It’s time for the Monday message board, where you are invited to post your thoughts on any topic[1]. Civilised discussion and no coarse language please.
fn1. Except for GM foods, the Iraq war and Israel-Palestine. I’ve put up posts specially to accommodate those who want to debate these issues at length. Feel free to comment on whether this a good way to handlle this kind of topic, or to suggest any other innovations you’d like to see on the blog.
John Quiggin 
There are few people discussing what could be done to reform the Senate without a referendum if the Lib-Nat’s get a majority in both houses. I was wondering what people would think about getting rid of the Senate altogether (which would require a referendum). Isn’t it time we went to a unicameral system? We seem to have more elected officials per head than any other western nation. Or maybe the best solution would be to get rid of the State governments and increase the power of local councils? Any thoughts? Points given for imagination given Australia’s record of constitutional reform.
One issue I think deserves some discussion in the wake of another disastrous showing by Labor, is the failure of the left dominated social science and humanities in academia to offer much in the way of constructive ideas towards policy development. In my view, the academic left is as ideological out to lunch (albeit, at time, at some different restaurants) as it was in the cold war period and when it was infected by the Marxist virus.
Anti-Americanism is still rife, for example, within sections of Academia. If we agree with Keynes that ideas and not simply interests are important in the evolution of policy then this is a major barrier to both Labor electoral prospects and its prospects of doing something useful when it gets elected.
I wanted to ask about something John Q raised about the pricing of equity in the recent Google float. John’s point was that Google had lots of social value but that this value was non-appropriable privately so the valuations placed on it by the market were much too big.
Is this just saying that IT products will sensibly have prices close to zero given their low marginal costs because Bertrand-type price competition, the type of price competition observed in concentrated oligopolistic markets, forces prices toward marginal cost which is zero.
If so the distinction is between value in use (high) and that in exchange (low). In other words Goggle delivers lots of consumer surplus.
Michael, I’m not sure it’s the job of academics in the Social Sciences and Humanities to offer broad policy suggestions per se. You’d be aware that some such academics have an input into policy through research grants or consultancies. And some write books which do put forward positive policy – for instance, Frank Stilwell and Boris Frankel. But I think the specialisation of research interests works against the sort of policy positioning you talk about – an expert in transport economics or rural sociology may well have good and useful things to say in their fields, but may not feel that they want to say anything in their academic capacity about broader issues. We need more such work in both macro and micro areas of policy, IMHO.
When we move to the Humanities, it’s hard to see how someone who studies 19th century Russian literature, for instance, could have a claim to offer ‘policy suggestions’ in their professional capacity (as opposed to their opinions as a citizen).
I suspect you’re really taking aim at what you perceive to be the personal politics of academics working in these disciplines.
Dear John,
Just read in the U.K’s The Independent, that Mr. Blair has agreed to ‘inbed’ just under 1,000 British soldiers (Black Watch Regiment stationed in Basra) with US troops in their coming massed attack on Faluja, probably prior to the Presidential election in the US.
Wonder what that decision will do to Blair’s rapidly declining popularity with British voters.
Why IS Mr. Bush so attractive to a Labour Prime Minister?
However, what interested me most in the news item, is that The Independent then lists who the members of the Coalition of the Willing are, how many soldiers they have serving in Iraq, and where they are situated. Even though they list 25 countries, with Tonga at 45 troups and NZ at 60, Australia doesn’t get a guernsey.
So is Mr. Howard up to his old trick of being lose with the truth? Has Australia actually ‘cut and run’? Or is it that our small force have been so successfully camouflaged, as Paul McGeough claimed on a recent SBS Insight program, that they might just as well have.
Which, by the way, is OK by me
Abolishing the States is unlikely. You have to start by deleting all mentions (in the 100s!) of these entities in the Australian Constitution. Then you have to have a referendum on the subject. Australians don’t like change for change’s sake. The ballot will fail. Anyway, do you really want an unitary state in a country of our size?
Oil prices set to reach $75? US Current Account Deficit reaches 500m/month. Is this really a Marshall Plan in disguise or is this just a ship of fools heading for the rocks?
Why IS Mr. Bush so attractive to a Labour Prime Minister?
Yep, this has puzzled me too. Perhaps God’s told Tony (to whom She frequently gives guidance) that George is his anointed prophet on earth? Or perhaps George has compromising pictures? It’s gotta be something quite extraordinary for Tony (who is, after all, a smart guy) to follow so slavishly into folly.
Michael: Just as a matter of interest, what do you understand by the expression ‘to have an axe to grind’?
By the way, if you have some good ideas of your own, apart from invading Iran as you recommended on the other thread, please share them.
