As pessimistic as I am about our long-term outlook as a nation, culture, and species, every once in a while I hear something that gives me a little hope:
Dad, the world is full of amazing things… And I want to see all of them.
(My daughter after spending some time investigating a tide pool.)
Brad DeLong sends us to Rethinking the Social Contract. An excerpt:
What is the “social contract,” and what political message does it convey?
The social contract is an implicit understanding between people and the society in which they live about how society should be organized, how benefits are distributed, and how shared responsibilities are defined for all citizens. The beauty of the social contract is that it conveys many messages, not a singular one. It conveys the message of shared decisionmaking, but equally it conveys a political message of accountability and responsibility.
So, for example, a very liberal interpretation of the social contract is one that Rousseau talked about, in which society organizes itself according to the expectations that people have for human flourishing. Alternatively, the old Hobbesian social contract conveyed a political message of limited rights and freedoms. So, both the beauty and the frustration of using social-contract speak is that it can convey political messages across the entire spectrum, from the most conservative to the most progressive.
The whole interview is worth reading.
“A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants a shade tree under which he knows full well he will never sit.”
Bruce Springsteen wrote “Hungry Heart” for The Ramones.
(I’m trying to imagine it. I think it would’ve worked.)
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumble puppy.
– Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death
The liberal case for limited government:
The policy judgement that you shouldn’t have too much detailed government intervention [in the economy] mainly reflects an appreciation for imperfect government, not faith in perfect markets.
– Paul Krugman paraphrasing Robert Waldmann
From Dougald Hine, What do you do, after you stop pretending?:
‘Changing the world’ has become an anachronism: the world is changing so fast, the best we can do is to become a little more observant, more agile, better able to move with it or to spot the places where a subtle shift may set something on a less-worse course than it was on. And you know, that’s OK – because what makes life worth living was never striving for, let alone reaching, utopias.
There’s a big difference between the task of trying to sustain “civilisation” in its current form … which is what “sustainability” has largely come to mean, and the task of holding open a space for the things which make life worth living. I’d suggest that it’s this second task, in its many forms, which remains, after we’ve given up on false hopes.
Hefeweizen.
It’s important to understand that recessions can have many different causes, and the optimal response from policymakers depends critically on the type of recession that occurs. Recessions can be caused by oil price shocks, Fed-induced interest rate spikes, a fall in business and consumer confidence, a drop in productivity, housing bubbles, financial meltdowns and other factors that cause either a reduction in aggregate demand or supply.
And the correct policy response after, say, an oil price shock is very different from the policy needed to respond to fall in business and consumer confidence.
From Alexandra Morris, Summertime Blues: Pesticide-Laden Strawberries And Your Health:
Homeowners use up to 10 times more pesticides (including chemicals like Roundup, but that’s another story) per acre on their lawns than farmers use on crops, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.