In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other. Voltaire (1694–1778), Dictionnaire Philosophique, “Money” (1764).
If that is the art of government, how should we think of the government of art? The same way. KGrease Mungowitz, overheard in the men's room at the gym, Jan 1, 2005
Should there be a National Endowment for the Arts? Does public funding for “the arts” make sense from a policy perspective? The budget for NEA is paltry, just over $130 million, a pittance by nearly any standard. (This should terrify you: President Bush is apparently a fan...)
Well, let’s start at the beginning: What would the Framers of the U.S. Constitution have thought about a federal agency for the “promotion” of art? The Framers, remember, were among the most learned and cultured people in the New World. Many had read widely in the classics and English literature, most were fluent in French, the language of civilization. Many had visited Europe and seen collections of art, and seen architecture, that gave them an appreciation for human creativity.
Further, they knew that in Europe – where Goya was enjoying the patronage of Spain’s Charles III and where Luigi Boccherini was being named court composer in Berlin – government support for the arts was taken for granted. Finally, they were aware of the beginning of government patronage of the arts, under Amenemhet I (d. 1970 B.C.), king of Egypt, founder of the XII dynasty that initiated the Middle Kingdom. He centralized the government in a virtually feudal form (the first liberal!). The dynasty enabled the arts and science to flourish.
Well, the question isn’t completely hypothetical. On August 18, 1787, at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Charles Pinckney of South Carolina rose to urge that Congress be authorized to “establish seminaries for the promotion of literature and the arts and sciences.” His proposal was immediately voted down. In the words of one delegate, the only legitimate role for government in promoting culture and the arts was the “granting of patents,” meaning that we should protect the rights of artists and authors to make money from their creations.
Now, the framers treasured books and music, but they treasured limited government more. A federally approved artist was a repugnant a notion to them as a federally approved church or newspaper. That is why the Constitution makes no mention of subsidizing or formally supporting art and cultural organizations. It is why Americans have always been skeptical about the entangling of art and state. And it is why so many artists have rejected the notion that art depends for its vitality on some bureaucrat in Washington?
(playwright) Thornton Wilder: “There are no Miltons dying mute here today…[even in small towns] anyone who can play scales is rushed off to Vienna to play music.”
(painter) John Sloan: “It would be fine to have a ministry of arts in this country. Then we would know where the enemy is.”
(writer) William Faulkner, on being asked to visit the Kennedy White House: “Too far to go for supper.”
1951: In a poll of the American Symphony Orchestra League, 91% disapproved of federal subsidies of any kind. (Jeff Jacoby, with lots more stuff like this)
John Kennedy himself: “I do not believe federal funds should support symphony orchestras or opera companies, except when they are sent abroad in cultural exchange programs.”
But, in 1965, Congress created the NEA, a gamble overturning the wisdom of two centuries of separation between government power and artistic expression. The gamble has not paid off. Art in the past 30 years has not been improved; it has become more politicized. The support of the NEA has not inspired artists to reach new heights of expressiveness, truth or beauty. Instead, artists are encouraged to be shallow, understandable, shocking. Government-funded art is art that has sunk to noisome depths of coarseness and banality. Like other government handouts, NEA funding has fostered whining claims of entitlement – and hyperbolic forecasts of doom if the entitlement is reduced or cut off. (Again, see the good Jacoby, from whom the above paragraph is largely stolen)
The fact is that American art will not dry up and blow away if public funding is reduced, just as it was not inert before the NEA rescue in 1965. The mainstay of American art is not the NEA. It is the tens of thousands of private Americans who voluntarily give $15 billion a year to the arts, a tidal wave of generosity unparalleled anywhere. And it doesn’t end with philanthropy: add to that $15 billion the vast sums that American spend on theater subscriptions and concert music recordings, on ballet tickets and nights at the opera, on literary magazines and jazz festivals, and then add to that the millions of person-hours donated by volunteer ushers and ticket-takers and docents and fund-raisers. The total is staggering, and it makes the NEA seem about as relevant to America’s artistic splendor as a falling apple is to the law of gravity.
Four myths:
1. Funding the arts is cheap, and helps cities attract tourists.
The argument is sometimes made that cultural funding is good for cities and towns. If it is, the cities and towns should decide that they will pay for them. The basic conservative principle is the benefits and funding should be as closely matched as possible, provided that those receiving the benefits have the financial wherewithal to pay. If the benefits are going to downtown developers and restaurants, then these entities should be willing to pay for the subsidies. If the benefits are for the poor, we are better off giving the money, not the art, to those in poverty.
The argument that it doesn’t cost much is a foolish one. Most programs don’t cost much on their own. But when we add up all the costs, the budget (and the deficit) is enormous.
2. Public funding makes art available to everyone, because ticket prices are lower.
Nonsense. Suppose that it is true that without public funding many arts organizations might cease to exist. This would surely be sad. But the fact is that ticket prices now are calculated to maximize the revenues of the organization, as it is easy to show that lump-sum subsidies don’t change the revenue-maximizing, or profit-maximizing price. Public funding doesn’t affect ticket prices at all, but public funding does affect the viability of dance, opera, or theater companies and spaces for exhibitions. Many such shows exist just for the wealthy, and exist only because of public subsidy.
The only people that can go to the opera now are the wealthy. The subsidies offered out of the public purse are classic political transfers from the poor and the middle class to wealthy people. Middle class people don’t value the opera, and cannot attend anyway because the ticket prices are too high. (NOTE TO FRED HEINEMANN: Middle class is not $180k! More like $36k) The public access argument has it exactly backwards.
3. Public funds would not be replaced by private donations.
There are two possibilities: this argument is correct, or it is not. I do not believe it is correct. National Public Radio, when its funds were cut, found an outpouring of new donations. The fact that contributions to the arts have been declining over the past decade doesn’t mean much, because there has still been public funding available. If public funding were cut off, there would be a similar outpouring of new contributions and energy from volunteers from arts supporters.
But suppose the argument IS correct: that means that there are not enough people who care about the arts to want to pay the costs of artistic performances and shows. If this is true, it means that a legitimate threat to the existence of opera, theater, or dance companies, and to the viability of spaces for shows of visual arts, won’t bring new contributions. This has to make you want to wonder if arts funding is a business that the Federal government should be in!