James,
Axe to grind – Well we can’t have people criticising academics can we. It is really a great pity that more people on the left did not engage in self criticism in the Marxist dominated years in academia. The right might have found it more difficult to gain the ascendancy. That is, if you hold the non-Marxist and non-public choice theory view that ideas and not just interests matter. For example, I remember 20 years ago criticising the influence of Marxist influenced dependency theory on development studies and of the influence of populist versions of it (Susan George etc) on NGOs such as Community Aid Abroad. Now maybe if the cretins who mindlessly followed these perspectives for many years had listened to people like me (and then not embraced new rigid ideological perspectives) the left would now not be in such a pathetic position. Oh and James what ideas have you got to offer besides opposing the US and defending the mediocre individuals who now rule in academia.
Michael: Supposing for argument’s sake that everyone who disagrees with you is a deluded ideologue, blinded by anti-Americanism, racism etc, can you cure them by incessantly repeating the accusation? I doubt it. Isn’t it enough just to identify positions your disagree with and which you think are influential, and refute them on their merits? If your superior information and logic fail to change people’s minds, it’s unlikely that name-calling will. The only alternative would be to hire professional deprogammers to kidnap and un-brainwash them one at a time, but this would be a slow process and probably illegal.
“One issue I think deserves some discussion in the wake of another disastrous showing by Labor, is the failure of the left dominated social science and humanities in academia to offer much in the way of constructive ideas towards policy development.”
Well we might well ask more generally about the overall disastrous showing of academia as hinted at here
Try here at http://www.careerone.com.au/resources/story/0,8523,11117597-22547,00.html
“Why IS Mr. Bush so attractive to a Labour Prime Minister?”
I recall reading a newspaper article on Blair’s view of the world(between Sept11 and Iraq)which quoted him very extensively. I remember gaining the distinct impression he viewed the ME as representing the greatest threat to world peace since the fall of the Berlin Wall. He was clearly espousing a beacon of light theory for the region. I don’t think he could conceive of a solution to Palestine without broader ME reform occurring first. Far from sucking up to Bush, I think they found in each other likeminded and determined soulmates. Howard obviously concurred as did a number of other COW leaders. It remains to be seen if they are right, but don’t doubt their reforming evangelistic spirit and doggedness. Bush is probably well aware that he is hocking the family silver for long term benefits in the ME. He would probably say- ‘If not our silver, then whose?’ That would have broad appeal to the Christian Samaritan ethic in these men.
James,
Firstly, in academia and elsewhere the name calling is generally started by left and anti-American ideologues who accuse anyone who doesn’t share their views as being on the far right of politics whatever their views on income distribution and gay marriage etc might be. I have over 25 years of involvement in social groups etc and have got rather fed up with this – as well as being pushed out of groups as they become more extreme and intolerant of opposing views.
More importantly, I don’t believe that the appalling history of large sections of the left in supporting extremist views (Communism -how many million deaths-, Marxism, the tendency to view the US as a bigger threat to world peace, etc) should be ignored. Basically these fools should be hounded out of academia and social movements and more moderate and rational individuals give space to operate.
On Israel, I make no apologies for being extremely critical of the bash Israel/play down the horrors of suicide bombing and terrorism brigade. The views of large sections of the left and of the European elite on Israel are simply morally unacceptable in that no attempt at balance is made and the attack is concentrated on what for all its faults is a very civilised democratic society. There is probably more of intellectual and artistic value being generated in this small country than in the whole of the Middle East –stuffed up as it is be Islamic extremism and cultural backwardness.
>Isn’t it time we went to a unicameral system?
Yes, provided you abolish the Reps. To abolish the Senate would create the system of Northern Ireland pre 1971 or New Zealand pre 1996 or current New Guinea or Mauritius (or Queensland). To abolish the Reps would be to create the system widespread in Europe and, since 1996, in NZ.
>We seem to have more elected officials per head than any other western nation.
No. And it is not a simple ratio. The number of pollies equals the cube root of the population. This seems to hold for democracies and non-democracies and for any large organisation. Our Feds are about right, our states are a little under except Tas which is way under – out with Senegambia and Macau.
For details see Taagepera and Shugart, “Seats and Votes” Yale UP 1989.
It’s worth a look at Brad DeLong’s posting about mathematical artefacts creating “hockey stick” curves out of global warming data. This is also covered in a recent posting at Jerry Pournelle’s site http://www.jerrypournelle.com/mail/currentmail.html.
PML, the post refers to claims made by McKitrick and McIntyre who have very little credibility after a string of past blunders. Tim Lambert is on the case. Brad de Long didn’t endorse M&M – he’s well aware of their past form.