The Unintended Consequences of Well-Meaning Public Policy

Alex Tabarrok linked to a great article in the NYT by the authors of Freakonomics on “unintended consequences.”

Unintended consequences arise, says Tabarrok, “when a simple system tries to regulate a complex system.”

Perhaps the most common examples of unintended consequences involve the state regulating society:

The political system is simple; it operates with limited information (rational ignorance), short time horizons, low feedback, and poor and misaligned incentives. Society in contrast is a complex, evolving, high-feedback, incentive-driven system. When a simple system tries to regulate a complex system you often get unintended consequences.

Dubner and Levitt examine the unintended consequences of the American with Disabilies Act (ADA), Jewish laws regarding debt relief, and the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The first and third of these are the most interesting.

Researchers found that “when the A.D.A. was enacted in 1992, it led to a sharp drop in the employment of disabled workers.”

Why?

Employers, concerned that they wouldn’t be able to discipline or fire disabled workers who happened to be incompetent, apparently avoided hiring them in the first place.

With respect to endangered species, multiple studies have shown that the Endangered Species Act of 1973 has unintentionally incentivized the rapid development of forested land to avoid becoming subject to ESA regulations in the future.

The highest level of assurance that a property owner will not face an ESA issue is to maintain the property in a condition such that protected species cannot occupy the property.

Dubner and Levitt suggest that the next president think about unintended consequences when he or she is drawing new legslation.

it might be worth encouraging the winning candidate to think twice (or even 8 or 10 times) before rushing off to do good. Because if there is any law more powerful than the ones constructed in a place like Washington, it is the law of unintended consequences.

Words and Deeds, Private and Public

One of our favorite bloggers out there, Robert T. Miller, talks some sense about the usual gripes from the Right about the ACLU, et al. stifling the free speech of religious conservatives:

When moral traditionalists cast their arguments, as Senator DeMint and Professor Woodard do, in terms of the speech or religion rights of the majority, they thus misunderstand the situation. The ACLU is perfectly right when it answers such arguments by saying that it doesn’t want to interfere with what those in the majority say or how they practice their religion. The issue concerns the use of government power against members of the minority. The proper limitations on such use is a very difficult question, and it cannot be settled by appeals to the rights of the majority under the First Amendment.

It's the economy (again), stupid!

The best executives understand well the wisdom of both cutting and investing in a downturn. But they also understand you raise prices in the midst of a recession at your peril. The same could be said for raising taxes.

That's how the Globe's Steve Bailey concludes his article on the budget unveiled today by Deval Patrick. Bailey's first impression: "He better have a Plan B in his back pocket."

If the governor has not noticed, a recession is upon us.

Instead of lessening or at least maintaining the current tax burden on Massachusetts businesses, Deval Patrick's plans require a tax increase on the state's employers.

Ambition can be a good thing, and Patrick's plans are certainly ambitious if nothing else. Bailey on Patrick's "laundry list of new initiatives":

from increasing spending on education by $368 million to ending homelessness to upgrading the state parks - all worthy goals. I'd like a new car, too, but I can't afford it right now.

Bailey thinks Patrick's DOA budget is a win for Sal DiMasi, who last year made short work of Patrick's proposed tax hikes on businesses:

A year later, with a recession of uncertain depth and duration upon us, DiMasi is looking smart.

What's wrong with Deval?

Governor Patrick has an ambitious agenda. Unfortunately, right now he looks like a governor more suited for the late '90s, when all trees grew to the sky, than the challenging times we are facing.

The Envy of Karl Rove

Here’s Dick Morris on Clinton’s strategy in South Carolina. Dick Morris, of course, despises Hillary Clinton. But we’ve heard other, less interested commentators offer similar analysis.

If it’s true – and it seems awfully plausible to us – then Clinton’s team has outdone Karl Rove. That’s no easy task. Pure genius. Pure evil.

Obama has done everything he possibly could to keep race out of this election. And the Clintons attracted national scorn when they tried to bring it back in by attempting to minimize the role Martin Luther King Jr. played in the civil rights movement. But here they have a way of appearing to seek the black vote, losing it, and getting their white backlash, all without any fingerprints showing. The more President Clinton begs black voters to back his wife, and the more they spurn her, the more the election becomes about race – and Obama ultimately loses.

Hillary Clinton, in short, is playing the race card like Mike Huckabee played the Mormon card with his backhanded comments about Jesus being Satan’s brother. But Clinton’s backhandedness is of a much bigger magnitude.

As we said above, Clinton’s strategy seems both brilliant and depraved. We wonder what the conversations were like that hatched this diabolical plan. Did Clinton and her advisers actually talk out loud about this? Amazing.

Keynes is dead! Long live Keynes!

Hillary Clinton – like George Bush – is on record saying that we shouldn’t pay for the so-called stimulus packages currently under discussion. And we’re not paraphrasing:

"But this stimulus shouldn't be paid for," Hillary Clinton said to Tim Russert in a recent interview, when he reminded her that she'd omitted a price tag somewhere.

George Melloan, formerly of the Journal, writes in his old newspaper that Hillary’s statement implies a form of “Keynesianism.”

Named after John Maynard Keynes (d. 1946), the theory holds that government spending will stimulate the economy. One of Keynesianism’s corollaries is that the spending will pay for itself, since by stimulating the economy tax revenue will increase.

Keynesianism was the regnant economic theory throughout the 20th century. Unfortunately, though, Keynesianism doesn’t work.

Ronald Reagan ended Keynes’ domination over Washington. Why did Reagan do it? What did Reagan replace it with? And what needs to be done now?

The explanation was this: If a government hampers production through heavy taxes and economic regulation -- or by inflating the currency -- production will slow down and there will be less to consume. To revive production, government must reduce the tax and regulatory burden and kill inflation -- which Reagan did to such good effect. Tossing dollars from planes doesn't do it ...

