tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62234282987962520242024-03-12T19:40:01.596-07:00Blogging with Adam Smith and Karl MarxShane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.comBlogger108125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-74784221012794286052015-04-20T07:25:00.001-07:002015-04-20T07:25:44.093-07:00Lead blogger for this week is ...Brady.Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-11889018835896590432015-04-08T06:17:00.000-07:002015-04-08T06:17:08.138-07:00Final Essay<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-6301211476167699485" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For the final paper, you will produce a primer, analysis, interpretive paper, or position paper that provides a clear argument with a precise and refutable thesis on a topic of your choosing. Although many of you, no doubt, will feel most comfortable producing a policy or position paper on a traditionally political or economic topic, feel free to adopt a broad understanding of the range of topics available to you. You don't necessarily need to write about economics, politics, or political philosophy in the narrowest sense. You could investigate some of the moral or cultural issues stemming from a political or economic topic; you could produce a case study (an analysis of a famous musician, company, person, film, etc., of interest to you); you could explore the various interepretations offered of a work of art, literature, fiction, or popular culture; or you could explore the history of a particular concept, notion, cultural trend, etc., that is part of our everyday life. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In other words, there aren't many constraints for this assigment, as long as you approach your topic in an academic way. All that I ask is that you explore your topic in detail, do meticulous research and, most importantly, present a clear, refutable, significant thesis that clearly distinguishes its position from that of your sources. As long as you can construct a specific, refutable, and significant argument about your topic, whatever you choose should be fine. My only piece of advice is that, as always,</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> it is best to avoid controversial issues, or any topic generally discussed in terms of the narrow "pro/con" framing so common in mass media discussions of policy. Examples of these topics include, but are not limited to, gun control, abortion, gay marriage, The Affordable Care Act (AKA "Obamacare"), affirmative action, drug policy/drug legalization, athletic controversies, and others. While some of you have produced papers on these topics in the past that found interesting and novel approaches to these issues, it will become even more difficult to do this in the final paper, as you must find a great deal of scholarly sources on the topic and develop a more nuanced approach that takes a wide array of academic arguments into account. Many of these hotly contested and politicized issues lack a deep field of academic research, or are difficult to approach in terms of a nuanced argument. </span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Rather than trying to find a topic that seems like it would be appropriate for a stereotypical term paper, pursue something of interest to you and find a way to transform the topic into an informative, interesting, and analytically incisive essay. </span>Use both the research skills and the conceptual and theoretical tools we have developed to make your argument more detailed and more analytically rich. <span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.4;">Such an approach may require more work upfront, but you will find the paper easier to write as it will reflect one of your passions, and you will have had to think in advance how to approach an academic paper on the topic rather than simply falling back on well-worn and cliched approaches. In a relatively short space, your paper will need to clarify the most important aspects of an issue, consider one or several different ideas/perspectives/theoretical approaches to the topic, reveal the merits and downsides of those policies (or the perspectives you are considering on your topic), and most importantly, convincingly establish why we should lean toward a specific conclusion, interpretation, understanding, analysis, or prescription. It will be easier to do this if you have thought about your topic, why you are interested in it, and what would make for a proper academic approach to it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The paper should be 7-10 pages long, double spaced, in 12 point, Times New Roman font, with 1 inch margins, and it should contain 4 or more scholarly sources (journal articles, scholarly books, and other works by active scholars in the field). If you would like a chance to revise the paper, please submit a draft by Monday, April 20th at class time. The final papers are due Thursday, April 30th at 12pm. </span></div>
Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-82824222467774907422015-03-24T13:26:00.002-07:002015-04-07T14:18:17.884-07:00Lead blogger this week is ...DanielShane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-79272792826967000562015-03-15T16:28:00.000-07:002015-03-15T16:30:57.387-07:00Essay three - theoretical approaches to issues <span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 18px;">The goal of Essay #3 is to take us one step closer to producing our final term paper by going a little bit deeper into an issue of interest to you. In the last essay, we produced an informative argument that attempted to clarify misconceptions and highlight the most important aspects of an issue. Basically, you created a framework to help an intelligent layperson first approach an issue from a specific angle. In this essay, we will focus less on explaining the broad outlines of a topic and instead provide a slightly more in-depth, less introductory account that presents one or several theoretical, critical, ideological, or ethical approaches to a particular issue. Your paper should pick both a specific theoretical approach or critical tradition and a specific issue, and it should make these as narrow and focused as possible. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">A theoretical paradigm is not the same thing as a stance. Rather, a paradigm represents a way of understanding an issue, one that informs one or several sets of underlying stances. The same stance or position can arise from very different theoretical approaches, and different stances or positions can arise from similar theoretical approaches. For example: if I were comparing different paradigms regarding the reform of Social Security, I might argue the following: "Although both parties favor reform of the system, a theoretical tension exists between the neoliberal and the social democratic understanding of what Social Security, and the welfare state more generally, are and should be. Whereas neoliberal proponents of private accounts see Social Security as akin to an individual investment, and thus have no problem with the system leading to radically different payouts to beneficiaries depending on the performance of those accounts, social democratic proponents of changing merely the financing of Social Security see the program as part of the safety net designed to provide a minimum standard of retirement income regardless of how much an individual may have paid into the system before retirement. Both sides may favor public investment in private </span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">securities</span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">, but their </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">different approaches lead to divergent plans for implementing this reform.</span><span style="line-height: 18px;">" </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 18px;">Bring a rough draft of the paper to class on Friday, March 27th. The final paper will be due Wednesday, April 1st by class time. The final draft should be 4-6 pages in 12 point Times New Roman Font with 1 inch margins. Use MLA to cite your sources, and use <b>at least </b>3 peer-reviewed sources. Make sure that you use parenthetical citation to indicate whenever you are using information from one of your sources, and do not cite a source in the works cited unless you refer to it in the body of the essay. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">As you can see, once again it is best to focus on an aspect of an issue, and a paradigm or paradigms related thereto, that are as specific as possible. You are free to explore the implication of one theoretical approach, or you can compare and contrast many approaches. We </span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">have several examples of theoretical paradigms so far from our reading: Marxism, the cynical philosophy of Mandeville, the moral sense theory of Hutcheson that opposed it, and Smith's adaptation of his teacher's thinking into his own moral and economic thought. You could also, for example, adopt an</span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"> Austrian approach to monetary policy, or you could compare that with the Keynesian approach--the only requirement is that the paradigm you adopt be an academic one. You could explore how modern philosophers in the tradition of Smith and Hutcheson approach a moral issue, or you could contrast the modern and the original approaches. You could also, for example, examine the Marxist take on the recent financial crisis. If you compare different perspectives, they need not be from radically different ideological camps. It would be perfectly acceptable to demonstrate how the same ideology can also lead to different policy prescriptions as a result of subtler differences.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-57009308229716588182015-03-02T08:46:00.002-08:002015-03-02T08:46:38.423-08:00Lead blogger is...Jack. Respond by Wednesday on your personal blog.Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-65105249892172640472015-02-18T09:09:00.001-08:002015-03-02T08:46:10.234-08:00Lead blogger for this week is...No one! You may write about what you wish.<br />
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Let me suggest some possible food for blogger thought for those who may not know what to write about.<br />
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If you are not following the situation in Greece, it is something that you might consider paying attention to.<br />
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Syriza, a left-wing party, has just taken power. There is a sizable Marxist influence on their brand of politics, which has led to perhaps the only self-proclaimed Marxist finance minister in Europe, possibly the world. Yanis Varoufakis is, however, a very thoughtful and unorthodox Marxist, someone whose worldview fits very nicely in the eclectic mix of ideas we've been trying to create in the class.<br />
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Here's a couple of articles about him and Syriza to take a look at.<br />
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<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/18/yanis-varoufakis-how-i-became-an-erratic-marxist">http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/18/yanis-varoufakis-how-i-became-an-erratic-marxist</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/13/greece-finance-minister-yanis-varoufakis-interview-syriza-eurozone">http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/13/greece-finance-minister-yanis-varoufakis-interview-syriza-eurozone</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/17/opinion/yanis-varoufakis-no-time-for-games-in-europe.html?_r=0">http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/17/opinion/yanis-varoufakis-no-time-for-games-in-europe.html?_r=0</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/09/ernesto-laclau-intellectual-figurehead-syriza-podemos">http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/09/ernesto-laclau-intellectual-figurehead-syriza-podemos</a><br />
(This one is about a late professor of mine from graduate school)<br />
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<a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/02/tsipras-parliament-speech-austerity/">https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/02/tsipras-parliament-speech-austerity/</a><br />
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Also, here's a link about a program recently funded at UA whose purpose is to reunite political philosophy and economics, much in the spirit of this course as well:<br />
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<a href="http://uanews.org/story/ua-receives-2-9m-grant-from-templeton-foundation">http://uanews.org/story/ua-receives-2-9m-grant-from-templeton-foundation</a><br />
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<br />Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-31076398943707788342015-02-15T14:24:00.003-08:002015-02-15T14:24:57.289-08:00Essay 2 <div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-7548064811036775249" itemprop="articleBody" style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a;">Our eventual goal in the class is to produce a term paper that offers a detailed analysis--and it need not be of something that is narrowly economic or political--of a particular topic of interest to you. In preparation for this, our next paper will aim at producing an analytical summary of a particular policy, issue, or topic. For this assignment, I want you to design an argumentative paper that explains and informs a general reader about your particular policy/issue. Do not list disjointed pieces of information about the subject, but rather make an informative argument about what people often misunderstand about your issue, how it is possible to clear up those misperceptions, and what is most important to know about your issue in order to understand it most accurately. In other words, you want to explore the argumentative potential of informational modes of discourse, rather than just list facts.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Do not feel that you are stuck with whatever topic you choose for the final term paper, however. In fact, I want us to use this assignment as an opportunity for teaching each other about various possible topics and the different approaches to them. Feel free to be creative and take risks: the ideal topic is one that interests you without being overly sensationalistic or controversial and that you can explore in a detailed, complex way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We will briefly share our findings with the class through short, informal, 5-10 minute presentations. Please prepare a small handout that distills your findings and then present it to the class. Hopefully, this will serve as a kind of "topics fair" that allows the class to explore a wide variety of different subjects that might be of interest to them as we lead up to the final paper. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">For this paper, I ask that you include at least two academic sources (books or scholarly journal articles). You can use other sources--readings from earlier in the semester, substantive newspapers or periodicals found using the library database--but you must use at least two examples of academic writing. Do not cite encyclopedias (whether online or not), informational websites (about.com, for example), or other websites found using standard web searches. You can read these for background information, but don't cite them as sources. The paper should be in the neighborhood of 3-4 pages, double spaced, in 12 point Times New Roman Font, with one inch margins all around.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Finally, remember that the more specific you can be, the better. Medicare is a better topic than health insurance in general; the Medicare Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) is a better topic than Medicare in general; and a comparison of two specific cost-reduction schemes associated with IPAB is a better topic than IPAB in general.