Kruse Kronicle

Student Loan Forgiveness and Thinking Christianly

This month Allan Bevere and I discuss student loan forgiveness, reflecting not just on the merits of proposed loan cancellations but also on how we use (and abuse) scripture to justify policy ideas. 

Confederate Monuments Are A Rewrite of History, Not A Remembrance

Confederate monuments were the product of a campaign to rewrite history, not to preserve it.

There were few Confederate monuments in the thirty years after the Civil War ended in 1865. Placement of monuments came in two waves, the first much larger than the second. One wave began at the turn of the last century and the other began about 1956 (See chart).

Source: There are certain moments in US history when Confederate monuments go up

First Wave

The first sustained wave of monument placement began in the late 1890s, peaking in 1911, and then tapering off to lower rate of placement in the 1920s and early 1930s. Why this spike?

By the 1890s, Confederate veterans were dying off and Southern elites feared younger generations would lose the “right” perspective on the history of the Civil War. The “Lost Cause” movement began to take root in the South as a response. The mission was to recast the Confederacy as a heroic and just attempt a preserve Southern way of life while minimizing the experience and impact of slavery.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy was birthed in 1894. Organized by daughters and granddaughters of the Southern elite, they set out to promote the Lost Cause narrative through textbook writing, children’s programs, and the erection of monuments promoting the Lost Cause. Their financial and political clout gave them considerable influence, especially in the formerly Confederate states.

In 1896, the Supreme Court handed down its Plessy vs Ferguson ruling, institutionalizing the Separate but Equal doctrine. By 1914, Less than twenty years later, all Southern states and most Northern cities had enacted laws segregating people.

1925 Klan march in Washington DC

From 1902 to 1907, Tom Dixon wrote a popular trilogy of novels from 1902-1907, targeting the “unfair” treatment of the South in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” fifty years earlier. The middle novel, “The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan,” was the inspiration for D. W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” in 1915, glorifying the Klan and employing deeply racists troupes. It was the first true blockbuster movie. Not coincidentally, 1915 was the birth of the Second Ku Klux Klan. By 1922, the Klan had a million members, possibly as many as five million by 1925, and millions more in sympathy. Lynching was prevalent all through this period as were race massacres like the Red Summer of 1919 and the Tulsa massacre of 1921.

Second Wave

The United Daughters of the Confederacy began to lose steam in the 1920s and from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s monument erection mostly subsided. But another smaller spike in from about 1956-1965. What happened here?

In 1954, in Brown vs the Board of Education, the Supreme Court overruled Plessy vs Ferguson, effectively delegitimizing segregation. The Civil Rights Movement came into its own at the time. Up went more monuments to persevere the ethos of the Lost Cause and white supremacy, dropping off after 1965 and the passage of civil rights legislation. The financial and political clout to promote these efforts was not as powerful by this date.

Conclusion

The great majority of Confederate monuments were never a product of some high-minded project to help us holistically remember the past. They were the product of concerted effort to rewrite the past with the Lost Cause narrative. They were integral to waves of white supremacy that swept America, attempting to whitewash the past and intimidate people of color. They have no business standing in places of honor in our public spaces. Their removal aids in the remembrance of history, not its neglect.

For a short history of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and their role in promoting the Lost Cause and Confederate monument placement, view this video.

Socialism. You Keep Using That Word …

Many Americans, especially progressives, are now “socialists.” The rise of Bernie Sanders has had much to do with it. Yet, when I hear them talk, I keep hearing Inigo Montoya, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

According to Marxian theory, Socialism is a transitional economic system between capitalism and communism. Capitalism (i.e., private property ownership and the distribution of goods and services through market exchange) will run its course and one day a classless society with no private property will evolve. The workers will hold things in common and goods will be distributed according to need.

Some Marxists believed they could accelerate this evolution through violent revolution and imposition of communist principles. We saw that tactic attempted several times in the last century. Others believed economic evolution should run its course. People could work for greater social justice within the system as they methodically brought every aspect of the economy under the control of the government, eventually ending private ownership of the means of production. From there, it would be just a few more steps to the communist utopia. This transitional system is socialism.

Socialists called themselves “social democrats,” or “democratic socialists,” advocating “social democracy.” The emphasis here is democracy. Since communism is the inevitable outcome, there is no need to short circuit the process through violent revolution. People will choose their way into communism.

During the last century, it certainly became clear that relying on markets and philanthropy alone was not an optimal strategy for a just and flourishing society. Government has assumed control of some functions to ensure the broader welfare of citizens in all of today’s capitalist societies. These functions have been “socialized.” But the broader context is still private property and market systems. “Socializing” selected functions is not a tactical progression toward communism. This is welfare capitalism.

