The President's Party Affiliation and Changes in Inequality

Will Wilkinson says he has questions about a result in Larry Bartels' new book concerning the relationship between changes in inequality and whether the president is Republican or Democrat:

Unequal Democracy, by Will Wilkinson: I’m three pages into the first chapter of Larry Bartels’ forthcoming Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age and I have questions:

My examination of the partisan politics of economic in equality, in chapter 2, reveals that Democratic and Republican presidents over the past half-century have presided over dramatically different patterns of income growth. On average, the real incomes of middle- class families have grown twice as fast under Democrats as they have under Republicans, while the real incomes of working poor families have grown six times as fast under Democrats as they have under Republicans. These substantial partisan differences persist even after allowing for differences in economic circumstances and historical trends beyond the control of individual presidents. They suggest that escalating inequality is not simply an inevitable economic trend— and that a great deal of economic inequality in the contemporary United States is specifically attributable to the policies and priorities of Republican presidents.

Fascinating if true! But, congress writes the laws, not the president. So why not look at the party tilt of congresses rather than presidents? Or the alignments between the party controlling congress and the part in the White House. What happens under divided government, I wonder.

This is not to say that presidents don’t have a lot of policymaking power... The cabinet agencies’ considerable discretion in creating and enforcing regulations and their ability to selectively apply and enforce legislated mandates should be troubling — in itself and independent of issues of partisan slant — to those, like Bartels, who start with the Dahl’s “Who governs?” question.

Because growth effects, for good or ill, follow policy changes with a pretty long lag (in political time at least), I guess this effect is supposed to be largely a function of redistributive policy that can take effect within a president’s term?

I’m looking forward to reading pages 4 - n. ... I find that I’m completely convinced by the main premise .. that a great deal of the increase in inequality has been an effect of Republican approaches to taxation and redistribution. I’m simply not convinced that this is pernicious. I do think economic stratification is pernicious, but that has more to do with the Democratic Party standing in the way of fundamental structural reform in education as it has to do with Republican tax cuts for rich people, doesn’t it? ... Page 4, here I come!

Dani Rodrik has already read past page three, and he is quite convinced by what he has read:

American political economics in one picture, by Dani Rodrik: Look at the figure below, and then look at it again, and again, and again.  It is the most telling picture about the U.S. political economy I have ever seen.

...What it shows is the difference that the President's party affiliation makes to the distribution of income during the four years of the president's term. (The distributional outcomes are shown with one year's lag.)  When a Republican president is in power, people at the top of the income distribution experience much larger real income gains than those at the bottom--a difference of 1.5 percent per year going from the bottom to the top quintile in the income distribution. The situation is reversed when a Democrat is in power: those who benefit the most are the lower income groups. If you are in the bottom quintile, the difference between having a Democratic or a Republican president in office is an income gain (or loss) of more than 2 percent per year! Strikingly, compared to Republicans, Democratic presidents generate higher income gains for all income groups (although the difference is statistically significant only for lower income groups).

Bartels shows in his book that this difference is not a statistical artifact or a fluke.  It is not the result of Democrats coming to power during better economic times, or of Republicans reining in the unsustainable excesses of Democratic administrations they replace. (It turns out that the same pattern prevails even when a Republican president is succeeded by another Republican.) These numbers are real and they are the outcome of partisan differences in policy. So if you are one of those who have bought the story that income distribution is the result of pure market forces and technological changes, with politics playing no role--think again.

Bartels' findings raise an important puzzle: if Democrats produce better income results for everyone, and particularly for the more numerous lower-income groups, why do they not always win?  Bartels offers a rather complicated, but well-supported answer to this question having to do with voter myopia and psychology.  (You will have to wait to read his book to get the full story). But Bartels does demolish two of the standard arguments regarding Republican advantages at the polls: the idea that poor Americans vote Republican for cultural reasons, or that Americans do not care about inequality.

Comments

[reason]

This topic has been well (and repeatedly) covered on Angry Bear. It is also a favourite PK theme. I wonder what this looks like in other countries? Quite different I think. The US political environment is quite unique I think.

[reason]

Wilkinson
I do think economic stratification is pernicious, but that has more to do with the Democratic Party standing in the way of fundamental structural reform in education as it has to do with Republican tax cuts for rich people, doesn’t it?
Anybody know what he is babbling about here? I thought the Republicans were recently in charge of BOTH congress and the White House. And exactly what reform does he have in mind? And how does he explain the better growth for EVERYONE under Democratic Administrations? And what really puzzled me is that he starts out being surprised by this information. I thought it was common knowledge.

[Cyrille]

Well, in France too you get a better economy when the left is governing, yet the common wisdom is exactly the opposite.

Still, while in the US I believe those lines would cross if you could measure the top percentiles or even the top 0.1%, I would guess than in France the lines cross earlier (say at the top 10%), so that more people would truly experience better growth under rightist governments, and since they have far more access to the media it could explain a lot of the perception.

In the US, you need your completely, utterly bought-over media and political system to achieve that. Some people even believe that Democrats are leftists. Oh no, they are on the right, it's just that Republicans are somewhat to the right of extreme-right.

[hari]

There's nothing unusual or myopic about Bartels surprised *ideological* political-economic findings. It has been going on since GOP rule materialized. However, in comparison with EU-27, there is a fundamental ideological paradigm difference. On a linear scale of ideological stratification Democrats and Republicans would fall *right* of the centre, even in comparison with Conservative Parties in EU, including Christian Democrats. Why? I suppose it is all about cultural values and political morality, as European society at large as matured with its safety net as an essential cornerstone of equality. Although in some countries equality may be be still a distant objective because they're coming out of Soviet-style authoritarian mentality. And, of course, American media is not only pervasive in creating opinion but also guiding the public in the wrong direction - namely, libertarianism. That's is NOT possible in EU today....

I'd venture to say that Democratic Party will sooner than later split into a *Progressive* social democratic wing and a more *Centrist* status quo party. There is no illusion about GOP breaking up any time soon....

The myopic public or sovereign is not only poorly informed but down the scale of economic stratification in society, I'd guess education (high school graduates) is minimum for a responsible electorate to be *informed* of what's up in politics.

[baileyman]

This could be interesting, say, if the Democratic Party of today is the same as the Democratic Party of FDR.

[reason]

baileyman...
and todays GOP is the same as Eisenhauer's of course.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Some possible explanations:

1) pro-lifers are not welcome by the Democrats (and yes I know about Harry Reid)

2) the country does not trust Democrats on security

3) the Democrats tend to self-destruct (see 1968, 1980, 1988, etc.)

4) there is a split among the Democrats; the Volvo liberals versus the blue collar unionists (see free trade)

etc.

I have no particular favorites, talk among yourselves.

