Russell Roberts's Blog, page 329

EconTalk Podcast on James Buchanan

(Don Boudreaux)

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Here’s the full version of my EconTalk podcast, recorded this past December 23rd, on Jim Buchanan, with special emphasis on his articles “What Should Economists Do?” and “Natural and Artifactual Man.”

The link to the audio-only version of the podcast is here.

Again, I thank Russ for inviting me to be again on EconTalk.

On Last Wednesday’s Actions on Capitol Hill

(Don Boudreaux)

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A long-time and very thoughtful friend, who wishes to remain anonymous, sent to me the e-mail pasted below in response to this Cafe Hayek post. I share it with his/her kind permission:

I haven’t looked too closely at the issue but the little I’ve read suggests that:

1) objections are not unusual post-2000 – there were objections in at least one chamber in 2000, 2004 (both houses that time), and 2016. If that’s true (and it seems to be), then is it really inappropriate?

2) isn’t the point of the process to allow for senators and congresspersons to object? All the objections do is force a debate (if there are objections from both houses). That doesn’t seem either like trying to overturn an election or a violation of the rule of law – the process is there for a reason, after all. (I am trying to get a grip on what exactly the “rule of law” means and having trouble finding any really good readings. Suggestions welcome.

3) there are a lot of concerns about election integrity. I’m skeptical about a “stolen” objection but our electoral process is pathetic compared to, say, Canada – national elections done with paper ballots, good security, everything counted within 24 hours. Most of the real concerns about the election come from things like Benford’s Law and various anomalous results (super high voting in some precincts, well out of historical patterns), which isn’t the type of evidence that gets results reversed but ought to be the sort that prompts some discussion.

Cheers,

[Anonymous]

No, the First Amendment Doesn’t Constrain Private Parties

(Don Boudreaux)

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Here’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal:

Editor:

Justifiably angered by large tech firms’ restrictions on content contrary to today’s Progressive narrative, you unjustifiably conclude that “[t]ech firms that dominate the flow of information in the U.S. and censor at the behest of powerful Democrats also deserve First Amendment scrutiny” (“The Progressive Purge Begins,” January 11).

You mock the First Amendment by proposing to turn it into a tool for use by an arm of government – the courts – to achieve precisely what the amendment is meant to prevent, namely, government superintendence and control of private citizens’ peaceful decisions about how to express themselves using their own property.

I share your fury at, and fear of, many decisions made today by companies such as Twitter and Amazon. But I don’t share your confidence that this problem can be solved by government. And I’d be much more furious at, and fearful of, the Orwellian specter of government unleashed to superintend and control peaceful expression in the name of protecting it.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA  22030

Some Covid Links

(Don Boudreaux)

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Writing at Spiked, Dave Clements decries the lockdowns’ destruction of human sociability. A slice:

During this seemingly endless pandemic, we now find so many of our freedoms not only under threat, but in some cases already severely curtailed or completely removed. Social-media accounts challenging the government’s illiberal response to the pandemic have been taken down. The police have cracked down hard on protests against lockdown restrictions. And even our freedom to associate with friends and family has been severely curtailed.

Freedoms which, until a few months ago, we had taken for granted, have been taken away. We now have to make do with enforced social distancing, stay-at-home orders, and warnings of Armageddon to come if we do not comply.

Why aren’t many more people – especially in supposedly liberty-loving and liberal America and Britain – protesting lockdown tyranny, which in Britain is becoming downright Stalinist? Take a look at what the British government reportedly is now considering:

One Whitehall source told MailOnline that the changes discussed today even included introducing a ban on people leaving their homes more than once a week. Under current rules, Britons can exercise with one other person or with their household or support bubble.

But a Government source said the rule is ‘being used as an excuse for people to go for a coffee in the park with their friends’ and could be tightened, The Daily Telegraph reports.

Interviewed in the Toronto Sun, Ari Joffe – an infectious diseases and critical-care physician in Alberta – explains why he changed his position from pro-lockdown to anti-lockdown. A slice:

There are a few reasons why I supported lockdowns at first.

First, initial data falsely suggested that the infection fatality rate was up to 2-3%, that over 80% of the population would be infected, and modelling suggested repeated lockdowns would be necessary. But emerging data showed that the median infection fatality rate is 0.23%, that the median infection fatality rate in people under 70 years old is 0.05%, and that the high-risk group is older people especially those with severe co-morbidities. In addition, it is likely that in most situations only 20-40% of the population would be infected before ongoing transmission is limited (i.e., herd-immunity).

Second, I am an infectious diseases and critical care physician, and am not trained to make public policy decisions. I was only considering the direct effects of COVID-19 and my knowledge of how to prevent these direct effects. I was not considering the immense effects of the response to COVID-19 (that is, lockdowns) on public health and wellbeing.

