Does anyone have any information on where the author gets his claim that Cohen has a "road to Damascus moment" upon arriving at Harvard? I can't find anything on that, or even anyone else claiming Cohen was a "liberal".
This article is very light on supporting quotes or references, so im very suspect of his claims that analytical Marxist converted to beliefs that are opposed to Marxist analysis. Especially given many of Cohen's later works are focused on scientific socialism.
The author does not claim that Cohen has a "road to Damascus moment" when he arrives at Harvard. Instead, this is the claim:
"This created something of a “road to Damascus” moment for Cohen. It forced him to ask the basic question: what is it that I dislike most about capitalism?"
That is, Cohen needed to take a moment and then ask himself deeper questions about his starting assumptions. That is the claim.
1. I don't think that is a meta-study. It seems to be an attempt to build a dataset to track US union membership over long timeframes.
2. It notes that there is a correlation between union membership and inequality. Which is interesting but not that powerful - correlation is not causation. It might be that both trends are being driven by the financialisation of the US economy.
3. It finds that union households earn a premium over non-union households. Again, because of the nature of the study that doesn't tell us much about the impacts of unions. As an analogy, we might find that HN commentators earn more than non-HN commentators in the tech industry but that doesn't indicate that HN is pushing salaries up.
Although in fairness I would suspect there probably is a causal element. But I still don't want to be in a unionised industry. I don't want a premium over other tech workers. I want to maximise the average tech worker salary and then be employed in tech. Those are very different objectives and require different strategies to achieve.
Pro-union types tend to have a very short term view of the world and aren't about maximising long term returns. Strikes and collective bargaining don't move the needle in the right direction over the long term.
You're right that this isn't a meta-study. It's a deep survey and references many similar studies, though. It certainly doesn't exist in a vacuum.
"In this section, we explore in a more direct manner the relationship between unions and income inequality, joining an extensive empirical literature examining how unions shape the income distribution."
You're right to point out that "correlation is not causation," but the study specifically addresses your concern and presents a strong argument for causation. It's not as if science can never demonstrate anything using correlation and statistical techniques, you know?
https://xkcd.com/552/
"Correlation doesn’t imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing ‘look over there.'"
> It notes that there is a correlation between union membership and inequality
Specifically, it notes a robust INVERSE correlation that:
* Increased union membership correlates to decreased inequality
* Decreased union membership correlates to increased inequality
> Which is interesting but not that powerful - correlation is not causation
The authors acknowledge the statistical nature of correlation, and they addressed it (they say so right in the abstract). They used the following techniques to establish a causal relationship between union density and income inequality.
* distributional decompositions
* time series regressions
* state-year regressions
* instrumental-variable strategy based on historical events like the 1935 legalization of unions and the World War II–era War Labor Board
> It might be that both trends are being driven by the financialisation of the US economy.
The authors find that policy changes which significantly reduced the cost of union organizing (e.g., the Wagner Act and the National War Labor Board during WWII) led to lasting increases in state-level union density and corresponding reductions in income inequality. These effects were specific to the periods when these policies were active and had no similar impact in other times, such as during the Korean War, which did not explicitly promote union organization. This is a cause very different from a wild guess at "financialisation of the US economy."
Furthermore, the study highlights that unions were particularly effective in reducing inequality by increasing the wages of less-educated and nonwhite workers. During periods of high union density, the wage gap between union and nonunion workers was substantial, contributing significantly to overall income equality.
> It finds that union households earn a premium over non-union households. Again, because of the nature of the study that doesn't tell us much about the impacts of unions.
The study does more than just observe a premium; it provides historical and statistical context to argue that the premium is associated with union activities, such as collective bargaining. The consistent premium over many decades, despite changes in union density, suggests a link between union presence and wage levels.
In short, no, neither union membership or inequality are evidenced as show "both caused by financialization of the economy." They the latter correlated to the former, and was tested for causation. The former's uptake can include economic considerations, but it also correlated directly to governance policy directly targeting labor law.
> They used the following techniques to establish a causal relationship between union density and income inequality.
I don't think those techniques establish causal relationships. Which of these techniques do you think establishes a causal relationship? I can tell you right from the start that "time series regressions" don't establish a causal relationship. The paper established a very strong statistical relationship.
Which is all very well but if you look in the paper [0] at Fig I you can see a very strong statistical relationship without any need for statistical methods. It leaps out of the graph at you. There was a pre-WWII period, the WWII-through-to-US-mini-peak-oil in the 70s and then the post-peak [1] regime (speaking loosely since shale oil has indeed been a miracle over the last decade - but it isn't the wealth engine that oil was back post WWII). There are a lot of interesting statistical correlations at around the same time.