[Organic George]

"or of Republicans reining in the unsustainable excesses of Democratic administrations they replace"

Can we put this MEME to bed. It's the Republicans that have used spending polices to run up Federal deficits in hopes of destroying the Federal governments ability to serve the people. Or as Grover Norquist said "make the Federal government small enough so I can drown it in a bad tub"

[ken melvin]

2nding reason - Cactus/Mike at Angry Bear, too, is bringing out a book with the same conclusions. Cactus has looked at the congress question, too. Lots of good graphs. Check it out at Angry Bear.

The parties have completely different attitudes about social structure.

[save_the_rustbelt]

In this part of the world, real incomes and wealth are being impacted (+/-) largely by globalization, and that gained steam in about 1990 through today.

So which party do we tag with that?

[hari]

I suppose you could argue that political demogoguey (what we see/notice a lot in today's US Congressional politics) is a true reflection of its continental diverse society:

Yes or Not?

Fascism took root in Western Europe along similar lines of social developments. The missing link is organized labour....

@ Reason -

I don't think you can compare today's GOP with Ike Admin.
Recall Ike could just as well have decided to be Dem candidate. His moral antenna was rigid and even Nixon had to suffer the *fools paradise*. And don't forget his farwell speech - *military-industrial complex* and its nefarious influence on foreign policy - which reflected his philosophy of political values. Today's GOP is not only bankrupt of social policy; it is a bottleneck to advancing society-at-large. That's the great disaster, me thinks.

[ken melvin]

Republicans are big on simple arsed answers to complex problem. In re the demise of US manufacturing jobs, the operative word is convergence. As to who is most responsible? Sometimes it is they who should have and didn't. Of these, the very worst of all was undoubtedly St. Ronnie.

[evagrius]

"I do think economic stratification is pernicious, but that has more to do with the Democratic Party standing in the way of fundamental structural reform in education as it has to do with Republican tax cuts for rich people, doesn’t it?"

From the first chapter, pp 16-18;

Another key point of contention is the extent to which escalating in equality reflects the just rewards accruing to education and skills in the modern economy. According to one conservative observer, New York Times columnist David Brooks,

"the market isn’t broken; the meritocracy is working almost too well. It’s rewarding people based on individual talents. Higher education pays off because it provides technical knowledge and because it screens out people who are not or ga nized, self- motivated and socially adept. But even among people with identical education levels, in equality is widening as the economy favors certain abilities. . . . What’s needed is not a populist revolt, which would make everything worse, but a second generation of human capital policies, designed for people as they actually are, to help them get the intangible skills the economy rewards."

On the other hand, Brooks’s liberal counterpart on the Times op- ed page, Paul Krugman, attacked “the notion that the winners in our increasingly unequal society are a fairly large group—that the 20 percent or so of American workers who have the skills to take advantage of new technology and globalization are pulling away from the 80 percent who don’t have these skills.” Noting that the real incomes of college graduates have risen by less than 1% per year over the past three de cades, Krugman argued that “the big gains have gone to a much smaller, much richer group than that.” Nevertheless, the “8020 fallacy,” as he called it, “tends to dominate polite discussion about income trends, not because it’s true, but because it’s comforting. The notion that it’s all about returns to education suggests that nobody is to blame for rising in equality, that it’s just a case of supply and demand at work. . . . The idea that we have a rising oligarchy is much more disturbing. It suggests that the growth of in equality may have as much to do with power relations as it does with market forces.”31

Krugman cited economists Ian Dew- Becker and Robert J. Gordon’s detailed analysis of productivity and income growth over the past four de cades. According to Dew- Becker and Gordon, “most of the shift in the income distribution has been from the bottom 90 percent to the top 5 percent. This is much too narrow a group to be consistent with a widespread benefit from SBTC [skill- biased technical change].” They found that some of the occupations that should have flourished if the dynamic economy of the 1990s was simply rewarding technical skills actually saw very modest income growth. For example, the earnings of mathematicians and computer scientists increased by only 4.8% between 1989 and 1997, while the earnings of engineers actually declined by 1.4%. In contrast, the earnings of CEOs increased by 100%.32

Evidence of a serious mismatch between skills and economic rewards seems likely to fan concerns about the “fairness” of recent changes in the U.S. income distribution. So, too, does the juxtaposition of rapid productivity growth with stagnant middle- class wages. Dew- Becker and Gordon found that economic productivity had increased substantially over the period covered by their analysis, but that “the broad middle of working America has reaped little of the gains in productivity over the past 35 years. . . . The micro data tell a shocking story of gains accruing disproportionately to the top one percent and 0.1 percent of the income distribution.” They characterized the first five years of the twenty- first century as “an unpre ce dented dichotomy of macroeconomic glow and gloom.” On one hand, labor productivity and output growth exploded; on the other hand, median family income fell by 3.8 percent from 1999 to 2004.33

The “unpre ce dented dichotomy” noted by Dew- Becker and Gordon between booming output and stagnant or declining incomes for ordinary workers has been a recurrent political problem for the Bush administration. On the eve of the 2004 presidential campaign, the New York Times announced “A Recovery for Profits, But Not for Workers.” A similar headline in the midst of the 2006 midterm campaign asked, “After Years of Growth, What about Workers’ Share?” Press reports noted that the president was making little headway in convincing the American public that the economy was prospering, despite robust output growth and increasing average wages. The “strange and unlikely combination” of “strong and healthy aggregate macroeconomic indicators and a grumpy populace,” one report said, was “a source of befuddlement to the administration and its allies.”34

Faced with this “grumpy populace” and an imminent election, Trea sury Secretary Henry Paulson acknowledged that “amid this country’s strong economic expansion, many Americans simply aren’t feeling the benefits.” Paul-son blamed that fact on “market forces” that “work to provide the greatest rewards to those with the needed skills in the growth areas.” Paulson’s pre de ces sor as trea sury secretary, John Snow, spoke in similar terms about the “long- term trend to differentiate compensation.”

Interesting.....engineers, mathematicians and computer scientists, you know, people with REAL educations have had less income increase than CEO's who certainly do not have an education that is even that demanding.

The education or skill-based technical change excuse for the growing inequality has no basis in fact.

[save_the_rustbelt]

So Ken, it is the workers' fault.

Nice and simple.

[cahuenga]

I've look at this data several times and it was immediately obvious to me that the real median wage, especially for men, has been absolutely flat since ‘74 regardless of political affiliation of the president or Congress. I'm not sure why the author would choose to look at average wage rather than the median as averages only serve to hide the real distribution.

[evagrius]

cahuenga- Is this what you're pointing to?;

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:28Rm5D0RnrwJ:angrybear.blogspot.com/2008/03/demographics-and-real-wage-growth.html+u.s.+median+wage+growth&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=28

Does this support or refute your point which is......?

[Bruce Wilder]

It is bad enough when air-headed political reporters and pundits behave as if elections were as inconsequential as American Idol. But, what is this naive surprise among people supposedly informed about political economy?

