John Taylor and Ben Bernanke on the Great Recession Who Was Right About What Went Wrong? Mikael Hemlin University of Gothenburg University of Oxford London School of Economics Author Hans Lei Leonardo Moraveg Neil Sehgal Editors Fall 2019 Download full text PDF (8 pages) In the autumn of 2007, the United States’ housing market collapsed, pushing the world economy to the brink of disaster. In the US, unemployment rates soared, trillions of dollars of wealth disappeared, and millions of Americans lost their homes in what is generally considered the most severe recession since the Great Depression of the 1930’s. In the aftermath, economists have diligently discussed the properties of the crisis, asking if it could have been prevented and if policymakers could have responded more prudently. The American economist John Taylor has accused US policymakers of paving the way for the housing bubble by conducting an excessively loose monetary policy in the years leading up to the crash, and of prolonging the crisis by responding with measures based on premises that were essentially misguided. Conversely, Ben Bernanke, then Chairman of the Federal Reserve and one of the main targets of Taylor’s critique, offers an opposing view. According to Bernanke, the low federal funds rates during the years 2002–2006 were sound, and did not contribute to the inflation of the housing market to the extent that Taylor describes. Rather, Bernanke claims, it was mainly regulatory flaws that caused the financial collapse, and the actions taken by policymakers prevented the financial system from imploding completely. This essay makes the argument that although monetary policy played a part in the build-up to the crash, it was by no means a defining factor. What sets the Great Recession apart from other economic downturns is the regulatory setting in which the housing bubble developed and the crisis unfolded. As such, the governors of the Federal Reserve are not culpable for the crisis’ occurrence. They, along with the US Treasury, are nevertheless culpable for the misguided policies that were enacted to resolve the situation. Much like Taylor suggests, the measures that were undertaken by the authorities rested on the false presumption that it was lack of liquidity rather than the persistence of counterparty risk that protracted the crisis. The situation could have been dealt with much more efficiently were it not for these misconceptions. Neither Taylor’s nor Bernanke’s argument is convincing on all counts. Rather, it is a combination of the two that offers the most accurate account of what happened. One of the main points of disagreement between Taylor and Bernanke is the role of the Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy during the years 2002–2006 in inflating the housing market. While Taylor is right in claiming that excessively low interest rates generally accommodate the creation of bubbles, he wrongly alleges that his rule for monetary policy, the Taylor Rule, is detailed enough to work as a reference point for how monetary policy should be conducted, regardless of context. Indeed, as Bernanke argues, the monetary situation in the US in the period 2002–2006 was complex in ways that are unaccounted for in the Taylor Rule. For example, the recovery after the dot-com bubble burst in 2001 was rapid, but did not push down unemployment to the extent that conventional wisdom would suggest. The Taylor Rule does not explicitly account for unemployment, but instead expects it to follow inflation and output as described by Okun’s law and the Phillips curve. Taking into consideration the low inflation rates of the years in question, Bernanke’s argument that raising the FFR at that time would have been deflationary is hardly unfounded. Indeed, while mainstream economic theory would have predicted unemployment to diminish as the economy recovered after 2001, it would also have predicted inflation to fall to very low levels had the Federal Reserve raised the FFR over the period that Taylor suggests. Additionally, as Bernanke points out, the sharp increases in housing prices started in 1998, well before the period of the allegedly too loose monetary policy. Taken together, the evidence above indicates that while the low interest rates before the crisis played a role in inflating the housing market, it was not a major factor. The economic indicators of the time were ambiguous, and the Federal Reserve chose a policy path associated with avoiding the deflationary trap that had suppressed the Japanese economy over the past decades. Nevertheless, the Fed could have better appreciated the instability of the housing market and started raising interest rates in time to prevent the crash from turning into a worldwide financial disaster. If the FFR had been raised a couple of years earlier, the concealed risk in the securities markets could have been exposed without risking a system collapse. In such a scenario, it is plausible that the average creditworthiness of borrowers would have been higher, as lenders would not have had enough time to work their way down to the absolute bottom of the income/asset brackets. In Hyman Minsky’s words, financial practice would not yet have degenerated from “speculative finance” to “Ponzi finance.” As such, the mortgage default rates and banks’ leverage ratios would have been lower, and the recession more manageable. While monetary policy leading up to the crisis did contribute to its onset, the circumstances that magnified the crisis to a global collapse emerged as a result of the government’s exceedingly poor regulatory oversight. Taylor finds that the countries where housing prices rose the steepest were also the ones that deviated the most from his monetary policy rule. He argues that this serves as evidence that the Federal Reserve’s lax monetary policy played a significant role in setting the stage for the crisis. While this statement likely has some truth to it, it suffers from several shortcomings. As mentioned earlier, Bernanke underscores that the housing boom started in 1998 when the FFR was well over 5 percent. Against this background, it is more likely that the regulatory situation both in the US and elsewhere is to blame for the housing boom and subsequent crisis. In 1999, around the same time that Bernanke alleges the boom started, the Clinton administration partially repealed the Banking Act of 1933 (or the Glass-Steagall Act). The act was adopted after the Great Depression to improve financial stability, and essentially separated investment banks and hedge funds from commercial banks. After the repeal, it became legal for financial institutions of all types to merge, thereby making them “too big to fail” and allowing them to engage in larger-scale speculation. This paved the way for a moral hazard and exposed depositors to speculative risk in the process. In addition, the partial repeal failed to give the Securities and Exchange Commission authority to regulate and scrutinise financial institutions, thus allowing for the creation of riskier and ever-more opaque derivatives. As such, the abolishment of parts of the Glass-Steagall Act drastically increased the scale of speculative operations and weakened regulatory oversight, thus shrouding the securities markets in ignorance. Taylor elegantly compares the ensuing situation to a game of hearts, but with many queens of spades instead of just one. Everybody knew that most financial institutions’ balance sheets were riddled with queens of spades, i.e. toxic assets. The problem was that when the crisis hit, nobody could distinguish the toxic assets from the non-toxic ones, and thus, all assets of a kind sharply diminished in value. The indistinguishability of safe mortgage-backed securities from risky ones was in part due to the complexity of the financial instruments in question, and in part due to the failure of the rating agencies to accurately evaluate the risk of the constituent mortgages (Crotty, 2009). This is an issue of poor oversight as well; the rating agencies evaluated the riskiness of loans under the pressure of competition, and therefore consistently gave customers (e.g. banks) the ratings they required to sell off the loans as quickly as possible. Since there were no regulatory mechanisms in place to prevent this from becoming standard practice, it became hugely profitable for banks to grant loans to more or less anyone. The expansive access to credit led the housing market to boom. It is also worth mentioning that the expected future values of the homes that the mortgages financed were included as collateral in the risk evaluations. As such, the stability of the financial system was built on the premise that the US housing market could continue to boom indefinitely. This indicates that it was poor oversight, not lax monetary policy, that paved the way for the housing bubble and the subsequent crisis once the bubble burst. In the wake of the crisis, when the flow of financial transactions had frozen and market interest rates had skyrocketed due to the increased uncertainty and risk, the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury set out to stimulate the economy to prevent it from collapsing altogether. Based on what measures the policymakers chose to enact, it seems they diagnosed the problem to be insufficient liquidity. Taylor correctly claims that they were mistaken—it was excessive counterparty risk, not liquidity, that petrified the financial markets. Among other things, policymakers tried to stimulate aggregate demand by giving out over 100 billion USD in cash to US households. The effects of these cash infusions quickly subsided and had little to no effect in terms of economic recovery. Next, they tried to reduce the financial friction in the system by adopting the so-called Troubled Asset Relief Programme of around 700 billion USD. As the name suggests, the programme sought to relieve troubled financial institutions of bad assets. However, the legislative text lacked a predictable framework as to what kinds of assets would be bought up, at what prices, and what the targeted institutions should do with the money. The consequences were that uncertainty and counterparty risk persisted, and that most of the money was used to buy US Treasury bonds and other safe assets that did not reduce the financial friction in the system (Taylor, 2009). Essentially, the mistake that the policymakers made was to conceive of the crisis as one of liquidity rather than counterparty risk. If counterparty risk in the system is high, then financial friction is high, and if financial friction is high, then neither monetary policy nor fiscal stimulus can restart the economy. This is because the increased risk offsets the effects of any lowering of the FFR or an increase in aggregate demand. Had the problem been diagnosed as excessive counterparty risk from the outset, then predictable and targeted quantitative easing could have been used immediately to remove the toxic assets from the system, thereby decreasing risk and uncertainty. Eventually, quantitative easing was used, but it could have been done much earlier (Taylor, 2009). Neither Taylor nor Bernanke provides a satisfactory account of what went wrong before and during the Great Recession. Taylor is mistaken in claiming that the Federal Reserve’s lax monetary policy in the years leading up to the housing bust is to blame for the crisis. While this might have played a minor role, the fact that the boom began under rather strict monetary conditions and that the Federal Reserve had a strong rationale for its chosen policy path suggests that Bernanke is right that it was inadequate regulation that paved the way for the crash. Nevertheless, Taylor’s critique of the interventions that Bernanke’s Federal Reserve undertook to resolve the crisis is justified. Had it not been for Bernanke’s and other policymakers’ misconception of the crisis as a liquidity shortage rather than an issue of counterparty risk, the recession would have been much less painful. Thus, on a concluding note, future policymakers should enhance the discretion of regulatory authorities to prevent a similar situation from emerging again, and improve the targeting of interventions in the event of a crisis to ensure that they are potent enough to produce the desired effect. Works Cited Bernanke, Ben S. “Monetary Policy and the Housing Bubble.” Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, January 03, 2010. www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20100103a.htm. Crotty, James. “Structural causes of the global financial crisis: a critical assessment of the ‘new financial architecture’,” Cambridge Journal of Economics 33, no. 4, 2009, pp. 563-580. doi.org/10.1093/cje/bep023. Dash, Eric. “A Stormy Decade for Citi Since Travelers Merge,” New York Times. April 03, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/business/03citi.html. FRED. “Effective Federal Funds Rate,” Last accessed November 15, 2018. fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS. FRED. “S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index,” fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CSUSHPINSA . Accessed November 15, 2018. Gorton, Gary, and Guillermo Ordoñez. "Collateral Crises." American Economic Review, vol. 104, no. 2, February 2014, pp. 343-78. dx.doi.org/10.1257/aer.104.2.343. Greenwood, Robin, and David Scharfstein. “The Growth of Finance.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 27, no. 2, Spring 2013, pp. 3–28. dx.doi.org/10.1257/jep.27.2.3. Jones, Charles I. Macroeconomics. 4th ed. New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2018. Kaufman, George G. “Too big to fail in banking: What does it mean?” LSE Financial Markets Group Special Paper Series, Special paper 22, June 2013. www.lse.ac.uk/fmg/assets/documents/papers/special-papers/SP222.pdf. Krugman, Paul. The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008. New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2008. Maues, Julia. “Banking Act of 1933 (Glass-Steagall),” Federal Reserve History. November 22, 2013, https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/glass_steagall_act. Miller, Richard A. “Minsky’s financial instability hypothesis and the role of equity: The accounting behind hedge, speculative, and Ponzi finance.” Journal of Post-Keynesian Economics, vol. 41, no. 1, 2018, pp. 126–138. doi.org/10.1080/01603477.2017.1392870. Taylor, John B. “Economic policy and the financial crisis: An empirical analysis of what went wrong.” Critical Review, vol. 21, no. 2-3, January 2009, pp. 341–364. doi.org/10.1080/08913810902974865. Trading Economics. “United States Unemployment Rate,” tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate . Accessed November 15, 2018.

