rdf's blog

Inflation has existed ever since the invention of money. It is always decried as a bad thing which must be eliminated or at least controlled. Lately the absolutist position of earlier ages has been replaced by inflation "targeting" by central banks. The current head of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, even wrote a book on the subject.

My understanding of why inflation is regarded as something to be prevented depends on a model of social and economic interests. In my model there are three broad classes of people. The lowest class, the working class and the rentier class.

There have been many discussions recently which center on fundamental mistakes that media pundits, politicians and just the general public make when dealing with economics. Some of these are probably due to ignorance and some are definitely due to the desire to push an ideological point of view. The most troublesome are where positions are taken on policies when the evidence itself is in dispute.

One of the efforts over the past decade or so has been to blame the educational establishment (that is the public educational establishment) with the lackluster attainments of poor and minority students.

Here are the axioms:
1. Economics' role is to find the best way to allocate resources.
2. The "free market" is the best way for these allocations to occur.

At the risk of being more understood than usual...

The modern libertarian movement in the US seems to have had it start at about the same time that Ayn Rand was having the most impact. She may have been instrumental in this or she may have just be reflecting the zeitgeist of the time. This is unimportant. What is important is that her ideas and those of a similar nature from others "caught on".

Promoted by Brendan

I'm posting this after a gap of about five months as a test to see whether we can engage in abstract discussions instead of continually talking past one another.

Here are some of what one commonly hears are conservative principles. I will discuss why I don't think some of them are below.

The Supreme Court has acknowledged that efforts to make a more egalitarian society by means of government action have failed. Even without their latest ruling, statistics have shown that re-segregation of schools systems has occurred in many areas.

One of the popular arguments for not taking action is that racism no longer exists. The evidence cited includes the visibility of "minority" sports and entertainment figures and the multi-cultural makeup of many TV shows and films. Even interracial romantic couplings are now seen in films and TV.

On the other hand, when surveys are taken as to whether discrimination exists, minorities say yes in numbers as high as 80%. Tests of employment and housing opportunities using matched applicants who differ only by race show that this perception is still a reality. In one study white ex-felons were more likely to be hired than blacks without any criminal record.

Recent surveys in the US have found that 40% of voters (63% of Evangelicals) would have reservations in voting for an atheist. I think part of this stems from a feeling that atheists can't be trusted.

As the election season heats up we see more examples of obviously non-religious candidates proclaiming their beliefs because of this distrust. I speculate on the reasons below.

Let's start with a common occurrence - swearing to "tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth" in a court proceeding. Such testimony is said to be given "under oath". Until fairly recently people would swear on a Bible. This makes little sense on the face of it since the US is supposed to be a secular society. In fact when a newly elected official chose to take his oath on a Koran instead it produced criticism. (I should point out that such ceremonies are only symbolic, the actual pledge is to uphold the constitution.)

There has been a rise in interest lately about the way authoritarian types can dominate a society's political processes. The world has always had strong, ruthless leaders, and their history of abuses was one of the motivations for the creation of democratic governments.

So when the two most successful democratic governments (US, UK) start taking on the aspects of autocracy people's interest in the dynamics of the process increase. I'm not a psychologist, so my little review, below, is mostly going to be a set of references to those who are experts, but I think even for those who have little faith in studies of human behavior the issue will be worth examining.

Here are the key items for a bill of impeachment for our present government leaders:

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

Psychologist Robert Altemeyer has written a new book and posted it (for free) on line.
Altemeyer is the person whose research John Dean based his recent book "Conservatives without Conscience" on.

He coined the phrase "right wing authoritarian" personality to define the type of person who believes in a hierarchical social structure led by a strong leader. The RWA's are the followers. There is also a strong association between an RWA personality and a belief in conservative social ideas.

You can read the book online here:

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/%7Ealtemey/

In his last chapter he gives some suggestions as to ways to counter the excessive (to him) concentration of political power in the hands of the strong leaders who the RWA's follow. The leaders are called "social dominants".

The effort to discover the truth in any situation is always difficult. In order to do this more effectively it might be useful to see what the obstacles are. The aim is determine where facts can be the basis of decision making. This is a first attempt at the issue. I might also add this is not meant as a disscusion of epistemology. I'm not concerned with abstract ideas of truth, just with the practical ones of how society can make rational decisions better.

Step one is to define the domains of knowledge where truth applies. For this discussion I limit myself to the following.

The world has gotten so complicated in the past century that we no longer have the expertise to evaluate the advice we are given.

I examine below several areas that affect most of us on a personal basis:

Health

The rapid advances in medicine over the past century have led to treatments for a wide variety of conditions that were hopeless before. New drugs and surgical techniques improve the quality of life of millions everyday. So we go to the doctor with some problem and we get a recommendation for treatment. This recommendation itself is partly based on the doctor's own experience and partly based upon information provided to the doctor by medical journals, drug companies and continuing education.

It appears that Bush and his followers are pushing for more troops in Iraq. I think it is time to support the idea. My reasons below.

Please read the arguments before flying off the handle.

There has been a worldwide trend toward greater wealth inequality. Here are two items which illustrate the issue graphically:

From today's NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/06/business/worldbusiness/06wealth.html

And a site called the L Curve:
http://www.lcurve.org/
(Zoom in several times to see the full effect.)

There seem to be several philosophical positions on wealth inequality:

1. The pure libertarian - people should be allowed to earn as much as they are able as long as they don't use force or illegal actions to do it.

2. People should be allowed to earn as much as they can, but "excess" earnings should be heavily taxed to recapture some of the wealth.