I have, at times, described my political instincts as a mix of libertarianism and utilitarianism. My libertarian bona fides are in serious question these days, but lets run with it for the moment. Jay Ackroyd at Eschaton has a post today that puts those two ways of approaching policy in serious tension.

Piketty says that wealth distributions skewed to the top decile reduces economic growth, and now the IMF reports the same is true of skewed income distributions.

Good news! Giving free money to poor people is good for the economy! Legislation establishing confiscatory estate taxes and setting up a government jobs program fixing infrastructure must be in the works!

I was sort of glib with my title. I don’t suppose “liberty” would be the particular focus, but more of a natural right to property. But, I guess Libertarians do the same to some extent. Their concern is perhaps generally with “liberty” but they spend most of their time on property rights with liberty rights being in more of a soft focus.

But, for argument’s sake, what if the premise is correct: that confiscating property from dead people and giving it to poor people was very beneficial to the economy? But, let’s also say there is a natural right of dead people to give property to their children.

What’s a policymaker to do in that situation? Honor the property rights of the recently deceased or promote the utility of the living?

I expect you probably go with the mixed bag we’ve had in the past. The government takes some and leaves some alone. And we haggle endlessly over the proper balance.

I think I’ve told the story about how, in a college literature class, I raged against a line in “The Catcher in the Rye” that said:

The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.

I see a lot of fantasy persecution on the Internet – second amendment discussions where writers imagine their embrace of firearms is vital to resisting an increasingly tyrannical government. Legal discussions where writers imagine that jury nullification is a vital tool for resisting the abuses of corrupt judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement officers. Discussions of societal trends where Christians and men’s groups imagine they are the real persecuted victims.

In every case, it seemed to me, the real problem was that the world was not emotionally satisfying to the writer and working within the system would be hard, incomplete, and still emotionally unsatisfying. The reality is that, given a broad enough perspective, we are all more or less interchangeable cogs in a vast universe that will grind along just fine with or without us. That’s a tough situation for an individual ego.

The temptation is to become the hero in one’s own personal narrative. And, being Alexander, cutting the Gordian knot with your sword gives you a better shot of dopamine than being part of a committee tasked with unraveling the damn thing.

But, at some point, most of us have to grow up and do what we can to help the system grind along in a more or less satisfactory manner. It’s not glorious. But it’s a citizen’s duty.

I have read only about five of the ninety-three pages of the opinion, but the Court of Appeals has partially reversed the trial court (pdf) in the State v. IBM litigation over FSSA “modernization.” The Court of Appeals said that IBM is still entitled to about $50 million in assignment and equipment fees. But, the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court, holding that IBM did breach its contract to the FSSA, with the matter being remanded to the trial court to figure out the damages from the breach. The damages will be offset against that $50 million in favor of IBM.

Per the Court of Appeals:

While IBM’s software, computers, and employee training aided in delivering welfare services, the primary focus of the contract was to provide food and medical care to our poorest citizens in a timely, efficient, and reliable manner within federal guidelines, to discourage fraud, and to increase work-participation rates. In the most basic aspect of this contract — providing timely services to the poor — IBM failed. We therefore reverse the trial court’s finding that there was no material breach.

In the State’s defense, it’s not like anyone else saw anything bad coming down the line.

My skeptical sense of the matter was that reducing payouts by inhibiting the delivery of timely services to the poor was more of a feature than a bug to those who were not excited about being obliged to provide those services in the first place.

Today is the 205th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. I recall reading that he carried around a cheerful little poem by William Knox that had some resonance for me when I read it in my younger days. I never took to the goth scene, but I suppose it’s not unusual for the young to be occupied with the big questions — the smaller ones seeming to occupy an inordinate amount of our time as we get older. Anyway, “Why Should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud” by William Knox:

Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
Man passeth from life to his rest in the grave.

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around, and together be laid;
And the young and the old, and the low and the high
Shall molder to dust and together shall lie.

The infant a mother attended and loved;
The mother that infant’s affection who proved;
The husband that mother and infant who blessed,–
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.

The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,
Shone beauty and pleasure,–her triumphs are by;
And the memory of those who loved her and praised
Are alike from the minds of the living erased.

The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne;
The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn;
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depth of the grave.

The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap;
The herdsman who climbed with his goats up the steep;
The beggar who wandered in search of his bread,
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.