Editorial board Foreword Volume I Issue II Introducing the second issue of JPPE Technological disruption has been a fact of the post-industrial world, producing the growth in productivity and efficiency that led to nearly unfathomable increases in opulence, standards of living, and wealth. It may, as a consequence, seem perplexing why so many of today’s leaders seem concerned about something so seemingly vastly beneficial as technological innovation. And yet, few economic shifts produce more anxiety than those involving the introduction of labor saving technology into the economy. This was true in the 19th century Britain, when the Luddites stood in such abject fear of the permanent redundancy of their labor that they took to murdering machine innovators and destroying designs. It was also true in the early 20th century, as agricultural innovations and new industrial designs dramatically reshaped the US economy. And it’s true again today, as artificial intelligence and digital technology make a wide array of occupations largely or entirely automatable. This has potentially profound implications for the world. As globalization, outsourcing, and the presence of winner- take all markets exacerbate income inequality in many countries, labor automation stands to make possibly significant numbers of jobs redundant, increasing returns to capital, and hastening the growth in inequality as productivity increases faster than wages. It’s the presence of these alarming trends that has driven us to dedicate the second issue of the Journal of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics to the topic of technology and, specifically, technological disruption. We have done this by facilitating submissions from Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Brookings Institution President John Allen, both of whom have emerged as contemporary leaders on the front line to develop a politics that confronts some of the more perverse effects of technological innovation. As questions surrounding the effects of labor automation continue to garner more attention, the most popular solutions tend to take on at least one of two forms: education or social security. Ms. Sturgeon and Mr. Allen’s suggestions are therefore an apt encapsulation of the nature of the debate about how best to address technological displacement; the former discusses social security and the latter, education. Mr. Allen argues for a revaluation of modern education and training programs for workers and youths. He proposes that America’s continued dominance requires a strong investment in education programs that emphasize, for example, artificial intelligence, big data analytics, and super-computing. Meanwhile Ms. Sturgeon provides a strong case for considering a universal basic income as a possible approach to curtail the effects of labor automation on inequality. She highlights Scotland’s experiments with such a proposal and underscores the need for bold leadership to develop a new approach to social security befitting of a modern and more technological advanced era. Although this semester’s issue of JPPE is centered on the question of technological disruption, it also features essays from undergraduates on a wide range of topics. One piece discusses the relationship between private companies and US cybersecurity policy. Another considers whether secession is a viable solution to the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict. And, in Moral Manipulation, a student considers the ethics of corporate advertising campaigns through a Kantian paradigm. The Brown University Journal of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics is deeply proud of both the feature articles and student essays published in this issue. As students— from Providence to Beijing— begin to grapple with a rapidly changing economy and socio-political climate, the number of novel challenges the rising generation faces is great. And in the Journal you are now reading, students and world leaders around the world provide a great number of equally novel solutions.

Politics Featured Section The European Union Trust Fund for Africa: Understanding the EU’s Securitization of Development Aid and its Implications Migena Satyal A Death Sentence Beyond Death Row: Helling v. McKinney and the Constitutionality of Solitary Confinement Hallie Sternblitz Vol. VIII | Issue I FREE EXERCISE AND IDENTITY IN CONFLICT: The Future of Parental Free Exercise Claims in Public Education Divergent colonial memories in south korea and taiwan: Institutional Legacies Danny Ly Vol. VII | Issue I The Burden of Innocence: Arendt’s Understanding of Totalitarianism through its Victims Elena Muglia Rewriting the Antitrust Setlist: Examining the Live Nation-Ticketmaster Lawsuit and its Implications for Modern Antitrust Law Katya Tolunsky The European Union trust fund for africa: Understanding the EU's Securitization of Development Aid and its Implications Migena Satyal A DEATH SENTENCE BEYOND DEATH ROW: Helling v. McKinney and the Constitutionality of Solitary Confinement Hallie Sternblitz Vol. VI | Issue II Schedule F And The Future Of Civil Service Protections Sasha Bonkowsky Does Social Media Strategy Help Politicians Stay in Power? Comparing the Cases of Modi and Bolsonaro Wendy Wang How Political Instability Unravels Religious Commitment in the Face of Uncertainty Navigating Uncertainty in Political Instability and Religiosity in Post-Arab Spring Egypt and Tunisia Abanti Ahmed Politics Archives Vol. IV | Issue II Refuting the myth of progressive secularism An Analysis of the Legal Frameworks Surrounding Religious Practice in France and Bahrain Bridget McDonald Ronald Reagan and the Role of Humor in American movement conservatism Abie Rohrig Vol. IV | Issue I Predictive Algorithms in the Criminal Justice System Evaluating the Racial Bias Objection Rebecca Berman From Bowers to Obergefell The US Supreme Court’s Erratic, Yet Correct, Jurisprudence on Gay Rights Sydney White The Unchurching of Black Lives Matter The Evolving Role of Faith in The Fight for Racial Justice Anna Savo-Matthews Vol. III | Issue II Rural Despair and decline How Trump Won Michigan in 2016 Bess Markel Vol. III | Issue I We The Prisoners Considering the Anti Drug Act of 1986, the War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration in the United States Sophia Scaglion Vol. II | Issue II All Power to the Imagination Radical Student Groups and Coalition Building in France During May 1968 and the United States during the Vietnam War Calder McHugh The Life Cycle of the Responsibility to Protect The Ongoing Emergence of R2P as a Norm in the International Community Maxine Dehavenon PeaceFul Animals A Look into Black Pacifism and the Pedagogy of Civil Rights in American Public Education Jade Fabello Vol. II | Issue I Two Forms of Environmental-Political Imagination Germany, the United States, and the Clean Energy Transition Nathan S. Chael Oedipus and Ion as outsiders The Implications and Limitations of Genealogical Citizenship Claire Holland Partisan Gerrymandering Re-Establishing the Political Question Doctrine in Gill v. Whitford Connor Maag Vol. I | Issue II Transparency and compliance The Strength of EU Lobbying Regulations Abigail Borges Georgian-South Ossetian Conflict Is Secession a Viable Solution? Tathyana Mello Amaral Imagined Isle Irish Catholic Identity in the Restoration Era Nathan Mainster Vol. I | Issue I American Jews The Political Behavior of American Jews A Public Choice Approach to Israel-influenced Voting Jake Goodman Racial Capitalism Racial Capitalism in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Challenging the Fallacy of Black Entitlement under Service Delivery Protests. Olerato Mogomotsi A.S.e.a.n The Long Game: ASEAN, China’s Charm Offensive and the South China Sea Dispute Hisyam Takiudin

Frequently Asked Questions How often do you publish? The Brown Journal of Philosophy, Politics and Economics publishes twice a year. Once in the Fall, and once in the Spring. How do you decide what to publish? The JPPE looks for pieces that are well-written, original, well-argued, well-researched, and timely. Possible contributions include, but are not limited to, research papers, literature reviews, critical comments, interviews, theses, PhD summaries, and articles written independently or for a class. How long should my submission be? We do not specify lengths for submissions because we recognize that certain essays may require more or less space than others. We do, however, expect that the essay is concise and justifies its length in all cases. How do I know if my work qualifies for the journal? The JPPE is an interdisciplinary journal. We are flexible and encourage submissions from a variety of fields, as long as the work has relevance within the disciplines of philosophy, politics, and/or economics. Most importantly, the work should be timely and offer some insight into a question with philosophical, political, and/or economic implications. What are my chances of getting published? All submissions go through a rigorous name-blind review and referee process. If the work passes the process the piece will be published. I do not attend Brown University. Can I still submit my work? Yes! We accept submissions from authors all over the world.

Cannabis Latent Effects of Cannabis Legalization: Racial Disproportionality and Disparity in Washington State Drug Convictions, 2000-2015 Kaid Ray-Tipton University of Washington Author Danai Benopoulou Matthew Dowling Bastien Ibri Shreya Raghunandan Editors Spring 2018 Understanding if racial disparities in drug convictions decreased post the implementation of cannabis legalization in Washington state. Introduction There has been a great amount of research analyzing racial disparities in drug arrests (Beckett, Nyrop, Pfingst and Bowen, 2005; Kutateladze, Andiloro, Johnson and Spohn, 2014). Findings show that black people have disproportionate arrest rates compared to Whites. In fact, “Blacks are 3.73 times more likely than Whites to be arrested for marijuana possession” (ACLU, 2013). These statistics are surprising given that Blacks and Whites use cannabis at a comparable rate (ACLU, 2013). Hispanic communities are also impacted. Racial disparities in drug crimes in this group are harder to measure quantitatively because some agencies group Hispanic or Latinos with Whites. This causes the White conviction rate to increase, thus deflating the racial disparity present. In New York City where Latino arrest rates are available, “Latinos are arrested at 2.5 times the rates of Whites for marijuana possession” (ACLU, 2013). Richard Nixon’s declaration for the “War on Drugs” that began in the 1970’s has had many negative latent effects on communities of color and has contributed greatly to racial disproportionality in mass incarceration (Sharp, 1994). For example, “arrest for marijuana possession… accounted for nearly 80 percent of the growth in drug arrest in the 1990s” (Alexander, 2010). Images within media have reinforced the link between people of color and their involvement with drugs (Bullock, Wyche and Williams, 2001). These socially constructed depictions have influenced prejudices and stereotypes which in turn create implicit biases. These biases have been shown to have profound effects on police enforcement tactics and decision making (Levinson, 2007). Currently, police across the nation have the discretion to stop and search people under “reasonable suspicion” that an individual may be in possession of illegal drugs (Yankah, 2011). These so called “Terry” stops allow police officers to use the notion of reasonable suspicion to stop and frisk individuals (Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 1968). Such inquiries frequently rely on police officers’ own intuition - an intuition often affected by the aforementioned implicit biases. Scholars have suggested that this policing is not evenly distributed among neighborhoods and across socioeconomic statuses. To be more specific, racially and ethnically diverse areas may be subject to over-policing while predominantly white neighborhoods may be more likely to be under-policed (Beckett, Nyrop and Pfingst, 2006). Therefore, more police enforcement in communities of color leads to more stops and searches among people of color. These outdoor drug busts may lead to a disproportionate increase in convictions for Blacks and Hispanics. Blacks are disproportionately convicted for cannabis related offenses, which disrupts many areas of life including family, employment opportunities, housing, and well-being (Massey, 2007). It is important to note that even stops and searches that yield no results for the police may lead to continued harassment and embarrassment for members of the community due to the “War or Drugs”. Recently, cannabis has been highly debated as a substance that could be legalized for medical and/or recreational purposes (Coulkins, Kilmer, Kleiman, MacCoun, Midgette, Oglesby, Paucula and Reuter, 2015). The federal government has yet to lift the national prohibition of cannabis but many states have begun to revise their laws regarding it. There are currently 23 states and the U.S. territories of Guam and Puerto Rico that have passed laws to legalize medical cannabis. There are only nine states and the District of Columbia that have legalized recreational use as well; these states include Alaska, California, Colorado, Oregon, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Vermont, and Washington (Guttmannova, Lee, Kilmer, Fleming, Rhew, Kosterman and Larimer, 2016). Cannabis being decriminalized in these states may have profuse positive outcomes for people of color. Policing would be reduced for cannabis use and possession within these states. Blacks and Hispanics in these areas may be subject to fewer convictions by police because of the nature of the fledgling laws. In this paper, I will analyze latent outcomes of the legalization of cannabis. More specifically, I will examine racial disproportionality in drug conviction pre and post the legalization of cannabis for recreational use in King County and Washington State. I expect to find reductions in racial disproportionality in drug convictions post cannabis legalization at the county and state level. Background History of Cannabis in the United States and Its Links to Race/Ethnicity Scholars suggest that cannabis was first brought to the United States in the beginning of the 1600s. The Jamestown settlers primarily used this plant in hemp