Here’s a graphic illustration of how the presidential election turned out. These are the results by county, with color reflecting the percentage that voted Republican (red) and Democrat (blue).
Here’s what it looks like when the counties are scaled by population size; the smear of reds is greatly diminished.
It’s striking how the emptiest places in the country are enriched with fervent conservatives. People are always fretting over how conservatives are outbreeding liberals, but it seems to me that that actually works in liberals’ favor — as communities become larger and more interdependent, as people grow up aware of social support systems, as their numbers create richer opportunities for education, there’s a trend towards embracing liberal values. There are, of course, historical contingencies that can counter that pattern — Utah has been growing, but isn’t becoming more Democratic, for instance — but it’s interesting that fast-growing urban areas in even the reddest states somehow end up favoring the Democrats. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the Quiverful movement, that strange idea on the religious right that women ought to bear swarms of children, was a policy that would simply breed new generations of liberals?
Of course, there is the alternative explanation: this distribution is an indirect measure of prosperity. People tend to move towards areas with more upward mobility and better economic prospects, so population is only a proxy for opportunity—and it’s broadly distributed wealth that produces more liberals. Then it would be the case that pumping out a dozen babies that you can’t afford to educate properly would still produce more minions of the Republicans…by impoverishing the region. I’m sure the religious right would find that notion reassuring, since it also seems to be one of their goals to wreck the political and economic health of the nation.
Whatever the explanation is, I want more blue in these maps. There are more election cartograms to peruse.
Blue and red are bad colors to show The representive ares, since red is a dominant color in our perception, while these maps are interesting, they are rendered almost useless by this fact, if its about 50/50 red and blue, it will SEEM to our eyes that there’s much more red than blue. More neutral colors, like grey and white, or orange and greed would probably be better.
You know, for all the talk about “Small Town Values”, no one has really explained why “Big City Values” are supposed to be so bad.
Unless, of course, one takes all the good values and arbitrarily labels them “Small Town”.
I’m assuming that the color Greed would be for the GOP?
The Republicans were wiped out in the urban areas and right out to the fringe suburbs.
However this happened mostly in areas that were previously Democrat or where Obama’s machine campaigned. In Texas, the changes were much less marked and the suburbs went to McCain.
Hey PZ. Unlike the 2004 election, this year Volusia, Orange, and Seminole counties all voted overwhelmingly democrat. In 2004, it was Volusia who helped Dubbya win. Then, I was ashamed to live here, now? I am over joyed.
I wished Alaska were represented on those cartograms – or maybe it is…
The second map lokos more like a bird taking flight than america.
I live in the western tip of that big blue swath cutting through Mississippi and Alabama….boy, is that heartwarming to see!
Here in west Michigan the most expensive properties – Mcmansions and lake front homes – had a higher percentage of McCain signs, so I don’t think blue corresponds with prosperity. I think those folks just want to hang on to more of their money.
There was also a much higher percentage of McCain signs in the countryside, often along with “No on 2” signs (anti stem cell proposal). I think those people were religiously motivated.
Anyone else think that the second map there looks like a fluorescent double stain of a bunch of cells – the DAPI blue cities and the red cytoplasmic countryside?
I read some posts over at Free Republic (don’t go there if you’re queasy) where some right-wingers were taking solace at how much red area remained on the USA map even in the wake of Obama’s big victory. Strangely enough, a voice of reason slipped in and said, “Yeah, but those red spaces are empty.” Yup.
You’re basically right, PZ — the Republicans pretty much marginalized themselves by tying themselves so strongly to “small town values”, praising the proudly ignorant and deliberately uneducated.
Let me tell you why: it’s because pretty much every young person with half a brain wants to get the hell out of those hellholes. They want to leave, go to the cities, go where things happen and they can do something other than hang around the Circle K parking lot at 10 pm.
And these big-city GOP Senators and Governors — who spend much of their time in a large, sophisticated metropolitan area and you can bet your ass they’re regularly eating at Charlie Palmer or 1789 rather than a local BBQ joint — come to their small towns and sing their praises to the high heavens… well, most young people smell BS when they see it. They haven’t yet developed the rationalizations that their elders had to come up with when they ended up pregnant at 17 and working at Denny’s for the rest of their life.
In short, “small town America” is a dying demographic, and yet it’s the only one the GOP could hold onto. The Repubs will stay out of power for a good long while until they figure that out and actually decide to campaign for more than just small-town whites (and govern for more than just rich whites).
That second figure looks all too familiar…
Is one explanation the best?
Can we tell it from all of the rest?
We project all our thoughts
On these maps, just like blots–
A political Rorschach test!
The map at: //www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Pres/Carto/Nov07-c.html is a bit easier to read and understand, since they do it state-by-state and distort the shape and size of the state to reflect their electoral vote clout. Even though it’s not completely colored in yet (Missouri is STILL counting), the overall impression is BLUE!
DemocratIC, not Democrat. The party name is The Democratic Party.
Even though McCain won here in Texas (overall) it was nice to see that the counties with the major cities (DFW, Houston, San Antonio) went Obama, as did all the southern counties bordering Mexico. I think with time most of Texas can be turned “blue” – the only holdout likely being the Texas pan handle.
Interesting map though. I think the second map looks more like an archaeopteryx.
A surprising result for me is Louisiana. Why in hell did it go Repugnant? After Katrina it is true that LA and MS receive more government subsidies per person than any other state. Alaska held that honor until Katrina and they are still third, so, for that reason, Alaska is no surprise. That explanation is insufficient for Louisiana, IMO. As far as I can discern even the lower Southeast counties (Orleans, Jefferson, etc.) went Repugnant. It baffles me!
Neither alternative is the case. Conservatives are not generally “The Poor” — folks making under 35k voted Obama. It’s the next step up — the lower middle class, folks making 35k to 50k — that support “conservative values”.
It’s those who’ve made it through the door, and want to swing it closed against the next guy. Those who have some reason to fear that improving the situation of the lower class will cost them — they’re afraid of the competition.
That’s the problem for the left. As soon as folks raise up (say by forming a labor union), a lot of those people defect in order to cut out the next batch.
Just to go out with a bang George W. Bush will use nukes to make the second cartogram geographically accurate.
These maps are cool. This would also explain why conservatism is so strong in America compared to more progressive liberal parts of the world like Europe – they don’t have the same degree of huge, sparsely populated rural areas as the midwest.
It’s also interesting (though not surprising) to note in the second map that some of the most intensely blue areas are NYC, the bay area, and Chicago. Someone more familiar with American geography could also pick out most of the other large cities and metropolitan areas. What confuses me is the deep blue swath in southern texas along the Rio Grande – is that due to the latino vote?
Seems like the Red Scare isn’t what it used to be.
It’s the next step up — the lower middle class, folks making 35k to 50k — that support “conservative values”. It’s those who’ve made it through the door, and want to swing it closed against the next guy. Those who have some reason to fear that improving the situation of the lower class will cost them — they’re afraid of the competition.
No. It’s those who’ve worked hard and earned a decent living, and don’t want to be overtaxed to pay for those who are dependent on the state. It’s those who aspire to earn more one day for themselves and their families, and don’t want more of it to be taken away by the government. It’s those who have something to lose from statism, and much to gain, potentially, from a free market and economic opportunity.
Republicans are a Chimaera:
Lion: “fiscal conservatives” (oligarchs and social elitists)
Snake: “social conservatives” (religious fascists)
Goat: minimal government proponents (libertarians)
In order to keep the Chimaera alive, the snake drove votes by appealing to “value voters”. The goat silently stripped civil liberties from the populous. The lion fed its oligarch keepers through economic policies while placating an ignorant populous by feeding them mana–stimulus checks.
This tactic works as long as economic times aren’t too bad (or the general public is kept in the dark about the real economic condition). Once the economy crumbles too much the Chimaera starts to split.
A benefit of the Bush administration is that the Chimaera is splitting asunder.
Hmmm, they literally do live in a kind of social cocoon:
http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/07/spinning_the_cocoon.php
What’s really neat is to see which counties voted more republican or more democrat than last election.
Behold:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/5/13157/1286/456/654502
A purple America…
Wouldn’t that make Prince the president?
Hey, Walton.
Most of the people who you claim have potential gains to be made from a free market are the people who have been harmed the most by stagnant wages, credit abuses (both corporate and their own), pricing bubbles in the realestate and stock markets, and many other things. The people you talk about have a defective sense of self interest if you ask me. Attempting to maximize their gains while minimizing others gains in a non-zero sum game is self defeating, but they do it none the less.
You never know when it comes to raising kids. In our liberal household, our daughter is in line with our thinking. Our son, however, favored McCain. When we asked him why he favored him, he wouldn’t answer, saying we were just looking for an argument. (Actually, we just wanted to see how he was thinking.) He’s also a huge NASCAR fan, and I don’t know where that came from, because I find it incredibly boring. Still, I’m taking him to Sunday’s race — we even have tickets to wander the pits beforehand. It’s going to be one really long, long day for me. I would take a book, but I think they’re banned at NASCAR events.
Hey Walton, tell that to the Republican party. They stopped being the party of small government and low taxes long ago.
Anybody voting for the Republicans on the basis of taxes really hasn’t been paying much attention to the Republican budget philosophy over the last generation.
That’s right Boise, ID, even more than Salt Lake City (likely due to it’s higher Mormon population), much to the consternation of the right wing nuts is extremely Democratic. We hold all the state legislative seats in the 4 districts making up the majority of the city and will be targeting a fifth next time around and also have the mayor (though technically that’s a bipartisan position – ha ha).
Historically is right, other than old I’m not certain what the mean age of the legislative body is but the fact that it’s part-time and doesn’t pay squat dictates who can/will run.
I think it’s difficult to separate out opportunity from education but the Democratic centers all have universities as well and studies have shown an inverse relationship between level of education and both religious belief and tendency to be right-leaning politically.
MSNBC reported with great glee last night that the North Carolina county in which Sarah Palin stood and eulogized the “real America” had actually gone on to vote nearly 2:1 for Obama.
I think many of the very bright red areas in the western plains states correlate with major natural gas and oil fields. see
http://energy.er.usgs.gov/health_environment/co2_sequestration/co2_illustrations.html
and possibly coal fields NE Wyoming, eastern Montana and Western North Dakota
http://www.appaltree.net/aba/images/coal/usgs%20coalmap.jpg
another reason to call the republicans “The Fossil Fuels Party”
Walton wrote:
It’s Joe the fucken plumber’s self delusion:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2008/11/can-you-hear-me-now.html
Scroll down for video.
Boomer@20: I wish I knew how to program a bot that would put counter message to every reference to “progressive liberal” Europe. It just isn’t true!
Look at the prime minister of Italy. Look at the president of Poland. Look at the numbers of CCTV cameras in the UK. Look at the Portuguese “Socialist” Party who enforced party discipline to vote down same sex marriage. Look at attitudes to gays in the Baltic states or the abortion ban in Ireland. Look at the vote tallies Le Pen gets in France. Look at (part European) Turkey’s epic free speech fail and (part European) Russia’s embrace of authoritarianism. Look at the continued existence of monarchies (and one, small, outright theocracy).
We typically have more developed state welfare provision than the US. That makes us more social democratic than Americans. We are in not (in any consistent way) more liberal. Sometimes we are (Zapatero in Spain, tolerance of religious non-believers in many countries) but Europe is a very diverse continent which has serious problems with bigots, reactionaries and every shade of fucktard.
Funny, but rather fatuous sociopolitical article. One might just as easily produce a map of crime over the last 50 years and get virtually identical visual results and produce an absurd conclusion that liberals produce more crime.
Besides, didn’t those blue areas of Californian and Florida pass very unprogressive legislation such as Proposition 8 and Amendment 2, and that big blue blob in the northeast is where much of the financial scandal originated, and let’s face it, that big blue area around DC created a lot of the current administrative mess here and around the world (though that’s been going on since DC was the capitol… :D )?
PZ mentions Utah in this article – Utah is an anomaly as the religion here, Mormonism, encourages having more children than just about any other religion, and although there is a fervent minority of Anti-Mos here they just keep making more. Couple that with a very rigorous missionary program to convert people, many of them who ultimately move here, that means that we have the Mos coming out of the woodwork, so to say. Although suprisingly, in a state that is so conservative that a Democratic candidate would never win here, the Obama-Fu was caught by approximately 30% of the people if the numbers I heard were correct. So, all you people in the rest of the world, anti-pray for me and the few liberals surviving in the lost land of Utah…
I’d like to take another opportunity to suggest people compare the electoral results map to the one over at the Pew US Religion survey for “Scriptural Interpretation” of those who take an “Inerrant” view of the Bible.
So true. They tend to grow minds of their own. My parents, dedicated Republicans even still, had a quiverfull of kids (8) in a small town, and all of us but one headed for college and the Big City the second we could. With advanced degrees and great jobs, we’re liberals and Democrats– except the one who didn’t go to college, who is a Libertarian (and nutty)(and irresponsible)(and still dependent on them). They almost got one Republican out of the bunch, but Bush fixed that.
Okay-
I’m in Marquette, MI in the Upper Peninsula.
WHERE’D THE U.P. GO IN THE SECOND MAP.
(I know, no one lives here for real)
The GOP is in full scale civil war right now. It is between the religious fascist morons and moderates/conservatives.
Hard to say who will win but the christofascists seem to have a slight edge. The moderates are tossing Palin under the bus as a mistake.
They may well marginalize themselves forever if the lunatic fringes win. As someone pointed out, the big cities have something the small towns don’t have, voters. 80% of the US population lives in metropolitan areas.
I recall seeing a couple of maps on two news item pages several years back in USN&WR. The first showed the percent who attended church in the last month. The second show the rate of out of wedlock births. The interesting part was that the maps were essentially the same. So belief in the bible and attending church didn’t stop people having sex, it just made the consequences worse.
LOL! Good one Rev.
That is beautiful, that map. Especially the size-distorted one. I think we need to bring back Jasper Johns, get some abstract expressionist paintings of these shapes.
Matt @20
Fair enough, I am generalizing. You’re going to find bigotry and hatred anywhere you go, in varying degrees. I was only referring to how many countries in Europe are more socially liberal in terms of the separation of church and state.
@Walton:
Now, now, sir! You know it’s only natural for folks to depend on the government, be it college professors or scientists looking for research grants.
And of course conservatives (read: religious nuts) and liberals (read: the Enlightened Ones whose ass you should kiss at all times) breed conservatives and liberals. Children NEVER rebel against their parent’s beliefs. We’re all just animals without sentience, you know. Just biological state machines to be herded into pens by our betters.
