If you’re looking for a Hayekian left, the closest I can think of is James Scott’s extraordinary book, “Seeing Like A State: Why Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed.” The best pol-sci book that I’ve read this decade.

I’ve heard of the book, but it’s been some way down from the top of my list for a while. It really ought to move closer to the top, since I think a lot of political discourse rests on failing to understand that both market failure and government failure are essentiallty heuristic failures and looks at building better heuristics instead of posing false dichotomies. Scott’s book is the only one I’ve heard of that even sounds like that sort of thing.

“Trucking moved from a stable source of employment for many underskilled people to an industry that pays minimal wages, offers no benefits, and has a major stimulant abuse problem.”

Wow. That’s a characterization of the recent history of the American trucking industry so distant from my reality, that I have to consider it a textbook example of “false consciousness”. No room in your world for little things like acknowledging the massive corruption and criminality of the “classic” Teamsters, is there? My dad’s cousin was a minor Teamsters official; I have an uncle who’s a nonunion trucker now. My dad’s cousin’s mafia stories would curl your toes; my uncle has successfully put all of his children through college.

But you go on and build your moral equivalencies between “neo-liberals” and Stalinists. Let me know when you figure out where the “neo-liberal” gulag dead are buried.

Mitch, Pinochet’s mass graves are all over Chile, and a fair number are popping up in Guatemala nowadays. Or perhaps we should talk about AIDS victims in Africa dying because the failure to enforce American and European patents on anti-viral medications would get what trade they have cut off? They’re buried all over the place.

As for trucking, I lived in a major trucking hub in the early 80’s. You’d be surprised how often people will support corrupt leadership able to bring them regular pay over not having regular pay at all. Which charge would you like to deny: Real wages for truckers have fallen since the late 70’s? Or that stimulant abuse is far larger problem now? I recognised that there were some gains, but you seem not to recognise that there were also large costs.

It’s a broad definition of ’liberal’, don’t you think, that would embrace Pinochet?

I said “neoliberal” - free markets, free trade, minimal government, low taxes, no unions. No, I don’t think Pinochet is stretch. Those were the policies he said would save the country and that was the revolution he defended.

“But you go on and build your moral equivalencies between “neo-liberals” and Stalinists. Let me know when you figure out where the “neo-liberal” gulag dead are buried.”

This is such a ludicrous misinterpretation of what Scott wrote that I’m not sure it’s argued in good faith. Let’s not let the argument devolve before it started but rather ignore this outburst.

Ooops. Too late…

Pinochet was only neoliberal in his *economic* policies, and there weren’t all that many other dictators that were neolibeal at all. (The East Asians diverged pretty sharply from neoliberal orthodoxy in their policies, and certainly in their ideology.)

Obviously the comparison with socialism was sometimes strained, but maybe we can forgive him since *it was a setup to a freaking joke,* a really funny one by the way. He was only partly serious, so picking nits seems a bit thickheaded.

“a classical liberal”

I believe Hayek coined that term. Couldn’t you say that it’s slightly revisionist? Pre-1859 liberals weren’t really ideologically *that* close to Hayek, certainly not Bentahamites, and how close can you say they were regarding policy, when they lived in completely different worlds, with a whole different social, political and economic situation?

David, I was thinking more about Gillingham’s description of the radical neoliberal reformist regimes. He really does call the 1984 New Zealand Labour government and some of the Thatcher governments “legal dictatorships.” That’s his word. The analogy really does hold. In both places, the old system was failing, and the effect was so devastating that a new government was installed without effective opposition and was able to take action with little or no regard for public opinion. Gillingham praises governments for actions that impoverished millions of people. A government without meaningful opposition isn’t that different from a dictatorship.

The analogy with the history of socialism was, of course, somewhat forced, but only about 60% kidding. Gillingham is the one who takes that tack, and I think turnabout is fair play.

Marx said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as comedy. If Stalin was a tragedy, then this is definitely comedy.

“while rejecting his Whigish carping about how the world will go to hell in a hand-basket if we have socialised medicine or labour unions.”

Ha! That’s so right on the mark. He *is* very whiggish, I hadn’t thought about it in those terms. Yet another reason to think of him as as much conservative as liberal.

David (and Scott),

I don’t think it’s too late (and I hope I haven’t contributed to any incipient lateness).

