08-24-2016, 09:59 AM
(08-23-2016, 12:28 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(08-23-2016, 06:46 AM)Mikebert Wrote: Bob, here is an example of a paradigm issue and one of values issue to illustrate the difference I see. I would also say I am using the word paradigm in the sense Thomas Kuhn popularized, as a model, theory, or worldview. Are you familiar with the Structures of Scientific Revolutions? it's a very famous work from more than half a century ago. It bought the word into common use.The Civil War was the result of a political election. World War II was the result of failed diplomacy. The Revolutionary War was a result of a government that did not recognize the rights of Americans. Can history repeat itself, you better believe that it can.
Paradigm: There are two fundamantal ways to view tyhe process of economic growth. The neoclassical approach is that investment leads to increased worker productivity which leads to GDP growth. The Keynesian approach is that (increased) demand leaders to GDP growth which leads to investment. One can call the first "supply-side" and the latter "demand-side".
In principle this is an empirical question and can be resolved using the methods of science. The facts are consistent with both models, however. Since no profits are made unless output is sold, demand and GDP rise in tandem. And it is an historical fact that rising GDP is highly correlated with rising capital over time. So, scientifically, there is no clearcut correct answer.
Now folks who believe the supply-side model would favor removing impediments to investment as the means to improve the economy. Therefore they support cutting taxes on the rich (the investor class), reducing regulations (impediments to productive investment) and in general reducing the scales of economic distorations that can lead to malinvestment (shrinking the size of government).
Conversely, demand-siders favor stimulating demand by (1) putting money into the hands of people who you know will spend it (jobs programs for the poor & working class) (2) actiively encouraging the development of new leadering sectors that create new categories of demand (industrial policy).
As you probably already have have seen, most folks in the first category fall into the red side while those in the second the blue. This issue should, in principle, be resolvable using facts and logic by the methods of science. It is not a values issue.
Values: There is a law currently being debated in California that would remove the religious exemption to anti-discrimination law. This issue is certain Christian schools do not hire people who are not Christians or who do not adhere to a Christian lifestyle (also not hired would be people actively committing serious sins like gay sex, although celebate gays would be welcome). Whether or not this law should be passed is not is not a scientific question. It cannot be resolved by appeals to facts and logic. It is a values issue. Such issues are resolved by force, either politically (e.g. elections/legislation, the courts) or through violence (e.g. US Civil War, ISIS).
At least get your history right!
The American colonists accepted their subject relationship to the British Crown so long as the Crown largely left the People of the Colonies to seeking and implementing their own policies on local matters. It's when George III started clamping down on the Colonies that the American Revolution became inevitable. It's when conservatives with integrity (like John Adams) turn against a corrupt or despotic leadership that the revolution is certain.
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The political election of 1860 was the consequence of political realities. Northerners lost their tolerance for the demand of slave-owners to be enforcers of the will of slave masters contrary to well-established values in the North, and voted for the Presidential nominee most likely to contest the power of the planters who had shown what they really believed in in Bloody Kansas. Abolitionist sentiment was strong Up North, and if the planters had tried to use the centralized government to enforce their way, then it might have been the North that would secede.
I have my theory on what Abraham Lincoln was considering: the British model of emancipation would have done the job. Masters would have been obliged to emancipate slaves in return for compensation (likely in government bonds). The British emancipated slaves throughout the British Empire with practically no violence. It took time and expense -- but no Civil War.
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The Second World War, at least in Europe, was the consequence of some of the most successful diplomacy ever -- the demonic Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact that allowed Hitler and Stalin to carve up central Europe into spheres of influence... and in view of what the Nazis and Soviets did, the Hell that was Nazi Germany and the Hell that was Stalin's Soviet Union. Hitler was not confident of his ability to subjugate Poland without such a collaboration; indeed, the Poles formed a ruthless and desperate defense of their country that collapsed when the Soviet Union stabbed Poland in the back. Both Parties met their terms. Hitler would give refuge only to Germans fleeing the Baltic countries, both Stalin and Hitler would obliterate Poland, and neither would interfere in each others' murders. Stalin would even send raw materials to Hitlerland for use in military equipment against the western "plutocracies" of France and Britain. Hitler eventually broke the arrangement, which was not a diplomatic failure but just another crime.
Pearl Harbor was not a consequence of diplomatic failure. By late 1941 the USA had but one way to avoid war with Japan -- to become complicit in Japanese aggression. That was not going to happen. America was becoming increasingly hostile to Japan's chief ally. It was only a matter of time before the USA got into war with Nazi Germany.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.