Dictators sticking together

John Quiggin16 Comments

According to the People’s Daily

China firmly supports Uzbekistan’s moves to crack down on the “three evil forces” of terrorism, separatism and extremism, and maintain domestic and regional stability for peaceful development, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in Beijing Tuesday

To the extent that the Chinese regime has any coherent foreign policy, its primary principle is opposition to any intervention in the internal affairs of dictatorships. The more brutal the dictatorship, the happier China is to lend its support, and of course, the better the Chinese regime looks by comparison. Sometimes, this principle brings China into conflict with the Bush Administration, as in the case of Iraq. In other cases, as in that of Uzbekistan, the two see eye to eye.

I look forward to a possible future when only democratically-elected governments are regarded as legitimate. That doesn’t mean support for the Bush doctrine that any external enemy who wants to overthrow such a government by force should be free to do so. But it would mean suspension from the UN and all similar bodies, in the same way as currently happens in the event of a military coup in a Commonwealth country, as well as embargos on any form of military contracts or arms sales. The critical requirement for such a future is a democratic China. As I’ve written before, I don’t think this is as impossible as it seems. The apparent solidity of the Chinese regime conceals the erosion of its foundations in Communist ideology, and in the historical legitimacy of past generations of leaders. It’s a statue with a golden head and feet of clay.

Cities

John Quiggin19 Comments

I was reading this story in The New Republic (subscription required, I think) about the problems of US cities and it struck me that little of the discussion would make sense in an Australian context, simply because Americans and Australians understand the city-suburb distinction quite differently. As noted here, in Australia , a suburb means “one of the units comprising a city”, corresponding roughly to the American “neighborhood”. By contrast, in the US the term is understood to mean “a district, especially a residential one, on the edge of a city or large town”. British usage is somewhere between the two, but closer to Australian.

This distinction is reinforced by the fiscal system in the US, where more tax is raised, at the local government level, and more functions, notably education are undertaken by local government, so the boundary between local governments makes a bigger difference. This seems to cause a lot of problems, with the result that US cities seem to be in difficulty most of the time. Perhaps the Australian setup produces different problems that aren’t so obvious or pressing.

Beyond this, though, I think there really is something to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis here. The fact that everyone in Australia regards the suburbs as part of the city to which they belong, regardless of local government boundaries, affects the way we think about all sorts of things. For example, even if inner-city suburbs are thought of as hipper and cooler than the outer suburbs, the distinction is one of degree rather than kind, since there is no sharp dividing line between the two, so we don’t really have an urban/suburban distinction in the way that Americans do.

Mistaken identity

John Quiggin9 Comments

Brad DeLong coins a useful phrase. Referring to Bernanke’s global savings glut theory. He says

I’m very skeptical. It is of a brand of macro that I think of as one-identity-economics. You take an accounting identity. You assume that certain terms of it are fixed. And you then derive conclusions–in this case, that the growth of the budget deficit has moderated the fall in private savings.

The problem with one-identity-economics lies with the assumption that certain terms in it are fixed. There are lots of channels of adjustment in the world economy, and it is a safe bet that with different levels of interest rates and different levels of wealth we would see different levels of corporate investment and of net exports.

Some other examples of one-identity-economics are the crowding out hypothesis and the twin deficits hypothesis.

More on Uzbekistan

John Quiggin31 Comments

The NYT has survivors’ accounts of the massacre in Uzbekistan. Meanwhile, on last night’s ABC News, I saw the commander of the US base in Uzbekistan interviewed. He said something like “The host country military are doing a wonderful job protecting the base and we have had no trouble from the disturbances”. That’s the same host country military that was murdering hundreds of its own people a few days earlier. I can’t find a link to this on Google news, so I’d be grateful to anyone who can point me to a transcript.

Bush’s friendly relations with the Uzbek dictator Karimov have been unshaken by this, and any stated opposition to Karimov’s use of torture and murder is meaningless: it’s an open secret that a good deal of it is being done on behalf of the Administration, as part of the policy of extraordinary rendition.

The blogospheric right has mostly been either silent or supportive, along with much of the pro-war left. But some cracks are emerging. Here’s a piece by Stephen Schwartz and William Kristol from the Weekly Standard. And on the pro-war left, there are some good pieces from Eric the Unread and Harry’s Place.

Update JF Beck offers a defence of the Karimov dictatorship, ending rather lamely with the weasel words “Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not supporting the Karimov government or its actions. I’m simply pointing out that the “wanton murder” scenario being pitched by the left is open to question”. For Beck, and the rest of the RWDB crew, the important thing is to support Bush and attack the left on every possible occasion, even if it means giving someone like Karimov the benefit of the doubt.

What I’ve been reading and watching

John Quiggin6 Comments

I’ve just bought the new Nick Hornby novel, “A Long Way Down” first person narrative from four people who meet on a rooftop, each planning suicide. It looks promising so far – the implication is that all survive, but for all I know they may end up back on the rooftop, or may be speaking from the next world[1]. No spoilers, please.

I went with my son to Revenge of the Sith, which was certainly better than Episodes 1 and 2. My big complaint is that we’ve been waiting since 1978 or thereabouts to find out how Princess Leia comes to be fleeing from Darth Vader at the end of episode 4, and now we find that episode 3 ends with her in nappies. If Lucas meant to make a hommage to 1950s serials he hasn’t done a great job in this respect.

Better news is that I’ve got something to watch on Saturday nights again, with the arrival of a new series of Dr Who. Apart from the occasional Lions game (and they haven’t been too rewarding lately), I haven’t had any options since I abandoned The Bill a couple of years ago.

fn1. This device, effective in “The Lovely Bones” (Alice Sebold)The Lovely Bones seems to be getting hackneyed

The NYT goes cash for comment

John Quiggin6 Comments

ViaTimothy Noah at Slate, I learn that the NYT is going to start charging for access to its opinion columns. It’s not clear whether, and how, bloggers will be exempted from this – the NYT provides blog access to the archives (otherwise pay-per-view) through its RSS feeds

Speaking as a reader, I wouldn’t want to pay for the NYT Op-Ed page. The Editorials are worthy, but not very exciting. Of the columnists, only Krugman is consistently excellent, and most of his columns consist of necessary repetition of important truths well-informed readers are aware of, but most commentators are unwilling to harp on for fear of being called “shrill”. Kristof, like the little girl in the rhyme, is very, very good when he’s good, but that’s not always. And Herbert is steadily good, if sometimes overly earnest. After that, there’s a long tail, with columns more often useful for mockery than for endorsement.

As a blogger, there’s no point in paying for something if you can’t link to it. That’s why the WSJ is so thoroughly marginalised in the blog world. So unless the NYT finds a way around this, they’ll be cutting themselves off from the most active part of the public debate, and presumably missing out on quite a few potential readers.

Weekend reflections

John Quiggin14 Comments

This regular feature is back again. The idea is that, over the weekend, you should post your thoughts in a more leisurely fashion than in ordinary comments or the Monday Message Board.

Please post your thoughts on any topic, at whatever length seems appropriate to you. Civilised discussion and no coarse language, please.