Every once in a while I pinch myself at my good fortune in being alive at this time in history, with the web making things so much easier in so many ways. Two things happened in the last hour that reminded me of how much value people, including me, get from the web. The first was that on Nextdoor in my area, someone reported having found a dog: Found a little pup wandering up xxx Street. Tired and thirsty. We took him to the SPCA on 68. Animal ID xxxxxx. There is a five day stray hold starting 6/15. The same day (today), another neighbor answered: Thanks xxxx. xxxx belongs to our neighbor on xxxxxx St. I’ll pass the info along. And then that neighbor wrote: xxxx’s dad is on his way to retrieve him. This is amazing compared to what we could do just a few years ago. Hayek’s decentralized information in action. Just a few minutes ago, I wanted to send flowers to a woman in East Germany, er, Canada, to thank her for helping me think through how to get to my cottage in northwestern Ontario this year. She’s a fellow dual citizen whom a mutual friend told me about. Twenty-five years ago, ordering such flowers required a phone call after a laborious search for a florist. And for someone like me who can barely distinguish between flowers and flour, the descriptions of someone at the other end of the line wouldn’t have meant much. But I got on line, found a Canadian florist, looked at the pictures, ordered the flowers, and paid, all in about 3 minutes. Pinch me. But not hard. (0 COMMENTS)

In the past, I’ve frequently argued that inflation is an almost meaningless and useless concept. I’m not even aware of any coherent definitions of the concept. Unfortunately, the Fed has decided to target PCE inflation, and thus we are forced to pay attention to the issue, and even forecast its future path. Here are two problems with the inflation debate: 1. If the claim is that high inflation is an indicator of excessive aggregate demand, then why not focus on NGDP? If the claim is that high inflation is hurting living standards, then why not focus on real GDP? Inflation can be affected by both supply and demand shocks. If people say inflation is too high or two low, there’s usually some sort of public policy implication to their claim. It’s not merely like saying the weather is too hot. (Oops, even that has public policy implications these days.) In general, those who claim inflation is too high have a preference for a tighter monetary policy, and vice versa. But fast NGDP growth is a much better indicator of whether the economy is overheating. In my view, the Fed’s recent decision to adopt “flexible average inflation targeting” is a tacit admission that NGDP is a better target. They are going to let undershoot or overshoot 2% on occasion if it allows for a more stable path for NGDP. 2. People foolishly divide up into two camps, hawks and doves. In 2019 the doves said, “Inflation is too low; we need more monetary stimulus.” The hawks said, “Don’t look at inflation; other indicators suggest we don’t need monetary stimulus.” In 2021, the hawks say, “Inflation is too high, we need tighter money.” The doves say, “Don’t look at inflation, other indicators suggest that we don’t need tighter money.” Of course it’s always true that inflation is an unreliable policy indicator. But I get tired of seeing people divide up into hawks and doves, and only use the “inflation numbers are misleading” argument when it favors their policy preference. Hawks and doves are both wrong. We don’t need easy money or tight money; we need stable money. That’s why I didn’t believe the low inflation of 2019 was a problem and it’s also why I don’t think the high inflation of 2021 is a problem. Inflation is not a reliable policy indicator. You should immediately distrust any pundit who only discounts the importance of inflation when it’s below 2% (i.e. hawks) and you should also discount any pundit who only discounts the importance of inflation when it’s above 2% (i.e. doves.) Over the past 100 years, bad outcomes have occurred when we adopted dovish policies, and also when we adopted hawkish policies. Good outcomes have occurred when we adopted stable monetary policies. (0 COMMENTS)

Whenever government repeals a bad policy, my first reaction is amazement. Then gratitude. Swiftly followed by indignation, because no matter how bad the repealed policy was, the government almost never apologizes. Homely example: The FAA used to ban the use of any electronic device during takeoff and landing.  When the rule finally went away, I was amazed, because I expected to endure this petty tyranny for all the flights of my life.  Next, I felt grateful for this small expansion of my freedom.  Soon, however, I became indignant, because the government never apologized.  A half-hearted, “Sorry that our paranoia inconvenienced people billions of times” would have gone a long way. The same holds for the COVID crusade.  Almost all vaccines sharply reduce contagion.  Yet for months, government kept forcing vaccinated individuals to wear masks and socially distance.  When the CDC finally changed its guidelines, I was amazed.  Then grateful.  Yet before long – and to this day – indignant.  