That is far too much background noise to claim that unions are the causal element. Geopolitics and cheap energy was more likely to causal.
> Which of these techniques do you think establishes a causal relationship? I can tell you right from the start that "time series regressions" don't establish a causal relationship.
Hm, time series series regression is a standard, accepted approach to causal inference:
For me, it suffices to say that the authors did not weakly position their argument as you claimed. I responded because I thought that claim was an attack, and that it was a careless regurgitation of the standard line about correlation.
There's some author discussion here that might help get the points across:
> Hm, time series series regression is a standard, accepted approach to causal inference
But statistical causality - things like Granger causality for example - aren't, in reality, establishing causality. They're statistical properties. You can't ever establish causality from statistical data. Eg, if I light a log on fire there will be bright light and later on there will be ash. If you have a timeseries of luminosity and quantity of ash present, bright light will be Granger-causal of ash. But in reality we know that bright light isn't causing the ash; the situation is we are analysing a bonfire.
You've got a group of people there in that analysis article that aren't very good at interpreting results. They're looking at a time of extreme turmoil, they've picked 2 random timeseries that are responding to underlying causes and assuming that they are the entire story. They can't do that, it isn't a valid argument. It isn't a thorough enough treatment. In analogy, they're missing the fire for the light. There isn't particularly strong evidence that unions do anything on their own at the macro level; especially since the economic regime was just very different in an era where the available energy supplied was cheap and quantity was rapidly increasing.
> For me, it suffices to say that the authors did not weakly position their argument as you claimed.
I never said they weakly positioned their argument, their argument is watertight, they developed a data set and analysed it. Found a bunch of interesting statistical facts. Solid academic work. camdat weakly positioned his argument.
The authors are using other historical events to help improve the theory. They aren't solely reliant even on time series.
This isn't an experimental study, and so they have to rely upon plausibility in context. This explains their multi-faceted approach a la distributional decompositions and state and IV.
To me, the contrarian position — that unions have no such effect — doesn't look as good. Prove it :)
They don't. I think there might be a gap between what they wrote and what you think they wrote. They aren't attempting to rely on "plausibility in context", they're doing academic work and they're stating basic facts - they developed a dataset and analysed it. That analysis revealed a bunch of interesting statistical features. But that is a series of fairly specific statements. What they aren't claiming is to have a theory. There isn't a theory in the paper. They aren't doing any work that requires theorising. They're just looking for evidence.
And they found some, but it is weak evidence for the idea that unions have a positive influence and it is unclear what it actually shows in reality. It is a good example of the truism that correlations are not causations.
> To me, the contrarian position — that unions have no such effect — doesn't look as good. Prove it :)
I do believe that unions have a generally negative effect, but that isn't what I'm arguing about in this thread. My point here is that this paper isn't a meta study and is evidence of something different than what camdat originally claimed. And I felt your response was interesting enough to justify a few extra comments about the difference between statistical causality and practical causality.
Do you have proof of your position? Do you have proof, also, how these authors are specifically evidenced to be wrong?
> Although in fairness I would suspect there probably is a causal element.
Why did you think so earlier? Is it contrary to your current position?
> Pro-union types tend to have a very short term view of the world and aren't about maximising long term returns. Strikes and collective bargaining don't move the needle in the right direction over the long term.
> Do you have proof, also, how these authors are specifically evidenced to be wrong?
Where have I said they're wrong? I've been saying the opposite. They're correct. I don't think you've understood what they said; you're misinterpreting the paper if you think they've said something controversial. It just happens that what they are saying isn't very strong evidence that unions have an impact on anything, positive or otherwise. They've found an unassailable correlation - which is what anyone would expect them to find if you look at Fig. 1 in the paper.
> Why did you think so earlier? Is it contrary to your current position?
General knowledge. I've worked in some union-heavy industries. And no - generally my opinions are fairly stable over any given 24 hour period. :)
> What does move the needle over the long term?
Investment, capital ownership, education, flexibility. The usual. You'll note that a figure was being thrown around where the premium commanded by union households was present, but that pales compared to the benefits of being in a higher paid industry like software which commands a >2x over median wage.
