Demarchy 2020: by John Burnheim

Posted on November 20, 2020 by Nicholas Gruen

Another post from John Burnheim who wrote this following up on having received some questions from some Spaniards. (Reminding me of the title of John Lennon’s book, or perhaps it was just a joke of his somewhere: A Spaniard in the works)  NG

Demarchy is not a comprehensive plan for reshaping existing public institutions in the ordinary course of social change. Most institutions change sometimes for good reasons and sometimes for worse.

All states are pressed towards privatising public institutions because the electorate demands more from them, but is also clamouring for relief from taxation. Privatised institutions are often capable of good performance in the short run but fall into inadequacy as they pay more and more attention to profits, try to rid themselves of obligations and resist the attempts of politicians and activists to penalise them for causes that have popular appeal.

The demarchal remedy for this problem is to make these institutions subject to rigorous but impartial audition and review. That move should be initiated in most cases by specific forums in each case that identifies the procedures and objectives in existing institutions and invites proposals to remedy them.

I would suggest that in each case these proposals should be assessed and authorised by citizen juries comprising the main groups with positive or negative interests in the results of what the particular proposal is likely to affect substantially. Once such an institution is chosen it would be required to submit a professional auditor, that would assess the efficiency of the institution in bringing about the improvements it proposed. The audit would be examined by a citizen jury like that which authorised the privatised institution.

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Posted in Democracy, Sortition and citizens’ juries | Leave a comment

How culture war is destroying public reason: COVID edition

Posted on November 17, 2020 by Nicholas Gruen

Cross-posted from The Mandarin (and written about ten days ago, so it fails to mention Adelaide’s latest snafu).

Lockdowns, border closures, masks, apps and eradication. Where do you stand? 

One can’t sensibly address any of these issues without knowing more about context. But we don’t do context any more. Each of the issues is now its own little culture war within the larger culture war. 

At the head of this queue is lockdown itself. One can reasonably argue that lockdowns generate more economic and human costs than benefits, including the deaths they cause. That’s not just in the countries locking down themselves, but also in low-income countries that trade with countries whose economies tank as a result of lockdowns.

I won’t be that surprised if those opposing lockdowns in a principled way end up being right in hindsight. I am surprised that those who I respect and like – like Paul Frijters – don’t express themselves with more caution and humility, that they find it so hard to believe that they might be wrong. 

After all, it’s almost impossible to specify the counterfactual – to say what would happen without lockdowns. That’s because so much of the economic impact comes from people locking themselves down, rather governments requiring it. But that’s a separate matter. They are at least doing us a service in arguing the case (if not in the way they sometimes argue it).  Continue reading →

Posted in Economics and public policy, Health | 89 Comments

WELLBY cost-benefit calculations for the UK and the Netherlands

Posted on November 13, 2020 by Paul Frijters

Last week I gave a masterclass lecture at University College London on the costs and benefits of lockdowns and other covid-policies in the UK. A recording is here (Passcode: [email protected]$?y9J9 ), and the powerpoint slides are here. A key piece of evidence was the sudden 0.7 drop in life-satisfaction during the lockdowns observed in the UK:

A cost-benefit analysis on the Dutch covid-policies, which were much less intrusive than the British ones but still had cost at least 20 times bigger than the benefits, was published yesterday in the ‘Economische Statistische Berichten‘, basically a monthly magazine for economists in the Netherlands. A version of that article is here (for those who can read Dutch), and the lengthy appendix discussing the literature on many of the issues involved (such as IFRs, scenarios, long-covid, the problem of health service displacement, suicides, mental health, etc.) is here.

Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments

The vaccine and the COVID culture war

Posted on November 10, 2020 by Nicholas Gruen

Kind of a fun graphic

Well, we look like getting a vaccine!

Of course managing the policy response to the virus could know of this only as a possibility. But, looking like it is coming to pass, that possibility seems to produce a final scorecard well in favour of the competent lockdowns in Australia, New Zealand and China and against the incompetent ones in the UK, Europe and the US which vacillated between publicly supported lockdowns and ideologically supported lockdown scepticism and ‘balancing’ the health and economic welfare of their populations.

