Balkinization  

Monday, June 18, 2018

The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

Sandy Levinson

I mentioned in a previous post some of my reactions to Patrick Deneen's interesting book Why Liberalism Failed.  I noted that many of his arguments are evocative of earlier critiques of liberalism written in the 1960s and early '70s.  One of the most important of those critiques was Daniel Bell's "The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism."  As Marx had noted, one effect of capitalism was to disrupt settled societies, to "make all that is solid melt into air."  The decidedly anti-Marxist Joseph Schumpeter emphasized the importance of "creative destruction" in the capitalist project, i.e., to destroy existing industries and the communities that might have been based upon them upon the discovery of new and better mousetraps.  Although it is not my primary interest in this post, I do note a story in today's New York Times that emphasizes, altogether accurately, the extent to which  Donald Trump is engaging in the political economy of nostalgia, trying to restore industries, most obviously the coal industry, that will never ever make a come back because it has in fact been creatively destroyed by other sources of energy.  Texas, for example, is now the largest source of wind power in the US, and one finds very few Texans, other than the hapless Rick Perry, who believes that valuable dollars should be wasted on trying to revive a dying coal industry.  One might make much the same argument about steel.  But, as I say, that's not the primary focus of this comment.

Instead, I am completely fascinated by the column in Friday's Wall Street Journal, part of its regular series "Houses of Worship," on various religions in America.  The Journal, of course, is to be commended for taking an interest in American religious communities.  This weeks column, by Kim Woodward Osterholzer, is about "Faith and Family Among the Amish."  She herself is a home-birth midwife, now living in Colorado, having earlier lived for nine years in the Amish country in Pennsylvania.  She scarcely presents an attractive picture of the Amish; it is very different, for example, from the high-romanticism offered by Chief Justice Burger in Yoder.  Thus she writes that she "found barely functional homes filled with a bustling, Spartan folk wearing patched and sweat-stined clothes.  I was taken aback by the rough hands, the weather-battered faces, the round and weary shoulders, the bare and blackened feet, the swollen ankles, and the legs stranger with bulging veins.  I glanced when I saw how many young families lived in barns, shed and the basements of partly constructed homes....  I learned to regard with nonchalance the rolls of flypaper that dangled from the ceilings.  After a while, I hardly noticed the mice scampering under doors and along the edges of baseboards,,,, "  She also describes herself as "unfazed by the severity of the religion," which is structured around following the Ordnung, as interpreted by a bishop and two local ministers, "who are selected by lottery and serve for life while keeping their day jobs."  Perhaps needless to say, "women are never allowed to preach."

Lest one think that the column is a criticism of this completely totalitarian enclave of those who might be described by the unsympathetic as religious fanatics, the author in fact ends up with a tribute to what she saw.  "The Amish are a God-fearing, family-centered people.  They work hard, but they also relax and play.  Their lives are so untarnished by the broader culture that to be with them is refreshing...  The fruit of the Amish way i\of life is that it keeps its people better focused on what truly matters--faith and family.  They intimately understand the resilience and fragility of life and the certainty of death.  It keeps them close to the earth, in sync with its rhythms.  Whenever I departed from a visit, I would ask myself:  Do we really need the fear of hell driving us before we can make time to be with one another and enjoy the magnificent world God created for us?"  I suspect that one might find some similar elegies about some Hasidic Jews, who equally withdraw from the world and do everything they can to make sure that their children are indoctrinated into the ostensible virtues of the integral community and rendered basically unfit to exist in the outside world.

Deneen is Catholic, so I doubt that he would be completely taken with these descendants of German Anabaptists.  But they do instantiate the kind of small integral communities whose destruction by liberalism--defined either as the strong consolidated state favored by contemporary progressives or the buccaneer capitalism embraced by libertarians--he laments and seemingly wishes to return to.  There is an obvious problem, though.  If a significant number of Americans were persuaded even that milder versions of Amish austerity were desirable, American capitalism would collapse.  The Wall Street Journal devotes itself to covering those whose lives are devoted to extending the reach of capitalism, including, all importantly, the consumer-oriented societies that define success as owning the next big thing, whether the latest number IPhone or expensive watches or whatever.

I suspect that the Wall Street Journal would be hesitant to open its columns to serious hippies, assuming any are left, who call for the rejection of consumption in favor of the simple life.  Ordinary radicals, who might believe that everyone deserves an equal opportunity to buy Mercedes etc. are far less dangerous to the overall capitalist ethos than someone who preaches the virtue of asceticism, as do the Amish.  So why do they publish the column, and its conclusion?  I suspect it is because they recognize that almost literally none of their readers are likely to find asceticism a genuine virtue.  The Amish play the function of exotic animals at the zoo.  We can feel better about ourselves for tolerating them, but only so long as they do not in fact present a genuine threat to a society built on almost everything the Amish reject.

