination of its innocent title character. Lovelace, head corrupter, sums it up succinctly: "human nature is such a well-known rogue."

Helpful coincidence then that I've been reading so much John Gray recently. Perfect compliment to Richardson. 

On Proverbs

Proverbs . . . are the wisdom of nations and ages collected into a small compass.

Richardson, Samuel. Clarissa. New York: Penguin Classics, 2004, 606.