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Populism and the Economics of Globalization [pdf]

drodrik.scholar.harvard.edu

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Re: Populism and the Economics of Globalization [pdf]

#201

Post by dragonwriter »

anigbrowl wrote: post #195
dragonwriter wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I somewhat agree that let's not forget that third-wayism was a response by the Democrats to being locked out of executive power at the federal level for the previous 12 years, Sure, it made some sense in “I want my party to have this office today” terms, it just was tremendously destructive to the long-term prospects of the party and it's relationship to the grassroots base, and to the key policy interest that dist…

With an anti-globalist Democratic candidate, there would have been be no substantial Perot support. Maybe so, but then the Bush argument would have been 'did I not just defeat Communism and win a great victory in Iraq? Your labor provincialism would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.' Being a resident of California I think the country would have been better off with Jerry Brown, but his expression of support for…

> Being a resident of California I think the country would have been better off with Jerry Brown, but his expression of support for Jesse Jackson at the wrong time put paid to that.

I don't disagree with either part of that (heck, I voted for Brown in the primary), but really the Democratic candidate pool was really weak in 1992 because Bush seemed strong until too late for anyone to credibly enter the primary race; Clinton managed not to lose while fumbling on Bush's biggest weakness, but he crippled the Democratic Party nationally for at least a generation in the process.

> I've got to say as a Euro that while I support that sort of pro-labor welfare state agenda on a policy level, I feel Democrats in the have a bad habit of overestimating its popularity at the strategic level where elections are won.

I don't think they are; quite the opposite, they usually fail to campaign on it, and when they push it in policy they fatally compromise it out of the gate (not as part of a negotiation to win votes from the other side) to serve corporate and moneyed interests, both of which are signs that they don't trust it electorally. This is even the case for things like public-paid universal healthcare, which had majority support in polling for years before Clinton was elected (and much of the time after, including through the passage of the ACA, though not always recently), where both Clinton and Obama pushed for complex, private-insurer-dependent programs that were harder for people to understand and much easier political targets for opponents.

The Third Way has been bad for Democrats as a party in government (whatever short term electoral benefit it can be argued, IMO unconvincingly, to have had in 1992 specifically) and worse for the policy interests Democrats (before and after it) claim to support, because it radically shifted the Overton window to the right.

Re: Populism and the Economics of Globalization [pdf]

#202

Post by rubicon33 »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #101
rubicon33 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point do we reward human accomplishment instead of throwing it all away to "luck"? I hear this all too often nowadays that any kind of success can always be attributed to luck and therefor you have a moral obligation to those less "lucky" than you. Don't get me wrong - I agree with the moral obligation to help those less lucky than you. I don't always agree with the looseness in which the word "luck" is appli…

> It discounts his hard work to say it all came down to lucky brain genetics. How many people work hard their entire life only to not be rewarded? It's not like everyone who doesn't see success is lazy or doesn't work hard. Labourers work hard, tradesmen work hard, and yes, programmers work hard too. I live in Alberta right now, which is in the midst of an economic recession/depression. In my city unemployment is at…

> It's not like everyone who doesn't see success is lazy or doesn't work hard.

Well, I never said that did I? In fact that's kind of the point of my original post. Don't discount everyone who's had success as having had it due to luck. And don't discount everyone who's had failure as having had it due to lack of luck.

> I personally hate the idea of a moral obligation to do anything. Shaming people into certain behaviours is shitty.

I agree. I should clarify that when I say "moral obligation" what I mean to say is "my own, personal, moral obligation". What you do with your life, and what conclusions you draw based on your experiences, are your own. Just don't hurt people.

> Having a highly-stratified society, even if we feel it's 'fair', isn't a good thing.

Fair point to which I don't disagree. Life is inherently not fair, nor is it kind and forgiving. To your point, that doesn't mean we should give up our ideals of peace and happiness for everyone. My only concern is that we don't write off our fellow man as having achieved all of their success because they were born in the right place, time, skin color, gender, genetics, etc. In my opinion that's a way of looking at life that is detrimental. Instead, accept that luck plays a significant role in all aspects of life, but with hard work you can change your life.

Re: Populism and the Economics of Globalization [pdf]

#203

Post by tptacek »

programmarchy wrote: post #175
rayiner wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's clearly not the reason, because birth rates go down with income: https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam... .

Not sure what you're responding to. How are you arguing that people who are beautiful don't have more options for mate selection, or that intelligent people aren't more likely to accumulate wealth? I understand the difference between r vs K selection, but that seems like a non sequitur in response to my previous post.

Birth rates go down with income. You don't have to reason you way to that from first principles, because it's an empirically observable fact.

