Walker

Walker joined Difficult Run as an editor in August 2013. He graduated from the University of North Texas with an MBA in Strategic Management and a BBA in Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management. He's currently a grad student in Government at Johns Hopkins University. He has been published in SquareTwo, BYU Studies Quarterly, Dialogue, Graziadio Business Review, and Economic Affairs. He also contributed to Julie Smith's (ed.) 'As Iron Sharpens Iron: Listening to the Various Voices of Scripture'. His other online writing can be found at Worlds Without End and Times & Seasons. He lives in Denton, Texas, with his wife.

Economic Lessons From Ancient Greece

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Stanford’s Josiah Ober has a recent article in Foreign Affairs based on his new Princeton-published book The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece that should interest those concerned about economic matters:

Greek states competed fiercely with one another, and with their imperial neighbors, notably Persia. Wars were frequent and bloody. But in the midst of conflict came new forms of social cooperation and a sustained era of rapid economic growth.

The total population of Greek speakers rose from some 330,000 persons in 1000 BCE to 8-10 million by the fourth century BCE. In the same period, average per capita consumption appears to have roughly doubled across the Greek world, and it probably tripled in Athens, the most advanced and among the most democratic of the city-states. The aggregate growth rate was low compared to high-performing modern states, but the rate was blistering compared to other pre-modern civilizations…Trade in commodities (including slaves), manufactured goods, and luxury goods boomed within the Greek world and between the Greeks and their neighbors. Among the remarkable features of the ancient economy of democratic Athens was the relatively low level of income inequality. Athens was home to many foreign “guest workers” and Athenians employed large numbers of slaves. But even taking slaves and foreigners into account, the distribution of Athenian income was much less unequal than in most premodern societies. Athenian wages for non-skilled laborers were high—comparable to the wages being paid in the most advanced economy of early modern Europe, Holland during its seventeenth century Golden Age…As…economists have long pointed out, there is a strong correlation between relatively low inequality and robust and sustained economic growth. 

The mounting evidence for the remarkably strong performance of the ancient Greek economy helps to explain what is sometimes called the “Greek Miracle”—the cultural explosion of Greek literature, visual and performing arts, and science that laid the foundations for Rome, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment.

…So what made the impressive growth of the ancient Greek economy possible? The basic answer is good institutions.[ref]This notion of open institutions in ancient Greece reminds me of the work of economists Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson.[/ref] Greek city-states were governed by a range of regimes, but, by the fourth century BCE, the typical Greek city-state was, by world historical standards, very democratic. In Athens, and hundreds of other Greek states, most native adult males were participatory citizens, who set policy in citizen councils and assemblies, judged legal cases as jurors on people’s courts, and were elected or chosen by lot to serve as public officials.

See the full article for a good read.

The Family: Bridging Individuals and Communities

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I’m a fan of the Cato Institute’s ongoing essay series Cato Unbound. Their most recent edition is on a topic of major interest to me: family and politics. The essays are based on political scientist Lauren K. Hall’s book Family and the Politics of Moderation: Private Life, Public Goods, and the Rebirth of Social Individualism. Hall writes,

…[T]he family challenges our most fundamental values and makes the creation of a consistent political theory essentially impossible. Those who emphasize the unlimited freedom of the individual come quickly up against the iron wall of genetics, early childhood development, and family experiences. We are not free to choose our families and our early familial experiences play a foundational role in the kind of person we eventually become. Individualists like Ayn Rand emphasize rationality and free choice only to be stymied by emotional and accidental bonds. The family is also one of the only places in the world where the creed “to each according to his need” not only works, but is indispensable. The family also challenges individualist arguments for personal responsibility and self-sufficiency since it relies in large part on the reality of human need and dependence. It is no accident that John Galt is an orphan.

On the other side of the spectrum, families are the root of inequality. This comes about both through the family’s role in education, habituation, and socialization, and through its intimate connection with property rights. The family’s multigenerational bonds challenge the demands of immediate collective decision-making and bind us to rules, habits, and ways of life that reject rationalist and egalitarian reforms. The family is the originator of unequal opportunity. The family also challenges egalitarianism due to its generally hierarchical form, which relies on the natural authority of parents over children for familial action. The reality of pregnancy, birth, and nursing places further stress on a strict egalitarian division of labor. Finally, families represent a divisive internal pull against collective identities. Families represent the private sphere in all its complexity of private and intimate bonds. The collective egalitarian cry that the private is really political is inevitably complicated by intimate groups that profoundly affect social structures but that also stubbornly refuse collectivization. The recognition that the family prevents radical egalitarian goals has led to (so far unsuccessful) calls to collectivize and control the family, from Marx and Engels to contemporary liberal feminists like Judith Moller Okin.

Economist Steve Horwitz provides additional insights from the works and theories of F.A. Hayek, based on his own forthcoming book Hayek’s Modern Family: Classical Liberalism and the Evolution of Social Institutions. Two more responses to Hall’s essay are in the process (one of which should appear later today).

Take a few minutes to read on this important topic.

