My kind of humor, from Chris Cowan's Spiral Dynamics' FAQ:

These days, students often come into our seminars having been pre-exposed to some variation on the theme of Spiral Dynamics®. While there are some good representations of the point of view which begin to equip them, other spin-offs are misleading in that they program participants into the typology trap or worse. Some versions foster obedient belief in the dogma of a quasi-religion swathed in cultish saffron yellow robes more than critical thinking about emergent systems in human nature, how complex we are, and how much we still don’t know.

   That is to say, derivative renditions frequently impart an over-simplified, types-of-people, color-coded view of SD which relies on ‘altitude’ or ‘verticality’ to point to idealized end states: “Enlightened people are Turquoises, at the least, and travel the Yellow brick road to get there.” When followers of these approaches come to us, they often have the impression that ‘up’ is good and ‘down’ is deficiency, and that to be at least ‘second tier’ or ‘turquoise’ is the necessary goal of any sensible human being or organization. They aren't seeking to understand SD and Graves as a window on human nature: they want their faith in their own 'turquoiseness' to be confirmed since a sensation deep inside irks them with, “I’m not there yet.” So, they put on a mask and try harder to be something that has no substantial definition.

   Very well-meaning people are sometimes so highly ego-involved in preserving their high-status colors, even to creating an identity around 'living the spiral' just as others might organize their lives around the sacred words in a holy book that mundane facts become heresies. De-programming this pre-frame in favor of a clearer understanding of what the model is and is not, as well as demonstrating that all the systems have both strengths and weaknesses in their times and places, is not simple. 

   Appreciation for all the levels is easy to say, hard to do. For people stuck in New Age versions of the DQ/ER transition in search of purpose, meaning, and empowerment with missionary zeal, it's nearly impossible. Too much integral indoctrination seems to fixate rather than open their minds. And the self-centric certitude of many struggling to break out of ER and into FS (while proclaiming theirs to be a Yellow-to-Turquoise conversion) makes understanding of the whole spiral profoundly difficult and the elegance of each level difficult to discern.

http://www.spiraldynamics.org/faq_overall.htm

Human beings, including academics, journalists, and political commentators, are incredibly tribal animals. Most individual political perspectives are strongly influenced by the tribalisms of the Left or Right.

I began studying economics as an idealistic Leftist. As I became convinced of the power of economic arguments, I did not lose any of my idealism: I just realized that Leftist strategies for improving the world were simply not very well considered. At the same time, as I became more interested intellectually in economic analysis, I found that most of the perspectives that I studied included a certain "there ain't no free lunch" cynicism. I have found it difficult, in relative isolation, for my thoughts not to be distorted either by the mindless idealism of the Left or by the intelligent cynicism of market advocates. Flow is an attempt to create a community of intellectually sophisticated and intellectually honest idealists that can transcend the magnetic pull of these opposing forces.

Given the fact that "intellectual" was nearly synonmous with "Leftist" for much of the 20th century, it may seem odd or biased from a left-liberal perspective for me to claim that Leftist strategies for improving the world were not very well considered. For those on the other side, the fact of 100 million Marxist murders alone is shocking and horrifying proof that Leftist strategies for improving the world were not very well considered.

Sociobiology provides compelling arguments that a sophisticated capacity for self-deception was genetically useful in the competition for genetic replication. In order to be a realistic idealist, or a realistic visionary, one must take complete cognizance of the depth and pervasiveness of human self-interest and self-deception.

Young people, eager to believe themselves good, and eager to position themselves as morally superior to their elder tribesmen, are thus vulnerable to shallow idealisms. Academics and intellectuals, many of whom spend their lives surrounded primarily by young people, often occupy a social status niche in which they maximize their psychic well-being, at the cost of intellectual integrity, by claiming moral superiority to the rest of society by means of their Leftist politics. There are even sociologists who conduct formal research studies to determine what social and psychic pathologies cause conservative beliefs: surely a healthy, sane, decent human being would share their Leftist political beliefs?

There is pressure from decent, well-intentioned left-liberals to leave the communist murders behind. None of them advocated such murderous regimes and they consider arguments that they were somehow complicit in these murders to be spurious and in poor taste.

Spiritual and emotional maturity has to do with taking responsibility for one's actions. When I was in college in the 1980s, communist enthusiasm among university faculty was common. To a remarkable degree, it still is. Noam Chomsky, the Pol Pot apologist, is still a hero among the Left.

