I came across a quote attributed to Julius Caesar:
All bad precedents began as justifiable measures.
Sounded too modern and too pat so I went looking for a source.
I think it is actually a paraphrase of a comment by Sallust in his The Conspiracy of Catiline. Bold highlight:
But who it may be asked, will blame any severity that shall be decreed against these parricides of their country? I answer that time, the course of events, and fortune, whose caprice governs nations, may blame it. Whatever shall fall on the traitors, will fall on them justly; but it is for you, Conscript Fathers, to consider well what you resolve to inflict on others. All precedents productive of evil effects, have had their origin from what was good; but when a government passes into the hands of the ignorant or unprincipled, any new example of severity, inflicted on deserving and suitable objects, is extended to those that are improper and undeserving of it. The Lacedaemonians, when they had conquered the Athenians, appointed thirty men to govern their state. These thirty began their administration by putting to death, even without a trial, all who were notoriously wicked, or publicly detestable; acts at which the people rejoiced, and extolled their justice. But afterward, when their lawless power gradually increased, they proceeded, at their pleasure, to kill the good and the bad indiscriminately, and to strike terror into all; and thus the state, overpowered and enslaved, paid a heavy penalty for its imprudent exultation.
Within our own memory, too, when the victorious Sylla ordered Damasippus, and others of similar character, who had risen by distressing their country, to be put to death, who did not commend the proceeding? All exclaimed that wicked and factious men, who had troubled the state with their seditious practices, had justly forfeited their lives. Yet this proceeding was the commencement of great bloodshed. For whenever anyone coveted the mansion or villa, or even the plate or apparel of another, he exerted his influence to have him numbered among the proscribed. Thus they, to whom the death of Damasippus had been a subject of joy, were soon after dragged to death themselves; nor was there any cessation of slaughter, until Sylla had glutted all his partisans with riches.
So it is misattributed but the translation is actually reasonably close.
1 - It seems like, after the most recent election, people across the spectrum would be more skeptical of the authority of polls.
2 - If you are willing to accept the polling data, it seems like those who wanted to get rid of the electoral college and go to a direct democracy might be disappointed with the results. I.e. the evidence suggests that direct democracy would give them the same policies as the electoral college yielded.
Oh. dear. The mainstream media's tireless pursuit of inconsequentiality over which to be outraged is getting . . . tiresome. The latest contretemps is over the invocation of Senate Rule 19 by which a Senator is enjoined from impugning the conduct of other senators. An amusing history of Rule 19 is here, The silencing of Elizabeth Warren and an old Senate rule prompted by a fistfight by Derek Hawkins. Of course, it had to be a fistfight between the two South Carolina senators which originated Rule 19.
I leave aside the merits of the case against Warren as too trivial to warrant comment. I also leave aside the worthiness of such rules. Wikipedia has a good summary of the history.
In a Westminster system, this is called unparliamentary language and there are similar rules in other kinds of legislative system. This includes, but is not limited to the suggestion of dishonesty or the use of profanity. The most prohibited case is any suggestion that another member is dishonourable. So, for example, suggesting that another member is lying is forbidden.
Exactly what constitutes unparliamentary language is generally left to the discretion of the Speaker of the House. Part of the speaker's job is to enforce the assembly's debating rules, one of which is that members may not use "unparliamentary" language. That is, their words must not offend the dignity of the assembly. In addition, legislators in some places are protected from prosecution and civil actions by parliamentary immunity which generally stipulates that they cannot be sued or otherwise prosecuted for anything spoken in the legislature. Consequently they are expected to avoid using words or phrases that might be seen as abusing that immunity.
Like other rules that have changed with the times, speakers' rulings on unparliamentary language reflect the tastes of the period.
As Wikipedia notes, most parliamentary systems (and comparable governmental bodies) do have similar rules against the impugning of behavior and motives of other parliamentarians. In Britain, the Mother of all Parliaments, these rules have engendered a tradition of evocative and euphemistic phrases that make the desired imputation without crossing the parliamentary line.
British parliamentary speeches and the corresponding journalistic reporting have always been lively and filled with wit. I particularly like the parliamentary euphemism that a member is "Tired and emotional" - code for saying that they are drunk.
The British Parliament website explicates "unparliamentary language"
Words to which objection has been taken by the Speaker over the years include blackguard, coward, git, guttersnipe, hooligan, rat, swine, stoolpigeon and traitor.