A half-hearted, “Sorry that our paranoia trampled the freedom of hundreds of millions” would have gone a long way. A clever public choice economist might respond, “Getting government to repeal bad policies is nigh-impossible already.  If leaders have to apologize when they repeal, repeals will virtually vanish.”  Plausible, but you could also say, “If governments know they’ll have to apologize when they repeal bad policies, maybe they’ll be more cautious about adopting bad policies in the first place.”  It’s the same as the logic of war crimes trials: One common objection to the Nuremberg trials was that they gave bad incentives to future war criminals.  If war criminals know they’ll be tried and executed if they lose, self-interest urges them to fight to the bitter end.  From this perspective, the trials were short-sighted.  They satisfied the impulse for revenge, but extended the duration of future wars. On reflection, however, that’s only a medium-run view.  The apostle of credibility could easily retort, “Yes, the Nuremberg trials encourage future war criminals to fight to the bitter end.  But they also discourage future leaders from committing war crimes in the first place.  We should take a truly long-run view.” But how abject of an apology does the public deserve anyway?  It depends.  If government justified a bad policy with hyperbole, willfully overstating the probability and severity of bad outcomes, then we deserve a giant blubbering apology.  At minimum. In contrast, if the government justified a bad policy with agnosticism, admitting that the probability of severely bad outcomes was low, then even I’ll settle for a low-key apology.  Though as I’ve argued before, government minus hyperbolic rhetoric is practically impotent: Why are proponents of government action so prone to hyperbole?  Because it’s rhetorically effective, of course.  You need wild claims and flowery words to whip up public enthusiasm for government action.  Sober weighing of probability, cost, and benefit damns with faint praise – and fails to overcome public apathy. Added bonus: When government explicitly admits that, “The probability of a severely bad outcome is low, but caution makes sense until we know more,” the natural response is to try to swiftly ascertain the truth.  Mostly notable, if the world’s governments had responded to COVID with an earnest admission of ignorance, the impetus to apply the time-tested experimental method would have been far stronger.  Voluntary Paid Human Experimentation wouldn’t merely have given us vaccines sooner; it would have allowed us to calmly cease a vast array of ineffective COVID precautions a year ago. I’d like to assert that, “History will not be kind to the enemies of Human Challenge Trials,” but that’s wishful thinking.  History is written by the victors, and the victors of COVID are unapologetic innumerates.  Though we deserve a massive apology, we’ll be lucky to walk away with the freedoms we took for granted back in 2019.   (1 COMMENTS)

Here’s Mike Huemer’s second set of responses to me and you. About Bryan’s Comments Thanks again to Bryan, and the readers who commented on his post, for their thoughts about Part 2. This is all cool and interesting. I’ll just comment on a few questions and points of disagreement. 1. Real World Hypothesis (RWH) vs. Brain-in-a-Vat Hypothesis (BIVH) “Why, though, couldn’t we race the Real World theory against the Simulation-of-the-Real-World theory?” Good question. We can think of it like this: we have a theory, B (for “brain in a vat”), and some evidence E. B doesn’t predict E very well, because there are so many other things that are about equally compatible with B. What you could do is add some auxiliary assumptions onto B, producing (B&A). And you could pick A specifically so that it entails E, given B. In Bayesian terms, this has the effect of increasing your likelihood (P(e|h) in Bayes’ Theorem). It also reduces your prior (P(h)) by the same ratio (or more). So there’s no free lunch. In other words, now the problem is just going to be that the new theory (B&A) has a low prior probability, because it stipulates that the scientists program the computer in a particular way, where this is one out of a very large number of ways they could program it (if there were such scientists). Btw, this might not initially sound to you like it’s a super-specific stipulation (“they program a simulation of the real world”). But I think it really is very specific, comparatively speaking. You have to include the stipulation that they make a simulation that is perfect, with no glitches or program bugs or processing delays that would reveal the simulation. This is possible but is true of only a very narrow range of simulations that could exist. You have to stipulate that they decide to simulate an ordinary life in a society much less advanced than their own. Again, possible, but only a narrow range of the intentions they could have, and not one that makes a whole lot of sense. By comparison, if we found that our lives maximized enjoyment, or aesthetic beauty for observers, or intellectually interesting situations, or anything else other than “looking just like a normal mundane life”, then we’d have some