Year: 2008

Dead heats and democracy

John Quiggin32 Comments

I can’t resist a racing metaphor to describe the problem that’s now facing the US Democrats, but one that is a more-or-less generic problem for democracy. In any system of government, there is a problem of succession, which has a large contingent element. In monarchies, for example, the absence of an adult male heir can produce crises of all kinds (in England, this problem recurred in different forms for all the Tudors from Henry VIII onward). Dictators rarely nominate a capable successor until the last possible moment, so their sudden death often brings about the collapse of the regime. To avoid this, it’s common to see a quasi-hereditary succession which rarely works well for more than one generation.

In democracy, unexpectedly close election results can cause big problems, since there is always a range of uncertainty in which normally unimportant procedural decisions or rule violations become critical. Obvious recent examples include the Bush-Gore race in 2000, the Mexican election of 2006, the recent election in Kenya and now the Democratic nomination race. Such close races inevitably produce a lot of bitterness and can lead to disaster. At the moment it seemed as if the threatened breakdown of democracy in Kenya has been averted, but it’s by no means certain that the power-sharing agreement there will hold. And it’s far from clear that the closeness of the race between Obama and Clinton won’t produce a vicious contest that sinks the eventual winner.

It’s tempting, and sometimes correct, to argue that the sharp divisions that emerge at times like these were there all along. But often this is no more valid than the kind of analysis which ascribes civil strife to “ancient ethnic hatreds” when these are, in reality, little more than rationalisations of contemporary power politics. Certainly, in the case of the Democratic nomination, it’s clear that the vast majority of Democrats would be happy with either candidate and likely that the majority would prefer an immediate end, regardless of the choice, to a continued contest.

Rather than reflecting deeper underlying problems, to a large extent, these succession crises really are problems of institutional design. Some kinds of institutions manage succession problems better than others. Confining attention to democratic systems (broadly defined), I’d argue that there are substantial benefits to simple and definite procedures. If US national elections (including primaries) were based on popular vote (whether first-past-the-post or instant runoff) the likelihood of a result so close as to permit serious dispute would be very small. By contrast, when the result is reached from 50 state ballots, each operating under local and variable rules, the only surprise is that crises can be averted.

The truth will set you free?

John Quiggin64 Comments

There’s been a lot of discussion here about genetically modified foods and related issues. My view has been that the current state of scientific evidence does not support a general ban on GM foods but that consumers may reasonably want to be informed about whether the food they are consuming has been produced using technologies they may object to, either on ethical grounds, or because they are unconvinced about the safety of GM technology. In this respect, I’ve been very critical of Monsanto, which pushed hard to get GM foods onto the US market without any labelling requirement. Among other things, I thought this likely to be a counterproductive strategy, intensifying hostility to GM technology.

Some of my more free-market readers have argued against me on labelling suggesting that, if consumers want this information, market processes will ensure the emergence of a GM-free label. Thinking about it in the abstract, this will be true if the consumer preference for non-GM food is strong enough. And if consumers don’t care at all, then labelling won’t make any difference. There’s an intermediate zone where the choice of labelling regime might make a difference, and this has led me to support compulsory labelling.

These speculations can now be confronted with some real-world experience, with some very interesting results. As well as GM foods, Monsanto markets Posilac, a synthetic version of bovine growth hormone for cows that increases milk yields. Farmers producing milk without Posilac have advertised the fact, and have been very successful in capturing market share.

As a result, Monsanto, through a front group, Afact, is now lobbying legislatures to ban the advertising of non-BST milk. Their argument is that, since there is no scientifically demosntrable difference between the two products, advertising the way in which they are produced can only mislead consumers. So now it’s the pro-GM side who are arguing for intervention to suppress information they think consumers can’t handle.

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Two economies

John Quiggin71 Comments

The Australian economy is still booming, but the shadow of the global credit crisis is growing longer every day. Some items

* Most observers now agree the US is in recession
* With negative real interest rates in the US for terms up to five years (you can actually buy negative-rate inflation-protected bonds) commodity price inflation seems bound to continue. This is good for the Oz economy while it lasts
* It now seems clear that someting like half of all subprime mortgages will eventually go into default (many have already been foreclosed and 20 per cent are currently delinquent
Much the same is true for Alt-A and other limited-doc loans. The big question now is whether mortgages guaranteed by the quasi-public Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in fact secure. As with all implicit guarantees, the assumption that the Federal government stands behind these corporations is marvellously effective until it is actually tested.

