Missing Link Friday – The War on Whinging

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Don Arthur

With low unemployment, low inflation and 20 straight years of economic growth, the Sydney Morning Herald’s Jessica Irvine is astounded at how so many Australians are carrying on as if they live in a debt-wracked European basket case. Younger Australians have never seen a recession, she says, and many older people seem to have forgotten what one looks like.

So why do people carry on like this? "There can be only one answer", says Irvine, "we are, as a nation, chucking a full-on, all-screaming, all-door-slamming teenage temper tantrum." Voters and business are like petulant teenagers and the government is like a weak-willed parent desperate for affection.

Irvine’s column was the talk of Twitter this morning. "Fantastic piece on what a pack of whingers Australians are", tweeted Bernard Keane while Aleta describes Irvine as "a breath of sensible in a world of stupid". Trent Driver writes: "Best piece I have read in a long time. Wish you could hear the debate by the teenage girls in my ecos classes. :)"

Others were less convinced. "I don’t understand why people like that Jess Irvine thing" said Jason Wilson. "More pundits telling the people they’re spoilt children."

Liam Hogan commented "three things missing from that piece: price of housing, major city rental vacancy rate, homelessness index." Sarah Toohey from Australians for Affordable Housing agreed, "Nice points Liam. Overall econ good, lots quite comfortable, but some have really difficult lives b/c of hsg."

Arriving just after the ACTU conference, Irvine’s column runs into their campaign on insecure work. Jason Wilson asked: "Haven’t we just heard at the ACTU congress that ppl feel chronically insecure?"

According to the ACTU’s Ged Kearney, millions of Australians are in casual jobs, contract jobs and labour hire work. "On top of low wages, and a lack of conditions like sick leave and holiday pay, there is a huge amount of uncertainty about when and how much people will work."

Matt Cowgill and Keiran McCarron took issue with Irvine’s claim that Australia’s welfare state is bloated. Cowgill wrote: "I disagree that our welfare system is ‘bloated’ (unless you include tax expenditures in your definition)" while McCarron tweeted: "I didn’t read your article. But if you’re calling a welfare system smaller than the US’s "bloated" you’re just politicking."

Irvine isn’t the only one arguing that Australians are complaining too much. The Australian newspaper’s George Megalogenis has pledged a "war on whinging". And that’s just where twitter user truckie is filing the piece, under #waronwhinging. Megalogenis says he might pitch a ‘war on whinging’ show to the ABC. Fake Paul Keating tweets: "if you get a show, @Jess_Irvine is in the stop whinging camp, and lot more photogenic than you".

Why do libertarians support conservative parties?

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Don Arthur

In a piece for the Sunday Age, Chris Berg says progressives think conservatives are heartless because they “don’t realise the right has a different and legitimate moral framework.” Perhaps so, but what about libertarians?

Berg draws on Jonathan Haidt‘s moral foundations research. Haidt argues that moral judgments are largely intuitive and rest on six foundations – care/harm, fairness/cheating, liberty/oppression, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion and sanctity/degradation.

Haidt and his colleagues have found that progressives (liberals) rely almost entirely on the first three foundations when making moral judgments. In contrast, conservatives rely on all six.

In many ways libertarians are like progressives. “We found that libertarians look more like liberals than conservatives on most measures of personality” Haidt wrote in his recent book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. However:

Where they diverge from liberals most sharply is on two measures: the Care foundation, where they score very low (even lower than conservatives), and on some new questions we added about economic liberty, where they score extremely high (a little higher than conservatives, a lot higher than liberals).

So if progressives are wrong about conservatives, could they be right about libertarians? In a recent paper, a group of researchers including Haidt reported that libertarians reject the morality of altruism “as well as all other moralities based on ideas of obligation to other people, groups, traditions, and authorities.”

Interestingly, the research suggested libertarians may be less satisfied with their lives than either progressives or conservatives. The researchers reported that “libertarians may be less happy in part because they care less about others and (most likely) bond less with others, particularly close others.” Libertarians seem to rely less on emotion and more on abstract reasoning.