Emerging data has shown a staggering amount of so-called ‘collateral damage’ due to the lockdowns. This can be predicted to adversely affect many millions of people globally with food insecurity [82-132 million more people], severe poverty [70 million more people], maternal and under age-5 mortality from interrupted healthcare [1.7 million more people], infectious diseases deaths from interrupted services [millions of people with Tuberculosis, Malaria, and HIV], school closures for children [affecting children’s future earning potential and lifespan], interrupted vaccination campaigns for millions of children, and intimate partner violence for millions of women. In high-income countries adverse effects also occur from delayed and interrupted healthcare, unemployment, loneliness, deteriorating mental health, increased opioid crisis deaths, and more.

Third, a formal cost-benefit analysis of different responses to the pandemic was not done by government or public health experts. Initially, I simply assumed that lockdowns to suppress the pandemic were the best approach. But policy decisions on public health should require a cost-benefit analysis. Since lockdowns are a public health intervention, aiming to improve the population wellbeing, we must consider both benefits of lockdowns, and costs of lockdowns on the population wellbeing. Once I became more informed, I realized that lockdowns cause far more harm than they prevent.

For those of you who still trust government officials to ‘manage’ a pandemic, Liz Wolfe reports on an incident out of New York that you might wish to consider.

Jenin Younes is correct: those on the so-called ‘liberal’ left have gone fully, frighteningly illiberal. A slice:

At this point, those of us unfortunate enough to live in blue and purple states, as well as in many other parts of the world, have been deprived of our basic liberties for nearly a year. We cannot freely associate with other people, operate our businesses, send our children to school, or travel to many places without having to isolate for two weeks, which often translates into visiting loved ones becoming a practical impossibility. College students are imprisoned in dorm rooms for weeks because they or someone they interacted with tested positive for the virus (I will leave the topic of the unreliability of these tests for another day). They are expelled, harshly punished, and shamed for attending parties and socializing in groups. It is no surprise that, condemned for engaging in the most natural activities for those their age, suicidal ideation, depression, and drug usage have skyrocketed in this demographic. Children are forbidden from playing with one another or forced to do so while muzzled.

These oppressive policies, which at face value constitute grotesque violations of civil rights and liberties, are enacted and enforced primarily by Democratic politicians, not least among them the governors of New York, Michigan and California: Andrew Cuomo, Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom, respectively. For the most part, these pandemic management strategies are lauded by their constituents and center-left publications alike. To the extent they are criticized from the left, it is usually for failing to enact the measures sooner or enforcing them more stringently.

Phil Magness at Facebook:

The entire Australia/New Zealand pandemic strategy, summarized:
1. Make your island a fortress and lock it down
2. Declare victory over covid
3. Covid returns
4. Lockdown
5. Declare victory over covid
6. Covid returns
7. Lockdown
8. Declare victory over covid
9. Covid returns
10. Lockdown
11. Declare victory over covid
12. Covid returns
13. Lockdown
14. Declare victory over covid
15. Covid returns…

Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

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… is from pages 111-112 of John Mueller’s superb 1999 book, Capitalism, Democracy, & Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery (footnote deleted; link added):

The nineteenth-century British historian Henry Thomas Buckle hailed Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations as “probably the most important book that has ever been written” because it convincingly demonstrated that gold and silver are not wealth but are merely its representatives, and because it shows that wealth comes not from diminishing the wealth of others, but rather that “the benefits of trade are of necessity reciprocal.”

DBx: Far be it from me to dissent from Buckle’s astute assessment of the Great Scot’s 1776 book!

Where is the Adam Smith of 2021? Where is the great scholar who will demonstrate that government checks and central-bank-supplied money are not wealth but are merely its representatives – and that when government-imposed lockdowns and media-stoked deranged fears of pathogens cause the production of real good and services to fall, prosperity cannot and will not be preserved merely by government creation of more nominal spending power?

A New Study of the Impact of Lockdowns on the Spread of Covid-19

(Don Boudreaux)

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Eran Bendavid, Christopher Oh, Jay Bhattacharya, and John P.A. Ioannidis have a new, peer-reviewed paper the findings of which should be of interest to anyone who cares about civilization. It’s titled “Assessing Mandatory Stay‐at‐Home and Business Closure Effects on the Spread of COVID‐19” and appears in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Here’s the abstract:

Background and Aims

The most restrictive non‐pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) for controlling the spread of COVID‐19 are mandatory stay‐at‐home and business closures. Given the consequences of these policies, it is important to assess their effects. We evaluate the effects on epidemic case growth of more restrictive NPIs (mrNPIs), above and beyond those of less restrictive NPIs (lrNPIs).

