Murry N. Rothbard on state versus free-market capitalism.#

Unfortunately, the term "capitalism" was coined by its greatest and most famous enemy, Karl Marx. We really can't rely upon him for correct and subtle usage. And, in fact, what Marx and later writers have done is to lump together two extremely different and even contradictory concepts and actions under the same portmanteau term. These two contradictory concepts are what I would call "free-market capitalism" on the one hand, and "state capitalism" on the other.

The difference between free-market capitalism and state capitalism is precisely the difference between, on the one hand, peaceful, voluntary exchange, and on the other, violent expropriation. An example of a free-market exchange is my purchase of a newspaper on the corner for a dime; here is a peaceful, voluntary exchange beneficial to both parties. I buy the newspaper because I value the newspaper more highly than the dime that I give up in exchange; and the newsdealer sells me the paper because, he, in turn, values the dime more highly than the newspaper. Both parties to the exchange benefit. And what we are both doing in the exchange is the swapping of titles of ownership: I relinquish the ownership of my dime in exchange for the paper, and the newsdealer performs the exact opposite change of title. This simple exchange of a dime for a newspaper is an example of a unit free-market act; it is the market at work.

In contrast to this peaceful act, there is the method of violent expropriation. Violent expropriation occurs when I go to the news-dealer and seize his newspapers or his money at the point of a gun. In this case, of course, there is no mutual benefit; I gain at the expense of the victimized newsdealer. Yet the difference between these two transactions--between voluntary mutual exchange, and the holdup at gunpoint--is precisely the difference between free market capitalism and state capitalism. In both cases we obtain something--whether it be money or newspapers- but we obtain them in completely different ways, ways with completely different moral attributes and social consequences.

One Click Simple!#

Julie Leung looks towards the past...#

I'm not sure I have words to describe what it is that's missing in society. I can't articulate why I ache. Sometimes I long for another era, for a resurrection of times past, but I wonder whether I am simply imagining a fantasy with rose-colored retro-lenses, painting a picture of a place in my mind that never existed in the world. Books and movies aren't reality. But reading Jay's review and then Michael's has confirmed to me that others may share my longings and imagination. They've also given me words to describe what I want to see in our society: class and happiness.

I think ditching the rose-colored glasses is important. By this I mean do not assume that the past was completely wonderful, but this does not mean elements of the past were not more agreeable than the current situation.

Specifically related to Jane Austen, the courtship, sweet letters, and balls were certainly romantic and grand but accompanied with them is the practice of wearing your salary on your shirt, strict barriers between ranks (even within the elite,) and the cold responsibilities of the lady of the house for her lord.

Built to Spill - Joyride#

saturday I jotted some words I thought
all about a girl that I thought I loved
told the story of what we did and what went wrong
you've heard it all before it's the same old shit so I won't bore you with all the details
I'm sure you can listen between the lines
I screwed her and she screwed me
but we never once has sex
all we ever have is too much time love is just a joyride
drink a lot of beer and climb inside
lay your foot down on the gas
leave it there until you crash
love is just a joyride [love]
drink a lot of beer and climb inside [is just a]
lay your foot down on the gas [joy ride]
leave it there until you crash this part of the song is called the second verse
sounds just like the first but with different words
it only has three chords and they are A and E and D
they are A and E and D
then it goes to D minor, D, uh, A, E, D

John Wiseman links to a great story about Richard Feynman.#

Getting Richard to give advice like that was sometimes tricky. He pretended not to like working on any problem that was outside his claimed area of expertise. Often, at Thinking Machines when he was asked for advice he would gruffly refuse with "That's not my department." I could never figure out just what his department was, but it did not matter anyway, since he spent most of his time working on those "not-my-department" problems. Sometimes he really would give up, but more often than not he would come back a few days after his refusal and remark, "I've been thinking about what you asked the other day and it seems to me..." This worked best if you were careful not to expect it.

I do not mean to imply that Richard was hesitant to do the "dirty work." In fact, he was always volunteering for it. Many a visitor at Thinking Machines was shocked to see that we had a Nobel Laureate soldering circuit boards or painting walls. But what Richard hated, or at least pretended to hate, was being asked to give advice. So why were people always asking him for it? Because even when Richard didn't understand, he always seemed to understand better than the rest of us. And whatever he understood, he could make others understand as well. Richard made people feel like a child does, when a grown-up first treats him as an adult. He was never afraid of telling the truth, and however foolish your question was, he never made you feel like a fool.

The charming side of Richard helped people forgive him for his uncharming characteristics. For example, in many ways Richard was a sexist. Whenever it came time for his daily bowl of soup he would look around for the nearest "girl" and ask if she would fetch it to him. It did not matter if she was the cook, an engineer, or the president of the company. I once asked a female engineer who had just been a victim of this if it bothered her. "Yes, it really annoys me," she said. "On the other hand, he is the only one who ever explained quantum mechanics to me as if I could understand it." That was the essence of Richard's charm.

Truck and Barter links to an article about the importance of old humans in the development of a society.#

Another thing that doesn't seem to be mention is that in a society without writing, old people are the only way of effectively passing down information. Jared Diamond writes a lot about this in his books and I would be happy to elaborate if asked.

