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Friday, August 15, 2003 :::

Rights And Reason: Evolution and Intellectual Egalitarianism

The Bad News is that according to The New York Times, 72% of Americans are pig-ignorant.

The Good News is, the New York Times overstates our ignorance by about 20%.

The Bad News is, by my calculations, about 20% of Americans think that ignorance and science should both be taught in public schools as electives.

When I read the New York Times' Nicholas Kristof this morning, I had a mild case of panic. I wasn't surprised by the numbers on Americans' belief in the Virgin Birth(83%), but I was shaken by the low number of Americans Kristof cites as believing in evolution: 28%.

After a bit, I decided to check Kristof's sources. In his "Kristof Responds" section, Kristof says his 28% of Americans believe in evolution comes from "a Gallup poll." Way to footnote, Kristof. You're at the New York Times, can't you get a sucker, er, intern, to work for free at making your weblog not stink? Anyway, googling "evolution gallup poll 28" yields http://www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/199909/0176.html, which describes a Gallup poll from 1999 on teaching evolution and creationism in public schools. According to the press release, "only 28% say evolution should be a required subject in public schools, and 49% say it should be an elective." My guess is that some of this could be just crabgrass libertarianism�"whatever they want, it's a free country, different strokes for different folks" kind of thing, like allowing Christian Scientists to withhold lifesaving medical treatment from their kids, or allowing crazy people to wander the streets if they don't feel like taking their medication.

Since the Center has higher standards than the New York Times, I did a little bit of research before I put something out for public consumption, as well as supplying links for the interested or dubious to follow. I went ahead and found a description of a Gallup poll on evolution itself: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_Poll.. When asked what they believe, rather than about what should be taught in school, America breaks down about 45-50% biblical creationists, 40% theistic evolutionists, 10% naturalistic evolutionists. Since, logically, if there is a God and if there is evolution, He's going to have a thumb in the evolution pie, we're talking about a 50-50 split between recognizable forms of rational thought and proud, militant ignorance.

The more I've thought about this, the more I've wondered just what I meant by "crabgrass libertarianism." What it really is, under the surface, is intellectual egalitarianism�the idea that any belief is as good as any other belief. This idea combines with our culture's abhorrence of judgement. It's rude, you know, to mock creationists. It's insensitive to ridicule snake-handlers, astrologists, that fraud who talks to dead people on the Sci-Fi channel, charlatans like Deepak Chopra who claims to levitate, Reverend Sun Yung Moon mass-marrying cultists, the Natural Law Party, recovered-memory therapists and their poor dupes, alien abductees, people who study the Book of Revelations for portents, wiccans who "cast spells", Scientologists, etc.

Think of the times in our culture today when open scorn for a religion is expressed. Usually, the targets are either the Catholic Church or conservative Christians, and the grievance is that their religion is homophobic and/or misogynist. In other words, the religions are attacked, not for their logical merits or lack thereof, which can be debated, but because they make women and homosexuals feel unwelcome.

The result is a large slice of the population that, while not ignorant themselves, recognizes no important distinction between their own knowledge and someone else's creationist delusion. This is the climate allows half of Americans to believe and state in public that humans were divinely created in the last 10,000 years, without fear of censure.

What will happen when, soon, unassimilated Islamic nutburgers in America start making demands? When Moslems in America demand to live under "Islamic law"?

People who believe indefensible or silly or false things are free to do so. But they should be held to account, and should have to defend their silly or false beliefs. If they are embarrassed, then good�hopefully they will act to correct their ignorance, and we will all be better off.

