The Sixth International
21.2.03
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal
... and that wouldn't be good, would it? Giving away money, even to worthy causes, might not be quite so exalted as the 'charity' Paul was thinking of. Still, it's not a bad thing.
One good destination for your surplus ducats is the Corrymeela Community. Corrymeela are, in their own words
people of all ages and Christian traditions, who, individually and together are committed to the healing of Social, Religious and Political divisions that exist in Northern Ireland and throughout the World.Put another way, Corrymeela is a rare gem in that cesspit of mutually-reinforcing idiocies that is Northern Ireland. So send them some money. If you have a CAF CharityCard, you may do this painlessly by clicking the icon on the left of the page. If you don't, well, be creative.
A start, at least
US troops are headed for the Philippines, reports the NYT (registration required). They're off to make things difficult for the Abu Sayyaf Islamist terrorist group.
One criticism advanced against the current US position on Iraq (by the French, among others; and here I think the French have a point) is that Iraq is a side-show compared with the war against Islamist terror. This engagement in the Philippines is a welcome sign, then.
Abu Sayyaf are not in al-Qaeda's league. They're small, essentially local, and for all their Islamist posturing they aren't much more than a kidnapping gang (albeit an especially vicious one). Still, this is an important step in the right direction.
The genetic factor: it's not black and white
Kevin Drum muses in CalPundit on athletic ability, asking
[D]o you think these underlying factors have any genetic component, or are they solely the result of coaching and training? And as a corollary, does that mean that the overall trait called "athletic ability" is also partly determined by genetics?Mr Drum warns us that there will be a test later. But why wait? The answers are, yes, these factors have a genetic component, and yes, athletic ability therefore has a genetic component. Coaching and training are also crucial to athletic success, of course. But train as hard as I may, I will never be able to bend it like Beckham. Training matters, but it builds on things like height, reaction speed, ratio of fast- to slow-twitch muscle fibre etc., that are determined largely if not exclusively by inheritance.
One might be puzzled why Mr Drum's questions should be controversial or even (given how obvious is their answer) interesting. One might be puzzled, that is, unless one had spent any time in the real world. For behind these innocent questions lurks the question of the alleged differences in ability (athletic, intellectual and otherwise) between races - and especially, between blacks and whites. Mr Drum is well aware of this, of course; he has linked to a post by Charles Murtaugh discussing more explicitly the question of 'racial differences', here primarily of intelligence.
Mr Murtaugh is frank about the reason well-meaning people become uneasy when this topic arises:
[P]eople with an unhealthy obsession about the intellectual capacity of blacks tended to be those most interested in the genetic basis of intelligence.Yes, and those obsessed with blacks' alleged intellectual inferiority are often as obsessed with their alleged athletic superiority as well. ('Not terribly clever, the poor things, but they're very good at games!") And these aren't the only 'racial differences' obsessing them. J. Philippe Rushton, for instance, is keenly interested in racial variations in penis size; see, e.g., Rushton & Bogaert 1987, reproduced here. Their paper is not entirely hooey; r and K reproductive strategies are well-established concepts in population biology. But R&B do put these concepts through some, emm, unusual paces. The data for the paper were compiled from Kinsey Institute archives, but Rushton has also employed more exciting investigative methods, as Jim Naureckas describes in this FAIR article on Herrnstein & Murray's The Bell Curve (look for the bit about the shopping mall).
It's difficult (for me, at any rate) to accept the protestations of people like Murray and Rushton that they are not racists. (As the magnificent Leon Wieseltier wrote in a TNR article that seems, alas, to be unavailable over the web*, Herrnstein had died by the time The Bell Curve was published, and de mortuis nihil etc.) Most people who aren't racists fear, I believe, that they will be tarred with the same brush for merely entertaining openly the possibility of genetically-based differences in human abilities (some abilities, anyway). That's a big part of the taboo on such topics.
This is unfortunate, as Mr Murtaugh notes:
[I]f intelligence was quantifiable and heritable, it could be distributed differently between whites and blacks, and this could back up racist claims about superiority and inferiority. Still, though, granting the ugliness of some participants' motives shouldn't suffice to end the discussion.It's also unnecessary. To boil a discussion of variable genetic factors in physical and mental ability down to differences in 'race' is a grotesque oversimplification. Mr Murtaugh refers to studies suggesting that some have gone too far in arguing that 'there's no such thing as race.' This might well be so. Still, in this context racial categories are an overly broad and extremely superficial sort of pigeonholing.
