Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Why do they have the same features?

Eric, I believe that Galen is referring to any economy in which the government plays a significant regulatory and/or subsidizing role. If I understand Galen correctly, he's against things like a national bank, infrastructure spending, and the railroad subsidies that helped build the railroads (and contributed to railroad-company profits and those of manufacturers that used railroads for shipping), or agricultural subsidies, or ANY involvement of the government in the economy, whether on behalf of ordinary people OR on behalf of big business. Bailouts for banks, bad. Subsidies for oil companies, bad. Et cetera.

Hamilton advocated a lot of that and Jefferson opposed it. The current economy is, within that framework, Hamiltonian. The fact that it ALSO does things on behalf of workers and ordinary people that Hamilton never advocated is irrelevant.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

It just occurred to me that there is one circumstance in which secession and general dissolution of the nation will be possible: if the next few elections were to somehow propel a Tea Party radical-right full domination of the federal government.

No government can endure without the support of its people, meaning a majority of the people. Even when the electoral system is rigged in some way, as ours is by campaign donations, or completely meaningless, as it was in the Soviet Union, still when the people turn against the government it falls and is replaced. A revolution ensues.

In a federal system such as the U.S., however, revolution at the center may be less likely than dissolution of the union and individual revolutions in the component parts. The Soviet Union experienced that, with all of the component republics (including Russia) severing their ties from the central government..

You're beginning to see what rough beast might come round at last. We only see glimmers of it now of course; we can still hope the Tea Party doesn't get this far.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Eric, I believe that Galen is referring to any economy in which the government plays a significant regulatory and/or subsidizing role. If I understand Galen correctly, he's against things like a national bank, infrastructure spending, and the railroad subsidies that helped build the railroads (and contributed to railroad-company profits and those of manufacturers that used railroads for shipping), or agricultural subsidies, or ANY involvement of the government in the economy, whether on behalf of ordinary people OR on behalf of big business. Bailouts for banks, bad. Subsidies for oil companies, bad. Et cetera.

Hamilton advocated a lot of that and Jefferson opposed it. The current economy is, within that framework, Hamiltonian. The fact that it ALSO does things on behalf of workers and ordinary people that Hamilton never advocated is irrelevant.

Yes, but I don't see a lot left of the Hamiltonian system either. It's true we had some bail outs, but they are over. We still have some subsidies, which I might agree with Galen probably should be ended. The government is mostly neglecting infrastructure, and its regulatory role has been cut back a lot in the last 30 years. The idea that government should help get new industries off the ground is not too popular these days. Such things could not be passed today of course, though some were passed in the previous congress-- which was a rarity in these Reaganomics times.

Originally Posted by ziggyX65

Ah, yes -- the limousine liberal intelligentsia. To them, "progressivism" often doesn't seem to include populism. This is the group that loves to use the offensive term "white trash." It's okay to ridicule the less educated and the less successful if they are white (and perhaps vote Republican).

And thinking on it now, I think I see why this group and the Tea Party can't stand each other. The Tea Party has elements of populism with no progressivism, and the latte liberals tend to preach progressivism without the populism. On a Venn diagram, their "intersection" is pretty close to the null set.

I don't know if all that can be concluded, or if instead it is a fact that any bureaucrat can be stuck in a narrow view of things and enforce rules in an insensitive way, however useful bureaucrats can often be. And also there is a lack of respect for organic farms in a society dominated by corporate mechanized agriculture. Intelligentsia? I'm not so sure that relates.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

The government is mostly neglecting infrastructure, and its regulatory role has been cut back a lot in the last 30 years. The idea that government should help get new industries off the ground is not too popular these days. Such things could not be passed today of course, though some were passed in the previous congress-- which was a rarity in these Reaganomics times.

The irony is that Reagan pushed an increase in the gas tax to fund transportation infrastructure, and yet the Tea Partiers invoke him as their patron saint of preventing these "socialist," "big government," "tax and spend" initiatives from seeing the light of day.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I don't know if all that can be concluded, or if instead it is a fact that any bureaucrat can be stuck in a narrow view of things and enforce rules in an insensitive way, however useful bureaucrats can often be. And also there is a lack of respect for organic farms in a society dominated by corporate mechanized agriculture. Intelligentsia? I'm not so sure that relates.