In the eighteenth century, classical liberals developed a sophisticated body of political analysis showing the necessity and the means of limiting political authority. The American founding institutionalized many of these insights. The French Revolution served as horrifying proof of the need for such constraints on power. After the 1790s, anyone who blithely talked about a "dictatorship of the proletariat," as did Marx and his followers, is complicit in murder. Others, who endorse the ideas of such advocates of murder, are also complicit. Che Guevara whole-heartedly endorsed mass murder.

Idealism has been discredited by the 100 million communist murders. In order to create a legitimate idealism, we must purify ourselves by acknowledging wholeheartedly the crimes of idealisms of the past. Until the fellow travellers and communist apologists come clean, the cause of idealism will be discredited as morally corrupt and suspect.

There was a specific intellectual failure: well-educated people, who should have been adequately educated in classical liberal political theory, nonetheless were enthusiastic supporters of those who advocated a "dictatorship of the proletariat." The fact that these nice intellectuals may have envisioned a benign, romantic, idealistic "dictatorship of the proletariat," with lots of comradely poetry and art, is no excuse. Drunk drivers who kill people are often just nice kids out having fun while drinking a few beers in the car. Good intentions do not absolve people of responsibility while driving drunk nor while intoxicated with political ideals.

When an alcoholic becomes committed to serious recovery through AA, one of their first duties is to apologize to every individual who may have been harmed by them while they were drinking. This step of taking responsibility for past actions is rightly considered to be a crucial stage in healing, spiritual growth, and emotional maturity.

In order to create a spiritually clean idealism, it is crucial that the moral contamination of Leftist intellectuals has been fully acknowledged. One cannot build on crumbled foundations.

Vinod Khosla has convinced me that the entire issue of ethanol goes far beyond corn subsidies in Iowa; read his white papers on biofuels to get a provocative, big picture perspective:

http://www.khoslaventures.com/resources.html

that includes a future with genetically-engineered biofuels that are far more energy efficient and that produce far less carbon emissions than does first generation corn ethanol.  Cane ethanol might be considered step two on this path; below is the beginning of an interesting article on the politics of ethanol:

The Ethanol Alliance
April 4, 2007
Alvaro Vargas Llosa


WASHINGTON—Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's visit to Camp David last weekend was meant to seal what is being dubbed as “the ethanol alliance” between the United States and the South American giant. I have no idea whether ethanol will eventually deliver the grandiose promise of a clean environment or the bankruptcy of oil-rich despots. But I do know that there is a huge disconnect between the objectives of the ethanol alliance and current policy.

If the United States wants to boost ethanol consumption and reduce oil-dependency, it needs to make a simple decision—eliminate its 54-cents-a-gallon tariff. Experts tell us that corn-based ethanol, the kind being produced in the United States, is eight times less efficient than Brazil's sugarcane version of the biofuel. Alessandro Teixeira, Brazil's point man for his country's ethanol strategy, insists that “we are the world leader, and if people really want to benefit from our ethanol industry, they have to embrace it in practice, not in theory.” Precisely because corn is much less efficient than sugarcane, the U.S. has been able to replace only about 3 percent of its oil consumption despite a huge government biofuel program.

The second way in which current policy defeats the purpose of the ethanol alliance has to do with Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. Clearly, the Bush administration wants to entice Central American and Caribbean countries that benefit from Venezuelan oil subsidies to adopt biofuels in order to become independent of Caracas. The idea is to encourage Brazil to export its technology to those countries and help them build distilleries—such as the one recently constructed in Jamaica—for ethanol production. But there is a hitch: Due to various preferential trading arrangements, Caribbean and Central American countries don't face the tariffs that currently hurt Brazilian exports to the U.S. So, while Brazil might take some pride in exporting its technology and eventually getting some cash incentives from Washington to help the Caribbean basin liberate itself from Chavez, Lula's real interest lies in exporting to the American and the European markets, both of which are now protected.

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1953

From a 2004 article, when DDT was about to be phased out globally;  this fall, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially approved DDT for anti-malarial mosquito spraying:

". . . there is no mention on Nader's various sites of the one project he should be most proud of: the funding of the Malaria Project from his Center for the Study of Responsive Law in Washington, D.C.