My point (as David has perceived) is that, though Pinochet might have espoused a few things that would fit within a liberal* agenda, it would be odd indeed to view him as a liberal. There is much more to liberalism than Manchester. And from many perspectives, Pinochet is an apt avatar of Satan particularly for liberals.

The joke was indeed a good one, though (as Scott suspected) one sees it coming a long way off.

* Like Gillingham, I don’t think the ’neo’ bit adds much value, unless perhaps to distinguish from the usual American misuse of the term ’liberalism’ (i.e., social-democracy-and-water); or to posit some new kind of liberalism that dislikes unions but dispenses with the bothersome, em, liberal bits. If the latter, call me palaeo.

“But what is so interesting to me about the EU is the prospect of integration without a demos.”

I think I severely disagree with you here, but there’s the problem of terminology. You should write a post about it.

Brilliant take-down of one more annoying neoliberal free trade purist, Scott; many thanks. Between this discussion and the one on Henwood’s “After the New Economy” over at Crooked Timber, I’m getting my fill of heavy socio-economic critique.

A few random, rambling comments:

1) Perhaps I’m missing something obvious, but in many ways, isn’t this post of yours pretty much a straightforward rebuke to some of the assumptions underlying Edward’s two most recent posts? Might there be an AFOE rumble in the near future?

2) In light of Mrs. T’s comments, I’m hesitant to speculate as to status of neoliberalism in the U.S., since the term obvious as various implications in different places. Still, President Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council and Robert Reich and Paul Krugman (the 1990s versions) and all the rest were pretty explicit, via NAFTA and welfare reform and the like, in their embrace of a self described “neoliberal” break with traditional Democratic politics, and much of the hostility to Bush at the present moment in the U.S. arises from the conviction that he’s trashing the “orthodoxy” which the 1990s taught us (see Brad Delong’s blog for this argument). For many, this trashing is simple: Bush is a Republican, and he is pushing our society back towards the preferred Republican condition: namely, the exploitive robber-baron captialism of the early 20th century. But that doesn’t account for everything he’s done: his increased spending (less than is needed, obviously, but still) on education and the arts, his proposals for immigration reform, his selected use of tariffs and so forth. It could all be written off as cheap, ignorant opportunism, of course, and maybe most of it is. But one thing I’ve been wondering about on my blog lately (against my better judgment, I assure you) is whether Bush’s undeniably inconsistent, often self-serving “compassionate conservatism” might not, nonetheless, be suggestive of a real, coherent “conservative” (but of a different sort) alternative to the neoliberal orthodoxy--and that we who are interested in alternatives ought to be willing to recognize them from whatever source they come.

3) This is obviously my hobby-horse Scott, and so I’ve no intention of hijacking this thread with arguments about it. But still, I can’t let it go by without comment (though it appears David beat me to it): do you really contemplate “the prospect of integration without a demos”? What on earth would the EU be then? How can there be a union of Europeans if there are no “Europeans”? I fully agree with you that “a mere free-trade zone is a profoundly uninspiring subject of study”--indeed, I’d go farther: a free-trade zone, as neoliberals have conceived them, is damaging and distracting Potemkin village, a way to make it appear that the people have been engaged in when in fact only elites have. But the conclusion I draw from such judgments is that the EU should move away from such phantoms, not try to institute them in new forms. To label the ancient political concept of the demos “a neologism that I suspect will grow old fast” is to engage in not a little bit of the same radicalism that you rightly condemn in Gillingham.

4) I admire your fervor, and I recognize that your comparion of Thatcher, et al, with other dictators was part of your rhetorical strategy. Moreover, I too lived through the break-up of AT&T, and am quite familiar with all the (continuing) horrors of deregulation. But you go too far in many of your claims. When you say “deregulation cost Americans money, safety, security and in some cases their lives,” you’re right--but of course, the regulations which greatly slowed innovation in travel, medical, communication throughout the 60s and 70s could counterfactually and quite easily be charged with deaths as well (consider Denys Arcand’s “The Barbarian Invasions,” where the superior technology of the American medical establishment is treated as an uncomfortable, undeniable fact). Similarly, you write in a comment above that “Gillingham praises governments for actions that impoverished millions of people.” True, Thatcher did. But why then did the Labour Party only find success in Great Britain after they essentially gave up fighting the battles of the 1980s? Could it be, perhaps, that the old arrangements weren’t just “failing,” as you claim, but had much greater costs than you acknowledge?

