Are We Headed Towards Another "Era of Good Feeling"

Brad Delong had a post on the political role of bi-partisanship and the role of think-tanks in a highly partisan political environment. Of course, the denizens of The Village regularly decry the erosion of the spirit of bi-partisanship in policy making. This got me thinking about what features of the American constitution lead to a bi-partite politics. It also lead me to consider the era of American politics where politics was monopartisan.

The "Era of Good Feeling" extended from the early 1800s when the Federalist party collapsed as a national political force to the mid-1830s when opposition to Andrew Jackson lead to the emergence of the Whig party. My speculation about this caused me to consider, could we end up with monopartisan politics again.

In Brad's blog I commented:

I believe the roots of bipartisanship lie in the peculiar institutions we American's employ for electing our President. In order, to be elected one must assemble a coalition sufficient to garner electoral pluralities in enough states to represent a (sort of) majority of the population. Historically such broad coalitions represented diverse interests some of whom could be accommodated in bargaining to secure support from both parties.

The Democratic party (ne Republican) created such a dominant coalition in the early 19th Century because the Federalists were committed to an aristocratic republic. Such a republic based upon networks of elite patronage was transferred almost intact (absent the monarch) from the Whig politics of Great Brittain in the 18th Century. However, as Alan Taylor's William Cooper's Town: demonstrates this model collapsed in the election of 1800. No plausible alternative developed for almost thirty years until the "gut hatred" of Andrew Jackson lead to the emergence of the Whig party.

Since that time there have been two more or less balanced factions in national presidential politics, although one or the other party has been able to dominate for extended periods. (E.g. the Republican party from 1868 to 1884 and again from 1896 to 1929, or the Democrats from 1932 through the late 1960s)

The period of the 1950s and 1960s remains the dominant image of bi-partisanship in the minds of many, since the Cold War consensus permitted and encouraged alliances across parties.

The post-1968 realignment started as I noted in commenting on Brad's blog:

Starting with the Southern strategy of Richard Nixon, the Republican party went all in on the strategy of representing culturally conservative whites as an interest group. This demographic is declining nationally. Much of the rest of the population has moved on to other issues. It strikes me as not inconceivable that we are heading for another period like the "Era of Good Feeling" wherein there is only one truly national party. As that era (1812-1832) demonstrates 1) politics doesn't cease, it just takes the form of interparty squabbling. 2) an eventual realignment will result in a second,rightish coalition.

Of course, there were more than southern racial conservatives in the Republican coalition of the era. As Brad noted in a later post:

One way to look at Nixon's "Silent Majority" strategy was that it involved the redefinition of lots of people as "white"--people who wouldn't have been "white" even thirty years before, back when they were seen as not-quite-real-American ethnic immigrants living in ghettos and serving the corrupt Democratic political machines against which the Republicans fought--probably entangled in organized crime, too.

Given the fact that this demographic is, as noted above, declining, Karl Rove deserves credit for recognizing that Latinos were a rising demographic whose innate social conservatism made them potential members of the Republican coalition. Since the Republicans appear to have decisively blown that opportunity, it appears that an "Era of Good Feeling" with only a one and a half party system is at least plausible.

What this means for legislative process is well summed up by another of Brad's posts:

Paul Krugman's line is that bipartisanship as a legislative and an electoral strategy could work only as long as the ideological lines of party cleavage were blurred, which would be the case only as long as there were (a) a larger number of relatively liberal northerners who voted Republican because Lincoln freed the slaves, and (b) a large number of relatively conservative southerners who voted Democratic because Lincoln freed the slaves. Once the parties realigned, zero-sum partisan loyalties would dominate: centrist legislators would think hard whether it was more important to vote for a bill because it was good for America or vote against it because then you could paint the opposite-party president as a failure and pick up seats in the next election, and make their decision. Influence over policy can no longer be found by placing yourself in the center: you wind up lying next to a squashed armadillo with a yellow stripe painted down your back.