Elizabeth Thompson has produced a list of 106 items that are considered unparliamentary which include:
A parliamentary pugilist and political bully (1875)
A bag of wind (1878)
Scarcely entitled to be called gentlemen (1876)
Honourable only by courtesy (1880)
Inspired by forty-rod whiskey (1881)
Coming into the world by accident (1886)
Insolent and impertinent (1890)
A parliamentary babe and suckling (1890)
A blatherskite (1890)
Talking twaddle (1898)
A cowardly slanderer and a bully (1907)
The political sewer pipe from Carleton County (1917)
Lacking in intelligence (1934)
Hysterical (1943)
A dim-witted saboteur (1956)
Above the truth (1962)
Ass (1970)
Canadian Mussolini (1964)
Cheap political way (1960)
Crook (1971)
Devoid of honour (1960)
Does not have a spine (1971)
Evil genius (1962)
Fabricated a statement (1961)
Idiot (1962)
Ignoramus (1961)
Joker in this House (1960)
Kangaroo court (1960)
Nazi (1962)
Pompous Ass (1967)
Scurrilous (1961)
Sick animal (1966)
Small and cheap (1960)
Trained seal (1961)
On the other hand, these pass muster:
Momentary mental relapse (1960)
Mouthpiece (1974)
Stinker (1969)
Stupid (1964))
The pig has nothing left but a squeak (1977)
Worst president of the Privy Council (1976)
In generally civil Canada, you may not, in Parliament, refer to one's opponent as:
Pompous Ass
Ignoramus
In Wales, Member of the Assembly may not be referred to as:
Bumbling idiot
Rent-a-gob
Hypocrites
Pathetic
Political vermin
Australia, a country yet mostly unsullied by the cult of political correctness, has some of the more candid parliamentary exchanges.
C. THEOPHANOUS: In the Age of 27 April he states: The Victorian Treasury is predicting that Australia’s economic growth will pull strongly ahead of Victoria’s in 1994-95…The growth rates predicted by this statement show that Victoria will lag behind Australia for the next three years.
Hon. Bill Forwood: Tell us why!
Hon. T. C. THEOPHANOUS: Because of your policies.
Hon. Bill Forwood: You are a fool!
Hon. T. C. THEOPHANOUS: And you are a dickhead!
Legislative Assembly of Victoria, 1991-03-12
[snip]
The Hon. B. J. Unsworth: The only one who knows anything about bestiality around here is the Hon. F. M. MacDiarmid.
Legislative Council of New South Wales, 1984-11-01
[snip]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The question is, That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would preclude consideration forthwith of General Business Notice of Motion No. 1 standing in the name of the honourable member for South Coast. Those in favour—
Miss Machin: This will do you a lot of good at home, won’t it, Terry?
Mr Sheahan: You’re a real little bitch, I tell you. I’ll deal with you later.
Legislative Assembly of New South Wales, 1987-05-29
[snip]
Mr WRAN: All the honourable member for Sturt, who is attempting to interject, is concerned about is growing opium poppies, and from the look of him sometimes it seems he has tried a few samples.
Legislative Assembly of New South Wales, 1977-11-22
[snip]
Mr FREUDENSTEIN: The Opposition will oppose lotto on the grounds that the Treasurer and the Minister for Sport and Recreation and Minister for Tourism has sold out the sporting people of this State and taken money away from them. It will be ploughed back into the Consolidated Revenue Fund to finance the ratbag activities of the Minister for Consumer Affairs.
Mr Einfeld: The member, in his customary style, is offensive, annoying and irritating. I do not take objection to the annoyance or the irritation, but I do take objection to the use of words which I find offensive and I ask him to withdraw them.
Mr Punch: The description fits you like a glove.
Mr ACTING SPEAKER (Mr O’Connell): Order! The Minister has taken offence at what the honourable member for Young has said. I ask the honourable member for Young not to be upset by interjections and I ask him further to withdraw the word ratbag in regard to the Minister.
Mr FREUDENSTEIN: I did not call the Minister a ratbag. I said that he engaged in ratbag activities.
Legislative Assembly of New South Wales, 1990-09-05
[snip]
Mr I.W. SMITH: I am not sure whether you look like the rotten hollow log or something that is found underneath it when it has rolled over!
[Honourable members interjecting.]
The SPEAKER: Order!
Mr Micallef: What is the difference between you and a bucket of shit?
The SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member has used an unparliamentary expression. I ask him to withdraw.