But Bell wasn't really concerned about the Amish. Rather, he noted that capitalism depends on the destruction, creative or otherwise, of existing ways of life.  My home town of Hendersonville, North Carolina is now a quaint tourist town instead of a community of local small businesses, etc, (where I worked when I was growing up, beginning when I was a ten-year old), because of Walmart, etc.  Donald Trump promises to restore communities in West Virginia and Kentucky that were built around coal, or Gary, Indiana, built around steel.  But, tellingly, he isn' promising to go after Walmart and other denizens of modern American capitalism that have destroyed many small communities.  (Nor do I necessarily think he should.  That, too, is the topic for other conversations.)

The Journal instantiates the most bizarre feature of the contemporary Right, i.e., the alliance between religious conservatives, many of whom genuinely yearn for community, and the agents of American capitalism who are completely and utterly indifferent about the consequences of their prosperity.  Think only of Facebook in this regard.  And, of course, the Journal adamantly supports the further destruction of labor unions, a destruction accurately credited by Stephen Brill in his own book Tail  Spin, as one of the sources of American decline over the past half century.  Opioids and suicide are genuine problems of public health, and they are in part a response to the "creative destruction" of modern capitalism.   





Comments:

The defeat of coal by, of all things, wind power, is anything but capitalism’s creative destruction. It is, rather, a symptom of the degree to which we no longer have a classic free market economy. You’re talking about an energy source that is winning because it is subsidized, not because it is superior.

This isn’t to say that coal would be triumphant in a free market. But it wouldn’t be displaced by wind, or some other subsidized energy source utilities don’t even have a choice about buying. I write this from Germany, (I’m on a business trip.) where windmills are all over the place. And is it because they’re a superior source of energy? No, it’s because the utilities are mandated to buy it, even as utility bills soar. With every new windmill things get worse, not better.

This isn’t the creative destruction of a free market, it’s the ordinary destruction of an unfree one.
 

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I was recommended this blog by my cousin. I don't know whether this post is composed by him as no one else know such nitty gritty about my trouble. You are awesome! Much appreciated!
 

Brett's tilting at windmills in the manner of Trump as Don Quixote. Check out:

http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-literally-tilting-windmills-long-fight-explained-620066

"Donald Trump Tilting at Windmills: A Long Fight, Explained"
By Tim Marcin On 6/3/17

Brett laments " ... we no longer have a classic free market economy." Does Brett want to have us go back to whenever that existed?

Before there was coal, there was peat. And peat is plentiful today throughout much of the world.

Regarding Sandy's comments on the Amish community, who can forget Harrison Ford in "Witness" that informed many of us about that community, but in more attractive terms than the midwife's description.

Brett's living in the past alongside SPAM on economics. Perhaps Brett might imagine the logistics of his business trip to Germany in those good old days he longs for. For Brett, a faithful Pancho, Trump provides the DeLorean to "a classic free market economy" but with "clean coal."

Let me hazard a guess as to Brett's business trip: Selling coal to Newcastle (Ruhr Valley)?


 

Brett is now internationally stalking Sandy.
 

Trump competes with Schumpeter's "creative destruction" with his "destructive creationism" backed by his base of the Forgotten and the Revengelicals (FKA Evangelicals).

The history of the world displays change, continuing change, as the cast changes. "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off" is no solution to what the changing cast faces. Give a listen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgqVCJpRqWQ

to "How Ya Gonna Keep Them Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Paree)" a WW I song about creative destruction of the family farm.

Reminds me how Brett used to "pull radishes" as a youngster in completion with Mexican farm laborers in northern Michigan and has turned into an international traveler.


 

Sandy: The Journal instantiates the most bizarre feature of the contemporary Right, i.e., the alliance between religious conservatives, many of whom genuinely yearn for community, and the agents of American capitalism who are completely and utterly indifferent about the consequences of their prosperity.

In a free nation where people live as they please so long as they do not harm one another, nothing prevents the Amish, other religious traditionalists, free market entrepreneurs and their customers from forming their own communities of interest. In this way, cultural opposites can peacefully coincide with one another.

Reagan's success was his ability to convince disparate groups like economic libertarians, religious traditionalists and blue collar workers all of their interests were best served by living in freedom with a limited government.

As Marx had noted, one effect of capitalism was to disrupt settled societies, to "make all that is solid melt into air." The decidedly anti-Marxist Joseph Schumpeter emphasized the importance of "creative destruction" in the capitalist project, i.e., to destroy existing industries and the communities that might have been based upon them upon the discovery of new and better mousetraps.

A free people are also at liberty to change the goods and services which they produce and consume or the communities of interest in which they choose to belong.

One of the most important of those critiques was Daniel Bell's "The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism."

