In further discussion about whether constitutions were good, necessary, the devil's work, etc., a somewhat strange issue popped up: no one seemed to agree upon what makes for good governance. There seemed to be no convenient way to compare countries. When the best categories you can come up with are "Pretty Successful, Hasn't Exploded Yet" and "Hell hole" you really have hit a road block in the debate.
Thinking upon this further, there does seem to be a bit of a gap in even agreeing upon what government's prime metrics should be, much less how to measure them.
Should government try to maximize freedom? Even if you can agree upon that (and strangely that is not always possible) defining freedom is a little difficult. Measuring whether US or UK is more free is far more so.
Is the mark of a good government a strong economy? That should be easier to measure, but as it turns out isn't too obvious either. You can use per capita GDP, but then can you say a poor country that is growing quickly has a better or worse government than a relatively rich country that grows slowly? Maybe the poorer nation is fantastically governed, and just needs time to catch up. Throw in the fact that GDP isn't even a good measure of wealth, and how easily economic numbers can be cooked by less honest regimes and that is no longer a good estimate.
People sometimes cite crime statistics, or health care, or some other factors, but those suffer many of the same problems as GDP. Crime rates might be useful on a city by city, county by county level, but at the national level you run into problems of categorization, differences in demographics, and even just straight cultural differences that cloud the issue. Health care is no less awkward. The UK and most other nations measure life expectancy differently than the US, due mostly to how they treat death in the first few days of life, and that makes direct comparison remarkably difficult if you don't know all the subtleties and correct for them.
In the end, the best way to compare that I can think of is to look at net immigration between two countries. If more people are moving from Country A to Country B than from B to A, you can probably assume B is considered to be a little better across all possible criterion. This also has the advantage of being a pretty clear number, with data over time. One can argue that this is because of B having a better economy, less civil strife, or just looser immigration laws, but everything but immigration laws can perhaps then be bundled into "outcomes people wants from their government." (In fact, maybe looser immigration laws too.) If people want a multitude of different things from the government of the territory they choose to live in, perhaps it is best just to look at what bundles of those things they choose, and then consider why some bundles are chosen over others.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Monday, February 11, 2013
EconResponse: Seidman on the Constitution
This past week's EconTalk was with Louis Seidman about a book he wrote about the Constitution, and the fact we don't need one, and probably shouldn't have one. (That's the weak form; I think he actively suggests we should not have one, and having one is bad, but he sort of oscillates around that.) This is a really good EconTalk, and everyone should really listen to it, as I think he misses the point of constitutions and what their purposes are, but makes some really good points despite that.
I am going to skip the summarizing and assume you are going to listen to the podcast, partially in the interest of remaining (blessedly) short, and partially because the talk remains focused enough that there is really just one point to discuss.
Long story short, Seidman claims that the United States Constitution, and constitutions in general, are pointless at best, and authoritarian at worst. The first point he supports by demonstrating that legislators often completely ignore the C., and often times in ways that are good points. For example, the Louisiana Purchase was pretty certainly not constitutional, but might have been a good thing to do. Likewise, many things the Federal government does are blatantly unconstitutional but it doesn't seem to matter because the C. can't order people around or control troops etc to enforce itself. Other countries don't have constitutions and they don't explode, so how do we know that they are useful?
The second point is that saying "You can't do X because it is unconstitutional!" is rather authoritarian and anti-thought, and that you shouldn't rely on that but rather try to convince your interlocutor of your points. That's the nutshell version.
So, here is the over all point Seidman misses I think: the point of constitutions is to take certain matters off the table entirely. Which matters are key, and some constitutions are better than others in this regard, but the important point is that having every issue up for debate is dangerous.
Take for instance slavery, one of the glaring omissions of our C. Imagine if every 50 years or so we had to have a debate about whether or not to reinstate slavery. From a purely economic perspective this would be quite wasteful as you would have people employed in studying and coming up with reasons for and against slavery, presumably smart people who could be doing something more productive. From a terrifying public policy perspective, what happens if the third or fourth time around there isn't a good orator on the anti-slavery side, but a brilliant and charismatic spokesman for the pro-slavery side? Sooner or later this is going to happen, which means sooner or later slavery will come back in vogue, even if under a slightly different name.
If that example seems far fetched, consider the debates between J.M. Keynes and F.A. Hayek. Arguably Hayek won the intellectual debate, but Keynes just smashed him in the realm of public opinion, due in large part to his relatively simple message and massive personal charm. If English hadn't been Hayek's second language, or Keynes had a stutter, things might have been very different.
The roots of Seidman's misunderstanding of this point is his misunderstanding of collective vs individual action, and his seeming conflation of negative and positive rights.
He often says "we want" or what "we can do" when describing the actions of governments, but the key point he thus misses is that governments are made of individual people, and even when acting as representatives have their own incentives and goals that do not, and can not, align with every one of their constituents. While it is certainly possible that this works out fine, it is more likely that politicians will use this to their own ends. Constitutions limit their ability to do this.
Counter intuitively, however, this defection by governmental agents is not the greatest danger inherent in governments. Rather, it is when governments do exactly what their voters want in times of passion that cause the most damage. By his own admission late in the podcast he says he does "not generally take a position on unrestrained majoritarianism" (right around 47:30). However, that is exactly what constitutions are meant to do, limit the harms that the majority can inflict on minorities and indeed themselves, just because it seemed like the best idea at the time. No one wants to be in a position where they have to argue persuasively as to their right to live with a lynch mob who thinks otherwise.
That last point is the junction of his misunderstanding of state action and the nature of rights. He often speaks in terms of positive rights, using phrases such as "you have to do X" instead of negative of the form "you can not do X to me." In so far as a constitution enumerated positive rights, I would agree that it would be authoritarian. However, negative rights are most certainly not authoritarian, as they do not require actions, but rather demand that you not do certain ones. Requiring that the government not kill you without a trial is not authoritarian, it limits the authority of government. Again, is it really preferable that we have to persuade others that they don't have the legal right to kill us? Consider the recent drone strikes against US citizens without any warrant or judicial review, and how Obama has yet to be thrown out of office before you decide that you can trust your fellow citizens to uphold your right to life of their own accord.
Also, as an aside, Seidman often makes the case that while aspects of the Constitution made sense 200 plus years ago, arguing that the decision that was made then still applies is authoritarian. He does not, however define at what point in time such decisions go from the legitimate will of the people to authoritarian nonsense. Which is to say, how often should we be willing to scrap everything and start over? 240 years is apparently too long, so is it 150? 50? A few weeks?