The Historical Context of the Family Proclamation

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Over at Worlds Without End, I’ve written a piece on the political and social context in which The Family: A Proclamation to the World was developed. Laura Compton at Rational Faiths has demonstrated that the LDS Church’s entanglements with same-sex marriage date back to the early 1990s and spawned the creation of the Family Proclamation. I agree that this is the origin of the Proclamation. However, I think there is more going on in the Proclamation itself and within the political climate that produced it than is typically realized. Discussions over welfare and family breakdown had increased in frequency and popularity throughout the mid-1980s and into the 1990s, leading up to welfare reform under President Clinton. For our readers who have an interest in our posts on marriage and family here at Difficult Run, Mormonism, or both, you might find my post interesting.

Check it out.

Government Barriers to Upward Mobility

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A new study out of George Mason University looks at government barriers to upward economic mobility. Economist Steve Horwitz investigates three main factors:

  • Occupational licensing
  • Zoning laws and other small business regulations
  • Regressive taxation
Steve Horwitz
Steve Horwitz

As he explains in the opening of the study,

A common assumption in public policy is that government regulation of the market generally works to protect the poor and disenfranchised. However, such regulations more often have the opposite effect: that is, they benefit the wealthy and powerful at the expense of the poor. The key to understanding this point is recognizing that the regulatory process is not, in general, a pristine attempt to instantiate the public interest. Instead, economic actors see in the political process a means of enhancing their profits at the expense of their competitors, but without meeting the wants of consumers in the process. Support for regulations that create barriers to entry in an industry or occupation may well be couched in terms of the need to protect public interest, but such regulations are often demanded by (a) incumbent producers who wish to acquire monopoly profits by making it harder for new producers to enter the marketplace and (b) consumers whose income enables them to afford higher prices, while the burden is shouldered by lower-income producers and consumers. Such regulations effectively become a regressive transfer of income from the poor to the relatively well-off.

When considering new regulations or eliminating existing ones, policymakers should pay more attention to the regressive effects of government, from the way in which it prevents upward mobility to the way in which some policies and programs burden the poor more than other groups.[ref]Pgs. 3-4.[/ref]

Important observations. Give it a read.

New Behind-the-Scenes Photos of the 9/11 Response

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CNN reports,Colette Neirouz Hanna, who works with the Kirk Documentary Group, told the Boston Globe, "From the first moments after the attacks on the World Trade Center, Vice President Cheney has been at the center of much of the government's response. Now, 14 years later, we finally have those photographs and the American people can see for themselves what took place in those first 24 hours."

The National Archives released more than 350 photos Friday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Since then they have captivated a nation still ensconced in the fallout from those attacks, including the rise of ISIS in the destabilized Middle East…”Those photographs are a good memory for what took place that day, and I want people to focus on what it means to be able to make sure that that day never happens again,” former Bush administration chief of staff Andy Card, who is in some of the photographs, told CNN’s Kate Bolduan on “OutFront” Monday evening. “If the photographs do that, that’s great. If it’s just a trip for Andy Card down memory lane with the people who he respects and worked with and watched do a remarkable job, that’s great too.”

The stress, sadness, and uncertainty on the faces of the various members of the Bush administration stir a lot of memories and feelings from the past.

 

Four Lessons on Emotions from Pixar’s ‘Inside Out’

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I’m a huge Pixar fan. Have been ever since 1995’s Toy Story. One of the best books I’ve read this year is Pixar founder Ed Catmull’s Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration. The studio’s film quality is highly consistent[ref]There are exceptions like Cars.[/ref] and their latest Inside Out is no exception. This film tackles the complicated subject of human emotions (in the form of a little girl named Riley) and does so extremely well.[ref]I was holding back tears the final 20 minutes.[/ref] Their ability to handle the subject of emotions so delicately and accurately was likely aided by their scientific consultants, one of which is director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. Because the film presents a healthy understanding of emotions, parents should seriously consider taking their children to see it and use it as a teaching tool. Here are four lessons kids (and adults) can learn from Inside Out:

1. Happiness is not just about joy

[B]y the end of the film, Joy [Amy Poehler]…learns that there is much, much more to being happy than boundless positivity. In fact, in the film’s final chapter, when Joy cedes control to some of her fellow emotions, particularly Sadness, Riley seems to achieve a deeper form of happiness.

This reflects the way that a lot of leading emotion researchers see happiness. Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of the best-selling How of Happiness, defines happiness as “the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.” (emphasis added) So while positive emotions such as joy are definitely part of the recipe for happiness, they are not the whole shebang.

2. Don’t try to force happiness

Thank goodness emotion researcher June Gruber and her colleagues started looking at the nuances of happiness and its pursuit. Their findings challenge the “happy-all-the-time” imperative that was probably imposed upon many of us.

For example, their research suggests that making happiness an explicit goal in life can actually make us miserable. Gruber’s colleague Iris Mauss has discovered that the more people strive for happiness, the greater the chance that they’ll set very high standards of happiness for themselves and feel disappointed—and less happy—when they’re not able to meet those standards all the time.