Mr MICALLEF (Springvale): I withdraw ‘bucket’.
The SPEAKER: Order! An unqualified withdrawal please!
Legislative Assembly of Victoria, 1994-10-11
[snip]
Mr HARTCHER: The Premier will use any excuse and seek any opportunity for political self-promotion, even at the cost of the interests of the State or Australia. He is a total harlot.
Mr Debus: Point of order.
Mr HARTCHER: You are going to take a point of order on that, when the words used by the Premier every day in question time are a total distortion of everything?
Mr Debus: The words “total harlot” are beyond the parliamentary and indeed the ethical pale, and I ask that they be withdrawn.
Mr DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Order! I ask that those words be withdrawn.
Mr HARTCHER: I withdraw the term “harlot” and I say “political prostitute”.
Legislative Assembly of New South Wales, 2002-11-21
It is a deep well is unparliamentary language. I prefer the American system of governance over the British Parliamentary system but, given that a disproportionate number of British Parliamentarians have a classical education and/or were members of the Oxford Union (or equivalent), it has to be acknowledged that the give-and-take in Parliament is much more lively and entertaining. Especially on those occasions when members are tired and emotional.
There has been much misinformation and spinning from both sides regarding the seven country travel ban (Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Yemen, and Somalia.)
The MSM has taken the position that there is no rhyme or reason for these countries. Trump advocates say it makes perfect sense as it is the list Obama used. But that, of course doesn't really answer the question. Why did Obama pick these seven? We are not privy to that rationale and therefore we have to speculate.
Other than Iran, most these countries are failed states. But there are failed states, such as Afghanistan, which aren't on the list.
It's not that they are Muslim because most Muslim majority countries aren't on the list. It's not that they are Arab because three of them aren't Arab.
The general claim seems to be that they represent a significant risk because they have some combination of state antagonism to the US, are failed states, and/or are home to active Al Qaeda/ISIS related groups.
Opponents to the ban have made the reasonable argument that only one attack on US soil has been attributable to a terrorist from one of these countries (a Somalian at Ohio State University.) But that reasonable argument is insufficient. What we really want to know is not the number of completed attacks but the number of thwarted attacks. I haven't seen anyone, Democrats or the Administration, provide that evidence.
Charles Kurzman, a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, says his research shows no Americans have been killed in the U.S. at the hands of people from the seven countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan and Yemen — since Sept. 11. But it’s not quite right to say no one from those nations has been arrested or accused in an extremist-related plot while living in the U.S.
[snip]
All told, Kurzman said, 23 percent of Muslim Americans involved with extremist plots since Sept. 11 had family backgrounds from the seven countries.
There's a number we can work with. Those seven countries represent some 13% of the population of all countries with some affiliates of Al Qaeda/ISIS or related terror groups. Those seven countries also represent 13% of all legal immigrants/naturalizations to the country (86,000/654,000).
13% of the population is generating 23% of the participants in extremist plots. That's not a Pareto distribution by any means but it also is a positive and disproportionate correlation.
So, yes, there is a rationale. It is not an especially strong rationale on its own but it is perfectly valid. We are still left with the mystery of why Afghanistan isn't on the list. And even more critically, why these seven when the correlation isn't huge.
What is the Latin for schadenfreude? From Commentarii de Bello Gallico [Commentaries on the Gallic War] by Julius Caesar.
Book I, Ch. 14.
Consuesse enim deos immortales, quo gravius homines ex commutatione rerum doleant, quos pro scelere eorum ulcisci velint, his secundiores interdum res et diuturniorem impunitatem concedere.
The immortal gods are wont to allow those persons whom they wish to punish for their guilt sometimes a greater prosperity and longer impunity, in order that they may suffer the more severely from a reverse of circumstances.
Its three months from the election, a couple of weeks since the inauguration. It seems like a whole four year cycle of events in that limited time span.
What have we learned in these three months? What are the patterns emerging? I have no coherent narrative, just some observations that are speculative.
Part of this is of course simply partisan behavior. Part of this is responding to market demand - the paper's readers are demanding news that confirms their biases. There are likely other dynamics in play as well.
I wonder if part of the reason for the mainstream media bias is not really bias at all but cognitive dissonance. In this reading, the MSM are accustomed to traditional politicians doing the traditional risk mitigation strategy of never making any statement without focus grouping it first. With Trump we have moved from a Consumer Product approach to electioneering and policy making to a Real Estate and Silicon Valley approach. Real Estate in terms of hardball negotiating, expansive opening gambits followed by retreats to what is really wanted. Silicon Valley in terms of real time development, a focus on failing fast, rapid A/B testing, etc.