To the extent Odin refers to them as "hicks" (his description of their attitude, not his own, just to be clear) -- yes, I'd be willing to bet these *are* the intelligentsia he's referring to -- who have this attitude, showing contempt for the relatively uncultured, unsophisticated and undereducated. Of course not all progressives are latte liberals, but it sounded like he was talking specifically about this subset of liberalism.

The Federal Reserve still exists, as does the structure of corporate law, as does the precedent and premise that future bank bailouts will happen as needed, likewise the precedent of government intervention in the failure of major manufacturers. For all the hoopla about deregulation, lots of regulations of business are still on the books that are there to protect big business from competition by rising startups. The minimum wage still exists, likewise child labor laws and many other labor regulations. It would take an enormous amount of radical change before we could say that we no longer have a Hamiltonian economy. I don't even think it could be done. I know that big business wouldn't stand for it.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

HTee:

Geographic military defensibility may be a moot point. There is no way the seceding states could build up a military force capable of withstanding the U.S. military. Of course, the remaining states wouldn't be able to maintain the current military, but that's all the more reason for them to strike quickly, before the whole thing evaporates.

Yeah, I almost didn't put that in there because it sounds too much like, if you'll pardon the pun, a replay of the "greatest hits" of 1861.

The reality that the remaining states could not afford the current Federal infastructure, including the military is telling. As a resident of SC it pains me to write this, but when it comes to Federal revenues and expenditures the blue states are generally the donors and the red states are generally the receipents. Simply put, the truncated red state union could not afford to let the blue states go. Which leads to...

Originally Posted by BR

If that were to happen, everything would hinge on whether the soldiers would obey orders or themselves rebel. If they did, the Crisis would enter a very ugly phase indeed involving martial law, denial of civil liberties, essentially the imposition of a bleak totalitarian state until it could be overthrown from within or without or a combination.

IOW an "American spring" happens at some point.

Originally Posted by BR

EDIT: It's not just the radical reactionary nature of today's Republicans that might provoke a secession. If that were the only thing going on, the obvious solution would simply be to vote Democratic. But that combined with the Democrats' being a corporate-owned party, not quite as bad as the GOP but in no position to implement the solutions we actually need to restore prosperity and fairness, might lead enough people to turn their backs on the system, given a sufficiently shocking electoral and policy outcome.

And the scary thing is all of this may get tested in the next few years.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Eric, I believe that Galen is referring to any economy in which the government plays a significant regulatory and/or subsidizing role. If I understand Galen correctly, he's against things like a national bank, infrastructure spending, and the railroad subsidies that helped build the railroads (and contributed to railroad-company profits and those of manufacturers that used railroads for shipping), or agricultural subsidies, or ANY involvement of the government in the economy, whether on behalf of ordinary people OR on behalf of big business. Bailouts for banks, bad. Subsidies for oil companies, bad. Et cetera.

This is essentially correct. Even the conservative types recognize this with the difference that they think it is a good thing.

I think the discussion of a civil war scenario or mass secession is way off track. Most of this discussion is vast overstatement tinged with what feels to me like paranoia.

First of all the Tea Party only has the support of about 28% of the population at this point. If they get too far out of line, there will be more Sharon Angles and Christine O'Donnells. It appears that there is a current slight majority that supports government austerity, but only within certain limits. These limits do not include doing away with Social Security or Medicare. It does include changes to make them financially more secure and sustainable. The most radical proposal is Paul Ryan's voucher proposal for Medicare but even that involves a huge commitment of government funds and a continued large entitlement. Other proposals include raising the retirement age or means testing Social Security. These would be changes, but hardly enough to trigger civil war.

If you want to speculate about radical political change, speculate about how a successful third party could displace one of the two current parties.What would its platform be and which party would be most threatened?

