Kruse Kronicle

Why this is not a new Progressive era.

New York Times: Midlife Crisis Economics David Brooks

... Members of the administration have now dropped the New Deal parallels. But they have started making analogies between this era and the progressive era around the turn of the 20th century. ...

...First, the underlying economic situations are very different. A century ago, the American economy was a vibrant jobs machine. Industrialization was volatile and cruel, but it produced millions of new jobs, sucking labor in from the countryside and from overseas.

Today’s economy is not a jobs machine and lacks that bursting vibrancy. The rate of new business start-ups was declining even before the 2008 financial crisis. Companies are finding that they can get by with fewer workers. As President Obama has observed, factories that used to employ 1,000 workers can now be even more productive with less than 100.

Moreover, the information economy widens inequality for deep and varied reasons that were unknown a century ago. Inequality is growing in nearly every developed country. According to a report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, over the past 30 years, inequality in Sweden, Germany, Israel, Finland and New Zealand has grown as fast or faster than inequality in the United States, even though these countries have very different welfare systems.

In the progressive era, the economy was in its adolescence and the task was to control it. Today the economy is middle-aged; the task is to rejuvenate it.

Second, the governmental challenge is very different today than it was in the progressive era. Back then, government was small and there were few worker safety regulations. The problem was a lack of institutions. Today, government is large, and there is a thicket of regulations, torts and legal encumbrances. The problem is not a lack of institutions; it’s a lack of institutional effectiveness. ...

... Third, the moral culture of the nation is very different. The progressive era still had a Victorian culture, with its rectitude and restrictions. Back then, there was a moral horror at the thought of debt. No matter how bad the economic problems became, progressive-era politicians did not impose huge debt burdens on their children. That ethos is clearly gone.

In the progressive era, there was an understanding that men who impregnated women should marry them. It didn’t always work in practice, but that was the strong social norm. Today, that norm has dissolved. Forty percent of American children are born out of wedlock. This sentences the U.S. to another generation of widening inequality and slower human capital development.

One hundred years ago, we had libertarian economics but conservative values. Today we have oligarchic economics and libertarian moral values — a bad combination.

In sum, in the progressive era, the country was young and vibrant. The job was to impose economic order. Today, the country is middle-aged but self-indulgent. Bad habits have accumulated. Interest groups have emerged to protect the status quo. The job is to restore old disciplines, strip away decaying structures and reform the welfare state. The country needs a productive midlife crisis.

The progressive era is not a model; it is a foil. It provides a contrast and shows us what we really need to do.

 

Does wealth equal power? - Tyler Cowen

Marginal Revolution: Does wealth equal power?

... There are several reasons why wealth does not translate into power so easily.  First, effective philanthropy is extremely difficult to achieve, especially if that philanthropy is trying to counteract prevailing social trends.  Nor should it be assumed that non-profits are always the drivers of change.  Second, the wealthy in groups do not always coordinate very effectively, to say the least.  Each is used to being in charge (remember when the Lakers had Karl Malone and Gary Payton as well as Bryant and O’Neal?)  Third, many of the very wealthy choose to consume ego rents rather than effectiveness.  Fourth, “democracy” and “the market” control large chunks of modern life, and it is hard for outsiders to commandeer those processes.  Most of the major functions of government are there because people want them to be there, for better or worse.

The best way to think about wealth and power is with some ideas from Harry Eckstein.  There will be, for reasons of spontaneous order, a general concordance between the status and influence of groups in the broader world, and the power of those groups when it comes to government.  American economic policy, for instance, really is more pro-business than in much of Europe, and that does stem from the more commercial nature of our republic.  That said, the ability of the rich at the margin to control policy through intentional acts, either individually or in groups is much overrated.

Wealth does protect you from the depredations of others, such as being treated very badly by the police or legal system.  In this defensive sense wealth can give you a good deal of power.

Overall the quality of argumentation and evidence on this topic is extremely low.

Hard Times and Liberalism’s Dream of a Painless World

National Review: Hard Times and Liberalism’s Dream of a Painless World

In his devotion to the pursuit of happiness, modern man has forgotten how to suffer.

During hard times, it is only natural that we should spend a good deal of time blaming the villains. For the Left, the authors of the present discontents are (a) President Bush, and (b) the free market. Those on the Right finger (a) politicians who favor tax-and-spend policies that will ensure continued stagnation, and (b) bankers who benefit from self-serving regulation that not only insulates them from the consequences of their greed and stupidity but actually rewards them for it with taxpayer-subsidized bailouts.