None of this is like anything the MSM have seen before and it is alien to their experience. Business, brass tacks businessmen, real estate/venture capital risk taking, high velocity decision-making - these are all outside their kin. For them Trump is not an experienced person choosing among time tested strategies, he is a wild man doing things they cannot comprehend. I think they genuinely see him as dangerous because they have lived genuinely sheltered lives.
Inside the OODA Loop
Trump is getting inside the MSM's OODA Loop. As discussed in It's a mystifying spectacle, the MSM are a guild whose business model has been badly disrupted by the internet and who are struggling to maintain financial viability. Like a guild, they have a collective interest in establishing a single authoritative narrative which they can all support - lending the patina of truth to what is actually simply a shared consensus whose foundation is social and subjective, not empirical.
They are under threat from citizen journalists with their blogs, from emergent right-leaning news organizations, from the intellectual heft of conservative think-tanks with their research and talking points, and even from encroaching foreign news organizations such as Daily Mail. The mainstream media with their Democratic Establishment ideology are being flanked and undermined already.
Now there is Trump eating their lunch.
As a guild, they need a shared narrative which they can all get behind. That narrative is solidly Democratic Party Establishment. It takes a week or ten days from an event to there being a settled narrative. They work hard and fast but facts get in the way and everything ultimately has to be seamless and smooth. It takes time.
Along comes Trump who gets inside their OODA Loop and disrupts the process. He starts more squirrels than they can keep track of. Because they are 100% oppositional, all they have time for is to express emotional outrage before he has done, said or tweeted the next thing for them to bewail. They never have time to settle on a narrative, to craft it, to buttress it, to erase or diminish the counterfactuals, to erase the inconsistent history.
We saw this with the election which was such an upset. I posted here the list I captured in the space of ten or fifteen days a couple of weeks after the election, of all the root causes that were being put forward by the MSM as to why Clinton lost. The MSM needed one, at most two, plausible candidate causes which did not entail acknowledging poor performance on their part or poor performance on the part of their candidate.
But Trump was out of the gates faster than they were. Can you now recall what emerged as the settled reason for the upset? If you are a Republican or Independent, the answer is easy. Clinton was a corrupt, incompetent politician who lacked any sort of common touch or empathy for the people of America. She was simply a bad candidate (though bad in many ways). Few people in the Republican camp, and even fewer independents, were happy voting for Trump but they were adamant in their opposition to Clinton.
Why don't we have a settled MSM narrative explaining the loss? Because they never got a chance to settle on one or two key positions from the several dozen they were looking at. Trump didn't give them a chance. He started saying things and doing things which they found so alien that they had to chase the balls he was throwing.
And he is still throwing balls and they are still chasing them since the inauguration. They simply can't coalesce fast enough on the guild narrative before the next outrage bursts. In the nineties we had bimbo eruptions, now we have outrage eruptions. All the public can see are a continuing stream of emotional and vituperative media responses that lack any journalistic integrity and are usually retracted or debunked. How long can the MSM keep issuing stories that turn out to be untrue before they draw down the last of their reputational bank account?
It is not that Trump is building a following or enhancing his brand, though his approval ratings do seem to be rising and many on the right and the center, seeing the hysteria of the MSM and the left are beginning to feel better about their vote than they might have at the time. He has started from a low base and is demolishing his opponents before he starts to build his own outcomes.
Signaling Over Substance
Because so far, all he has done is signal to his broad-tent base. All these Executive Orders? Signals of intent. Very few of them are substantive changes in already existing policy, just a change of emphasis and a signal of intent. The material work to establish a legislative base for new policy will be with Congress later on.
He has been throwing treats to the various tribes in the Republican base. Constitutional conservatives got a high profile Supreme Court nominee. Defense conservatives got some stellar generals. Libertarians got an endorsement of LGBT rights. Religious conservatives got the defunding of Planned Parenthood. Social conservatives had the pleasure of seeing dilettante thespians, left wing journalists, and social justice warriors stood up to and rebuked. Blue collar conservatives saw trade actions they see as supportive of their economic way of life. Good governance conservatives like the EO regarding revolving-door careers. Business conservatives see several businessmen among the cabinet picks. The only tribe that hasn't yet gotten much in terms of assurance are the Fiscal conservatives.