Republicans and Democrats have consistently pursued quite different economic policies since World War II. Did they fight over policy, because they thought there was no consequence?

And, what is the b.s. about "taxes and redistribution"? Since when did government economic policy restrict itself to taxation?

If you have not paid any attention to politics over the last 40 years, you don't know enough about economics to justify opening your yap.

[reason]

Hari...
I think you missed something. I was answering Baileyman with a counterexample.

[reason]

Hari,
I understand that English is not your first language. Both Baileyman and I were being ironic. Dry humour, if you like.

[sewells]

I'm not an economist. So, take what I say with several grains of salt. All I can do is tell you what it looks like from where I stand. It looks to me as if the gathering into one pot of huge amounts of resources (i.e., the gathering of huge income streams by government though taxation) has simply made it very convenient for people to influence how that big pile of resources gets allocated in ways that benefit primarily a very few people. It seems to me that while the idea behind the New Deal was egalitarian that the practical execution of the matter has benefited the most wealthy people in the country and, as such, has been anything but egalitarian.

Is there some point at which one simply says, "gathering these huge piles of resources into one central place is not working as intended and is instead making things worse" and considers not doing the gathering into one big pile in the first place?

Granted, I am assuming that people with political power and influence will always find a way to gain preferential access to the resources but I have a hard time imagining that not to be a valid assumption.

[reason]

Sewells...
Have you looked at charts of the distribution of wealth recently? Hell man, even without starting to tax and redistributed all the resources are gathered together in one place. What do you want to do, start self-sufficient communist collectives everywhere? No just make democracy work nearly properly, like it does in most of the rest of the developed world!

[Callahan]

To those who say it doesn't matter, let republicans continue to rule for another 8 years, and see what that brings.

[cahuenga]

evagrius:

Point being that the party affiliation of the president or the congressional majority has had no impact on the income of a large segment of the population. Even IF you believe the CPI wage adjustment is reasonable, and even though productivity has skyrocketed through the period, wages at the mean have been stagnate for thirty+ years while upper income wages have gone stratospheric. Democrat, Republican, it made no difference.

[reason]

cahuenga...
wages at the mean have been stagnate for thirty+ years while upper income wages have gone stratospheric. Democrat, Republican, it made no difference.

I think you mean median. But WITHIN that period there have been changes and there is a clear difference according to who controls the White House. And how many years of the last 30 have we had a Republican president (hint 30 - 12 = )?

[swells]

reason, I get your point. But, I don't think the unfair distribution could be maintained over the long term without the priviledged positions afforded by political influence. Now, maybe I'm stupid but I think that without coercive mechanisms, which I think to be maintained primarily by government (since government exercises a monopoly on legal coercion), a fairly normal bell curve would be the result of economic interaction over time.

[jeff hoffman]

I'm a little surprised that the lines don't cross on the right.

[reason]

swells...
You clearly never played monopoly as a kid. I'm not much into beliefs, but whatever gives you kicks!

[Andrew]

I don't think the unfair distribution could be maintained over the long term without the priviledged positions afforded by political influence. Now, maybe I'm stupid but I think that without coercive mechanisms, which I think to be maintained primarily by government (since government exercises a monopoly on legal coercion), a fairly normal bell curve would be the result of economic interaction over time.

How soon we forget those carefree Robber Baron days. The the primary manner for those without power to address (non-violently) an unfair distribution is through government, because of its coercive power. The problem is not that government causes maldistribution, but that it occurs in spite of government due to flaws in our democracy.

Government does not have a monopoly on coercion, unless you choose to narrowly define coercion as force. Employers have considerable power to coerce, and the larger the employer the greater this power becomes.

[Patricia Shannon]

Also, the powerful cooperate to maintain their power and protect their own class.

[CahyG]

Today, April 1, is H1-B visa day, in which 65,000 visas to bring foreign nationals to work in the U.S. are made available to employers. This is in addition to 20,000 foreign workers who earned graduate degrees in the U.S. and will be given permission to stay and work here. It is expected that all the visa slots will be subscribed to by today or tomorrow.

Businesses are lobbying heavily to increase that number to 115,000, even though the country, by nearly all accounts, is facing or already in a recession which is eliminating tens of thousands of American jobs by the month.

Immigrant workers, whether legal or il-, accompanied by continued federal hostility to unions, have reduced negotiating power by American workers, even while productivity and corporate profits have soared. For 30 years real wages have been essentially flat for the lower 90 percent of income earners in the country.

The result is that most of us have had to run faster and faster just to stay in place. Attempts by the middle and working classes to improve our standard of living in the absence of income growth have included sending women to work, reducing the number of children we have, reduced or negative savings and, finally, an effort to fund our standards of living via credit and home equity in the desperate hope that things would get better before the bills came due. Well, we’re all seeing how that one turned out.

Probably we can all agree that there is plenty of blame to go around for the current financial debacle and there are plenty of blameworthy actors. Maybe another cause for the speculation in housing and run-up in debt and prices to unsustainable levels has been the utter inability of American workers to obtain a share of the productivity and profit improvements that their labor has brought about.

[swells]

reason, if you think you operate without "beliefs", then perhaps you could point me to the peer reviewed literature that establishes the scientific bona fides of your moral positions? It is simply the height of arrogance to say you aren't much for beliefs. At least I'm honest about it.

Andrew, if you think the robber barons didn't operate from a position of political influence then I guess you are right, the carefree days of the robber barons have truly been forgotten. Did anyone else miss the eminent domain abuse in the case of the railroad trusts? My grandfather told me all about the machine guns installed on the parapets of the textile mill he worked at. Guess which entity allied itself with the owners in suppressing the rights of the workers to bargain collectively. Oh heck, don't guess, it was the local constabulary. And Andrew, I did say a monopoly on legal coercion.

Patricia, ah yes they do don't they. Two guesses how they do that. Can you say legislation favorable to their interests backed up by the coercive power of government?

[cahuenga]

Reason:
But WITHIN that period there have been changes and there is a clear difference according to who controls the White House.

Perhaps I should have said “meaningful” change in wages. The changes you refer to are academic at best, they may be measurable to statisticians but they are definitely not meaningful in any sense that could be felt by those affected.

I don't see any point in splitting hairs over who has been in power more often, Democrats have been in power roughly half that period. The point is Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush... On this issue it made no significant difference to these people.

[Bruce Wilder]

An uninteresting paradox is posed by a man, who says, "At least I'm honest about lying" and offers counterfactual speculation to refute evidence and experience.

[swells]

Bruce, which speculation was conterfactual? Which evidence refutes it? What lies did I tell? I'm more than a little scientifically oriented myself, and what I see is an experiment that has been run, whose results are in. Or is there some portion of the wealth inequalities that is simply a figment of someone's imagination? What have we had now? About 70 years of the new deal? How did that actually work out? Or are you suggesting that someone waved a magic wand to get the result we got and that just a little more, and a little purer centralization of power is what is needed?