evidence for the BIVH. “To what extent is this approach [direct realism] compatible with just saying that the reasonable Bayesian prior probability assigns overwhelming [probability] to the Real World story?” Also a good question. It’s different from saying we assign a high prior to the RW Hypothesis, because it depends on having sensory experiences. In the “high prior” story, you should believe the RWH before having any sensory experiences (if you could somehow still understand the RWH at that time). The direct realist approach is more like assigning a high prior probability to “Stuff is generally the way it appears” (or “if there appears to be a real world, then there is”). I think it might be a requirement of rationality that one assign a high prior to this. 2. The definition of “knowledge” “[W]hat’s wrong with the slightly modified view that when we call X “knowledge,” we almost always mean that X is a “justified, true belief”?  … [W]e can think of “justified, true belief” as a helpful description of knowledge rather than a strict definition.  What if anything is wrong with that?” I think “justified, true belief” is a fair approximation to the meaning of “knowledge”. (A closer approximation is “justified, true belief with no defeaters”.) That is to say that when we call x “knowledge”, we mean something close to that. I don’t think we ever mean exactly that, though. E.g., when you say that someone knows something, part of what you’re saying is that they’re not in a Gettier case. That’s always implied by your statement (even if Gettier cases aren’t something anyone is thinking about at the moment), so you never merely mean that the person has a JTB. About Reader Comments “part of the problem with questions like “Is there a God?” is not that they are meaningless or that they have no answer. Rather, it’s that they are unanswerable.” I don’t see why that’s unanswerable. That is, I think we can and do have evidence for or against the existence of God. Granted, none of it is conclusive evidence. But then, we also don’t have conclusive evidence for or against any scientific theory, yet we shouldn’t say that scientific questions are “unanswerable” (should we?). “The second example [goodness of polygamy], however, is not a factual question, and will depend on what each particular culture considers  good and bad.” It is a factual question! I can’t find that passage right now (it’s not on 87-8 in my copy), so I’m not sure what point I was making. But I explain my arguments against moral relativism in ch. 13. I too found the discussion of ‘polygamy is wrong’ to be ignoring the ambiguity of the proposition I doubt that I was doing that. Just take whatever interpretation of the phrase you want, assume that is understood, and then read the passage with that sense. If you think there are three senses of “wrong”, say, wrong1, wrong2, and wrong3, just substitute “Polygamy is wrong1”, and then read the rest of the passage as normal. Again, I’m not sure where this passage is, so I am not sure what its actual point was. …Phenomenal Conservatism, which says that we are entitled to presume that whatever seems to us to be the case is in fact the case, unless and until we have reasons to think otherwise. This sounds exactly as Popperian fallibilism, since you are admitting that the moment you get a good reason to think what it seems to you is false, you should doubt it, and thus the original “foundation” is still fallible. This isn’t Popper’s point. Popper’s point is not merely that we are fallible and should give up our beliefs if we find evidence against them. Pretty much everyone agrees with that for almost all beliefs, and so that would not be a distinctively Popperian point (nor would Popper have gotten famous for saying that). What is distinctive of Popper is that he thinks that you never get any reason at all to believe that any scientific theory is true. (Most people can’t believe that Popper thinks that, because it’s so crazy, and so they just refuse to interpret him as saying that, no matter how clearly he says it. If you don’t believe me, see the Popper quotations in this post: https://fakenous.net/?p=1239.) “BIV is a bad explanation because from it anything goes and so is not really an explanation” … Michael goes on an unnecessary argument (not even completely expressed in the book) with made up probabilities I thought it would be too complicated for undergrad students. In case you’re interested, this is where the argument is explained more fully: https://philpapers.org/rec/HUESTA. The Deutsch argument doesn’t sound adequate to me, since it doesn’t explain why the BIV theory is unlikely to be true. The remark, “from it anything goes” is indeed the start of the explanation, but it sounds like Deutsch does not give the rest of the explanation. He infers that the BIV theory isn’t an explanation, which doesn’t follow at all. If there were a BIV, and its experiences were really caused by scientists stimulating it, then that, trivially, would be the explanation of its experiences. I don’t think my argument was unnecessary, because what I did was to actually explain why the BIV theory should be rejected. As far as I can tell (not having read Deutsch’s