I’m with conservatives on harm and loyalty. I’m with liberals on fairness, authority, and purity.

Test your morals here.

[Cross-posted here at PolicyMic]

The American debate over school choice dates back at least as far back as the 1970s, a decade after Milton Friedman published Capitalism and Freedom, in which he argued for the establishment of school vouchers that families could use to send their children to a public or private school of their choosing. Friedman’s argument gained influence in libertarian circles because of its resemblance to market systems that included competition. Social conservatives liked the idea of using tax revenues toward tuition at parochial schools.

Progressives have mostly rejected the school choice movement because of its potential to undermine public schools as well as exacerbate inequalities and segregation. But progressives have failed to appreciate just how bad the current system has been at achieving the goals they so vehemently defend. Instead of rejecting school choice altogether, they should embrace the beneficial aspects of a choice system alongside a specific set of revisions that address their concerns.

In the U.S., most funding for public schools comes from local property taxes. This system is both uniquely American and uniquely terrible. It has led to greater inequality and segregation and less social mobility than in other industrialized countries. Poor communities have less property tax revenue than affluent communities and, as a result, less funding for schools. Affluent communities can invest in buildings, facilities, and advanced technology that poor communities cannot afford. More importantly, affluent school districts are able to attract better teaching talent by offering higher salaries and less stressful working conditions. As a result, the U.S. education system exacerbates the inequalities that disadvantaged children enter primary school with. Middle- and upper-class families have a way to get their children out of bad schools: They can pick up and move to the suburbs. Since poorer families are less mobile and often cannot afford to move to suburbia, their choices are limited.

Progressives should be up in arms over these injustices. Most have a “system justification” bias — an inclination to defend the status quo as fair and just. They believe in public schools and they feel the need to defend them against conservative attacks. Consider the conservative critique that public schools are “inefficient.” Progressives typically, and erroneously, respond that efficiency is not important. If a system is inefficient, that means there is a free lunch on the table waiting to be eaten.

However, some progressive criticisms of a “free-market” voucher system are strong. Affluent parents could supplement their voucher with extra income to send their children to better schools, worsening inequalities. The system could become more segregated by race, class, and religion. Teaching creationism in the classroom could undermine scientific education. In general, students’ exposure to varying ideas and cultures could narrow.

Progressives can maintain these concerns without rejecting school choice altogether. Vouchers could be means-tested, or affluent parents could be restricted from using their own incomes alongside vouchers to pay for tuition. A school that accepts vouchers could be required to accept regulations on its curriculum, such as the teaching of creationism in biology. Most importantly, the government could offer additional financial incentives to schools that achieve a desired level of integration.

I share progressives’ concerns about the risks of a free market in education. But a free market is not a necessary feature of a choice system. We can embrace choice while maintaining our commitment to equal opportunity and integration, secularism, and social justice.

Yesterday, on Twitter…

Me: @ericddixon RT @ModeledBehavior Arnold Kling: a conservative economist against teacher merit pay [http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2011/10/06/economic-weakness-merit-pay-teachers]

Eric: @arhanson Kling doesn’t oppose merit pay at all; he thinks test scores are a lousy measure. And whaddaya know, I’ve always thought that too

Me: @ericddixon seems to oppose merit-pay systems based on test scores, e.g., NY and DC. Do you oppose them as well?

….

Eric: @arhanson seems to think it’s OK to put words in others’ mouths in a public forum w/ faint qualification, pretending it’s all friendly convo

Arnold Kling on EconLog:

Against Merit Pay for Teachers (title)

That would be my position.

I guess me retweeting Modeled Behavior representing Kling as “a conservative economist against merit pay” whose self-titled blogpost is Against Merit Pay and says that’s his position counts as “putting words in others’ mouths”.

At least in the strange world of Internet arguments.

In 1991, Troy Davis was convicted of murdering an off-duty police officer and sentenced to death by the state of Georgia. In the years following, many of the witnesses whose testimony led to the conviction of Mr. Davis recanted their version of events. Davis’ case moved through the appellate court system throughout the past 20 years until he was executed by the state of Georgia Wednesday evening.

A public outcry, based on the recantations, arose over the execution of Davis by those who seek to abolish the death penalty. PolicyMic pundit Evan Mascagni recently highlighted a few of their arguments, including: (1) capital punishment costs more than life imprisonment; (2) our enemies use capital punishment, while our allies have abolished it; (3) capital punishment disproportionately affects black convicts. Other abolitionists argue that many innocent people have been killed as a result of it. Mascagni concludes: “I have a hard time understanding why the majority of Americans still support the death penalty. Maybe they are simply uneducated about the real effects of this cruel and barbaric form of punishment (or maybe they have a fetish for vengeance).”

