Thought for the Day

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Originally Posted by Stavros

Ending a life is what it is, be it the murder or the execution of the murderer. Human societies have argued that killing a human being is morally wrong, which is why the philosophical argument is impeccable. What you are arguing about, is not some 'technicality', but the excuses societies make to justify what they have previously argued is wrong. Thus, you sub-divide all murders into categories so that you can then excuse some from execution but not others.

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Are you saying that If we'd had an opportunity to assassinate Adolf Hitler and thereby save potentially millions of lives we should not have taken it? That seems to me the perfect illustration of the problem with your "impeccable" philosophical argument.

I'm surprised at the primacy you are giving to the religious/moral "thou shalt not kill" argument when you would presumably object to that sort of reasoning in other contexts. Most human societies have also had strictures against homosexuality and adultery, for example, until fairly recently.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

The utilitarian justification is that if one doesn't act their own life be lost. But wouldn't that make us indifferent between the two outcomes in utilitarian terms when we shouldn't be?

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I doubt it would be reasonable to expect someone to weigh up the value of their own life against their attacker's before deciding whether to defend themselves - though it would be reasonable to assume the attacker is less likely to be a well-intentioned person. I think the value of utilitarianism is primarily in thinking about public policy issues rather than individual actions.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

I doubt it would be reasonable to expect someone to weigh up the value of their own life against their attacker's before deciding whether to defend themselves - though it would be reasonable to assume the attacker is less likely to be a well-intentioned person. I think the value of utilitarianism is primarily in thinking about public policy issues rather than individual actions.

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Fair point. I guess I was trying to work out what my intuition tells me about why the various examples of crimes and punishments Stavros provided don't seem morally equivalent and find a framework for that difference. I would say the person who defends himself is justified in using force because he has a reason, to protect his bodily integrity. The person initiating the confrontation is the aggressor and I don't value the harm that comes to him the same way I would the non-aggressor.

Although the justification for self-defense can be evaluated at the individual level by the person being attacked, whether the state decides to allow it to prevent blame for harming someone is a policy issue. For instance, the authorities may find that disallowing self-defense has a generally pacifying effect and causes there to be fewer instances of violence and escalation that outweigh the harm of people being unable to defend themselves lawfully. In that case I would still support the use of self-defense because it seems unjust to require someone to be helpless.

Anyhow, I agree with your analysis and the set of interests you balanced for the death penalty. Still, when I hear people talk about the hypocrisy of an actor (even the state) using force against someone who has done something abhorrent I am slightly puzzled. I think most people's first instinct is that the actions are not the same and it's not just a way of saying when I do it it's okay but when you do it we condemn it. It's because the aims of the actions are different and that qualitative difference matters to me.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

Fair point. I guess I was trying to work out what my intuition tells me about why the various examples of crimes and punishments Stavros provided don't seem morally equivalent and find a framework for that difference. I would say the person who defends himself is justified in using force because he has a reason, to protect his bodily integrity. The person initiating the confrontation is the aggressor and I don't value the harm that comes to him the same way I would the non-aggressor.

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I agree that self-defence is a difficult one -the key must be whether defence of the self requires the death of the attacker, or attackers, because self-defence need not result in fatality. In the case of a woman physically and emotionally abused for years, it would appear the logical solution is for the woman to leave the home. In cases where it does not happen, a variety of expanations are offered, from the lack of financial independence, lack of a support network ouside the home, threats to the lives and/or custody of children, and so forth. If the State offered long-term assistance to women in such relationship the violent, fatal climax might not happen. But even if we think it is morally right that such women be released from prison, the subtle distinction in law that is being made is an example of how a crime can be re-constituted if not to excuse it, to excuse it from the consequencs other murders have. It is cherry picking, and an example of how people who make law prefer to turn themselves inside out rather than admit the law, and some of the ideas that shape it, is wrong. We cannot escape from the fact that for all its rational intent, murder is a moral issue and thus punishment will be shaped as much by emotion as by reason.

With regard to hypocrisy, on one level the State has every right to kill people- but that doesn't mean that it should do so. The modern Liberal State trades the liberty of the individual in return for protecting that individual from harm, either from external attack or internal chaos/civil war resuting in loss of life and property. It is what Max Weber called the 'legtimate monoly of the use of force' or violence, though not all states arm their law enforcement officers. Moreover, that violence is, or has become a rare event, with the possible exception of the USA, where the level of lethal force used by LEO has become a national issue generating BLM and counter-protest movements. If it has become more common in the UK than it was in decades gone by, some woud argue it is because there are more guns avaiable to criminals than was common before. When armed poiice shot dead Mark Duggan, they claimed they had intelligence that he was en route to a crime which would involve firearms, which they claim he threw out of the window of the car he was in befoe he was shot. It may be the case he was shot dead by 'trigger happy' cops, but it is also the case that he ought to have been arrested without a shot being fired, as was also the case with Jacob Blake, who could have been arrested without a shot being fired, using the legtimate force of the State, namely handcuffs.

The hypocrisy exists because the State, in the case of the UK, has a national faith, and it is Christian, and much of our law has been shaped by Christian values, but as I have pointed out, the reality is that whether it is the whole of the Bible, or the New Testament, the emergence of secular law based on reason rather than faith, has undermined the moral or religious foundation of the State. It is acute in the US because the Revolutionaries of 1776 were practising Chistians, de Tocqueville in his book on Democracy in America records his view that the communites he visited were bound together by their Christian faith, and we have had a steady diet of all this 'God Bless America' stuff since Ronald Reagan began it. Yet virtually zero application of Christian belief in the formation and prosecution of the law, which enables Christians to violate the most profound of their beliefs, that the Crucifixion be the last example of man killing man. One is left with the feeling that when it comes to judicial killings, Dirty Harry has the edge on Jesus of Nazareth, though to be fair to Eastwood and Siegel, there are issues in that remarkable film that go beyond the simple argument about whether or not it is right to kill, such as the Miranda Rights which motivated and shape the story of the film

The US is in a crisis on this issue, because there is a contradiction between the 2nd Amendment, and the right of the Liberal Democratic State to own the monopoly on the use of force -indeed, having so many citizens armed when the State exerts its monopoly at three levels -the armed forces, the National Guard, armed Law Enforcement Officers- undermines the authority the State has, given to it by the People. For that reason, citizens must by definition be disarmed, though to do this, the 2nd Amendment must be repealed in its entirety.

As for executions, none of them are necessary once a criminal has been secured in prison. There is no moral justification for it, no relgious justification, no rational or philosophical justification. It must end.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

Are you saying that If we'd had an opportunity to assassinate Adolf Hitler and thereby save potentially millions of lives we should not have taken it? That seems to me the perfect illustration of the problem with your "impeccable" philosophical argument.

I'm surprised at the primacy you are giving to the religious/moral "thou shalt not kill" argument when you would presumably object to that sort of reasoning in other contexts. Most human societies have also had strictures against homosexuality and adultery, for example, until fairly recently.

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The philosophical argument is secure, because it is about language and ideas, rather than specific historical examples. The Hitler analogy is weak. Millions were sent to their death, had their homes destroyed, their lives ruined through injury and permanent displacement, because Kaiser Wilhelm had ambitions for Germany and an emotional loathing of the British, but at a time when there was a strong element of 'Social Darwinism' among military types and nationalists who could not be stopped because so many approved, and indeed, millions willingly volunteered on all sides in the First World War. It could not be stopped before it happened, even though from a strategic point of view, the South African War of 1899-1902 like the First World War that followed, was supposed to be a short sharp shock to recalcitrant Boers, but slithered into a war lasting years, costing millions even the Empire didn't have, with an unsatisfactory outcome. Far from learning from their mistakes, the Generals marched into Belgium and France to make the same mistakes all over again.