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Bring a rough draft (at least 2 pages) to class for peer editing this Friday, February 20. Bring a clean draft to class Friday, February 27th. The paper is due Monday, March 2, and we will start our informal presentations on this day. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-91934152557653970902015-02-02T07:20:00.001-08:002015-02-15T14:20:57.820-08:00Lead blogger for Wednesday....... is Sydney. Check out her post <a href="http://sydneymwright.blogspot.com/2015/02/speaking-of-false-accusations-feat-girl.html">here. </a>Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-80852343050137712612015-01-26T06:20:00.000-08:002015-01-26T06:20:50.230-08:00<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Essay 1: Locating Compelling Questions, Significant Ideas, and Convincing Textual Evidence</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />College writing is demanding. Before you even begin, you must formulate a narrowly defined and specific question, problem, or research agenda. You then must gather sources and research, and carefully mine these sources for choice quotations that clearly and succinctly support your points. Finally, in a few short pages, you must employ these resources to provide a specific, narrow, and refutable claim that responds to the dilemmas you have raised. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Because this is a daunting task, we will start out by exploring the manner in which others have done this. This will lessen the burden of defining a question to write about, it will eliminate the need for extensive research, and it will minimize the original thinking you need to provide to formulate a claim. You will still, however, need to produce a claim or thesis--</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">one that indicates why the problem you have uncovered is interesting and significant, and what the implications of the answer provided are. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">For this first essay, you will compose a short (2-3) page paper focused primarily on locating a central idea, tension, or problem in a text we have read and explaining its significance. What role does it play in responding to, clarifying, or even complicating the issues raised by the author? Doing this should not and will not require you to do significant research. We will focus on research beginning with the next paper. For now, we will simply practice developing a claim and using textual evidence to prove it. For this essay, you can write about almost anything that has something of a connection to our readings or to our class discussions. Here’s some general topics you might consider writing about:<br /><br />1. Compare and contrast the ideas of two different theorists we have read, and develop a thesis that shows how they arrive at different conclusions regarding a similar topic or question. Focus on defining the boundaries of the debate as narrowly as possible, and indicating how subtle differences in assumptions, tone, focus, and approach lead to larger and more significant differences in outcomes. Don’t worry about explaining everything about their ideas. This isn’t a report, but rather a paper focused on developing your own argument that explores the implications of a debate between other thinkers. An easy way to approach this paper would be to pick a quote from each writer and focus your paper entirely on showing the important differences that develop from the ideas each writer expresses in those quotes.<br /><br />2. Apply some of the ideas we have been discussing to current events. Pick an idea or two from a writer or two and attempt to explain what these show about a contemporary debate in current affairs. What would Hobbes say about the way we finance pharmaceutical research, for example. What would Mandeville think of restrictions on immigration? These are just a few examples of what you could write about. You could also combine this with option 1 and write about differences in how classical theorists might explain contemporary events. Again, your focus here will be on defining exactly how each author understands these issues, and the implications of these differences for their conclusions.<br /><br />3. Pick a provocative quote from one writer we have read and explain why it is significant for his argument. Does it reveal something essential that we otherwise would easily overlook? If you had a strong reaction to something one of the writers we read claimed, try to formulate in a more formal, analytic language what that is and then explain the nature of your reaction. What larger implications does this quote present?<br /><br />Whatever option you pick, or whether or not you pick one of the above options, try to avoid falling into the twin dangers of offering a book report or a harsh polemic. Avoid opinionated language like “I think,” “I believe,” “is wrong,” “is right,” “is good,” “is bad,” “contradicts him/herself,” etc. Also avoid summarizing or listing a series of facts without connecting them back to your thesis or explaining why they are important. The easiest way to do this is to present a clear thesis that empathetically approaches your subject matter without becoming either overly deferential toward it or totally hostile to it.<br /><br />I’ll primarily be looking for three things: a clearly defined and argumentative thesis; formal, analytic language; and a detailed analysis of the thesis and its implications using specific textual evidence from your sources. For citations, use MLA style (a works cited list with in-text citations). Bring a rough draft of ~2 pages for 1/30 and 2/6. The final is due 2/13 by 12pm.<br /><br />For more information on MLA, see <a href="https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/11/">here</a>.<br /><br />Basic summary of MLA: It consists of a Works Cited list starting on the top of a separate page at the end of the paper, which contains all the various sources you refer to in the body of the paper AND ONLY those sources that you refer to directly--don't include works that you have read but do not quote from, paraphrase, or cite as evidence. To cite paraphrases, just place the author's last name and the page number at the end of the sentence in parentheses, with the period outside the parentheses [example (Freud 8)]. For quotes, just add in quotation marks around the direct quotation and place the citation again in parentheses at the end of the sentence. If you refer to the author in the sentence and are not referencing a specific page, then you do not need an in-text citation beyond the mention of the name.<br /><br />The basic rule-of-thumb for MLA is to give as much information in the Works Cited as needed so that a reader can find your source (author, title, publisher, date of publication, title of publication if the work appears in a journal or magazine or newspaper, translator, etc.); for the in-text citations, list only as much information as needed to find the source in the list at the end of the paper. The custom is to start with author's last name and page number, then add a shortened version of the title, and finally a first initial if there is still confusion.<br /><br />So: (Freud 8), (Freud, Dreams 8), and (S. Freud, Dreams 8) would be how we would provide an in-text citation for the following entry in a works cited list:<br /><br />Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. Ed. and Trans. by James Strachey.<br />New York: Avon, 1998.</span></div>
Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-34929592793269896312015-01-23T09:38:00.000-08:002015-01-23T09:38:04.528-08:00Blog post for 1.28Hey All,<br />
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Our first lead blogger is RJ, and his post on the worth of college can be found <a href="http://rjsblogfurman.blogspot.com/2015/01/college-is-it-really-worth-money.html">here. </a><br />
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For next week, please write your own entries in response and post them on your individual blogs by Wednesday. You can relate your post to the subject in any way you choose. The main thing to focus on is productively advancing the conversation. Carve out an an aspect of the topic that interests you. Locate a set of compelling questions or problems and start to explore them, working toward clarifying some ideas and laying the groundwork for eventually building a claim or thesis. We will discuss this topic Wednesday, so think of yourself as preparing to add a contribution that helps broaden and deepen our upcoming classroom discussions.Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-36906119291274988912015-01-20T09:35:00.002-08:002015-01-20T13:19:15.065-08:00The books store angers me still...<a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6I1pb_njC4ndGFjcHBERlNPbW8/view">Here's a scan of the reading for tomorrow.</a> Let's hope I don't have to do this again for Friday...<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ8S4a0qMPGgtL3BNBVXF63w_DNA6hDaf4S10i309a9mjqtl6ePx8oP1uvc_BQcm8PSEr2440XMsLDnZZNxvHXeQo53-YM-61yn0_ZrZvPP0iA-9kYUBGfezNFtGrebiuwKSLG4oNiPveU/s1600/god-monty-python-holy-grail+karl+marx.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ8S4a0qMPGgtL3BNBVXF63w_DNA6hDaf4S10i309a9mjqtl6ePx8oP1uvc_BQcm8PSEr2440XMsLDnZZNxvHXeQo53-YM-61yn0_ZrZvPP0iA-9kYUBGfezNFtGrebiuwKSLG4oNiPveU/s1600/god-monty-python-holy-grail+karl+marx.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">...or soon they will feel my wrath...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;">Also, don't forget your blog posts for tomorrow! </span><br />
<br />
Image source: <a href="https://libcom.org/library/the-continuing-appeal-of-religion-troploin">libcom.com</a> (via Monty Python).<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">UPDATE: Just checked, and the books are in! Go get 'em, and go at those blog posts!</span>Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-72028878501388509542015-01-20T08:31:00.002-08:002015-02-09T10:27:59.617-08:00Student blogroll<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">RJ: <a href="http://rjsblogfurman.blogspot.com/">http://rjsblogfurman.blogspot.com/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
Tucker: <a href="http://tuckeratfurman.blogspot.com/">http://tuckeratfurman.blogspot.com/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
Sydney: <a href="http://sydneymwright.blogspot.com/">http://<span style="background-color: white;">sydneymwright.blogspot.com</span></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
John: <a href="http://johnmajorstumpfsblog.blogspot.com/">http://JohnMajorStumpfsblog.Blogspot.com</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
Daniel: <a href="http://whatdanielbutlerthinks.blogspot.com/">http://whatdanielbutlerthinks.blogspot.com</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
Isaac: <a href="http://icantread.blog.com/">http://icantread.blog.com</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />
Brady: <a href="http://xxseminarxx.blogspot.com/">http://xxseminarxx.blogspot.com</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Matthew: <a href="http://matthewfywblog.blogspot.com/">http://matthewfywblog.blogspot.com/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Hana: <a href="http://hanalepore.blogspot.com/">http://HanaLepore.blogspot.com</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Jack: <a href="http://jackrottysblog.blogspot.com/">http://jackrottysblog.blogspot.com/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Kat: <a href="http://katharineolson.blogspot.com/">http://katharineolson.blogspot.com/</a></span><br />
<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6m12XN1x-pTv2njQv002UkvDzRkPC-Gj2tWTVLuoJApSUzGL7T-ZTB4J8ICBiSGYL_ose6Q6ie5BMtyXvUsmnRZ_iZdGQNj4nwt8yFJFfhiKzF67ULpBSupkKdE5EMUfG_e_E4j6PO7wm/s1600/tumblr_inline_nanw7lOMnE1ro2d43.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6m12XN1x-pTv2njQv002UkvDzRkPC-Gj2tWTVLuoJApSUzGL7T-ZTB4J8ICBiSGYL_ose6Q6ie5BMtyXvUsmnRZ_iZdGQNj4nwt8yFJFfhiKzF67ULpBSupkKdE5EMUfG_e_E4j6PO7wm/s1600/tumblr_inline_nanw7lOMnE1ro2d43.gif" height="161" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image source: <a href="http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/maph/files/2014/09/tumblr_inline_nanw7lOMnE1ro2d43.gif">MAPH student blog</a></span>Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-45419646036888625082015-01-16T10:41:00.003-08:002015-01-20T12:02:15.816-08:00Blogroll: The Endless Possibilities of Blogging--And Our First Blogging Assignment <div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9wyeUHw3QesITOYbOfXToEQN-36UW5Nr7qYY2CNRsyw-N11NUAnwMRWe9kW-Dt6XTaa6SC3ej2lUvQkOCTyV6ICNy5ZwYB72GwcSXIFGdZooWbYH10nCi5ZOTJyUA0is_iSRd_CZm_ZGp/s1600/blogging.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9wyeUHw3QesITOYbOfXToEQN-36UW5Nr7qYY2CNRsyw-N11NUAnwMRWe9kW-Dt6XTaa6SC3ej2lUvQkOCTyV6ICNy5ZwYB72GwcSXIFGdZooWbYH10nCi5ZOTJyUA0is_iSRd_CZm_ZGp/s1600/blogging.jpg" /></a></div>
For this coming Wednesday, please post your first blog entry of about 300 words or so. It can be on any topic of your choosing, and it need have no explicit connection to the assigned readings, beyond generally demonstrating Smith's point about the innate human ability to locate an interesting kernel in seemingly dull subjects. For inspiration, feel free to explore the archives of our class blog, and the student blogs from past seminars (you can also check out the other archives of the other class blog, <a href="http://karlandadam.blogspot.com/">KarlAndAdam.blogspot.com</a>). However, I also want to encourage you not to narrow the range of possible topics you pick. What is important in this class is not so much what you talk about as how you talk about it. As long as you are able to locate a substantive point for discussion in the topic, you can consider it as fair game for your blog post.<br />
<br />
To this end, let me share a few different blogs and blog posts that demonstrate the range of possible topics and approaches that this very versatile genre supports. While of course you are always welcome to blog about current events in the worlds of politics, economics, and international relations, you shouldn't feel that you have to blog about these topics. If you do write about them, I ask that you avoid the hot-button issues whenever possible--abortion, gun control, affirmative action, etc.--and that you think beyond the standard political framing of such issues. So, for example, if you are writing about monetary policy, and you find that many people of your ideological persuasion oppose a certain Fed action, instead of adopting the party line, try writing about the reasons why this policy might appeal to people of your ideological persuasion. In other words: scramble the circuits of the standard talking points.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b> Some models:</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://typesetinthefuture.com/alien/">Here is an example</a> of a fun post on a very dry topic--typography.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2015/01/13/376991408/the-20-greatest-things-about-this-amazing-the-boy-next-door-trailer">This post</a> is a smart and silly critique of the inanities of popular culture.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20024-flake-music-when-you-land-here-its-time-to-return/">Here's an example of a music review</a> of an old album of an old band from my hometown that more or less became The Shins.<br />
<br />
Of course, <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/bastard-machine/worst-television-2014-760564">best and worst lists </a>can always be a fun way to do a blog post.<br />
<br />
You can go with something <a href="http://jezebel.com/pray-this-creep-is-never-assigned-as-your-partner-for-a-1679679338">light and silly on college life</a> or other close-to-home topics. Hey, it may seem a bit informal, but it actually does a very nice job of closely analyzing the language in the emails, albeit in a goofy way.<br />
<br />
