Abolishing Meritocracy Will Require a Whole Lot of Government Intervention

From David Gordon on Mises.org (Sept. 22, 2020):

Michael Sandel, who is a popular professor of government at Harvard, has written a strange book, even for a Harvard professor. Many critics of the free market, such as John Rawls, complain that the market is unfair because people do not start from a level playing field. We need to provide equality of opportunity so that people have an equal chance for the best positions. (For Rawls this is not enough, and the redistributionist “difference principle” is also required.) The demand for equality of opportunity is especially prevalent in college admissions, and calls abound to curtail the “legacy admissions” that are alleged to give an unfair advantage to the children of the rich.

Sandel agrees that the rich have an unfair advantage, but he thinks that the emphasis on equality of opportunity is fundamentally misplaced. A society in which the talented come out on top is bad, because in it the elite will look with disdain on those who do not rise as far as they have, and those who do not do well will feel resentful and unsure of their own worth. In lines he again and again repeats, he says, “The notion that the system rewards talent and hard work encourages the winners to consider their success their own doing, a measure of their virtue—and to look down upon those less fortunate than themselves….Seen from below, the hubris of elites is galling” (p. 25).

Sandel notes that although today “meritocracy” is for many a favorable term, just the opposite was the case with the person who introduced the word, the British sociologist Michael Young. He wasn’t in favor of the hierarchical British class system, but he suggested that “the arbitrariness of the class system spared workers from judging themselves by the inferior status society has assigned them.” (p.117)

This is actually a much older argument than Sandel realizes. In The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality, Ludwig von Mises commented on the German jurist Justus Möser’s “No Promotion According to Merit,” which appeared in 1772:

The long line of German authors who radically rejected the ‘Western’ ideas of the Enlightenment and the social philosophy of rationalism, utilitarianism and laissez faire as well as the policies advanced by these schools of thought was opened by Justus Möser. One of the novel principles which aroused Möser’s anger was the demand that the promotion of army officers and civil servants should depend on personal merit and ability and not on the incumbent’s ancestry and noble lineage, his age and length of service. Life in a society in which success would exclusively depend on personal merit would, says Möser, simply be unbearable. As human nature is, everybody is prone to overrate his own worth and deserts. If a man’s station in life is conditioned by factors other than his inherent excellence, those who remain at the bottom of the ladder can acquiesce in this outcome and, knowing their own worth, still preserve their dignity and self-respect. But it is different if merit alone decides. Then the unsuccessful feel themselves insulted and humiliated.

The price and market system of capitalism is such a society in which merit and achievements determine a man’s success or failure. Whatever one may think of Möser’s bias against the merit principle, one must admit that he was right in describing one of its psychological consequences. He had an insight into the feelings of those who had been tried and found wanting. The suffering from frustrated ambition is peculiar to people living in a society of equality under the law. It is not caused by equality under the law, but by the fact that in a society of equality under the law the inequality of men with regard to intellectual abilities, will power and application becomes visible.

So much does Sandel fear the bad effects of a society that rewards the talented that he dislikes the use of “smart” and “dumb” altogether:

As Thomas Nagel, a liberal egalitarian philosopher has written, “when racial and sexual injustice have been reduced, we shall still be left with the great injustice of the smart and the dumb, who are so differently rewarded for comparable effort.” “The smart and the dumb” is a telling phrase. It confirms populists’ worst suspicions about liberal elites. Far from the democratic sensibility of Rawls, who seeks a society in which “we share one another’s fate,” Nagel’s phrase lays bare the meritocratic hubris to which some versions of welfare state liberalism are prone. (pp. 145–46)

I have quoted this passage at some length, because it shows both the wackiness of Sandel’s position and his inability to read. Consider what he is saying. Nagel agrees with him that it is unjust to reward people differently because of their intellectual ability. But this is not enough for Sandel. Because Nagel recognizes that there are smart and dumb people, he becomes an elitist. Does Sandel think that elementary facts of experience will go away because he does not like them? His contrast of Rawls with Nagel is bizarre. A key theme in Nagel’s work is that people in a society share a common fate, and, far from being more meritocratic than Rawls, he thinks Rawls is insufficiently egalitarian.

