On the world today

It's been a while since I've had the time to make a post on here. The world has changed in those three months. We've gone from "convergence" in IsPal to the new Lebanese war... Iraq is, well, okay, Iraq is still bad and getting worse...

Briefly: I never thought I'd be getting tired of the Middle East, but I finally am. Like everyone else, I have my tolerance level. That said, I still read Ha'aretz pretty regularly and I still generally think a real Palestinian state is the best way to go. The proposed unity government will be a good thing if it gets off the ground. For a while, the calls for the dissolution of the PNA looked like a good idea, but at this point if a unity government can be constituted and call for deployment of an international force in the territories, it would be a very positive step and one that Israel would have less traction in responding to (at least it would put Israel on the defensive, not that they'd ever agree to the idea, yet).

And Mexico! The U.S. government has done a good job of staying out. Calderon is the winner, and I feel comfortable saying that having supported AMLO in the election. Once the IFE certifies Calderon, AMLO will have a much tougher time getting out supporters, or so it should be hoped.

Plenty else is going on, but I don't have that much time. I'll be back as soon as I can to keep offering my unrequested thoughts on whatever catches my eye.

On leave...

Hey all, should have mentioned it earlier, but I'm taking some time off, since (1) I just graduated from college, so I am no longer a random college student, and (2) I'm in a pretty intensive summer program at the moment. So, I will be back... when I'm back!

Referendum?

Abbas says he'll call a referendum. Hamas says he'll need to go through Parliament to do it. In the end, he'd probably be able to do it...

The plan that was worked out in an Israeli jail isn't that new. Would there be any ramifications beyond Hamas' agreement? Doubtful--surveys have indicated Palestinian support for the same thing for years and had no effect. Israelis have never particularly cared about the Palestinian stance, only about their own practical concerns.

About a referendum... I assume this is a PA referendum and not a "Palestinian" referendum, since there is talk about the PLC needing to approve the thing. The latter sort of referendum would encompass Palestinians in camps in other Arab nations--and possibly other exiles too. A logistical nightmare, but to be truly legitimate, the referendum (or at least the final referendum on a peace plan, if there is one) would have to include them. It won't. They are being ignored and will continue to be, except as a bargaining chip.

Another interesting note: So, the boycott led Hamas to agree to transfer control of finance to Abbas. Huh. Weren't they elected to clean up Palestinian government and crack down on corruption? And now Abbas and Fatah will control finances again? Huh. Oh well, the boycott was worth it...

Social democracy as a principle

“Social democracy,” as an ideology, as a phenomenon, has certainly seen its more popular days. The post-Cold War-driven shift to the center, the “Third Way” as it has been called (though many things have been referred to by that moniker), has altered the concept in many ways, although the core values remain the same.

Social democracy, at its beginning, referred to a peaceful Marxist transition from capitalism to socialism via the democratic route (“reformism”). It was a broad enough concept at the beginning of the century that Lenin’s party was called the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. After the Russian Revolution, the historic socialist-communist split led to the foundation of explicitly Communist revolutionary, pro-Soviet parties, and the remaining “socialist” parties gradually drifted rightward, though the balance between the socialist and communist parties differed in various countries.

Today, we are seeing the second transition of social democracy. Social democrats in Europe have been admitting officially what they had already conceded privately—that socialism is not the end goal, that a “tamed capitalism” and a mixed economy are the goals of social democracy. Liberty, equality and solidarity remain the principles of social democracy, but the movement’s concept of and approach to pragmatism and reality has been altered substantially.

As with any other ideology, the effect and reality of social democracy in government is correlated to the environment in which the individual party finds itself. The general trend towards moderation (though not without disputes) in SD parties has continued, but moderation is a relative term depending on the country (with SD parties in Scandinavia, for instance, still defending their traditional welfare state).

Classical liberals may want to claim for themselves the mantle of historic pragmatism. But liberalism has its not-so-proud moments, its regressive alliances over the years, not to mention its (classical) refusal to admit the value of public goods above and beyond the basic provision of markets.