There is a real danger with unions that the union members will end up with a cushy salary relative to non-union members but the industry overall will be pushed elsewhere. Compare that to China which is generating amazing wealth over the last 50 years by relentless capital investment [0]. There isn't a comparison between the ability of commercial enterprise to generate wealth vs the ability of unions to capture a slightly bigger slice of the pie, with great difficulty and to the general detriment of society.
> Do you have proof of your position
As a postcript, you aren't going to get very far demanding proof in economic discussions. There is scant proof of anything in economics. That is one of the contributing factors to planned economies doing so badly; there is a practical reality where relationships between different parts of the economy have to be felt out in a competitive arena otherwise it is impossible to figure things out.
But if there is strong evidence unions help the process someone needs to get past these sort of weak evidence studies and put that on the table. Because this study we're talking about isn't at all compelling. I'd rather not be involved with them based on what I've seen. The best I've seen in their favour is that unions do something between nothing much and entrenching low performers in sinking industries.
If the labour organisers had focused on making co-op models of business ownership viable the US would be in a much stronger position. Instead they doubled down on fighting and enabled the rise of China. It was poor strategy with predictable results.
[0] If someone could show that the Chinese model of business development depended on strong unions then that'd be some pretty hefty evidence. But given the sweatshop conditions they started with that would be an optomistic prior to hold.
> Although in fairness I would suspect there probably is a causal element.
> General knowledge. I've worked in some union-heavy industries. And no - generally my opinions are fairly stable over any given 24 hour period. :)
So you do think that unions are causal in their correlation between union membership and inequality?
> Where have I said they're wrong? I've been saying the opposite. They're correct. I don't think you've understood what they said; you're misinterpreting the paper if you think they've said something controversial.
Well, you see, the position they take is actually in their paper... it's from the abstract.
"we find consistent evidence that unions reduce inequality, explaining a significant share of the dramatic fall in inequality between the mid-1930s and late 1940s."
Do you believe they've found consistent evidence that unions reduce inequality, which explains a significant share of the dramatic fall in inequality between the mid-1930s and late 1940s?
> So you do think that unions are causal in their correlation between union membership and inequality?
No. It seems very unlikely that it'd do anything to inequality. Inequality isn't really driven the wages paid to workers. If you note the context of that sentence, I was talking about the wage premium for union households. I don't think that paper provides particularly strong evidence for it - but the better argument is that even if there is strong evidence, that isn't a good thing. I don't want a premium, I want my job to exist and be well paid. The great successes of the manufacturing unions resulted in amazing manufacturing growth on ... completely different continents. I want to live in and work in an industrial cluster (think Silicon Valley, although I don't live anywhere near SV). Unions are likely to push the cluster somewhere else and everyone gets poorer (think Detroit) - albeit that the union jobs are somewhat better off than the people who just lose.
> Do you believe they've found consistent evidence that unions reduce inequality, which explains a significant share of the dramatic fall in inequality between the mid-1930s and late 1940s?
Yeah, obviously. The consistent evidence is a correlation - which is interesting but doesn't establish causation. The 1940s->1970s is a particularly famous period for US economic data and the paper contains extremely weak evidence that the unions were causative of the remarkable trends over that period.
The issue is "consistent evidence" is academic language. People saying that Zeus' anger causes lightening would be consistent evidence that Zeus is responsible for lightening. That isn't true, the evidence for Zeus-motivated lightening is about as strong as tissue paper, but there can be consistent evidence for it. This paper has stronger evidence than the Zeus theory, but is much more on that end of the spectrum than something like better education pushing productivity up. They've basically found an interesting correlation in a period riddled with interesting correlations. That doesn't mean much; correlations aren't causation.
>Hidden behind this facade of beauty is a horrible culture that celebrates corruption, tribalism and lack of cooperation, backbiting, and shortsightedness
These are all acute problems in Western nations. The fundamental impediment which Africa faces are it's rich natural resources and the nations which exploit them.
Any "anti-corruption" cultural efforts will be snuffed out long before it becomes a threat to this lucrative expropriation
There is no cultural solution to the boot of political and economic struggle.
I’m not buying this but sure, we Africans never take responsibility. We’ll first blame the other tribe, then the country next to us, then long-gone colonial powers, and finally the devil when we run out of excuses.
As if it’s not our leaders selling out the country to foreign interests for pocket change. Maybe they could pick up a book from Lee Kuan Yew and learn how he rejected a bribe from the CIA.
And these leaders are all fairly and democratically elected?
Without the influence of the money of former colonial states (or their puppets in the form of expropriative enterprises)?