The Malaria Project fought, in the face of massive environmental opposition, for the continued use of DDT for mosquito control in poor countries. Since DDT is such a totemic baddie for the Greens, it is probably politically unwise for Nader to support (even tacitly) its use. And this probably explains why the Malaria Project site at CSRL doesn't mention DDT at all.  . . .

Courage in politicians is rare. . . .

The fact that Nader could put humanitarian concerns above his well-known dislike for DDT is commendable and strategically sensible. He could foresee, where no one else could, the harm to the environmental movement of being saddled with the blame for millions of dead children from malaria. It is likely that's how the history books would have written it had DDT been banned (and it still may be)."

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/bate200406030904.asp

Introduction to Flow The purpose of Flow is to create a dialogue community that combines two contrary trends in existing social/political discourse: 1. The progressive, humanist desire to make the world a better place by means of conscious effort. 2. The increasing recognition that market solutions to social problems are more effective than are command-and-control government strategies. Hitherto, for the most part, advocates of the first position have identified themselves as "Left" and they have pushed for government legislation to fight "capitalism." For the most part those who have advocated the second position have identified themselves as "Right" and have been considered "conservative" rather than progressive. As an inveterate do-gooder, I am constantly horrified that the Left continues to advocate policy measures that will increase poverty and human misery while failing to advocate measures that would significantly enhance human well-being. I am an educator who has created public school programs and private and charter schools from scratch. For me, school choice is not an academic issue. Given adequate freedom from government control, I can create schools that are significantly more humane and intellectual than are standard government schools. (Those interested in creating better private or charter schools should email me, socraticpractice@yahoo.com, and we can get to work immediately on designing a great school in your area). It disgusts me that "progressive" advocates of public education continue to undermine the development of new and better ways to educate young people. Advocates of social mobility, human potential, intellectual ability, independent thought, spiritual awareness, creativity and innovation, and most other valuable human traits need to band together to destroy our public school monopoly. Microsoft has a smaller market share and less control than does the government school system. Those who hate Microsoft's influence in the software industry should hate government schools ten times as much: the stakes are much higher, the constraints on innovation are vastly larger, the extent of monopolistic control is incaluculably tighter. Consider other sectors of the economy: In the 1970s health food stores were tiny, hippy places that were only open occasionally and forced us to eat carob instead of chocolate. If Safeway and Albertsons had had a government-enforced monopoly in the 1970s, Whole Foods and Wild Oats would not exist and Safeway and Albertsons would not carry health foods. If Crown Books and Waldenbooks had had government protection at the time, then Barnes & Noble, Borders, and amazon.com would not exist. If IBM and DEC had had government protection, the entire microcomputer industry, the consumer software industry, and the internet as we know it would not exist. If Keds had been controlled by the government, there would be no Nike or Adidas. And on and on. As an innovative educator, my projects are constantly attacked and destroyed by the government education monopoly - endless specific anecdotes are available on request (Or request my manuscript Whole Lives: The Creation of Conscious Culture Through Educational Innovation.) A few more conventional examples from the globalization issue: 1. Global Trade: Although certainly the WTO is no model of social justice, the fact that the WTO is imperfect is not a justification for fighting globalization. Oxfam, hardly a right-wing organization, recognizes that increasing international trade is the _only_ way that global poverty will be reduced. We can, and should, be concerned regarding the rules for international trade. In particular, Oxfam cites the $1 billion per day in agricultural subsidies in the wealthy nations that greatly reduces income in poor nations. Glaring injustices such as this are cause for pushing for more freedom in global markets, not less. The fact that Jose Bove, the French agricultural protectionist, is celebrated as a hero by the Left, strikes me as surreal. 2. Immigration: Increased immigration should be one of the top agenda items for Leftist do-gooders. By means of remittences, education, contacts, and familiarity with first-world social and legal institutions and customs, immigration is probably the single most effective means of transferring wealth from the first world to the third world. The $30 billion in remittances that U.S. immigrants sent home last year is a very small fraction of the total value of these cross-cultural exchanges. The creation of a thriving software industry in India is due to the know-how and contacts that Indian software engineers and entrepreneurs acquired in Silicon Valley and then transferred back home in hundreds of ways, formal and informal. Those who are concerned about global population growth should note that immigrant families who move to the first world typically have much smaller families than they did in their home countries. 3. Out-sourcing: Why should a U.S. software engineer make $80 an hour if an Indian software engineer will do similar work for $5 an hour? The wealthy industrialized nations provide relatively high incomes for their citizens in part by excluding competition from the billions of needier human beings on earth. Do-gooders should celebrate the transfer of jobs to the third world. 4. Economic Freedom: The Economic Freedom of the World index, published by the Fraser Institute, rates countries around the world on their economic freedoms, including trade issues, but also banking laws, the free flow of capital, etc. There is a high correlation between those nations highly ranked on this index and most of the those features of society desired by the Left: health, education, welfare of the poor, etc. Finland, often regarded as a "socialist" paradise, is the top-ranked nation outside the Anglo-American leaders (including former British colonies Singapore and Hong Kong as Anglo-American). In general, Scandinavian "socialist" nations might better be described as wisely capitalist nations with extensive social welfare benefits. They tend to have low corporate tax rates and significant freedoms with respect to the flow of capital. Leftist rhetoric, if followed, would destroy Scandivian "socialism." Leftist rhetoric, as followed, creates poverty in the third world. If third-world nations allowed their citizens the same economic freedoms as Finland, they would all experience a dramatic increase in their standard of living. It trouble me that most advocates of markets do not adequately advocate for the amelioration of social problems and for the reduction of injustices in global markets. At the same time, Leftist attacks on market mechanisms cause much greater poverty and injustice than do the greediest capitalists on earth. We need to develop a coalition of individuals and organizations who seek to improve the world and who recognize that, often, market mechanisms are the best means of doing so.