Can we keep on growing while all these processes and more work themselves out? I don’t know and I doubt that the Reserve Bank does either. But if I were setting monetary policy, I’d be very cautious about any further increase in interest rates.

After the ratings agencies

John Quiggin53 Comments

Among the likely casualties of the emerging financial crisis, the ratings agencies (Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, Fitch) have to be near the top of the list. The crisis has exposed fundamental weaknesses in the way in which ratings are determined and adjusted. The privileged position held by these agencies can no longer be justified. it’s far from clear how these problems could be resolved, but I’ve set out some tentative thoughts below.

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Do we need a (surface) navy ?

John Quiggin92 Comments

The government has just scrapped one of the many troubled defence projects it inherited: the Sea Sprite helicopter. It may yet cancel Brendan Nelson’s Super Hornets. But with budget pressure still tight, it might be worth looking at more radical options. The obvious candidate is to abandon the long-standing tradition that our armed forces should include a surface navy.

It’s been argued ever since the development of the submarine in the late 19th century and the airplane in the early 20th (along with torpedoes and mines) that surface fleets were obsolete, being vulnerable to much cheaper attackers. This argument has been repeatedly vindicated by events, and just as repeatedly ignored by the makers of defence policy.

Update: My point is pretty much proved by this report that the Navy has dropped the ball on training and retaining submarine crews. By contrast, the general tone of many comments seems to be based on the notion “why not have it all?” with no consideration of budget constraints, let alone benefit-cost analysis.
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The Republican War on Science: Tierney and Bethell

John Quiggin152 Comments

One of the big problems with talking about what Chris Mooney has called The Republican War on Science is that, on the Republican side, the case against science is rarely laid out explicitly. On a whole range of issues (evolution, passive smoking, climate change, the breast-cancer abortion link, CFCs and the ozone layer and so on) Republicans attack scientists, reject the conclusions of mainstream science and promote political talking points over peer-reviewed research. But they rarely present a coherent critique that would explain why, on so many different issues, they feel its appropriate to rely on their own politically-based judgements and reject those of mainstream science. And of course many of them are unwilling to admit that they are at war with science, preferring to set up their own alternative set of scientific institutions and experts, journals and so on.

So it’s good to see a clear statement of the Republican critique of science from John Tierney in this NY Times blog piece promoting global warming “skepticism”. The core quote is

climate is so complicated, and cuts across so many scientific disciplines, that it’s impossible to know which discrepancies or which variables are really important.
Considering how many false alarms have been raised previously by scientists (the “population crisis,� the “energy crisis,� the “cancer epidemic� from synthetic chemicals), I wouldn’t be surprised if the predictions of global warming turn out to be wrong or greatly exaggerated. Scientists are prone to herd thinking — informational cascades– and this danger is particularly acute when they have to rely on so many people outside their field to assess a topic as large as climate change.

Both this quote and the rest of Tierney’s article are notable for the way in which he treats science as inseparable from politics, and makes no distinction between scientific research and the kind of newspaper polemic he produces. Like most Republicans, Tierney takes a triumphalist view of the experience of the last thirty years or so, as showing that he and other Republicans have been proved right, and their opponents, including scientists, have been proved wrong. Hence, he argues, he is entitled to prefer his own political judgements to the judgements (inevitably equally political) of scientists.

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Gitmo and Gulag

John Quiggin39 Comments

My namesake, Canadian terrorism expert Tom Quiggin, takes a look at the Guantanamo Bay trials, and notes their adherence to the principles laid down by Stalin’s chief prosecutor, Andrey Vyshinsky.

Quiggin notes that

According to Col. Morris Davis, who is a former chief prosecutor of the military commissions, it appears that the plan was made ahead of time to have no acquittals, no matter what the evidence was to reveal. General counsel William Haynes is quoted as saying (according to Col. Davis) “We can’t have acquittals. If we’ve been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? … We’ve got to have convictions.”

As Australian readers will recall, Davis resigned his position in disgust after the only trial to reach court, that of David Hicks, was shut down after the Australian government intervened to secure a plea bargain, with Hicks pleading guilty in return for a sentence that saw him returned to Australia then kept in prison just long enough to ensure his silence for the election.

Hicks’ guilty plea led to his being described by the Howard government’s fan club as a “self-confessed terrorist”. Of course, the same description applies to many of those convicted in Stalin’s show trials, where charges of sabotage and terrorism were a routine part of the rap sheet (as with all show trials, some may even have been guilty, but their confessions prove nothing).