Consider the trillions of dollars made by other countries from Africa's people and resources. Why _wouldnt_ they spend a fraction of that killing any chance that a cultural movement picks up.
This isn't fantasy, Nestle, Chiquita, etc have a long history of funding anti-revolutionary agencies for exactly this reason.
One man rejecting one bribe will do nothing, a single cup cannot drain an ocean.
I wonder why those rich Middle Eastern petro states aren’t being controlled and kept poor by the Western powers if that’s the case.
We can all go back to the past and find excuses of how someone did bad and blame them for the present even if they’re long gone…we Africans are very good at that.
What we’re not good at is ever taking responsibility for f**ing once instead of blaming invisible conspiracists hiding in thin air.
You’re getting these responses because Americans have been trained Pavlovian style to never ever claim that some cultures are better than others. This is despite most, including those who think they don’t, implicitly believing this
And it's annoying like hell when I (a Nigerian) try to explain to an European/African how I can't move an inch without paying a bribe and they tell you to focus on the bright side or abstract notions like the diversity of the continent, blah blah blah.
Most African countries got independence in the 1940 - 1970s. Israel was established in 1948, while Singapore became independent in 1967. While most African states busied themselves with denouncing colonialism, playing around with the Soviets, or murdering any ethnic minority that didn't agree with the party line, Singapore went from being a slum to an economic powerhouse; Israel is essentially indispensable to the west as the economic/military intelligence key to the Middle East now.
So, i's hard to celebrate any advancement when we could be much further. Western optimists might feel otherwise, but perspective is everything, I guess?
Singapore is a special case, Korea is more a fair comparison, the country was by most metrics in a worse shape than most (african & non) colonies at the indipendence/civil war. Korea developed well considering its starting position
> Most African countries got independence in the 1940 - 1970s. Israel was established in 1948, while Singapore became independent in 1967. While most African states busied themselves with denouncing colonialism, playing around with the Soviets, or murdering any ethnic minority that didn't agree with the party line, Singapore went from being a slum to an economic powerhouse; Israel is essentially indispensable to the west as the economic/military intelligence key to the Middle East now.
To give two more examples, in 1960 South Korea's GDP/Capita was similar to Sudan and significantly lower than Taiwan's which was similar to Northern African countries (Tunisia, Morocco). Algeria was much richer than either, I assume thanks to oil.
Singapore had a much stronger base than any other Asian country other than Hong Kong in the mid-20th century.
Singapore was one of the richest Asian countries on a GDP per Capita basis in 1960. It was comparable to other middle income countries in that era like Southern Europe and South America [0].
LKY talking about Singapore as if it was a third world hell hole is just disingenuous PR to make the PAP look much more impressive. Even Taiwan and South Korea were much poorer than Singapore back then, but they've both caught up to Singapore by 2023. In fact, if you compare Singapore with other cities in first world Asia, then it's largely been outpaced by Seoul and Tokyo.
Is this a form of moral relativism where everyone and everything must have equal intrinsic value?
What if we argue a 1971 Ford Pinto is actually just a good a car as a 2003 Honda Civic. Sure, it's old, the fuel tanks rupture in an accident, and it had the largest recall in automotive history, but at least it was affordable, allowing societal mobility?
Radical Islam for one is rabidly anti-intellectual. The only conservative Muslim countries that are anything to write home about are oil-rich and have extremely small populations.
As a result, it's easy for the government to subsidize their citizens heavily and build lots of shiny skyscrapers to attract western tourists without developing human capital significantly.
Call me Islamophobic but I say this as a Nigerian, living in a country with the largest Muslim population in Africa (second-largest in the world after Indonesia) where people still get lynched and burned for "blasphemy."
Radical religious groups are always rabidly anti-intellectual. The better question to ask is why there are so many more radical Muslims than radical Christians. That's where I think a wider view is important.
The main difference is that you can fully implement a 'Christian' values state and it isn't going against the grain to base it on mercy, equality, and not 'othering' those who don't agree. In other words a fully Christian society can fully implement the teachings found in the New Testament and not be considered 'radical' in any sense by a non-Christian living in that society. While it may be 'missionary' oriented it also wouldn't require exporting its philosophy. It also is comfortable separating civil and religious law - 'render unto Ceasar.'
Islam, fully implementing the Koran, is basically the opposite.
It requires fidelity at the threat of death and the forced conversion of outsiders. It requires civil and religious law to be the same.
Iran for instance instantiates the tenets of Islam in fact.
