Author: Andrew Sullivan

It’s struck me that there is an underlying anxiety to several of our current debates on economic and social issues. That anxiety is that the American work ethic – unparalleled in the developed world – is under threat. That’s the real critique of Obamacare – as opposed to the mendacious “two millions jobs lost” line. A reader writes about his own experience:

My job for the past 20 years was recently eliminated. I am 63 and originally planned to work until at least 65 for one reason: Health Insurance.

If I had to enter the old insurance market at my age, with pre-existing conditions, it would be unaffordable and I would have had to look for work that offered insurance. With the ACA, I can afford health insurance until I am 65, and for that reason I have decided to retire rather than look for work. That provides an opening for someone younger to get a job I might have taken. And I get to enjoy an earlier retirement, spend some of my money on things other than insurance, and be one less person competing for a good paying job. A win-win for the country in my eyes.

Hard to argue with that – but it does mean a relaxation in the work imperative – and that’s worth debating. Or I think of myself – a small business owner with serious pre-existing conditions (HIV, chronic asthma, mild depression). Until Obamacare, it was unthinkable for me to be unemployed at any point, because of the health insurance issue. I was always terrified of losing access and being bankrupted by treating a disease I could not get insurance for. Now (if I were not neck-deep in Dishness) it’s conceivable. I feel empowered by the ACA not to work if I choose to and have the savings to take a break. There are a zillion different scenarios in which the guarantee of health insurance removes the absolute necessity of working if you have some savings to fall back on.

Or think of our debate about social mobility and inequality. With wages stagnant for most Americans since the mid 1970s, and hard, often back-breaking work failing to provide real gains in income, doesn’t the logic of the work ethic get attenuated? Isn’t it also affected by your knowledge that many people at the very top of the pyramid rake in unimaginable dough for working far less hard than your average teacher or healthcare worker? And isn’t the vast accumulation of wealth among so few itself a contributor to the decline in the work ethic, since it provides so many dependents with such easy, unearned cash? It’s not just the left that has created these disincentives. Global capitalism has done its part as well.

Or take the issue of marijuana legalization. One strong thread in the opposition is the fear that we’ll all stay on the couch, binge-watch Netflix and sleep in late, while the Chinese eat our lunch. And it’s strongest among those who experienced the American dream – the over-60s – than among those for whom it seems like a distant memory – the under-30s. And then there is immigration reform. Isn’t there an obvious, if unstated, cultural fear here that Latino culture is less work-obsessed than white Protestant culture (despite the staggering work ethic of so many Latino immigrants)? Beneath the legitimate concerns about border enforcement and security – which Obama has beefed up beyond measure, by the way – there is an anxiety that the core identity of America might change. We might actually begin to live more like Europeans do. Heaven forfend.

At the core of this is a real debate about what we value in life, and what makes life meaningful.

And that’s a real debate we need to have more often and more publicly. Work is an ennobling, mobilizing endeavor. It is our last truly common denominator as Americans. But what if its pre-eminence is unavoidably weakened by unchangeable economic forces? What if the accumulation of wealth through work is beginning to seem like a mug’s game to more and more, trapped in a stalled social mobility escalator? Why wouldn’t people adjust their values to fit the times?

I have to say I feel conflicted about this. I’m a pathologically hard worker, and for me, the American dream remains not only intact, but still inspiring. I believe in work. I don’t want the welfare state to be a cushion rather than a safety net. At the same time, it seems to me that as a culture, we have a work ethic that can be, and often is, its own false idol. The Protestant work ethic we have, for example, is the imperative for industrious striving, self-advancement and material gain. It is emphatically not about being happy. And at some point, if those two values are not easily compatible, something will give.

And would it be such a terrible thing if exhausted American workers were able to take real vacations of more than two weeks a year; or if white-collar professionals could afford to take a breather in mid-career without worrying about their health insurance; or if 63-year-olds like our reader could actually enjoy two more years of leisure at the end of their careers? Would it be so awful if more Americans smoked pot and were able to garner a few more moments of chill and relaxation rather than stress or worry? How damaging would it be if a little Catholic, Latin culture mitigated the unforgiving treadmill so many of us are on?

As I say, I’m conflicted on this. I struggle every day with a saner balance between work and life, and work has consistently won. But the older I get the more I treasure not the money but the time I spend on this earth. I weigh the benefits of incessant work against the new friends I never make, the books I never read, the vacations I find hard to take, the empty afternoons that make life worth living. And, as in any individual life, the life-work balance needs adjusting over time in a society as a whole.

At what point, in other words, is the pursuit of material wealth eclipsing the pursuit of happiness this country was founded to uphold? Is the correction against the Protestant work ethic a destruction of the American values – or actually a sign of their revival after a period of intense and often fruitless striving? I suspect the latter.

