Category: Politics

All posts on what Bismarck called “the art of the possible”

Taxation isn’t slavery

There is an argument that libertarians sometimes make that equates taxation to slavery. They say that your money is a representation of your time, since you need to put in time to earn it. As such, someone who takes your money is effectively taking your time, and thus making you their slave.

The problem I see with this argument is the claim that taking up any part of your time is akin to slavery. For someone to utterly dominate your life is a much worse situation than for someone to periodically demand a quantity of your time. More than a few societies have been structured in exactly that way: people paid their taxes in the form of labour or military service. Calling upon people to sacrifice some of their time, in exchange for getting to live in a good society, is a perfectly acceptable thing to do.

Thus, taxation is not immoral, because it is not akin to slavery.

Security in prisons

For the good of society at large, it does make sense to isolate some particularly dangerous people from the general population. At the same time, society has an obligation to manage imprisonment in a sensible way, including by avoiding the vindictive temptation to make prisons themselves Hobbesian jungles in which those who are incarcerated have no personal security, and only bad examples to follow. Rather than locking up more and more people in worse and worse conditions, we should lock up fewer and treat them better. The probable result of that is less cost and harm to society, along with a chance at genuine rehabilitation for those who do commit crimes.

Sending non-violent offenders to prison doesn’t really make any sense. This is particularly true when it comes to non-violent drug criminals: a class that includes ordinary users, but also producers and smugglers. Treating drugs as a criminal problem only makes them more problematic for society by making them a lucrative racket for organized crime groups, and by ensuring that those who operate in this business can only settle disputes through violence. As with alcohol and gambling, society should recognize that prohibition causes more harm than good and undertake a transition from a drug policy founded on criminal law to one founded on evidence-based medicine and harm reduction.

Similarly, having prisons in which inmates fear for their personal safety doesn’t make sense. Living with that kind of stress simply has to be harmful to the human mind, and likely to exacerbate whatever issues led to their imprisonment in the first place. When someone is branded with a criminal record and ‘ex-convict’ status, it already becomes hard enough for them to sustain themselves and any dependents financially in the future. Adding traumatic years of fear and violence to that can only worsen things.

Plausibly, reducing the prison population by excluding non-violent offenders could allow for more resources to be devoted to each prisoner who remains. These could allow for greater personal security, through measures like reducing over-crowding, and for genuine rehabilitation programs focused on things like addressing existing addiction problems and developing skills that are in demand in job markets.

The idea that criminals are bad people who deserve to be punished for their wickedness probably belongs in the Middle Ages. As we learn more about human psychology, we learn that people are profoundly influenced by the environments they inhabit and that people respond in predictable ways to circumstances like stress and deprivation. Rather than seeing criminals as wicked individuals who should be expelled from society to the greatest possible degree, I think it makes sense to have a bit more pragmatism and compassion and to establish systems that minimize the harmfulness of crime while giving criminals better options.

Taxing and spending

One persistent problem in politics everywhere is that politicians know that spending equals votes, while tax increases tend to cost them. There is always a pressure to spend unsustainably and then leave the bill for somebody else to deal with. Some people have even called this a strategy for shrinking governments they believe to be too large by ‘starving the beast’ with spending that exceeds tax revenues.

There is a case to be made for deficit spending in times of deep financial uncertainty. Government spending can reduce the suffering associated with job losses and help to maintain confidence in the economic system. That, in turn, can reduce the force of feedback effects where lack of confidence in the financial system produces weakness which then further reduces confidence.

In the long term, though, government revenues and expenditures must be balanced. Given the fondness of politicians for spending, their aversion to raising taxes, and the ever-present appeal of passing on the difficult choices to others, there ought to be political and legal mechanisms in place to encourage that an adequate array of government services are provided and that they are funded in a sustainable way through taxation. Perhaps one way to curb the tendency to spend now and ignore the cost would be the creation of more automatic mechanisms to raise taxes in the face of persistent deficits. If you have gotten beyond the period where Keynesian deficit financing is justified by economic weakness, the onus should be on government to either fund new initiatives through existing funds or raise taxes promptly to cover them. Governments that are aware that their spending projects could generate future tax increases may be a bit more disciplined in deciding where dollars out to be directed (not at local hockey arenas, perhaps?).

