Violence and the State

What do people think of this point that if you're not willing to haul someone off at gunpoint for something then it's not a legitimate concern of the state? For the life of me I can't understand why everyone is so impressed with this blog post. Kevin Williamson starts out whining about a dissenting letter to the editor in The Economist. He then goes on to say that if you won't use violence for something the state shouldn't do it.

That seems absurd. Violence is an extreme recourse, even for a state, isn't it? What about private citizens that own guns? Ultimately, when the cards are down, they'll put someone at gunpoint to get something they want. It's an extreme reaction and it's a reaction that they rarely engage in, but ultimately the use of violence is the ultimate defense and enforcer for a private citizen, is it not? That's why we have the Second Amendment - so the government can't weaken that absolutely essential method of recourse. But you don't say "if a private family isn't willing to get something at gunpoint they have no business doing it". Kevin Williamson is suggesting that the law of the jungle is all there is and that we should judge institutions by the absolute most extreme action they might take. What a poorly reasoned argument!

Why don't we talk that way about private citizens? Why don't we say that private citizens should only be doing what they're willing to defend at gunpoint? Because we live in a society governed by contract, institutions, and norms of behavior. That's what allows us to transcend the law of the jungle. The thing is, the government exists in that society as well. Indeed, with the police force and the courts the government is part of the vast web of emergent institutions that make things like contracts possible.

Kevin Williamson's intellectual sloppiness reveals one of the biggest problems with modern libertarianism: it's obsession with "the state". Nobody talks about government more than libertarians. Why? Because they see it as some sort of alien institution rather than an emergent institution. They think about the state categorically, that blunts their arguments, and they sound ridiculous in the process and don't even realize it; instead, they think stuff like this is deep and insightful.

This is the problem with "road to serfdom" type thinking as well. As soon as you let this piece of categorical confusion in "the road to serfdom" follows easily - it's not exactly a tough argument to piece together. And you get people like Kevin Williamson sputtering about social democracies and Economist letter writers: "Well, bully for northern Europe and journalists with anecdotes! It’s not as though gunpoint politics has no history in Europe: Wait for the next all-European war and let me know how the Dutch and the Danes do."

Now he's just sounding like a garden variety conservative. I'll acknowledge good libertarian arguments when I hear one. There's a lot about the state that cannot be defended and I don't try. This isn't one of those good arguments and I'm baffled that so many people are linking it favorably.

The Conservative and Liberal Impulse

Patrick Appel shares a thought from Jonathan Bernstein:

"I do think that there's something authentically different between liberals and conservatives, at least some of the time, and at least in some cases. If not first principles, though, perhaps we can call them impulses. To me, the liberal impulse is basically: We Can Do Better. And the conservative impulse? Don't Make It Worse. Liberals, or perhaps all of us when we're inspired by the liberal impulse, look around and see a variety of problems and available resources and want to alleviate pain and suffering; they want to solve problems. Conservatives, or perhaps all us us when we're inspired by the conservative impulse, remember all the cases of noble intentions gone awry, the cases of unintended consequences, the cases in which problems seemed terribly severe but then they seemingly melted away without anyone, and certainly not everyone collectively, trying to address them. Liberals appreciate the promise of the future; conservatives appreciate how rickety the accomplishments of the present are, and how easily what we think is safe can be destroyed."

This is of course reminiscent of the old adage that liberal economists say "markets fail, use government", conservative economists say "markets work, use markets", and an assortment of other economists say "markets fail, use markets".

I guess it makes some sense to assign these "impulses" this way, but the whole exercise strikes me as kind of dumb. Do people honestly have one of these impulses and not the other impulses? I suppose some people do, but that strikes me as wrong. The "impulse" we have oughta be context-dependent. With some market failures I'm tempted to say "markets fail, use markets" either because the public choice problems are so great, there's no feasible non-market solution, or there's an ethical reason to maintain the market. With other market failures, I'm tempted to say "markets fail, use government" because the public choice problems are not as significant and the prospects of success are greater.

But this doesn't seem like an impulse that you should naturally have based on an ideological predisposition. It seems like an impulse that should be contingent on the situation at hand.