production and cultivation until around 1850 (Anderson, Hansen and Rees, 2013). The uses for hemp ranged from clothing and oil to edible nuts. Subsequently following the end of hemp cultivation was the use of hemp for medicinal purposes. The use of herbal medicine did not last very long. As the alcohol prohibition gained support in the 1850s, so did the movement to outlaw cannabis. The first prohibition of recreational cannabis use was passed in 1913 by California. By 1936, the rest of the 47 states decided to do the same (Anderson, Hansen and I. Rees, 2013). In the years to come, these policies led to immense consequences for the consumer, including the label of felon with a stigma that restricted occupational attainment, and included hefty incarceration time and large monetary sanctions. For instance, possessing one joint (cannabis cigarette) in Arizona could lead to up to 10 years in prison with a fine of $50,000 (Inciardi, 1981). Policies and laws such as these became monolithic because “those who have actively promoted these laws, the moral entrepreneurs of drug legislation, have relied on racial slurs and allusions to bolster their arguments for criminal controls” (Provine, 2007). In 1970, cannabis was classified as a Schedule I substance along with heroin and LSD. For a substance to be listed as a Schedule I drug, it must not be accepted for medical use, have a high potential for abuse, and be considered a dangerous drug that can cause psychological and physical dependence (United States Drug Enforcement Administration, 2015). As time moved on, groups began to consider cannabis for medicinal purposes. The Food and Drug Administration began to allow cannabis for medical use in 1978. The number of medical cannabis patients flourished and California eventually passed the Compassionate Use Act in 1996 to allow for personal use of the plant (N. Yankah, 2011). Two years after, Washington State passed Initiative 692 titled Washington State Medical Use of Marijuana Act (Washington State Medical Association). This allowed for the growing, possession, sale, and use of cannabis for medical patients. It is worth noting that this initial stance against cannabis did not necessarily happen out of fear of the potential negative effects of the drug, such as addictive, psychological, and physiological damage. Instead, the prohibition on cannabis developed as a result of anti-minority feeling (Bonnie and Whitebread, 1970). Inciardi (1981) conducted a social constructionist analysis of newspapers about cannabis published in the late 1800s and early 1900s and showed that headlines negatively linked cannabis with communities of color. For example, the New York Times published an article in 1972 titled “Mexican Family Go Insane”. This particular article detailed how a widow and her four children accidentally ate cannabis as part of their vegetables for dinner. In the neighbor’s account, they described hearing “crazed laughter” and rushed to the house to see the entire family “insane”. The doctors said that there would be no hope for the mother and children and that they would be insane for the rest of their lives. These early depictions linking race and drugs have lasting effects on media consumers. For example, results from a study done in 1995 asked respondents to imagine what a typical drug user looks like. Analysis indicates that 95% of the respondents thought of an African American person (Burston, Jones and Robertson-Saunders, 1995). The acceptability of illegal substance tended to rely on the social position of the consumers (H. Skolnick and Dombrink, 1978). The perceived deviance of cannabis intensified once linked with racial/ethnic minorities. Whites were seen as upper class and angelic. People of color were paired with a lower social class, at times considered non-human in the early 1900s. This helps explain the overstated deviance of cannabis. The deviance also increased when the effects were dramatized and exaggerated. In 1936, the American Journal of Nursing said that a cannabis user may “suddenly turn with murderous violence upon whomever is nearest to him. He will turn amuck with knife, axe, gun, or anything else that is close at hand, and will kill or maim without any reason" (Musto, 1991). Articles such as these from professionals are an example of the control around cannabis use and how it was perceived by the general public. Cannabis Laws in King County and Washington State and Implications for 2012 As Seattle is the most populated city in King County and thus Washington State, I will give emphasis to their policies and the city will have the most influence per this discussion. In 2003, Seattle, Washington voters passed the Marijuana Law Enforcement or “Initiative 75”. This initiative required all cannabis offenses for adult personal use to be the lowest priority for the Seattle Police Department (SPD) (Atherly and Baird, 2014). This change in the Seattle municipal code was a huge step towards decriminalization of cannabis in Washington State (Seattle, Washington Municipal code 12A.20.060). Subsequently, on November 6th 2012, Washington Initiative 502 was approved by a majority vote (Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board, 2015). The cannabis reform had many different components that took over a year to be fully established. The passing of I 502 legalized the recreational use of cannabis for individuals 21 and older. A 21 year old may possess up to one ounce of usable cannabis, seven grams of cannabis concentrates/extracts, 16 ounces of cannabis infused in a solid form, up to 72 ounces of cannabis infused in liquid form, and also paraphernalia related to cannabis. Only cannabis producers, processors, and retailers with a license are permitted to distribute cannabis. Seattle’s massive drug market has been analyzed and researched during these years to learn if there are disparities among race and ethnicities in drug convictions. Katherine Beckett demonstrates that Seattle is unique in many ways. During the 2000s, Seattle was estimated to have the fourth largest drug market in the country. The predominantly white city has a white population of about 70% and 8% black population. Despite the low proportion of Blacks, during a 28-month investigation in Seattle, black people represented 51.1% of drug violation arrests (Beckett, Nyrop, Pfingst and Bowen, 2005). Beckett et. al (2005) attribute most of these arrests to the focus on crack cocaine by the SPD. This may be due to the fact that crack cocaine has been represented through media as a “Black” drug (Kutateladze, Andiloro, Johnson and Spohn, 2014). Another reason for the high number of arrests is explained by the location of the drug market. Beckett et. al suggest that the SPD tends to focus on racially diverse outdoor drug markets, such as Downtown Seattle, compared to indoor and/or outdoor White drug markets, such as a neighborhood named Capitol Hill (Beckett, Nyrop and Pfingst, 2006). Previous research on Seattle’s drug market indicates that Blacks and Hispanics do not necessarily use or sell at higher rates than Whites, and yet, the SPD tends to focus on people of color. These results of racial disparity are consistent with other states as well. New York data shows that there are not just disproportionate percentages in possession/delivery arrests, but that Blacks and Hispanics are also more likely than Whites to be arrested for smoking cannabis in public and cannabis misdemeanor sales. They are also likely to spend more time in jail or prison for these cannabis offenses (Golub, D. Johnson and Dunlap, 2007). Thus, it is clear that people of color—primarily Blacks and Hispanics—are being convicted disproportionately for drugs. Given that cannabis is legal in the state of Washington, I want to first investigate if the legalization has had a significant impact on the number of drug convictions for people of color. Second, I will examine how much of an impact a prior conviction has on one’s probability of being convicted of a drug offense for each race and ethnicity. This is done by first illustrating drug conviction rates and then examining drug convictions on the condition that the offender has a prior conviction. I also compare the results from King County to Washington as a whole. Lastly, I have computed multivariate logistic regressions to analyze the likelihood of being convicted of a drug offense in Washington State and King County. There have been reports that show cannabis-related arrests and convictions have decreased 81% between 2011 and 2014 (Drug Policy Alliance, 2015). There may be racial/ethnic differences, which I will attempt to contextualize. Subsequently, I will examine the association between the 2012 legalization of cannabis in Washington State and drug conviction rates between different racial/ethnic groups. Methods In the following analysis, I focus on racial/ethnic disproportionality and disparity in drug convictions in Washington State. Unfortunately, the data does not allow me to break out cannabis-related convictions from other types of drug convictions. I use the term disproportionate in convictions to refer to the overrepresentation of certain groups of defendants compared to their representation in the general population. I use the term disparity in convictions to refer to the portion of overrepresentation in convictions of one subgroup that can be explained by differences in the institutional processing of that specific racial/ethnic group as compared to other racial/ethnic groups. That is, racially motivated differences in processing and treatment explains disproportionate overrepresentation of certain groups in drug convictions. Data I examined all convictions within the state of Washington from January of 2000 to June of 2015 using data from the Database and Sentencing of Washington State Caseload Forecast Council Sentencing Data (Washington State Caseload Forecast Council, 2000-2015). My data includes 409,455 convictions of which 36,521 were drug convictions. Variables The dependent variable for analysis is drug conviction (1) or non-drug conviction (0). The primary independent variable of interest is the race/ethnicity of the convicted defendant. The racial/ethnic categories used are White (reference group), Black, Asian, Native American, and Hispanic. The control variables included in the analysis are year of conviction, 2000 (reference year) to 2015, sex (0=Female, 1=Male), county of conviction (King County is reference county), and whether the defendant had any prior convictions (0=no prior offense, 1=prior offense). Each of the control variables will be needed to test the robustness of the influence that the dependent variable has on the independent variable. The year of conviction is relevant because there are many fluctuations over the years in drug convictions. In 2012, Washington State legalized recreational cannabis usage for individuals over 21 years old. There are also gender differences in risk of arrest and convictions (Rodriguez, Curry and Lee, 2006). The counties of Washington State contain differing police practices and demographics. We predict that if a defendant had prior convictions, that might increase the likelihood of a subsequent conviction. These individuals may be targeted as the “usual suspects” (Kutateladze, Andiloro, Johnson and Spohn, 2014). Analytical Approach I compute several bivariate and multivariate logistic regression models. Model A includes all Washington State conviction cases, and Model B includes only convictions in King County, the largest county in this state. The full-state logistic bivariate regression is: The logistic multivariate regression for Washington will be computed as: The King County logistic bivariate regression is formulated as: The King County formula logistic regression is computed as follows: To test for significance of the data, I have conducted a two-tailed 95% confidence interval. When p-values are below a α level of .05, this will indicate that we reject the null hypothesis. The HO is as follows, there is no difference by race or ethnicity in the number of drug convictions when compared to whites (β=0). The HA can be understood as the number of drug convictions is different for each race or ethnicity when compared to whites (β≠0). Findings I will present the findings under three categories. I first examine the racial and ethnic disproportionality in drug conviction. I then discuss the relationship between prior drug convictions and new drug convictions. Finally, I discuss the racial and ethnic disparity in drug conviction. Table 1 presents the summarized statistics for the racial, ethnic, and gender characteristics of convicted defendants in Washington State and King County, averaged between the years 2000 and 2015. Comparing pie charts 1 and 2, and 3 and 4 above demonstrate clear disproportionate numbers when comparing Whites and Blacks in Washington, King County in particular. As the pie charts show, in the state of Washington, Whites comprise 80.7% of the population and 65.49% of drug convictions. Blacks make up a small percentage of the Washington population (4.1%), but an astonishing 5th of the drug convictions (20.08%) - clearly disproportionate. On the other hand, all the other races, i.e. Native Americans, Hispanics, and Asians all have drug convictions relative to or less than their population size in the state. Table 1: Variables and Summary Statistics for Washington State and King County Drug Convictions, 2000 - 2 Note: The median, mean and standard deviation are each the median value across all years (Washington State Caseload Forecast Council) Racial and Ethnic Disproportionality in Drug Convictions Figure 1 is a line graph showing the number of drug convictions by race and year in the whole state. In terms of aggregate numbers, Whites have a larger number of convictions than non-Whites. For most years, Whites remain above 1,300 drug convictions and display 464 convictions halfway through 2015. Native Americans and Asians are convicted at similar rates in Washington State, staying below 75 drug convictions every year. Native Americans hold 9 drug convictions and Asians have 20 for 2015. Hispanic drug convictions have been on a steady decline since 2000. 