To assert that blacks are, for genetic reasons, better athletes begs the question that 'blacks' constitute a discrete and unified gene pool. (It also assumes that athletic talent and high melanin levels are determined by the same gene or suite of genes.) Even recognising that there might be something to the 'there is too such a thing as race' studies to which Mr Murtaugh cites, our handful of rough racial categories is a poor indicator of genetic make-up. There is greater genetic variation in sub-Saharan Africa than there is in the rest of the world taken together; there is greater genetic variation within populations than between them. (See, e.g., T.R. Disotell's November 2000 opinion piece in Genome Biology, and hunt down his references 12 through 19 if you're really ambitious.)
Genes do play a key role in determining intelligence, athletic prowess and many other forms of human performance ability (or more accurately, performance potential). These abilities are manifestly variable. To the extent these variations are genetic, they are necessarily heritable. The precise role of genetic variation in human performance is emphatically a legitimate field of study. Those interested in pursuing it may easily avoid the risk of being lumped in with Murray, Rushton & Co. by focussing on differences in genes rather than on groups of gene-bearers too broad to be useful for their purpose.
* So treat yourself to his latest instead. Nothing to do with the above, but a good way to spend your time for all that.
Strange signs are seen in the skies...
... and calves are born with two heads. Whatever can the world be coming to? Comrades Harry Steele and Stephen Pollard (well, 'comrade' might be a bit strong, but Pollard is still Labour) applaud Ken Livingstone for stealing a leaf from Milton Friedman; whilst the true-blue tories at the Edge of England's Sword are popping their gaskets at the notion.
This suggests a promising new tactic for the 6thInt AgitProp Section. What we need to do now is co-opt a few Unreconstructed Leftists to start singing the praises of corporal punishment, the efficient capital markets theory and the herditary peerage. The confusion in the Conservative ranks should be an entertaining spectacle.
UPDATE: Harry tells me that he was not joining Mr Pollard in applauding the 'Friedmanesque' nature of the congestion charge; he was merely linking to Pollard's post, nothing more. (Harry reports; you decide.) Reports of the emergence of a New Monetarist Left may be premature.
20.2.03
As Voltaire once said...
Never let it be said that The Sixth International knows not humility.
Some weeks ago, on a random walk through cyberspace, we stumbled upon Peter Cuthbertson's Conservative Commentary. The dedicated cadres of the 6thInt vanguard didn't spend more than a few moments with Mr Cuthbertson's conservative comments. Tell the truth and shame the Devil: they were probably put off by the mere name of the blog. (Though the Ideological Section have approved a good many positions that conservatives might share, the 6thInt is emphatically not conservative.)
But we did stick around long enough to enjoy the following gems:
Just how much longer can these liberal idiots hold up their permissive society as a success?and
I am normally a defender of taboos, seeing them and the traditions they uphold as generally containing an inherited wisdom that people alive today alone cannot match.On this basis, we had Mr Cuthbertson taped as an apoplectic retired major in Bournemouth, fuming into the aether (with the help of his grandson, perhaps, to push those baffling buttons that make the old man's words appear on the strange glowing box).
A foolish and premature judgement, of course. As a more recent and rather longer visit revealed, Mr Cuthbertson is young enough to be the grandson. (Of course he is; that should have been obvious from the start.) He is also intellectually curious enough to profit from an extensive reading of Richard Dawkins, and intellectually independent enough not to let Dawkins cow him into thinking atheism an inescapable conclusion. (Though he might note that Dawkins, who has written that experts can go badly astray when wandering outside the area of their expertise, might have taken his own advice in writing about trial by jury.) True, Mr Cuthbertson finds the Free Republic 'great' and thinks Ann Coulter worth listening to. But then, he is young after all; he has time.
As a token of our regret at having initially dismissed him out of hand, then, we have added Mr Cuthbertson to the roll of Blogs Approved for the Struggling Masses. (You'll find this - where else? - to the left.) So have a look at him. He's far from a dolt, sometimes has insightful things to say, and will provide you a healthy cathartic feeling of outrage when he doesn't.
UPDATE: Today Mr Cuthbertson writes:
I don't quite know who Vanessa Redgrave isAh yes; Mr Cuthbertson is young indeed (the 6thInt Central Committee feel a veritable gerontocracy by comparison). Well, Peter, she's a splendid example for Dawkins's warning about people highly gifted in one field making complete asses of themselves in another. (21.2.02.)
18.2.03
London's congestion charge: sin tax?
What looks to be shaping into a long debate on the new London congestion charge is on at Iain Murray's Edge of England's Sword. I'm afraid I've helped add to its length. Though I don't think much of the system's execution, I do like the basic idea behind it. I view it as a sort of environmental tax, shifting at least some of the costs generated by drivers back onto the drivers themselves.
One of the other readers jamming Iain's comments server doesn't like the charge. He thinks there's no difference between an environmental tax and a sin tax, and doesn't like either. I won't quote him, as I haven't asked his permission to do so (he might be deemed to have consented to being quoted on Iain's blog, but certainly not on this one). I think it's fair to paraphrase some of what he said, though, as his objections are, I think, objections that might generally be raised - reasonably, but (to my mind) incorrectly.