book, but just from Benjamin’s comment), Deutsch doesn’t actually say why we’re not likely to be BIV’s. But just because “your belief is not justified” is not a good reason to change it, specially if the belief to which you should change is also not justified. I think this is a misunderstanding. I didn’t mean that you should change to another unjustified belief. I meant that, according to the skeptic, you should change from believing to not believing (whatever they’re saying is unjustified). Why? That’s just what “unjustified” means. If you think that it can be rational to hold an “unjustified” belief, than I just don’t know what you mean by “unjustified”. In order to create an accurate description of “only” the brain in its vat, the scientists, and the brain apparatus — as if that were all that existed, without relying on the simple rules of physics playing out from a (presumably simple) original condition — you would need an absolutely absurd quantity of description. I think this argument is assuming that (i) the BIV theorist has to give a detailed description of the actual state of the brain, the scientists, etc., without stating the laws of nature (?), but (ii) the Real World theory only states the general laws, and doesn’t have to specify any boundary conditions. (?) But I can’t figure out why Hellestal assumes that. Why wouldn’t the BIVH and RWH both assume the same laws? And in order to get any empirical predictions, both would of course have to add some information about the configuration of the physical world (some initial conditions). The BIV theory would have to add information about the state of the BIV. The RWH would have to add information about the state of the real world. Maybe you’re assuming that the BIVH says that there is only a BIV, and nothingness outside the BIV’s lab. Of course that’s a ridiculous theory. But that’s not how anyone understands it. The BIV theory specifies that there is a BIV (and stuff for stimulating it, etc.), and it doesn’t make claims about whatever else is going on outside the BIV’s room. the low entropy starting condition of our universe … I don’t know why this puzzles anyone. A low entropy starting condition is a mathematically simpler starting condition. That is literally what “low entropy” means: simplicity. I don’t agree with the last statement. Entropy is more precisely defined in terms of the measure of the phase space region that corresponds to a given macroscopic condition. Low entropy corresponds to a small region, and high entropy to a large region. Almost all of the phase space is occupied by the highest-entropy state, thermal equilibrium. On the standard way of assigning probabilities in thermodynamics, “low entropy” basically means “improbable”. For our world: You need a universe, which should ideally have simple rules of physics and a simple (low-entropy) starting condition. Then the simple rules of physics need to play out to, eventually, create us. And that’s it. But that’s not enough to explain your evidence. To explain your evidence, you need there to be, e.g., tables, and giraffes, and 8 planets, and Mount Rushmore, etc. Because you have experiences of all those things, so the RWH says that all those things really exist. For the BIVH, you still only need the scientists and the brain-stimulating equipment to explain all those experiences. There doesn’t have to actually be, say, a Mount Rushmore. To my surprise, Prof. Huemer largely neglects social epistemology. True. I was trying to keep the book of manageable length. However, I plan to do an epistemology text next, and it will at least include testimony and peer disagreement. The burning question I have: is the typo in the footnote on p.95 on purpose? No. In fact, I don’t even see the typo. (?) I think the skeptic’s claim that we cannot know anything with 100% certainty must be correct. Do you really mean that, or do you just mean that we can’t know controversial beliefs with certainty? (E.g., progressives do not in fact know the optimal minimum wage.) Would you say that you’re uncertain whether you exist? Is it uncertain that A=A? …our most solid cases of knowledge is built from cooperation. In the example with the octopus, if my friend is next to me and is also seeing the octopus, and we both talk about what we are seeing, and our descriptions match, the likelihood that I am truly seeing the octopus goes up. True, but notice also that this is not actually a likely case. If you see a normal physical object in normal conditions, you’re not going to be asking your friend if he sees it, etc. I’ve never done that in my life. Why not? Because I don’t need to, because I already know what I see. The cases in which you actually need to check with other people are theoretical claims. Like, you’ve just given an argument against the minimum wage, and you ask your friend who is an economist to check it. I’ve done that sort of thing all the time. And yes, that definitely increases the likelihood of being correct. This undermines the first claim above (“…our most solid cases of knowledge…”). No, our most solid cases of knowledge are things like immediate observations, made in normal conditions (good lighting, no hallucinogens, etc.). The theoretical knowledge that is commonly produced cooperatively (like science) is typically much less solid (less likely to be true, more likely to be revised in the future), even after we’ve gone through that cooperative process. Of course, that’s not because the cooperative process is bad; it’s because theoretical claims are inherently harder to know and easier to be wrong about. Which is why we feel the need to work together on them in the first place. (0 COMMENTS)