However, a funny thing happened to socialism along the way through the last century. It was mugged by reality. It has become clear that socialism is fatally flawed. Market systems provide a real-time feedback loop of information, matching ever-changing demands with an ever-changing supply. Markets empower countless strangers to benefit each other through specialization and exchange. There is simply no way a centralized entity can manage the production of goods and services. Assuming those with the sufficient information could be trusted to have the wisdom and ethical courage to make optimal decisions, the endless churn of supply and demand makes sufficient information utterly impossible. (Other insurmountable barriers exist but that is for another day.) The “inevitable” road to communism was wrong.

Most political parties variously named “democratic socialist” or “social democrats,” have become advocates for expanding welfare capitalism. For precisely this reason, the word “socialist” has fallen out of favor in many regions. So in short, we have learned that neither pure libertarianism nor socialism is workable. We are all welfare-capitalist now: We rely primarily on private ownership and market exchange, and quibble about what societal functions might be better if socialized.

So let us look for a minute a Bernie Sanders, the “socialist” icon for hipster intellectuals. Sanders talks of making America more like Denmark –  or the Nordic economic model. Are Nordic countries socialist? Finnish-American journalist, Anu Partanen, author of The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life, recently noted:

The problem is the way Sanders has talked about it [Nordic economic model.] The way he’s embraced the term socialist has reinforced the American misunderstanding that universal social policies always require sacrifice for the good of others, and that such policies are anathema to the entrepreneurial, individualistic American spirit. It’s actually the other way around. For people to support a Nordic-style approach is not an act of altruism but of self-promotion. It’s also the future.

In an age when more and more people are working as entrepreneurs or on short-term projects, and when global competition is requiring all citizens to be better prepared to handle economic turbulence, every nation needs to ensure that its people have the education, health care, and other support structures they need to take risks, start businesses, and build a better future for themselves and for their country. It’s simply a matter of keeping up with the times.

In a recent address at Harvard University, Denmark’s prime minster, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, made this observation:

I know that some people in the US associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore, I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy. … The Nordic model is an expanded welfare state which provides a high level of security to its citizens, but it is also a successful market economy with much freedom to pursue your dreams and live your life as you wish.

Are you getting that? A robust welfare system is a means to a robust market economy! And that raises another issue: markets.

Paraphrasing Partanen, progressive Americans see Nordic social policies as anathema to market capitalism. They argue that allowing corporations to rig the system in the favor of a few, allegedly an inherent feature of capitalism, is social injustice. It makes no sense. If corporations are rigging the system, then it is not truly a market! The socialist answer would be for the government to assume ownership of corporations. If you just want to end inordinate privilege for big-business, then what you are advocating is – wait for it – freer markets!

In reality, there is no such thing as "free markets." Market economies are based on the premise that absent fraud, misinformation, and externalities, people will make the best and most efficient decisions about what to consume and produce for their own needs, mediated through price information generated by supply and demand. Producers who produce well will be rewarded and those that do not will eventually fold. The reality is that there is always incomplete information and there are nearly always some externalities inherent in trade. Taxes and regulation are also necessary. But generally speaking, trade unencumbered by planners or by gamers of the system leads to higher living standards.

Big-business capitalists use political power to block competition and preserve economic power. They constrain markets. Writing 240 years ago, Adam Smith wrote, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” Free markets are the answer to powerful economic players conspiring with government to choke off competition and preserve their privileged status through subsidies, tariffs, and onerous legislation.

Socializing some aspects of society is not antithetical to market economics. We cannot deliver some social goods through markets, or at least not deliver them well. But we must have a robust market economy to generate the tax revenue to make socialized services sustainable. Denmark is the top rated country in the world on business and trade. The other Nordic countries are right behind them. This is not the Sanders model.

Sanders wants to institute protectionist policies, raise taxes on corporations (USA is already on the high side), set a minimum wage 50% higher than other developed countries, and do a host of other trade unfriendly measures. Meanwhile, taxes for all but the wealthiest will stay low (taxes in Nordic countries are high for everyone.) He wants to expand the safety net golden egg while strangling off the goose that lays it. He thrives on populist anti-market and anti-business sentiment. Curiously, Clinton is probably closer to the Nordic model, embracing an expanded and smarter welfare model, while championing (at least in the past) trade and business. Yet she dismisses Denmark as contrary to this vision. Partanen speculates Clinton knows her plans are more genuinely like Denmark than are Sanders’ but she avoids association with the Nordic model because of public misconceptions. I think that is true.