1. There's no difference between a sin tax and an environmental tax. But of course there is. I would describe a sin tax as a tax that makes a behaviour more costly in order to discourage it, full stop. It is in the first place social engineering, not a revenue source (though of course the state won't spurn any revenue the tax does generate). An environmental tax - and that is how I regard the congestion charge - isn't quite the same thing.
True, the congestion charge does increase the incentive to refrain from driving. But any cost added, for any reason, is an additional disincentive, even if not imposed with disincentive intent. In imposing an additional new �5 charge on a bottle of whisky, the state hopes that fewer people will drink. It does so because it thinks drinking whisky bad (drinkers have poorer health, get in more fights, make awful choices in singles bars, etc.). The badness inheres in the drink's effects on individuals. The state would like to stop every individual drinking (or at least reduce consumption), but it knows there is no way to do this short of prohibition (and that doesn't work either). So it says, 'Well, at �5 more per bottle, at least a fair number will stop.' In imposing the congestion charge, by contrast, the state doesn't care about any individual driver. It wishes to achieve optimum traffic volume - i.e., no more drivers at peak periods than the roads system can reasonably manage.
At bottom, the difference between the two is this: the sin tax is levied on private goods, the environmental tax on a common resource. If I buy a bottle of whisky, then I impair your ability to enjoy only that one bottle. You can go buy another; there's no way I can impair other peoples' enjoyment of every bottle of whisky (if I tried, my liver would give out soon after I started). Once a certain traffic volume is exceeded, on the other hand, every driver impairs every other driver's ability to enjoy the roads. In the extreme case of mass gridlock, no driver can drive at all.
2. Sin/Environmental taxes aren't markets. The commentator's statement is not as silly as that brief paraphrase makes it sound, of course. His point is that, while sin taxes, environmental taxes and markets all have (among other things) a rationing effect, the taxes fail to do one very important thing that a market does. And he thinks that thing is transferring money from consumers to producers.
He's correct until that last sentence. I can certainly think of markets that don't transfer money from consumers to producers; the stock market, for one. A company floating shares does get money from investors, of course. But the secondary market is by far the largest part of the stock market, and issuers never see a penny from that sort of trading. Markets often do transfer money from consumers to producers, but that is not essential. More important is that a market (given a few basic prerequisites) allocates resources to those who value them most and can use them most efficiently.
The commentator complains that revenue from environmental taxes doesn't flow to people who produce clean air. Well, nobody produces clean air, unless they are a tree. (And noted environmental alarmist Ronald Reagan wasn't even so sure about the trees.) People produce polluted air, and nothing is going to change that. But without an environmental tax or some other corrective, those people won't bear the costs of the pollution they cause. An environmental tax can do two things. First, it can shove some of the costs the pollution creates back onto the polluter. Secondly, it can provide an incentive, if not to 'create clean air', then at least to create somewhat less-polluted air. Revenue from the congestion charge doesn't go to non-drivers. But it does go (at least, it is supposed to go) to improve public transport, which could reduce demand on the roads system. And it isn't the body of taxpayers as a whole who must stump up the money for these improvements; it those whose driving imposes the costs to begin with. It is on this point that I find the commentator's objections to environmental taxes most difficult to follow. It seems almost as though he is upset that free riders be deprived of their mounts.
For all that, it's true that a tax is not the same thing as a market. That's why I like the idea of encouraging markets to develop in the environmental field. Taxes on polluters are a good idea. They're even better when levied in the form of tradable permits or vouchers. A firm that pollutes only slightly not only saves money, it can make money by selling its excess vouchers to firms less successful at reducing pollution levels. Thus it would cost a heavy polluter more to do business than a light polluter; and it should cost the heavy polluter more. In the same way, I'd like to see the congestion charge so structured that those who drive less can sell 'excess' driving capacity to those who can't reduce their driving (or, put another way, who put a higher value on driving).
3. There's no assurance that congestion charge revenue will be used to improve public transport. Yes, that's very true. Something like this, I understand, has happened in America. Some states there impose heavy cigarette taxes, the idea being to shift at least part of the public cost of treating smoking-related illness back onto the smokers themselves, while also raising funds for anti-smoking education. This plan is at least defensible, even if one ultimately doesn't agree it's the best idea. It's a sin tax, not an environmental tax, but the cost-shifting function is - or should be - common to be both. Now, however, some states are relying on cigarette tax revenue for general purposes. To this extent, it's just another tax, and one far less defensible.
