Law & Society Blog

The last couple of months have been extremely busy, at work (lots of great cases), at home, and academically (in the middle of a challenging article and preparing for a fall semester antitrust course). As a result, I have not been able to keep up with my regular posting schedule on the Law & Society Blog, which is now officially in maintenance mode. That is, don’t expect any new posts anytime soon. Whatever blogging I will be able to fit in will appear on the Antitrust Review. Maybe I will transition the existing content of this website to Mambo to make it more easily accessible.

In any event, many thanks to our readers and to Ben Nelson, Brian Berkey, and Manfred Gabriel and to all of you who left thoughtful and engaging comments. It was fun, and I’m sure we’ll meet again.

[tags]goodbye, and thanks for all the fish[/tags]

The Dada exhibition at the MoMa is eerily timely.

Dada was the explosive, artfully inarticulate rejection of a false consensus in politics, society, and art — a consensus that was supporting a barbaric war (read All Quiet on the Western Front if you need a refresher) and, after 1918, an increasingly stifling intellectual and political climate that, by eliminating individualism, gave rise to the totalitarian nightmares of the 1930s and 1940s. Here’s an online sample of some of the works on display. Highly recommended![tags]dada, moma, culture[/tags]

I posted a draft review article of Michael Pawlik’s book Person, Subjekt, B??rger (Person, Subject, Citizen) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

It is a hallmark of modernity that the protection of individual freedom, however defined, has replaced justice as the primary criterion for the legitimacy of government. Criminal punishment, as one of the most drastic exercises of governmental authority, must therefore also be held against that standard. The resulting problem is that the diminution of freedom through punishment must at the same time be justifiable as a realization of freedom. As long as the loss of the freedom of the criminal is traded off against gains in the protection of everyone else’s freedom, consequentialist accounts provide an intuitively appealing justificatory strategy (vicarious justification). But if we require that for complete justification, freedom must not only be realized for everyone else but also in the person of the criminal, a more sophisticated and inclusive strategy is required. Michael Pawlik’s theory of punishment, as presented in his book Person, Subjekt, B??rger (Person, Subject, Citizen), responds to that challenge by presenting a retributive theory of punishment, rooted in an original reading of Hegel and Fichte, whose concepts of the subject and of recognition Pawlik recasts in the framework of a theory of communication. Pawlik succeeds in presenting an original, philosophically sophisticated and practically useful three-prong concept of the criminal wrong, grounded in a theory of the subject and of society that should be attractive to both consequentialists and non-consequentialists.

More on the critically important questions of interpersonal and institutional recognition can be found here (in German). The article will be published in the next volume of the Buffalo Criminal Law Review, so if you have any comments or suggestions, please send me an email.

In Law and Formalism, Lawrence Alexander explains that law is essentially formalistic, because it addresses the problem of information, not of immoral motivation, or, as he puts it, “that men are not gods, rather than that men are not angels.” To solve the problem of information, “law must consist of determinate rules,” which are abstract and general directives for conduct. Standards or principles are unhelpful, because they import the very uncertainties into the law that formal legal rules were meant to overcome. The paradoxical result is that having a body of general and abstract rules is morally desirable, because such rules cannot do justice to each individual case.

What Alexander describes as formalism is more commonly known as the process of positivization of law, as prominently discussed by Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Niklas Luhmann. The two key elements of positivization are operational closure through functional differentiation and temporalization. Faced with rapidly accelerating social change and increasing commercial and intellectual interdependence in the Europe of the 16th and 17th Century, the problem of securing expectations could no longer be handled adequately by the moral and the religious systems. Positive laws with their characteristic formal qualities and the corresponding exclusive focus of the legal system on the distinction lawful/unlawful, provided both the reduction of complexity required to successfully secure expectations, and the flexibility to adjust to social change. The latter refers to temporality as the second defining feature of positive law. The laws of old were binding, because they could not be changed. Positive laws are characterized by just the opposite, they are not binding. A parliament is not bound by its own laws, it can always elect to change them, and a modern court is not bound by precedent, it can always overrule prior decisions. Thus the need for stabilizing features, such as a hierarchy of norms and of judicial organization.