2015 shows that Hispanics have 69 drug convictions. Blacks peak with 758 drug convictions in 2000, slowly decrease over time hovering around the 500 line until 2010, and then are convicted of a drug offense 87 times in 2015. When first looking at Figure 1, there does not seem to be a significant disparity in drug convictions for Blacks. However, examination of the proportions of convictions suggest racial disproportionality in conviction rates. I will do this by analyzing the proportions of drug convictions regardless if there has been any prior conviction in Figure 2. Throughout all sixteen years, Whites in Washington are convicted well under their 2014 population size. In 2012, the year of legalization, and beyond, Blacks experience their all-time lows in conviction rates for drugs. However, despite their smallest percentage at 13% of the drug conviction rate in 2014 and 2015, it is still about double their population size of 6.7%. On the other hand, Asians, Native Americans, and Hispanics are convicted of a drug offense relative or under their population size. The story changes dramatically when we analyze King County. Figure 3 represents drug convictions in King County. Although Blacks only make up 6.7% of the population in King County, they still have up to about half of the drug convictions for most years. This shows immense disproportionality in conviction rates. On the other hand, other ethnic and racial groups are convicted at rates under or comparable to their population. Relationship Between Prior Drug Convictions and a New Drug Conviction Looking at the Washington drug convictions show that an individual with prior convictions has significantly higher chances of future conviction. Figure 5 illustrates that every year excluding 2015, Blacks with a prior conviction comprise 50% or more of drug convictions. Again, Blacks are 6.7% of the population in King County. Yet among drug convictions annually, Blacks with a prior conviction comprise up to 65% of those convicted of subsequent drug crimes. This data indicates that Blacks are being re-convicted at much higher rates if they have a prior offense than are Whites, who comprise a majority (70%) of the population. Figure 5 shows that the two lowest fractions for Blacks are in years after legalization. The data set shows an increase in 2013 (60%) but then lows in 2014 (50%) and 2015 (45%). Figures 4 and 5 suggest that convictions may have been influenced by the passing of Initiative 75 in King County. Both graphs show that in 2002, there were high proportions of Black people who were convicted of drug-related offenses, and the percentage decreases by a few percentage points in 2003. This could be the result of the de-emphasis of cannabis arrests in King County. This percentage drastically reduced after the passing of I-75, from 29% to 13% in Washington, and from 62% to 45% in King County. Racial and Ethnic Disparity in Drug Conviction Figures 6 and 7 present the odds ratios computed from the multivariate logistic regression. The model compares each racial and ethnic groups probability of being convicted of a drug offense in King County or Washington to Whites’ probability of being convicted. For example, a value of 1.00 means that a person of that race has the same probability of a White individual being convicted. This would mean that in the year 2000, the odds ratio of 2.68 means that Hispanics in Washington State had a 168% higher probability of being convicted of a drug offense than Whites. The Washington and King County multivariate logistic regressions are surprisingly different. Figure 6 presents findings for the likelihood of a drug conviction in Washington State. It shows that Hispanics hover above the odds ratio of 1.50 for every year except for 2006. These numbers show that Hispanics are consistently convicted at higher rates than Whites. Blacks also have higher conviction rates in Washington State. Post cannabis legalization, the likelihood of conviction for a drug offense has decreased for Blacks, bringing the rate to almost that of Whites. In recent years, Blacks’ likelihood of conviction has decreased to about 56% of their White counterparts’ likelihood of being convicted. Asians are convicted around the same rate as Whites, never showing disparity. Figure 7 presents findings for the likelihood of a drug conviction in King County. Asians are convicted at the lowest rates next to Native Americans. For the first ten of the sixteen years of data, Hispanic individuals have over 200% higher likelihood than their White counterparts of being convicted of drug offenses. In 2007, however, the higher likelihood was 673%. Similarly, for most years, Black individuals are 100% more likely to be convicted of a drug offense. However, comparable to the other racial and ethnic categories, post 2012 we see a decrease in the rates of disparity. The logistic regression shows that the probability of getting a drug conviction in King County if you are Black still ranges between 70% and 108% higher likelihood than Whites. Washington State data shows otherwise. Three of the lowest probability ratings come in 2012 and beyond. This data could potentially mean that legalization is having a continuing positive effect on Black communities in Washington. Fewer individuals may be subject to harassment and patrolling because of the nature of the new laws. I have also the statistical significance for each race indicator variable using the multivariate logistic regressions. I have conducted a two-tailed hypothesis test with a 95% confidence interval. Figure 8 shows the distribution of how many years each coefficient on race/ethnicity were statistically significant in Washington and King County. In Washington State, the race indicator for Blacks is statistically significant for 13 years out of 16. This means that the p-value of the observations is below the e α level of .05. Thus, one would not expect these observations to occur by chance more than 1 in 20 times. We fail to reject the null hypothesis for the years 2012, 2014 and 2015. It is noteworthy that these are all years during or post the legalization of cannabis. For every year in King County, the coefficient on a Black race indicator variable is statistically significant. In Washington, the race indicator variable for Hispanics is statistically significant every year. On the other hand, in King County, the race indicator variable is statistically significant for only five years. The variables associated with Asians and Native Americans have a lower frequency of statistical significance. For Native Americans, eleven out of the sixteen years in Washington State are statistically significant. Disparities seem to vanish for Blacks at the state level in 2012 and during the post-legalization period. Hispanics experience this same alleviation of inequality in King County post-legalization. The data shows that Asians are convicted of drug offenses significantly less than Whites. Conclusion The United States is currently facing a problem of mass incarceration. Jails and prisons are disproportionately populated with people of color. Prior research has shown that Blacks and Hispanics are convicted at higher rates for drug offenses. Some scholars have attributed this to the negative media portrayals of these communities. These biases may have been internalized by police departments and have created unequal enforcement regarding drugs. For example, crack cocaine is seen as more deviant and penalized much heavier than cocaine. The difference is that crack cocaine is associated with poor urban Blacks (Beckett, Nyrop, Pfingst and Bowen, 2005). In this paper, I conduct a longitudinal study of drug convictions in Washington State and King County. My findings suggest that drug convictions in Washington and King County have decreased over time. Further research should be conducted to understand if this decrease in drug convictions may be attributed to a decrease in cannabis convictions specifically. A major limitation of my data is that all drug convictions are grouped together. Different drugs are not penalized the same way by criminal justice systems. Racial and ethnic groups may also be convicted at different rates depending on the substance. Overall, the data shows that in Washington and especially in King County, there is a great deal of racial and ethnic disproportionality in drug conviction rates, and racial disparity in drug convictions. Whites have an extremely low probability of being convicted than Blacks and Hispanics. Figure 4 and 5 shows that there is a significant impact of having a prior conviction on the probability of being convicted for a drug offense. In King County every year, Blacks have the highest proportion of drug convictions with the condition of having a prior conviction. This supports prior research in New York City that indicates the likelihood of a conviction increases substantially with the number of prior arrests (Golub, D. Johnson and Dunlap, 2007). Further investigation is necessary to explore why Blacks with a prior offense are being convicted at such higher rates within King County than Whites. Despite the unequal conviction rates, post-legalization in King County does seem to alleviate the racial disparity in drug convictions. The high proportions of non-White individuals convicted for drug offenses in King County may indicate that the policing practices are much different than other counties in Washington. Individuals of color have historically been under heavy surveillance by law enforcement that have institutionalized racial inequality and is perpetuated in conviction after conviction. The effects of the legalization of cannabis may benefit communities of color. The legalization of cannabis may lead to a decrease in racial and ethnic disproportionality and disparities in criminal justice contact for communities of color. References American Civil Liberties Union. “The War on Marijuana in Black and White: Billions of Dollars Wasted on Racially Biased Arrests.” ACLU, 2013. (https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu-thewaronmarijuana-rel2.pdf ) Alexander, Michelle. 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(https://www.drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/Drug_Policy_Alliance_Status_Report_Marijuana_Legalization_in_Washington_July2015.pdf ) Golub, Andrew, Bruce D. Johnson and Eloise Dunlap. “The Race/Ethnicity Disparity in Misdemeanor Marijuana Arrests in New York City.” National Development and Research Institutes, Vol. 6(1), 2007: 131-164. Guttmannova, K., Lee, C. M., Kilmer, J. R., Fleming, C. B., Rhew, I. C., Kosterman, R., & Larimer, M. E. “Impacts of Changing Marijuana Policies on Alcohol Use in the United States.” Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 40(1), 2016: 33-46. H. Skolnick, Jerome and John Dombrink. “The Legalization of Deviance.” Criminology, Vol. 16(2), 1978: 193-207. Inciardi, James A. “Marijuana Decriminalization Research.” Criminology, Vol. 19(1), 1981: 145- 158. King County. Statistical Profile on 2000 Census. 2000. Retrieved on May. 13, 2016. (https://www.kingcounty.gov/exec/PSB/PerformMgmt/~/media/exec/PSB/documents/AGR/09AGR/KC_all/KC_prof09.ashx ) L. 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The Panacea Problem The Panacea Problem: Indifference, Servility, and Kantian Beneficence Benjamin Eneman Georgetown University April 2021 Kant’s account of the duty of beneficence as a wide, imperfect duty initially seems at odds with our intuitive belief that helping others is, at least in some cases, morally obligatory. Various Kantian philosophical accounts have constructed different ways to address this problem. In this paper, I adopt and expand on Karen Stohr’s account of the duty of beneficence as a two-part duty composed by a wide duty to help others and a narrow duty to avoid indifference. After observing that merely adopting this view seems to result in over-stringency, I then argue that perfect and imperfect duties to others and the self act as counterarguments to claims of indifference. We have obligations to help others. That fact seems almost universally intuitive; it appears quite clear that, at least in some instances, we are somehow morally deficient if we fail to help other people. What is often less clear is the source of such strong obligations, and what sorts of concerns have the capacity to limit them. In this paper, I aim to construct a system of Kantian obligations that define and adequately bound our duty to help others, then consider the implications that system of obligations has on everyday life. I will argue that we should adopt Karen Stohr’s model of beneficence as a two-part duty where the duty to avoid indifference towards others in their role as end-setters is bounded and framed within duties to oneself, particularly duties to avoid servility and to respect one’s own status as a setter of ends. I will briefly summarize Kant’s view before proceeding. Kant divides duties into perfect and imperfect, as well as wide and narrow, categories. Taking Kant’s universal law formulation, if the maxim of a particular action’s very conception cannot be universalized without inherent contradiction, it violates a perfect duty; if the maxim results not in contradiction in conception but rather in contradiction of the will, it violates an imperfect duty. For example, making a false promise to a friend to repay a loan violates a perfect duty, because the concept of lying is only coherent when truth is assumed, and universalizing the maxim that “one ought to lie to a friend in order to get money” would result in a world where that assumption would deteriorate, making the concept of lying incoherent. Alternatively, under Kant’s humanity formulation, perfect duties are violated when someone treats another person as a mere means (fails to show respect for humanity as a negative end), while imperfect duties involve obligations to value and show respect for humanity as setters of ends. Perfect duties are always narrow—they are stringent, and we have an obligation to follow them at all times. Imperfect duties, however, can be broader or narrower, depending on the degree and kinds of latitude afforded to them. Generally speaking, broader duties allow for more variation than narrower duties in how they are achieved and the degree to which they are pursued at any given time. Wide duties leave “playroom (latitudo) for free choice in following the law” and “cannot specify precisely in what way one is to act and how much one is to do by the action,” Kant says, but cautions that they don’t grant carte blanche to “make exceptions to the maxim of actions but only as permission to limit one’s maxim of duty by another.” Consequently, “Fulfillment of [imperfect duties] is merit = +a, but failure to