Stealing from our children

Alonzo Fyfe trots out the persistent delusion that government deficits constitute stealing from our children:

First, we are dealing with an issue morally comparable to theft on a massive scale. Our legislators are engaged in a continuing practice of buying votes by taking money from those who have no voice in our elections (thus no voice in who gets to become a Senator or Representative, and completely unrepresented in Congress) and giving that money to those who are eligible to vote.

Specifically, they vote to take money from children and those not yet born and give their future earnings to current voters through a process of deficit spending.

This is one of the most egregiously insane and delusional economic opinions. Unless you have a time machine, it is physically impossible for us to steal anything at all from our children. Let me say this again, because it's important.

It is physically impossible for us to steal anything at all from our children.

Anyone who says that we are stealing anything from our children is a complete idiot who does not understand the laws of physics. It is physically impossible to steal that which does not yet exist, and the products of our children's labor (assuming we're not putting them to work already) do not yet exist.

More importantly, money is an abstraction. It is not possible to really steal money from anyone, just as it is not possible to inches or pounds. When someone steals a $10 bill from my pocket, I am not concerned about the loss of the money itself, which is just a piece of paper with some green ink on it; I am concerned about the loss of what that money could buy. Money itself is just a symbol.

It is really impossible for a government, which is the privileged manager of the macroeconomy, to ever steal money. The government represents everybody; everybody as a whole cannot steal from anyone: who would they steal from?

In macroeconomics, money is irrelevant in the long run. This is why long run aggregate supply is vertical, i.e. completely invariant with respect to the price level (the aggregate money prices of goods and services).



Seriously, anyone who has taken Principles of Macroeconomics as a freshman in college should understand this point. All we can do with monetary and fiscal policy is change short run aggregate supply, either by shifting the short run aggregate supply curve or by shifting the aggregate demand curve causing movement along the short run aggregate supply curve. Anything that happens with our children happens in the long run, which is immune to money issues. All we can ever do with government monetary and fiscal policy is shift the allocation of present demand for presently produced goods and services.

All goods and services flow in a circle, and money flows in the opposite direction. Creating new money and new demand as government "debt" just recognizes that sooner or later the new money will flow back to the government in the form of taxes. It does not in any way reduce the amount of goods and services our children will be entitled to consume.



I believe the macroeconomy is dynamically unstable. Government monetary and fiscal policy (treating the Federal Reserve as a somewhat independent part of of the de facto government) works to actively stabilize the macroeconomy. When there is a shortage of aggregate demand — there is insufficient "social permission" to presently consume what is presently being produced — the government creates debt to increase aggregate demand, causing movement along the short run aggregate supply curve to meet at the vertical long run aggregate supply curve. When there is excess demand — "social permission" to consume more than is being produced — the government raises taxes on the general public to prevent excess inflation. Since we are presently in a recessionary gap, where the equilibrium between short run aggregate supply and aggregate demand is less that the equilibrium between long run aggregate supply and aggregate demand, we need government deficits.



The alternative is to let wages and price levels fall. This alternative, however, creates enormous problems for people who hold debts denominated in nominal dollars: debts don't fall when the price levels for goods and services fall. Letting price levels fall rather than creating new money in the form of debt (and the corresponding moderate inflation) is far preferable.

Another alternative is to let long run aggregate supply fall, by letting productive capital rust away. Perhaps Fyfe has Andrew Mellon's solution in mind : "Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate. [Panic] will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people." Of course we'll have to liquidate ten million long-term unemployed, but hey, Soylent Green is tasty.

Dealing with people like Alonzo Fyfe, I have new understanding of how biologists must feel about creationists.

The Stupid! It Burns! (billboard edition)

Atheists Proselytize Their Faith In North Carolina

A group of atheists and agnostics in North Carolina have begun a billboard campaign which they claim is designed to help them gain acceptance into main stream society.

However, I think the statements on the billboard seem to be more of a challenge to the beliefs of religious folk than just a friendly “hey there, let’s be friends” type thing. The News and Observer article refers to the billboard quotes as “pithy.” I would not call the billboards pithy, I would call them mocking, insulting and kind of nasty in nature.

The author displays five of the FFRF Out of the Closet billboards. Woo hoo! Free advertising.

For a dose of concentrated stupidity, read the comments.

Decision and choice

It's a bird! It's a plane! Whatever it is, the point whooshes over Tyler Cowen's head.

Let’s say it’s 2027 and I’ve just turned 65. I fill out a Medicare application on-line and opt for a plan with superior heart coverage (my father died of a heart attack), not too much knee coverage and physical therapy (my job doesn’t require heavy lifting), no cancer heroics (my mother turned them down and I wish to follow her example), and lots of long-term disability.