So why are so many supposedly well-educated people now calling themselves socialists? One big reason is surely economic illiteracy. Going back to at least the 1930s, conservatives warned of “socialism” with the advent of Social Security. Same with Great Society programs in the 1960s - now also with ACA and talk of single-payer healthcare. To some degree, left-leaners just decided to own the moniker. Simultaneously, enough libertarian-leaning folks falsely used free markets to rationalize away ANY government involvement in anything; so many lefties just owned this misconception of “free market.” What they want is a more robust version of welfare capitalism and less big-business domination. Economic illiteracy is my generous reading of why people call themselves socialist. But I have a less generous reading as well.

Partanen writes:

Americans are not wrong to abhor the specters of socialism and big government. In fact, as a proud Finn, I often like to remind my American friends that my countrymen in Finland fought two brutal wars against the Soviet Union to preserve Finland’s freedom and independence against socialism. No one wants to live in a society that doesn’t support individual liberty, entrepreneurship, and open markets. But the truth is that free-market capitalism and universal social policies go well together—this isn’t about big government, it’s about smart government. …

Like the Finns, countless Americans fought to keep America free from the totalitarian ideologies that emerged in the last century. They largely won. They considered it a legacy to pass to future generations of America and to the world. Rightfully so. So why would people seeking a more robust welfare state and less big-business domination call themselves socialists?

Inigo Montoya is wrong with regard to many of the new “socialists.” They know exactly what the word means! They know the emotion it stirs. The misuse is intentional. Calling yourself “socialist” is the left’s version of Trumpist politics: Stir up tribal rivalry with incendiary language. Raise a verbal middle finger to your opponents. When they call you on it, roll your eyes with incredulity that people would accuse you of advocating totalitarianism. “After all, we just want to improve the safety net end reign in corporate greed like any good social democrat.” So to my “socialist” friends who cannot fathom the origins of anger in Trump voters, part of the answer is staring at you in the mirror. Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.

If your sole concern is fomenting tribal political battles, then the above is mostly irrelevant to you. Calling yourself a socialist is effective for your purposes. If you care about clarifying the truth in pursuit of a greater good for humanity, then you will use language that is faithful to what is being described. Whether through illiteracy or insolence, “socialism” fails that standard. You really need to stop using that word.

 

 

Saturday Links

1. The United States had its financial bubble. Europe is having one too. Is China next? If it is, it could reshape the global economy and radically reshape Chinese government. Here is an interesting piece about China's real estate bubble.

2. Robert Tracinski thinks we are in midst of a Third Industrial Revolution.

... I like the idea of a breaking the Industrial Revolution into stages, but I would define them in more fundamental terms. The first Industrial Revolution was the harnessing of large-scale man-made power, which began with the steam engine. The internal combustion engine, electric power, and other sources of energy are just further refinements of this basic idea. The second Industrial Revolution would be the development of interchangeable parts and the assembly line, which made possible inexpensive mass production with relatively unskilled labor. The Third Industrial Revolution would not be computers, the Internet, or mobile phones, because up to now these have not been industrial tools; they have been used for moving information, not for making things. Instead, the rise of computers and the Internet is just a warm-up for the real Third Industrial Revolution, which is the full integration of information technology with industrial production.

The effect of the Third Industrial Revolution will be to collapse the distance between the design of a product and its physical manufacture, in much the same way that the Internet has eliminated the distance between the origination of a new idea and its communication to an audience. ...

3. Tyler Cowen has some thoughts about the impact our technological revolution as well Are we living in the early 19th century?

... Eventually all of the creative ferment of the industrial revolution pays off in a big “whoosh,” but it takes many decades, depending on where you draw the starting line of course.  A look at the early 19th century is sobering, or should be, for anyone doing fiscal budgeting today.  But it is also optimistic in terms of the larger picture facing humanity over the longer run.

4. You may have seen a deeply flawed viral video about wealth inequality this past week. I working on my own response but here is economist Mark Perry's response.  In response to the viral ‘Wealth Inequality in America’ video

5. What are the contours of income inequality in the United States? This 40 minute video by Emmanuel Saez offers some important insights.

6. Futurist Ray Kurzweil is a little too sensationalist for my taste but this vid offers interesting food for thought about nanotechnology and the future sports. We will even be able to have meaningful sports competition?

7. Atlantic takes up at a frequently perpetuated myth. 'Women Own 1% of World Property': A Feminist Myth That Won't Die

8. First there was I, Pencil. Then I Smartphone. Now "I Coke." What Coke Contains

9. U.S. household wealth regains pre-recession peak but ...

The recovered wealth - most of it from higher stock prices - has been flowing mainly to richer Americans. By contrast, middle class wealth is mostly in the form of home equity, which has risen much less.

