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321. The Resurgence of Big Government

Author:
Yaron Brook
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Following the economic disasters of the 1960s and 1970s, brought on by the statist policies of the political left, America seemed to change course. Commentators called the shift the "swing to the right"-that is, toward capitalism. From about 1980 to 2000, a new attitude took hold: the idea that government should be smaller, that recessions are best dealt with through tax cuts and deregulation, that markets work pretty effectively, and that many existing government interventions are doing more harm than good. President Bill Clinton found it necessary to declare, "The era of big government is over." Today that attitude has virtually vanished from the public stage. We are now witnessing a swing back to the left-toward statism. As a wave of recent articles have proclaimed: The era of big government is back. The evidence is hard to miss. Consider our current housing and credit crisis. From day one, it was blamed on the market and a lack of oversight by regulators who were said to be "asleep at the wheel." In response to the crisis, the government, the policy analysts, the media, and the American people demanded action, and everyone understood this to mean more government, more regulation, more controls. We got our wish. First came the Fed's panicked slashing of interest rates. Then the bailout of Bear Stearns. Then the bailout of Freddie Mac. Then a $300 billion mortgage bill, which passed by a substantial margin and was signed into law by President Bush. No doubt more is to come. All of this intervention, of course, is supported by our presidential candidates. Both blame Wall Street for the current problems and vow to increase the power of the Fed's and the SEC's financial regulators. John McCain has announced that there are "some greedy people on Wall Street that perhaps need to be punished." Both he and Barack Obama envision an ever-growing role for government in the marketplace, each promises to raise taxes in some form or another, and both support more regulations, particularly on Wall Street. Few doubt they will keep these promises. What do Americans think of all this? A recent poll by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News found that 53 percent of Americans want the government to "do more to solve problems." Twelve years earlier, Americans said they opposed government interference by a 2-to-1 margin. In fact, our government has been "doing more" throughout this decade. While President Bush has paid lip service to freer markets, his administration has engineered a vast increase in the size and reach of government. He gave us Sarbanes-Oxley, the largest expansion of business regulation in decades. He gave us the Medicare prescription drug benefit, the largest new entitlement program in thirty years. He gave us the "No Child Left Behind Act," the largest expansion of the federal government in education since 1979. This is to say nothing of the orgy of spending over which he has presided: His 2009 budget stands at more than $3 trillion-an increase of more than a $1 trillion since he took office. All of this led one conservative columnist to label Bush "a big government conservative." It was not meant as a criticism. Americans entered the 21st century enjoying the greatest prosperity in mankind's history. And many agreed that this prosperity was mainly the result of freeing markets from government intervention, not only in America, but also around the world. Yet today, virtually everyone agrees that markets have failed. Why? What happened? To identify the cause of today's swing to the left, we need first to understand the cause and consequences of the swing to the right.
Topic:
Education and Government
Political Geography:
America

322. The Mystical Ethics of the New Atheists

Author:
Alan Germani
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Examines the moral ideas of Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Richard Dawkins, exposes some curious truths about their ethics, and provides sound advice for theists and atheists alike who wish to discover and uphold a rational, secular morality.
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Middle East

323. Mandatory Health Insurance: Wrong for Massachusetts, Wrong for America

Author:
Paul Hsieh
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Identifies the theory behind the Massachusetts mandatory health insurance program, exposes the program as a fiasco, explains why the theory had to fail in practice, and sheds light on the only genuine, rights-respecting means to affordable, accessible health care for Americans.
Topic:
Government and Health
Political Geography:
America