Tyler Cowen shares Gordon Tullock's thoughts on minimum wage.#

Gordon notes that the government can make an employer raise nominal money wages, but can't stop him from turning off the air conditioner. [A more optimistic scenario is that the employer invests in creating a higher-productivity job.] Surely just about every job out there can be made worse, one way or another, in a way that saves the employer money.

So the scenario is now simple. The government boosts the minimum wage. Low-wage workers earn more. Few lose their jobs. Workers sweat more too, one way or another. Few are much better off.

Begin Here: The Forgotten Conditions of Teaching and Learning is a collection of essays from the humanist, historian, and teacher Jacques Barzun that focus on what he sees as problems in the modern American classroom, whether university or public school. Although the essays were originally written and published separately over the last fifty years, they have been collected together and laid out in the sequence most likely to offer understanding of Jacques' philosophy of teaching and learning. It is important to remember that this advice was written in prominent places since the 1950s and often times the predictions have come true without any attempt to prevent them.#

There are a few points that are constantly revisited and they are essentially the pillars on which all other ideas rest, they are:#

1. An education is the end result of self-cultivation and an on-going process throughout the life of an individual. A result of this is that an education cannot be taught or given, it arises from personal volition. Instead, what can be spoken of is the best principles of teaching and learning.
2. A true teacher is a rare phenomenon, like a genius pianist or brilliant scientist. Nevertheless, it is possible to train an average instructor to imitate the true teacher. Unfortunately, most positions that should be held by teachers or their best substitutes are not truly meant for teaching, despite their title: in public schools the teacher is a part-time babysitter, a part-time sports coach, a part-time administrator, a part-time socializer, a part-time preacher, etc; at the university level many of these extra demands fall-through with the additional requirement of original research. There is a lack of focus and direction in modern schools.
3. Despite the slogans to the contrary, modern society does not truly value excellence. While each school may have a "Center for Excellence" or an "Excellence Achievement Award", these are counteracted by the taboo of elitism that hides behind excellence, for when one is excellent there are necessarily some who are not. This can be seen in the way that sports are valued about academics, the social norms alive amongst professors and intellectuals, and the culture amongst students that to stand-out for being good is bad. [Although Jacques alludes to its foundation is democracy and socialization, he doesn't bring up other places such an attitude is expressed.]

First Things#

On the necessity of teaching:#

There is unfortunately no method or gimmick that will replace teaching. We have seen the failure of one touted method after another. Teaching will not change; it is a hand-to-hand, face-to-face encounter. There is no help for it--we must teach and we must learn, each for himself and herself, using words and working at the perennial Difficulties. That is the condition of living and surviving at least tolerably well: let us say, as well as the best of the field, which have instruction from within--and no need of this book. [p. 14-15]

On the tedium and additional requirements upon teachers other than teaching:#

Teaching is a demanding, often back-breaking job; it should not be done with the energy left over after meetings and pointless paperwork have drained hope and faith in the enterprise. Accountability, the latest cure in vogue, is to be looked for only in results. Good teaching is usually well-known to all concerned without questionnaires of approved lesson plans. The number of good teachers who are now shackled by bureaucratic obligations to superiors who know little or nothing about the classroom cannot even be guessed at. They deserve from an Education President an Emancipation Proclamation.

[...]

The Army is not considered the most efficient of institutions, but when it finds a deficiency in fire power it does not a launch a "Right to Shoot Program" or a "Marksmanship Recovery Project." It gets the sergeants busy and the instructors out to the rifle range. [p. 19-20]

Another one of the keys that Jacques like to point the focus at is the centrality of reading, the all-importance of being able to reading well and having the desire to do so for self-cultivation. This is an important skill and habit for both students and teachers. Teaching reading well is one of the first things that must be accomplish before an education can develop.#

Pascal once said that all the trouble in the world was due to the fact that man could not sit still in a room. He must hunt, flirt, gamble, chatter. That is man's destiny and its not to be quarreled with, but the educated man has through the ages found a way to convert passionate activity into silent and motionless pleasure. He can sit in a room and not perish. [p. 216]

In an attempt to pre-forge a response to critics of change, either conservatives of the current school system or of the current philosophy of experimentation and bureaucracy, Jacques has this to say of traditions:#

What is the lesson to be drawn? It is that no principles, however true, are any good when they are misunderstood or stupidly applied. Nothing is right by virtue of its origins, but only by the virtue of its results.[*] A stifling tradition is bad and a "great" tradition is good. Innovation that brings improvement is what we all desire; innovation that impoverishes the mind and the chances of life is damnable. Above all institutions, the school is designed for only one thing--fruits. But nowadays we despise the very word cultivation. Unweeded soil undoubtedly grows wondrous things that nobody can predict. Such things we have in abundance, but it would be a rash man would call it a harvest. [p. 27]

* I don't think this should be confused to recommend "ends justifying means," because sour means bring about the desired ends and additional consequences that cancel out the good effects of the desired end.