Sweden will have done relatively well economically, though not much better if at all than its near and equally competent neighbours. But it’s had ten times their death rate or something like that. So I’m calling for more good old-fashioned ClubTroppo humility from ClubTroppo’s own #LockdownSceptics.

Posted in Economics and public policy, Health | 101 Comments

Ought Anchored to Is: Morality As A Spontaneous Order

Posted on November 8, 2020 by Antonios Sarhanis

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy

It’s a supreme finding of Hume’s clever reasoning that ought cannot be derived from is. The claim is so irrefutable that it has become a truism that acts as a bulwark against proponents of the status quo. But like a lot of reasoning, it refutes a whole swathe of assumptions without anything substantive to say about how we do or should live. Reason in this case is destructive, not instructive, an amoral tool that has no bearing on our core moral principles even if its boosters would like to claim otherwise.
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Posted in Philosophy | 23 Comments

How others are organising the Covistance: ideas for those who want to help.

Posted on November 2, 2020 by Paul Frijters

How are we going to escape the authoritarian nightmare and regain our liberties and zest for life? This long read is written for organisers of new Covistance initiatives, explaining the logic of what others have done and what could further be done. So I am speaking to those of you who want to help and are looking around for how you could help. I will discuss website-based Covistance initiatives (lockdownsceptics.org, pandata19.org , covidplanb.co.nz , viruswaarheid.nl, and social media groups) , petition-type activities (timeforRecovery.org and others), Covistance media (including do-it-yourself activities), and others.

There are many things people with different talents can do and very little is being done already. There is for instance no organisation or initiative yet that really is dedicated to people who initially went along with the covid-hysteria and have woken up to the realisation that they have been a victim of scare-mongering and disinformation. We are seeing hundreds of thousands of people around the world in essence “waking up” from a kind of cult-nightmare, bewildered and uncertain. There is a real role for groups and initiatives of an Alcoholics Anonymous type where people can share experiences and tips on how to cope, how to recover, how to help their families and friends snap out of the hysteria and support them through the transition, etc.. Teaching material needs to be generated for such organisations, including written and visual material. Pastoral care is urgently needed. TalentedFree Community Service Cliparts, Download Free Clip Art, Free Clip Art on Clipart Library empathic people can set up these types of organisations and really make a contribution to their immediate environment.

I also think artists have a really important role. We need plays, songs, paintings, poems, etc., to remind us of beauty and the good life. Now is very much a time for art to play its role as a source of solace and hope.

There is also of course a need for scientists to research the hysteria and what kind of societies we should try to become. This is something I have written about a lot in the past (see https://clubtroppo.com.au/author/paul-frijters/). There is now plenty of good material by top scientists and institutions that tell a Covista what is going on and what policies our societies could adopt. It needs adding to by those with real skill in that area, but it is not the biggest bottleneck at the moment.

The biggest bottleneck at the moment is community formation: the creation of groups and organisations that help people become engaged citizens. The new organisations needed include new media networks that offer a Covistance perspective and new academic-type institutions where people can learn and study. There is also a need for local organisations to engage in local and regional politics. I want to discuss the many initiatives in different countries that have emerged so far, pointing out the more successful models. Continue reading →

Posted in Coronavirus crisis, Death and taxes, Democracy, Geeky Musings, Health, Information, IT and Internet, Journalism, Law, Libertarian Musings, Media, Parenting, Politics - international, Politics - national, Science | 17 Comments

Capitalism and democracy: can a difficult marriage be patched up?

Posted on October 27, 2020 by Nicholas Gruen

Here’s a great lecture by Martin Wolf who’s writing a book on capitalism and democracy. It’s well worth watching I think.

And, as is my custom, and despite Paul’s thinking that the result is so buggy it may not be worth it, below the fold I append the transcript as produced by Google Recorder (which is at least better than the Google YouTube transcript – which you can also get from YouTube – in arranging the transcript into paragraphs. On the other hand you can scroll through the YouTube transcript and click on words it got wrong to see what they are.).

NB: I just found this bit of classic transcription, which I’m leaving in. “Martin there’s a stack of additional quidditches” There is indeed.

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Posted in Democracy, Economics and public policy | 7 Comments