I agree with Alexander that formalism, properly understood, is a necessary feature of positive law, if the law is to achieve its primary purpose of securing expectations by reducing complexity. I also agree that the main purpose of the law, so understood, is to solve a cognitive problem. I don’t believe, however, that standards are, in fact, quite as unhelpful as Alexander thinks they are. In fact, standards are necessary. Standards secure the expectation that no expectations can be fully secured by legal rules.

With the third season opener for Battlestar Galactica, Ron Moore firmly lays claim to the best series on TV since the West Wing. No program has explored the connected and conflicting themes of freedom and security more intelligently than Battlestar. With the third season, Moore decisively takes the series out of the SF mainstream. The Cylons, technologically sophisticated, overwhelmingly powerful, and deeply religious in an unmistakably Christian way, have occupied New Caprica, not to destroy the surviving humans, but rather to find a way for some kind of peaceful (but not necessarily equal) coexistence. In a strange way, which has not yet been fully explained, the humans possess a resource that the Cylons need, maybe biological fertility, but whatever it is, it is sufficiently important to keep the hard-liners among the Cylons from wiping out the humans once and for all. The humans, of course, resist in part and collaborate in part, as is our nature, and it is here that the obvious parallels between New Caprica and Iraq are most striking. The collaborators form the human/Iraqi police force and the resistance, split into secular and religious insurgents, targets them. In a particularly disturbing scene, one of the insurgents blows himself and 30 other human/Iraqi police cadets along with a handful of Cylons to pieces after having lost his wife to a Cylon attack on a human temple — in which, of course, the secular insurgents had stored their weaponry. (This subplot is explored in a series of Webisodes.) What’s most disturbing about the show is that — in Moore’s fictional world — we find ourselves emotionally attached to a group of people who, in the political discourse of the last four years, we have only encountered as insurgents, terrorists, and enemies of peace and freedom. Moore is taking a huge gamble by going so completely against the cultural mainstream. But that’s what artists should do, so bravo to him and his team!

UPDATE (10/8/2006): Ben pointed me to this very interesting post on Crooked Timber by Scott McLemee, which includes a link to the Battlestar Wiki.

[tags]Galactica, Ron Moore, Iraq, terror, security, freedom[/tags]

Consider the following problem, which was presented by Paul J. Ferraro and Laura O. Taylor of Georgia State University to about 200 Ph.D. economists at the 2005 annual meetings of the American Economic Association:

You won a free ticket to see an Eric Clapton concert (which has no resale value). Bob Dylan is performing on the same night and is your next-best alternative activity. Tickets to see Dylan cost $40. On any given day, you would be willing to pay up to $50 to see Dylan. Assume there are no other costs of seeing either performer. Based on this information, what is the opportunity cost of seeing Eric Clapton? (a) $0, (b) $10, (c) $40, or (d) $50.

The correct answer is (b). As with all problems involving opportunity costs, we first need to ascertain the value of the forgone alternative, here, the Dylan concert. I would have been willing to pay $50 for a Dylan ticket (reservation price). If the price of admission was $40, my benefit is $10. That’s what I’m giving up by going to the Clapton concert (or by staying home, etc.) Even though this isn’t a particularly tricky question, most of the respondents got the answer wrong.

[T]he most popular answer was $50, with 27.6% of respondents choosing this answer. The second most popular answer was $40, with 25.6% of respondents choosing this answer. The third most popular answer was $0, with 25.1% of respondents choosing this answer. The correct answer, $10, was the least popular, with only 21.6% of respondents choosing this answer.

Is this “a professional embarrassment?” Does it really warrant the conclusion that

[t]he inability of most PhD economists to answer a simple opportunity cost question implies that students at colleges and universities are unlikely to learn this crucial concept in a way that allows them to apply it in their daily lives.

I don’t know… If anything, the more or less random distribution suggests that the respondents weren’t paying attention. Had this test been administered in a classroom setting, I am certain that most respondents would have gotten the answer right. (And no, I am not making excuses! I wasn’t anywhere near that conference!) But will I sure take solace in the 78.3% error rate, next time that a professional economist makes me look stupid.