And of course, you can always try to <a href="http://catliu.tumblr.com/post/107519743424/intellectual-history-and-the-death-of-politics#107519743424">elevate the dialogue</a> when it comes to current events.<br />
<br />
In addition to blogs like the above, you can also check out these wonderful blogs on more traditional political/economic-y subjects.<br />
<br />
<div>
<br />
<b> Liberal/neoliberal blogs:</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/">Paul Krugman</a><br />
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<a href="http://delong.typepad.com/">Brad DeLong</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/beat-the-press/">Dean Baker</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein">Wonkblog</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://vox.com/">Vox.com</a><br />
<br />
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<b>Libertarian/classical liberal blogs:</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://themoneyillusion.com/">Scott Sumner</a> (there's an excellent blogroll in the right hand corner)<br />
<br />
<a href="http://marginalrevolution.com/">Tyler Cowen</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://econlog.econlib.org/">Arnold Kling et al.</a> (also has an excellent blogroll to the right)<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/">Will Wilkinson</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/">Bleeding heart libertarians</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://cafehayek.com/">Cafe Hayek</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Conservative/Conservative-friendly blogs:</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda">Reihan Salam</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/josh_barro/index.html">Josh Barro</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blogs/">The American Conservative</a> (My personal favorite conservative publication)<br />
<br />
<a href="http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/">Andrew Sullivan</a> (Actually an apostate who still has a soft spot for the old ways)<br />
<br />
<a href="http://takimag.com/contributor/gavinmcinnes/151#axzz3P0gVxqgL">Gavin McInness</a> (A silly blogger, but can be fun)<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Marxist/Marxist-friendly/Left-leaning blogs:</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/ta-nehisi-coates/">Ta-Nehisi Coates</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb">Mike Konczal</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://lbo-news.com/">Doug Henwood</a><br />
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<a href="http://crookedtimber.org/">Crooked Timber</a><br />
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<a href="http://jacobinmag.com/blog/">Jacobin Magazine</a><br />
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<a href="http://coreyrobin.com/">Corey Robin</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://maxspeak.net/">Max Speak (another good blogroll)</a><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image source: <a href="http://www.poolbusinessmarketing.com/5-minute-blog/">Poolbusinessmarketing.com</a></span></div>
Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-89230917416031854222015-01-12T09:31:00.001-08:002015-02-06T07:12:42.231-08:00Lead blogger sign up sheetPlease choose a date you would like to serve as the lead blogger and leave it in a comment on this post. Dates will be assigned on a first come, first served basis. The dates below refer to the F<b>riday that the blogpost and related links are due.</b> The class will respond to your post by the following Wednesday, and students should read each others' posts by the next Friday's class.<br />
<br />
Jan 23: RJ<br />
<br />
Jan 30: John<br />
<br />
Feb 6: Matthew<br />
<br />
Feb 13: Sydney<br />
<br />
Feb 20:<br />
<br />
Feb 27: Jack<br />
<br />
March 6 (Post due before Spring break--will discuss and post responses week after break): Kat<br />
<br />
March 20: Hana<br />
<br />
March 27: Isaac<br />
<br />
April 3: Daniel<br />
<br />
April 10: Tucker<br />
<br />
April 17: Brady<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-24420228215529491832015-01-11T18:05:00.001-08:002015-02-15T11:30:51.831-08:00Welcome! Here is our online course schedule.<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="line-height: 16.0pt; margin-left: 0in; mso-line-height-rule: exactly; text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Note: The readings for Monday and sometimes Friday are generally set,
while the readings for Wednesday are “to be determined” after the first few
weeks. The lead blogger for a week will choose a topic, post at least one
substantive outside reading on the subject, and create an in-depth blog post by
the previous Friday. From time to time I may move readings around or replace
them to more closely coincide with the class’s current interests. Watch the
blog for these updates. <o:p></o:p></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="line-height: 16.0pt; margin-left: 0in; mso-line-height-rule: exactly; text-align: justify;">
Smith = <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Essential Adam Smith<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2" style="line-height: 16.0pt; margin-left: 0in; mso-line-height-rule: exactly; text-align: justify;">
Marx = <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Marx-Engels Reader</i><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Week
1: Intro – What is “The Market” anyway? <o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">M Jan 12: Introduction<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">W 14: Read Dean Baker, </span><a href="http://www.deanbaker.net/images/stories/documents/End-of-Loser-Liberalism.pdf"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The End of Loser Liberalism</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">
(Chapter 1) and </span><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2010/04/06/196778/political-conflict-isnt-about-free-markets/?mobile=nc"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Matt Yglesias</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">.
Create a blog and send me the link by the end of the week. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">F 16:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Read </span><a href="http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-c.html"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Hobbes</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> (chapters
XIII-XV – skim other chapters if you have time) and </span><a href="http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=846&chapter=66866&layout=html&Itemid=27"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Mandeville</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> ("An Enquiry Into the Origin of Moral Virtue"--for
some helpful background, read t<a href="http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/17926">he entry on Mandeville in the Dictionary of National Biography</a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Week
2 – Precursors<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">M 19: MLK day. No class. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">W 21: Read </span><a href="http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/hutcheson/remarks.htm"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Hutcheson</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> and
Smith, 1-13, 22-38. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">F 23: Read </span><a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/1/7/7500705/college-advice"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">this</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">
and </span><a href="http://spalding.pbworks.com/f/Sommers_Revision+Strategies.pdf"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Nancy Sommers</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">.
Read Smith, 118-123, 321-325. Make sure you are following class blog.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Week
3 – Feelings and value<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">M 26:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Read </span><a href="http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/2462#lf1458_label_109"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Hutcheson</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">
(section 5) and Smith, <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">65-78, 217-219</span>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">W 28: Reading TBA. Post first response to lead
blogger’s post and readings by Wednesday’s class. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">F 30: Bring in rough draft of paper 1. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Week
4 – Mercantilism, morality, regulation<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">M Feb 2: Read Smith, <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">258-269, </span></span><a href="http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hume-essays-moral-political-literary-lf-ed#lf0059_label_415"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Hume</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">
and </span><a href="http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/modest.html"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Swift</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">W 4: Reading TBA. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">F 6:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Bring in rough draft. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> Read </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2012/12/the-red-and-the-black/">Ackerman</a><u>,</u></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span><a href="http://jacobinmag.com/summer-2011/zombie-marx/"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Beggs</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> and </span><a href="http://cadtm.org/Adam-Smith-is-closer-to-Karl-Marx"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">this</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Week
5 – Marx as a reader of Smith<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">M 9: Read Marx, 236-250. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">W 11: Reading TBA. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">F 13:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Possible library day or writing workshop. </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Paper
1 due by class time. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-themecolor: hyperlink;"><o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Week
6 – The Problem of Capital <o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">M 16: Read Marx, 351-367. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">W 18: Reading TBA. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">F 20:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Read
</span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/10/opinion/10krugman.html"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Krugman</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">,
and Marx, 443-465. Bring rough draft for peer editing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Week
7 – Smith as Early Critic of Capital<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">M 23: Read Smith, 227-248. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">W 25: Reading TBA.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">F 27: Read </span><a href="http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/keynes/general-theory/ch23.htm"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Keynes</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">
(primarily section VI). Bring rough draft for peer editing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Week
8: Topics fair<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">M March 2: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Paper
2 due by class time. </b>Short presentations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">W 4: Reading TBA. Short presentations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">F 6: Read </span><a href="http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/re-targeting-the-fed"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Sumner</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">
and </span><a href="http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hume-essays-moral-political-literary-lf-ed#lf0059_label_394"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Hume</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">,
Short presentations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Week
9 – Spring break<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">M 9: No class. Spring break.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">W 11: No class. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">F 13: No class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Week
10 – Wealth and Poverty<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">M 16: Read Marx, 473-491, and </span><a href="http://bostonreview.net/dalton-conley-charles-murray-ending-the-welfare-state"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Conley</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">W 18: Reading TBA. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">F 20: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">No
class. Instructor away at conference.</b> Writing workshop or possible library
day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Week
11 – Utopian and practical thinking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></u></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">M 23:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Read
Marx (piece actually by Engels), 683-694. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">W 25: Reading TBA. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">F 27: </span><a href="http://www.democracyjournal.org/8/6591.php?page=all"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Frank</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">
and </span><a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/277669/robert-frank-and-case-progressive-consumption-tax-reihan-salam"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Salam</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">.
Bring in rough draft for peer editing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Week
12 – Other matters<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">M 30: Read Smith, 248-258. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">W April 1: Reading TBA. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Paper 3 due by class time. </b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">F 3: Easter break. No class. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Week
13 – Taking stock<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">M 6: Easter break. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">W 8: Reading TBA. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">F 10: Read Marx, 193-200, 291-293. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Week
14 – Finishing touches<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">M 13: Read Smith, 269-284<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">W 15: Reading TBA.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">F 17: Read </span><a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/documents/1864/lincoln-letter.htm"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Marx</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">,
</span><a href="http://www.econlib.org/library/LFBooks/Burke/brkSWv2c1.html#anchor_c745"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Burke</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">
(2.1.313 to 2.1.327) and </span><a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/i-am-not-for-world-empire/"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Mailer interview</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">.