Clearly stock markets around the world aren't cheered by all the current talk of stimulus and a further cheapening of the dollar: They know all too well how politicians can convert adversity into catastrophe. Instead, the right policy is to make the Bush tax cuts permanent and pull up regulatory weeds, like Sarbanes-Oxley. Sound money and relief for producers is the best anti-recession prescription. It worked in 1981 because it was good policy.

Deputy Dawg?

Now that he's left the race, there's talk that Fred Thompson might get tapped for somebody's number two slot.

[Advisor Rick] Galen said Thompson could end up as vice president because he could mitigate the conservative shortcomings of potential nominees such as Rudy Giuliani.

What about his friend McCain? With Thompson, McCain could be a runaway train.

"Having somebody like Thompson on the ticket, it seems to me, could go a long way toward unifying and energizing the base," Galen told The Examiner.

"I don't even know if he'd take it, although I'm not sure I've ever heard of anybody turning it down," he added. "He has said flat out he's not interested in becoming vice president, but that's what they all say."

Roe v Wade at 35

The LA Times is marking the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade with an op-ed piece by Frances Kissling (formerly of Catholics for a Free Choice) and Kate Michelman (formerly of NARAL Pro-Choice America).

In “Abortion’s battle of messages” Kissling and Michelman assert:

Twenty years ago, being pro-life was déclassé. Now it is a respectable point of view.

It’s still déclassé in Boston – but we grant their point.

“How did this happen?” That’s the very apt question Kissling and Michelman tackle in their piece. And they make startling admissions:

Science facilitated the swing of the pendulum. Three-dimensional ultrasound images of babies in utero began to grace the family fridge. Fetuses underwent surgery. More premature babies survived and were healthier. They commanded our attention, and the question of what we owe them, if anything, could not be dismissed … Advocates of choice have had a hard time dealing with the increased visibility of the fetus.

We frankly don’t know what to make of that, especially since Kissling and Michelman have always been and remain emphatically pro-choice. But we're even less sure how to take this:

If pro-choice values are to regain the moral high ground, genuine discussion about these challenges needs to take place within the movement. It is inadequate to try to message our way out of this problem. Our vigorous defense of the right to choose needs to be accompanied by greater openness regarding the real conflict between life and choice, between rights and responsibility. It is time for a serious reassessment of how to think about abortion in a world that is radically changed from 1973.

The world has changed a lot since 1973. If Kissling and Michelman are any indication, the pro-choice movement has finally begun to think about change, too.

Did the Jesuits pick a lame-duck leader?

This topic lies outside our stated purview, but since nobody else seems to have fully analyzed the situation, we’ll take up some space here to do so.

Last week, the 35th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) elected Adolfo Nicolás as their 30th Father General. As the head of the largest religious order of men, the Father General of the Jesuits is commonly called the Black Pope, after the color of his attire and the enormous power he wields.

Self-described liberals and conservatives have honed in on Nicolás’ “progressive” credentials, which are undeniable. The left sees this election as a vindication of their views, and the right smells the smoke of Satan.

What neither the left nor the right has noticed, however, is that Adolfo Nicolás is old.

In the 20th century, the average age of an incoming Father General was less than 55 years old. Nicolás is 71.

Does this mean anything? Maybe not.

But if Father Tom Smolich is right that "the electors chose the man God had in mind," then maybe God is telling us that He doesn’t want Father Nicolás to accomplish very much. After all, at 71, it’s unlikely that Nicolás will have the time, not to mention other resources, to leave the kind of mark on the Society of Jesus that his predecessors left.

But it's worth remembering Pope John XXIII, another "transitional" figure who rose to power in his 70s. That pontificate, the Vatican website says, "would mark a turning point in history and initiate a new age for the Church."

Why tax rebates are a bad idea

We feel like we should drill down a little deeper with some of our recent comments about the ineffectiveness of tax rebates, especially in 2001, the last time they were used as a stimulus tool.

From Marginal Revolution:

Matt Shapiro and Joel Slemrod report:

Many households received income tax rebates in 2001 of $300 or $600. These rebates represented advance payments of the tax cut from the new 10 percent tax bracket. Based on a survey of a representative sample of households, this paper finds that only 22 percent of households receiving the rebate would spent it. Instead, they would either save it or use it to pay off debt. This very low rate of spending represents a striking break with past behavior, which would have suggested a much higher rate of spending. The low spending rate implies that the tax rebate provided a very limited stimulus to aggregate demand.

With tax rebates, the government is betting on people -- especially the poorest people -- spend ing most of the rebate in consumer activities, e.g., at the mall, eating out, online.

If recipients use checks to boost their savings accounts or pay off credit card debt, the rebates are rendered ineffective. (Rising credit card debt may actually explain the growing ineffectiveness of tax rebates.)

In any event, rebates are a very expensive experiment if you're not sure they'll do any good.

Investment Tax Credits: Less Exciting Than Tax Rebates But Maybe More Stimulating

Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution generally opposes the call for fiscal stimulus packages. He thinks that new "spending and tax decisions can rarely boost an economy" for a few reasons:

First, the money for any new spending or tax cuts has got to come from somewhere, right? Thus there is usually substantial crowding out of any stimulus.

Second, by the time the new spending or tax cut gets through the political process the economy has moved on and the stimulus is no longer relevant except by accident.

Third, there just isn't that much discretionary spending to play with and even a large increase in spending, say tens of billions, is too small to make much of a difference in a 13 trillion dollar economy.

Fourth, in their desperation to "do something" politicians will often do something foolish. If a spending increase or tax cut isn't worthwhile on its own merits then it's highly unlikely to be worthwhile once we add in the benefits of "stimulus." Thus, it's one thing to argue for extending unemployment benefits as a matter of welfare it's quite another to think that an increase in unemployment benefits will so increase spending as to reduce unemployment! (The implicit view of Larry Summers.)