[Patricia Shannon]

Swells, what country and period of time do you think had it right?

[swells]

Patricia, you do go right to the nub of the question don't you? I don't think any time or country had it right. I don't think we are even close to getting it right. I don't think we have evolved sufficiently. Furthermore, I think that unless we slow way, way down with our use of high leverage in pretty much all areas of life that we won't get the opportunity to evolve sufficiently.

Basically, I think we won't be capable of getting it right until the small-minded, ego driven, hierarchy worshipping people we are have progressed to the point where we can develop a science of ethics, a science that will enable us to have some reliable means of determining what we ought to do. It's my opinion that the study of game theory holds some prospect for that in the long run.

I basically see the current human condition as one in which progress, for a lot of reasons, is hugely asymetrical. We have made huge technological strides but have made very, very little progress in the areas of ethics and morality.

My basic premise, (which may be a supremely stupid one), is that we currently have at our disposal a whole lot more leverage than we are wise enough to use to decent effect.

[Patricia Shannon]

So we have to do the best we can with what we have, which includes human nature. As somebody said, the enemy of the attainable good is the theoretical perfect (I'm sure somebody will provide the exact quote).
That doesn't mean we should like it, or stop striving for better things, but it does no good to insist on solutions that don't work in the real world, just because we believe they would be right if things were perfect.
I assure you, I and several others who post in this blog feel your pain!

[swells]

Patricia, well I'm not looking to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. As to whether it would work in the real world .... Personally I don't think human beings would have to have a developed science of ethics in order see a dangers lurking. From what I read, I think we face several challenges that can be communicated. In my lifetime, the population of the earth has gone from about 3.5 billion to approximately 6.5 billion and assuming I live a few years longer, it could be approaching 9 billion. That is fraught with peril for everyone. Even rich people aren't immune to that kind of peril. I personally don't have any children and that was a conscious decision I took in the face of what I think will be severe over population. I'm not all that smart. You don't have to be all that smart to realize 9 billion people will pose a lot of extremely intractable problems.

There are a lot of things like that. Climate change. Potential for collapse of ocean populations in the face of over fishing and pollution.

I don't know but a lot of the discussion here seems to me like rearranging deck chais on the Titanic. It seems to me to perpetuate the illusion that all this leverage is somehow manageable but that what needs to be done is to back away from the leverage itself and not pretend we are wise enough to use it effectively. But, who knows, maybe I'm wrong and it is manageable.

[Patricia Shannon]

Swells : "I don't know but a lot of the discussion here seems to me like rearranging deck chais on the Titanic."

I wholeheartedly agree. On the other hand, economic chaos will make things much worse. People who are or are in fear of joblessness, homelessness, and hunger aren't going to care about doing what's best for the world in the long run.

[Bruce Wilder]

swells: "What have we had now? About 70 years of the new deal? How did that actually work out?"

I think the New Deal worked out very well indeed. By 1968, the result was a very high degree of egalitarianism, and responsible government and business behavior. Poverty affected only a very small fraction of the population. Everyone had indoor plumbing. And, a college education was accessible and affordable.

Since 1968, rolling back the New Deal has generally had predictably negative effects. Income inequality has increased. Median wages have risen only slightly since 1973 (and mostly only under Democratic Presidents -- that ought to tell you something). Now, the Republicans have managed to bring back financial crisis on a scale, where it is sensible to talk of Depression.

Very broadly, over 70 years, we've run a kind of political experiment. Apply New Deal, and run it out for 35 years or so. Then, start repealing New Deal, and run that for another 35 years. Which do you like better? Who benefitted most in each period?

Nixon, Reagan and Bush II have each run the same basic Republican policy gambits -- and not just in economic policy, each one going a bit further than the last. They've cut taxes on the high incomes and capital incomes, they've run big deficits, privatized government services when they could not cut them entirely, and done their best to corrupt the bureaucracy.

I get really frustrated with narratives of government policy that try to smooth everything into a few abstract generalities, and hide every detail of actual policy. Here's young Matthew Yglesias: "The president's control over domestic policy is pretty circumscribed and public policy has only a limited influence over the economy, so it's surprising to see such a strong effect." Matthew is a liberal, and he repeats this crap. And, it is crap.

Did the New Deal continue unchanged for 70 years? Absolutely not. The New Deal tide reached its high water mark in 1969, and has been ebbing ever since.

But, policy is a matter of details and memory.

How many people can summarize how Earl Butz transformed agriculture policy under Nixon? I certainly cannot. But, Butz did it, changing a help to a shrinking family farm sector into a help to an expanding corporate agricultural sector, and setting up a generation of Americans for declining nutritional standards and one heck of a lot of corn syrup. So, now we see increasing obesity and declining height (a sure sign of poorer nutrition) and it occurs to few people that gov't policy had anything to do with it.

Policy matters. Government matters. Republicans and Democrats do not want the same things. That any of this surprises intelligent, educated people is only another indication of how far down into idiocracy we have fallen.

[Bruce Wilder]

swells: "Bruce, which speculation was conterfactual?"

swells: "I think that without coercive mechanisms, which I think to be maintained primarily by government (since government exercises a monopoly on legal coercion), a fairly normal bell curve would be the result of economic interaction over time."

[swells]

Bruce, I honestly don't get the point of the counterfactual you supplied. After all, I am speculating about something that has never happened during civilized history. Governments are always and everywhere engaged in the business of coercion. I am speculating about economic interaction in the absense of coercive factors. Note also, I did not say government maintains all coercive mechanisms, just the majority of them. I did speculate but the nature of my speculation was not one that could possibly have been refuted by experience to date. That does make the speculation of dubious value but it does not make it logically incapable of being true.

You really crack me up with the "it worked for 35 years" thing. After all, what I am basically saying is that irrespective of the nobility of the purpose for which power is consolidated that in the end that consolidation of power will be hijacked to serve the interests of the few who have their hands on the reins of power.

Even assuming what you say is true up till 1969, doesn't the result since just serve as confirmation of my point? What I'm saying is that it does not matter how noble the goal is, what will, in practice, happen is that some subset of the population will suborn the centralization of power to their own ends to the detriment of the society at large.

I'm reminded of Eric Hoffer's The True Believer and some of Popper's work on theories that get rejiggered every time an inconvenient fact comes along. In this case, the inconvenient fact is what's happened since 1969.

I'm treading on thin ice here because I don't even pretend to be an economist but I think the dynamics economic situation is pretty simple. The people suborning the centralization of power to their own ends stand to gain a very concentrated benefit while those who bear the costs of such subornation experience that cost as a much more diffuse expense. The suborners always have greater motivation in the moment to suborn than victims have to evade predation.

[ScentOfViolets]

That is, of course, incorrect, swells. Don't try to play fast and loose with the definition of 'coercion'.