fulfill them is not in itself culpability = -a, but rather mere deficiency in moral worth = 0, unless the subject should make it his principle not to comply with such duties.” In other words, people are standardly praiseworthy for taking actions that fulfill imperfect duties, but are not standardly blameworthy for failing to do so on any particular occasion. At first glance, then, it might seem as if Kantian moral theory does not adequately address the scope of duties of beneficence—obligations to help others. The duty of beneficence is imperfect, since violating it stems from a contradiction in the will. We can conceive of a world in which nobody helps anyone else or adopts others’ ends as their own, but such a world would ultimately result in the frustration of our own ends, and therefore cannot be rationally willed, since one cannot rationally will the frustration or denial of one’s own ends (as doing so would mean willing against what one wills). Because the duty of beneficence is a wide, imperfect duty—one that affords real latitude in the manner and extent to which it is met—it seems difficult to square with intuitive judgements about situations in which one is truly obligated to help another person. For example, in cases of easy rescue (say, a child drowning in a bathtub a foot away from someone able to help) it seems like anyone who does not perform the rescue is displaying immoral behavior rather than simply not displaying moral behavior. It seems like not only do they have a particularly strong sort of obligation to others to help, but also that they are standardly blameworthy for failing to do so even if they do not make it a principle to fail to help in those sorts of instances. If, by some bizarre set of circumstances, I encounter five different children drowning in shallow water in one day, I could not justify not saving the fifth by pointing to the other four I had saved that day to show that it was clearly not my principle to avoid helping drowning children (or people in general). Such an attempted justification would seem absurd for instances similar to this. This is a real problem for proponents of Kantian ethics—it seems as if Kantian moral philosophy is not demanding enough in cases like these. Cases of easy rescue pose a strong (though, I contend, not insurmountable) challenge to latitudinarian accounts of the duty of beneficence (accounts that argue that the duty of beneficence inherently grants latitude in terms of the means by and extent to which it is pursued). Broadly, there seem to be three different approaches one could take when confronted with this problem, and while I only aim to pursue one, it seems worthwhile to at least sketch out the others and briefly address the reasons they fall short. First, one could accept the problem itself as reason enough to reject Kantianism in general. Because I contend that the problem, while significant, is not insurmountable, this approach seems to me to fall short. Second, one could bite the bullet and simply say our intuition is wrong in those cases of easy rescue, but it seems quite implausible that our intuitions surrounding these cases are wrong, so a solution that is able to account for them without abandoning the ethical framework we want to preserve would be better. Third, one could abandon, alter, or expand upon the latitudinarian account of beneficence specifically. This is the approach I will utilize. There have been a few different proposed Kantian solutions surrounding the latitudinarian account of beneficence: by finding a more rigorist interpretation of duties of beneficence (while still being constrained by perfect duties) as David Cummiskey does, by appealing to “true needs'' as opposed to “wants” as Barbara Herman does, and by arguing that the wide duty of beneficence is framed in part by a narrow duty to avoid indifference to others as Karen Stohr does. I will argue for Stohr’s approach, then modulate it in the face of a serious concern. For Stohr, what we ordinarily construe as a single duty of beneficence is really comprised of two parts: “a wide duty to perform helping actions on occasion and a narrow duty to avoid an attitude of indifference towards others as end-setters.” On many occasions, we can be non-indifferent without actively helping another person. To illustrate, Stohr gives the example of wishing someone luck before they go out in the rain to get a ticket to a concert they really want to see or congratulating them when they return with a ticket. However, this is not always the case—in the cases of easy rescue I have been discussing, the only way to avoid indifference is to rescue the person, since anything short of helping them constitutes a wanton display of indifference. The duty to avoid indifference as constructed by Stohr is imperfect (since it stems from a requirement to adopt a maxim rather than perform or abstain from a particular action, and violations result in a contradiction of the will rather than a contradiction in conception inherent to universalizations of indifference), but the sort of latitude it allows is only in the manner in which it is achieved and not the extent to which it is achieved, because displaying indifference towards a person involves not adopting “the attitude that her ends carry moral significance insofar as they are her ends,” and displaying indifference therefore shows a lack of acknowledgement for her “status as a setter of ends.” Therefore, because the duty of non-indifference is narrow in this particular sort of way, we owe non-indifference to others at all times, so actions that show indifference are never permissible—unless avoiding indifference would necessarily result in the violation of a perfect duty—and cases of easy rescue, for example, always necessitate action, since helping is the only way to avoid violating the stringent imperfect duty of non-indifference as constructed by Stohr. I will illustrate this distinction with an example from the superhero web serial Worm, in which a character named Panacea has the power to quickly heal any disease or injury. This power has also given her a sense of obligation that has dominated her life—she gained the power when she was a young teenager, and ever since then, she has felt that every moment she takes to herself is horrendously selfish since she could be, for example, visiting a hospital to cure every cancer patient there instead. Suppose Panacea walks past a large hospital on her way to see a movie with her sister Victoria. Of course, she knows there are almost certainly dozens if not hundreds of people who stand a very real chance of dying if she doesn’t help them immediately. Since all it costs her to save dozens of lives is that she postpone or cancel movie night with her sister, it might seem as if choosing to see the movie over saving lives is necessarily a display of indifference, no matter how many people she saved earlier that day—much as walking past a drowning child one could easily save at effectively zero cost to oneself results in a display of indifference no matter how many drowning children one has helped so far that day. Panacea also cannot just wish the patients well or pursue some other non-helping action to satisfy the constraint of non-indifference, since any well-wishes or non-helping action would seem horrendously insincere—she could have actually cured their illnesses and injuries but chose not to due to a more or less insignificant cost to herself. So, under a plain reading of Stohr’s model, Panacea would seem to be expressing indifference whenever she decided to go see a movie with her sister instead of saving hundreds of lives, and since non-indifference is owed to others at all times, she can never permissibly see a movie with her sister, since she will never reach a point where nobody is in need of her help. But it seems difficult to square that result with our own intuition. While there are obviously no Panaceas in the real world, some trained medical professionals might feel the same sort of burden. Take one of the permutations of Stohr’s example about a doctor “performing life-saving surgery on impoverished people in developing countries.” Suppose that the doctor plans on taking a flight home in an hour (not to attend to any particularly urgent crisis at home, simply because they want to go back), but someone appears in their waiting room in urgent need of such a surgery, which will take two hours. It seems to be a display of indifference to ever prioritize not delaying one’s flight over another person’s life. However, it seems intuitive that a moral theory ought not require them to stay indefinitely if they are helping in such a region. Resultantly, it seems like something is missing from the account that simply argues that we have a narrow imperfect duty to avoid indifference—it seems to be, in some cases, too stringent. It now seems that a Kantian approach has to be able to thread the needle between never requiring a particular act of aid and being over-demanding (e.g., requiring the surgeon to stay indefinitely). I contend that, in some cases, the only way to effectively do this from a Kantian lens is to appeal to certain duties to oneself—a perfect duty to refrain from servility, and imperfect duties that stem from the duty to respect one’s own autonomy—and use them to bound or frame duties to help others. First, let’s consider possible duties to others that might allow the surgeon to leave, both intuitively and within a Kantian framework. It is simply the case that any sort of perfect duty one has to another “trumps” the narrow, imperfect duty of non-indifference if the two are ever reasonably in conflict—that’s a fundamental quality of perfect duties. But certain sorts of urgent, narrow, imperfect duties can act to allow the surgeon to leave as well. Suppose the surgeon has a son at home who was just critically injured in a car crash, and needs to leave as soon as they can to be there for him. At this point, the sort of familial obligations the surgeon has can serve as a justification for leaving even if a patient has just come to the waiting room in need of assistance, because we can imagine the surgeon justifying their decision to the patient with something along the lines of “of course, I don’t want to leave you in the lurch, and it hurts me deeply that I can’t help you, but I have to go see my son.” The patient almost certainly won’t like this, but they cannot reasonably see the surgeon as displaying indifference through that action. So it is possible that some obligations to others can act as a sort of counter to any claim another might make that they are displaying indifference—exactly what sorts of obligations can function that way depends largely on the circumstances. Since certain important obligations the surgeon has to others can allow them to leave, it seems as if they aren’t trapped after all. But something important is missing in this solution. It is always possible to include in the construction of our scenario that there is no other obligation to others that is sufficient to act as a counter to claims of indifference. For example, if the obligation for a family member is sufficient to counter claims of indifference, we can simply stipulate that the surgeon has no family, and we can continue doing this for any given condition. Ideally, our solution would include a broad account of the sorts of duties that are sufficient to counter claims of indifference. In sum, appealing to certain obligations to others to counter the overly-stringent demand of non-indifference seems to fall short of an adequate solution. We are in need of a different kind of solution. In addition to obligations we owe to others, Kant also argues that we have duties to ourselves that are no less deliberatively impactful than our duties to others. I will argue that the surgeon can justify flying home by appealing to such duties to the self rather than duties to another person, duties which are (as before) divided into perfect and imperfect duties. One such duty to oneself is the perfect duty to avoid servility. Thomas Hill, a modern Kantian moral philosopher, defines servility as a “kind of deferential attitude towards others resulting from ignorance or misunderstanding of one’s moral rights” or, when aware and educated on those rights, “a willingness to disavow one’s moral status, publicly and systematically, in the absence of any strong reason to do so.” On face value, it seems strange that avoiding servility would be a perfect duty. It has been established that adopting the ends of others as your own is an imperfect duty, after all. But upon reflection, avoiding servility is a perfect duty since abnegation of one’s own ends to satisfy the ends of others creates a contradiction if universalized: completely subsuming one’s own ends to the ends of others results in an individual whose only actual ends are the ends of others, and if universalized, nobody has any ends for anyone else to achieve. Here is why. If I adopt a servile attitude, I am taking up an attitude that I matter less than others from a moral standpoint, and that therefore my ends have no real deliberative weight or moral value compared to the ends of (at least some) others. Consequently, I cannot really be said to put any significant moral stock in my own ends, instead subsuming them to the ends of others, and therefore do not really hold my own ends, since holding an end means believing it carries some real normative weight. If this attitude of servility is thus universalized, nobody really values or holds their own ends in any meaningful way, so servility, which relies on others holding ends, is an incoherent concept. Servility results in a contradiction in conception rather than a contradiction in the will. Alternatively, this can be framed in terms of the humanity formulation, which contends that since to be servile is to treat yourself as a means to the ends of others, someone who is servile fails to show respect for their own humanity as a negative end and therefore violates a perfect duty. In our example, a doctor choosing to stay indefinitely would necessarily be abandoning large swathes, if not the entirety, of the ends that they genuinely hold—they would be treating the ends of their patients, at least those ends that represent true needs, as lexicographically (i.e., weighted categorically) more important than other ends the doctor might have—to watch terrible science fiction movies, or enjoy the Washington, D.C. cherry blossoms, or