Earlier today, at this weekend’s Liberty Fund colloquium, we were discussing cash hand outs versus make work programs. Someone suggested that the recipients, at least during the Great Depression, preferred make work programs to simple cash handouts. I mentioned that there exists a literature on this, which argues that the American moral framework places a stigma on welfare and charity. Welfare recipients are characterized as lazy and unproductive, and so there is a natural inclination to prefer welfare programs where you earn an income in return for your labor. I couldn’t remember the authors of a particular essay I had in mind (I incorrectly cited Baubcöck), but just in case anybody at the colloquium reads this blog the article is: Nancy Fraser and Linda Gordon, “Contract versus Charity.”

By now, you’ve most likely heard of the election of Jorge Bergoglio as pope of the Roman Catholic Church. I don’t know Church politics well enough to comment on the merits of Bergoglio, who has chosen to go by the name of Francis. I told my family that the new pope would either be Latin American or African, and I was right. On the one hand, opting for an Argentine does a lot to cater to Catholics outside of Europe. On the other, in this case choosing an Argentine allows a step forward, but in other ways the Church seems to be taking a step back. Francis’ positions on various moral issues don’t really bother me — we’re all entitled to our opinions — and since I’m no believer (a.k.a. I don’t know what I’m talking about) I really don’t know how much room for an “open mind” the Catholic faith has. How can you promote homosexuality if your Bible forbids it?

Anyways, there are a number of issues that do invite the support of the church. That a Latin American was chosen points to the severe inequality — not just economic, but also, and much more importantly, political — those nations suffer from. There’s also the uphill battle for basic human rights throughout the developing work. There’s enough issues to occupy Pope Francis for a long time to come.

In any case, as I was reading Fernando Cardoso’s memoirs, I coincidentally (this was a day after Bergoglio’s election was announced, I think) came across his experiences in Poland during the closing years of the cold war. His reaction to Pope John Paul II’s active participation in the Polish political emancipation from the Soviet Union speaks to the Church’s influence,

There was no point in looking at dull research, however, when social change was taking place in real life, right there outside the palace doors. Poland was swept up in the height of the Solidarity movement. The selection of Karol Wojtyla as Pope John Paul II had emboldened the church as an agent for democratic change in Poland. Enraptued, we watched on television as the Polish cardinal addressed the nation. We didn’t understand what he was saying, of course, but we understood the symbolism. This was the first time that the Polish government had ever dared to allow the cardinal such a large forum.

— Fernando Henrique Cardoso, The Accidental President of Brazil (New York: Public Affairs, 2006), p. 141.

Then again, publicly opposing Communism is probably easier for the Church than taking a progressive stance on the various issues of our days.

→ Stephen M. Walt, “On Writing Well” (H/T Daniel Kuehn).

I used to consider myself a good writer. I’m taking a course on economic literacy and I’ve begun to realize that I’m actually a rather poor writer. A lot of it probably has to do with the fact that I restrict my reading mostly to academic, or close to it, writing. This is likely the reason I know words that many of my peers don’t. They don’t seem “advanced” to me (or probably to anybody else who knows them), but I’ve found that economic writers like using words you don’t find in everyday speech. These words, I’ve found in peer reviews, can be off putting. (Ironically, Kahneman warns against using big words, but every once in a while he uses words I have to look up.)

This brings me to my writing on this blog. There’s an additional obstacle to good writing when it comes to my blogging. I don’t really think about what I’m going to write too deeply immediately before writing — if I do, what I end up writing tends to be somewhat different anyways —, and usually I start going into stream of consciousness mode. You can probably tell when I go off on slight tangents, and then I have to bring the discussion back to my original point. This can be solved by using the first post as a draft and then re-writing it, but I don’t have the time to do that with my blog posts and, besides, I’ve never trained myself to put in the effort to do that. So, my blog writing is probably worse than it ought to be, but at the same time I feel that the flexibility of thinking on the spot helps me be creative.

Sometimes rigor and clearness are preferable, but this is a blog — a sandbox, where I can make mistakes and put out whatever comes across my mind — and I find my style optimal given the time available and the utility, to me, of having this blog. I wonder, though, if sacrificing revision and a more structured approach is harming my writing. At the same time, I try to incorporate what I learn about good writing as much as possible, as I learn it.

On Monday, Tom Woods reproduced an email a reader had sent him, asking if he should take the contrarian position at the risk of a worse grade. This is a common fear amongst students, but for some reason non-students continue to perpetuate the myth. The fact is, most professors don’t grade those who disagree any worse than those who agree. They grade on quality of argument. The student who agrees with the professor can borrow from the lectures and the reading — the substance of the paper is developed in class. The student who disagrees has to either develop his position on his own or read material outside of the class. Consequently, students who take contrarian positions tend to have worse argued papers. But, the problem is the quality of the argument not the subject matter.

Here’s my advice. Let’s say that you’ve read an article on the civil war written by Tom Woods or Tom DiLorenzo and you’re convinced. But, this is pretty much the only literature you’ve read and your knowledge is generally limited. I don’t suggest you write a paper defending this position, largely because the scope of knowledge determines the quality of the argument. Now, if you’re one of those students who gets extremely involved with a topic and explores it in relatively more depth than your peers, then go ahead and write the contrarian paper. Note, none of this presupposes truth. One side or the other could be wrong, or both sides could be wrong, yet they both can advance good arguments.

If, for some reason, your professor gives you a worse mark than the one you expected, then stop by his/her office hours. If the professor included margin notes and you disagree with his judgment (of your argument) more likely than not that professor will be willing to discuss it with you. I took a womens’ studies course as an upper division elective once and I got a C or a B on a paper. I approached my professor after class and pleaded my case: she bumped my grade to an A.

The point is, very, very few professors will fail a student for taking an unpopular position. If you do poorly in a paper or an exam where you take such a position it’s probably due to problems in your argument and writing, not a problem with the position you decided to defend (assuming the position is relevant to the prompt, of course).