Given their lack of interest in conservative values, why do American libertarians consistently favour the Republican party? According to Haidt:

People with libertarian ideals have generally supported the Republican Party since the 1930s because libertarians and Republicans have a common enemy: the liberal welfare society that they believe is destroying America’s liberty (for libertarians) and moral fiber (for social conservatives).

There is always potential for tension between conservatives and libertarians. As I argued in a 2008 article for Policy magazine – ‘Defusing the American Right‘ – the alliance comes under stress when conservatives enlarge the size and scope of government in order to pursue their values. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on drugs were areas of tension under the Bush administration.

But perhaps not all libertarians lack concern for people who are poor and marginalised. Recently a number of libertarian thinkers have gathered together at the Bleeding Heart Libertarians blog. Some of them are even talking about social justice.

Social justice is about more than redistribution

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Don Arthur

In a recent book on social justice, former Labor politician Gary Johns argues for “a major reconsideration of social justice as a rationale for the welfare state”. In his essay ‘When too much social justice is never enough’ Johns suggests that social justice is primarily about the redistribution of wealth and income while egalitarianism is the pursuit of a more equal distribution of material resources.

Johns also implies that advocates of social justice and equality are opposed to democracy. As he writes in the Australian: “In a democracy, achieving a just distribution of society’s wealth requires permission to take money from some to distribute to others. Often, those others do not agree to hand over the money.” In his essays and articles Johns misconstrues social justice and egalitarianism as well as the relationship of these ideals to democracy.

People fight for equality when they feel they are being bullied or dominated, writes psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Haidt argues that social justice movements not only urge compassion for the poor and disadvantaged, they also “call for people to come together to fight the oppression of bullying domineering elites”. On this view social justice is not fundamentally about an equal distribution of wealth or income, it’s about freedom.

Continue reading →

‘Julia’ and the denial of history

Posted on May 5, 2012 by Don Arthur

First it was David Brooks’ Harold and Erica. Now it’s the Obama campaign’s Julia. Harold, Erica and Julia are all fictitious characters born into a perpetual present. They live and grow old in a world that doesn’t change. As Michael Shear at the New York Times writes:

At age 3, Julia is enrolled in Head Start programs, thanks to Mr. Obama. By 22, she’s covered by her parents’ health care because of Mr. Obama’s health reforms. At 42, she’s getting a small-business loan from the government. When she reaches 67, she’s retired and drawing Social Security benefits.

In Julia’s world, demographic, technological and environmental change are on pause. She doesn’t need to worry about waiting for the new Intel chip to come out before she buys a new laptop. The new chip never comes. And in the same way, the government doesn’t need to worry about the effect of unforeseen new medical technologies on the cost of health care. The policies that work today will work equally well tomorrow.

There’s no ageing population problem. There’s no demographic bulge threatening Social Security or Medicare. The labour market goes on as it does now with undisrupted by technological or trade induced change. And while climate change is a constant source of anxiety, it remains lodged in a future that never comes.

Are Americans in denial about history? And if they are, how would that warp their decision making?

Missing Link Friday – journalism, welfare, filial piety and big metal boxes

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Don Arthur

How aged care reform slipped off the media agenda: “Confronted with a major policy initiative that, while affecting millions, offered little potential for partisanship or prurience, the media was a little flummoxed”. Mr Denmore, The Failed Estate.

The limits of citizen journalism: “Why was new media able to topple governments in Egypt and Tunisia, but sparked new waves of oppression in Syria and Iran?” Alan Knight, Online Journalism.

Could the NYT make money from its scoops? “how much would hedge funds pay to be able to see the NYT’s big investigative stories during the trading day prior to the appearance of the story?” Felix Salmon, Reuters.

How OECD governments generate tax revenues: Stephen Gordon explains with graphs. Worthwhile Canadian Initiative.