The Christian theocracies are basically historical dead letters at this point- and were mostly overlays on existing government structures:
The Roman Empire for instance continued to be Rome after the Emperors became Christian- it never really, despite the Pope's best efforts, become more than a light overlay on existing government structures, with King's utilizing theories of 'Divine Right of Kings' as a useful way to perpetuate their existing hierarchies. Even countries like Armenia that claimed explicitly to be Christian states aren't actually ruled by the priesthood- they have established national religions in many historical instances, not a truly religiously run state like Iran where the mullah's are the ultimate authority.
Rome/Papal States, Peter the great, Geneva/Calvin, some slice of the Byzantine empire, along with pre-United States Utah (and in a smaller scale the city of Nauvoo,) where you have had the clerical and government structures completely united in a Christian state that I can think of off hand. England in a much looser sense qualifies. And in these cases you generally again have, relative to Islam, a non-radical, especially as it relates to outsiders, experience.
Muslims are 'radical' because they stick to Qur'an, their book. Christians should also be sharing most of the same principles, if they are honest about following both Testaments. But hey, apparently they are mere "tales" nowadays if you ask a self-proclaimed Christian and you can see churches with pride flags. Christianity is dead because there is no one left who lives as per their book. It's arguably not very possible too, given that it is self-conflicting in many instances. Muslim view on this is that Jews tried to kill Jesus, weren't able to, and then corrupted the original Bible in an attempt to divide Christians.
> It requires fidelity at the threat of death and the forced conversion of outsiders.
Islam does not require forced conversion of outsiders. It can be said to require dominating Earth as a goal, but Christians and Jews lived peacefully under Islamic rule for millenia.
Fidelity at the threat of death is only if the person committing adultery is married and at least 4 people witnessed the incident. This requirement is rarely satisfied, while being enough too deter people to stay away from this act.
> Iran for instance instantiates the tenets of Islam in fact.
Iran is Shiite. They are a deviant sect. Doesn't mean all their practices represent Islam. There will be multiple deviant sects in any religion with billions of population. Vast majority of Muslims are Sunnis who are following the original teachings.
Important to note is all Islamic punishments regarding sins apply to Muslims, not people of other religions. They are (and historically were) free to do whatever they want, barring things like insulting people and betraying the state, which are also punishable under current secular law.
Christianity got killed first in the hands of St. Paul who basically changed Bible to his liking - and then by the Roman emperor whom I forgot his name who selected 4 out of the 400 Bibles available at the time in that famous meeting.
That's not quite right, if you have a single person company (with unlimited personal liability) you can choose between revenue and income tax. Both are flat rates, revenue is 12% for certain groups of companies, including software engineering with revenues below several million euro, income tax is 19% universally.
Those sort of arguments are always made in bad faith. Is it surprising that <arbitrary infectious disease> was lower during the pandemic, in the midst of unprecedented lockdowns and mask mandates? Absolutely not.
The same goes for any argument that claims that COVID deaths were simply mis-classified to take advantage of special hospital reimbursements, and that people were really just dying of the standard flu. It takes almost no effort to show that the ALL-CAUSE risk of dying in America was excessively high during the pandemic years, which turns their argument from "they're just reclassifying flu deaths" into "there's a global conspiracy to submit extra death certificates for fictional people." [1][2][3][4]
The requirements for an injunction are much lower than an actual ruling.
The party must just show that they have a possibility of winning the case and that granting temporary relief will not cause additional harm to the plaintiff.
To use that as proof that the defendant will win is ridiculous.
Injunctions are not handed out willy-nilly, and the actual wording in the injunction should give you pause:
"The officials have engaged in a broad pressure campaign designed to coerce social-media companies into suppressing speakers, viewpoints, and content disfavored by the government"
Nobody said anything about "proof that the defendant will win". I said said that several judges have found evidence of unconstitutional pressure being applied. Please do not misrepresent a plain statement of fact.
Incorrect. The Fifth Circuit upheld the injunction. They found, specifically, that the officials from the FBI, White House, and CDC likely violated the First Amendment.
>As explained in Part IV above, the district court erred in finding that
the NIAID Officials, CISA Officials, and State Department Officials likely
violated Plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights. So, we exclude those parties
from the injunction. Accordingly, the term “Defendants” as used in this
modified provision is defined to mean only the following entities and officials
included in the original injunction:
[Followed up by a page and 1/4 of people and agencies who the injunction still applies to]
In no way is it honest to describe this as "overturned".