James50

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Of course, I really don't think that there will be a split within the union even if the Tea Party gets it preferred candidate elected president next year. But in theory it is possible.
To bring about such a case something like the following would have to happen.
First, I suspect that this economic crises is a true depression and I believe that the policy that a GOP/Tea Party government would impose of continued and expanded austerity for most, but with continued rent granting to the well connected civilian and military contractors within the elite will worsen the depression to the point that as the 2014 midterm approaches the Tea Party/GOP will face being effectively wiped out of power or else patten unless they do something that may trigger either a succession such as claim a national security emergency and cancel the 2014 election. This could lead to something like the following.

In this worse case scenerio I could see CA, OR, WA, HA and likely NV forming a Republic of the Pacific.
It would be geographically coherent and relatively defendable.

The eastern succession would be a bit more problematic as certain midwestern states and I'm thinking mostly of Ohio and Indiana and maybe Iowa may play the role more that the border states in the CW 4T. Which is to say, there is an active succession movement within them but they either don't succeed or else they split themselves north/south along the I-70 / US Route 40 corredor, which has historically been a dividing line between the zones of northern and southern culture within the midwestern states.
This split could leave the eastern/midwestern group of succeeded state split thus likely leading to this area being the major focus of any military campaigns.

But enough of this. It is time to awaken from this nightmare to the grim enough reality that hopefully won't lead us there.

You'd probably see a division of WA and OR with the Western portions joining Cali and the Eastern portions joining Idaho, Utah etc. Also i doubt NV would join with Cali, more likely with the above mentioned coalition or with AZ and other SW states.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

HTee:

Geographic military defensibility may be a moot point. There is no way the seceding states could build up a military force capable of withstanding the U.S. military. Of course, the remaining states wouldn't be able to maintain the current military, but that's all the more reason for them to strike quickly, before the whole thing evaporates.

If that were to happen, everything would hinge on whether the soldiers would obey orders or themselves rebel. If they did, the Crisis would enter a very ugly phase indeed involving martial law, denial of civil liberties, essentially the imposition of a bleak totalitarian state until it could be overthrown from within or without or a combination. If not, then the secession succeeds. There's no way the seceding regions could have a prayer of defending themselves no matter what their geography.

EDIT: It's not just the radical reactionary nature of today's Republicans that might provoke a secession. If that were the only thing going on, the obvious solution would simply be to vote Democratic. But that combined with the Democrats' being a corporate-owned party, not quite as bad as the GOP but in no position to implement the solutions we actually need to restore prosperity and fairness, might lead enough people to turn their backs on the system, given a sufficiently shocking electoral and policy outcome.

It would be ugly. I figure that a Far Right America would have three sides of the triangle of objectionable government -- inequity, hierarchy, and repression. It would raise taxes, exacting them heavily upon people who have the least to defend in the system. It would surely conscript troops whose loyalty would be suspect.

The West Coast is economically viable; it has good agricultural areas in the Willamette, Sacramento, and San Joaquin Valleys. The Sierra Nevada would be a fine (but last) real line of defense for most of California. To the east, Nevada has some steep lines of mountains. New England, New York, and Pennsylvania aren't. The Great Lakes region is militarily about as defensible as Poland in 1939 even if it has a solid agricultural base .

What could be even worse would be that the sort of leadership that an inegalitarian, hierarchical, repressive society would have. Its tax policies and conscription policies would effectively hurt the people who have the least stake in some civil war intended to preserve a nasty system. If those people are easily identified by religion or ethnicity then they will be in danger of genocide should they show any signs of disloyalty.

But even before that happens we would see the disintegration of NATO and the United Nations. America would be recognized as a rogue state. States would already be making informal alliances with foreign powers that might have something to gain from the dismemberment of the US. Vicious systems don't kill their cheap, subject labor; they do kill their educated and nominally-independent middle class. Such is quite possibly the difference between the Confederate States of America and the Third Reich (including its satellites).

Question: does the economic elite of America need an independent and successful middle class?

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Question: does the economic elite of America need an independent and successful middle class?

The real question is whether it needs a large, egalitarian version of same, such as prevailed throughout most of this saeculum. There will always be a middle class, but it could end up a rump version consisting only of highly-paid professionals.