Oh, and anyone who is not religious but maybe wants smaller government is to be lumped in with the religious. It’s easier than addressing the issues they raise, and government is all about efficiency.
There’s a new sheriff in The Whote House soon. You put away those thoughts of independent thinking and self reliance before you hurt yourself, or someone hurts yourself for you. Get with the manifesto, Walton, or you’ll be sent to the Ayres reeducation camps.
Minimalist @ 12:
Screw you. Though I’m a bit older now, I’m one of those people you describe–I grew up in a small, rural Ohio town, went away for college and grad school, and moved to an urban area–Minneapolis, in my case–for (generally) the reasons you give: better career opportunities, a more exciting lifestyle, etc.
But the place I spent the first 18 years of my life, while certainly not a “city that never sleeps,” is absolutely not a “hellhole.” And the people I went to high school with who stayed there aren’t morons who lack half a brain.
I’m glad the Democrats who are active where I grew up didn’t express contempt for the area like you do. Otherwise, we’d never have elected Ted Strickland to Congress, and he’d never have had a shot at being governor. Sure, small towns aren’t some freaky utopia that the GOP insists they are, but just like urban areas, they’re generally populated by good people making an honest living.
yawn
I don’t know if it’s true or not, but this is how I explained it to my 7.5 year old son who wanted to know why so much of the map was red.
The areas that are very red are also very empty. Where it’s very empty people tend to rely on themselves and their families a lot more, and a lot of things governments do (police, schools, libraries, roads, etc.) don’t work as well or are more expensive when people are all spread out. So these people like it when someone says they should have less government and pay less taxes – they don’t see or use a lot of what government provides (or at least think they don’t), and don’t want to pay for it. Cities, on the other hand, contain a lot of people in a small space. You can’t do that without government – you need police and fire departments, zoning, public transit, sewers, water supplies, rules about water usage, parking, pollution, etc. Also, government services can be provided more efficiently and are easier to access (compare taking public transit to the giant city library vs. driving 10 miles to the small rural library). People in cities see government all around them so they tend to think of it as necessary and are more willing to pay for it.
Or those wanting fire protection, or protection from crime, or roads, or food safety, or national defense, or safe working conditions, or….
A surprising result for me is Louisiana. Why in hell did it go Repugnant? After Katrina it is true that LA and MS receive more government subsidies per person than any other state. Alaska held that honor until Katrina and they are still third, so, for that reason, Alaska is no surprise. That explanation is insufficient for Louisiana, IMO. As far as I can discern even the lower Southeast counties (Orleans, Jefferson, etc.) went Repugnant. It baffles me!
I’ve heard it said that some of the most Republican states are those which have historically received the most assistance from the “guvmint”. If true, it would be hilariously ironic that they would resent government so much.
Sure, small towns aren’t some freaky utopia that the GOP insists they are, but just like urban areas, they’re generally populated by good people making an honest living.
You’re breaking away from the holy dichotomy, Chuck. Here’s some short mantras to bring you into the collective. Practice these to yourself when you feel any glimmerings of open mindedness.
– “Flyover country”
– “Country bumpkins”
– “Hicks and rednecks”
– “Trailer trash”
– “Green Acres”
I hope this helps. Obama obama, rama rama.
“it’s broadly distributed wealth that produces more liberals”?? Have you been to New York City, Chicago or San Fran lately? It seems more like liberals are produced by huge disparities in the distribution of wealth.
“The sheriff is a…” [church bell rings]
“What?”
“The sheriff is a…” [church bell rings again]
“What? Oh never mind, start the band.”
@Tulse:
Typical cliche response, and typical inability to understand the government as a service provider versus the government as a living provider. Fail.
And yet, the red states get more than they give when it come to federal tax dollars.
Walton, you seem to be mapping the uk sort of Conservative (party) onto the US conservative (political outlook). Not really the same.
And as I think various people have tried to point out, not everyone makes simple-minded financial assessments of everything in their life. Some aren’t even smart enough to do that; some are smart enough to go beyond that. Some consider religion, skin-colour, class (uk style), social affiliation, or even sport affiliation more important.
Cliches are sometimes true, and anyone who coins the term “Ayers reeducation camps” doesn’t get to use the word “fail” on anyone but himself.
bishophicks – Also, folks who live in (and grew up in, especially) the cities are exposed to many different types of people, and live shoulder to shoulder with them. Literally so, much of the time. They have to learn tolerance of different foods, fashions, religions, levels of education, civilized sexual behavior, etc.
Small town people, decent or not, are often simply exposed to one or two subcultures, and usually ones which have been interacting for some time.
Cities are also, I think, where one sees the changes first, and must learn to deal with them.
What are you, a Rangers fan?
I agree with others who think the whole red/blue needs to go away, or at least be replaced by better colors or textures.
Maybe plaid for the country mice and paisley for the city mice?
Or maybe a more urban texture for the city meeses. Rusted metal, perhaps, or pitted concrete.
http://www.digitalcraftsman.com/textureBin/images/Rusted%20Steel%20Texture.jpg
firemancarl @#5,
Actually, Seminole went for McCain at 51% and Volusia for Obama at 52% according to the MSNBC election results map. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25362840/race/president) Admittedly, Orange Co. went strongly for Obama at 59%. For the non-Floridians: Orange Co. includes Orlando itself, Seminole Co. is mostly suburban, and Volusia is mostly smaller towns and beach communities like Daytona.
Boomer @44,
many countries in Europe are more socially liberal in terms of the separation of church and state
In most European countries, that’s not true. As a general rule, separation of church and state is far stronger in the USA than in Europe. What is far stronger in Europe than in the USA is separation of church and everyday life, which is not the same thing at all.
Q100 @45,
when you were typing in the URL that brought you here? You spelled “freerepublic.com” wrong.
bishophicks@48,
The areas that are very red … tend to rely on
themselvesmoney that the federal government takes from taxpayers in the areas that are very blue and gives to the red areas, which can’t pay their own way…. So these people like it when someone says they should have less government and pay less taxes – they don’t see or use a lot of what government provides (or at least think they don’t), and don’t want to pay for it, and why should they, the feckless parasites, as long as they can continue sponging off the hardworking wealth-creators in the blue statesFixed that for you.
I don’t see where the Reps can now go. They have to get the religious extremist vote, but in courting it, they risk loosing the moderate conservative vote. I think Obama’s more open, less partisan, approach has extended the appeal of the Dems rightwards, without abandoning the left. In a sense, it’s what Blair did in the 90’s; it pushes the opposition onto the fringe, and leaves them unable to come up with alternative policies which appeal to more than a minority.
What do you lot think the Reps should do now?
http://patriotroom.com/?p=4002
your bias is so disgusting. this is the type of video i would you to post if it was mccain or palin.
you dems are losers.
David, please explain how a bias can be disgusting. I bet you wouldn’t mind so much if you were surrounded by people who agree with you.
Hmmm. Interesting (though not as interesting as the overall result!). But I’m puzzled by one thing in particular, and perhaps someone who knows the American psyche can explain. That is – why is the word “liberal” such a cuss work in the US? To me, it means “tolerant, open-minded, and empathic” – but not apparently in the US. So why is it such a cuss word over there? Who has mis-defined it and what’s being done to rehabiitate it? Because being liberal really is a good thing – or is there a downside?
Just curious
AnthonyK
Susan #55 “And yet, the red states get more than they give when it come to federal tax dollars.”
It really is bizarre that more people in the ‘red states’ are against taxes even though they are net beneficiaries. Why is that? Do they simply not know, or are they plain dumb?
david,
The Democrats are losers? That’s funny, because I seem to remember them winning the Presidential election this year, not to mention picking up quite a few seats in Congress and turning all of New England’s house seats blue. I would call them winners, but I guess we have a different outlook.
tsg @ #59 – not me. Never had the slightest interest in team sports. Met far too many people that treat a team like some kind of religion.
It’s interesting but not surprising that being conservative is associated with a more fearful personality.
Perhaps the most extreme expression is the Rapture Ready discussion group, where commenters are calling on God to “take them now” before anything worse happens. So much for faith in God. It’s highly rationalized: instead of saying that God has spoken or whatever, which they would if the Republicans had won, they are saying that the U.S. is being punished for having so many evil (liberal, tolerant) people in it.
They have no faith in the democratic process; only fear of a “secret muslim regime”.
I think that the Conservative party in Canada (against their own newly passed law against opportunistic election-calling — how did that happen?) rushed their election so that voters would not be influenced by the example of the U.S. to go in a more liberal direction.
Because people like Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the rest of the GOP propaganda team have spent years using it derogatorily, dripping with disdain and contempt.
It really is bizarre that more people in the ‘red states’ are against taxes even though they are net beneficiaries. Why is that?
It is entirely possible that, due to corruption and other factors, many red-staters never actually see a tangible benefit from those dollars flowing in.
Mrs Tilton @62
But hasn’t Europe generally been ahead of America on issues like same-sex unions, stem cell research, etc.? I’m confused, I’m not totally off base here am I?
@16 The map is not Archeopteryx, it’s a mirror image of Great Britain flipped on it’s side. The Tories are ligating Scotland!
@17, 50 It appears (by the 2nd map) that the New Orleans area went blue.
@22 “Those who aspire to. . .”[to do the same things over and over, maybe with improvements but still just THE SAME THINGS). It takes a society and complex interactions to get benefits beyond the sunrise to sunset work day. On a simplified level (just for you!) think of the old board game called Civilization- you are still trading ‘hides cards’ in a world where those around you voted for law and philosophy.
While you sometimes see electoral maps weighted for population in the mainstream media, you don’t see it often enough.
I suppose mainstream innumeracy and people making jokes about how they can’t do 3rd grade arithemtic when appropriate when discussing the election on the news doesn’t help either.
Brian
I was joking.
But, as long as you brought it up, I am a Devils fan. But I’m a Devils fan the way I think patriotism should be: I love them enough to tell them when they’re screwing up.
Actually, it is, just slowly.
From http://www.electoral-vote.com/:
1992 Clinton 25 % Bush 43 % [Perot not mentioned]
1996 Clinton 33 % Dole 54 % [Perot not mentioned]
2000 Gore 27 % Bush 67 %
2004 Kerry 26 % Bush 71 %
2008 Obama 34 % McCain 63 %
For my part, I strongly suspect that sparsely-populated areas are able to maintain insular communities that don’t understand those who aren’t like them due to lack of exposure. As it becomes harder and harder to avoid rubbing elbows with different people (say, in densely-populated urban areas), it becomes easier to accept and tolerate them. This can easily lead to the idea that it’s more important to get along than to get your way all the time, leading to a more liberal and permissive social dynamic where anyone can do as they please so long as they stay out of each others’ way. Isn’t that what we really want?
I’d seen the “purple America” map before, but I never saw it adjusted for population size. Very cool. Also, to Prof MTH @ 23: I like your Chimaera metaphor.
raven #40,
” The GOP is in full scale civil war right now.”
How the mighty fall. Four years ago there were talks of a permanent GOP majority. Now they are a minority and thus gotta be fearful of themselves. Their fear tactics used to make voters feel scared. Now it makes them look desperate.
After years of all kinds of destruction (America’s reputation, New Orleans,Iraq) they have finally gotten to self destruction.
Sadly I fear the Democrats are going to blow this great opportunity by either becoming Republican lite or corrupt or both.
Walton, you DO know, don’t you, that in the U.S. more money is transferred from the poor to the middle class than vice versa? Deductible mortgage interest is a huge subsidy to the better off and a huge drain on those who can’t afford to buy a house.
So, in the US, blue is left and red is right… *confused*
And BTW, the second cartogram reminds me of liver cirrosis. Minus the colours :)
This afternoon President Obama will be having a press conference and I won’t be home to watch it. I hope PZ has a thread about it and I hope somebody finds a video of it so I can watch it when I get home.
“Utah has been growing, but isn’t becoming more Democratic, for instance.”
Even as the failed Romney campaign showed that the Republican base can’t stand Mormons. So long as the alternative was a pair of adulterers with no fundy credentials, the values voters (aka, nutjobs) were willing to tolerate Romney, but as soon as Mike “Mormons Think Jesus and Satan Are Brothers” Huckabee proved to be a viable candidate, the fundies threw Mitt under the bus. It was a little sad to see confused Mormons finally realizing that their fellow fundies really do think Mormons are going to hell (Warning: links to WorldNutDaily).
One would have hoped that Mormons would reexamine their blind allegiance to the Republican Party, but instead they just tried harder to convince the fundies that they were just like them. I have a small feeling that contributed to their decision to attack gay marriage in California. If one wants to be friends with bullies, one finds the smallest kid on the playground and pummels him. “See, see! You can vote for us! We’re real Christians too!”
Nevada is a perfect illustration of what you’re talking about. Look at how Vegas and Reno went for Obama; contrast that with the rest of the state. It’s truly astonishing.
Then, look at the population density patterns for Nevada.
I want to talk about the near-disaster we had with the Electoral College, though. People aren’t talking about this much, but let me focus on three states: Florida, North Carolina and Ohio. This was a combined total of under 1 million votes. Had those million votes gone the other way (to McCain, that is), we’d be looking at a 52-47 Obama win in the popular vote (virtually identical to Obama’s winning margin), with McCain as the president-elect.
We narrowly averted one of the biggest EC disasters this country would have ever seen. It would have torn us apart.
Here’s how conservatives can ensure fulfilled disasters: Start dividing states. North and South Utah; North and South Wyoming; East and West Pennsylvania; Coastal and Inland California. If they did that enough times, they’d ensure conservative presidents forever.
I’m surprised no news outlet has picked up on this. I had to do my own analysis to figure this out. This country came dangerously close to coming apart in this election.
What would have happened if Obama had won 52-47, and McCain was named president?
I suggest that right now is the best chance to get rid of the EC… For good.
They’ve been Reptilian-lite for a very long time now… Bill Clinton was the best Republican president you’ve ever had, says Michael Moore, and he’s right.
Same sex unions in Europe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Same_sex_marriage_map_Europe_detailed.svg
Note how varied it is by country.
Wikipedia on stem cell research policy
So traditionally protestant countries are (typically) keener than traditionally catholic ones. The impression of Europe being particularly permissive in this may come from the fact that a lot of major work is done in Britain.