So Trump is assuring the base that he will keep his promises but does so through dramatic signs (Executive Orders) rather than through legislation. Legislation has to be carefully crafted and involves heavy negotiation and hard trade-offs so that everyone gets something and no-one gets everything. It takes time. All Trump is doing now is battlefield prep for the hard negotiations to come.
Meanwhile, the MSM and the Democratic party rump seem increasingly unhinged, sidelined, and irrelevant. It has been six months since the DNC chair resigned in disgrace and three months since the Democrats lost decisively at the Federal, State and local levels. There is no DNC chair, they are still fighting that out. There is no settled spokesman or leader of the party. If Trump keeps prodding them into indefensible, obstructionist positions, by the time he gets around to actually negotiating new legislation and policies with Congress he will effectively have cleared the field of his institutional opponents.
That is not necessarily what is going to happen. I think Trump's real opponents will be in Congress and in his own party. But he has a lifetime of negotiating experience. He might end up doing well there. The unfounded hysteria of the MSM might still land a body blow, but the longer it continues, the more inconsequential it appears, the more retractions they have to make, the less likely it seems that their allegations will taint him. The boy who cried wolf and all that.
Threat to Taxpayer Funded Opposition
The Democrats are as vulnerable as they have ever been; at least in living memory. If Trump actually pulls together a supportive coalition, the Democrats might face an existential crisis that might focus them on reestablishing their party as one of the people. Right now they have lost political power. That's a survivable problem for them given the cyclical nature of elections but that power loss is exacerbated by what is happening to and among their close allies, academia, the mainstream media, the deep state, and the shadow government of community organizations.
Their close allies in academia have been cutting up with impunity for several years but it has been coming to a head with escalating tuition, rising student debt, declining employability, evisceration of due process on campus, rioting, antagonism to free speech, etc. Academia already had a hard future that likely will get harder sooner. From a DNC perspective, academia was not only a source for intellectual covering fire but also a source of money.
Similarly, monolithic and unchallenged MSM has been critical muscle for the DNC and they might now be hobbled.
Even more critically, the cash nexus between government workers and the DNC is under threat. We saw in Wisconsin what happens to government unions when employees are no longer forced to be members and the government ceases to collect union dues on behalf of the union. My recollection is that a third of the unions folded shop and the remaining unions suffered declines of 30-50% in membership. When government unions decline, the money to the DNC declines.
With deep state bureaucrats in Washington now opposing the elected officials of the people, how long will it be before we have a PATCO moment with the dismissal of swathes of highly paid DNC party members who are government bureaucrats?
Finally, there is a web of shadowy community organizations epitomized by Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), Occupy Wall Street (OWS), Black Lives Matter (BLM), MoveOn.org and others which function both as a shadow government and as a disavowable wing of the Democratic Party. They receive taxpayer money directly from the government or indirectly as when DOJ settlements with financial institutions are directed, not into the Treasury, but to these community organizations.
Drain the swamp has usually meant closing the revolving door, reducing the influence of lobbyists, prosecution of elected officials when they are guilty of wrong-doing. With any luck, though slim prospects, we will get at least that.
But there is a second, structural swamp having to do with the fact that the Democratic Party is highly reliant for its well-being on government subsidies of allies. Government Unions, Humanities Academia, PBS/NPR, Planned Parenthood, NEA, NEH, Community Organizations, etc. All these public voices are stolidly Democratic Party and all are paid for by the taxpayer via the government. Even Hollywood, resolutely Democratic with a few stalwart exceptions, depends heavily on subsidies and tax breaks. I suspect that the chances of some material reform in any of these areas has suddenly risen with the 2016 election and that any reform likely poses a major threat to the financial well being of the Democratic Party.
The pressure for reform is not an ideological plank of the Establishment Republican Party. If it were up to them, we would continue with the go-along to get along which has brought us to our current state of deficit and debt. No, most of the pressure for draining the Democratic Swamp comes from the new populists and from the residual spirit of the Tea Party.
Cognitive Disruption, Inside the OODA Loop, Signaling over Substance, and Threat to Taxpayer Funded Opposition. Those are some of the things I speculate are occurring. An accurate description? I am not sure yet but I suspect reasonably close.
Where it goes from here and what it will produce remains to be seen.
