Mozart likely died of strep throat.
A Reminder of the Great Benefits of Modernity
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Three cheers for the publicly supported research of Alexander Fleming into antibiotics that provided us with the precusor to the treatment for strep throat, and three cheers for the market that took it from there! Modernity is indeed a wonderful thing
There is no need to cheer publicly supported research. Publicly supported research always comes at the cost of something private – many times privately supported research. I’m disregarding for a moment the fact that public research runs on stolen goods.
There was a story recently in fortune magazine about a woman swindler. She apparently donated millions to charity. There is no need to extoll her virtues or give 3 cheers to her.
Alexander Fleming’s discovery was completely accidental. That is not to take any credit away from the man himself or his research, which eventually led to the accident.
Isn’t that just a tautology? You could equally say that privately supported research always comes at the expense of something public (or something else private for that matter). That’s not a reason to like or dislike private research.
The question needs to be – is there a particular reason to prefer public (private) research, or a particular reason to fear the resulting displacement of private (public) research. A lot of people, myself included think there isn’t much reason to be afraid when it comes to basic research – that public basic research is more of a complement than a substitute. But certainly I’d be more concerned when we start talking about applied research – say on industrial chemicals. Then I think we’d have a lot more reason to be concerned.
But simply saying that one displaces the other doesn’t tell you anything.
The moment of disregard, on my part, for the fact that “public research” runs on stolen goods ended with the first paragraph of my post. In that context, it tells us everything we need to know.
BTW, the St. Mary’s Hospital Lab, where Fleming did his research is currently part of the communist NHS system. NHS was started in 1948, and St. Mary’s itself was started as a private philanthropic institution until that time. Fleming’s discovery happened in 1928. while it may have been partly funded publicly at that time, I don’t see any evidence that points to that conclusion. I will appreciate any link or reference in that regard.
I’m not denying that there is a limited government role in basic research, but what $ figure are we really talking about? Surely not so much as we should be in a $1.7 trillion deficit right? Also what does that have to do with our vast social welfare programs?
The modern world consists of increasing degrees of social democracy leaving the days of free market capitalism that Hayek yearned for in the dust bin of history. Free market capitalism gets NO credit for modernity. If anything attempts to institute the idea has stagnated progress over the last 30 years far from where it could be.
My god man. Do you think no good has come of free markets? You think the PC industry developed because of socialism?
No credit?!?!?!?!?
That’s more a function than free markets per se. After all, the U.S.S.R. had a great many scientific successes that weren’t possible a hundred years ago in free market countries.
I’m reading Barry Eichengreen’s “The European Economy Since 1945″ – and this is one of the things I like about it. He obviously is dead-clear about how bad central planning was for parts of Europe. But he is also very fair about what central planning can do. There’s no point in assuming that because central planning is bad policy it will make everything worse off. It can conduct a great deal of good scientific research… but then the question is, what can it do with that research? The market economies have been much more impressive on that front. One thing that Eichengreen refers to a lot is that centrally planned economies actually did have a pretty good track record when it came to “catch up” growth. When you’re well behind the technological frontier with an agricultural peasantry, planners do about as well as private industrialists at reading blue prints bought from our smuggled out of the West, and creating a steel industry out of thin air. They did quite well with that. But then once that steel industry is there, can they allocate the steel as well as the market? No – they do abysmally at it. They can churn out a lot of mathematicians too, but now they can’t employ them. Cuba has amazing doctors, but with poor medicine and equipment it doesn’t buy them much. Central planners can achieve a specific objective quite successfully – but they can’t coordinate objectives like the market can.
Anyway – it’s a really great read in large part because it’s objectivity about the limits of central planning really give you a sense of what actually happened, rather than our image of what happened.
And these successes were?
The list of USSSR Nobel prize winners in science please?
A partial list of the great medical and technological advances the USSSR invented, developed and introduced to the world, please.
Get some sleep, Gil. Do not operate keyboards when stoned.
Aw gosh Mr. vidyohs, sir here a list of Soviet scientific accomplishments and Nobel prize winners:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_the_Soviet_Union
Wow am I underwhelmed. The USSSR existed as a recognizable body for approximately 75 years give or take a few and that ant bed of inventiveness and creativity produced 6 Nobel Prize winners! Hot Damn! 6! What a whopping number considering that leaves the other 69 years with us wondering where were those soviets?