These map bastards as usual left Hawaii (and I suppose Alaska) out of the map. We are as much of a state as the rest of the 48. Why do we suffer cartographic neglect? It’s fine for these jerks to take a vacation and come visit our island paradise, but when it comes down to actually placing us on a map, they drop us like we’re radioactive. Well, enough is enough. You’re lucky Obama won, cause otherwise, we were planning to secede and subsequently join the Netherlands where values are much closer to ours, marijuana is legal, and prostitution provides quite a pleasant income to the state. You’re on short notice you cartographic bastards.
Boomer @73,
hasn’t Europe generally been ahead of America on issues like same-sex unions, stem cell research, etc.?
yes, generally that’s all true; and that’s exactly what I meant. Europeans don’t let churches interfere with their lives to the same extent that Americans do.
But church-state separation isn’t nearly as strict in most countries here as it is in the US. A number of countries still have official established churches, and even in those that don’t one can find (sometimes mandatory) religious instruction in state schools. In some European countries, the state levies a tax on behalf of, and turns the proceeds over to, one or more churches. Churches may have a veto over appointments of professors in certain faculties in public universities. (The faculties are the ones you’d expect; it’s not like a church can block appointment of a professor of accounting. For example, here in Germany, the RC church can veto a professor of RC theology. Which makes sense, actually; indeed it’s the RC’s church’s good right. The problem isn’t the veto so much as the fact that a public university is teaching — and funding the teaching of — RC, or any other, theology.) And so on.
So, although religion impairs the life of the average European less than it does that of the average American, European churches and states are often intertwined in ways that would be constitutionally unthinkable in the USA.
But Belgium (as it is so often) is the strange beast in there: it is by no means protestant. Perhaps secularisation is important too: not many church-goers in Northern-Europe, catholic, protestant or otherwise.
Wait. Florida has 27 electoral votes, Ohio 20, and NC 15. Makes for a total of 62. Assuming that Obama won’t get Missouri (11 EVs) or the single EV of the 2nd congressional district of Nebraska (Omaha), that would leave Obama with 302 EVs. 270 are necessary to win. Hey, when we are at it, Obama could have lost Pennsylvania (21 EVs) in addition to all the above, or CO, NM and IA (together 21 EVs) instead of PA, and would still have won!
Of course I agree that the electoral college should be abolished, but your example doesn’t hold up.
@MikeM
Check your math.
If you add FL, OH, and NC to McCain’s column, he has 235 EVs to Obama’s 303. I can even throw in Indiana, Iowa, and Virginia and McCain still has only 266 to Obama’s 272.
Obama won every single Kerry state and also flipped Nevada, New Mexico, Nevada, and the 2nd Congressional district in Nebraska (with its 1 EV) as well as all six of the states named above.
It really wasn’t that close at all.
Walton: No. It’s those who’ve worked hard and earned a decent living, and don’t want to be overtaxed to pay for those who are dependent on the state. It’s those who aspire to earn more one day for themselves and their families, and don’t want more of it to be taken away by the government. It’s those who have something to lose from statism, and much to gain, potentially, from a free market and economic opportunity.
Walton, you are proving yourself to be a first class moron. Do you imagine in your purty little head that the middle-class doesn’t get more benefits than the lower-class, or that they work “harder”? Who works harder, a maid scrubbing toilets or a low ranking HR flack?
People have backed off of commenting on your age — but it’s really relevant here. You have no fucking experience, but are just reciting other peoples thoughts like an elementary school book report.
It’s exactly those who are getting subsidies on their mortgages, child-tax credits, free public schooling, tax-deductions for health insurance, medical deductions, working for companies getting government contracts, getting police services ad infinitum who are voting conservative.
What do you get when you’re making 25k a year? Your school is much more likely to suck. You can’t take off the deductions from the taxes — because you don’t make enough money! But you still have to pay the sales and property taxes (which those the next rung up get off as deductions!)
You get free lunch, maybe in some states subsidized health care for the kids (which others have subsidized through their tax deductions).
You’re too poor to afford health insurance — but too rich to get state-sponsored medical insurance. You’re likely renting, and so paying property taxes and interest payments, but not gaining the equity. If you manage to get a house, you’re not getting the subsidy because you’re too poor.
Walton, you’re just a mindless drone. As vacuous as Palin, as resentful as Joe the Plumber, as self-absorbed as McCain. A waste of space, repeating words that you don’t seem to even understand — statism, free market — like a religious mantra.
There’s a great article on CNN today, too, about how some in the GOP think they lost because going for the moderate vote is a losing proposition, that they MUST get more conservative:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/07/conservatives.election/index.html
I call that an epic fail. They are totally out of touch. It’s surreal. I just know we’re going to hear that Palin was the problem because she’s too darned liberal. Wait for it; it’s coming.
By the way, I am ecstatic about one thing from this election, above all else: We saved the Supreme Court. Under McCain, we’d have had Thomas-types replacing liberals. Young Thomas-types, who would have been younger than me (not that that’s hard to do…).
We saved the Supreme Court, dammit. That’s pretty good.
I was kind of mad at you for “pissing in our cornflakes”, as you put it, but I want you to consider what McCain would have done to the Supremes, vs what Obama will do. Come on now, look in the mirror… See a smile yet? And don’t those corflakes taste a little less salty now?
Yes and yes for me.
—–
Sorry about my EC math. It was still too close for comfort.
To be fair, though, most of what you go on to explain is completely US-specific.
In response to #17. I grew up in what I like to call “Looser-ana”. First, what they consider a Southern Democrat down there is actually more Republican. Also, a lot of the blame for Katrina stems back to the governor at the time, who was a democrat. They thought she did not act fast enough with evacuation procedures. Things then continued to go down hill with the FEMA problems.
They also just elected a male version of Sarah Palin as governor, Bobby Jindal, who everyone back home hopes will run for president in 2012. This guy signed off an educational freedom bill, which basically allows the teachers to teach whatever the hell they want, i.e. creationism. I go back home and get nasty looks when I wear my “Teach evolution” t-shirt. Which in turn leads to what most of people down there do, they cling to their bibles instead of rational thought. A lot of people I went to high school with ended up moving back to the same small town after they went to college. Most of them don’t realize that the world is actually bigger than the state of Louisiana. It really is an inability to think for themselves.
The only one thing I am happy about is that the parish I absentee voted in went blue, which makes me extremely happy. Also, McCain may have won, but not by as large of a margin as Bush during the last election.
That being said, the smart people get the hell out and never go back, hence only the stupid masses are breeding down there (with the exception of the areas near college towns). I don’t intend on ever moving back unless they give me some kick ass job offer at one of the universities there.
So you’d be happy with government providing “services” like universal health care, and universal child care, and free college tuition? I’m not at all clear the line you’re drawing.
And as for being a “living provider”, are you including things like the enormous agricultural subsidies that allow those rugged rural individualists to sell their products at prices supported on the backs of taxpayers? Or is it only urban welfare recipients that you object to?
In both Canada and the U.S., voters in rural areas have more power. Certain parties have a lot of rural supporters. To no one’s surprise, farmers tend to vote pretty solidly as a block to protect farm interests. To prevent rural areas from being overwhelmed or outnumbered by urban areas, which might vote for candidates who are good for cities or neglect farm issues, ridings (districts?) have fewer people in the country than in the city. So a rural vote carries more electoral weight and cities are under-represented.
It’s likely that the Republicans will learn to speak more moderately. If they swing to the religious right first, they’ll likely get trounced; and that will motivate them to moderate. Eventually they will get back into power.
It would be really, really nice if you got rid of the electoral college and just counted ridings. The party that elects the most representatives should win the election. You can still have swings in popular vote vs. number elected; but it’s not unbalanced by state the way the College is.
To the more general point that PZ is making: yes, it is curious how the GOP has become the party of rural, religious America while the Democrats are the party of the cities and suburbs.
I remember just eight years ago when the pundits were looking at the relative growth rates of the Sun Belt states vs. the Northeast, and concluding that, since the South and West were growing faster, and had tended to vote Republican, that the GOP might be on the verge of locking in an Electoral College for quite a while.
I wondered at the time why Mexicans and Northeasterners who moved to Sun Belt states would vote Republican simply because people who had lived there previously had been voting that way.
And as we see, states like Nevada and New Mexico are strongly tending Democratic due to Hispanic influx, while Virginia’s DC ‘burbs are the locus of a lot of population growth and, not coincidentally, Democratic voting.
I expect that, as long as the Republicans try to make hay by vilifying the urban areas, they will be in the minority party.
This is the point my conservative friends like to twist about.
They assume every single dollar that comes from their taxes and especially tax raises goes to the (typically black) unwed mother living off welfare who is “too lazy” to her off her fat ass and get a job.
So, in the US, blue is left and red is right… *confused*
The Reps used to be blue and the Dems red in media maps. I don’t recall when the switch occurred. In the 1990s, maybe?
Hey this video is PZ and most of the posters here!:
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/obama_win_causes_obsessive?utm_source=embedded_video
Oh how Walton’s parents must suffer.
Tulse: I’m not at all clear the line you’re drawing.
And therein lies the problem.
And as for being a “living provider”, are you including things like the enormous agricultural subsidies
Of course.
#100 “The Reps used to be blue and the Dems red in media maps. I don’t recall when the switch occurred. In the 1990s, maybe?”
Wrong.
Oh, and anyone who is not religious but maybe wants smaller government is to be lumped in with the religious. It’s easier than addressing the issues they raise Q100
This is a barefaced lie. A number of atheist “libertarians” post here freely and regularly, and just as regularly get their arses handed to them on a plate.
Get with the manifesto, Walton, or you’ll be sent to the Ayres reeducation camps.
They have pretty effective treatments for paranoid psychosis these days, although they do have side-effects. Consult your medical advisor.
By the way, Walton’s British. I’m confident Obama will drop the Bush practice of kidnapping foreigners, torturing them, and locking them up indefinitely without trial.
phil being that that is the Onion I’m not sure to take that as you joking or you being an idiot.
Which is it?
If you’re joking, I love the Onion. Always puts a funny spin on things.
If you think you’re making some point, you’re failing horribly.
Q100:
Q100, thank you very much for your illuminating discussion. Although we may disagree, it is reassuring to see someone so willing to engage in meaningful debate and to provide a detailed defense of one’s point of view. I appreciate that you have made such a good-faith attempt to explain your position. In our future exchanges I will be sure to treat you with the same respect and intellectual honesty that you have shown.
Feynmaniac #79
raven #40,
” The GOP is in full scale civil war right now.”
(quote inside of quote funny)
it has been building for a while, there are disagreements that go deeply and back over time. How can the current activist part of the republican party be considered part of the Party of Lincoln?
There has been talk of third parties for years but not so much this year. Since the Nixon “re-alignment” and the “southern strategy” the republican party has been in the practice of “using” social issues to gain power like some kind of marketing strategy for a product like soap.
I wonder if we are not beginning another time of re-alignment now. Time will tell if the democratic party becomes a more centrist party consisting of old line “main street conservatives and center left democrats. leaving the religious right and “neocons” in the conservative republican party.
Another question that time will make more clear is where will the Greens, labor , “Old left” and “Nadorites” shake out in this?
Glad the election is over. I never really thought it would come out like this I guess there is some hope left to avoid the self destructive impulses of the last 8+ years for a while yet.
I don’t disagree, but I hasten to point out that just because something is unconstitutional or unthinkable doesn’t mean it doesn’t occur in the U.S. I gather the Constitution is like the Pirates’ Code — it’s really more of a suggestion, really…
Whoops, redundant adverb is redundant.
Well, the popular vote margin is too close for my comfort! Should have been at least 85 % for Obama, like in polls in the rest of the First World. :-|
@ Boomer (#20 and some others)
Not to overly poke holes in your theory, but Canada kind of spoils what you said. We are generally far more liberal than our southern neighbours (although there are, of course, exceptions, especially in the last couple years after the Liberals grew too corrupt to stay in office and Harper managed to swoop in), but we certainly have more empty spaces. Certainly I think low population centres do tend to be more conservative compared to the more populous areas within a given country, but population density itself does not seem to be a very good measure of overall liberalism.
I see I there are some renegade “that”s up there in my last comment. Someone step on it or smash it with a hammer or something.
I find this ironic:
http://psweb.sbs.ohio-state.edu/faculty/hweisberg/conference/lacy-osuconf.pdf
Ironic, but not surprising. The net beneficiaries of federal funds (entitlements, pork, etc.) tend to be red states, and those states that actually contribute more than they take tend to be blue states.
Liberals could probably convert a lot of the poor rural folk by letting the Republicans pry the federal teat from their mouths. Of course, the Republicans know this, so they mostly just threaten and bluster about slashing welfare and entitlements.
The funny thing about that map is that, although it doesn’t look it, 44% of Texas voted for Obama. A map showing county shade by percentage of vote for party, with blue being high % dem and red being high % rep, would, I think, paint a different picture; our winner-take-all system tends to obscure shifts in voting behavior.
CadicusTheDamned wrote:
But the Republicans won’t pry the federal teat from their mouths. When have you ever seen them try?
@112. Wait though. Doesn’t the “average Canadian” live in a location with a denser population than the “average American”. I mean if you calculate the average number of people the live within a mile of a citizen of each countries? There’s the old joke about most Canadians living close to the border because they are lining up to invade.
This seems like the relevant statistic if any (no-one is expecting people to get more conservative if a bunch of empty land were to be added to their country).
MikeM @93,
some in the GOP think they lost because going for the moderate vote is a losing proposition, that they MUST get more conservative… I call that an epic fail.
You do? I don’t. I call that a plan that will guarantee an ironclad permanent Republican majority; nay, make that a permanent Republican presidency, >67% Republican seats in both houses of congress and nine Republican justices on the USSC.
Democrats have just won a victory, it’s true. But that was a fluke, an anomaly, and would never have happened if there’d been a true Republican conservative at the top of the ticket. Despite this minor, temporary setback, Republicans can ensure that it all ends in tears for the Democrats if only they purge their ranks of wets and weaklings. A forthright platform of a 10% flat tax on income; full privatisation of Social Security; ruthless slashing of all spending on everything but the military and faith-based initiatives; getting serious for once about the war in Iraq, and expanding it to Iran and Syria; sweeping away the regulations that keep businesses and financial institutions from creating wealth that will trickle down to everybody; and, in general, the whole drown-it-in-a-bathtub thing — if the GOP get behind all that in a SERIOUS way for once, and make sure that party discipline keeps every single one of their candidates toeing that line, the Democrats won’t govern again for a century.