Do the elite need a large, prosperous middle class? This is another way of asking: Do they need big markets and capacity production? America's production will operate at the level justified by consumer demand. A rump middle class means truncated demand and under-capacity production, a permanently depressed economy. Is that an acceptable outcome for the owner class?

It might be. I present something like that in my novella Robin (link in my signature). As the current situation with rising profits even in a depressed economy indicates, a bigger piece of a smaller pie may end up being better in absolute terms than a smaller piece of a bigger pie. And if the goal is not merely to make lots of money, but to hold personal power over the lives of others by virtue of their desperation, then the advantage can't be measured purely in terms of profit.

Originally Posted by Weave

You'd probably see a division of WA and OR with the Western portions joining Cali and the Eastern portions joining Idaho, Utah etc. Also i doubt NV would join with Cali, more likely with the above mentioned coalition or with AZ and other SW states.

Or perhaps northern California and southern Oregon would try to secede from the rest of their states form the state of Jefferson again.

In reality, the "civil war" mentality many are thinking about is a geographic mess, far worse than the simmering anger of the 1850s. Here there aren't clear and defined regions. Besides, in reality the divide is MUCH more rural versus urban than along the lines of clean geography. The South and much of the Mountain West states are strongly Republican, but the South is more socially conservative whereas the Mountain states are more economically conservative.

Originally Posted by Weave

You'd probably see a division of WA and OR

Very possible.

EDIT: I see that Ziggy has noted the State of Jefferson. I remember hearing of that possible state before. I love that double cross / double X ) "state symbol." Of course the one proposed in 1941 omitted eastern WA state but included part of northern CA. But that of course could be altered if everything really did fall apart in a few years.

Originally Posted by Weave

i doubt NV would join with Cali, more likely with the above mentioned coalition or with AZ and other SW states.

The Vegas/southern NV area tends to be Democratic. Whereas northern NV is usually pro GOP. However, Reno is slowly becoming a true metro city and has tended Democratic over the last decade or so. The two big cities LV and Reno might join the "Pacific Republic" and leave the "cow counties" as they call them to join whatever type of western red state alliance--Greater Texas?, Republic of the Rockies?-- developed out of the fragmenting process.

Originally Posted by ziggyX65

Or perhaps northern California and southern Oregon would try to secede from the rest of their states form the state of Jefferson again.

In reality, the "civil war" mentality many are thinking about is a geographic mess, far worse than the simmering anger of the 1850s. Here there aren't clear and defined regions. Besides, in reality the divide is MUCH more rural versus urban than along the lines of clean geography. The South and much of the Mountain West states are strongly Republican, but the South is more socially conservative whereas the Mountain states are more economically conservative.

Brian mentioned Wisconsin and Ohio as secession candidates. Nothing is impossible, but, if anything, these states have trended Republican in the last 10 years. The idea of secession is ludicrous.

James50

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

The West Coast is economically viable; it has good agricultural areas in the Willamette, Sacramento, and San Joaquin Valleys. The Sierra Nevada would be a fine (but last) real line of defense for most of California. To the east, Nevada has some steep lines of mountains.

Would the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys be good agricultural areas without the irrigated water coming from the interior mountain areas?

Originally Posted by playwrite

So we're supposed to just accept your conjectures as superior because of your claim as a math whiz and don’t have the time for us lesser beings

There are plenty of books on these subjects out there. Why don't read them and Mises paper and find out for yourself?

This board is simply not equipped for me to write equations so it is not possible show the math here. The math I do have is a consequence of getting degrees in electronics and computer science and working in the field for over twenty years. Anyone else with a similar background will have a similar understanding and most people simply haven't been exposed to this kind of material.

Evolution is one of the tools I have used to search large state spaces. Optimization problems rarely have closed mathematical solutions and so evolution is but one technique I have used to solve such problems. Finding the best possible allocation of resources in an economy is a problem simply too big for any one person or machine to solve.