Michael Strong, Copyright FLOW, 2006

The current issue of Cato Unbound is devoted to the issue “Should Libertarians Vote Democrat?” The issue includes essays by well-known Democrats articulating the ways in which they see a possible rapprochement. Certainly many libertarians are angry and disappointed with Bush Republicans; one described him as the worst president in the past fifty years. Others are actively encouraging fellow libertarians to vote Democratic. Given the fact that Democrats are increasingly marginalized in elections, it would behoove them to consider additional constituencies, especially one that is angry with Republicans and therefore ripe for the picking.

Although the number of people who vote for the Libertarian Party is small, the number of people who are culturally liberal but fiscally conservative is large. Pew Research comes up with 9% of the population as libertarian based on three fiscal questions and three cultural questions. If the Democrats captured this libertarian swing vote by moving in a more consistently libertarian position, they could re-form an electoral majority. A broader interpretation of “libertarian” will give Democrats an even larger advantage.

A Libertarian Democratic Party that was serious about small government and deregulation, now that the Republicans have shown that they are not, could, if credible in their promises, appeal to Wall Street, business, entrepreneurs, and the middle class. At present, Republicans are winning by pandering to the religious right. What if the intellectual leaders of the Democratic Party shifted it in the libertarian direction so that the libertarian-inclined, who have hitherto either voted Republican, libertarian, Reform Party, or not at all, became inspired to support far more libertarian Democrats?

The Democratic Strategist recently printed an essay titled “Message of Misery,” on how the Democrat’s litany of economic catastrophe is not resonating with voters:

$23,700. That is the household income level at which a white person became more likely to vote for a Republican over a Democrat in congressional races in 2004.

The authors of this article point out that the reason that Democrats have been losing is not because Democrats have been framing the issues poorly (Lakoff), nor is it because voters have been deceived by Republicans into voting against their economic interests (the “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” thesis). Their research shows that voters simply don’t buy the anti-capitalist doom and gloom rhetoric put out by Democrats. Their research shows that 80% of Americans think it is “still possible to start out poor in this country, work hard, and become rich,” and when asked to identify the biggest threat to America’s future 61% chose “big government” compared to 27% who chose “big business.” That 61% is the foundation of a libertarian majority.

Bright young techies are increasingly libertarian; Wired Magazine has libertarian roots and many old Leftists complain about how libertarian cyberspace is. Last year the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial on tech entrepreneurs that described them as embarrassed by the religiosity of the Republicans and by the teachers unions and trial lawyers on the Democratic side. Libertarian Virginia Postrel’s excellent book on the need for a dynamic society, The Future and Its Enemies, was endorsed by Democratic Silicon Valley gurus Steward Brand and Esther Dyson.  And, of course, John Mackey, whose Whole Foods Market is the greatest achievement of the conscious capitalism being developed by cultural creatives, is a self-identified libertarian (He is also, the co-founder of FLOW, which has been described as a "sane version of libertarianism," or, in Ken Wilber's language, "Second-Tier libertarianism.")

