We must design our lives…

From Jane Mansbridge in 1996

We need worry far less about the compromises we make between the good and the best or between the bad-but-livable and the better, when those compromises are, roughly speaking, utility-driven—when we are only giving up one good to get another.  But when we compromise with justice, we must design our lives and our institutions so that the justice that is compromised remains nagging, in the margin somewhere, in a bracket that does not go away, to pique our souls and goad us into future action.

 

Inappropriate application

I just want to flag this as one of the clearest examples I know of a public policy being used for something completely different than what it was intended for.

I don’t have a lot to say beyond “this is a really terrible way to approach the problem of women using drugs during pregnancy,” so I’ll keep it short: most states have, in recent years, passed fetal homicide laws.  They were intended to be applied to third party attacks–most often by abusive male partners.  Instead, several states are using them to press criminal charges against women who use drugs during their pregnancy and miscarry.

Read it here.

Stable Integration: how our assumptions shape reality

I just finished reading The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson’s incredible book about the Great Migration.  It deserves its own post (or three), but I’ll highlight one overlap here.  (Also, please don’t go back through the archives to see how long it has taken me to finish it.  And if you do, you should blame my semester and not the book).

In tracing the journey of one of her three main characters, Wilkerson writes about white flight from neighborhoods in the cities of the North.  She writes that while the arrival of black families was associated with decreases in housing prices, the decline worked almost exclusively through a mechanism of fear.  A whisper of black integration put neighborhoods into “real estate purgatory” that set off a downward cycle of anticipation in which no one would buy, rent prices fell in an attempt to attract poorer whites, homeowners sold for less than their home was worth to avoid getting “stuck,” and those who remained had no incentive to invest in or improve their properties.

Thus many white neighborhoods began declining before colored residents even arrived.  There emerged a perfect storm of nervous owners, falling prices, vacancies unfillable with white tenants or buyers, and a market of colored buyers who may not have been able to afford the neighborhood at first but now could with prices within their reach.  The arrival of colored home buyers was often the final verdict on a neighborhood’s falling property value rather than the cause of it” (376-7).

I recently read an article by Philip Nyden, Michael Maly, and John Lukehart from 1997 asking whether or not stable racially integrated neighborhoods exist in the United States.  In short, they do, and the article is worth reading if you have access to it.  But what really struck me was the slightly-updated-but-still-the-same-as-the-1950’s summary of the ways in which our assumptions shape reality:

…the persistent…misconception [is] that economically, racially, and ethnically mixed neighborhoods are inherently unstable and not viable.  For middle-income white homeowners and renters, racial or economic diversity is interpreted as a signal of neighborhood decline and imminent declines in housing values.  For lower-income groups, such diversity often flags the possibility of gentrification, increasing housing costs, and the concomitant displacement of low-income renters.

In both cases, those expectations shape what happens next.  On one hand, expecting decline, those who can get out.  On the other, expecting gentrification, potential buyers looking to make an investment start considering a neighborhood they wouldn’t have before—their very consideration inching prices up.

For me, there’s no doubt that personal prejudice still plays a significant role in perpetuating housing segregation.  But if we could get the market hysteria out of the equation, it’d certainly help.

Jonas

Also from Crossen

Well, really Benjamin Barber via Crossen.

Contrast these two questions:

1. Do you want a drug rehabilitation center in your neighborhood?

2. Do you think that the community needs drug rehabilitation centers, and if so, would you accept one in your neighborhood if you were persuaded that the policy process by which the locations were chosen was participatory and fair?

Pollsters assume that people can only answer questions of private preference.  If people are constantly asked to evaluate public polices in terms of their prejudices, they unlearn the art of civic judgment.

I don’t really blame polls for the questionable quality of our collective civic judgment, but I do find it persuasive that our questions are probably incorrectly oriented, that we would be better of if we’d explicitly require people to separate out what they believe to be best for society from what they believe to be best for themselves.

Jonas

The real “other side”

Every now and then, there are rumblings about passing a law that would prohibit unions from using member dues to make political contributions without the written permission of the member.  For those of us who’ve been exposed to the portrayal of unions as corrupt special interests (think The Wire, Season Three), this makes some sense.  I admit to thinking that I could see where the impulse for such legislation might come from when I first heard of it.  For me, the two sides were: constrain political contributions or don’t.

Flying Whale, not surprisingly, was able to put it in context much more quickly, responding, “Are we going to require shareholders to sign something before corporations can make political contributions too?”  For Flying Whale, the two sides were: constrain both opposing powers or neither.

Initially, I was confined to a narrower scope, that of limiting union corruption, when imagining the other side of the argument.  Flying Whale was working from a broader and, I think, more robust understanding–that the other side was really about keeping opposing powers balanced.

The conversation reminded me that I really do think it’s a skill to be able to see the real “other side,” not the one embedded in the frame someone else is using.