In fact, government does not have a legal monopoly on coercion, only on the use of physical force. And it does not have (theoretically) carte blanch to employ physical force at will.

[anne]

"Point being that the party affiliation of the president or the congressional majority has had no impact on the income of a large segment of the population."

Please study the chart carefully, the point being that the Party of the President made a significant difference in terms of increasing income divergence. Economic policy makes a significant difference and the President has singular and probably increasing influence over economic policy as is simple to see looking to the Clinton and Bush Presidencies.

[anne]

http://www.cbpp.org/3-27-08tax.htm

March 27, 2008

Capital Gains Tax Cuts Slashed Taxes of Top 400, While Their Incomes Soared
By Aviva Aron-Dine

New Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data show that the 400 U.S. taxpayers with the very highest incomes pay only 18 percent of their income, on average, in federal individual income taxes. The data, published by the Wall Street Journal and the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, provide detailed income and tax information for the 400 tax filers with the highest adjusted gross incomes (AGI) in each year from 1992 to 2005.[1] They show that while the incomes of those at the top have skyrocketed, their tax rates have fallen significantly, with the largest reductions occurring after the capital gains tax cuts of 1997 and 2003.

Rapid Income Gains in Late 1990s and Last Few Years

Other IRS data show that high-income groups have fared extremely well over the past decade and a half; for example, the average income of the top 1 percent of filers rose by 89 percent between 1992 and 2005, after adjusting for inflation. The new data show that, among the top 400 taxpayers — 3 out of every 1 million filers — pre-tax income gains were even larger.

Between 1992 and 2005, the average AGI of the top 400 tax filers increased by 235 percent, after adjusting for inflation: from $64 million to $214 million in 2005 dollars. (To make it into the top 400, a filer needed AGI of $33 million in 1992 and $100 million in 2005.) The incomes of this group grew rapidly between 1995 and 2000, dropped during the 2001 recession, but then rose rapidly again from 2002 to 2005.

Tax Rates Fell, So After-Tax Incomes Rose By An Even Larger Percentage

Even as pre-tax incomes shot up for the very highest-income filers, their effective individual income tax rate — the share of their pre-tax income paid in federal personal income taxes — fell sharply. In 1995, the top 400 filers paid an average of 30 percent of their income in personal income taxes. By 2005, the average had fallen to 18 percent. Moreover, in 1995, almost no one in the top 400 paid less than 15 percent of his or her income in federal income tax; by 2005, more than a third did. The drop in effective tax rates for the top 400 filers between 1995 and 2005 worked out to a tax reduction of $25 million per filer in 2005, or to a total of $10 billion in tax reductions for these 400 households.

Because of this steep reduction in effective tax rates, the after-tax incomes of the top 400 grew even faster than their pre-tax incomes. Over the 1992 to 2005 period, when the average pre-tax income of these filers rose by 235 percent, their average income after federal income taxes increased by 272 percent.[2] ...

[swells]

ScentofViolets,

What evidence do you have to back up your assertion? In 1935, the British political scientist Harold Laski wrote, "At any critical moment in the history of a State the fact that its authority depends upon the power to coerce the opponents of the government, to break their wills, to compel them to submission, emerges as the central fact of its nature. "

That pretty much sums it up I think. That central fact implies, ultimately, a monopoly on coercion.

[anne]

http://www.cbpp.org/3-27-08tax2.htm

March 27, 2008

Data Show Income Concentration Rose Again in 2006: Average Income Rose by $73,000 for Households in the Top 1%, Only $20 for Those in Bottom 90%
By Aviva Aron-Dine

Economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez recently issued an updated version of their groundbreaking data series on income inequality in the United States.[1] The data, which are based on Internal Revenue Service (IRS) files, are unique because they provide detailed information on income gains at the top of the income scale, extend back to 1913, and provide the first detailed look at the distribution of income in 2006.

The new data show:

Between 2005 and 2006, the average income (before taxes) of the top 1 percent of households increased by $73,000 (or 7 percent), after adjusting for inflation,[2] while the average income of the bottom 90 percent of households increased by just $20 (or 0.1 percent). (In 2006, the top 1 percent of households were those with incomes above about $375,000.)

2006 marked the fourth straight year in which income gains at the top outpaced those among the rest of the population. Since 2002, the average income of the top 1 percent of households has risen 44 percent, or $335,000, after adjusting for inflation. The average income of the bottom 90 percent of households has risen about 3 percent, or about $1,000.

As a result, the share of the nation's income flowing to the top 1 percent has increased sharply, rising from 15.8 percent in 2002 to 20.3 percent in 2006. Not since 1928, just before the Great Depression, has the top 1 percent held such a large share of the nation's income. In 2000, at the peak of the 1990s boom, the top 1 percent received 19.3 percent of total income in the nation.[3]

Income gains have been even more pronounced among those at the very top of the top 1 percent. The incomes of the top one-tenth of 1 percent (0.1 percent) of U.S. households have grown more rapidly than the incomes of the top 1 percent of households as a whole, rising by 60 percent, or $1.9 million per household, since 2002. The share of the nation's income flowing to the top one-tenth of 1 percent increased from 6.5 percent in 2002 to 9.3 percent in 2006. This is the highest level since 1928.

Income Gains, Adjusted for Inflation, 2002-2006

Dollar Increase
Percentage Increase

Bottom 90%
$1,000
3%

Next 9%
$16,000
11%

Top 1%
$335,000
44%

In 2006, the bottom 90 percent of households were those with incomes below about $105,000. The next 9 percent were those with incomes between $105,000 and about $375,000, and the top 1 percent were those with incomes above $375,000.

The uneven distribution of economic gains in recent years continues a longer-term trend that began in the late 1970s. In the three decades following World War II (1946-1976), robust economic gains were shared widely, with the incomes of the bottom 90 percent actually increasing more rapidly, on average, than the incomes of the top 1 percent. But in the three decades since 1976, the incomes of the bottom 90 percent of households have risen only slightly, on average, while the incomes of the top 1 percent have soared.[4] ...

[Patricia Shannon]

Government can be coercive, but it can also protect.
W/o it, we will inevitably be coerced by the those who are meanest. Do away with government, and the corporations will go back to shooting strikers.
The government can be in cahoots with the plutocrats, but it is not always the case.
It is up to us

[anne]

We are passing through a period unlike any in American history, and recognition while coming has not properly come. We are in the midst of a war, and have financed the war through a series of tax cuts especially benefiting the wealthiest, while limiting actually cutting per capita social spending in real terms. We are fighting a war in a financial way that especially benefits the wealthiest at the expense of the middle class, and this is a wildly expensive war, the expense of which will be with us for many years of middle class sacrifice.

Never has there been such a fiscal policy in our history.

[Bruce Wilder]

swells: "I honestly don't get the point of the counterfactual you supplied. After all, I am speculating about something that has never happened during civilized history."