Russell - starting from the end:

4) “The regulations which greatly slowed innovation in travel, medical, communication throughout the 60s and 70s” - that was a period when there were enormous advances in travel, medicine and communications. Many of them came out of labs owned and run by monopoly concerns who could use their legally secured market position to fund expansive “blue sky” research. I’m prepared to listen to a contrafactual case, and sometimes even agree with it, but you have to actually make the contrafactual case. Gillingham doesn’t.

However, I admit, fully and wholeheartedly, as I did in the body of the post, that there were and are grounds for regulatory reform in many areas including the ones I named. I do believe that regulatory reform is not necessarily the same thing as the elimination of regulation and I do think it is the responsibility of the relevant authorities and society at large to balance the losses with the gains and try to mitigate the damage. I am even prepared to consider - and in some cases admit outright - that the benefits of the deregulation process in the US, as thoroughly and fully flawed as it was, were greater than the costs at least in some cases.

Yes, Labour’s current political strategy does build on much of what Thatcher did, and it seems reasonably popular. But Blair’s electoral victories stem, at least in part, from the recognition that some of the interests opposed to Thatcher were legitimate. I remember The Economist somewhat half-heartedly endorsing Blair at one point for exactly that reason. That is a case of synthesis.

I haven’t seen “Les Invasions Barbares” yet. The wife can’t speak French and I haven’t got time to go to the movies alone right now. I love Arcand’s films, so it’s making me nuts that it’s out and I can’t see it.

3) I am indeed every bit as radical as Gillingham. The big difference is that I have never expected to win the sort of full victory that Gillingham and a lot of - admittedly, usually American - neoliberals demand. I want to see a synthesis, not because I think I’m wrong but because real circumstances are always different than one expects. If Hayek’s defense of local knowledge is good for economics, well, it’s good for politics too.

Also, I’m much more likely to admit that most radical political shifts are mixed blessings at best. If Gillingham had said that his policies were costly, had sometimes failed, were worth it anyway, explained why, and had pointed to some lessons to learn from past failures, I would have written a review that said something like “I disagree with GIllingham, but he’s worth reading anyway.”

As for the “what would the EU be without Europeans” - it would be a bunch of people living on the east end of the Eurasian continent, preferably contentedly. I’m pretty cool with that. But that would go somewhat off-topic.

2) Let me make another whole-hearted admission. Not all neoliberals are evil, and they aren’t always wrong. I said that neoliberalism has had arguable successes, just not unambiguous ones. If we’re going to stick to the analogy, Stalin wasn’t Eugene V. Debs, so why should I think Paul Krugman is George Bush? Find me a neoliberal willing to say that about socialism (besides Brad Delong).

As I pointed out before, “dictatorship” was Gillingham’s description. I’m just running with it.

As for Bush actually being consistent in his own way, I’d say the empirical evidence leans against it, but I’ve had some not dissimilar thoughts. I’ve been thinking maybe Bush is a sort of American version of Mahathir or Lee Kuan Yew or something like the “Bolivarian” dictators of Latin America - a kind of “American values” authoritarianism. I’ve been considering calling it “fascism with a human face” but it’s been done. Certainly there is a growing alignment between American values and developing world values that it would fit neatly into. But, I don’t think I have a strong case.

1) I hope not. I agree with everything Edward said in the last two posts. I think a US-led global recovery is both unlikely and the wrong approach on principle, and I think European unemployment levels are a travesty. That much lost productivity - not to mention dignity and opportunity - ought to be seen as a catastrophy by everyone regardless of their place on the political spectrum. I suspect it is not only the cause of much that is wrong in Europe, but is probably the indirect cause of the whole headscarf mess.

1) We don’t have a party line. Edward’s gloomy for mostly other reasons than a neoliberal might be gloomy.

2) Neoliberalism in the European sense means hayekian, even libertarian. Maybe it’s a slightly broader tent than libertarianism is, but it does imply someone clearly to the right of Brad DeLong.

3) Yeah. You need to explain what you mean, Scott.

4) Agreed, but actually, I was surprised by how centrist Scott sounded. He’s supposed to be our resident lefty.