I only pray that the Republican party never adopts this strategy. No other possibility could be more terrifying for Democrats.
Post #37 nails it. The stronger the influence of the conservative church, the redder the region; and the conservative church is strongest in the rural west and the deep white South. And Obama will need to tread carefully on the subject of same-sex marriage, because those patches of blue in the deep South can evaporate in a hurry on that issue; there’s an alignment of the evangelical black churches and the conservative white churches in opposition to that.
What a bunch of hueylewis!!!!
Nevermind the fact that the two parties were offering virtually the same thing, with only slight differences in wording and a few social differences.
When you have two parties that have converged on the hill and are claiming to be different but really aren’t, your map and all of your blustering doesn’t change the fact that Americans elected Obama over McCain because they liked him better.
Two choices. One vote. Even I would have voted Obama over McCain had I voted for POTUS (I left it blank out of disgust and voted to oust every incumbent I could).
All you are seeing is a country sick of GW Bush and his lousy administration and partially enamored with the idea of a bi-racial preacher-speaking God-fearing man-with-a-hue in the White House.
As the economy goes from having a wheel in the ditch to sinking in a lake, and as Americans begin to “see” the damage having an 11.trillion dollar debt and a military cruising around the planet burning up fossil fuel at the rate of most countries, and the new “liberal” exuberance fades into the harsh new reality of government economic destructiveness (including farm subsidies) maybe there will be a genuine political shift in the US?
But until then, it is all a poodle and mule show to keep even college professors occupied while money gets vaccuumed into the richest corners…
What do you lot think the Reps should do now?
I’d recommend mass suicide.
some in the GOP think they lost because going for the moderate vote is a losing proposition, that they MUST get more conservative… I call that an epic fail.
I think it depends what you mean by “more conservative”. It isn’t a simple, one-dimensional left-right spectrum.
It would be a really, really bad idea for the GOP to move further towards social conservatism and sectarian religious values, which inevitably alienate the more secular portions of society. But it would, IMO, be a good idea for the party to return to its intellectual and philosophical roots. The ideals of libertarian conservatism and small government, which have a long and distinguished history in America dating back to Jefferson, are very valuable and have the potential to be very popular. A lot of people who are alienated by the religious right would likely be much more attracted to the GOP if it concentrated on fiscal conservatism, an intellectually sound doctrine, and abandoned religious-right wingnuttery. Unfortunately, with a smaller, leaner GOP over the next few years being likely dominated by the Deep South and by conservative, Christian rural voters, this is unlikely to happen.
The worst possible disaster for the party would be to nominate Palin in 2012, of course. She represents the worst trends of the American right in recent years – the hostility to intellectualism, the divisive hardline religious values, the abandonment of competence in favour of ideology.
your bias is so disgusting. this is the type of video i would you to post if it was mccain or palin.
you dems are losers. – david@64
Devid, you’re a semi-literate pinhead; and, of course, a loser.
“”This is a barefaced lie. A number of atheist “libertarians” post here freely and regularly, and just as regularly get their arses handed to them on a plate.”””
Only in your wet dreams…
There is no “ass handing”. Just the obvious outcome when a small independent group runs up against group think. You get name calling. Some fecal flinging. Nothing that isn’t seen anywhere else in the animal kingdom.
We’ve been telling y’all that the economy is tanking for a few years now. We keep telling y’all what else is coming.
Were we right? Will we be right?
Will y’all actually hand us back our asses and kiss the plate after you lose your job?
Nope.
A nest full of ideologues will deny reality and cling to safety in groups, using “we” as a means of assuming righteousness, as opposed to “I” which takes responsibility for one’s own thoughts.
MikeM wrote:
It’s Palinfreude:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2008/11/can-you-hear-me-now.html
This should be encouraged. We should all adopt fake new names and emails and get websites promoting the craziest options for the GOP, purge them of anyone with intelligence and start plotting the next epic fails for the GOP:
Bachmann / Palin – ’12
Walton, you ignorant slut!
Some of us who have “worked hard and earned a decent living” are perfectly happy to see those less fortunate join us in the middle class… and perfectly happy, as well, to pay our fair share of the cost of creating a society that supports such movement. Partly this is a matter of simple human decency… but since conservatives generally sneer at that sort of squishy motivation, I’ll note that it’s also a matter of enlightened self-interest: We understand that our own lives will be better in a society of broadly shared affluence than in one characterized by a sharp dichotomy between affluence and poverty.
I see my taxes as an investment in a better society… and I expect that I will benefit from living that better society to such an extent my investement will, by any reasonable standard, return a profit. You just have to understand that peace, security, happiness, and social justice have value, just as land and cash and commodities do, to make the balance sheet work.
Oakden Wolf, #119: And Obama will need to tread carefully on the subject of same-sex marriage, because those patches of blue in the deep South can evaporate in a hurry on that issue….
Since Obama is on record as not being in favor of same-sex marriage (or so I believe — my Googlefu is weak), then this shouldn’t be too hard for him to pull off.
But thanks for expressing your concern.
“People are always fretting over how conservatives are outbreeding liberals, but it seems to me that that actually works in liberals’ favor”.
It’s always nice to have someone read my work.
what the hell does that even mean
Rev. BigDumbChimp asked:
It means that we are now pumping out so much radio energy that we’re beginning to fry our brains.
Mrs. Tilton@118: …what? I mean, what?
I tried answering someone’s question elsewhere about why big cities are liberal, but the points have been touched on already. Cities as trade centers attract diversity, and at least tolerance of the other; plus ‘freaks’ are better able to find each other if they congregate, being themselves liberal and also providing more exposure of themselves to others. “Leave me alone” kind of works when density is in acres per person and everyone uses septic tanks; urbanites are more used to an idea that what they do can inadvertently affect others, and that gov’t can be both necessary and useful. And then there’s something I can’t find again, claiming economic inequality correlates with liberalism in both rich and poor, and it’s uniformly middle-class suburbs that go Rep most reliably.
Canada: besides being I think a bit denser in population, and also having a history not rooted in tax revolt, you have universal health care. So even distant farmers sitting on septic tanks have that example in their lives of government working. Which doesn’t mean they like Teh Gay.
Then there’s the religiousness difference…
We’ve been telling y’all that the economy is tanking for a few years now. – SfO
Look you moron, as has been pointed out to you numerous times, people from all parts of the political spectrum could see that the credit-bubble couldn’t last indefinitely. It dosen’t take a fucking genius to work out that an economic bubble is going to burst, because they always do. It’s like predicting the sun is going to rise.
A nest full of ideologues will deny reality and cling to safety in groups, using “we” as a means of assuming righteousness, as opposed to “I” which takes responsibility for one’s own thoughts.
*Irony meter vapourises*
You “libertarians” are less independent than the average flock of sheep. You all come on here with the same few stupid bleats, repeated ad nauseam. You yourself are the worst of the lot. I’d actually killfiled you because the last 50 comments of yours I’d read said just about exactly the same thing. I think I’ll return you to that status.
No other possibility could be more terrifying for Democrats.
Yes. Quite. I sure hope. They don’t. *squints at script* Adopt such an amazing platform. Or we are doomed.
Besides, didn’t those blue areas of Californian and Florida pass very unprogressive legislation such as Proposition 8-Rocketman
I live in San Diego, CA and the reason that prop 8 passed was because the people supporting it used ignorance and fear to promote their agenda. They claimed that unless prop 8 passed the schools would be teaching and promoting homosexualality and that the parents wouldn’t be able to opt out or object. They also made claim that a group of second graders were taken to a lesbian wedding to make their point. However they fail to point out that 1. teaching marriage isn’t required and 2.in order to take any child off of school property the school has to have a signed permission form in order to do so. They also failed to point out that it wasn’t the teacher’s idea to take them but a parents. In the weeks leading up to the election you could hardly walk into a business that was playing the radio overhead or watch TV for longer than 30 minutes that you wouldn’t hear an endorsement for prop 8 and I rarely hear or saw anything from the opponents. Also even though the opponents to prop 8 had more money at their disposal they were not given equal air time on either the radio or the TV. It’s pretty easy to get something you want passed if you use people’s fear, hate and prejudises to promote it.
No. It’s those who’ve worked hard and earned a decent living, and don’t want to be overtaxed to pay for those who are dependent on the state.
You know it’s only natural for folks to depend on the government, be it college professors or scientists looking for research grants.
You know who gets more cash government handouts than any other group? Farmers and ranchers. They literally wouldn’t survive without govt. welfare propping them up. And yet, they keep voting Republican and saying they don’t want the government involved in business or welfare. Hm.
There seems to be a much simpler explanation: Voting Dem is a contagion.
The denser the population the faster the bug can spread from person to person. It’s the Plague all over again (the real one, not the Yersinia pestis upstart).
Sili,
A sanity-inducing virus?
Carlie@135,
Walton wants agricultural subsidies abolished. Unless we want him lynched, we’d better keep him away from most of the red areas on that map!
Bill Dauphin at #126:
Some of us who have “worked hard and earned a decent living” are perfectly happy to see those less fortunate join us in the middle class… – So am I. But this means that we should provide ladders for those who are willing and able to ascend in society; it does not mean that we should support the unwilling and unable at the expense of the successful. So I support state funding of education and training; but I don’t support progressive taxation, extensive welfare, or any programme that makes indolence more profitable than work.
Partly this is a matter of simple human decency… but since conservatives generally sneer at that sort of squishy motivation, I’ll note that it’s also a matter of enlightened self-interest: We understand that our own lives will be better in a society of broadly shared affluence than in one characterized by a sharp dichotomy between affluence and poverty. – I think you’ve entirely misunderstood conservatism here. I am no more selfish or self-interested than you are (indeed, I’m not particularly wealthy or successful, and, as a student, am partially reliant on the state myself). But I believe, based on the empirical evidence and on ethical philosophy, that government decision-making and central planning are inherently catastrophically flawed, and that the growth of government must therefore be kept to a minimum – for the good of everyone. While the market is not perfect at the efficient distribution of resources, and there are recognised areas of market failure (due to externalities etc., as I have explicitly acknowledged), government is far worse. Therefore, while I sympathise with the plight of (some of) the poorest in society, I think it’s clear that government intervention on their behalf is in the long run detrimental to society as a whole.
Yes, a socialistic state has a less “sharp dichotomy between affluence and poverty” (i.e. lower income disparity); but history shows that it achieves this at the expense of wealth creation and prosperity. Making everyone materially equal through state intervention takes away their freedom, and their incentive to succeed and to create more wealth.
It’s like the famous (and possibly apocryphal) story of the socialist municipal council who, in reviewing plans for a government housing block, realised that those on one side of the building had a nice view, whereas the other three sides all overlooked concrete walls. Prior to construction, they rotated the plans forty-five degrees, so that every side of the building overlooked a concrete wall – so everyone was equal in their misery.
I think Winston Churchill said it best: “It is a socialist idea that making profits is a vice. The real vice is making losses.” Just as I don’t understand the Catholic idea that virtually all non-marital sexual conduct, however harmless, is sinful, likewise I don’t understand the socialist idea that it’s somehow sinful to create wealth and to make a profit for yourself, through entrepreneurship and voluntary commercial transactions. Yes, it’s unethical to get rich by stealing from others. But it’s not unethical, IMO, to earn money by being better than your competitors at whatever economic activity you choose to engage in, and therefore making more money through a process of free and consensual trade.
Walton wants agricultural subsidies abolished. Unless we want him lynched, we’d better keep him away from most of the red areas on that map!
Yes, I do. Unfortunately, this is one of the sad things about both the US and UK conservative movements; while they support free trade and the market in other areas, they’re too politically beholden to the farming industry to ever have the courage to abolish tariffs and subsidies.
In fact, this nicely illustrates why a truly libertarian state is unachievable in the real world – too many vested interests in society militate against it.
David #64
I find your comment hysterical! You actually presume to stand up on your high horse and call us losers while one of your republican supporters refused to give candy out to 4 and 5 year olds on Halloween based on whether they were McCain supporters or not. Perhaps you missed it so let me enlighten you.
http://www.casttv.com/video/aqqwzk1/michigan-mccain-palin-supporter-says-no-treats-for-obama-kids-on-halloween-video
Walton, #140: In fact, this nicely illustrates why a truly libertarian state is unachievable in the real world – too many vested interests in society militate against it.
And not to mention it’s probably unworkable as well.
but I don’t support progressive taxation, extensive welfare, or any programme that makes indolence more profitable than work. – Walton
And sod the children of the indolent – should have chosen their parents more carefully.
Yes, a socialistic state has a less “sharp dichotomy between affluence and poverty” (i.e. lower income disparity); but history shows that it achieves this at the expense of wealth creation and prosperity.
Which is why everyone in Scandinavia is starving.
In fact, this nicely illustrates why a truly libertarian state is unachievable in the real world – too many vested interests in society militate against it.
So why do you keep bleating on about how wonderful it would be?
It’s like the famous (and possibly apocryphal) story of the socialist municipal council who, in reviewing plans for a government housing block, realised that those on one side of the building had a nice view, whereas the other three sides all overlooked concrete walls. Prior to construction, they rotated the plans forty-five degrees, so that every side of the building overlooked a concrete wall – so everyone was equal in their misery. – Walton
I’m afraid all this story illustrates, unless you can show it actually happened, is your own prejudices.
Hey,
Anyone else notice the Rorschach image in the population scaled image? Looks like a certain bird rising from the ashes.
How wonderful and apt!
To quote Mr. Frank Constanza
Nick Gotts (#132):
My suspicion is that they’re actually all produced by the Individual Eleven virus.
(Yes, I get all my sociology from Japanese cartoons. No, I am not ashamed of this.)
People who say things like this, I find, tend to overestimate the number of slackers and underestimate the number of people who are unable for other reasons (e.g.: mental health issues). As someone who lives in a country that has a fairly extensive (though arguably still insufficient) welfare system, I can tell you that it’s still no picnic living in that demographic; that people are typically not there by choice (or simply due to indolence); and that it is in no way a “more profitable” lifestyle.
I don’t understand the socialist idea that it’s somehow sinful to create wealth and to make a profit for yourself
That’s fine, but what does it have to do with anything? Nobody here is arguing against being able to make a profit from your work.
a truly libertarian state is unachievable in the real world – too many vested interests in society militate against it.
The same is true of a communistic state. Neither extreme works too well.