Not to put too fine a point on it, swells, but I did not "supply" that counterfactual, you did. It is a central part of your argument. And, I recognize that it has never happened; that's why it is called, counterfactual.

swells: "I did speculate but the nature of my speculation was not one that could possibly have been refuted by experience to date. That does make the speculation of dubious value but it does not make it logically incapable of being true."

A factual assertion can not be confirmed as true until it happens.

swells: "The people suborning the centralization of power to their own ends stand to gain a very concentrated benefit while those who bear the costs of such subornation experience that cost as a much more diffuse expense. The suborners always have greater motivation in the moment to suborn than victims have to evade predation."

That argument is well-known. Creating some institutional basis for a countervailing tendency is the central argument for constitutional democracy.

In the United States, those seeking to control the government adopt one of two political strategies. Either they seek the good of the few, or they seek the good of the many. The former we call, Republicans, and the latter, Democrats.

The Republicans tend to be better organized and more focused, and, usually, better financed, but, since their policies materially benefit less than 10% of the population, they have to be more creative in finding ways to marshal electoral majorities. The Democrats are less well-organized, and usually less well-financed, but, because Democratic policies align better with the interests and opinions of more people, they usally don't have to work as hard to assemble an electoral majority. In the contest between the Parties, there's a rough equilibrium -- from 1932-1968, it favored the Democrats on balance; from 1972-2004, the Republicans had the edge. 2006-forward, we'll see.

The political Parties are strategic vehicles by which people seek power, and they morph adaptively. But, the Republican Party has been the Party of Business for 150+ years, and I don't expect that to change much. And, the Democrats have been the Party of pretty much everyone else for even longer.

All of what I have written can traced through history and elaborated in great factual detail.

What I do not understand, is why what you, swells, personally imagine might happen in circumstances that have not obtained in 10,000 years should be of any interest to anyone else, let alone the foundation of an argument about the relation of policy outcomes to politics.

[ken melvin]

It is evident that progress is possible and has indeed been made. Why some want to go back to the bad old days blows the mind.

[SC&A]

Just a thought: Home ownership under the administration is higher than it has ever been- mortgage crisis notwithstanding.

Further, it is well documented reality that tax cuts spur economic growth, job creation and job security. Tax cuts are a Republican 'sacred plank.'

Just a thought.

[anne]

"Further, it is well documented reality that tax cuts spur economic growth, job creation and job security."

Curious that none of that has happened through this Republican Administration in which the finest 52 months of relatively tepid growth produced 160,000 jobs a month as oppose to the 225,000 jobs a month created through the 8 years of the Clinton Aministration complete with Clinton's tax increase. Say what?

[anne]

"Tax cuts are a Republican 'sacred plank.'"

"Tax cuts at the expense of the middle class are a Republican 'sacred plank.'"

"Tax cuts for the wealthiest are a Republican 'sacred plank.'"

Social spending cuts for the middle class are also a Republican 'sacred plank.'

Social spending cuts for the needy are also a Republican 'sacred plank.'

All them sacred ideas from all them secred folks.

[evagrius]

"Home ownership under the administration is higher than it has ever been- mortgage crisis notwithstanding."

You mean mortgage obligations, not "home ownership".

[ScentOfViolets]

Swells, I could care less what you think, nor am I trying to 'persuade' you; this is the lame game where you make some statement and instead of backing it up, you expect others to 'prove you wrong'. Ultimately, the game ends many cycles later when you state that 'you are not convinced' by any evidence presented . . . as if the burden of proof were on anyone but you.

This is an old, old con game.

Second, you don't seem to understand this but you don't get to decide what counts as coercion, and what doesn't. You have to abide by the standard definitions.

So there is really nothing here to talk about, except as specific instances of a type of error or fallacy.

[dbr]

I tried to reproduce the data to see what the patterns were by presidential term. I went to the census bureau historical household income by fifths which only went back to 1967 through 2006 in $06 dollars.. I probably can't reproduce a table very well in the comments, but here goes:

10 30 50 70 90
Bush43 (0.31) (0.15) (0.13) 0.06 0.25
Clinton 1.40 1.41 1.34 1.57 2.95
Bush 41 (2.04) (1.57) (1.37) (0.70) 0.99
Reagan 1.46 1.43 1.48 1.67 2.82
Carter (0.16) 0.14 0.17 0.59 0.64
nixon/ford 0.96 (0.22) 0.22 0.78 0.98
lbj68/69 5.51 4.12 4.17 4.23 3.04

If I were going to draw a conclusion from this data its that we do better when the presidents 1st name isn't George.

I am struck by how similar the Clinton / Reagan data are.

I only had 68/69 that are attributable to LBJ, but I am guessing that a lot of the Democratic advantage in median growth has to do with the fact that Kennedy / Johnson presided over the 60's. Also am guessing that most of the benefits to the lower 20% were do to LBJ and the great society.

[ken melvin]

Appears dbr left out the first two years of ronnie's. Those when he let things get real bad, those that let to the 'recovery' of those shown.

[dbr]

Ken,

I tried to follow the basis described in the original post. The years I have allocated to Reagan are 1982-1989, relative to the prior year. I understood the concept is that Reagan became President in January of 1981. We assume the economy in his first year had more to do with Carter's policies than his. So Reagan is responsible for the performance of the economy his second year through the first year of Bush 41...

Likewise, LBJ gets credit for Nixon's first year in office - 1969 was the 2nd best year for median income growth in the period I found...

dbr

[Jay]

"Bartels' findings raise an important puzzle: if Democrats produce better income results for everyone, and particularly for the more numerous lower-income groups, why do they not always win?"

No, the question is does the party in control of the presidency cause the distribution of income growth, or does the distribution of income growth determine which party wins the president?

[Bruce Wilder]

http://zzpat.tripod.com/graphs.htm

has a whole bunch of graphs comparing
Reagan Administration economic performance with
Clinton Administration economic performance.

[Bruce Wilder]

Jay: "the question is does the party in control of the presidency cause the distribution of income growth, or does the distribution of income growth determine which party wins the president?"

He, who makes the rules, gets the gold.

When one party runs on gay marriage and flag burning and the Swift Boat Veterans version of history, and proceeds to make cutting capital gains taxes and the gutting of Social Security their top priorities, well, you have to be pretty determined not to see the political line of causality.

[Bruce Wilder]

dbr: "I am struck by how similar the Clinton / Reagan data are."

I calculated the % increase of mean household income in each quintile over Clinton's 8 years (1994-2001) and Reagan's 8 years (1982-1989) [defining the President's years-of-effect as you did, on the idea that there's a lag].