Mrs. T - I should, of course, point to the vast numbers of socialists who said from the beginning that the only thing socialist about the USSR was the third letter in its abbreviation. I was mostly trying to be funny, but sticking to that metaphoric framework, I will gladly make the same admission for Pinochet on the same conditions. If I can’t hold Pinochet against them, they can’t hold Stalin against me.

And furthermore, when people talk about those damn liberals in America, I’m more the kind of person they mean than Pinochet or Hayek. I just want to make sure that there is no terminological problem here - “liberal” in this context does not mean what “liberal” means in conventional English-language discourse. That is one reason for the prefix “neo-“.

Ah, I see David has done the terminology problem too.

As for the rest - I’m a very radical leftist with a fondness for Marx, although I’ve actually dragged most of my politics up not directly from him but from later Marxist thinkers. However, I frequently advocate positions that are very centrist by European standards. I am not a social democrat, but I frequently advocate social democracy. I do this for the simple reason that social democracy has demonstrably raised standards of living and has brought about in the developed world a level of luxury and dignity for the common man that was unthinkable as little as three generations ago.

There are radical leftists who want things to get worse so that the revolution will come. I think that’s stupid.

Now, an advocacy of social democracy does not mean that every social programme, every tax and every policy is pure goodness and light. Having a political position does not eliminate the problem of actually devising effective policies. Times change and policies have to change with them, and no revolution, no grand projet politique is ever going to change that. If a policy seems to me to be sane, sustainable and likely to actually make people’s lives better, I’m for it.

As for the part about not needed a European identity - what do you think I’ve been posting about for the last two months? I said as much in the headscarf posting.

Give me a few days - I need to get up a post about the Congo on the other blog - and then I’ll write something here about it.

Scott writes:

… I frequently advocate social democracy. I do this for the simple reason that social democracy has demonstrably raised standards of living and has brought about in the developed world a level of luxury and dignity for the common man that was unthinkable as little as three generations ago.

… If a policy seems to me to be sane, sustainable and likely to actually make people’s lives better, I’m for it.

Verging rather on ameliorationism, aren’t you, comrade?

Funnily enough I agree, though. It is largely for the reasons you describe above that I am not a libertarian, for all that some of my instincts are.

Identity? I think we’re talking past each other.

Mrs T - where I come from, we call that the dialectic. :^)

David, possibly we are. I’m not advoacting the depopulation of Europe when I suggest a Europe without Europeans.

“Like Gillingham, I don’t think the ’neo’ bit adds much value, unless perhaps to distinguish from the usual American misuse of the term ’liberalism’ (i.e., social-democracy-and-water); or to posit some new kind of liberalism that dislikes unions but dispenses with the bothersome, em, liberal bits. If the latter, call me palaeo.”

You often hear in blog discussions that in Europe liberalism means the opposite of what in means in the US, which is simply not true. All the large liberal parties are quite centrist except the Dutch and German ones, and even they aren’t hayekians.

TH Green is as liberal as Hayek, Chris Bertram and I are as liberal as Gillingham.

“Might there be an AFOE rumble in the near future?”

Certainly not. I’m not a neoliberal, although I do believe in free trade, including the free movement of persons. You’d have to include Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman as neoliberals on this definition.

Also if you want, you could read some of my posts on ’structural reforms’, where I think you’ll find I try to distinguish between those that genuinely do offer the possibility of higher productivity and real employment, and those that involve semi-clandestine, semi-legal workers (braceros?) in what can only be regarded as a travesty of employment.

“Edward’s gloomy for mostly other reasons “

I’m not always gloomy: I’m pretty optimistic about India actually :).

“I hope not. I agree with everything Edward said in the last two posts.”

I agree with this entirely, but we’d better watch out Scott, or we’ll be getting each other a bad name :).