Social democracy differs from liberalism in more than one way. Whereas liberalism is individualism at its pinnacle, adopting the principle of “individual gains” and “rationality” and accrediting it as the natural order of things, social democracy is idealistic, change-oriented and yet simultaneously pragmatic. Social democracy recognizes the need for substantial public goods and the maintenance of the collective, the commons, in ways other than simply the sustenance of clearly visible economic gains via the market. Social democrats believe that health care, quality education, employment, a quality environment, and other public goods are crucial to the survival of the market, and are positive not just as mechanisms for increasing productivity, but in creating a society that can support all of its citizens and maintain its long-term legitimacy.

This implies the most vital thread of social democracy: social democracy can be a way of living, not just a political ideology. Liberalism fails as a way of living: a belief that the individual gain will always be the major consideration is self-fulfilling. Pragmatic social democracy believes that the individual gain and the collective gain are oftentimes competing principles, which must be reconciled as best as possible, but that we must always strive towards an ideal, where we can see equality of outcomes produced across society.

None of what I write here is new, of course, but hopefully it puts my opinions into context.

"These innocent people"

"[Palestinians] are the victims of their own extremist, fundamentalist, religious, inflexible and unyielding leadership, and we will do everything in our power to help these innocent people." --Ehud Olmert, quoted in Ha'aretz, 19 May 2006

How, exactly, does Israel propose to help the innocent Palestinians, who apparently chose Hamas to lead them without realizing the character of the organization, and apparently before earlier this year were the victims of something else. Exactly what they were the victims of (previously) isn't specified. Certainly not Israel, or the settler movement, of course. It really is too bad that all these innocent people are around in the Middle East and the only reason there is no peace is the intransigent, recently elected Palestinian leadership.

I'm sure that Ehud Olmert will do everything he can to help the Palestinians. Energy payments, essential goods out of the Palestinians' money that he won't give them? That will resolve the situation.

And Israel will continue to be the good guy, and the gentle father of the Palestinians. Sorry... Palestinians?... the Arabs of Eretz Israel. It's too bad about their leadership.

Countries that don't back terrorism

We're restoring diplomatic relations with Libya? Great!

Maybe they have a veteran revolutionary leader who is a sometimes-erratic dictator and has financed armed movements from time to time... whose domestic policies we don't entirely agree with... but that's no reason to punish their people.

The guy on the left, that's their leader, isn't it?



Oh wait, the guy I'm thinking of doesn't have the best human development in Latin America? My bad.

Of intellectual creativity, and moral responsibility

Two very different fields for comment today...

First is an interesting article in the New York Times about French universities from a couple of days ago. To summarize briefly, French universities are in a fairly poor state because nobody pays tuition, and spots are guaranteed (on a geographical basis) to those students who pass their baccalaureate. The article tends to reflect what other publications (such as The Economist) regularly say about European education, although should this article be accurate, it would suggest that French universities are in a worse state than elsewhere on the continent.

This story provides an interesting insight into the self-perpetuation of institutional rules. The agreement in the 1960s of the de Gaulle government to give almost-free university education to anyone has led to the creation and entrenchment of a norm--namely, that it is everyone's right to get a free university education, regardless of the effects of such right on society.

University education is absolutely vital, and of course it is only right that those without the appropriate means be assisted, with public funds, in order that society progress toward equality of opportunity and outcomes. But when there is no effort required to obtain that education, and when the "right" to education for all leads to the crumbling of its credibility and capacities, then it clearly becomes a hindrance to society.

I wrote in an earlier blog entry about my support for a high-tuition, high-aid model, even in pubilc universities such as the one I attend. I will echo that sentiment again here. It is that model, as well as substantial public and private R&D investment, that has allowed American universities to be the pioneering research bodies and competitive institutions they are today.


Curing cancer?

Tonight I had the chance, for the third successive year, to drop by Relay for Life, a charity benefit for the American Cancer Society. R4L has been one of the most popular fundraising events for any cause that I've seen at the university, and certainly the money donated for cancer research is for a good cause.

Yet it is events like R4L which sometimes give me pause to think about our good fortune and a rather chronic, media and money-driven incorrect focus of charity (and the haphazard allocation of private donations versus the potential for a more coherent public policy). Americans are lucky to have so many people with cancer--and in saying so, I mean on a relative basis: Africans would love to have the chance to live long enough to have the same rate of death from cancer that we do. Instead, they die of malaria, AIDS or preventable diseases, ignored due to a lack of relatively small amounts of funds.