It's always possible that revenue from the congestion charge won't go to public transport but merely be used for general purposes. And, if this happens, the temptation would be to lose sight of the charge's purpose and treat it like any ordinary tax because, hey, there'll always be traffic, won't there? But that is not a flaw of the congestion charge system. It is merely a question of political accountability.
17.2.03
Kelly on Fischer: an update
Last week I commented on Michael Kelly's use of points from a Paul Berman article on Joschka Fischer. My comments were to the effect that Kelly, in borrowing from Berman's piece, was (at best) incompetent or (worse) dishonest.
Now Berman has weighed in to say, in Slate, that he's not too happy with Kelly himself.
Ami stay put?
I am not certain what to think about this story from the Observer. On the one hand, redeployment of US forces currently in Germany does make sense (and this has been happening anyway since the fall of the Wall). I'm not so sure, though, about all this [cue ominous Darth Vader breathing sounds] 'We shall damage the German economy' stuff.
I hope this is all a matter of Donald Rumsfeld (revealing a bone-dry sense of mischief) having a little fun blowing smoke up Herr Schr�der's skirt. If not, I fear I must scratch my head a bit. Under the circumstances, the US has been better at trying to build a multilateral coalition than many are willing to credit. If Rumsfeld is serious, he has now more or less blown all that good work to hell. ' We are asking all our valued, independent allies to join with us freely in a coalition of the willing, because if they don't, we'll crush them like bugs.'
Tragedians of the Commons
On Friday I posed the question below to Iain Murray and, when I visited his Edge of England's Sword this morning, the shires were full-throatedly a-baying. A few commentators seemed simply unable to find anything positive in anything Red Ken thought up. More, though, thought the congestion charge fails to do what economists who like this sort of thing think this sort of thing should do. (And one didn't trust Ken to use the proceeds wisely.)
I'm on record as liking the basic idea. It corrects, at least mildly, for the distortions caused by roads being a public good. And it will presumably reduce congestion to some degree (e.g., some drivers might say, 'I'll walk, and spend the �5 on cigarettes; smoking is, after all, so much healthier than sitting stuck in traffic'). Still, I think it unhelpfully crude in concept and execution.
One thing that might improve the system - though it might take a while to accumulate the information necessary to do this - would be to set differing prices for access at different times. Assume that the goal is to have the traffic burden at any given time be, at maximum, the greatest load the grid can bear while maintaining a reasonably free flow. Let's call this volume of traffic X. At any given time, the price of road access should be high enough that traffic volume does not exceed X. (I am talking in broad abstract terms. It's probably neither possible nor necessary to achieve precise control.) On the other hand, the price should not be so high that volume is less than X at times when volume without the congestion charge would equal or exceed X. But that ideal price is not likely to be static. Once there is sufficient information to make an intelligent approximation of the 'correct' price at difefrent times, could not a tariff be published telling people what they will pay for driving at such-and-such a time, and how much they would save by driving at some other time instead? To make this work, instead of paying a flat charge, one would consume Driving Units (to suggest a madly imaginative term); these would tick over at a faster rate at times of heavier volumes; more slowly when volume was less, not at all during off-hours. Such a system could greatly refine the current, crudely binary current system, which distinguishes only between those who are willing to pay five quid to drive and those who aren't.
I don't think this would this more differentiated system could work where monitoring is a matter of cameras recording licence plates. But cameras are rather primitive. New Yorkers have little boxes that they can load up with electronic 'cash'; driving over a bridge or through a tunnel automatically deducts the proper charge. True, the New York devices are used for a rather different purpose, but there's no reason they couldn't be used for the congestion charge, and they might easily be calibrated to assess a variable charge. The crowd over at Samizdata would doubtless howl about devices that could be subverted to allow Them to know where one was driving - and I imagine this would be a pretty simple matter, technically - but for those who fear monitoring by the Ministry of Truth, as well as those simply visiting for the day, one could purchase (for example) a flat-rate tag of some sort for access by the day. (No variable price possible with that, of course.)
Another thought. Would it be a good idea to give local people 'vouchers' entitling them to some limited amount of 'free' Driving Units? This might look like rationing, but that's not the intention. Rather, it's a bit like the Earned Income Credit in the USA (a sort of 'negative' income tax providing poor people with an incentive to work rather seek benefits). Here the positive 'discrimination' would be based not on income but on location; it would recognise that some people, because of where they live, might be disproportionately affected.
Finally, if there is some sort of voucher system, it would be possible to establish a 'market' for excess Driving Units. Let's say that, because of where I live, I'm entitled to a certain number of free Driving Units per month, but I don't drive much. The fellow next door drives a lot. Wouldn't it make sense for him to be able to buy up the Units I don't need at some price below the official rate? It would be more efficient to have some sort of exchange for this; though I wouldn't know how to begin setting one up myself, I can't think it would be an insurmountable technical problem.