There is nothing wrong with obligating people to pay taxes to provide necessary services, including assistance to the least advantaged members of society. In addition, there are many circumstances where taxation-funded government services are the most efficient way to provide something. Canada’s single-payer health care system, for instance, produces demonstrably better outcomes than the semi-private system in the United States, and does so at a lesser cost. This is partly because health care is an industry rife with market failure, where the profit-maximizing behaviour of private firms does not serve the general good of the populace, in the absence of substantial regulation.

Of course, tax dollars can also be spent in inefficient or corrupt ways. There is no simple single mechanism that can ensure good economic and social policies. Rather, maintaining world class standards in governance requires the effective operation of a whole collection of institutions, acting in concert. These include federal and provincial legislatures, the courts, and the bureaucracy. Legislatures may have the most legitimacy, on the basis of their electoral mandate, but they also have the most short-term perspective. Their sneakier and more spendthrift tendencies must be curbed by oversight from elsewhere.

Adrian Harewood on Black History Month

As part of Black History Month, I attended a speech by Adrian Harewood, a journalist with the CBC. One of the things he spoke about was the importance of interrogating received versions of history – going back and uncovering the more complex story that has usually been streamlined into a simpler narrative. He gave the example of Viola Desmond, from Nova Scotia, who has arrested and tried for sitting in the portion of a movie theatre in New Glasgow designated for white people in 1946. People like to think such segregation was something that happened in the southern United States, but it seems it was something that happened in Nova Scotia too. He also talked about the two teenaged black women who did exactly what Rosa Parks later did in Montgomery, Alabama but who were deemed unappealing test cases by the black community, given that they seemed radical and unsavoury, in comparison with Rosa Parks herself.

There are a number of lessons to draw from all of this. It reinforces the important point that history serves a purpose, and that dominant narratives can be highlighted while more awkward counter-narratives are suppressed. For instance, the second world war is often presented as a response to the Holocaust, whereas the historical evidence for that claim is weak. Indeed, Canada refused to accept at least some Jewish refugees during WWII. Similarly, while people are quick to point out the war crimes committed by the Axis powers, they are much more hesitant to consider whether the indiscriminate bombing of German civilians was a war crime. Similarly, embarrassments like the 1967 Klippert decision of the Supreme Court of Canada are not much mentioned.

We should not allow ourselves to get too comfortable with official histories that only tell the stories that flatter us. It is only be recognizing the grave errors in our own histories that we can really appreciate our own potential for error. When we recognize that people who we admire were dead wrong about critical moral issues in the past, we also open our own minds to the possibility that we are passively accommodating – or even facilitating – grave injustice today.

Questioning religious beliefs

In The Moral Landscape, Sam Harris repeatedly questions the societal taboo against critically evaluating religious beliefs. For instance, people are hesitant to raise evidence or arguments that contradict religious claims, as well as point out instances in which different claims made by the same religion contradict one another.

This is at least a bit different from evaluating religiously motivated actions, as was discussed here earlier. As in that case, however, I think Harris argues convincingly that it is wrong to put religious beliefs into a special category deserving special respect. Of course, this is a provocative claim, given that many religious beliefs simply cannot stand up in the face of evidence and critical examination, and people find it awkward when important parts of their religious belief structure are shown to be in a state of obvious contradiction with the kind of every-day mechanisms they use to evaluate new information. People tolerate the fact that claims are made in holy publications and from the pulpit which cannot be made with any credibility in a newspaper or political speech.

