Author Archives: rdmyers75@hotmail.com

equality vs. equal opportunity

Continuing to think about European socialism-style equality vs. the U.S. narrative of equal opportunity and the pursuit of happiness. Our version makes more sense in some ways – everyone starts out equal, but then people who work the hardest, have the best ideas, or are willing to take risks get rewarded. This makes sense as an ideal – combine it with a safety net for those who don’t succeed through no fault of their own, and it could be a nice, practical vision. The main problem is that it is a narrative that can be twisted and co-opted by the rich and powerful to write the rules unfairly in their favor, ultimately creating the opposite of equal opportunity. Even darker, it can lead to a narrative where people who benefit from the rules being unfairly in their favor find ways to rationalize their success, convincing first others and then themselves that they had superior talents to being with. Here’s an article from Shelterforce that makes some of these arguments:

Upon closer scrutiny, however, the meritocratic ideal turns out to be quite pernicious.  Summarizing the conclusion of my recent article on the subject, I find that, while this ideal is highly unlikely to achieve its core objectives (except maybe on the margins), its pursuit nonetheless creates “a competitive individualist ‘rat race’ of a society, fundamentally anti-communal and anti-familial, where group solidarity is uncommon and compassion muted.” And, worst of all, it ends up legitimizing—and thus reinforcing—the very social and economic inequality it purports to rectify…

In particular, much of liberal urban policy focuses on what liberals see as a kind of “unholy trinity” of barriers, as I have labeled it, that stem from inadequate schooling, troubled families, and poverty-impacted neighborhoods. Yet there is a great body of evidence showing that efforts to break down these barriers yield only marginal results in promoting meritocratic social mobility for the urban poor, while at the same time imposing significant costs on the most vulnerable.

Mostly notably, we see various school reforms fail over and over, and even enhanced higher education produces surprisingly limited impacts. As a result, we end up blaming the educational system for the failures of the rest of society, which in turn opens the door to corporate-oriented policies designed to privatize and monetize public schools. At the same time, programs that intervene into family life, unless highly intensive, also produce only minimal results, and when such interventions are intensive, they tend to violate the liberty of poor parents to autonomously direct the development of their children. Likewise, efforts to reduce barriers arising from the effects of poor neighborhoods via housing dispersal policies or the creation of mixed-income communities also have been generally disappointing, while often disconnecting the vulnerable from crucial familial and communal bonds.

I still think we should talk about how to make equal opportunity, with an appropriate safety net, a reality in this country, as an alternative to the European socialist model, which is the main alternative. These are really the only two humane options. What could true equal opportunity look like? For the sake of argument, let’s say we had a 100% inheritance tax, with the proceeds distributed equally to all newborn babies. Universal tax-funded education, up to and including the highest level of education and/or practical skills training needed to succeed in the economy, including continuing education for adults to adapt as technology and economic conditions change. Universal and equal access to health care. Excellent public infrastructure serving and connecting all urban areas. Low barriers to changing jobs or starting a business. Now you have a platform where people can compete and cooperate to build wealth. Some will work harder, innovate more, take more chances and earn more financial rewards. Others will choose to play it safer, devote more time to family and leisure, or just enjoy life’s experiences with less material wealth. You would still need unemployment and disability insurance for those who fall through the cracks through no fault of their own.

Scandinavian equality

Recently I wrote a post about how it seems ludicrous to blame the United States’s problems on an excess of democracy, if democracy is defined as equality. I also suggested that a reasonable definition of democracy should include a consensus building process, which is not just rule by majority vote, but a method to choose policies that almost everyone can accept even if they are not everyone’s first choice.

Well, the Scandinavian democracies at first glance seem to achieve equality, consensus, wealth, and peace. I want to believe in that, and to believe that we could learn its secrets and bring them to the United States. Here is a dissenting view though, in a new book about the Anders Breivik massacre in Norway:

After the Second World War, Scandinavia seemed to create model societies, free of corruption and intolerance, moral, compassionate and fair. The Danish people had bravely defied their Nazi occupiers throughout the war and saved almost all of the nation’s Jews. In 1944, the Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal published a groundbreaking critique of the racism faced by African-­Americans in the United States. Myrdal’s study, “An American Dilemma,” greatly influenced President Truman’s executive order to integrate the United States military, the Supreme Court’s ruling on behalf of school desegregation, and the creation of the modern civil rights movement. In 1964, Gunnar Jahn, a former leader of the Norwegian resistance to the Nazis, handed Martin Luther King Jr. the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo. Jahn expressed the hope that “conflicts between races, nations and political systems can be solved, not by fire and sword, but in a spirit of true brotherly love.”

Today, the third-largest political party in Sweden has the support of racists and neo-Nazis. The leading political party in Denmark is not only anti-immigrant but also anti-Muslim. And the finance minister of Norway, a member of the right-wing Progress Party, once suggested that all the Romany people in her country should be deported by bus. In “One of Us,” the Norwegian journalist Asne Seierstad explores a dark side of contemporary Scandinavia through the life and crimes of Anders Behring Breivik, a mass murderer who killed 77 people, most of them teenagers, as a protest against women’s rights, cultural diversity and the growing influence of Islam.