any other number of possible personal ends—since staying indefinitely seems to mean taking up the attitude that those ends don’t deliberatively matter at all and ought to be completely abnegated in the presence of the ends of the patients. It’s clear that this sort of systematic disavowal of their own ends constitutes the sort of deferential attitude that indicates servility and results in the doctor not showing respect for their own humanity as a negative end and viewing themselves as a mere means to the ends of others. As stated earlier, perfect duties trump imperfect ones, so if the doctor remaining (or continuing to perform any beneficent act) constitutes servility which would entail violating a perfect duty, then the doctor ought not remain, and it seems that the doctor remaining does constitute servility. One possible objection is that the doctor remaining is not necessarily servile, since the doctor could be seeing to the ends of others as an extension of their genuine autonomous decision to do so. This objection does not seem to work. The doctor pictured in the objection would be holding attitudes with certain limited parallels to Hill’s “Deferential Wife,” a hypothetical person holding particular attitudes towards herself. The Deferential Wife believes that, while women are fundamentally mentally and physically equal to men, “the proper role for a woman is to serve her family” and who resultantly chooses to act deferentially to her husband in every instance. As Hill argues, this is sufficient to bar the concept of legitimate consent, because “if she believes that she has a duty to defer to her husband, then, whatever she may say, she cannot fully understand that she has a right not to defer to him.” If someone thinks exercising a right would be an offense, they cannot “really understand what it is to have and freely give up” that right. Just like the Deferential Wife, it seems here that the doctor does not believe in any sort of inferiority for themselves but rather simply believes that, for doctors in their position, it is their proper role to stay and see to the needs of those in need. Moreover, the potentially horrific consequences of leaving (viz., the death of patients who could be saved) seem very likely to create an incredible amount of social pressure and fear of later guilt that have the potential to crowd out the capacity for a genuinely autonomous decision to stay. This does get complicated by the fact that staying is in accordance with the wide duty of helping on occasion and the narrow duty to avoid indifference to others. Taking into account all these moral psychological factors, the doctor’s understanding of what it means for them to have a right to leave is likely occluded at best. The doctor doesn’t really know what it means for them to have a right to leave, and so does not value themselves as a moral agent with the right to choose to leave, falling into the same sort of servility as Hill’s Deferential Wife, or the defendant who believes they have an obligation to not exercise their right to a trial by jury of their peers with a competent defense attorney since they believe doing so would be rude. One who does not understand their rights does not understand their moral worth, and one who does not comprehend one’s moral worth and as a result subsumes one’s ends under the ends of others is servile. Here, the doctor does not understand their rights and, by extension, their moral worth, since feelings of obligation and social/psychological pressure crowd out their capacity to understand that they have a choice. As a result, the doctor has an obligation to themselves to leave, since remaining violates a perfect duty to avoid servility. Admittedly, one might argue that if the doctor becomes legitimately aware of their own moral rights, they are not being servile even if they continue to display the same sorts of “marks of deference” by staying indefinitely. Here, the doctor is neither ignorant of their rights nor acting as if they were insignificant; rather, they are pursuing a task with a cost to themselves after weighing and considering their options. Here, staying would no longer necessitate violating a perfect duty to themselves, and leaving would therefore not be strictly obligatory. Still, even in this case, I would argue that the doctor has certain imperfect duties to themselves that act (much as imperfect duties to others do) as a counterargument against claims of indifference. Kant’s standard imperfect duties to the self as laid out in The Metaphysics of Morals are to cultivate one’s own talents (“Natural Perfection” for a “pragmatic purpose”) and to cultivate one’s own moral capacity (“for a moral purpose only”). The duty to develop one’s own talents is a wide imperfect duty in both quality (the means and methods one uses to pursue a duty) and degree (the extent to which one pursues that duty), since it stems from a duty to take up a general maxim, and violation of the duty results only in a contradiction of the will and not a contradiction in conception. The duty to cultivate one’s own moral capacity is “narrow and perfect in terms of quality” but “wide and imperfect in terms of degree,” since it is a perfect duty to strive for moral perfection, but our own human limitations prevent us from actually achieving it. Both of these duties, I contend, stem from, and are crucial to achieving, a duty to promote and cultivate one’s own autonomy. Here I mean autonomy in the Kantian sense as truly free capacity to choose to act in accordance with moral law and not just nominally free choice. Both the applicability of talents and moral capacity depend crucially on our capacity for autonomy, since autonomy is necessary for moral agency. In addition, fulfilling self-duties framed by the Humanity Formulation (i.e., respecting one’s own status as a setter of ends) necessarily entails cultivating the capacity to set those ends, which is an act of cultivating autonomy. We all have the capacity for autonomy as human beings, but such capacities are often limited by factors both outside and within our control. For example, I have panic disorder, and frequently have panic attacks that both prevent me from making autonomous decisions while having them, and result in other conditions—physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion, anxieties, etc.—that all act to limit my autonomy. In order to cultivate my talents, my moral capacity, and autonomy, I have a wide duty to take actions that mitigate these effects—a class of things like seeing a psychiatrist, taking medication, finding and pursuing outlets for dealing with stress or emotional catharsis, and so on. In sum, I have a wide duty to myself to pursue self-care. Likewise, even neurotypical folks have a bevy of social pressures, stressful conditions, feelings of obligation to others, and levels of mental, physical, and emotional harms that are autonomy-limiting, and resultantly also have duties of self-care. Another important duty that stems from that cluster of duties to oneself to cultivate, promote, and respect one’s own autonomy is a duty to the self to live one’s life in a genuine, authentic manner—that is, to live life in accordance with one’s own permissible ends and the moral law, free as much as is psychologically possible from pressures that limit one from doing so. This has a justification similar to our duty to promote our own autonomy and cultivate our talents, which parallels obligations to one’s own ends that are also duties as laid out in Kant’s Doctrine of Virtue. In staying indefinitely despite wanting to leave, the doctor cannot fulfill duties of self-care and duties to pursue and promote their own autonomy. To be clear, so long as the doctor avoids servility (i.e., genuinely understands that they have a right to leave and stays despite so understanding), staying is probably permissible since those unfulfilled duties are imperfect duties that do not have the trumping feature of the perfect duty to avoid servility discussed earlier. But nonetheless, these sorts of imperfect duties can serve as a counterargument against claims of indifference. We can imagine the doctor speaking to a hypothetical patient and saying something like: “Look, it legitimately pains me to go before I can fully help you, but I have to live my own, genuinely autonomous life pursuing my own ends, so I have to pursue the sorts of things that allow me to live in such a way, and that means I have to leave.” This certainly seems weaker than the argument made before (about leaving to be with a critically-injured son) since the duties used as a counterargument are broader and seem less urgent, at least for any given occasion, since most single actions do not in and of themselves prevent someone from living their own life. But, I would contend, they are sufficient grounds for rendering the act of leaving permissible, since they act as counterarguments against claims of indifference, meaning that the doctor can leave without violating that duty. And, of course, if the doctor genuinely regards their commitment to helping their patients as what their life is about, and reaches that conclusion autonomously with full understanding that they are free to choose other permissible ends and is therefore not displaying servility in doing so, staying is also permissible. Neither of these two cases (a perfect duty to leave that stems from the perfect duty to avoid servility and a set of imperfect duties to respect, cultivate, and promote one’s own autonomy) erase one’s obligations to avoid indifference to others. Rather, the first case acts as a trump when the two are in conflict, and both act as arguments against claims that the doctor is violating a duty of non-indifference in leaving—the first case because it is a stringent duty that would leave no room for permissibly staying, the second because a doctor who has to leave to respect, cultivate, and promote their own autonomy could plausibly argue that they really do value the people they’re leaving behind but cannot stay indefinitely without indefinitely violating an important if imperfect duty to themselves. In this manner, imperfect duties to the self act in a similar way to imperfect duties to others (e.g., an imperfect duty to be there for one’s children if they become critically injured) in terms of their function as a counterargument to claims of indifference. These sorts of arguments, and the case for the permissibility of leaving, are strengthened the more the doctor does to show non-indifference. The doctor has an obligation to set a departure date ahead of time and stick to it as best as possible—otherwise, the time they do leave risks being or seeming arbitrary. If possible, the doctor ought to attempt to find a replacement so that nobody dies or suffers greatly because of their departure; failing that, they ought to help with passing on basic, vital skills to those in the country while there. Further, they continue to have obligations once they get home to continue to show that they do care—to financially and socially support institutions that bring physicians to impoverished nations to do medical work, to work to erase the conditions that cause poverty in general, and so on. This list is not exhaustive, obviously, but rather a broad sketch of the sorts of things they probably ought to do to further solidify the permissibility of leaving, where the permissibility of leaving is dependent on avoiding showing indifference to others. Most of us are not highly-trained doctors in far-flung nations helping solve life-or-death crises. But, given how interconnected the world is, it can seem like others are constantly in need of the sort of help we can provide—whether financially, through social and political advocacy, or some other means. And, I would argue, we do have a duty to help them, stemming from concerns about indifference as well as duties to help others. It is still incumbent on us to avoid feeling indifferent (numb, jaded, or otherwise) towards people. But we cannot devalue ourselves entirely. Beyond utilitarian sorts of concerns for psychological well-being, we have to see ourselves as autonomous members of a moral community with incalculable value. Panacea cannot be indifferent to the suffering of the sick, but she is not morally bankrupt for spending time with her family or alone enjoying nature. We have obligations to others, obligations to avoid indifference that we all too often shirk—we turn away refugees, paint homeless people as junkies to justify not helping them, become jaded and callous in the face of anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, and other forms of bigoted violence, and fall victim to countless other pitfalls of indifference. But we must also take care not to erase ourselves from the picture, abdicating our place in the great project of humanity. To close with a story from the Jewish tradition, Rabbi Simcha Bunim took to the habit of carrying two slips of paper, one in each pocket. One read “V’anochi afar v’efer”—I am but dust and ashes. The other read “Bishvili nivra ha-olam”—the world was created for my sake. He used to look at one or the other when he needed to throughout the day. We must remember that we are but dust and ashes, and live a life dedicated to important causes and projects, not turning away from the suffering of others, but we also need to remember our place as moral agents and as ends in ourselves. And as such, we have to take care of and be gentle with not only others but also ourselves. REFERENCES Buber, Martin. Tales of the Hasidim, Vol. 2: The Later Masters. Translated by Olga Marx. Schocken Books. Hill, Thomas E. Jr. “Servility and Self Respect.” The Monist, Oxford University Press, Vol. 57, No. 1, January 1973, pp. 87-104. Kant, Immanuel. The Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by Mary Gregor. Cambridge University Press. McCrae, John C. Worm. Wordpress, 2011-2013. Stohr, Karen. “Kantian Beneficence and the Problem of Obligatory Aid.” Journal of Moral Philosophy vol. 8 (2011), pp. 45-67. Williams, Bernard. “A Critique of Utilitarianism.” Ethics, 6th ed., edited by Steven M Cahn and Peter Markie, Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 544-560. Thanks also to Dr. Karen Stohr for advising and helping guide me through this paper, my peers for questions and comments which helped me clarify and strengthen my case, and family members for listening to me work through the early stages of thinking about this topic.