In the free market, businesses that satisfy the demands of consumers prosper and those that do not fall by the wayside. What has Sandel to offer in its place? He says,

According to the civic ideal, the common good is not simply about adding up preferences or maximizing consumer welfare. It is also about reflecting critically on our preferences—ideally, elevating and improving them—so that we can live worthwhile and flourishing lives. This cannot be achieved through economic activity alone. It requires deliberating with our fellow citizens about how to bring about a just and good society, one that cultivates civic virtue and enables us to reason together about the purposes worthy of our political community. (pp. 208–09)

Sandel makes clear that the system he favors requires radical interference with the free market, aiming to promote “equality of condition”: “It does not require perfect equality. But it does require that citizens from different walks of life encounter one another in common spaces and public places. For this is how we learn to negotiate and abide our differences. And this is how we come to care for the common good” (p. 227). If you think that it is up to people themselves to decide whom they wish to associate with, and that they need not assemble together with others unless they so desire, I am afraid that you count as an elitist guilty of hubris. You are also mistaken if you hold the foolish view that the goal of production is consumption. Many years ago, Bob Nozick told me Sandel was stupid, and he wasn’t wrong. [source]

The moon is 40 million years older than we thought, according to crystals collected by Apollo astronauts

From Pop Sci.com (Oct. 23, 2023):

The moon is our closest neighbor in space and the only celestial body humans have set foot on, yet we are still learning about it. In fact, Earth’s moon might actually be 40 million years older than scientists previously believed. By conducting an atom-by-atom analysis on crystals that were brought back by Apollo astronauts in 1972, a team of geochemists and plenary scientists now calculate that the igneous orb is at least 4.46 billion years old. The findings are described in a study published today in the journal Geochemical Perspectives Letters.

Intertwined fates

Based on samples recovered from the moon’s surface, we know that it formed more than four billion years ago when a giant object the size of Mars crashed into a very young Earth. The largest piece of the planet that broke off during that collision became our moon, and has been intertwined with the solar system ever since.

“Life on Earth has evolved with the moon, and the moon has an influence on life on Earth,” study co-author and cosmochemist Philipp Heck tells PopSci. “It inspires us, which is reflected in cultural heritage, but it also has other beneficial effects like stabilizing Earth’s rotational axis.”

Heck is a curator for the meteorite collection at the Field Museum in Chicago and a professor at the University of Chicago. He says that studying the moon also helps us understand our own planet because of the topographical differences.

“Earth’s surface is much, much younger because there’s so much geologic activity [here] from volcanism and weathering,” explains Heck. “The moon’s surface is essentially an archive of solar system dynamics. This is a record that we don’t have on Earth, but our planet’s evolution is tied to these impacts that happened in the early solar system.”

………

Looking atom by atom

Researchers have previously suggested that the moon is older than estimated, but this new study is the first to use an analytical method called atom probe tomography to pinpoint the age from the oldest known lunar crystal retrieved by humans.

“In atom probe tomography, we start by sharpening a piece of the lunar sample into a very sharp tip using a focused ion beam microscope, almost like a very fancy pencil sharpener,” study co-author and planetary scientist Jennika Greer said in a statement. “Then, we use UV lasers to evaporate atoms from the surface of that tip. The atoms travel through a mass spectrometer, and how fast they move tells us how heavy they are, which in turn tells us what they’re made of.”

This atom-by-atom analysis revealed how much of the zircon crystals had undergone radioactive decay—a process where atoms that have an unstable configuration shed some protons and neutrons. They then transform into different elements, like how uranium decays into lead. Based on the amount of conversion and the known half-lives of different chemical isotopes, experts can estimate the age of the sample.

“Radiometric dating works a little bit like an hourglass,” Heck said in a statement. “In an hourglass, sand flows from one glass bulb to another, with the passage of time indicated by the accumulation of sand in the lower bulb. Radiometric dating works similarly by counting the number of parent atoms and the number of daughter atoms they have transformed to. The passage of time can then be calculated because the transformation rate is known.”

The team working with the Apollo 17 sample found that the proportion of lead isotopes (the daughter atoms created during the decay) indicated that the crystals were about 4.46 billion years old, so the moon must at least be that old too. While this puts the moon’s age back 40 million years, that’s still a very short time compared to the universe’s roughly 13.7 billion-year history.