I think it's also pretty dumb to say that the liberal impulse comes from the impulse to "solve problems" while the conservative impulse comes from the recognition of "unintended consequences". When a liberal suggests we act, it's usually precisely because they are highlighting the unintended consequences of the market institution. When a conservative suggests that we don't act, it's precisely because they want to see a problem solved. And that's all before we even get into the wrinkle that often liberals say "don't act" and conservatives and libertarians say "act".

The more I think about this quote the less I like it actually! If nothing else these judgements should be context-specific, not person-specific. And the underlying motivations they identify I think are all wrong.

Now I'm starting to feel like a political orphan again...

Interesting Keynes Quotes

I had a few interesting Keynes thoughts that I figured I'd just post all together. First, I came across this Ayn Rand quote from Atlas Shrugged:

"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other--and your time is running out."

I'm not a huge fan of Ayn Rand. I usually take the Christopher Hitchens critique, that Ayn Rand isn't entirely off-base but that she puts way more emphasis than necessary on the points where she's correct, and neglects a lot of other important points (she's also a hyper-rationalist with a lot of faith in human reason, which as readers know is always suspicious to me). Anyway, what struck me was how reminiscent this line was of a line from Keynes (a line he published 21 years earlier, I might add). In the conclusion of the General Theory he wrote:

"For my own part, I believe that there is social and psychological justification for significant inequalities of incomes and wealth, but not for such large disparities as exist today. There are valuable human activities which require the motive of money-making and the environment of private wealth-ownership for their full fruition. Moreover, dangerous human proclivities can be canalised into comparatively harmless channels by the existence of opportunities for money-making and private wealth, which, if they cannot be satisfied in this way, may find their outlet in cruelty, the reckless pursuit of personal power and authority, and other forms of self-aggrandisement. It is better that a man should tyrannise over his bank balance than over his fellow-citizens; and whilst the former is sometimes denounced as being but a means to the latter, sometimes at least it is an alternative."

Before moving off of Ayn Rand, I just want to say that if they ever make a movie about her life, she should be played by Helena Bonham Carter.

The second Keynes statement is one shared by Andrew Sullivan. Keynes is speaking to the Liberal Party in Britain in the 1920s, which is a very interesting read right now, given the hung parliament that Britain is dealing with. The Liberal Party has been marginalized for a while now in Britain, but in the early part of the century it was in a very strategic position vis-a-vis the Conservatives and Labour, just as it is today. Keynes says:

"In the realm of practical politics, two things must happen - both of which are likely. There must be one more General Election to disillusion Labour optimists as to the measure of their political strength, standing by themselves. But equally on our side there must be a certain change.

The Liberal Party is divided between those who, if the choice be forced upon them, would vote Conservative, and those who, in the same circumstances, would vote Labour. Historically, and on grounds of past service, each section has an equal claim to call itself Liberal. Nevertheless, I think that it would be for the health of the party if all those who believe, with Mr. Winston Churchill and Sir Alfred Mond, that the coming political struggle is best described as Capitalism versus Socialism, and, thinking in these terms, mean to die in the last ditch for Capitalism, were to leave us.

The brains and character of the Conservative Party have always been recruited from the Liberals, and we must not grudge them the excellent material with which, in accordance with our historic mission, we are now preserving them from intellectual starvation. It is much better that the Conservative Party should be run by honest and intelligent ex-Liberals, who have grown too old and tough for us, than by Die-Hards. Possibly the Liberal Party cannot serve the State in any better way than by supplying Conservative Governments with Cabinets, and Labour Governments with ideas."

I'm still trying to parse exactly what he means in the second paragraph, with respect to capitalism and socialism. Keynes had very harsh words for both capitalism and socialism at different points in his life, so I think it's important to be careful about what we read into any given statement. Often, what seems like support for one is motivated more by a frustration with the other than by genuine sympathy. I think it's quite fair to say that Keynes wasn't especially sympathetic to either laissez-faire capitalism or socialism. Regardless, what really interests me is the third paragraph.