Economists may call for "temporary," "conditional," and "targeted" stimulus but they won't be the ones designing the plan. Spending increases and tax cuts are policies with long term consequences that we need to think about carefully.

Thus, I do not favor a fiscal "stimulus" package.

But he's willing to admit that an investment tax credit may do some good. Why?

Cuts in income taxes and increases in spending must be paid for somehow, so traditional fiscal policy can be crowded out by declines in private spending (My colleague Russ Roberts says fiscal policy is like trying to raise the water level by dipping a bucket in the deep end of a pool and dumping it in the shallow end.) But an investment tax credit works through a change in incentives - it increases the incentive to invest now, when times are tough, at the expense of less future investment when times are better.

Also, cuts in income taxes stimulate the least when they are expected to be temporary. But in contrast, an investment tax credit stimulates the most when it is expected to be temporary. (A temporary credit must be used now or lost while a permanent credit gives you the option to wait).

Thus, a broad-based, temporary investment tax credit has some appeal as fiscal stimulus.

In other words, an investment tax credit would give the folks who can an incentive to pump much-needed capital into the economy, while avoiding the nonsense and other drawbacks of the other plans out there, including Bush's.

I read the news today, oh boy

We're always interested in the rhetoric that news outlets employ to explain -- or avoid explaining -- issues with political implications.

If you've read today's papers, you know that exchanges around the world are seeing sharp declines. The plunge is the result of the bad impression that Bush's "stimulus" plan has made in the world's financial community.

Yahoo, for example, carried a story, entitled "Stock Markets Plunge Worldwide Amid Pessimism Over US Stimulus Plan." Catchy title. Unfortunately, however, the article doesn't shed any light on why the world's financial community is pessimistic.

What would they like to see that's currently not on the table? Would the Democratic proposals make people less pessimistic? Alas. Silence.

Obama needs to add more substance to his call for change

As he did in New Hampshire, Obama seems to have failed to connect with Nevada's working class. Dante Scala of UNH observes:

Despite all the talk of her having had eight campaign slogans, Clinton managed to connect with working-class Democrats. Obama did not, with all the appeals to hope and change. That's part of Obama's problem; he appeals to [upper-class] voters who have the luxury of thinking about reforming the nation's politics. For working-class voters, it's more about healthcare.

More about healthcare -- and about a dozen other issues.

"Washington doesn't have a plan"

Following up on our speculation yesterday that Gingrich and Bloomberg are talking the same talk, here's a money quote from Bloomberg's speech today in California:

"In politics, winning elections and protecting a party majority is more important than solving problems. And so short-term pork invariably wins over long-term investments."

Gingrich and Bloomberg?

Doesn't this sound like Gingrich may be considering a run with Bloomberg?

In his new book, Real Change: From the World that Fails to the World that Works, Gingrich busts the myth that America is divided between red states and blue states. Instead, Americans are “Red, White, and Blue” on almost every important issue facing America.

Gingrich also demonstrates why the Democratic Party can’t deliver real change and the Republican Party won’t, and how it is only through a nonpartisan movement of citizen-leaders, that Americans can ever see the real change they’re looking for.

Unhealthy Turf War

The inimitable Steve Bailey has the scoop on the impending turf war between the healthcare industry and CVS's MinuteClinics:

In the business schools, the personal computer and Southwest Airlines are taught as case studies of what has come to be known as "disruptive innovation." Now, with CVS Corp. poised to open as many as 30 medical clinics in their stores in the Boston area alone this year, local primary care doctors and neighborhood health clinics worry they could be next. They may be right.

McCain v. Huckabee

Surprised?:

Republican John McCain said ... his party lost control of federal spending and expressed reservations about President Bush's economic stimulus plan ... But rival Mike Huckabee told voters Bush is on the right track with a plan to boost the economy.

Straight Talk on the Economy

Kids, this is what a grown-up sounds like:

As a Republican, I stand before you embarrassed … The economy is not good. The stock market continues down. And the indicators are not good. I'm not too astonished... We let spending get totally out of control, and it continues today, and I'm sorry to tell you this.

Those are the facts. Here’s a sketch of McCain's take on improving the situation:

McCain has voiced apprehension over proposals for temporary tax cuts and more spending as suggested by many Democrats and Republicans, saying they result in additional strains on resources. McCain has instead proposed cuts in corporate taxes from 35 percent to 25 percent, extension of Bush's tax cuts, and elimination of the Alternative Minimum Tax...

Take note that McCain doesn’t mention tax rebates, which are currently so popular, for individuals or families.

The reason is that tax rebates are nice for many reasons -- but they do not stimulate the economy. In terms of economic policy, giving every man and woman a check for $500 only increases the deficit. Why? In a word, not all tax cuts are equal.

As Bill Thomas and Alex Brill pointed out in this morning’s WSJ:

… perhaps the easiest "stimulus" package Washington could enact would be to drop money from planes into the hands of voters/consumers. However, the economic evidence from the 2001 experience suggests this is an ineffective tool.

Tax cuts work when they inject much-needed capital into the economy, not when they merely increase consumer spending. The tax cuts that have been shown to stimulate the economy involve employers, not employees:

The 2003 tax cut, which has been shown to have delivered a significant positive economic punch, lowered the tax rate on capital gains and dividends to 15%, accelerated the reduction in tax rates on labor, and offered businesses 50% bonus depreciation to stimulate investment.

In other words, if you really want to stimulate the economy, don't spend $2 on a coffee; instead try spending $1 million on a promising start-up.

We don't mean to minimize the good an extra $500 could mean for a struggling family. But it's important to keep things straight in the often complex discussions about tax policy. That extra $500 might mean lots of things, but it doesn't mean economic stimulus.

Contrary to the buzz on both sides of the political aisle, spending a little more money this weekend will not help the economy.