In his 1944 book The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich Hayek, a future (1974) Nobel economics prize winner, spoke about “the individualist tradition which has created Western civilization” (p. 73 in the edition edited by Bruce Caldwell, University of Chicago Press, 2007). Stokely Carmichael, a black nationalist of the 1960s and chairman of the Student National Coordinating Committee, said (as quoted in Donald Critchlow’s In Defense of Populism [University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020], p. 97): When you talk about black power, you talk of building a movement that will smash everything Western civilization has created. This trope has been common for at least several decades among the people who call for a political system that would impose their ideas by force and reduce the world to servitude and poverty. For example, I read in the Philadelphia Enquirer about a sex therapist and activist (“To End Fatfobia, We Need To Dismantle Western Civilization, Says Phily Therapist Sonalee Rashatwar,” July 3, 2019): Rashatwar, though, considers how sizeism is affected by racism, misogyny, classism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism. … Citing researcher-advocate Caleb Luna, Rashatwar said curing anti-fatness would mean dismantling society’s foundation: “I love to talk about undoing Western civilization because it’s just so romantic to me.” From all we know about history and economics, only the Western civilization could bring freedom of speech and inquiry, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution that followed. The latter event allowed not only an unheard-of jump in population but also an increase in the standard of living as had never happened in the history of mankind. The chart nearby is reproduced from my review of economic historian Joel Mokyr’s book A Culture of Growth in the Summer 2018 issue of Regulation (the data come from the Maddison Project‘s estimates). Quoting my review: From Year 1 of the Common Era until the 18th century, human living standards scarcely changed. World gross domestic product per capita inched up slightly from less than $500 per year during the first millennium, to $616 in 1700, and $712 in 1820. Then, production and income exploded. In less than two centuries, GDP per capita multiplied by more than 10, reaching $7,814 in 2010 (the last year available in this series). These figures are averages over the whole world, estimated in constant 1990 dollars. In the United States, GDP per capita (again in constant 1990 dollars) reached $30,491 in 2010. This one dramatic transformation is the story of mankind from an economic standpoint. In comparison, the last century’s Great Depression barely registered. Another book, Walter Scheidel’s Escape from Rome, explains how, contrary to the relatively anarchic character of the Western civilization following the fall of the Roman empire, the East remained dominated by dirigiste and stifling empires. Assume that human flourishing and individual liberty are values to be pursued. Then, if Western civilization had never existed, it is likely that the world would be bare. It is true that we have no way of measuring the utility (“happiness” or, more precisely in economics, preferred position) of individuals in the West and comparing it with the utility of individuals in the East. We cannot meaningfully say, “people in the West are happier than people in the East” or, even worse, “the West is happier than the East.” Interpersonal comparisons of utility are impossible. But this is not an argument for believing that people living under tyranny are happier than free individuals. On the contrary, it is an argument for letting each individual free to pursue his own conception of happiness to all extent possible. (0 COMMENTS)

Author and economist Donald Shoup of UCLA talks about destructive parking policies with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Shoup argues that most parking policies inflict unseen damage on the economy. He urges cities to charge for curbside parking and use the proceeds to improve the neighborhood beyond the curb. Stroup also explains the surprising harm done by requiring new buildings to provide a minimum level of off-street parking. (7 COMMENTS)

Author and economist Donald Shoup of UCLA talks about destructive parking policies with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Shoup argues that most parking policies inflict unseen damage on the economy. He urges cities to charge for curbside parking and use the proceeds to improve the neighborhood beyond the curb. Stroup also explains the surprising harm done […] The post Donald Shoup on the Economics of Parking appeared first on Econlib.