I don’t think Mascagni is doing its proponents’ arguments justice, nor do I find his arguments against the death penalty convincing. To see why, consider this: on the same day, white supremacist Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed by Texas. Brewer was convicted in the infamous dragging case, in which James Byrd, a black man from East Texas, was tied to the bumper of a truck by Brewer and two friends, and dragged for 3 miles. At the end, what was left of Byrd’s shredded remains was dumped between a black church and a nearby cemetery. As far as I know, there was no public outcry by death penalty abolitionists over Brewer’s execution. That may be because many of the criticisms that abolitionists levy against the death penalty are not about the death penalty itself, but the moral difficulties involved in punishment and the justice system in general.

But let us consider Mascagni’s arguments anyway. First, the death penalty is more expensive than life imprisonment without parole, not because of the cost of lethal injection, but because their appeals are prioritized in the appellate system. In my view, this counts in favor of capital punishment — the justice system works harder in capital punishment cases than elsewhere. But even if it did not, we should not decide what constitutes a just punishment based on how expensive the punishment is alone.

Second, while many other nations have banned capital punishment, it does not mean we should do the same. Morality is about more than going along with the crowd.

Third, it is true that death row inmates are disproportionately black and that many convicts, in the past, have been proven innocent. But is this a problem with the form of punishment, or the justice system’s effectiveness at convicting guilty parties? Black Americans are not just overrepresented as death row inmates. They are overrepresented in the entire criminal justice system. Is not it also grossly unjust for innocent convicts to be sentenced to be confined to a cell for life and, in many cases, beaten and raped on a regular basis? Is this not just as cruel and unusual as a lethal injection?

The imperfections in the criminal justice system raise serious questions about the permissibility of punishment, but most abolitionists are not arguing for eliminating the justice system altogether. Instead, we should take these criticisms seriously and work to improve the system as best we can. When new evidence arises, we should reexamine it along with the other facts of the case and avoid making hasty decisions. Other reforms should be on the table as well. However, we should recognize that the likelihood that the justice system will be perfect is quite small. This means that the injustice of an innocent person being convicted won’t go away any time soon.

At least until Minority Report becomes reality.

On 9/11, Paul Krugman wrote this on his blog in a post titled “Years of Shame”:

“What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.”

He got a lot of flak for it, mainly for calling Republicans “fake heroes”. Donald Rumsfeld even canceled his subscription to the New York Times…wait. What? Don Rumsfeld had a subscription to the New York Times?!? I thought conservatives got all their information from Fox News.

Anyway, on the same day, George Mason economist Robin Hanson wrote this in a post titled “Forget 9/11″:

“In the decade since 9/11 over half a billion people have died worldwide. A great many choices could have delayed such deaths, including personal choices to smoke less or exercise more, and collective choices like allowing more immigration. And cryonics might have saved most of them.

Yet, to show solidarity with these three thousand victims, we have pissed away three trillion dollars ($1 billion per victim), and trashed long-standing legal principles. And now we’ll waste a day remembering them, instead of thinking seriously about how to save billions of others. I would rather we just forgot 9/11.

Do I sound insensitive? If so, good — 9/11 deaths were less than one part in a hundred thousand of deaths since then, and don’t deserve to be sensed much more than that fraction. If your feelings say otherwise, that just shows how full fricking far your mind has gone.”

Any flak? None that I know of, only admiration among conservative/libertarian minded people who agree that 9/11 led to policies that they don’t approve of: unjust wars, removal of rights, lots of wasteful spending.

What’s interesting to note is that the main difference is that while Krugman blames the administration for these policies, Hanson appears to be blaming…the victims (said in high-pitched cracking voice)?

Strange, I know. Yes, the victims’ deaths are relatively few compared with other causes of death, but it seems odd that we’re willing to look the other way when someone blames the victims, but when someone blames the administration that enacted the bad policies, we’re outraged. After all, it’s not as if the administration had to invade Iraq, adopt the Patriot Act, and torture detainees. They used 9/11 as an excuse to grab power and push their ideological agenda. [Remember the "pre-9/11 mindset"?] Ceremonies and aid to the victims’ families and first respondents hasn’t been the major cost over the last 10 years.

It’s true that Hanson isn’t as high profile as Krugman and that Krugman is generally more demonized among right-wingers, but I’ve seen others, like the Freakonomics authors Levitt and Dubner, make similar arguments, though certainly not as bluntly as Hanson. I sympathize with their arguments, but disagree with how they’re assigning blame. Why are they so reluctant to demonize Republicans, but so unashamed to demonize victims?

Sean Carroll and Robin Hanson are arguing about the methodological differences between physics and economics and whether the public has good reasons for trusting the expertise of physicists and not economists. They raise several important points:

• There is more consensus in physics than economics.
• Bias is more abundant in economics compared to physics.
• Physicists are given more leeway to use technical jargon in public, making them seem more expert.
• The public has a bias on issues related to economics. They have relatively less bias on issues related to physics.
• Social science is much harder than physical science, so the answers we come up with are less reliable.