“It’s amazing being able to have proof that the rock you’re holding is the oldest bit of the moon we’ve found so far. It’s an anchor point for so many questions about the Earth. When you know how old something is, you can better understand what has happened to it in its history,” Greer said. [read more]

Interesting. Just shows that the universe can be stranger than mankind can imagine.

Democrats Opposing Solutions

From Bill O’Reilly.com (May 6, 2025):

We all pay taxes, so our elected officials will have money to protect us and solve problems. That's Civics 101.  But you may have noticed that few schools teach civics any longer. Certainly, the politicians have noticed.

My current take is the Democrats really are not trying to solve difficult situations. They are solely interested in opposing Trump. Here are some questions to back my assertion up.

What is the Democrat's solution to the 37 trillion dollar debt?

To illegal drugs being smuggled in from Mexico?

To ending the wars in Ukraine and Gaza?

To the yearly trillion dollar trade deficit?

To preventing Iran from building nuclear weapons?

To the exploding cost of health care?

President Biden had no specific plans to improve any of those things and it looks like his party is carrying on Joe's tradition. Maybe I missed Democratic-sponsored legislation on those issues, but I doubt it. 

Much easier to oppose solutions from the Trump administration.  Right? [source]

All the Left knows how to do is to cause trouble and strife and create fear.  If the solution is from President Trump (or any current Republican president, for that matter, they don't like) whether or not the solution is good, they attack the president and call the solution wrong (or even evil).

The only solution the Left has to any problem is socialism/communism/Marxism or huge gov't programs which never die.

Retired American teacher imprisoned by Russia returns to U.S.

From NBC News.com (Oct. 21):

Russia has released retired American teacher Stephen Hubbard, 74, the latest sign of warmer ties between the two countries as Washington pressures Kyiv to agree to a deal to end Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

The jet carrying Hubbard touched down at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, at about 10:49 p.m. Wednesday (11:49 p.m. ET), video at the base showed.

U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff lauded Russian President Vladimir Putin for Hubbard’s release as they held peace talks early Wednesday in St. Petersburg. “You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian. You are a humanitarian also, sir,” Witkoff said.

Lawmakers from both parties criticized Witkoff’s use of the word “humanitarian,” with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, saying Putin is “the aggressor in the war against Ukraine.”

The U.S. has courted the Kremlin for weeks, and the release of Hubbard — a Michigan native detained in Ukraine in 2022 — will give President Donald Trump a victory to tout after backlash at home and abroad for his tilt away from Kyiv in the conflict.

Son of Stephen Hubbard says 'no evidence' his father was a mercenary

Trump hailed the news, telling reporters late Wednesday that Hubbard would visit the White House “over the next day or so.”

Earlier, Trump said on Truth Social that Hubbard was “on his way back home and will soon be with his family. The United States, out of respect for President Trump, was not required to give anything in return — an unprecedented situation for Russia.”

Trump said he directly asked Putin in a phone call last week to release Hubbard, who was being held on charges of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine, which he denies. He was the last American designated as wrongfully detained in Russia by the State Department.

The Kremlin said the move was a goodwill gesture.

Hubbard’s family in a statement thanked “President Trump and his team for opening the dialog with Russia which led to this joyful day. Our family can attest that there are wonderful blessings to be found along the hard road to peace.”

Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov later said Hubbard was handed over to Witkoff at St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport.

In a video from the Russian state news agency RIA, Hubbard wears a green jacket and is smiling as he meets Witkoff. “Thank you very much for all your efforts,” he tells Witkoff as they shake hands. Putin sent Hubbard “blessings,” Witkoff tells him, adding, “From today, it’s a new life.”

Martin De Luca, Hubbard’s lawyer, said in a phone interview Wednesday that he spoke with Hubbard as he was “getting ready to take off” on a plane bound for the U.S. and that his client was overjoyed to be released.

“He was overwhelmed with joy,” De Luca said. “The No. 1 thing he was excited about was seeing his children and family, who will be waiting for him when he arrives in the U.S. tonight. He was in a fragile state, so it wasn’t a long conversation, but he’s OK, which is what’s important.” [read more]

Good to read. Welcome back home!