“Mr Bacon

147. Professor Guild, I am pleased to see that you think that the draft unacceptably limits the role of national parliaments. Do you agree that, for there to be a democracy, there has to be a demos?
(Professor Guild) This is one of the debates which interests me very much. I have been following it since Professor Wyler began to discuss the question of the demos for Europe about 15 years ago. Recently, I have been doing a little research with colleagues in other disciplines and other social sciences about the question of nationalism and people. I would rely, at this point, on the very famous now deceased anthropologist, Ernest Gellner, on the question of nationalism in the last book he wrote before his death where he looked at choices that people make as groups about who they belong to and who they do not belong to and he takes as an example something which is often considered self-evident in Member States of the European Union, that people want to live with people like them. He said that, in anthropology, we have many examples to show that is not true. People choose a group of people and decide to change even their language overnight to use a different language for various purposes and they choose to live or to have among them many people who are very different. This then brings us back to the question of demos. What is a demos? What are the choices which we make? Is there self-evidence of some kind of sense of European identity which is seen extremely differently in different Member States fundamental to the construction of a form of a democracy? It seems to me that we have to be quite careful about transposing 19th century views on state building—and I would refer to the work of Charles Tilley here—to the 21st century development of supranational governance.

148. I am not clear that you have actually answered my question as to whether you think we need a demos to have a democracy.
(Professor Guild) I am questioning what we mean by demos. What is a demos? Are we inserting into that idea some kind of creation of a national group or the equivalence of a national group or are we saying that demos is whatever the group of people are who form the political legitimacy within a system of governance.

149. You mentioned the question of language which is obviously fundamental if people are to participate, to read debates, to read court judgments and understand what is being done in their name. Are you seriously suggesting that, because anthropologists have shown that sometimes people choose to switch their language—I was in Luxembourg the other day where children grow up with French and German as both mother tongues as well as Letzebourgisch—that major countries could somehow switch their language? Is that a serious point?
(Professor Guild) In answer to you—and I do not wish to underestimate the importance of the question—if one looks at the discussion in the United States at the moment about whether it is an English or Spanish speaking country and if there is a transformation taking place, we see exactly those arguments and the tensions around those arguments in perhaps one of the most powerful countries in the world at the moment that is having a lot of discussion about what language is the language of the state and what are the mechanisms of transformation of language.”

http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200203/cmselect/cmeuleg/63-xxvi/3040202.htm

When I talk of a demos, I’m not talking about nationality…

It occurs to me that this is now the fifth consecutive AFOE post whose title ends with a question mark. Is this the new standard?

“In answer to you—-and I do not wish to underestimate the importance of the question—-if one looks at the discussion in the United States at the moment about whether it is an English or Spanish speaking country and if there is a transformation taking place, we see exactly those arguments and the tensions around those arguments in perhaps one of the most powerful countries in the world at the moment that is having a lot of discussion about what language is the language of the state and what are the mechanisms of transformation of language.”

Ok, maybe it’s the fault of the transcriber and/or translator, or maybe it’s because it’s rainy out and I’m feeling sluggish, but as God as my witness, I have abolutely no idea what Professor Guild’s point is in this passage.

Does Guild think that the fact that demographic shifts in the U.S. have entailed linguistic shifts is reason enough to bracket the whole matter of language use when considering the question of democratic legitimacy in the U.S.? But that’s ridiculous; it is exactly such shifts which throw into sharp relief the centrality of language to the self-consciousness of, and hence the democratic legitimizing power of, the “demos.” Well, is Guild arguing then that the fact that the U.S. is increasingly having to address head-on (through a reconsideration of its immigration policies, education standards, and so forth) the fact of minority languages within its borders is proof that multilingualism is perfectly compatible with whatever a “demos” may be? If so, then he is engaging in (optimistic) speculation; it is by no means clear, when one looks at both the not wholly salutary rise of influence of Spanish-speaking communities in certain places throughout the U.S., as well as the negative (sometimes nativist, sometimes just plain perplexing) reactions to that rise in the politics of those places, that the mere presence of a rethinking of the linguisticality of the “demos” is proof that democratic legitimacy will in fact survive such rethinking.

There must be more to what Guild is saying, and I’m missing it. As it stands, the professor seems to be waxing eloquent about the complicated role of language in a country, without either specifying what those complications are, nor whether or not we should be trying to untangle them.

Scott,

James Scott’s Seeing like a State is indeed a book you should consider taking a look at. I believe that Brad DeLong has a quite good review of the book, in which he points out that Scott’s argument is intellectually related to Hayek’s critique of economic engineering.

I personally find that while there’s something to be said for ’metis’ (as James Scott calls it) or political, local know-how, there are also a considerable amount of situations in which local ’know-how’ fares no better than some of the grand modernist schemes that he rightly criticizes.