______ 1/5 __ 2/5 _ 3/5 __ 4/5 __ 5/5 __ top5%
Clinton _ 29% _ 28% _ 22% _ 19% _ 16% _ 16%
Reagan __ 5% _ 16% _ 14% _ 16% _ 20% _ 25%
Over the 12 years of
Rgn-Bsh _ 4% __ 5% __ 4% __ 5% _ 19% _ 33%

Sure makes me want to have a beer with young GW
(in the hopes of starting a barfight, maybe)

[ken melvin]

We in the Golden State got to see Ronnie's moves long before he became president. He was one cynical, uncaring bastard. The tactic of letting things get real bad then crowing about recovery, the sky is falling, ... we saw them all afore.

[ken melvin]

Damned facts and statistics; screw up a good story every time.

[reason]

swells,
moral positions have nothing to do with an understanding of reality. They are a position on what ought to be not what is.

Your stated "beliefs" are about the nature of reality. They may be wrong or they may be right, but until you show me the results of a test confirming or rejecting them, I will regard them as pure speculation. Now with a democratic government we have a contervailing power against accumulated economic power. You want to give that away because you "believe" that all will be well. Faith is a wonderful thing in children, when someone is there to look after them.

[reason]

swells...
and doesn't it worry to you that when we measure it, moves in your direction (neo-liberalism) make the problem (inequality) worse, and moves in the other direction (social democracy) alleviate it. That doesn't shake your "faith", at all? No room for doubts?
Hey guys, we should welcome swells here. There has long been a murmur of speculation here about Glibertarianism being sect like. Here is someone who comes close to admitting it. Where's paine when you need him?

says...

Bruce,

I went back and checked again. We are way off. I am looking at the US Census Historical Income Tables - Households All Races, mean income received by each fifth and top 5%, all races, Table H-3, 2006$.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/h03ar.html

On your basis, I get:

______ 1/5 __ 2/5 _ 3/5 __ 4/5 __ 5/5 __ top5%

Clinton 11.23 12.15 11.43 12.28 16.63 20.46

Reagan 14.28 12.35 12.82 14.75 22.30 30.77,

For the lower quartile, Reagan goes from $9609 in 1982 to 10981 in 1989, Clinton goes from $10378 in 94 to $11543 in 2001...

One of my personal political hero's was Daniel Patrick Moynahan who said we are all entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts. I don't usually try to find and work up raw economic data, so if I am doing something wrong, glad to reconcile...

[baileyman]

reason:

If the Republican Party were in fact different, that would also cause trouble for the analysis. But, it's the same party as the man who first built the military industrial complex and then bequeathed it to us.

[swells]

Bruce, you said "What I do not understand, is why what you, swells, personally imagine might happen in circumstances that have not obtained in 10,000 years should be of any interest to anyone else, let alone the foundation of an argument about the relation of policy outcomes to politics."

I'll just be as honest as I can here. Every day of my life as a productive member of society I have been compelled to support the production and stockpiling of nuclear weapons. Never mind that there is no valid theory of self-defense that gives one a right to respond to aggression with the use of weapons that cannot be limited to the aggressor. This hasn't changed under republican or democratic administrations. There is something monstrously evil about a system that can compel one to pervert one's productivity in such a manner.

I am not trying to force other people to hold the same moral views I hold in this matter. I am trying to find a way in which I may cling to my own moral views in the face of a society that denies me any effective method of so doing.

[swells]

reason, Glad I'm able to at least furnish some measure of amusement.

[reason]

swells,
given what you said about your moral position, why don't you just move to Canada?

[swells]

Reason, Bruce et al. Is there any point at which the coercive power of the state can be constrained for the sake of personal conscience? Let me put a hypothetical to you. Let's just suppose, for the sake of argument, that it was discovered that leaders who are sexually satiated on a regular basis are significantly less likely to involve their countries in wars. It is then determined to be in the legitimate public interest to have fewer wars. Would society have the right, in the public interest, to pass a law that requires conscription to brothel service for the servicing of leaders upon attaining the age of 18?

Would it be the proper duty of sons and daughters, at 18, to submit themselves to such a scheme? Would the legitimate public interest identified justify the violation of basic personal autonomy such a regulatory scheme would impose?

Yeah, it's a fairly hairbrained example I admit. But, like any good reductio ad absurdam, it's intended to provoke thought. Is there any notion of personal dignity, autonomy and self-determination that society may not transgress "for the public good"? If so, where is that line to be drawn?

[reason]

The answer is yes BUT that it was constitutions are for.

[reason]

The answer is yes BUT that is was constitutions are for.

[reason]

The answer is yes BUT that is was constitutions are for.

[swells]

reason, the days when one could vote with one's feet are long gone in this world. I was at one point set to emigrate to New Zealand. Then my parents got sick. Instead of dumping them on society so you and others could take care of them, I put my plans on hold and cared for them the last few years of their lives. Now I'm too old to qualify under New Zealand's emigration policy. Between my wife and I, we are about 6 points short of qualifying.

As another point of personal info, I've never voted for a presidential candidate because there was never one who deserved my vote. I am planning to vote for Obama this year, assuming that he is the democratic nominee. He has a plank in his policy platform that calls for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

[reason]

Look swells, I get the idea that you are trying to say that freedom of conscience is an argument for anarchism. And I'll say, that doesn't go far enough - some people may conscientiously want to murder people with different beliefs than they have. That is why we have limited sovereignty, human rights declarations etc. And constitutions, which in order to change, you need some sort of super majority. You highlight a general problem, but it is already foreseen and there are known remedies (the right of asylum for instance).

[swells]

reason, how's that constitution thing working out by the way? Are there any parts that haven't been violated lately? I lost count.

[reason]

Swells,
I'm glad you also think that American democracy is broken. Your not a regular, so you probably don't also know that I'm an Australian living in Europe, and have no particular stake in the American constitutional battle.

I happen to think that what is written in the consitution should be what the overwhelming majority of people would agree to support, and that should be what the consitutional court interprets. But it sure is hard, when that constitution was written in the 18th Century and seems politically impossible to change (partly because people treat it as though it is holy writ, instead of a pragmatic compromise). Perhaps it would be good if the constitution agreed with itself that it should be regularly (every 75 years?) rewritten with suitable super-majority protections (2/3? 3/4?) for the end result. I'm certainly in favour in general for all law to have sunset provisions.

[swells]

reason, where do you get the idea that I advocate anarchism? There are very simple solutions to the problems I identify that have nothing to do with anarchism. For instance, it would be entirely workable to have a system whereby the legislature sets certain taxation levels. Say 55% or so (which is pretty close to what I pay today, 28% federal, 15% FICA appox., 7% sales, 7.5% state, plus misc. real estate, excise, etc.) and comes up with categories of expenditure. Then, individual people check which categories of expenditure they want their taxes spent on. Everybody gets to control what their money is spent on. I don't want my money spent on nuclear weapons, it isn't.

There is pretty much zero chance of something like that being adopted. It would remove too much of the political classes ability to direct funds in ways that benefit the political class.

[anne]

An interesting and useful argument.

[ken melvin]

Something about Obama, Nader and anarchists.