::: posted by John Bragg at 2:14 PM | link | donate |

Rights and Reason: A 'Big Government Conservatism'

In today's Wall Street Journal Fred Barnes calls President Bush a "big government conservative" and writes the following:

The essence of Mr. Bush's big government conservatism is a trade-off. To gain free-market reforms and expand individual choice, he's willing to broaden programs and increase spending. Thus his aim in proposing to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare is to reform the entire health-care system for seniors. True, the drug benefit would be the biggest new entitlement in 40 years. But if paired with reforms that lure seniors away from Medicare and into private health insurance, Mr. Bush sees the benefit as an affordable (and very popular) price to pay. Mr. Bush earlier wanted to go further, requiring seniors to switch to private health insurance to be eligible for the drug benefit. He dropped the requirement when queasy congressional Republicans balked. Now it's uncertain whether Congress will pass a Medicare bill with sufficient market incentives to justify Mr. Bush's approval. Should he sign a measure without significant reforms, he won't be acting as a big government conservative.

On education, Mr. Bush and Mr. Kennedy joined to pass the No Child Left Behind Act. Its only real reform was a mandate for states to test student achievement on the basis of federal standards. Many conservatives, including some on the president's staff, felt this wasn't sufficient reform to warrant boosting the federal share of education spending. Still, Mr. Kennedy and other liberals aren't happy either. They'd expected even more spending.

When I coined the phrase "big government conservative" years ago, I had certain traits in mind. Mr. Bush has all of them. First, he's realistic. He understands why Mr. Reagan failed to reduce the size of the federal government and why Newt Gingrich and the GOP revolutionaries failed as well. The reason: People like big government so long as it's not a huge drag on the economy. So Mr. Bush abandoned the all-but-hopeless fight that Mr. Reagan and conservatives on Capitol Hill had waged to jettison the Department of Education. Instead, he's opted to infuse the department with conservative goals.

A second trait is a programmatic bent. Big government conservatives prefer to be in favor of things because that puts them on the political offensive. Promoting spending cuts/minimalist government doesn't do that. Mr. Bush has famously defined himself as a compassionate conservative with a positive agenda. Almost by definition, this makes him a big government conservative. His most ambitious program is his faith-based initiative. It would use government funds to expand social programs run by religious organizations. Many of them have been effective in fighting drug/alcohol addiction and helping lift people out of poverty. So far, the initiative has had only a small impact, its scope limited by Congress.

Another trait is a far more benign view of government than traditional conservatives have. Big government conservatives are favorably disposed toward what neoconservative Irving Kristol has called a "conservative welfare state." (Neocons tend to be big government conservatives.) This means they support transfer payments that have a neutral or beneficial effect (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) and oppose those that subsidize bad behavior (welfare). Mr. Bush wants to reform Social Security and Medicare but not shrink either.

Mr. Bush has never put a name on his political philosophy, though he once joked that it was based on the premise that you could fool some of the people all of the time and he intended to concentrate on those people. An aide characterized Bushism as "an activist, reforming conservatism that recognizes it's sometimes necessary to use the power of the government to change the status quo." I doubt that Mr. Bush would put it that way, but at least it distinguishes him from the ordinary run of conservatives. He's a different breed.

So President Bush has never put a name on his political philosophy. I will. It�s pragmatism. Bush (and Barnes) think it�s hopeless to defeat the advocates of state power, so if you can�t beat them, join them. How uninspired. This from two champions�or semi-champions�of free enterprise.

Trouble is, you can�t have your cake and eat it too. You can�t have big government and freedom from big government simultaneously. Yet Bush (and Barnes) seem to think otherwise, and that they are "realistic" for thinking so.

The conservatives do not deserve the mantle of defenders of capitalism. More than anyone, it is the conservatives who represent the largest threat to capitalism�it is only though their half-hearted and inconsistent defense of capitalism and individual rights that capitalism�s enemies have power.

Not all of us are so easily disarmed, or so easily dissuaded, as the conservatives. It is not hard to defend individual rights�if you know how to argue. But frankly, where Objectivism fails is not the strength of its principles, but in the faint tone its adherents make as they state their case to the world.

