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Positive Liberty

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 11, 2010 at 9:58 am

There’s an interesting, if a bit baroque to folks outside the libertarian cult, debate taking place as to whether or not it makes sense to regard some point in the 19th Century United States as a golden age of human freedom. Will Wilkinson argues no in a series of good posts on the subject. Still, it strikes me that even Wilkinson’s mode of argument winds up conceding far too much to the nostalgia party.

The deepest problem with lost age of liberty thinking is highlighted in some of Bruce Bartlett’s comments on economic growth:

On the other, I think we tend to underappreciate the ways in which technology frees us. The blessings of things like cellphones, PDAs and the Internet compensate for an enormous amount of waste and inefficiency elsewhere in society and the economy. To the extent that technology boosts productivity, it makes the burden of government more bearable.

Another thing we tend to forget is the great benefit of the wealth that almost all Americans have today. Not that many years ago, people had to spend an enormous percentage of their waking hours simply acquiring and preparing food. Now, even among poor households, obtaining adequate food is a minor concern. Indeed, obesity is a far bigger problem among the poor than malnutrition. The freedom to do things other than grow crops, raise livestock and cook on a wood stove is not one to be underestimated.

This is the rub. Even if you want to completely leave race and gender issues out of the picture, to say that the average adult white male in 1880 had more economic freedom than does the average adult white male in 2010 you need to completely ignore the beneficial results of 130 years of economic growth and technological progress. After all, very poor people in 2010 probably pay little if any in net taxation but nobody thinks they’re better off than highly-taxed NBA stars. The vast and unprecedented freedom enjoyed by 21st century Americans is largely encapsulated in the fact that a 21st century American can easily call his dad in New York or fly to Miami or turn on the air conditioning or buy blueberries year round or drive across town. In 1880, people didn’t have electrical lights or flush toilets.

There’s obviously an important debate about economic policy to be had. Perhaps we’ve grown richer despite the growth in the size of government and would be richer and freer still if we hadn’t established a welfare state. But that’s a totally different argument from trying to say that in the real world people today are less free than our impoverished farm-dwelling ancestors.

Politics

Lieberman satisfied by prospect that Obama nominee could make Supreme Court ‘slightly less liberal.’

By Faiz Shakir on Apr 11, 2010 at 9:43 am

The Washington Post writes that, because of “the current political climate,” Justice John Paul Stevens’ “decision to step down this summer will almost certainly mean a more conservative Supreme Court, even with Barack Obama in the White House and Democrats controlling Congress.” Liberal legal blogger Glenn Greenwald argued that one of the frontrunners who has been widely mentioned — Solicitor General Elena Kagan — “would shift the Court substantially to the Right on a litany of key issues.” Huffington Post notes “liberals worry that, by choosing her, the administration would miss the opportunity to elevate a genuine progressive.” But Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) is fine with that prospect. On Fox News this morning, Lieberman sounded pleased with a potential right-ward turn for the Supreme Court:

This is a fascinating moment maybe for all these reasons, acknowledging that the fact that Justice Stevens became the leader of the liberal wing of the Supreme Court, that President Obama may nominate someone in fact who makes the Court slightly less liberal, at least for a while.

Watch it:

Lieberman called Kagan a “bright and honorable person,” but said, “I don’t know her background in terms of the opinions she holds.” Later during the show, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said Kagan has “hard to challenge credentials.” He added that she would be a “very respectable choice,” but that Republicans “would oppose her and honestly should oppose her.” Noting that she was once a student of Kagan’s, Liz Cheney said she “has respect for her” and that Kagan “never let politics into the classroom.”

Update

In a subsequent interview with NewsMax, Lieberman said “thank God” that “the momentum is with the Republicans.”


Update

,The original post said Lieberman was “thrilled” about the prospect of a right-ward turn of the Court. After a review of his comments, the word “thrilled” was replaced with “satisfied.”

Climate Progress

FLASHBACK: Don Blankenship warned West Virginia that he believes in “survival of the fittest”

By Climate Guest Blogger on Apr 11, 2010 at 9:32 am

Coal baron Don Blankenship is complaining about the “indignity” of the press for investigating his role as the CEO of Massey Energy, whose Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, WV, is the site of the deadliest mining disaster since 1984, with at least 25 miners killed. Blankenship has a long record of putting coal profits over safety. At the time of the accident, Massey was contesting dozens of major safety violations at the Montcoal mine, even as Blankenship increased production.

Blankenship has a “dark, soulless, and destructive social-Darwinist” view of the United States, as Brad Johnson explains in this repost.

Read more

Media

“Bias” vs Errors

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 11, 2010 at 8:31 am

newspaper3-1

To continue with what I was saying about “bias” yesterday, I really do with that people involved in journalism would get less defensive about the idea of people complaining about their work. The issue is that when you have a whole bunch of people doing something, there’s a fair chance that some of them will make mistakes some of the time. In some lines of work, however, there are very strong financial incentives militating in favor of quality control—Toyota’s big recall last month was financial devastating to the company, which is why car companies generally try to make sure that the cars they build function properly.

The news business just isn’t like that. The financial incentives to rigor and accuracy are pretty weak. Consequently, even if everyone is operating in good faith all the time (which is obviously an overestimation of the quantity of good faith) there are going to be problems in the coverage. And since political activists believe—by definition—that their view of the world is correct, activists are going to believe that inaccurate or otherwise problematic coverage is a huge problem specifically for their side. After all, the team that’s correct really needs people to have accurate information about the world.

So people complain! Why wouldn’t they?

But this whole enterprise should be distinguished from the trope of complaining that “the media” suffers from “bias” which is a different kind of thing. To an extent, I think you can detect real biases—in favor of covering new things rather than long-festering issues, in favor of personality-based explanations rather than structural ones, in favor of narrative rather than quantitative analysis, etc. But to say “hey newspaper, stop publishing stories that explain this wrong” is different from saying there’s a nefarious bias in the water.

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