UPDATE 2: Further evidence of the pervasiveness of Federal funding of Democrats through governmental institutions. Two articles in tandem: Gravy Train Flows Wide And Deep At Elizabeth Warren’s Consumer Agency documents the very large number of CFPB employees earning more than virtually all other governmental employees. For example, 240 CFPB employees earn more than all of the governors of the fifty states. At the same time, what is the split of CFPB employees' political donations between the parties? 100 percent of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's donations went to Democrats. If disruptor Trump were to either reduce CFPB employee headcount (or compensation) or if he were to enforce Civil Service laws so that they were truly non-partisan as they are supposed to be, then that would represent a blow to the financial lifeline of the Democratic Party.
Makes an interesting read given our contemporary understanding of genetics, DNA and the heritable component of intelligence and behavior.
I. Come let us consider what one might say on the education of free children, and by what training they would become good citizens.
II. It is perhaps best to begin with birth: I would therefore warn those who desire to be fathers of notable sons, not to form connections with any kind of women, such as courtesans or mistresses: for those who either on the father or mother's side are ill-born have the disgrace of their origin all their life long irretrievably present with them, and offer a ready handle to abuse and vituperation. So that the poet was wise, who said, "Unless the foundation of a house be well laid, the descendants must of necessity be unfortunate." Good birth indeed brings with it a store of assurance, which ought to be greatly valued by all who desire legitimate offspring.
Bones of two peacocks were found in the Gokstad ship burial (900AD) indicating a high status man that had international connections. #vikingpic.twitter.com/mlVLKBHd0C
From Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, Act 1, Scene 2. I recall this passage from Miss Petrie's 10th Grade English class at Herringswell Manor School in East Anglia, UK.
Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look.
He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.
I just came across the source of that passage. It is from Plutarch's Parallel Lives, specifically, The Life of Antony.
When Caesar returned from Spain, all the principal men went many days' journey to meet him, but it was Antony who was conspicuously honoured by him. For as he journeyed through Italy he had Antony in the same car with himself, but behind him Brutus Albinus, and Octavius, his niece's son, who was afterwards named Caesar and ruled Rome for a very long time. Moreover, when Caesar had for the fifth time been appointed consul, he immediately chose Antony as his colleague. It was his purpose also to resign his own office and make it over to Dolabella; and he proposed this to the senate. But since Antony vehemently opposed the plan, heaped much abuse upon Dolabella, and received as much in return, for the time being Caesar desisted, being ashamed of their unseemly conduct. And afterwards, when Caesar came before the people to proclaim Dolabella, Antony shouted that the omens were opposed. Caesar therefore yielded, and gave up Dolabella, who was much annoyed. And it would seem that Caesar abominated Dolabella also no less than he did Antony. For we are told that when a certain man was accusing both of them to him, he said he had no fear of those fat and long-haired fellows, but rather of those pale and thin ones, indicating Brutus and Cassius, by whom he was to be conspired against and slain.
I can't say that I subscribe to this theory but it is an interesting argument that adds some insight: When Children Rule: Parenting in Modern Families by Sebastian Galiani, Matthew Staiger, and Gustavo Torrens.
From the abstract:
During the 20th century there was a secular transformation within American families from a household dominated by the father to a more egalitarian one in which the wife and the children have been empowered. This transformation coincided with two major economic and demographic changes, namely the increase in economic opportunities for women and a decline in family size. To explain the connection between these trends and the transformation in family relationships we develop a novel model of parenting styles that highlights the importance of competition within the family. The key intuition is that the rise in relative earnings of wives increased competition between spouses for the love and affection of their children while the decline in family size reduced competition between children for resources from their parents. The combined effect has empowered children within the household and allowed them to capture an increasing share of the household surplus over the past hundred years.
UPDATE: Here is a Wall Street Journal account of the research; How Kids Displaced Dads as Rulers of the Household, According to Economists by Janet Adamy. There is a general trope, more or less agreed upon, that in the past thirty years, we have substantially demolished the positive representation of males. That in discourse, in media, and in entertainment, males are represented as needy, capricious, occasionally violent buffoons; children in men's bodies.
I think the trope is oversold but I also suspect that the underlying argument (diminishment of men) is probably measurably true. The trope is usually laid at the feet of Feminism but the research above suggests that perhaps an additional (or perhaps, main) source might be the economics of the family unit.
A family man, a management consultant, a book seller and an avid reader. Committed to helping children become avid readers in turn. The great chain of reading always needs renewing.
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