Not to mention the fact that frequently those Nobels are shared honors.
Yeah, in my daily life, I look around at all the wonderful inventions, creations, and production of the USSSR that make my life so much better, and I just marvel at the magnificence of that USSSR hotbed of of innovation and creation.
God! What would my life be like if I didn’t have that USSSR invented………er…..well……give me time I’ll think of something that came from there…….no not that…….aw sheet I give up. Sorry can’t think of a single thing.
Are you under the impression that anyone was arguing that the USSR was better at science than the US or that we’re thankful for the USSR (again, I don’t mean to speak for Gil but I feel fairly confident).
Alright vidyohs, you always feel free to give tasks and questions to other people. Here’s yours:
Show me an authoritarian state in 1917 with power over millions of people, little industrial base, and an undereducated agricultural peasantry that was hemmoraging countless young men in a world war who in 1917 had a democratic market revolution that came anywhere close to Soviet scientific and technological output.
Nobody is cheering for Soviets here. It’s simply an observation.
Ilya Mikhailovich Frank
Igor Evgenevich Tamm
Nikolai Nikolaevich Semenov
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (citizen of the USSR after his Nobel, granted)
Pavel Alekseevich Cherenkov
Lev Davidovich Landau
Nikolai Gennadievich Basov
Aleksandr Mikhailovich Prokhorov
Leonid Vitalevich Kantorovich
Petr Leonidovich Kapitsa
Roald Hoffmann
Zhores Ivanovich Alferov
Vitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg
Those are just science Nobels, and just people who lived in the USSR. Doesn’t include all the expatriates that were educated there and moved to the U.S.. Doesn’t include people in the U.S. who were taught by Russian mathematicians and physicists, and doesn’t include secret physicists and engineers who beat us into orbit – not to mention all the other military engineering feats they achieved that had no chance of recognition by the Nobel committee (which is really largely the point – the fatal conceit of planners isn’t necessarily that they CAN’T do a given task – it’s that they can’t coordinate tasks and therefore direct inordinate amounts of energy into the WRONG things).
Vidyohs, if you’re taking his as a defense of Soviet science you’re COMPLETELY missing the point. I won’t speak for Gil, but I don’t really think that’s his point or anyone’s point. The point is, at the time of the Russian revolution the U.S. and Western Europe had a well established system of higher education and dedicated research universities. The Russians caught up in a very impressive way. They did a bad job deciding what to study and they did a bad job doing anything meaningful with it, but they could churn out scientists. We still obviously beat them – but once you factor in how far ahead we started, and how much our performance was due to German, Russian, and other immigrants, you still have to acknowledge the performance of Soviet science.
And please don’t make your constant mistake of assuming that objectively acknowledging is the same thing as admiring or desiring.
I couple discrepancies in our list it seems… I included a couple people from Eastern Bloc countries that stayed there during the Soviet period. I think that’s fair enough, but feel free to cut them out.
Disingenuous Kuehn,
Thank you for not speaking for Gil, God what a relief.
I think of Gil as one of the good guys, he frequently comes up with good points and shows some common sense, but unfortunately sometimes his posts are so disjointed he appears to be operating keyboard while stoned. Gil and I were batting the shuttlecock back and forth over the net while you were still asking your dad for the car keys, and I am familiar with Gil and he with me.
You, on the other hand, can shoot yourself in the foot over and over and every single time appear to be confused as to where the bullet came from.
“The Russians caught up in a very impressive way.”
They did? Wow, I guess that is why when the facade was ripped away in the late 1980s, we found rot and ruin behind it. Yeah, baby, they caught up.
“but once you factor in how far ahead we started, and how much our performance was due to German, Russian, and other immigrants, you still have to acknowledge the performance of Soviet science.”