The US C., for all its many faults, seems designed to be a permissive rule set of what the government can do, which is to say what the national majority can do, and taking everything else off the table at the national level. I think Seidman is correct that ours has some serious issues, and only perpetuates as well as it does due to the fact the people seem inclined to agree with the general idea, but this is not due to an inherent flaw in the overall concept of constitutions, but with this particular manifestation. Seidman's lack of clarity on the subjects of positive and negative rights and governmental action (in addition to what level that action occurs on, which I didn't touch upon) prevent him from seeing that there have to be objective laws that limit the actions the government or a majority can take, if only because at the time of decision we can not rely on cool headed reasoning to restrain ourselves and our agents.
I am going to skip the summarizing and assume you are going to listen to the podcast, partially in the interest of remaining (blessedly) short, and partially because the talk remains focused enough that there is really just one point to discuss.
Long story short, Seidman claims that the United States Constitution, and constitutions in general, are pointless at best, and authoritarian at worst. The first point he supports by demonstrating that legislators often completely ignore the C., and often times in ways that are good points. For example, the Louisiana Purchase was pretty certainly not constitutional, but might have been a good thing to do. Likewise, many things the Federal government does are blatantly unconstitutional but it doesn't seem to matter because the C. can't order people around or control troops etc to enforce itself. Other countries don't have constitutions and they don't explode, so how do we know that they are useful?
The second point is that saying "You can't do X because it is unconstitutional!" is rather authoritarian and anti-thought, and that you shouldn't rely on that but rather try to convince your interlocutor of your points. That's the nutshell version.
So, here is the over all point Seidman misses I think: the point of constitutions is to take certain matters off the table entirely. Which matters are key, and some constitutions are better than others in this regard, but the important point is that having every issue up for debate is dangerous.
Take for instance slavery, one of the glaring omissions of our C. Imagine if every 50 years or so we had to have a debate about whether or not to reinstate slavery. From a purely economic perspective this would be quite wasteful as you would have people employed in studying and coming up with reasons for and against slavery, presumably smart people who could be doing something more productive. From a terrifying public policy perspective, what happens if the third or fourth time around there isn't a good orator on the anti-slavery side, but a brilliant and charismatic spokesman for the pro-slavery side? Sooner or later this is going to happen, which means sooner or later slavery will come back in vogue, even if under a slightly different name.
If that example seems far fetched, consider the debates between J.M. Keynes and F.A. Hayek. Arguably Hayek won the intellectual debate, but Keynes just smashed him in the realm of public opinion, due in large part to his relatively simple message and massive personal charm. If English hadn't been Hayek's second language, or Keynes had a stutter, things might have been very different.
The roots of Seidman's misunderstanding of this point is his misunderstanding of collective vs individual action, and his seeming conflation of negative and positive rights.
He often says "we want" or what "we can do" when describing the actions of governments, but the key point he thus misses is that governments are made of individual people, and even when acting as representatives have their own incentives and goals that do not, and can not, align with every one of their constituents. While it is certainly possible that this works out fine, it is more likely that politicians will use this to their own ends. Constitutions limit their ability to do this.
Counter intuitively, however, this defection by governmental agents is not the greatest danger inherent in governments. Rather, it is when governments do exactly what their voters want in times of passion that cause the most damage. By his own admission late in the podcast he says he does "not generally take a position on unrestrained majoritarianism" (right around 47:30). However, that is exactly what constitutions are meant to do, limit the harms that the majority can inflict on minorities and indeed themselves, just because it seemed like the best idea at the time. No one wants to be in a position where they have to argue persuasively as to their right to live with a lynch mob who thinks otherwise.
That last point is the junction of his misunderstanding of state action and the nature of rights. He often speaks in terms of positive rights, using phrases such as "you have to do X" instead of negative of the form "you can not do X to me." In so far as a constitution enumerated positive rights, I would agree that it would be authoritarian. However, negative rights are most certainly not authoritarian, as they do not require actions, but rather demand that you not do certain ones. Requiring that the government not kill you without a trial is not authoritarian, it limits the authority of government. Again, is it really preferable that we have to persuade others that they don't have the legal right to kill us? Consider the recent drone strikes against US citizens without any warrant or judicial review, and how Obama has yet to be thrown out of office before you decide that you can trust your fellow citizens to uphold your right to life of their own accord.
Also, as an aside, Seidman often makes the case that while aspects of the Constitution made sense 200 plus years ago, arguing that the decision that was made then still applies is authoritarian. He does not, however define at what point in time such decisions go from the legitimate will of the people to authoritarian nonsense. Which is to say, how often should we be willing to scrap everything and start over? 240 years is apparently too long, so is it 150? 50? A few weeks?
The US C., for all its many faults, seems designed to be a permissive rule set of what the government can do, which is to say what the national majority can do, and taking everything else off the table at the national level. I think Seidman is correct that ours has some serious issues, and only perpetuates as well as it does due to the fact the people seem inclined to agree with the general idea, but this is not due to an inherent flaw in the overall concept of constitutions, but with this particular manifestation. Seidman's lack of clarity on the subjects of positive and negative rights and governmental action (in addition to what level that action occurs on, which I didn't touch upon) prevent him from seeing that there have to be objective laws that limit the actions the government or a majority can take, if only because at the time of decision we can not rely on cool headed reasoning to restrain ourselves and our agents.
Friday, February 8, 2013
Amazon coining money, sorta
So, Warren over at Coyote Blog linked to this story in MIT Technology Review about Amazon's Virtual Currency. The idea is really interesting, but I want to find out a few more things:
1: I am going to be able to spend these in Amazon's store on anything, not just apps for the Kindle Fire, right? It seems almost metaphysically certain that will be the case sooner or later. Presumably media downloads like movies and e-books will come first, but, yea being able to drop virtual coins for a toaster would be nice.
2: If I write an app and get paid in virtual coins, am I going to have to pay taxes on the coins in dollars? What would that mean for online games if I do? That's a little odd to think about, considering that I can now spend in game currency for little gamey content things in say SWtoR without paying taxes; how is that going to be distinct from buying a little gamey thing from the app store? Is buying a new desktop theme for my Kindle with virtual coins earned selling some other gamey thing all that different from buying a new hat for my Sith with coins earned from slaughtering Jedi? Am I going to have to to pay taxes for credits earned expanding the Sith Empire?
3: The coins are currently pegged to the US dollar at 1 coin = 1 penny. (Well, ok "currently" Amazon plans on just giving away 10 million or so to Kindle Fire users to try out, but from what I understand the plan is to peg them.) Is there a plan in the future to de-peg them from the dollar?
The last question is what makes the first question important, and the second go from "sort of silly" to "extremely relevant." If I am able to keep my services and transactions denominated only in Amazon coins, how is that different from some in game currency? For example, it is not unheard of for players to offer services in say running instances to help lower powered players in exchange for in game currency. Is that different from lending programming or artistic skills to those with less of them in exchange for a virtual currency? There is an exchange rate of SWtoR credits to dollars currently that is every bit as relevant as any other exchange rate, just traded on different markets, so the exchange rate isn't the key to making a transaction "valid." In fact, if Amazon de-pegs the exchange rate, they would have a lot to offer by way of a stable currency. If they promise that the total number of Amazon Coins only will increase by 5% a year say, they most likely will become a much better store of value than the US dollar, even if only in a limited marketplace. If their use expands to ALL parts of Amazon's store, you could conceivably run most of your life's transactions only using the coins, and even just trade them in at market prices for dollars to pay for whatever else you need.