Some think that Atlas Shrugged alone is enough to change the world. As powerful a force as Atlas can be, the history of the past 46 years shows us that it is not enough. If America�and the world are to change, we need more.

::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 10:41 AM | link | donate |

Thursday, August 14, 2003 :::

Rights and Reason: Stair-Climbing Wheelchair Gets FDA's OK

This from the AP:

It's complicated and carries a hefty pricetag, but the federally approved iBOT wheelchair promises to give some of the nation's 2 million wheelchair users new freedom of movement, even allowing them to climb stairs.

The Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) on Wednesday authorized the sale of the iBOT, which uses sensors and gyroscopes to climb up and down stairs. It also shifts into four-wheel drive to navigate grassy hills and can lift its occupant to standing height.

Doctors have called the technology potentially revolutionary and the FDA termed it a breakthrough, but one so complex that, unlike other wheelchairs, it will require a doctor's prescription and special training before patients can buy an iBOT.

It's a wheelchair. Where does the FDA get the authority to approve a wheelchair? Where does it get the authority to require a prescription for a wheelchair? Why aren't people rioting in front of the FDA? Why aren't they burning their representatives of Congress in effigy?

This in a nation whose founders rioted over tea.

::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 11:14 AM | link | donate |

Rights & Reason: On Pricing

Virginia Postrel has a superb column in today's, cough, New York Times on prices and how regulators fail to understand the true context of price competition:

Prices capture the relative value people put on intangibles. The price system lets individuals make trade-offs among goods, without having to articulate a "good reason" for their preferences. It rewards value you cannot easily count.

Some critics find that wasteful. "Addiction to a strict and unremitting valuation of all things in terms of price and profit" leaves executives "unfit to appreciate those technological facts that can be formulated only in terms of tangible mechanical performance," Thorstein Veblen wrote in 1921 in "The Engineers and the Price System."

Veblen's critiques still influence both intellectual opinion and practical policy. His intellectual heirs, like the economists Robert Frank and Juliet Schor, treat the intangible pleasures of style as either deceptive "salesmanship" (Veblen's term) or wasteful status competition.

Public policy often regards aesthetic value as illegitimate or nonexistent. This oversight comes less from ideological conviction than from technocratic practice. Unlike prices, regulatory policy requires articulated justifications and objective standards. So policy makers emphasize measurable factors and ignore subjective pleasures.

The FTC and DOJ, of course, have mastered (if not monopolized) the talent of reducing price competition to technocratic factors. Take the Justice Department's response in the Mountain Health Care case to several customers' complaints that they were pleased with the service--and by extension, the pricing--of Mountain. The DOJ dismissed the consumer's "subjective" judgment by declaring "they could have received lower prices and better service with competition." This statement was not accompanied by any factual evidence such as a study or even a description of the marketplace. The DOJ simply decided that no reasonable consumer could want to receive medical services from Mountain, and that the only reason they did patronize the group was because of Mountain's "coercive" power over the marketplace.

I do, however, quibble with Postrel's theory that regulators do not emphasize "ideological conviction" over technocratic practice. While that's true in many cases, there is, at least in antitrust, a core regulatory principle--competition as a primary. Time and time again, the FTC and DOJ state their premise that competition--not individual rights--is the organizing principle of society, and that all government action must be directed at protecting competition from those who would harm it. This means that individuals and businesses that do not "compete", i.e. lower prices to the government's satisfaction, are committing a heretical offense against society. Capitalism and individual rights are to the FTC what gay marriage is to the Family Research Council, an abomination that should never be spoken about, let alone implemented.

And with that, I'm off on a blogging recess. Expect to hear from me again sometime after Labor Day.

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 10:26 AM | link | donate |

Wednesday, August 13, 2003 :::

Rights and Reason: President Bush can undo his worst economic mistake

The Wall Street Journal has a good op-ed on the wrongheadedness of President Bush's steel tariffs.