Since we started in 1776 at the same basic level of technology as the Russians, why did the USA leap so far ahead and continue widening the gap? In spite of some recognizable accomplishments of soviet science, why did the USSSR remain so far behind and so breathtakingly impoverished? And, last but not least, why did not all those German, Russian, and other immigrants go to that hotbed of scientific achievement and education the USSSR instead of coming here to the USA? And, once they were here why did they proudly speak of themselves as Americans now?
You say you aren’t admiring of the soviet way, and you say you don’t desire it, but you haven’t been at any time willing to say you reject it. You constantly flirt with the presentation that, “well maybe they have something there.”
Yes central planning can be effective. Stalin’s central planning starved 4 million Ukrainians in the thirties and thus eliminated the need to feed them. Gotta make you wonder why our free market system in America was able to muddle through without that basic effectiveness, eh?
Speaking of objectivity, DK, have you found yourself willing to acknowledge the basic truth in those last three paragraphs I sent you on the previous post?
You still actually think I’m admiring the Soviets, don’t you? Is that just an act or is that really actually what you got out of my posts?
(1.) I mentioned that for Gil’s sake, not yours, since I was commenting on his thread, and (2.) I bought every car I ever drove with the exception of the current car, which my wife bought. Sorry, no handouts for me.
RE: “Since we started in 1776 at the same basic level of technology as the Russians, why did the USA leap so far ahead and continue widening the gap?”
Because the market, especially combined with selective public investments in the most basic research, will beat out central planning every single time. Worth noting, though, is the rate of scientific change very early on in both cases.
RE: “And, last but not least, why did not all those German, Russian, and other immigrants go to that hotbed of scientific achievement and education the USSSR instead of coming here to the USA?”
A simple question, vidyohs – because markets and democracies will attract innovative people over centrally planned dictatorships every single time.
RE: “Yes central planning can be effective. Stalin’s central planning starved 4 million Ukrainians in the thirties and thus eliminated the need to feed them. Gotta make you wonder why our free market system in America was able to muddle through without that basic effectiveness, eh?”
You must have missed the part where I said that central planners do a terrible job running an economy.
Re: “You say you aren’t admiring of the soviet way, and you say you don’t desire it, but you haven’t been at any time willing to say you reject it.”
I count 13 explicit or implicit rejections of the Soviet system in my comments in this thread alone (and that doesn’t count the current comment I’m writing). I don’t know if you’re just being argumentative or you really can’t grasp my argument, but it gets really, really tiring vidyohs.
Why do you have this instinct that there are no such things as gross effects – that there are only net effects. I acknowledge over and over and over again the net effects of communism. Kindergarteners know that, vidyohs. We’re having a discussion about some specific gross effects here.
Ever hear of a thing called Sputnik?
Ahhh, so the soviets invented, developed, and introduced rocketry to the world, eh?
Here I was giving credit to the Chinese, just go to show you.
Did the Chinese launch sputnik?
Rocketry is one thing – rockets that can break Earth’s gravitational pull is quite another. Sorry, the Chinese didn’t do much there.
And actually, if I’m not mistaken we were the first one’s to get a rocket into space – but the Russians were the first to put something into orbit.
Whatever the argument is or was, I just want to say that too many individuals suffer from historical amnesia and mistake the past as being better then the present. Times are better now than before overall; thanks to technology and information distribution. If a crime happens and its reported on the news for all to see, it doesn’t mean that crime is worse now than 20 years ago.
And speaking of the hopelessness of central planning, this is a neat interactive map from BBC this morning charting the fall of communism in Eastern Europe.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7972232.stm
Dan, anyone can have significant advances in science when human life has no value to a totalitarian power.
When you consider the human cost of those scientific “achievements” are negative.
And I’m not talking about central planning per se. I’m talking about experiments on Russians without their knowledge (still going on there, btw!) and failing to provide the most basic safety equipment for scientists and failing to protect communities from toxic waste produced by these experiments. This is what happens when you’re just a cog in the State machine.
In the field of medical science, virtually nothing new happened. I only found out when I came here that most of the medical care I got in the Soviet Union for life threatening illnesses are used as “treatments” at spas for the ladies who lunch set in NYC.
Once you factor in the cost, Soviet scientific achievements are far less impressive than Western technological achievements.
My understanding was that in 1928 St. Mary’s Hospital was part of London University, a publicly funded university, until 1988, when it became part of the NHS. Do you have a different understanding?
