Monoculture

One recurring trope on this blog is Von Hayek's teaching that government ought to garden more and sculpt less.

I was watching The Botany of Desire on PBS, based on the book by Michael Pollan. The film argues against monoculture. According to the film, people want, for example, their french fries, to always taste in a similar manner, what Pollan labels "monoculture-on-the-plate". The film faults free markets for too efficiently meeting this desire via "monoculture-on-the-farm". In a state of nature, crops evolve immunities to pests. In monoculture agriculture, where biological diversity, and so natural adaptation, is suppressed, pesticide is required in increasing quantity. This is expensive, creating demand for genetically engineered crops. As pests, unrestricted by monoculture, continue to adapt, a little genetic engineering creates the need for ever more genetic engineering. All to replace, but not really improve, a function that nature more respected well serves.

It is worth noting that diners tend to choose diversity-on-the-plate. The closer the food people eat is to the farm, the greater the economic pressure for diversity-on-the-farm. The economic pressure toward monoculture stems, in part, from consumer preference for the bounty of technology and, in part, from monoculture in the markets.

The analogue between all this and economic/financial-services regulation is self-evident, if likely missed by folks like Pollan given that, within our politics, evolution and free markets are placed in opposing corners. Von Hayek teaches that Darwin actually liberally applied ideas from Smith. Conceptually and historically, Von Hayek would seem right. The competing political alignment points to the limit of his otherwise brilliant work.

Political Architecture

As a software developer, I am in the habit of thinking about the manner in which the architecture of a process controls its results.

In the case of congressional decision making, the "primitives" (in the software, not anthropological sense) are Congressfolk whose above-all-else motivation is re-election.

There are two rough dynamics which control re-election. Many Congressfolk -- Representatives from highly gerrymandered districts and Senators from reliably red or blue States -- have relatively safe seats. These Congressfolk face greater risk of being primaried out -- for being too moderate for their base -- than losing in the general election for being too partisan or idealogical. Other Congressfolk, facing more competitive electorates, can ill afford being seen as too partisan or idealogical.

Congressional seniority rules guarrantee that party leadership will be largely composed of the less moderate safe seats Congressfolk.

Best of the Web points out that Pelosi's healthcare push, surprising in light of the election, is good for her personal re-election prospects.

At this point the argument that the interest of Blue Dog Democrats lies in opposing the Obama agenda, is wrong headed. Voters angry with Obama or Pelosi are not going to vote for Democrats, whatever their voting records. If Republicans really wanted to kibbosh the Obama agenda they would offer Blue Dogs a place under their big tent. They, of course, have other motivations.

The limiting constraint on the radicalism of the safe seated Congressfolk is that their power depends on the size of their caucus which depends on their ability to recruit and re-elect moderate candidates. It is likely too late for the moderate candidates recruited by Democrats the past two cycles and this will all serve to discourage future recruitment.

It was once said that American politics operated between the forty-yard lines. Since the passage of McCain/Finegold, American politics operates more stably in the red zone.

Incendiary

A Huffington Post post complains about over-cautious media coverage of the California gang-rape and speculates that coverage would be far more aggressive was it "a 15 year old middle class girl was gang raped by black and Latino men outside a suburban homecoming dance."

The incident is, itself, frightening. The attack went on for more than two hours, with dozens of witnesses, some of whom encouraged the attackers, none of whom notified authorities. The victim was a church-going honors student.

Through their pastor, the her family has requested:

Please do not respond to this tragic event by promoting hatred or by causing more pain. We have had enough violence already in this place. If you need to express your outrage, please channel your anger into positive action.

An LA Times column notes:

...Richmond High students want outsiders to stop calling them animals and savages. "We feel like they're blaming the school," an angry senior complained at a school board meeting I attended Wednesday night. "It wasn't nobody's fault," she said. "People shouldn't be pointing fingers."

And school officials are making sure to emphasize the tragedies that didn't happen.

The homecoming dance "was a success in terms of safety because nothing happened at the event," a campus police officer announced. "We have a safe environment at Richmond High."
...
The troublemakers at Richmond are emulating what they see in popular culture. "A lot of them, they don't think they're going to be successful," said junior Olachi Obioma. "They've already been judged, so they go with that. They drink, they smoke, they pop pills. It's the 'bad boy' culture. That's how they see themselves."
...
Or they didn't intervene because they didn't know the girl and didn't feel compelled to help a stranger. On a big, racially mixed campus like Richmond, you stick with your own and mind your business.

Reading between the lines of the reporting, there is some reason to believe that the victim was white. If so, exceedingly cautious reporting is very much called for.

However responsible the reporting, as the facts emerge, the concerns of the Richmond High students will be well founded. If the past is a guide, well meaning people will, then, accuse any who do not believe "this could have happened anywhere" of prejudice. That narrative will not sell: Parents will not easily be convinced that it is bigotry to believe their own community's sons better raised.

If the more damaging, ethnic, narrative takes hold, it would be more tragic for being untrue.

I have previously posted about the social cost of the view that teaches people -- like Olachi Obioma -- to blame an unjust society for their own lack of achievement. In the end, we -- and not some alien culture -- are the ones who taught these kids that their behavior is not their responsibility.