As for Hitler, look at it this way: imagine someone asks -is it right to kill one man to save the lives of 1,000? Then, is it right to kill 1,000 to save the lives of 100,000? You can then ask, is it right to kill six million to save a civilization numbering multiple millions? Unless you provide a philosophy that argues in favour of the extinction of human life, there is no argument to be made, and if you do wish to consult such a philosophy, then the 'Race' based ideas of Adolf Hitler -which he did not develop himself alone- not only justify mass murder, but in their application, prove that it produces an outcome worse than the problem it intended to solve. This is not a philosophical paradox, it is just bad philosophy.

Once you argue that it is right to kill, there is no reverse in the discourse, all that follows must then twist and turn in its variations of the definition of murder, of punishment, and for what purpose, when the end result is one person as an individual or the State, murdering another?

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Originally Posted by Stavros

Once you argue that it is right to kill, there is no reverse in the discourse, all that follows must then twist and turn in its variations of the definition of murder, of punishment, and for what purpose, when the end result is one person as an individual or the State, murdering another?

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Ultimately we have to be able to reason about the quality of people's actions and about what is true or not. It was true that Hitler was a threat to mankind who annihilated millions and would have annihilated millions more if unopposed. It wasn't true that Jews controlled the world or were responsible for the things he claimed.

I know everyone is aware of that and isn't the point of the analogy but it is the reason I don't think the justification for killing Hitler somehow leads to wanton killing. I don't see how a fictitious motive for killing is the same as a motive to avoid the harm of someone who would kill more. There's either some basis in truth to the claim that someone is a threat or there isn't.

That is to say I understand there's a risk that justifying killing can lead to the kind of murder Hitler engaged in, but if we're not worried about the slippery slope, and we are concerned with human welfare, would killing him with the intention of avoiding further atrocities be harmful? And to whom?

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Originally Posted by Stavros

As for Hitler, look at it this way: imagine someone asks -is it right to kill one man to save the lives of 1,000? Then, is it right to kill 1,000 to save the lives of 100,000? You can then ask, is it right to kill six million to save a civilization numbering multiple millions? Unless you provide a philosophy that argues in favour of the extinction of human life, there is no argument to be made, and if you do wish to consult such a philosophy, then the 'Race' based ideas of Adolf Hitler -which he did not develop himself alone- not only justify mass murder, but in their application, prove that it produces an outcome worse than the problem it intended to solve. This is not a philosophical paradox, it is just bad philosophy.

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If you are familiar with philosophy you ought to know that this argument is an example of reductio ad absurdum, which is definitely bad philosophy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

In essence, you are arguing that because if is hard to know where exactly to draw the line the only correct place is at the extreme end of the spectrum (absolute prohibition). In general, that is a dubious position, both logically and ethically. Almost every legal and public policy issue involves difficult questions about where to draw lines and where to allow exceptions to general rules. Absolutist solutions don't actually resolve these difficulties; they just attempt to ignore them by removing human judgement.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

Almost every legal and public policy issue involves difficult questions about where to draw lines and where to allow exceptions to general rules. Absolutist solutions don't actually resolve these difficulties; they just attempt to ignore them by removing human judgement.

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On the last page you said the U.S. sets the bar too low for capital punishment. I was curious whether you mean procedurally, in terms of making sure the person isn't innocent, or legally, in terms of what acts qualify for the punishment.

Also, since we're talking about this issue in the abstract it's difficult to know what is means in the real world. Have you seen a country that has applied the death penalty in a way that its benefits exceed the costs? If not, do you think it could be feasibly administered in such a way that it is beneficial?

For my part I think the U.S. does try to reserve it for especially heinous crimes. Procedurally there are many opportunities to challenge guilty verdicts by proving actual innocence or rights violations. Yet it is difficult for people to agree about what makes one murder so heinous as to deserve the death penalty while another is not. That is, it's difficult to do it categorically and without any human judgment. And in practice the doubt often exists about guilt, even if the procedures to prevent unjust conviction are ample. Given the frailties of any legal system the potential for innocent people to be executed seems like it would always be too great for whatever meager benefit it might provide.

Yet I've seen cases where I've thought if the institution were reserved specifically for such instances I would not object.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

If you are familiar with philosophy you ought to know that this argument is an example of reductio ad absurdum, which is definitely bad philosophy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

In essence, you are arguing that because if is hard to know where exactly to draw the line the only correct place is at the extreme end of the spectrum (absolute prohibition). In general, that is a dubious position, both logically and ethically. Almost every legal and public policy issue involves difficult questions about where to draw lines and where to allow exceptions to general rules. Absolutist solutions don't actually resolve these difficulties; they just attempt to ignore them by removing human judgement.

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Let me try to clarify this by drawing a distinction between he act of killing, and the punishment that might follow. By its nature, killing is an absolute condition, there is little else one can say about it, other than to describe the way in which the act was committed, and then ask why. As we have seen, it then becomes a matter of sophistication in which the killing is either justified, or excused, even though the moral argument is without blemish- it is, and always has been wrong to kill.

We then watch people tie themselves in knots in an attempt to justify or explain the killing, and in the case of Hitler and those who shared his idelogy, killing millions did not disturb their sleep because they first re-classified human beings as Untermensch, thus may have believed they were not exterminating human beings at all, but an inferior version.

What this debate thus pivots on is the multiple excuses that are brought into play to excuse the killing, or class the killng as beng so horrible it deserves a different kind of punishment to other forms. Thus we have Murders in the Degrees 1, 2, and 3. We have Crime Passionel; Self-Defence; honestly, I didn't mean it, guv; serial killers, terrorists -these are the lines that are drawn, and all of them are just excuses to justify punishment.

I accept that society has created these excuses in an attempt to resolve what often are profound dilemmas -I am note ignoring that- but it seems to me that if the original position is solid, namely that killing is wrong, then by definition capital punishment is wrong. The volume of hypocritical garbage that seeks to justify death is merely that. At least if we can understand why one person has killed another, we might be able to deal with the consequences without repeating the crime.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

On the last page you said the U.S. sets the bar too low for capital punishment. I was curious whether you mean procedurally, in terms of making sure the person isn't innocent, or legally, in terms of what acts qualify for the punishment.

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Probably both, but I haven't studied the issue enough to be sure. To be clear, I don't have a firm view either way on capital punishment, for the same reason. My concern has really been about the right way to frame the issue. I can see a theoretical case for capital punishment in limited circumstances, but it turns on some empirical questions that I don't know enough about.

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Originally Posted by Stavros

Let me try to clarify this by drawing a distinction between he act of killing, and the punishment that might follow. By its nature, killing is an absolute condition, there is little else one can say about it, other than to describe the way in which the act was committed, and then ask why. As we have seen, it then becomes a matter of sophistication in which the killing is either justified, or excused, even though the moral argument is without blemish- it is, and always has been wrong to kill..

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I remain puzzled why you keep asserting this point (which is central to your argument) as if it were a truism, when it is far from self-evident.

To my mind, your argument is tautological:
1. Killing is inherently wrong.
2. Therefore, no act of killing can be justified, even if it might result in outcomes that are desirable (eg saving innocent lives).

The problem is that point 1 is an a priori axiom, rather than something that is established by reasoning.

Contrary to your assertion that killing is killing, there are many shades of grey, which the laws recognise and try to deal with. Your own acceptance that it may be justified for self-defence acknowledges that. Even self-defence has shades of grey - eg what is a proportionate response to a threat?

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Originally Posted by filghy2

Probably both, but I haven't studied the issue enough to be sure. To be clear, I don't have a firm view either way on capital punishment, for the same reason. My concern has really been about the right way to frame the issue. I can see a theoretical case for capital punishment in limited circumstances, but it turns on some empirical questions that I don't know enough about.

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I know you were discussing how we should analyze the decision rather than stating it should be implemented. It is an interesting discussion even in the abstract and I didn't mean the questions as a challenge but just thought it might be interesting.