From the book blurb, Bell's flawed thesis is "capitalism—and the culture it creates—harbors the seeds of its own downfall by creating a need among successful people for personal gratification—a need that corrodes the work ethic that led to their success in the first place."

The fallacy in this thesis is a free market rewards deferred gratification with economic success and punishes any move toward personal gratification with relative failure, so incentives ensure the former will never give way to the latter. Social creative destruction exemplified.

 

Sandy: Donald Trump is engaging in the political economy of nostalgia, trying to restore industries, most obviously the coal industry, that will never ever make a come back because it has in fact been creatively destroyed by other sources of energy.

For the most part, solar and wind power would not even exist in a free market because it is almost always more expensive than every other energy alternative - including coal. These expensive power sources are only consequential because government steals our tax money to subsidize their production in one of the most egregious examples of corporate welfare and then commands us to buy the product.

In what is left of the free market for energy, coal may indeed still give way to cheaper and cleaner natural gas in an example of true creative destruction, no thanks to a progressive government which sought to eliminate natural gas and other fossil fuel production, first under a Cap & Tax plan so radical even a Democrat government refused to enact it and then by regulatory assault by our absolute bureaucracy pursuant to an "executive agreement" to a treaty never submitted to the Senate to become law.
 

Brett didn't cite any source for his claim that coal is cheaper than wind. This chart from the Wikipedia page says that in fact onshore wind is cheaper. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#/media/File:Projected_LCOE_in_the_U.S._by_2020_(as_of_2015).png
 

Mark:

Government official figures concerning favored "green energy" are as fudged as Soviet official figures concerning five year plans.

These figures do not come close to measuring all the various costs of relying on unreliable wind energy:

http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/the-hidden-costs-of-wind-power/

 

My conception of the free market includes the regulation of externalities. Me building a factory next to your farm and making tons of money while polluting your groundwater is not the free market.

Once externalities are considered coal was doomed to be supplanted.
 

“This chart from the Wikipedia page says that in fact onshore wind is cheaper. “

Mark, if wind really were cheaper, it wouldn’t need the subsidies and mandates. Anyway, your own reference notes that the metric you’re touting has problems, such as not taking into account the need for intermittent energy sources to have more conventional sources sitting idle, ready to take their place.

That’s a MAJOR factor. The utilities will not voluntarily purchase power, no matter how cheap, if they have no control over when they get it. That’s why they have to be forced to buy wind power in most places. Because they have to have regular power plants sitting idle, ready to take up the slack if the wind stops blowing. A major cost of wind that chart admittedly omits.

I’d love to see coal gone, it’s a filthy source of energy. But replacing it with something unreliable as wind is a step backwards.
 

The Wiki article accounts for subsidies and the negative externalities of coal (which are subsidies if not priced).

The "regular power plants" for backup don't need to be coal.

The evidence pretty strongly demonstrates that wind is cheaper.
 

Bart says Mark's government numbers are fishy and then pulls out a four day old sun dried mackerel citing the Institute for Energy Institute, basically a fossil fuel energy front.

"our absolute bureaucracy"

There is no absolute bureaucracy. Absolute means "not qualified or diminished in any way; total" and our federal bureaucracy as had its directives overturned by courts, Congress and different executives many times. Who should trust a person with such a bad knowledge of basic English word definitions for something like energy analysis?
 

"we no longer have a classic free market economy"

When was this golden age? When wasn't there subsidies?

Coal is a dirty means of energy that causes various problems over history from its extraction to usage. When we determine what is "superior," these are some of things to take into consideration. Other usages of energy logically was used & "wind power" isn't the only thing (to the degree it has occurred) that "defeated" it.

I'm not an expert at energy cultivation myself so will leave to others, including the democratic forces that continue the wind power in Germany, to formulate policy. For instance, a quick check suggests a nuclear accident in Japan was a major factor. Anyway, the concern for the "free market" is a pivot from "democracy," which pops up selectively.
 

"if wind really were cheaper, it wouldn’t need the subsidies and mandates"

But coal and oil get plenty of subsidy themselves.

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/10/6/16428458/us-energy-subsidies

 

Dilan:My conception of the free market includes the regulation of externalities. Me building a factory next to your farm and making tons of money while polluting your groundwater is not the free market. Once externalities are considered coal was doomed to be supplanted.

The government is free to bring suit to halt specific public nuisances. Of course, this requires offering substantial evidence of actual harm.

Instead, the absolute bureaucracy takes the easier path of generating "studies" of tenuous correlations and assumptions of harm, which are then offered as actual proof of causation to justify comprehensive regulations. For example, the Obama bureaucracy coal regs assumed coal particulates above some minuscule level caused some tens of thousands of adverse health events per year, but cannot identify a single person so afflicted.


