Freedom, Justice, and Economics

Every now and then someone picks a fight with me about the epistemology of science. As a former physicist and current economist, I might be particularly touchy on this topic. But I’ve found myself comfortable with a simple position that efficiently resolves most debate.

Often at issue is that many scientists demand that we are searching for capital-T-Truth. Logic and mathematics are indeed about truth– or at least conditional truth– in the sense that very specific rules tell us what conclusions can be drawn from what premises. To the extent theorists (in physics or economics, say) just do math, that research is also about Truth. However, if the premises– the assumptions of the model– are wrong, that Truth may have no bearing on reality.

For all applied work– work that uses real-world data, sometimes to test various theories– my satisfying criterion is whether we’ve come up with a way to make reliable predictions.  Mixing hydrogen and oxygen gives you water and a bundle of energy:  that’s a reliable prediction.  The next solar eclipse will occur on August 1, 2008.  If a central bank prints a huge amount of money and pours it into an economy, inflation will result.
I care little about whether these are everlasting Truths.  (Sometimes predictions are possible because we’ve observed the same phenomenon repeatedly and reliably: under ordinary circumstances, putting a pot of water on a hot enough fire will cause the water to boil.  Sometimes predictions are possible because we have an encompassing underlying theory:  gravity assists can be used to send probes like Cassini to their destinations.  I guess I would say that to me those underlying theories represent something like Truth.)  Mostly, I just appreciate that science and scientists have learned enough to make these and other predictions about the world with very high levels of confidence.

As the horror caused by Cyclone Nargis comes into sharper focus, I realized I had the nagging feeling that this storm was largely ignored by the press even as the enormity of its threat grew apparent. To assess the press’s attention, at 9:09pm GMT on Tuesday, May 6, I conducted this Google News search, using the Advanced news search tool, for all mentions of the pair of words “Myanmar” and “cyclone” over the past month.

Credit goes to the Hindu Business Line for the first journalistic mention of the cyclone, the only news story on April 27 to fit my search criteria. Bangladesh’s The Daily Star was the only publication to report on Nargis on April 28. Five hits match from April 29, of which two are irrelevant to Nargis. The three relevant hits came from the two sources already on the story and the Howrah News Service.

On April 30 the AFP, Thaindian.com, and Hindu Business Line had stories. Only six stories were published on May 1. My Google News search turned up 17 hits, finally including major Western sources like IHT and AP, on May 2. However, those stories blandly describe power outages and cancellations of plane flights in Yangon.

Little surprise, you might say: This New York Times graphic charts the time path of the storm along the Myanmar coast, and shows that the eye of the storm was not set to pass Yangon until 6:30am on May 3.

On August 27, 2005, 249 stories in the Google News archive came up in a search for Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall in the early morning hours of August 29. On Saturday the 27th, the CNN Live Saturday transcript reads in part, “We begin with a nerve-racking wait along the central gulf coast. Just a couple of days from now a monster of a storm is expected to pound the region. Right now, hurricane Katrina is swirling in the warm gulf water as a Category 3 and it’s getting better[sic] and stronger.”

Yangon’s population of 6 million dwarfs New Orleans’; a disproportionate share of Myanmar’s population of 60 million live near the shore, in the Irrawady Delta, directly in Nargis’ path; Nargis was a Category 4 storm while Katrina (at the time of landfall) had weakened to Category 3; poorer construction standards meant scant protection for already much-embattled residents of Myanmar.

I do not mean to minimize the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, but rather to highlight most of the press’ blindness to the impending catastrophe of Cyclone Nargis. For the Burmese, cut off by a repressive regime, an outside clamor might have led to additional, live-saving precautions.

(Data, continued:   May 3, 40 hits; May 4, 140 hits; the most recent four hours, >1000 hits.)

Grudgingly, I acknowledge being impressed with this 1972 Richard Adams tale of a troupe of rabbits. Looking past the floppy chapter-opening epigrams, the nibbles of contrived rabbit language, and the diminutive hop from rabbitdom to transcendent themes, three pieces gave me particular delight.

Adams imitates Tolkien and endows his rabbits with a full mythology, with deity, villains, and heroes. Storytelling thrives among his rabbits, who never tire of good re-tellings of favorite myths. Not only are the myths themselves brilliant, reinforcing faith in rabbits’ canny drive to survive, the myths balance and propel the troupe’s adventures.