Remember, taxes are funds taken by threat of force from some people, and then translated into a wide variety of services and transfers, many of which go right back to the people who paid the taxes. Wealthy people pay a lot of taxes, and they wield a lot of political power. The problem with the arts is that a small group of wealthy, educated people want the rest of the public to pay for their enjoyment. This is an enormous amount of money, per performance, which would be better spent spent on highways, mass transit, school children, the poor, the sick, or the aged. But none of these other programs are directly enjoyed by the wealthy patrons of the arts, so arts funding has a privileged status.
4. Great art is not popular art. We need public funding to encourage great art.
I am always confused by this argument. The Soviet Union had public funding for the arts, and (to be fair) their performance arts, of existing works, were nonpareil. Russian ballet and dance companies were among the best in the world, ticket prices were low, and there seemed to be a genuine success for public funding, especially in the larger cities.
But there were some problems with the picture. First, the costs were enormous. Because it was impossible (or at least dangerous) to question spending priorities, there was no problem as long as the totalitarian regime persisted. But with democracy has come a lot of questions about whether this is best use of funds.
Second, public funding in the former USSR did not create good new art. The new art in the Soviet Union was awful! It seems to me there are three kinds of art: Great art (which is great), popular art (some of which is great, and some of which is only good), and politically acceptable art (which is awful).
Now, I don’t know how you create great art. I know that popular art will take care of itself, because that is how you make money. I also know how you create awful, but politically acceptable, art: you have public funding whose allocation is supervised byjudges or critics.
Some say that those who can’t do, teach (I would never say that). But, from this perspective, there is an even lower rung on the ladder: what if you can’t teach? Well, you can become an art critic! If you want to say critics have more taste about what is good art I may agree with you. But critics are notorious in their inability to recognize great art. The main job of critics appears to be preventing great artists from being recognized in their own lifetimes. Juries of critics who enforce standards of taste, fad, or political correctness are actually the bane of great art. Soviet artists, or American artists, who consciously try to win public funding are selling out to the forces of political fadism. Artists should be terrified of enforced public taste, whether that taste belongs to the political left, the right, or the dreary center.
Great art of the late 20th century is the art that will make people laugh, cry, or get mad fifty or one hundred years from now. I am absolutely confident that I don’t know (and today’s juries don’t know) what that great art will be. Contemporaries of Van Gogh dismissed his work; for years after his death, Van Gogh was an oddity, a strange man who used colors and textures in a jarring way. If Van Gogh were alive today, would public funding save him? No, he would be imprisoned in a mental institution, taking lithium and doing finger paints, being patronized by his keepers: “Oooh, nice colors, Vincent? But don’t you think you ought to rest? Here, come watch Price is Right with the rest of the loonies…”
How are we to decide between the market, and the public, as a source of funding for great new art? It is true that Van Gogh sold practically nothing during his lifetime, and that the open market failed to recognize his genius. Those who support public funding for new artists want us to believe the open market is failing now, too. I agree: the open market may fail to recognize greatness, though some great artists do become rich in their own lifetimes. Popular art at least passes the market test: people pay for popular art because they want to, not because government forces them to.
Those who favor public funding want to argue that there are great artists whose works are lost, or never attempted, because the market failed them. I want to know to how many great works of art have been lost because artists have tried to pursue creatively inert, but politically correct, themes in the pursuit of public funding. Public funding, by its very nature, creates new art that is either lifeless and safe, or shocking, but superficial. Unfortunately, then, neither the market nor the public can ensure great art. As is so often the case, the market does really fail, but the situation is not yet so bad that government can’t make it worse.
Conclusion
Could the arts survive without government funding? What a question!! The government doesn’t fund the Van Cliburn competition or the National Book Awards or the MacArthur grants. The government doesn’t organize poetry competitions or produce festivals of plays or commission new string quartets. Public funding does serve a small, vocal group who like to perceive themseleves as rebels, as tellers of truth, whose main job is to confront the public with its own hypocrisy.
The NEA is an experiment that has failed. In 1965, Congress may have that that a federal agency could improve or enliven American art. Now it should know better. I am sure that it makes some in the arts community nuts that more people will read books because of Oprah Winfrey than anything the NEA has done in its 32 years. If the endowment faded away, no one would notice. America’s tens of millions of arts lovers, swept up in the richest, most democratic arts scene the human race has known, would hardly notice it was gone.
Friday, December 31, 2004
Monday, December 27, 2004
Sunday, December 26, 2004
UP AND DOWN YEAR: KGrease's NC Top 10
NC DEMOCRATIC PARTY--Democrats Need to Find aStandard-Bearer. The state Democratic party finds that the cupboard is bare. They have very few legitimate candidates. Mike Easley is not a Democrat, but rather a technocrat.(In spite of what loyal soldier Ed Turlington says about Easley in the N&O). Silent Mike doesn’t do personal appearances, and doesn’t campaign forother Dems above or below him on the ticket. Erskine Bowles does have some important challenges: there are lots of elections he hasn’t lost yet.
2. DOWN: NC POLITICS—IN-STATE. We Don’t Need a Governor,We Need a Beggar in Chief. Federal funds for storms.
3. UP: NC POLITICS—NATIONAL. Say what you want about “Johnny” Edwards; he is a player on the national stage in the Democratic like no one since….well,who? Jesse Helms was able to wield influence, but was not a player.
4. UP:
5. UP: The original Hurricanes, the ones that involve bad weather. NC missed the bruntof the storms, but this was one heck of a hurricane season. (Worst hurricane in NChistory: Hazel, Oct 15, 1954).
6. UP AND DOWN: As the number of troops from Army and Marinebases around North Carolina goes up and stays up, the effect on local businesses pushes the economy down.
7. UP AND DOWN: Video Poker. This isn’t that hard, folks. You either have to give up the betting thing, or recognize that you have to pay off the Highway Patrol, or the legislature, quite a bit more.
8. DOWN: Textile mill employment. One-third of the nation’s textile millemployment has disappeared since 2001. In
9. UP: Judge Howard Manning, Jr. I heard a story that God himself was seenwearing a Howard Manning mask. The wordwas that the angels sometimes humored God by letting him think he was aspowerful as a Superior Court Judge. Ofcourse, the real problem is that if Manning wants to pass laws, he might wantto run for a real office, like statesenate. There is plenty of evidence thatincreased spending does not improve education, but Judge Manning is going tohold everyone in contempt. Unfortunately, the legislature is showing its contempt for him, byignoring his imperious edicts. “Some ofyour high schools are about as sorry as I’ve ever seen,” said the good judge. That “sorry” may be because judges who haveno need to create consensus have taken over the education system. In state after state, the wealthy flee thepublic school system to avoid judge-instigated social engineering with kids asguinea pigs. Is it any surprise thatthose same wealthy people then turn around and vote down spending increases andcapital spending? Social engineering isa political loser, judge. But you are sure winning lots of admirers among the life-arranger set.