Moreover -Fleming’s work started in the trenches in WWI where he was a military doctor.
As for your comment above – yes, your argument does completely rest on the idea that taxes=stealing. That doesn’t strengthen your case, as far as I’m concerned. I’m sure many commenters here would agree with you on that, but it’s a very unusual opinion that needs a little more defense. I thought you said “leave that aside for now” because you realized how tenuous it was.
OK – he was a professor at the hospital (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Fleming#Accidental_discovery), which means he was at the medical school, which measn he was an employee of the University of London (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mary%27s_Hospital_(London)).
Not that that alone proves anything – I’m clearly not making the case that private firms can’t do basic research.
Why do you support taxes? Do you think basic infrastructure needs could not be met by the free market? I’m a single person and I hate paying property tax for public schools. Especially when they teach in the kids in the public schools that people like me are evil.
If taxes are not theft, then why put the people who don’t want to pay in prison? Why some people are asked to pay more than others, not just the total amount ( which alone needs defense) but in terms of a percentage of income earned or property owned, or property bequeathed. But I am diverting the discussion away from my first question in this particular comment.
You misunderstand how educational system works in England or many former British colonies. Degrees and licenses are allowed to be issued by a limited number universities and some special colleges which have state approval to do so. Colleges, regardless of its funding status ( private/public), need to be affiliated with one such university within a certain geographical area. Just because a certain college issues degrees from University of London, doesn’t mean that it is publicly funded.
Of course to the left taxation is not theft, but they will put you in prison. If they truly had any honor, you would not go to prison but just face social ostracism for not paying taxes. I think the social pressure would make most people still pay. Very few of us have a “fuck all of society” attitude.
What in the world could you possibly do with your free time to convince public school teachers that you’re evil?
I’m no political philosopher/ethicist so my defenses always come out mangled (although I still like them better than taxes=stealing, so hopefully theyore not that bad). I put enough stock in Sen’s liberalism paradox/Arrow’s impossibility theorem/externalities/coordination failures to know that I don’t find pure Pareto optimality to be an ethical or ideal society. As I believe John Rawls has said, a situation where one man owns everything in the world and everybody else owns nothing is Pareto optimal. So some sort of coercion I think is appropriate for an ethical society – and I guess I have some sort of vague utilitarian instinct on what is “ethical”. But that’s all very hazy to me. However, because of my basic libertarian/individual liberty instincts I think the method and scope of that coercion needs to be (1.) limited, and (2.) achieved in a way that’s consistent with the will of the people (another area where I go hazy… sorry, I’m not an ethicist).
I don’t think of myself as an “idealist”. I don’t know of any perfect form for citizen-state relations. I think extreme libertarianism is appealing to a lot of people because it offers this ideal-form with very little gray areas. I respect the libertarian instincts – and I have libertarian instincts, but I’m not intrigued by that sort of determinism and idealism (come to think of it – libertarianism’s underlying determinism and idealism is a lot like Marxism in that respect!). But I do sympathize a great deal with it.
As for pivately provided infrastructure – sure they can provide good infrastructure, just like they can provide good schools as well. I think they underinvest in both so I think it’s right to pay taxes to provide both as well. So my position on that and a lot of things is “pro-state where it’s appropriate”, not “anti-market”.
What you really mean is the free market won’t invest in poor areas of the country. But I’ve got news for you. Despite all the trillions we’ve poured into the urban slums, they’re still hellholes. Once again your good intentions lead to hell.
I’m no political philosopher/ethicist so my defenses always come out mangled
Why do you make the elitist assumption that you must be an ethicist to make an ethical argument and that if you’re not an ethicist, you may not be ethical? I find a lot of ethicists are completely unethical and plenty of mobile home dwelling rednecks extremely ethical.
It’s not theft to a much wider swath of people than the left, ArrowSmith.
I’ll take the liberty of assuming you weren’t refering to me with that “honor” comment.
I don’t know. Do you favor the IRS putting non-payers in prison? Because if you do to me you have no honor.
So taxation is not theft because it has a positive appeal to the majority? Would Slavery be slavery if it is approved by the majority?