I don’t necessarily buy this. There are problems in every country, and I think the countries of northern Europe (I would throw Germany and the Netherlands into the mix) have quite possibly done the most anywhere to try to solve them and create the best human societies they can. I don’t think they claim to be utopian, only to be striving for utopian ideals. Most impressively to me, they try to build consensus not by keeping outsiders at bay and trying to remain homogeneous, but by allowing diversity and then trying to deal with it, which is the harder path. Because they have chosen the harder but potentially more rewarding path, there is a visible right-wing backlash developing. I think something similar has happened in the United States – the intolerant minority has become more vocal and visible as we have become more tolerant and pluralistic overall. This doesn’t mean there aren’t vulnerabilities – if the intolerant element becomes large and active enough to gain real power, bad outcomes are obviously possible. Economic stagnation, violence and fear can all increase the risk of bad outcomes.

What a Dick!

Ouch, doesn’t this seem just a bit harsh? Well, maybe for anyone who is not named Dick Cheney.

in retrospect it is hard to say that Cheney’s decisions were anything but deeply prescient, and one thing is certain: The invasion ended Islamic terrorism and did not create a civil war that ironically allowed al-Qaida to flourish in an area where it had no prior presence, ultimately begetting an even more dangerous and inhumane splinter group called ISIS that continues to threaten American lives to this day.

Many speakers at Thursday’s event commented on the unique courage demonstrated by Cheney’s willingness to commit thousands of young American soldiers, airmen, sailors, and Marines to death or permanent incapacitation abroad despite his admission that he intentionally avoided military service when he himself was a young man during a time of war.

Cheney was also praised for his ethical decision not to arrange for a company which had very recently paid him tens of millions of dollars and in which he had “a continuing financial interest” to become one of the largest beneficiaries of United States federal spending in Iraq. One can only imagine the repercussions if he had actually done something like that.

Here’s to Dick Cheney!

 

too much democracy?

Andrew Sullivan has written a somewhat ridiculous article in New York Magazine called Democracies end when they are too democratic.

Socrates seemed pretty clear on one sobering point: that “tyranny is probably established out of no other regime than democracy.” What did Plato mean by that? Democracy, for him, I discovered, was a political system of maximal freedom and equality, where every lifestyle is allowed and public offices are filled by a lottery. And the longer a democracy lasted, Plato argued, the more democratic it would become. Its freedoms would multiply; its equality spread. Deference to any sort of authority would wither; tolerance of any kind of inequality would come under intense threat; and multiculturalism and sexual freedom would create a city or a country like “a many-colored cloak decorated in all hues.”

This rainbow-flag polity, Plato argues, is, for many people, the fairest of regimes. The freedom in that democracy has to be experienced to be believed — with shame and privilege in particular emerging over time as anathema. But it is inherently unstable. As the authority of elites fades, as Establishment values cede to popular ones, views and identities can become so magnificently diverse as to be mutually uncomprehending. And when all the barriers to equality, formal and informal, have been removed; when everyone is equal; when elites are despised and full license is established to do “whatever one wants,” you arrive at what might be called late-stage democracy. There is no kowtowing to authority here, let alone to political experience or expertise…

And it is when a democracy has ripened as fully as this, Plato argues, that a would-be tyrant will often seize his moment.

That’s an entertaining tale, but it’s somewhat silly to suggest the United States has “too much democracy”, if you define democracy as equality. For a long time we have had rule by a stable triumvirate of elites – a civilian government elite, a big business elite, and a military/security/intelligence elite. The big business elite pays off the politicians and bureaucrats in the civilian government so they can produce the propaganda to stay elected, the civilian government makes sure the rules are written unfairly in favor of big business so they can make enormous profits at the expense of the rest of society, and the military/security/intelligence elite gets a huge share of our national resources and free reign to do just about anything it wants abroad, in exchange for not overthrowing the civilian government which it could easily do any time. It’s been a very stable three-legged stool.

In the past there has been just enough upward mobility for those of us in the general population to look the other way and buy into the propaganda enough to keep the system stable. Most of us can’t join the true elite, but the middle class have been able to train in professions and become moderately wealthy, while the working class have been able to get jobs that pay enough to join the middle class. The poor have been too few and too divided to organize politically. I think what is starting to happen is that this system of upward mobility is starting to break down now on a large enough scale that a significant chunk of the population is no longer buying into the propaganda and supporting the elites, and the whole political system is starting to teeter. I think it’s due partly to economic factors outside our control, like automation, and partly due to the short-sighted greed of the elites who are insisting on gobbling up a larger and larger share of a pie that is no longer growing as fast as it once did, if all. Environmental factors may be starting to play a role too, although I am still unsure of that.

True democracy, to me, would be a system that allows us to come to a consensus on policies that most of us, not just a majority but almost all of us, can accept, even if these policies are not everyone’s first choice. In a U.S. context it also has to be about true equality of opportunity, if not equality itself. How can anyone look at what is going on in our society and political system and think we have “too much democracy”?

value of trees

There have been a lot of studies on the value of urban trees. Well, here’s another. This one is notable for giving a canopy target at which value is maximized (30% at the property level, 38% at the county level).