 

"The fallacy in this thesis is a free market rewards deferred gratification with economic success and punishes any move toward personal gratification with relative failure"

This is nonsense. In a free (from help) market those who happen to be born into money have a ton of padding/parachute to live large without suffering any real consequence, as Veblen described over a century ago conspicuous consumption abounds. Paris Hilton can afford to make sex tapes and snort coke all day and night and suffer no consequences in a way that no middle or lower class person could.
 

Mr. W: Bart says Mark's government numbers are fishy and then pulls out a four day old sun dried mackerel citing the Institute for Energy Institute, basically a fossil fuel energy front.

Your second favorite logical fallacy is attacking the messenger.

If patronage by interested parties makes the resulting argument inadmissible, then you should reject the work of anyone receiving part of the billions of dollars in annual subsidies of interested governments.
 

Anyway, to the main post ...

"he noted that capitalism depends on the destruction, creative or otherwise, of existing ways of life"

Any alternative of capitalism also very well can "depend on the destruction" or even prevention of creation, of ways of life. Capitalism helps protect ways of life too, and in another society, having Amish outposts might be much less likely. Of course, any pure system has problems, any capitalism never came in truly "pure" form, even in the Gilded Era. The big support business had in that era is known by historians and things like direct election of senators came in part to lesser the special privileges.

This is a general principle. There is a book on my list (by a person of a religious background), e.g., of the destructive nature of the rise of Christianity.

I do think there is a problem if one of long tenure regarding a "political economy of nostalgia," one where some things about this past era are left unsaid. Sandy Levinson (in his 70s and from the segregationist South) and Shag (80s from the Depression Era) both know the limits of nostalgia.

 

Bart doesn't realize it, but his last comment is the textbook reason of why regulation is necessary to combat public harms (that involve trespass on property and bodily harm) that common law torts would have trouble combating. When many polluters produce individually small but cumulatively harmful trespasses, when, which added to other present factors increases risk for harms, it's difficult and impractical for individual potential plaintiffs to rectify the situation via traditional common law tort, but only a fool would allow the widespread harms verified in study after study because of an aversion to regulation.
 

"Your second favorite logical fallacy is attacking the messenger. "

Bart, it was you that first did this (go up and check the time stamps).

As is always the case with many ostensible libertarians, you'd like to hold government officials, research, etc., to a different, impossible standard. That's funny because, if anything, it's far superior (because of its higher transparency, having to contend with different administrations, civil service protections, etc).
 

BD: "The fallacy in this thesis is a free market rewards deferred gratification with economic success and punishes any move toward personal gratification with relative failure"

Mr. W: This is nonsense. In a free (from help) market those who happen to be born into money have a ton of padding/parachute to live large without suffering any real consequence, as Veblen described over a century ago conspicuous consumption abounds.


If Brett invents the better mousetrap and defers his own gratification to create Brett's Mouse Trap, Inc., retires and turns the business over to his daughter, Brettina, then Brettina spends he profits on herself rather than in R&D to invent the next better mousetrap, the business will fail and Brettina will lose her fortune.

The class of truly wealthy churns constantly in creative destruction.
 

Mr. W: Bart doesn't realize it, but his last comment is the textbook reason of why regulation is necessary to combat public harms (that involve trespass on property and bodily harm) that common law torts would have trouble combating. When many polluters produce individually small but cumulatively harmful trespasses, when, which added to other present factors increases risk for harms, it's difficult and impractical for individual potential plaintiffs to rectify the situation via traditional common law tort, but only a fool would allow the widespread harms verified in study after study because of an aversion to regulation.

The government or a private class are also free to bring suit against an industry for creating a public nuisances. What prevents this is generally a lack of evidence of actual harm.


 

Mr. W: As is always the case with many ostensible libertarians, you'd like to hold government officials, research, etc., to a different, impossible standard.

Impossible standards like a preponderance of evidence admissible in a court of law?
 

The more likely real world analog to your fairy tale is Brett has to sell his mousetrap to CEO Joe to pay for medical bills for Bretina's pre-existing condition, Bretina ends up working in Joe's son's casino, one of the ventures he inherited from dad.

"Impossible standards like a preponderance of evidence admissible in a court of law?"

You're confusing my/your comments/replies, mine about standards was about research data and results.
 

Googling America's richest families I found a list of 25 with such unheard of names of Hearst, DuPont, Rockefeller, etc., represented. There were relatively new ones in there, to be fair, but it's obvious that heavy accumulation of wealth protects scions for many generations.
 

Where does the fairy godmother come in here?


 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

BD: "Impossible standards like a preponderance of evidence admissible in a court of law?"

Mr. W: You're confusing my/your comments/replies, mine about standards was about research data and results.


So are mine.

The rules of evidence cover admissibility of expert testimony and research. See Rules 702 and 703, as well as Frye, Daubert and their progeny.