That is going to raise some interesting legal questions... and maybe some serious improvements in our current monetary regime.
1: I am going to be able to spend these in Amazon's store on anything, not just apps for the Kindle Fire, right? It seems almost metaphysically certain that will be the case sooner or later. Presumably media downloads like movies and e-books will come first, but, yea being able to drop virtual coins for a toaster would be nice.
2: If I write an app and get paid in virtual coins, am I going to have to pay taxes on the coins in dollars? What would that mean for online games if I do? That's a little odd to think about, considering that I can now spend in game currency for little gamey content things in say SWtoR without paying taxes; how is that going to be distinct from buying a little gamey thing from the app store? Is buying a new desktop theme for my Kindle with virtual coins earned selling some other gamey thing all that different from buying a new hat for my Sith with coins earned from slaughtering Jedi? Am I going to have to to pay taxes for credits earned expanding the Sith Empire?
3: The coins are currently pegged to the US dollar at 1 coin = 1 penny. (Well, ok "currently" Amazon plans on just giving away 10 million or so to Kindle Fire users to try out, but from what I understand the plan is to peg them.) Is there a plan in the future to de-peg them from the dollar?
The last question is what makes the first question important, and the second go from "sort of silly" to "extremely relevant." If I am able to keep my services and transactions denominated only in Amazon coins, how is that different from some in game currency? For example, it is not unheard of for players to offer services in say running instances to help lower powered players in exchange for in game currency. Is that different from lending programming or artistic skills to those with less of them in exchange for a virtual currency? There is an exchange rate of SWtoR credits to dollars currently that is every bit as relevant as any other exchange rate, just traded on different markets, so the exchange rate isn't the key to making a transaction "valid." In fact, if Amazon de-pegs the exchange rate, they would have a lot to offer by way of a stable currency. If they promise that the total number of Amazon Coins only will increase by 5% a year say, they most likely will become a much better store of value than the US dollar, even if only in a limited marketplace. If their use expands to ALL parts of Amazon's store, you could conceivably run most of your life's transactions only using the coins, and even just trade them in at market prices for dollars to pay for whatever else you need.
That is going to raise some interesting legal questions... and maybe some serious improvements in our current monetary regime.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
EconResonse: Pete Boettke on Living Econ
This past week's EconTalk was with Pete Boettke about his current book Living Economics. I had a busy week last week and just got to really listening the second time yesterday. I might get this week's talk done over the weekend; Woj assures it will whip me into a frenzy.
The discussion starts with some of Pete's memories working with the late, great James Buchanan. (Which I have an inordinate amount of difficulty spelling.) Some very nice stories and reminiscences. One key point, and one that I think is critical to the overall talk (and the ensuing controversy that apparently sprung up) was that Buchanan believed himself to be firmly in the traditions of Adam Smith, David Hume, J.B. Say and others in his work on Public Choice. This segued into a discussion of Smith and how the notion that self interest on the part of individuals leads to better or worse outcomes largely as a function of the institutions they work in. Over all it led to a discussion that I found interesting, and not particularly controversial, but then I generally like what Pete has to say.
Instead of describing what happened, let me instead put forth my understanding of what Boettke was getting at. I haven't followed the tempest that apparently followed in the blogosphere; my favorite tea pot has a little cow face for the spout and contains no abnormal atmospheric events what so ever, and I like it that way. From my second hand understanding, however, it seems that the key grumble was Boettke's quote (itself paraphrasing David Friedman) that
The discussion starts with some of Pete's memories working with the late, great James Buchanan. (Which I have an inordinate amount of difficulty spelling.) Some very nice stories and reminiscences. One key point, and one that I think is critical to the overall talk (and the ensuing controversy that apparently sprung up) was that Buchanan believed himself to be firmly in the traditions of Adam Smith, David Hume, J.B. Say and others in his work on Public Choice. This segued into a discussion of Smith and how the notion that self interest on the part of individuals leads to better or worse outcomes largely as a function of the institutions they work in. Over all it led to a discussion that I found interesting, and not particularly controversial, but then I generally like what Pete has to say.
Instead of describing what happened, let me instead put forth my understanding of what Boettke was getting at. I haven't followed the tempest that apparently followed in the blogosphere; my favorite tea pot has a little cow face for the spout and contains no abnormal atmospheric events what so ever, and I like it that way. From my second hand understanding, however, it seems that the key grumble was Boettke's quote (itself paraphrasing David Friedman) that
The difference between economists like us and other economists is that we are not 9-to-5 economists. We are 24-7 economists; we think about it all the time.
He and Russ then clarified that he didn't mean that they were doing research when they should be playing with their kids, but rather that thinking about institutions and rules leads them to be constantly thinking of economics and how people interact.
In fact, that is the difference he thinks is most important, and the focus of the talk: some economists, he calls them "mainline", think mainly in terms of rules and institutions, with the relevant propositions at their core, while others he calls the "mainstream" focus on "an institutionally antiseptic theory." This latter group disagree on the propositions, with the examples of Stiglitz and Lucas, and only agree on the methodology, which is to say "lots of math." The interesting point is that the math can absorb a lot of propositions, so much so that you can basically create any outcome you want with some tweaking, with just the small problem that certain propositions like 'everyone has different preferences' or 'people have different views on the future' make the math impossible to solve. (Enter multi-agent computer modeling, but so far the mainstream economics journals have not published much of it.) To paraphrase Bryan Caplan "If you assume the economy works just like the requirements of this construct, the construct gives you a great answer. If it doesn't, then you are back to nothing."
Effectively, mainline economics entails thinking of institutions and individual behavior, micro explanations and solutions to macro problems, and mainstream entails looking for macro answers to macro problems, without considering how and why those problems emerged from the behaviors of individuals. Boettke further summarized it as mainline considers the state a referee while the individuals play the game, while mainstream considers the state a player as well.
So, why don't I think this should be controversial? Because I see the economics that is taught at the big schools, the papers that make it into the big journals, the economists with big names, and you generally don't hear them saying "Well, in reality the economy is a hell of a mess and far too complicated for us to really understand deeply, much less control easily, and so it is best just to step back and let people do their thing, and so long as we keep them from directly hurting each other, everything will work out pretty well." Mainstream economists generally say just the opposite, something along the lines of "We can make all the outcomes better, if only you give us the power to make it so!" Which is probably why they are so popular; as much as people need to be reminded there are some problems that we can't try to fix without causing more damage, we love those who tell us otherwise, whether it actually works out or not. And getting back to the 24-7 vs 9-5 point, if you think of economics as the behavior of large aggregates, it is hard to imagine that you are applying those ideas to many different areas of your life.