Re: Populism and the Economics of Globalization [pdf]

#204

Post by programmarchy »

tptacek wrote: post #203
programmarchy wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you're responding to. How are you arguing that people who are beautiful don't have more options for mate selection, or that intelligent people aren't more likely to accumulate wealth? I understand the difference between r vs K selection, but that seems like a non sequitur in response to my previous post.

Birth rates go down with income. You don't have to reason you way to that from first principles, because it's an empirically observable fact.

Right... I'm not disputing that. But it does not relate to my point.

Re: Populism and the Economics of Globalization [pdf]

#205

Post by tptacek »

programmarchy wrote: post #204
tptacek wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Birth rates go down with income. You don't have to reason you way to that from first principles, because it's an empirically observable fact.

Right... I'm not disputing that. But it does not relate to my point.

I think it refutes your point. You claimed that the ability to accumulate wealth is rewarded because those people have the best chance of improving the fitness of the species. But those people are the least likely to do anything to perpetuate the species.

Re: Populism and the Economics of Globalization [pdf]

#206

Post by programmarchy »

tptacek wrote: post #205
programmarchy wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right... I'm not disputing that. But it does not relate to my point.

I think it refutes your point. You claimed that the ability to accumulate wealth is rewarded because those people have the best chance of improving the fitness of the species. But those people are the least likely to do anything to perpetuate the species.

I see now. I suppose fitness is an overloaded term, but in terms of survival of a species, I think it'd be difficult to argue that an r-selected reproduction strategy is better than a K-selected reproduction strategy in terms of improving fitness.

That'd be like saying antelope are more adapted to their environment than lions.

In human terms, I'd argue that K-selected children are much more likely to make the types of breakthroughs that will advance the human species e.g. curing disease, scientific discovery, space travel, etc.

Re: Populism and the Economics of Globalization [pdf]

#207

Post by antisthenes »

refurb wrote: post #56
ferentchak wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. If we address poverty it will remove most racism. Most racism is classism in disguise. Heck, most people confuse the two when they are being discussed. //edited to remove an extra 'in'.

Asian Americans have a higher per capita income than whites. Does that mean Asians are no longer discriminated against?

It means Asian Americans aren't being discriminated against in social and professional circles with comparable income levels.

Re: Populism and the Economics of Globalization [pdf]

#208

Post by msimpson »

anigbrowl wrote: post #191
msimpson wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm against increased globalization because it erodes national sovereignty and undermines republican governments.

Precisely why I'm for it. I'm not in favor of replacing national with corporate sovereignty, though, or rather I'm in favor of putting limits on concentrations of sovereignty. Nationalism is a Bad Thing in my view.

> Nationalism is a Bad Thing in my view.

First of all, nationalism is not national sovereignty.

The former is a social construct which an individual embraces while the latter is a principal of law which a group embraces.

The former is hardly useful, but the latter is vital to all existing nations. No nation is going to willingly give up its right to self governance.

> I'm in favor of putting limits on concentrations of sovereignty.

So, essentially, you wish to live in a world without borders where one or more unions govern many places regardless of geographical separation?

Because that worked out so well in the past...

Re: Populism and the Economics of Globalization [pdf]

#209

Post by anigbrowl »

msimpson wrote: post #208
anigbrowl wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely why I'm for it. I'm not in favor of replacing national with corporate sovereignty, though, or rather I'm in favor of putting limits on concentrations of sovereignty. Nationalism is a Bad Thing in my view.

> Nationalism is a Bad Thing in my view. First of all, nationalism is not national sovereignty. The former is a social construct which an individual embraces while the latter is a principal of law which a group embraces. The former is hardly useful, but the latter is vital to all existing nations. No nation is going to willingly give up its right to self governance. > I'm in favor of putting limits on concentrations…

Essentially, yes I do and I'm fully aware of the operational and philosophical difficulties of such an undertaking. I have ideas about how to implement a distributed governance approach without falling back into patterns of autocratic central control, but am still working on how to make those robust against attempts at hijacking and so forth.

Re: Populism and the Economics of Globalization [pdf]

#210

Post by elihu »

haltingthoughts wrote: post #112
elihu wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also important to consider that reducing or eliminating tariffs is effectively a tax cut for large corporations. Whether trade increases economic efficiency is kind of beside the point, even if we were to agree that economic efficiency is something that national policy ought to attempt to increase. Eliminating income tax would probably increase economic efficiency as well, but we don't do it because the money to…

Why on corporations? Most of the burden is passed on to consumers in the form of more expensive goods.

That's an argument you could make about any corporate tax. For certain products (undifferentiated commodities with low profit margin) it's probably true. For some products, it's really up to the individual corporation how they deal with cost increases.

When the costs of producing/selling some goods go down, I don't expect most corporations to immediately lower prices, I expect them to use lower costs to increase their profits if they can get away with it. I imagine it goes the other way sometimes as well, especially if customers expect to pay no more than a certain price.

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