Trump Announces at a Georgia Campaign Rally That Audi Will Build a New Auto Factory in the State

From Newsmax.com (Oct. 25):

President Donald Trump on Saturday announced that Audi will build an automobile plant in Georgia as he tries to deliver on his promise to bolster American manufacturing in the final days before the midterm elections.

Speaking at a campaign rally in Perry, Georgia, where he sought to boost Republican candidates, Trump said Audi — the German luxury brand owned by Volkswagen — would commit $4.2 billion in nearby Macon to begin construction on a plant that will produce 200,000 cars a year.

“Think of that. 200,000 cars a year. That’s incredible,” Trump said, crediting his aggressive and unpopular tariff policies for the company's decision to build the plant.

The announcement seemed timed to offer a last-minute boost to Republican candidates in the battleground state, including Rep. Mike Collins, who is trying to unseat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff. Trump has spent October campaigning in reliably Republican states as the party tries to hold onto its majorities in the House and Senate. Trump won Georgia in 2024 after losing it in 2020.

Trump was joined on stage by Gernot Döllner, the chairman of the board of management at Audi, who said the plant would be producing “our biggest and most premium SUVs.”

“This is a long-term investment, because we believe in the American market,” he said.

Audi, in a news release, said the plant — its first in Georgia — would create approximately 4,500 jobs and that construction was scheduled to begin in 2027, with production beginning in the early 2030s.

Republicans are bracing for losses in the Nov. 3 midterm elections as they contend with an unpopular president and an electorate that is angry over high costs and the ongoing war in Iran.

At the rally, Rick Jackson, the Republican candidate for Georgia governor, thanked Trump for the plans.

“Thank you on behalf of Georgia for putting the biggest economic deal in Georgia history right here today," he said. [source]

Call it a win! 

Another win:

DOJ touts major drops in crimes amid enforcement surge, 31% decline in aggravated assaults across US

How Christianity Invented the Hospital

From Christianity.com (Aug. 17, 2022):

Far from being an otherworldly religion, Christianity teaches both the importance and goodness of life in this world. In fact, from Jesus’ healing ministry to the work of modern missionary doctors, a consistent feature of the work of the Church in the world has been to care for the sick and needy, and not just point them to the life to come.

The early Church understood Jesus’ ministry to be a paradigm for their own work. So, just as Jesus set believers free from their bondage to sin, early Christians purchased slaves specifically to free them. Whereas Jesus used miraculous power to heal people from physical effects of the Fall, Christians used more ordinary tools to care for the sick and disabled. These activities are not merely good deeds in themselves but serve to advance the Kingdom. Though the Gospel is a message and must be proclaimed, the early Church saw works of mercy and preaching the Gospel as two sides of the same coin.

The first major epidemic faced by the Church was the Antonine Plague (A.D. 166-189). In fear of their lives, the Romans threw the sick out of their homes to die in the streets. Galen, the most prominent physician of the age, knew he could neither heal its victims nor protect himself. So, he fled Rome to stay at his country estate.

Recognizing that all persons were made in the image of God and that Jesus came to make all things new, body and soul, many Christians ran the other direction. They fought the Fall by tending to the sick, at risk (and often at the cost) of their own lives.

Since even basic nursing care can make a significant difference during an epidemic, Christian action saved lives. Their courage and self-sacrifice contributed to the rapid growth of Christianity. For example, when Irenaeus arrived in Lyon from Asia Minor, there were very few Christians. By the time the plague ended, there were 200,000 believers in Lyon. [read more]

Interesting history of the early Church.

The Problem with “Predictive” Theories of Economics

From David Gordon on Mises.org (Sept. 17, 2020):

Kay and King are not Austrians, but in this important book, they lend aid and comfort to several key points of Austrian economics. Kay teaches economics at Oxford, and King, who was formerly governor of the Bank of England, teaches at NYU. (King in an earlier book, The End of Alchemy, that I had occasion to review warns against the dangers of fractional reserve banking in a way that will delight admirers of Murray Rothbard.)

Austrians hold that the dynamics of the market depend on profit-seeking entrepreneurs, whose judgments of appraisement are of necessity subjective, irreducible to monetary calculation. As Joseph Salerno explains,

Mises presents a penetrating critique of the Walrasian view that, in the plans of producers, prices substitute for knowledge of the economic data or, rather, for entrepreneurial understanding and appraisement of future variations of these data. Mises’s critique is grounded on the incontrovertible fact that “The prices of the market are historical facts expressive of a state of affairs that prevailed at a definite instant of irreversible historical time.” As such, realized prices can never serve as an unambiguous guide to production; which is always aimed at supplying a market of the more or less remote future involving a different configuration of the eco­nomic data.

