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"The stream of Time, irresistible, ever moving, carries off and bears away all things that come to birth and plunges them into utter darkness, both deeds of no account and deeds which are mighty and worthy of commemoration. . .Nevertheless, the science of History is a great bulwark against the stream of Time; in a way it checks this irresistible flood, it holds in a tight grasp whatever it can seize floating on the surface and will not allow it to slip away into the depths of Oblivion. "
- Anna Comnena (1083-1153), The Alexiad
"I have taken all knowledge to be my province."
- Francis Bacon, 1592
Thursday, September 30, 2004
Corporate Responsibility
So we're often told how irresponsible and uncaring corporations, especially drug corporations, are.
Well, today, the drug company Merck revealed that, as a result of their own testing, they would be withdrawing one of their drugs from the market.
The result? A plunge in share prices, a drop in the Dow as a whole, and it's likely that Merck will be hit with scores of lawsuits. That's life, and I'm not suggesting they should have done anything differently. But it might be time to start talking about "Lawyer responsibility". The fact that a company that took action when they learned they had a problem is likely to be hit up for large sums of money anyhow speaks ill of the state of torts in America.
If you haven't already read this piece on outsourcing by Daniel Drezner in yesterday's NTY, you should. I made many of these points myself last Spring, but they bear repeating in the face of campaign rhetoric on the subject. For me at least, this part of Drezner's article is key:
The data did show that from 1997 to 2002, annual imports of business, technical and professional services increased by $16.3 billion. However, during that same half-decade, exports of those services increased by $20.5 billion a year. In 2002 alone, the United States ran a $27 billion trade surplus in business services, the sector in which jobs are most likely to be outsourced.
People talk of how America loses out from outsourcing as if economic activity occurs in isolation, and if one thing happens (jobs being outsourced) its opposite is not also, simultaneously, occurring. In this case, the opposite is insourcing of jobs - foreign companies hiring people here in America.
That benefits American workers, and America benefits more from "insourcing" than it loses in "outsourcing". We cannot lament the one and try to stop it while expecting to benefit from the other. If America pursues policies that are aimed at preventing "outsourcing" of jobs from here to other countries, we should expect other countries to respond in kind and attempt to prevent their companies from sending jobs to America. There are two arguments with this, of course. The first is that many countries do pursue policies aimed at keeping jobs "at home", in their country, so why shouldn't we? The second is an argument against foreign investment in America, "buying up America".
It is true that many European countries in particular pursue "job protection policies", aimed at insuring jobs aren't lost in France or Germany, for example. But the irony is that those policies backfire by creating perverse incentives. Because their labor markets are rendered less flexible by such policies, European companies are reluctant to hire people in their home countries. Indeed, much of the "insourcing" of jobs that America benefits from is European companies preferring to hire people here in America instead. It should not surprise anyone that job growth, productivity, prosperity, and economic growth are consistently higher in America, while unemployment is the only major economic indicator that is significantly higher in countries like France, Germany, and Holland - countries that have followed the policy prescriptions that people who want to prevent outsourcing here want us to emulate.
As for foreign investment, there is a case to be made for the idea that profits remitted to foreign companies mean "they" have leverage over our economic future. What if they stop investing here? They can, for example, "pull the plug" in many ways - for example, selling rather than buying U.S. Treasury Bills. That might be a problem down the road - but it's only likely to happen if we make America less attractive to foreign investment. For example, by changing our policies to make them similar to that of other nations, thus eliminating the comparative advantage(s) that have made America more attractive to these foreign investors than their home countries are. But till we do that, we have and will continue to benefit from such investment, which even those who are concerned about it implicitly accept, given that their worry tends to boil down to what the consequences will be if it reverses.
Foreign investment in the United States - "insourcing" of jobs - is a great boon to our economy, but one that we can only expect to continue if we also allow it's reverse, the "outsourcing" of jobs. What this amounts to is the flexibility of the American economy. Preserving that is more important than "preserving" a few jobs in the short term by eliminating (or at least reducing) this flexibility and the dynamism that comes with it.
As for the politics of it, neither Bush-Cheney nor Kerry-Edwards are pure on this score. Bush initiated Steel Tariffs, for example, aimed at "protecting" American jobs - but which ended up costing more jobs than it saved, because of the affect on industries that use steel. Then there is the Farm Bill. But Kerry & Edwards have advocated more sweeping changes in our economic and trade policies, which would make such retrograde measures the rule. It's almost enough to make one long for the days when Clinton was standing up for NAFTA and Gore was making the public case for free trade - till one remembers that the latter, at least, is singing the same siren song as Edwards & Kerry these days.
(See here for an index of sorts of my previous posts on this subject).
So I haven't been online much over the last several months, but I gather that Andrew Sullivan is disillusioned with Bush, and understand the reason ("Freedom Matters"). Indeed, on that, I share his position.
But perhaps because it doesn't hit as close to home for me, it hasn't angered me as much. Also I think I see how Bush was goaded into advocating a Constitutional Amendment on this, which he hadn't done before people on the other side of the issue - on Andrew's and mine - pressed it. Now, I think the case for marriage equality had to be pressed at some point, and sooner rather than later is better.