The Brown University Journal of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (JPPE) is a peer reviewed academic journal for undergraduate and graduate students that is sponsored by the Political Theory Project and the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Society Program at Brown University. The Brown University Journal of Philosophy, Politics & Economics *FEATURE * FROM Sheldon Whitehouse U.S. Senator, Rhode Island Editorial board foreword Volume II Issue I Introducing the third issue of JPPE Click to flip through the journal and see previous JPPE issues ECONOMICS Philosophy Two Forms of Environmental-Political Imagination Realism, Perspective, and the Act of Looking Germany, the United States, and the Clean Energy Transition A Comparison of Chinese Cinematic Rep- resentations of the Second Sino-Japanese War By Nathan S. Chael By Isaac Leong POLITICS The Duty to Use Drones Economics A Fair Free Lunch? In Cases of National Self-Defense Reconciling Freedom and Reciprocity in the Context of Universal Basic Income By Lina Dayem By Olivia Martin Economics Philosophy Enhancing Value or Stifling Innovation The Individual Unfreedom of the Proletarian Examining the Effects of Shareholder Activism and Its Impact on American Capitalism By Cal Fawell By Andrew Kutscher and Doug Saper PHILOSOPHY Oedipus and Ion As Outsiders POLITICS Partisan Gerrymandering The Implications and Limitations of Genealogical Citizenship By Claire Holland Re-Establishing the Political Question Doctrine in Gill v. Whitford By Connor Maag

*Feature* John R. Allen John R. Allen is a retired United States Marine Corps four-star general, and former commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces - Afghanistan (USFOR-A). He was appointed by President Barack Obama as the special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). He is currently the President of the Brookings Institution, and his most recent research addresses the effects of artificial intelligence in a variety of sectors. Allen’s piece in JPPE’s second issue explores the effects of artificial intelligence on the future of education. Fall 2018 Artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies (ET) are poised to transform modern society in profound ways. As with electricity in the last century, AI is an enabling technology that will animate everyday products and communications, endowing everything from cars to cameras with the ability to interact with the world around them, and with each other. These developments are just the beginning, and as AI/ET matures, it will have sweeping impacts on our work, security, politics, and very lives. These technologies are already impacting the world around us, as Darrell West and I wrote in our April 2018 piece “How artificial intelligence is transforming the world ,” and I highly recommend that anyone just discovering the topic of AI policy read it thoroughly. There, Darrell and I describe several important implications related to AI/ET, but chief among them is that these technology developments are on the cusp of ushering in a true revolution in human affairs at an increasingly fast pace. As AI continues to influence and shape existing industries and allows new ones to take root, its macro-level impact, particularly in the realm of economics, will become more and more apparent. Control over the research and development of AI will become increasingly vital, and the winners of this upcoming AI-defined era in human history will be the countries and companies that can create the most powerful algorithms, assemble the most talent, collect the most data, and marshal the most computing power. This is the next great technology race of our generation and the stakes are high, particularly for the United States. If American society is to embrace the full range of the social and political changes that these technologies will introduce, then it is the education and training we provide our youth and workers that will fuel the engines of future AI, and therefore geopolitical success. I've studied and written extensively about the effects of AI/ET on the evolving character of war toward a concept I’ve called hyperwar – or, a new era of warfare in which, through AI, the speed of decision making is faster than anything that has come before. At a superficial level, this topic often devolves into a discussion of “killer robots,” or at the very least the impending use of AI in lethal autonomous weaponry. While those discussions are relevant and inextricably linked, they represent a narrow understanding of the greater issues at hand. The concern over AI’s potential or theoretical military applications must not distract us from how far-reaching the impact of AI will be in nearly all other policy domains. Health care, education, agriculture, energy, finance, and yes, national security, will all be reshaped in some way by AI – with education being the pivot point around which the future of the United States revolves. This is not solely a matter of social redress – which is by itself is extremely important – but in fact is a larger national security issue. The way we use education to prepare our next-generation of leaders will directly determine whether the US retains its leadership in critical fields of relevance in the emerging digital environment. Without a sufficiently educated population and workforce, the US likely will slip behind other states for whom AI/ET is not only means for improved social organization, but for strategic superiority, and potentially for digital and physical conquest. A future in which the United States is second in the race for AI technology would create a situation of national technological and digital/cyber inferiority, which could in turn result in national strategic subservience – something simply unimaginable in a world of growing strategic competition with systems of government very different from ours. Many Americans grew up with the understanding that the US’ capacity to fight and win a nuclear war was defined by its superiority in the Strategic Triad, the three legs of our strategic deterrence: our missile squadrons, our bomber fleet, and our ballistic missile submarines. Behind that dizzying array of hardware was the undisputed power of US intellectual and technical capabilities, and behind that was a near unlimited supply of talented engineers, each trained by a system of education undisputed in its excellence. That system was built from the ground up to produce crucial STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) protégés in the quantities needed to ensure American strategic superiority, which contributed directly to the US and its allies prevailing in the Cold War. For the health of our American way of life, our competitive advantage, and the strategic security of our nation, the basis for tomorrow’s system of education must reflect a deliberately tuned and calibrated system that proactively emphasizes AI/ET, big data analytics, and super-computing. Unfortunately, in both relative and absolute terms, the US is falling behind in the race for superiority in these key technologies and AI. Where the US strategic advantage of the 20th Century was secured by American nuclear superiority, US superiority in the 21st Century will likely be preserved, safeguarded, and sustained through a system of education that envisages the changes necessary and is sufficient to embrace and apply relevant technologies. It will also be underwritten by educators who grasp the profound shifts in the pedagogical skills essential to the educational needs of the 21st Century. The need to adapt is great – and for this system to be fully embraced it must come in the form of a comprehensive and national US strategy for education in the digital age, to include the resources necessary to bring education into the digital classroom, and to educate and train entire generations of educators to be relevant in the 21st Century and beyond. The United States must at all costs preserve its position of primacy in AI, big data, and super-computing through leaders who understand these issues on a fundamental level and have the political will to develop and resource a comprehensive plan for reimagining our national education efforts. In thinking about the essence of a US national education strategy adapted to the digital age, several important questions arise pertaining to the way we think about education and develop the next generation of leaders: What will be the implications for how we educate, train, and develop teachers? A discussion on the impact of AI on education will point dramatically to those who facilitate the process in our schools. The very term “teacher” may be insufficient to adequately capture the role of this key individual in the educational experience. Teaching and learning requirements may be substantially re-ordered and the dynamic of learning versus teaching in an AI-based system of education will be very different. And while teachers today are in many ways the unsung and underappreciated heroes of the American workforce, the teachers of the digital age may define the future of America. This will raise important questions about requirements for teaching degrees and related certificates in this new environment, and the necessary adaptation of the science of pedagogy to these changes. Ultimately, the key question will be “are the teachers of today ready to develop the leaders we will need tomorrow?” A difficult question, to be sure, and the answer today is no. The national education strategy must focus on their development as it focuses on the students as well. What will the AI-based classroom look like? With AI, every aspect of the traditional learning environment is up for reimagining. Will classrooms continue to be physical spaces? Or instead, will it be a virtual "space" using networked augmented or virtual reality technologies? The answer is yes to both, and the student in tomorrow’s AI based educational experience will be exposed to an immersive, digital education heretofore unimaginable. The distributed, networked, virtual reality classroom is both enormously exciting, and at the same time frightening for the enormity of its potential. There are major challenges to measuring success in an AI-based educational process. For instance, if our students can become more deeply involved in the pathways of their own learning through AI, measurement will occur moment to moment, as well as the success of remediation. In the best-case scenario, we will know at the end of each student’s day if s/he is meeting academic requirements and quickly correct deficiencies as necessary to stay on track. In any case, there are profound moral questions to consider with a system such as this, and policymakers must understand the underlying dynamics of the technologies at play if they are to fully support society. What will this kind of system of education do to reduce inequalities in our society? One of the most profound aspects of education in the AI environment is that these technologies could unleash the potential and productivity of a huge sector of American and global society hitherto constrained by their educational experience and resulting lack of opportunity. Local governments, schools, and especially the private sector will need to routinely intersect to create synergy and symbiosis to enhance our educational processes. Through the AI-powered digital space, “opportunity for all” may become a reality for those who previously had little means of achieving their own piece of the American Dream. The profoundly limiting feature of these opportunities lies in internet and 4G and 5G penetration within the United States, and the sometimes appallingly scarce educational resources committed in some areas in America. There are large segments of the US where our education systems, and our youth, have limited-to-no access to the internet and to Wi-Fi. If we hope to achieve our digital potential, and to continue to maintain our lead in AI and other emerging technologies, a national program to bring Wi-Fi and the internet to all our citizens is absolutely essential, and will in any case help to close the sometimes yawning gaps created by racial and income inequality in the US. AI/ET promise to usher in a bold new era of human history, one where the machines we create will oftentimes be smarter, faster, and more powerful than those who created them. This reality has profound implications for the field of education and introduces complex ethical, legal, and societal implications that academics, policymakers, and average citizens alike will need to contend with as every aspect of society reshapes around them. Further, the United States risks strategic inferiority if it does not embrace a full reconsideration of education in the digital environment, to include a comprehensive strategy for reimagining our education system at the national level. Today, we are not training our young leaders with the tools required to be successful in the digital age, and that has deeply troubling implications for the future of American society. Nevertheless, just as the United States persevered through the Cold War through technological superiority, I am hopeful that the 21st Century will yet again be one defined by American leadership – with our best and brightest from across the entire society leading the charge in digital era.

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*Feature* JPPE INTERVIEWS, YANIS VAROUFAKIS: Inequality, Financialization, and Populism Yanis Varoufakis is the co-founder of DiEM25 (Democracy in Europe Movement) as well as the former Minister of Finance for the Greek government. Additionally, Varoufakis has written several books including his most recent work Adults in The Room: My Battle With Europe’s Deep Establishment, which is a first-hand account of Europe’s hidden agenda and a call to arms to renew European democracy. As a self identified “libertarian Marxist,” Varoufakis calls for a radical new way of thinking about concepts like the economy, finance and capitalism. Fall 2019 JPPE : Many economists have their explanations about where inequality comes from, such as financialization, credit, globalization, technology, and bad policy. When thinking about the causes of inequality in the last thirty years, are there specific areas you think we ought to devote our attention to? Yanis Varoufakis : Well, there’s one word that answers your question: financialization. Financialization came on the back of the post-Bretton-Woods drive for completing a surplus society loop, where the United States operated like the world vacuum cleaner, sucking into its territory the net exports of the world on the basis of pushing down wages, lowering inflation, and, of course, Wall Street and the exorbitant power of the dollar. But the tsunami of capital that was going into Wall Street every day to close this loop and to pay for the increasing trade of the US was what shifted the center of gravity of power from industry to finance. JPPE : Private credit played a big role in that? Varoufakis : Of course. It’s all private credit. You know, financialization is 99.9 percent private money lending. Consider the financialization of blue-collar workers, in which their homes became the only way of catching up and competing with the Jones’, and since their average earnings were stuck at 1973 levels in real terms, it was only the appreciation of house prices that allowed them to continue the American Dream of rising standards and consumption. And in 2008 that came crashing down, and ever since then, you have a process leading to Trump. So today’s extreme inequality is due to a very significant class war against the American working class that started at the end of Bretton Woods. And Paul Volker, who recently passed, was central to this. All of this created a new phase in global history: financialized globalization. It pushed inequality back to 1920s levels, financialization collapsed, and then central banks and governments like that of President Obama’s refloated finance, creating socialism for the very few and permanent austerity for everybody else. That’s the answer in a nutshell. That’s my narrative. But, I have to tell you, since your focus is on inequality, I’m one of the very few left-wingers that doesn't much care about inequality or so much about equality. I don’t consider equality to be such a well-defined term. Equality of what? How do you define it? JPPE : What about income inequality? Varoufakis : Inequality is a terrible thing, but it’s a symptom. For me, it’s not the issue. The issue is exploitation. If we have huge levels of exploitation it is because we live in an extractionary economy in which the very few extract value from humans and from nature. Deep down, I’m a liberal, who thinks that liberalism has not served the cause of liberty. JPPE : You’re a liberal who thinks that liberalism has not fulfilled its promises. Varoufakis : No, it’s gone completely against its mission, like the Marxism of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union led to a regime that violated every principle of Karl Marx. Similarly, what passes as liberalism has created remarkable illiberties and spread them globally. So what matters to me is freedom from the extractive power of others over you and over nature. Capitalism, through its ever-expanding power, destroys the planet and the air that we need to breathe. JPPE : People like Harry Frankfurt argue that what we should care about is not the gap between the rich and the poor, but rather how well off the worst off are doing. Varoufakis : That’s rubbish. This willfully and purposefully neglects the source of the riches of the rich. It is as if it’s a random distribution based on DNA, on ability, and on god-given talents. In the standard debate between John Rawls and Robert Nozick, I was always far more impressed by Nozick than by Rawls because the Rawlsian veil of ignorance is lovely, but the critique of it by Nozick is devastating. He says ‘ok, let’s say we agree with Rawls and we work out what the uniquely just and therefore rational income distribution is. Let’s say we agree, so everybody gets slotted into the income distribution we agreed is uniquely just.’ And then suddenly he’s got this example from basketball, in which one of us becomes very famous for a particular kind of basketballing technique, and people are prepared to pay a lot of money to watch us. Do we ban ourselves from doing this and receiving the money that people are willing to give? Illiberal. Or do we allow ourselves to receive that higher income, in which case we have just proven that the income distribution we decided is uniquely just is not uniquely just? So in the end, what really matters is not what you have, it’s what you do in order to have it. That is perfectly Marxist to me. And, as a leftist Marxist, the point where I disagree entirely with Nozick is on his definition of entitlement. In his entitlement theory of justice, he says anything people agree to give you under any circumstances means you have it justly and that you are entitled to it. I say this is nonsense. So if you’re starving and I have some food to give you and your kids, and then I make you become my slave voluntarily, that is as coercive as it would be to point a gun at you. So, the distribution of basic goods according to Rawls is important because, without the minimum basic goods, you volunteer to give me things that I’m extracting from you coercively. That’s the Marxist critique. I’m neither Rawlsian or Nozickian, but the process that Nozick brings into the conversation, as well as Hayek, is crucial. But where we disagree with the right-wing is on what qualifies as, firstly, sustainable process and, secondly, just process. JPPE : Would it be fair to say the distinction also comes down to the difference between positive liberty—the capacity to act—and negative liberty— the right to act? Varoufakis : Here I think the theories of the Canadian philosopher CB Macpherson are helpful. He criticized the Isaiah Berlin distinction between positive and negative liberty by asking, very correctly, that if negative liberty is freedom from interference, how do you define interference? If you and I meet in the desert and you are dying of thirst and I have a glass of water and say ‘if you want this, you have to sign a contract saying you pass along all your belongs—your house, your car, and everything’. If you say yes because you are dying of thirst, is this interference? Is this a voluntary transaction? Am I impeding your negative liberty? According to Berlin, I’m not because I’m not forcing you to do anything. You are choosing to give me things for a thing. In my view, the inequality of access to basic goods like water allows me to exercise extractive exploitation over you and therefore to impede your basic freedom. If you accept the distinction between positive liberty and negative liberty, you end up saying, in the end, ‘we’re only going to accept negative liberty because who gives a damn about positive liberty—it’s too dangerous because it legitimizes all sorts of violations of negative liberty. My model is the following: if instead of negative liberty, you have freedom from extractive power, and instead of positive liberty, you replace it with the notion of developmental freedom—the freedom to develop as a character. JPPE : Would you say part of the reason it’s so important to object to high levels of inequality comes down to the fact that, in highly unequal societies, you have very different abilities to participate (e.g. unequal baskets of basic goods)? Varoufakis : When so much of one side doesn’t have enough to live on, then you have exploitative power and extractive power that functions to deny every liberty to the party that doesn’t have access to that basket of basic goods. This is, of course, the original argument by Karl Marx. JPPE : Do you think a big component of that comes down to education and access to education? Varoufakis : No, it comes to ownership. As long as we have shareholders, we’re going to live in an illiberal society. What do I mean by shareholders? As long as you have tradable shares and anyone can buy a share in a company in which they don’t work, then you create this situation where the majority of the shares of any company are going to be owned by people who have nothing to do with the company. And once you enter that process, you create an alliance with finance because finance creates the capacity to buy shares and fictitious capital minted out of thin air that allows the oligarchy the right to extract the value of others. Yet imagine a situation in which we have shares, but it’s one share and one vote for one person. So anybody working in our business has one vote. I think of it as similar to a library card. When you’re enrolled in a university you get a library. Everyone gets one. You can’t trade it. It would be similar, in this model I am proposing. As long as you work, you have your share. And then you have one vote. Imagine if corporations operated along those lines. There would be inequality because we would all vote on bonuses, and not everybody would get the same bonuses because we would collectively decide that a certain person is of high value to us and so this person deserves more of a bonus. But the differences would be much smaller. And that has to do with the way in which property rights are distributed. JPPE : Doesn’t this create an incentive for companies to hire fewer people because it would require cutting the company up into thinner slices? Varoufakis : I don’t think that holds water because if you and I create a startup and we add a third person to expand, and the growth rate is higher than the basic wage in our company, then we would do it because it’s in our interests to do it. And the fact that companies would be small and not have more than 300 or 400 people —because you can’t scale this up—is a fantastic thing. We need small companies. The whole point about competition is that you have many small companies competing. Now, we have no competitive markets. So one of my criticisms of capitalism is that it is completely anti-competitive. It’s monopolistic. JPPE : So on some level, it’s almost this Polanyi Esque argument about liberalism undermining itself and actually requiring government state intervention in order for it to even continue as liberalism. Varoufakis : Yeah, the Polanyi argument and also the Marx argument. Any attempt to set the state against the market or the market against the state is historically pathetic because the market was created by states. Even the enclosures in Britain that created the circumstances for capital to emerge in Britain would not have happened without the king’s army. To pit the state against the market is historical nonsense. The only reason capitalism happened in Britain and not in France is that there was a powerful central government in the former but not the latter. And the central government dispatched the army in support of the lords that pushed the peasants off the land and replaced them with sheep. The sheep had the capacity to produce wool which was internationally traded, and suddenly the land had value. Without the king’s army, it wouldn’t have happened. JPPE : Your focus is on financialization when explaining inequality since the 1970s, but do you think that technological innovations played a role in that as well? In the Industrial Revolution, you saw rising inequality because of increased productivity but stagnant wages. Today, researchers talk about how modern inequality seems at least partially a consequence of the hollowing out of middle-skill/middle-wage work because innovations automated work in that middle sector. Varoufakis : I don’t think we have seen this yet. I think we probably will see it. The hollowing out of the middle class is evident, but I don't think it’s because of automation. I think it’s simply a situation whereby two things coalesced. On the one hand, it was the introduction of two billion workers in capitalistic markets after 1991 through the Soviet Union satellite states and the rise of China. Two billion workers came from those countries. There were huge shifts of factories to those countries, whether it was Poland or China. But the proletarianization of former peasants is a standard process that has nothing to do with technology per se. That’s the first dimension. The second dimension is the increasing role and capacity of the financial sector in turbocharging private money minting. Through all the financial derivatives and fast trading, without having to press a button, I can transfer billions at lightning speeds. That technological innovation made a huge difference in shifting and increasing power from the industrial scene into the sphere of finance. JPPE : How did that work? I would imagine a lot of the competition would be between investing firms and companies with better algorithms and better technology. Varoufakis : Yes, but between 1980 and 2008, in 1980 dollars there was an average inflow of money into Wall Street every day of between five and six billion, on average. Now, if you give a banker five billion every day, even for ten minutes, they will find ways of multiplying it. It’s called derivatives, options, financialization. Computers helped them create really complicated instruments that totally blew up the multiplier. So from that five billion, they could create a hundred or two hundred trillion in securities, which very soon started to operate like money to the extent that they were mediums of exchange and a source of value. So effectively they created as much value as they wanted. And immediately, political power shifts to Goldman Sachs, and General Motors becomes a hedge fund that produces a few cars that nobody cares about. So that’s what I mean by financialization. And that creates huge inequality because just think of all the bonuses. JPPE : And very few people have a stake in the stock market. Varoufakis : Most of this was not in the stock market. The derivatives were traded under the table. And so you have a huge new body of the proletariat coming, factories shifting to china. The Chinese people were coming up very slowly in terms of per capita income, but of course, they lose a lot of the old values—community values, environmental values, cultural identity. And fifteen boys living in one room today might make 15 dollars a day, which in the world bank statistics is a fantastic improvement for them. But maybe their life is far worse than it was when they were in their village milking a cow. JPPE : Yuval Noah Harari makes the point that, for many people, even the shift to agriculture from hunter-gatherers resulted in a dramatic decline in standards of living. And the same was certainly true of people in the Industrial Revolution. So how do you reconcile that argument with the notion that all of those innovations resulted in improvements in the standard of living that were eventually felt by everyone? Varoufakis : I simply reject it as uninteresting nonsense. When people say to me, ‘look at the last 200 hundred years and the massive decrease in poverty’, I ask ‘how do you measure poverty?’ Take the Australian Aborigines. When Captain Cook arrived in what is now New South Wales. These people had zero income, but they lived very full and fulfilling lives. Today, an Aborigines person gets a hundred Australian dollars a week from some kind of social security fund, and they are obese, they have diabetes, and they are dying from a number of diseases, if not from police brutality. So you consider that to be an improvement because they went from zero to a hundred dollars? But going back to what you were saying—the hollowing out of the middle class—we should come to that. Given that financialization was based on this exponential growth in fictitious capital that made the very rich exceptionally rich, and at the same time, to have this money coming into Wall Street, you had to have American wages kept very low and below American standards. And this means prices must rise against the home so that people can afford to buy stuff and fill up their garage with rubbish. And then, of course, in 2008 this house of cards comes crashing down. With jobs moving to China and, at the same time, financialization collapsing under the weight of its own hubris, that’s what explains the hollowing out of the middle class. These people initially turned to Barack Obama. He betrayed them. And now they turn to Donald Trump. But AI and automation are going to hit us when we’re down already. I don’t think the hollowing out has to do with automation, but now that the hollowing out has taken place for reasons that don’t have to do with automation, automation will be the second part of the double whammy. JPPE : A lot of people are very happy about automation because they believe in its potential to improve productivity. However, if you believe technological change results in significant short-run damages to certain people’s livelihoods, is it worth trying to stop automation? Varoufakis : Automation would be catastrophic. But why would it be catastrophic? It’s a question of nationalizing it and of socializing it. It’s a question of who owns it. Because if the machines are owned by the very few like they are, then those who own them will look at them as a source of personal enrichment, which means there will be a serious crisis by which those machines will be replacing workers who have no access to the returns of that capital. And so they will not be able to buy stuff. So we’re going to have a collapse. But if we all benefit and we all own the robots collectively, we would not have that problem. This is why I keep coming back to questions of ownership. And this is where I find some commonality with the extreme libertarians, because they also put a great deal of emphasis, not so much on income distributions, but on property rights, and I do too. They want to defend the property rights of oligarchy. I want to socialize property so that everybody has equal access to it. JPPE : When you think about the recent UK elections and the failure of Jeremy Corbyn and the British left to challenge more traditional and conservative leadership, what do you think about the prospects for a US presidential candidate like Bernie Sanders? Varoufakis : Privilege has a remarkable capacity to reproduce itself and kill any challenge to its reproduction. If the challenger is Bernie, Jeremy, you or me, they will crush us. There’s no doubt about that. When I was elected, I never expected for a moment that I would not be vilified. If I wasn’t, then I would be worried, ‘why are they not vilifying me? Am I doing something wrong? Have I sold out already?’ What I find astonishing is that, in 2016, Bernie Sanders came so close. And he would have won it had he not been robbed by Hilary Clinton. This is what happened yesterday with the Labour Party, which was effectively defeated from within by the extreme center—the Blairites and the hard “remainers” that did everything they could for two years to undermine their own party and to undermine Jeremy Corbyn. Why? Because they were in concert with the privileged classes. JPPE : Tactically, what do you make of the primacy of emphasizing cultural issues over economic ones? Do you think the left makes a mistake when it focuses on the culture wars instead of socio-economic challenges? Varoufakis : Yes, the left has been catastrophic. Look, I’m an old Marxist. The economics is always at the base of it. It’s at the base of Brexit. Why did Brexit happen? Because you had a financial sector collapse and you had the rubbish assets of the banks put on the shoulders of taxpayers. But at the same time, the European Central Bank was contracting the money supply and the Bank of England was expanding. And that meant three million continental Europeans went to Britain. And for the country, this was substantial and some people felt they were being pushed out of their own country. So their grievances are economic, even if they don’t consider it clearly as an issue of economics. Whenever we have this kind of economic recession, it’s easy for a fascist to jump on the soapbox and say, ‘I’ll make you proud again by getting rid of foreigners.’ You see this with Salvini or Farage. Why did Trump get elected? He didn’t get elected because of the culture wars. He got elected because half of Americans, for the first time since 1923, could not afford the cheapest car on the market. These people felt betrayed, and here comes a guy who says ‘I’m not the worst person on earth, but there’s a good reason to vote for me: it will annoy the shit out of everybody you hate.’ Of course, the fascists take advantage of these economic grievances and build a narrative by saying that they will make you proud and look after you.