Author and economist Donald Shoup of UCLA talks about destructive parking policies with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Shoup argues that most parking policies inflict unseen damage on the economy. He urges cities to charge for curbside parking and use the proceeds to improve the neighborhood beyond the curb. Stroup also explains the surprising harm done […] The post Donald Shoup on the Economics of Parking appeared first on Econlib.

Author and economist Donald Shoup of UCLA talks about destructive parking policies with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Shoup argues that most parking policies inflict unseen damage on the economy. He urges cities to charge for curbside parking and use the proceeds to improve the neighborhood beyond the curb. Stroup also explains the surprising harm done […] The post Donald Shoup on the Economics of Parking appeared first on Econlib.

Power, strategy, and imagination in 2034: A Novel of the Next World War 2034: A Novel of the Next World War, by Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis, is a startling book. Not because of the general scenario it lays out—few students of politics and international affairs will be surprised by the suggestion that great power conflict between China and the United States is a realistic possibility in the years ahead—but because of the way in which the novel paints the story (really, the stories) of how a “cold” conflict could foreseeably advance to outright kinetic exchange. The crises and reciprocal escalations laid out in this book may be imagined, but as a quick glance at the biographies of the authors should reinforce, they are not at all divorced from the realm of history, logic, and strategic fact. Many of the seeds of the novel’s imaginary future conflict have already been sown in our real-life world of today. But it would be quite the mistake to interpret this work as a deterministic account of what the authors perceive to be the most likely path ahead, let alone the most desirable one. It is neither. It is rather an evocation of certain worst-case scenarios—what if our adversaries pull ahead of us in key areas of cyber and stealth technology? what if cooler heads do not always prevail within national security and defense establishments? —with the clear authorial intention of prompting serious people in positions of power and influence today to seriously rethink the road we are on with respect to China. Much of the setup of the novel is concerned with empire and overreach, how one era of international primacy gives way to another. We read of Athens and Persia, the Crown and the Raj. We read also of the world that is dawning, the world in which the subcontinent has risen to assume not just an equal, but an advanced station amongst the powers of the Earth. A longer and more complex version of this novel would likely have a similar story to tell about where we could expect certain “rising” African nations to be by the year 2034, or soon after. The upshot, though, is simple: We do not live in a world of US hegemony anymore, or if we do, we very soon probably will not. The unipolar moment is giving way to bipolarity once again, with Russia, Iran, Turkey, and a few other unaligned states doing what they can to maximize the realization of their own (largely regional) interests in and around the margins. This is not necessarily the end of world order as we know it, but it is something to be grasped. And my takeaway as a concerned and patriotic American is that grasp it we must. I am no friend of the ruling government in China, a repressive regime built on lies and the bodies of purged “enemies of the state.” (Often former officials whose usefulness to their superiors has expired.) I think that what the Chinese Communist Party has done to the Uyghur Muslim population deserves the designation of genocide, and I am humbly aware (largely in the sense of epistemic humility) that there are likely many other brutally oppressed groups, sects, and individuals within China who do not enjoy the same level of media and NGO attention as has lately fixed upon Xinjiang province. The “People’s Republic” of China is a closed, totalitarian society (certainly in the Arendtian sense, and more and more so in the Orwellian), and its government routinely commits unjust acts of intimidation, coercion, and rendition/disappearance/assassination against dissidents and perceived hostile forces, all in a so-far-successful effort to keep the ruling CCP elite in power, under the increasingly consolidated command of Xi Jinping. Control, order, and discipline are the operative terms when Chinese government officials speak of ends. Freedom and the space for pluralistic human flourishing do not factor in. So, when we compare the moral legitimacy of each regime, its suite of ends and means, there is no question in my mind that the United States maintains the high ground, by a lot, now and into the future. This despite our many mistakes and shortcomings both at home (widespread exclusion of underclass groups from full enjoyment of American life, and a persistent inability—or is it an unwillingness? —to effectively help individuals from such groups rise to a firmer social and economic footing) and abroad (starting wars we don’t have plans to finish, killing