Is that so terrible an approach? Is it obviously worse than having the Medicare Advisory Board make all of those choices for me?

Yes, it's a terrible approach. Cowen conflates decision and choice. It is definitely possible (and probably true) that people can rationally decide between preferred forms of treatment. The problem is that, unlike Cowen, most people are not a tenured university professor with a guaranteed income in retirement. They can't choose anything. In a similar sense, I might be able to rationally decide to colonize Europa rather than Titan, but I cannot choose between the two: I lack the ability to do either. The whole point of Medicare is to provide medical treatment for people without the means to make the choice, whether or not they can rationally make the underlying decision.

If Cowen wants to say that people without the means to make the choice shouldn't get medical care in their old age, let him say so directly, and we can debate the issue on the merits.

The Stupid! It Burns! (tu quoque edition)

Sniff: On Atheism's Pretend Victims

In The Guardian Andrew Copson wants us to adopt the atheist-as-victim narrative. But is he trying too hard? Laughably, his headline reads: “Atheism's aesthetic of enchantment.” [link moved to headline] ...

Copson preaches, “As an Oxford undergraduate in the early 19th century, Percy Bysshe Shelley developed an argument for the non-existence of God. He entitled it The Necessity of Atheism, and 2011 is the bicentenary of his being expelled from the university for printing it.” ...

Of course, if a Christian planned to enrol in an atheist society today and/or published The Necessity of Christianity, he’d be ritually abused with media support. But for some reason, atheists are treated like gods, above rules. And, isn’t it timelier to recall the fact that Shelley dear abandoned (read: expelled) his abused and pregnant wife, Harriet?

Again, lots more stupid in the post.

The Stupid! It Burns! (nit-picking edition)

In On the statement that “we are all atheists” J. W. Wartick says:

“We are all atheists to other religions, we [atheists] just take it one step further.” ...

There’s a problem though, in fact, there’s more than one problem:

1) The statement is false

2) The statement is irrational

3) The statement–as with many false or irrational statements–proves too much (or too little). ...

The idea that Christians are atheists to all other religions is simply false. As I’ve explained elsewhere, to other religions, I am not an atheist, I am a rival theist–an adherent of another religion. ...

As I’ve argued elsewhere, the statement is simply irrational. The atheist is literally saying that the theist is an atheist ...

Consider the following statement:

there are a theoretically infinite number of possible answers to the equation “Two plus two,” but only one actually true answer. To say that “Two plus two equals four” is to automatically make me an unbeliever in all the other possible answers. It’s not rational, however, for the atheist to say, “Well I just go one step further and choose to disbelieve that four is the answer either.” (Dean Todd)

The same type of argument could be made for any true statement. Therefore, the type of reasoning employed in the “we’re all atheists” statement would undermine all true belief. ...

As one respondent put it:

The original formulation didn’t use the word “atheist.” It simply said, “You disbelieve in all the gods of all the religions other than your own. Well, we godless folks only disbelieve in one more than you do. We disbelieve in them all.” Stated this way, your hair splitting over the poetic use of “atheist” becomes irrelevant and the central point stands

But it can be seen that this falls victim to the same difficulties already pointed out above. For it could be said that “You disbelieve in all the possible answers to the statement 2+2=? except one [4], I just disbelieve in them all.” It’s simply positively irrational to even use it as a talking point. That, or it’s trivially true and therefore pointless.

There's a lot more stupid in the article.

Two issues

1. Because there are no gods, we believe religion consists of lies and bullshit, therefore we are atheists.
2. Because religion, i.e. the sort of religion that depends substantively on the existence of God, is both false and harmful, we are anti-religious.

These two issues are largely separate. It's extremely important to note that we are atheists not because religion is harmful, but because there are no gods. Radiation is extremely harmful, but we don't therefore believe that nuclear physics is false.

Similarly, because the positions of stars and planets do not affect our character, personality, and behavior, we believe that astrology is bullshit. But because astrology is not particularly harmful, at least not directly (Pisces and Leos do not often murder each other because of their astrological signs), we aren't really anti-astrology.

Please pay attention.

DeLong on Marx

Brad DeLong does not have kind words for Karl Marx: He quotes Samuelson's characterization of Marx as a "third-rate post-Ricardian," and he calls Marx's principal contributions as:

1. An undeveloped philosophy of human liberation.
2. An oppositional, revolutionary political stance (with absolutely no sense of how revolutions eat their own children).
3. About ten paragraphs' worth of asides in the "Communist Manifesto" and in the preface to "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy" about how economic change creates and transforms social classes which then struggle for political power and how those struggles then shift the path of economic development.

