All You Need Is Love?

"The second lesson of history is that the time has passed when we can construct our social policies, work schedules, health insurance systems, sex education programs — or even our moral and ethical beliefs about who owes what to whom — on the assumption that all long-term commitments and care-giving obligations should or can be organized through marriage."

Stephanie Coontz writes about the history of marriage and how differently it is organized today for the CATO Institute. Read her interesting & informative look back on the history of marriage and what that history means to us today here.

Following The Money

"Southern California is a major source of money for presidential campaigns, and fund-raising for 2008 is already setting records. Here's how the top candidates fared in the L.A. area."

The Los Angeles Times is tracking political contributions and making the info available here. You can even type in your zip code and see in what direction your area is leaning.

Ethics & Blastocysts

This article presents something to ponder about ethics and stem cell research, and the promise of a new book to check out in May: The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering.

By Michael J. Sandel, in the Boston Globe.

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Just vs. Unjust Inequality?

"For economists, then, inequality has typically represented at worst a necessary evil and at best a reasonable price to pay for growth. So, for the most part, they have not been concerned with the apparent trend of rising inequality. Development economists in particular have focused instead on the reduction of absolute poverty. "
...
"Subsequent work by many economists has strengthened my conviction that while inequality may be constructive in the rich countries—in the classic sense of motivating individuals to work hard, innovate, and take productive risks—in developing countries it is likely to be destructive. That is especially true in Latin America, where conventional measures of income inequality are high. It also may well apply in other parts of the developing world, where our conventional indicators are not so high but there are plentiful signs of other forms of inequality: injustice, indignity, and lack of equal opportunity.
Distinguishing between constructive and destructive inequality is useful. To clarify the distinction: inequality is constructive when it creates positive incentives at the micro level. Such inequality reflects differences in individuals’ responses to equal opportunities and is consistent with efficient allocation of resources in an economy. In contrast, destructive inequality reflects privileges for the already rich and blocks potential for productive contributions of the less rich. "

Nancy Birdsall writes about globalization and inequality in the latest edition of The Boston Review. Read it here.

The Lottery Is A Tax On People Who Do Not Understand Probablilty Theory

"Dr. Cohen argues that lottery tickets are not an investment but a disposable consumer purchase, which changes the equation radically. Like a throwaway lifestyle magazine, lottery tickets engage transforming fantasies: a wine cellar, a pool, a vision of tropical blues and white sand. The difference is that the ticket can deliver.
And as long as the fantasy is possible, even a negligible probability of winning becomes paradoxically reinforcing, Dr. Cohen said."

A typical cost-benefit analysis of playing a state-run lottery proves without a doubt that no one would play..
So many people love to say that actions like playing the lottery are irrational..

Both of these claims are wrong -- we just need to consider more parts of the equation to figure out why people do it (and the certainly do it). Read about one approach to understanding human behavior in the face of punishing odds in The New York Times here.

Politics and the Battle Over Definitions

"Is Bush a conservative? Of course not. When all the evidence is in, I think historians will agree with Princeton’s Sean Wilentz, who wrote a carefully argued article judging Bush to have been the worst president in American history. The problem is that he is generally called a conservative, perhaps because he obviously is not a liberal. It may be that Bush, in the magnitude of his failure, defies conventional categories. But the word 'conservative' deserves to be rescued."

Jeffrey Hart examines past presidents and modern philosophers in order to draw a line between President George W. Bush and American Conservatism in the November 20th edition of The American Conservative.

VOTE

It's that time of year again (or if you are in California, where we are voting more often than it rains here, it is another Tuesday, so it must be time to vote). I have been too busy with work to post any good resources or commentary, but I will at least say this: VOTE. You may be suffering from voter-fatigue, or you may be feeling powerless, or you may just be lazy, but you still need to go vote. For the people who don’t care much: we at least need to let them know we are watching so they don't do anything too crazy, and the easiest way to do that is by voting. For the people who are a little more hopeful or engaged: there are a bunch of important issues on the table this time & we might actually be able to make a difference if we get out there. It can't be government "by the people" unless "the people" act. We may each only be 1 in 300,000,000 now, but our actions add up (and with low voter turnout, each of us will count for a lot more than 1 in 300,000,000 anyway).

See you at the polls.