civilians and making additional enemies in the process). But though we possess the more legitimate aims of advancing human freedom, championing republican democracy, and upholding a liberal, rules-based international order, we should not make the mistake of thinking that we can use our powers to project our ideals whenever and wherever we want. (See Iraq, Afghanistan.) There is a real world that we live in, a world that has not escaped History in the Fukuyaman sense. We must face its facts, and we must read the course of human events. The fact is, China has risen, and it has done so using a combination of state control, widespread surveillance, limited employment of market mechanisms, and revolutionary communist ideology (even if very few people in China and its government actually believe it full-stop, it still has its uses, particularly when enemies need to be identified and “dealt with,” whether in propaganda or by state security forces.) Reading the course we see that, through leapfrogging effects, copycat methods, and espionage campaigns, to say nothing of population size and imagined-historical self-conceptions, the Chinese military will soon be able to hold its own against our own, particularly near the Chinese mainland. And that brings us to the humbling heart of the book: Taiwan and the South China Sea. Wearing my idealist hat, I want to say—and have recently said—that Taiwan is a country, and will remain so, under the guarantee of US and allied force of arms. I’ve felt the same way about upholding “freedom of navigation” in the South China Sea. Upon reading 2034 and being forced to sit with just some of the consequences that could, or would, or will follow from maintaining that posture, I am less sure about this idealistic position. I am less sure because the novel actually enriched my understanding of the Chinese point of view, purely from a great-power nation-state perspective. Both contested zones are very close to the Chinese mainland. Taiwan is an embarrassment to the CCP (as it should be [i]) and the South China Sea is a proving ground for force projection and the display of “national greatness.” Much as it pains the idealist in me to say this, I think we need to devise a framework in which we let these areas go, while mitigating the most harmful effects of doing so. I suggest from the armchair that we could do this by issuing visas and establishing pathways to citizenship in the US and allied nations for all residents of Taiwan who do not wish to be assimilated into the PRC, under a policy of “covered retreat.” I suspect that many of the island’s 23.6 million residents would want to participate. I have few concerns about the liberal and open nations of the world (to include Canada, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., and the countries of Europe, as well as, hopefully, allies in Central and South America and Africa) being able to do this. Sure, there would be some administrative, economic, and even social and cultural challenges to account for, but at its best this consortium of nation states—operating on good will within the liberal order of treaties, alliances, and international organizations—could overcome them. Similarly, in the South China Sea (as to be distinguished from the Philippine Sea and the western Pacific Ocean), the United States should probably move toward a less aggressive policy of patrolling and projecting force into the region. I encourage my fellow Americans to look at a map of the area. It’s not our backyard—it’s theirs. I don’t want to incentivize the regular presence of Chinese military vessels in the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, off the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, or in the neighborhood of Hawaii and other overseas territories. We can ward off such unwelcome visits by ceasing our own provocations—the authors of 2034 seem to agree that this is what they are—on the doorstep of the Chinese mainland. No militaristic great power will tolerate them forever. Some will challenge the posture of “Far East Asian” renunciation that I here advocate, perhaps even going so far as to call it “appeasement.” Such persons might think me naïve for suggesting that the PRC/CCP will stop at Taiwan and the Spratly Islands and similar currently contested territories. But I am not suggesting that. Perhaps after the fall of Taiwan (qua territory) and the conquest of the South China Sea the PRC will continue on a path of territorial conquest, menacing Vietnam or the Philippines. Or Brunei, Indonesia, or Malaysia. It’s possible, and were it to happen the U.S. would again have to do what it could to either ameliorate the evil around the edges (more visas and resettlement assistance programs, building international consensus against further Chinese aggression, etc.) or, in the case of egregious aggression, to mount a direct response. We’d be in the best position to take the lead in organizing such a response if we weren’t engaged beforehand in controversial force-projection exercises ourselves, which the CCP will invariably point to on the world stage as they try to justify their own actually aggressive actions. (See their record of finger-pointing and deflective antics at the UN and the recent Alaskan summit.) Give them nothing, and their actions will be