The idea that religious beliefs deserve special protection often comes from religion itself. Religions are often extremely hostile toward ‘heresy’, which is understandable from a kind of institutional evolutionary perspective. In many circumstances, faiths that maintain theological and ideological coherence are likely to attract more adherents and last longer than those that tolerate a broad variety of views. Faiths of the latter kind are probably more likely to fragment and fracture, and they are also probably less likely to attract extreme devotion, dedication, and efforts to convert the masses. It is no coincidence that the first commandment (though the notion that there are a clear set of ten is disputed) is that you should make sure not to honour the wrong god. It also doesn’t seem to be a coincidence that the more dogmatic forms of Christianity (to choose one example) are winning more converts around the world than the more progressive forms.

Of course, humanity has a whole has an enormous interest in understanding the world well. It is demonstrably the case that our understanding of things like physics and biology allow us to live richer, healthier, and more fulfilling lives. Particularly in cases where scientific claims based on evidence and reason contradict religious claims based on someone’s supposedly divine authority, I think it is bad for humanity when large numbers of people place the religious claim above the scientific one. There are plenty of contemporary examples. Access to contraception and sex education demonstrably improves the kinds of lives people live, and yet one major force preventing those things from being universally available is religious beliefs that oppose them (arguably, with a hidden patriarchal motivation).

Ultimately, people possess a right to understand their own bodies and control their own sexuality and reproduction that is more important than the religious preferences of others who would seek to restrict and control those rights within the general population, especially among women.

If we lived in a world that took the kind of evidence that Harris finds convincing more seriously – things like the psychological consideration of what effect various circumstances have on human flourishing – I think we would ultimately find it preferable to a world where we continue to rely upon the kind of ‘evidence’ that supports substandard education and medical care for women, or the prohibition of promising types of medical research, or the teaching of utterly refuted theories about the history of life on Earth. People often argue that we should give respect to religious beliefs in the name of ‘tolerance’. While that argument might be somewhat convincing when it comes to benign beliefs, like the existence or non-existence of the Easter Bunny, it seems indefensible in the case of beliefs that have large and harmful effects on the lives of a great many people. Those beliefs – whether religiously motivated or not – deserve to be challenged honestly, openly, and vigorously.

Spring election?

It won’t be news to the subset of Canadians keeping the newspaper industry afloat, but it seems worth noting that Ottawa’s election sense is tingling. People say that you know when an economic bubble has blown up when you hear hairdressers talking about the stock market. People often care more about where they can earn some money than about which group of disagreeable old people are deciding their country’s political future, and yet there is something similar (yet much milder) that probably happens in politics as well, as significant contests draw near.

And so, with that, I will throw open the door to wild speculation.

The social and political importance of sustained Chinese growth

Some socio-economic questions are so complex that they are probably impossible to definitively answer, since we only have one planet to work with and one human history unfolding. We can’t run a bunch of trials and work out the probabilities involved (sweet, sweet Monte Carlo method). At the moment, one such question is: “What would happen geopolitically if economic growth in China really slowed down for a while?”

The question relates to how quickly China should deploy renewable energy, to help respond to climate change.

One can imagine a benign scenario where growth slows a bit while China focuses on greenery, the air in Beijing gets cleaner for a span longer than the Olympics, and China’s importance within the global system continues to increase smoothly (though how benign that increase is is another question).

One can also imagine a less benign scenario where the Chinese economy isn’t producing enough jobs to employ the generation entering the workforce. Without jobs, they could focus in large numbers on more destabilizing things, like overthrowing the Communist Party and establishing a more credible democracy (though what the many considerations involved in any such matter would be is another question, as well).

All told, the state of the global economy now seems pretty worrying. The immediate financial crisis was staved away with giant amounts of public money. But not much actual reform seems to have taken place in the financial system. At the same time, the European Union is dealing with a crisis and Japan continues to stagnate. If you believe that growth is generally good (though greenhouse gas pollution must fall), you have good reason to worry about the state of the world economy today. Alternatively, the same is true if you think growth is generally good for global stability, and global stability is important (World Wars are nasty things).

