Category: Economics
“It appears that the historical function of neoconservatism was to supply an intellectual rationale for the worst impulses of traditional conservatism. The attack on the welfare state rationalized—in effect if not intention—greed and class privilege. With the same qualification, the attack on affirmative action rationalized racial hostility. The attack on multilateralism and international law has, less ambiguously, rationalized national chauvinism and aggressive tribalism.” – George Scialabba, “The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal”
“Innovation is the engine of discovery and is vital for a productive, effective scientific enterprise. However, innovative ideas become old news fast. Journal reviewers and editors may dismiss a new test of a published idea as unoriginal. The claim that ‘we already know this’ belies the uncertainty of scientific evidence. Deciding the ideal balance of resourcing innovation versus verification is a question of research efficiency. How can we maximize the rate of research progress? Innovation points out paths that are possible; replication points out paths that are likely; progress relies on both. The ideal balance is a topic for investigation itself. Scientific incentives—funding, publication, or awards—can be tuned to encourage an optimal balance in the collective effort of discovery. Progress occurs when existing expectations are violated and a surprising result spurs a new investigation. Replication can increase certainty when findings are reproduced and promote innovation when they are not.” – Open Science Collaboration, “Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science”
“The U.S. soldiers who fought in World War II had the great Depression as their defining experience. Men aged twenty-one in 1941 were nine when the depression began and, regardless of locale, had been through a soul-searching experience along with their families. This period was marked by a dramatic fall in the value of stocks; hundreds of thousands of businesses failed; millions of savings accounts were lost; wages fell an average of 60 percent; and unemployment rose from 9 to 25 percent, which left fifteen million people without jobs. Professional people often took laboring jobs in mills, if they could find them. Or they went door to door trying to sell life insurance for which the insured paid twenty-five cents a week, provided the agent came to the door every week to collect the twenty-five cents. Medical doctors and lawyers were scrounging for ‘nickels and dimes,’ the majority of them barely making a living. Engineers could not find jobs. Occasionally they would be hired, work a few months, then be laid off. Farmers were ‘dirt-poor.’ Salespeople in department stores waited all day for customers who often did not show up. One store had only Ph.D.’s as salespersons. They often worked on commission and frequently had to ask the boss for an advance so they could eat. For those unskilled and undereducated, it was a disaster, as they found the labor-intensive positions they once had filled by those more knowledgeable. Many breadwinners lost faith in themselves and in their government. Because of the widespread poverty, many of those coming of age had dropped out of school to help feed their families. Those who had finished high school and even those who went on to college scrabbled for any work. Many of those who could not find jobs enrolled in the Civilian Conservation Corps for a dollar a day plus room and board or received jobs through the Works Progress Administration, both products of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.” – Robert Sterling Rush, Hell in Hürtgen Forest
“The invasion of Iraq was initially portrayed as a response to threats to American security. When these were exposed as nonexistent (indeed, fabricated), a new marketing strategy, ‘democracy promotion,’ was devised by the government and eagerly swallowed by a docile intelligentsia. Meanwhile, the occupying forces moved immediately to accomplish the invasion’s real goals: construction of permanent bases for future Middle East military interventions; exploitation of Iraq’s energy resources; and conversion of the country into a wholly unregulated investors’ paradise. It was a perfectly plausible, entirely cold-blooded imperialist project, though unexpectedly, it failed.” – George Scialabba, “Only Words”
“People are impressed with numbers, but the mere existence of data that can be quantified and manipulated is no guarantee of valid results.” – John J. Lentini, Scientific Protocols for Fire Investigation, Second Edition
“Any progressive aspects present in capitalist societies stem from resistance to the dependency-creating, de-skilling logic of capitalism, and from ideological, legal, political and physical resistance to capitalist excesses.” – Spencer Dimmock, “The Eastern Origins of Capitalism?”