This, I think, is the major reason densely populated urban areas tend to be liberal: the other is your neighbor. No matter how rich you are in NYC, there are poor people within a few blocks of you. (At one time, I personally knew 3 people living on welfare 3 blocks from the founder of Blackstone Group.) You run across them every day. If you are paying even the slightest attention, you know they most of them are not slackers.
and that it is in no way a “more profitable” lifestyle.
Maybe Walton supports a minimum wage increase? I’m guessing not, though.
In response to GuyIncognito – The LDS church is only a small fraction away from the rest of Christianity, even though other Christians refuse to admit it. As far as the basic principles of Christianity they are the same for all intents and purposes. They just upset all of the other more established churches when they pronounced they had another, newer book delivered from God to them and no one else. So the Bible Belters and the rest of the Repugnants don’t want anything to do with them. The Mormons see it differently however, as they see themselves as fully Christian, with extra and more up to date information (IE they are Windows XP service pack 3, all other Christians are service pack 2). So because of the few moral arguments that Hard Core Christians all share (Pro-Life, Anti-Gay, Anti-non Christian,and all that)they will as a group always be more conservative, and tend to vote Repugnant. I do find it funny though, that Christians cannot get along with one another. I guess it goes to show that Hate mongerers even hate each other, and if left to their own devices they would just hate each other to death. Heh.
Maybe Walton supports a minimum wage increase? I’m guessing not, though.
Hell, no. The minimum wage is an even worse idea than the welfare state.
Minimum wage legislation places a burden on employers and distorts wages upwards – therefore providing a disincentive to employ workers. This is very hard on small businesses, who can’t always afford to pay higher wages; and in time of economic hardship, it inevitably increases unemployment, as employers then have a powerful incentive to lay off as many workers as they can in order to cut their wage bills.
In the end, it isn’t Wal-Mart et al. who suffer from the minimum wage – they can afford the higher wage bill, and indeed many large retail chains (in the UK at least) pay more than the minimum wage. It’s the small businesses, who can’t afford to pay the higher rates, and risk going out of business. And when a recession comes along and businesses are forced to tighten their belts, the people who lose out, who would otherwise have been employed, are the vulnerable unskilled workers – the very people the minimum wage was designed to protect.
If we must have a “minimum income” for the poorest workers, provide it through welfare or tax credits (unpalatable as those are). Don’t punish businesses – because larger businesses will move elsewhere, and smaller ones will go out of business.
Are you afraid of being thrown in the briar patch, Mrs Tilton?
because larger businesses will move elsewhere, and smaller ones will go out of business.
Well, that’s the free market for ya. Big businesses crush small ones. And getting rid of the minimum wage might slow the remaining monopolies from fleeing elsewhere, but it won’t stop them as long as there’s someplace with even more expendable poor people to use up.
That’s why our best bet is a mixed economy. The trick is finding a proper balance.
Minimum wage legislation places a burden on employers and distorts wages upwards – therefore providing a disincentive to employ workers. – Walton
Evidence? Oh, silly me, this is a “libertarian”, after all! It may sometimes do so, but it certainly doesn’t always. For example before it was introduced in the UK, your kind, and the employers’ organsiations, were making this claim. IT DIDN’T HAPPEN.
Walton wrote:
I wonder how Walton feels about child labor laws, don’t you?
Let them know – Bachmann / Palin – ’12:
http://ideas.rebuildtheparty.com/
I like how the cartograms make red state electorates look like an icky glop that someone hawked onto the USA. As to who or what did the hawking, personally, I blame God.
False dilemma. If you can provide for workers through mechanisms like tax credits and subsidies, you can provide for small businesses in the same way. In fact, that’s exactly what the more left-leaning mixed economies do. If your argument had merit, these countries wouldn’t have small businesses. <looks out the window%gt; Nope. Apparently, you’re wrong.
If you can provide for workers through mechanisms like tax credits and subsidies, you can provide for small businesses in the same way. In fact, that’s exactly what the more left-leaning mixed economies do.
So rather than just letting businesses keep their own profits… we force them to pay out those profits, and then compensate them for the shortfall via state handouts. Therefore inserting the state into the economy where it doesn’t need to be. Typical leftist thinking.
Why the last 50 years? Oh, I see; the 2007 results would produce a map that’s hardly flattering to small towns (particularly in the category of “forcible rape.”)
I’d be interested in seeing how the percentages were grouped in this map. Cartography 101 states that using ratio data in a choropleth map setting is a major no-no, as it can severely skew the data. Was it a Jenks system?…..natural breaks?
If the alternative is that the people at the bottom end of the scale can’t make ends meet, then it would seem that the state does need to be involved.
Uh, okay. Thank you?
Minimum wage legislation places a burden on employers and distorts wages upwards – therefore providing a disincentive to employ workers. – Walton
Evidence? Oh, silly me, this is a “libertarian”, after all! It may sometimes do so, but it certainly doesn’t always. For example before it was introduced in the UK, your kind, and the employers’ organsiations, were making this claim. IT DIDN’T HAPPEN.
Walton, without a minimum wage the workers are always at a disadvantage. If they can’t afford to live at the wages being offered, they starve. Even when people band together and strike, the employer can either bring in poorer people from elsewhere or move the job elsewhere. And then people starve.
This shit isn’t hypothetical. It actually happened in the United States before the Fair Labor Standards Act. That act, incidentally, was passed in 1938. This country had been in a Depression for nearly a decade before a minimum wage existed, and had experienced numerous recessions and boom-bust cycles before the Great Depression. Economic roller coasters happen with or without a minimum wage. But at least with one, people can theoretically make enough to live.
And your evidence for this is what?
Libertarians and conservatives always say that corporations are more efficient than government, but they never offer proof for this contention. (Note to Walton and other libertarians: Anecdotes are not proof.) I suppose market failures, trusts, and oligopolies are lies spread by the evil economists serving the government as described in the Protocols of the Elders of Statism.
Walton,
Are you ever even going to attempt to supply any empirical evidence for your claims? If “libertarian” dogma is true, why isn’t everyone starving in Scandinavia? Why, instead, are these most “socialistic” of the rich countries (in that they have high tax rates, a lot of business regulation, and low inequality) places with fully functioning and stable political democracy, good health and education, high social mobility and social stability, plenty of small businesses and innovation? Why are you so utterly impervious to information from the real world?
the Protocols of the Elders of Statism. – ‘Tis Himself
I’ll be stealing that one!
Of course, there is the alternative explanation: this distribution is an indirect measure of prosperity
That wouldn’t explain Detroit.. worse place in the U.S.
Nick Gotts asked Walton:
It’s called “logical preposterism.”
Learn more here:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2007/06/brownback-mountain.html
Damien @131,
what? I mean, what
Sorry if it wasn’t clear enough, but my comment parodied a certain strain of Republican dead-endism, and evoked the classic American political concept of the “briar patch”.
don’t want to be overtaxed to pay for those who are dependent on the state.
Walton, are you receiving any sort of government subsidy for your degree? Or are you paying the full cost?
If your contribution doesn’t reflect the true cost of your education, then you really need to rethink your position. You’re bludging off those poor tax payers.
It’s fortunate for you that your libertarian Utopia is entirely fictional otherwise you’d be in deep doo doo, my lad.
Wow! Cool! Is that a picture of purplish feathered descendant of Archaeopteryx just learning how to fly? It must be some transitional form of primitive dino bird. And no I haven’t even started my weekend yet.
Seeing that it was the Bush admin that struck down habius Corpus, right to assemble, right to privacy, etc. Why do so many think Obama is going to take away our rights?
“What do you lot think the Reps should do now?
I’d recommend mass suicide.”
Hey Nick. If I “got to die”, maybe I need to take a few Donks with me.
I was kidding I you were.
DM: To be fair, though, most of what you go on to explain is completely US-specific.
And to be fair, the point here is US-specific, so if little Walton wants to go on mumbling about it arrogantly just to throw around his recitation one more time, then his points had better be US-specific.
That’s one bit about experience. You learn a tiny bit of humility when outside one’s ken, and recognize that a single programmatic ideology is not universally applicable in some context free manner.
So is Walton just a plain idiot, or more charitably a young idiot? I’m feeling charitable!
“your bias is so disgusting. this is the type of video i would you to post if it was mccain or palin.
you dems are losers.”
So, where the hell did this moron come from?
He came during the last days of the campaign and is anti Obama. I detect a whiff of bigotted redneck. He tends to think he is funny, when he is really pathetic, unfunny, and inappropriate. He is in a lot of killfiles.
Now I see! Civic nurturing of universities, world-class symphony orchestras, art and science museums, and the availability of a broad range of cultural experience is a “small-town value”. Got it.
Bonefish: Yes, we’ve attracted a few numskull conservatives who are in psychotic denial about the long-overdue clock-cleaning the GOP just suffered, and who insist that Democrats are “losers” – which is pretty much what they said (and how they said it) in ’04. Are all Republicans such poor winners and poor losers? I certainly hope not!
The reason the libertarians are out in their force of one or two (among frequent posters here, at least) over the minimum wage is that their arguments against a higher minimum wage do have such a strong common sense and basic economic theory backing them. I did some google searching for the ‘economics of the minimum wage’ and almost every article claimed that most economists believe that it does cost at least some jobs to raise the minimum wage. And that didn’t include the articles from obvious right wing groups like Cato. So, really, who is speaking without evidence?
The creation of a federal minimum wage in 1938 happened at a time of extreme unemployment. This naturally gave the power to price labor to employers, as workers were desperate for any job at all. Employers could then get away with paying less than what the value of their employees’ labor actually was to them. In such cases, a minimum wage is of definite benefit to workers and to society as a whole.
The lesson from this is that a minimum wage can be a good thing when it matches the natural value of the labor for those minimum wage jobs. Remember that these jobs are typically those that require no prior work experience, no skills, and no education. But when the minimum wage is set higher than the benefit employers get from those workers’ labor, it is an additional cost burden, no different than raising the cost of raw materials on their balance sheets.
As even Walton noted, a more fair way to help the working poor is through mechanisms like the Earned Income Tax Credit. This spreads the burden of helping these workers to everyone rather than to just businesses. That burden of a minimum wage too high ends up affecting everyone anyway as the effects on businesses spread through the rest of the economy. It also has the benefit of being more honest about its purpose and function. Instead of being able to claim a moral high road saying that they are just trying to be fair and promoting a ‘living wage’, politicians will have to explain to the public where and why their taxes are going to this program.
In my opinion, the minimum wage should be set about where the ‘minimum’ wage would naturally be in normal economic times, which would protect workers when economic times are not normal and unemployment is high. If such a wage is insufficient for workers to support themselves and their families, then I am happy to contribute some of my taxes to programs like the EITC.
Walton:
Well, you’ll have to work pretty hard to convince me that any such program(me) actually exists (anywhere outside right-wing mythology, that is). Progressive taxation (even the slightly more progressive version Obama hopes to implement) does not constitute such a program, nor does any form of welfare currently (or recently) practiced in the U.S. The idea that Uncle Sugar makes being poor the best way to get rich is nothing but wingnut BS.
But here’s the thing: Even if my neighbors are lazy and indolent and truly deserve to be poor, I’m still personally better off if they’re not… and I’m willing to make some investment to achieve that goal.
I’m not at all sure history shows any such thing… but stipulating that it does, I’ll take the society that creates slightly less wealth but distributes it more equitably over the one that creates slightly more wealth but reserves huge fractions of its wealth for the top 1 or 2 percent.
Conservatives always convince the other 98 percent to vote against their own economic interest by encouraging them to think they can all be part of the top 1 or 2 percent someday, if they only work hard enough. Obviously, that’s a lie. It’s a pyramid scheme. At least when Garrison Keillor talks about all the kids being above average, he means it as a joke!
Show me any government social program in U.S. history, even in the most liberal of administrations, that had as either its stated goal or its actual outcome “[m]aking everyone materially equal through state intervention.” This is the most thoroughly straw filled of all strawmen.
Gee, I don’t understand either of those ideas either, but while the former strikes me as a reasonable summary of Catholic attitudes about sex, the latter is a total strawman. I don’t know if it’s really “the socialist idea” that creating wealth is sinful (I doubt it, but you’ll have to ask an actual socialist), but that’s never been any part of the American idea, no matter how far to the left you look.
This idea that we face a binary choice between total laissez-faire capitalism or outright socialism is useless malarkey; real-world options are in between. Not only that, but (as your fellow European commenters will be happy to tell you) nothing in U.S. politics, even on what we call the left, is particularly close to the socialism end of the spectrum.
Kseniya! You’re alive! Thank FSM… I’d been beginning to wonder what became of you.
Yeah, I’m with JasonTD here. Beyond the elementary argument that raising the price of labor (wages) makes labor more expensive and less attractive (why don’t we advocate a minimum wage of $20/hour? $40?), and making it technically illegal to trade off cash vs. other compensation (“I’ll pay you $1/hour to keep an eye on my stuff, in a warm building where you can read most of the time”; note how waiters get an exemption for a lower nominal wage given the erraticness of tips) the minimum wage is poor targetting. E.g. it helps (or not, if it prices them out) the teenagers of middle-class families, while totally failing to help anyone who’s poor because they don’t have a job.
Earned Income Tax Credit is more targetted (poor workers) but still doesn’t help the jobless. It’s the puritanical version of Milton Friedman’s Negative Income Tax, which just gave money to poor people, through the income tax system. Friedman wasn’t thrilled by welfare, but figured if you’re going to do it, do it right — give money to poor people for being poor. And it’s not just him; I think NIT has broad support among economists. (Alternately, there’s basic grant, like Alaska’s dividends *cough* but bigger and monthly.)
@MH
Oh noes! I was off by an election. From your own link, the final coloring in the media emerged in 2000, but it seems there was a transition during the 1990s. I definitely recall the Reps being blue during Clinton’s first election.
Conservatives always convince the other 98 percent to vote against their own economic interest by encouraging them to think they can all be part of the top 1 or 2 percent someday, if they only work hard enough. Obviously, that’s a lie. It’s a pyramid scheme. At least when Garrison Keillor talks about all the kids being above average, he means it as a joke!
That’s a serious misunderstanding. Wealth is not a zero-sum game. Just because X gets rich doesn’t mean he’s taking money away from Y or Z.
Yes, it’s obviously mathematically impossible that everyone can be in the top 2%, if you put it that way. But, in times of sustained economic growth, the average becomes higher. This is simple common sense.
For instance, the standard of living enjoyed by ordinary people today is probably comparable to that enjoyed by only the very wealthy a century ago; because our society is wealthier, technology is better, and consumer goods are more affordable. All due to consumer capitalism.
