Norm asks: Why is one inequality different? The context is a piece contrasting the strides towards greater racial and gender equality in the USA with the widening economic stratification that has accompanied it.

Here’s the answer: one inequality is not different. Equality means ‘of opportunity’ – and this is precisely what is meant by greater racial and gender equality: equality of opportunity.

Differing economic outcomes are not a measure of equality. In fact, differing economic outcomes are an inevitable consequence of equality of opportunity.

The apparent paradox is no more than a conjuring trick with words. In the chalk corner we have equality. In the cheese corner we have redistribution of wealth. They aren’t the same thing at all and never will be, however much you try to redefine the meanings of words for the purpose of political rhetoric.

Take this, for example:

… dictatorial regimes often manage to keep themselves in power because they are recognized by foreigners as representing the state and its people, and therefore as entitled to sell the country’s natural resources and to borrow money in its people’s name. These privileges conferred by foreigners keep autocrats in power despite the fact that they were not elected and do not rule in the interest of the population.

Or this:

If we offer a prize, so to speak, to anyone who manages to bring a country under his physical control – namely, that they can then sell the country’s resources and borrow in its name – then it’s not surprising that generals or guerrilla movements will want to compete for this prize. But that the prize is there is really not the fault of the insiders. It is the fault of the dominant states and of the system of international law they maintain. They create this disturbing fact that, if only you manage to bring a national territory under your physical control, then you will be recognized worldwide as its legitimate government: entitled to sell its people’s natural resources, to borrow and sign treaties in their name, and entitled also to import the weapons you need to keep yourself in power.

It goes much further than this, as the Arab Spring demonstrated. A policy of maintaining regional ‘stability’ led to large grants of money being made in ‘aid’ to tyrannical regimes. The scare quotes are because I don’t think the Middle East has been particularly stable and I don’t think aid is a very good word for the giving of financial support to tyrants.

And further:

… the massive corruption common in so many developing countries would be quite impossible if Western countries did not provide convenient opportunities to ship ill-gotten funds out of the country. It wouldn’t make much sense for a ruler to store in his basement large quantities of stolen cash in his own country’s currency. A corrupt ruler wants to be able to keep this money safe and to be able to spend it. And for this, he needs to convert it into a Western currency and store it in a bank abroad, where it can also earn investment returns and be bequeathed to his heirs. Global Financial Integrity estimates that less-developed countries have lost at least $342 billion per annum in this way during the 2000 to 2008 period.

The (right) libertarian-inclined writer P J O’Rourke commented that when politicians regulate commerce, the first things that get bought and sold are the politicians. Pogge puts it like this:

Our Supreme Court has even lifted this practice of buying legislation to the level of a constitutional principle by repeatedly protecting corporate spending for and against political candidates, as well as promises and threats of such spending to bribe and blackmail such candidates, by appeal to the free-speech clause of the First Amendment. I think that many citizens understand how our system works, or rather, fails to work, for structural reasons. But who has the capacity and the incentives to bring change? The banks and other corporations love the system because it allows them to buy legislation that serves their own interests even at the expense of the vast majority of citizens. Incumbent politicians love the system because it allows them to raise millions of dollars toward defending their seats. And the politicians, of course, get to appoint the judges who decide whether our constitutional protection of free speech also protects a bank’s purchase of legislation.

There isn’t much room between those two positions. But then Pogge goes on:

… the lack of a realistic political reform path leads to apathy and the kind of mindless frustration that manifests itself in the Tea Party-style hatred of any and all government.

I haven’t studied the Tea Party movement in any detail but from what I’ve seen it is far from mindless. What it is, rather, is unsophisticated, blue collar, not always very well-informed, and sometimes inarticulate. But Pogge falls into the trap, I think, of regarding them, instinctively, as enemies because he imagines them in the trenches on the far side of No Man’s Land. In fact, to some extent – not all – they are his natural allies.

It’s a very long interview and I’ve made this point well enough, I hope, not to need to give further examples. What strikes me above all is that if, instead of fighting on the grounds of principles – egalitarianism, religious conservatism, libertarianism and so on – where we disagree, people tried to find common ground in what they can agree are serious problems and then examine reality to agree what pragmatic steps might alleviate these problems, then we’d be able to advance liberalism far more effectively. Today, there is no effective, organised Liberal movement. Liberal values are scattered across the political landscape and, because they are scattered, they have few means of effective expression. Between the gaps, the illiberal, the corrupt and the self-serving can advance and profit.

We can argue about whether we should redistribute more; I think not because we’ve done lots of that I don’t think it has worked either domestically or internationally. We can argue about whether we should be striving for greater domestic and international economic freedom, free markets, free trade – which I do think have worked in practice. But wouldn’t it be better to be arguing about those thing having solved the problems, identified above, about which there can be widespread liberal consensus?

Now, let me be fully understood as to what Free Traders really do want. We do not want cheap corn merely in order that we may have low money prices. What we desire is plenty of corn, and we are utterly careless what its price is, provided we obtain it at the natural price. All we ask is this, that corn shall follow the same law which the monopolists in food admit that labor must follow; that ‘it shall find its natural level in the markets of the world.’