[Jurisprudence] One of the core ideas of European-style codification is to create genetically democratic laws, that is, to have all law be properly promulgated by a democratically elected body of representatives. In many instances, that enactment was, of course, a re-enactment of substantive rules that predated the formation of a democratically legitimized body. But re-enacting the old rules cured the genetic defect, that is, the fact that the old templates had never been promulgated by a democratic body. Codification is the idea that an entire legal universe can be created according to (i) substantive rules of reason; and (ii) by a democratic body. Thus, every civil law universe has emerged from a big bang, from an initial singularity of reason and democratic legitimacy. What came after the big bang is law; what came before is legal history. That sharp distinction, for obvious reasons, does not exist in the Common Law.

I fail to understand how Dworkin’s chain novel theory, as interpreted by Bloomfield, could solve the genetic problem of legitimacy. One could argue that continued application of pre-legitimate law by legitimate judges is a form of re-enactment. But that presumes that the judges themselves possess sufficient democratic legitimacy to make laws, which is questionable (and generally not claimed by the judiciary).

In my view, the big bang theory of legitimacy is somewhat useful as a template for the justification of rules but overly rigid and ultimately unworkable as a genetic requirement for legitimate rules. In other words, a rule is legitimate if it could have been enacted by an ideally democratic and rational lawmaker. Who is in a position to make that judgment, whether a (pre-existing) rule is sufficiently reasonable to be incorporated in the fabric of the law? Most legal systems have entrusted judges with that role, and considering the alternatives, that seems like a reasonable choice. And what is the standard of reason that judges will apply to determine whether an old rule should live on? Ultimately constitutional standards, which are, or so any system requires its practitioners to presume, sufficiently legitimate. (Of course, few constitutions could trace their legitimacy back to acceptable standards of democratic enactment.)

Where does that leave us? The chain novel concept is useful as a metaphor, as a reminder of the constraints that a legal system imposes on those who choose to participate in its discourse. Every actor in the legal system can only communicate what can be communicated within the legal system. Legitimacy, or rather validity, is an attribute of most (not all) legal communications and it is passed on from one legal communication to another. Democracy is one of the sources that, if properly invoked, attach validity to legal communications. Court decisions are an alternative source. Both democracy and court decisions may lose their validity-conferring powers, for example, through exclusion or corruption. But I don’t think that the chain novel metaphor solves the problem of legitimacy; it does not serve as an independent source of legitimacy for judicial decisions.

One of the key findings of cultural cognition theory is that cultural world-views not only influence our evaluation of (agreed upon) facts but also, and more fundamentally, that world-views influence our perception and thus the creation of the factual universe available to us. Hence the term “cultural cognition.” One of the reasons for the priority of values to facts is the social nature of truth. Hardly ever do we subject our beliefs to first-hand empirical testing. Similarly, few of us spend the time to study the empirical findings of others in sufficient detail to have an educated opinion as to their reliability. Usually, we just take someone else’s word for it, preferably someone who is recognized - again, by others - as an expert in the matter. For most practical purposes, trust is therefore prior to truth. In that context, the question has been raised to what extent social conformity, our desire to go along with the opinion of a (trusted) group, has an effect on human perception.

In one of the early experiments, described by Sandra Blakeslee in the NYT, a test subject was shown two cards. On the first was a vertical line. On the second were three lines. The test subject was then asked to say which two lines were alike, a question which close to 100% of the test subjects were able to answer correctly. Now consider what happened when the test subject was placed in a group, where the group members were actors, pretending to be test subjects. Again, the two cards were shown. Before the test subject had a chance to answer, the group members, after what appeared to be an honest deliberation, agreed on a wrong answer. Some test subjects consistently ignored the wrong group answer and stuck with their correct answer. But the majority of test subjects went along with the group at least once. What happened here? Did the test subjects who went along with the group knowingly give a wrong answer? Or did the group consensus influence the test subjects’ perception so that they actually saw the wrong lines as being of equal length?

In Neurobiological Correlates of Social Conformity and Independence During Mental Rotation, Biological Psychiatry 2005, 58:245-253, Gregory S. Berns, et al. describe a recent attempt at answering those questions. Berns and his colleagues placed a test subject in an MRI scanner while conducting an experiment similar to that described above. (The test subject had to say whether two three-dimensional objects, displayed on a screen, were alike.) As in the original experiment, the test subjects fared significantly better on their own than in a group setting, where the group (of actors) was giving wrong answers. Berns and his colleagues compared the patterns of brain activity of those test subjects who resisted the group pressure to those who went along with the group’s wrong answer. Here is how they describe their findings:

Conformity was associated with functional changes in an occipital-parietal network, especially when the wrong information originated from other people. Independence was associated with increased amygdala and caudate activity, findings consistent with the assumptions of social norm theory about the behavioral saliency of standing alone. … These findings provide the first biological evidence for the involvement of perceptual and emotional processes during social conformity.