As to your other points, I think you’ve misunderstood me slightly. I am perfectly aware that the Democrats are not trying to create a centrally-planned socialist state! However…
This idea that we face a binary choice between total laissez-faire capitalism or outright socialism is useless malarkey; real-world options are in between. Not only that, but (as your fellow European commenters will be happy to tell you) nothing in U.S. politics, even on what we call the left, is particularly close to the socialism end of the spectrum.
I agree that we don’t face a binary choice. And I do acknowledge that a real-world system is inevitably going to be “in between” the two extremes (i.e. a mixed economy). Virtually all modern economies are, of course, mixed economies to some degree (the only genuinely socialist state remaining is North Korea, and conversely there is no modern state, except possibly Hong Kong, which holds consistently to laissez-faire principles); but I would argue that both Britain and the US would benefit from moving further towards capitalism and from abolishing costly government programs. In a competitive capitalist world, this would be a crucial advantage from the standpoint of efficiency and creating more wealth.
As to your point about the difference between US and European politics, I think the distinction is more in rhetoric than reality. Yes, most US politicians pay lip-service to the ideals of the free market; but they’re more than happy to support wasteful pork-barrel spending when it benefits their district, or their favourite special interest group. Government spending per capita in the US, if both federal and state spending are taken into account, is comparable to that in most European countries. And, of course, the US has one of the most elaborate and wasteful systems of farm subsidies and tariffs in the world.
There are things that could be reformed in the US. For example, Social Security – while it shouldn’t be abolished – should be restructured along the lines of Singapore’s Central Provident Fund, with individual savings accounts. Unlike doctrinaire libertarians, I do think it is an appropriate role of government to ensure that people save for their retirement; but it’s very important that it’s seen as an individual savings scheme where you get out what you put in, rather than a tax-funded programme. Likewise, while I realise it’s politically infeasible, I would scrap the programme of farm subsidies, and move towards bilateral free trade agreements with the EU and other major trading blocs, with the aim of eliminating all tariffs and barriers to trade.
And the astonishing thing about US healthcare is not the lack of government intervention – it’s actually that there’s so much government intervention and that it achieves so little, compared to other countries. As of 2004, US federal government healthcare spending was $2,700 per capita per annum; higher than the Canadian federal government. Medicare, Medicaid, the VHA, the Indian Health Service… and, of course, state and county-level programmes as well, which aren’t even taken into account in the above figure. The problem is that because the US doesn’t have a single, coherent system for government healthcare spending, a lot of money gets wasted.
I would also scrap minimum wage legislation in both the US and UK (see above), and reform all welfare along the lines of the very successful Wisconsin benefit reforms implemented by Gov. Tommy Thompson.
As usual, Walton can only reason in terms of absolutes.
Actually, all historical studies on the relationship of income disparity and wealth creation clearly show that there is an optimum :
1. if you reduce income disparity to a bare minimum, you hamper greatly the potential for wealth creation
2. on another hand, all societies where income disparity becomes extremely large also tend to reduce the overall potential for wealth creation :
– a good example is given by the USofA : in the 25 years between 1945 and 1970, average real income (net of inflation) grew by 100% and this was also in balance with the rate of growth of the value of key assets (houses and stocks), and the ratio of net disposable income between the top percentile and the bottom percentile was roughly a factor 15. In comparison, during the 25 years between 1970 and 2005, average real income only grew by 25% whereas the value of key assets (houses and stocks) grew by more than 500%, making ownership of assets and capital far less accesssible, and the ratio of net disposable income between the top percentile and the bottom percentile grew from 15 to a factor of more than 100.
Of course, people like Walton just refuse to look at the data, they want to close their eyes to reality and maintain their illusion that all is fine and there is no need for balance and reaching an optimum. Their simplistic reasoning ensures that there exists only two possible systems, or a socialist one where govt controls everything and redistributes wealth equally amongst all participants, or a free market economy with a bare minimum of govt intervention and regulation and zero wealth redistribution.
The notion that humans might try to carefully balance the macro-economic parameters of an imperfect but perfectable world, learn from their mistakes, and through successive itterations search for an optimum, is the antithesis of the dogma of Libertarians and partisans of economic freedom and the invisible hand theory.
Their conviction is that humans, which means their democratically elected governments, cannot reach this optimum.
I believe that fundamentally this conviction has its origin in religious mythology.
I suspect that the perception in the US of ‘liberal’ Europe is biased by the fact that you consume a lot of media out English speaking Britain and Big, diverse, hip, experimental London in particular. There are many in the UK who are horrified by London. Add in former strippers in parliament in Italy because most of Europe has proportional representation so the fringes get into parliament. Remember that Italy still has Fascists and Communists.
One thing PR does is make it harder for one party to form majority governments, so coalitions are the order of the day which has the effect of moderating extremes and tends to loosen party whips’ authority so temporary coalitions of the willing can form around individual issues.
Also the BBC’s US election coverage used a states based proportional area map for the Presidential election which was interesting (I swapped between Aunty and CNN).
Their simplistic reasoning ensures that there exists only two possible systems, or a socialist one where govt controls everything and redistributes wealth equally amongst all participants, or a free market economy with a bare minimum of govt intervention and regulation and zero wealth redistribution.
No, this isn’t quite right, at least as regards me. I’m not a doctrinaire libertarian; I’m a libertarian conservative. I acknowledge that there are some areas in which state intervention can be beneficial overall. For obvious reasons, I support national defence, a court system and policing; without these, you can’t have the rule of law, consistent protection for private property rights or fair resolution of disputes. Hence why I’m opposed to anarcho-capitalism as promoted by Rothbard and David Friedman. I also balk at the idea of, for instance, a completely free market healthcare system; such a system leads to inevitable injustice on an individual level, because insurers must inevitably charge higher premiums to those who are at higher risk (the elderly, those with genetic disorders, etc.), who are not necessarily less deserving or more “at fault”.
And as regards wealth redistribution, it is inevitable that a small amount of it will occur whenever government raises and spends any tax revenue, which, as I’ve said, it can and must do. So I don’t call for a completely laissez-faire system (and as I’ve said, such a system is basically unachievable anyway).
But I am opposed to many specific statist programmes in their current form. For instance, in a US context, as I’ve said, I would convert Social Security into a system based on personal accounts, similar to Singapore’s Central Provident Fund, so that one saves for one’s own retirement rather than drawing from a general tax-funded pool. And I would reform all welfare along the lines of the very successful Wisconsin welfare reforms under Governor Tommy Thompson. I would also move away from progressive taxation in favour of a flat tax (albeit with a substantial tax-free allowance for the lowest earners), and as a rule I prefer sales tax to income tax, though I wouldn’t scrap the income tax entirely.
So no, I don’t draw a simplistic false dichotomy between total capitalism and total socialism; that would be insane, since (with the exception of North Korea) virtually every economy in the world is to some degree a mixed economy. But I think that the more capitalist, libertarian, entrepreneurial model of state is preferable to the paternalist, social-democratic, bureaucratic/corporatist model, in general. And the US is not a good counterexample, since, as I’ve said, its actual levels of government spending are similar to those in Europe. Rather, I would hold up the successful reforms of the 1980s in New Zealand as a great example of where all Western economies should be heading.
Eric Atkinson@176,
So you don’t recognise a moral difference between suicide and murder? Somehow, I am not surprised.
If you visited any rightist websites during the run-up to Obama’s win, you’ll know that there were frequent warnings that if he were elected, all hope would be gone and hell on Earth would ensue. Under those circumstances, suicide would seem to be the rational option.
word count: 419
“I” count: 20
I did some google searching for the ‘economics of the minimum wage’ and almost every article claimed that most economists believe that it does cost at least some jobs to raise the minimum wage. And that didn’t include the articles from obvious right wing groups like Cato. So, really, who is speaking without evidence? – JasonTD
Well, not me. I cited a specific, recent case (UK, 1999) where the predicted job losses did not occur. Whether introducing a minimum wage will result in job losses will depend on circumstances. There is, of course, no “natural” pay rate for any job, low-skilled or otherwise; and what “most economists think” is not evidence of anything other than the views of economists.
Walton’s suggestion of Earned Income Tax Credit subsidises low-paying employers at the expense of those paying a decent wage.
I can say that I’ve learned one thing from all of our libertarian espousing commenters…
They are so egotistical that they feel the need to turn EVERY SINGLE FUCKING POST into a discussion on the value of libertarianism no matter how disconnected from that topic it is.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING.
Insipidity? Does it qualify?
I’ll second that statement.
.
Get used to it !
In the years to come, the more this crisis unfolds itself, the more govt will have to intervene and impose stricter regulations to counter this tsunami of epic proportions, the more you will hear Libertarians advocate that we would be better off if Govt did nothing.
I think most people don’t realise yet what’s comming in front of us. We’re now at 6.5% unemployement rate in the US, most people can’t even imagine the possibility of more than 20% by 2010. They can’t even begin to imagine what tens of millions of homeless and jobless people living in carton boxes all around our cities and parks might look like, and Libertarians will continue for a long while with their rethoric that one shouldn’t care about this, that Govt just let it develop and that the “invisible hand” will take care of it.
Obama started in his press conf to let people know that it won’t be quick and easy, and that’s an understatement !
A genuine and rational defence of libertarianism:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Medicine_Commodity/Medicine_Commodity.html
David Friedman (in discussing the economics of health care provision) highlights the fact that democratic governance is, in a sense, just another market; and just as free markets inevitably fail in dealing with public goods, so does government action.
Walton, you just proved our point. Think about something other than politics. That is, get a life.
Someone please make it stop!
@117
Clearly I should have checked if I had some responses earlier… anyway, I don’t actually know the statistics on how much of the population lives along our border (although it is fairly high, though mostly only because of the Toronto and Vancouver regions. It cannot be over 90% as I’ve seen some people claim since Calgary, Edmonton, and Montreal are all farther north, and together those are at least 10% of our population if I’ve got my populations right and done my mental math properly). However, if you look at our governmental organization, even the mostly empty areas have parliamentary representation. While they do tend to go conservative more often than our city ridings, they do not always, and our conservative party also tends to be less conservative than the Republican party. You have a good point that the average population density in which Canadians actually live may be higher than that of Americans, but I’m not sure that’s true. The urban sprawl that is America really only exists in southern Ontario.
Walton has finally found an example which has some apparent merit: New Zealand. However, we’ll see how well the New Zealand economy stands up to the current downturn. My hunch is: not well. It had serious trouble after the 1987 stock market crash, and currently has a current account deficit of 7.9%, slow development of non-agricultural exports and slow productivity growth. It has also lost much of its manufacturing industry and is heavily dependent on overseas finance. I’d say, in other words, it’s a “bubble economy”. It’s just gone into recession – hence, probably, the election result.
To say democracy is a market is just crap. In a market you buy and sell, in multiple independent transactions. In democracy you vote, and the sum of votes determines the outcome.
Bill Dauphin@182 responded to Walton’s claim that socialists consider wealth creation evil, and suggested asking an actual socialist. As an actual socialist I say, of course it isn’t. What it is, without exception, is a social process, the outcome of the efforts and talents of innumerable people, now and in the past reaching back into prehistory. The “libertarian” (and indeed conservative) lie is that only entrepreneurs create wealth. The socialist objection is to a small number of people hogging the wealth that many have helped to create.
bishophicks #48 wrote: People in cities see government all around them so they tend to think of it as necessary and are more willing to pay for it.
I’d like to offer this slight revision. Those in urban areas tend to think of government as a ‘necessary good’, whereas those in rural areas see it as a ‘necessary evil’.
The Republican Party takes the ‘necessary evil’ position and the Democratic Party position is it’s a ‘necessary good’.
From what I see, Libertarians would take the position that government is an unnecessary evil.
I recommend:
A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government
http://www.amazon.com/Necessary-Evil-American-Distrust-Government/dp/0684844893
What it is, without exception, is a social process, the outcome of the efforts and talents of innumerable people, now and in the past reaching back into prehistory. The “libertarian” (and indeed conservative) lie is that only entrepreneurs create wealth. The socialist objection is to a small number of people hogging the wealth that many have helped to create.
I see what you mean, and this is a strong argument. But I disagree.
Imagine I take out a loan, secured against my home, in order to start up a manufacturing business. I hire X, an engineer, who’s come up with an innovative new idea for manufacturing, and decide to spend my capital on implementing it. Obviously I’m taking a massive risk; if it goes wrong I could lose my home. I start my business, employ workers at a negotiated wage, and implement X’s ideas. X’s idea proves to be a success, and I corner the market and make lots of money.
In that scenario, I, the entrepreneur, am the one who has created the wealth. I’m the one who’s taken the risk and sunk my capital into establishing the business, in the process risking personal bankruptcy and losing my home if it goes wrong. You would seem to be arguing that, because it was X who designed the new manufacturing process and my workers who manufactured the products, I am not responsible for the wealth creation and therefore, somehow, don’t deserve to keep the profits. But, with all due respect, that is clearly wrong. Neither X nor the workers has taken the risk of committing their own resources to start the business; they haven’t put anything of their own into it. Rather, they’ve agreed to work for me for a negotiated wage. They didn’t have to do so. If X wanted to, he could have taken out a loan himself and started his own company to implement his ideas. But he didn’t; and since he instead decided to sell his idea to me and let me take the risk, I am the one who should keep the profit.
Furthermore, let’s look at this from a practical perspective. Let’s imagine the same scenario, except that we live in a socialist economy where industries are state-owned. X takes his idea to a state industry committee. They realise that it is risky, that it will take extensive capital investment to implement, and that it runs a risk of failure. They – correctly – don’t want to risk public funds attempting to implement X’s idea; so they reject X’s application. Since the industry is a state monopoly, X isn’t free to set up his own business (and even if he were, a government-dominated economy wouldn’t have enough liquid capital to allow him to raise the funds to do so). So because no risk is taken, X’s innovative idea is never implemented – and so the extra wealth is never created.
Neither X nor the workers has taken the risk of committing their own resources to start the business; they haven’t put anything of their own into it. Walton
Nonsense. They’ve put their knowledge and effort into it. What’s more, you couldn’t have got going at all without the knowledge and efforts of countless others in creating and maintaining infrastructure and institutions. Nor would you possess the house to put up for collateral without those efforts. What’s more, in your scenario it is not clear that investing in this innovation was better than using the resources needed in some other way: you have simply assumed that it is. Finally, let me remind you also that in most countries, personal bankruptcy isn’t necessarily disastrous: it’s a way of avoiding having to pay back all your debts, and can actually be very profitable!