324. Deeper Than Kelo: The Roots of the Property Rights Crisis

Author:
Eric Daniels
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
On June 23, 2005, the United States Supreme Court's acquiescence in a municipal government's use of eminent domain to advance "economic development" goals sent shockwaves across the country. When the Court announced its decision in Kelo v. City of New London, average homeowners realized that their houses could be condemned, seized, and handed over to other private parties. They wanted to know what had gone wrong, why the Constitution and Fifth Amendment had failed to protect their property rights. The crux of the decision, and the source of so much indignation, was the majority opinion of Justice John Paul Stevens, which contended that "economic development" was such a "traditional and long accepted function of government" that it fell under the rubric of "public use." If a municipality or state determined, through a "carefully considered" planning process, that taking land from one owner and giving it to another would lead to increased tax revenue, job growth, and the revitalization of depressed urban areas, the Court would allow it. If the government had to condemn private homes to meet "the diverse and always evolving needs of society," Stevens wrote, so be it. The reaction to the Kelo decision was swift and widespread. Surveys showed that 80 to 90 percent of Americans opposed the decision. Politicians from both parties spoke out against it. Such strange bedfellows as Rush Limbaugh and Ralph Nader were united in their opposition to the Court's ruling. Legislatures in more than forty states proposed and most then passed eminent domain "reforms." In the 2006 elections, nearly one dozen states considered anti-Kelo ballot initiatives, and ten such measures passed. On the one-year anniversary of the decision, President Bush issued an executive order that barred federal agencies from using eminent domain to take property for economic development purposes (even though the primary use of eminent domain is by state and local agencies). The "backlash" against the Court's Kelo decision continues today by way of reform efforts in California and other states. Public outcry notwithstanding, the Kelo decision did not represent a substantial worsening of the state of property rights in America. Rather, the Kelo decision reaffirmed decades of precedent-precedent unfortunately rooted in the origins of the American system. Nor is eminent domain the only threat to property rights in America. Even if the federal and state governments abolished eminent domain tomorrow, property rights would still be insecure, because the cause of the problem is more fundamental than law or politics. In order to identify the fundamental cause of the property rights crisis, we must observe how the American legal and political system has treated property rights over the course of the past two centuries and take note of the ideas offered in support of their rulings and regulations. In so doing, we will see that the assault on property rights in America is the result of a long chain of historical precedent moored in widespread acceptance of a particular moral philosophy.Property, Principle, and Precedent In the Revolutionary era, America's Founding Fathers argued that respect for property rights formed the very foundation of good government. For instance, Arthur Lee, a Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress, wrote that "the right of property is the guardian of every other right, and to deprive a people of this, is in fact to deprive them of their liberty." In a 1792 essay on property published in the National Gazette, James Madison expressed the importance of property to the founding generation. "Government is instituted to protect property of every sort," he explained, "this being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own." Despite this prevalent attitude-along with the strong protections for property contained in the United States Constitution's contracts clause, ex post facto clause, and the prohibition of state interference with currency-the founders accepted the idea that the power of eminent domain, the power to forcibly wrest property from private individuals, was a legitimate power of sovereignty resting in all governments. Although the founders held that the "despotic power" of eminent domain should be limited to taking property for "public use," and that the victims of such takings were due "just compensation," their acceptance of its legitimacy was the tip of a wedge. The principle that property rights are inalienable had been violated. If the government can properly take property for "public use," then property rights are not absolute, and the extent to which they can be violated depends on the meaning ascribed to "public use." From the earliest adjudication of eminent domain cases, it became clear that the term "public use" would cause problems. Although the founders intended eminent domain to be used only for public projects such as roads, 19th-century legislatures began using it to transfer property to private parties, such as mill and dam owners or canal and railroad companies, on the grounds that they were open to public use and provided wide public benefits. Add to this the fact that, during the New Deal, the Supreme Court explicitly endorsed the idea that property issues were to be determined not by reference to the principle of individual rights but by legislative majorities, and you have the foundation for all that followed. . . .
Topic:
Development and Economics
Political Geography:
United States, America, and London

325. The Menace of Pragmatism

Author:
Tara Smith
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Author's note: This essay is based on a lecture delivered at the Objectivist Conference (OCON) held in Newport Beach, CA, July 2008, and retains some of the informal character of an oral presentation. While people commonly disagree about competing world views and substantive ideologies-arguing the merits of different religious creeds or value systems, for instance, of environmentalism or dominant business practices, of volunteerism or the specifics of political platforms-many are blind to the fact that nearly all these ideologies are fueled by a single, more basic philosophy: pragmatism. As people increasingly complain that political candidates are "all the same," in fact, many of the ideas and approaches supported by these candidates do reflect a shared method. It is important to understand this common element not simply because of the breadth of its influence, but because of its destructiveness. While pragmatism presents itself as a tool of reason and enjoys the image of mature moderation, of common sense and practical "realism," in truth, it is anything but realistic or practical. Pragmatism has become a highly corrosive force in people's thinking. And insofar as it is thinking that drives actions-the actions of individuals and correlatively, the course of history-as long as a person or a nation is infected by a warped philosophical approach, genuine progress will be impossible. In this essay, I seek to demonstrate the stealth but all too live menace that pragmatism poses. Pragmatism is not a substantive set of doctrines so much as a way of thinking, a unifying approach that helps to sustain an array of doctrines that are, in their content, irrational. Because it is a method, however, and informs the way that a practitioner tackles any issue, it proves much more difficult to unroot than an erroneous conclusion. Moreover, thanks to its positive image, pragmatism tends to give harmful ideas a good name, bestowing them with the misplaced aura of reason. It thereby makes people who wish to be rational all the more susceptible to those ideas. I will begin by clarifying exactly what pragmatism is and proceed to supply evidence of its prevalence. I will then consider the distinctive appeal of pragmatism, as well as the heart of its error-where its goes wrong. Next, I will explain its destructive impact, the principal means by which pragmatism is, indeed, corrosive. Finally, I will offer some thoughts concerning means of combating its influence. What Pragmatism Is As a formal school of philosophy, pragmatism was founded by C. S. Peirce (1839-1914) in the late 19th century. Its more renowned early advocates included William James (1842-1910) and John Dewey (1859-1952). Primarily, pragmatism is a way of tackling philosophical questions. This, according to its founders, is what made pragmatism different from all previous philosophy. James wrote that pragmatism does not stand for any results or specific substantive doctrines; rather, it is distinguished by its method of "clarifying ideas" in practical terms by tracing the practical consequences of accepting one idea or another. The meaning and the truth of any claim depend entirely on its practical effects. The mind, accordingly, should not be thought of as a mirror held up to the external world, but as a tool whose role is not to discover, but to do, to act. What, then, should we make of the concept of truth?-or the concept of reality? Don't we need to respect those, in order to achieve practical consequences? Well, of course truth exists, says James, but truth is not a stagnant property. Rather, an idea becomes true-"truth happens to an idea." Truth "lives on a credit system" in his view; what a truth has going for it is that people treat it in a certain way. The true is the "expedient," "any idea upon which we can ride." Any idea is true so long as it is "profitable." All truths do have something in common, then, namely, "that they pay." The question to ask of any proposed idea is: What is its "cash value in experiential terms?" The traditional notion of purely objective truth, however, is "nowhere to be found." The world we live in is "malleable, waiting to receive its final touches at our hands." As Peirce memorably put it, "there is absolutely no difference between a hard thing and a soft thing so long as they are not brought to the test." In the view of a much more recent and influential pragmatist, Richard Rorty, truth is "what your contemporaries let you get away with." To call a statement true is essentially to give it a rhetorical pat on the back. In short, for the pragmatists, we find no ready-made reality. Instead, we create reality. Correlatively, there are no absolutes-no facts, no fixed laws of logic, no certainty. . . .