Any road, definitely listen to this Econtalk. Boettke has a lot of good things to say, not only about how we think about economics, but how we teach it to others.
Social Norms and Apathy
Last Monday Woj over at Bubbles and Busts and I got into a bit of a debate after class. Then Tuesday we started again, after clarifying "What were you actually saying Monday?" After a few minutes we started talking past each other again, so obviously it is time to take this to the internets!
The trigger to this long and confusing discussion was the Federal ban on Intrade just after the last election. (Nov. 26 the CFTC sued Intrade for letting US citizens bet on things, see here.) My offhand comment was that, paranoid as it sounded, it was quite a coincidence that this happened right on the heels of Intrade's markets calling the US presidential election correctly, so maybe it was a result of politicians not liking anyone accurately gauging their chances of winning. Woj replied that everyone makes predictions from polls and the like, and those didn't get shut down. My theory (entirely unsubstantiated, mind you) is that most polls are wrong, either due to normal error or strong bias, and really offer very little value to someone making a decision on whether to back a candidate. If you are trying to make a point about a candidate's chances there is always one poll or another you can quote to make it. However, Intrade has the prestige of betting markets, which are known for being more accurate than straight polls over all. It is possible it is too strong a signal to be ignored, and doesn't allow enough wiggle room around it. (The literature on betting markets illustrates many cases where folks don't want accurate forecasts so they can do what they want with less constraint.) The other point in the theory was that at the least, if pols wanted to get rid of ALL predictions of success, they would have to censor news agencies which would whip a large number of people into a frenzy, but shutting up Intrade just required shutting citizens out of an online betting market, which people apparently believe the government has the right to do.
That's when things got hairy.
Woj and I argued back and forth on this, most of which is lost to me now because I didn't understand his disagreement, and I don't think he understood mine. At this point I will digress into spelling out clearly what I meant.
Social norms are strange things. Rules generated by humans in general don't need to be internally consistent, and often just don't make sense as a result. In this case, my position is that the social norm may be that gambling is not inherently wrong, but also that the government has the right to make it illegal (or regulate it, whatever.) At first glance this doesn't make sense, as if the general social rule is that something is ok, why would society also agree that the government can make it not ok? It is not because people are crazy. It is because whether or not you should do something is not attached to whether or not you can, or should be allowed, to do something.
Our classmate Derek provided a good example upon which I will elaborate: If your neighbor puts some really ugly pink flamingo lawn ornaments in his front lawn, you might grumble and hate that he did it, but you can recognize that he has the right to do it. You don't go over and kick them down or call the HOA/police on him, or whatever else you might do if he didn't have the right to put them out, such as you might if he put them up in your yard.
Likewise, as a society you don't have to agree with a given bit of legislation to accept that the government had the right to pass it. You can accept that the government has the right to set speed limits on its roads without agreeing with the level.
Now, in speaking with Woj, I stated that the government's banning of Intrade and the resulting deafening silence could be taken as evidence that the social norm is in fact that the government has the right to regulate and ban organized gambling. This might have been a bridge too far. Woj made a good point that just because you don't see people voting officials out of office or marching on the capital wielding pitch forks doesn't mean that the social feeling was that the government has the right to ban gambling. After all, most people are ok with the idea of poker night for the guys, online poker (which is banned now), and even public figures like Brian Caplan openly betting other economists about certain predictions. Oh, and what is the stock market other than a bunch of people gambling? That's all true, but... things are about to get long. Longer.
1: There is absolutely nothing inconsistent with people breaking the law in small, individual instances and yet thinking the legislature had a right to pass the law. Again speeding/traffic violations. Based on my driving experience, most people exceed the posted speed limits on highways, as well as most other places, and at least in NoVA turn signals are treated as totally optional. However, I feel very confident that most people would think me crazy for asserting that therefore there should be NO speed limits enforced. Historically, most people have when I suggest that.
2: It is possible people consider organized gambling businesses something that need to be regulated, but not small scale individual gamblers. In fact, this seems to be the norm. We also like to regulate super market produce, but don't worry too much about our neighbor who sells stuff out of her garden. This gets back to the previous post about how most people don't think the rules apply to them, or even exist. Humans are strange like that, possessing a certain schizophrenia when it comes to things between people they know and strangers. Your neighbor who is not a professional farmer and just grows tomatoes for a few extra bucks, she's fine, but that guy who makes his living based on whether or not his thousands of tomatoes are good and safe to eat, we had better hire someone to keep an eye on him!
3: Then there is how the great mass of indifferent people affect things. Indifference is actually fairly important here, so I will take a moment to discuss it.
There are five possible states a person can have regarding another's right to do something: strong agreement, weak agreement, total indifference, weak disagreement and strong disagreement. The strong/weak modifier simply denotes whether you are willing to take action to affect that right one way or the other. So for instance, I am strongly against the notion that my neighbor has the right to take my tv over to his house without asking; should he try, he will find locks installed, and probably some lead coming his way should those not do the trick. On the other hand, I am weakly in agreement with his right to play loud music in his car; I wouldn't call the cops on him, yet if someone else did I wouldn't go out and defend his right to deafen himself, I would probably just shake my head and think about what a silly situation it is.
The interesting thing is that weak preferences behave differently from strong. In establishing social norms related to "Does someone have the right to do something" weak and indifferent positions are functionally the same as strong agreement. Functionally is the key word there. If I put up a pink flamingo in my front yard, and the whole neighborhood does nothing but grumble a bit, it is functionally identical to everyone agreeing that I have the right to do so but not liking that I did. Society behaves exactly as if they agree that I have the right to do it. This is important, because if I am not certain if it is ok to do, all I can go on is society's reaction when I do, and if they all act as if it is fine, even if it isn't, the consensus for the next guy considering gaudy lawn ornaments is "Huh, apparently that's fine."
In establishing social norms, inaction in individually enforcing the rule is the same as agreeing that it need not be the rule. Enforcing need not be driving someone out of town on a rail; something as simple as shunning or just commenting on how ugly that plastic bird is are the usual tools. The key is that a large percentage of people need to individually do it for it to matter. A few pushy people attempting to enforce a norm alone are just annoying if they are a small percentage of the group.
Government, however, is power wielded by the few pushy people. The social norm that government has the right to pass legislation on a matter only requires weak/indifferent preferences. However, when deciding policy politicians treat the indifferent as if they don't exist. The only ones that matter are those who will act upon and express their preferences in a way that will affect the politicians. This is why relatively small interest groups have such seemingly disproportionate power in government. The NRA wields tremendous power not because they have a lot of members, but because they can get a large number of people to stop simply grumbling and actually go out and vote for or against a candidate. Politics is largely controlled by the people who really care about given issues, and the rest who only provide opinions don't matter. The only thing that matters is whether or not enough people care about an issue one way or another for politicians to get away with it.