DeLong traces Marx's career from philosopher to political activist to classical economist. DeLong see's Marx's fundamental approach as the attempt to "change the world and liberate humanity by thinking clearly." Having come to economics myself from philosophy, I don't have the same kind of contempt for this approach that DeLong shows. ("As if it were scales would fall from people's eyes and they would see: free from their illusions and their prejudices and their misconceptions they would build utopia.") Unlike DeLong, I don't take for granted the fundamental soundness of the liberal capitalist political-economic paradigm, and unlike DeLong, I don't see the myriad political, economic and social problems as inexplicable manifestations of insanity and perversity.

But the events of the last ten years — and in retrospect the events of the last forty years — have profoundly changed my thinking. And although I have just begun my academic study of economics, everything I have yet discovered hints at substantial philosophical flaws in the liberal capitalist paradigm. Why do we have a national political party, the Republicans, that, as DeLong continuously complains, seem to have abandoned every economic and political lesson we have learned about managing an advanced technological economy? Why do we have a national press corps that seems, as DeLong continuously complains, to treat straightforward matters of factual truth as incomprehensibly opaque? Ordinary stupidity and Gore's incompetence can explain George W. Bush's first election, and rage can explain some of the actions immediately after 9-11. But after Bush's reelection, the Iraq war, the 2007 collapse the Democratic party after its substantial win in 2006, and the weakness of the Obama administration to manage the economic crisis argue for deeper explanations than temporary insanity.

The best explanation I've seen DeLong offer to date is that Milton Friedman magically hypnotized a generation of economists with his anti-Libertarian libertarianism, and mind-wiped all the lessons political economists learned in the two generations after Keynes (10-14). If any one man, however intelligent and charismatic (I imagine economists have... unusual... standards as to charisma) can so entirely wreck a discipline, the fault lies with the discipline, not the man. DeLong is throwing stones from a house with far too much glass.

Sigmund Freud has been revealed as a charlatan and an incompetent and dishonest scientist. Even though it is perhaps his only contribution, Freud deserves credit as a genius simply for believing and promoting the idea that the human mind could itself be an object of scientific study, for simply refusing to take for granted his contemporaries' mysticism and illusions. Freud's incompetence probably cost scientific psychology two generations of progress, but someone had to be the first, and better scientists uncritically accepted the mystical view of the human mind.

I don't think Marx was as incompetent as Freud, but the point still stands. Even if Marx were wrong on every detail (which I do not believe he was), he would still deserve credit as a genius simply for refusing to take for granted the mysticism and illusions that underlie liberal capitalism. The difference is that while their progress was retarded, academic and scientific psychologists were able to extirpate Freud's errors while still keeping the scientific integrity of their discipline intact; indeed their fundamental scientific integrity is what allowed them to overcome Freud's errors. Economists, on the other hand, have so thoroughly and single-mindedly tried to close the curtain that Marx cracked open — and in so doing so lost sight of their fundamental scientific integrity — that they fell victim to the first guy who offered a plausible reason to believe what was behind the curtain was unimportant.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. So I say this to the capitalist ruling class and their upper-middle-class apologists: you're in charge; you run the world. Fix the recession. Fix global warming. Fix the political process. Fix the press. Start showing real improvement in the quality of life for the billions of people who do the work. If you can't fix these problems, if they're beyond your capabilities, then stand aside and let someone else try.

I'm not holding my breath for either alternative. A six-month glitch is one thing, but everything's been going downhill for more than three years, and the capitalist ruling class is losing credibility fast. And of course no ruling class ever has simply stood aside when their characteristic virtues no longer proved adequate to the needs of the times.

The shock troops of the counter-revolution

If and when we do have a communist revolution, Mikeb30200 seems to have identified one source for the shock troops of the counter-revolution. Mikeb quotes Mike Vanderboegh saying,

Okay. . . If you try to take our firearms we will kill you. ...

Our God-given, natural and inalienable rights are not subject to modification by law or negotiation. ... We will fight, even though it means our deaths. This is an alien concept to most collectivists but it is nonetheless true. Pass another law -- any law -- that further restricts our free access to arms and you'll have a civil war on your hands in short order.

Bravado? Probably. Fringe extremism? Almost certainly. But can this sort of violent sentiment be harnessed by the right sort of leadership? Almost certainly.

I have conflicted feelings about this guy. I'm a philosopher: we don't (with the possible exception of George Orwell) tend to find ourselves on the front line of any cause, and none of us, not even Orwell, have the kind of fanatical intensity that Vanderboegh displays. On the other hand you don't have any kind of revolution — good or bad — without stirring up comparable feelings and passions. Yes, it's all well and good to sit in one's ivory tower and wring one's hands about irrational passions. (Vanderboegh is apparently willing to die to protect his right to... what? His right to die to protect his rights?) But to renounce these violent passions is to fully support the status quo.