326. How the FDA Violates Rights and Hinders Health

Author:
Stella Daily
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
This article is dedicated to Anna Tomalis, a young girl who died of liver cancer on August 15, 2008. Anna's parents desperately sought experimental treatment that might have saved her life, but were delayed for months by FDA bureaucracy. Anna finally received approval to obtain treatment through a clinical trial in July, but died after receiving just one round of treatment. She was thirteen years old. Abigail Burroughs was not the typical cancer patient: She was just nineteen years old when she was diagnosed with squamous cell cancer that had spread to her neck and lungs. Her prognosis was poor, but a then-experimental drug, Erbitux, offered the hope of saving her life. Abigail was denied that hope by the Food and Drug Administration. Because the drug was considered experimental, she could receive it only as part of a clinical trial-and Abigail was ineligible to participate in any trials at the time. Despite the best efforts of her family, friends, and doctor, Abigail was unable to receive the treatment that might have saved her life. At twenty-one years old, Abigail died of her disease. Abigail's father, Frank Burroughs, thought other patients with life-threatening illnesses should not be denied the ability to try any treatment that might give them a chance. In his daughter's name, he formed the Abigail Alliance for Better Access to Developmental Drugs, which sued the FDA in 2003. The group argued that the FDA's restrictions on access to experimental treatments constitute a violation of the right to self-defense as well as of the Fifth Amendment right not to be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. In August 2007, the Appeals Court of the District of Columbia struck a blow against the Abigail Alliance, and against individual rights, when it ruled that patients, even the terminally ill, do not have the right to receive treatment that has not been approved by the FDA. Erbitux has since been approved by the FDA to treat cancer of the head and neck-too late, of course, for Abigail Burroughs. How has America come to a point where the government denies dying patients the right to try to save their own lives? To answer that question, let us begin with a brief history of the Food and Drug Administration.A Brief History of the FDA Prior to the 20th century, the government did not regulate pharmaceutical products in the United States. Although Congress had considered federal regulations on food and drug safety as early as 1879, it had refrained from passing any legislation in this regard. However, with the muckraking journalism of the early 1900s, and especially with the publication of Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle, which portrayed unsavory practices in the meatpacking industry, the American public clamored for laws to ensure the safe production of food and drugs. This public outcry pushed Congress to pass federal legislation in 1906. As the resulting Food and Drugs Act applied to drugs specifically, products were required to be sold only at certain levels of purity, strength, and quality; and ingredients considered dangerous (such as morphine or alcohol) had to be listed on the product's label. Violators would be subject to seizure of goods, fines, or imprisonment. Thus, in order to enforce the Act, the Food and Drug Administration was born. In its early years, the agency focused primarily on food rather than on pharmaceuticals, but in 1937 it increased its focus on drugs after a new formulation of sulfanilamide, a drug that had previously been successfully used to treat certain bacterial infections, proved to be deadly. The drug's manufacturer, S. E. Massengill Company, had dissolved an effective drug in a toxic solvent. More than one hundred people, babies and children among them, died as a result of taking Massengill's product, known as Elixir Sulfanilamide. Under the 1906 Food and Drugs Act, the FDA was not authorized to prosecute Massengill for selling an unsafe drug, and the agency had the power to recall Elixir Sulfanilamide only via a technicality. Because "elixir" was defined as a drug dissolved in alcohol, and because Massengill's formulation used the nonalcoholic solvent ethylene glycol, the product was technically mislabeled, bringing it under FDA jurisdiction and enabling the agency to recall the product. The public and legislators wanted more: They wanted the FDA not only to recall mislabeled products, but to prevent the sale of unsafe drugs in the first place. Thus, popular demand gave rise to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act of 1938, which greatly expanded the FDA's authority. The most important change brought about by this Act was a shift in the burden of proof. Rather than prosecuting a drugmaker after the fact for having fraudulently marketed a product, the FDA would now require proof of safety before a drug could be marketed at all. (Note that this required manufacturers to prove a negative-i.e., that a given drug would not harm consumers.) After World War II, pharmaceutical companies came under still more scrutiny. Then, as now, complaints about the cost of drugs reached Congress, and in 1961 Senator Estes Kefauver led the charge in an investigation not only of drug pricing, but of the relationship between the drug industry and the FDA. Kefauver sought to pass legislation that would increase the agency's authority over drug production, distribution, and advertising. Whereas previously proof of safety alone was required to gain FDA approval, the proposed law would require drug manufacturers also to prove the efficacy of their products. Kefauver's bill might have languished in congressional debate but for the emergence at that time of data showing that thalidomide, which was then sold as a sleep aid and antinausea medication for pregnant women, caused severe birth defects in the children of women who took it. Thalidomide had not yet been approved for use in the United States at that time due to concerns of an FDA reviewer over a different side effect noted in the drug's application for approval. The drug was widely used in other countries, however, and the babies of many women who used it were born with grotesquely deformed limbs. As their harrowing images flooded the media, Americans realized they had narrowly escaped inflicting these deformities on their own children. The resulting public outcry led to Kefauver's bill being made law in 1962. This law served as the cornerstone for the wide powers that the FDA acquired thereafter, from requiring companies to include warnings in drug advertisements to dictating the way companies must investigate their own experimental compounds. Thus, although the scope and power of the FDA were modest at the agency's inception, its scope widened and its power increased markedly in the decades that followed. Now, a century later, the agency's purview includes foods and drugs for humans and animals, cosmetics, medical devices (including everything from breast implants to powered wheelchairs), blood and tissues, vaccines, and any products deemed to be radiation emitters (including cell phones and lasers). And the agency's power is nothing short of enormous. . . .
Topic:
Health
Political Geography:
America