How many Americans would think about malaria as an important issue? Yet the fight against malaria has been referred to as the most effective use of money possible in terms of saving human lives. It's easy: bed nets, medications. The same is true of other easily preventable diseases which ravage African populations.

It is unfair to say that nobody has noticed: in particular, the Gates Foundation has made a significant donation. But there are plenty of Americans willing to buy the "stop the genocide in Darfur" T-shirts, sure... but how many of them know where Sierra Leone or Liberia are? Or know anything about the Democratic Republic of the Congo? How many care? Those in Darfur can thank the media for, at least, shining the spotlight on one part of the continent.

Immigration...

Don't you love it when I give a list of the matters I'll comment on someday and never comment on any of them?

But... immigration is certainly the hot-button domestic issue of the day (who exactly has put it there? I guess this is one issue on which the Republicans feel they have some sort of traction...).

I've heard plenty of ridiculous statements on both sides... but honestly, it's probably time to sit down and look at some hard facts:
(1) Illegal immigrants are going to keep coming, as long as there are employers for them.
(2) Illegal immigrants are less likely to use social services, because they're afraid of getting caught. I'm not going to go look up the numbers, but feel free to do so yourself. Additionally, in states such as the one I live in, there's no income tax, which means that immigrants do pay tax (sales tax). Those who are on the payrolls of legit corporations are accounted for in payroll taxes.
(3) The issue isn't that nobody would do the job immigrants do; American citizens/legal residents would do so. The question is what the expense would be. Raising the minimum wage might actually push more jobs into the informal category.
(4) The border is really, really long, and it would cost a lot of money, and burn a lot of (figurative) bridges, to build a barrier, not to mention probably be at least partially ineffective. Greater enforcement is also going to be pretty expensive.
(5) Guest worker = eventual permanent resident, whether you like it or not, and regardless of the technical law.
(6) Americans don't really want to pay higher prices for things.

So basically, point (5) suggests that a legitimate guest-worker program is pretty much impossible. You're left with three options: (a) Try to contain immigration and harshly penalize anyone employing immigrants, and greatly ramp up enforcement, (b) Say you're trying to achieve plan (a) [this plan is what's been going on for a long time], (c) Admit defeat, lift quotas on immigrants from the Americas and try to deal with it by bringing their jobs into the formal economy.

Plan (a) is extremely expensive, which is why so many administrations have been able to make do with plan (b). But now the issue is becoming intensely politicized, so plan (b) is no longer okay (at least for now). I would be tempted to say that the issue might slide out of the public view again, but now immigrants' rights groups also are mobilized on behalf of the human rights (health care, etc.) of illegal immigrants and the question is whether they will let it die.

What about plan (c)? Well, there would probably be more immigrants, at least at first. But, if you made the one requirement to cross having legal employment, and you made all the employers pay minimum wage, this would certainly raise costs for consumers, but not by as much as by converting the jobs to Americans who would likely demand higher wages. Moreover, you could do away with much border enforcement and cut costs there. It's a lot like the "war on drugs"... what exactly are we fighting, and what is our goal?

Unos pensamientos de perspectivo

Escribo hoy de Washington, D.C., donde estoy para unas entrevistas...

Una cuestión de perspectiva

Siempre encuentro interesante cuestiones de perspectiva cuando uno se habla de otros. Bueno, pues, alguien que conozco muy bien el otro día me dijo (sobre “los hispanos”) algo como:

--Los hispanos tienen valores muy buenos y la familia es importante para ellos. Cuando llegué al paradero de autobuses unos jóvenes hispanos estaban allí y el líder dijo a los otros que se levantaran para que pudiera sentarme. No creo que unos americanos lo hubieran hecho.

¿Hay cierta problema con esto? Para ser más directo, ¿de dónde viene esta identificación de ser «americano» con ser blanco? Bueno, es muy de acuerdo con lo que aprendemos en mi clase de la sociedad y el estado, de la ciudadanía «republicana» que otorga privilegios a ciertos grupos. Si no consideramos los negros una parte integral de la sociedad, y ellos llegaron a la Costa Este al mismo tiempo que los blancos, ¿qué podemos creer de otro grupo de lo que la mayoría es más reciente y tiene problemas con la inmigración ilegal?

