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This week on The Big Show, we attempt to return to some sense of normalcy (while of course maintaining social distancing by at least 1,000 miles). Yes, we talk about that thing we’re all doing and what our new lives are like now. But then, we shift gears to visit with our good friend Ross Douthat, NYT columnist and podcaster (The Argument, which Ross co-hosts is one of our favorites) on the occasion of his new book., The Decadent Society. It’s a meditation on what happens when a rich and powerful society stops advancing and how the combination of wealth, technology, economic stagnation, political stalemates, and demographic decline (among other things) creates a “sustainable decadence” that could stick around for a long time. Needless to say, it’s a provocative conversation that we’d like to get your take on in the comments. Finally, we do round of What Are You Watching, and do a deep dive on toilet paper, courtesy of the Lileks Post of The Week.
Music from this week’s show: I.G.Y by Donald Fagen
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I do think Rob is wrong about the idea of informing people, telling them what you know, etc., and then they’ll act responsibly. Starting with the reality that most people have an IQ of 100 or less, by definition, I don’t think you get very far trying to explain things like coronavirus to that crowd. Even some relatively intelligent people on this site, seem to have trouble sometimes understanding percentages, percentages of percentages, and other details. This isn’t like the old world, when it didn’t much matter if a lot of people couldn’t “cipher” any better than Jethro Bodine. Nothing in life, at that time, was very complicated for most people. But now, if you’re trying to get them to do – or not do – things based on calculated risks etc, well… At some point it may have to come down to “Because I Said So.”
I was disappointed when Consumer Reports, probably in the late 70s started supporting consumer protection laws.
It’s a matter of personal responsibility.
As for your barber example, these days there are social media rating apps like Yelp. If a barber is giving people lice (which is embarrassing to someone who catches it, but not the end of the world) it’s going to come out pretty quickly in this social media environment.
Was there any talk of using Jane Jetson for Peter’s face? I think I’ve seen Jane wear a sweater in an episode or two . . .
I’m so sorry . . .
Oh, my goodness. Are you a progressive? This has always been the progressive justification for… well… everything. There are a group of people who know better, and everyone else is too stupid to know what’s good for them, so they must be told. It’s for everyone’s own good.
Are you being ironic?
That can be accomplished by the health inspectors who check on restaurants, pools, etc. I think what James Lileks is thinking of are the insane licensing rules which require hundreds of hours of training. One notorious example was women who braid hair: the authorities fined them and shut them down because they did not have licenses, licenses they could only get after expensive training in hair styles that they were not doing anyway.
Rob Long would have been completely appropriate if he should, conservatives love pork. But it doesn’t follow that when people get free stuff they necessarily love the person giving them free stuff.
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/interior-designer-need-licensed-19180.html
Yes, it goes on and on.
I understand the logic of what you’re saying, but I also think I understand the error of it. Regulation exists on a continuum, with anarchy at one end and totalitarianism at the other. No sensible person is opposed to all regulation; no sensible person is in favor of all possible regulation. That doesn’t mean that all sensible people, since they endorse some regulation, have a similar enthusiasm for the scope of government.
There’s a popular argument on the left right now that, if you appreciate public schools or NPR or your Social Security check, then you’ve already embraced socialism without realizing it and so you might as well go whole hog. What Rob is doing is making the lightweight version of that argument: come on, you know you secretly like the overweening welfare state; you just complain when someone else gets the goodies.
Our current President is famous (or infamous, depending on your persuasion) for deregulating. I’ve yet to hear someone on the right complain about that. I’ve yet to hear someone on the left approve.
What I find somewhat flabbergasting is that the examples Rob chose, taxes and tariffs, were things that conservatives pretty routinely see as necessary evils to be minimized whenever possible — and yet he thought they’d be good illustrations of his point that, you know, we’re really all the same.
I know it’s a cliche these days to ignore the podcast entirely and talk about E.J. Hill’s fantastic photoshops, but man, I love this one.
Now if you’ll excuse me I’ve got to go and actually listen to the podcast.
I agree we are in a fallow period with technological change, but it doesn’t have to last forever:
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2020/03/china-nears-completion-of-first-commercial-walk-away-safe-nuclear-reactor.html
That’s not what I mean – I was using the routine of the morning as an analogy for what happens in business. I’m all for Sensible Regulations that promote public safety. Let me expand the idea a bit.