327. Mugged by Reality: The Liberation of Iraq and the Failure of Good Intentions

Author:
Elan Journo
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
The measure of success in the Iraq war has undergone a curious progression. Early on, the Bush administration held up the vision of a peaceful, prosperous, pro-Western Iraq as its benchmark. But the torture chambers of Saddam Hussein were replaced by the horrors of a sadistic sectarian war and a fierce insurgency that consumed thousands of American lives. And the post-invasion Iraqi regime, it turns out, is led by Islamist parties allied with religious militias and intimately tied to the belligerent Iranian regime. The benchmark, if we can call it that, then shrank to the somewhat lesser vision of an Iraqi government that can stand up on its own, so that America can stand down. But that did not materialize, either. So we heard that if only the fractious Sunni and Shiite factions in the Iraqi government could have breathing space to reconcile their differences, and if only we could do more to blunt the force of the insurgency, that would be progress. To that end, in early 2007, the administration ordered a "surge" of tens of thousands more American forces to rein in the chaos in Iraq. Today, we hear John McCain and legions of conservatives braying that we are, in fact, winning (some go so far as to say we have already won). Why? Because the "surge" has reduced the number of attacks on U.S. troops to the levels seen a few years ago (when the insurgency was raging wildly) and the number of Iraqis slaughtering their fellow countrymen has taken a momentary dip. Victory, apparently, requires only clearing out insurgents (for a while) from their perches in some neighborhoods, even though Teheran's influence in the country grows and Islamists carve out Taliban-like fiefdoms in Iraq. The goals in Iraq "have visibly been getting smaller," observes John Agresto, a once keen but now disillusioned supporter of the campaign (p. 172). Iraq, he argues contra his fellow conservatives, has been a fiasco. "If we call it 'success,' it's only because we've lowered the benchmark to near zero" (p. 191). . . .
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Iraq and America

328. Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness

Author:
Eric Daniels
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
One of the distinguishing features of American life is the large degree of freedom we have in making choices about our lives. When choosing our diets, we have the freedom to choose everything from subsisting exclusively on junk food to consuming meticulously planned portions of fat, protein, and carbohydrate. When choosing how to conduct ourselves financially, we have the freedom to choose everything from a highly leveraged lifestyle of debt to a modest save-for-a-rainy-day approach. In every area of life, from health care to education to personal relationships, we are free to make countless decisions that affect our long-term happiness and prosperity-or lack thereof. According to Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, professors at the University of Chicago and authors of Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, this freedom and range of options is problematic. The problem, they say, is that most people, when given the opportunity, make bad choices; although Americans naturally want to do what is best for themselves, human fallibility often prevents them from knowing just what that is. "Most of us are busy, our lives are complicated, and we can't spend all our time thinking and analyzing everything" (p. 22). Average Americans, say Thaler and Sunstein, tend to favor the status quo, fall victim to temptation, use mental shortcuts, lack self-control, and follow the herd; as a result, they eat too much junk food, save too little, make bad investments, and buy faddish but useless products. Many Americans, according to the authors, are more like Homer Simpson (impulsive and easily fooled) than homo economicus (cool, calculating, and rational). "One of our major goals in this book," they note, "is to see how the world might be made easier, or safer, for the Homers among us" (p. 22). The particular areas where these Homers need the most help are those in which choices "have delayed effects . . . [are] difficult, infrequent, and offer poor feedback, and those for which the relation between choice and experience is ambiguous" (pp. 77-78).The central theme of Nudge is the idea that government and the private sector can improve people's choices by manipulating the "choice architecture" they face. As Thaler and Sunstein explain, people's choices are often shaped by the way in which alternatives are presented. If a doctor explains to his patient that a proposed medical procedure results in success in 90 percent of cases, that patient will often make a different decision from the one he would have made if the doctor had told him that one in ten patients dies from the procedure. Free markets, the authors argue, too often cater to and exploit people's tendencies to make less than rational choices. Faced with choices about extended warranties or health care plans or investing in one's education, only the most exceptional and rational people will make the "correct" choices. Most people, the authors argue, cannot avoid the common foibles of bad thinking; thus we ought to adopt a better way of framing and structuring choices so that people will be more likely to make better decisions and thereby do better for themselves. Hence the title: By presenting information in a specific way, "choice architects" can "nudge" the chooser in the "right" direction, even while maintaining his "freedom of choice."
Topic:
Health
Political Geography:
America and Chicago

329. The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack

Author:
Joe Kroeger
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
In the years since the attacks of 9/11, there have been numerous attempts by terrorists to attack Americans on our own soil, but all of these attempts have been foiled. Who is responsible for this remarkable record, and how have they achieved it? These questions are answered in Ronald Kessler's recent book, The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack, which surveys the work of the individuals involved in America's intelligence community since 9/11. In twenty-seven brief chapters, Kessler documents the post-9/11 work of the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency (NSA), National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), and other agencies-showing the organizational, tactical, and technological changes that have occurred, along with their positive results. The book begins by recounting the events of September 11, 2001, from President Bush being informed of the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center, to his "We're at war" declaration, to the initial coordination of efforts among the vice president, the military, and law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Proceeding from there, Kessler shows how the CIA immediately linked some of the hijackers to Al Qaeda and how, a few days later, the president began redirecting the priorities of the FBI and the Justice Department from prosecuting terrorists to preventing attacks. . . .
Political Geography:
America