(Photo: Max Weber, 1917)

Jerry Coyne scores the debate between Bill Nye and young-earth creationist Ken Ham:

Nye did a pretty good job defending evolution, and calling out Ham for crazy stuff like the Ark story and the supposed inconstancy of natural laws. But he could have done better. In response to Ham’s claim that there’s no way to test whether radiometric dating is accurate, or that different minerals in the same rock give different dates, Nye could have mentioned that we do indeed have ways to judge whether radiometric dating is reliable, in particular the isochron method. Nye used the term “higher” and “lower” animals, which even Darwin realized is not valid terminology under the theory of evolution (every species is equally “evolved” in terms of how long its ancestors have been around: we’re all about 2.5 billion years old. I realize that this is the quibbling of an evolutionary biologist, but stuff like the accuracy of fossil dating represented a missed opportunity for Nye.

Mark Joseph Stern holds that it wasn’t really a debate, as only one side was bound by reality:

For all his witless rejection of data, Ham displays a certain brilliance in rankling non-creationists with his insistent irrationality.

The maddening aspect of his creationism is not just that it’s ridiculous, but that he insists it’s a perfectly logical, empirically verifiable scientific explanation of the universe. It doesn’t matter how meticulously or forcefully Nye rebuffs the illogic of Ham’s views; Ham is always ready with a red herring rejoinder, a straw man riposte, an indignant counter-argument based on nothing but his own opportunistic exegesis. Nye has the burden of being tethered to facts; Ham has the luxury to create his own fiction.

Saletan considers the finer points of Ham’s theories:

The most intriguing part of the debate was Ham’s discussion of “kinds.” This is a creationist way of explaining visible evolution. According to Ham, finches and dogs have evolved, but finches have always been finches, and dogs have always been dogs. This boundary—evolution within kinds, but not evolution from one kind to another—is supposed to protect the myths of creation and the ark. But the boundary turns out to be flexible. To reduce the animals on the ark to a manageable cargo, Ham’s associates at Answers in Genesis have rationalized the number of “kinds” down to fewer than 1,000. This revision means that God did less of the work of diversification than originally supposed, so post-flood evolution had to do more. In effect, it’s creeping Darwinism.

Kevin Vallier makes the theological argument against young-earth creationists:

Ham, [Kent] Hovind and others act as if their interpretation of the Bible is the only “literal” one, when many church fathers have read Genesis 1-2 allegorically since Origen (184/5-253/4) (see Biologos’s discussion). Augustine is perhaps the most famous one of these. In the debate Ham says that you can believe in evolution and be a Christian, but he immediately adds that they have a severe theological conundrum in doing so (making sense of how death entered the world). Well, Mr. Ham, Augustine was pretty smart and he didn’t see the conundrum, so why should we?

Dan Vergano explores why our beliefs on this subject are so sticky:

[Yale professor Dan] Kahan’s research suggests that’s because people aren’t really answering whether they literally believe in Genesis when they answer questions about creationism and evolution. Rather, Kahan says, they are telling the pollsters what they think their friends and neighbors believe. If you’re a car dealer in a conservative Christian town, for example, you don’t want your customers to think you aren’t one of them or else you aren’t going to sell a lot of pickup trucks. Likewise, a coffee-shop owner in much more secular Boston isn’t going to make customers comfortable selling Bible stories alongside the soy lattes.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen claims that Obamacare will lower unemployment:

How Douthat thinks about the labor market effects:

The bigger the effect, the more likely that the people dropping out aren’t just, say, parents cutting hours to spend more time at home while the other spouse works full time, but people we should want to be attached to the workforce, for their own long-term good and the good of the economy as well.

Which is why it’s appropriate that the new C.B.O. projection of 2 million to 2.5 million job-equivalents disappearing has inspired more disquiet and debate than the old projection of 500,000-900,000 … because it’s a sign, however provisional, that the costs of Obamacare’s workforce effects might exceed the benefits. I don’t see liberals reckoning seriously with that possibility, and I think they really should.

Kliff talks to economists about the ACA’s impact on employment:

“On the one hand, when you expand a program where eligibility is based on income, that means if people increase their income, they could lose eligibility. That may create a disincentive to find a job,” says [Harvard University health economist Kate] Baicker, who was a member of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2005 to 2007. “But if health insurance makes people healthier, it might give them extra resources that could increase their ability to hold or search for a job. People have made arguments in both directions.”

Ryan Avent chimes in:

The argument that the ACA will be good for the economy centres on the view—not at all absurd—that insured workers will be healthier and therefore more productive over a longer working life, that insurance related job-lock will become less of a problem and productivity will rise as a result of better job matches, that reduced dependency on employer-provided coverage will encourage entrepreneurialism and risk-taking, and that constraining health-care cost growth will either raise real wages or make it more attractive to hire or a bit of both.