Bread and Circuses (and Tax Rebates)!

Rebate checks sound great. Return money to the people who earned it, and they’ll spend it. That helps businesses, which benefits their employees:

"Letting Americans keep more of their money should increase consumer spending," Bush said.

Get it? But there’s a catch:

Aids have said Bush does not believe the stimulus spending should be offset — or paid for — by any tax or spending changes elsewhere.

That’s troubling, especially since the Democrats are unlikely to force Republicans to embrace a pay-go scheme. Indeed, it appears that we finally have bipartisan cooperation, albeit in the form of unchecked fiscal irresponsibility:

While Bush focused solely on taxes, Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress have been working on a broader package that also would include a temporary increase in food stamps and an extension of and perhaps increase in unemployment benefits.

Q: If the government increases spending, and simultaneously rebates the tax money that pays for spending – what happens?

A: Deficit!

Worse than a deficit, increasing spending combined with decreasing tax revenue – all during a recession – will have a snowball effect. As the economy worsens the government will spend a larger chunk of GDP, which worsens the economy thus leading to more spending – ad paucitatem.

Extensions and perhaps increases in benefits cost money. That much is certain. The only question is when we’ll pay the bill.

Safe, Legal, and Rarer

The U.S. abortion rate has reached its lowest level in three decades, according to a new report released today.

According to the Guttmacher Institute's press release:

In 2005, the U.S. abortion rate declined to 19.4 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44, continuing the downward trend that started after the abortion rate peaked at 29.3 in 1981 ... The abortion rate is now at its lowest level since 1974.

Rates are not the same as real numbers, but even the numbers decreased:

The number of abortions declined as well, to a total of 1.2 million in 2005, 25% below the all-time high of 1.6 million abortions in 1990.

The report was simply a "descriptive" study of abortions in the United States; there wasn't any speculation about the dynamics underlying the study's findings.

"We don't know why," said study author Rachel Jones, senior research associate at the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit group that focuses on reproductive issues.

Planned Parenthood -- plausibly in our opinion -- suggests that the conscientious use of contraceptives figured largely in these encouraging developments:

This study shows that prevention works ... the best way to continue the downward trend is with policies that expand access to health care and real information.

The pro-abstinence forces will soon chime in with their own explanation. While we doubt that abstinence affected these developments, we wouldn't be surprised if changing attitudes about abortion improved the level of contraceptive use.

We hope this study -- and others like it -- will convince more Americans, from both sides of the abortion debate, to support contraception as the best answer -- to abortion, and to the divisive debate surrounding it.

A Democratic Field Without An Executive

David Broder at the Washington Post discusses the lack of "executive credentials" on the Democratic side, occasioned by Mitt Romney's victory in Michigan.

John Kennedy, Broder points out, was the last sitting sitting senator elected to the presidency.

While Romney, Huckabee, Giuliani, and McCain (the latter commanded the largest squadron in the Navy air wing) have spent time at the top of large organizations, among the Democrats:

the three current and former senators who have survived the shakeout process -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards -- have not a day of chief executive experience behind them.

Indeed, Broder, no ideologue, suggests that

But the very failings [Clinton] and Obama acknowledged earlier in the debate, when apologizing for the words and actions of their supporters that had inflamed racial tensions in the campaign, showed the difference between discussing leadership and practicing it.

Entrepreneurship Takes Off in Ireland

The New York Times has an article on entrepreneurship in Ireland. Money quote:

“The change came in the 1990s ... Taxes and interest rates came down, and all of a sudden we believed in ourselves.”

Fiscal Responsibility: What the GOP can learn from the Dems

The American Prospect doesn't speak for the majority of Democrats. But it does voice many concerns of the party's activist base. As you can imagine, they're not fans of Hillary Clinton. Or even of Obama.

For the editors of the American Prospect, the ideal Democratic nominee "would combine the inspirational qualities of an Obama, the professionalism of a Clinton, the compassion for the poor and middle class of an Edwards, and the ideological nerve of a Dennis Kucinich."

There's not much of a chance -- we hope -- that Clinton or Obama will take the magazine's advice on "economic stimulus." After all, the editors are highly critical of a principle that Clinton particularly has been mentioning in recent debates -- "pay-go."

by embracing pay-as-you-go budget rules (no new spending unless offset either by tax increases or other spending cuts), Democrats have denied themselves the ability to offer robust spending measures that might signal practical help. Pay-go rules are the Blue Dog faction's price for backing the leadership. But the leadership would be wiser to support a truly progressive economic program and forget the Blue Dogs.

Politics aside, if the next president rejected pay-as-you-go budget rules, and pushed for "robust spending measures," the deficit would explode. That would be crazy, and no responsible Democratic candidate would walk down that road.

But the squabbling within the Democratic Party about budget rules is instructive, if only because we haven't heard anything similar from the Republicans. We've heard lots about taxes, which are certainly an important part of the equation. But low taxes and increasing or even steady spending don't equal financial health.

Without serious commitments in the realm of budget rules, the Republicans risk being as irresponsible as the editors at the American Prospect.

The Rebel Takes On The Rebels

McCain stuck to his guns when questioned about his opposition back in 2000 to the Confederate flag's presence over the South Carolina capitol:

McCain said he "could not be more proud of the majority of the people of" South Carolina who agreed the [Confederate] flag should be removed. Although the questioner ... got some scattered applause for his question, McCain's response produced a wave of applause that drowned out further comments from his critic.

On Melancholy

The Chronicle of Higher Education features a piece by Eric Wilson, an English professor at Wake Forest. Wilson calls attention to the cultural effect of melancholy.

Kierkegaard, Van Gogh, Keats, Woolf – those are the names that initially come to our minds when we think of melancholy – and we’re sure there are many others. Would these thinkers and painters and writers have created what they did if they had recourse to Prozac or Paxil or Xanax?