But a rational person knows that those who oppose something will, well, oppose it. Those on the other side of any issue won't just fold, they'll try to insure their policy preferences win out, not ones they disagree with. Believing otherwise is an adolescent approach to civil discourse and policy debates. That said, has Bush really "failed to reach out to gay people"? I'm not sure that's accurate at all - whenever Bush has mentioned the FMA in a speech, he has also firmly said that Gays should not be discriminated against. Where there is disagreement is that those of us on the other side of the issue from Bush see denying marriage rights to Gays as discriminating against them. But Bush has not "Gay baited" or "Gay bashed". Andrew's rhetoric has been far more intemperate than anything I've witnessed from Bush on this subject (and any other, for that matter).
Sure, Andrew has expressed his disagreement with Bush Administration policies on other issues over the years as well. I've concurred with many of the same myself - while also noting that Bush did not run as a small-government conservative (neither did McCain, for that matter). His major spending initiatives, from the Education Bill to the Medicare Drug Bill, were all things he said he would do when he ran in 2000. They weren't sprung on unwitting small-government conservatives as a surprise, the way his father's tax increase was. So when Andrew writes that he "used to be surprised" ("Bush's Conservatism"), um, why should he be? Was he paying attention?
It's not the brand of conservatism either Andrew or I favor. But Bush didn't exactly hide his light under a bushel on this score. Neither did "Red State America". Anyone who has read Walter Russell Mead's book Special Providence should be aware that "Jacksonian America", Bush's base, favor Federal programs that transfer wealth to themselves. It's not an aspect of "Jacksonians" that I favor, but it's there - and shouldn't be something that shocks, SHOCKS! someone, even if they haven't read Mead's book. On Monday C-SPAN aired a AEI panel on the 10 year anniversary of the Contract With America, and the point was made that they never had a small-government majority in Congress. The only reason they were able to restrain spending in those early years was because Congressbeings were highly conscious that they owed their majority - and Committee Chairmanships - to the House Leadership, and were more willing to cooperate because of it.
Well, lets get to the main reason for this post, however. Sure, I understand all the disagreements that Andrew Sullivan has with Bush. However, despite what he implies, he has also let that carry over in other ways. For example, I remember his initial reaction to the Kay Report - which was contra-conventional wisdom, that it showed things were if anything more dire than we thought, not that Iraq was relatively innocuous. Andrew is always at his best, in my opinion, when he is challenging rather than reflecting conventional wisdom. However, it didn't take him long to drop his own reaction to the Kay Report and cleave more closely to the conventional wisdom. If Bush disappoints, so does Sullivan.
Also, while I freely admit I haven't had the chance to read Andrew's blog every day throughout this campaign (military training tended to limit my online time, as noted in earlier posts), when I have been able to read it he gives the impression that the Kerry supporters have been running a polite, civic campaign and are the innocent victims of Bush-Rove smears. 527s that attack Bush, and the invidious, disingenuous and smarmy rhetoric that is the norm (not the exception) from Kerry-Edwards supporters and even the candidates themselves whenever I've had the (mis)chance to hear it - going back to the Democratic Primaries and extending down to the present - don't seem to be a problem for Sullivan. So on this, too, he is simply reflecting the media's conventional wisdom (the Republican's problem are they're too mean to such nice people, while the Democrat's problem is that they're just too nice and don't fight back. As if) rather than challenging it.
For me, Andrew Sullivan is at his least interesting when all he's doing is reflecting the conventional media view of things. But, well it has worked out for him at least. He's getting on TV talk programs a lot more again.
No, I didn't go into the war in this post - a major omission. It's so big, it deserves its own post. But I will say that even though all along I felt that the aftermath would be far more difficult - and we'd take far more casualties - than the invasion itself, things have gone worse than I thought. The question then is, of the available options, who do you think will handle it best? I'm not sure someone who wants to turn it over to the "international community" and involve those who don't share our goals, and indeed who colluded with Saddam in the "blood-for-oil" program is the right choice. Especially when he is deliberately vague every time he says we need to involve the allies and give them a say in it. Which allies does he mean, pray tell? Britain and Australia?
It's an imperfect world and we're faced with imperfect choices. Handling that is best done without a constant stream of temper-tantrums. That's why the Democratic Party has such problems (as I've discussed in many, many posts), and that's why Andrew Sullivan's blog, once one of the first I visited every day, is less engaging for me. Here's hoping he contains some of his outbursts and argues his points without the invective. That's when he's at his best, and most persuasive. If he wants to advance the issues he manifestly cares deeply about, it will be for the best.
But for now, while I'll continue to read it, I doubt it'll be one of my first stops. I don't mind the disagreements with Bush - I usually linked to them in the past, 'cause I often agreed. It's the temper tantrums over them, and the invective. If I want that, I'll read Josh Marshall or kos or Moveon.
One alert reader sent a letter inquiring about me, and if I was ok, since I haven't blogged at all - all through "Rathergate" and beyond - recently.
It proved too difficult to try and blog while at AIT. "Rathergate", for example, was handled much better by others and any posts I would have made on the topic would have been dated "me too" type stuff, not very timely.
But I'm not dead or anything. I'm doing ok. I finished AIT last week, outprocessing then coming home (where I did end up getting a massive toothache right off the bat, rats). Am spending this week with my mother and my dog and getting ready to move to Fort Hood. I'm assigned to the 4th Infantry Division - which is set to deploy to Iraq early next year.
It'll take a bit to get settled in at Fort Hood (I report Monday, the 4th of October), but I hope to resume posting by mid October if not before, though posts likely won't be as frequent as in the past.