330. The Tyranny of the Market: Why You Can't Always Get What You Want

Author:
Eric Daniels
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
According to Joel Waldfogel, a professor of business and public policy at the Wharton School of Business, "a dominant strand of current thinking" regards markets as superior to government when it comes to providing consumers with what they want. When government undertakes the provision of goods, the products offered are limited to those that meet with the approval of the majority, whereas "[m]arkets are thought to avoid the tyranny of the majority because in markets each person can decide what she wants." According to this dominant argument, he writes, "what's available to me in markets depends only on my preferences, not on anyone else's" (p. 2). In his recent book, The Tyranny of the Market, Waldfogel challenges this assumption. When one considers what actually happens in free markets, when one considers the products available therein, says Waldfogel, "it's clear that you can be better off in your capacity as a consumer of a particular product as more consumers share your preferences" (p. 4). In other words, you are more likely to get exactly what you want if your tastes are shared by the majority and less likely to get exactly what you want if your tastes differ from the majority. Thus, Waldfogel contends, when it comes to providing the goods that people want, "the market does not generally avoid the tyranny of the majority" any more than does a democratic political system that allocates goods (p. 6). Waldfogel's goal is to examine "how markets actually work" in order to allow policy makers and citizens to balance the shortcomings of markets against the shortcomings of government and "to determine an appropriate mix in each arena" (p. 36). Toward this end, he leads the reader through a series of examples in which there appears to be a breakdown in the market provision of goods. . . .
Topic:
Government

331. First into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan and Its Prisoners of War by George Weller, edited and with an essay

Author:
John David Lewis
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
During World War II, the prime source of information for Americans about the war overseas was the dispatches of foreign correspondents-men who put their lives on the line in war zones to report the truth. George Weller was a giant among such men. Captured by the Nazis and traded for a German journalist, Weller watched the Belgian Congolese Army attack Italians in Ethiopia, saw the invasion of Crete, interviewed Charles de Gaulle in South Africa following an escape through Lisbon, and overcame malaria to report on the war in the Pacific. He was the first foreign correspondent trained as a paratrooper, and he won a Pulitzer Prize for his report of an appendectomy on a submarine. He wrote the book Singapore is Silent in 1942 after seeing the city fall to the Japanese, and he advocated a global system of United States bases in his 1943 book Bases Overseas. After witnessing Japan's surrender on September 2, 1945, he broke General Douglas MacArthur's order against travel to Nagasaki by impersonating an American colonel and taking a train to the bombed-out city. In a period of six weeks, he sent typewritten dispatches totaling some fifty thousand words back to American newspapers through official channels of the military occupation. Under MacArthur's directives, they were censored and never made it into print. Weller died in 2002 thinking his dispatches had been lost. Months later his son, Anthony Weller, found a crate of moldy papers with the only surviving carbon copies. Anthony Weller edited the dispatches and included his own essay about his father, resulting in this priceless addition to our information about World War II in the Pacific, and the birth of the atomic age. The importance of the dispatches, however, extends far beyond the value of the information from Nagasaki. George Weller is a voice from a past generation, and the publication of his censored dispatches raises a series of deeply important issues and, in the process, reveals an immense cultural divide between his world and ours today. On September 8, 1945, two days after he arrived in Nagasaki, Weller wrote his third dispatch concerning Nagasaki itself. He described wounded Japanese in two of Nagasaki's undestroyed hospitals, and recorded the question posed by his official guide: Showing them to you, as the first American outsider to reach Nagasaki since the surrender, your propaganda-conscious official guide looks meaningfully in your face and wants to know: "What do you think?" What this question means is: Do you intend writing that America did something inhuman in loosing this weapon against Japan? That is what we want you to write (p. 37). What would many reporters today write if asked this question by bombed enemy civilians? . . .
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Japan, America, Germany, and Nagasaki

332. McBama vs. America

Author:
Craig Biddle
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Surveys the promises of John McCain and Barack Obama, shows that these intentions are at odds with the American ideal of individual rights, demonstrates that the cause of such political aims is a particular moral philosophy (shared by McCain and Obama), and calls for Americans to repudiate that morality and to embrace instead a morality that supports the American ideal.
Political Geography:
America and Europe

333. From the Editor

Author:
Craig Biddle
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
No abstract is available.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
America

334. Letters and Replies

Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
No abstract is available.
Political Geography:
New York and California

335. Capitalism and the Moral High Ground

Author:
Craig Biddle
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Concretizes the selfishness-enabling nature of capitalism and shows why this feature makes it the only moral social system on earth.
Topic:
Economics
Political Geography:
America

336. Reason or Faith: The Republican Alternative

Author:
John David Lewis
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Analyzes the resounding Republican defeat and shows that the party faces a fundamental decision that will determine whether it orchestrates a comeback or stumbles into further defeat.
Topic:
Education and Government
Political Geography:
Taliban

