Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Latter-day Saint
An astronomical breakthrough, a moral quagmire, and the difficulty of economics

An astronomical breakthrough, a moral quagmire, and the difficulty of economics

Last updated on: April 10, 2019 at 11:27 am by Dan Peterson

An astronomical breakthrough, a moral quagmire, and the difficulty of economics 2019-04-10T11:27:18-06:00 Dan Peterson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The enormous black hole at the heart of the distant galaxy Messier 87. (National Science Foundation and Event Horizon Telescope public domain image)

This is pretty astonishing, something that would have been essentially unimaginable not very many years ago:

New York Times: “Black Hole Image Revealed for First Time Ever: Astronomers at last have captured a picture of the darkest entities in the cosmos.”

Nature: “Black hole pictured for first time — in spectacular detail: The Event Horizon Telescope’s global network of radio dishes has produced the first direct image of a black hole and its event horizon.”

***

But, with the help four articles from the 6 April 2019 issue of (appropriately enough!) The Economist, let’s turn from extragalactic astronomy to a more difficult science, economics.

The first article that I’ll mention is a fascinating one that goes some distance toward justifying my tongue-in-cheek suggestion, just above, that the task of economics is more difficult than that of astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology. It also bears out the contention of many free market or libertarian-leaning economists — e.g., Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, and Friedrich von Hayek (the first and third of whom I was privileged to meet and spend just a bit of time with) — that the complexity of the economy is so great that it is mere folly and delusion (among other things) to imagine that it can be competently “directed” by the managerial elite bureaucracy of an interventionist administrative state:

“Free exchange: Simple interactions can have unpredictable consequences: How researchers are grappling with the fundamental complexity of economics”

The complexity and unpredictability of economic phenomena might help to account for the stunning fact pointed out in this article, which should also be read for its first paragraph’s appalling description of the largely-forgotten racist horror visited upon the Greenwood neighborhood in Oklahoma back in 1921:

“Melanin and money: The black-white wealth gap is unchanged after half a century”

It seems that President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society hasn’t materialized, and that the much-touted War on Poverty has failed. However, it should also in fairness be said, despite my comments above about “unpredictability” of economics, that many critics on the political right predicted the failure of the War on Poverty from its beginning. We’re not surprised. We never thought that government welfare would really work.

But what can be done? It’s complicated. And, although the idea of “reparations” has suddenly become fashionable among certain Democrats, I don’t believe for a moment that “reparations,” even if one were to overlook their deeply questionable morality (see below) and their political infeasibility, will fix the problem.

This article treats a related matter that may also have implications for the issue, both positive and negative:

“The sons of slaveholders quickly recovered their fathers’ wealth: A new paper quantifies how quickly Southern planter elites recovered from the civil war”

Also of some slight but slightly relevant interest:

“Not keeping up with the Joneses: Rising inequality could explain tepid support for redistribution: The lessons of a new paper about welfare in Victorian England”

***

To illustrate just one aspect of the moral difficulty with reparations:

I have no slave-owning ancestors — not even any who ever lived in a slave state.

My paternal ancestors entered the United States from Scandinavia decades after the end of the American Civil War, and they settled in North Dakota, where there were (and are) very few blacks. So their opportunities to meet black people, let alone to exploit them or to profit illegitimately from their contributions to the local farming economy, would have been at most negligible.

Some of my maternal ancestors came first to Massachusetts, where they never owned slaves. Then they came to New York, converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and were driven with it to Ohio and Missouri and Illinois and, finally, to the Great Basin, settling in Utah — where there were (and are) very few blacks. Others of my maternal ancestors came straight to Utah from England. None of them owned slaves, and the slave contribution to the settlement and economic blossoming of Utah Territory prior to 1865, if there was any at all, has to be reckoned as virtually nonexistent.

But I’m white. So do I owe reparations? If so, that would seem to me morally problematic.

But also, if so, to whom do I owe reparations? Potentially to the descendants of West Indians who were never American slaves? But what about those of mixed descent, some of whose ancestors were slaves and some of whose ancestors weren’t? (Perhaps they’re even partially descended from slaveholders!) Either this would be done crudely and hamhandedly, which would be bad, or on the basis of a complex proportionate genealogical calculus that might be even worse. Government involvement in adjudicating such matters — a kind of Perpetual Full Employment Act for Litigators — would bring us uncomfortably close, in my opinion, to the Ahnenpaß (“ancestor passport”) or the Ariernachweis (“Aryan certificate”) issued by the Reichsverband der Standesbeamten in Deutschland (“Reich Association of Marriage Registrars in Germany”) under the Nazis.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

April 10, 2019

"The Mormon as Magus," Part Three

Next Post

April 10, 2019 The Bedouin Achilles, Antara b. Shaddad

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 March 2014 August 2013 February 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What did God put in the sky as a sign of His promise to Noah?

Select your answer to see how you score.

A star A cloud A dove A rainbow