I don’t understand how no one has mentioned the fact that our government just made one of the largest socialist moves in our history with the buyouts of wall street. It’s unfathomable that “the market” will correct itself. It is people who control the market, so psychology has far more influence than the regulatory power of the business cycle
(which i doubt is a cycle, more like a fractal; after all, it is a product of our nuerology, so that fingerprint is going to be there). It seems stupid for business to stop hiring people simply because they don’t want to pay taxes; if they knew anything about history, then they would know that That was exactly what contributed to the length and depth of the Great Depression. The whole market deregulation crap which is embodied in laisse-faire economics is exactly how the market came to be so drastically endangered. even if wealth accumulation isn’t a zero-sum scenario, no one can possibly deny that it IS i finite sum, and that it does get split up unequally. Well, naturally it gets doled out unequally, but the richest do hold all that they possibly can; so no, they aren’t directlly stealing from thwe poor, but they are stealing, plain and simple. It is the moral duty for the exceeedingly rich to get as much of that cash bacck into the system
on a more related note, X the engineer deserves quite a large chunk of that profit, after all, if it weren’t for him, you wouldn’t have the success. It only makes sense to treat your employees well, because then you company will be very desirable to the employees of your competition. If you can win then over, you will have even more money in your pocket. everybod wins. Hoarding alot of that cash (like 50%) is unnecessary and wasteful in the much grander scheme of things. 40/30 between you and x, and the rest to employess sound fair (i mean, You are the boss, so a good amount to yourself is only natural). if we’re talking net of 10,000,000 dollars, and you have 50 other employees, then i think you will have alot to look forward too.
Feel free to tell me if i’m being too charitable or miserly. I’ll need reasons though lol
They’ve put their knowledge and effort into it. – Yes; they’ve done so in pursuance to a negotiated contract of employment, in exchange for an agreed wage. They haven’t done it for my benefit, and they weren’t compelled to do it. And as I said, if X wanted to set up his own business, he could do so – but he would have to invest his own capital and take the risk himself. It’s disingenous to claim that I’ve somehow exploited him.
What’s more, you couldn’t have got going at all without the knowledge and efforts of countless others in creating and maintaining infrastructure and institutions. – True; but again, they made such effort for their own profit, not out of some nebulous duty to “society”. If I eat a hamburger, I am, in a sense, relying on the farmers who grew the crops and raised the cattle, the meat processors, the transport companies, the supermarket… but they are not doing it for my benefit. They are doing it because it is profitable for them to produce, transport or sell things. That’s the beauty of commerce; each individual acts in his own interest, and in so doing, creates goods, wealth and prosperity for everyone else. I don’t need to feel grateful to the farmer who raised the cow, or the trucking company that transported the meat, or the retail store that sold me the burger. They’re just acting in the exercise of their own business; if it wasn’t profitable to them, they wouldn’t do it.
This, in fact, highlights the biggest misunderstanding that people have about libertarian thought. We don’t argue that every man is an island. We are, in fact, strongly in favour of uninhibited trade and commerce; and we recognise that, for an efficient and prosperous society, each person must rely on, and build trading relationships with, a host of other people. But we prefer this to be based on bilateral and voluntary trade between free individuals (including corporations), rather than on the use of coercive force by government to transfer resources from one person to another.
What’s more, in your scenario it is not clear that investing in this innovation was better than using the resources needed in some other way: you have simply assumed that it is. – That can be clearly inferred from the facts. If X’s innovation had not succeeded in making the manufacturing process more efficient, then my business would not have gained an advantage in competition over its rivals, and I would not have made large profits. Conversely, if X’s innovation had made the process more efficient but the relevant product was not sufficiently useful or desirable to consumers, then there would have been insufficient consumer demand and I would have gone out of business. So it is implicit in the facts of the scenario that the innovation was a good one.
Again, symplistic reasoning.
Nobody disputes the fact that the entrepreneur should keep a share of the profits, nor that he has participated in the creation of wealth. But so did the creators of the products and those who made them, they haven’t put “nothing into it”, they’ve put their creativity, their ideas, their time ,their labour. That’s not nothing. And the real question, the difficult one, is what is a fair distribution of the wealth that is created between capital and labour.
Again here, Libertarianism has no answer, if you leave it to the invisble hand, over time, capital will always seek to increase its share by lowerng labour costs as much as possible : by replacing men with machines, by moving production, then engneering, and fnally research and administration to the cheapest labour country. This has been the slow evolution of the last 40 years, this despite some timid social democratic interventions of govt. Let’s see if we can now reverse this dramatic trend.
It only makes sense to treat your employees well, because then you company will be very desirable to the employees of your competition. If you can win then over, you will have even more money in your pocket. everybod wins. Hoarding alot of that cash (like 50%) is unnecessary and wasteful in the much grander scheme of things. 40/30 between you and x, and the rest to employess sound fair (i mean, You are the boss, so a good amount to yourself is only natural).
I agree absolutely: but that’s a commercial decision for me, as the owner of the business, to make. And as you point out, it’s in my own best interests to treat X well, in order to secure his loyalty and to attract other valuable employees. If I do not do so, I risk losing X’s services, and those of other skilled employees, to my competitors who may offer a higher salary. So on what basis would government need to be involved in this? It seems to me that you’re backing up my point; the market provides adequate incentives.
Yeah, in Walton’s fantasy world where everybody has easy access to the capital requirements to start a small business and can take that risk…
Yes; they’ve done so in pursuance to a negotiated contract of employment, in exchange for an agreed wage. They haven’t done it for my benefit, and they weren’t compelled to do it.
Yes; they’ve done so in pursuance to a negotiated contract of employment, in exchange for an agreed wage. They haven’t done it for my benefit, and they weren’t compelled to do it.
Necessity is a powerful means of compulsion. The girls who worked in match factories in the 19th century and developed “fossy jaw” (if you don’t know about this, you should – look it up) were not compelled to do so, except that they needed money and nothing else was available. With your hostility to a minimum wage, health and safety regulations (I’m assuming you oppose these, as they raise employers’ costs as surely as a minimum wage), and more than a minimal welfare system, people would soon be back in exactly that position. In any case, this is irrelevant to what we are supposed to be arguing about: whether wealth creation is ever an individual act.
they made such effort for their own profit, not out of some nebulous duty to “society” – Walton
How do you know? Most people, most of the time, act from a mixture of motives. In any case, again, the motives of those who provided the basis on which any entrepreneur builds are irrelevant to the subject of argument.
if X’s innovation had made the process more efficient but the relevant product was not sufficiently useful or desirable to consumers, then there would have been insufficient consumer demand and I would have gone out of business.
But this means that the rich get many more votes than the poor in deciding where knowledge, effort and material resources should be deployed. For example, there may be a choice between putting these limited resources into a luxury product that only the very rich can afford, and no-one needs to live a decent life, or mobility and communication aids for the disabled. “The market” is likely to decide that the former is more worthwhile – because more profitable – than the latter. Or the resources might go into fundamental scientific research, which won’t pay off for decades. Again, “the market” won’t fund it.
By the way, I would not be in favour of making all business a state monopoly. I’m fine with small businesses, although they need to be regulated to protect employees and the public. Once they are over a certain size, however, their decisions produce significant externalities, growing to enormous externalities when you reach the size of the large corporations that dominate many key industries.
But so did the creators of the products and those who made them, they haven’t put “nothing into it”, they’ve put their creativity, their ideas, their time ,their labour. – True; but as I keep pointing out, they’ve done so in pursuance of an employment contract into which they entered freely. If they didn’t want to do so, they could establish their own business instead – but then, of course, they would run the risk of failure and debt. If they’ve chosen to work for me, and render those services for an agreed wage, then on what basis do they deserve anything more than that agreed wage?
And the real question, the difficult one, is what is a fair distribution of the wealth that is created between capital and labour. – Not really. As I said, labour is hired for a wage. A “fair distribution” doesn’t enter into it. And, typically, the more valuable an employee’s contribution, the higher the wages they will be in a position to demand. In my scenario above, X the engineer is a far more valuable asset to my company than J the unskilled assembly-line worker or N the cleaner; and, as mentioned above, I am compelled to pay him more, because otherwise I risk losing him to the competition.
What you seem to be proposing is substituting, in place of my commercial judgment, the arbitrary decision of an outside body as to what is a “fair” distribution of the profits. Quite apart from the obvious efficiency disadvantage, who do you suggest is morally entitled to decide what constitutes a “fair distribution”?
Libertarianism has no answer, if you leave it to the invisble hand, over time, capital will always seek to increase its share by lowerng labour costs as much as possible : by replacing men with machines, by moving production, then engneering, and fnally research and administration to the cheapest labour country. – True; but I don’t see this as a problem. As a developing country opens its borders, and businesses move in seeking cheaper labour, employment in that country will increase and diversify. This, in turn, will drive up the cost of wages. (And as more wealth and job creation also allows for more education in that country, there will be more skilled people in the workforce – allowing, as you point out, companies to move their R&D and non-manual operations there.) Eventually, wages and working conditions in that country will be comparable to those in the Western world – and so businesses will move to another country with cheap labour, and the process begins again. (This isn’t just theory. It happened in Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore, and is gradually occurring now in parts of India and China.) So while workers in the First World will temporarily suffer, those in the developing world are lifted out of the trap of subsistence farming and given new opportunities.
And, of course, you ignore the fact that this very process – starting with the replacement of men with machines in the Industrial Revolution – is responsible for the wealth, prosperity and abundance of consumer goods we enjoy today. If government had held it back, we would not have such a high standard of living.
But this means that the rich get many more votes than the poor in deciding where knowledge, effort and material resources should be deployed. For example, there may be a choice between putting these limited resources into a luxury product that only the very rich can afford, and no-one needs to live a decent life, or mobility and communication aids for the disabled. “The market” is likely to decide that the former is more worthwhile – because more profitable – than the latter.
I disagree. Although there are undoubtedly plenty of niche industries which merely serve the desires of the wealthy, the largest and most profitable industries are always those which sell staple products, in massive quantities, to the public at large. The biggest car companies in the world are not Ferrari and Lotus; they are Toyota, Ford and General Motors – companies which make ordinary cars for ordinary people. Likewise, the most ubiquitous and well-known corporate brand here in the UK is Tesco, a low-price supermarket chain.
And look further back in the past. The driving force behind the early Industrial Revolution was the textile industry; everyone needed clothes, and manufacturing them cheaply and efficiently in the new mills led to an economic revolution, with many people making massive fortunes. Then jump forward a century from there; Henry Ford (unpleasant man that he was, but that’s irrelevant) became immensely rich because he designed and mass-produced the first car that everyone could afford, not just the wealthy. Before this, cars had been playthings of the rich, and the motor industry was therefore inevitably a small one; after Ford, auto companies were able to become massive multinational corporations. Essentially, economic history makes clear that the way to become massively rich and successful is to sell a product to the masses. (Ironically, leftists sometimes use this as an argument for wealth redistribution; it’s true that if wealth is dispersed among a large middle class, rather than being concentrated in the hands of a few very wealthy people, a higher proportion of it is likely to be spent on consumer goods, rather than hoarded.)
typically, the more valuable an employee’s contribution, the higher the wages they will be in a position to demand.
ROFL! Tell it to the employees of Northern Rock. Those at the top were paying themselves vast salaries, bonuses and pension rights while making utterly disastrous decisions – and they’ve walked away with them.
Walton, you have provided no argument for your assertion that the growth of wealth over the past few centuries was due to lack of government interference – and you can’t, if only because government interference was constant. Nor for your assertion that the process you describe, of companies moving to the lowest-cost countries, will lead to a decent life for all rather than a “race to the bottom” and continued poverty for many, as it has done so far. In India, for example, despite its recent rapid economic growth (itself based on the protectionist and state education funding policies of the post-independence period), has not yet reduced the proportion of the population who are poor. China, which has kept a large measure of state control and planning even as it has made some changes in a market direction has done far better (by far the most important change was the land reform of the early 1980s, which gave title to those actually farming the land). (I’m not defending China’s lack of democracy, which I think will lead to social and environmental disaster if not remedied, but effectively all the reduction in “absolute poverty” over the past few decades has occurred in China – that is, if you take this out of the statistics, there’s been practically no change.)
Moreover, living conditions for the poor in Britain did not begin to improve until legislation was passed to protect workers from extreme exploitation, and infrastructure such as sewerage systems was built from taxation – because the market wouldn’t fund it.
In India, for example, despite its recent rapid economic growth (itself based on the protectionist and state education funding policies of the post-independence period), has not yet reduced the proportion of the population who are poor.
This is, with all due respect, an astonishingly wrong-headed interpretation of Indian economic history. The “Licence Raj” put in place by Nehru held back India’s economic growth for decades, and the legacy of Nehru’s socialistic economic thought continues to hold it back today. India has a vast, bloated and corrupt civil service, and its nationalised industries are among the least efficient bodies in the world. And its regulation is oppressive. Its expensive government anti-poverty programmes are also notoriously ineffective, since corrupt civil servants take many of the proceeds while the poor starve. But since it has been moving towards freer and less regulated trading arrangements in recent years, the economy has exploded in some areas – while in others, of course, rural poverty persists. But it’s a matter of time.
(In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India by Edward Luce is an interesting and well-researched book on this topic – and is certainly not written from a rightist perspective; indeed it’s very critical of the growth of right-wing Hindu nationalism in contemporary Indian politics. I wholeheartedly recommend the book.)
The biggest car companies in the world are not Ferrari and Lotus; they are Toyota, Ford and General Motors – companies which make ordinary cars for ordinary people.
Car owners are still, globally, an elite. Moreover, the car industry is among the most environmentally destructive in the world. In any case, this is, once again, irrelevant to the argument about whether wealth creation is an individual achievement. Wouldn’t be much point in building cars without the roads to drive them on, would there?
The driving force behind the early Industrial Revolution was the textile industry; everyone needed clothes, and manufacturing them cheaply and efficiently in the new mills led to an economic revolution, with many people making massive fortunes.
The takeoff of the British textile industry depended on imposing tariffs on textiles from India – not to mention imposing British rule.