If you like you can try to model the US economy as a system of linear equations, a gross oversimplification to be sure, and then try to solve the set of equations. The time complexity involved just for finding the inverse of the matrix, assuming that it exists, is O(n^2.367) for one of the known best algorithms. Then you will still have to perform the matrix multiplication which also has a time complexity O(n^2.367). I haven't worked out the space complexity but it would be on the order of O(n^2) just to hold the matrices involved. There are 300 million people in the US plus foreign trade to be considered. This puts lower bound of 300 million equations on the size of the problem but I think it is safe to say that the actual number of equations would be much greater than that.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

Would the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys be good agricultural areas without the irrigated water coming from the interior mountain areas?

Well, there are two primary aspects of being "good agricultural areas" -- three if you include favorable/level terrain: fertile soil *and* a locally sufficient water supply. Unfortunately if we only farmed in the areas that met these two main criteria, we wouldn't be able to produce enough food, most likely. So the next best thing would be to move water where's it's very abundant to areas where it's needed.

And it's a two-way street: yes, the CA's central valley would have a hard time existing well without water from the Sierra snowpack, but at the same time the people living in the mountains would have a tougher time living there without the agricultural products produced in the Valley.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Eric, I believe that Galen is referring to any economy in which the government plays a significant regulatory and/or subsidizing role. If I understand Galen correctly, he's against things like a national bank, infrastructure spending, and the railroad subsidies that helped build the railroads (and contributed to railroad-company profits and those of manufacturers that used railroads for shipping), or agricultural subsidies, or ANY involvement of the government in the economy, whether on behalf of ordinary people OR on behalf of big business. Bailouts for banks, bad. Subsidies for oil companies, bad. Et cetera.

Hamilton advocated a lot of that and Jefferson opposed it. The current economy is, within that framework, Hamiltonian. The fact that it ALSO does things on behalf of workers and ordinary people that Hamilton never advocated is irrelevant.

Brian, I believed that you were not understanding Galen's reference to "Hamiltonian/Jeffersonian", and for that I apologize.

Question: In your opinion, optimally, is Govt Intervention(Punishment and Reward) the Exception or the Rule? I'm speaking generally here; I fully understand the difficulties involved in attempting to install a System where ALL Punishment/Reward is eliminated due to the relative expansionary/contractionary effects of even the slightest Govt Policy change.

If Govt Intervention is the Rule, my question is answered and, I thank you for your response.

If Govt Intervention is the Exception, I may have some other follow-up questions, if you wouldn't mind.


Prince

PS: If "Govt Intervention" is an insufficient/problematic term, feel free to use one of your own that describes Govt Policy Implementation i/r/t Effects/Desired-Outcomes.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

The West Coast is economically viable; it has good agricultural areas in the Willamette, Sacramento, and San Joaquin Valleys. The Sierra Nevada would be a fine (but last) real line of defense for most of California.

The Sierra Nevada stopped being a defense perimeter about the time the airplane was invented. Today it is a cultural barrier but not much more.

James50

Originally Posted by James50

The Sierra Nevada stopped being a defense perimeter about the time the airplane was invented. Today it is a cultural barrier but not much more.

Well, it's also a "precipitation barrier." Most of the precipitation that travels from the coast eastward through California is "wrung out" by the western slope of that range, leaving very little moisture as it traverses the eastern slope into Nevada.

Originally Posted by ziggyX65

Well, it's also a "precipitation barrier." Most of the precipitation that travels from the coast eastward through California is "wrung out" by the western slope of that range, leaving very little moisture as it traverses the eastern slope into Nevada.

You ruined my little joke about the cultural provincialism of CA. Fooey on your literalism!

James50

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

Would the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys be good agricultural areas without the irrigated water coming from the interior mountain areas?

No, but their water comes largely from Sierra runoff.

Originally Posted by ziggyX65

The irony is that Reagan pushed an increase in the gas tax to fund transportation infrastructure, and yet the Tea Partiers invoke him as their patron saint of preventing these "socialist," "big government," "tax and spend" initiatives from seeing the light of day.

Pay as you go (user fee via taxation) policies isn't socialism.