State Socialism in Australian Political Thought: A Reconsideration

In understanding the origins of conventional tenets in political thought, we should attend to cross‐spectrum analysis of usage. Taking state socialism as an instance, this paper argues that the practice of treating it historically either as an element within a radical tradition (by Labour historians) or as a discredited part of a socialist agenda (by liberals) ignores the ways in which it was it was deployed across the political spectrum. Outsiders (such as the Webbs and Métin) skewed the record, describing the pragmatic accommodations they saw as “socialism without doctrines”, unconscious of the debates amongst Australian political elites. We need to explore anew where ideas came from, how they were taken up and adapted in the Australian context (by all sides) and the circumstances that determined their duration within everyday discourse.     

An ice cream war: Bundling,tying, and foreclosure

Ice cream markets in Europe are characterized by vertical restraints of varying degrees of restrictiveness. Mars, an entrant to the market, sought to establish in a court action and in a complaint to the European Union Commission that the dominant incumbent, Unilever, had acted with the object and effect of foreclosing the market in Ireland by bundling the price of ice cream and freezer services and restricting retailers to stocking Unilever product alone in freezers supplied by them. This article applies a model of bundling, tying, and foreclosure developed by M.D. Whinston to demonstrate that it would not have been rational for Unilever to attempt to foreclose the market by means of these restrictions and therefore that the Commission was not justified in obliging Unilever to accept the changes imposed on it.With apologies to William Boyd.     

A role for structured observation in ethics

Progress in the natural sciences has depended upon the collection and use of carefully controlled observational data. By contrast, ethicists have failed to agree upon a role for observational data in their enterprise. Although factors embedded in the human condition obscure the role of observational data in ethical theory, barriers to the use of such data in ethics may be superable. Observation may not provide definitive answers to most ethical or metaethical questions. However observation of carefully constructed experimental conditions may provide the basis for cumulative progress in some branches of ethics.     

A "politically robust" experimental design for public policy evaluation, with application to the Mexican universal health insurance program.

We develop an approach to conducting large-scale randomized public policy experiments intended to be more robust to the political interventions that have ruined some or all parts of many similar previous efforts. Our proposed design is insulated from selection bias in some circumstances even if we lose observations; our inferences can still be unbiased even if politics disrupts any two of the three steps in our analytical procedures; and other empirical checks are available to validate the overall design. We illustrate with a design and empirical validation of an evaluation of the Mexican Seguro Popular de Salud (Universal Health Insurance)program we are conducting. Seguro Popular, which is intended to grow to provide medical care, drugs, preventative services, and financial health protection to the 50 million Mexicans without health insurance, is one of the largest health reforms of any country in the last two decades. The evaluation is also large scale, constituting one of the largest policy experiments to date and what may be the largest randomized health policy experiment ever.     

Loneliness at adolescence: Correlates,attributions, and coping

The present study provides much needed empirical data on the adolescent loneliness experience. One hundred adolescents were given measures of loneliness, loneliness attributions, coping styles, and personal characteristics. Loneliness was positively related to state and trait anxiety, an external locus of control, depression, self-consciousness, and social anxiety and negatively related to self-reported attractiveness, likability, happiness, and life satisfaction. Lonely adolescents were also less willing to take social risks. Adolescents most often attributed loneliness to boredom and most often coped with loneliness by watching TV or listening to music. The implications of these findings for adolescent social development are discussed.     

A fatality involving metaxalone

A case is presented of a 54-year-old white female found dead in a secured apartment. Postmortem toxicologic analysis of the heart blood identified acetaminophen (97 mg/L), citalopram (0.4 mg/L), gabapentin (24 mg/L) and metaxalone (21 mg/L). The metaxalone concentration is within the range of previously reported fatalities involving metaxalone. The medical examiner ruled that the cause of death was metaxalone and gabapentin intoxication and the manner of death was suicide.