Y otra cosa:

Yo fui el martes al partido de béisbol en Washington (para ver los Nacionales y Rojos). Cuando compré una cerveza, la chica me pidió la identificación (soy joven, yo lo sé…). Sabéis (espero) que soy del estado de Washington, y ella ojeó la tarjeta y dijo que «Siempre tengo problemas con estas IDs del Distrito.»

Hay mucha gente que confunden el Distrito de Colombia con el Estado de Washington. Pero ¿qué significa que la vendadora de cerveza en un evento en el Distrito no sabía que mi identificación no fuera del Distrito? (¡Hay una gran montaña en la tarjeta!) No sé… quizá no puso mucho atento, o quizá a los que residan en el Distrito no les alcanza el dinero para asistir a los partidos… o por lo menos comprar la cerveza…

La República Española y Latinoamérica

Un tésis que propongo es que hay mucho que ganar de estudiar la Segunda República Española, un período de gran inestabilidad en España, y la época inmediatamente antes, para saber mucho también de Latinoamérica. Las instituciones españoles, por supuesto, influyeron en el desarrollo de las instituciones en Latinoamérica, y las dos regiones tuvieron que enfrentarse con problemas semejantes.

Sólo lo quería mencionar hoy, pero tengo mucho que quiero discutir y investigar sobre esta tema y espero encontrar unos libros muy provechosos.

A sorely needed update

There's a lot going on around the world, and it's been a while since I've stepped into the blogging world, so I have a lot of random comments to make...

First, the parliamentary elections in Ukraine. Viktor Yushchenko can proudly point to the fact that these elections were basically free and fair. The results were also to be expected: the pro-Russian opposition was basically united behind Yanukovich, while the more European-leaning Orange factions were split. The big surprise, as has been noted, was the performance of Yulia Tymoshenko as opposed to Yushchenko. A tripartite Orange government is clearly the eventual solution; what will have to be resolved is the distribution of government posts and the government's overall goals. Yushchenko has failed to revive Ukraine's economy; this is the clear priority.

There was also an election in Israel, of course. In the Palestinian territories, the trend is clearly towards moderation within Hamas; reports coming out today suggest that Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas are preparing to talk about Hamas' acceptance of a two-state solution. The question is what empirical effects this has on the behavior of the organization, and what the long-term goals of Hamas are. International pressure has clearly been beneficial to the point and must be maintained even if Hamas accepts negotiations and recognizes Israel--but the pressure should be redirected toward creating more openness in the Palestinian political space.

The Israeli election was a severe rebuke to Binyamin Netanyahu, who is probably seeing his political career at an end, at least for the moment. He is facing an open revolt within his party led by former foreign minister Silvan Shalom. Of course, we've seen Netanyahu rebound before. The upcoming coalition will clearly be centered on Kadima and Avoda. Ha'aretz has indicated that Amir Peretz will take the defense portfolio in exchange for getting some veto rights on the budget and guarantees of social spending, and leave finance to Kadima. This is probably the politically smartest move as well. One of the biggest questions right now is whether Yisrael Beitenu will sit in the cabinet, and if so, whether they will remain in when Ehud Olmert's "convergence" begins.

The next major upcoming poll will be seen in Peru, where nationalist Ollanta Humala leads the polls but will have to face a second round. It's tough for me to lend support to anyone in this race, given that (1) Humala's commitment to democracy is very questionable, (2) Lourdes Flores is right-wing and very pro-business and (3) Alan García has a horrible track record from the late 1980s. Given that, I will support (passively, as always) whoever runs against Humala in the second round, as both Flores and García have indicated they will support the other. President Alejandro Toledo has been positive in this race, and has stressed ensuring a free and fair election--perhaps he hopes a smooth transition will be one of the few legacies he passes on, given his exceedingly low popularity ratings.

I'll be back shortly with more in-depth commentary on Evo Morales in Bolivia, the effects of proportional representation in Latin America, a look forward at the Mexican presidential election, the question of the Israeli electoral system, and comments on Vladimir Putin.