“So thoroughly did the Soviet and Chinese Communists betray the ideals in whose name they seized power, and so ruthlessly did they silence nearly everyone who protested that betrayal, that the ideals themselves are in danger of being forgotten. But many of the wisest and bravest men and women of the 20th century began by embracing Communism, and some of the century’s best political writing was occasioned by their efforts later in life to understand what, if anything, of that youthful commitment remained valid. The original allegiance of these ex-Communists was not to a party or ideology but to ordinary working people. Facing the harsh, sometimes lethal conditions of early industrialism, workers gradually organized themselves, usually against ferocious opposition from above.” – George Scialabba, “Bitter Spring”
“A hypothesis is important if it ‘explains’ much by little, that is, if it abstracts the common and crucial elements from the mass of complex and detailed circumstances surrounding the phenomena to be explained and permits valid predictions on the basis of them alone. To be important, therefore, a hypothesis must be descriptively false in its assumptions; it takes account of, and accounts for, none of the many other attendant circumstances, since its very success shows them to be irrelevant for the phenomena to be explained. To put this point less paradoxically, the relevant question to ask about the ‘assumptions’ of a theory is not whether they are descriptively ‘realistic,’ for they never are, but whether they are sufficiently good approximations for the purpose in hand. And this question can be answered only by seeing whether the theory works, which means whether it yields sufficiently accurate predictions.” – Milton Friedman, “The Methodology of Positive Economics”
“The choice among alternative hypotheses equally consistent with the available evidence must to some extent be arbitrary, though there is general agreement that relevant considerations are suggested by the criteria ‘simplicity’ and ‘fruitfulness,’ themselves notions that defy completely objective specification. A theory is ‘simpler’ the less the initial knowledge needed to make a prediction within a given field of phenomena; it is more ‘fruitful’ the more precise the resulting prediction, the wider the area within which the theory yields predictions, and the more additional lines for further research it suggests. Logical completeness and consistency are relevant but play a subsidiary role; their function is to assure that the hypothesis says what it is intended to say and does so alike for all users—they play the same role here as checks for arithmetical accuracy do in statistical computations.” – Milton Friedman, “The Methodology of Positive Economics”
“The only relevant test of the validity of a hypothesis is comparison of its predictions with experience. The hypothesis is rejected if its predictions are contradicted (‘frequently’ or more often than predictions from an alternative hypothesis); it is accepted if its predictions are not contradicted; great confidence is attached to it if it has survived many opportunities for contradiction. Factual evidence can never ‘prove’ a hypothesis; it can only fail to disprove it, which is what we generally mean when we say, somewhat inexactly, that the hypothesis has been ‘confirmed’ by experience. To avoid confusion, it should perhaps be noted explicitly that the ‘predictions’ by which the validity of a hypothesis is tested need not be about phenomena that have not yet occurred, that is, need not be forecasts of future events; they may be about phenomena that have occurred but observations on which have not yet been made or are not known to the person making the prediction.” – Milton Friedman, “The Methodology of Positive Economics” (emphasis in original)
“Viewed as a language, theory has no substantive content; it is a set of tautologies. Its function is to serve as a filing system for organizing empirical material and facilitating our understanding of it; and the criteria by which it is to be judged are those appropriate to a filing system. Are, the categories clearly and precisely defined? Are they exhaustive? Do we know where to file each individual item, or is there considerable ambiguity? Is the system of headings and subheadings so designed that we can quickly find an item we want, or must we hunt from place to place? Are the items we shall want to consider jointly filed together? Does the filing system avoid elaborate cross-references? The answers to these questions depend partly on logical, partly on factual, considerations. The canons of formal logic alone can show whether a particular language is complete and consistent, that is, whether propositions in the language are ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’ Factual evidence alone can show whether the categories of the ‘analytical filing system’ have a meaningful empirical counterpart, that is, whether they are useful in analyzing a particular class of concrete problems.” – Milton Friedman, “The Methodology of Positive Economics”
“Who controls the American government? In a weak, formal sense, the people control the government, by voting. But that’s a very weak sense. In a strong sense, business controls the government: by financing parties and candidates, by controlling news media, by shaping public opinion, and ultimately, if all else fails, by moving capital out of the country.” – George Scialabba, “What Is American Foreign Policy About?”