I want to be careful about cutting and pasting European political dynamics onto American political dynamics (particularly when I don't know much about European political dynamics), but I think there is something of an analogue to the Liberal Party in American politics - the only difference is that it is not organized into a party of its own. It is tempting to call this group "moderates" or "centrists", but I don't think that's exactly right. First, there are a lot of moderates who simply want to be all things to all people - it's calculated political opportunism (or, more charitably, good representation of an ideologically diverse district). Moreover, not all of this reasonable broker of good ideas and good leaders isn't always in the center of the ideological spectrum. I personally look to the very senior researchers and former public servants at my work as examples: the late Ned Gramlich was very liberal, Robert Reischauer is liberal, but probably more "left of center" than Gramlich was, Rudy Penner is conservative, and Eugene Steuerle I suppose you might call "right of center". They all have moderate and realistic dispositions, but not necessarily moderate politics or ideologies. We could add to this list Bruce Bartlett, and probably David Frum. In the political sphere I'd point to John Warner, Richard Lugar, Ron Wyden, and among new Congressmen perhaps Scott Brown and Mark Warner. At the state level we have Mike Bloomberg and Arnold Schwarzenegger. All these guys are pro-market without being squeemish about the reality of governance. And most importantly, they primarily act on the basis of ideas and not emotions or party platforms. President Obama is a mixed bag on this one. He is an ideas-man, but he plays an awful lot of politics too, and he panders to ideological causes - certainly more so than Bill Clinton I think. He's not the raving liberal that people make him out to be. I think he's best thought of as left-of-center with a few social-justice-y issues that are important to him, rather than a full-blown liberal.

Anyway, reading Keynes it makes me wonder how things would be different if a lot of these guys came together in their own party rather than scattering across the Democratic and Republican parties. I imagine, like the Liberal Party, it would still be a relatively fluid group, and that would probably be a good thing.

Will the real "epistemic closure" please stand up?

There has been considerable discussion in the blogosphere about the "epistemic closure" of modern American conservatism. It seems to have started with Julian Sanchez, who expressed concerns about AEI's treatment of David Frum (an issue that has been disconcerting for me as well, as a think tank employee myself). Douthat, Yglesias, McArdle, Friedersdorf, and many others responded to Sanchez's thoughts. Another major engagement has involved Manzi and Levin at The National Review, over a piece that Levin wrote on climate change. Bruce Bartlett has shared his own, very well known experience in the conservative movement. Ezra Klein adds some interesting (if limited) empirical evidence (I share his criticism of the method - but as he suggests, something similar could be expanded upon). There's certainly a lot that I've missed, but each of these links will lead you to other links - so you should be able to catch up (I haven't read through it all in detail - I've been putting my free time into studying for a final this week).

Anyway, through all of these really great thoughts, I think the meaning of the initial "epistemic closure" concern has been lost. I count at least three versions of "epistemic closure" available to us - two of which are being addressed in this ongoing debate, and a third that I think is especially interesting to think about.

Version 1 (Wrong and Uninteresting): "Epistemic Closure" as shorthand for various and sundry bitching about conservatism
One of my biggest concerns, however, has been that this whole debate has degenerated into complaining about conservatism, rather than providing a clear critique of conservatism. For Bruce Bartlett, conservatism's alleged epistemic closure amounts to: "They don’t think there are any new ideas of particular interest to them. Their philosophy is fully formed. The only question is how best to implement conservative ideas in the political debate". His concern seems to be the increasing activism of conservatism, and the rigidity of their value system. Others have talked about the "conservative cocoon" phenomenon, where conservatives (allegedly) have restricted interactions with those who don't share their views (in a similar vein, a friend from college shared this this interesting research with me on the closedness of the conservative blogosphere). Douthat focuses on the point of whether there are internal debates in conservatism, a question that is especially salient in light of the Frum Affair. But none of these address the more fundamental point of epistemic closure that was originally raised.