Second, Ibn Fattouma-like, we encounter rabbit warrens with a variety of political structures. The Threara presides over a somewhat chaotic warren; Cowslip fosters arts, intellectualism, and detachment; General Woundwort runs a fascist warren; and of course Hazel is an enlightened leader.

Third, Hazel is an enlightened leader. From the book’s opening he instantaneously sizes people (er… rabbits) up, and decides what he can and can’t count on them for. The skill to consciously assemble a team-of-all-comers in this way– and maintain peace and cooperation among all– is rare and valuable. Adams’ craft shines bright in sharing what he gives to Hazel.

Between Wind in the Willows and Lord of the Flies, for children and adults, Watership Down certainly does transcend rabbitdom (though it need not have in order to be great).

To the Map of the (financial) Market, it’s a thrill to add a new brilliant graphic, this map of the market for goods and services.  (The latter loads faster, too.)

I’ve needed the several weeks since the Friday, April 4, show to achieve sufficient composure to write about the Royal Shakespeare Company’s current incarnation of The Merchant of Venice in Stratford-upon-Avon. The play of course is inherently incendiary. I have nothing to contribute to the longstanding debate about whether the Bard was Anti-Semitic. But I left the Courtyard Theater that night horrified at this production’s choices, with only one possible source of redemption for it in sight (and, I fear, lost to near all the inattentive audience).

This production matter-of-factly illustrated every evil of a calculating Shylock. He was unfair and unsympathetic in his business dealings; he loved his daughter little, and his gold much; he would never share a table with a Gentile. Beyond the text, in the courtroom, when Shylock is about to use his knife to extract his pound of flesh, he perches above a prostrate Antonio who has his arms outstretched. This image, with Antonio as Christ, invokes the most pernicious of the historical calumnies against Jews.

After the lamb is saved, and Shylock’s level (pointed?) “Is it the law?” is answered affirmatively, the production lightly carries on to Portia’s and Nerissa’s practical joke and the standard comedic ending of multiple nuptials. Shylock appears again only in the musical reprise, interrupting a bit of the dancing to angrily twist arms with his new son-in-law.

What do director and cast hope to achieve with–what could be redemptive about– this portrayal of an irredeemable Shylock? My best speculation is that they wish to offend as thoroughly as Borat.

In contrast to John Peter of The Sunday Times, I didn’t find the production “sloppily directed,” but rather distressingly directed.  In contrast to Michael Billington of The Guardian, I found nothing to “enjoy” about this excruciating production. I’m not sure I could find anything enjoyable about any production of this play. But many wisely directed productions could give me leave to depart with faith in what humanity has learned, rather than fear about what it may have not.

A weekend trip to Cornwall included an efficient stop at Land’s End… where we chose NOT to pay real money to get our picture taken with their signpost. The Brits are pretty impressive at monetization of their assets.

In all the voluminous academic and political debates about optimal taxation, I think one argument should get considerably more attention.  People who have higher earnings derive greater benefits from government.  Social stability, provided in the form of police, defense, and the legal system, preserves property rights and makes productive activity and wealth accumulation possible.  For this, the high-income and high-wealth people who benefit most should pay most.

Before you all go back to talking about incentive effects of taxation, do recall that reference points may matter, and talking about fair benchmarks may help to set them justly.

Hooray.

At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, construction plans for a library were influenced by an unusual consideration: the shadow the building might cast. Established in 1876, the Morrow Plots are the longest continuous agricultural demonstration plots in the world. Since it would have been unfortunate to interfere with their sunlight, the UIUC library was built adjacent to them but out of the way–underground.

One of many disappointments I’ve had during the current administration is the dearth of principled resignations.  No small number of Bush appointees have left their posts, but most have wanted “more time with their families” rather than a fire of vitriol.

Two examples are particularly obvious.  Christine Todd Whitman was sidelined at EPA, reduced from Republican moderate stardom to whining “it’s my party, too” after playing chief apologist for anti-environment crusades.  And Colin Powell’s four years as Secretary of State were an extended exercise in quietly suffering humiliation.

Would that they and others departed with flourish, perhaps even with the words of this brilliant, unsigned Time magazine piece from the pre-Watergate Nixon era channeling Nathan Hale: “I am sorry that I have only one job to give for my country.”