 

"the most bizarre feature of the contemporary Right, i.e., the alliance between religious conservatives, many of whom genuinely yearn for community, and the agents of American capitalism"

Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump by dissenting evangelical professor [one of the "19%"] John Fea should be pretty good.
 

Bart, I was referring to research/data re: Mark's vs. your fossil fuel shill's numbers on renewable energy, not a court case.
 

"bizarre feature of the contemporary Right, i.e., the alliance between religious conservatives, many of whom genuinely yearn for community, and the agents of American capitalism"

To me what's more interesting is the alliance between Trump's loud and proud 'uncouth' cadre (the kind that wear clothes saying 'f*ck your feelings') and those evangelicals. I think one service Trump has done is to totally discredit the so-called values voters who acted for so long like they wanted their candidates to act in traditionally moral ways (not have affairs or multiple marriages, not curse, etc.). It's glad to know those stands were actually just ostensible.
 

"Revengelicals (FKA Evangelicals)" has been my descriptive of this portion of Trump's base. Some may consider this too harsh. I had considered "Avengelicals," but did not think it carried the message as well.

Regarding court evidence of expert testimony and research, that takes place in an adversarial proceeding, the admissibility being determined by a judge who may have little scientific training, not by scientists. As to Daubert, etc, consider the use of forensic science in courts that is not very scientific.
 

Mr. W: Bart, I was referring to research/data re: Mark's vs. your fossil fuel shill's numbers on renewable energy, not a court case.

Is Wikipedia really the first place you stop for science?
 

Shag: Regarding court evidence of expert testimony and research, that takes place in an adversarial proceeding, the admissibility being determined by a judge who may have little scientific training, not by scientists.

In an adversarial proceeding, each side will offer their own scientists, who are subject to cross examination based on discussions with other scientists.

Far, far better method of arriving at the truth than a collection of bureaucrats negotiating "truth" with various political stakeholders to produce UN reports on climate change.
 

SPAM, as usual, is non responsive. Scientists are better judges of science than judges are of science. Is SPAM unaware that forensic science is not scientific yet admissible in courts post Daubert? Perhaps we can get into an extensive discussion on the lack of peer review when it comes to an attorney selecting a science expert in an adversarial proceeding. Have SPAM forgotten about tobacco litigation? It is the scientists who have presented overwhelming evidence on climate change to the world, with extensive peer review. Judges are to science as judges are to history (Heller, 5-4, 2008). Cross examination by an attorney is adversarial in a case between the parties and not involved in universality of science. But then again, SPAM is the leading DUI defense counsel in his rural CO community and obviously, when not plea-bargaining, extensively discusses with "other scientists" in preparation for his grueling cross examinations of expert testimony, scientific and otherwise. If an attorney needs expert testimony, he calls around various "expert witness bureaus" to find one that will support his case, not seeking a scientific consensus. Daubert was a helpful decision but its implementation has not been scientific, as in the case of forensic science.
 

Those interested in following up on the recent discussions on expert testimony in courts might check this:

https://wire.ama-assn.org/practice-management/court-ruling-expert-testimony-could-open-door-junk-science

"Court ruling on expert testimony could open door to junk science" Oct 20, 2017

and Google "Peer review of court testimony by a scientific expert" for more information.

The science on climate change is worldwide, not limited to admissibility determined by a judge in a case that generally impacts and is binding only on the parties.

Here's an interesting law review article at:

https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://r.search.aol.com/_ylt=AwrJ61csOipbQjMAuh1pCWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByNXM5bzY5BGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMzBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg--/RV=2/RE=1529522860/RO=10/RU=http%3a%2f%2fscholarship.law.missouri.edu%2fcgi%2fviewcontent.cgi%3farticle%3d3626%26context%3dmlr/RK=0/RS=_eKbRJ.eMAAqBMRHtV7PRQmzB1g-&httpsredir=1&article=3626&context=mlr

"Peer Dialogue: The Quagmire of ScientificExpert Testimony: Crumping the SupremeCourt's Style" Paul R. Rice (2003)


 

There are occasions when the court may engage an expert at the government's expense when the parties to a case before the court present significantly contrasting experts testimonies.

And keep in mind that an attorney planning to introduce testimony by an expert will address with the expert areas that he/she might be cross examined on that might challenge the expert's testimony. That's part of the adversarial system. Each side pays its own experts. Sometimes one must follow the money in court proceedings with dueling experts.
 

Regarding my designation of "Revengelicals (FKA Evangelicals)," check out:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/06/19/white-evangelicals-still-support-donald-trump-because-theyre-more-conservative-than-other-evangelicals-this-is-why/?utm_term=.e40e5337774f
 

"to totally discredit"

Optimist. Trump is a different level but the past had enough problem cases that were somehow explained away (plus like the mob used in the 1770s by some 'better sort' of people, the unpleasant voters could be used for their ends), that it isn't totally shocking. And, when the "enemy" is a type of anti-Christ, you take your "messiahs" (as a Persian king was called when he allowed the Jews to go back to their homeland) where you can. There might even be a sort of "ends of days" quality some appreciate.