10. DOWN AND UP:
Bonus List: An Arresting Year....
Meg Scott Phipps--Who says women can't be politicians? She was so shamelessly corrupt, she could be an honorary man.
Chapel Hill Town Council--How 'bout those cameras at intersections? They put them in, they took them out, the worms play pinochle in your snout...Once again, liberals believe that traffic laws (like taxes) are for other people.
Michael Page, Chair of Durham School Board--Dude, you have to live in the district. It's like a rule, or something.
Keith Cook, Chair of Orange County School Board--Dude, you have to write your own speeches. It's like a rule, or something
Durham City Councilman John Best, Jr--It's the child support, stupid!
Happy New Year! I have been taking the heir to the Mungowitz fortune out for driving practice (he's 15 now). This driving thing...it's hard. So, watch out for a green minivan.
Friday, December 24, 2004
The Cadillac Song
My older son, bless him, likes classic rock. (No, I don't mean "Nirvana." I mean from the 1960's and 1970's.)
I was driving carpool down to RCHS, and we were listening to Led Zeppelin.
One kid says, "I think they played this song at a Renaissance festival." You know, the flutes and stuff. I hate everything.
Five minutes later, another kid says, "Listen! The Cadillac song!" I'm tempted to drive into a bridge abutment.
When Bob Seger let "Like a Rock" (once a terrific song, to me at least, about lost youth) become the Chevy jingle, I guess I could handle that. But now "Rock and Roll" is the Cadillac song? Think about the number of levels on which that is wrong. And then shoot me.
I was driving carpool down to RCHS, and we were listening to Led Zeppelin.
One kid says, "I think they played this song at a Renaissance festival." You know, the flutes and stuff. I hate everything.
Five minutes later, another kid says, "Listen! The Cadillac song!" I'm tempted to drive into a bridge abutment.
When Bob Seger let "Like a Rock" (once a terrific song, to me at least, about lost youth) become the Chevy jingle, I guess I could handle that. But now "Rock and Roll" is the Cadillac song? Think about the number of levels on which that is wrong. And then shoot me.
Coturnix Does Not Quail
My state-mate Coturnix does not quail* from the truth, at least as he sees it. He claims "conservatives are crazy and dangerous." All of them. I'm pretty sure he means, me, too.
As we say in the South, "Bless his heart." (Or, Bless his heart, again)
On the other hand, as a recent ex-Republican myself, there is some truth to the central claim, if not the NCSU birdman's bizarrely aggressive ad hominems. I just finished reading "What's the Matter With Kansas?", which I expected to hate. But Thomas Frank makes some uncomfortably accurate observations, stuff I had never thought of, but recognized immediately.
Ick. I hate it when hateful liberals are right.
I think I'll go read Ann Coulter. She is NEVER right. But apparently she shoots well. (Nothing like an anorexic blonde fascist fondling high muzzle velocity firearms to get KGrease's heart beating fast. Yummy.)
* Yes, that was a gallinaceous joke.
As we say in the South, "Bless his heart." (Or, Bless his heart, again)
On the other hand, as a recent ex-Republican myself, there is some truth to the central claim, if not the NCSU birdman's bizarrely aggressive ad hominems. I just finished reading "What's the Matter With Kansas?", which I expected to hate. But Thomas Frank makes some uncomfortably accurate observations, stuff I had never thought of, but recognized immediately.
Ick. I hate it when hateful liberals are right.
I think I'll go read Ann Coulter. She is NEVER right. But apparently she shoots well. (Nothing like an anorexic blonde fascist fondling high muzzle velocity firearms to get KGrease's heart beating fast. Yummy.)
* Yes, that was a gallinaceous joke.
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Bigger Picture: Increasing Internet Penetration in India
Oh, golly.
Two crazy kids, a camera phone, and Ebay: recipe for arrest of a top of Indian official of the on-line auction company. Indian Ebay exec Avnish Bajaj got arrested when pictures of oral sex between teenagers got sold on Ebay.
Legal reaction: "Ultimately we have to see bigger picture. We want to increase Internet penetration. This will only happen if you allow service providers the freedom." (Pawan Duggal, Indian cyberlaw expert).
Um...I think pictures, internet penetration, and provision of service are exactly what got those kids in trouble in the first place, man.
Two crazy kids, a camera phone, and Ebay: recipe for arrest of a top of Indian official of the on-line auction company. Indian Ebay exec Avnish Bajaj got arrested when pictures of oral sex between teenagers got sold on Ebay.
Legal reaction: "Ultimately we have to see bigger picture. We want to increase Internet penetration. This will only happen if you allow service providers the freedom." (Pawan Duggal, Indian cyberlaw expert).
Um...I think pictures, internet penetration, and provision of service are exactly what got those kids in trouble in the first place, man.
Monday, December 20, 2004
Living Wage: Job Gentrification
The problem with “Living Wage” proposals is not that they are immoral. They are illogical! See for example, this, or this, which points to living wages that exceed $20/hour.
Government cannot mandate some prices in a market; it’s all or nothing.
Prices have two functions:
· they tell us how much things are worth (static)
· they give signals about the value of investment, effort, and entrepreneurship (dynamic).
The proposal of "living wage" zealots is this: governments, or corporation, would be forced to pay a “living wage,” based on a Living Income Standard, or LIS.
The problem is that economic forces are like hydraulic pressures: you can redirect them, but you can’t make them go away.
There are really two kinds of difficulties--
1. job gentrification
2. budget pressures
1. “Gentrification” happens in poor neighborhoods when an area is more attractive, because of location or amenities. Middle-class people move in, rents are driven up, and poor people have to move out. Demand effect.
Flip side, just as bad, on the supply side for marginal laborers. If you raise pay from $6.00 / hour to $14.00 / hour or more (why not abolish gravity, while we are at it?), poor people are going to be driven out. Right now, if a job opening is announced at a university for housekeepers, there are 10 or more applicants, and that is for a very low rate of pay.
But everyone who applies is economically marginal. History of firings, periods out of the work force, little relevant experience, that sort of thing. How about if the job paid $14 / hour? Hundreds of applicants, and many of them are NOT economically marginal. Over time, all of the economically marginal people, with problems with absenteeism, punctuality, health difficulties, will be squeezed out. “Living Wage” will not be enjoyed by those now working at minimum wage, but by those whose skills can command that wage in the marketplace.
