Posted by Ilya Somin:
Law and Economics Training for Religious Leaders:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_09_23-2007_09_29.shtml#1190538420
My undergraduate classmate and University of Missouri antitrust
scholar [1]Danny Sokol suggests that rabbis who preach on public
policy issues could benefit from training in law and economics:
Jews around the world have taken tikun olam [the religious duty to
"repair" and improve the world] to heart and historically we have
been at the forefront of social movements far disproportionate to
our small numbers . . . I think about this in part because as
someone teaching a law and economics course semester, I think back
to one of the founders of the law and economics movement - Henry
Manne [ed. note: Manne is a former Dean of George Mason Law
School]. One of Manne's many great accomplishments was to introduce
law and economics to a wider audience of law professors and
practitioners. It seems to me, based on years of hearing sermons
from various Rabbis, that the Rabbinate in general could use some
law and economics training. Most sermons lack any semblance of
understanding of economics, particularly those that address issues
of tikun olam. I would love for Manne to come out of his Florida
retirement to conduct law and economics workshops for clergy. Law
and economics training could help Rabbis to understand how economic
incentives work and how these incentives help to shape law and
policy and vice versa...
In August, Notre Dame professor and Catholic legal theorist Rick
Garnett [2]made a related point in criticizing Pope Benedict XVI's
apparent plan to issue an encyclical condemning tax evasion for
denying revenue needed by "society as a whole" and contributing budget
deficits, while ignoring the much greater comparable effects of
excessive and wasteful government spending.
More generally, it seems to me that many religious leaders who
pronounce on public policy tend to reflexively favor increasing the
role of government with little consideration of ways in which the
interventions they favor might have perverse results, or ways in which
social problems can be solved by reducing the role of the state.
Left-wing clergy seek to increase the role of government in fighting
poverty, discrimination, and the like, while right-wing ones tend to
focus their political energies on promoting "morals" regulation. This
may well be painting with too broad a brush, and I'm sure there are
religious leaders who are exceptions to this generalization.
Nonetheless, it seems to me true as a general pattern (though I
welcome correction by anyone who has compiled systematic data).
Learning basic law and economics won't necessarily turn religious
leaders into libertarians. But it might give them a greater
appreciation for markets, and engender at least a modest skepticism
towards government. There are, to be sure, many clergy who don't make
a practice of preaching on public policy issues. Danny's argument (or
at least mine) doesn't apply to them. But it surely does apply to the
many who do.
By the way, I have no doubt that the public policy pronouncements of
leaders of atheist organizations often display just as little
knowledge of economics as those of clergy. However, few people will
defer to the public policy views of atheist spokesmen merely because
of their status as leaders of atheist organizations. By contrast, many
religious people do take seriously the public policy pronouncements of
their clergy, especially when those pronouncements are linked to
religious duties such as Tikkun Olam.
References
1.
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/antitrustprof_blog/2007/09/yom-kipur-antit
2. http://www.mirrorofjustice.com/mirrorofjustice/2007/08/pope-to-condemn.htm
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