That’s not welfare, that’s good policy: Whether we call it welfare or not, the real question is what government spending achieves. Sinclair Davidson, Catallaxy.

Left-Libertarianism and the Ownership of Natural Resources: “our just rights to natural resources entitle each of us to what has come to be called an ‘unconditional basic income’ or, in its non-paternalistic form, an unconditional initial capital grant.” Hillel Steiner, Bleeding Heart Libertarians.

On telling parents to f*** themselves: “I have received many emails from readers which exemplify or reject one or more of the six moral foundations. I recently received the text below, which is the most forceful rejection of the Authority foundation that I have ever read.” Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind.

How Containerization Shaped the Modern World: Celebrate the anniversary of the first containership in 1956 by watching this TED Ed video. Joshua Gans, Digitopoly.

What would it mean to end the age of entitlement?

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Don Arthur

In 1992 Bill Clinton campaigned on ideal: “The ideal that if you work hard and play by the rules you’ll be rewarded, you’ll do a little better next year than you did last year, your kids will do better than you.” This was the American dream.

With the economy in recession, many Americans felt they weren’t getting the opportunities they deserved. Naturally, Clinton blamed President Bush. It was a message that fed a sense of entitlement. In his 1995 book The Good Life and its Discontents: The American Dream in the Age of Entitlement, Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson wrote:

Without denying the role of individual effort, the modern view presumes that people who “play by the rules” should prosper. And because most of us do (or think we do), we are therefore “entitled” to security, stability and well-being. Entitlement means that almost everyone deserves to succeed. But not everyone does.

When reality falls short of the dream, people feel betrayed and look for someone to blame. Political leaders, bureaucracies, corporations and ‘elites’ are all pilloried for sabotaging prosperity.

Of course no government can guarantee that everyone who works hard and plays by the rules will enjoy low electricity prices, a secure job, a generous retirement income and a house that that doubles in value every ten years. As Samuelson says, “much of the recrimination obscures a deeper reality: our expectations were not realistic. We thought we were entitled, but we weren’t.”

Governments can’t ensure that everyone gets the security and prosperity they think they deserve. The economy will always have ups and downs. And some businesses and industries will collapse despite the fact that most of their employees worked hard and did the right thing.

What governments can do is create a safety net that prevents workers and their families from falling into severe poverty. They can provide almost everyone with access to basic education and healthcare. And they can maintain a framework that allows the economy to grow in the long term, even if it periodically shrinks during recessions.

Part of the trouble with the entitlement mentality is that people who feel they’ve been denied look for scapegoats. And when those scapegoats are people on welfare, the entitlement mentality can end up eroding one of the few things governments really can do — maintaining a system that protects vulnerable people against poverty.

Missing Link Friday – The end of the age of entitlement?

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Don Arthur

In a speech at the Institute of Economic Affairs, Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey announced the the end of the age of entitlement. He followed up the speech with an interview for the ABC’s Lateline.

At Billablog, Hockey’s speech inspires a song while Patricia at Cafe Whispers pens a poem about Tony Abbott’s Magic Pudding Budget Plan.

Phillip Coorey at the Sydney Morning Herald writes that Hockey’s approach lacks “consistency with much of what the Coalition has said and done more broadly, suggesting there may be an internal struggle going on.”

Hockey told Lateline’s Tony Jones that: “We need to compare ourselves with our Asian neighbours where the entitlements programs of the state are far less than they are in Australia.” Blogger Matt Cowgill did exactly that:

Hockey could eliminate all social spending other than health and old age assistance and we’d still be at 10.1% of GDP, well above Korea, a country he mentions as a benchmark. In other words, even if we scrapped all help for people with disabilities (the support pension as well as in-kind help), got rid of Newstart, stopped spending anything on helping people find work, and eliminated all housing assistance, we’d still be devoting more than our Asian neighbours to social spending. That leaves health care and old age pensions as the only place left to cut to get down to the sort of levels that Hockey identified. The safety net as we know it would be a thing of the past after cuts of that size.