Writing workshop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Week
15 – Almost there<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">M 20: Read Smith, 290-310<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.</i> Bring in rough draft.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">W 22: Reading TBA. Peer editing/workshopping. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">F 24: Read Marx, 522-534. Peer
editing/workshopping. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Week
16<o:p></o:p></span></u></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">M 27: Last day of class. No final exam.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">W 29: Study day. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Final paper due Thursday, April 30<sup>th</sup> at 12pm. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">F May 1: Exams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-47360551710761251302013-12-09T19:13:00.000-08:002013-12-10T05:30:02.726-08:00The Three Separations: A Manifesto for Socialism in the Age of Neoliberalism (final draft)<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">While Marxism and socialism have enjoyed a noteworthy revival in the years since the 2008 financial crisis, this resurgence has not produced a widely accepted blueprint for a new economic order. My claim in this paper is that implementing the visionary hopes emerging from a resurgent left does not require any radical new policy ideas. Indeed, while I will argue for a version of so-called "market socialism," I differ from many others in making the following explicit claim: it is perfectly possible to challenge capitalist hegemony without challenging neoliberal hegemony. As Dean Baker has persuasively shown, a great deal of what passes for "free market" policy really represents a type of government restriction of the free market. The case is no different with socialism: in a striking paper strangely overlooked by many socialists, Grant and Quiggin have argued that a simple analysis using mainstream, neoliberal economic assumptions suggest a much greater role for government ownership of the means of production.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">This conclusion, furthermore, fits nicely with the analysis offered by the school of socialist thought sometimes called post-Marxism. The work of Ernesto Laclau in particular implies that what ultimately separates socialism from liberalism and social democracy, or really any political regime from any other, is not so much a set of concrete policies. Rather, it is the mere fact that such policies occur in an environment of socialist hegemony, something that is an effect of mechanisms for framing political debates as much as it is an effect of actual policies. In a similar vein, philosopher Slavoj Zizek has argued that being a communist today means, above all else, the simple commitment to keeping what belongs to the commons in the realm of the common: "The only sense in which we are Communists is that we care for the commons--the commons of nature, of knowledge--which are threatened by the system."</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">In a recent and influential piece, Jacobin writer Seth Ackerman offers a rudimentary vision of socialism that, while challenging the neoliberal consensus of recent years and not explicitly adopting a post-Marxist framework, suggests that concrete policies are crucial as much because they offer a means for assuaging leftist melancholy and self-doubt as because they actually map out an exclusive path forward: "a successful radical project has to appeal to every emotional register: not just those ecstatic moments when history opens up and everything seems possible, but also those pensive and critical moods when even inveterate optimists-of-the-will find doubt and reflection taking over." What Ackerman does not fully articulate, though, is the degree to which even the most ruthlessly mainstream and pessimistic neoliberal framework already contains its own subversion when simply looked at in the right way. This becomes clear when examining the uncanny proximity of Ackerman's own proposal to Grant and Quiggin's plan to create a kind of nationalized hedge fund for managing the assets of programs like Social Security.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">For this reason, the plan I will articulate for achieving socialism is, in a sense, rather conservative: it essentially leaves in place the current free market, free enterprise system of private ownership of the means of production while building a socialist structure of public ownership and social egalitarianism on top of it. The way to achieve this is simple: if socialism in the strong sense means that the government owns the means of production, then the government should simply buy the means of production.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Separation One: Ownership and Management</b><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The work of Grant and Quiggan suggests that a strong market signal in favor of socialism already exists: the so-called equity premium. This phenomenon, discussed perhaps most famously in a paper by Merha and Prescott, refers to the long-standing mystery in financial economics that government securities consistently pay much lower returns relative to private investments than many models would predict. While there are a variety of attempts to explain this anomaly, one possible interpretation is that this imbalance exists because of the artificial intervention into the market preventing the government from borrowing cheaply in order to lend dearly. Any private bank that could borrow money on such favorable terms would be reaping these rewards by purchasing assets that yield higher returns. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">However, in this case, following through on this relatively straightforward market logic leads to a conclusion that most who profess love for that same market logic find extremely unsettling: namely, that governments should nationalize the means of production. Although Grant and Quiggin do not style themselves as radicals like Ackerman, they nonetheless endorse this very conclusion, at least to an extent: "Next we consider the possibility of public ownership of equity and show that, other things being equal, increases in public ownership financed by government borrowing (that is, by selling government bonds) will improve welfare, up to the point where the equity premium is eliminated" (3). It is perhaps telling that mainstream economics, upon demonstrating that a type of socialism is indeed not only feasible but perhaps prescribed by mainstream economic principles, places this point second in the argument.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">To be fair, one of the co-authors, John Quiggin, in a blog post does recognize the potential impact of his paper. He even references Marx in doing so: "To misquote Marx, the problem now is not to explain the equity premium but to derive its policy implications … Some of the implications reinforce common ideas … Other implications are more sup rising at least to those who have imbibed the current conventional wisdom … An immediate implication is that, other things (such as operational efficiency) being equal, privatisation will reduce welfare and nationalisation will increase it." Despite this interpretation, some socialists no doubt may object that this is really just a type of corporatism, or that it is a watered down version of the real thing. Indeed, the proposal would have to start out slow, and at first it would own a small portion of the means of production. As Ackerman notes, however, any economic system needs a way of allocating goods, creating new firms, and shutting down existing ones that are failing, and we should look at the market framework not so much as determinative of the ultimate nature of an economic system but as simply one possible means of allocating goods and services. Thus, Grant and Quiggin's proposal is indeed a form of socialism, even if the market is involved, because it quite literally argues that we should follow market signals in setting the level of socialism by continuing purchases "up to the point where the equity premium is eliminated."</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The main concern these authors outline is that private management is ultimately more efficient than public control. Ackerman, too, raises a similar problem, and suggests that preserving firm autonomy would be necessary even with socialism. In other words, economic decisions, rather than political ones, would have to determine when a company is closed down. Grant and Quiggin indirectly provide a suggestion of how to avoid some of the problems of public ownership while getting the efficiency benefits of private management. In their article, they note that one possible policy is to "invest part of the Social Security fund in equities while maintaining the defined-benefit character of the scheme" (1). Essentially, an investment fund, modeled on a private bank, could take investments from Social Security and other public pension funds at various levels of government. To ensure safety and efficiency, these funds could be modeled on index funds and other funds that invest in an entire class of assets, thus eliminating the need for active management and the high salaries that those who manage such funds command. Because much of the money invested would come from from borrowing (selling bonds), this fund could take advantage of the higher returns that were once available only to select institutions like banks, and because these privileges are often implicitly underwritten by the taxpayer, the public would finally be taking advantage of the privilege doled out to special interest groups at its own expense. It would even be possible to use direct democracy to manage these public funds: because the people as a whole would be the shareholders, they arguably would have the right to vote on top management, just like individual shareholders do today.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Separation Two: Consumption and Ownership</b><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">This program, of course, would still leave a substantial amount of the means of production in private hands for the foreseeable future, even if it eventually resulted in the government owning the majority of the means of production. For this reason, there will no doubt be some socialists who object that this is not really a form of socialism at all. This is a reasonable objection, but I would actually argue just the opposite: even in the absence of such a policy, it would be possible to implement a version of socialism. This is where hegemony, the essence of Laclau's post-Marxist socialism, becomes crucial: even if the government attained nominal ownership of the means of production, it is not at all unthinkable that nothing could really change in the economy. The government would be under no obligation to pay out more generous public benefits as dividends, and top executives could easily continue to command outsized salaries, further exacerbating inequality--indeed, it is not difficult to imagine that the managers of the government fund might receive similar compensation.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">This difficulty leads to the next and, arguably, more crucial separation that socialists should fight for: the separation of private ownership from private consumption, something that can be achieved through tax policy, specifically a progressive consumption tax. The notion of the progressive consumption tax is beginning to gain favor with both the liberal left and the right. The attraction for the liberal left is that it allows the government to raise a large amount of money in an economically efficient way; the attraction for the right is that it eliminates taxes on capital gains while encouraging the type of savings and investment that drives long term economic growth (Frank). From a socialist point of view, the attraction is less that it would raise a large amount of revenue per se and more that it would encourage a social norm of equality: while there would still be a right for individuals to own private capital, a strongly progressive consumption tax would, in practice, make it much more difficult to use this wealth to fuel luxurious lifestyles. As Frank notes, it would be possible to have very high rates of taxation on consumption without necessarily harming the economy. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Even in the absence of any direct purchase of the means of production, a progressive consumption tax could arguably achieve results even more attractive for socialists than the former policy. It would not nationalize the means of production, but it would create a kind of public utility model for private ownership of capital as such, one in which the individual benefits to capitalists and high level managers would be controlled, in a process that would also raise government revenues for more general welfare benefits. Combined with a much higher level of government ownership of wealth, this combination of outright government ownership and the private utility model of capital ownership would help to maintain the type of competitive capital market with a multitude of participants that would be necessary for maintaining efficiency in the government owned sector.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Other taxes, too, could and should be implemented as much for their disincentive effects as for the actual revenue they raise. From the perspective of ensuring socialist hegemony in the form of norms promoting equality, reducing consumption at the higher end of the income scale is arguably much more important than raising taxes per se on the rich without regard to whether that tax hits investment or consumption. Another top tax priority that would have a powerful effect on social norms would be to implement a series of taxes that are not only economically efficient but perhaps even necessary for our survival: I am thinking of, first and foremost, a carbon tax, one that was sufficiently high to reduce carbon emissions the requisite amount. After this, we could consider some other types of consumption tax: taxes on other forms of pollution, processed food, alcohol and tobacco, newly legal marijuana, traffic congestion, natural resources, land rents, and so on. All of these taxes are economically efficient and will raise money, but, especially when looked at from a global perspective, because such things are disproportionally associated with affluence, they will further limit consumption at the higher levels of the income scale.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Finally, although actively articulating these policies as explicitly socialist aims is crucial, the actual effects themselves are also consistent with the aims of equality. Indeed, they are arguably more consistent with these aims than standard, soak-the-rich progressive and social democratic policies. Libertarian economists like Scott Sumner who have a serious and genuine commitment to redistribution and equality rightly point out that in order to actually redistribute resources, it is necessary to discourage consumption at the high end while also encouraging investment: as others consume less, those resources become available for redistribution, and as investments come on line, the additional productive capacity necessary for a higher total level of consumption also gradually emerges (Sumner, "You Can't Redistribute Income"). The next section will discuss redistribution policies that not only create equality in an efficient way but that also encourage the type of norms that will further cement socialist hegemony.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Separation Three: Work and the Labor Market </b><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Just as government ownership of the means of production through market socialism would not necessarily encourage equality, so an implicit ceiling on consumption at the top, enforced through norms, taxes, and perhaps eventually a hard cap on annual consumption, would only work toward reducing inequality at the top end of the scale. It would still be quite possible for those at the lower end to fall behind. A floor on consumption is therefore perhaps even more urgently necessary than a ceiling (however, the revenues from the taxes that enforce the ceiling are necessary to help fund the floor, so these last two at least function symbiotically). If the second separation aims at proletarianizing the capitalist class, gradually blurring class divisions by transforming ownership into a type of labor (management), on the other end of the spectrum the next separation seeks to blur the boundary in the other direction by ownerizing the proletarians, that is, ensuring a set level of compensation regardless of access to the labor market.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">What this means, in practice, is recognizing that a job, and the secure compensation it offers, is not a naturally occurring product of the labor market. A variety of tax incentives, for example, create what we think of as a "good job": tax breaks on employer provided health insurance, and regulations affecting the way this health insurance works, ensure that employees in certain circumstances receive the total package that we think of as a good job. While arguably these benefits could be replaced by cash payments, cash payments would not replicate the implicit social insurance that exists in things like employer provided health insurance. Until the recent Affordable Care Act, the group insurance market was the area of the economy where insurance had to accept all people regardless of pre-existing conditions. A "good job," then, is more than the sum of its costs: in many cases it would be impossible for individuals to buy a similar benefit even if they were given the fair market value of those benefits in the form of a cash grant. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">A job, then, is something akin to a type of social insurance, a deliberate policy creation of relatively recent origins, and to ensure equality at the lower end of the income scale, it is simply necessary to extend much more broadly the type of social insurance that transforms labor into jobs and, ideally, into meaningful work. The first step in this process of separating the jobs people have from those that the labor market produces is, paradoxically, to encourage a vigorous and robust labor market. Separating jobs from the labor market is not the same as interfering with the latter: indeed, part of the process of expanding comprehensive job insurance is to encourage a vigorous and free labor market. This will help to ensure that the labor market on its own does as much as it possibly can to raise labor up to the standard of work and jobs. