Club Troppo

Forty six million Americans are living in poverty but nobody seems to care. In a comment at Crooked Timber, Moe says:

I had this strange evening where I watched a bit of Jackie Kennedy talking smack about people and then heard this statistic about the increase in poverty and I was thinking of the alteration in attitudes toward poverty in the US between the Kennedy years and our years. I think the only thing that can explain the change in attitude, rhetoric and policy is the decline of the Soviet Union. There are no rival models, there’s no need for lip service about shared prosperity.

Moe is right. In the late 1950s Americans had something to prove — that American capitalism was outperforming Soviet communism in eliminating poverty and delivering prosperity to the people. As Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev said: "Let’s compete. The system that will give the people more goods will be the better system and victorious."

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Will Wilkinson is unhappy about a recent article in Salon where Michael Lind denounces libertarians as enemies of democracy. One of Lind’s targets is the classical liberal, Friedrich Hayek who he says preferred libertarian dictatorships to welfare state democracies. Wilkinson hits back, arguing that Hayek was a staunch defender of "constitutionally-limited liberal democracy" and offers an extended quote to prove the point.

But Lind has a point. According to Greg Grandin he once told a Chilean interview that his personal preference "leans toward a liberal dictatorship rather than toward a democratic government devoid of liberalism."

As Wilkinson knows, Hayek’s "constitutionally-limited liberal democracy" isn’t what everyone thinks of as democracy. Hayek was all for democratically elected governments, but he favoured a system designed to prevent elected leaders from doing many of the things that voters want. What Hayek feared more than authoritarianism was an unlimited democracy where the government could legislate for and implement anything a majority of citizens wanted.

Some liberals worry about things like a white minority granting themselves rights and privileges they deny to blacks. But Hayek had other things in mind. As he said in a lecture titled ‘Whither democracy’:

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The left needs utopia, says John Quiggin; "a transformative vision to offer hope of a better life". Last year he wrote:

After decades of defensive struggle, we on the left no longer know how to talk about anything bigger than the local fights in which we may hope to defend the gains of the past and occasionally make a little progress. But the time is now ripe to look ahead.

It’s an odd reversal. In 1949 Friedrich Hayek lamented: "Utopian thought is … a source of strength to the socialists which traditional liberalism sadly lacks." But now with the socialist vision fading from view, it’s libertarians who are the utopians. They read books like Anarchy, State and Utopia, dream of floating cities and look forward to a world where people can move freely between governments, choosing the one whose policies suit them best.

These libertarian visions are a lot more concrete than some of the ‘underpants gnomes‘ schemes of the old left (Phase 1: Destroy capitalism … Phase 3: Live happily ever after), but none have made the leap into reality.

Libertarian seasteaders dream of forcing governments to compete with each other to attract and hold valuable citizens. Seasteading enthusiasts like Patri Friedman imagine oceans filled with floating micro-states. "It’s almost like there’s a cartel of governments," he told Details magazine, "and this is a way to force governments to compete in a free-market way."

Quiggin also imagines a future where people move more freely across national borders. But where the seasteaders imagine a world with lower taxes and fewer regulations, Quiggin imagines welfare state institutions that extend beyond individual nation states:

The ultimate goal ought to be one in which, everyone, no matter where they happen to be born has access to the basic requirements for a decent life. That doesn’t entail a world government (at least in the sense in which we typically understand the word “government” today) but it does entail a break with ideas based on nation-states as the ultimate focus of sovereignty. One relatively minor, but important step towards this would come with a “contract and converge” approach to CO2 emissions, which would ultimately imply equal entitlements to emissions per person in all countries.

Last year Mark Bahnisch at Larvatus Prodeo seconded Quiggin’s call for a social democratic movement that has moved beyond the politics of national solidarity and embraced social diversity. But he argues that it "needs arguing in a much stronger form than the sort of liberal cosmopolitanism which often has affinities with neo-liberalism: the articulation of the conscience of the progressive wing of the globally integrated classes."

It’s unlikely that libertarian utopianism will ever be embraced by the mainstream right. But will mainstream social democrats embrace Quiggin’s cosmopolitan vision?