Wall Street, and business interests more broadly, are another constituency the Democrats should consider capturing: A recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) analyzed the expected outcome of the Bush – Gore election during the 24 hours of dramatic uncertainty as predicted by the Iowa Electronic Markets and compared the expected outcome with stock market fluctuations during that period. They found that an anticipated Republican victory raised equity values by about 2%. Based on more circumstantial evidence they found historical trends supporting the notion that Republican victories tended to raise equity values by about 2% going back to 1880.

It has long been a stereotype that Wall Street votes Republican. If equity values are 2% higher under Republicans than under Democrats, there is a very powerful reason for this preference. The New York Stock Exchange alone has a market capitalization of about $20 trillion, with NASDAQ adding another $5 trillion out of a global market capitalization of about $45 trillion. Presumably Wall Street takes seriously the anti-capitalist rhetoric and past behavior of the Democratic Party, which has traditionally positioned itself as more eager to tax, spend, and regulate. From a Wall Street perspective, the election of a Democratic president reduces equity market values by about $500 billion dollars - about what we spend on all of K-12 education each year simply vanishes as soon as a Democrat is elected through the anticipated destruction of opportunity.

Fifteen years ago the DLC revived the Democratic Party by moving it towards a more market-friendly direction. Clinton and Gore are policy wonks who understand that markets are fundamentally positive: Clinton, the only Democratic President to serve two terms since FDR, has described himself as a libertarian and has praised Milton Friedman-Prize Award Winner Hernando De Soto as the leader of “the most promising poverty alleviation initiative in the world.” He pushed through NAFTA and welfare reform, both more libertarian initiatives than anything we’ve seen from Bush. While Gore is not Clinton, he recently came out in favor of exchanging payroll taxes for carbon taxes, a move that frankly acknowledges the negative economic consequences of payroll taxes while allowing Gore to remain true to his core issue.  Gore is proving that it is possible to be a serious environmentalist and yet take markets seriously at the same time.

Smart policy wonks like Clinton and Gore have found ways in the past to reconcile markets and their identities as Democrats. A new age of libertarian Democrats could continue in this direction and go much further and faster, reviving the Reagan and Gingrich revolutions to reduce the role of government under a Democratic banner that simultaneously ensured that the poor and the environment were cared for.

With regard to the poor, Milton Friedman’s proposal of a Negative Income Tax was the ultimate inspiration for the Earned Income Tax Credit, one of the most effective government-initiated poverty-alleviation moves in the past thirty years. This could be expanded as other government programs were eliminated or Libertarian Democrats could consider Charles Murray’s recent proposal to give every American $10,000 per year and completely dismantle the welfare state.

With respect to the environment, Libertarian Democrats could come out in full favor of property rights or environmental trust solutions (as advocated by Peter Barnes - see his recently released Capitalism 3.0) to environmental issues while showing a commitment to repeal counterproductive environmental regulation. The libertarian and economics literatures are filled with thousands of market-friendly policy proposals that show the path to a dramatically smaller government that would actually be more effective at reducing poverty and improving the environment than is the welfare and regulatory state. Partisan bigotry, especially among academics, has prevented or delayed the adoption of many of these prudent and effective measures.

The greatest obstacle to movement in this direction comes from the Left wing of the Democratic Party that remains essentially anti-capitalist. Much of academia and the leaders of many advocacy organizations retain attitudes that are quasi-Marxist in their passion for equality, as they understand it, and their hatred of business, capitalism, and America. Others, perhaps more pro-business and pro-America, nonetheless regard the anti-market policies of FDR and LBJ as successful policies.

The last thirty years have seen the Chicago economics free market perspective largely vindicated in the world of academic economics. About half of economics Nobel laureates have had some association with the University of Chicago. More importantly, many “free market” ideas that were once considered marginal have become mainstream: monetary policy and tariffs did contribute to the Great Depression, whereas inequality of wealth did not; Rent controls reduce the quantity and quality of housing; Increases in economic freedom in the developing world result in increases in economic growth; tradable emission permits are an effective means of reducing pollution. These and thousands of other policy issues have been more or less decided in favor of “free market” economists in the past thirty years. People respond to incentives.