So, if "gentrification" is so bad, for buildings, why is it okay for workers?
2. Budget pressures: schools, universities, local governments all want to provide better services that cost less. Pressures to contract out, substitute away from expensive labor. Problem with contracting out is that it substitutes a temp worker, with no benefits, for a full time worker with decent benefits. Much cheaper to the employer, and they can fire them anytime and sign a new contract.
If Things are so Bad, Why is Everyone Trying to Move Here?
North Carolina has experienced the largest population growth, largely as a result of immigration, legal and illegal. Since 1994, the state population increased 74 percent; Nevada, 60 percent; and Kansas, 54 percent.
Six of the 10 fastest-growing Hispanic populations in the United States are in North Carolina, including Hickory at No. 1. Charlotte is fourth, Rocky Mount sixth, Greenville seventh and the Triangle eighth. Those regions offer jobs in furniture factories, textile mills and farms that immigrants can step right into. ``I think it's just a very opportune place and word has gotten out,'' said Claudia Main, who helps run Hickory's Community Relations Council. Pouring a foundation or working a loom in the Triad is better than selling coffee beans for 15 cents a pound or working for a fruit company making a dime an hour somewhere in Latin America, said Rafael Ruano, who moved to High Point from Costa Rica four years ago. ``The growers live in poverty in those countries,'' Ruano said. ``The life expectancy is very low.''
Not true that we need to pay more because we have so many poor people. In fact, we pay so well that poor people come here from all over the world!
Government cannot mandate some prices in a market; it’s all or nothing.
Prices have two functions:
· they tell us how much things are worth (static)
· they give signals about the value of investment, effort, and entrepreneurship (dynamic).
The proposal of "living wage" zealots is this: governments, or corporation, would be forced to pay a “living wage,” based on a Living Income Standard, or LIS.
The problem is that economic forces are like hydraulic pressures: you can redirect them, but you can’t make them go away.
There are really two kinds of difficulties--
1. job gentrification
2. budget pressures
1. “Gentrification” happens in poor neighborhoods when an area is more attractive, because of location or amenities. Middle-class people move in, rents are driven up, and poor people have to move out. Demand effect.
Flip side, just as bad, on the supply side for marginal laborers. If you raise pay from $6.00 / hour to $14.00 / hour or more (why not abolish gravity, while we are at it?), poor people are going to be driven out. Right now, if a job opening is announced at a university for housekeepers, there are 10 or more applicants, and that is for a very low rate of pay.
But everyone who applies is economically marginal. History of firings, periods out of the work force, little relevant experience, that sort of thing. How about if the job paid $14 / hour? Hundreds of applicants, and many of them are NOT economically marginal. Over time, all of the economically marginal people, with problems with absenteeism, punctuality, health difficulties, will be squeezed out. “Living Wage” will not be enjoyed by those now working at minimum wage, but by those whose skills can command that wage in the marketplace.
So, if "gentrification" is so bad, for buildings, why is it okay for workers?
2. Budget pressures: schools, universities, local governments all want to provide better services that cost less. Pressures to contract out, substitute away from expensive labor. Problem with contracting out is that it substitutes a temp worker, with no benefits, for a full time worker with decent benefits. Much cheaper to the employer, and they can fire them anytime and sign a new contract.
If Things are so Bad, Why is Everyone Trying to Move Here?
North Carolina has experienced the largest population growth, largely as a result of immigration, legal and illegal. Since 1994, the state population increased 74 percent; Nevada, 60 percent; and Kansas, 54 percent.
Six of the 10 fastest-growing Hispanic populations in the United States are in North Carolina, including Hickory at No. 1. Charlotte is fourth, Rocky Mount sixth, Greenville seventh and the Triangle eighth. Those regions offer jobs in furniture factories, textile mills and farms that immigrants can step right into. ``I think it's just a very opportune place and word has gotten out,'' said Claudia Main, who helps run Hickory's Community Relations Council. Pouring a foundation or working a loom in the Triad is better than selling coffee beans for 15 cents a pound or working for a fruit company making a dime an hour somewhere in Latin America, said Rafael Ruano, who moved to High Point from Costa Rica four years ago. ``The growers live in poverty in those countries,'' Ruano said. ``The life expectancy is very low.''
Not true that we need to pay more because we have so many poor people. In fact, we pay so well that poor people come here from all over the world!
Friday, December 17, 2004
Ruminations on Political Science II
(continued from this)
For all the "teaching" activities I discussed yesterday, there are two aspects: the CONTENT of the knowledge being transferred, and the techniques or methods of transferral.
I want to make three particular claims, each a bit stronger and more stark than what I actually believe, for the sake of...well, for fun.
1. There is less agreement on the CONTENT of learning that constitutes mastery of political science than for any other social science discipline, and far less than for any science discipline. This lack of intellectual coherence is a great advantage of the discipline, in that it is ecumenical. But the unwillingness of most departments to confront artificial separations in what we think of as the CONTENT of political science works to the detriment of our teaching, particularly in the way that we teach graduate students (who must choose, and be catechized, in one or another schismatic denomination. Political Science is the BAPTISTS of academic disciplines). If you were to do a survey of political scientists, the disagreement over what is an "interesting question" would differ markedly. The thing that is most surprising to me is the very visceral reaction people have to questions that are NOT interesting. In describing a research program to my colleagues at Duke, describing a research program of a young person I thought was pretty impressive, the reaction of my Duke colleagues (a pretty open place!) is sometimes (I can quote it): "Yuck! That's awful." In other social sciences, it would be more likely, "I don't know much about that," or perhaps, "That's interesting; I wouldn't have thought of that." That yuck reaction is a problem: I would go so far as to claim that there is more interest in "interdisciplinary" work (uniting one branch of political science with an external discipline) than there is in crossing intradisciplinary membranes.
2. There is wide diversity in the method or technique of transferral, and this again is a potential strength. There are many ways that Political Science is taught, and there are many good ways to teach it. Furthermore, at Duke as I'm sure is true at many of your institutions, there is a tradition of commitment to teaching the in Political Science department. But I wonder whether we have substituted form for substance. Teaching, and taking, Political Science classes is fun. But what is that is being accomplished? Our subject is intrinsically more interesting than studying economics, or sociology, or psychology, yet the insights of learning those other approaches, because they are more coherent AS approaches, are more lasting. Are the intellectual rewards of learning what we call Political Science, in your undergraduate classrooms, ephemeral? Is our focus on technique, rather than content, simply described by MacBeth's "tale told by an idiot: full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?" At your universities, is Political Science a ghetto? Your best students are very good, sure. But are your worst students simply refugees from other departments, turned away by those departments because they insisted on learning and long study?