Even geeks need to be polite: Geeky men with poor social skills might be frustrated by their lack of success with women, but frustration is no excuse for abusing women who say no to other geeks. So if your life revolves around a geeky activity where women are scarce, Skepticlawyer has a message for you — work on your courtesy and charm. And get used to hearing ‘no’.

Creepy guys in elevators : If a man you didn’t know propositioned you in a hotel elevator at four in the morning, would you find that a little creepy? Rebecca Watson did. It happened to her after she gave a talk about misogyny in the atheist movement. As she said in video later, "Just a word to the wise here guys. Don’t do that."

Wafergate: A few years ago, atheist PZ Myers pierced a communion wafer with a nail and threw it in the trash along with some old coffee grounds and a banana peel. Not surprisingly, many Catholics were offended. But of course offending theists is part of what the militant atheist movement is all about.

Elevatorgate: Militant atheist Richard Dawkins was annoyed by Watson’s complaints. In a comment on PZ Myers blog he argued that the guy in the elevator did nothing more than speak to her: "If she felt his behaviour was creepy, that was her privilege, just as it was the Catholics’ privilege to feel offended and hurt when PZ nailed the cracker."

It usually begins with Ayn Rand: When Alyssa Bereznak’s parents split up, her father included a firm instruction in the divorce papers: Alyssa’s mother was forbidden to raise her or her brother religiously. In Salon Bereznak writes about how her father’s obsession with Ayn Rand blighted her childhood. "Ultimately, I suspect Dad was drawn to objectivism because, unlike so many altruistic faiths, it made him feel good about being selfish", she writes.

But ends up as another internet controversy: When geek legend Jon Finkel discovered Bereznak’s profile on OKCupid he decided to ask her out. She accepted. Finkel googled her before the date. "She had a pretty good, heartfelt article about her dad and Ayn Rand" he says.

Unfortunately the googling wasn’t reciprocal . So when Finkel told Bereznak he was a world champion Magic: The Gathering player she was so appalled she ended up writing an article for Gizmodo about it. Surely this is something a person ought to disclose in their online profile, she insisted.

Was that wrong? At Tiger Beatdown, Sady argues it was wrong for Bereznak to name Finkel in her article. She offers some advice: "Disguise the identity of your bad dates, when you write about them on the Internet. They have friends and family and co-workers that they have to face in the morning."

But despite some of the nasty comments Bereznak has been getting on internet forums, there’s nothing wrong with rejecting a date because you don’t share their interests, says Sady: "Sorry, friends: People get to find your interests unattractive sometimes. That’s the way it works."

Back at Skepticlawyer’s: In the comments thread to Skepticlawyer’s post, a different perspective about geeks and dating emerges. "Fascinating post," says su, "this is something I am trying to teach my teenager who does have Asperger’s. He keeps coming up with different ways to approach girls that he likes and they are always rather indirect and yet invasive."

Patrick suggests a self-help book. Skepticlawyer agrees: "How to Win Friends and Influence People helped me a great deal at the beginning of my legal career", she writes.

Two diametrically opposed takes on the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ newly released 2009-10 Household Expenditure Survey:

Spending survey busts struggling families myth (ABC news item):

Claims that many Australians are doing it tough and households are being weighed down by the soaring cost of living no longer match up with the facts.

A comprehensive analysis of household spending by the Bureau of Statistics shows that in real terms we are richer than we were six years ago, and while we’re spending more on essentials like housing and transport, we are also spending more on recreation.

Incomes have risen 50 per cent and that suggests that although we may be paying more for goods and services, we are consuming more as well.

Snapshot of a nation under stress (The Australian):

ONE in four households relies on welfare benefits while one in seven is spending more than it earns, as increasing cost-of-living pressures bear down on families. …

Of the nation’s poorest households, one in 10 went without meals and 7.3 per cent could not afford to heat their homes in winter during 2009-10, according to a six-yearly snapshot of spending by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Australians are having to spend more than half their income on the basics – housing, food and transport – as the soaring cost of living bites into spending on life’s luxuries. One in eight households could not pay their bills on time.

The ABS household expenditure survey reveals that households are under as much financial stress now as in the lead-up to the 1998 east Asian economic crash.

