First, I think Cheriel’s reconstruction differs from Puddleglum’s conception subtly but in a very fundamental way. Cheriel takes it that Puddleglum accepts the uncertainty of his position, but what Puddleglum actually says is:

Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things- trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones…I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it.

This of course is a more extreme version of Cheriel’s argument. What Cheriel is saying is based on making an important decision under uncertain circumstances. Puddleglum however would choose to adopt a position based on one stand even after he has rejected it, because “the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones”. I’m having trouble being convinced by this because this is essentially a gamble on which side the Matrix comes down. Suppose that in the film, Neo lives in the Matrix believing that he is living life as a spiritual leader bringing alleviation and joy to millions. Puddleglum would argue that in this case he probably should persist in the Matrix. But I believe that truth is utmost. Truth is what constrains us, gives life purpose and underpins the intellectual project. Well, I for one behave rather more recklessly when I know that my consequences aren’t real, like in a video game for example.

What do I think of religion? I admire the immense poetry of it; I think the Christian mind is a poetic one. Some of the concepts are really quite beautiful and touching, and as Weber manages to convey in the Protestant Ethic, they are supremely formed constructs. And I think all the hard atheists are missing out on a real literary experience rejecting all faith so steadfastly. I still remember my Anglican primary school, singing hymns and enjoying the feeling of being a part of something manifestly greater than ourselves. But I suppose Spinoza supplies this cosmological feeling equally well.

I, of course, do not believe in it. I have a rather terrible impression of organised religion (except for the ritualistic element, which I really like). And I find it difficult to be convinced by the idea. My mind rejects it, no matter how appealing I find it. There was a short comic strip from Flight that I thought really captured my feelings on this: I want to believe, just that I really can’t.

The book is as the author admits, a fox instead of a tortoise, and indeed I think it is its chief strength. First, it does justice to what the author knows. For example, when discussing Scandinavian social democracy, he goes to differentiate the models of governance we are so accustomed to thinking of as a bloc. In fact, he does this sort of thing all the time, betraying an extensive familiarity with all of Europe, rather than the England-France-Germany tripartite most people engage with.

So as a general introduction to history, this is a pretty good tome to pick up. But most of all, I like it because it deals with themes of memory, remembrance, guilt and history. It manages to fit the things I know about Europe now (the various countries today and things like the Eurozone crisis) into context. In fact, in his bit about the Maastricht treaty, his observations about the monetary union are remarkably similar to what is being said now. Judt may not be a pathbreaking economic thinker, but he often shows us that what we find novel is a rehashed version of something else in history. Or as Ecclesiastes puts it: “there is nothing new under the sun”.

I had the misfortune of being stuck in camp yesterday defending the nation by standing around for 8 hours while Crystal left to return to New York. And as we both noticed, it’s a strange inversion, is it not? I was the one crazy about the US last year and she about Cambridge and now she’s in Columbia and I’m probably going to Oxford. I guess it all works out in the end.

P.S. After putting it back on the shelf, I suddenly felt a sense of loneliness, the sort of emptiness Carol Ann Duffy was talking about, now that something that has been with me for so long (15 days) and featured so prominently in my life in that period of time will now be gone. What does that say about my prospects for a real relationship with a real person?

Also, I appreciate the point raised by one NMP that this report is a technical fix, which is why we should not be dizzied by the size of the pay cut. Frankly, the pay structure before was ridiculous. Ministers could have been paid for 39.5 months of work in a year (which to my knowledge still consists of 12 months). On top of that, they are also paid a MP allowance. It also strikes me as a little strange that they would consider a comfortable wage 50,000 a month, which seems rather damning considering that most Singaporeans earn below a-tenth that sum.

Just two more disparate observations. First, one thing I like about the recommendation is the notion of a clean wage. Case in point: Chinese officials’ pay is notoriously low but everybody knows that they drive luxury cars and live in big mansions. The shortfall is made up for by corruption and favour taking (read Richard McGregor’s book for a good account). Second, on the other hand, paying people not to lie and cheat seems to be in fact internalising the deception, which is defensible on pragmatic grounds, but suggests that it is a pity that we cannot get less greedy people.

“Public service is not a sacrifice; it is not a burden or imposition. Public service should be a calling; it is an honour and a privilege.”

Now how many people in Singapore actually believe that, or is it as convenient a punch line as the statement it’s opposing?

I don’t think anyone would argue that this is a desirable policy in public. But Baker makes a very plausible case for his thesis and one idea I like is that we must look at policies carefully to see exactly what they entail. Often policies can be disguised with clever names. A free trade agreement sounds great to people with a basic understanding of economic theory but that agreement assumes free trade in some goods, but also protectionism in others. How do we decide which goods are protected by barriers and which are free? It is in these questions that the true ideological orientation and effects of policies lie. So while we haven’t been taxing the poor and giving it to the rich, it is still possible for subtle upward distribution to exist.

Are Baker’s examples convincing? The point about patent laws has been discussed often (here for a start) and the notion that patent laws can actually reduce innovation has also been brought into the mainstream. And given the monopolistic aspects of a patent, the notion that patents are bad for consumers is obvious, even more so if we realise that if the argument above is correct, then patents do not even generate new innovations for the market.

So I am willing to believe that patent laws bring profits to monopolist inventors to the detriment of everyone else. Increasing inequality may be a free market outcome, but it is also helped along by regressive policy. In any case, this is an idea that is worth looking into.

I actually like a lot of what Cowen is saying. It is pretty clear that Krugman is not Humean, and even if he has thought of what Cowen thought of, he generally does not bother to say it. It is true that Krugman has an ability to make things really clear (almost obvious) and this talent stems from a reductionist dynamic at the core of his thinking. So for a more thorough approach to the issue, Cowen’s suggestion, which is roughly to examine how large the effect Krugman is predicting is going to be over how long, see if there can be anything in the longer run that will make austerity even a plausible option and considering workable policies that might be adopted to the least worst effect (and some wonkish icing on the cake), would be a more convincing argument simply because it is more thorough.

Krugman on the other hand is probably approaching the issue from a different perspective. I don’t think his blog is a place for the sort of rumination Cowen suggests, but as a sort of outreach to a broader audience. Perhaps people search for Krugman more because he writes more generally and more simply for a larger audience (note how he still labels posts wonkish to ward off the fainter of heart). But for people who want to engage with Krugman’s arguments on a deeper level, well, perhaps Cowen is right that there are not that many avenues (not that I know anything at all about his complete bibliography).

After the divisive Christopher Hitchens’s death, yet another issue invoking the theme of what mould a public intellectual should be in.

This is one of the arguments that I’ve been a little troubled by. The author of the article concludes that “leftist outrage over income inequality is therefore deeply misguided” because “to a large extent, incomes differ because priorities differ”. Here, Kahneman’s book seems to have some evidence that backs up his claim, that when one of your goals when young is to earn more money, you generally tend to earn more money.

If you think about it, the argument is reduced to a familiar “success is determined by how hard you are willing to work for it” form. But notice: the sample data is from “approximately 12,000 people who had started their higher education in elite schools in 1976″ (underline mine). Surely this does not include people leftists generally talk about (people in a poverty trap, disadvantaged minorities etc.). So while this seems to hold at what we can assume to be a fairly comfortable level of existence (to be enrolled in an elite school for higher education), the correlation might not hold at lower levels of income, especially if there are significant impediments near the bottom to stop people from moving up. I doubt that Caplan’s arguments hold for people of all income levels, which seems to suggest that there is still some direction in leftist outrage.