Now you can argue that on reasonable guesses about how these effects play out, effective labour supply still declines, relative to the pre-ACA trend, as a result of Obamacare. What you can’t say, first, is that they are irrelevant and, second, that they are included in the CBO analysis. In fact, what you should say is that they are relevant and are not included in the analysis.

John Cassidy qualifies the CBO’s projections:

In exploring some of these effects, the C.B.O. was making a valuable contribution to the public debate. But its actual figures are merely informed guesses about what might happen in the next few years, and they shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Obamacare is so big and so new that we can’t be sure what impact it will have. In coming up with the estimates that two million jobs will be eliminated by 2017 and 2.5 million will be eliminated by 2024 (or the equivalent in hours worked), the C.B.O. relied on academic studies of previous policy changes, such as changes in tax rates and alterations to the eligibility requirements for Medicaid. These studies may provide a reliable guide to how Obamacare will play out—or they may not. If we’re not comparing apples to oranges, exactly, we’re certainly comparing Granny Smiths to McIntoshes. And, in any case, the conclusions of the studies differ.

Another reader shares his story:

I just wanted to offer my two cents on one particular aspect of the Woody Allen case. Many of his defenders point to the allegations that Mia Farrow “coached” Dylan before she spoke to the police. The edits in Dylan’s video testimony certainly suggest that Mia was at least talking to her and shaping her testimony, which could lend credence to the claim that the molestation was “invented” by Mia. But my experience as a victim of sexual abuse could suggest a different motivation.

My old sister and I were sexually abused by my father when we were very young. Our parents separated when I was two weeks old, and on weekend visits with my father, he would do many inappropriate things, similar to the actions that Allen has been accused of.

Inappropriate touching, yes. Penetration, no. The custody battle went on for years, and, of course, these allegations of abuse were a major factor in it. And yes, my mother coached me and my sister. She discussed what wording I would use when testifying before a judge. But she didn’t do this because the allegations were her invention. She coached me because she had already run into many sexist judges who were liable to take my father’s side in the matter. She coached us for the same reason every lawyer coaches their client before taking the stand: to make sure they communicate what they want to and to ensure that their words are not misinterpreted.

I’m not convinced of Woody Allen’s guilt, and I also understand the institutional hatred that a mother can instill in her children towards her ex-husband. And I’m sure that “invented abuse” and “implanted memories” are real things. But the coaching of a nervous, vulnerable child before they testify in a case that they really don’t understand is not evidence of either.

Previous readers on molestation here.

Larison fails to see the logic of a Jeb Bush candidacy:

There’s no doubt that Bush could raise a lot of money, but other than that what is the argument for his presidential campaign? He hasn’t disavowed anything his brother did in office, and as far as we know he doesn’t disagree with his brother on any major issues. He is more likely to defend his brother against critics. That may be understandable as a matter of family loyalty, but it isn’t going to win him many supporters. It would be exceptionally easy for the Democrats to argue that Jeb Bush wants to return to the policies of his brother, and those policies–and their failures–are one of many reasons why the post-2008 Republican Party remains so unpopular and distrusted by the public.

Sabato has Walker at the top of his list:

We continue to like Walker’s combination of Blue state electoral success and conservative bona fides, but let’s face it: We have little idea how he would handle the crucible of a national campaign.

That is just unknowable at this point. Walker’s potential as a candidate comes in part because, as a governor, he doesn’t have to weigh in all the time on divisive national issues — something he won’t necessarily be able to get away with in 2015 if he becomes a candidate. It seems like an odd comparison, but Walker might end up being like Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), who had all the makings of being a great candidate until he actually became one. Tim Pawlenty (R), the former Minnesota governor whose shiny candidacy went up in smoke quickly, is another comparison that Walker and his allies surely wouldn’t welcome. And of course Walker needs to win reelection — we rate him a solid favorite but he’s not likely to win by a big, Christie-esque number — or all this talk is moot. We like Walker’s potential as a candidate, but just because he tops our list doesn’t make him the frontrunner: This is a very big and fluid field.

Drum instead calls Paul Ryan the favorite:

[W]ho are his big competitors? Chris Christie is toast. Marco Rubio is inexperienced to begin with, and then muffed his chance for statesmanlike glory when he staked his reputation on immigration reform and came up empty. Jeb Bush can’t even get his mother’s endorsement. Scott Walker is getting buzz, but he strikes me as having too much baggage. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz are novelty candidates, not to be taken seriously. And although I used to think Bobby Jindal might have a chance, he’s had a rough past couple of years.