3. The chief schism in political science is between what we might call normative approaches and positivist/empirical approaches. The grand tradition of political science is its normative foundation: what is the nature of the good society? Have we lost sight of these great questions? And why is it that students of normative theory are allowed, and even by many faculty encouraged, to conduct their cultic study off in some windowless room, without reference to the real questions of relation of means to ends, and without study of the engineering principles formal theory and institutional theory could teach them? Why is it that formal theory and empirically oriented students peer through their kaleidescopes into political worlds that are, or that might be, without any interest in asking whether those worlds might be good? As an outsider, trained in another discipline, but now for 20 years a resident of Political Science, I find the magnitude and temper of the split between normative and positive or empirical approaches to be incomprehensible. Not only do normative theorists think formal theorists are wrong, they often think they are evil. Not only do formal theorists think normative theorists are useless, they think they are pre-modern cultists. We are not well served by schism. But from where might come a rejoining, a commitment to a new synthesis, bringing political science back to its roots as both a study of the good society and means of bringing it about?
For all the "teaching" activities I discussed yesterday, there are two aspects: the CONTENT of the knowledge being transferred, and the techniques or methods of transferral.
I want to make three particular claims, each a bit stronger and more stark than what I actually believe, for the sake of...well, for fun.
1. There is less agreement on the CONTENT of learning that constitutes mastery of political science than for any other social science discipline, and far less than for any science discipline. This lack of intellectual coherence is a great advantage of the discipline, in that it is ecumenical. But the unwillingness of most departments to confront artificial separations in what we think of as the CONTENT of political science works to the detriment of our teaching, particularly in the way that we teach graduate students (who must choose, and be catechized, in one or another schismatic denomination. Political Science is the BAPTISTS of academic disciplines). If you were to do a survey of political scientists, the disagreement over what is an "interesting question" would differ markedly. The thing that is most surprising to me is the very visceral reaction people have to questions that are NOT interesting. In describing a research program to my colleagues at Duke, describing a research program of a young person I thought was pretty impressive, the reaction of my Duke colleagues (a pretty open place!) is sometimes (I can quote it): "Yuck! That's awful." In other social sciences, it would be more likely, "I don't know much about that," or perhaps, "That's interesting; I wouldn't have thought of that." That yuck reaction is a problem: I would go so far as to claim that there is more interest in "interdisciplinary" work (uniting one branch of political science with an external discipline) than there is in crossing intradisciplinary membranes.
2. There is wide diversity in the method or technique of transferral, and this again is a potential strength. There are many ways that Political Science is taught, and there are many good ways to teach it. Furthermore, at Duke as I'm sure is true at many of your institutions, there is a tradition of commitment to teaching the in Political Science department. But I wonder whether we have substituted form for substance. Teaching, and taking, Political Science classes is fun. But what is that is being accomplished? Our subject is intrinsically more interesting than studying economics, or sociology, or psychology, yet the insights of learning those other approaches, because they are more coherent AS approaches, are more lasting. Are the intellectual rewards of learning what we call Political Science, in your undergraduate classrooms, ephemeral? Is our focus on technique, rather than content, simply described by MacBeth's "tale told by an idiot: full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?" At your universities, is Political Science a ghetto? Your best students are very good, sure. But are your worst students simply refugees from other departments, turned away by those departments because they insisted on learning and long study?
3. The chief schism in political science is between what we might call normative approaches and positivist/empirical approaches. The grand tradition of political science is its normative foundation: what is the nature of the good society? Have we lost sight of these great questions? And why is it that students of normative theory are allowed, and even by many faculty encouraged, to conduct their cultic study off in some windowless room, without reference to the real questions of relation of means to ends, and without study of the engineering principles formal theory and institutional theory could teach them? Why is it that formal theory and empirically oriented students peer through their kaleidescopes into political worlds that are, or that might be, without any interest in asking whether those worlds might be good? As an outsider, trained in another discipline, but now for 20 years a resident of Political Science, I find the magnitude and temper of the split between normative and positive or empirical approaches to be incomprehensible. Not only do normative theorists think formal theorists are wrong, they often think they are evil. Not only do formal theorists think normative theorists are useless, they think they are pre-modern cultists. We are not well served by schism. But from where might come a rejoining, a commitment to a new synthesis, bringing political science back to its roots as both a study of the good society and means of bringing it about?
Thursday, December 16, 2004
Ruminations on Political Science: Teaching, Learning, and Writing
What do professional political scientists do? We teach. (Sure, there's THAT aspect, darn that Woody Allen).
I tried to think broadly about the forms of teaching that we do. There are four kinds of teaching, very different from each other.
1. Teaching students, who may have little background
2. Training graduate students, who will themselves teach students
3. Teaching ourselves, through research activities create new knowledge about things that are true, or correct old conceptions about truth that turn out to be false. In this case, we are the student, and the world of politics is the teacher. But we are a particular kind of student, one conditioned by what we believe, or what we have been taught, is an "interesting question." Presumably, not all unknown things are equally worth learning, but how would we tell the difference?
4. Teaching our colleagues, and future generations, through publication of research that may influence all of the other aspects of teaching.
Notice the difference between #3 and #4: It trips up most young people, and makes them fail as professors. One way to fail is to study something until you understand it, but then drift to something else without writing it up. This happens all the time: a scholar teaches him/herself until some learning (type #3) has actually taken place, but the "write it and publish it" (type #4) never happens.
The other way to fail is less excruciating to watch, but more painful to read. Since we put so much emphasis on publishing, lots of young people start writing about a subject before they have learned much about it. Learning #3 MUST precede #4. But I often get papers to review for journals where it is clear that the author needs to go think about the subject for a few months, and learn the stuff himself.
About a month ago, I drew a death's head on referee report. Helpful? Constructive? No, but the paper was an insult. Who will teach the teachers?
I tried to think broadly about the forms of teaching that we do. There are four kinds of teaching, very different from each other.