In other words, test subjects who went against the group showed brain activity in a region associated with emotions from social conflict, which was to be expected. But those test subjects who went along with the group, showed brain activity primarily in a region that deals with perception and not with social conflict. These findings could provide further empirical support to the theory of cultural cognition. The “conformists” apparently perceived the world according to a previously stated group consensus. For them, there was no social conflict and no decision to go against the group. Before they could actually make a decision, their perceptions were already altered as to avoid social conflict. The issue never rose to the level of conscious choice. (Note: If I am grossly misinterpreting Berns’s findings, I’d be grateful for comments or emails!)

It would be fascinating to conduct similar experiments with test subjects whose world-views are (not) compatible with those of the group. One would expect that the cognitive preemption of disagreement is significantly greater where the test subject’s values are compatible with those of the group.
[tags]social conformity, neurophysiology[/tags]

In response to my discussion of the NYC subway search cases, Bruce Regal observed:

[T]he program ultimately is probably not about deterrence at all, but about making people feel better (irrationally perhaps, but no less actually) — helping them feel, subconsciously if nothing else, that the authorities are doing something, anything, about what is from a rational point of view (at least for local law enforcement authorities who have no control over international policy) the intractable problem of terrorism. Is helping people feel irrationally more protected a valid government purpose that is entitled to constitutional recognition?

Bruce is asking a critically important question about the nature of democracy. What exactly is the mandate of a government? Does it include the power to comfort the people with benevolent deception? Benevolent deception is different from passing symbolic laws, because symbolic laws don’t usually involve deception. In Bruce’s example, the government knows that the program will not have any real effect on safety. The sole motivation and the sole effect of the program is to create a perception of increased safety. Let’s assume (counterfactually) that there are no ulterior motives on the part of the proponents of the program, that is, no upcoming elections and no political capital to be gained; the goal is to make people feel safer and thus improve their welfare. What’s wrong with that? Here are a some thoughts:

• Democracy is based on the normative premise of self-government or autonomy. Autonomous decisions are rational and therefore free. Rationality and freedom require access to reliable information. Deception undermines freedom. Granting a government the powers to benevolent deception would thus be a performative contradiction on the part of the people.
• Benevolent deception is the first step onto a slippery slope. Some bright-line rules are necessary, and “don’t deceive the people” is one of the better per se rules in a democracy.
• Benevolent deception is detrimental to welfare in the long run. Knowing the truth about a threat and knowing about the fact that the government can’t really do much about it may prompt the people to pursue and demand entirely different policies.
• In questions of public policy, unlike in some individual settings, there will always be a long run. The absence of long run consequences has usually been the primary justification for benevolent deception. In other words, telling a benevolent lie on someone’s deathbed may well be justified. But that situation doesn’t exist in politics, neither factually nor normatively.

So recently my alma mater’s student paper, The Gazette, published their annual spoof issue. One satirical article, titled “Labia Majora Carnage”, included a mock-scene which involved the rape of a local feminist-activist by the chief of police. Many readers interpreted the passage to be trivializing rape, if not promoting it. It caught a lot of flak from students, alumni, and staff, and drew national media attention.

The editors wrote two follow-ups. The first dismissed the outrage with hoots and catcalls. When it became obvious that the condemnations would not subside (”What?! Rape isn’t teh funney??!!”), they wrote another follow-up which expressed something sort of like regret. They claimed that they were attempting to satirize feminist stereotypes, not feminists, and certainly not rape. Rushing to the defence of the Gazette were those who felt that the article was just a joke, and ought to be treated as such; and, failing that, those who try to fudge interpretations at the edge of plausibility (i.e., “that wasn’t rape”, or “they were obviously misunderstood”). Many have suggested that too much condemnation is overkill, and will strangle free speech and perhaps even ruin the career prospects of those involved.

However, the “trivialization” interpretation gained enough political momentum to earn strong words of condemnation from the University’s president, Paul Davenport, and from the London chief-of-police. They are now setting up review-boards, which (some worry) would PC-ify the paper.

