The End of Footbinding in Chinese Culture

 In the past I've commented on Prof. Kwame Appiah's book on Moral Revolutions, which includes a chapter on the end of footbinding in mainland China.  He argued that footbinding was a status symbol (Veblen would agree) which became tarnished as "old-fashioned" and not modern in the early 20th century when modernization was very important in China. So women with bound feet lost their value in marriage, so binding ended quickly-a revolution in morals.

Made sense to me.  Had some resonance because my aunt and uncle worked for the YMCA in China during that time. Among the things they brought back were pairs of sandals/shoes for bound feet.

But I ran across this paper, with this abstract:

We analyze the economic motives for the sudden demise in foot-binding, a self-harming custom widely practiced by Chinese females for centuries. We use newly-discovered Taiwanese data to estimate the extent to which females unbound their feet in response to the rapid growth in sugarcane cultivation in the early 20th century, growth which significantly boosted the demand for female labor. We find that cane cultivation significantly induced unbinding, with the IV estimations utilizing cane railroads – lines built exclusively for cane transportation – support a causal interpretation of the estimated effect. This finding implies that increased female employment opportunities can help eliminate norms that are harmful for females. Further analysis suggests that the need for human capital improvement was more likely to have driven the effects of cane cultivation, rather than the increased intra-household bargaining power for females.

Sounds as if the economists have an entirely different perspective. Since the paper text isn't freely available, I can't evaluate it.  But intuitively it makes sense that upper class/leisure class women would have their feet bound. 

Farmland Preservation

 Modern Farmer has an upbeat review of an early farmland preservation initiative on Long Island, dating to 1974.  Farmers sell off the development rights to their land, getting lower assessment and lower taxes.

It sounds good, but I wonder about the economics.  There's reference to a 23 acre farm. It may have been growing potatoes in the 1970's; Long Island's glacial soil was great for potatoes. But with changing farming economics and inflation, I'm guessing today's farmer needs to switch to vegetables and specialty crops to make things work.  Perhaps tomorrow the land will grow greenhouse or vertical farming.  How long can the deal last?

Ethnicity/Racial Data

 ASCS/FSA has had a history of trying to identify its producers as to their race and/or ethnicity.  It seems to me the problem is you can't require citizens to say what they are or consider themselves to be; you can't except for the Census Bureau.

According to this FEMA may be required to collect such data, if the new law passes. As there's more and more written about the disparate impacts of various programs agencies face that problem more.  IMO simply asking, whether orally or by form, is offputting--most Americans I suspect would react: what the hell business is it of yours? So you end up with correct information grudgingly given and an annoyed citizen, or incorrect information, or blank, which puts you into the position of eyeballing.

Packing Eggs in Modern Ireland

In the last century we packed eggs by hand. Now it's different. (Also, tractors have power steering.)

 

Check out Noel and Kate operating our newish packing machine. After 16 years of packing by hand we invested in a more efficient way to pack leaving more time to concentrate on bird welfare and farm managementper. ⁦@butlersorganics⁩ #LEAN #farmlife #eggs #organic #shopready pic.twitter.com/m5HN3bprMn

— IrelandsFarmers (@IrelandsFarmers) May 7, 2022

The Complexities of Cotton

 Virginia Postrel has a substack article, touching on changes in cotton production from 1920s (her grandfather was in the trade) to now. 

I commented on a couple aspects. 

Originalism and Lived Experience

 Just a gripe here. If I understand "originalism" as a way to interpret the Constitution, it says that the Founding Fathers agreed on a document which had one meaning. (No doubt that exaggerates and distorts but it's close enough for my purposes.)

Now I've been in a lot of meetings over the years, some of which involve a group of people coming to an agreement, others involving people trying to understand the meaning of one or more speakers.  I think it's fair to say that in most cases the people who were trying to agree or who were being talked to came away from the event with somewhat different understandings.  In most cases the context was such that the differences made no long-term differences, but the principle is the same.  No group of 39 to 55 people would agree on how to apply the document resulting from their meeting. 

Original intent is a myth, an "ideal type" as some  used to say, which doesn't exist in real life.

Tradition, Tradition...

 Says Justice Alito (who apparently loves Fiddler on the Roof) 

I write that after reading this New Yorker interview with Neal Katyal, who describes Alito's draft decision as rooting our rights in tradition.

A separate point--lots of speculation about who leaked the opinion and why.  It seems to me everyone is making up a story to fit their preconceptions--like Ginni Thomas being the leaker, because she's the woman we liberals love to hate.

Mission Creep in Ukraine

I blogged before about the difficulty of finding a way to a ceasefire in Ukraine.  Since then I think I see signs of mission creep.  

Ukraine seems to be doing much better in resisting Russia than we anticipated.  Ukraine is the underdog being bullied. We're seeing unusual unanimity in Europe about the war.  All these factors can feed into a certain euphoria/animal enthusiasm about the war.  

But I still don't see an obvious middle ground.  Ukraine and its supporters obviously want to repel Russia troops and oust them from their 2022 conquests; ideally they'd like to reverse the Russian gains of 2014. Ukraine also wants compensation for the damage Russia has been inflicting on civilians, housing, infrastructure as well as justice for the war crimes they allege.  Finally they want to remove Russia's ability to invade in the future. 

IMHO the chance Putin would agree to that agenda is nil. So for Ukraine to achieve its war aims they need a palace revolution in Russia.  Unlikely.  Think of Germany at the end of WWI and the "stab in the back". 

Put the Dog Out of Its Misery

 I'm not usually this harsh, but I've never ever been impressed by USA.gov.

As the spokesman in this FCW article says: 

""Right now, one of the things that happens is that people go to USA.gov and then we refer people, but it would be ideal, I think … for people to just be able to get stuff done, right there on USA.gov,"

I've always found Google to be a better search engine.  I don't see the point of spending money to improve the site.  It will be a long time before we have one access point for government that works well.  I've only to look at farmers.gov, which tries to be an access point for USDA agencies serving the farmer.  The problem is that it reproduces the silos of USDA.

Changing Views of Left and Right--Possible Images

 What sort of image do we have of our society and the left and right?  Often I think it's as if society is there, a platform or a landscape, while left and right act over time, moving one way or another. 

But is that a good image. After all society is people, as are left and right, so society can move as well. 

What's an alternative image: perhaps a crowd, some wearing red, some wearing blue, the majority, the less politically involved, wearing gray.  So you take a snapshot in 1960 of the crowd and you see the reds and blues scattered through the crowd. Take another snapshot today and you see the reds clustered together, the blues clustered-they've both become more cohesive. 

But that image doesn't reflect  a society's movement. Maybe an image is Hawaii, where the continental plate moves over a volcanic hot spot, which creates the various island.  In this image "society" would be all the people, the economy, laws, etc. So society could change because of innovations in technology, in the rest of the world etc.  Meanwhile there would be two "hot spots"; each representing a temperament which seems to be common in people at large: one conservative, one liberal.

That covers the fact there always seems to be a left and a right, a conservative and a liberal faction. And it allows for the fact that conservatives in the 1950's could be strong supporters of segregation, while conservatives today are opposed to racial segregation.

Don't know, maybe I need to think more.