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Many leftists have been critical of using the Federal Reserve as a means to address the recent failure of the labor market out of a sense that the goal should be to transcend the vicissitudes of the labor market altogether. They argue that to emphasize Fed stimulus is to remove the labor market from the realm of politics, and to reduce the struggle for meaningful work to a mere technical macroeconomic fluke. This is an enormous mistake. It will be much easier to extend forms of social insurance to laborers if there is already a healthy labor market. We should see a vigorous labor market, then, as a necessary but not sufficient condition of creating meaningful work: it facilitates, rather than preempts, more fundamental reforms. Indeed, as Christina Romer has argued, the vast majority of the recovery from the Great Depression was a product of monetary policy, not fiscal policy. The political boost that a very quick economic recovery provided--a boost or jolt that monetary policy is uniquely suited to provide--laid the political groundwork for the later successes of the New Deal. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The best way to establish stable monetary policy that will encourage a robust job market is to adopt something like the NGDP level targeting regime advocated by Scott Sumner ("Retargeting"). </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">It is important to recognize the very radical implications that the apparent humble technicality of this issue obscures: Sumner's proposal aims at nothing less than eliminating recessions as such. Getting behind this proposal is not something that just liberals and progressives should be interested in doing; it should be a core socialist goal. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">While ending recessions could go a long way toward raising the standards of the labor market part of the way up to the standards of meaningful work and that highly unnatural social construction we call a job, it no doubt will not go all of the way there. The other part of the task will be to boost wages. The minimum wage is a great way to do this, and in an influential paper, Card and Krueger found that modest increases in the minimum wage do not lead to increases in unemployment. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Of course, this too will not be able to go all the way to creating meaningful work. To further this end, expanding wage subsidies such as the earned income tax credit and establishing a universal basic income will go a long way to furthering this separation. Finally, for those who still have difficulty finding work, implementing a government jobs program on a permanent basis will help to further eliminate any additional uncertainty associated with the labor market. The logic here, again, should not be that of intervening in the market but rather instituting free market reforms: by raising the minimum wage, we make sure that taxpayers are not subsidizing employers who do not pay their workers a living wage; by replacing paternalistic programs with wage subsidies, we combat bureaucracy and regulations that intrude into the lives of benefit recipients; and by removing the current restrictions on allowing the government to hire as many people as need work, we ensure that society can benefit from the work that these individuals are no doubt already doing, while also ensuring that society receives additional benefits for the support it is already paying--in some form or other--to these individuals. In all cases, these policies not only increase employment and improve job quality, but they also ensure strong norms that raise the social status of all work. One interpretation of Card and Krueger is that the level of the minimum wage is more a political than an economic question. Even if the minimum wage is a relatively inefficient way to alleviate poverty, raising it still creates a strong social norm for improving the status of all forms of work.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Conclusion: It's the Economic Norms, Stupid!</b><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">For too long, socialists and the left have concentrated on all-or-nothing plans. This ensured that if the left did not get everything, it did not get anything. Instead, socialists should concentrate on "nothing is all" planning: ensuring that any movement forward on any of these plans--including simply talking about these ideas more, and talking about them in an explicitly socialist context--is already to move the plan as a whole forward. This is small-c conservative politics in the best, Burkean sense of the term: through what may appear to be gradual, imperceptible changes, the totality of society slowly alters, until one day it becomes clear that we had been on the path to a brand new order all along. Norms, values, and customs, rather than explicit changes to policies, are the key movers of this small-c conservative politics, and the left has too long let the right monopolize these extremely powerful forces. To put this otherwise, once people think about themselves as socialists, and think about the norms that define their lives in socialist terms, even small changes can become extremely radical. The goal above all else for socialists should be to encourage ways of acting, speaking, and thinking that cement the social norm and precedent that any form of property with a common character--the environment, ideas, public institutions, and of course capital itself--should function as a public trust, even if and when it is nominally privately owned.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Finally, and perhaps most unexpectedly, this proposal could have broad appeal beyond the traditional left, for the simple reason that many of the ideas here come from non-socialists. Quiggin defines himself as a social democrat, but the progressive consumption tax is supported by economists and policy analysts both left and right; NGDP targeting is supported primarily by libertarians, as well as by some right-leaning thinkers; and Charles Murray, of all people, recently came out in support of a basic income. Of course, it is certain that as these views become increasingly associated with socialism, this support will begin to vanish. That is not only expected but perhaps desirable. Nonetheless, anyone who truly values free markets and neoliberal thinking more than capitalism itself will find something to like in this plan.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Indeed, ironically, the path to socialism in an international context will now run through many of the supply-side reforms supported by many on the right, because these reforms tend to strengthen the economic and political infrastructure that make an equity premium emerge in the first place. Furthermore, by placing entitlement programs on a sound financial footing and connecting their funding to the equities market, the plan also gives the population a direct interest in an efficient, productive economy. As with all people who suddenly find themselves with newfound wealth, the population will become much less susceptible to a cruder and more inefficient form of populist economic appeal: if the people own the means of production, they can always take advantage of them; but as their owners, they will recognize that, just as with any investment, it is wise to avoid drawing upon it as much as possible. As our friends on the right are quick to remind us, it is the owner who has the biggest interest of all in the wellbeing and success of the enterprise. Taking this observation to its limit, socialism becomes the ultimate pro-market, pro-enterprise neoliberal reform.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Works Cited</b><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Ackerman, Seth. "The Red and the Black." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Jacobin</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> 9 (December 2012): n.p. Web.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Baker, Dean. </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive.</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> Washington: Center for Economic and Policy Research, 2011. Web. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Card, David and Alan Krueger. "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">American Economic Review</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> 84.4 (September 1994): 772-93. Web.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Frank, Robert. "Progressive Consumption Tax." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Democracy Journal</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> 8 (2008): n.p. Web.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Grant, Simon and John Quiggin. "Public Investment and the Risk Premium for Equity."</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Economica</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> 70 (2003): 1-18.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Laclau, Ernesto. </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Hegemony and Socialist Strategy</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> (New York: Verso, 2001). Print.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Quiggin, John. "The Equity Premium: Puzzle and Policy." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">John Quiggin. </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">John Quiggin, 5 March 2003. Web. 25 November 2013. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Mehra, Rajnish and Edward C. Prescott. "The Equity Premium: A Puzzle." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Journal of Monetary Economics</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> 15 (1985): 145-161. Web. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Romer, Christina D. "What Ended the Great Depression." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The Journal of Economic History</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> 52.4 (December 1992): 757-84. Web.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Sumner, Scott. "You Can't Redistribute Income." </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The Money Illusion. </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The Money Illusion, 26 July 2011. Web. 25 November 2013.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">--. "Retargeting the Fed." <i>National Affairs </i>9 (Fall 2011): n. p. Web. </span><br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">
<br />Zizek, Slavoj. "Slavoj Zizek at Occupy Wall Street." Blog post by Sarah Shin. <i>Verso Blog. </i>Verso, 10 Oct. 2011. Web. 25 Nov. 2013.</div>
Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-90574562576004758202013-11-26T05:30:00.000-08:002013-11-26T09:45:35.474-08:00The Three Separations: Implementing Socialism in an Age of Neoliberal Hegemony (my term paper: revised intermediate draft)(Aside: Which title do you like best - The Three Separations: Implementing Socialism in an Age of Neoliberal Hegemony - or - TTS: A Manifesto for Socialism in an Age of Neoliberal Hegemony - or - TTS: A Manifesto for Neoliberal Socialism?)<br />
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While Marxism and socialism have enjoyed a noteworthy revival in the years since the 2008 financial crisis, this resurgence has not produced a widely accepted blueprint for a new economic order. My claim in this paper is that implementing the visionary hopes of recent years--the hope, in short, that it is possible to imagine and to enact policies to the left of the traditional ideas offered by liberals and social democrats--does not require any radical new policy ideas. Indeed, while I will argue for a version of so-called "market socialism," I differ from many others in making the following explicit claim: it is perfectly possible to challenge capitalist hegemony without challenging neoliberal hegemony, for the simple reason that taking neoliberal principles, as I will show, actually would lead to a much greater degree of government ownership of the means of production. As Dean Baker has persuasively shown, a great deal of what passes for "free market" policy really represents a type of government restriction of the free market. The case is no different with socialism: Grant and Quiggin have argued that economic thinking might actually suggest a greater role for government ownership of capital. Thus, opposing socialism, ironically, might be the ultimate form of intervention into the market.<br />
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Thus, socialism simply requires retooling existing liberal and social democratic ideas as expressions of socialism and advocating them as such. The work of Ernesto Laclau implies that what separates socialism from liberalism and social democracy is not so much a set of concrete policies: rather, it is the mere fact that such policies occur in an environment of socialist hegemony, and the way to achieve this is as much about framing political debates as about actual policies. In a similar vein, philosopher Slavoj Zizek--who holds the remarkable distinction of being both an anti-communist dissident under really existing socialism and an anti-capitalist dissident under really existing capitalism--argued, in a speech to the Occupy Wall Street encampment, that being a communist today means, above all else, the simple commitment to keeping what belongs to the commons in the realm of the common: "The only sense in which we are Communists is that we care for the commons--the commons of nature, of knowledge--which are threatened by the system."<br />
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This may sound like I am claiming that the key to being a socialist is simply calling oneself a socialist. This is too simple, because arguing that the key to power is socialist hegemony, something which is as much a product of rhetorico-political strategy as it is a product of policies, is not to say that articulating workable policies has no place. Scott Sumner notes, for example, that the world is becoming increasingly utopian and egalitarian on its own: "the entire world is evolving toward a near 100% service economy in terms of jobs … the big public policy issue will be deciding who should get to allocate all the wealth that will be accumulated by those with great ideas (or rents). Should the government or the wealthy get to decide which charities are most deserving?" ("The Real Story") Sumner, a libertarian, articulates here a vision that many socialist visionaries could only dream of in earlier days. Nonetheless, a political question remains: who owns and controls the capital goods that have rendered scarcity obsolete, and transformed most jobs into the mere management of the output generated by this vast productive apparatus. Sumner suggests it is a choice between government regulation and private charity. But there is a third option: common control--the people as a whole owning the means of production. <br />
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Furthermore, as Seth Ackerman notes in an influential piece offering a rudimentary vision of socialism--one that this essay will build upon in several ways--concrete policies are crucial not simply because they propose a workable path forward, but also because they offer a focal point that can assuage the self-doubt of those who desire far reaching reform: "still, a successful radical project has to appeal to every emotional register: not just those ecstatic moments when history opens up and everything seems possible, but also those pensive and critical moods when even inveterate optimists-of-the-will find doubt and reflection taking over."<br />
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For this reason, the plan I will articulate for achieving socialism is, in a sense, rather conservative: it essentially leaves in place the current free market, free enterprise system of private ownership of the means of production while building a socialist structure of public ownership and social egalitarianism on top of it. The way to achieve this is simple: if socialism in the strong sense means that the government owns the means of production, then the government should simply buy the means of production.<br />
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It may seem that this is impossible to do without disturbing the existing economy, but there are many ways in which preserving and strengthening a free market, free enterprise system with limited regulation and private ownership is actually quite compatible with, even conducive to, socialism. Ackerman notes that socialism, in essence, means that the government invests in capital in order to build up the resources necessary to further the public good. Ackerman's argument remains committed to some old style socialist tactics like expropriation and terror. He speaks, for example, of a fund that would promote "what might be euphemistically called the 'compulsory purchase' of all privately-owned financial asset." While I do not want to claim that such tactics are never useful, I do want to argue that they are not necessarily useful, only contingently useful. A peaceful, largely voluntary transition is indeed possible. Whether, and to what extent, the government actually owns outright the means of production becomes a much less pressing issue if and when other policies are in place to ensure that capital is still managed for, and available to, the wider public. <br />
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<b>Separation One: Ownership and Management</b><br />
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The basic idea behind this proposal is a simple one: the way to socialize the means of production is to socialize the means of production. This idea is at the core of Ackerman's proposal, an idea that he does not fully develop. The degree to which the market is compatible with socialism exceeds even the image that Ackerman paints. Not only is it possible for socialism to work within a market mechanism with autonomous and independent firms, but arguably this outcome is only prevented from going in this direction by artificial constraints on the operation of the market. In a narrow but significant region of economic policy, eliminating restrictions on a certain class of transactions--namely, the current customary prohibition on the government owning private industry--actually would mean heading down the road to socialism in a significant way. <br />
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This strong market signal in favor of socialism, I argue, exists in the form of the so-called equity premium. One long standing mystery in financial economics is that, for some reason, government securities pay much lower returns than one might expect. In an influential paper, Mehra and Prescott note that "The equity premium puzzle may not be why was the average equity return so high but rather why was the average risk-free rate so low" (158). Recent research has added new wrinkles to the puzzle and challenged Mehra and Prescott's original framework (Azeredo 3). <br />