Worth reading in full.

I’ve tagged this post ‘derangement syndromes’ in honour of my old friend Darius Guppy.

This might be a reasonable analogy, but is it a wise one for a leftist to make? People entering the military lose many of their civil rights, for the greater good. They have very limited freedom of expression. If they’re not exactly expendable they’re certainly liable to be placed in mortal danger, again for the greater good. Being so heavily institutionalised, the military has set new depths in corrupt crony procurement.

And, of course, everything is paid for by other people. This rings certain bells.

Norm commented:

No modern society could function if it weren’t in important ways a common undertaking, one in which everybody depended on the efforts of others. So maybe Kristof is on to something.

But in fact, no society could function without mutual dependency, not even pre-modern ones. From Adam Smith onwards, free-market advocates have stressed the interdependency of the world. That’s the whole point of Smith’s story of the pin factory. He was writing about the division of labour, but this division is largely a voluntary matter, not one imposed by an institution like the military, and it leads inevitably to mutual dependence.

The division between free-market liberals, who for some reason get called right wing nowadays, and socialists is that though both are from the radical tradition, the free-marketers want cooperation to be voluntary, not least because they think it’s more efficient when it is, but also because freedom is seen as a good in its own right.

To compare it with the military is something you’d expect of a critic of socialism, not an advocate.

Very many public figures and politicians are subjected to campaigns that step well beyond the realms of reasonable discourse but occasionally the campaigns are right. It would be dangerous to allow the powerful to silence this sort of criticism, so unfortunately the less powerful have to have the same lack of protection. After all, politicians should be subject to the same laws as the rest of us, and vice versa.

It’s easy to say this when you haven’t been the target of this sort of campaign. One of the good things about being the subject, myself, of an online campaign by Darius Guppy is that he gives me the opportunity to walk the walk when it comes to the subject of free expression.

Sarah Matthews, spokeswoman for the British Liver Trust, said: “This is an extreme case and definitely one of the youngest cases of alcoholism we have heard of.

“However, it does raise the issue of the accessibility of alcohol and how normal it has become. The power of cheap alcohol, availability and promotion makes it very difficult for people to consider their health when making decisions about if they drink and how much.”

“Alcohol is readily available and just about affordable – I know! I’ll get the three year old drunk!”

Sarah, fuck off. These were terrible parents. People can ‘consider’ their own health perfectly well without the help of a prodnose, and bad parents should be treated as such.

I missed his name, though it might have been this chap, Eugene Rogan, but an Arabist was on the Today programme this morning. Positive stuff: this is the Arab World’s 1989, Egypt is the East Germany of the region, and if it can overcome tyranny, so can all the others, an Arab renaissance could follow. We certainly owe them* a renaissance.

Al Jazeera has come of age, and become the principal source for organised news from Cairo and Alexandria. Their live blog for today can be found here.

It’s interesting how right wing commentators seem most concerned about the possibility that Islamists might fill the void – I don’t think it’s clear there is a void. But I am amused that people who swear blind that Western progress has depended on a Christian foundation  are so clear that religious influence elsewhere will blight progress. They’re right about the latter, wrong about the former: religion had the same effect in Europe, which is why progress was very limited until its power was broken in the Reformation.

Today, though, Egyptians are doing it for themselves. I wish them every success.

UPDATE: Al Jazeera report on their live blog (link above) that the talk on the street as demonstrators assemble, for what they hope will be the largest rally so far, is that they will march on the Presidential Palace tonight.

* This is a link to the worst Wikipedia article I’ve ever read. Europe experienced a sort of renaissance in the twelfth century as a result of coming into regular contact with the Islamic world during the Crusades.

[Photo from this gallery]

As I may have mentioned before, the problem with the Tories is that they’re authoritarian bastards.

Yup. The allied problem: Tories, as opposed to conservatives, believe in a ruling class, which is why monarchism is so inextricably bundled up with Tory philosophy. That’s why the USA has conservatives, but not Tories.

It’s also why so much of what self-identifies as the left today, believing as they do in the nomenklatura, and deeply authoritarian, isn’t meaningfully left-wing.

Update: also see this:

Over the past 10 years, activities such as dealing drugs or robbery have not become significantly more difficult. But it has become extremely difficult to hold a boys’ football match (requiring CRB checks and child protection courses for the coaches); to hold a concert in a village hall (requires a ‘premises licence’ for ‘regulated entertainment’); to invite an African artist to give a talk at your art gallery (requires that you register with the Home Office as a ‘licensed sponsor’ and issue a ‘certificate of sponsorship’ to your visitor); or to hold a charity cake stall (requires a Public Liabilities Insurance Certificate and in some cases a Portable Appliance Test Certificate).

Via

Credentialism – the idea you need a certificate, qualification or some other form of credential before you can do anything, is authoritarian and, arguably, Napoleonic (everything not expressly permitted is banned).