Mises’s argument depends on the distinction, made famous by Frank Knight, between risk and uncertainty. In a situation of risk, the actor knows the possible outcomes and can apply the probability calculus to them. In a situation of uncertainty, he cannot do so, either because he cannot use the probability calculus or because he does not know all the possible outcomes. He must rely on his judgment about the particular case. Mises calls this the distinction between class and case probability. He says in Human Action about case probability: “Case probability means: We know, with regard to a particular event, some of the factors which determine its outcome; but there are other determining factors about which we know nothing. Case probability has nothing in common with class probability but the incompleteness of our knowledge. In every other regard the two are entirely different.”

Mainstream neoclassicals do not accept this distinction. Milton Friedman says, “[I]n his seminal work, Frank Knight drew a sharp distinction between risk, as referring to events subject to a known or knowable probability distribution, and uncertainty, as referring to events for which it was not possible to specify numerical probabilities. I’ve not referred to this distinction because I do not believe it is valid….We may treat people as if they assigned numerical probabilities to every conceivable event.” If Friedman is correct, a key tenet of Austrian economics is wrong; entrepreneurial appraisement must exit the scene.

Mises acknowledges that you can say things like “I think there is a 50 percent chance the Republicans will win the coming election.” But this is just an expression of how confident you feel about this, and it is meaningless to use probability calculus here. He says,

On the eve of the 1944 presidential election people could have said:…(c) I estimate Roosevelt’s chances as 9 to 1….This is a proposition about the expected outcome couched in arithmetical terms. It certainly does not mean that out of ten cases of the same type nine are favorable for Roosevelt and one unfavorable. It cannot have any reference to class probability. But what else can it mean? It is a metaphorical expression….For the comparison is based on a conception which is in itself faulty in the very frame of the calculus of probability, namely the gambler’s fallacy. In asserting that Roosevelt’s chances are 9:1, the idea is that Roosevelt is in regard to the impending election in the position of a man who owns 90 per cent of all tickets of a lottery in regard to the first prize. It is implied that this ratio 9:1 tells us something substantial about the outcome of the unique case in which we are interested. There is no need to repeat that this is a mistaken idea.

Knight has an amusing comment on this issue. He says, “The saying often quoted from Lord Kelvin…that where you cannot measure, your knowledge is meagre and unsatisfactory; as applied in mental and social science is misleading and pernicious…the Kelvin dictum very largely mean[s] in practice, if you cannot measure, measure anyhow!”

Friedman has an answer to this objection. It does not matter, he says, whether people actually do assign probabilities to every conceivable event. This is just an assumption economists make, and what counts for a good theory is not the realism of its assumptions. Rather, a good theory is one that generates good predictions.

Kay and King reject this view, and here they again render Austrian economics a service, though, to reiterate, they themselves aren’t Austrians. The method of Austrian praxeology is deductive, and unless your premises are true, you have no guarantee that the conclusions you deduce from them are also true. Thus, Austrians must reject Friedman’s position.

Kay and King reject Friedman’s methodology because there is almost never clear evidence that the predictions of a theory are false. You can always adjust something in the theory to make it come out true, and that is what all too many economists do:

Friedman’s article [on methodology] appeared in a brief period of intellectual history in which a version of Popperian falsificationism—the idea that a hypothesis acquires scientific status only if there is a possibility that it might be refuted was in fashion….The decisive rejection of this falsificationist view is encapsulated in what philosophers know today as the Duhem-Quine hypothesis: such refutation is rarely definitive, because any test requires a range of auxiliary assumptions, and it is always possible to argue that these assumptions have not been fulfilled.

There is an additional point that strengthens the argument against Friedman. It isn’t clear that his claim about probability estimates generates any predictions at all. If you make a series of bets that don’t conform to the principles he sets forward, he can show through what is called a “Dutch-book” argument that you will lose money. But that is hardly a prediction that anyone will in fact make a series of bets of this kind. [read more]