1. Teaching students, who may have little background
2. Training graduate students, who will themselves teach students
3. Teaching ourselves, through research activities create new knowledge about things that are true, or correct old conceptions about truth that turn out to be false. In this case, we are the student, and the world of politics is the teacher. But we are a particular kind of student, one conditioned by what we believe, or what we have been taught, is an "interesting question." Presumably, not all unknown things are equally worth learning, but how would we tell the difference?
4. Teaching our colleagues, and future generations, through publication of research that may influence all of the other aspects of teaching.
Notice the difference between #3 and #4: It trips up most young people, and makes them fail as professors. One way to fail is to study something until you understand it, but then drift to something else without writing it up. This happens all the time: a scholar teaches him/herself until some learning (type #3) has actually taken place, but the "write it and publish it" (type #4) never happens.
The other way to fail is less excruciating to watch, but more painful to read. Since we put so much emphasis on publishing, lots of young people start writing about a subject before they have learned much about it. Learning #3 MUST precede #4. But I often get papers to review for journals where it is clear that the author needs to go think about the subject for a few months, and learn the stuff himself.
About a month ago, I drew a death's head on referee report. Helpful? Constructive? No, but the paper was an insult. Who will teach the teachers?
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Regulation: Sacrifice of the Intellect
Scarcely anyone interests himself in social problems without being led to do so by the desire to see reforms enacted. In almost all cases, before anyone begins to study the science, he has already decided on definite reforms that he wants to put through. Only a few have the strength to accept the knowledge that these reforms are impracticable and to draw all the inferences from it. Most men endure the sacrifice of the intellect more easily than the sacrifice of their daydreams. They cannot bear that their utopias should run aground on the unalterable necessities of human existence. What they yearn for is another reality different from the one given in this world...They wish to be free of a universe of whose order they do not approve.
(Ludwig von Mises, Epistemological Problems of Economics)
The idea of controlling citizens is as old as government. But the notion of “regulating” citizens, and markets, is comparatively recent. The definition of regulation is a set of one or more rules or standards that direct or restrict conduct, with some provisions for enforcing the standards by punishing violators. To be legitimate, regulators must stipulate some utopian benchmark, pinpointing a gap between the real world and the “optimal” activities of private groups. For the libertarian, regulation presents two sets of questions, raised by scholars as diverse as Friedman, Rothbard, Stigler, and von Mises
· First, even if this gap exists, can government close it? Or is regulation likely to make things worse? We would need a theory of “government success,” in addition to “market failure,” before regulation could be justified.
· Second, even if government could, in principle, improve the performance of the economy, should it be given the power to try?
A regulated market economy differs from socialism, where government owns the means of production. Metaphorically, supporters of regulation concede that private activity is the locomotive that moves the economy. But government regulators direct the train and keep it from overheating or breaking down. This raises the key question in understanding regulation: by what right can government use its coercive power to restrict the private activity of some citizens, for the benefit of “society”? To understand the argument regulation supporters make for this right, we need to examine the utopian point of reference, perfect competition.
Perfect Competition: The Nonexistent Benchmark
In “perfectly competitive” markets, prices accurately signal the relative scarcity of all valuable resources, including inputs such as labor and capital, and outputs such as consumer goods and services. Wherever price exceeds marginal cost (what it costs to produce the last unit) of production, resources flow frictionlessly into that industry, until the price is driven down, and all producers are earning zero profits at the margin. “Price equals production cost” is the hallmark of perfectly competitive markets, because it means all parties accept the pattern of transactions.
The perfect competition outcome is called “efficient,” because it implies zero waste. More technically, for the advocate of regulation, an efficient outcome is the idealized benchmark where there is no feasible reallocation of resources that could result in higher total output of goods and services. The comparison to perfect competition, and the associated concept of efficiency, is at the core of the rationale behind support for regulation. Inefficiency, or “market failure,” implies that regulation is needed, even when the ideal of efficiency is actually unattainable.
Market Failures
There are three main categories of market failure: (I) Information Asymmetry, (II) Natural Monopoly, and (III) Externalities.
I. Information Asymmetry: Citizens often don’t know much about products or services in advance. There are many examples of regulation in this setting. Licensing requirements, for example, ensure that airplane pilots can fly (and land!) planes. Likewise, drug regulations require that products are safe and effective before they can be marketed.
But where should draw the line? Why not regulate all activities where quality is unknown? Some restaurants are not very good, after all. Why not establish a “Federal Bureau of Indian Buffets,” and close down restaurants that serve bad vindaloo? Because the “problem” of information asymmetry is not really a market failure at all. Markets can handle this problem quite well. If you go to a restaurant, and gag on the vindaloo, you don’t go back. You tell your friends, or write a newspaper review. People stay away, and the restaurant closes.
Reputation and brand names are powerful, and general, spontaneous (market-generated) answers to information asymmetry. If you are traveling in another city, or even another country, and see a chain restaurant you recognize, you may eat there, because you know that the quality will be of a certain level: not great, but not terrible. Natives may not eat there, because they have local knowledge of even better restaurants, but brand names can solve the information problem fairly well for people who lack such knowledge.
II. Natural Monopoly Perfect competition means that all market participants are “price takers,” whose activities are so small that their impact on price is negligible. But what if some market participants are not price takers? The problem of “natural monopoly” occurs when an activity, such as the supply of electricity or sewer services, requires enormous up-front costs. The result is that only one producer can supply the “efficient” level of the good or service.
A common example of the up-front costs problem is electrical generation facilities, with the associated delivery infrastructure that includes wires, switches, and transformers. What prices should be charged by such enterprises? If they charge at marginal cost, or the cost of generating the electricity once the infrastructure is in place, they can’t pay for the infrastructure. But if they divide the cost over all the units of output, then price greatly exceeds marginal cost. Further, the cost per unit actually falls as production goes up, meaning that one large firm can produce at half the cost of two smaller firms with the same total capacity.
Local governments can either accept the higher costs of many inefficient firms competing, or suffer the higher costs of monopoly overpricing. The third way out is to regulate the monopoly, by mandating rates to be charged and the return that can be earned on investment.
But there have been arguments that regulation of utilities, though pervasive, is unnecessary and costly. If long-term contracts with private firms are bid competitively, the terms of the contract can easily include price and performance criteria. If the firm violates the contract, it forfeits the value of investments it has made in the long-term arrangement. The most important argument for this position is Demsetz, 1968, but this view has lately been given more credence by a number of states public utilities commissions.
III. Public Goods/Externalities The perfect competition model assumes that all consequences of consumption and production choices are internal, meaning they only affect those involved in the exchange. If there are other effects, for which no compensation is made, then the individual incentives may be distorted.