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The equity premium, in other words, has spawned not so much explanations as interpretations, and there is indeed one very surprising interpretation: that it implies that governments should nationalize the means of production. Indeed, mainstream economics--the type with equations and sophisticated mathematical modeling and all the other standard trappings, no less--has suggested the very conclusion that Ackerman offers in his essay. Although the authors have not come out so clearly To put it in the dry language of economics, "Next we consider the possibility of public ownership of equity and show that, other things being equal, increases in public ownership financed by government borrowing (that is, by selling government bonds) will improve welfare, up to the point where the equity premium is eliminated" (Grant and Quiggin 3). It is perhaps telling that mainstream economics, upon demonstrating that a type of socialism is indeed feasible, places this point second in the argument. <br />
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To be fair, one of the co-authors, John Quiggin, in a blog post does recognize the potential impact of his paper. He even references Marx in doing so: "To misquote Marx, the problem now is not to explain the equity premium but to derive its policy implications … Some of the implications reinforce common ideas … Other implications are more sup rising at least to those who have imbibed the current conventional wisdom … An immediate implication is that, other things (such as operational efficiency) being equal, privatisation will reduce welfare and nationalisation will increase it." Despite this interpretation, some socialists no doubt may object that this is really just a type of corporatism, or that it is a watered down version of the real thing. Indeed, the proposal would have to start out slow, and at first it would own a small portion of the means of production. But over time it could increase its shares. As Ackerman further argues, any economic system needs a way of allocating goods, creating new firms, and shutting down existing ones that are failing, and we should look at the market framework not so much as determinative of the ultimate nature of an economic system but as simply one possible means of allocating goods and services. Thus, Grant and Quiggin's proposal is indeed a form of market socialism. It quite literally argues that we should follow market signals in setting the level of socialism by continuing purchases "up to the point where the equity premium is eliminated."<br />
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The main concern these authors outline is that private management is ultimately more efficient than public control. Ackerman, too, raises a similar problem, and suggests that preserving firm autonomy would be necessary even with socialism. In other words, economic decisions, rather than political ones, would have to determine when a company is closed down. Grant and Quiggin indirectly provide a suggestion of how to avoid some of the problems of public ownership while getting the efficiency benefits of private management. In their article, they note that one possible policy is to "invest part of the Social Security fund in equities while maintaining the defined-benefit character of the scheme" (1). Essentially, an investment fund, modeled on a private bank, could take investments from Social Security and other public pension funds at various levels of government. Just as with a bank, this money would fund a small part of the investing, but the vast majority of it would come from borrowing (selling bonds) and investing the money. Because of the equity premium--the fact that it costs governments less to borrow than the return they receive on their investments--the fund could borrow money and still make a profit on its investments. This would not only increase the returns on the money invested by public pensions, but it would create an institutional firewall between the government and government programs and the public investment. Firms would then be autonomous from the government proper, and would be essentially managed like pension funds: public ownership would be separated from management. It would even be possible to use direct democracy here: because the people as a whole would be the shareholders, they arguably would have the right to vote on top management, just like individual shareholders do today. <br />
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<b>Separation Two: Consumption and Ownership</b><br />
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This program, of course, would still leave a substantial amount of the means of production in private hands, and so no doubt socialists at this points will object that this is not really a form of socialism at all. The rich are left with the large proportion of the means of production in their hands. This is a reasonable objection, but I would actually argue just the opposite: even in the absence of such a policy, it would be possible to implement a version of socialism. <br />
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Quiggin's proposal suggests buying capital until the equity premium vanishes. When this would occur is an empirical question, but it would probably occur before the government owned the entire economy. Even if the government ended up owning over fifty percent of the economy, it would still be the case that some portion of the means of production would be privately owned. <br />
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This may, however, be a good thing. Ackerman cites economic research showing that one of the key reasons for the failure of really existing socialism was a lack of firm autonomy and an efficient capital market: without facing the resource constraints that a capital market creates, firms did not have an incentive to efficiently allocate their resources. They could receive continual bailouts as the government overlooked their lack of profitability. As more resources are owned by the government, there is always a danger of this occurring. Having several other participants in the capital market besides the government would be one way to protect against this outcome. But even if this is a good idea for pragmatic reasons, ideologically it would, however, mean something less than a type of fully fledged socialism. Unless some other action were taken, it would be easy to simply pass of this creation as a mere mixed economy--a mere social democratic twist on traditional capitalism. <br />
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This difficulty leads to the next separation socialists should fight for: the separation of private ownership from private consumption, something that can be achieved through tax policy, specifically a progressive consumption tax. The notion of the progressive consumption tax is beginning to gain favor with liberals, progressives, and social democrats. The attraction to this set is that it allows the government to raise a large amount of money in an economically efficient way, bringing in revenue while encouraging the type of savings and investment that drives long term economic growth (Frank).<br />
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From a socialist point of view, the attraction is less that it would raise a large amount of revenue per se and more that it would encourage private owners of capital to adopt a kind of managerial ethos. They would be able to draw a certain amount of money from their investments in order to support their own personal consumption. However, although they would have a large amount of wealth, luxurious lifestyles would be sharply curtailed by a progressive consumption tax. As Frank notes, it would be possible to have very high rates of taxation on consumption without necessarily harming the economy. <br />
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The result of this would be as much a mindset from the socialist point of view as it would be actual revenue. Being wealthy would still have many benefits. It would allow an individual to draw income from investments to fuel personal consumption. But it would also encourage limitation of this consumption, making sure that being wealthy did not necessarily entitle an individual to a much higher degree of consumption. Like a manager of an investment fund, the wealthy would be able to draw compensation for their labor overseeing their investments. The difference between a manger and and owner is that the manager still has to ask permission to use the resource for his personal gain, and the progressive consumption tax would, in a sense, act as a means of requiring such permission from the public. Although this tax would also, in a sense, limit the amount <br />
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Other taxes, too, could and should be implemented as much for their disincentive effects as for the actual revenue they raise. Reducing consumption at the higher end of the income scale is arguably much more important than raising taxes per se on the rich without regard to whether that tax hits investment or consumption. Another top priority would be to implement a series of taxes that are not only economically efficient but perhaps even necessary for our survival: I am thinking of, first and foremost, a carbon tax, one that was sufficiently high to reduce carbon emissions the requisite amount. After this, we could consider some other types of consumption tax: taxes on other forms of pollution, processed food, alcohol and tobacco, newly legal marijuana, traffic congestion, natural resources, land rents, and so on. All of these taxes are economically efficient and will raise money, but, especially when looked at from a global perspective, because such things are disproportionally associated with affluence, they will further limit consumption at the higher levels of the income scale. <br />
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Once again, this policy represents a perfect combination of performative power and policy effectiveness: simply declaring that the express purpose of these policies is to create and perpetuate a socialist norm--the idea that individual wealth is something that people have the right to consume only within certain limit--will create a new mode of consciousness, one quite different than if these same policies were implemented in a liberal or even a social democratic context. We could even, theoretically, have progressive consumption tax rates that gradually rise to infinity. The actual revenue effects of these rates would likely be small, as a relatively small percentage of the population consumes at very high levels, but it would no doubt have a powerful symbolic effect. Economists have documented the important role of social norms in higher rates of inequality (citation needed). <br />
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Finally, although actively articulating these policies as explicitly socialist aims is crucial, the actual effects themselves are also consistent with the aims of equality. Indeed, they are arguably more consistent with these aims than standard, soak-the-rich progressive and social democratic policies. Libertarian economists like Scott Sumner who have a serious and genuine commitment to redistribution and equality rightly point out that in order to actually redistribute resources, it is necessary to discourage consumption at the high end while also encouraging investment: as others consume less, those resources become available for redistribution; but new investments are also needed to create the additional productive capacity necessary for a higher total level of consumption (Sumner, "You Can't Redistribute Income"). <br />
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<b>Separation Three: Work and the Labor Market </b><br />
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Of course, it is also necessary to have some redistribution mechanism, and to have a conscious plan behind it. Even if the two other separations were achieved, it is still possible that many of the benefits of this society would not extend to all members. Even with an implicit ceiling on consumption at the top, enforced through norms, taxes, and perhaps eventually a hard cap on annual consumption, it would be possible for those at the lower end to fall behind. We therefore require a floor on consumption perhaps even more urgently than a ceiling. This, again, will mean finding a framework simultaneously to go beyond social democracy without ending up facing the difficulties of really existing socialism. One of the goals of social democracy has been to establish a right to employment. One of the main ideals of the Soviet Union was the requirement to labor: it was not simply that one needed to work, but that one had to work. The third separation I propose aims at something between the two: we do not want to see work merely as a right, a kind of goodie that people are entitled to receive. This makes it seem like it is some kind of special treat. On the other hand, work is indeed compulsory; but it is compulsory as a matter of course: we need to recognize that people are always working in some way or another, even if it is not compensated labor, and we need to find a way to reward them for that. <br />
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Separating the consumption of individuals from the wealth they own would be one step toward this: those who consume their wealth would not necessarily be able to consume their wealth as an inherent right. They would, in a sense, earn a certain amount of consumption each year, and while they would also be free to consume their wealth, they would a steep consumption tax on it. This would, implicitly at first and perhaps explicitly at a later date, proletarianize the capitalist class, gradually blurring class divisions, and just perhaps setting us on the road to the abolition of class that Marx has been so ridiculed, even from the left, for proposing (source critical of Marx's classless vision). <br />
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On the other end of the spectrum, we also want to blur the boundary in the other direction by ownerizing the proletarians. What this means, in practice, is recognizing that a job is not a naturally occurring product of the labor market. A variety of tax incentives, for example, create what we think of as a "good job": tax breaks on employer provided health insurance, and regulations affecting the way this health insurance works, ensure that employees in certain circumstances receive a total package that we call a job (find source here). A job, then, is a kind of total package, something different in many ways from laboring for a wage. A job, in other words, is already a kind of microcosmic embodiment of socialism: it is a total package that comes not just with pay, but with benefits, and with the satisfaction that derives from having a good career.<br />
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We should see a job, then, as a type of social insurance, a social creation of relatively recent origins (find source here). It is perhaps not as sublime as a calling or a vocation, but it is far above the mere wage slavery that is selling ones labor power for cash on the open market and little more. Any free market approach, socialist or otherwise, has to recognize this fundamental fact. As this paradigm suggests, however, there is no need to interfere with the labor market in order to create good jobs. It is simply necessary to extend much more broadly the type of social insurance that transforms labor into jobs and, ideally, into meaningful work. <br />
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The first step is, paradoxically, to encourage a vigorous and robust labor market. This will help to ensure that the labor market on its own does as much as it possibly can to raise labor up to the standard of work and jobs. Many leftists have been critical of using the Federal Reserve as a means to address the recent failure of the labor market. They argue that this is to remove the labor market from the realm of politics, and to reduce the struggle for meaningful work to a mere technical microeconomic fluke. This is an enormous mistake. It will be much easier to extend forms of social insurance to laborers if there is already a healthy labor market. We should see a vigorous labor market, then, as a necessary but not sufficient condition of creating meaningful work: it facilitates, rather than preempts, more fundamental reforms. Indeed, as Christina Romer has argued, the vast majority of the recovery from the great depression was a product of monetary policy, not fiscal policy (find citation to Romer article). The political boost that a very quick economic recovery provided--a boost or jolt that monetary policy is uniquely suited to provide--laid the political groundwork for the later successes of the New Deal. To establish stable monetary policy, I favor the NGDP level targeting regime advocated by Scott Sumner ("Retargeting"). Even on its own, and despite the apparent humble technicality of this issue, this move would be a fairly radical achievement: Sumner's proposal aims at nothing less than eliminating recessions as such. Getting behind this proposal is not something that just liberals and progressives should be interested in doing; it should be a core socialist goal.<br />
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While ending recessions could go a long way toward raising the standards of the labor market part of the way up to the standards of meaningful work and that highly unnatural social construction we call a job, it no doubt will not go all of the way there. The other part of the task will be to boost wages. The minimum wage is a great way to do this, and the findings of an influential paper by X, that modest increases in the minimum wage do not lead to increases in unemployment (find that main paper). Of course, this too will not be able to go all the way to creating meaningful work, so we would want to establish a three-legged stool: gradually raise the minimum wage so that it is equal to the minimum wage at its peak in inflation adjusted terms, and then index it to the rate of inflation; provide additional benefits by providing wage subsidies such as the earned income tax credit; and establish a universal basic income. Finally, for those who still have difficulty finding work, we should establish a government jobs program on a permanent basis. The logic here, again, should not be that of intervening in the market but rather instituting free market reforms: by raising the minimum wage, we make sure that taxpayers are not subsidizing employers who do not pay their workers a living wage; by replacing paternalistic programs with wage subsidies, we combat bureaucracy and regulations that intrude into the lives of benefit recipients; and by removing the current restrictions on allowing the government to hire as many people as need work, we ensure that society can benefit from the work that these individuals are no doubt already doing, while also ensuring that society receives additional benefits for the support it is already paying--in some form or other--to these individuals. <br />