The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven;
The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven;
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.

So the multitude goes, like the flowers or the weed
That withers away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.

For we are the same our fathers have been;
We see the same sights our fathers have seen;
We drink the same stream, and view the same sun,
And run the same course our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think;
From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink;
To the life we are clinging they also would cling;
But it speeds for us all, like a bird on the wing.

They loved, but the story we cannot unfold;
The scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers will come;
They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.

They died, aye! they died; and we things that are now,
Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
Who make in their dwelling a transient abode,
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
We mingle together in sunshine and rain;
And the smiles and the tears, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

‘Tis the wink of an eye, ’tis the draught of a breath,
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,–
Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

I don’t have much time to comment but wanted to flag a good post by Austin Frakt at the Incidental Economist about the CBO report on the removal and addition of distortionary forces by Obamacare on the labor market.

One of the ways Obamacare tends to remove a distortion is to allow people to move more freely in the labor market and not remain in a job simply to hold onto health care. Though, as heirs to the Puritans, allowing people to do more of what they really want is probably regarded more as a bug than a feature in some circles.

A week or so ago, I wrote about Sen. Smith’s SJR 3 concerning an attempt to rescind Indiana’s ratification of the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (the one that allows direct election of U.S. Senators instead of their selection by the various state legislatures.)

Yesterday, Alan Greenblatt, writing for NPR had an article entitled “Rethinking the 17th Amendment: An Old Idea Gets Fresh Opposition” (h/t Sacha). It appears to be one of those ALEC things, popular among some conservatives. Ted Cruz says that direct election of U.S. Senators instead of having them selected by state legislatures is a reason federal power expanded.

On the other hand:

The 17th Amendment was one of several innovations during the so-called Progressive Era meant to promote direct democracy, such as ballot initiatives, recall elections and party primaries.

The idea was to circumvent the stranglehold that various monopolies and oligarchies had on state officials of the day.

“The state legislatures were just a mess, especially with regard to this issue,” says John Hibbing, a political scientist at the University of Nebraska who has studied the amendment. “People were just buying their way in. It was a real cesspool.”

But, the ALEC thinking goes — or at least the rhetoric — that this change removed the voice of the states themselves in the federal government (as opposed to, I suppose, citizens from that state who are, at the same time, citizens of the country as a whole.) As a practical matter, the article points out that Republicans effectively control 26 states versus Democratic control of 18 with the other 6 split. (Having only 6 split states is a telling statistic about the partisan split of the country.)

“I just don’t see how it could possibly be a winner for anyone running,” says University of Illinois political scientist William Bernhard. “To say we’re going to become less democratic and have fewer votes, that doesn’t resonate.”

Pretty much.

Mikel Livingston, writing for the Lafayette Journal & Courier, has a special report about homelessness in the Tippecanoe County area. I’m sure a lot of it is representative of homelessness issues in other parts of Indiana.

One part that hit home for me was the story of the guy who suffered an unexpected injury and, while he was recovering, found that the tools of his trade had been stolen. Now he’s homeless and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of moral culpability involved. Maybe we could find some — e.g. why didn’t he have disability insurance? What about having his tools insured?

But the fact that I’m searching for such questions is telling. What I’m really asking is, “can I rationalize his situation – and every homeless person’s situation – such that it can never happen to me.” Because if chance can really cast you into such dire straits, then the world is a little too scary to tolerate. That, I think, is for most people the primary impulse behind casting the economy as a morality play where the good are rewarded and the bad are penalized: the fear that comes from an amoral universe where your destiny can be torn out of your control.

In addition of giving people the illusion of control, the morality play view of economics also has the side effect of justifying the status quo and of turning “doing nothing” into a virtue.

These guys are pretty clearly just stirring the pot – I very much doubt the statue ever gets built; but the Satanic Church has released a sketch of a proposed monument they want to put on the grounds of the Oklahoma State Capitol building. They want “equal time” with the Ten Commandments monument that is on the grounds.

But, this is the sort of risk a government has to grapple with when it invites religious expression on its property. Some of the unpopular religions might show up.

In addition to representing the Satanic religion, the monument “will also have a functional purpose as a chair where people of all ages may sit on the lap of Satan for inspiration and contemplation,” said Satanic Temple spokesperson Lucien Greaves.