The implicit value of tree cover in the U.S.: A meta-analysis of hedonic property value studies

Trees in residential neighborhoods and communities provide benefits for homeowners that are capitalized into residential property values. In this paper, we collected data from hedonic property value studies and merged these data with ancillary spatial data describing forest and socio-economic characteristics surrounding each study area to conduct a meta-analysis of the impact of tree canopy cover on the value of residential properties. The meta-analysis suggests that property-level tree cover of about 30% and county-level tree cover of about 38% maximize the implicit price of tree cover in property values. Currently, tree cover in the original study areas was about 14%, on average, around or near study properties. The empirical results, therefore suggest under investment of tree cover on private property from the perspective of individual property owners and from a societal perspective. The findings also have implications for community forest programs regarding planting trees and protection of mature trees to address potential changes in tree abundance, species diversity and stand age due to development and climate change.

I was inverted…

From the BBC:

A Russian jet fighter that intercepted a US Air Force reconnaissance plane on Friday did so in an “unsafe and unprofessional manner” over the Baltic Sea, the Pentagon has said.

It says the fighter performed a barrel roll plane over the American plane.

Wait, does this sound familiar?

Jane Jacobs

This article about Jane Jacobs is most useful because it mentions all of her major works. It talks quite a bit about Dark Age Ahead. I read Dark Age Ahead, and yet it doesn’t stick in my mind. I am ashamed to admit that I have only read the first chapter of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and yet that first chapter sticks in my mind. I am lucky enough to live in one of the great American cities, and in fact a neighborhood that she visited and commented on. I had to spend a few years away from it to really come to understand how great a walkable street grid with a mix of homes, businesses, workplaces and green spaces really is, and how rare it unfortunately is. One day I’ll sit down on a bench in one of those green spaces and finish Death and Life.

green space and mental health

Here’s a new study on green space and health, based on the large-scale nurses’s study. One interesting finding is that mental health explains around 30% of the total benefit.

Exposure to Greenness and Mortality in a Nationwide Prospective Cohort Study of Women

In models adjusted for mortality risk factors (age, race/ethnicity, smoking, and individual- and area-level socioeconomic status), women living in the highest quintile of cumulative average greenness (accounting for changes in residence during follow-up) in the 250m area around their home had a 12% lower rate of all-cause non-accidental mortality (95% CI 0.82, 0.94) compared to those in the lowest quintile. Results were consistent for the 1,250m area, although the relationship was slightly attenuated. These associations were strongest for respiratory and cancer mortality. Findings from a mediation analysis suggest that the association between greenness and mortality may be at least partly mediated by physical activity, particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers, social engagement, and depression.

scenario analysis

Maybe this is not of interest to everyone, but I am always looking for new ways to analyze and communicate the results of alternatives and scenarios.

The diversity of socio-economic pathways and CO2 emissions scenarios: Insights from the investigation of a scenarios database

The new scenario framework developed by the climate change research community rests on the fundamental logic that a diversity of socio-economic pathways can lead to the same radiative forcing, and therefore that a given level of radiative forcing can have very different socio-economic impacts. We propose a methodology that implements a “scenario discovery” cluster analysis and systematically identifies diverse groups of scenarios that share common outcomes among a database of socio-economic scenarios. We demonstrate the methodology with two examples using the Shared Socio-economic Pathways framework. We find that high emissions scenarios can be associated with either high or low per capita GDP growth, and that high productivity growth and catch-up are not necessarily associated with high per capita GDP and high emissions.

infectious disease

The Royal Society says that the annual number of disease outbreaks and types of diseases causing them have both increased since 1980, although the fraction of the population affected has actually decreased. I assume this last trend has to do with population growth. I am not sure this should be comforting. If there are more outbreaks and more different types, it seems like there would be more potential for something really bad to emerge and then get out of control. But this article isn’t really about that, it’s just a presentation of the data.

Our analyses indicate that the total number of outbreaks and richness of causal diseases have each increased globally since 1980 (figure 1a). Bacteria and viruses represented 70% of the 215 diseases in our dataset and caused 88% of outbreaks over time. Sixty-five per cent of diseases in our dataset were zoonoses that collectively caused 56% of outbreaks (compared to 44% of outbreaks caused by human-specific diseases). Non-vector transmitted pathogens were more common (74% of diseases) and caused more outbreaks (87%) than vector transmitted pathogens (table 1). Salmonellosis caused the most outbreaks of any disease in the dataset (855 outbreaks reported since 1980). However, viral gastroenteritis (typically caused by norovirus) was responsible for the greatest number of recorded cases: more than 15 million globally since 1980.

It’s interesting how we tend to be less afraid of diseases that are more common and more afraid of ones that are less common, even though a given person would be more likely to suffer from a common disease. Of course, this analysis doesn’t take into account the severity of the disease and suffering caused, which should certainly be a factor in what kinds of controls and research we invest our efforts and money in.