Suppose, for example, someone dumps raw toxic wastes into a river. This is an example of an externality, where one’s action affects others, but those affected have no say. The dumper considers only the small costs he incurs (just tip the barrels into the river). But he ignores the “social” costs of his actions (downstream poisoning and cancer), causing a market failure.
This is a good point to step back, and ask again why it is that government action is necessary. What, in the case of the toxic waste dumper, is the source of the “externality”? Is it really a failure of the market, or is it (as Coase 1960 would suggest) a failure to specify property rights and a system of legal recourse based on torts, class action suits, and compensation for damages?
In fact, the libertarian answer to most market failures is to specify property rights more clearly, and make it less costly for people to arrive at accurate prices on their own.
As Ludwig von Mises noted in Human Action:
It is true that where a considerable part of the costs incurred are external costs from the point of view of the acting individuals or firms, the economic calculation established by them is manifestly defective and their results deceptive. But this is not the outcome of alleged deficiencies inherent in the system of private ownership of the means of production. It is on the contrary a consequence of loopholes left in the system. It could be removed by a reform of the laws concerning liability for damages inflicted and by rescinding the institutional barriers preventing the full operation of private ownership.
Regulation often makes the problem of market failure worse, because regulated markets always, by design, transmit biased or noisy price signals. Robbed of the organizing principle of accurate prices directing resource allocation, some other kind of judgment (in this case, that of a bureaucrat or regulator) must be substituted for private investment. Regulated markets generally beget more regulation, but perform no better (and often worse) than the “failed” market process that regulation was designed to correct in the first place.
Real Markets, Real Regulation
Prices give signals about the value of resources, commodities, and activities. The unregulated market is the most efficient, and the most impartial, animating principle the world has ever known. It doesn’t discriminate, and it directs resources to their highest valued use. The problem with regulation as a response to market failures, even with the best of intentions, is that government rarely “gets prices right.”
Without the “best of intentions,” regulation may make even exacerbate the problem. As George Stigler points out,
…As a rule, regulation is acquired by the industry and is designed and operated primarily for its benefit…. The state has one basic resource which in pure principle is not shared with even the mightiest of its citizens: the power to coerce…. These powers provide the possibilities for the utilization of the state by an industry to increase its profitability.…The state—the machinery and power of the state—is a potential resource or threat to every industry in the society. With its power to prohibit or compel, to take or give money, the state can and does selectively help or hurt a vast number of industries. (Stigler, 1971, pp. 1-4).
So, if market failures having to do with industry structure, information asymmetry, or externalities are regulated, the “regulations” may be designed by precisely those industries ostensibly bound by the new rules. Regulation is setting the wolf to guard the henhouse.
In real markets, it may simply be impossible to regulate, or redirect, the forces that lead investors, producers, and consumers to act the way that they do. Even if one could imagine an alternative, ideal system, regulation is at least as likely to lead away from that goal as toward it. But the chimerical ideal of “efficiency” is what motivates much of what regulators do. If actual policy falls short (and it always will) of the idealized vision of the regulator, it is tempting to try to reform government agencies, to revise organization charts, to pass new regulations, and to create new agencies and scrap old ones. This temptation should be resisted.
References
Coase, Ronald H. “The Problem of Social Cost,” Journal of Law and Economics, (October 1960): 1-44.
Demsetz, Harold. (1968). “Why Regulate Utilities?” Journal of Law and Economics. 11: 55-65.
Niskanen, William. (1971). Bureaucracy and Representative Government. Chicago: Aldine-Atherton.
Rothbard, Murray N. (1971). Power and Market: Government and the Economy. Kansas City: Universal Press Syndicate.
Stigler, George. (1971). “The Theory of Economic Regulation.” Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science. 2: 3-21.
von Mises, Ludwig. ([1933]1981). Epistemological Problems of Economics. New York: NYU Press.
von Mises, Ludwig. ([1944]1994). Bureaucracy. New York: Libertarian Press.
von Mises, Ludwig. ([1949]1997). Human Action. New York: Fox and Wilkes Press.
(Ludwig von Mises, Epistemological Problems of Economics)
The idea of controlling citizens is as old as government. But the notion of “regulating” citizens, and markets, is comparatively recent. The definition of regulation is a set of one or more rules or standards that direct or restrict conduct, with some provisions for enforcing the standards by punishing violators. To be legitimate, regulators must stipulate some utopian benchmark, pinpointing a gap between the real world and the “optimal” activities of private groups. For the libertarian, regulation presents two sets of questions, raised by scholars as diverse as Friedman, Rothbard, Stigler, and von Mises
· First, even if this gap exists, can government close it? Or is regulation likely to make things worse? We would need a theory of “government success,” in addition to “market failure,” before regulation could be justified.
· Second, even if government could, in principle, improve the performance of the economy, should it be given the power to try?
A regulated market economy differs from socialism, where government owns the means of production. Metaphorically, supporters of regulation concede that private activity is the locomotive that moves the economy. But government regulators direct the train and keep it from overheating or breaking down. This raises the key question in understanding regulation: by what right can government use its coercive power to restrict the private activity of some citizens, for the benefit of “society”? To understand the argument regulation supporters make for this right, we need to examine the utopian point of reference, perfect competition.
Perfect Competition: The Nonexistent Benchmark
In “perfectly competitive” markets, prices accurately signal the relative scarcity of all valuable resources, including inputs such as labor and capital, and outputs such as consumer goods and services. Wherever price exceeds marginal cost (what it costs to produce the last unit) of production, resources flow frictionlessly into that industry, until the price is driven down, and all producers are earning zero profits at the margin. “Price equals production cost” is the hallmark of perfectly competitive markets, because it means all parties accept the pattern of transactions.
The perfect competition outcome is called “efficient,” because it implies zero waste. More technically, for the advocate of regulation, an efficient outcome is the idealized benchmark where there is no feasible reallocation of resources that could result in higher total output of goods and services. The comparison to perfect competition, and the associated concept of efficiency, is at the core of the rationale behind support for regulation. Inefficiency, or “market failure,” implies that regulation is needed, even when the ideal of efficiency is actually unattainable.
Market Failures
There are three main categories of market failure: (I) Information Asymmetry, (II) Natural Monopoly, and (III) Externalities.
I. Information Asymmetry: Citizens often don’t know much about products or services in advance. There are many examples of regulation in this setting. Licensing requirements, for example, ensure that airplane pilots can fly (and land!) planes. Likewise, drug regulations require that products are safe and effective before they can be marketed.