For now though the smart money is building your coalitions from the left towards the center.

The Efficient Krugman Hypothesis

Proposed Wikipedia entry
The Efficient Krugman Hypothesis

This hypothesis originally proposed by Professor J. Bradford DeLong of the University of California, Berkeley has two versions, strong and weak.

The Strong version is:
Proposition 1: Paul Krugman is always right.
Proposition 2: If your analysis indicates that Paul Krugman is wrong, see Proposition 1.

The Weak version:
Proposition 1: Paul Krugman is always right.
Proposition 2: If your analysis indicates that Paul Krugman is wrong, recheck your analysis for errors.

Curiously in contrast to the case of the Efficient Markets Hypothesis, the Stronger version of the Efficient Krugman hypothesis has substantially greater empirical support.

Mirror Neurons, Learning, and Culture

FIRE UP THOSE MIRROR NEURONS! LETS LEARN SOMETHING!

Mirror neurons for those of you who haven't heard are specialized neurons within the brain which fire under two circumstances. First, when an individual takes some action. For instance, grasping a piece of fruit. They also fire when another individual is observed taking an action. I.e. Watching another ape grab a piece of fruit.

These neurons were discovered by almost two decades ago by a group of Italian neurophysiologists. And the ape reference was not gratuitous, the first subjects found to possess mirror neurons were macaque monkeys. Given the close evolutionary relationship between humans and primates a natural question arises, "Do humans have mirror neurons?" Recent evidence suggests that the answer is Yes. In this piece, I'm going to suggest some implications of the presence of mirror neurons in humans for the evolution of human society.

First a definition, a culture is a suite of behaviors shared by a more or less extensive group of human individuals. Such cultures are often identified by the physical artifacts that they produce through those behaviors. In fact, when archaeologists characterize a culture they use such artifacts almost exclusively, e.g. stone and bone tools, ceramics, cremated burial remains. They are constrained to do so since most behaviors don't leave durable traces. Anthropologists and sociologists have an easier time of it, in at least some ways, since they can observe actual behaviors.

Cultures possess three common features. First, the behaviors they encompass are reinforced by the other members of the culture. Second, those same behaviors identify differences from other exterior cultures. Finally, the suite of behaviors which define a culture must, at least initially, have contributed to the reproductive fitness of the members of the culture. The reason for this is simple, behaviors that reduce reproductive fitness fall out of the meme pool. The behavior of chasing mammoths over the cliff improves the nutritional status of all of the members of the culture which adopts it and thus their survival chances. The behavior of following the mammoths over the cliff has precisely the opposite effect.

What does this have to do with mirror neurons? Well, where do those behaviors come from? and how do they propagate through a group of people? My hypothesis, to put it formally, is that mirror neurons are what enable the development of human cultures.

The model looks something like this:
Look! Oog has found a new way to get our favorite snack food, termites. See, he's sticking a twig into the termite mound and the silly buggers bite onto it. Then he just pulls the twig out and enjoys the delicious, protein rich, crunchy snack.

Maybe Oog shares his termites with a particularly attractive female that he's had his eye on. Alternatively she shares her termites with a cute male she's had her eye on. This will boost his/her evolutionary success.

Oog and Mr/Ms Oog's kids watch mom and dad to find out how to fish for termites. Other members of the community do too. They can do this because mirror neurons create the spark that transmits the behavior throughout the group. And voila, you now have a termite fishing culture established.

The example is drawn from the actual observed behavior of chimpanzees in the wild. In point of fact, a number of distinct chimp cultures have been identified in western and central Africa. Given the substantial advantages that modern humans possess in gray matter, it really isn't a stretch to believe that the learning process described above occurs over and over again in the creation of a human culture.