Woj at the time pointed out that voting hardly matters, only a tiny fractional amount, in deciding most elections. This is true, but meaningful action in this case is not limited to voting. Often writing letters to congressmen actually helps a bit, or writing a blog that people actually read (not mine), starting organizations to focus people into action, and all sorts of other behaviors that affect how politicians act. Of course, sometimes democracy fails and you have to start rioting and killing politicians like has been popular in the Mid East lately (where democracy will probably fail again.) That's the problem with government: it takes pretty big behaviors on the part of the citizens to limit what politicians can get away with once things get rolling in that direction. Indifference in this dimension gives the government the effective right to do things, and then only those who really care matter, and in any given field those are the tiny minority.
So, it stands to reason that the government would ban Intrade participation because they can without expecting any real push back, even while ignoring news program pols, because if they did ban news program pols those organizations would beat said politicians about the head and neck with the 1st Amendment. (Of course McCain-Feingold limited what people could say about politicians while those politicians were running for office, and that was ok, so who the hell knows.)
Does government acting in a certain way without obvious backlash then act as evidence of a populace with the social norm that government has the right to act that way? I would say yes, if only functionally. If not functionally, one has to then wonder what the effect of social norms is on government if any given norm may or may not actually apply.
The trigger to this long and confusing discussion was the Federal ban on Intrade just after the last election. (Nov. 26 the CFTC sued Intrade for letting US citizens bet on things, see here.) My offhand comment was that, paranoid as it sounded, it was quite a coincidence that this happened right on the heels of Intrade's markets calling the US presidential election correctly, so maybe it was a result of politicians not liking anyone accurately gauging their chances of winning. Woj replied that everyone makes predictions from polls and the like, and those didn't get shut down. My theory (entirely unsubstantiated, mind you) is that most polls are wrong, either due to normal error or strong bias, and really offer very little value to someone making a decision on whether to back a candidate. If you are trying to make a point about a candidate's chances there is always one poll or another you can quote to make it. However, Intrade has the prestige of betting markets, which are known for being more accurate than straight polls over all. It is possible it is too strong a signal to be ignored, and doesn't allow enough wiggle room around it. (The literature on betting markets illustrates many cases where folks don't want accurate forecasts so they can do what they want with less constraint.) The other point in the theory was that at the least, if pols wanted to get rid of ALL predictions of success, they would have to censor news agencies which would whip a large number of people into a frenzy, but shutting up Intrade just required shutting citizens out of an online betting market, which people apparently believe the government has the right to do.
That's when things got hairy.
Woj and I argued back and forth on this, most of which is lost to me now because I didn't understand his disagreement, and I don't think he understood mine. At this point I will digress into spelling out clearly what I meant.
Social norms are strange things. Rules generated by humans in general don't need to be internally consistent, and often just don't make sense as a result. In this case, my position is that the social norm may be that gambling is not inherently wrong, but also that the government has the right to make it illegal (or regulate it, whatever.) At first glance this doesn't make sense, as if the general social rule is that something is ok, why would society also agree that the government can make it not ok? It is not because people are crazy. It is because whether or not you should do something is not attached to whether or not you can, or should be allowed, to do something.
Our classmate Derek provided a good example upon which I will elaborate: If your neighbor puts some really ugly pink flamingo lawn ornaments in his front lawn, you might grumble and hate that he did it, but you can recognize that he has the right to do it. You don't go over and kick them down or call the HOA/police on him, or whatever else you might do if he didn't have the right to put them out, such as you might if he put them up in your yard.
Likewise, as a society you don't have to agree with a given bit of legislation to accept that the government had the right to pass it. You can accept that the government has the right to set speed limits on its roads without agreeing with the level.
Now, in speaking with Woj, I stated that the government's banning of Intrade and the resulting deafening silence could be taken as evidence that the social norm is in fact that the government has the right to regulate and ban organized gambling. This might have been a bridge too far. Woj made a good point that just because you don't see people voting officials out of office or marching on the capital wielding pitch forks doesn't mean that the social feeling was that the government has the right to ban gambling. After all, most people are ok with the idea of poker night for the guys, online poker (which is banned now), and even public figures like Brian Caplan openly betting other economists about certain predictions. Oh, and what is the stock market other than a bunch of people gambling? That's all true, but... things are about to get long. Longer.
1: There is absolutely nothing inconsistent with people breaking the law in small, individual instances and yet thinking the legislature had a right to pass the law. Again speeding/traffic violations. Based on my driving experience, most people exceed the posted speed limits on highways, as well as most other places, and at least in NoVA turn signals are treated as totally optional. However, I feel very confident that most people would think me crazy for asserting that therefore there should be NO speed limits enforced. Historically, most people have when I suggest that.
2: It is possible people consider organized gambling businesses something that need to be regulated, but not small scale individual gamblers. In fact, this seems to be the norm. We also like to regulate super market produce, but don't worry too much about our neighbor who sells stuff out of her garden. This gets back to the previous post about how most people don't think the rules apply to them, or even exist. Humans are strange like that, possessing a certain schizophrenia when it comes to things between people they know and strangers. Your neighbor who is not a professional farmer and just grows tomatoes for a few extra bucks, she's fine, but that guy who makes his living based on whether or not his thousands of tomatoes are good and safe to eat, we had better hire someone to keep an eye on him!
3: Then there is how the great mass of indifferent people affect things. Indifference is actually fairly important here, so I will take a moment to discuss it.
There are five possible states a person can have regarding another's right to do something: strong agreement, weak agreement, total indifference, weak disagreement and strong disagreement. The strong/weak modifier simply denotes whether you are willing to take action to affect that right one way or the other. So for instance, I am strongly against the notion that my neighbor has the right to take my tv over to his house without asking; should he try, he will find locks installed, and probably some lead coming his way should those not do the trick. On the other hand, I am weakly in agreement with his right to play loud music in his car; I wouldn't call the cops on him, yet if someone else did I wouldn't go out and defend his right to deafen himself, I would probably just shake my head and think about what a silly situation it is.
The interesting thing is that weak preferences behave differently from strong. In establishing social norms related to "Does someone have the right to do something" weak and indifferent positions are functionally the same as strong agreement. Functionally is the key word there. If I put up a pink flamingo in my front yard, and the whole neighborhood does nothing but grumble a bit, it is functionally identical to everyone agreeing that I have the right to do so but not liking that I did. Society behaves exactly as if they agree that I have the right to do it. This is important, because if I am not certain if it is ok to do, all I can go on is society's reaction when I do, and if they all act as if it is fine, even if it isn't, the consensus for the next guy considering gaudy lawn ornaments is "Huh, apparently that's fine."