337. Net Neutrality: Toward a Stupid Internet

Author:
Raymond C. Niles
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
The Internet is an achievement of historic importance, arguably rivaling or exceeding the invention of the printing press in its capacity to spread human knowledge and entertainment to the farthest corners of the globe. With the introduction of his printing press in 1450,1 Gutenberg took the books from the hands of cloistered monks and put them into the hands of those who would challenge the orthodoxy of the Church-and into the hands of those who would build the free society that has produced the industrial and technological marvels we enjoy today. In the same manner, the Internet takes encyclopedic knowledge from the libraries and puts it into the homes of people all over the earth. It delivers images of artworks from the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art to our homes. It makes the wares of locally owned boutiques available to a world of customers. It facilitates discussions between distant scholars and enthusiasts on every possible subject. And, as did the printing press, it can lead to great cultural and political change, by spreading truths that censored media around the world cannot speak. The Internet promotes the open exchange of ideas and information in an unprecedented way. What makes this open exchange of ideas and information possible? According to some, the answer is something called "net neutrality." "Net Neutrality is the reason why the Internet has driven economic innovation, democratic participation, and free speech online," claims one website. And, say its advocates, net neutrality-and thus the Internet itself-is in grave danger: The big phone and cable companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying Congress and the Federal Communications Commission to gut Net Neutrality, putting the future of the Internet at risk. . . . The consequences of a world without Net Neutrality would be devastating. Innovation would be stifled, competition limited, and access to information restricted. Consumer choice and the free market would be sacrificed to the interests of a few corporate executives.2 Such claims naturally catch the attention of people who value innovation, competition, and information. And anything that threatens to thwart the free market is certainly cause for alarm. But what exactly is net neutrality? Does it really protect these crucial values? If so, how? And if not, might it actually assault them? To answer these questions, we must first specify the exact nature of the Internet. . . .

338. Bubble Boy: Alan Greenspan's Rejection of Reason and Morality

Author:
Gus Van Horn
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Not long ago, Alan Greenspan was widely regarded as a sort of gnome of Zurich, on whose unique, ineffable powers our prosperity depended. His famously cryptic mumblings could spook markets and spur investors, many of whom believed that his every word carried great weight. One news channel would cite the thickness of his briefcase before certain meetings as an "economic indicator." The "Maestro," as one biographer called him, even appeared on the cover of Time as part of a three-man "Committee to Save the World." And, most remarkably, Greenspan's reputation as a brilliant economist and potential savior of the world was part and parcel of his reputation as a capitalist. Indeed, he had studied under the great "radical for capitalism" Ayn Rand and had written cogent essays in defense of individual rights and free markets. But then, on October 23, 2008, media outlets around the country dropped a bombshell: Alan Greenspan, "lifelong champion of free markets," had declared capitalism dead. The financial crisis, it seems, shook Greenspan to his core and led him to conclude that free markets do not work. As the San Francisco Chronicle reported: Asked by committee Chairman Henry Waxman [D-CA] whether his free-market convictions pushed him to make wrong decisions, especially his failure to rein in unsafe mortgage lending practices, Greenspan replied that indeed he had found a flaw in his ideology, one that left him very distressed. "In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology was not right?" Waxman asked. "Absolutely, precisely," replied Greenspan, who stepped down as Fed chief in 2006 after more than eighteen years as chairman. "That's precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence it was working exceptionally well." But the idea that Greenspan possessed "free-market convictions" and that those convictions are why he failed to rein in unsound lending practices is ridiculous. The very purpose of the Federal Reserve-the central bank at the heart of our troubled, government-controlled economy and the money machine that Greenspan operated for almost twenty years-is to manipulate the market. Such a "bank" would not even exist in a free market, and its precise function in our mixed economy is to engage in unsound lending practices as a means of such manipulation. As explained in The Federal Reserve System: Purposes and Functions, which is available from the Federal Reserve's website, one of the primary functions of the Fed is "conducting the nation's monetary policy by influencing the monetary and credit conditions in the economy." The document elaborates, explaining that the Fed "influences" the rate of inflation by setting the interest rate (known as the "federal funds rate") at which private banks can borrow from the various Federal Reserve banks. When the Fed lowers this rate, it thereby expands credit and increases the supply of fiat money-money that is unmoored to any commodity; money that is just printed paper representing no real value in the marketplace; money that is, essentially, worthless. This constitutes inflation and wreaks havoc on the economy. Once upon a time, Greenspan openly acknowledged the destructive nature of fiat money. "The law of supply and demand is not to be conned," he wrote in his famous 1966 essay "Gold and Economic Freedom": As the supply of money (of claims) increases relative to the supply of tangible assets in the economy, prices must eventually rise. Thus the earnings saved by the productive members of the society lose value in terms of goods. When the economy's books are finally balanced, one finds that this loss in value represents the goods purchased by the government for welfare or other purposes with the money proceeds of the government bonds financed by bank credit expansion. Again, "the earnings saved by the productive members of the society lose value . . . represent[ing] the goods purchased by the government for welfare or other purposes." In other words, Greenspan acknowledged in 1966 that one of the primary functions of the Fed is to violate property rights-yours and mine-by printing fiat money and thereby coercively decreasing the value of our hard-earned savings. The Federal Reserve-in all its anti-capitalistic glory-is by its very nature the primary generator of unsound banking. Greenspan knew this in 1966, when he wrote that article; he knew it in 1987, when he accepted his post as chairman of the Fed; he knew it during the eighteen years he manipulated the money supply; and he knows it today. . . .
Topic:
Economics