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<b>Conclusion: It's the Economic Norms, Stupid!</b><br />
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For too long, socialists and the left have concentrated on all-or-nothing plans. This ensured that if we did not get everything we wanted, we did not get anything we wanted. What we need instead is what we might term "nothing is all" planning: something that ensures that even as none of these plans are getting enacted, we are still moving the totality of the cause forward. Any movement forward on any of these plans--including simply talking about these ideas more, and talking about them in a socialist context--is already to move the plan as a whole forward. This is small-c conservative politics in the best, Burkean sense: through what may appear to be gradual, imperceptible changes, the totality of society slowly alters, until one day it becomes clear that we had been on the path to a brand new order all along. <br />
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Norms, values, and customs, rather than explicit changes to policies, are the key movers of this small-c conservative politics, and the left has too long let the right monopolize these extremely powerful forces. To put this otherwise, once people think about themselves as socialists, and think about the norms that define their lives in socialist terms, even small changes can become extremely radical. The goal above all else is to encourage ways of acting, speaking, and thinking that cement the social norm and precedent that encourages thinking about any form of property with a common character--the environment, ideas, public institutions, and of course capital itself--as a public trust, even if and when it is nominally privately owned. A socialist country means first and foremost all non-personal wealth (anything above and beyond our own personal items, clothes, car, house, and other effects) as social goods. We want to replace the norm of an inherent right to property with the a norm that emphasizes the privilege of managing common goods. This would mean that Wealth would not exist to foster consumption solely, and while the wealthy could still support themselves with their wealth, they would owe that consumption not to an inherent right, but rather to the fulfillment of their social role, must as a worker would owe his or her consumption not to the vicissitudes of the labor market, but to the performance of his or her social duties.<br />
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Finally, and perhaps most unexpectedly, this proposal should have broad appeal beyond the traditional left, for the simple reason that many of the ideas upon which I have erected my thinking comes from non-socialists. Quiggin defines himself as a social democrat, but the progressive consumption tax is supported by economists and policy analysts both left and right; NGDP targeting is supported primarily by libertarians, as well as by some right-leaning thinkers; and Charles Murray, of all people, recently came out in support of a basic income. Of course, it is certain that as these views become increasingly associated with socialism, this support will begin to vanish. That is not only expected but perhaps desirable. Nonetheless, anyone who truly values free markets and neoliberal thinking broadly over capitalism and the values of the right will possibly find something to like in this plan. <br />
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Indeed, ironically, the path to socialism in an international context will now run through many of the supply-side reforms supported by many on the right, because these reforms tend to strengthen the economic and political infrastructure that make an equity premium emerge in the first place. Furthermore, by placing entitlement programs on a sound financial footing and connecting their funding to the equities market, the plan also gives the population a direct interest in an efficient, productive economy. As with all people who suddenly find themselves with new found wealth, the population will become much less susceptible to a cruder and more inefficient form of populist economics: if the people own the means of production, they can always take advantage of them; but as their owners, they will recognize that, just as with any investment, it is wise to avoid drawing upon it as much as possible. As our friends on the right are quick to remind us, it is the owner who has the biggest interest of all in the wellbeing and success of the enterprise. Taking this observation to its limit, socialism becomes the ultimate pro-market, pro-enterprise neoliberal reform. <br />
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Works Cited<br />
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Ackerman, Seth. "The Red and the Black." <i>Jacobin </i>9 (December 2012): n.p. Web. <br />
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Azeredo, Francisco. "The Equity Premium: A Deeper Puzzle." Working paper, 31 August 2013 <<a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=996163">http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=996163</a>>.<br />
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Baker, Dean. <i>The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive.</i> Washington: Center for Economic and Policy Research, 2011. Web. <br />
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Frank, Robert. "Progressive Consumption Tax." <i>Democracy Journal </i>8 (2008): n.p. Web. </div>
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Grant, Simon and John Quiggin. "Public Investment and the Risk Premium for Equity."<i> Economica</i> 70 (2003): 1-18.<br />
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Laclau, Ernesto. <i>Hegemony and Socialist Strategy </i>(New York: Verso, 2001). Print. <br />
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Quiggin, John. "The Equity Premium: Puzzle and Policy." <i>John Quiggin. </i>John Quiggin, 5 March 2003. Web. 25 November 2013. </div>
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Rajnish, Mehra and Edward C. Prescott. "The Equity Premium: A Puzzle." <i>Journal of Monetary Economics</i> 15 (1985): 145-161. Web. <br />
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Sumner, Scott. "You Can't Redistribute Income." <i>The Money Illusion. </i>The Money Illusion, 26 July 2011. Web. 25 November 2013. <br />
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--. "The Real Story is Growing Equality." <i>The Money Illusion.</i> The Money Illusion, 25 Jan. 2012. Web. 25 November 2013. <br />
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Zizek, Slavoj. "Slavoj Zizek at Occupy Wall Street." Blog post by Sarah Shin. <i>Verso Blog.</i> Verso, 10 Oct. 2011. Web. 25 Nov. 2013. </div>
Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-88166946755341796322013-11-22T17:07:00.002-08:002013-11-22T17:07:57.831-08:00For next week and beyondImportant: Please bring your laptops to class this Tuesday, November 26th.<br />
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We will not have blog posts for this coming week (Happy Thanksgiving!) For the following week, the week of December 2nd, you can blog on any topic you choose.<br />
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Also for the week of December 2nd, will not have formal class. Please sign up for a conference time in lieu of class in the comments below (first come, first served).<br />
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Tuesday, December 3rd:<br />
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Thursday, December 5th<br />
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<br />Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-9403645695778827892013-11-21T05:24:00.000-08:002013-11-21T05:24:18.007-08:00The Three Separations: Implementing Socialism in an Age of Neoliberal Hegemony (my term paper - early draft)Marxism has enjoyed an noteworthy resurgence in the past several years. The 2008 financial crisis, and the widespread distrust of economic institutions it engendered, has created a desire for a more significant revision of capitalism, something that goes beyond mere piecemeal reforms. The signs of this revival are everywhere. A self-declared socialist was just elected to the Seattle City Council. According to a recent survey, younger people are now more favorably disposed to the term "socialism" than to "capitalism." Finally, a recent survey showed that Karl Marx remains the most influential academic of all time, garnering the most citations and references (Freud came in second).<br />
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This revival of Marxism has not, however, produced any kind of far reaching model of socialism akin to those proffered by early revolutionaries like Lenin. Indeed, many are still wary of grand schemes to transform society. This is why I want to propose a plan for achieving socialism that is, in a sense, rather conservative: it essentially leaves in place the essentials of the current free market, free enterprise system of private ownership of the means of production while building a socialist structure of public ownership and social egalitarianism on top of it. The way to achieve this is simple: if socialism in the strong sense means that the government owns the means of production, then the government should simply buy the means of production.<br />
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It may seem that this is impossible to do without disturbing the existing economy, but there are many ways in which preserving and strengthening a free market, free enterprise system with limited regulation and private ownership is actually quite compatible with, even conducive to, socialism. The major reason for this is that, as you will notice, nothing in the previous description excludes adding a component of the public ownership of the means of production: it merely suggests that this should be done in a way that does not threaten the autonomy and integrity of the current market structure and system of private property. Furthermore, the class blog posts today suggest that the very understanding of capitalism today actually can lead to proposals for strengthening private ownership while pushing in a quasi-socialist direction: many of you assumed that CEOs were owners and shareholders were employees, but the case is actually the opposite, and the Swiss proposal is arguably one that strengthens private ownership rights. Finally, there are many ways in which a functional socialist system will promote trust in economic institutions that will foster attitudes that promote further free market and pro-growth reforms (ending licensing laws, moving to a consumption based tax system, encouraging saving and investment).<br />
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<b>Separation One: Ownership and Management</b><br />
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The basic idea behind this proposal is a simple one: the way to socialize the means of production is to socialize the means of production. In the current economic system, if you want to own something, you buy it. Therefore, the people, acting through their government, should buy the means of production. There are many considerations here, but the essential idea is that the government should sponsor an investment fund, modeled on the government sponsored enterprises, that issues debt in order to purchase equities. The plan could start out modestly, focusing primarily on purchasing stock, and then could grow more aggressive as it achieves its objectives, gradually adding in the purchases of private businesses.<br />
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Socialists may object that this is really just a type of corporatism, or that it is a watered down version of the actual thing. Indeed, the proposal would have to start out slow, and at first it would own a small portion of the means of production. But over time it could increase its shares. As Seth Ackerman noted in a well received Jacobin piece, any economic system needs a way of allocating goods, creating new firms, and shutting down existing ones that are failing. My proposal is not all that different from Ackerman's, except for the fact that the government would finance this proposal not by issuing new currency but rather by issuing bonds (although this section of Ackerman's proposal is not actually totally developed), and I am not advocating that this program should necessarily force business owners to sell at a certain point.<br />
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Rather than having private groups be the shareholders, the investors in this equity fund would be limited to public-sector organizations: pension funds, rainy day funds, etc. The fund would basically work like a bank: it would use seed money from its investors, and use this as a backing to go about and borrow money. It would use this money to buy equities and other ownership stakes. And the public would be a direct beneficiary.<br />
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Other people might object that Fannie and Freddie and other government sponsored entities were failures. But the problem was more that the taxpayer only picked up the losses: when they were making money, these profits went to private institutions. (Insert Stuff about objections to Fannie/Freddie -)<br />
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<b>Separation Two: Consumption and Ownership</b><br />
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This program, of course, would still leave a substantial amount of the means of production in private hands, and so no doubt socialists at this points will object that this is not really a form of socialism at all. The rich are left with the large proportion of the means of production in their hands.<br />
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Of course, as the public ownership increased, the percentage of public ownership would as well. But is still the case that some portion of the means of production would be privately owned. This may, however, be a good thing. In order to ensure a continually functional capital market, it is necessary to have multiple participants, and this would mean multiple participants. Indeed, one of the features of Ackerman's proposal that is problematic is that, aside from its general vagueness, it is not clear how a functional capital market would exist once everything was basically owned by a single player. So we would need to have a fair number of participants, more than likely.<br />
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So we both need to keep capital in private hands while also encouraging thinking of it as a public good. The way to do this is to separate ownership from consumption, something that can be achieved through tax policy. We need many individual managers of the means of production, but at the same time we do not want them to have unrestricted access. The difference between a manger and and owner is that the manager still has to ask permission to use the resource for his personal gain. Of course, ownership is precisely what we are trying to encourage, so we would have to focus here on the personal gain aspect. The way to do this would be to switch to a consumption based system of taxation, and to one with a heavy progressive element.<br />
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The first priority would be to implement a series of taxes that are not only economically efficiency but perhaps even necessary for our survival: I am thinking of, first and foremost, a carbon tax, one that was sufficiently high to reduce carbon emissions the requisite amount. After this, we could consider some other types of consumption tax: a tax on other forms of pollution, a processed food tax, a tax on alcohol and tobacco, a tax on newly legal marijuana, on congestion, on natural resources, and land rents, and so on. All of these taxes are economically efficient and will raise money.<br />
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In order to gain the requisite money to finance the various proposals, though, we would likely still need more money. The way to fill this gap would be with a progressive consumption tax. We would count income, subtract savings and investments, and then figure a tax that sharply increased after the first 50000 dollars of consumption. Furthermore, we could have a higher tax rate on consumption funded by sales of capital assets than on income. This would be economically, but more importantly it would create and perpetuate the norm that individual wealth is something the people have the right to consume only up to a point: beyond that, they would still be able to consume, but they would face steeper penalties. We could even, theoretically, have indefinitely increasing taxes on consumption funded by sales of assets--the tax rate could gradually rise to infinity.<br />
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<b>Separation Three: Work and the Labor Market </b><br />
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One of the goals of social democracy was the right to employment. One of the main ideals of the Soviet Union was the requirement to labor: it was not simply that one needed to work, but that one had to work.<br />
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My proposal aims at something between the two: we don't want to see work merely as a right, a kind of goodie that people are entitled to receive. This makes it seem like it is some kind of special treat. IN reality, work is just a requirement of the human condition, and work is something that we should both require of people and yet also recognize that they are always doing whether or not they participate in the labor market. We want to see work as a duty, without necessarily jailing people who we judge to be parasites not working toward the common good.<br />
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Separating the consumption of individuals from the wealth they own would be one step toward this: those who consume their wealth would not necessarily be able to consume their wealth as an inherent right. They would, in a sense, earn a certain amount of consumption each year, and while they would also be free to consume their wealth, they would pay a slightly higher consumption tax on it, and they would thus face discouragement from consumption.<br />