Curriculum#

Jacques critiques many popular ideas about what to present to students in a curriculum and some of the clichés that are abound in measuring the success of such lessons. History is of particular importance in Jacques' opinion, but it should not "come alive."#

Teachers brought up on "methods" may be convinced that good teaching consists in a succession of such "imaginative" devices, to make history "come alive" and keep the class "excited" about learning. But observation and interviews with the young suggest, on the contrary, that these exercises induce boredom in those who want to learn and are taken as relief from work by those who do not. Excitement, anyway, is an occasional feeling and not the proper mood for learning. One begins to wonder whether it is not the teacher who likes discontinuity and interruption as a substitute for serious work. [p. 71]

Barzun is also an advocate for teaching art is schools, but he disagrees with how this is gone about:#

There do not have to be eighteen reasons to justify art in the school. One is enough. Let it be put this way: "Art is an important part of our culture. It corresponds to a deep instinct in man; hence it is enjoyable. We therefore teach its rudiments."

Do a good of teaching them and what happens after that is none of your business. No teacher, no "educator" has a right to expect--much less to demand--those miraculous results, those improvements and transformations of the human soul. [p. 109]

Another problem with current curriculums is the way they attempt to teach a history of all the worlds' cultures to be inclusive. Jacques says that not only is this an impossible task, but the supposed justification does not stand on its own:#

A tempting prospect but for the fallacies in it. In the first place, it is a question whether school programs should be tailored to make this or that group feel honored. Cultural pride bay be a good thing, clannish conceit is not; nor does it need school assignments in order to flourish. Second, tolerance--which runs counter to conceit--does not come from knowing how other people dance, worship, and get married. In Beirut, Christians are killing Christians, and Muslim, Muslim. They know only too well their enemies' customs. A common heritage did not prevent the War of 1812 with England or of the North and South in 1861.

Third, the provincialism of the West is a myth. It is the West, and not the East, that has penetrated into all parts of the globe. It is only the West that has studied, translated, and disseminated the thoughts, the histories, and the works of art of other civilizations, living and dead. By now, the formerly shut-in peoples do take an interest in others, but this recent development is in imitation of Western models. By good and bad means, Western ideas have imprinted themselves on the rest of the world, and one result is that cultural exchange and mutual instruction are at last consciously international; this, just at the time when we are told to repudiate our achievements and consign our best thoughts to oblivion. [p. 131]

Advanced Work#

The biggest two problems with universities, as Jacques sees it, are:#

1. There is a lack of focus. The university has become a small republic with its own version of the welfare state responsible for providing housing, fine dining, theater, arts, museums, sports, health, insurance, government, and slew of other non-academic functions. Not that these things are not worthwhile or that they should not associate themselves with the university, but because they are tied to, not independent of, the university is increases tuition fees and spreads a weakening attention far thinner than tolerable.
2. The university has lost its initial purpose of cultivation. The United States has adopt a "Mandarin" system where a degree is required for any type of position or upward mobility at all. Rather than being a place of cultivation, the university is a technical training school and diploma stamping office. (p. 154)

Another smaller, but related problem is the "publish or perish" environment that prevents university professors from either truly focusing on teaching or on making important contributions to the pool of knowledge. Jacques has a lot to say of this.#

Stemming from it is the obsession with reports and statistics:#

Judging from what is being studied, research, fact-found, all over the world, it is clear that as a civilization we no longer know how to do anything simply and directly. We can meet no situation, purse no purpose, without stopping work and making a study. Nor can we start up again without a period of exploration and testing. We are persuaded that nothing can be done today as it once was done. So we repeatedly analyze the familiar and suspend action. In the end we are as helpless in the face of common need as we are in the face of emergencies. We site and wait for the reports to tell us what to do, and our self-consciousness grows faster than our knowledge and our will. Only our faith in progress, our faith in the automatism of our methods and our gadgets, keeps us in countenance. [p. 161]

A contrast with the old standard of research production:#

The original source takes its rise at the beginning of this century in what William James called "the Ph.D. Octopus," which dictates that every member of the academic force can and should be a productive scholar--a novel idea in the history of scholarship. It used to be the other way around. The stereotype of the scholar was that of an old bookworm who amassed learning year after year without ever getting to his great book. To suppose that every owner of a Ph.D. can carry on valuable research while also teaching and find time to write it up in publishable form, is contrary to fact; motive and ability are not to be had on demand. The true scholar might devote a lifetime to a large subject and publish on the brink of the grace. Now, after the dissertation's painful birth, the scholar must give signs of fertility ever couple of years. [p. 171]

Notable Quotes#

Related to echo chambers:

The fallacy recurs in another destructive form when the ultimate test of scholarship--impartial judgment--is declared illusory. The argument runs: nobody can rid himself entirely of bias; therefore all scholarship is completely biased; therefore let us freely produce propaganda for our views. The refusal to see--or to admit--the difference between a true scholar and a careless or prejudiced one shows lack of candor or inability to think straight--let the partisan choose his category. [p. 166]

How often have I read such an argument about journalism and the news...

 

"It is always time to stop repeating wise sayings, and start believing in them."