339. The Assault on Energy Producers

Author:
Brian P. Simpson
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
"We've got to go after the oil companies," says President-elect Barack Obama in response to high oil and gasoline prices. "We've got to go after [their] windfall profits." Explaining the purpose of recently proposed energy legislation, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says: "We are forcing oil companies to change their ways. We will hold them accountable for unconscionable price-gouging and force them to invest in renewable energy or pay a price for refusing to do so." Calling for government seizure of private power plants, California Senate Leader John Burton insists: "We have to do something. These people have got us by the throat. They're making more money than God, and we've got to fight back-not with words, but with actions." This attitude toward energy producers, which is practically unanimous among American politicians today, is wreaking havoc not only on the lives and rights of these producers, but on the lives and rights of Americans in general. It leads to laws and regulations that prohibit producers and consumers from acting on their rational judgment with respect to energy. It causes energy shortages, brownouts, and blackouts that thwart everyone's ability to be productive and enjoy life. And it results in higher prices not only for energy, but for every good and service that depends on energy-which means every good and service in the marketplace, from food to transportation to medical care to sporting events to education to housing. Energy producers, like all rational businessmen, are in business to make money. Profits are what motivate them to exert the requisite brain power, to engage in the necessary research, and to invest the massive amounts of money required to produce and deliver the energy we need to light, heat, and cool our homes, and to power the factories, workplaces, and tools required to produce the goods on which our lives depend. Their profit motive is to our benefit. Moreover, energy producers, like all human beings, have a moral right to act according to their own judgment so long as they do not violate the rights of others. They have a moral right to use and dispose of the product of their effort as they see fit. They have a moral right to contract with customers by mutual consent to mutual benefit. In other words, they have a moral right to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. And it is only by respecting these rights that we can expect energy producers to produce energy. So let us examine the assault on these producers, count the ways in which this assault is both impractical and immoral, and specify what must be done to rectify this injustice. . . .
Topic:
Government
Political Geography:
America and California