But where should draw the line? Why not regulate all activities where quality is unknown? Some restaurants are not very good, after all. Why not establish a “Federal Bureau of Indian Buffets,” and close down restaurants that serve bad vindaloo? Because the “problem” of information asymmetry is not really a market failure at all. Markets can handle this problem quite well. If you go to a restaurant, and gag on the vindaloo, you don’t go back. You tell your friends, or write a newspaper review. People stay away, and the restaurant closes.
Reputation and brand names are powerful, and general, spontaneous (market-generated) answers to information asymmetry. If you are traveling in another city, or even another country, and see a chain restaurant you recognize, you may eat there, because you know that the quality will be of a certain level: not great, but not terrible. Natives may not eat there, because they have local knowledge of even better restaurants, but brand names can solve the information problem fairly well for people who lack such knowledge.
II. Natural Monopoly Perfect competition means that all market participants are “price takers,” whose activities are so small that their impact on price is negligible. But what if some market participants are not price takers? The problem of “natural monopoly” occurs when an activity, such as the supply of electricity or sewer services, requires enormous up-front costs. The result is that only one producer can supply the “efficient” level of the good or service.
A common example of the up-front costs problem is electrical generation facilities, with the associated delivery infrastructure that includes wires, switches, and transformers. What prices should be charged by such enterprises? If they charge at marginal cost, or the cost of generating the electricity once the infrastructure is in place, they can’t pay for the infrastructure. But if they divide the cost over all the units of output, then price greatly exceeds marginal cost. Further, the cost per unit actually falls as production goes up, meaning that one large firm can produce at half the cost of two smaller firms with the same total capacity.
Local governments can either accept the higher costs of many inefficient firms competing, or suffer the higher costs of monopoly overpricing. The third way out is to regulate the monopoly, by mandating rates to be charged and the return that can be earned on investment.
But there have been arguments that regulation of utilities, though pervasive, is unnecessary and costly. If long-term contracts with private firms are bid competitively, the terms of the contract can easily include price and performance criteria. If the firm violates the contract, it forfeits the value of investments it has made in the long-term arrangement. The most important argument for this position is Demsetz, 1968, but this view has lately been given more credence by a number of states public utilities commissions.
III. Public Goods/Externalities The perfect competition model assumes that all consequences of consumption and production choices are internal, meaning they only affect those involved in the exchange. If there are other effects, for which no compensation is made, then the individual incentives may be distorted.
Suppose, for example, someone dumps raw toxic wastes into a river. This is an example of an externality, where one’s action affects others, but those affected have no say. The dumper considers only the small costs he incurs (just tip the barrels into the river). But he ignores the “social” costs of his actions (downstream poisoning and cancer), causing a market failure.
This is a good point to step back, and ask again why it is that government action is necessary. What, in the case of the toxic waste dumper, is the source of the “externality”? Is it really a failure of the market, or is it (as Coase 1960 would suggest) a failure to specify property rights and a system of legal recourse based on torts, class action suits, and compensation for damages?
In fact, the libertarian answer to most market failures is to specify property rights more clearly, and make it less costly for people to arrive at accurate prices on their own.
As Ludwig von Mises noted in Human Action:
It is true that where a considerable part of the costs incurred are external costs from the point of view of the acting individuals or firms, the economic calculation established by them is manifestly defective and their results deceptive. But this is not the outcome of alleged deficiencies inherent in the system of private ownership of the means of production. It is on the contrary a consequence of loopholes left in the system. It could be removed by a reform of the laws concerning liability for damages inflicted and by rescinding the institutional barriers preventing the full operation of private ownership.
Regulation often makes the problem of market failure worse, because regulated markets always, by design, transmit biased or noisy price signals. Robbed of the organizing principle of accurate prices directing resource allocation, some other kind of judgment (in this case, that of a bureaucrat or regulator) must be substituted for private investment. Regulated markets generally beget more regulation, but perform no better (and often worse) than the “failed” market process that regulation was designed to correct in the first place.
Real Markets, Real Regulation
Prices give signals about the value of resources, commodities, and activities. The unregulated market is the most efficient, and the most impartial, animating principle the world has ever known. It doesn’t discriminate, and it directs resources to their highest valued use. The problem with regulation as a response to market failures, even with the best of intentions, is that government rarely “gets prices right.”
Without the “best of intentions,” regulation may make even exacerbate the problem. As George Stigler points out,
…As a rule, regulation is acquired by the industry and is designed and operated primarily for its benefit…. The state has one basic resource which in pure principle is not shared with even the mightiest of its citizens: the power to coerce…. These powers provide the possibilities for the utilization of the state by an industry to increase its profitability.…The state—the machinery and power of the state—is a potential resource or threat to every industry in the society. With its power to prohibit or compel, to take or give money, the state can and does selectively help or hurt a vast number of industries. (Stigler, 1971, pp. 1-4).
So, if market failures having to do with industry structure, information asymmetry, or externalities are regulated, the “regulations” may be designed by precisely those industries ostensibly bound by the new rules. Regulation is setting the wolf to guard the henhouse.
In real markets, it may simply be impossible to regulate, or redirect, the forces that lead investors, producers, and consumers to act the way that they do. Even if one could imagine an alternative, ideal system, regulation is at least as likely to lead away from that goal as toward it. But the chimerical ideal of “efficiency” is what motivates much of what regulators do. If actual policy falls short (and it always will) of the idealized vision of the regulator, it is tempting to try to reform government agencies, to revise organization charts, to pass new regulations, and to create new agencies and scrap old ones. This temptation should be resisted.
References
Coase, Ronald H. “The Problem of Social Cost,” Journal of Law and Economics, (October 1960): 1-44.
Demsetz, Harold. (1968). “Why Regulate Utilities?” Journal of Law and Economics. 11: 55-65.
Niskanen, William. (1971). Bureaucracy and Representative Government. Chicago: Aldine-Atherton.
Rothbard, Murray N. (1971). Power and Market: Government and the Economy. Kansas City: Universal Press Syndicate.
Stigler, George. (1971). “The Theory of Economic Regulation.” Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science. 2: 3-21.
von Mises, Ludwig. ([1933]1981). Epistemological Problems of Economics. New York: NYU Press.
von Mises, Ludwig. ([1944]1994). Bureaucracy. New York: Libertarian Press.
von Mises, Ludwig. ([1949]1997). Human Action. New York: Fox and Wilkes Press.
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