Born this way

I don’t really understand why people make such a big fuss over the question of whether homosexuality is something that people are ‘born with’ or whether it is something they choose. I acknowledge that it is a factual question that is interesting to answer, but I don’t see why it is morally significant.

There’s nothing wrong with being gay if it is an inherent part of your biology, and there is nothing wrong with being gay if it is a conscious choice or unconscious response to your experiences and societal context. What makes any kind of sexual activity ethical is the meaningful consent of the participants, not the characteristics those participants have. Similarly, when it comes to the roles couples play within society (including as upbringers of children), I don’t see why sexual orientation has any relevance that justifies different treatment, either socially or under the law.

Opposition to homosexuality seems to be pure prejudice, plain and simple – often religiously motivated. Perhaps that explains something about why people are obsessed with the nature/choice distinction. If you are personally deeply opposed to homosexuality, see others doing it, and believe that it is a choice, you might feel personally bothered or insulted by the choice you think they are making.

Of course, even if you happen to be the parent, priest, or legislator of the person in question, the way they choose to live their romantic and sexual life is really not something you have any legitimate claim to controlling. Other people like things that you don’t. Get over it.

Oversight over institutions of armed power

On Yes, Prime Minister, a character describing a situation in which a document was leaked discusses the difference between what you do when you really want to find the source of a leak and what you do when it is all just for show. When it is for show, he says, you conduct a leak inquiry. If it is for a serious investigation, you call in ‘Special Branch’.

Reading through the Wikipedia entry on ‘Special Branch’ gave me a bit of pause. It seems like the term is used to refer to two different types of sub-organizations, within broader security structures like national police forces and armies.

Outward intelligence gathering

One sort of Special Branch is the macho Jack Bauer sort that wears flak jackets and drops in on terrorists from helicopters. They are also the ones with the machines for listening to private phone calls and reading private emails, back doors into supposedly confidential databases, and other such legally dubious trickery.

Having some kind of organization of this sort is important – especially for keeping genuinely dangerous things like biological and nuclear weapons away from terrorists. At the same time, giving such an organization an increasingly broad mandate just increases the risk that the organization itself will become abusive, or that the intelligence it collects will be used for inappropriate purposes.

There has to be some kind of meaningful, outside, civilian scrutiny of such organizations. If they are allowed to sit up at the top of the chain deciding who can trust who, we cannot allow them to be a secretive band of unknown people. It may render them less effective as an intelligence organization, to be subject to civilian oversight, but it is ultimately important for the security of society that this be so.

Quite possibly, governments shouldn’t have any organizations that they are not prepared to appear before a fairly elected legislature (in secret, perhaps) and answer detailed questions about.

Internal oversight

The other sort of Special Branch answers the question: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? They are a response to the reality that organizations like armies and police forces attract bullies – people who are themselves attracted to power. At times, such people will abuse that power. That danger is increased enormously when the people are put within structures that will protect them, regardless of what they do. If the police force protects officers who use excessive force, their violent tendencies are likely to get worse.

Having a Special Branch to check for this kind of corruption in the rest of the service makes a lot of sense, and is an important check on police power. After all, a bad police officer is a scary thing. They are armed with weapons and power, and the judge will almost always take their word for how a situation went (unless there are photos or a video).

Changing balance

On Yes, Prime Minister, I think they were talking about the internal sort of Special Branch, looking for wrongdoing within powerful organizations. These days, I fear the outward-looking type of Special Branch has grown more powerful by comparison, partly by capitalizing on the fear people have of terrorism (despite the tiny chance of being a victim).

When people are fearful of non-governmental forces, they can easily err and make the government overly mighty. People also need to maintain in their minds the corresponding fear of abuse by government itself. The government is so powerful that it can do considerable harm by accident, and its control over information is such that we may never really know what accidents or abuse have taken place.

Terrorists can kill some innocent civilians – maybe a lot if they get hold of something dangerous. But the police can create a police state. They can seize the government with one of their own by force, if the other institutions of the state become weak enough. We need independent people watching over them more than we need them to be looking into the local radical cell.