Carroll also presents an important question: “[W]hen should we trust an expert simply because they are an expert?” His answer is “never”, though he recognizes that people have limited time and therefore a degree of trust is necessary. A better answer to his question would be: “Always, unless you have a good reason not to.” Economists are often hired by special interest groups to analyze a particular issue in the group’s favor. This would certainly be a good reason to be skeptical of the economist’s claims. But, in general, as lay persons, we should trust the scientific consensus.

Though they present some important differences, I think they miss out on some really crucial ones. First, physicists have an enormous advantage in their ability to assess causality: They can run experiments. Running experiments and isolating variables is simply the best scientific method we have for gaining knowledge. The fact that experimentation is difficult in economics means that we have to rely on less reliable methods for determining truth or causality.

Another enormously important factor is that, though economists give us insight into the economic consequences of various policies, we may have other more important reasons for rejecting those policies. Economics presupposes a moral criterion of efficiency as the best policy goal, but non-consequentialists may reject this goal because of other ethical concerns. It’s not that the public doesn’t trust the expertise of economists, but that they think other criteria are more morally significant than the economist does. Consider the case of eminent domain laws. An economic case can be made that these laws lead to greater efficiency, but a libertarian may reject the laws on the grounds that they violate property rights.

There are many more interesting methodological differences between physics and economics such as unification, prediction, and logical coherence. But all signs certainly point to more faith and trust in physics than economics. I say this as a believer in economics as the best method for understanding social science phenomena. But come on, let’s be real here.

Update: Read David C. Miller’s unique, insightful response to Brooks here.

David Brooks’ op-ed in the Times details the rise of different forms of moral subjectivism such as nihilism, relativism, and emotivism:

“When asked to describe a moral dilemma they had faced, two-thirds of the young people either couldn’t answer the question or described problems that are not moral at all, like whether they could afford to rent a certain apartment or whether they had enough quarters to feed the meter at a parking spot.”

Brooks’ analysis seems spot on, but it’s interesting to think about it in the context of other sociocultural trends that are happening. Consider, for example, the diminishing influence of organized religion in child rearing. Many have good criticisms of religion, specifically regarding the evidence for the truth of its many claims. However, it seems self-evident that religion has instrumental value for developing the moral compass of children. While the answers it provides for moral questions aren’t satisfying for many adults, they are certainly capable of providing satisfactory answers for children. It seems as though institutions haven’t really risen to the challenge of replacing the instrumental value of organized religion in developing moral cognition. This is why “character education” in pre-K and primary schooling is of increasing importance.

Globalization and increased culture sharing, though unintentional, also likely encourages moral subjectivism by encouraging tolerance. A greater level of tolerance is typically a good thing; we don’t want to reject others’ beliefs or moral judgments out of hand. Nevertheless, tolerance and knowledge of difference often does lead one down the subjectivist path to the intuition that no moral judgments are better or worse than any others.

A final factor is the decreasing level of social capital. Neighborhoods and communities are not as tight-knit as they once were. The rise of social individualism and anti-social outlets, (e.g., video gaming, web browsing, etc.), hinder our ability to develop moral cognition and empathy. It’s much easier to accept starving children in Africa because we don’t have to see them every day. As we isolate ourselves more and more from the outside world, it becomes much easier to ignore its problems.

All things considered, however, other factors such as technological progress and the spread of democracy are still making the world a better place, morally speaking. While we should be aware of the rise of moral subjectivism and try to fight it, it’s important to look at these things in context.

If you allowed for more redistribution in the form of education or job training programs, you’d probably see a lot less political pushback, and we’d be able to grow the pie a lot more effectively.

Frank’s conclusion leads him to support a progressive consumption tax. This is my preferred system of taxation. His idea takes insights from many that what matters isn’t inequality of income or wealth, but inequality of consumption. The mechanisms he has in place are pretty simple and build off the system that is already in place. You just take someone’s income and subtract their savings/investments to get their taxable consumption. Then you give large deduction, e.g., $30,000 a year for a family of four, or whatever you think is an adequate amount of consumption for the basic goods. Then the tax rates become steeply progressive. Maybe they start at 10% and escalate as high as you like.

The best thing about this system is that you don’t get any distortionary effects. You can have a 100% tax rate on consumption over $10 million a year and it won’t discourage work, investment or wealth accumulation. In fact, it would probably do the opposite. If the price of a Sweet Sixteen party or a corporate jet suddenly doubles, you’d probably just decide to save, invest, or donate that money, rather than use it for conspicuous consumption.

Frank wrote an NYTimes op-ed on the subject a few years back.

Some libertarians have a particularly confused view of property rights, where they draw a very bright line between owning something and not owning it. If you own it, you can do what you want with it. If you don’t own it, you can’t. That’s obviously mistaken based on how property rights are actually established. Owning a house doesn’t mean you can keep alligators and elephants in your backyard. Zoning laws, though objectionable, also restrict your ability to use the things you own in whatever way you like.