In establishing social norms, inaction in individually enforcing the rule is the same as agreeing that it need not be the rule. Enforcing need not be driving someone out of town on a rail; something as simple as shunning or just commenting on how ugly that plastic bird is are the usual tools. The key is that a large percentage of people need to individually do it for it to matter. A few pushy people attempting to enforce a norm alone are just annoying if they are a small percentage of the group.
Government, however, is power wielded by the few pushy people. The social norm that government has the right to pass legislation on a matter only requires weak/indifferent preferences. However, when deciding policy politicians treat the indifferent as if they don't exist. The only ones that matter are those who will act upon and express their preferences in a way that will affect the politicians. This is why relatively small interest groups have such seemingly disproportionate power in government. The NRA wields tremendous power not because they have a lot of members, but because they can get a large number of people to stop simply grumbling and actually go out and vote for or against a candidate. Politics is largely controlled by the people who really care about given issues, and the rest who only provide opinions don't matter. The only thing that matters is whether or not enough people care about an issue one way or another for politicians to get away with it.
Woj at the time pointed out that voting hardly matters, only a tiny fractional amount, in deciding most elections. This is true, but meaningful action in this case is not limited to voting. Often writing letters to congressmen actually helps a bit, or writing a blog that people actually read (not mine), starting organizations to focus people into action, and all sorts of other behaviors that affect how politicians act. Of course, sometimes democracy fails and you have to start rioting and killing politicians like has been popular in the Mid East lately (where democracy will probably fail again.) That's the problem with government: it takes pretty big behaviors on the part of the citizens to limit what politicians can get away with once things get rolling in that direction. Indifference in this dimension gives the government the effective right to do things, and then only those who really care matter, and in any given field those are the tiny minority.
So, it stands to reason that the government would ban Intrade participation because they can without expecting any real push back, even while ignoring news program pols, because if they did ban news program pols those organizations would beat said politicians about the head and neck with the 1st Amendment. (Of course McCain-Feingold limited what people could say about politicians while those politicians were running for office, and that was ok, so who the hell knows.)
Does government acting in a certain way without obvious backlash then act as evidence of a populace with the social norm that government has the right to act that way? I would say yes, if only functionally. If not functionally, one has to then wonder what the effect of social norms is on government if any given norm may or may not actually apply.
Monday, January 21, 2013
EconResonse: Kevin Kelly on... THE FUTURE!
This week's EconTalk is Kelly on the Future, Productivity, and the Quality of Life. This is really a great episode, and I highly recommend giving it a listen, though I am a bit biased because I really like Kevin Kelly. Awkwardly for me, this is essentially the same topic as he wrote on in the previous essay I talked about here. Awkward because I already talked about this a bit, and also because I agree with pretty much everything, so it isn't a target rich environment for me.
The first segment is mostly about that essay, which is a critique of Robert Gordon's paper Is US Economic Growth Over? in which Gordon makes the case that stagnation is pretty much the norm for all human economies over our history, and seeing as how the growth from the third industrial revolution (computers) was pretty minimal, we might well be reverting back to the norm of stagnation after our ~300 yea boom. Kelly makes some excellent points about this, the first being that Gordon himself states that changes in previous industrial revolutions took nearly 100 years to really play themselves out, yet we are only 20-50 years into the whole computer thing, depending on how we look at it. (Gordon starts his clock basically when the first mainframes were used in the 60's-70's, Kelly argues the beginning is really in the mid 90's with networking.)
The second point, and really an over arching theme for the entire podcast is that productivity as we usually measure it, as either GDP or how much stuff we can produce with set inputs, is really only the basis for our growth and well being, and not the end. I really think this is a key insight, not just to understanding what the hell is going on with our economy lately, not just looking at what the future holds, but even understanding just why we bother making things in the first place.
Skipping ahead a bit, because I think this is the most important point in the entire podcast (and maybe the world?) Kevin and Russ talk a bit about how many of the things we make are made because they are "cool" and not because they are practical in some sense. Whether or not "cool" is the right word is sort of besides the point, but one can substitute wonderful, pleasing, awesome, delightful or beautiful and get to the same point. In fact, do that, for each word, and think about things you own or have created that fit the bill. I suspect that nearly everything hits one of those six words, but relatively few fall only into the category of merely productive or efficient. (I would note that those of us who produce things often find things that are more productive or efficient to also be wonderful and pleasing, with a tiny increase in the former generating a huge increase in the latter.)
The larger point here is that while making from less is nice, we do it largely so that we can do all the other things we like more. Things like discovery, experimentation, play, and just plain goofing off. One of the key factors of early, stagnant economies was that there was only just enough production to cover material needs plus a tiny bit extra, and so we had a hard time devoting resources to science and invention, as well as straight up pleasurable things like theater. Russ points out that in all of Elizabethan England there might have been only about 100 people engaged in the production of plays, but now there are far more than that who have employment making a single movie. We spend a great deal of time making things that are just to make us happy, more than at any other time in our history, and that is both awesome, and really difficult to fully measure in terms of productivity. But really, what is the point of doing anything if not to increase over all human happiness and well being?
Related to this point, that sometimes you need to trade production of stuff for researching new ways of making things, there is an interesting discussion of how rather pointless computers were for a long time. Computers just didn't produce much value for companies for quite a while, but it wasn't because they were inherently useless, but because they were new, and everything is difficult the first time. Much like learning to play the piano because you like piano music, for a long time you are going to be objectively worse at producing music compared to a CD player, but after a lot of investment you can reap far better results than if you just relied on CDs, not just in joy from hearing music, but also in new joy in learning new things and creating things yourself. This is important, because optimizing current resources often leads to sub-optimal long term results, as you limit your ability to advance and find yourself stuck on local peaks while greater peaks are just out of reach. I will repeat that, because it bears repeating (and perhaps rephrasing):
Optimizing current resources for production is going to lead to sub-optimal results due to a lack of growth.
Take, for example the case of a college student deciding how to spend his meal budget. He can spend all of his money on campus buying meals, and eat pretty well every day. Alternately, he can attempt to cook at home every day for the same amount of money, or do a mix of both on campus and home cooking. The trouble with home cooking is that his skill at cooking is only about enough to make cold cereal and ramen, and so he won't be able to eat at well at home. Anything more complicated will likely fail, and so waste money.
Now, off the bat, it looks like our poor student should just eat on campus all the time. This gets him the most food for the same money, and probably saves him some time. However, if he has the capacity to improve his skills in the kitchen, such as by borrowing a cook book and trying things out, he might well eat less well in the short run, but over time he may develop skills that allow him to eat much better food than he could get on campus.
