Get this: the Left understands markets…

…and the right doesn’t.

As an avid reader of both the Economist and much of the progressive media throughout most of the 1980’s, I have to say I was always more than a little disappointed that most of those who advocated progressive social and economic justice didn’t seem to get basic economic concepts. It was especially frustrating because I thought that much of the market intervention, done on behalf of the ‘right wing’ was anti-market, and engineered to create benefits to certain elites. I observed that these economic policies cascaded into social and political injustice that could only end in massive political instability, and would (probably) result in a USA that would look very much like the Third World. Of course, at exactly this time I was living fairly comfortably in Jackson Heights, Queens, NYC, but every day working (for 3 years) on a Hospital project in Morrisania, one of the most impoverished parts of the South Bronx so I didn’t really need much imagination to see the ends of the policies of that day. I just had to keep my eyes open.

Today, there is a host of leftists who understand market forces, and are entirely willing to thoughtfully engage market forces as agents of positive social change. Two groups bear special attention: One is the Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado, USA and the other being the New Economics Foundation in London.

And what’s even more interesting is that there is abundant evidence that the right hasn’t a clue about markets, and are about to slide down a very slippery slope of massive interventionism. I wish I could say that Barack Obama wasn’t part of that group, but I am not sure that I can. (Of course, everything is relative. Barack is infinitely preferable over McCain, aka Bush-lite.)

A couple of interesting articles, one on each group, follow below the fold.

I hope he needs his Social Security someday…

A quite sick story, about a billionaire who is so upset that the middle class in America has devised a social safety net that he will spend a billion dollars of his own money to deprive them of it. You don’t get any more mean-spirited than this:

Vicious Ideologue Renews Attack on Social Security
Monday 21 July 2008
by: Dean Baker, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Billionaire investment banker Peter Peterson is back on the warpath. He just established a new foundation with a $1 billion endowment, the main purpose of which is to cut back spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

These programs, which provide an essential safety net to virtually the entire country, are hugely popular and will be politically difficult to cut. Nonetheless, $1 billion is a lot of money. Therefore, Peterson’s campaign deserves to be taken seriously.

Peterson has long been an ardent foe of these programs. He first rose to national prominence as commerce secretary in the Nixon administration. He then returned to the private sector and became a partner in the Blackstone Group, a very successful private equity fund.

Horrified by the “personal venom” ?

Well, since the Brazilian trade representative started comparing the methods used by advocates of the Global Trading regime to those used by Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda chief, the office U.S. trade representative has expressed their shock:

Sean Spicer, spokesman for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, said he was horrified by the “personal venom” of Amorim’s words.

“We came here to Geneva to negotiate on substance,” Spicer told The Associated Press. “For him to make remarks like this is so incredibly wrong. They are insulting.”

I won’t ever advocate comparing the office of the US trade representative to Nazi’s. But let’s keep a little perspective here and understand why the office of the US trade Representative is so hated. While yes, I am shocked by the personal venom of these attacks I am a little more shocked by the billions starving as a result of globalization. Only when the USA understands why we are becoming more disliked will we be empowered to do something about it.

Maybe Economists should listen to Anarchists, Artists and Architects more often

Well, I am glad Harvard economists are finally getting around to saying something about the death of the globalization consensus. One of the things I think about when I read this is: finally! But it’s very bittersweet as the economic future does not look at all too bright. So even though others have been questioning what’s going on, including the art department of the Economist (way ahead of the writers BTW), I have to ask: What is their program for the future?

Of course, after reading Dani’s article, a logical question would be: Is there a violent anarchist over at work in the Economist’s Art department? I’d very much like the hear from her or him.

Another side note: as much as I like Project Syndicate, it is driving me crazy that they do not date their articles. HELP! Apparently, their commentary has risen above time and space, into an inter-dimensional limbo, in which just pure commentary can exist, outside of any context. Even a a year, or season (e.g.: Spring 2006) would help quite a lot IMHO.

Dani Rodrik states the obvious over at Project Syndicate:

The death of the globalization consensus
That is the title of my new column for Project Syndicate. Here is an extract:

There was a time when global elites could comfort themselves with the thought that opposition to the world trading regime consisted of violent anarchists, self-serving protectionists, trade unionists, and ignorant, if idealistic youth. Meanwhile, they regarded themselves as the true progressives, because they understood that safeguarding and advancing globalization was the best remedy against poverty and insecurity.