Misreading Economic History

Greg Clark had an essay, "Tax and Spend, or Face the Consequences," in yesterday's Washington Post. The point he makes will be agreeable to many progressives. His argument for that point is appalling. The brief argument is that technological progress will rendered low skill workers redundant. Since these individuals will no longer be capable of earning incomes through supplying labor, massive transfer programs will be needed to spread the fruits of technological advance and economic growth to the masses. This argument reflects discreditably on the excellent economic historian whom I know Dr. Clark to be.

He frankly labels his vision "dystopian" and that was precisely my first reaction to the piece. I was reminded of science fiction stories that were common in the 1960s and 70s where society was divided between a class of welfare dependent "proles" and a productive class of "taxpayers." This particular vision was particularly prevalent among the more conservative/libertarian authors. The further text was that the "proles" were manipulated by left-wing politicians while the responsible "center" looked out for the interests of the "taxpayers." The literature was a response to the widely circulated view the "technological unemployment" caused by mechanization of factories was the wave of the future.

There is no doubt the low skill workers, particularly those in long developed economies have had a hard time recently. This is a consequence of the growth of international trade and the entry of a billion low skill workers into the world economy (i.e. China and India have abandoned autarky and joined the world trading system.) However, there is no big pool of labor left to enter the world economy, thus the negative impact on low skill wages will be slowly dying out in the future.

Clark is particularly negative about the prospects of education for raising the skill levels and thus the employability of the traditionally low skilled. (Consumer Alert: I am a college professor, so have a vested interest in education.) It is also undeniable that American public education has collapsed over the past 40 years. However, this is not a consequence of any sort of "Bell Curve" unequal distribution of intellectual abilities. It is a consequence of declining support for public education because of desegregation. To imply that education cannot be a part of resolving employability issues is to suggest that individuals won't respond to incentives. I don't think Professor Clark had this in mind. If education and the attendant skill enhancements which are concurrent with education manifestly improve productivity and lifetime income, we should expect to see education having exactly this positive effect.

Beyond this, any economic historian should appreciate (to a degree greater than any other flavor of economist) that human creativity should never be taken for granted. The reason economists are merely indifferent forecasters is that when stresses are placed upon members of a market economy, new creative responses arise which invalidate most projections from past behavior. And creativity is a resource that even sophisticated artificial intelligence programs and voice mail protocols cannot produce. Since knowledge, however acquired, is the lever of creativity, I suspect that Professor Clark's pessimism is misplaced.

The idea that taxes should be more progressive, and that active redistribution is necessary for the long run well-being of society is incontestable. But that redistribution should take that form of widening and deepening the opportunities for education precisely to unlock the creativity of the American populace.

The Market Economy versus Capitalism

I've been sitting on this a while, hoping to get back to it and extend and polish it. Haven't found the time, so here it is warts and all.
1) Markets are inevitable.
As long as tastes are not uniform, and goods and resources are not distributed to those who value them most, individuals will benefit from the opportunity to trade with one another. Trading in markets is such a natural impulse that societies which oppose markets have to go to incredible lengths to suppress them, usually with minimal success.
2) Markets are moral.
a) Market exchange is morally superior to exchanges mediated through coercion or deception. Is there really any doubt that it is better for individuals to be able to freely make choices rather than act under some real or imagined compulsion.
b) Because market exchange is base upon an equivalency of values exchanged, it creates a sense of equity in market participants.

3) Markets promote economic efficiency.
By establishing the opportunity costs (the sacrifice necessary to acquire) goods, prices established in markets promote movements of resources towards their best use.

4) Well functioning markets require a legal/regulatory framework that :
a) Promotes a "level playing field" i.e. does not favor particular activities and disadvantage others.
b) Prevents/limits transactions based upon coercion or deception.

5) A capitalist economy is a market economy where government functions as "the executive committee of the bourgeoisie" per Karl Marx's description.
The difficulty is that while single minded pursuit of self-interest is an excellent strategy for success in business, pursuit of self-interest in societal rule-making creates all sorts of difficulties.
The recent experience with deregulation of financial markets is an exemplar of this. Regulation has many defects, including stifling innovation. However, financial innovations have the side-effect of potentially increasing the risks of the economies payment systems. If the risks grow large enough they can threaten the very stability of the system.