Given these virtues of melancholia, why are psychiatrists and psychologists attempting to "cure" depression as if it were a terrible disease? Obviously, those suffering severe depression — suicidal and bordering on psychosis — require serious medications. But what of those who possess mild to moderate depression? Should these potential visionaries and innovators eradicate their melancholia with the help of a pill?

Wilson’s questions are challenging.

They also raise a deeper question, formulated by Paul Kramer, author of Listening to Prozac: “What sort of art would be meaningful or moving in a society free of depression?”

In a brilliant NYT Magazine article, “There’s Nothing Deep About Depression,” Kramer suggests that most of us, in spite of our self-avowed enlightenment, hold on to the age-old reverence for mental illness. This, he asserts, is regrettable. “Depression is not a perspective. It is a disease.”

But what about creativity?

Kramer acknowledges that “a society free of depression” would have consequences for human creativity. At the very least, he writes,

Freedom from depression would make the world safe for high neurotics, virtuosi of empathy, emotional bungee-jumpers. It would make the world safe for van Gogh.

Safe – but at what cost? That question, of course, assumes that the cultural effects of melancholy are also benefits. Maybe. But that’s a whole other discussion.

Militant in Defense of Moderation

Once upon a time, as a favor to a friend, Peter Berger welcomed us into his home to discuss our career goals. Nothing in terms of jobs came of that meeting. But we left with the impression that Berger was extraordinarily modest for such a brilliant and prolific academic. Modesty and brilliance – if you haven’t spent much time in academe – are rarely found together!

Even Berger’s Questions of Faith: A Skeptical Affirmation of Christianity turns out, despite its title, to be formidable but still rather modest, even traditional (though he might quibble with that description).

All this is meant to set the stage for Peter Berger’s latest essay entitled “The Falsification of Secularization.” His thesis: “Modernity is not intrinsically secularizing, though it has been so in particular cases.”

With a couple notable exceptions, modernity has not undermined religion in the world, nor has it even weakened religion. Religions of all kinds are flourishing in nearly every part of the globe.

Berger asserts that religion isn’t the same as fundamentalism. Rather fundamentalism is a particular kind of mentality found alike among religious and anti-religious people:

there are secularist as well as religious fundamentalists—both unwilling to question their assumptions, militant, aggressive, contemptuous of anyone who differs from them.

All fundamentalists, however, are fanatics, and as such, they are “bad for democracy” because fundamentalism at either end of the spectrum “hinders the moderation and willingness to compromise that make democracy possible.”

What’s the answer to fundamentalism? Militant moderation:

In plain language, fundamentalists are fanatics. And fanatics have a built-in advantage over more moderate people: Fanatics have nothing else to do—they have no life beyond their cause. The rest of us have other interests: family, work, hobbies, vices. Yet we too must be militant in defense of certain core values of our civilization and our political system. It seems to me that a very important task in our time (and probably in any time) is to be militant in defense of moderation—a difficult task but not an impossible one.

I know what you're thinking

Say it ain't so!

Psychologists at Harvard University have developed a new method to study extrasensory perception that, they argue, can resolve the century-old debate over its existence. According to the authors, their study not only illustrates a new method for studying such phenomena, but also provides the strongest evidence yet obtained against the existence of extrasensory perception, or ESP.

Vincent Ferrini, at 94; was Gloucester's 'poet laureate'

"[Vincent] Ferrini, who was known as the poet laureate of Gloucester, died Dec. 24 at Den-Mar Nursing Home in Rockport, where he had lived since last May. His daughter, Sheila of Chelsea, said the cause of death was a heart attack and pneumonia. He was 94."

Soros Donation Paid for Iraq War Study

One of the greatest challenges for educated people is determining the relative weight of polls, statistics, and the like.

We strongly believe that statistical studies shouldn't stand or fall because of funding sources, or the particular beliefs of their authors. Stats are stats. If the methodology is right, then funding and intentions are immaterial.

But when a study is deeply flawed, it's tempting to take a second look at its funders.

According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, the notoriously inflated number of Iraq casualties, published in The Lancet, stemmed from a study underwritten by George Soros:

A controversial 2006 study that estimated 650,000 people had died as a result of the Iraq war was partially paid for by a donation from George Soros’s charitable foundation, reports The Sunday Times, in London. The study, appearing in the medical journal The Lancet, received almost half of its financing from the antiwar billionaire.

The 650,000-casualty figure was substantially higher than other estimates; recent research in The New England Journal of Medicine, for instance, estimates that 151,000 people have died since the invasion. The Lancet study, commissioned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been cited by the antiwar movement and denounced by the Bush Administration.

While The Lancet did not break any rules in accepting the donation from Mr. Soros’s Open Society Institute, the study’s lead researcher, Les Roberts, remarked, “In retrospect, it was probably unwise to have taken money that could have looked like it would result in a political slant. I am adamant this could not have affected the outcome of the research.”

We have no reason to think that Soros' funding had anything to do with the study's inflated numbers. But this case should make organizations think twice before accepting money that could ultimately do them more harm than good.

In our media-saturated world, perception is everything.

Why isn't legalized prostitution more popular?

Tyler Cowen has a link to the abstract of an interesting paper that asks: Given its benefits, why isn't legalized prostitution more popular in Nevada?

An in-depth look at the legal brothel regime reveals that while the system is preferable, it is stunted by unequal bargaining power between the prostitutes and brothel owners owing to collusive arrangements with local sheriffs. But since a regulated brothel system, with all its faults, provides a safer environment for prostitutes and their customers than prohibition while maintaining a sufficient barrier between the prostitution activity and the community to ameliorate citizen complaints, I ask why this system is not in use in other jurisdictions, specifically Las Vegas, Nevada. Using public-choice analysis, the paper concludes that lower employment costs for casino and hotel owners due to kick backs received by hotel employees from prostitutes and their customers, the interests of rural governments to maximize revenues from tourism generated by brothels, and the interest of Las Vegas legislators to portray the town as family-friendly maintains the status quo of illegality.