But that self-assured attitude has all but disappeared, replaced by doubts, questions, and scepticism. Gone also are the violent street protests and mass movements against globalisation.* What makes news nowadays is the growing list of mainstream economists who are questioning globalisation’s supposedly unmitigated virtues.

* Oh really–perhaps someone forgot to translate that memo into Pakistani? or Italian for that matter.

Walmart, growth visualization

From Flowing Data, an interesting use of Modest Maps:

Hat Tip: Chris Blattman’s wonderful, smart as hell blog about development which I had browsed before but am taking a second look at it since Dani Rodrik from Harvard made some interesting comments about Chris’s blog.

Watching the growth of Walmart across America - Interactive Edition
In the spirit of Toby’s Walmart growth video, using data from Freebase, I mapped the spread of Walmart using Modest Maps. It starts slow and then spreads like wildfire.

http://projects.flowingdata.com/walmart/

Cool Graphics

As a follow up to my earlier posting about Radiohead’s new distribution methodology; here are some interesting graphics, plus a good song. It’s no secret that I am a big fan of that wonderful blow to top-down distribution model they have delivered, some of the consequences of which I had described here.

Freedom to artists; you own the means of your production, and also distribution… Below the fold: how the video was made…By scanning using 64 rotating lasers…

It occurs to me that this is a different type a simulcrum–instead of looking inward and being created synthetically, it’s pulled information from the external environment which is distorted as it is mapped. –enough!–watch and listen)

But it is also interesting for architects/urban planners–instead of a series of 2-D images (as in google street view) now there’s the possibility that google trucks will just go around scanning in information with rotating lasers–and we’d have all that info in 3D.

Below the fold: how the video was made…By scanning using 64 rotating lasers…

Hat Tip: La Petite Claudine

Yes!

If you ask the question: Have Computers made us more efficient? you have set the bar rather low. Instead ask: Have computers made us as efficient as they possibly can? When you ask that question, you will start to use computers differently. Brad DeLong, deputy assist to the Treasury in the Clinton administration, notes in this article in Wired that they can be a distraction, and this is so true.

Paul Virilio also talks a lot about the unintended effects of technology, but he has been doing that for a long time now.

And of course, remember the Mennonites!

Here’s the article:

The High Cost of Efficiency
Computers make us more productive. Do they also slow us down?
July 2003 Wired Magazine

By J. Bradford DeLong

In the spring of 1994, I wiped the game Civilization off my office computer. I wiped it off my home PC. I wiped it off my laptop. I threw away the original disks on which it had come. It was clear to me that I had a choice: I could either have Civilization on my computers, or I could be a deputy assistant secretary of the US Treasury. [emph bye_f] I could not do both. It wasn’t that my boss ordered me to - she herself played a mean game of computer solitaire. In this, I was the boss, and I had decided that with Civilization on DeLong’s hard disk, DeLong’s productivity would be unacceptably low.

Computers are tremendous labor-saving devices. They give us power to accomplish extraordinary amounts of work in extraordinarily short intervals of time: financial analysis, data mining, design automation. But they also give us the capability to do things like play solitaire. Or send instant messages. Fiddle with fonts. Futz with PowerPoint. Twiddle with images. Reconfigure link rollovers.

But he really gets going when talking about the needless use of powerpoint (Full Disclosure: I really really dislike Powerpoint)

At the organizational level, however, the uses of high tech that might be valuable for an individual can be pointless or counterproductive. Consider a meeting to decide between two courses of action. Often, the same decision would be made whether weeks were spent preparing overheads or no overheads were prepared at all. It’s easy to see that, from the company’s point of view, all the hours spent on PowerPoint slides are dissipated waste.

But of course the best attack on powerpoint comes from Ed Tufte, who takes his criticism a step further, and notes how powerpoint interferes with thinking, hides information, and leads to wrong decision making. Yes, choice of tools is important!

Googlonymous is gone, but there’s plenty of other ways

OK Googlonymous is closed, fermi, kaput!

But there’s always Naviguer: http://www.naviguer.ca

Or here’s a link set up with English language Google loaded:

http://www.naviguer.ca/naviguer/nph-naviguer.pl/000010A/http/www.google.ca/

Or if you want to do it in Polish (And yes this is for you):

http://www.google.pl.nyud.net/