It's hard to control these passions once aroused, without repression as egregious and objectionable as what the revolution was started to cure. Should we simply, contra Ben Franklin's lament, "despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest"?

Sex at Dawn

The Infamous Brad has an interesting review and summary of Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality. The book investigates the sexuality and mating behavior of human beings from the disciplines of primatology, history and anthropology and biology. According to Brad, the authors collect exhaustive data to conclude that monogamy is entirely an due to agricultural society where inheritance and male ownership of property dominate the economic relations. If Brad is as good a reviewer as it appears (and he appears to be very good indeed), the authors have made a rock-solid case against monogamy being in any sense "natural".

The Stupid! It Burns! (Abraham Lincoln edition)

In National Atheists Day R. K. Bentley chides atheists for being "brazen and outrageous liars" on the basis of this image:

Generally, though, you might want to do just a little, you know, research before you accuse people of being "brazen and outrageous liars." First, this image was created by one person, one unknown person, and its validity is controversial among atheists. A couple minutes with Google reveals that both PZ Myers and John Wilkins find fault with the image... and they did so three years ago. Isn't this sort of thing exactly what Christians criticize when atheists point to the moronic utterances of "fringe" fundamentalists? (Of course, atheists have a different point to make: We're not saying that because one Christian says something stupid, all Christians are therefore stupid. We simply observe that wow! there are a lot of really stupid Christians out there.)

The image might not be accurate (as Wilkins notes, the definition of atheism is a matter of controversy, especially as applied to uncertain cases), but the charge of a "brazen and outrageous" lie requires clear and unequivocal evidence that the assertion is so egregiously false that we can conclude only gross negligence or an intent to deceive. Bentley offers two pieces of evidence to support this charge.

First, Bentley offers Lincoln's call to prayer during the Civil War:

It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, and to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in Holy Scripture, and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

That seems like pretty hard-core Christianity. If Bentley's evidence stands, the image would indeed be almost as "brazen and outrageous" as naming the Pope as a prominent atheist.

However, a few minutes on Google and Wikipedia reveals some interesting facts. According to Wikipedia, Lincoln's religious beliefs were uncertain and largely private. He was not, as was Hume, unequivocally an atheist, but neither was he so unequivocally a Christian as the quotation would suggest. So where does the quotation come from? According to Judith Prince, the proclamation "was written by William H. Seward, Lincoln's Secretary of State, a very religious man who on more than one occasion talked Lincoln into giving religious proclamations that he had written for the President." Referring to a similar proclamation written by Seward, Prince quotes Lincoln as saying, "Oh, that is some of Seward's nonsense, and it pleases the fools." This speech cannot be evidence of anything other than that Lincoln was a politician, a profession whose members are not generally known for absolute sincerity in the public expression of their private beliefs. Bentley cannot plead ignorance; five minutes on Goggle and Wikipedia found the facts. It's not enough, I suppose, for Bentley to correctly conclude that Lincoln's religious beliefs are too obscure for us to unambiguously call him an atheist; Bentley has to stretch the truth even farther than does the image to make the charge of a "brazen and outrageous" lie.

Bentley at least quotes Franklin accurately (if incompletely); his characterization of Franklin's speech during the Constitutional Convention as a call to prayer is erroneous, but it is not a substantial error. But his quotation is incomplete and works, I think, against Christianity overall. The full quotation is:

I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that "except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest. [emphasis added]

Franklin still fits if someone takes a broad view of atheism as the rejection of superstition and the confidence in human reason and wisdom. A broad view, even an over-broad and naive view, hardly rises to the level of "brazen and outrageous" lie.

Bentley goes on to to characterize the image as an appeal to authority: "It's a logical fallacy that attempts to say something like, 'This brilliant person believes this so therefore this is true.'" But Bentley is flat out putting words into the image creator's mouth. The image does not supply any major premise; it asserts only the minor premise, that some brilliant people had a particular view. The image would constitute a fallacy if and only if there were no major premise at all from which we could draw a sound conclusion. But of course there is such a major premise: if a brilliant person believes something, that belief is worthy of investigation, it is not patently and obviously false. So the charge of fallacy is unwarranted, and the charge of a specific fallacy can be supported only by attributing words to the image's creator that the creator did not actually say. Putting words in someone's mouth is, in technical, philosophical jargon, a brazen and outrageous lie.

We cannot draw any conclusions from this particular post other than its author is grossly incompetent at research and commits fallacies and errors far in excess of the image he criticizes; indeed we can conclude that he himself really is a "brazen and outrageous liar. But, as I have documented in this series as well as many other post, this kind of casual disregard for ordinary standards of scholarship and intellectual integrity — even the looser standards applicable to blogs and message boards — is endemic among advocates of Christianity. At some point we are entitled to connect the dots and conclude the intellectual bankruptcy of religion and belief in god.