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On the other end of the spectrum, we want to recognize that a job is not a naturally occurring product of the labor market. A variety of tax incentives, for example, create what we think of as a "good job": tax breaks on employer provided health insurance, and regulations affecting the way this health insurance works, ensure that employees in certain circumstances receive a total package that we call a job. This comes not just with pay, but with benefits, and the satisfaction that comes from having a good career.<br />
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The notion of a job, of a career, often at one company that one pursues for his or her whole life, is a social construct. We can construct it for individuals who currently don't have this privilege as well. The difficulty, though, is to do so without excessive interference in the labor market. how do we do this?<br />
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As Edmund Burke noted, "labor is a commodity." Any free market approach, socialist or otherwise, would had to recognize this fundamental fact. We still want business to encourage people to hire others for productive purposes so that the market directs individuals to where they are needed. One simple form of minimal intervention is to modestly raise the minimum wage. Studies have shown that raising the minimum wage modestly will not increase unemployment. We'd also want to establish stable monetary policy, such as an NGDP level targeting regime, in order to eliminate the business cycle as much as possible. This would help to encourage a vigorous, relatively high wage private sector employment.<br />
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This will lift the standards of the labor market part of the way up to the standards of meaningful work and that highly unnatural social construction we call a job. But it won't lift it the entire way. The other part of the task will be to boost wages further than the minimum wage can. That means wage subsidies such as the earned income tax credit. Every individual is already receiving a cash refund in advance from the government in the form of a generous basic income, so we are part of the way there. In order to encourage work, though, we would want to subsidize the lower income brackets fairly heavily through something like the earned income tax credit. We should also phase it out more slowly so more people are eligible for these subsidies.<br />
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Finally, for those who are failed by the labor market, we would want to offer them government jobs. We could pay these workers slightly less in order to discourage relying on this form of employment, but we could also focus on making this work more meaningful. These jobs could focus on things like community service. They could be determined in part by the needs of local communities. If a person could not find a job in the current labor market, they would at least still have meaningful work.<br />
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<b>Conclusion: It's the Economic Norms, Stupid!</b><br />
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This plan is small-c conservative in the Burkean sense: it would lead to a gradual change, a smooth and non-disruptive increase in the public ownership of the means of production. It would also focus as much on norms and on values as on laws and formal structures of ownership: through encouraging people to think about their own wealth as a form of public trust, we would tend to see all non-personal wealth (anything above and beyond our own personal items, clothes, car, house, and other effects) as social goods. They would still be privileged to own these things, but they would not see them, at least to the same extent, as something that they had an inherent right to use for their own pleasure. Wealth would not exist to foster consumption solely, and while the wealthy could still support themselves with their wealth, they would owe that consumption not to an inherent right, but rather to the fulfillment of their social role, just as a worker would owe their consumption not to the vicissitudes of the labor market, but to the performance of his or her social duties.<br />
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The best thing about this plan is that such norms would begin to take hold once any portion of these separations were put into place. This path to socialism is not an all or nothing proposition, a way of thinking that has been so damaging to socialism in the past. Rather, each step would create a new sensibility, one that would help to cement a new understanding of the relationship between public ownership and private work, wealth, and labor. It may not even be necessary to enact all of these elements in the end, for any single one, in and of itself, could exert a powerful enough effect on norms to effectively bring many of the benefits of the other features of this plan.<br />
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This small-c conservative Marxism also should have plenty of appeal to the right and to libertarians. First and foremost, it puts entitlements on a sound footing by connecting their funding to the equities market. This will give the population a direct interest in a sound, productive economy. Furthermore, the population will be less susceptible to fallacies that lead to interventionism, because they will recognize the difference between a problem of distribution and a problem of scarcity: if the people own the means of production, they can always take advantage of them. But they will have to recognize that spending more of their wealth, as in the case of all individuals, will mean less in the future. It will also mean less investment and less growth, encouraging individuals to focus on programs that boost growth rather than redistribute resources. Finally, the policy will encourage the type of trust in the free market, and discourage the narrow economic resentments that are such a big part of poor economic policy. Conservatives, Marxists, and right wingers of the world unite: you have nothing to lose but your chains!Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-40367436273045428882013-11-15T16:53:00.000-08:002013-11-16T13:43:07.852-08:00TBA reading 11.21We are meeting this coming Tuesday in the library. I neglected yet again to ask for a topic for next week. Please feel free to email me with suggestions and to write your blog post on the readings for Tuesday. We can discuss a topic when we meet in the library, and I'll update the blog with it.<br />
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Update: Jose <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/03/switzerland%E2%80%99s-vote-executive-pay">wrote with the following article on CEO pay in Switzerland.</a> If you have another suggestion, write and I'll add it to the list.Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-54763913053407667982013-11-08T08:36:00.001-08:002013-11-08T08:36:05.788-08:00Final paper <div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-6301211476167699485" itemprop="articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For the final paper, you will produce a primer, analysis, interpretive paper, or position paper that provides a clear argument with a precise and refutable thesis on a topic of your choosing. Although many of you, no doubt, will feel most confortable producing a policy paper, feel free to adopt a broad understanding of the range of topics available to you. You don't necessarily need to write about economics, politics, or political philosophy in the narrowest sense. You could investigate some of the moral or cultural issues stemming from a political or economic topic; you could produce a case study (an analysis of a famous musician, company, person, film, etc., of interest to you); you could explore the various interepretations offered of a work of art, literature, fiction, or popular culture; or you could explore the history of a particular concept, notion, cultural trend, etc., that is part of our everyday life. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In other words, don't feel overly limited. All that I ask is that you explore your topic in detail, do meticulous research and, most importantly, present an argument that clarifies both your position and its relationship to the perspectives offered by your scholarly sources. As long as you can construct a specific, refutable, and significant argument about your topic, whatever you choose should be fine. My only piece of advice is that, as always,</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> it is best to avoid controversial issues, or any topic generally discussed in terms of the narrow "pro/con" framing so common in mass media discussions of policy. Examples of these topics include, but are not limited to, gun control, abortion, gay marriage, The Affordable Care Act (AKA "Obamacare"), affirmative action, drug policy/drug legalization, athletic controversies, and others. While some of you have produced papers on these topics in the past that found interesting and novel approaches to these issues, it will become even more difficult to do this in the final paper, as you must find a great deal of scholarly sources on the topic and develop a more nuanced approach that takes a wide array of academic arguments into account. Many of these hotly contested and politicized issues lack a deep field of academic research, or are difficult to approach in terms of a nuanced argument. </span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Rather than trying to find a topic that seems like it would be appropriate for a stereotypical term paper, pursue something of interest to you, something that you may not have thought appropriate for such a paper, and find a way to transform the topic into an informative, interesting, and analytically incisive essay. Such an approach may require more work upfront, but you will find the paper easier to write as it will reflect one of your passions, and you will have had to think in advance how to approach an academic paper on the topic rather than simply falling back on well-worn and cliched approaches. In a relatively short space, your paper will need to clarify the most important aspects of an issue, compare some of the different ideas/perspectives on the topic, reveal the merits and downsides of those policies (or the perspectives you are considering on your topic), and most importantly, convincingly establish why we should lean toward a specific conclusion, interpretation, understanding, analysis, or prescription. It will be easier to do this if you have thought about your topic, why you are interested in it, and what would make for a proper academic approach to it. </span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">The paper should be 7-10 pages long, double spaced, in 12 point, Times New Roman font, with 1 inch margins, and it should contain 4 or more scholarly sources (journal articles, scholarly books, and other works by active scholars in the field). If you would like a chance to revise the paper, please submit a draft by Monday, November 25th at 12pm. The final papers are due Friday, December 11th at 12pm. </span></div>
Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-38521036886385264452013-11-08T07:19:00.001-08:002013-11-08T07:19:04.560-08:00TBA reading 11.14<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/07/us-twitter-ipo-idUSBRE99N1AE20131107">Here's an article offering a run down of the basics </a>surrounding the Twitter IPO. Here is <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/06/twitter-ipo-explained">another one that explains what an IPO is and what it does. </a><br />
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<a href="http://www.nbc12.com/story/23876679/detroit-voters-elect-duggan-mayor-of-broke-city">Finally, here's a bit about Detroit's situation.</a> It is complicated because there are several different things happening at once: there was just an election for the office of mayor, but the mayor does not have much power because the state appointed an emergency manager to fix its finances. It is the emergency manager who decided to file for bankruptcy, and some speculate the reason for this is that he wants to cut pensions for retired employees and sees this as the best way.Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-67432821783562166542013-11-03T17:53:00.000-08:002013-11-05T12:46:57.531-08:00TBA reading 11.7Update: <a href="http://www.news9.com/story/23863004/rogers-county-makes-arrest">Here is an article with a short video </a>detailing the specifics of the shooting during the apparent "big foot" hunt, and <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/2008/08/20/bigfoot-monsters-and-ghosts-why-want-to-believe/">here is an article discussing reasons for belief</a> in such phenomena. If you notice any new developments in this story, feel free to email with them.<br />
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Original post: I neglected to ask for a reading topic today, so we will pick one Tuesday and I'll update the blog with a quick reading about it. If you want to get your blog posts done early, feel free to blog about the reading for this Tuesday. We've moved from utopian thinking to conservatism (of a peculiar variety, as you'll see) in a week--any thoughts?Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-92221431826341933272013-10-25T16:36:00.001-07:002013-10-25T16:36:13.077-07:00TBA readings 10.31A quick note about paper 3: several people pointed out that I had the paper due a week earlier on the assignment than on the course schedule. Since the latter is our official calendar, let's go by it and have the paper due on the later date. The official schedule also has us doing peer editing again Thursday, and this will give us time to do another round of editing on this<br />
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In short: peer editing again this Thursday 10.31, paper 3 due Wednesday 11.6 at 12 pm.<br />
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For this coming Thursday, read t<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/24/nsa-surveillance-world-leaders-calls">his account of the recent kerfuffle surrounding revelations of spying on American allies. </a> Then check out <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/world/europe/allegation-of-us-spying-on-merkel-puts-obama-at-crossroads.html">this piece analyzing some of the implications of the story. </a><br />
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Finally, check <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/10/23/how_to_fix_everything.html">out this brief piece</a>. It's very short, yet like the piece we read on socialism, it offers a broad based plan for a massive social change in very specific and precise terms.Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6223428298796252024.post-65071808584421730872013-10-20T11:38:00.002-07:002013-10-20T11:38:58.376-07:00Paper 3 - Theoretical Approaches to Issues<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">The goal of Essay #3 is to take us one step closer to producing our final term paper by going a little bit deeper into an issue of interest to you. In the last essay, we produced an informative argument that attempted to clarify misconceptions and highlight the most important aspects of an issue. Basically, you created a framework to help an intelligent layperson first approach an issue in a general way. In this essay, we will focus less on explaining the broad outlines of a topic and instead provide a slightly more in-depth, less introductory account that presents one or several theoretical, critical, ideological, or ethical approaches to a particular issue. Your paper should pick both a specific theoretical approach or critical tradition and a specific issue, and it should make these as narrow and focused as possible. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">A theoretical paradigm is not the same thing as a stance. Rather, a paradigm represents a way of understanding an issue, one that informs one or several sets of underlying stances. The same stance or position can arise from very different theoretical approaches, and different stances or positions can arise from similar theoretical approaches. </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">For example: if I were comparing different paradigms regarding the reform of Social Security using private accounts, I might argue the following: "This dispute arises from the theoretical tension between the neoliberal and the social democratic understanding of what Social Security, and the welfare state more generally, are and should be. Whereas neoliberal proponents of private accounts see Social Security as akin to an individual investment, and thus have no problem with the system leading to radically different payouts to beneficiaries depending on the performance of those accounts, social democratic proponents of changing merely the financing of Social Security see the program as part of the safety net designed to provide a minimum standard of retirement income regardless of how much an individual may have paid into the system before retirement." </span><br /><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">As you can see, once again it is best to focus on an aspect of an issue, and a paradigm or paradigms related thereto, that are as specific as possible. You are free to explore the implication of one theoretical approach, or you can compare and contrast many approaches. You could explore, for example, the Austrian approach to monetary policy, or you could compare that with the Keynesian approach. You could explore how modern philosophers in the tradition of Smith and Hutcheson approach a moral issue, or you could contrast the modern and the original approaches. You could also, for example, examine the Marxist take on the recent financial crisis. If you compare different perspectives, they need not be from radically different ideological camps. It would be perfectly acceptable to demonstrate how the same ideology can also lead to different policy prescriptions as a result of subtler differences.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span style="line-height: 18px;">Bring a rough draft of the paper to class on Thursday, October 24th. The final paper will be due Wednesday, October 30th by 12pm. The final draft should be 4-6 pages in 12 point Times New Roman Font with 1 inch margins. Use MLA to cite your sources, and use <b>at least </b>3 peer-reviewed sources. Make sure that you use parenthetical citation to indicate whenever you are using information from one of your sources, and do not cite a source in the works cited unless you refer to it in the body of the essay. </span></span><br />
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Shane Herronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09676527365911114286noreply@blogger.com0