Cynthia Crossen’s book, Tainted Truth, of which I’ve admittedly only read a few chapters, really made this point for me.  In her discussion of polling, she explores how poll results are affected by question wording.  Old news, right?  But I was surprised by how difficult it was for me to spot the less egregious slants.  For example, in Chapter Five, Crossen explores the public opinion polling that surrounded the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill scandal/accusation.  Regarding a question from a New York Times/CBS News poll:

“Some people say Anita Hill’s charges should not be taken seriously because she did not make them years ago at the time she said the incidents happened.” (So far, so good.  That, indeed, was a popular argument against Anita Hill’s case.) The question continues: “Other people say the charges should be taken seriously even though they were made for the first time just recently.”  This second sentence is supposed to be the other side of the coin–the reason Anita Hill should be taken seriously.  Instead, it simply restates the negative point–she took a long time to complain.  But what would the results have been if the second part of the question had read, “Other people say the charges should be taken seriously because women sometimes have reasons to delay reporting such behavior?”

Once Crossen points it out, it’s so clear.  But just the “Some people say…other people say” structure had me fooled into taking it as an even-handed question.

Knowing that you’re susceptible to being duped certainly helps, but I’m finding this to be a slow skill to acquire.

Jonas

Three worth seeing

Inside Job

Persepolis

Night Catches Us

Jonas

Black comedy with Alan Greenspan

A couple days ago, Financial Times gave some column-inches to Alan Greenspan to bash the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill. Not, of course, for being insufficient in its strictures (see Matt Taibbi for that), but rather for being too heavy-handed and market-distorting. The money statement, and the one that has elicited unending amounts of scorn and hilarious snark, is this:

Today’s competitive markets, whether we seek to recognise it or not, are driven by an international version of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” that is unredeemably opaque. With notably rare exceptions (2008, for example), the global “invisible hand” has created relatively stable exchange rates, interest rates, prices, and wage rates.

To which Dean Baker says,

Just in case you have forgotten, we have 25 million people who are unemployed, under-employed or have given up looking for work altogether because Alan Greenspan did not understand financial markets and the economy. Perhaps the FT will have a column offering advice on disaster management from Michael Brown.

Crooked Timber dedicates a whole post, plus a gazillion comments, to mocking the “with notable exceptions” thing. I haven’t read them all because the sheer number of them is overwhelming, but there’s some pretty funny stuff in there. “With notably rare exceptions, Germany remained largely at peace with its neighbors during the 20th century.”

It’s also interesting to note that the vast majority of commenters on the original FT piece are largely derisive of Greenspan, and of FT for giving him undeserved airtime.

Finally and more substantively, the thrust of Greenspan’s argument appears to be that the financial sector is just too complicated to be regulated. This is, needless to say, a troubling line of argument, but not one that’s entirely uncommon. In fact, World Bank President Bob Zoellick essentially made a similar argument when he gave a talk here last year, saying that he had the World Bank put pressure on the Basel III financial regulatory talks so that the resulting regulations would not be an “overreaction” that resulted in unintended consequences. About Dodd-Frank, Greenspan says:

The financial system on which Dodd-Frank is being imposed is far more complex than the lawmakers, and even most regulators, apparently contemplate. We will almost certainly end up with a number of regulatory inconsistencies whose consequences cannot be readily anticipated.

I understand the idea of unintended consequences as an argument against sweeping reforms, but when the system to be reformed is so thoroughly broken, one would think that something more than cautious baby steps is called for.

Flying Whale

The Racism Matrix

This particular post was supposed to be Flying Whale’s task, but unfortunately I need it to exist now, so that someone else can use it now.

But before we get to the racism matrix, we need to talk briefly about structure and agency.  Structure and agency are just fancy sociologist words to describe the fact that people make choices in their lives (agency), but that those choices are constrained by the rules and systems that govern society (structure).

The most helpful metaphor for this that I know is that society is like a river, flowing downstream.  Individuals are like a swimmer in that river.  They can choose to swim with the current or against the current, but ultimately, their movement is within the context of the current’s flow.

Enter the racism matrix:

	Racist	Anti-racist
Active
Passive

Pretty straight-forward.  Two columns by two rows.  And so we begin trying to fill it in.

What’s active and racist?  Being a member of the KKK.  Calling someone a racist slur.  Refusing to hire someone because of their race.

What’s passive and racist?  Letting an employee at a car dealership serve you first, even though an African American was in line before you.     Being a member of an association that doesn’t allow membership for people of color.  Staying silent when a friend tells a racist joke.

Then what’s actively anti-racist?  Participating in the Civil Rights Movement.  Signing a petition that demands an investigation when a white police officer kills a person of color under suspicious circumstances.  Supporting affirmative action for people of color.

Which leaves the passively anti-racist cell.