Things get more complicated of course when you consider that time spent learning to cook might be better spent studying for class, and that he might only learn that he is a terrible cook no matter what, and so have no more skills than before but less food. On the other hand, he might discover that he loves to cook and finds a new calling in life, or maybe use his cooking skills to impress a mate. If he only eats at the cafeteria, figuring after he gets a job he can either hire someone to cook for him or get married and have his wife do it, only to find he can't get a job or a wife that cooks. Whatever. The key is that due to the uncertainty in the system he can not globally optimize at all at the beginning. Without knowing all the possible outcomes and their probabilities he is limited to guessing what the right mix of stuff now and investment for later is. And while it is impossible to know exactly what the correct mix of those two is, we can be pretty sure it is not all of one and none of the other.
What... EconTalk? Oh, right. Bringing it back to the EconTalk episode, Kevin Kelly might put it as "Seeking productivity and production at all costs is bound to fail. We want people to try out new things, experimenting and playing, regardless of whether it looks like waste or not, because that's the only way we can discover new things that will push our ability to produce farther." He would probably say it better, though.
A related point that Kelly makes is that measuring new things is really hard. We see this in the CPI when it comes to cell phones (which were not even in there for the first 15 years or so of their existence), or in how to measure the GDP gain of free things. We produce a lot of value in YouTube cat videos, but we have no idea how to measure that as part of GDP because people don't pay for them other than with time. Really what we need is a measure in how productive we are at pleasing ourselves which requires what, brain chips? I don't know, maybe we could measure that with FMRI machines for everyone?
Another point in the talk, and I am completely abandoning the framework of the podcast to talk about what I want to here, is that machines are good for optimizing and productivity, while humans are good at goofing off and creating new things. This is a major point in the essay, and really branches from the over all theme of productivity as economists think of it being only the foundation for what we do, not the end all be all. This gets to the future, in terms of "what will we do when machines do everything we do better than people?" The answer seems to be "find new things that we are best at, then make machines to do those, and then repeat." For every thing we stop doing because a machine is better, we end up finding a dozen other things to work on to make ourselves happier. There is a good bit of discussion on this, and it is a really important point.
All in all, a great EconTalk, and highly recommended!
The first segment is mostly about that essay, which is a critique of Robert Gordon's paper Is US Economic Growth Over? in which Gordon makes the case that stagnation is pretty much the norm for all human economies over our history, and seeing as how the growth from the third industrial revolution (computers) was pretty minimal, we might well be reverting back to the norm of stagnation after our ~300 yea boom. Kelly makes some excellent points about this, the first being that Gordon himself states that changes in previous industrial revolutions took nearly 100 years to really play themselves out, yet we are only 20-50 years into the whole computer thing, depending on how we look at it. (Gordon starts his clock basically when the first mainframes were used in the 60's-70's, Kelly argues the beginning is really in the mid 90's with networking.)
The second point, and really an over arching theme for the entire podcast is that productivity as we usually measure it, as either GDP or how much stuff we can produce with set inputs, is really only the basis for our growth and well being, and not the end. I really think this is a key insight, not just to understanding what the hell is going on with our economy lately, not just looking at what the future holds, but even understanding just why we bother making things in the first place.
Skipping ahead a bit, because I think this is the most important point in the entire podcast (and maybe the world?) Kevin and Russ talk a bit about how many of the things we make are made because they are "cool" and not because they are practical in some sense. Whether or not "cool" is the right word is sort of besides the point, but one can substitute wonderful, pleasing, awesome, delightful or beautiful and get to the same point. In fact, do that, for each word, and think about things you own or have created that fit the bill. I suspect that nearly everything hits one of those six words, but relatively few fall only into the category of merely productive or efficient. (I would note that those of us who produce things often find things that are more productive or efficient to also be wonderful and pleasing, with a tiny increase in the former generating a huge increase in the latter.)
The larger point here is that while making from less is nice, we do it largely so that we can do all the other things we like more. Things like discovery, experimentation, play, and just plain goofing off. One of the key factors of early, stagnant economies was that there was only just enough production to cover material needs plus a tiny bit extra, and so we had a hard time devoting resources to science and invention, as well as straight up pleasurable things like theater. Russ points out that in all of Elizabethan England there might have been only about 100 people engaged in the production of plays, but now there are far more than that who have employment making a single movie. We spend a great deal of time making things that are just to make us happy, more than at any other time in our history, and that is both awesome, and really difficult to fully measure in terms of productivity. But really, what is the point of doing anything if not to increase over all human happiness and well being?
Related to this point, that sometimes you need to trade production of stuff for researching new ways of making things, there is an interesting discussion of how rather pointless computers were for a long time. Computers just didn't produce much value for companies for quite a while, but it wasn't because they were inherently useless, but because they were new, and everything is difficult the first time. Much like learning to play the piano because you like piano music, for a long time you are going to be objectively worse at producing music compared to a CD player, but after a lot of investment you can reap far better results than if you just relied on CDs, not just in joy from hearing music, but also in new joy in learning new things and creating things yourself. This is important, because optimizing current resources often leads to sub-optimal long term results, as you limit your ability to advance and find yourself stuck on local peaks while greater peaks are just out of reach. I will repeat that, because it bears repeating (and perhaps rephrasing):
Optimizing current resources for production is going to lead to sub-optimal results due to a lack of growth.
Take, for example the case of a college student deciding how to spend his meal budget. He can spend all of his money on campus buying meals, and eat pretty well every day. Alternately, he can attempt to cook at home every day for the same amount of money, or do a mix of both on campus and home cooking. The trouble with home cooking is that his skill at cooking is only about enough to make cold cereal and ramen, and so he won't be able to eat at well at home. Anything more complicated will likely fail, and so waste money.
Now, off the bat, it looks like our poor student should just eat on campus all the time. This gets him the most food for the same money, and probably saves him some time. However, if he has the capacity to improve his skills in the kitchen, such as by borrowing a cook book and trying things out, he might well eat less well in the short run, but over time he may develop skills that allow him to eat much better food than he could get on campus.
Things get more complicated of course when you consider that time spent learning to cook might be better spent studying for class, and that he might only learn that he is a terrible cook no matter what, and so have no more skills than before but less food. On the other hand, he might discover that he loves to cook and finds a new calling in life, or maybe use his cooking skills to impress a mate. If he only eats at the cafeteria, figuring after he gets a job he can either hire someone to cook for him or get married and have his wife do it, only to find he can't get a job or a wife that cooks. Whatever. The key is that due to the uncertainty in the system he can not globally optimize at all at the beginning. Without knowing all the possible outcomes and their probabilities he is limited to guessing what the right mix of stuff now and investment for later is. And while it is impossible to know exactly what the correct mix of those two is, we can be pretty sure it is not all of one and none of the other.
What... EconTalk? Oh, right. Bringing it back to the EconTalk episode, Kevin Kelly might put it as "Seeking productivity and production at all costs is bound to fail. We want people to try out new things, experimenting and playing, regardless of whether it looks like waste or not, because that's the only way we can discover new things that will push our ability to produce farther." He would probably say it better, though.