One of the things I've noticed when I've read case histories of the appeals someone on death row has filed is that you can convince yourself they've had opportunity to present anything exculpatory or challenge the evidentiary rulings in the initial trial, but you're not that much more certain they are guilty. For instance, if you're 98% confident they are guilty and that is a number generally considered higher than estimates of what "beyond a reasonable doubt" means, ten years of them having a chance to challenge the evidentiary rulings or find new evidence doesn't move that number much. On the other hand, there are some cases where the evidence is so overwhelming to begin with. I think if I could find instances where I think the death penalty should be implemented it would be this subset of cases and for murders that were especially cruel.

I suppose nobody here thinks some people who have committed heinous crimes should be executed based on a notion they "deserve it". I found some old notes on theories of punishment and theorists try to make a distinction between retribution and revenge, the former thought to be a more objective attempt to mete out a fitting and just fate for the criminal and the latter based on anger and a desire to inflict pain. I can see the distinction between the two but I'm not sure what role someone getting what people believe their actions warrant unless its impacts are more than psychic.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

I think if I could find instances where I think the death penalty should be implemented it would be this subset of cases and for murders that were especially cruel.

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I guess this point is pretty obvious since the two relevant factors are certainty of guilt and severity of the crime. I guess I mean that while procedural protections are important I would want there to be a much different burden of proof for death penalty cases. The review shouldn't simply be that they had a fair trial, that a rational jury could believe they are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and that there were no violations of their constitutional rights during the trial. It might be for instance that of cases in which a capital crime has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, there is substantially more corroborative evidence and substantially fewer doubts that exist than in most cases in which a guilty verdict is rendered.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

I remain puzzled why you keep asserting this point (which is central to your argument) as if it were a truism, when it is far from self-evident.

To my mind, your argument is tautological:
1. Killing is inherently wrong.
2. Therefore, no act of killing can be justified, even if it might result in outcomes that are desirable (eg saving innocent lives).

The problem is that point 1 is an a priori axiom, rather than something that is established by reasoning.

Contrary to your assertion that killing is killing, there are many shades of grey, which the laws recognise and try to deal with. Your own acceptance that it may be justified for self-defence acknowledges that. Even self-defence has shades of grey - eg what is a proportionate response to a threat?

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I agree with a lot of your points, but the key to me is that having decided killing is wrong, human societies then seek to justify killing, or the termination of life, by making excuses, or producing reasonable justifications. I think you agree that justifying the exterminatiion of humans having first re-defined them as 'sub-human' is wrong, because the science is wrong, it is morally wrong, it is politically wrong, indeed, wrong in every aspect.

If we move away from killing in terms of criminal law, then obvious cases that present themself occur in medicine, where a physician must make a life or death decision, or the case of Abortion. The Hippocratic Oath burdens all physicians with the injunction to save lives, but medically, I think we all recognize this is not always possible. Someone who has a cardiac arrest and fails to respond to resuscitation efforts dies, not because the physicians failed to keep him alive, but owing to the cardiac arrest, yet it is still the responsibility of the lead physician to call a halt to proceedings and pronounce the person dead. Choosing not to operate on someone with cancer so advanced there can be no useful medical remedy is again not killing,and yet in the medical as well as human context many, probably most doctors regret their choice of action. Maintaining life support systems on someone who has had catastrophic injuries or malfunction of the brain, classing them to be in a 'persistent vegetatve state' is another example, where physicians can often be challlenged by relatives who insist that one day the patient may regain consciousness. The US case of Terri Schiavo is well documented here.

Abortion is an intriguing problem, and one that I have wrestled with without ever satisfying myself on what is right. Again, if we take the killing is wrong position, and the reigious argument supports it, then terminating a pregnance must be wrong. But, just as there is a context with abused women who murder their partner, pregnancy itself, though it is not an illness, can create medical complications that threaten the life of the mother and/or the child. Using your Hitler analogy, the argument would be that a termination is justified if it will save the life of the mother. A further argument can be made with regard to the foetus, if for some reason its gestation has failed to produce a being with limbs and organs that will sustain it after birth, and thus a decision is made that its life is not 'viable' or some other term, and a termination takes place.

I think these are different arguments from those which have recently proposed that life begins with conception. The arguments I refer to have a basis in medical science and relate directly to the medical condition of the mother and the foetus, whereas the religious arguments take one simple fact of science -life begins with conception- and remove all other scientific considerations to rest on a political argument. The obvious science fact is that the life conceived may not survive the gestation period, and women do miscarry. The poltical point is that in the US, according to the 'life is sacred' lobby, as soon as a woman becomes pregnant, she appears to lose her rights as a citizen, and the 'rights of the child' assume greater importance in law and morality. This is where I find my attachment to the principle that killing is wong, detached from the surrounding politics, because I cannot accept that a foetus has either equal, or superior rights to the citizen in which it resides. Moreover, the same people insisting that their argument is right, have no respect for the life of the child once it is born, do little or nothing if that child is born in poverty, little or nothing if the child is disabled, and in some cases, Abort the life if it is living in Baghdad or Afghanistan or Syria or anywhere else a bullet or a bomb can detect it.

If there is a distinction, it is between ending a life because there are no existing alternatives in medical terms, and ending a life through an act of violence. Abortion presents a challenging case if the reason is that the woman concerned doesn't want the pregnancy to continue because it would interfere with her career choices, because the pregnancy would prove she had been unfaithful to her husband, in other words, all but medical reasons. I don't know how to resolve this, because the woman must have rights as a citizen, while the criminalization of Abortion or the creation of term limits that make it all but impossible in some US States, removes all debate on the reasons a termination might be justified, though some have conceded a termination might be justified if the pregnancy was the consequence of rape, or incest, and in the past there is the shocking case of the 11-year old who was raped, forced to give birth to child, and by her parents to marry the man who raped her.

We have burdened ourselves with a noble declaration that life is sacred, and proved time and again that we as humans are chronic violators of our own laws and values, seeking as many excuses as justifications as we can, sanctioned by God or Man. I have not been able to solve the problem, which might be one of 'human nature' though I think, pace Steven Pnker, humanity in general may be less violent and lethal in the 21st century than we were in the 1st or 2nd. But it does also mean, I believe, that when it comes to punishment, there can be no justification for the State to kill, and on the basis of what I have said before, I see no argument in favour of execution. But as a character once said in the feeble Graham Greene book that bear's its title, 'It's a battlefield'.

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Originally Posted by Stavros

I agree with a lot of your points, but the key to me is that having decided killing is wrong, human societies then seek to justify killing, or the termination of life, by making excuses, or producing reasonable justifications. I think you agree that justifying the exterminatiion of humans having first re-defined them as 'sub-human' is wrong, because the science is wrong, it is morally wrong, it is politically wrong, indeed, wrong in every aspect.

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In law, defenses to murder are categorized as excuses or justifications. When someone kills but is not guilty by reason of insanity that is categorized as an excuse. If they are mentally incompetent or have severe psychosis and don't understand the nature of the act most people would think they are not as culpable as someone who has killed in order to rob his victim. It is an excuse not in the colloquial sense but in the legal sense because the act itself is not justified but they are not held accountable for it.

Self-defense is a justification. And it's very difficult to argue that someone who had a subjective belief they were going to be killed which is objectively reasonable should not be able to kill to save their own life.

Since we've found justifications and excuses that are exculpatory, we can't just say it is too difficult to assign degrees of culpability. The belief that a person is sub-human can't be used to justify killing but it is also a false premise. Most true premises would not provide a justification for killing.

It is difficult to codify degrees of culpability and determine which instances of killing might not be culpable but I can't imagine a good outcome if we didn't try.

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Originally Posted by Stavros

I agree with a lot of your points, but the key to me is that having decided killing is wrong, human societies then seek to justify killing, or the termination of life, by making excuses, or producing reasonable justifications.

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But isn't it normal that we hold certain actions to be wrong in general, but allow that there are some circumstances in which such actions may be justified? I suspect this applies to just about every ethical standard you can think of. For example, lying is generally wrong but may be justified in some circumstances (eg if telling the truth would put someone at risk), Stealing is generally wrong, but most of us would accept that it may be justified if the alternative was starvation.