I’ve read the thing a number of times. And for what it’s worth, I also condemn the article, despite the fact that I know (and like) many of the people who work at the Gazette. The article was, at best, poorly written; at worst, an attack peice against an activist and vocal critic of the Gazette, and — yes — a trivialization of rape.

One gets the sense that the satirists — some of them English majors — don’t “get” that the target of a satire needs to be clear in order for it to be an effective peice of writing. (For scorchingly effective satire, see the English spoof of journalism, Brasseye.) But the article wasn’t clearly attacking stereotypes: actually, quite the opposite. No matter how much context you inject into your reading of the article, it only comes off as a hit peice on specific people. And when professed intentions don’t match up with the content of some peice, you can only roll your eyes and give up wasting any more time trying to understand who meant what: it’s a mug’s game. (If I wanted to waste my time, I’d go and try to beat the underwater level of Nintendo’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I don’t need help in this department.)

As far as I’m concerned, the moral status of the article is obvious. It sucks. The writer sucks. The paper sucks. Suck, suck, suck. The only pressing question is, “What level of response is appropriate?”. The answer to the question, whatever it may be, is abstract enough that it might be able to apply to greater issues, and go beyond this particular situation — be it to Imus in the morning, or to contemporary American political discourse.

As it happens, I have come to certain conclusions. It seems to me that a reasonable person, once they have reflected upon certain issues, must arrive at the following:

It has only been seven years, but already I am sick of the twenty-first century.

Let me explain by reviewing the people involved, and try to apply Kohlberg’s developmental model of moral reasoning.

Western is known as a “party-school”, yet it also has a collegial sort of atmosphere. That’s sort of why I went there. Socially, I’m a block of ice, and it’s nice to be around nice people. If it were the kind of school where rules tied down any kind of dissent or free-thinking, I would have gone elsewhere. Advocates of political correctness, to the extent that they drown us in rules that are well-meaning but mostly inane, create a sense of fatalism and moral anxiety that turn off brains. Still, Lawrence Kohlberg’s account of moral reasoning would peg such persons at Stage Three. The stage three moralist is someone who follows the Golden Rule to the letter, whose overriding maxim is to be nice, to behave in a good way.

That having been said, it is also a university with a right-wing underculture — usually not close enough to the surface to be noticed. But one venue where this underculture has sprung up over the years, quite noticeably, was in the Gazette. The long line of editors-in-chief have been at the outermost edge of sanity, with as much moral sensibility as Pat Robertson or Trey Parker. Whenever a joke is challenged for being morally sociopathic, these people cry out “free speech”. Some of them try to defend a vulgarized moral deontology, claiming that the content of speech is (or ought to be) immune from any kind of moral condemnation. This lunatic fringe, on Kohlberg’s scale, would be stage two. The stage two moralist views morality in terms of warring tribes who are out to pursue their own ends. For them, any overriding notions of improving the wellbeing of persons, etc., is morally piffle.

Stage four is a system-level perspective. It is, perhaps, the closest thing to utilitarianism that you will find in Kohlberg’s theory. (As it happens, it is also the last stage of the theory that has any empirical bones to it.) But there is a dearth of stage four voices in the discussion. And when they do show up, they are given the John Kerry treatment: nuanced and measured argument is regarded as a flip-floppy bag of comprimises. To the usual suspects, the stage-four moralist is like a cat stuck in Schrodinger’s box: unpredictable, on-again, off-again.

This, I think, is unfortunate. For the question becomes, “How can a joke be condemned?”. From a system-level view, it is at least clear what the bad answers are.

The appeal to free speech is a irrelevant so long as you’re dealing with the relationship between people with people, and not talking about institutions. Independent moral voices condemn jokes all the time for crossing the line. And it’s expected. Hell, that’s what gives the jokes an edge in the first place: most humor is about failure, mistakes, errors. (Even regardless of the norm, even if you come from the “nothing is sacred” school of comedy — the kind that says, “hey, if I want to use rape/the Holocaust/incest/etc. as a punchline in my joke, then that’s okay” — well, that’s one thing. Another thing is actually making victims of rape/Holocaust/incest/etc. the target. One is morally ambiguous, and the other is clearly wrong. And it doesn’t take much effort on behalf of chuckleheads to admit it.)