“Before you dismiss any opinion, no matter how foolish it seems, you should ask, with an open mind: ‘What’s the evidence for it?’ ” – George Scialabba, “What Is American Foreign Policy About?”
“I have never seen a workman as skilled as my father. His unboastful confidence in what he could do impressed me as much as his achievements. He was so at ease with his materials and always so respectful of their nature that they seemed in friendship with him, as though consenting to his touch rather than subjugated by him… this extended beyond his ironwork. As an expression of gratitude to a woman who had been kind to him he made a beautiful lace curtain, the lace included… He repaired almost everything… A superb welder, his reputation spread among the farmers in the region [upstate Victoria]. When they brought him something to weld he said, ‘If this breaks, it will not break where I weld. It will break somewhere else.’ Invariably he was right… From him I learned the relation between work and character. His sense of the importance of work and of its moral and spiritual requirements was simple and noble… If there was a fault, he accepted responsibility because he believed that it was the duty of an honest person to do so. It was inconceivable that he should do so because, for example, it would rebound on him if he did not… He regarded such prudential justifications… as shabby. The refusal of such justifications was for him… the mark of our humanity… He was deeply gratified that his work, and he through it, should become respected. Many times he told me that there are few things more important than a good name. Again, his reasons were not prudential.” – Raimond Gaita, Romulus, My Father (as quoted by Sophie-Grace Chappell in “Rôles and Reasons” (ellipses in original))
“Work really is the answer to so many problems, and it’s a form of play, too, that you take very seriously and keep trying to expand.” – Diane Keaton (interviewed by Meg Grant in “Diane Keaton Can’t Stop”)
“The war was a potent catalyst for change across the republic. New technologies—jets, computers, ballistic missiles, penicillin—soon spurred vibrant new industries, which in turn encouraged the migration of black workers from south to north, and of all peoples to the emerging west. The GI Bill put millions of soldiers into college classrooms, spurring unprecedented social mobility. Nineteen million American women had entered the workplace by war’s end; although they quickly reverted to traditional antebellum roles—the percentage working in 1947 was hardly higher than it had been in 1940—that genie would not remain back in the bottle forever. The modest experiment in racially integrating infantry battalions ended when the war did, despite nearly universal agreement that black riflemen had performed ably and in harmony with their white comrades. A presidential order in 1948 would be required to desegregate the military, and much more than that would be needed to reverse three centuries of racial oppression in America. But tectonic plates had begun to shift. ‘Glad to be home,’ a black soldier from Chicago observed as his troopship sailed into New York harbor. ‘Proud of my country, as irregular as it is. Determined it could be better.’ ” – Rick Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light
“The United States emerged from World War II with extraordinary advantages that would ensure prosperity for decades: an intact, thriving industrial base; a population relatively unscarred by war; cheap energy; two-thirds of the world’s gold supply; and great optimism. As the major power in western Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific, possessing both atomic weapons and a Navy and Air Force of unequaled might, the United States was ready to exploit what the historian H. P. Willmott described as ‘the end of the period of European supremacy in the world that had existed for four centuries.’ If the war had dispelled American isolationism, it also encouraged American exceptionalism, as well as a penchant for military solutions and a self-regard that led some to label their epoch ‘the American century.’ ‘Power,’ as John Adams had written, ‘always thinks it has a great soul.’ ” – Rick Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light