340. Demystifying Newton: The Force Behind the Genius

Author:
Gena Gorlin
Publication Date:
12-2008
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Einstein credited Isaac Newton, the father of physics and arguably the founder of scientific certainty, with "the greatest advance in thought that a single individual was ever privileged to make." The compliment is not hyperbole: In his Principia and the discoveries that preceded it, Newton single-handedly deciphered more of the universe's enigmas than perhaps any other scientist in history. He revolutionized mathematics, integrated the previously disparate fields of mechanics and astronomy, and thus opened the door to the science of force and motion as we know it. And yet, ironically, Newton himself remains an enigma to those biographers who attempt to identify the force that moved him-the motive that compelled him to strive for the discovery and validation of scientific truths on such a grand scale. Most biographers shy from examining Newton's motives, asserting that a genius and creative power of Newton's magnitude defies mundane human explanation. One scholar, however, accepted the charge. Frank Manuel, in his biography, A Portrait of Isaac Newton, attempted to diagnose the source of Newton's genius by means of what is, in effect, a retroactive psychoanalysis. In keeping with the neo-Freudian school of psychology, Manuel attempts to demystify Newton's thought and behavior by speculating about repressed insecurities and unconscious defense mechanisms that may have commanded Newton's psyche. Since the book's publication in 1968 and to this very day, biographers and Newton scholars defer to Manuel-with varying degrees of enthusiasm-on the question of what, in Newton's character and soul, could have spawned his inexhaustible passion for discovering the nature of things. Manuel's model of Newton's underlying motives stands, by default, as the definitive account of the psyche whence sprang the Principia. For example, James Gleick, in his recent biography Isaac Newton, quotes-without critique or comment-Manuel's interpretation of Newton's relationship with his niece Catherine, whom he raised and nurtured into adulthood: "'In the act of fornication between his friend Halifax and his niece was Newton vicariously having carnal intercourse with his mother?'" Such rhetorical suggestions offered in explanation of Newton's words and actions abound in Manuel. And because other Newton scholars have defaulted on the task of evaluating Newton's motives, such "suggestions" have stood unchallenged and unrefuted to this day-coloring the legacy and tainting the name of one of history's greatest scientists. It is easy to sympathize with biographers who struggle in vain to knit together the apparently disparate threads of Newton's psychological life. By common accounts, Newton was a man of perplexing contradiction-described alternately as an arrogant, self-obsessed egomaniac and then as a neurotic "recluse" crippled by "searing" self-doubt. On one hand, he is the man who proclaimed his own theory of light to be "the oddest if not the most considerable detection which has hitherto been made in the operations of nature"-which Manuel interprets as an instance of Newton's "fantasies of omnipotence and omniscience and his self-image as the perfect one." On the other hand, Newton himself, denying a friend's compliments of his preternatural genius, mused that his success is the outcome of "nothing but industry a patient thought." And in the twilight of his years Newton reflected on himself as "only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." These are not the words of a "narcissist" or an "egomaniac" who is "completely wrapped up in himself," as is commonly postulated-but of a man wrapped up in the quest for truth, and humbled by the vastness of its terrain. Indeed, Newton's close friend John Locke described him as "a nice man to deal with and a little too apt to raise in himself suspicions where there was no ground." This seeming contradiction between Newton's supreme "arrogance" on the one hand and his apparent self-doubt on the other is what led Manuel to postulate that Newton was driven by deep-seated unconscious insecurities. But is there really any contradiction? In truth, when Newton was certain of his conclusions, he was unshakably sure of himself-and did not suffer criticism that he considered misguided, let alone dishonest. Yet when he was uncertain, he did not rest content until he copiously checked his conclusions against the facts. For instance, in 1666, he tested his theory of an inverse-square gravitational force, likely formulated in the early 1660s by deduction from Kepler's elliptical theory, against observations of the moon's motions. He found that the motions agreed "pretty nearly," but not nearly enough-and because he could not explain the discrepancy, he set aside the theory until he could amass further evidence. Whereas his fellow scientists, from Ptolemy to Copernicus to Galileo, sought nothing further than approximate agreement between their theories and the empirical phenomena, Newton was "extreme" in his demands for accuracy. In Manuel's account, such polar extremities of behavior bear the elusive signature of a "neurotic." For Manuel, Newton's apparent "swings" of extreme self-assurance and extreme self-doubt are symptoms of a deep neurosis rooted in his childhood. In true Freudian fashion, Manuel points to Newton's abandonment by his mother when she remarried and sent him to live with his grandmother. He also points to Newton's puritanical education, which allegedly inculcated in him a powerful fear of wrongdoing. These traumatic experiences, according to Manuel's account, begat a combined longing for attachment and fear of punishment that molded his scientific thought. Manuel even goes so far as to speculate that Newton's discovery of the gravitational force was inspired by his childhood anxieties: Newton "knew of the common metaphoric description of the attractive power of a magnet as love" and of the "'sociability' of liquids." Consequently, Manuel speculates, Newton's "longing for the absent ones, his dead father and his remarried mother" inspired his formulation of gravity as "a sort of an impulse or attraction." And as for Newton's vehemence in defending the certainty of his conclusions-this Manuel explains as a wall of defense against the puritanical guilt constantly clamoring to invade his mind. In one instance, Manuel cites a fervent (and thus, in his view, feverish) letter in which Newton defends his theory of light against a religiously motivated attack by a group of Jesuit scholars. The letter was penned in response to a charge by Anthony Lucas, a Jesuit who leveled a cavalier accusation against Newton's measuring accuracy, claiming that Newton had incorrectly reported the length of an image of the light spectrum. Newton had previously refrained from defending himself against the unscientific accusations of the Jesuits, writing that he did not wish to become a "slave to philosophy" (which meant, in his terms, to empty sophistic bickering) by engaging them in argument. But now, he was infuriated: Lucas had challenged the accuracy of Newton's experimental data, without bothering to supply any evidence in support of his challenge. Enraged, Newton wrote to Oldenberg, president of the Royal Society of London: "'Tis the truth of my experiments which is the business at hand. On this my Theory depends, which is of more consequence, the credit of my being wary, accurate and faithful in the reports I have made or shall make of experiments in any subject, seeing that a trip in any one will bring all the rest into suspicion." Ultimately the Royal Society duplicated Newton's experiments and formally refuted Lucas's objections, such that, in Newton's terms, he stood "convicted" by the "trial of the Royal Society." Lucas had miscalculated in groundlessly questioning the truth of Newton's calculations; his error was in underestimating Newton's reverential devotion to that truth. In Manuel's interpretation, such reverence bespeaks neurosis. Interpreting the incident, Manuel writes, "Ambivalent neurotics have a craving for certainty. Themore searing the doubt the more profound the need for a safe haven. Newton had two such refuges, a great blessing for a man in his state of everlasting tension: one was the Bible . . . the other was mathematical proof." He proceeds to explain the neurotic basis for Newton's intolerance of doubt: "Scientific error was assimilated with sin, for it could only be the consequence of sloth on his part and a failure in his divine service. For Newton a sin was not an act of human frailty that could be forgiven, but a sign that the culprit was possessed by evil." Manuel thus diagnoses Newton's preoccupation with scientific certainty and his impatience with doubt as symptoms of a psychotic insecurity, which stems, in turn, from his oppressive puritanical upbringing. But such a diagnosis seems quite peculiar if one considers that Newton is right. As is the case with his theory of light, Newton's theories do stand or fall on the truth of his evidential arguments, because true theories admit of no contradictory evidence. If an objector such as Anthony Lucas were to discover an error in Newton's empirical measurements, he would indeed cast doubt on Newton's entire theory. Thus, in vehemently defending the truth of his experiments against those who launch a frivolous attack against it, Newton reveals his "religious" devotion, not to his puritanical schoolteachers or to a wrathful God who censures his every step, but to the real, physical world-and to his understanding thereof. It is not Newton's departure from reality, then, but rather the intensity of his devotion to it that Manuel finds psychotic. Psychosis is generally defined as a state of delusion, a split from reality. A preoccupation with "divine service," as Manuel describes it, implies obeisance to an invisible God at the expense of any rational judgments grounded in this-worldly evidence. But Newton's alleged psychosis consists precisely in obeying the evidence of this world as he searches for scientific truth; the preoccupation Manuel refers to is not with an otherworldly authority, but with physical reality. Manuel does not seem to recognize this distinction, as he repeatedly lumps together Newton's reverence for the truth with his deference to God and his alleged cringing fear of divine punishment. Manuel's psychoanalytic model of the mind treats any pervasive behavior or thought pattern as symptomatic of childhood trauma or some other brand of prior conditioning. What this model does not seem to admit as a possibility is a mind not buoyed along by external circumstances, but rather governing itself, holding the truth as its sole guide and master-a mind conscientiously committed to the pursuit of truth as its primary and fundamental motive. And yet such a scenario should not seem so far-fetched, given that grasping the truth is the mind's proper and primary function. Viewed in this light, Newton's "craving for certainty" is not a symptom of illness but of exemplary mental health. Indeed, the craving for certainty is a venerable virtue-for to crave certainty is to crave the truth, and truth is infinitely valuable. Given the advances in science enabled by the certainty of Newton's laws, and the vast benefits ultimately conferred on human life by those advances, the objective value of Newton's "preoccupation" with truth is indisputable. . . .
Topic:
History

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