The President has been quiet about his tariffs ever since he imposed them in March 2002, and with good reason. The evidence is that they've done far more economic harm than good, especially to American manufacturing. Designed to help only a single industry, the tariffs have instead punished the far more numerous industries that use steel.

In the wake of the tariffs, domestic steel prices have risen by 30% or more. The price of hot-rolled steel, a major industrial commodity, nearly doubled from late 2001 to July 2002. Shortages in specific products abound, as foreign steel makers have sent their steel to suppliers in other countries. Many steel consumers have struggled to find reliable, quality product at prices that keep them competitive with foreign manufacturers.

This has all cost American jobs. A study done this year for the Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition found that higher steel prices cost some 200,000 American jobs and $4 billion in lost wages from last February to November. That compares to employment in the entire domestic steel industry of only 188,000. No fewer than 16 states lost at least 4,500 steel consuming jobs, including the key Presidential election states of Pennsylvania and Florida that each lost nearly twice that number. (Karl Rove, see Electoral College map.)

The specific job consequences were laid out in illuminating detail on the Senate floor last month by Tennessee's Lamar Alexander. The Republican noted his state is now home to 900 auto supply companies that employ 100,000 workers. When those companies couldn't raise prices to cover increased steel costs, they "suffered losses and began to lay off employees. In a few instances entire plants closed." Auto supplier ArvinMeritor closed a plant employing 317 in Gordonsville. A plant in Pulaski laid off 100 more.

Exactly. And as the Journal observes:

Rarely do American Presidents get such a clean chance to amend their economic blunders as Mr. Bush now has with steel. Lifting the tariffs would do more to help workers and create jobs than all of the media road shows and economic summits from here to Election Day.

::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 10:22 AM | link | donate |

Tuesday, August 12, 2003 :::

Rights and Reason: Man Sues Bureaucrats in China Over Name

This report from Elaine Kurtenbach, AP Business Writer:

SHANGHAI, China - An aspiring businessman hoping to tap China's growing enthusiasm for capitalism is suing communist bureaucrats who vetoed his plan to register a company whose name includes the once-taboo word, "capitalist."

Lu Yuzhang tried to register his "Shanghai Capitalist Competition Capability Consulting Co. Ltd." as a private company earlier this year, but he said officials rejected the name as "politically sensitive" and detrimental to national interests.

Seeking recourse through the courts, Lu sued the city commercial bureau officials, demanding they reverse their decision and approve his company name.

"Capitalists and capitalism exist in China. That's a fact," said Lu, a recent college graduate. "The calling of capitalism is absolutely legal and in line with the national benefits."

***
Lu's suit has prompted a minor debate in Shanghai's state-run media, with some experts accusing the young businessman of seeking publicity and others backing his demands as reasonable and legal.

"Western multinationals have been asked to invest in China to `exploit' Chinese workers. Leading capitalists from those countries are serving as advisers to the mayors of Shanghai and Beijing," noted a commentary in the Shanghai Star.

"All these things would have been regarded as sheer capitalism three decades ago," it said.

Lu said he plans to appeal if he loses.

"I will insist," he said.

He should.

::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 4:31 PM | link | donate |

Antitrust News:Indie Music Retailers Sue Best Buy

This report in from Ed Christman at Billboard:

A group of independent music retailers has filed a class-action lawsuit against Best Buy Co. Inc., alleging that the chain violates U.S. antitrust laws, as well as California state laws, that govern loss-leader selling, the strategy of pricing product below cost.

In the lawsuit -- filed Aug. 6 in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Western Division -- the plaintiffs charge that Best Buy uses its clout to receive benefits from the major labels that are not generally available to the chain's competitors. The plaintiffs in the case are Mad Rhino, Boo Boo Records, Lou's Records, Dimple Records and Rand Foster of Fingerprints.

