Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Robust Political Economy

I recently watched a video of Mark Pennington discussing "robust political economy" and thought it was very good. Arnold Kling is promoting it as well, which inspires me to share it here. The robustness of political economy that Pennington discusses is robustness to human error, frailty, ignorance, etc.

I highly recommend the talk, but I also want to highlight something that bothers me about it. This is essentially an argument for a constitutionally limited republic, and it also makes a good case for a constitutionally limited federal republic, in particular. Pennington goes a little off the reservation in acting as if he has produced a case for libertarianism, however, as if libertarianism and constitutionally limited federal republicanism are coterminous.

You see this with public choice theory a lot as well, where the economics and political science gets mixed in with a particular ideological prerogative. I think that's unfortunate. This is great political theory all around. In fact, he's highlighting exactly why I support a constitutionally limited government as well as why I make a big deal on here about federalism, and Pennington highlights these classic elements of liberal political economy by drawing attention to perhaps their most important feature: their robustness. I think Pennington pushes away people who agree with him on robust political economy but not on the libertarianism, and I think libertarians who listen to this risk thinking this elaboration of good political theory is somehow a justification of libertarianism.

I would also caution listeners to take what he says about "market failure" arguments with a grain of salt. He makes good points about robust political economy but I think he presents a somewhat distorted picture of market failure to facilitate a juxtaposition he wants to make (a juxtaposition which I think is entirely unnecessary and comes across as forced).

UPDATE: Arnold Kling highlights this conclusion which I endorse: "Societies benefit from continual experimentation. Since no one knows enough to design a perfect system, more experimentation is better.". Again, I'd highlight here the important difference between classical liberal robust political economy and modern libertarianism. One of the primary reasons for my unease at libertarianism is the threat that it poses to continual social experimentation. "There are a couple things we could try" is not a phrase you'll hear a libertarian say very often.

9 comments:

  1. mmm...

    "Since no one knows enough to design a perfect system, more experimentation is better..."

    Well that's a bit unqualified for me. It depends upon the present level of experimentation. Surely there is some point of diminishing returns. As a practical matter it may be more advantageous to promote widespread adoption of successful experiments than to increase their number.

    Despite Kling's assertion, I imagine he would be vigorously opposed to many possible experiments. Libertarian oriented thinkers often characterize this as meddling, or social engineering, if done by experts, and pandering populism if not. Oh I see you kind of wrote this point already....

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  2. "One of the primary reasons for my unease at libertarianism is the threat that it poses to continual social experimentation."

    By the state. You'd have to argue that this sort of social experimentation by the state is so vital that forgoing it is a threat. Which is a pretty stupid position to take.

    The drug war is a very good and rather glaring reason why social experimentation via state decree is exactly why libertarians are skeptical of social experimentation by the state. And the drug war (as well as alcohol prohibition) is exactly the sort of social experimentation by progressives that progressives rigorously defend even if many of them no longer defend in toto the drug war, etc.

    Your effort to frame the issue in the way that defends your non-classical liberal ideology by saying "hey, look at these sorts of experimentation you guys don't like" without addressing in anyway why we don't think those ways of doing things don't hold too much weight and that they carry far too many costs means that you're making a context free argument.

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  3. How in God's name is a centralized, militarized, one-track policy like the drug war an example of "continual experimentation" and the decentralization of decisions that I am advocating here, Gary? It's precisely the opposite of what I am talking about.

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  4. I have never seen you advocate decentralization in any specific sense. Shit the other day you were going on about socializing investment and how that was going to be the wave of the future - which is necessarily a centralizing process and would be a fucking disaster.

    "How in God's name is a centralized, militarized, one-track policy like the drug war an example of 'continual experimentation' and the decentralization of decisions that I am advocating here, Gary?"

    You'd have to understand the history of the drug war actually. It didn't start out centralized; it wasn't originally militarized; etc. It started out in the states; it was eventually adopted by the federal government. Which illustrates my point - "social experimentation" by the state tends to lead in one direction and the death of "social experimentation." You seem to want to constantly resist this claim about the tendency of the state.

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  5. re"I have never seen you advocate decentralization in any specific sense."

    ::blink blink::

    Are you shitting me?

    What exactly are you looking for - a conversion to libertarianism?

    This isn't worth my time. You've been reading this long enough to know better.

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  6. No Daniel, you do not make any sort of specific recommendations. From time to time you grouse about the desire to get rid of agricultural subsidies and then "give" the money associated with it to NASA. But that doesn't look like decentralization.

    It is a bit like asking a Republican politician what sort of cuts they would make if they were given fiat power over the issue and they respond "well, I'd make across the board cuts."

    You're never very specific in my experience with what you would like to see decentralized.

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  7. What about everything that gets discussed on here with respect to efficient market allocation?

    What about everything that gets discussed on here with respect to non-market voluntary activity?

    What about all the federalism posts about more of health reform going on at the state level, more budget flexibility at the state level, etc. I'm one of the few bloggers out there who regularly points to the problem of public sector centralization for recovery from the recession: the failure of federalism in the U.S. has made state budget policy such that it puts a substantial drag on economic recovery.

    What about all the discussions we have on here about the uses of knowledge in society and an emergent order? What about all the emergence/complexity talk on here?

    What about all the talk on here about intellectual culture - about the importance of decentralizing and broading our discourse because of the benefits of decentralized exchange and sharing of observation in producing solutions to human problems?

    And speaking of NASA - what about all the talk of pushing space exploration work beyond NASA alone - something I've talked on here a lot about.


    You are either mired in your politics and have legitimately missed all this or you know I say these things all the time and you're just being disingenuous. I didn't have time for this excursion - I still don't have time for this excursion - but it's important that you recognize how you derail this by poor comprehension not just of what I say but of what most commenters say on here.

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  8. Now - does anybody have thoughts on (1.) Pennington's work on robust political economy (I'm not that familiar with him beyond this talk), (2.) the extent to which libertarianism measures up to this goal, (3.) the importance of social experimentation, (4.) decentralization in decision making?

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  9. daniel,

    What about it? I find it rather disastisfying.

    (1) Pennington wrote a book on the minimal state.

    (2) I shared the Cato link here some time ago.

    (3) Mark Pennington in another podcast (and I think this one is better): http://www.kosmosonline.org/group-post/mark-pennington-democracy-and-deliberative-conceit

    (4) Hid book "Liberating the Land" was great.

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