I mean, there are surely levels of blameworthiness, where each level involves punishments that are more severe than the last. A person may be accountable on some levels and not on others. Restriction upon freedom of speech, at least as it is typically used and morally salient, deals with restrictions upon free agents by political institution(s). Those among us with a feeling for non-arbitrariness may widen the “protected speech” net to include consideration of restrictions by social and economic institutions. The political restriction of free speech (or lack of intervention in favor of free speech by an institution) seems to be more blameworthy than the restriction by social institutions: it demands severe consequences when that trust is violated. However, social institutions are still blameworthy to some degree — in this case, the Gazette. But crucially, you have to care about the difference between social and political institutions in order to be able to appreciate that something really can be condemned, and how we have the moral room to react, and to appreciate that there are limits to the amount of blame you can make before you become tiresome. (A political institution is that which is empowered by a certain set of people with a common trust that recognizes the institution’s right to coercion; a social institution is that which is empowered by trust alone.)

This is vital when trying to figure out what the upper limit of condemnation is supposed to be. Political condemnation goes to lengths that social condemnation doesn’t. The paper needs independence. It needs to be student-run. I don’t know whether or not review-boards will help that along, or just obscure the underlying point — it depends on how the suggestion is implemented. I suspect, though, that something like clear and sensible editorial judgment would make it moot. I hope that the demonstration that the editors have once again failed to keep the trust of the people who fund them — and pay them — is at least enough to give them pause. Or maybe next year the whole cycle will just repeat itself. Meh.

So, how much condemnation does this thing deserve? I’d like to see an apology. I’d also like to see the editors to gain a sense of reason, and be willing to think things through a bit more. That would suffice. Anything that moves beyond the fundamental issue, the failure of trust, seems to be excessive.

But so long as the discussion is bogged down by the usual suspects, the Chuckleheads versus the Fatalists, we’re not going to see anything, any genuine moral growth, as a culture, as a species, as an anything. This is my stage-two moment: these are the warring tribes I care about.

Anyway. Instead, I expect that, as per usual, nuance will be sacrificed and replaced with characatures, South Park impressions (lol, rabble, lolomg), censorship and review boards of the Gazette, and (perhaps worst of all), the vague cynicism of people like me who know that everything is going terribly wrong but usually don’t have the words to express why.

Only seven years. And by all indications, this is how it will be for the next 93.

So whatever. I’ll be playing Ninja Turtles if you need me.

Among the many gems on YouTube are rare videos of philosophers. This is the first time that I have seen Adorno, Horkheimer, Heidegger and Husserl!

Vilem Flusser
On communication, part 1, part 2

Juergen Habermas
Interview

Jean Baudrillard
2004 Lecture

Theodor Adorno
Blasting Joan Baez
On humanity

Max Horkeimer
On critical theory

Jean Paul Sartre
About himself, parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Michel Foucault
Discussion with Noam Chomsky, parts 1, 2

Edmund Husserl
Video footage from 1938

Martin Heidegger
How Marx got it wrong
The end of philosophy and the task of thinking

[tags]philosophy, youtube[/tags]

As seen in Chinatown, NYC.
[tags]NYC, advertisement[/tags]

I never quite bought into the penguin craze, but I am a complete sucker for pictures, videos, and articles about polar bear cub Knut. Der Spiegel, a reliable source for all things Knut (if not much else), now has a photo gallery of other animal babies. I know, we usually ponder heavy stuff on this blog, but these little guys just kill with cuteness.

UPDATE: Knut even appears to have antitrust implications. Who would have guessed? (Cough, cough).

[tags]Knut[/tags]

Here’s the latest Newsweek poll. Interestingly, 68% think that one can be a moral person and be an atheist. That’s encouraging.

[tags]religion[/tags]

My apologies for the recent dearth of postings, which (fortunately) is the result of a number of good things having taken over my life more or less completely. Among them, one great case after another (including on the pro bono side ACLU v. Gonzales, even though I hasten to add that I only played a minor role in it), and planning our move from New York to San Francisco. Moving is a strange business. The big things are relatively easy (e.g., actually doing it), but it’s those little, unexpected and utterly unresolvable issues (e.g., no hardware store, Home Depot, or carpenter within a 50 mile radius wanting to touch that one tiny piece of laminate that I need to have cut in a straight line) that make you want to throw up your hands in frustration. Be that as it may, we’re excited about the Bay Area, both professionally and personally. Any suggestions on how to find quality rentals or tips on where to buy a home optimizing for a short (walking distance?) commute to the corner of Montgomery and Sacramento Street are greatly appreciated.