The lawsuit says Best Buy is "able to extract from the major record companies an additional 10% discount vis-a-vis other purchasers" and receives advertising and other allowances not generally granted to other merchants. According to the complaint, these favorable prices, terms and conditions allow Best Buy to sell new albums as loss leaders, diverting massive amounts of business away from its competitors.

The complaint alleges that Best Buy has knowingly received favorable and discriminatory prices on new albums, a practice that violates the Robinson-Patman Act. Also, the complaint says that Best Buy's below-cost pricing is a way of injuring competitors or destroying competition, in violation of the California Business and Professions Code. California has a state law that merchants must price product at least 6% above cost.

The lawsuit asks for treble damages and legal fees.

But wouldn't Best Buy's purchasing leverage benefit consumers? Oh, I forget. Under antitrust, a business can be punished for selling too high, too low, or the same as others. I'm glad antitrust law is of sufficient breadth to cover all these instances.

::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 4:19 PM | link | donate |

Strange But True: The air gets thin in Denver

This from the AP:

Voters will get to decide this November whether the city should do more to reduce stress.

City council members said Monday they were forced to put the question on November's ballot because resident Jeff Peckman collected 2,462 certified signatures, slightly over the required number.

***

Peckman said the council members should favor his proposal because it supports their duty under the U.S. Constitution to provide for the common defense and ensure domestic tranquility.

Er, sure. Consider this snippet from the proposed initiative:

According to one promising theory, warfare and other social violence are caused by social stress. If the stresses in the social atmosphere mount too high - if political, economic, religious and ethnic tensions reach the breaking point - then they erupt as crime, warfare and terrorism. To reduce social violence, therefore - to reduce crime, warfare and terrorism, social stress and tension must be reduced.

One example of a peace-creating program: Many approaches exist for reducing stress in individuals, families and communities through proper behavior, wholesome food and herbal medicines, natural healthcare and exercise, holistic education and specific types of meditation and music, etc. At least one program for dissolving social stress on a national and global scale, as well, has already been scientifically validated. This consciousness-based approach has worked every time - as measured by reduced crime, accidents, fires, substance abuse, warfare and terrorism, and yet in a completely peaceful way.

Medical science has already accepted that meditation by any one individual will dissolve stress in that individual. The result is reduced anxiety, heart disease and other stress-related disorders. The new research - 50 demonstrations written up in 23 scientific studies published in peer-reviewed academic journals - shows that meditation by large groups dissolves stress in society as a whole, and even around the world. The result: reduced crime, war and terrorism.

With logic like that, who could ever vote "no"?

::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 3:40 PM | link | donate |

Sports: Remembering the Miracle Worker

Eric McErlain posts a fitting tribute to the late Herb Brooks on his blog:

I never knew Herb Brooks. I never saw him in person, and after the 1980 Olympic Games in Lake Placid, never rooted for a team he coached.

Then why have I been walking around all evening feeling like I've been gut punched?

It may be hard for readers even just a few years younger than me to understand, but even back then as a 12-year old, I could tell that things just weren't right in America. The nation was locked in a recession, with gasoline rationing a recent memory. Our nation seemed impotent in the face of a radical Islamic regime in Iran that invaded our Embassy and took its staff hostage. The Cold War was real, and we didn't know if the good guys were going to win.

Enter Brooks and a team of college kids he had molded into a fiery squad that at times may have hated and resented him more than the Olympic opposition. Brooks had taken the 1980 team on a brutal pre-Olympic tour that culminated in an exhibition against the powerful Soviets at Madison Square Garden just a week before the start of the Games in Lake Placid.

I can still remember begging my father to take me. And I should feel lucky that he didn't, as the Russians cruised to a 10-3 victory, hardly noticing the Americans at all. Heading to Lake Placid, expectations couldn't have been lower.

Which made what happened next all the more delightfully improbable. The Olympic Tournament started quietly enough, as the team salvaged a last-minute tie with Sweden, then rolled through the rest of the preliminary round without a loss and earned another date with the Soviets in the medal round.

