RE: [Forum] Quoth who?
Whenever a government creates a body to regulate a trade for the benefit of the people, the trade gains control of the body for the benefit of the trade at the expense of the people. Sorry for no help in the particular, but I remember a paper I wrote 20 years ago making this point, and almost using those words. Let me here describe the individual mechanism (as I recall): The new gov't body has a head regulator. He's new, he's important in DC. Maybe he gets wined and dined by the politicians, he certainly gets noticed by the politicians, and the news folk. For about a week. Then the news is covering something else, the politicians have other crusades. The few, low paid pro-consumer lobbyists are glad HE's responsible, and trust him to do a good job. Which he's trying to do. Of course, he HAS to talk with representatives of the regulated industry, to get basic info. He makes a lunch appointment with the enemy. But they're SO NICE!!! They buy him lunch, they are polite, they are RESPECTFUL. They care what he says, and agree he has good points. Plus, if he's not sure of some basic data, they usually have the data, and provide it. They mostly agree with all his principles, but on just this one detail, they want the regulatory phrasing to be just a little different, since it gets virtually all the benefits at less cost, saving jobs, etc. And nobody else knows or really cares about THAT detail, certainly not at the detailed level of the highly specialized experts, in the trade industry the regulatory body. And of course, the top politically appointed regulator prolly won't be a regulator FOR EVER, but his detailed, expert knowledge of the industry, and its regulations, will SURELY make him very valuable to a future employee. ... The point is not so much that the trade gains control of the body, (true), but that the body is seduced by the only serious suitor -- the trade. How could it be otherwise? (I believed it true then, have been libertarian since; and believe it now, too.) Tom Grey
Re: [Forum] Quoth who?
The idea, called regulatory capture is associated with George Stigler. Posner's paper Theories of Economic Regulation, Richard Posner, Bell Journal of Economics and management science, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 335-358, 1974. brought the idea ought very clearly as I recall but I am not aware of that quote in either. Alex -- Alexander Tabarrok Department of Economics, MSN 1D3 George Mason University Fairfax, VA, 22030 Tel. 703-993-2314 Web Page: http://mason.gmu.edu/~atabarro/ and Director of Research The Independent Institute 100 Swan Way Oakland, CA, 94621 Tel. 510-632-1366
RE: Rational Paranoia? A strange idea...
What is paranoia? The typical example is the leftist who believes that the FBI is out to get them, or is behind every wrong in the world. Fabio The former is paranoia; the latter is not. The latter is a conspiracy proposition. Unusual beliefs are paranoid if they do not permit an individual to cooperate with most others in a game of imperfect information. That does not capture the meaning of paranoid, since others could fit that also, and it seems to me that paranoid people might well be willing to cooperate; they just have different assumptions about social reality. It seems to me that paranoia is a belief, not a behavior. It can lead to particular behaviors, but paranoia by itself is not sufficient to cause any particular behavior. Fred Foldvary = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Forum] Quoth who?
Posner's article on economic regulation distinguished it from social regulation, which is still a separate and largely unexplained phenomenon. See Jonathan Wiener "On the Political Economy of Global Environmental Regulation", Georgetown Law Journal, Vol. 87, #3 (February 1999). Alex Tabarrok wrote: > > >The idea, called "regulatory capture" is associated with George >Stigler. Posner's paper "Theories of Economic Regulation," Richard >Posner, Bell Journal of Economics and management science, Vol. 5, No. 2, >pp. >335-358, 1974. brought the idea ought very clearly as I recall but I am >not aware of that quote in either. > >Alex > -- Alexander Tabarrok Department of Economics, MSN 1D3 George Mason University Fairfax, VA, 22030 Tel. 703-993-2314 Web Page: http://mason.gmu.edu/~atabarro/ and Director of Research The Independent Institute 100 Swan Way Oakland, CA, 94621 Tel. 510-632-1366
RE: [Forum] Quoth who?
I remember seeing the quote recently, just don't remember where. I'm tempted to think H.L. Mencken for some reason, though. Also just reread Crisis and Leviathan and suspect it might be from there if it's not Mencken. Daniel L. Lurker Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand. World Controller Mustapha, Brave New World -Aldous Huxley - Original Message - From: Grey Thomas [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Thursday, May 29, 2003 10:06 am Subject: RE: [Forum] Quoth who? Whenever a government creates a body to regulate a trade for the benefit of the people, the trade gains control of the body for the benefit of the trade at the expense of the people. Sorry for no help in the particular, but I remember a paper I wrote 20 years ago making this point, and almost using those words. Let me here describe the individual mechanism (as I recall): The new gov't body has a head regulator. He's new, he's important in DC. Maybe he gets wined and dined by the politicians, he certainly gets noticed by the politicians, and the news folk. For about a week. Then the news is covering something else, the politicians have other crusades. The few, low paid pro-consumer lobbyists are glad HE's responsible, and trust him to do a good job. Which he's trying to do. Of course, he HAS to talk with representatives of the regulated industry, to get basic info. He makes a lunch appointment with the enemy. But they're SO NICE!!! They buy him lunch, they are polite, they are RESPECTFUL. They care what he says, and agree he has good points. Plus, if he's not sure of some basic data, they usually have the data, and provide it. They mostly agree with all his principles, but on just this one detail, they want the regulatory phrasing to be just a little different, since it gets virtually all the benefits at less cost, saving jobs, etc. And nobody else knows or really cares about THAT detail, certainly not at the detailed level of the highly specialized experts, in the trade industry the regulatory body. And of course, the top politically appointed regulator prolly won't be a regulator FOR EVER, but his detailed, expert knowledge of the industry, and its regulations, will SURELY make him very valuable to a future employee. ... The point is not so much that the trade gains control of the body, (true), but that the body is seduced by the only serious suitor -- the trade. How could it be otherwise? (I believed it true then, have been libertarian since; and believe it now, too.) Tom Grey
Re: Rational Paranoia? A strange idea...