10. When looking at decisions in your own context, Seth Godin explains why Macro trends don't matter so much

11. It's a big, fat myth that all scientists are religion-hating atheists.

Whether or not you think science is wonderful, the stereotype of all scientists being atheists is unrealistic. There is, however, a special dance.

12. I consider this good news. Old Earth, Young Minds: Evangelical Homeschoolers Embrace Evolution

More Christian parents are asking for mainstream science in their children's curricula.

13. Remember to keep Syria and Egypt in your prayers. Nearly 1 in 20 Syrians are now refugees

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/03/07/4106038/us-household-wealth-regains-pre.html#storylink=cpy

21 Charts That Explain American Values Today

Atlantic: 21 Charts That Explain American Values Today

Americans say they are more tolerant and open-minded than their parents. Among the issues that rate more morally acceptable today than a decade ago: homosexuality, human cloning, pre-marital sex, and having a child out of wedlock.  At the same time, half believe the economic system is unfair to middle- and working-class Americans, and only 17 percent believe Wall Street executives share fundamental American values. In all, two-thirds think the country is heading in the wrong direction, 69 percent believe the country's values have deteriorated since the 1970s, and nearly half say values will further weaken over the next 10 years.

Such are the highlights of The Atlantic/Aspen Institute American Values Survey. Elsewhere on the site, pollster Mark Penn provides a full analysis of the survey, which was conducted by his firm, Penn Schoen Berland. Below, a brief summary in charts: ...

Very interesting graphs.

Amish Renegades Are Accused in Bizarre Attacks on Their Peers

New York Times: Amish Renegades Are Accused in Bizarre Attacks on Their Peers

BERGHOLZ, Ohio — Myron Miller and his wife, Arlene, had been asleep for an hour when their 15-year-old daughter woke them and said that people were knocking at the door.

Mr. Miller, 45, a stocky construction worker and an Amish bishop in the peaceful farmlands of eastern Ohio, found five or six men waiting. Some grabbed him and wrestled him outside as others hacked at his long black beard with scissors, clipping off six inches. As Mr. Miller kept struggling, his wife screamed at the children to call 911, and the attackers fled.

For an Amish man, it was an unthinkable personal violation, and all the more bewildering because those accused in the attack are other Amish.

“We don’t necessarily fight, but it’s just instinct to defend yourself,” Mr. Miller recalled.

The attackers, the authorities said, had traveled from an isolated splinter settlement near Bergholz, south of the Miller residence. Sheriffs and Amish leaders in the region, home to one of the country’s largest concentrations of Amish, had come to expect trouble from the Bergholz group. It is said to be led with an iron hand by Sam Mullet, a prickly 66-year-old man who had become bitterly estranged from mainstream Amish communities and had had several confrontations with the Jefferson County sheriff.

But the violent humiliation that men from his group are charged with inflicting on their perceived enemies throughout this fall, using scissors and battery-operated clippers, came as a bizarre shock.

The assaults — four are known to the authorities — have stirred fear among the Amish and resulted in the arrests, so far, of five men, including three of Mr. Mullet’s sons, on kidnapping and other charges. Officials say that more arrests are possible. ...

Prophets Against Profits? What Occupy Wall Street Misses

Christianity Today: Prophets Against Profits? What Occupy Wall Street Misses

This is very good piece written by an economist in CT of all places.

The problem doesn't lie with the 1%. It's with us.

A sign flashed at the Occupy Wall Street protest reads "People Before Profits." It is an effective sign. Who could support Profits Before People? Some Wall Street employees have apparently responded sympathetically to the protestors, trying to understand their demands. But part of the power of the protest lies in its ambiguity. Americans are angry about many issues today. In such a climate it may be more strategic to focus on the common anger than on specificities.

The protests are centered on Wall Street because they target political corruption in the finance industry. But the world of finance is very complex. Part of the problem is that it became too complex, so complex that even the financiers themselves couldn't understand the implications or robustness of the financial derivatives they were trading, or even how to properly price them. (They seemed to be particularly challenged with pricing derivatives of sub-prime mortgages.)

The problems with our financial system are complex; the solutions are complex. Overhauling the incentives within our financial institutions is far more challenging than the protestors understand, or perhaps would admit even if they did. As a graduate student at Berkeley, I was a teaching assistant for Christina Romer, a macroeconomist who arguably understands economic recessions better than anyone on the planet. She and Larry Summers, another brilliant economist, spent two grueling years as President Obama's chief economic advisors, trying to untangle the mess. Bottom line to protestors: If Christina struggles with it, you don't understand it.