You seem to be concerned that we are on some ethical slippery slope, where more and more exemptions to the rule are being allowed. I don't see much evidence for this. In most countries we are probably more careful about human life now than we have been at any time in history.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

But isn't it normal that we hold certain actions to be wrong in general, but allow that there are some circumstances in which such actions may be justified? I suspect this applies to just about every ethical standard you can think of. For example, lying is generally wrong but may be justified in some circumstances (eg if telling the truth would put someone at risk), Stealing is generally wrong, but most of us would accept that it may be justified if the alternative was starvation.

You seem to be concerned that we are on some ethical slippery slope, where more and more exemptions to the rule are being allowed. I don't see much evidence for this. In most countries we are probably more careful about human life now than we have been at any time in history.

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I agree, but re-iterate the cardinal point, which is the prohibition on killing that has been fundamental to 'Western Civilization', whether it is derived from Greco-Roman Law, or the Bible. You say that it is normal for humans to condemn an act which they then enact, and as Broncofan points out, the Law has devised a language which either excuses -in the legal sense of the word- or justifies the murder it also says is wrong. This seems to me to be the key problem with murder in general, and murder as a form of punishment enacted by the State.

Yes, we set ethical standards of behaviour we then fail to meet, but look at what this has meant, historically. It means, for example, that the Christian faith which has The Lord's Prayer as one of if not its most succinct statement of belief, has failed to honour it, and in spectacular fashion, whether it is the slaughter of over a million devotees of the 'Cathar heresy' (as defined by the Roman Catholic Church), the gruesome public executions of Tudor England, or the combined actions of the Spanish, the French and the British from the Americas to Africa and Australasia that led to the estimated slaughter of 100 million.

Fundamental to this is the concept of Civilization, not a neutral concept, that embarked on a global mission to replace one form of behaviour by another, in which Christian priests and followers based their mission on the basic assumption that the people they encountered, for example in the Australia integrated into a European Empire, were heathens and savages. As recently as 1919, Genral Jan Smuts, when devising the Mandates system of the League of Nations, justified Germany's African and Pacific colonies in the lowest tier, Mandate C, because "the German colonies in the Pacific and Africa, are inhabited by barbarians, who not only cannot possibly govern themselves, but to whom it would be impacticable to apply any ideas of political self-determination in the European sense".

This is not some everyday flaw in human nature, but a deliberate use of the theory and practice of civilisation that in both undermined the very principles on which it was erected. On such a basis, for the State to then arrogate to itself the right to execute may be seen as merely the icing on the inedible cake -as Christians we forgive your sins, or maybe we don't, but are going to kill you anyway.

At the very least, we ought to acknowedge that Capital Punishment has no connection to Christianity, indeed, contradicts it. As for your statement "In most countries we are probably more careful about human life now than we have been at any time in history", again, this might be true inside the State, but the indiscriminate bombing by 'us' of numerous countries around the world, suggests a complete indifference to human life and the suffering incurred, thus Western Civilization finds a way to replace its Religious values with the actualité that is the nihilism of 9/11, ISIS, and the Cartel violence of Mexico and Central America, majority Catholic countries.

This is the focus of most of my critique, so I understand your points and agree with most of them with regard to the everyday violations that on one level, make us 'the crooked timber of humanity' -but do we not also need fundamental values and ethics as human socities, and if we set ourselves such elevated goals, can we not try to at least strive toward them? And in doing so, stop Capital Punishment in all its forms, everywhere, from the head chopping monsters of Saudi Arabia -Israel and the USA's closest allies in the Middle East- hanged by crane in Iran, lethal injections in Texas -and so on. And it is easy to achieve, because in an hour from now, all countries can issue a declaration saying it will not longer happen.

A cost benefit analysis will often hinge on how one values different interests. It can then be defended even when a straightforward application of it would produce a result many find repellent because of the injustice it exacts in particular cases.

If the death penalty results in 5 innocent people who are executed but deters 10 killings should we support its implementation? Would you rather be someone who is murdered in random circumstances or spend 10 years on death row for a murder you didn't commit, face mental anguish at all of your last ditch efforts to exculpate yourself, receive false hope while waiting for a last minute pardon and then be clinically killed in front of a gallery of people who believe you're a murderer? I guess a utilitarian analysis could subsume these justice concerns by valuing this experience as more than twice as awful as the average killing that's been deterred, but it still signifies some difficulty in its application.

The design of our criminal justice system, which has been described by the maxim of let 99 guilty men go free for every one innocent man convicted also seems to weight the concerns in ways that are not mathematically straightforward. I can actually think of many more examples, including one that I mentioned, which is the possibility that providing a justification of self-defense causes more people to overreact than to successfully defend themselves. It's still possible to believe that while harms flow from allowing for the doctrine it provides a measure of justice in individual cases that is indispensable.

None of this is to say that abstract ideas of justice are more important than a cost-benefit analysis of which punishments we support but that just as there are ways in which we can carefully dissect the wrongfulness of similar acts, we can also be especially vigilant about the harm done by wrongful convictions and other difficult to measure injustices.

Hypothetical: ten people in a room and authorities know that one of the ten people plans to kill 100 people (you could also say 1000 people with a 10% chance of success or 100 people expected value) in an explosion at some later date. They do not know which person it is and each person has an equally likely chance of being the guy. If the law allowed authorities to apply for a warrant subject to a thorough review process to kill when such killing is likely to save lives, would they be justified in shooting 10 people to save 90 people net?

If not why not? And no I'm not designing an essay exam. I think the question relates to the use of utilitarian theory for every criminal justice question. But perhaps not. Maybe we just use different multipliers for things;.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

Hypothetical: ten people in a room and authorities know that one of the ten people plans to kill 100 people (you could also say 1000 people with a 10% chance of success or 100 people expected value) in an explosion at some later date. They do not know which person it is and each person has an equally likely chance of being the guy. If the law allowed authorities to apply for a warrant subject to a thorough review process to kill when such killing is likely to save lives, would they be justified in shooting 10 people to save 90 people net?

If not why not? And no I'm not designing an essay exam. I think the question relates to the use of utilitarian theory for every criminal justice question. But perhaps not. Maybe we just use different multipliers for things;.

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This debate is getting lost, I think, and I am not sure how much more I can contribute or just repeat myself. Your proposition has already been tried, as with the justification for the aerial bombardment of Afghanistan in 2001-2002, and the regime change in Iraq in 2003, all designed to 'kill them before they kill us', in which the majority of the victims had nothing to do with terrorism, and if you saw the brilliant but agonising documentaries, For Sama, and Once Upon a Time in Iraq, you shoud ask how you think your country benefited from its collective punishment of Arabs and Muslims, how much it cost (guesstimate -trillions of dollars) and why it has resulted in a dangerous instability in Iraq and Syria, while the Taliban who were the target in 2001-2002 because they gave a safe haven to bin Laden, are still just a proverbial inch away from being part of if not the Government of Afghanistan -your President was even prepared to invite these mass murderers to talks at Camp David.

Americans are fed a diet in film and tv of 'kill the bad guys' to the extent that when a cop kills a black man, it is instantly followed by the 'revelation' that the victim was a thief, a career criminal, a wife-beater-anything to justify the act. Marvellous Super-heroes don't negotiate, they don't convene summits to sign peace treaties, they kill.

It feeds into the mentality in which options are narrowed, it is either/or, and on balance, the guns have it. For a country whose population brays as it prays, this sickening, craven submission to violence is not going away, it stains the nation, and offers little hope for progress, unless and until it is stopped. No amount of sophistry or utilitarian bollocks is going to sort it out. The mere fact your President ran away to play golf 100 times when millions of Americans fell victim to Covid-19 and hundreds of thousands died sums up the cultural swamp into which you have sunk over the last four years, with the Federal Executioner adding to the toll for a simple reason: he doesn't care. And that is, in the end, the summary of much of this debate. Thank you and good night.