The point of the Racism Matrix is that the passive anti-racism cell doesn’t exist, that it’s impossible to be passively anti-racist.  Which is to say, in a racist society, being passive and doing nothing will support the momentum of the status quo and will therefore have a racist effect.

Think back to the swimmer and the river.  You can swim with the current (active racism) or you can swim against the current (active anti-racism).  But if you just float on your back, you’re going to be pulled along with the current (passive racism).

There’s no way to float against the current.

At a conceptual level, this means that one of the ways in which structure intervenes into our lives is that it removes one of our cells of action (or inaction, as the case may be).  But as a teaching tool, the Racism Matrix says this: if you don’t like a system you see playing out in your society, you have to DO something to counter it.  Otherwise, you are supporting it.

Jonas

The WTO clubs baby seals?

That’s a headline you might expect to see at FreeTradeKillsAnimals.org in the very near future. The WTO has just established three panels addressing complaints from Canada and Norway regarding the European Union’s recent decision (plus older regulations in Belgium and the Netherlands) to ban imports of seal pelts due to “the concerns expressed by EU citizens about seal products from hunts which involve shooting seals and clubbing them to death.” In non-trade-wonk language, Canada and Norway are asking the WTO to strike down the EU ban on seal products.

Canada’s request for the establishment of a panel claims that the EU regulations violate its obligations under the GATT and TBT agreements, and describes the issue thusly:

The European Union trade ban prohibits the importation and the placing on the market for sale in the European Union customs territory of any seal product except: (a) those derived from hunts traditionally conducted by Inuit and other indigenous communities, which contribute to their subsistence; and (b) those that are by-products of a hunt regulated by national law and with the sole purpose of sustainable management of marine resources. In addition, seal products for personal use may be imported but may not be placed on the market. The effect of the trade ban, in combination with the implementing measure, is to restrict virtually all trade in seal products within the European Union, and in particular with respect to seal products of Canadian origin.

If the WTO rules against the EU, it will be yet another case of a democratically established regulation intended to protect the environment being overturned in favor of an ideal of free-flowing unregulated commerce. Canada’s case will likely be that its seal-product export industry is a crucial part of the livelihoods of some of its vulnerable populations, and that the hunting of seals is done in a sustainable manner. The Canadian chapter of the Humane Society International (an organization which, is should be noted, is hardly a reliable opponent of current “free-trade” policies) anticipates these arguments:

National polling consistently shows the overwhelming majority of Canadians want the commercial seal hunt to end, oppose the Canadian government using tax dollars to promote the sealing industry and support the rights of foreign nations to prohibit trade in seal products… Canada’s seal slaughter is conducted by commercial fishermen who earn, on average, less than 5 percent of their annual income from killing seals.

It is worth noting that the U.S. banned the importation of seal products from Canada in 1972’s Marine Mammal Protection Act – yes, the same MMPA that was weakened by the famous GATT tuna-dolphin case. Furthermore, in 2005, a bipartisan resolution was introduced in the Senate calling on Canada to end the commercial hunting of seals.

In sum, Canada’s reaction to international pressure from the EU and the United States regarding its seal-hunting industry is not to eliminate or downside said industry, but instead to defend it using a minimally accountable transnational commercial institution that has historically sided with commercial interests over environmental protection or other sound regulatory measures. This is a rather telling indicator of the power of global commerce over international norms about environmental and consumer protection.

That said, environmental and animal rights organizations tend to have massive clout with American and European publics when they can show that cute furry cuddly things are in danger. And few things are cuter, furrier or cuddlier than baby seals (evidence above courtesy of Google Images). So this is also a golden opportunity for such organizations to raise a stink about the structure of the global economy; whether they are able to take advantage, and how they frame the broader issues at hand, will be very interesting to see.

Flying Whale

Ag subsidies revisited

Over at The American Prospect, Monica Potts has written one of the clearest and most concise summaries of what a progressive view on U.S. agricultural subsidies should take into account. This is a topic I’ve written about before on this blog, in reference to an excellent University of Tennessee report from 2003. Potts gives a brief historical outline and discusses why the debate should be about reforming subsidies rather than eliminating them:

Sometime between Fast Food Nation and Food, Inc., progressives arrived at the simplistic conclusion that crop subsidies are bad for the environment and our health, and we need to end them. But crop subsidies were established for a real reason. The market for items like corn, wheat, soybeans, and cotton — all nonperishable foods — have serious problems that subsidies were designed to address. The reasons for subsidizing these crops are complicated, but they boil down to this: You can’t trust the forces of supply and demand to set stable, fair prices.

I have little to add, just wanted to highlight this as a very well-written summary of the issues at hand. Worth reading the whole thing – and if your interest is piqued, so is the Tennessee document.

And yes, I owe a lot of attention to a couple of recent commenters – you are not being overlooked.

Flying Whale