It’s always a joy to read you, although I admit it is a bit disillusioning to see my silly cosmopolitanist aspirations shattered by the harsh realities of politics. Incidentally, on a personal note, I’m learning some computational linguistics on the side--in fact, I’m fully involved in a project dealing with text normalization of non-standard words--, just for the heck of it. Would love to read a rant on linguistics over at Pedantry. Cheers.

Scott,

James Scott’s Seeing like a State is indeed a book you should consider taking a look at. I believe that Brad DeLong has a quite good review of the book, in which he points out that Scott’s argument is intellectually related to Hayek’s critique of economic engineering.

I personally find that while there’s something to be said for ’metis’ (as James Scott calls it) or political, local know-how, there are also a considerable amount of situations in which local ’know-how’ fares no better than some of the grand modernist schemes that he rightly criticizes.

It’s always a joy to read you, although I admit it is a bit disillusioning to see my silly cosmopolitanist aspirations shattered by the harsh realities of politics. Incidentally, on a personal note, I’m learning some computational linguistics on the side--in fact, I’m fully involved in a project dealing with text normalization of non-standard words--, just for the heck of it. Would love to read a rant on linguistics over at Pedantry. Cheers.

“Might there be an AFOE rumble in the near future?”

Sorry to come back on this side issue, but I think it is worth emphasising that one of the virtues of blogging is that this doesn’t necessarily have to happen.

I would say that the great thing about blogging is that it provides the possibility of having a cross section of reasoned views expressed without leaving blood on the pavement.

Definitely a contribution to a healthy civil society and to civic discourse: and normally Fistful comments are a model in this regard.

“a bunch of people living on the east end of the Eurasian continent”

I note with some embarassment that I meant to say “a bunch of people living on the west end of the Eurasian continent.” This may explain some of the confusion. That goes beyond a typo - since I must have read that sentence at least three times and seen the word “west” every time. That was a brain fart.

Edward - well, I’m not per se against free trade. But, I do think that trade barriers have aided in the development of some previously underdeveloped states. And, I think that the problems posed by multinationals able to shop for the least restrictive regulatory scheme and the risks of capital flight are real. I also have some real problems with the trade agendas being advanced by the US and the EU. But, all that is more a call for an effective international economic governance than an opposition to free trade on principle. I eat Dutch cheese, listen to French music, work on an American computer and used to drive a Korean car. I don’t see any special reason to make those things hard to have.

I just haven’t got any enthusiasm for localist alternatives to globalisation.

I suppose I might give you a bad name by agreeing with you, but what I’ve proposed - which strikes me as policies well within the ideological reach of any European liberal party - is radical leftism in the US. So, my “street cred”, such as it is, is pretty intact. :^)

As for structural reforms in the labour market - I’m sort of saying that if the state is able to offer decent income support outside the market, I am less bothered when competition with the developing world lowers wages. If moving jobs overseas really does raise profits and increases productivity - which is something of a dogma for the free-market evangelists - then taxable income ought to increase enough to compensate for the losses. If moving jobs to India makes some people richer and some people poorer, it only makes sense if we can tax the people getting richer and give the money to the ones getting poorer.

I can’t find a decent reason to not want good jobs to go to India. Indians certainly appreciate them. But I do think that this shouldn’t be leaving people worse off in the US and UK. The same logic ultimately applies to the immigrant worker. If Mexicans are willing to move to California to pick strawberries at minimum wages, because it really is good money for them, then this ought to be producing profits for somebody who ought, in turn, to be compensating the people losing agricultural jobs because of it. That seems to me to be in line with your post here.

Pedro - I’m certainly not an uncritical Hayekite. I don’t want to dismiss grand projects either, although I might argue that there never really was a “high modernism.” Even grand projects have context - they don’t happen in a vaccuum. I do want people to learn from the failures of past social engineering, and I think Hayek has some genuine insight to offer there, but I want them to do this so that that can do successful social engineering.

There is a growing focus on understanding the successful grand projects of the past, in part because it is often a mystery why things that worked once often don’t work twice. I see a lot of books bringing new focuses to the industrial revolution and the development of the US and Japanese economies rather than focusing solely on why is the path to development that seems so obvious to people is failing elsewhere.

As for computational linguistics - I’m having some normalisation issues myself, especially in *$#%ing German, where they capitalise every frigging noun! But, I do have this incredibly cool algorithm for terminology extraction using algorithmic information theory and a perceptron. It has some drawbacks, but it is *so* fast. I have a more generalised version of the algorithm in mind that has some impact on theories of language acquistion, but it involves doing some new math that I haven’t time to get into.