“In [the Merkers mine] ‘Room No. 8,’ a chamber 150 feet long and 75 feet wide, more than 7,000 bags of gold and other loot recently transferred from Berlin—in some cases by double-decker bus—lay in neat rows under lights dangling beneath the twelve-foot ceiling. In addition to 8,307 gold bars and 55 crates of bullion, the repository included 3,682 sacks of German currency, 3,326 bags of gold coins—among them 711 filled with U.S. $20 gold pieces, each sack worth $25,000—8 bags of gold rings, and a pouch of platinum bars. At the back of the room, in more than 200 satchels, suitcases, and trunks, each tagged ‘Melmer’ after a kleptomaniacal SS captain named Bruno Melmer, were valuables stolen from concentration-camp victims: pearls, watch cases, gold toothcrowns, Passover cups, cigarette cases, spoons. Much of the metal had been hammered flat to save space. Other galleries and shafts nearby yielded two million volumes from Berlin libraries, 400 tons of patent records, 33 wooden cases of Goethe memorabilia from Weimar, paintings by Rubens and Goya, and costumes from the Berlin state theaters. ‘If these were the old free-booting days when a soldier kept his loot,’ [General] Bradley told [General] Patton, ‘you’d be the richest man in the world.’ Patton facetiously proposed converting the 250 tons of gold—most of the Reich’s reserve—into medallions ‘for every son of a bitch in the Third Army.’ Eventually valued by SHAEF in excess of half a billion dollars, the treasure in the Merkers shaft lay within what soon would become the Soviet occupation zone. There was not a moment to lose, and plans already had been made to spirit the booty to Frankfurt—in the American zone—using thirty ten-ton trucks guarded by two MP battalions, seven infantry platoons, and air cover from P-51 Mustangs. The artworks were to be wrapped in German army sheepskin coats, thousands of which were also found in the mine.” – Rick Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light
“Eisenhower’s provost marshal estimated that in December eighteen thousand American deserters roamed the European theater, plus another ten thousand British absconders. The equivalent of a division of military fugitives was believed to be hiding in the Parisian demimonde, often joining forces with local black marketeers to peddle K rations for 75 cents from the tailgates of stolen Army trucks—hundreds of such vehicles vanished every day—or simply selling the entire deuce-and-a-half for $5,000. Eventually four thousand military policemen and detectives worked the streets of Paris. From September through December [1944] they arrested more than ten thousand people, including French civilians caught selling marijuana to soldiers. A five-story French army barracks on the Boulevard Mortier became a detention block capable of holding more than two thousand miscreants, while the merely AWOL were rounded up and trucked back to the front in lots of sixteen under MP guard. Many soldiers in an Army railway battalion in Paris were arrested and court-martialed en masse for pilferage; nearly two hundred of them drew prison sentences, some as long as fifty years—later commuted for those who agreed to combat duty. Still, the malfeasance and misconduct would thrive through the end of the war, to the point that Paris, the city of light, the city of learning, the city of love, earned yet another nickname: ‘Chicago-sur-Seine.’ ” – Rick Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light
“A typical transaction cost three packs of Chesterfields, and a survey found that among soldiers who spent two days or more in Paris, two-thirds had intercourse at least once, often in what were called ‘Where am I?’ rooms. . . . Soldiers excused from duty while being treated for syphilis or gonorrhea were said to be ‘whores de combat,’ and the Good Conduct Ribbon became known as the ‘No-Clap Medal.’ Women who swapped sex for rations or chocolate were called ‘Hershey bars,’ while a brothel was a ‘house of horizontal refreshment.’ ” – Rick Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light
“Most [combat exhaustion] patients were treated as temporarily disabled and kept close to the front, to preserve their self-respect and emotional links to their unit. Division clearing stations now usually included a psychiatrist . . . exhausted patients often were put into a deep sleep, sometimes for days, with ‘Blue 88s,’ sodium amytal or nembutal capsules. Of every one hundred exhaustion patients hospitalized in the European theater, ninety returned to duty in some capacity, although many were finished as killer riflemen. . . . neither competent treatment nor all the Blue 88s in Europe could efface war’s capacity to fracture men’s psyches. . . . Most experts concluded that soldiers wore out for good after 200 to 240 days of battle, although two psychologists monitoring the advance into Germany posited that a GI’s combat skills began to decline after a month of fighting, with many ‘close to a vegetative state’ after forty-five days.” – Rick Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light