There will always be special interests that oppose free market policies, and there will always be populist demagogues that rally popular support against free market policies. But an increasingly large range of leftist policy notions that were once intellectually credible and morally respectable have fallen from grace in the face of facts. The free market economists have won battle after battle in the past thirty years not because they were funded by right-wing think tanks (though sometimes they were), but because the empirical record has turned out overwhelmingly to be consistent with their predictions.

Because the pain of repudiating FDR and the legacy of the 60s is too great, I don’t anticipate a rapid change of mind among the left-liberal intelligentsia. I’ve experienced this pain myself; when I discovered that the left-liberal establishment was largely wrong on economic issues I became depressed for two years. Everything that I had believed was false: The reviled Milton Friedman is actually a better friend of the poor than is the legendary J. K. Galbraith? Well, yes, he is. Had Friedman’s advice on economic development been followed in 1960 rather than Galbraith’s, billions of human beings would be better off today. Economic freedom, as advocated by Friedman for decades, is positively correlated with GNP per capita. Economic liberalization, as advocated by Friedman for decades, has resulted in dramatic increases in wealth and standards of living in Chile, China, India, Ireland, Estonia, and elsewhere.

A new consensus on globalization is forming in which it is increasingly acknowledged that poor people in developing nations benefit more from job creation than from hand-outs. Oxfam, the global NGO, now supports reduced trade barriers as a way of alleviating poverty. Corporate Responsibility Newswire has acknowledged that new factories built by American companies in Mexico improves the standard of living of Mexicans. The moral high ground is increasingly with globalization rather than against it; even Joseph Stiglitz, famous as the Nobel economics laureate who wrote a book skeptical of globalization, is now clearly in favor of globalization as long as the developing nations reduce their trade barriers first.  (And note that this is a morally-motivated policy proposal at odds with traditional Leftists constitutencies such as labor unions).

While there are continuing disputes in economics and economic development, the scope of the discussion has moved dramatically towards the direction sketched by Friedman, Hayek, and others fifty years ago. While there may well be some elements of the left-liberal economic perspective that survive into the future, by and large the bulk of that perspective, the premises on which the liberalism of the 30s and 60s was built, continues to look weaker and weaker.

For decades now, left-liberals have followed a strategy of denial, reluctantly conceding point after point once the evidence against them becomes overwhelming, while still dogmatically insisting on the rest of their program in those areas where they have not yet been defeated by the evidence. The problem with this strategy is it positions them in a posture of permanent retreat in the face of the facts.

Moreover, there is reason to believe that more retreat in the face of more evidence is still to come, especially from the results of prediction markets. Prediction markets are increasingly being used in businesses to forecast outcomes, and properly designed markets are proving to be remarkably accurate at foreseeing the future, at least compared to the opinions of experts. Prediction markets incentivize accuracy because only the accurate predictions receive financial rewards. By contrast, both academic and public policy debates bias decisions through rhetoric, emotion, status, and popularity rather than empirical validity alone.

It is only a matter of time before prediction markets will be set up to evaluate the prospective outcome of public policy initiatives. At that point, we will be more focused on the actual outcomes of proposed policies and we will receive information about the outcomes of those policy initiatives more quickly than is the case at present. Again, some left-liberal policies may survive the test of real-world outcomes, but I predict that much will not:  Will increasing teachers’ salaries increase test scores?  Will expanding government health care coverage improve health?  Will government job training programs increase the earnings of the poor and unskilled?

As we continue to focus on the real results of policies, rather than academic promises, we will continue to discover that government is rarely an effective agent. Most of us, the 61% who said that “big government” is the greatest threat to our future, already know this. An increasing number of wise, but chastened, Democrats understand this as well. Libertarian Jonathan Rauch’s excellent popular account of public choice theory, Government’s End, was endorsed by David Broder, Patrick Moynihan, and Senator Bill Bradley. In the 1960s, bright young idealists aspired to be civil servants; now they aspire to be entrepreneurs. Although people still rally to the cry of “national health insurance,” when it comes down to it no one is inspired by government action anymore. The alternative to a more libertarian Democratic Party is to simply wait for the Democrats to complete their self-destruction and then have it out between the conservatives and the libertarians.