naked. The flipside of renouncing our pretensions to police the coastal seas of East Asia must then be establishing a clear but more credible zone of containment around China, and a protective zone around United States territories and those of our regional allies (Japan, Australia, South Korea, etc.). Taiwan I view as strategically indefensible under the U.S. umbrella, unfortunately, short of the threat or use of nuclear weapons (keep in mind that a threat must be credible to be effective), which I cannot countenance after a cost-benefit analysis when “covered retreat” remains an option [ii] (though I remain open to counterarguments). This is not appeasement, but prudential deference to the realities of a rising great power that will assert its regional interests (territorial interests, in their view) in line with its historical imagined self-conception. Some well-intentioned democrats have suggested making mainland democratization a prerequisite for ceding Taiwan or giving up navigation claims to the South China Sea, but I am less sanguine about the prospects for the democratization of the PRC anytime soon. Ethno-nationalist authoritarians maintain a firm, technologically-enhanced grip on Chinese society, and I see few signs of successful domestic opposition. (See this recent interview with pro-democracy activist, scholar, and former political prisoner Jianli Yang.) Human tragedies may well ensue if China maximizes its aggression under the new arrangement I propose, but the United States cannot remedy all human tragedies. All we can do is draw a set of more realistic red lines, the crossing of which we will actually be willing and able to do something about. But reading 2034 has made it crystal clear to me what we must not do, insofar as we can help it, and that is go to war with China. Not now, not in the future. As Francis Fukuyama recently wrote, “If there is one single objective for American foreign policy to aim at in Asia, it is to prevent a U.S.-Chinese military conflict from ever occurring.” Certainly we must do our best not go to war over something like an avoidable incident in a far-flung sea (a direct attack on the United States or an ally would be a different matter); an incident (perhaps even an accident) which leads to a challenge, which leads to a response, which leads to an escalation—that is how we climb the force ladder to nuclear hell. Yet as 2034 hauntingly demonstrates, such a ladder is not hard to start climbing. And even harder to stop. We must act like the “bigger” nation that we are. We must consolidate and pare down what we assess to be in our “vital national security interest,” while fortifying our abilities to defend those actual vital interests that do remain. As we do so, we must not lose sight of what matters most: the preservation of our own open, free, liberal, and pluralist society, as well as our own constitutional order, against all enemies, foreign and domestic. As I try to imagine my way into our uncertain future, the space between now and 2034, I see serious problems as well as immense promise. Some of the problems I have already elaborated upon. But the promise is American renewal, the kind of re-energization of society, culture, government, economy, and politics that would make the authorship of books like 2034 less necessary, less urgent. I hold out hope that being reminded of our limitations abroad might inspire us to do more where we can do more, which is at home. As Dr. Yang says at the end of his American Purpose interview, “A student of mine back in China recently told me that Trump and the poor performance of American democracy has made Xi Jinping great again. If the United States is to project its soft power, it must lead by example. The most important thing Americans can do is to make American democracy great again—call it ‘MADGA.’” The path of problems, and the path of promise. An oversimplification, to be sure. But still I wonder, which will we choose? Shanon FitzGerald is Assistant Web Editor at Liberty Fund. You can find him on Twitter @shanonjfitz. Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone, and do not necessarily represent the views of Liberty Fund, Inc. Nevertheless, Econlib is proud to publish this article and others like it—representing a range of perspectives—because US-China relations will be one of the major economic and geopolitical issues of the years ahead. [i] Taiwan gives the lie to the CCP claim that “Western” democracy is not suited to the unique historical and social conditions of mainland China. Prior to 1949 Taiwan was unified with mainland China, and today Taiwan is democratic. The barrier to Chinese democratization is the CCP itself, not any purported social fact about the PRC population. [ii] Under this scenario, multinational conventional forces (backed by multinational ICBM arsenals) would need to be positioned in the area to prevent PRC aggression during the period of Taiwanese depopulation and relocation. Of course, much physical and cultural capital would have to be left behind, and while this is tragic, I think it decidedly less so than the plausible alternative: the subjugation of the entire Taiwanese population under tyrannical CCP rule. See the recent history of Hong Kong. In the final analysis, souls matter more than soil. (0 COMMENTS)