In a 300-channel universe with satellite tv and digital cable, can anyone still understand the concept of tape delay? But that's what the geniuses at ABC served up for us on that February evening, not starting the telecast until 5:00 p.m. in the East, several hours after the game had already begun.

But this was a miracle we're talking about, and the weekend would be magic. Even today, nearly a quarter century later, when I watch the highlights of Al Michaels counting down the final seconds of the 4-3 win over the Soviets the tension all comes flooding back, as if the Soviets might actually be able to tear a rift in time and come out on top.

But it wasn't over yet. Team USA still had to beat Finland on Sunday morning in order to win the gold medal. How Brooks was able to bring his team down from such an emotional high on Friday, and then have them focused for success on Sunday has to be one of the greatest coaching achievements of all time.

But bring them down he did, and a 4-2 win secured the gold for the Americans. And then, over the next few weeks, something equally improbable happened. All over the country, after being out of fashion for some time, it became ok to say you loved your country again. Full throated, flag waving patriotism was back, and it was Brooks and 20 kids with names Eruzione, Schneider, O'Callahan, Craig, Christian, and all the others, that made it happen.

Yesterday, on a highway outside of Minneapolis, America lost a hero. A team lost it coach. A family lost its father. And I said goodbye to a cherished piece of my childhood. Rest in peace, Herb Brooks. And thank you. Thank you for more than you could ever know.

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 12:13 PM | link | donate |

Rights and Reason: Automakers Settle With Calif. Regulators

Brian Melley of the Associated Press reports that three automakers have settled their lawsuits challenging California�s auto emissions regulations:

Under terms of the deal, General Motors, DaimlerChrysler and Isuzu will not challenge new regulations for creating low-polluting and nonpolluting cars. In turn, the state will drop its appeals of lawsuits brought by automakers, said Jerry Martin, an Air Resources Board spokesman.

The settlement, scheduled to be announced Tuesday, strengthens the possibility that automakers will be forced to build cleaner cars rather than continue fighting to weaken the emissions rules.

"We get to start getting the cars on the road so California breathers can get what they expect from us, cleaner air," Martin said.

A GM spokesman in California who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed the settlement and said it depends on the air board adopting the rules as they now stand. The board changed its emissions regulations in April, but they are still in a public comment period and subject to change.

The automakers and car dealers in the San Joaquin Valley successfully challenged California's landmark 1990 requirement that 10 percent of cars sold in the state this year � about 100,000 vehicles � be nonpolluting.

They charged that the state overstepped its authority and was setting fuel efficiency policy that can only be set by the federal government.

A federal judge in Fresno agreed in June last year and ordered the state to put the regulations on hold. Automakers also won a round in state court.

The air board appealed the federal ruling, claiming they enacted sound air pollution control policy and that any improved mileage was a benefit to drivers. Environmentalists joined state regulators in the appeal, while the Bush administration sided with automakers.

The California auto emissions regulation is a troubling mandate. It places the responsibility for smog on automakers, instead of drivers. It forces drivers into smaller, lighter cars, despite their obvious preference for larger vehicles. It also treats the state as a homogeneous whole, instead of specifically targeting smog afflicted areas, and drivers who drive during periods of smog risk.

There also is the larger question of just who are the victims of smog and what damages do they suffer. Not being able to see 100 miles on a summer day is not an actionable tort. Asthma, if proven to be caused by smog, probably is.

At rough glance, I think the question of smog could be alleviated if roads were private and we approached the problem from the common law instead of regulation. Road owners would charge tolls, and those tolls could be raised during periods of high smog. If there are victims of smog, their damages could be compensated by common law torts and paid out by the road tolls.

Vehicles could also be given a smog rating that would be the basis for computing their tolls. If you drive a non-polluting vehicle, no responsibility for smog is placed on you. If you require a polluting vehicle, and you do drive it during periods of smog risk, you are assessed your toll based on your level of culpability.

