Comments on: In your gut, you know he’s nuts

By: Steve Edwards

Steve Edwards — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:35:31 +0000

“As for whether Henry Ford was involved I think it makes little difference to the millions murdered.”

Actually, the difference is even smaller than either you or Adrien thought – in addition to his dealings with the Nazis, Henry Ford also had a concession in the Soviet Union during Stalin’s tenure:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford

In 1929, Ford accepted Stalin’s invitation to build a model plant (NNAZ, today GAZ) at Gorky, a city later renamed Nizhny Novgorod, and he sent American engineers and technicians to help set it up, including future labor leader Walter Reuther.

The technical assistance agreement between Ford Motor Company, VSNH and the Soviet-controlled Amtorg Trading Corporation[45] (as purchasing agent) was concluded for nine years and signed on May 31, 1929, by Ford, FMC vice-president Peter E. Martin, V. I. Mezhlauk, and the president of Amtorg, Saul G. Bron.

By: Andrew Reynolds

Andrew Reynolds — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:11:26 +0000

The question, of course, is whether you avoid voting Conservative or conservative. I normally find the ALP politicians to be more deeply conservative than any of the so called “Conservative” parties.

By: wizofaus

wizofaus — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:31:34 +0000

Indeed, it’s because it’s a live environment with millions of users that relatively small patches is the safest way to go.
If you want to make wholesale revisions you need a good test environment – which is plausible by, for instance, trying out policy ideas on some subset of the population (an idea that I know Andrew Leigh is keen on, and I think there is definitely room for).
And FWIW, I completely agree that the purpose of governments is not to tell people how to run their lives. Which is one reason I almost never vote for conservative politicans

By: Andrew Reynolds

Andrew Reynolds — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:14:33 +0000

So, wizof aus, are you honestly contending that, for the economy (and remember, no SIT or UAT environments here) the government should just keep putting in possible patches until they eventually get it right? On a live environment with millions of users that seems a little foolhardy.
My thinking would be to try to remove the most obvious errors in a slow and measured way until you get down to a reasonably simple lot of base code – consisting of a few subroutines (apologies for the VB speak) like “subNationDefend”, “subCriminalsProsecute” and “subChildrenEducate”.
The rest could be left to the independent, learning agents within the program to find their own optimal path. I believe it extremely unlikely that any code, no matter how complex, is likely to be able to tell me how to live my life well.

By: wizofaus

wizofaus — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:57:38 +0000

AR – I design software for a living, and trust me, “adding bits in the hope that it will get you somewhere” is surprisingly useful! Indeed we had a bug with a major customer recently that took about a week of adding bits and testing them until we had it licked.
For the next version I rewrote the code, which is bound to have all sorts of huge unintended consequences, but it will go through extensive QA to find them before being released. You can’t do that with entire economies, however.

By: Andrew Reynolds

Andrew Reynolds — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:48:07 +0000

Adrien,
Pinochet (for all his faults) was not in the same league as the rest of them – although I may be wrong on Mussolini and Franco in that. As for whether Henry Ford was involved I think it makes little difference to the millions murdered. The differences between them all lie in the semantics.
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wizofaus,
I have done a fair bit of software design fro time to time and I normally find the best way is to work out what you have, what you need and try to work a path from one to the other.
It is not normally best to work out what you have and then keep adding bits in the hope that it will get you somewhere useful eventually. I would suggest something similar is true more generally.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:38:19 +0000

Andrew Reynolds – Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and others, so at least we have that to be thankful for.
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We do.
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A hundred years from now these experiments will bear much fruit. In fact they already do. All the Rah-Rah Capitalism types have gone to town on these guys. Tend to leave Pinochet off the list for some reason. And forget what makes Hitler and Mussolini different from Mao and Lenin. (Hint: Henry Ford) But anyway.
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Give it time and you’ll see a huge treasure of valuable scholarship on the 20th century anti-Utopias. Valuable lessons learnt, at someone else’s expense.

By: Jacques Chester

Jacques Chester — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:55:49 +0000

This has been an interesting thread. I will shamelessly take full credit.

By: wizofaus

wizofaus — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:46:50 +0000

Well AR, I’m actually reasonably open to the idea that if we were to build a modern economy from scratch, relatively minimal regulation would be the way to go. But we can’t do that – we already have this big mess held together with bits of string and duct tape, the way most software is, but unlike software developers, we can’t rewrite it from scratch. So the best we can hope for is adding new bits of string and duct tape where necessary, and pulling old bits away when they don’t work properly any more. Both actions can have unintended consequences, and I don’t see much reason to suppose that on average, it’s worse to add more bits than to pull away old bits.

By: Patrick B

Patrick B — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:28:00 +0000

As there is no where in the world where one could experience libertariansism I’d say libertarians have no idea what they are talking about. Perhaps they should have a go at Somalia, it seem singularly free of governmant at the moment.