Like most protests, the Occupy Wall Street folks are better at identifying something that is wrong than identifying a way forward that is right. But even if the protestors don't understand much about financial economics, they have a clear sense that something is wrong. That something, however, lies deeper than the behavior of a relative handful of Wall Street moguls. That something, I believe, is a sense of material entitlement that has crept into the American psyche. This sense of material entitlement has infected our personal choices, our politics, and our financial system. ...

 

Occupy Wall Street - Anti-Corporation?

I don't know the orgin of this but I like it.

Was Sec. of State Clinton Out of Line?

I don't think so. If the translation she received was correct she had every right to get testy. The misunderstanding was graciously resolved. I don't get the big deal.

What should have happened in Gates confrontation?

Christian Science Monitor: What should have happened in Gates confrontation?

Police experts say Gates probably overreacted. But Sergeant Crowley appeared to let the situation spiral out of control, they add.

Every day across America, police officers investigate murders, defuse domestic squabbles, and arrest dope dealers.

But training is just as important when officers come across a "real American" who is combative and refuses to defer to police authority – even if the alleged offense is relatively minor.

The arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr., the prominent Harvard scholar, has brought the issue of race and policing literally from the heights of academic inquiry to a dramatic faceoff between a blue-collar Boston-area cop and one of the ivory tower's most recognizable black scholars.

But perhaps one of the core underlying issues in the incident is one of policing: Officers walk a thin line between staying safe and adhering to the Constitution – and straying over that line can have consequences, especially when it involves the black community. ...

... In his view of the Gates case, which he has studied closely, Mr. Stamper suggests that Gates overreacted. But Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley also made a basic mistake: By becoming distracted by Gates's criticisms and protestations, some of which invoked race, his warnings to Gates to calm down fell short of their mark. And as other police officers arrived, Stamper reasons that it became more difficult for Crowley to back down in front of his peers.

"As soon as you give a warning twice, your authority is shot," Stamper says. "Then, you've approached this thing in precisely the opposite way of how you should have approached it."

The best practice, Stamper says, is called "verbal judo" – and it's an art of its own. ...

A few years ago my sister was doing seminars using a book called Verbal Judo: The Gentle Art of Persuasion. It is written by a former English professor and black belt Karate master who became a police officer. He writes how he had to learn about gaining compliance with his authority without resorting to physical force. In Karate, you meet force with force. In Judo, you use the opponents momentum to get them where you want them to go ... thus the metaphor. It isn't just about police but parenting or being in any position of authority. I've been thinking about this book every since this story broke. How interesting to see it explicitly referenced.

O.J. Simpson Book, TV Special Canceled

From Red Orbit: O.J. Simpson Book, TV Special Canceled

NEW YORK - After a firestorm of criticism, News. Corp. said Monday that it has canceled the O.J. Simpson book and television special "If I Did It."

"I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project," said Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. chairman. "We are sorry for any pain that his has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson."

A dozen Fox affiliates had already said they would not air the two-part sweeps month special, planned for next week before the Nov. 30 publication of the book by ReganBooks. The publishing house is a HarperCollins imprint owned - like the Fox network - by News Corp.

Maybe there is hope for American cutlure.

Amish Newspaper Says 'Thank You'

From beliefnet:  Amish Newspaper Says 'Thank You' (HT: Stephen Shields)

Every Monday for more than 30 years, the Die Botschaft newspaper has gone into the mailboxes of Amish subscribers nationwide.

Filled with letters from correspondents across the country, the weekly publication prints information from the Amish, for the Amish.

This week's (Oct. 16) issue, though, is an exception. The front page of Die Botschaft reaches out to the English--non-Amish--world.

"Thank You," reads the simple headline at the top of the page.

Under that is a three-paragraph message thanking the state police and emergency crews for their handling of the Oct. 2 Amish school shootings in Lancaster County. Gunman Charles Carl Roberts IV killed five girls and injured five others before killing himself.

The message also thanks members of both the English and Amish communities for their kind acts in the aftermath of the tragedy, and thanks people around the world for their donations and prayers on behalf of the victims and their families.

"It has never happened before. Never. This is very unusual," said the paper's editor, Elam Lapp, when asked when Die Botschaft last printed information aimed at the non-Amish community. The paper is based in Millersburg, about 20 miles north of Harrisburg.

Equally unusual was Lapp's decision to contact a reporter at a non-Amish newspaper, offering a copy of the publication.