I will just state my last view and move on. I enjoyed the discussion for the most part.

I probably should have stated why I included the hypothetical. It was intended to cast doubt on whether utilitarianism will always point in the right direction, namely because most people would respond to the hypothetical by either refusing to accept its premises or be certain that authorities should not knowingly kill innocent people to save lives (which is my position). The U.S. criminal justice system does seem to try to avoid extremely unjust outcomes with rules of evidence, burdens of proof, and multiple layers of appeal. If one simply wanted to achieve the greatest overall utility the focus for punishment would be more on recidivism rates than whether someone had an especially malicious mindset. I think for most crimes the two are often consistent with each other. If someone commits a willful and wanton act the assumption is they're more likely to do so again.

People who are sacrificed to save lives will often be the most vulnerable. People who are wrongfully executed are often minorities and poor, and the person the shipwrecked sailors decided to eat to save three lives in R v Dudley and Stephens was the cabin boy who was the most sick and didn't have a family. The court in that case decided not to accept an excuse that eating the cabin boy would result in one death rather than four. I agree with them there, even though four lives is better than one, nobody volunteered to be the sacrifice and nobody ever does. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Dudley_and_Stephens

I read a few articles on theories of criminal justice and altered my view slightly to a combination of retributivist and utilitarian. Utilitarian in the sense that I think deterring bad outcomes should be the focus of punishment but retributivist in that I don't think it should only be forward looking but also consider how malicious an act is and how just a punishment is in individual cases. I'd have to read more on the subject to know how these two theories can be synthesized.

Here's a couple of articles on why we shouldn't worry too much about government borrowing.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/ar...e-credit-cards
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/03/o...cans-debt.html

Basically, governments are not like households in that they don't have to ever repay their debt. (Individual bonds may have to be repaid, but new bonds can always be issued to someone else.) The only real constraint is that the debt cannot grow indefinitely faster than the economy. The cost of servicing the debt is actually low at present because interest rates historically low, and this is likely to remain the case for the foreseeable future.

The real issue is whether the debt is being used to finance something socially productive. Borrowing for public investment and/or to support the economy when it is weak is likely to be good - borrowing to give your donors a tax cut when the economy is already doing well is not.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

Here's a couple of articles on why we shouldn't worry too much about government borrowing.

Basically, governments are not like households in that they don't have to ever repay their debt. (Individual bonds may have to be repaid, but new bonds can always be issued to someone else.) The only real constraint is that the debt cannot grow indefinitely faster than the economy. The cost of servicing the debt is actually low at present because interest rates historically low, and this is likely to remain the case for the foreseeable future.

The real issue is whether the debt is being used to finance something socially productive. Borrowing for public investment and/or to support the economy when it is weak is likely to be good - borrowing to give your donors a tax cut when the economy is already doing well is not.

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Thus spake the Prince of Pragmatism! I agree with you on one level, but have questions and points to make on others.

First, there is a practical reason. The whole basis of a loan is that it is paid back, indeed, that the person or the bank making the loan also make a profit from the interest charged on the loan. The US Government might be able to borrow trillions at low-to zero interest rates, no such blessing is awarded to Malawi or Chad, because when the investors look at the condition of those economies, they know that loans are too much of a risk. If the State does not have the natural or human resources to generate the money to pay back the loan, an additional, political fact, corruption in government, might also deter. Moreover, debt is internatonal -who actually owns the US debt? Not all Americans.

There have been numerous arguments that the Chinese could dispense with their American investments, and the US economy spiral into free-fall, as was said of the Petro-Dollar dimension to the US investments by Saudi Arabia and the oil-rich Gulf in the 1970s and 1980s. I don't know if this would be done, I think the argument is that if the Chinese or the Arabs 'pulled the plug' as it were, the rest of the world economy would also be adversely affected. As you know more about this aspect of economics, your view on it would be most welcome.

Second, debt goes to the heart of the capitalist economy. You don't need to agree or disagree with either Smith or Marx, but it is clear that what the circulation of capital does, is create the conditions for a profitable return on the investment, while the speculation on the size of that pure profit enables the capitalist to borrow more to fund more investments, the assumption being that nothing will interrupt the circulation, an economic blood clot in the artery, or, as happens to Antonio in The Merchant of Venice, a ship sinking out at sea, taking all his investments with it. When Shylock asks for his share of the investment to be returned, he is merely giving capital investment the moral dimension that libertarian economists try to avoid, which Shakespeare does not.

And yet, these American libertarans, like Rand Paul and Paul Ryan, created a 'debt clock' during the Obama administration to demonstrate the immorality of using 'other people's money' to fund a, b and c when their view is that these decisions ought to be made by the market, and not by Government. Indeed, I read somewhere the other day someone in either the House or the Senate intends to hold Biden's feet to the fire by reviving this dimension of Beltway politics.

What strikes me about the current situation, is that we have rarely in the last 100 years (not sure of the time-line but a long one) ever had such persistently low interest rates in advanced capitalist countries, indeed in some areas negative interest rates.

There is a chapter by the often brilliant, often controversial economic historian, Charles Issawi -Why Japan? (in Ibrahim Ibrahim [ed] Arab Resources: the Transformation of a Society -Croom Helm, 1983) in which Issawi asks why Japan has been economically more successful than Egypt. One of the reasons is that interest rates encourage peope to save. By saving so much of their money in the post-1945 era, and not spending it on foreign holidays, fancy houses and so on, Japan accumulated enough capital to fund private and public investments without having to go deep into debt or borrow from other governments. You could argue it was based on massive investments in Japan by the US for reconstruction after 1945 which Egypt did not -and could not receive- but Issawi then brings in other factors -Japan's hostility to immigration being a salient/controversial one- to offer an intriguing profile of one country in conrast to another.

And thus it would seem that States that did borrow beyond their means, that their debt did indeed grow faster than the economy- African states following the end of Empire have had this problem, compounded by weak state structures and corruption permeating all levels of society. At one point in the late 70s, America's buddy (and Muhammad Ali's too, though let's face it, he was a political moron) Mobutu Sese Soko pleaded with the people of Zaire, 'look, if you are going to steal, at least don't steal so much' - and coming from one of Africa's most disgusting thieves, this was not even outrageous.

So, somewhere in this argument, is a dose of pragmatic financing for wealthy countries like the US -I almost added the UK but let's no tempt fate- where debt is a nightmare from which other countries are trying to awake. It will become a political baseball in the US over the next four years, but I return to this peculiar problem of interest rates, because like taxes, I don't think we can carry on without raising them. The UK it seems to me, has got to raise interest rates, and also raise income tax or there will be an endless level of debt, and if economic growth does indeed decline over the next, say five years, then we will have the kind of crisis that you imply in the relationship between debt and growth.

Lastly, one wonders how much longer Trump can finance and re-finance his loans. He may have made over $100m profit from the Presidency, we don't yet know, and one wonders why a Billionaire needs to borrow a dime, but I would not be surprised if his Hotels and Golf clubs have lost a substantial amount of revenue this year, given that they were losing money for the three years before this one. A year or two ago I also read of a tenant in Trump Tower Manhattan who complained his condo though not worthless, was not attracting buyers, so it may be that the Brand, on which Trump bases so much of his loot, may be tainted and in danger of undermining his legacy. For years, this rent collector from Queen's got lucky, now it seems, his luck is running out. Well, I have tissues, if he needs them. But I shall pretend to be a selfish capitalist on this occasion, and deny him access to them.

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Originally Posted by Stavros

Thus spake the Prince of Pragmatism!

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I was thinking the caustic count of consequentialism and you the acerbic archduke of alliteration (or dispassionate deacon of deontology maybe). If it helps I earned the title of smarmy sultan of syncretism honestly, though I don't love the adjective.

