Times.konradturski.com – Political and Economic Commentary by a Postgrad in London

Lost in the coverage of Spitzer’s resignation is the fact that so much – if not all – of whom and what Spitzer was battling represent the things that we despise, and for all the most basic reasons. He fought Wall Street power brokers, corrupt legislators, and, yes, prostitution rings. I cannot help but worry that another political generation will grow up with the resignation that comes from the experience of knowing that it is not even worth trying to fix some the base evils. Look what happened to the last one who tried.

Indeed, we are so disenchanted and sometimes enthusiastic to catch Spitzer at the universal sin – hypocrisy -  that sometimes it easy not to appreciate that that chasm that we understand to separate Spitzer’s words and his deeds, is more human than so much of the tacit, synthetic pragmatism that we accept when we lower our expectations to the point, where by some measure, we elevate ordinary politicians above Spitzer because, by not trying, they never raised over expectations. Spitzer failed because he dared to raise our expectations to where they were, where they should have stayed, before our first heartbreak, or our first political scandal, or our first encounter with that smoke-filled world of money, power, and wickedness.

That Spitzer not only lost, but succumbed to those vices – $80,000 for prostitutes is no blue collar crime – does not change the fact that he fought the good fight, and no one can doubt that the his wager – his political career, his own credibility, his own marriage – was placed because, like too few people, this was a struggle he thought he could win, and he bothered to try.

I would like to think that for Spitzer, like for too few others, the chasm between words and deeds assumed a Manichean dichotomy between right and wrong; he lost that fight, but does that change the fact that he fought the only thing worth truly fighting for? Could there be anything else? A bridge-building project for your district, added to the latest federal budget, perhaps?

So He lost the battle between words and deeds, and now that is hypocrisy. I accept that, but there is more to the story. Let me just say that I believe words can be more important than actions, if they are spoken for the right reasons, honestly, candidly, and with the best of human nature in their sights.

No.

I first heard about New York Governor Eliot Spitzer in 2006, at an American Enterprise Institute lecture given exclusively on the matter of what to do about Spitzer’s recent election to the New York governorship. I had not planned on attending the lecture, which was given during the time I was completing a ten week internship at the think tank. Instead, I had been asked to assist in putting on the lecture. I was the microphone boy.

Perhaps as a result of my unfamiliarity with the man, I was particularly surprised at the level of alarm that the leading Republican commentators at the lecture raised about the prospects of a Spitzer administration. For the GOP – the party most often associated with a literal interpretation of morality and the law – to question Spitzer’s commitment to rooting out corruption and backroom deals in Wall Street, was something I had not expected.

One line from the lecture particular stands out in my memory. It was a direct criticism of Spitzer’s approach to prosecuting baddies for even the small offense. I am paraphrasing it, though the fact that still remember its gist, two years on, is a testament to the impression it made on me:

Nobody follows all the rules all the time. If you prosecute individuals for any little offense, that’s not being a hero, that’s being a demagogue.

Despite the tilt of the conference, I left feeling an inkling of admiration for the man whose biography intimidated even the Republican party. Who doesn’t like a crusader? Especially one fighting against all the things that you decry, starting with the unsavoury Wall Street types, who had given away a lifetime of education for the two things I have least regard for: life in the city, and the pursuit of money above all else.

Partly as a result of all this, I think I have been more saddened than most about the New York Times article on Spitzer’s moral transgressions. It seems and more to me that even the toughest cannot avoid becoming corrupted (read: hypocrisy) in the world of politics.

But he does swipe my ideas! Check out his column in today’s New York Times.

That sounds familiar. Darn you, Kristof!

The purpose of today’s exercise will be to offer a simple proposal for the source of happiness, generalize it, and extrapolate the implications.

(1) A Simple Proposal for the Source of Happiness

The proposal, admittedly up for debate, is that happiness lies in the difference between expectations and reality. Given E, your level of expectations, and R, reality, then

H = R – E

Thus, if your expectations exceed reality, then your happiness is negative, and if the opposite is the case, then your happiness is positive. Let us assume that happiness exists to be maximized; the higher (positive) number it is, the better.

(2) Generalization

Let us suppose now that, rather than being based on expectations and reality, happiness is based on any other two variables. However, it is still based on the difference between them. Thus,

H = X -Y

X minus Y could be the difference your income and that of your neighbors, or the difference between your cash supply and your preferred cash supply, etc. et. al.

The purpose of the generalization is to reach a point at which our equation for happiness is sufficiently agreeable that the following implications, in section 3, can be considered without outright skepticism.

(3) Implications

Given a simple H = X – Y relation, you invariably fall into what I will term the maximization trap. The reasoning behind this maximization trap, are as follows:

• Variable Confusion implies that the direct relationship between Y (previously E, expectations) and happiness, may cause individuals to attempt to maximize Y instead of X. Since Y is subtracted from X, and thus reduces H, this would decrease, rather than increase, happiness.
• Correlated Factors implies that actions (such as working harder) may influence both X and Y, and at different and changing magnitudes over time. For example, working harder may raise expectations (Y) more than it raises results (X), resulting in a negative relationship between a marginal hour of work and happiness.

Perhaps it is the case that a lot of unhappiness in the world comes from a misunderstanding of the maximization trap.

…it was Seattle.