Here is much more.

"the true intent and meaning of the donor"

Massachusetts, we're told, operates under the oldest continuously functioning written constitution in the world. That seems like an awfully nuanced honor, but even so it's remarkable.

The document, which went into effect in 1780, includes this curious clause:

all the said gifts, grants, devises, legacies and conveyances, are hereby forever confirmed unto the president and fellows of Harvard College, and to their successors in the capacity aforesaid, according to the true intent and meaning of the donor or donors, grantor or grantors, devisor or devisors.

Besides confirming John Silber's worst fears that Harvard really is Boston's university, the stipulation seems anachronistic, even superfluous. Why does the "true intent and meaning" of a bequest require constitutional protection?

Common sense aside, the authors -- which included the notoriously pessimistic John Adams -- have proved themselves prescient.

It's not uncommon for institutions to ignore a donor's intentions once memory of her begins to fade. There's the current case of the Robertson Foundation at Princeton. And one only needs to compare the activities of Rockefeller and Ford to see how they jive with their founders' own activties. And there are dozens of other cases across the country.

In Massachusetts, the Globe recently broke the story that Harvard was negotiating a sale of the Harvard Forest. The 99 acres of forest in Hamilton were left to the University by Nathan Matthews, a former mayor of Boston, in his 1927 will.

According to reports, Harvard intended to sell the land to the Trustees of Reservations, a venerable conservation group. To finance the deal, however, the Trustees would have had to sell a portion of the forest to commercial developers.

For now, thankfully, it looks like Harvard's plans have been foiled by John Adams' constitution. As the Suffolk County Register of Probate put it:

"In order to have [the will] revoked, you have to have good cause. I can't answer for Harvard, but what's their good cause? They don't have money to maintain it?"

Boston, you're my town

The Party of the Rich

According to conventional wisdom, the Republican Party represents the country’s wealthiest citizens. This explains the widespread perception that the GOP – in terms of the current debate – favors Wall Street’s interests over Main Street’s.

It’s open to discussion whether Wall Street’s interests – first and foremost presumably a strong economy – are really opposed to Main Street’s. But the relative wealth of Republicans and Democrats is an interesting question.

Does the GOP really represent the richest Americans?

A recent study came to this conclusion:

…the likelihood of electing a Democrat to the House is very closely correlated with how many wealthy households are in that district.

In November 2007, London’s Financial Times cited the same study about congressional representation and relative wealth:

Using Internal Revenue Service data, the Heritage Foundation identified two categories of taxpayers - single filers with incomes of more than $100,000 and married filers with incomes of more than $200,000 - and combined them to discern where the wealthiest Americans live and who represents them.

The Heritage Foundation is a nonpartisan but conservative think-tank. Even so, their analysis of the IRS data showed that Democrats largely represent the richest districts:

Democrats now control the majority of the nation's wealthiest congressional jurisdictions. More than half of the wealthiest households are concentrated in the 18 states where Democrats control both Senate seats.

The likelihood of Democrats representing the richest districts applies even to so-called red states:

Democratic politicians prosper in areas of concentrated wealth even in staunchly Republican states such as Georgia, Kansas and Utah. Liberal congressman John Lewis represents more than 27,500 high-income households in his Atlanta district. The trend achieves perfect symmetry in Iowa. There, the three wealthiest districts send Democrats to Washington; the two poorest are safe Republican seats.

A related article in The Washington Times gives an overview of the general situation in the House with respect to the country’s richest districts:

…in a broader measurement, the study also showed that of the 167 House districts where the median annual income was higher than the national median of $48,201, a slight majority, 84 districts, were represented by Democrats. Median means that half of all income earners make more than that level and half make less.

Interestingly, the reddest of the red Republicans are not from rich districts:

Mr. Franc's study also showed that contrary to the Democrats' tendency to define Republicans as the party of the rich, "the vast majority of unabashed conservative House members hail from profoundly middle-class districts."

Ad Hoc Politics: Taking the Good with the Bad

Joseph Bottum of First Things writes:

I can’t remember Ms. magazine receiving this much attention since about 1978, but the magazine is back in the news—this time for turning down an ad from the American Jewish Congress.

You can see the pro-woman ad here. It shows photographs of Tzipi Livni (Israel’s foreign minister), Dorit Beinish (Supreme Court), and Dalia Itzik (speaker of the Knesset). Underneath the photos, the ad declares: “This is Israel.”

According to the AJC, Ms. magazine explained that the ad was too controversial and “will set off a firestorm,” merely for daring to say anything positive about Israel. Not that it really needed any more proof, but here’s one more bit that shows the old-line feminist organizations aren’t really about women. They’re wholly owned subsidiaries of the left—and if the left rejects Israel, then Ms. magazine must reject Israel’s women.

Lest you think that Bottum’s comments above are an indictment of feminism itself, we feel compelled to point out that Bottum aims his criticism at what he calls “old-line feminist organizations” – presumably groups like the National Organization for Women (NOW) and vehicles like Gloria Steinem’s Ms. magazine.

There’s a problem, Bottum seems to be saying, when one of the most distinguished venues for feminist commentary refuses to support some women because editors and readers don’t like the political state in which the women live – in this case Israel.

The challenge for all self-described nonpartisan, ad hoc movements is to focus on one’s cause (e.g., feminism) to the exclusion of other issues one might also feel strongly about (e.g., the plight of Palestinians).

There’s nothing wrong with criticizing Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians. But there is something wrong when a magazine, whose raison d’etre is the well-being of women, compromises its support of Israeli women because Israel happens to be (at best) unpopular in influential circles on the left -- and not for any reasons related to feminism.