In 2016, too few were willing to accept just how bad Trump was, willing to support him or at least not oppose him too much while spending lots of times on "but her emails" and stuff. For those unable to see by now that "value voters" (= conservative values of a certain type; liberals and others have values too) are to some degree a sham, Trump probably won't sudden lead them to see the light.
 

For example, the Obama bureaucracy coal regs assumed coal particulates above some minuscule level caused some tens of thousands of adverse health events per year, but cannot identify a single person so afflicted.

You don't really get statistics, do you?

If pollution from coal increases the rate of lung disease you often can't identify a specific individual whose illness was caused by that pollution. That doesn't mean that none were.

Oh. And Brett's apparent belief that fossil fuels, especially coal, have not been heavily subsidized by having their externalities ignored is ridiculous.
 

In an adversarial proceeding, each side will offer their own scientists, who are subject to cross examination based on discussions with other scientists.

Far, far better method of arriving at the truth than a collection of bureaucrats negotiating "truth" with various political stakeholders to produce UN reports on climate change.


No. It's not. An adversarial proceeding is a terrible way of arriving at scientific accuracy. Untrained jurors are supposed to evaluate competing scientific testimony? Really? You think that makes sense? It's absurd.

It's almost as absurd as advocating lawsuits as a sensible substitute for regulation.
 

“And Brett's apparent belief that fossil fuels, especially coal, have not been heavily subsidized by having their externalities ignored is ridiculous. “

What’s ridiculous is mistaking an attack on wind power for a defense of coal power.

While coal does at least meet the minimum requirements for a modern society’s power needs, (A decent EROEI, and dependability.) it’s both filthy and deadly. We need to be rid of it.

But that doesn’t mean we should replace it with something as uneconomical and unreliable as wind! We should replace it with something better, not worse.
 

Is Brett parting his obscene Trump lockstep with this:

" ... [coal is] both filthy and deadly. We need to be rid of it."

Even Trump's "clean coal," Brett? Did Brett express this concern with coal in his early comments?

Just how is wind worse that coal? Susidized? Ugly? Has Brett on his German business trip consulted with Germans on why they don't joust at their windmills as did Brett in his earlier comments.?

 

No Brett. Here is what you said:

It is, rather, a symptom of the degree to which we no longer have a classic free market economy. You’re talking about an energy source that is winning because it is subsidized, not because it is superior.

You attack wind power because it is subsidized, claiming we "no longer have a classic free market economy," yet don't bother to mention the heavy subsidies coal, and indeed oil, have received over many years, including not paying for their impact on public health or climate change.

Oh, and if you want a free market economy you might speak to your hero, Mr. Trump, about these tariffs, but I'm sure you've rationalized that away.
 

BD: For example, the Obama bureaucracy coal regs assumed coal particulates above some minuscule level caused some tens of thousands of adverse health events per year, but cannot identify a single person so afflicted.

byomtov: You don't really get statistics, do you? If pollution from coal increases the rate of lung disease you often can't identify a specific individual whose illness was caused by that pollution. That doesn't mean that none were.


I addressed this in the sentence which you omitted from my post: "Instead, the absolute bureaucracy takes the easier path of generating "studies" of tenuous correlations and assumptions of harm, which are then offered as actual proof of causation to justify comprehensive regulations."

To illustrate, the bureaucracy cannot cannot prove a direct correlation between a tiny measure of coal particulates and anyone's actual illness. Instead, EPA relies on computer models, which make undisclosed assumptions that third parties cannot verify, a fundamental violation of the scientific method.

The bureaucracy's "scientists" are up in arms against EPA director Pruitt's recent move to return the scientific method to his agency's "science."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/04/24/pruitt-to-unveil-controversial-transparency-rule-limiting-what-research-epa-can-use/?utm_term=.daf67d7f3d8d

Oh. And Brett's apparent belief that fossil fuels, especially coal, have not been heavily subsidized by having their externalities ignored is ridiculous.

A subsidy is the government stealing my tax money and providing it to a politically connected business.

Declining to fine or tax a business is not a subsidy.

BD: In an adversarial proceeding, each side will offer their own scientists, who are subject to cross examination based on discussions with other scientists. Far, far better method of arriving at the truth than a collection of bureaucrats negotiating "truth" with various political stakeholders to produce UN reports on climate change.

No. It's not.


You mean there is a worse method than bureaucracy's practice of negotiating "facts?" Science by "consensus" is thus inherently flawed.

An adversarial proceeding is a terrible way of arriving at scientific accuracy. Untrained jurors are supposed to evaluate competing scientific testimony? Really?