Ecology and Rhetoric

This post deals with two things that I have absolutely no professional training in. I also haven't surveyed the literature to determine whether this is novel, but I suspect in might be. Why, because of what C.P. Snow called the Two Cultures. These are roughly speaking the sciences and the humanities. I therefore believe that no one has likely considered the relationship between ecology and rhetoric, but I would be happy to be corrected.

The term which I find particularly interesting from a rhetorical point of view is "invasive species." Here's what Wikipedia has to say about them. What interests me about the term in the value set that it appears to incorporate. Specifically, most of us are likely to have the notion that an invasion is a bad thing. (I except certain former officials of the Bush Administration.) Consequently, our knee-jerk reaction to hearing the an invasive species has established itself in a particular locality is probably negative.

Now current theories of speciation, suggest that geographic and/ or reproductive isolation are necessary for a new species to emerge. The late Stephen J. Gould suggested, in fact, that speciation might occur through a process of punctuated equilibrium. What does this mean for ecology? Unless a species never leaves the biome where it evolved by whatever mechanism, it must be invasive at some point. If a newly emerged species is fitter in an evolutionary sense than the parent species, or the species that fill the same niche elsewhere it will spread at the expense of those species.

Now, living in the South, I am well aware of the toll that kudzu lays upon native species. However, the problem with such introductions is not the species itself, but the absence of the controls that have evolved in its native biome.

In the sense that the term is often used, humanity could be considered an invasive species everywhere in the world except for Africa south and east of the great rift system. Now perhaps invasive species carries exactly the appropriate connotation needed for ecology. However, I really think a more appropriate term is "exotic species."

Hello, Blogosphere

I know, I know, I'm late to the game. Everybody really cool already has a blog, so nobody will ever pay attention here. Oh well (sigh!)

I have been bedeviled over the years with little snippets of ideas that I can't use professionally, nor can I use them in other places. But I personally think that they are interesting and worth at least getting out into the world. Maybe some of you will agree with me.

About the title: It refers to the late Douglas Adams classic Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Reading science fiction has been a serious influence in my life. However, there is an additional element here. Perhaps because of ADD, perhaps just because I'm flaky, I have a really hard time focusing on just one narrow specialty area. My professional training is in Economics (all the way to Ph.D.), I have an avocational interest in politics. But I'm also fascinated by science. I am also a bush league philosopher and amateur historian. In any case, the program of this blog (such as it is) will be to explore broadly across the realms of human knowledge. If I can make this half as interesting as I invariably find Brad Delong's I will be well pleased. Many of the ideas I expect to post came to me while I was walking my big brute of a dog in the predawn hours.

About me: I am a late middle-aged (God, I hope that sixty really is the new forty. Not there yet but anticipating with some trepidation.) college professor. I was born in Ohio where my father's family (or parts of it) has lived for 200 years. My mother's family background is a Yankee father (Maine) and a Southern mother (North Carolina) who were married long enough ago that it was considered a mixed marriage. I've been married thirty years to the same woman and have a son and two grandsons who currently live in the same town as I do. I teach at a public university in a southern state. I find somewhat to my dismay that I have lived here for over a quarter of my life. Although I live in the south, I am definitely not a southerner.

Politically, my most defining belief is that I am radically egalitarian. By this I mean that in my view, Human potential is more or less equally distributed. Thus I see the role of society as enabling individuals to reach their full potential. This implies a certain degree of libertarianism in terms of letting individuals make their own decisions, even when I regard their decisions as foolish ones. It also implies that I feel implacable hostility towards any elements of society which impose artificial limitations upon people's attempts to realize their potential. Consequently I consider both racism and sexism to be vile. This, would place me left of center. I am also committed to democratic governance. (Note the small d, I am also a large D democrat but that is a different issue.)