When you're engaged in an ad hoc struggle your integrity sometimes requires taking the good with the bad.

Patrick's Defence of the Underground Economy

Regarding the Governor’s plan to subsidize college tuition for illegal immigrants:

One estimate says it would cost Massachusetts about $15 million to provide the tuition cut. But the governor's office highlighted a Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation report from 2006 that said it would generate $2.5 million in revenue…

Amazing. The Governor’s Office is justifying this program, at least in part, by saying it will benefit the state’s coffers.

Recap: The Governor will direct state revenue to cover tuition for illegal immigrants, who will then contribute more to the economy, and have little or no protection under the law.

In a word, the Governor is effectually calling for a class of skilled slaves.

Patrick eyes new route to tuition break for illegal immigrants

The Globe reports:

"Gov. Deval Patrick said Thursday he's looking into whether he can skirt the Legislature by unilaterally allowing illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at state colleges."

Take note: Patrick isn't talking about American-born children of illegal immigrants, but outright illegal immigrants.

While we strongly disagree with the jingoism of Lou Dobbs & Co., and recoil at any talk of mass deportations for otherwise law-abiding illegal aliens, Patrick’s proposal nevertheless strikes us as ridiculous.

We very much prefer realistic plans to manage illegal immigration, like those of Ted Kennedy, George W. Bush and John McCain. This asinine plan, however, which Governor Patrick's staffers are researching, is exactly the kind of thing that encourages the average voter to give xenophobes like Tom Tancredo a second hearing. (Chauvinistic rhetoric also gave Romney a boost in New Hampshire.)

Perhaps Governor Patrick and his lackeys should consider opening a state college in Guadalajara or Tijuana. After all, that makes as much sense -- legal and otherwise -- as bypassing the Legislature to force Massachusetts taxpayers to subsidize a privilege the majority of legal residents have never enjoyed.

"a way better sermon than they'll ever hear at church"

The dissent of the day at Andrew Sullivan's blog:

when people read articles on Obama, including [Andrew Sullivan's] very well-written one in The Atlantic, what type of info do they get? Soaring prose on how Obama's "face" will change the world, how inspiring he is, how he will "bring us together" in some vague, unquantifiable way. I've got to say --- his advocates aren't doing him any favors with lightweight defenses of him.

We've been waiting for somebody to let some of the air out of the balloon that Sullivan's blog has become.

Only in America

Wisdom from the doyen of Modern Orthodoxy, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik:

[Many religious people today] act like children and experience religion like children. This is why they accept all types of fanaticism and superstition. Sometimes they are even ready to do things that border on the immoral. They lack the experiential component of religion, and simply substitute obscurantism for it....

I come from the ghetto. Yet I have never seen so much naïve and uncritical commitment to people and ideas as I see in America....

All extremism, fanaticism and obscurantism come from a lack of security. A person who is secure cannot be an extremist."

The Audacity of Mush

Reason's Jesse Walker has some sobering thoughts about Obama's post-partisan rhetoric, which Walker admits finding "empty and cloying" at times:

The true alternative to the culture war is not to declare that we are, as one book put it, "one nation, after all." It is to recognize the near-infinite number of shades beyond red and blue: the authentic, sometimes eccentric combinations of opinions that emerge from people not named Hannity or Colmes.

Need more reasons?

Rick Santorum offers more reasons to like McCain:

And then on the issue of, on social conservative issues, you point to me one time John McCain every took the floor of the United States Senate to talk about a social conservative issue. It never happened. I mean, this is a guy who says he believes in these things, but I can tell you, inside the room, when we were in these meetings, there was nobody who fought harder not to have these votes before the United States Senate on some of the most important social conservative issues, whether it's marriage or abortion or the like. He always fought against us to even bring them up, because he was uncomfortable voting for them.

We like to call this kind of statement a "backwards-lefty endorsement."

On Liberal Education: Plus Ça Change

On the First Things website, Creighton’s RR Reno shares his thoughts on Harvard’s Final Report of the Task Force on General Education.

In a word, Reno isn’t impressed.

Students liberally educated a la Harvard, Reno concludes, are prepared only for living in “an intellectual and moral banana republic.”

He quotes from the report:

“The aim of a liberal education is to unsettle presumptions, to defamiliarize the familiar, to reveal what is going on beneath and behind appearances, to disorient young people.”

This, Reno asserts, represents “the dominant view of contemporary academia.” As advocates of the Great Books approach to liberal education, which differs markedly from Harvard’s curriculum, we nevertheless feel obliged to point out that this “view” is not new. The statement above succinctly describes Socrates’ dealings with the young men of Athens.

Reno seems to lament the fact that in the report “there is a nod toward the objectivity of scientific knowledge,” while in other areas “the emphasis falls on the therapy of critique.” Since he approvingly mentions the “objectivity” accorded the sciences several times, we got the impression that he would like it extended to the humanities as well.

This is unfortunate. We share his concerns about the discrepancy between how the report respectively views the sciences and humanities. But instead of “objectivity” we would prefer a more historical, even critical approach to the sciences, too.

(The public debate between “creationists” and Darwinists only underlines the need for historical perspective in understanding the sciences. Such bogus debates obscure the real challenges presented by scientific theories.

In the case of evolution, for example, the challenge posed has little to do with Genesis and whether the universe was created in six days or not. Evolution calls into question the metaphysical status of “species.” If biological differences are incidental, they cast doubt on the concept of nature, and particularly human nature. That is a real problem worth wrestling with. Not whether Adam had a belly button.

But back to Reno.)

What’s wrong with bringing a critical attitude to the humanities? Reno says dismissively:

the emphasis falls on becoming aware of hidden assumptions, learning how to live with people whose “value systems” differ, and acquiring the critical detachment necessary for students to “choose for themselves what principles will guide them.”