Scientific fact is not an epiphany made available by Gawd only to a priesthood of credentialed scientists. If a scientist cannot explain to a reasonably intelligent lay person how she arrived at her conclusions and defend these conclusions from the critiques of other scientists, the scientist is a fraud.

Bureaucrats do view themselves as a select priesthood who should by virtue of their credentialing rule by decree and react like vampires to holy water when required to justify their decrees, as noted above. These are the last people on Earth who should be deciding scientific fact or the policy of our Republic.
 

"Instead, the absolute bureaucracy takes the easier path of generating "studies" of tenuous correlations and assumptions of harm, which are then offered as actual proof of causation to justify comprehensive regulations."

Perhaps you'd care to provide some evidence for this.

To illustrate, the bureaucracy cannot cannot prove a direct correlation between a tiny measure of coal particulates and anyone's actual illness.

As I said, you don't get statistics. And not all correlations are "tenuous." It is partly because you can't prove a connection with one specific case that adversarial proceedings stink at this.

Instead, EPA relies on computer models, which make undisclosed assumptions that third parties cannot verify, a fundamental violation of the scientific method.

I think what they rely on is actual empirical data. Do they use statistical methods to analyze it? Why, yes. What else would you do?

Scientific fact is not an epiphany made available by Gawd only to a priesthood of credentialed scientists.

Not a priesthood, Bart, not nearly as much of a priesthood as the legal profession. Instead it's people who have spent their lives studying a topic. Guess what, they know more about it than you do, and it's often not that easy to explain to someone who hasn't put in at least some time studying the subject.

If a scientist cannot explain to a reasonably intelligent lay person how she arrived at her conclusions and defend these conclusions from the critiques of other scientists, the scientist is a fraud.

BS. Adversarial proceedings will feature opposing scientists. Are you saying one must be a fraud? And expecting jurors, not all of whom are that intelligent, to understand complex scientific arguments is nonsense. What they will go with is the witness who is more glib, who presents the simpler version, no matter how inaccurate, or else they will decide that one of the experts looks shifty or something.

Look, you make your living from adversarial proceedings. OK. So you defend them. But they are an extremely poor method for deciding a scientific dispute.

And by the way, when it comes to damage due to pollution, say, they are not only hopeless, they are wildly inefficient and absurdly expensive, except for the lawyers.
 

The bureaucracy's "scientists" are up in arms against EPA director Pruitt's recent move to return the scientific method to his agency's "science."

Why is scientists in quotes? Do you think they are phony scientists? Or is it just a random slur?

What they are up in arms about is excluding certain results from consideration because they are based on data that cannot be published, being based on confidential medical information. That excludes a tremendous amount of research on the health impacts of pollution. Greta for Pruitt, the polluters' best friend. Not so much for the rest of us. And Pruitt, your great champion of science, is kicking actual scientists off advisory boards in favor of industry shills. He may in time be recognized as one of the most destructive individuals ever to hold public office in the US. But hey, he's got that phone booth.

A subsidy is the government stealing my tax money and providing it to a politically connected business.

Declining to fine or tax a business is not a subsidy.


Declining to make a business pay for the resources it uses is certainly favorable treatment, and not at all in accord with free market principles. Letting a business pollute the air for free is stealing other people's clean air and providing it to a politically connected business. Stealing someone's health is pretty serious, I think. Read Coase.
 

BD: "Instead, the absolute bureaucracy takes the easier path of generating "studies" of tenuous correlations and assumptions of harm, which are then offered as actual proof of causation to justify comprehensive regulations."

byomtov: Perhaps you'd care to provide some evidence for this.


Sure, here is a perfect example

Observing both human CO2 emissions and atmospheric temperature have risen since the industrial Revolution, then based on this correlation, claiming as scientific fact the former caused the latter. Of course, this willfully ignores the facts this warming trend started in the late 1600s. other casual factors like solar activity and that there is no real correlation between exponentially increasing human CO2 emissions and bouncing atmospheric temperatures.

[Bureaucrats are not] a priesthood, Bart, not nearly as much of a priesthood as the legal profession.

The legal profession is very much part of this self-appointed mandarin priesthood and our justice system is a massive bureaucracy.

BD: If a scientist cannot explain to a reasonably intelligent lay person how she arrived at her conclusions and defend these conclusions from the critiques of other scientists, the scientist is a fraud.

BS. Adversarial proceedings will feature opposing scientists. Are you saying one must be a fraud?


Under ideal conditions, you would have two scientists testifying in good faith who would discuss the strengths and weaknesses of their not so different positions. More often, in my experience, we attorneys can buy a scientist to testify to what we want them to testify. The government does the same thing when it offers subsidies to obtain the research to support its desired outcomes.

And expecting jurors, not all of whom are that intelligent, to understand complex scientific arguments is nonsense.