Have a good holidays everyone. Interested in discussing whatever Trump and his legal team are doing next week, though perhaps in the election thread. We'll see what the news cycle is by then. Be well!

"Now boys,be nice!" And happy holidays to you two.

It was a light-hearted remark as I think most people know.

I also wish everyone the best possible Christmas you can have in these challenging times. I decided to roast half a leg of lamb this year having eaten other people's food for the last 5 Christmases. Smoked Salmon from the Orkney Islands (a gift from old friends), roast potatoes and yes, Brussel Spouts will be washed down with what I hope is an impressive Barolo (because the price was impressive!) and for the seafood, a Gewurztraminer from Alsace.

One last thing before we all head off to the -library, the kitchen? Thomas Friedman in today's New York Times speculates that if Trump retains control of the Republican Party then 'responsible Republicans' may have to form a new party of their own. This puzzles me, because it means abandoning 'the Party of Lincoln' to take a major gamble that if they leave the existing Republican Party they will take their voters with them. When, in the UK MPs from the Conservative and Labour Parties who either left in disgust or were thrown out by their leaders created a new Party, it fell apart within months and as far as I know no longer exists (Change UK). Crucially, the MPs lost the seats they contested in the 2019 election because the voters did not support them.

Surely, it is Trump and his followers who ought to set up a new party?

Anyway, I was struck by this response from a reader called Socrates (!) whose comment to Friedman's article is cut and pasted below.

Times Pick


Evan McMullin: “... there is still no home for Republicans committed to representative government, truth and the rule of law, nor is one likely to emerge anytime soon.” In actuality, there is a political party committed to representative government, truth and the rule of law: the Democratic party....and in Europe, Canada or Australia, the Democratic Party would qualify as the 'Conservative' party in all those countries.... because America has been so hijacked to the extreme right for the last four decades that the Democratic Party is now conservative...and the Republican party is simply Crazytown.Name a Republican public policy that resides in evidence-based reality and you'll get the null set.Today's Republicans don't even want to conserve the Earth; Democrats do.Today's Republicans have no fiscal discipline; the Democratic inclination to 'tax and spend' is actually much more conservative than the Republican record of 'borrow and spend'.The #1 successful way to reduce abortions is....providing free and low-cost modern contraception to poor women....that's a Democratic solution.....as opposed to defunding all contraception, which makes the problem worse.How about the one-person-one-vote principle ? Sounds pretty conservative, right ? And yet the Republican Party has been attacking that principle with a vengeance for decades.The Democratic party is actually more conservative than today's Republican Party, which is little more than a radical cult of resentment.
44 Replies2744 Recommend

Opinion | Will Trump Force Principled Conservatives to Start Their Own Party? I Hope So - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

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Originally Posted by Stavros

Thus spake the Prince of Pragmatism! I agree with you on one level, but have questions and points to make on others.

First, there is a practical reason. The whole basis of a loan is that it is paid back, indeed, that the person or the bank making the loan also make a profit from the interest charged on the loan. The US Government might be able to borrow trillions at low-to zero interest rates, no such blessing is awarded to Malawi or Chad, because when the investors look at the condition of those economies, they know that loans are too much of a risk. If the State does not have the natural or human resources to generate the money to pay back the loan, an additional, political fact, corruption in government, might also deter. Moreover, debt is internatonal -who actually owns the US debt? Not all Americans.

There have been numerous arguments that the Chinese could dispense with their American investments, and the US economy spiral into free-fall, as was said of the Petro-Dollar dimension to the US investments by Saudi Arabia and the oil-rich Gulf in the 1970s and 1980s. I don't know if this would be done, I think the argument is that if the Chinese or the Arabs 'pulled the plug' as it were, the rest of the world economy would also be adversely affected. As you know more about this aspect of economics, your view on it would be most welcome.

Second, debt goes to the heart of the capitalist economy. You don't need to agree or disagree with either Smith or Marx, but it is clear that what the circulation of capital does, is create the conditions for a profitable return on the investment, while the speculation on the size of that pure profit enables the capitalist to borrow more to fund more investments, the assumption being that nothing will interrupt the circulation, an economic blood clot in the artery, or, as happens to Antonio in The Merchant of Venice, a ship sinking out at sea, taking all his investments with it. When Shylock asks for his share of the investment to be returned, he is merely giving capital investment the moral dimension that libertarian economists try to avoid, which Shakespeare does not.

And yet, these American libertarans, like Rand Paul and Paul Ryan, created a 'debt clock' during the Obama administration to demonstrate the immorality of using 'other people's money' to fund a, b and c when their view is that these decisions ought to be made by the market, and not by Government. Indeed, I read somewhere the other day someone in either the House or the Senate intends to hold Biden's feet to the fire by reviving this dimension of Beltway politics.

What strikes me about the current situation, is that we have rarely in the last 100 years (not sure of the time-line but a long one) ever had such persistently low interest rates in advanced capitalist countries, indeed in some areas negative interest rates.

So, somewhere in this argument, is a dose of pragmatic financing for wealthy countries like the US -I almost added the UK but let's no tempt fate- where debt is a nightmare from which other countries are trying to awake. It will become a political baseball in the US over the next four years, but I return to this peculiar problem of interest rates, because like taxes, I don't think we can carry on without raising them. The UK it seems to me, has got to raise interest rates, and also raise income tax or there will be an endless level of debt, and if economic growth does indeed decline over the next, say five years, then we will have the kind of crisis that you imply in the relationship between debt and growth.

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To be clear, I was talking about the situation for advanced economies that borrow in currency that they issue. Developing countries are different because they have little capacity to borrow in their own currency, which makes them more vulnerable because a fall in the currency increases the value of the debt. I'm not aware of any advanced economy having a crisis due to government debt issued in its own currency (and this has been tested to extremes in Japan). All such crises in recent decades have involved foreign-currency debt (including Greece, which had no way to issue more euros).

I don't think owing money to foreigners is inherently bad - again, it depends on what it is used for. People have been worrying a crisis caused by foreigners pulling their money out of the US for at least 50 years, as your example suggests, and it hasn't happened. The problem with the idea that China might pull out to punish the US is they they can't do that without also punishing themselves, because the value of their investments would plunge.

The capitalist economy does depend on the flow of credit, and that makes it vulnerable to a credit crunch, as occurred in 2008 (and was a regular feature until the Great Depression led to a change in economic policy thinking). However, the real problem there is private borrowing, not government borrowing - in particular because the banking system (which borrows short-term to lend long-term) is inherently vulnerable to panics. The fact that governments were willing to borrow and issue guarantees to support the economy was what prevented the 2008 financial crisis for becoming another Great Depression.

The underlying reason interest rates are so low is that there are not enough profitable private investment opportunities to absorb the supply of saving. This seems to be generally attributed to structural changes such as technology and the shift toward a services economy. It's not clear why interest rates would rise unless something changes those underlying factors - otherwise trying to increase interest rates would just increase the imbalance.

Incidentally, I'm not sure why pragmatism should regarded as less worthy than idealism. To my mind pragmatism means viewing issues in terms of the balance of positive and negative effects of alternative options (informed by empirical evidence), rather in terms of some overarching 'big idea'. I'm pretty sure that far more misery over the course of human history has been caused by idealists than by pragmatists. The Nazis and Communists were both idealists. Religious fanatics are idealists. The libertarians you refer to are idealists.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

The underlying reason interest rates are so low is that there are not enough profitable private investment opportunities to absorb the supply of saving. This seems to be generally attributed to structural changes such as technology and the shift toward a services economy. It's not clear why interest rates would rise unless something changes those underlying factors - otherwise trying to increase interest rates would just increase the imbalance.

Incidentally, I'm not sure why pragmatism should regarded as less worthy than idealism. To my mind pragmatism means viewing issues in terms of the balance of positive and negative effects of alternative options (informed by empirical evidence), rather in terms of some overarching 'big idea'. I'm pretty sure that far more misery over the course of human history has been caused by idealists than by pragmatists. The Nazis and Communists were both idealists. Religious fanatics are idealists. The libertarians you refer to are idealists.