[reason]

swells..
now that is a novel idea. However as you proposed it, it couldn't work. The problem is that people would try to game the system (putting all the revenue to their favourite cause), and the end result could be something that nobody would want. (Government employees would of course try desperately to protect their own - or their relatives - jobs.) It may be their is a maket solution to this - where people get to change expenditures at the margin - but one problem here is that rich get more votes - and part of the reason for having a democracy (in theory at least) is to have a countervailing power to the economic power of the rich.
In general I think it relates to the general problem of the voting paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_paradox .
It is one reason I tend to favor representative democracy (but with parliamentary democracy, preferential voting and independent electoral commissions). It doesn't directly solve the problem, but an intelligent electorate should demand of those running from office that they propose a coherent policy platform. (This is of course often not the case - and it is shocking that the press - especially in the USA - lets them get away with it.)

[swells]

reason, I'm not quite okay with the constitution being what most people would agree to support. But, then again, I grew up in the rural south of my country during the American apartheid. I've seen a lot of my neighbors agree to support some pretty heinous stuff. Right now, most of my neighbors, unrestrained, would support cramming their superstitions down my throat in a style not very unlike some of the theocracies around the world. The tyranny of the majority scares me more than the idea of a dictator does and I know for a fact that I wouldn't survive long in most dictatorships.

[reason]

Oops typos
... It may be there is a market ...
... running for office.

[swells]

reason, point taken about people gaming the system. But, the system we currently have gets gamed pretty effectively already so I'm not too sure it would really be worse. But then again, maybe people really would freely choose to spend hundreds of billions on new air superiority strike fighters instead of education for their children. People can do some pretty crazy things.

[reason]

The tyranny of the majority scares me more than the idea of a dictator does and I know for a fact that I wouldn't survive long in most dictatorships.

Couldn't agree more, me neither. That why people need first to be educated about what a basic law is, and why you need a super majority. But yes a democracy works best with a heterogenous population with different interests all represented. The old deep south wasn't really like that.

[reason]

swells,
I think your heart is in the right place, but it sounds like you live in crazy part of the world. There are plenty of places where democracy works better than it does in the US. The US democracy is broken. I hope things get bad enough that it gets fixed, the world needs it. Shame you didn't get to NZ.

[swells]

reason, I agree that american democracy is broken. I am hopeful, for the first time in a long time, that there is some potential for salvaging it. There's more than one reason I plan to vote for Obama if I have an opportunity to do so.

[reason]

swells - go to David Brin's blog (google it). He is full of ideas about what is wrong and what can be done. He is also backing Obama (mainly to get away from dynastic politics).

[Patricia Shannon]

Swells, people who didn't vote against Reagan and the Bush's helped give us the current supreme court.

[reason]

Swells,
I'm sorry I misjudged you to start with.
Now I see you as an interesting case - I wonder how many people like you there are out there? You starts out with what sounds exactly like Libertarian/Anarchist propaganda (have vou been reading Econlog?) But when we press you, you sound more like a progressive democrat, and seems to have been influenced by the anarchists, as a refuge from the Dominionists who surround you.

[reason]

Sorry for the garbled tense - I wrote in originally in third person and then decided that was rude and that I should address swells directly. After all it seems you really do belong here and not on EconLog.

[Patricia Shannon]

swells says...

reason, I'm not quite okay with the constitution being what most people would agree to support. But, then again, I grew up in the rural south of my country during the American apartheid. I've seen a lot of my neighbors agree to support some pretty heinous stuff. Right now, most of my neighbors, unrestrained, would support cramming their superstitions down my throat in a style not very unlike some of the theocracies around the world. The tyranny of the majority scares me more than the idea of a dictator does and I know for a fact that I wouldn't survive long in most dictatorships.

I've lived in the south since 1960, so I know what you mean. When I first moved here, local and state government were part of the problem. But things have greatly improved since then, and it's the federal government under the right people that improved things. If there were no government to protect our rights, do you really think these people would let you live in peace? They would be burning us at the stake as witches and heretics!

I have to get back to work, so maybe someone else can give details of how nuclear weapons have been cut back. I wish they had never been invented.

[Patricia Shannon]

swells,
How do you think the people where you live would choose if they could choose in detail where their taxes go?

[swells]

Patricia, I wish I could be as sanguine as are you about how much things have improved. Most of my neighbors could give a crap less that we have kept innocent people imprisoned for years and have tortured many of them to boot. It doesn't change what they have for breakfast and therefore they don't think about it. To even suggest that our support for tin horn dictators in the middle east for decades might have had something to do with 9/11 is seen as treasonous.

They are used to a division of labor that doesn't involve them doing much thinking or choosing.

I don't know what their choices would be but I think having to do a bit more thinking and choosing might be beneficial.

[swells]

Patricia, I do take your point about people (including me) who didn't vote against Reagan and Bush. In the case of Bush, I couldn't believe he won. It took me about 15 minutes of research to find out he abused eminent domain to line his own pockets. It took maybe another 15 to find out Cheney, while at Haliburton, entered into contracts with Myanmar that he knew would be accomplished with slave labor.

I have a hard time blaming myself for their election. I personally find it difficult to believe anyone would vote for either of them for anything. The problem with Bush and Cheney getting elected is way, way bigger than me not voting in that election.

[swells]

reason, I'm looking at Brin's site now. Funny story tangentially related to Brin. I had been thinking for some time about Hume's characterization of the mind as a kind of theater that successively passes away. His contention was that there was properly no identity or simplicity in the self at any one time or place. It was a critique of the idea of the self that refuted the existence of the self. Anyway, I was teasing out the historical implications of this line of argument, tracing it through sociological thought. I came up with a counterfactual, not intended seriously, just to see if such a self was as impossible as Hume thought. What if the self is a standing wave and the operations of consciousness are essentially a series of transforms. A wave can become arbitrarily complex and is still capable of discrete decomposition to individual components. That would make some sense. Reasoning by analogy as a kind of harmonics, etc. To make a long story short, it seemed to me that I had found a model that would refute Hume's arguments going to simplicity and identity. I discussed this idea with a couple of friends of mine who are economists, one from Sweden and one from Australia, as they understood some of the math the brain would have to be doing to perform these kinds of calculations. They agreed there was nothing logically that ruled out such a model and that the existence of such a model would overcome Hume's objections. (This was before I got into some of the research done by people in the neurobiology field and found out this is stuff the brain demonstrably does all the time).

About 4-5 years later, the lady from Sweden sent me a copy of Brin's The Kiln People that pretty much used the same idea as its main plot device. Not his best novel but interesting.

I think I've read everything he's written except this new direction he's taking.

[Dirk van Dijk]

Callahan says...
To those who say it doesn't matter, let republicans continue to rule for another 8 years, and see what that brings.

The U.S. has become close enough to a banana republic already without 4/8 more years with Banana Repubicans at the helm