Democrats like to believe that they are intelligent people who care about the poor and about the environment. For most of the past hundred years, they have also believed that free market advocates are people who don’t care poor or the environment and that the smart liberals must use government to create a more just society. But consider: 70% of inner-city African-Americans are for school choice.  Opponents of charter schools claimed they would cream away the best students; in fact, charter schools cater disproportionately to poor, minority, and at-risk students, those who are currently being least well-served by our “public” schools. Many urban areas are experiencing black flight from urban public schools; Detroit Public Schools lose about 20,000 students per year to charter schools, and by 2008 a majority of students in Detroit will attend charter schools.  Why can’t those who care about the poor and the environment focus on pragmatism rather than an obsolete party identity?

As Gurcharan Das said of Nehru’s policies in India, “We set out to create socialism but instead created statism.”  Social entrepreneurs and socially responsible corporations are fulfilling the aspirations of the left without government involvement.  The idealism and passion for the good that inspired the Left is valuable. Government was just the wrong means. It is time to admit this openly and move on.

A Democratic Party that authentically appealed to libertarians could be as socially liberal as it pleased; gay marriage, medical marijuana, abortion rights, and other issues are currently supported by many people who are unhappy with the Republican Party but who do not currently consider the left wing of the Democratic Party to be sane or responsible when it comes to government and the economy. Libertarians are often among those who are most committed to civil liberties and to the avoidance of war. A sincere and sustained commitment to reducing the size of government, by any party, could bring forth new funding and new voters, and result in a burst of economic growth and dynamism that will benefit all Americans; indeed, it would benefit the entire world.

"Contrary to the findings on political freedom, economic freedom was found to be statistically significant in nearly all estimations, and of the positive sign. Furthermore, the relationship between SWB and economic freedom depicted in Fig. 2 largely held, unlike that for income, after controlling for alternative explanations of well-being. For instance, when the economic freedom index average in the sample rises from 5.76 to 6.34, the happiness levels rise from 3.01 to 3.07. The effect on life satisfaction is identical. The results suggest that people unmistakably care about the degree to which the society where they live provides them opportunities and the freedom to undertake new projects, and make choices based on one’s personal preferences. Compared to the GDP per capita measure, the index of economic freedom – personal choice, freedom to compete and the security of privately owned property as its core components – turned out to be about four times as important, as measured by elasticities. This indicates that the newly found interest of economics and of policymakers in measures of institutional quality is well placed. Based on the regression results, economic freedom holds some promise in serving as one of the policy tools that could be potentially used to increase the SWB of a nation’s population."

Economic Policy and the Level of Self-Perceived Well-Being: An International Comparison by Tomi Ovaska and Ryo Takashima, the Journal of Socio-Economics 35 (2006) 308-325.

From Will Wilkinson's wonderful blog "Happiness and Public Policy,"

http://happinesspolicy.com/

Can we make tax policy sexy and exciting?  It has taken me years to realize that most of the issues that idealists care about are largely driven by tax and regulatory policy; dry, abstract systems that determine how life and energy flows far more than is generally realized.

From an excellent article proposing that tax policy is a more effective means of controlling carbon emissions than are carbon emissions trading systems:


After Kyoto: Alternative Mechanisms to Control Global Warming

William D. Nordhaus | March 27, 2006

Abstract: This paper reviews different approaches to the political and economic control of global public goods like global warming. It compares quantity-oriented control mechanisms like the Kyoto Protocol with price-type control mechanisms such as internationally harmonized carbon taxes. The pros and cons of the two approaches are compared, focusing on such issues as performance under conditions of uncertainty, volatility of the induced carbon prices, the excess burden of taxation and regulation, accounting finagling, corruption, and implementation. Although virtually all policies involving economic global public goods rely upon quantitative approaches, price-type approaches are likely to be more effective and more efficient.

A price approach gives less room for corruption because it does not create artificial scarcities and monopolies. There are no permits handed over to countries or leaders of countries, so they cannot be sold abroad for wine or guns. Any revenues would need to be raised by taxation on domestic consumption of fuels. In fact, a carbon tax would add absolutely nothing to the instruments that countries have today. The only difference would be the international approval of carbon taxes, which probably adds little to their acceptability in corrupt countries. The dangers of quantity as compared to price approaches have been shown frequently when quotas are compared to tariffs in international trade interventions.