By: Andrew Reynolds

Andrew Reynolds — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:05:01 +0000

wizofaus,
Coming in to fix things when clearly broken is not a problem. The problem comes when the “fix” is the cause of a worse problem. I would say this happen with stunning regularity, for example when the most heavily regulated businesses on the face of the planet (i.e. banking) cause further instability. The first reaction of governments is to interfere further. My response to that is to say that there is a good chance that the regulations had a big hand in the problems, particularly as they are so heavy.
None of these, though, are anywhere near as much of a problem as the “fixes” attempted by Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and others, so at least we have that to be thankful for.

By: Helen

Helen — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:49:46 +0000

Thanks, Skribe, that was very helpful.

*Backing away slowly*

By: TimT

TimT — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 22:32:36 +0000

It’s not such a radical idea, world government. I have somewhere a copy of Bob Brown’s book ‘Memo for a Saner World’. He announces there that the Greens support a world government. But yeah, I’m not aware that it’s part of Obama/Democratic ideology, so much.

By: skribe

skribe — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:16:52 +0000

@helen They were rounded up and herded into Building 7 shortly before it demolished. The bodies were then taken to Mars by aliens and used to fertilise the Soylent Red crops.

By: wizofaus

wizofaus — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:10:40 +0000

It’s actually pretty hard to work out how much of the starvation etc. that went on in China during Mao’s reign could be put down to unintended consequences of mistaken policy. Certainly it would seem Mao was so ideologically committed that he wasn’t particularly prepared to admit the damaging effects of policies intended to do good, which is arguably just as dangerous to being ideologically committed to doing nothing just in case their might be unintended consequences.
So – fair point – but I’d still suggest that from the perspective of modern Western democracies, there doesn’t seem to me to be more to fear from governments making mistakes trying to fix things than from governments deciding not to intervene even when things are clearly broken.

By: Andrew Reynolds

Andrew Reynolds — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:23:01 +0000

wizofaus,
So – and just to use extremes – the mistakes perpetrated by Mao were worse than exactly which inadequate government?

By: Adrien

Adrien — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:47:56 +0000

Peter Bagge – the Gen X Robert Crumb – covered the Primaries for Reason magazine. His deft critique of Paul and expression of how others felt about him after the Rockwell thing is here. The previous pages take good shots at Hillary, Huckabee etc.
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Paul’s an idealist lost in a time warp and his dilemma’s that he’s stuck between the assumptions of old school US paleoconservatism which he espouses and younger takes on libertarian philosophy. He’s in love with a romantic image of frontier America that’s never coming back. His views on religion and race whatever they actually are are also in conflict with the political premise of libertarianism.
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Libertarianism is fundamentally internationalist. Libertarians may object to the UN but usually on the basis that it’s another layer of governance. Paul’s opposition to NAFTA however shows that he’s, at heart, a nationalist economically.
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He did however vote against the Iraq War and the Patriot Act and was the only to do so. Raise a glass.
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The idea that Obama wants to institute world government is hyperbolous but not so far-fetched. Simply revisit Wilsonian Doctrine. Liberalism’s long had an internationalist streak. This is true of all Enlightenment ideologies. Behind it there’s a dream of a united rational species, peacefully inhabiting the planet.
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Nice dream, shame about the species .
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Of course as Wilson’s actions show, as Roosevelt I’s did before, as Roosevelt II’s did afterward. As Kennedy, as Reagan, as Bushes I and II all show, world government is not what’s happening. What’s happening is the same old Westphalian shenanigans. Not to mention a healthy serving of aut vincere aut mori to boot.
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Obama wants to get foreigners liking America again. So he’s likely to pursue multilateralism. Clinton did this but not at the expense of American hegemony. The SACEUR post remains reserved for an American, for example. It’s doubtful Obama will give away hegemony either. But he does come in at a time when there’s a widespread calling for international financial regulation and global standards. The global economy creates the need for regulation.
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This heads in the direction of world governance whether or not the President is a nationalist or otherwise. Historical forces and all that. It’s the bourgeoisie laddie, it’s eatin’ everything in sight!

By: wizofaus

wizofaus — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 06:31:11 +0000

AR, I have no intention of believing that. There’s no shortage of real-life examples of governments making truly awful mistakes. None of them, however, have come close to what goes on in countries with inadequate government.

By: David Irving (no relation)

David Irving (no relation) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 06:26:38 +0000

gilmae, I’d put Andy Tannenbaum in the reality-based community, at least compared to most tech-head libertarians.

Like Down and Out, I did tech stuff (computer science) at uni, but also with a fair bit of pure maths. I think we are in agreement.

By: Andrew Reynolds

Andrew Reynolds — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 06:17:56 +0000

wizofaus,
I will let you believe that “…significant government oversight and infrastructure provision…” can be done without significant mistakes being a necessary consequence.
I take it you also believe in porcine aviation.