Free Speech and Resources
8 July 2008
Editor, Baltimore Sun
Dear Editor:
According to Jeff Milchen, when the Supreme Court ruled in 1976 "that spending money to influence elections is constitutionally protected free speech" it illegitimately "wrote between the lines of the First Amendment" ("When money is speech, speech is no longer free," July 8).
Let's see. If spending money to influence elections were not constitutionally protected, Congress could, say, prevent newspapers such as the Baltimore Sun from endorsing candidates. After all, editorialists who write such endorsements must be paid salaries, as must the proof-readers, printers, and deliverers who are necessary for getting the endorsements out to readers. Also, the hardware and software used for composing endorsements, and the ink and paper necessary for printing them, cost money. Does Mr. Milchen believe that the framers meant for Congress to have the power to prevent newspapers from making such expenditures?
The exercise of free-speech rights almost always requires resources. A Congress with authority to limit the amounts that people spend to exercise those rights would be a Congress with authority to nullify the First Amendment.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
Let's Socialize Everything!
7 July 2008
Editor, The New York Times
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036
To the Editor:
Paul Krugman asserts that "If Bill Clinton's attempt to reform health care had succeeded, the U.S. economy would be in much better shape today" ("Behind the Bush Bust," July 7).
Nonsense. Further socializing health insurance would no more improve the economy than would socializing steel production. Mr. Krugman likely doesn't suffer the 1930s-style delusion that socialized industries generally outperform private industries. So he probably realizes that even if a socialized steel industry supplied steel for "free," the amounts of resources used to produce each unit of steel would be wastefully large, the quality of the final product embarrassingly (even dangerously) poor, and the availability of steel distressingly restricted and uncertain.
Why is Mr. Krugman incurably blind to the likelihood that "free" health insurance would be a similarly costly burden on the economy?
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Speaks Poorly for the Progess of My Discipline
7 July 2008
Editor, Boston Globe
Dear Editor:
Adam Smith argued that the wealth of nations is enhanced by labor specialization, capital investment, and peaceful trade. Economist Mark Skidmore argues that wealth is enhanced by destroying things: "When something is destroyed you don't necessarily rebuild the same thing that you had. You might use updated technology, you might do things more efficiently. It bumps you up" ("How disasters help," July 6).
I offer to test Prof. Skidmore's thesis by wrecking his car and burning down his house. If he's correct, he'll surely want to reward me with a handsome payment.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
A Myth that Makes Work for Good Economists
6 July 2008
Editor, Boston Globe
Dear Editor:
Economist Mark Skidmore - allegedly identifying a benefit of natural disasters - is quoted as saying that "When something is destroyed you don't necessarily rebuild the same thing that you had. You might use updated technology, you might do things more efficiently. It bumps you up" ("How disasters help," July 6).
When machines and buildings are destroyed, they are indeed often replaced with more advanced models. But this fact does not mean that the owners of destroyed property (or the economy of which they are a part) are made better off by the destruction. Updated technology is costly, and this cost often exceeds the additional benefits that newer technologies offer over older but still functional technologies. If this weren't so, businesses would not need natural disasters to encourage them always to use the most state-of-the art technologies. Every technological advance would immediately prompt older technologies to be abandoned and replaced by newer ones.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
It's Not a Question of Physics
4 July 2008
Editor, The New York Times
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036
To the Editor:
If he means physical stuff in the ground, William Culver is correct that the world has "only a finite amount of usable resources" (Letters, July 4). But contrary to his letter's pessimism, this fact says little about humankind's prospects for continued economic growth. Consider that of the approximately 10,000 generations of humans that have trod this earth, 9,990 (or 99.9 percent) of them lived in crushing destitution even though the earth they inhabited contained abundant stocks of this stuff that we now call "natural resources." Not until the advent of modern free markets and the retreat of superstition was this stuff used to raise ordinary people from poverty.
I put "natural resources" in quotation marks to highlight the fact none of this stuff is naturally a resource; only human creativity makes it so. As long as markets are free and superstition kept in check, there's no reason to worry that what Julian Simon called "the ultimate resource" - free human beings - will stop figuring out ways to find more "natural resources" and to use these with increasing efficiency.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
Karol Sacks Sachs
(From my wife, Karol Boudreaux - DJB)
July 3, 2008
Editor, The New York Times
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036
To the Editor:
I work routinely in Africa and was heartened by Nicholas Kristof's account of Beatrice Biira's success at escaping poverty in Africa ("The Luckiest Girl," July 3). But his account needs clarification. Contrary to what readers might infer from Mr. Kristof's favorable mention of Jeffrey Sachs's encounter with Beatrice, this young woman's experience does not support Mr. Sachs's approach to ending world poverty. Mr. Sachs famously calls for large-scale, collective action by international organizations - for a "big push" based on big plans designed by big brains.
In contrast, an anonymous private donor started Beatrice on her path to success. A private charitable organization delivered a goat to her family and other private donors brought her to the US. Beatrice's success, far from supporting the Sachs model of development, instead supports William Easterly's contrary thesis - namely, that escaping poverty requires a multitude of small-scale, mostly private efforts.
Sincerely,
Karol Boudreaux
Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center
George Mason University
and
Lead Researcher, Enterprise Africa