Conclusion

The coming years will undoubtedly witness intensive negotiations on global warming as concerns mount and the quantitative approach under the Kyoto Protocol makes little difference. As policy makers search for more effective and efficient ways to slow the trends, they should consider the fact that harmonized environmental taxes on carbon are powerful tools for coordinating policies and slowing climate change.

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3167

           From David Kirkpatrick, a former teachers' union leader from Pennsylvania:
 
 "If Money's the Solution, That's the Problem

         That was the title of an article by Al Knight in The Denver Post fifteen years ago tomorrow.  What was true then is still true today.  And if the past is indeed prologue, it will still be true fifteen years from now.
 
         One interpretation of Knight's title is that the problems of public schools cannot be corrected with any amount of money, however much. Therefore, emphasizing money is futile.
 
         Another is that, even if it is assumed that large amounts of money could prove to be the answer to the problem such sums of money simply aren't, and won't be, available.
 
         Note, for example, a few commonalities of the remarks by those who insist more money is needed.
 
         They rarely provide specifics, such as how much money they are currently spending; how much money do they need; and how would they spend those dollars to create a successful district.  In one debate when a teacher union president said more money was needed he was asked how much.  He didn't know. When then asked if he didn't know how much was needed how did he know there should be more, he didn't know that either.   To be fair to him, no one else seems to know either.
 
         Just a few days ago, here in Pennsylvania, television news reporting on a public meeting in Allentown presented an individual who said Allentown should get at least as much money as Philadelphia or Pittsburgh.  Among the things she didn't say were (a) how much money the Allentown schools spend, either in total or on a per-pupil basis; (b) the school district budget or per-pupil expenditures in either Philadelphia or Pittsburgh; or (c) the relative cost-of-living in the three cities, and (d) most importantly, any awareness of the conditions in either of those larger school districts that would justify using them as a model or justification for spending more money.  Her basic point seemed to be if others have more money Allentown should too.
 
         In fairness, it should be noted that Philadelphia has made progress in the past few years since the state transferred control of the district from the local school board to a special commission appointed jointly by the city's mayor and the state's governor.  But it still is not a model of high achievement, nor have its gains been the result of large amounts of new money.  Significant changes have been made in how the system operates, including the creation of dozens of charter schools which were recently cited as a major reason district scores have improved.
 
         None of which is to say that more money may not be needed in specific instances.  One such is a small district in western Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, with which I had some personal experience and involvement more than 15 years ago.  The local steel industry had closed which devastated both the local community and the school district.  The "science lab" at the ancient high school, for example, didn't even have bunsen burners.  There was no way the crisis could be resolved locally.
 
         The state did step up, and began to increase funding, to which no fair person could object.  In the years since, there have been several superintendents, a large turnover in staff, and a more than 100% turnover in students, as is natural in any district over a 15-year period.  A report two weeks ago noted that the state now provides 73% of the district's funding, and per-pupil spending is now more than $20,000, ranking at the 97th percentile in the state.
 
         According to the report, student achievement in the district remains among the state's very lowest.  All the money that was supposed to make a difference has made no difference. Nationwide, $20,000 per pupil would require more than $1,000,000,000,000 - one trillion dollars - more than can possibly be realized. School districts spend up to $45,000 per pupil annually and still have problems. 
 
         The report's conclusion?  "The real problem is the complete unwillingness of the state to mandate any substantive reform that would threaten the interest groups who have created the situation.""

I know of a situation where one inner city public school received a $10 million grant from a foundation, and the only result was an increased teen-age pregnancy rate.

It would be better if we legalized markets in happiness and well-being:

http://www.edspresso.com/2006/07/legalizing_markets_in_happines.htm

The best environmental news and the best political news in a long time:

"NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore on Monday suggested taxing carbon dioxide emissions instead of employees' pay in a bid to stem global warming.

"Penalizing pollution instead of penalizing employment will work to reduce that pollution," Gore said in a speech at New York University School of Law.

The pollution tax would replace all payroll taxes, including those for Social Security and unemployment compensation, Gore said. He said the overall level of taxation, would remain the same.


"Instead of discouraging businesses from hiring more employees it would discourage business from producing more pollution," Gore said."

http://tinyurl.com/j3h6q