The “financial stress” afflicted some of the nation’s wealthiest people, with almost one in seven high-earning households failing to pay bills on time and 8.8 per cent seeking financial help from friends and family.

Try this quick quiz.  Which story gives a more accurate picture of the ABS survey? Hint – It isn’t Rupert’s “journal of record”.  How unusual.

On Monday, the Crawford school at the ANU ran a symposium on whether or not the government policy on carbon emissions was good policy. The video of the event should shortly appear here.

The main surprise for me was to see how clearly some of  the other economists speaking there, like Warwick McKibbon, David Pierce, and Henry Ergas, were skeptical about the prospects of serious coordinated international efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

The message of my presentation was that it is time to get more serious about adaptation. The synopsis of my presentation is over the fold.

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I’ve been musing about the possibilities of updating Troppo’s “look and feel” (although I haven’t yet caucused with Nicholas and Don about it).  What I have in mind is a more “newspaper-ish” arrangement, probably a bit like Larvatus Prodeo with the front page displaying a feature slider, excerpts from the 8-10 most recent posts and displays of recent post headlines in selected popular categories.  I would also like to add some aggregated RSS feed headlines from other blogs.  I even like the theme LP uses (although without the ghastly purplish-pinkish hue).

I’m sure it can all be done, it’s just I have no idea how and no time to acquire the expertise.  Moreover Ozblogistan Fuehrer Jacques Chester is busy finishing his Honours thesis and won’t be able to help either.  What we need is someone with expertise in the Wordpress backend including some web design capability at least sufficient to “tweak” existing Wordpress themes.  If you fit the bill and are interested in helping, please contact me at ken dot parish at cdu dot edu dot au.  I’m not sure whether the meagre Troppo bank account (from the days when we hosted advertising via OLO) could run to much in the way of payment, but we can certainly feature your name and credentials in lights on the front page.

A comment by Chris Lloyd on my post about last week’s High Court decision brings into sharp relief why it will be a high risk strategy for the Gillard government to adopt a policy of wholly onshore processing of boat-arriving  (and by definition visaless) asylum seekers.  That especially applies if applicants are accommodated in the community after health, identity and security clearances rather than in mandatory universal detention, even though that’s the way most countries in the world treat asylum seekers and the way the Refugee Convention specifies.  Chris comments:

I honestly believe that if we did what Ken suggests we will have 20,000 arrivals in 2012 and 200,000 in 2013. There is simply no limit to the number of refugees – loosely defined – who will come here if PR is guaranteed. Who the hell would wait in a camp?

Of course, no-one can absolutely guarantee that Chris’s scenario won’t occur.  All that can be said is that it’s highly unlikely in the long run (although in the short term people smugglers might offer drastically discounted passage in a bid to break the government’s nerve).  Britain has a much more difficult job in defending its borders against asylum seekers than Australia.  You can swim the Channel at a pinch, trains and boat and planes connect it to Europe every few minutes, and it’s geographically close to the primary asylum seeker-generating countries of Africa and the Middle East.  Moreover, Britain has long allowed asylum seekers (visaless or otherwise and irrespective of mode of arrival) to remain free in the community while their applications are processed, once they have passed initial health, identity and security clearances .  And yet Britain’s total number of asylum seeker applicants has fallen from 33,960 in 2004 to 24,250 in 2009 (I don’t have last year’s figures):

The annual asylum figures for 2009 show that overall applications fell 6% to 24,250 with 27% of decisions resulting in official permission to stay, 17% given full refugee status. During 2009 a total of 64,750 failed asylum seekers were deported or left Britain voluntarily – 5% fewer than the previous year.

A total of 28,000 people were held in UK Border Agency detention centres last year, including 1,065 children.

Britain has toughened up its asylum seeker policies in recent years but still basically adheres to the Refugee Convention expectation that asylum seekers will not be imprisoned during assessment except for a good, specific reason.  Thus it is reasonable to project that UK numbers represent an upper bound to likely Australian asylum seeker numbers if we adopt similar policies to most other western countries (i.e. community-based processing).  Indeed it is unlikely that our numbers will approach these levels on an ongoing basis. WE are a remote island continent far away from the places that generate most refugees.  In the context of an overall Australian migration program involving 200,000-300,000 migrants per year (including 457 work visas), this is a drop in the ocean.  Moreover, it is evident from the British figures that the success rate drops as total numbers of asylum seekers increase. Britain’s success rate is just 27% and has been at about that level for many years, whereas Australia’s has generally been above 70%.  There is nothing in the Refugee Convention,  broader human rights principles or commonsense (or last week’s High Court decision) that prevents any country including Australia from assessing refugee applications rigorously, especially for those who arrive without ID and cannot independently establish their identity.