I can’t talk about the specifics of commercial research on Pedantry, but there will be a post going up this weekend (I hope) on contact lingustics in the Congo Basin.

“Edward - well, I’m not per se against free trade. But, I do think that trade barriers have aided in the development of some previously underdeveloped states.”

And I’m not an ideologue. So I can agree that there may be circumstances, and that circumstances alter cases. However in general I go with free trade. I think countries like India were the big losers of the old protectionism.

“And, I think that the problems posed by multinationals able to shop for the least restrictive regulatory scheme and the risks of capital flight are real.”

I think this calls for a post on the future of MNC’s in the not too distant future. For now I’ll just mention: remember everything that lives was born to die.

“I eat Dutch cheese, listen to French music, work on an American computer and used to drive a Korean car.”

Well let’s just move all that a whole lot to the east and even more to the South and you’ll be doing just fine.

Gee. I guess I should turn down my invitation to review _European Integration_ for the _Journal of Economic Literature_, shouldn’t I?

:-)

And do move _Seeing Like a State_ to the top of your to-read list…

“However, one thing I do remember quite clearly is how deregulation in each of those areas drastically reduced the quality of service. Airlines service was a mess for years, especially after the acrimonious end to the PATCO strike and the constant din of bankruptcies. Telephone service under the “Baby Bells” and the new long distance providers was somewhat cheaper - eventually - but reliability did not return to 1980 levels for a decade, and most of us who were teens in that era mostly remember cheap phones with bad sound that broke a lot. Trucking moved from a stable source of employment for many underskilled people to an industry that pays minimal wages, offers no benefits, and has a major stimulant abuse problem. And as for banking, it is still difficult to determine if there were any gains at all when the costs of the S&L scandal are taken into account.”

Scott, you almost seem to be describing a different planet from the one I grew up in. Having grown up in New Jersey in the 80s and early 90s (and having worked as a Teamster while in college), I saw no real decline or disruption in telephone service, loads of folks making a nice living as truckers and a huge increase in the flexibility and services offered by banks (no doubt largely due to the ubiqitous ATM, but that wouldn’t be here in the same numbers in a strongly regulated labor environment.)

As to bankrupt airlines, good riddance to bad rubbish. Uneconomic capital-sinks prior to the advent of non-hub&spoke carriers like SouthWest.

I simply can’t agree with anything you’re saying here.

Bernard Guerrero

Scott,

“Or perhaps we should talk about AIDS victims in Africa dying because the failure to enforce American and European patents on anti-viral medications would get what trade they have cut off? They’re buried all over the place”

Irrelevant. There is no moral equivalence between killing citizens you don’t like and letting far-away people you don’t care about much one way or the other die. The former is murder, the latter is merely callous. I am under no imperative to sacrifice resources (which is what allowing the infringement of patent rights of companies that pay taxes to my government and employ my neighbors amounts to) in order to help a series of ciphers.

However, if it helps, I’ll toss you a bone. Stalin was, in terms of what people actually care about, correct. One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.

Bernard Guerrero

Bernard, I can’t speak for Scott, but I would be very surprised if he regarded the thought of oul’ Iosef Vissarionovich being ’correct’ about something as a bone to be grateful for. You’ll have to do better than this.

(And I am not saying this merely to keep Scott from hanging Pinochet round my neck.)

“Bernard, I can’t speak for Scott, but I would be very surprised if he regarded the thought of oul’ Iosef Vissarionovich being ’correct’ about something as a bone to be grateful for.”

Ah, no, you misunderstand, Madam. I’m not implying that _he’d_ agree with the Man of Steel. I’m saying that in this particular instance, _I_ do. I suspect that most people do, really. Very few folks I know actually lose sleep over the plight of sub-Saharan Africa, for instance. Mostly it seems to be table-talk which has minimal effect on their consumption or free-time. Poor Pete Singer…

Bernard Guerrero

i can say some thing about the whole people of the world but just that “the people consumption and desire increasing day by day, and that desire and demand for the people are fullfilling by the Mnc’s” most of the people are becoming the Mnc’s consumer.
kindly request to add this comment.
thank’s
imran khan