Thursday, August 21, 2003
Our Blog is Dood
posted by James
Alan and I haven't posted in a while, but we'll resume shortly. I was away from the internet, and in fact all news, for a while. When I returned, I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of opinion writing floating around on the internet, much of it partisan and shrill. One piece struck me in particular – a Wall Street Journal column that I only read in summary in TAPPED. The point was that colleges are too liberal, and they actively encourage their students to support labor unions, even establishing M.A. degrees in union leadership. TAPPED responded by pointing out that no one complains when business schools cuddle up to businesses who recruit their students.
The problem is that the conclusion depends entirely on what you think of labor unions. The WSJ is right if one of your premises is that organized labor is nothing but legalized extortion, while businesses are productive and make significant contributions to society (this is a reasonable premise). TAPPED is right if one of your premises is that organized labor is necessary for workers to get a fair deal in negotiations (this is also reasonable). The point is that by arguing from particular premises, rather than arguing about those premises, TAPPED and the WSJ were just preaching to the converted.
In retrospect, I wonder if my post on PAM was any different. I still don't think PAM deserved much of the criticism it got, but maybe I'm a market fundamentalist at heart. I am not reassured by the flood of posts, most very similar to mine, that popped up in the aftermath. This indicates that I was merely deriving an obvious conclusion from premises that are commonly believed. That's not really what Cooler Heads is supposed to be about.
In the future Alan and I will try to post more frequently, but also more thoughtfully. Hopefully our posts will be thought-provoking for everyone, no matter what their basic premises. We'll leave the futile partisan bickering to others, and stay up on the dry land.
The problem is that the conclusion depends entirely on what you think of labor unions. The WSJ is right if one of your premises is that organized labor is nothing but legalized extortion, while businesses are productive and make significant contributions to society (this is a reasonable premise). TAPPED is right if one of your premises is that organized labor is necessary for workers to get a fair deal in negotiations (this is also reasonable). The point is that by arguing from particular premises, rather than arguing about those premises, TAPPED and the WSJ were just preaching to the converted.
In retrospect, I wonder if my post on PAM was any different. I still don't think PAM deserved much of the criticism it got, but maybe I'm a market fundamentalist at heart. I am not reassured by the flood of posts, most very similar to mine, that popped up in the aftermath. This indicates that I was merely deriving an obvious conclusion from premises that are commonly believed. That's not really what Cooler Heads is supposed to be about.
In the future Alan and I will try to post more frequently, but also more thoughtfully. Hopefully our posts will be thought-provoking for everyone, no matter what their basic premises. We'll leave the futile partisan bickering to others, and stay up on the dry land.