Methods

We first estimate COVID‐19 case growth in relation to any NPI implementation in subnational regions of 10 countries: England, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, and the US. Using first‐difference models with fixed effects, we isolate the effects of mrNPIs by subtracting the combined effects of lrNPIs and epidemic dynamics from all NPIs. We use case growth in Sweden and South Korea, two countries that did not implement mandatory stay‐at‐home and business closures, as comparison countries for the other 8 countries (16 total comparisons).

Results

Implementing any NPIs was associated with significant reductions in case growth in 9 out of 10 study countries, including South Korea and Sweden that implemented only lrNPIs (Spain had a non‐significant effect). After subtracting the epidemic and lrNPI effects, we find no clear, significant beneficial effect of mrNPIs on case growth in any country. In France, e.g., the effect of mrNPIs was +7% (95CI ‐5%‐19%) when compared with Sweden, and +13% (‐12%‐38%) when compared with South Korea (positive means pro‐contagion). The 95% confidence intervals excluded 30% declines in all 16 comparisons and 15% declines in 11/16 comparisons.

Conclusions

While small benefits cannot be excluded, we do not find significant benefits on case growth of more restrictive NPIs. Similar reductions in case growth may be achievable with less restrictive interventions.

Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

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… is from page 285 of Philipp Blom’s 2010 book, A Wicked Company:

Now, however, around the time of his sixtieth birthday in 1773, [Denis] Diderot himself was in a position of influence, and he realized that the problem with power was not that it was held by the wrong people but that it was inherently corrupting.

DBx: Oui. Yes. Diderot is correct.

And so those who seek power seek to be corrupted – or, they are at least recklessly indifferent to the terrible risk.

Philosophical, Not Political

(Don Boudreaux)

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Here’s a letter to another much-respected reader of my blog.

Mr. J___ N___

Mr. N___:

Thanks for your e-mail and for regularly reading my blog. I’m truly honored.

You’re correct that I’m not political, in the sense that I almost never express publicly a preference for one political candidate over another. One reason is that I very seldom feel favorable toward any candidate who has any real prospect of winning high political office. In the great majority of cases, I judge each such candidate to be, at best, an amoral brute – and usually, much worse. Because the most approving thing that I could ever honestly say about a candidate is that “He or she is evil, but the lesser of two,” I refrain from such commentary.

And I continue to so refrain. Contrary to your suggestion, I today did not – by favorably linking to pieces by George Will, Kimberly Strassel, and Jonah Goldberg critical of the attempt to have Congress override state-certified election results – deviate from my non-political stance.

Democracy’s benefits are commonly overestimated while its flaws are underestimated. Yet one huge genuine benefit of our constitutional democracy is that it provides for the peaceful transfer of power. For a sitting president and U.S. senators to attempt to use Congress to reject state-certified election results is simply too much to bear. That a crowd stormed the Capitol likely in response to the president’s words, while inexcusably making matters worse, at least serves as an easily understood symbol of the terrible chaos that would arise if in the future Congress becomes the arbiter of presidential elections.

I agree that mail-in and early voting create serious problems with the credibility of election results. I agree that had November’s election gone against Joe Biden the streets of American cities would have swarmed with angry, destructive mobs – mobs which would have been criticized by the media in only the most muted tones. I agree that many Democrats are just as prone as is Trump to behave in substance like a strongman. (Witness the tyrannical lockdowns ordered by Gavin Newsom and many other Democratic governors and mayors.) I agree that the media are so horribly biased against Republicans and in favor of Democrats that there now exists a dangerous and perhaps even republic-threatening double-standard.

But I cannot agree that signaling support of those who condemn the recent attempt to subvert the state-certified results of the 2020 election is political. It’s not. It’s philosophical. My support for such condemnations comes from my support for what remains of the rule of law. However little of such rule remains, and however imperfect it has always been and is today, that rule is precious. And anyone or any group treating it with such contempt as it was treated earlier this week deserves sure and strict rebuke – a fact not changed by whatever might have been earlier assaults on the rule of law by the other side.

Sincerely,

Donald J. Boudreaux

Professor of Economics

and

Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center

George Mason University

Fairfax, VA 22030

Bonus Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

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… is from pages 54-55 of my late Nobel-laureate colleague James Buchanan’s 1981 lecture “Constitutional Restrictions on the Power of Government,” as this lecture is reprinted in Choice, Contract, and Constitutions (2001), which is volume 16 of The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan:

[Government] spending rates would be lower if all programs were required to be tax-financed. Government, however, may have access to both debt issue and money creation as alternative revenue sources. These allow the government to spend without taxing, which is almost the ideal setting for elected politicians. By creating deficits, government is allowed to finance desired programs that provide benefits to potential voters without overt increases in rates of tax.

Here’s a Sample…

(Don Boudreaux)

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… of my latest EconTalk discussion with Russ Roberts.

Taped several days ago and to be released in full on Monday, it is on Jim Buchanan (with special focus on two papers of his: “What Should Economists Do?” and “Natural and Artifactual Man”).