[tags]move, san francisco, new york[/tags]

Fabio Giglietto took the time to translate my comments on Spencer Brown’s Laws of Form into Italian. Thanks! Check out Fabio’s website, which looks very interesting.
[tags]Spencer Brown, Fabio Giglietto[/tags]

Check out David Scharf’s brilliant Flash video on YouTube or on his homepage. (HT: BB). Very timely in light of the (altogether unsurprising) revelations about the FBI’s rampant abuse of the National Security Letters. But the problem lies deeper. The ubiquity of privacy invasions (e.g., photographs whenever you enter an office building in New York, what the hell for?) makes such invasions seem normal, expected, and over time appropriate. Every time I’m in line at an airport security theater or see a kid visit a parent in an office building, the kids are the most enthusiastic participants in the security charade. We are sleepwalking into the surveillance state, the British might be leading the pack, but we’re not far behind in the US. Once surveillance has become ubiquitous and the right to privacy has lost its normative bite, free speech will become guarded speech. Anyone interested in a modern day paper based (!) surveillance state should study the last decade of the German Democratic Republic. The Stasi knew pretty much every dirty secret about anyone of any consequence, all in the name of protecting the republic — but somehow they got caught by surprise when the wall came down. So much for the effectiveness of ubiquitous spying. Surveillance won’t make us safer, just less free. Anyone who really wants to blow him- or herself up in a subway train can do so at any time, surveillance or not. Anyone who really wants to bring down an aircraft can do so. The real question is not why there is terror but rather why there isn’t more of it, given that the barriers to committing mass-carnage are so exceedingly low. Real security measures would focus on strengthening the social bonds that keep people from blowing themselves up in a mall, which is, of course, an incredibly tall task and one for which law enforcement — and respect for the law and what it stands for — is of critical importance. Vacuum-cleaner surveillance, however, won’t help.

[tags]privacy, surveillance, Big Brother, Stasi[/tags]

In Hobbes’ state of nature, self-interested robots descend into mutual warfare, because they cannot resolve their resource conflicts by non-violent means. If every robot is programmed to maximize its own welfare, if all goods are rivalrous, and if there is no powerful central authority to change the cost/benefit calculus, then a state of mutual warfare is indeed inevitable. Hobbes solution to the problem of coordination is to introduce the Leviathan, a social construct whose primary job is to impose massive costs on non-cooperators. Hobbes’ solution is ingenious, not in the least because he does not rely on re-programming his robots to make them more social or even altruistic. Rather, he changes their environment (their incentives) so that the prisoner’s dilemma conditions are neutralized and coordinated behavior emerges among single-mindedly self-interested agents. One can fault Hobbes for having underestimated the possibility of social organization emerging as a result of mutual trade. His natural state is a zero sum game, which is an assumption of questionable value. But at the end of the day, Hobbes’ asocial robots became the type-case from which modern economics with its undersocialized rational actors emerged.

Against that backdrop, it appears that the persistence of the equilibrium model of perfect competition is at least in part the result of its ability to provide a formal answer to Hobbes’ challenge of how social order can be achieved and maintained. Hobbes’ answer was: Change the incentives of the rational actors through a central authority. The economist’s answer comes in two steps.

• First, the economists replaces the zero sum game assumption with a theory of mutual gain from trade.
• Second, he or she replaces the central authority of the Leviathan with the disciplining force of a perfectly competitive market.

Under conditions of perfect competition, no individual actor can afford to use violence or deceit to maximize their profits, because the other market participants will simply contract around the “difficult” participant. (Perfect information, which is part of the conceptual framework, includes not only perfect information about the goods but also about the market participants.) Since no single actor can influence the market clearing price, the “difficult” market participant harms him or herself (that is, internalizes the costs of his or her behavior) with the force of a natural law. The impersonal punishment meted out by the market is structurally similar to the costs imposed on the non-cooperator by the Leviathan. Both, the market and the Leviathan are impersonal institutional arrangements that change the actors’ incentives so as to make cooperative behavior more profitable than violence or deceit.

[tags]hobbes, economics, market[/tags]