No, that’s not what I mean at all, so don’t assume what my good intentions are.
What I mean is that building infrastructure anywhere – even in a good neighborhood – involves a great deal ofcoordination failure and positive externalities. There’s good reason to believe the market will underinvest. Not that it will do a bad job, but that it will underinvest.
Never really thought about it – I suppose it depends on how egregious it is. It would have to be really bad for that to seem like a good idea. And even then, I’m not sure what benefit putting them in prison provides.
uh, democratic revolution? I hope you aren’t wrongly assuming that the bolsheviks had popular support.
There is not a doubt in my mind that they are less impressive than Western technological achievements.
I’d be opposed to any science that had those kinds of humanitarian violationsno matter what socio-economic institutions gave rise to it. I hope you didn’t take anything I said to be a justification of that practice.
My point is simply that the pace of development can be extremely quick in planned economies. We can oppose planning without claiming that everything it did was a failure.
Bolsheviks were not even in control for a couple of years in the early 1920s.
No!!!! My point is he wants to compare the US, which had democracy and vibrant market for quite a while, to a country that had just emerged from under it’s tsar.
A better comparison would be a country that also emerged from agrarian authoritarianism in 1917, but with a democratic revolution.
Long term, I’d bet on the democratic revolution. Short term I might have to bet on the Bolshevik revolution. Doesn’t mean I like Bolshevism.
Exactly.
Actually that was more or less my point D. Keuhn – the U.S.S.R. was capable of achievements whether certain people like to hear it or not. Naturally others would presume I was making a case the Soviet system was worth emulating.
No, I didn’t think you were glorifying Soviet central planning in your post. I just don’t know if you are aware of the cost of those seemingly miraculous scientific accomplishments. A lot of people in the West (hell, a lot of Russians) are not.
The pace of development of whatever they choose to develop can be very fast because they a.) exclude all other development b.) choose from the pool of people who have an aptitude for science and force them to work in that field, against their will if necessary and c.) have no qualms at all killing or maiming countless human beings in the name of achieving their ends and d.) divert all resources away from the production of things the population desperately wants and needs.
You cannot merely say that the pace of development is quick and leave it at that. Sounds to benign. They develop quickly, but what is developed is a Frankenstein monster that nobody wants.
Also, it’s unfair to give credit to the Soviets for the productive activity of dissidents who made it to the West and achieved here. The accomplishments of those individuals belongs to them, not the Soviets.
I don’t think it’s elitist at all – I completely agree that a lot of ethicists are unethical and a lot of mobile home dwellers are ethical (and, come to think of it, there are a lot of ethical ethicists and a lot of unethical mobile home dwellers!).
I said “my defenses always come out mangled because I’m not an ethicist” not “my defenses always come out unethical because I’m not an ethicist”. I was speaking merely to the precision and consistency with which an ethicist can speak about ethics, not how ethical they are personally. Is that really elitist?
If I say something that sounds completely wrong-headed, elitist, and awful to you, there’s a really good chance I’m not actually saying what you think i’m saying Methinks (that you thought I was saying that Soviet science is actually better than American science is another good example).
No, that wasn’t the argument at all, sandre.
All I was saying was that it’s not just something that the left believes. I’m not lifting that up as proof of my position.
Re “You cannot merely say that the pace of development is quick and leave it at that. ”
But I DIDN’T just leave it at that. True, I didn’t mention your point c., but I mentioned your points a. and d., and I think your point b. can be thought of as a subset of point d.
RE: “Also, it’s unfair to give credit to the Soviets for the productive activity of dissidents who made it to the West and achieved here. The accomplishments of those individuals belongs to them, not the Soviets.”
I agree, that’s why I chose not to list them in my list.
I would say, though, that even the production of dissidents still says something about the Soviet education system (or the German education system – a lot of our advances in physics are attributable to escaping German Jews or even expatriate Nazis).
I thought it was your point, just didn’t want to speak for you.
It’s amazing what can get imputed to you on here, isn’t it? Rest assured I understood.