Fabio: What is paranoia? The typical example is the leftist who believes that the FBI is out to get them, or is behind every wrong in the world. Fred Foldvary wrote: The former is paranoia; the latter is not. Because it's true? The latter is a conspiracy proposition. Oops. ;P Paranoia, it seems to me, is (at least in part) a hypersensitivity to patterns. We are pattern-finding machines; surely we've all had the experience of seeing a random arrangement of leaves as a face. Now imagine cranking up the sensitivity, or equivalently weakening the filters. Everything that happens around you seems to be related, but nobody will admit to seeing the obvious. This idea came to me in ~1993 when I used to get phone calls from a libertarian in England who wanted to apply for US asylum because people were trying to get him to take his pills again. He would pour a flood of curious details about the murder of JonBenet Ramsey and ghod knows what else, and expected me to understand what it all meant. (I saw Dianne Feinstein's face in the WTC smoke, but never mind that.) -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
Re: Personal vs. Political Culture: The Other Box
Now Pete Boettke asked me if there are any peoples with the opposite combination: bad personal culture, good political culture. The best Prof. Bryan Caplan Note that insistence on free markets, limited gov't, democracy, etc. is a pretty recent phenomena - so one should find few examples of *any* group that has good political culture. Fabio
RE: Personal vs. Political Culture
Actually, these scientists are lumping together many more things than you described, Dr. Caplan. You're too easy on them. Culture includes every socially transmitted behavior pattern or other memes. To talk simply about the culture of a people (as if they share a hive-mind over space and time) is nothing more than doublespeak. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, this sort of talk seems to dominate in social sciences. Puritans would also be another good example to go along with the Jews: strong Protestant work ethic, horrible totalitarian/egalitarian politics. Though in both cases it doesn't seem surprising - Judeo-Christian values are a mix of hard work and egalitarianism. Most peoples tend to value and emphasize these things. Concerning the Irish: all the good economic policies have come about in the past 20 years or so, before that there were horrible problems with socialism/Keynesianism ruling the day. In Northern Ireland you can still see that sort of idiotic political behavior. I suppose, though, after centuries of fighting Imperial rule, a love for freedom should be part of the Irish political culture, if such a thing exists. About their personal culture, though - look at the success of the Irish immigrants in America. The Irish work ethic tends to be quite strong - almost all cultures value hard work and education. I guess the idea of a lazy, lecherous, amoral, drunken culture never caught on since, until recently, most people had to work all day just to survive. Attitudes about a particular thing in personal culture are reflected in political culture, but it is almost always a mixture, sometimes for reasons I can't figure out. For instance, Americans rightly shun socialism but mistakenly embrace protectionism and regulation. But it makes sense to me that some values may be greater than others: the value the Jews have for wealth and freedom may be secondary to (as in Israel's case) a greater value for security, peace, egalitarianism, and national identity. Finally, what is a political culture anyway? I understand it as you define it, but we need to remember that the political values of a people - and what sort of government they like - change much easier than their personal values about things like work, charity, freedom, authority, etc. In general, a people is not defined by their attitudes toward economic policy. For this reason, I think you will have a difficult time answering your question (the same reason the Irish thing doesn't stand - which Irish political culture are you talking about? 1990s, 1970s, 1850s? The personal culture hasn't changed much, but the politics have.) America may be the only nation today to have a political culture so to speak: America is based on political ideals, not national identity. Even then, political attitudes in America have changed dramatically in the past 10 generations. It is interesting to see how personal attitudes are manifested in politics, but to talk of personal and political cultures of a particular people as if they were the completely different or completely the same doesn't make sense. For this reason, your political, personal framework is not useful. Rather, it seems better to talk about attitudes a people has about a particular thing, like authority or freedom, and then see what the implications are under different political systems, in different time periods, under different economic conditions, etc. Leave the word culture to the sociologists. - Z Gochenour -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bryan Caplan Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2003 15:20 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Personal vs. Political Culture: The Other Box Most economists and political scientists who talk about culture annoy me by lumping together two different things. The first is political culture - cultural attitudes about which government policies are good, efficient, etc. The second is personal culture - cultural attitudes about work, education, sobriety, family, etc. It is often the case that, at least from the standpoint of economic achievement, a people has a great personal culture but a bad political culture. The Jews are my favorite example: great work ethic, strong emphasis on education, etc. that allow them to prosper given decent economic policies, combined with deep-rooted support for socialism and antipathy to free markets. Thus, Jews are more prosperous in the U.S. where they are a tiny minority, than in Israel where the median voter is Jewish. Now Pete Boettke asked me if there are any peoples with the opposite combination: bad personal culture, good political culture. The best example I've come up with so far is the Irish, who at least lately have adopted relatively sound economic policies, but still appear to have stereotypical problems of alcoholism and the like. Has anyone got better examples? -- Prof. Bryan Caplan Department