A related point that Kelly makes is that measuring new things is really hard. We see this in the CPI when it comes to cell phones (which were not even in there for the first 15 years or so of their existence), or in how to measure the GDP gain of free things. We produce a lot of value in YouTube cat videos, but we have no idea how to measure that as part of GDP because people don't pay for them other than with time. Really what we need is a measure in how productive we are at pleasing ourselves which requires what, brain chips? I don't know, maybe we could measure that with FMRI machines for everyone?
Another point in the talk, and I am completely abandoning the framework of the podcast to talk about what I want to here, is that machines are good for optimizing and productivity, while humans are good at goofing off and creating new things. This is a major point in the essay, and really branches from the over all theme of productivity as economists think of it being only the foundation for what we do, not the end all be all. This gets to the future, in terms of "what will we do when machines do everything we do better than people?" The answer seems to be "find new things that we are best at, then make machines to do those, and then repeat." For every thing we stop doing because a machine is better, we end up finding a dozen other things to work on to make ourselves happier. There is a good bit of discussion on this, and it is a really important point.
All in all, a great EconTalk, and highly recommended!
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Gun Control Redux
There were a few other points I wanted to make in response to Nick's article, but I kind of felt they were secondary and didn't want to shoe horn them into an already overly long post.
Assuming for a moment that guns in the hands of citizens are neither deterrent nor defense against tyranny, what exactly is? Legislation seems to do very little, and often is the very source of tyrant's power. Constitutions are a start, but as we have seen can be eroded pretty well over the years. So what keeps a given president, say possessed by the ghost of F.D.R. from just declaring himself dictator for life? Were it not for disease, the original might well have, after all.
If you say culture and institutions, ask who or what creates and enforces those. The answer of course are the citizens themselves. But once deprived of the power to vote for a different government, what enforcement mechanism is left? What defense does the minority have against a majority in an unlimited government?
If you want to say "None; all free societies are only so at the whim of their governments," well, I might be willing to accept that on some level, but I think it still requires demonstrating then why some nations remain free while others do not, why tyranny takes hold in some and not others. Why isn't every national revolution a replay of the "one man, one vote, one time" cliche we see so frequently in the third world?
I think the answer there is that all governments require at least the tacit support of their people and their military. If no one is willing or able to resist in a meaningful way, things can just keep going on. However, if some can actually directly oppose a government, show that it is unable to enforce its will, that not only affects the power of the direct area the uprising occurs in, but also demonstrates the weakness of the government, encouraging others to stand up.
Now, meaningful resistance is a little vague, and for good reason. In India during British occupation, Ghandi's "passive resistance" was meaningful and effective, encouraging others to push out the unpopular rulers instead of simply grumbling under their breath. Now, one might argue that what worked against the rather human rights oriented British would have failed against say the Russians of the time; Ghandi probably would have wound up with a bullet in him shortly after he became a problem. But the key here is that stopping Ghandi's actions would have required killing him, a line the British were apparently unwilling to cross. Doing so would likely have seriously undermined the British citizens' support of their government, to say the least.
Considering now the case of a US tyrant, one might be able to keep order so long as one could do it with police, both local and federal. If, however, an armed uprising was too much for the normal law enforcement groups and the tyrant had to resort to calling in the National Guard or regular army, that would be a huge step, one which would put serious strain on both the order in the military (which traditionally never operates against US citizens at home) as well as eroding any support the tyrant might have among the citizenry, likely sparking further uprisings. Consider how much the 90's Waco massacre shook a lot of law and order types' (myself at the time included) faith in the government's dedication to law and order.
This is not to say that it wouldn't happen; it is quite possible that fellow Americans could distance themselves enough from those resisting to see them fully as 'the other' and not care what happens to them. However, consider how unhappy Americans were with civilian casualties in any of the wars the US has involved itself in in the past 40 years. And even if you think that say New Yorkers would be fine with the idea of nuking Dallas if Texas secedes, you have to admit that having weapons at your disposal makes any form of resistance more powerful. You can always choose to not use them and go the full passive resistance route, but it is good to have the option.
Assuming for a moment that guns in the hands of citizens are neither deterrent nor defense against tyranny, what exactly is? Legislation seems to do very little, and often is the very source of tyrant's power. Constitutions are a start, but as we have seen can be eroded pretty well over the years. So what keeps a given president, say possessed by the ghost of F.D.R. from just declaring himself dictator for life? Were it not for disease, the original might well have, after all.
If you say culture and institutions, ask who or what creates and enforces those. The answer of course are the citizens themselves. But once deprived of the power to vote for a different government, what enforcement mechanism is left? What defense does the minority have against a majority in an unlimited government?
If you want to say "None; all free societies are only so at the whim of their governments," well, I might be willing to accept that on some level, but I think it still requires demonstrating then why some nations remain free while others do not, why tyranny takes hold in some and not others. Why isn't every national revolution a replay of the "one man, one vote, one time" cliche we see so frequently in the third world?
I think the answer there is that all governments require at least the tacit support of their people and their military. If no one is willing or able to resist in a meaningful way, things can just keep going on. However, if some can actually directly oppose a government, show that it is unable to enforce its will, that not only affects the power of the direct area the uprising occurs in, but also demonstrates the weakness of the government, encouraging others to stand up.
Now, meaningful resistance is a little vague, and for good reason. In India during British occupation, Ghandi's "passive resistance" was meaningful and effective, encouraging others to push out the unpopular rulers instead of simply grumbling under their breath. Now, one might argue that what worked against the rather human rights oriented British would have failed against say the Russians of the time; Ghandi probably would have wound up with a bullet in him shortly after he became a problem. But the key here is that stopping Ghandi's actions would have required killing him, a line the British were apparently unwilling to cross. Doing so would likely have seriously undermined the British citizens' support of their government, to say the least.
Considering now the case of a US tyrant, one might be able to keep order so long as one could do it with police, both local and federal. If, however, an armed uprising was too much for the normal law enforcement groups and the tyrant had to resort to calling in the National Guard or regular army, that would be a huge step, one which would put serious strain on both the order in the military (which traditionally never operates against US citizens at home) as well as eroding any support the tyrant might have among the citizenry, likely sparking further uprisings. Consider how much the 90's Waco massacre shook a lot of law and order types' (myself at the time included) faith in the government's dedication to law and order.
This is not to say that it wouldn't happen; it is quite possible that fellow Americans could distance themselves enough from those resisting to see them fully as 'the other' and not care what happens to them. However, consider how unhappy Americans were with civilian casualties in any of the wars the US has involved itself in in the past 40 years. And even if you think that say New Yorkers would be fine with the idea of nuking Dallas if Texas secedes, you have to admit that having weapons at your disposal makes any form of resistance more powerful. You can always choose to not use them and go the full passive resistance route, but it is good to have the option.
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