I would say, though, that even the production of dissidents still says something about the Soviet education system
What is says is that Soviets forced children who showed math aptitude into specialized schools. The people who passed through those programs and then innovated in the West did not do so as a direct result of Soviet education. Innovation can neither be forced nor taught – it must come from the individual. Your collectivist bias is showing again.
It is offensive and incorrect to Germans and Russians who escaped those countries to attribute their individual accomplishments to the country rather than to them.
Sometimes I don’t even know why I bother responding to you methinks. My collectivist bias?
I said I DON’T attribute dissident innovation to the Soviet Union because I DO think that innovation comes from the individual. And the very fact that they left says something about what environment they felt was most appropriate for innovation!
All I’m saying about the Soviet education system is that they could teach math pretty well.
Get off your high horse and stop accusing me of being a collectivist, even when I agree with you.
Yeah, Danny, I don’t know why you stoop so low as to answer anyone either. You’re clearly on a higher plane. And so misunderstood.
The Soviet education system could teach math as well as any American or European education system to anyone with an aptitude for math. The Soviet population was around 150MM people. Surely some of us could do a bit of math.
Russians aren’t monkeys. I don’t know why the fact that Russians are capable of learning and teaching is so amazing to you.
Did you think we were all illiterate peasants before the revolution? Because, whether you realize it or not, that’s what your awe implies if it’s not awe of the Soviet policies of forcing individuals into professions against their will and other human rights violations.
We agree that the Soviets “achievements” were a net loss to Russians. What else is there to say about it that isn’t insulting to an entire population?
I think you don’t always think things through.
Chinese are most likely, after the SOviets, do something largely unproductive like sending a clunk of metal into outerspace. As if, there are in problems that those resources could solve, right here on earth. It has all the makings of a government run boondoggle.
It’s impossible for an entire nation to launch or accomplish something. Some smart Soviet technicians launched Sputnik. But credit is not due to everyone alive in Russia or the Soviet blocked countries in 1957.
I think it was 1957.
“Yeah, Danny, I don’t know why you stoop so low as to answer anyone either. You’re clearly on a higher plane. And so misunderstood.”
No, it’s really not because I’m on a higher plane. And it only seems to be you and vidyohs that I really have a problem with.
Somehow I can say that I don’t think the USSR should get credit for dissident innovations and then you turn around and lecture me on how it’s incorrect to attribute their accomplishments to the countries they escaped.
You’re not even listening to me. Even when I agree with you (hell – I stated it first when I purposefully left them off the list) you still feel the need to pick a fight with me. It’s very tiring, methinks.
Re: “Did you think we were all illiterate peasants before the revolution?”
We??? How old are you exactly? Many Russians were illiterate peasants – far more than were illiterate peasants in America at that time (thank you American public education!). Sorry – the truth hurts sometimes.
No, it’s really not because I’m on a higher plane.
Um…did you really think you needed to say that?
Many Russians were illiterate peasants – far more than were illiterate peasants in America at that time (thank you American public education!).
I see that you failed to learn the difference between “many” and “all” in school. I’m assuming you’re a product of American public education. Literacy rates were in the 90′s in New England by the time of the American Revolution and that predated any kind of embryonic public education system in the United States by almost 100 years. Also illiteracy remained shockingly high in the American South, parts of the West and Alaska and Hawaii until about the middle of the 21st century. So not only were your peasants as illiterate as ours and for about as long, but literacy in the United States at the turn of the century had nothing to do with public education because it wasn’t widely available until 1918. Having corrected your history, I have no idea the American public education system has to do with anything we were talking about. I suspect you don’t either.
Despite your claim, you’re not agreeing with me because you clearly can’t comprehend what I’m saying. Your tender ego may not allow you to comprehend where you might have gone astray, so I’m just going to give up on you because I’m not really interested in how exasperated you are.
“Um…did you really think you needed to say that?”
I was refuting your sarcasm, not your argument.
As for New England’s high literacy rate, it’s interesting that that’s also where they had government funded schools (“common schools”) WELL before the revolution. Private schools became more and more common up until the revolution… but then I’ve never knocked private schools on this blog have I?
Besides – the U.S. is bigger than New England, and most other regions didn’t reach comparable literacy rates until public schooling was provided. Indeed, that was the whole point.