…What’s a more effective route to happiness for Riley (and the rest of us)? Recent research points to the importance of “prioritizing positivity”—deliberately carving out ample time in life for experiences that we personally enjoy. For Riley, that’s ice hockey, spending time with friends, and goofing around with her parents.

3. Sadness is vital to our well-being

…Sadness connects deeply with people—a critical component of happiness—and helps Riley do the same…In one the film’s greatest revelations, Joy looks back on one of Riley’s “core memories”—when the girl missed a shot in an important hockey game—and realizes that the sadness Riley felt afterwards elicited compassion from her parents and friends, making her feel closer to them and transforming this potentially awful memory into one imbued with deep meaning and significance for her.

With great sensitivity, Inside Out shows how tough emotions like sadness, fear, and anger, can be extremely uncomfortable for people to experience—which is why many of us go to great lengths to avoid them…But in the film, as in real life, all of these emotions serve an important purpose by providing insight into our inner and outer environments in ways that can help us connect with others, avoid danger, or recover from loss.

4. Mindfully embrace–rather than suppress–tough emotions

At one point, Joy attempts to prevent Sadness from having any influence on Riley’s psyche by drawing a small “circle of Sadness” in chalk and instructing Sadness to stay within it. It’s a funny moment, but psychologists will recognize that Joy is engaging in a risky behavior called “emotional suppression”—an emotion-regulation strategy that has been found to lead to anxiety and depression, especially amongst teenagers whose grasp of their own emotions is still developing. Sure enough, trying to contain Sadness and deny her a role in the action ultimately backfires for Joy, and for Riley…Toward the end of the movie, Joy does what some researchers now consider to be the healthiest method for working with emotions: Instead of avoiding or denying Sadness, Joy accepts Sadness for who she is, realizing that she is an important part of Riley’s emotional life. 

Emotion experts call this “mindfully embracing” an emotion. What does that mean? Rather than getting caught up in the drama of an emotional reaction, a mindful person kindly observes the emotion without judging it as the right or wrong way to feel in a given situation, creating space to choose a healthy response. Indeed, a 2014 study found that depressed adolescents and young adults who took a mindful approach to life showed lower levels of depression, anxiety, and bad attitudes, as well as a greater quality of life.

Everyone should go see it.

New SPECTRE Trailer Released

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Finally, the new trailer has been released for the upcoming James Bond film SPECTRE.

This apparent throwback to the old-school Bond films[ref]The organization SPECTRE was the main villain in Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Diamonds are Forever, and the unofficial Never Say Never Again.[/ref] not only features Christoph Waltz in a Blofeldish Chinese collar,[ref]Dr. Evil sports a similar outfit.[/ref] but the trailer also uses the theme from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (the film in which Bond lost his bride at the hands of SPECTRE’s mastermind and his right-hand woman).

Needless to say, I’m stoked.

A New Spin on “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

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So, this is awesome:

[BYU grad] Rob Gardner of “Lamb of God” fame has come together with two friends for a new project with a focus on covering iconic pop songs with a full orchestra, a choir and soloists. Gardner arranged the pieces and co-produced the project with long-time friends and collaborators, brothers Drex and McKane Davis…The project is called Cinematic Pop, and its purpose is cover well-known and popular songs using a cinematic orchestral medium to rekindle an appreciation for the value of orchestral music, both in general and especially with younger generations. “One of our goals and passions for this project is to it bring young people, to get them excited about symphonic music, orchestral music,” Davis said. “Attendance to symphonies across the nation has been decreasing over the years, so to be able to bring the younger generation to that music and introduce it in a creative and impactful way is something that is really core to what we’re doing.” …At this point, the producers plan to release 10 videos total, but the project doesn’t end with the videos. Davis said they all feel passionate about the power of experiencing live music, and they plan to take the show on the road.

Here is their version of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit“:

 

The Final Countdown Is Over: Pluto Flyby

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Pretty awesome read and video from The Guardian on the Pluto flyby today:

Cheers, whoops and flag waving broke out at Nasa’s New Horizons control centre as scientists celebrated the spacecraft’s dramatic flyby of Pluto, considered the last unexplored world in the solar system. The probe shot past at more than 28,000mph (45,000 km/h) at 12.49pm BST (7.49am ET) on a trajectory that brought the fastest spacecraft ever to leave Earth’s orbit within 7,770 miles of Pluto’s surface…Stephen Hawking, the Cambridge cosmologist, joined in congratulating the New Horizons team in a recorded message. “Billions of miles from Earth this little robotic spacecraft will show us that first glimpse of mysterious Pluto, a distant icy world on the edge of our solar system. The revelations of New Horizons may help us to understand better how our solar system was formed. We explore because we are human and we long to know,” he said.

The whole thing is definitely worth reading. But perhaps the best part?:

The moment, played out on Tuesday to the sound of The Final Countdown by the 1980s glam metal band Europe, marked a historic achievement for the US, which can now claim to be the only nation to have visited every planet in the classical solar system.