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Thank you for this intriguing post. You probably know there are claims that we are in the fourth wave of the industrial revolution, chracterised by digital economics. But to me this is not an industrial revolution, and as an ageing idealist with pragmatic tendencies, my view is that the industrial revolution ended in the 1960s and petered out in the 1970s, if by industrial we mean the mechanical or manufacture of goods -this does not mean that hard goods are no longer produced, but it does mean that entirely new industries have not emerged, merely changes to the means of production.

Since the 1980s services and telecoms have outpaced traditional industry, but I don't see this as an industrial revolution, and the question is this: have developments since the 1980s taken Capitalism to a new level, of global particiation in global markets -allowing for the industrial expansion of China which in my view rescued the global economy from a decade of low-growth- or has the consequence been an end to Capitalism as we have known it since 1776, with no coherent replacement other than State-directed economics?

The point about interest rates is not just that they are at an all-time low, but that there are now below zero interest rates, which begs the question: what is this capitalism that does not return a profit on an investment, and proclaims in advance it will not do so? One of the many flaws in Marx's critique of Capitalism, is that the worker had nothing but his labour to sell, and in return received as wages nothing more than he could survive on. In reality, and ironically because of militant worker's Unions, even a modest increase in wages has enabled some workers to put money in an interest-yielding account, so that, at least in theory and allowing for a stability in interest rates, a worker doing so at the age of 25 would have more money in the account when 60, whereas the contemporary situation suggests there is no point saving money at all, that any money in a below zero-interest account is merely pure profit for the bank. This is not Capitalism, but if so, what is it?

On another level, low-to-zero interest rates are a trick which Governements have been using since 2008 to use 'Quantitative Easing' to find financial solutions to the problems they created without having to lose their hair worrying about when and how to pay it all back. Thus Marx again, but correctly so -as he described Capitalism as a fish eating is own tail, we see Governments encouraging the Banks to lend money they can't get back, and then themselves borrowing money to give to the banks so they remain solvent -Murray Rothbard, Von Mises, maybe even Adam Smith might have said,'let them fail', indeed, let the banking system collapse, and then re-build it from zero, because what they would see if they were alive, is the State taking command of the economy even when the Marshals are self-declared free market -or in Trump's phrase, 'Fair Market'- actors, as crystal clear a contradiction of Capitalism as you can find.

Thus for all of Boris Johnson's jolly-wallah optimism for Brexit Britain, the questions that undermine it concern fundamental aspects of the Free Market Capitalism on which Brexit is based, economically -where are the jobs going to come from that sustain a Capitalist economy? What is the long term impact of low-to-zero interest rates on an ageing population if, 30 years from now, the mean cohort of working people have no savings for their old age at a time when the State too might not have the funds to sustain pensions? Surely as the whole point of Saving is to set money aside for the future, low-to-zero interest rates for individuals is little short of a kick in the face? Not to enjoy one's retirement -and a retirement in which spending has been based on savings as pensions rather than income. From what I see now, in 30 years time if not before, there will be an incomes crisis as pervasive and destructive as Covid-19.

Interest rates must rise, or the economy is doomed, though I suspect the British economy as we have known it is doomed anyway, at least the one that I have known since I started work in 1968. What replaces it, I don't know, but it seems to me that for all the glad morning bullshit of Libertarians like Steve Baker, the State is going to be in command of the economy for some time to come. But I could of course be wrong, and everyone will be rich in the course of time. But long after my time.

https://twitter.com/keithedwards/sta...96238722129923

This is 4 minutes of the audio. This is a felony and he really has to be prosecuted. I don't care what the political fallout is. Either you can legally threaten election officials to "find" votes for you or you can't. And if you can then we are not a country of laws. For fucks sake.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

https://twitter.com/keithedwards/sta...96238722129923

This is 4 minutes of the audio. This is a felony and he really has to be prosecuted. I don't care what the political fallout is. Either you can legally threaten election officials to "find" votes for you or you can't. And if you can then we are not a country of laws. For fucks sake.

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Completely agree 1000% that Donald Trump actively interfering in an election and pressuring
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to change the results in Georgia is a felony, and he really should be prosecuted for this criminal act. And it's time for the spineless cowards in the GOP to stand up and do what's right.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Stavros

Interest rates must rise, or the economy is doomed.

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I don't understand your logic, but you seem to have it the wrong way around. If you want interest rates to be higher then we need to restore the economy to healthy growth first. We can't restore the economy to healthy growth by raising interest rates.

Interest rates are just the price of money. Like any price, their purpose is to balance demand and supply. It makes no more sense to say the interest rate should be at some arbitrary level than it would to say the price of apples should be kept at some level even if there was a glut of apples. The only 'natural' rate of interest is the one that would balance the economy at non-inflationary full employment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rate_of_interest

If you want interest rates to be higher to encourage saving you should actually be in favour of more government borrowing because that is the only feasible alternative. Otherwise we have the problem illustrated by Keynes'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_thrift If everyone tries to save more at the same time the result will be counterproductive because the impact on the economy causes incomes to fall. Somebody (ie government) needs to spend more to avoid this outcome.

This is about 10,000 on my list of complaints right now but since the first 9,999 all deal with Trump and the Republican party I figure I can discuss it to avoid being repetitive.

There are people who insist the slogan "defund the police" means something and is useful. Defund literally means that you remove all funding from an institution. When people respond by saying they don't want to live in a society without any police force they are told that the phrase means something else. Invariably if they say, "why not choose a phrase that means what it says?" they are subjected to personal attack.

What does the phrase mean? If the phrase doesn't evoke that meaning in the listener why is it a good slogan?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by filghy2

I don't understand your logic, but you seem to have it the wrong way around. If you want interest rates to be higher then we need to restore the economy to healthy growth first. We can't restore the economy to healthy growth by raising interest rates.

Interest rates are just the price of money. Like any price, their purpose is to balance demand and supply. It makes no more sense to say the interest rate should be at some arbitrary level than it would to say the price of apples should be kept at some level even if there was a glut of apples. The only 'natural' rate of interest is the one that would balance the economy at non-inflationary full employment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rate_of_interest

If you want interest rates to be higher to encourage saving you should actually be in favour of more government borrowing because that is the only feasible alternative. Otherwise we have the problem illustrated by Keynes'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_thrift If everyone tries to save more at the same time the result will be counterproductive because the impact on the economy causes incomes to fall. Somebody (ie government) needs to spend more to avoid this outcome.

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My unsatsfactory reply is to broadly agree with you. I think the dilemma is one of the short-term versus the long-term and the fact that short-termism is politically expedient but merely delays sensible decision making to later and probably someone else. A balanced economy allows for spending and saving, the original point I made being that interest rates are essential for capitalism in the long term.

This article in the FT looks at this current problem with regard to Pension Funds, and illustrates why I think interest rates must rise at some point over the next 12 months.
https://www.ft.com/content/c95deea4-...a-d9e2401fa7ca

An additional oddity is the claim that lockdown's have helped people save rather than spend money, not sure about that. Brexit too will probably lead to a decline in income in the UK over the next five years, so I see a decade of depression looming, and can't see how sub-zero interest rates help anyone, as it would mean low spending plus low levels of saving, and that makes recovery harder to achieve and slower. On the other hand one reads that when we are released from the Covid prison, people are going to spend like crazy, but will they? The future looks as miserable and messy as the present, but I am probably wrong, and in a way I hope I am, as I would also like to go places other than my local high st before I die.

I was recently reading about how the 'Black Death' in the 16th century revitalized the economy of Europe creating new jobs and significantly improving the lives of the 'middle class' and actually creating the first real 'middle class. Of course they lost as much as half the population so it doesn't really apply to the Covid-19 pandemic in the same way ,but I think we will see some significant changes related to more people working from home , attending meetings and conferences online ets.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

This is about 10,000 on my list of complaints right now but since the first 9,999 all deal with Trump and the Republican party I figure I can discuss it to avoid being repetitive.