You wake up in your bedroom, which is covered by the National Safe Slumber Act of 1972, passed after a spate of injuries resulted from people rolling out of bed in a semi-conscious state. (Who would oppose safe slumber? People who argued against the act were reviled as being insensitive to the pain and suffering of people who had head injuries, and were shamed by the testimony of victims who spoke eloquently about striking their head on the end table.) The act’s requirements were expanded over the years, without any direct Congressional involvement, including the controversial mandate that a list of all regulations pertaining to the process of waking and sleeping shall be available on site in the bedroom in a prominent place. Failure to have the materials displayed according to the regulations is an offense punishable by a fine. Inspectors may, at any time, enter your bedroom to see if the materials are available.
Training is also required to ensure that people wake properly; illustrations – in six languages, regardless of the language spoken in the bedroom – demonstrating the proper movements will also be displayed on the wall, with pictures. (Sitting up straight too quickly and jumping out of bed: red circle/slash. Rising gradually, repositioning body, swinging leg over side of bed, planting them firmly on the floor – green checkmark)
Now, no one will ever read the book, or consult the regs, but everyone will be sure that the book is in the right place in case an inspector drops by, because it’s fines if it’s not where it should be.
That’s what I mean. If it sounds ridiculous, drop by the warehouse some time to see the High Holy Book of Regulations that reminds workers not to drop 55-gallon drums on their feet.
Sensible regulations: it’s against the law to have leaky tanks that spill petrochemicals on the warehouse floor, then push the residue into the drain or out into the field behind the warehouse.
The regulations we have: it is possible that a tornado could strike your warehouse with such pin-point precision it will breach every barrel of petrochemicals, so you must build a berm around the warehouse capable of containing a 100% failure of the containers. If, after completion, the berm is found to be 1/4″ shorter in height than mandated, and thus unlikely to contain the result of a 100% failure rate of the barrels, you will be fined, although of course you can sue the company that made the berm for damages, if you like. If the size of the fine means you have to lay off a driver for three months, well, it’s better than oil seeping into the ground, isn’t it? Do you like pollution?
If it were your loved one who had fallen out of bed, you’d be singing a different tune.
I don’t see how this isn’t the future. We could have built several different models two decades ago. It makes me crazy.
Illicit force and all of that libertarian babel.
The government’s only job is to stop force and fraud. You sort of have to have Social Security and Medicare, but they will screw it up.
Look at education. No economist will tell you that it is an actual “public good”. It’s not even close. Maybe this all worked until about 1970. Now look at it. It’s a total racket. It’s not about developing human capital. It’s just an edifice that nobody can get rid of that has been commandeered to steal from the taxpayers and the students.
Wanting a rollback of burdensome regs is not a free-for-all, anymore than fighting a 45 MPH highway speed limit is the same as wanting all roads in a residential neighborhood to have Autobahn speeds.
I read a story about a restaurant that was shut down by the state because it wanted to sell fresh produce to people who couldn’t get to the grocery store in these Covidian times; some busybody complained that they were using a kitchen scale that was less precise than the scales grocery stores use, so the restaurant was forbidden to sell produce. Whew! Disaster averted!
Trying to find the story, I came across a U of Maryland website advising roadside vendors about their obligations under the Weights and Measurements act.
It would seem to me that “three ears of corn for $1” is so fundamentally obvious that shortchanging or misrepresentation is impossible, no? But there’s the guy with his roadside stand, selling a set number of items for a set price, having to worry whether he’s in compliance.
The roadside stand can sell by weight, of course, but it’s not enough to have a scale. From the same site:
I know this saves us from the RAMPANT FRAUD we naturally associate with Farmer’s Markets, but let’s look at the terms here. Why not a Class II scale? They’re more accurate. More expensive, too, but why should that matter? Here’s a Class III scale definition:
In other words, if you’re going to set up a roadside stand and sell a bag of apples, the scale has to have the precise of a postal scale, you’d damn well better be sure that your scale is NTEP-certified (the National Type Evaluation Program, a non-gov non-profit) and complies with the definition in Table 7a of the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology, a division of the Department of Commerce) from Handbook 44, and none of this “oh I was using Handbook 43” nonsense, mister.
If you’re using a bathroom scale to sell a five-pound bag of apples to someone who walks up to your stand, you’re violating God knows how many laws.