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In campaigning for the State election John Brumby racked his brains wondering what he could promise for the state education system and, at some cost, came up with . . . school camps. Can’t say I thought it was the most important thing that could be done with a few additional millions of dollars in education, but what would I know?

School camps are all the rage in Australia’s private schools, or at least Victoria’s ones. They raise equity problems at state schools because they’re expensive. Not so much of a problem at the more expensive end of the private school market. Indeed some schools have you spending literally over a thousand dollars on carefully prescribed camping kit.

Of course if kids want to go on these things that’s well and good.  But lots of kids don’t.  But there seems to be a strong consensus in schools that these exercises are Very Good. So much so that some schools actually spend a term or a year in semi-camp conditions – although obviously for that period of time it’s a cross between a camp and a boarding school. This also seems to be growing in popularity.  I recall Prince Charles going to Timbertop, but now there are quite a few similar operations.

I heard the Principal of one Melbourne girls school say that their year 9 exercise where all the girls go away for the entire year really matures the girls. I’ve also heard of horror stories in which eating disorders surge and bullying reaches new heights.

Anyway, as you know Troppo shares virtually all of its basic philosophies with Fox News, most particularly our commitment to open and honest deliberation. In what may (but almost certainly wont’) become a series of such posts, we ask . . . . What do you think (Oh Troppodillians)?

Here is a guest post by Avi Waksberg. NG

Should we pay teachers performance bonuses for teachers based on standardised testing of their pupils? The teachers I’ve spoken to about this have invariably argued that it encourages them to ‘teach to the test’ whilst neglecting hard to test skills. In contrast, most economists I’ve spoken with favour some kind of ‘merit pay’, often raising promising examples from Israel (Lavy 2004) or Colorado (see de Grow 2007). However, imposing performance-based compensation upon hostile teachers seems a good way to ensure the approach does not work. (Chait 2007).

I am confident that people respond to incentives. However, teaching is difficult to quantify, complex and multidimensional. These are job characteristics that Dixit (2002) found tend to make performance pay less likely to be used. This leads to a situation where we focus on simplified metrics. But if incentives are not well targeted or the desired outcome accurately measured, then the response will be to overly focus on those aspects that are measured at the expense of other responsibilities. This is what underlies the complaint that teachers would be encouraged to ‘teach to the test’.

Moreover, there is no consensus on what constitutes teaching excellence. Is a teacher supposed to maximise: grades, enthusiasm for learning, clear thinking, university entrance, lifetime income, or life satisfaction? Goldhaber (2009) argued that while we may know little about how to objectively and accurately quantify teacher productivity, this problem is surmountable using merit pay programs with several evaluation components (such as Principal or peer evaluation, school-wide analysis, professional development and incentives for hard-to-fill skills and positions). However, any form of merit pay would still require the support of teachers, schools and administrators. Successful programs often emphasize collaboration and improvement rather than dividing teachers into ‘winners’ and ‘losers’.

I have a suggestion that, while incentive-based, seems to have registered a more positive response from teachers I have interviewed. Instead of rewards based on test results, I suggest offering prizes to teachers for posting excellent lesson plans to password-protected teachers’ forums (such as the Ultranet that is used in Victoria). This would potentially have the added advantage of encouraging a sense of sharing and collegiality among teachers, whilst not making them feel under-appreciated and judged in the way that bonuses based on testing can. If only teachers who are logged into secure forums can download the lesson plans, then it would be easy to simply record unique downloads (i.e. the number of downloads from different teacher logins as opposed to total number of downloads) and offer rewards to teachers for the most downloaded lesson plans in each year and subject. This approach has the advantage of addressing the tricky problem: what quantifies good teaching? In essence, we let the people who are best qualified to answer, the teachers themselves, decide what represents the best in their field.

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