Bartlett's concern about activism and values is beside the initial point. Marxists, for example (at least the early Marxists) were unalloyed activists with a completely closed value system, but they were very thorough in thinking through epistemological questions. As for the "cocoon", the phrase "the ivory tower" is definitive of the cocooning of a group of thinkers - and yet no one accuses the academy of having an underdeveloped approach to epistemology. Douthat's concern with internal debate also has nothing to do with epistemic closure. There is no debate to speak of that 2+2=4 or that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Does that mean it is supported by a suspect epistemology? As I say, I haven't read all of this in great detail, but a lot of the debate seems to simply be a random assortment of complaints about conservatism, with the fancy phrase "epistemic closure" thrown in as a catch-all.

Version 2 (Wrong and Interesting): "Epistemic Closure" and the way that conservatives know what they "know"
Beneath the surface of these random complaints, there is real concern with and discussion of what Julian Sanchez initially meant by "epistemic closure" - namely, how conservatives derive knowledge about the issues that they pontificate on. Sanchez argues that accuracy of the knowledge inputs for the conservative movement are increasingly unimportant. Conspiracy theories, birth certificate skepticism, and crazy Beckesque guilt-by-association chalkboard flow charts have (so the argument goes) become sufficient factual fodder on which conservatives build their arguments.

The Manzi-Levin debate on the National Review is worth looking at as an example (well, at least Manzi's initial post is an example) of a genuine discussion of epistemological questions. Climate change is one issue where I think conservatives are pretty clearly ignoring the evidence to defend what is essentially an ideological position. Other issues, such as financial regulation, health reform, and fiscal stimulus are more dubious issues. I think it's hard to make a blanket statement that conservatives "ignore the evidence" more than liberals. Often they're taking the same evidence and simply applying a different set of values to it. Regardless, it's a fruitful question to ask - and there are a lot of conservatives, particularly in Washington, that do seem to be assuming their own conclusions rather than carefully reviewing the evidence.

Version 3 (Right and Very Interesting): The "Epistemic Closure" of Julian Sanchez's undergraduate subconscious
The New York Times reports Sanchez's confession that "he probably fished “epistemic closure” out of his subconscious from an undergraduate course in philosophy". Indeed he did. Sanchez used "epistemic closure" to describe the problem of "epistemological closed-mindedness", but "epistemic closure" is also a technical term in philosophy, which I only stumbled across recently while preparing for this blog post. The short definition of "epistemic closure" is:

"The principle that, where P and Q are propositions, if we know that P, and know that P logically entails Q, we know that Q"

In other words, "closure" refers to a closed system of knowledge, not closed-mindedness. I think it's fine that Sanchez didn't use "epistemic closure" in this technical sense, but it's interesting to think about the implications of this definition. The idea of "epistemic closure" is often closely associated with skepticism, because of the very real possibility that your knowledge of your initial statement (P), somehow (implicitly) presupposes the later statement (Q). The example given in this longer treatment of epistemic closure is:

"the proposition I have a driver’s license issued by the state of North Carolina entails that North Carolina is not a mere figment of my imagination"

The skeptical position would point out that your ability to make the initial statement presupposes the truth of the second statement. It's not exactly what Sanchez had in mind (and I should point out that I think what he did have in mind, while not exactly "epistemic closure", was also very interesting), but this does relate to a problem that I'm personally concerned about: the problem of deductively extended logical systems of thought. Theoretically, deductive logic is a fantastic source of knowledge. But it relies on two fundamental pillars: the accuracy of its axioms and presuppositions, and the validity of its deductions. The skeptical objection to arguments based on "epistemic closure" are very similar to my (perhaps less formalized) reservations about deductive logic and a disproportionate emphasis on rationality and reason in general.

Logical formality can amplify the errors of bad initial assumptions, while providing the veneer of incontrovertibility. As logical systems get increasingly extended, making broader and broader claims, the initial errors (which may have been negligible) can easily multiply into substantial errors. As Nikola Tesla once said: "Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality". In economics, I think the Austrian School and Real Business Cycle School are both excellent examples of Tesla's scientists who have "wandered off", confident in their deductive systems that bear no relation to reality. At least Real Business Cycle theorists will do empirical work to check up on things. The Austrian School explicitly refuses to do this check up.

I suppose I've wandered quite far from the point of conservative "epistemic closure" over the course of this etymological exercise. Are conservatives more likely to "wander off" with deductive arguments built from fallacious assumptions? Quite possibly. I think that's an open question.