This kind of heavy critique, according to Reno, amounts to a “postmodern” version of liberal education. Instead of teaching the student that she’s “a rational animal,” the aim is now:

knowing one’s self as a cultural animal, as a product of the machinery of meaning that constantly operates in the background of art, literature, philosophy, and religion.

To know one’s self as a “cultural animal,” we submit, is another way of saying “I know that I know nothing.” In both cases, the student comes to the realization that up till now she has unthinkingly received her opinions and desires – her very identity – from the outside.

Reno considers this a negative realization. And indeed it is. It’s the via negativa of knowledge. Only after the student has seriously called her identity and life-world into question can she enter the positive phase of her education. That’s what Socrates calls “the examined life.”

(It's worth noting that this negativity is also a positivity. Mired in culture or ignorance, the awakened student nevertheless transcends culture and ignorance.)

There are many reasons to quibble with Harvard’s curriculum. Harvard’s aim, however, to unsettle presumptions, etc., isn’t one of them.

Reno doesn’t mention the place of religious faith and practice in liberal education, but we suspect that’s his real problem with Harvard’s program – and Socrates’ as well.

Kerry for Obama

From Politico:

Kerry's endorsement message will focus on Obama's ability to bring the country transformational change, the sources said.

Transformational change? (Is there any other kind?)

We're starting to get sick of this vacuous talk of "transformational change" and post-partisan politics. Whatever. Obama is reminding us more of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers than a candidate for leadership of the free world.

What's going to happen when he finally has to discuss policies with a Republican in a national debate? How does he envision himself dropping the Clinton legacy and seriously appealing to moderate and conservative voters?

It's the policies, stupid.

The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy and Academe

Over at the Chronicle of Higher Education, Russell Jacoby reviews the last 20 years since he chided his peers for academic insularity. Nothing, he says, has changed.

Academics have continued the retreat into "specialized and cloistered environments."

This is good news for conservatives, Jacoby notes in closing:

Yet let us accept, for the moment, the argument that humanities departments house more leftists than Home Depot or the police department. ... If so, society has successfully insulated [academics]. They inhabit a protected environment where they can neither harm each other nor reach outsiders. As academic intellectuals subvert paradigms and deconstruct narratives in campus symposia, conservatives take over the nation. Brilliant!

Evangelicals and McCain

The Family Research Council reports a curious stat from the primary results:

What was interesting was that the evangelical vote [in New Hampshire] was almost evenly divided among John McCain (28%), Mitt Romney (27%) and Huckabee (28%).

We don't know how reliable their data are, but since FRC probably isn't happy about it, it must be pretty good. There's hope!

Why Hillary Won

Karl Rove observes:

Sen. Hillary Clinton won working-class neighborhoods and less-affluent rural areas. Sen. Barack Obama won the college towns and the gentrified neighborhoods of more affluent communities.

Education and Totem Politics in Massachusetts

Today we’re going to coin a new phrase – “totem politics.”

Totem politics describes symbolic but futile gestures made by politicians. These gestures are meant to satisfy the need for somebody to “do something,” yet without actually doing anything. Totem politics make politicians look good, and the rest of us feel good. But they accomplish nothing.

For example: Gov. Patrick plans to create a "cabinet-level education secretary, as part of an effort to make education a top issue for 2008," the Globe reported yesterday.

It’s hard to see how creating a new secretariat will make education a “top issue” in 2008 or any other year. Was it not a top issue in 2007? Does it take a new government agency to render something a “top issue”? That's "totem politics."

Christopher Anderson, who currently serves on the Board of Education, questions the usefulness of new layers of bureaucracy:

"Absent any clear and substantive challenge that is being presented by the size of [the Board of Education] I don't see any justification at this point in time for adding to its size…

“I'm not quite sure you need to change the underlying statutory authority among any of these three [existing education] boards to a single individual who now is completely politically appointed."

"small-minded populism"

Dick Armey:

Allowing Mike Huckabee to become the face of conservatism would trade unity and principle for an ill-advised romance with a flighty, flaky new brand of politics.

"Obamamania"

Novak and Carney on the Dems in New Hampshire:

"Obamamania" reigns supreme -- generating enthusiasm not seen since the 1968 campaign of Robert F. Kennedy. He attracts new voters and generates support across ideological and party lines. In truth, he worries Republicans sick, but for now, he threatens the long, slowly built Clinton campaign.

Ron Paul signing one of Log Cabin's "Liberty For All" posters in New Hampshire over the weekend.

Freedom's just another word for... stress?

The Guardian's Madeline Bunting reviews Oliver James' The Selfish Capitalist: The Origins of Affluenza. It’s all quite interesting. In a nutshell:

Capitalism brings prosperity. But prosperity comes with a price – namely, stress and anxiety.

our emotional malaise is not an accidental byproduct of market capitalism, but a direct result of increased competitiveness and the way that it exploits our insecurities.

James then declares that "mental well-being is a public health issue." As such, the government should deracinate the sundry causes of stress and anxiety. Which is to say, the government should make free markets, well, less free.

This is one of the more ingenious anti-capitalism arguments we’ve heard since the demise of Marxist economics. It’s remarkable because there’s no disagreement about whether capitalism improves the material lot of humankind. The problem, according to the author, lies precisely in the fact that capitalism succeeds in bringing about prosperity.

In the old days the right and the left both agreed on the destination (material well-being), but argued about how best to get there. But things have certainly changed when the left has taken up the cause of scarcity and impoverishment.

Bunting chides James, though, for not following through on a couple loose ends. For example, why does capitalism continue to take root around the world? Why do voters continue to elect politicians who support free markets? Why do people favor psychiatry to deal with their mental health problems rather than call for revolution?

Perhaps James is too honest a thinker to pretend that freedom is worth giving up to avoid stress and anxiety. Come to think of it, perhaps that's the reason why more and more of the world doesn't surrender their freedom as well.