Dickensian Wisdom
Ironically, Dickens was here referring to bankers. But the logic of his observation applies much more surely to politicians.
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8 October 2008
CNN.com
Dear Editor:
According to a recent poll, "55 percent of registered voters questioned say that Obama 'cares more about people like you' than Sen. John McCain" ("Poll: Obama seen as more compassionate than McCain," October 7).
What do such alleged 'cares' signify? To win votes, politicians feign a god-like capacity to "feel your pain" and to be deeply concerned about persons they've never met. Mature people, of course, don't take such poses seriously.
At the very least, voters should heed Charles Dickens's warning against persons who deal in "second-hand cares" - that is, persons who are "principally occupied with the cares of other people." This great novelist observed that "second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on.”*
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
Enterprise Hall
George Mason University
* Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (Barnes & Noble Classics), p. 22.
Food for Thought
7 October 2008
CBS Radio Network
Dear News Editor:
On your 9am (EDT) national news broadcast today you reported (1) that, across the U.S., families now face more difficulty feeding "hungry mouths," and (2) that, because of today's financial worries, many ordinary Americans "are overeating."
Are you not struck by this inconsistency?
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Waste Not
6 October 2008
Editor, The New York Times
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036
To the Editor:
Lamenting that so many plastic bags are discarded, Cal Dooley asserts: "Plastics are a valuable resource - too valuable to waste - and should be recycled" (Letters, October 6).
Time is also a valuable resource - too valuable to waste. If people recycle so few plastic bags, it's because they have better ways to spend their time, such as earning incomes, taking kids to soccer practice, caring for aging parents; the list is long.
Now if Mr. Dooley insists that all those bags a family tosses each week really are worth more than the time people must spend recycling them, he can solve the problem and make good money while doing so. All he need do is found a recycling company that buys these bags from people at their 'true' price. People will then no more discard a valuable plastic bag when they're done with it than they discard a valuable house when they move to another neighborhood.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Depressing Ignorance
5 October 2008
Editor, Washington Post
1150 15th St., NW
Washington, DC 20071
Dear Editor:
Rep. Rahm Emanuel says that "FDR inherited a depression and gave America the greatest expansion of the middle class it has ever known" (Letters, October 5). This claim is patently false.
Even persons with even just a passing knowledge of history know that the American economy was in depression for all of the 1930s. So it's mysterious that so many people still insist that FDR's policies cured the economy's ills. The truth is, as economist Peter Fearon wrote in 1987, that "Perhaps the New Deal's greatest failure lay in its inability to generate the revival in private investment that would have led to greater output and more jobs."* Economist Robert Higgs adds that "The willingness of business people to invest requires a sufficiently healthy state of 'business confidence,'" - and FDR's New Deal policies "ravaged the requisite confidence."**
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
* Peter Fearon, "War, Prosperity and Depression: The U.S. Economy 1917-45" (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1987), p. 208.
** Robert Higgs, "Depression, War, and Cold War" (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 8.
An Argument for Redistribution
5 October 2008
Editor, Boston Globe
Dear Editor:
William Leach is correct: arguments for income "redistribution" typically rest on nothing more firm than highly subjective assessments by Jones of what Smith "needs" or "doesn't need" (Letters, October 5).
If such assessments truly justify "redistribution," why start with monetary wealth? Far better first to redistribute political power. Such power - unlike wealth in market economies - is extracted from voters who have little incentive or ability to wisely assess what they receive in return for their votes. I believe that neither John McCain nor Barack Obama needs the power that one of them will soon acquire. The same is true of Members of Congress, high-level bureaucrats, and governors: they neither need nor deserve the power they possess.
Let's redistribute this power widely and more equally, to the masses, so that America is rid of unconscionable and socially destabilizing concentrations of power.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
On Greed
4 October 2008
Mr. Scott Simon, Host
Weekend Edition
National Public Radio
Dear Editor:
John Lithgow is a fine actor, but he should spare us his facile explanation of the current financial turmoil (Weekend Edition, Oct. 4). Saying that "greed" caused today's problems is like saying that gravity caused the death of someone pushed from the top floor of the Empire State building. Some things are sufficiently constant in human affairs - and self-interest, even greed, is among them - that they explain nothing.
"Greed" certainly can be unleashed to do harm, but it can also be harnessed to do good. Any compelling explanation of economic problems must take "greed" as a given while identifying the specific incentives provided by prevailing social institutions. If these institutions make serving the needs of others the best path to personal gain, then "greed" is harnessed for human betterment. But if these institutions make predating on others - either through force or fraud - the best path to personal gain, then "greed" will indeed lead people to act destructively. In either case, though, it is the institutions and their accompanying incentives, rather than "greed," that explain economic reality.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