Reasonable though our preoccupation with the assignment of blame is, it has obscured a deeper problem that the depressed economy has brought to light. In his devotion to the pursuit of happiness, modern man has forgotten how to suffer.

The dream of a painless world is the great illusion of liberalism. Classical liberalism, it is true, never promised to make men happier; it promised only to make them richer. Adam Smith argued that we deceive ourselves when we suppose that those material luxuries that we associate with happiness are “worth all the toil and anxiety which we are so apt to bestow” on their attainment. Material wealth is good, Smith says, not because it makes us permanently happier, but because it enables us to dispense, in some measure, with physical and corporeal miseries (hunger, squalor, disease, and the like). In their place we have psychological and spiritual debilities. The primitive man famishes; the civilized man despairs ...

... The old Western conception of suffering as a necessary and intrinsic part of the human condition is remote from the modern liberal’s belief that it is a freakish deviation from the rightful order of things. Nowhere is the callowness of the liberal philosophy more evident than in its tendency to look upon ever-larger swaths of human suffering as grievances from which people have a “right” to be exempt.

The same superficiality is found in the liberal tendency to regard suffering as an exclusively material and physiological condition, one that can be overcome with exclusively material and physiological remedies. In reality, there is a residuum of suffering for which there is no material or physiological cure; such suffering is a spiritual or existential condition that can be overcome only through spiritual travail. “Depression” is a condition modern liberalism has invented to justify modern man’s inability to accept such travail. A sufferer in spirit must seek a spiritual remedy; but persuading himself that he is merely “depressed,” the modern sufferer vainly seeks a pharmaceutical antidote, and will doubtless soon be discovered to have an inalienable right to one. Only he must remember to call his health-care professional if after swallowing the pill he has thoughts of violence, suicide, or mass murder. ...

Corrosive Corruption

Economist: Corrosive Corruption

A correlation between corruption and development

THE use of public office for private gain benefits a powerful few while imposing costs on large swathes of society. Transparency International's annual Corruption Perceptions Index, published on December 1st, measures the perceived levels of public-sector graft by aggregating independent surveys from across the globe. Just five non-OECD countries make the top 25: Singapore, Hong Kong, Barbados, Bahamas and Qatar. The bottom is formed mainly of failed states, poor African countries and nations that either were once communist (Turkmenistan) or are still run along similar lines (Venezuela, Cuba). Comparing the corruption index with the UN's Human Development Index (a measure combining health, wealth and education), demonstrates an interesting connection. When the corruption index is between approximately 2.0 and 4.0 there appears to be little relationship with the human development index, but as it rises beyond 4.0 a stronger connection can be seen. Outliers include small but well-run poorer countries such as Bhutan and Cape Verde, while Greece and Italy stand out among the richer countries.

This illustrates why government to government aid is often so ineffective if not actually destructive, putting more money and power in the hands of corrupt leaders. Other forms of aid that go directly to people and small communities, while pushing for freedom of the press and government transperancy are usually more effective development strategies.

 

 

 

Amazon.com branded 'Grinch that stole Christmas trade'

Guardian: Amazon.com branded 'Grinch that stole Christmas trade'

Outrage from booksellers over online discount given to shoppers who report high-street prices

An Amazon.com promotion, which offered customers a discount if they let Amazon know the prices of items for sale in traditional shops, has provoked widespread anger, drawing a rebuke from a senator and seeing it compared to Dr Seuss's Christmas-stealing Grinch.

The deal, which ran on Saturday, gave customers a 5% discount (up to $5) off Amazon.com's price on up to three products if they used the retailer's price check app while shopping in physical stores. Although books were not included – the eligible categories were DVDs, electronics, toys, music and sporting goods – the promotion prompted a furious response from beleaguered independent bookshops and from the American Booksellers Association, as well as from senator Olympia Snowe, who called it "an attack on Main Street businesses [and] anti-competitive behaviour that could shutter the doors of America's small businesses". ...

Anti-competive? Customers having MORE information about product pricing among competing firms is anti-competive? An interesting take on competition from Senator Snowe.

Extra credit

Boston Herald: Extra credit

Program lets students lend a hand to local entrepreneurs.