“As long as fifty-one percent of your decisions are right, you’ll succeed.” – Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery (quoted by Rick Atkinson in The Guns at Last Light)
“Despite War Department assurances that ‘men who refrain from sexual acts are frequently stronger, owing to their conservation of energy,’ so many GIs impregnated British women that the U.S. government agreed to give local courts jurisdiction in ‘bastardy proceedings’; child support was fixed at £1 per week until the little Anglo-American turned thirteen, and 5 to 20 shillings weekly for teenagers. Road signs cautioned, ‘To all GIs: please drive carefully, that child may be yours.’ ” – Rick Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light
“Don’t come to work just for the paycheck. You want to be challenged, you want to learn, and you want to grow. Break out of your comfort zone and keep an open mind. As long as you’re in a position where you’re expanding your mind and learning new things, you’re going to be fulfilled.” – Nicole Guyer McMurrian, E-Discovery Project Manager
“Before the war, only nine black Americans possessed commercial pilot certificates, and fewer than three hundred had private licenses. Training began at Tuskegee Army Air Field in July 1941; the first pilots received their wings the following spring, then waited a year before deploying to North Africa as the only black AAF unit in a combat zone. Commanding the squadron was Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., the thirty-year-old son of the Army’s sole black general. Young Davis at West Point had endured four years of silence from classmates who refused to speak to him because of his race, reducing him to what he called ‘an invisible man.’ From that ordeal, and from the segregated toilets, theaters, and clubs at Tuskegee, Davis concluded that blacks ‘could best overcome racist attitudes through their achievements,’ including prowess in the cockpit.” – Rick Atkinson, The Day of Battle
“Under pressure from black civic leaders and a crying need for fighters, three black Army divisions had been created: the 2nd Cavalry, which arrived in North Africa only to be disbanded to provide service troops; the 93rd Infantry, shipped to the Pacific; and the 92nd Infantry, which would arrive in Italy in late summer 1944 as the only African-American division to see combat in Europe. Officered above the platoon level almost exclusively by whites, the 92nd would endure trials by fire that only partly involved the Germans. Training was halted for two months to teach the men to read, since illiteracy in the division exceeded 60 percent. A black veteran later described ‘an intangible, elusive undercurrent of resentment, bitterness, even despair and hopelessness among black officers and enlisted men in the division.’ ” – Rick Atkinson, The Day of Battle
“Among the prevalent stereotypes was a belief that blacks were too dumb, too lazy, or too apathetic to serve as combat troops. An Army study decried their ‘lack of education and mechanical skill,’ as well as ‘a venereal rate eight to ten times that of white troops, a tendency to abuse equipment, lack of interest in the war, and particularly among northern troops a concern for racial ‘rights,’ which often culminated in rioting.’ In the summer of 1943, only 17 percent of black soldiers were high school graduates, compared with 41 percent of whites. In Army tests that measured educational achievement rather than native intelligence, more than four in five blacks scored in the lowest two categories compared to fewer than one in three whites.” – Rick Atkinson, The Day of Battle
“Rely on the blunder factor. Sit back and wait for the Fascists to louse it up.” – Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead
“The root of all the liberals’ ineffectiveness comes right spang out of the desperate suspension in which they have to hold their minds.” – Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead
“The flowering of equality, self-reliance, and civic virtue in the non-slave states from the mid-18th to the mid-19th century is one of the political wonders of the world, a signal achievement in humankind’s moral history. It was made possible by a great crime: it all took place on stolen, ethnically-cleansed land. Likewise that other pinnacle of political enlightenment, Athenian democracy, which rested on slavery. But in both cases, didn’t the subordination or expropriation of the many allow the few to craft social relations from which the rest of the world has learned invaluable lessons? Is some such stolen abundance or leisure a prerequisite of moral and cultural advance? Even if we acknowledge the dimensions of the crime, can we really regret the achievement?” – George Scialabba, “Floats Like a Vulture”