There are people who insist the slogan "defund the police" means something and is useful. Defund literally means that you remove all funding from an institution. When people respond by saying they don't want to live in a society without any police force they are told that the phrase means something else. Invariably if they say, "why not choose a phrase that means what it says?" they are subjected to personal attack.

What does the phrase mean? If the phrase doesn't evoke that meaning in the listener why is it a good slogan?

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Anytime you have to explain what your slogan really means, then its not a good slogan. But that's not even the worse one that I have heard. Here are some other ones:

All Cops Are Bad.
Abolish the Police
Abolish Prisons.

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Originally Posted by blackchubby38

Anytime you have to explain what your slogan really means, then its not a good slogan. But that's not even the worse one that I have heard. Here are some other ones:

All Cops Are Bad.
Abolish the Police
Abolish Prisons.

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Why would anyone ever want to make a policy proposal sound more extreme than it is? Isn't it enough to do justice to the policy? Bernie does that a lot. He will propose a policy that is much more reasonable than he makes it sound.

He'll then say, "billionaires shouldn't exist!!!". I'm not offering an opinion one way or another but I saw his tax proposals and many billionaires would continue to be billionaires while paying a wealth tax. I'm not saying our agenda has to be predicated on not spooking super rich people but if you're proposing that people have to give back so that we can fund healthcare and college tuition then just say that. If you're proposing that we reform the police, don't say defund the police. If you're saying some police officers are racist, don't say all. And then don't dig in when people try to correct your asinine statement.

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Originally Posted by broncofan

Why would anyone ever want to make a policy proposal sound more extreme than it is? Isn't it enough to do justice to the policy? Bernie does that a lot. He will propose a policy that is much more reasonable than he makes it sound.

He'll then say, "billionaires shouldn't exist!!!". I'm not offering an opinion one way or another but I saw his tax proposals and many billionaires would continue to be billionaires while paying a wealth tax. I'm not saying our agenda has to be predicated on not spooking super rich people but if you're proposing that people have to give back so that we can fund healthcare and college tuition then just say that. If you're proposing that we reform the police, don't say defund the police. If you're saying some police officers are racist, don't say all. And then don't dig in when people try to correct your asinine statement.

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Have you gotten called a racist yet because you disagree with the notion that all cops are bad?

My favorite is when Mayor De Blasio once said, "There is a lot money out there, but its in the wrong hands". So who gets to decide whose hands are wrong and how do you propose making sure it gets in the "right" hands.

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Originally Posted by sukumvit boy

I was recently reading about how the 'Black Death' in the 16th century revitalized the economy of Europe creating new jobs and significantly improving the lives of the 'middle class' and actually creating the first real 'middle class. Of course they lost as much as half the population so it doesn't really apply to the Covid-19 pandemic in the same way ,but I think we will see some significant changes related to more people working from home , attending meetings and conferences online ets.

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Sorry , I meant the 14th century ,around 1350.

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Originally Posted by sukumvit boy

I was recently reading about how the 'Black Death' in the 16th century revitalized the economy of Europe creating new jobs and significantly improving the lives of the 'middle class' and actually creating the first real 'middle class. Of course they lost as much as half the population so it doesn't really apply to the Covid-19 pandemic in the same way ,but I think we will see some significant changes related to more people working from home , attending meetings and conferences online ets.

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The context is intriguing because of the ways in which Capitalism has adapted since the end of the Industrial Revolution. The Black Death in England took place when the Wool trade had created lucrative markets for English products in Italy and the Low Countries as they were known (Holland, Brabant, Flanders etc), but the depletion of so many people and the natonal income seems to have encouraged the King to raise money through taxes which in turn led to Peasant Revolts, notably that led by Wat Tyler in 1381. There is a theory that English Kings were in fact weak in this era- there were plenty of them through the Plantagenet era, not that any died a natural death, and relied too much on local Barons, who were as weakened by the Black Death as everyone else, with the additional problems that erupted in the Wars of the Roses in the succeeding century. Thus it is argued the Plague and the Wars established land as a commercial rather than a political value, based on its products, and laid the basis for the transition out of Feudalism and into mercantile capitalism which expanded in the Tudor period with Henry VIII and the effective nationalization of the Monasteries and their wealth to the King's benefit, with Henry's creation of market towns offering local people a larger share of the wealth they produced (one by-product being the school in Stratford-upon-Avon that Shakespeare attended, staffed by reasonably well-paid for the time, and well-educted teachers from nearby Oxford). The formation of the Honourable East India Company in 1600 and the previous expeditions to America thus mark the transition from mercantile to industrial capitalism albeit interrupted by the Civil War of the 17th century. Barrington Moore has tried to chart the developments out of Feudalism into Capitalism in England (and other countries) in his ambitious and maddeningly long and often incoherent Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (1966).

The big difference between then and now, is that industrial capitalism required a huge mass of workers, whereas even contemporary industry requires only a fraction of that labour -think of the car plants that employed thousands which now employ hundreds, plus robots; and the services industry which may employ substantial numbers of people in aggregate, but often in small clusters.

I am not sure what will change, but I thik we have talked before about the way Cities might change if the daily commute to an office block changes radically, and suburban areas become more important for people working from home. Interestingy, if companies survive and thrive, but don't have costs relating to the rent and utility bills of large city-based office space, does this mean the workers will receive a larger share of the company profits not spent on rent, water, electricity and gas?

A digital, online economy requires people with computing skills, but does it also mean a more alienated workforce that does not share the same space with other workers and create a sense of common endeavour? Marx's argument that the collective consciousness of the proletariat be a pre-requisite for a worker's led revolution might, as the means of production has evolved, become closer to Durkheim's concept of anomie- in the future there might be no strikes or worker's protests and marches -workers might just not turn on their computer, drop out, work at a slower rate, or give up and commit suicide.

Because I think humans are social animals, I wonder how atomized labour can be before it causes distress and mental illness. Psychologically people need human contact through family, work, friends and neighbours, and if one disappoints then the others can compensate. If none do, there is a problem. We are also living through an era when the gap between rich and poor is vast, and the argument that wealth should be re-disributed more equally written off as 'Communism' or 'socialism' -so at the moment I am not sure that the long term economic growth that followed the Black Death will follow Covid-19. Those lucrative market relations between England and Italy for example, did not survive the decline of the Port Cities or Venice and Genoa in the 16th century -at one time the Mayor of Southampton which had a buoyant trading link to Genoa was an Italian called Cristoforo Ambrosio who married an English woman and changed his name to Christopher Ambrose. The fracture in the English-European trade that resembles Brexit to an extent, also begs the question if China and the 'West' can maintain the momentum of globalization that has characterised the last 30 odd years, and right now it looks like, globally, we may be entering a decade of depression- but that's my glass half empty view.

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Originally Posted by blackchubby38

Have you gotten called a racist yet because you disagree with the notion that all cops are bad?

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I do think that while occasionally you will find someone call someone bigoted in bad faith, often reckless accusations are a good barometer for how many people within a group feel their viewpoint and experience is not well understood. So while I'm not defending someone saying a person is racist for not agreeing all cops are bad, I think it comes from a place of anger and frustration rather than malice. There is also the suspicion that some people are only offering a placating response that defers a solution and that urgency is needed. Urgency may be needed but the response still needs to be calibrated.

If all cops are bad, then one is bad by virtue of becoming a cop rather than because they've abused their authority. Yet I know there is a legitimate way for police to use their authority and protect vulnerable people. It's therefore also possible to recruit more people who are motivated by that mission than who seek to abuse their authority.

Yes I agree that De Blasio's statement is typically useless. I'm more interested in solutions that are based on ensuring ethical conduct, fairness which can be promoted through regulations, and opportunities for mobility. The last concern is promoted by education, healthcare, and a good social safety net.