College students looking for real-world experience and a way to make a difference have a unique opportunity to immerse themselves in the world of microfinance. The Campus Microfinance Alliance is a nonprofit coalition of student-run microfinance groups that have lent more than $150,000 to disadvantaged entrepreneurs. Their new website (campusmfi.org) lets students apply to their internship program. If selected, they learn to help other students create microfinance organizations on their campus.

“The idea is we match selected students with one of (our members),” said Vanessa Carter, director of College Microfinance Alliance. “Students spend the summer learning hands-on skills and then receive support from us to go back (to their school) and start their own group.”

Andy Posner, co-founder of the Capital Good Fund, a microfinance organization he started at Brown University while completing his master’s degree in environmental studies, said starting his own microfinance organization was “experiential learning” at its best.

The mission of the Capital Good Fund is to provide small loans to struggling entrepreneurs as a way to “empower people to move out of poverty and become leaders on environmental issues,” Posner said. ...

New laws of robotics to be explored at upcoming confab

SmartPlanet: New laws of robotics to be explored at upcoming confab

The pace of innovation in robotics in recent years has been stunning, with robots performing many tasks requiring some degree of human intelligence, from assembly to driving cars to flying aircraft. Robots are also interacting with humans on an increasingly sophisticated level.

In fact, the pace of robot innovation is far outpacing any legal and moral implications that may arise from machine interactions. ...

... As we rely on robots for more and more of the tasks of business and society, there needs to be a legal framework to address the legal and moral questions that may come up. For example, if a robot injures somebody, or if a questionable or ethically challenged decision is left to a machine. It’s a wide open frontier, legally.

To start the process of building such a framework, the University of Miami School of Law announced it plans an inaugural conference on legal and policy issues relating to robotics. The event, dubbed seeks submissions for “We Robot” (a play on words on Asimov’s I, Robot), will be held in Coral Gables, Florida in April 2012. ...

Okay, join me in the chorus, please:

"Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto,
Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto,
Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto,
Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto, ..."

Creativity: Asset or Burden in the Classroom

Creativity Research Journal: Creativity: Asset or Burden in the Classroom (HT: Marginal Revolution)

One of the most consistent findings in educational studies of creativity has been that teachers dislike personality traits associated with creativity. Research has indicated that teachers prefer traits that seem to run counter to creativity, such as conformity and unquestioning acceptance of authority (e.g., Bachtold, 1974; Cropley, 1992; Dettmer, 1981; Getzels & Jackson, 1962; Torrance, 1963). The reason for teachers’ preferences is quite clear creative people tend to have traits that some have referred to as obnoxious (Torrance, 1963). Torrance (1963) described creative people as not having the time to be courteous, as refusing to take no for an answer, and as being negativistic and critical of others. Other characteristics, although not deserving the label obnoxious, nonetheless may not be those most highly valued in the classroom.

….Research has suggested that traits associated with creativity may not only be neglected, but actively punished (Myers & Torrance, 1961; Stone, 1980). Stone (1980) found that second graders who scored highest on tests of creativity were also those identified by their peers as engaging in the most misbehavior (e.g., “getting in trouble the most”). Given that research and theory (e.g., Harrington, Block, & Block, 1987) suggest that a supportive environment is important to the fostering of creativity, it is quite possible that teachers are (perhaps unwittingly) extinguishing creative behaviors.

I knew it! That is why I had so much problem in school. The teachers disliked me for my creative genius. ;-)

The study does raise interesting questions. I also remember that a disproportiante number of teachers are Myers-Briggs SJs. Not always a happy experience for we NFs and NTs (me).

Inequality Street

The Economist: Inequality Street

Income inequality is rising in rich countries

THE gap between rich and poor has grown ever wider in wealthy countries over the past three decades. A new report by the OECD has reams of data on this phenomenon and is well worth looking at. The Gini coefficient, a measure of inequality in which zero corresponds to everyone having the same income and one means the richest person has all the income, increased by almost 10% from 0.29 in 1985 to 0.32 in 2008, for working-age people in OECD countries. The trend is caused by earnings: the pay of the richest 10% of employees has increased at a far greater rate than that of the poorest 10% of employees. Within the upper echelons, the top 1% have reaped the greatest gains. Technology has disproportionately benefited high-earning workers, who also spend far longer at work than do low-earners. High earners marry other high earners. And governments are doing less to redistribute wealth than they have done in the past. So far, so familiar. But the report also argues that globalisation is not a significant cause of inequality, and that one of the many reasons for the rise in income inequality is that more people are in work now (or at least they were before the financial crisis hit) compared with the 1970s.