We trial lawyers routinely break down complex legal arguments for lay jurors. Use plain English and audio visual aids to break the complex into elements, and use the juror's life experiences as analogies.

Good expert witnesses do the same thing with complex science.

Look, you make your living from adversarial proceedings. OK. So you defend them. But they are an extremely poor method for deciding a scientific dispute.

Scientists generally begin their careers in an adversarial proceeding, researching, writing and then defending a thesis against the challenges of their professors.

They should continue this practice throughout their career.

BD: The bureaucracy's "scientists" are up in arms against EPA director Pruitt's recent move to return the scientific method to his agency's "science."

What they are up in arms about is excluding certain results from consideration because they are based on data that cannot be published, being based on confidential medical information.


Sorry, there is no such thing as "secret science." The scientific method requires submission of a hypothesis, testing that hypothesis and then offering the data to any scientist who seeks to recreate the test.

Only private companies seeking to protect proprietary information or frauds like Michael Moore hide their data from the public. In the former case, EPA can do their own research and publish the results. In the latter case, genuine scientists should run the fraud out of the profession.

BD: A subsidy is the government stealing my tax money and providing it to a politically connected business. Declining to fine or tax a business is not a subsidy.

Declining to make a business pay for the resources it uses is certainly favorable treatment, and not at all in accord with free market principles.


Businesses own or buy the resources they use. If you believe the business is creating a public nuisance, bring suit and prove it.
 

Sure, here is a perfect example

Your criticism is a perfect example of something.

We trial lawyers routinely break down complex legal arguments for lay jurors. Use plain English and audio visual aids to break the complex into elements, and use the juror's life experiences as analogies.

Life experiences. Lawyers breaking down complex subjects. Maybe it works for legal issues. But life experience doesn't generally help anyone understand issues they have no training or other contact with.

Scientists generally begin their careers in an adversarial proceeding, researching, writing and then defending a thesis against the challenges of their professors.

This is not an adversarial proceeding. The faculty isn't trying to win the argument.

Sorry, there is no such thing as "secret science." The scientific method requires submission of a hypothesis, testing that hypothesis and then offering the data to any scientist who seeks to recreate the test.

It's not "secret science." By your test most medical research is not science.

Businesses own or buy the resources they use.

No. Not unless someone forces them to. You don't understand this issue at all.

If you believe the business is creating a public nuisance, bring suit and prove it.

I prefer to let scientists, rather than jurors, decide. scientific questions.

I'm outta here.

 

There are hundreds, maybe thousands of experts that work in fields touching on climate change. These are people who have completed doctorate work in their fields, many have spent decades studying phenomena day in and day out in labs and the world, most have published peer reviewed articles and books on many subjects. They are nearly unanimous in concluding that current warming is influenced by man. Somehow all these people missed gaping flaws in their thinking that a country lawyer from Colorado can clearly see...

Bart does a service here, his comments on the subject are exemplary of what I wrote about recently in the comments on a previous thread, that conservatism has essentially become crackpot-ism. It's not really that troubling that Bart really thinks that hundreds of experts with far more knowledge and experience in the relevant fields are all missing something that an amateur can see or that they are involved in a massive conspiracy spanning dozens of countries, hundreds of institutions, and many different fields. There's always been crackpots in every movement, allowing extreme partisanship to warp basic common sense and rationality. No, what's troubling is that Bart is basically the norm for one of our two political philosophies and parties. It's the party of Hannity and Limbaugh....
 

"This is not an adversarial proceeding. "

Having defended a doctorate and with her working in the sciences, my wife and I had a big laugh when I told her what Bart said about that.
 

Amen. MW.


 

"most medical research is not science."

It's not really possible to "test" many fields of science. Cosmology is a good example -- only one universe; not easy to "test" for others. But it's nonetheless science because it involves unbiased study, the collection and analysis of evidence, and a constant willingness to question hypotheses.
 

Regarding cosmology, there may be more than one universe, inspiring this:

MULTI-VERSES ON MULTIVERSES

There is no edge to our universe
As it expands, continues in infinity.
But what if there is a curse
Of multiverses with interstellar diversity?

Each with its own “Big Bang” birth
Of differing magnitudes,
With planets like our own earth
Peopled with conflicting attitudes.

Might they all function universally
Or each taking its own course
Competitively, independently
Each with its own forms of force?

Universe versus universe,
With their own clashing gravities,
Or forces even worse,
Like Spaceballs* banalities.


April 3, 2015

*For variation, substitute “Star Drek”.

Postscript: Speaking of banalities, consider President Trump's recent order to the Pentagon to add to our Armed Forces a sixth Space Force. Alas, our C-I-C's bone spurs will prevent him from leading that Force to keep aliens from infesting America.

 

Mark Field,

Yes. I understand that. My comment was in reaction to Bart's grade-school level comment.
 

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