Your take on India is extremely one-sided, although I admit I’m no expert on this (nor are you if you’ve read one book from a point of view you agree with). One thing Nehru’s social democratic policies achieved was to end large-scale famine. Another was to produce an enormous educated class through publicly-funded schools and universities – the foundation for the Indian software industry. I admit that there is a lot of corruption and inefficiency in the Indian state and state-run industries – but so there is in the private ones. And opposition to Hindu nationalism does not mean the writer is not right-wing – I imagine you would oppose Hindu nationalism, but you’ve not yet denied being right-wing.
But it’s a matter of time.
Simply a statement of faith. Over the last ten years, inequality has increased enormously, and the number of very poor has remained the same. Again, we’ll see what the current downturn brings. (And by the way, unless I’ve missed it, you still haven’t explained why the worst financial crisis in 80 years has come after along period of deregulation, privatisation, lowering of taxes on the rich, and rising inequality.)
I submit a quote from Adam Smith, from Wealth of Nations:
My emphasis.
And by the way, unless I’ve missed it, you still haven’t explained why the worst financial crisis in 80 years has come after along period of deregulation, privatisation, lowering of taxes on the rich, and rising inequality.
The root of it, of course, is not in privatisation or inequality, but in monetary policy, just as it was with the Great Depression and virtually all other financial crises in history. Existing central banking systems are badly flawed. I’m not a monetary economist, and I don’t have a detailed or intricate knowledge of the history of currency policy, so I’m not really the person to answer the question in any degree of detail, nor would I presume to propose a viable alternative system. But in the end, considering that currency is a government monopoly in all countries today, and that the root of the financial system is always founded – by definition – on currency, it’s disingenuous to blame financial crises on the market alone.
Gasp! Adam Smith was a socialist! Spreading the wealth like that.
Bill Dauphin
Although not by design, the British welfare system makes casual work unprofitable for the unemployed (IIRC one can work for up to N hours a week without leaving benefits, but the first £M earned are subtracted from benefits) and for many people part-time work can leave them worse off, as benefits in addition to job seekers’ allowance (unemployment insurance) are stopped.
Universal benefit (which everyone would get, typically varying with age and health) is one solution.
The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable.
Sounds to me like he was advocating consumption or sales taxes to penalise spending on luxury goods, rather than a progressive income tax. But I’m not familiar with the passage as a whole, but I could be wrong.
it’s disingenuous to blame financial crises on the market alone. – Walton
It would certainly be mistaken, and I don’t know anyone who has done it. Governments should not have permitted the risky loans, and above all the development of the “shadow banking system” of securitisation and CDSs which made the crisis far worse; but no-one forced the banks to develop it. It was profitable, so they went for it – exactly what you would applaud if the disastrous consequences were not already obvious. It’s notable that Spain’s banks, for example, have come through well so far – because the Spanish central bank, after financial crises in the 1970s and 1990s, discouraged them from getting into the kind of risky lending and financial instruments US and most other European banks went in for:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95517447 .
You have yourself admitted you don’t have an alternative to central banks or state monopoly of currency. (Actually, as an amusing aside, Scotland doesn’t quite have this: BoS and Clydesdale issue their own notes, which are not legal tender but are universally accepted in Scotland.) Given that, you have to take these features of the system as given, and the question remains: why now? Why not in the 1950s or 1960s, when the entire financial system was far more regulated, taxes were higher, inequalities within rich countries were falling, – and, of course, economic growth was faster? It really is no good saying – “well it’s down to this feature of the system to which I see no alternative, and it’s certainly not down to the changes in directions I advocate made in recent times, even though the disaster only happened after these changes were made”.
They won’t shut up, it’s like they are on a crusade to prove the free market the only viable enterprise. Please talk about something other than money, please!
I agree with your satnce with Adam Smith amk, that the wealth of a nation is largely the responsibility of the rich, because they do have that unfair advantage over middle class and poor peoples. I wish that all this dumping money into lobbying would be ended. I can’t see how that will happen though…
In regards to dog-ears, can’t you look at all of the work done during the great depression as Pork-barrel politics? i mean, there’s nothing wrong if it givess pleople jobs and rebuilds infrastructure…
Oh, i can’t believe that we’ve been talking all this time about population density and economics and i never brougt up the issue of the population bomb. you know, the one where it slowly ticks time down until there are so many people that the global economy collapses… thought?
The colors chosen to represent the distribution of the two parties can deceive the eye. Red and blue do not equally excite the retina. Reverse them in a graphics program to make a comparison and judge for yourselves whether the republicans are as well represented as it first appears.
“The takeoff of the British textile industry depended on imposing tariffs on textiles from India – not to mention imposing British rule.’
And even more with laws making it flat-out illegal for Indians to make their own textiles and focring them to buy British products exclusively.
But hey in the libertarian world, if it in were in their economic interests to do so they would have raised an army and overthrown the British Raj.
The inevitable conclusion of the libertarian belief that “free markets” poduce optimal outcomes is an economic version of “Might makes right”.
For a different but also interesting graphical analysis of the 2004 and 2008 presidential results, see
http://www.paulburnett.com/toothless.htm
Draw your own conclusions.
To further the move away from esoteric libertarianism vs. socialism discussions and back to something a bit more on the original topic:
Not only is Arnosium correct about the issue of color perception, but also note that this map is how people voted in this election. That doesn’t necessarily represent a shift of the voting population toward Democratic Party philosophy. I wasn’t able to find any current statistics, but there are large number of registered voters that don’t select either Republican or Democrat. Not to mention that some of those that register with one of those two won’t always vote party line.
Walton:
Others have already responded far more effectively than I could have to your last reply to me (@186), so I’ll restrict myself to just a couple brief points:
…however, you consistently respond to comments about the Democrats and the current election (the subject of this thread, remember) with critiques of socialism; you’ll have to forgive me if I respond to what you actually write. And as for U.S. politics…
Possibly so; others have said so, too, and I don’t claim to be conversant with European politics. All I know (and IIRC, all I actually said) is that whenever I talk about “the left” in U.S. politics, I get (relatively polite) snorts of derision from several of our European regulars.
Peter (@188):
You say that like it’s a bad thing! ;^)
amk (@221):
I’ll take your word for it that it’s “not by design,” but this strikes me as a Feature, Not a Bug™. Presumably the goal for those on unemployment assistance is a return to self-sufficiency through full employment. Looked at from that perspective, casual or part-time work that falls short of the income level is an unwanted distraction from job (re)training and job seeking.
In any case, unless the benefits are both completely open-ended and sufficiently generous that fit-to-work folks are able (and inclined) to live out their lives on the dole without ever returning to work (and perhaps this is the case in the UK, but I’m not aware of any such situation in the U.S.), I wouldn’t agree that this is a case of “making indolence more profitable than work.”
So if someone redid the statistical analysis Paul Krugman did back in 2000, the red states would presumably come off even worse,
The states that turned blue this year are all relatively prosperous and urbanised, so the red rump probably lags even further behind the US national average in terms of educational achievement; crime, teen pregnancy, divorce etc than was the case back in 2000.
Bill Dauphin,
The distance between US and European politics has lessened in the past few decades, but at least until Obama’s triumph, this has been a matter of European “left” parties moving right. Although the UK Labour Party still includes some socialists, I’d say its overall political complexion is not significantly left of the Democratic Party, although direct comparisons are difficult.
Here’s a comment from The Independent discussing Obama’s religious views:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/joan-smith/joan-smith-obama-enlightened-yes-liberal-no-1003456.html
haven’t i said this already? there’s NO WAY America can become a welfare state, we have far too much debt. The poor are more likely to go Ebineezer’s way – “if they’d rather die then they’d better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” there is a big difference between america and any other European country: $550,000,000,000,000 of debt and loans, China in particular
Actually, the public debt of the US as a percentage of GDP is lower than that of most European countries.
Source please.
Looking at the EU27, only 7 have higher debt/GDP ratios than the US according to Wikipedia.
Don’t you mean G N P (Gross National Product)or is it Gross Domestic Product (which seems redundant to me); is it merely a per capita revision of GNP?
Rickr0ll, should you click on the provided link, you can find the explanation you’ve just requested.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product#GDP_vs_GNP
ah. i see that GDP fails to take into account trade deficits and loans. This explains why Japan appears to have such a terible economy, while ours seems to be fine. In reality,. the 13 trillion dollar debt only accounts for expenditures, we look better off than reality would force us to admit. We actually owe $550,000,000,000,000 in loans to various countries worldwide (and the biggest is China, irony of ironies!)
Japan is the biggest, China the second biggest (if Wikipedia is correct):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt#Foreign_ownership
My comment about GDP/ Public debt ratios was based on information from several years back – I failed to take into account the impact of the Bush deficits.
AS to whether the US can afford to become a “welfare state” whatever that means.
Let’s assume you decided to transfer an additional $5,000 to each of the poorest 10% of Americans – the cost would be roughly $150 billion a year – or ca. 1% of GDP.
That’s not going to have a dramatic effect on the total debt level.
In any case, unless the benefits are both completely open-ended and sufficiently generous that fit-to-work folks are able (and inclined) to live out their lives on the dole without ever returning to work (and perhaps this is the case in the UK, but I’m not aware of any such situation in the U.S.), I wouldn’t agree that this is a case of “making indolence more profitable than work.”
Sorry for late response. It very much depends on the person’s circumstances. Under the UK benefits system, an able-bodied single man with no dependants would certainly be better off working than on the dole (since he can only claim Jobseeker’s Allowance, which is a minimal amount). However, if X is, for instance, a single mother, with one young child and no job skills or qualifications, then she is better off claiming benefits than taking a minimum-wage job (once you factor in the cost of childcare, which she would need if she were working all day). This is especially the case if she has some physical or mental illness, allowing her to claim incapacity benefit.
And his Council Tax is paid.
“..when the counties are scaled..”
Since when are states countries? ;)
ok, yeah that would make sense if Japan were #1, because the rankings were very suspicious. But are they in any hurry to collect that money? i’m not so sure, we have a nice little deal with them. i kinda think of Japan as a tiny super-America. I wonder if that gets across to anyone?
Anyway Listen, if people are collecting welfare, then they aren’t producing. It is lack of production that is going to bite us in the ass more than just about any othr aspect of our economy. And i think that welfare is fine, but that it should be given out in addition to a paycheck from a job. Furthermore, most of these welfare families have no business existing. The parents can’t afford to have one kid, much less 4 or 5. It’s pretty much child abuse (besides ACtual child abuse), not to mention the preponderace of criminality than naturally runs through that demographic. Gee, i wonder why? probly has to do with the fact that everyone in that household is under superstress all the time, and life is terrible for them. I can’t blame the kids for their parents, but do they have to fall into that same self-defeating pattern? *sigh* It really seems like a lose-lose, get money from the state, so you can afford to stay home and hopefully set the family straight, or work really hard and scratch and claw your way to the middle at the expense of your family members. It seems like it would alternate back and forth between those two options in succesive generations. Hopefully i’m missing something, a Big something…
since he can only claim Jobseeker’s Allowance, which is a minimal amount
I remember when they rebranded “Unemployment Benefit” as “Jobseeker’s Allowance”. Some wag suggested the state “Retirement Pension” should be renamed “Deathseeker’s Allowance”.
Yeah, but if she’s a single mother with a young child and no prospect of earning an income sufficient to support herself if you include the cost of childcare, isn’t society better off if she stays home and cares for her child? (Aside: That’s not some anti-feminist point, either, as I would say the same thing about a single father in similar economic circumstances.) That’s just the thing: When it comes to assistance for the poor and disadvantaged, conservatives seem concerned primarily with notions of fairness (i.e., do the recipients deserve the help? does the help encourage “good values”?), while liberals (or progressives, if you prefer) are more interested in whether the assistance works for the greater good of society. I think we’re all better off if single mothers get the help they need not to raise their children in poverty (even if, in some arbitrary sense, they don’t deserve the help), as opposed to having children live in poverty because their mothers (or fathers) don’t have the “right” values.
Not every public assistance program is perfect, of course, and some no doubt really do contain some perverse incentives… but the goal of public assistance should be assisting the public, not promoting a set of “morally righteous” values.
PS: Here’s an admittedly radical (by U.S. standards) proposal. How ’bout we give any single parent (or any parent who chooses to stay home and be a full-time caregiver), regardless of economic circumstances, a government salary for the job of raising children (the work product of which — well raised children — benefits society at large)? After you recover from your head exploding, explain to me why that would be a bad thing? After all, don’t conservatives favor “family values”?
Bill, you bring up a good point, but if they are being paid to raise children, then shouldn’t their pay be porportional to the success of their efforts (striaght A’s warrent a bonus to the parent’s, whereas promiscuity and habitual truancy might even be worthy of fines.)? i think that by economically backing stronger family values we will see less hypocrasy and a return to the rightous and successful republican party of the early 1900’s.
This strikes me as the No Child Left Behind™ approach to child care: While I have no objection to rewarding excellence, punishing struggling families in a similar way that NCLB punishes struggling schools strikes me as completely counterproductive. In both cases, the “remedy” implicitly assumes that the reason the parent or school is struggling is that there’s insufficient fear of consequences… but I sincerely doubt that’s normally the case. Not including parents who are so clearly unfit that their parental rights should be terminated, I suspect the primary reasons parents struggle are lack of resources and/or lack of personal skills… and if so, fines (or even reductions in benefits) are precisely the wrong approach to improving the situation. Probably the way to achieve better outcomes in those cases is some combination of more resources (not necessarily in the form of cash) and parenting skills training.
That presumes, of course, that improving the situation is really the goal. My sense is that conservatives (and I don’t mean you, Rickroll, unless you think the shoe fits) often care more about punishing the “unrighteous” than they do about actually making things better.
No no, i think that shoe to very rather uncomfortable. I agree that a no child left behind approach is unrealistic and harmful. So i will have to change my stance on that point (and it was for this reason i used the operative ‘might’ instead of ‘must’). it is that we need much better curriculum, and throwing money at it isn’t going to fix the flaws in our methodology. However, money Would give better incentive for teachers. I just cannot understand why we are so SLOW compared to other coutries, such as Japan and Russia, where eighth grade calculus is the norm. There is clearly something just Wrong about it that has little to do with money…
The opposite point still stands, that rewards are better given to those deserving of them. Our brightest don’t flourish at all in this soceity, there was an article in Time about that very subject. However, the case would inevitably lead to these parental education classes, which is bainwashing lol.
lol “very rather uncomfortable”. haha dumbass.
by the way, why is the second map hella misshapen?
The first map is colored by county; the second map is the first map with the counties resized to reflect their population. Since the relative sizes of adjacent counties changes, the map gets distorted.
ok thanks bill that was bugging the hell out of me