 

Mainline Protestants seek internal reforms, stir anger

RNS: Mainline Protestants seek internal reforms, stir anger

(RNS) A list of the Episcopal Church’s 75 commissions, committees, agencies and boards spilled over eight PowerPoint slides during a recent presentation by its new chief operating officer, Bishop Stacy Sauls.

By his count, there are also nearly 50 departments and offices in the church’s New York headquarters, and 46 committees in its legislative body, the General Convention. 

Sauls, who was hired by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori in May, said that he has since learned there are even more offices “that I had never heard of before.”

“It has become just byzantine,” he said. “The governance structures have grown by accretion, without any strategic plan.” Nearly half of the denomination’s budget is spent on overhead, according to Sauls.

Meanwhile, Episcopal membership continues to drop, dipping below 2 million in the U.S. for the first time in decades. Donations, too, are down. It is time for change, starting at the top, Sauls said. 

“We’ve been operating in a system where certain expertise resides at the churchwide level and pronouncements get sent down the pipeline,” he said. “That model is last century. It’s a radically different time now.”

Mainline Protestants’ national offices branch into every field from liturgy to gender equality to disaster relief. But as they seek to halt decades-long declines, a number of denominations are trimming their branches and tending to their roots: local congregations. ...

Good article. The General Assembly Mission Council of the PCUSA has been moving away from programmatic initiatives to focusing on inspiring, equipping, and connecting the church for ministry. The new Form of Governement lifts up the local congregation as the primary locus of ministry and the GAMC has been championing that idea for the last few years. The trajectory for the GAMC is good. I'm not as positive about the speed of change.

 

 

 

 

A Day Made of Glass

New Book: "How the Church Fails Businesspeople" by John Knapp

How do business and Christian discipleship relate? A much anticipated book is being released this week by Eerdmans: How the Church Fails Businesspeople (and What Can Be Done About It) by John Knapp. (Also Amazon.) The product description says:

Why do so many Christians struggle to relate their faith to their daily work? Is the church to blame? In this book John C. Knapp argues that the church's ambiguous teachings about vocation, money, and business have long contributed to Christians' uncertainty about discipleship in the workplace. Drawing on his own expertise in business ethics and on numerous interviews with Christians in diverse occupations, Knapp brings fresh perspectives to this troubling problem.

How the Church Fails Businesspeople (and What Can Be Done about It) explores the historical, cultural, and educational background to the faith-work gap and proposes a new theological framework for Christian life in the public sphere. Real-life examples enliven the discussion throughout, and each chapter concludes with "Questions to Consider," making this constructive book ideal for group study.

John is doing a three-part blog post to introduce the book:

John C. Knapp is founding director of the Frances Marlin Mann Center for Ethics and Leadership at Samford University and author of the forthcoming book How the Church Fails Businesspeople (and What Can Be Done About It). In this post (the first in a three-part series), he discusses the “dangerous chasm separating the worlds of faith and work” that compelled him to write the book. 

Many Christians struggling to make their faith relevant to their daily work find the church oddly indifferent to their lives on the job.

I have become increasingly aware of this phenomenon over the last twenty-five years, first as a consultant to an array of business and professional clients, and more recently as an educator of both business and seminary students. I have known countless believers who say the church does little or nothing to equip them for faithful living in the settings where they spend most of their waking hours and productive years.

How the Church Fails Businesspeople (and What Can Be Done About It) was written to shed light on the cultural, historical, theological, and educational influences that have led to this situation. Throughout the book, I incorporate real-life anecdotes and examples, many drawn from interviews with 230 Christians actively seeking to bridge their Sunday church and weekday work. These interviews were conducted mostly by working pastors in a doctoral course I taught, and they involved a diversity of respondents, from corporate CEOs and elected officials to barbers and bookkeepers. They included active members of Protestant (nine denominations) and Roman Catholic congregations in all regions of the United States. ...

Read the whole thing. I atteneded a worshop John gave on this topic a couple of years ago and I've been anticipating this book ever since. The insights from his research are priceless. I look forward to getting my copy. I suspect you'll be reading more about the book here at the Kruse Kronicle before long.