NOTE: I am in favor of having independent organizations that set standards for scales, and certify reputable products. It is entirely reasonable to require commercial operations to conform to set standards for weights and measurements. But I went down this rabbit hole because I was looking for a story about someone shut down for violating NIST rules while trying to help the community, and came across a government page warning a guy that “three ears of corn for $1” doesn’t mean he can ignore the laws about Weights and Measurements.
If letting the guy use a bathroom scale to sell a five-pound bag of apples is a FREE FOR ALL, then I’m an anarchist. So be it.
And just like that, “center-right” became Thunderdome.
It takes a certain amount of moral fortitude to reject government benefits in favor of more freedom. In a corrupt system, where the government exists as a means of getting yours, then anyone can be expected to use any means to compete. No one cares that the bureaucrat is illegitimate when he rules against your competitor. It takes a sort of virtue to prefer the long-term benefit of freedom over the short-term benefits.
Remember the Tea party? It’s heartening that there exists a large segment of the population who is willing to take the harder path. The fact that it isn’t a voting majority is one of the tragedies of this age.
You have to be realistic, not idealistic on the personal level. Also on the personal level, I don’t think you can really change the political system that much.
We had a great local talkshow guy, Jason Lewis, that was very good at explaining this.
I think it’s just laughable that so many anti-Trump Republicans all of a sudden want to go full Austrian right now.
What actually happened was that regulations were adopted at the state and local level, and then big business lobbied to have the Federal government take them over.
This helped big business take over market share from smaller businesses in the various states and localities. Once local variations were superseded by the Feds, big business could bring economies of scale to bear, beating their smaller competitors on price.
Today, the process continues, with Very Big Business lobbying for international regulations. Why they opposed Brexit, for example.
That’s actually the case now.
To a large extent, people’s irrational faith in government leads them to mistakenly believe, once the all-wise, all-knowing, all-benevolent government gets involved, they have nothing more to worry about.
I’m sure Italians loved their socialist health care system, until Coronavirus revealed just how bad a job it did, preparing for the inevitable. Of course, many of the ones who learned better won’t be responding to future polls, being deceased.
Similarly, lazy parents would rather have faith in the government monopoly school system than bestir themselves.
There is only the personal level.
I hate to say this, but I think the best thing to do is just let events play out and try to profit from it. If you can get further up the food chain, so be it.
@jameslileks — Let’s not forget the “three felonies a day” problem: it’s impossible to comply with all the regulations, and stay in business.
Or, it’s impossible to comply with all the regulations, even in theory; for example, because they contradict each other, and the contradiction will be resolved (if it ever is) by administrative law judges, perhaps years in the future.
In every cop show set in a big city, there is a familiar scene, repeated over and over again. A storekeeper is reluctant to cooperate with the police as fully as they desire; so they threaten him with calling the inspectors.
Constitutional rights, easy come, easy go: it’s taken for granted that the inspectors will find violations 100% of the time.
The other thing @kedavis hasn’t fully considered: regulatory capture.
No one except the industry being regulated pays much attention to a regulatory agency. Over time, the agency ends up working for vested interest within the industry, particularly to keep out competition and permit monopoly profits.
Thus, a black woman in the projects who wants to make a little bit of money doing the hair of her neighbors gets a cease-and-desist letter from the regulatory agency.
She hasn’t served the required five-year apprenticeship with an established hairdresser; she hasn’t paid thousands of dollars in fees; and she hasn’t demonstrated expertise, before a panel of established hairdressers (to whom she represents competition), in hairstyles that were current among white women in the 1950s — when the regulations were written — even though no one wears them today.
I used to be on a forum that had an economist. His quote was: it happens every single time.
In so many of those situations, they don’t want to piss off the private sector so they can make big money in it later.
Exactly. After they retire, they go to work for the industry they were “regulating”.
When you take all of the deflationary pressure from automation and globalized trade on wages and job destruction, it is absolutely critical we get rid of all this crap. It’s also critical that the third quit creating inflation or asset inflation, which isn’t going to happen.
You guys are all smarter than me. How is the government going to fix this? Notice he doesn’t even mention trade. Our whole government and financial system is dependent on inflation.
Everyone needs to read the book about the guy that uncovered Bernie Madoff. The SEC. None of them knew jack about finance. They just wanted to be lawyers on Wall Street.
Government sucks.
In Trump I Trust.