Under this system, pollution generators pay when their pollution impacts others, and are left free when it doesn�t.

I put this out, not on the grounds that I have a fully formed answer to this problem, but that I think the principle of individual rights ought to drive the debate. Environmentalists have owned the smog problem for too long. The simple fact is that if smog does impact people�s lives for the negative, it ought not to be taken as metaphysically given. People who burn fuel inefficiently produce smog. In smog afflicted areas, we ought not to give up civilization to alleviate smog, but, even if the contribution is infinitesimal, those responsible for creating smog are still responsible for the negative effects of their actions. I think it stands that they be held accountable under the common law.

::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 11:14 AM | link | donate |

Rights & Reason: Copps v. FCC v. Consumers

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps is outraged...at the FCC:

Last August WNEW-FM in New York ran an Opie & Anthony show which allegedly contained a broadcast of sexual activity at St. Patrick�s Cathedral as part of an on-air stunt. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) received numerous outraged e-mails and phone calls complaining that this broadcast violated a federal law against indecent programming.

One year later the FCC has failed to even address these complaints. Commissioner Michael J. Copps reacted: �When we allow complaints to languish for a year, the message is loud and clear that the FCC is not serious about enforcing our nation�s laws. Congress expected action from the FCC, but all too often our citizens� complaints are ignored.�

Copps continued: �I wonder when the FCC will finally take a firm stand against the �race to the bottom� as stations continue to push the envelope of outrageousness even further.� Recently, the FCC proposed a mere $27,500 fine against another station owned by this same company � on WKRK-FM in Detroit � after it aired some of the most vulgar and disgusting indecency that the Commission has examined.

Copps stated: �Nothing has changed over the past year in the FCC�s enforcement of the indecency laws. And at the same time, the Commission�s actions have ensured that things will get even worse.� Instead of enforcing indecency laws, the FCC recently rewarded giant station owners by dismantling the FCC�s media concentration protections. The FCC took this action without even considering whether there is a link between increasing media consolidation and increasing indecency on our airwaves. Copps explained: �It stands to reason that as media conglomerates grow ever bigger and control moves further away from the local community, community standards go by the boards. It is a time to increase, not diminish, our vigilance and our enforcement of the law.�

Copps concluded: �The time has come for the Commission to send a message that it is serious about enforcing the indecency laws. Yet, we continue to turn a deaf ear to the millions of Americans who are fed up with the patently offensive programming coming their way so much of the time.�

This is a clever attempt by Copps to take another swing at the FCC's decision to raise the media ownership cap--a move Copps voted against--by trying to introduce the "indecency" card. You would think someone who is allegedly an expert in the communications market would realize "community standards" is an antiquated and ultimately irrational standard to apply in the modern media age. After all, what "community" gets to decide the standards? By Copps' way of thinking, it should be the most puritanical, easily offended, pro-regulation types who get their way.

Opie and Anthony may be crude--I certainly don't listen to that sort of programming--but if enough people tune-in to make the show profitable for their host station, than the FCC shouldn't get in the way. Unless the FCC thinks itself to be the proper judge of what consumers should want to listen to. Remember, the people who complain the loudest about "indecent" programming are generally not the ones actually listening to the offending programs. But if you accept regulation, rather than individual rights, as the moral basis of society, you believe that your tastes and preferences must be statically imposed upon the national as a whole--in the name of the "public interest" of course.

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 10:58 AM | link | donate |

Antitrust News: North Carolina's Ink Problem

It must have been a slow legislative session this year in Raleigh, as North Carolina legislators felt an insatiable need to meddle in the inkjet cartridge market:

Shares of printer-maker Lexmark International Inc. fell sharply Monday morning after a news release was issued praising North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley's decision to sign into law a bill giving printer users in the state the right to refill any inkjet cartridge. The law essentially voids contracts or purchase agreements that ban some cartridges from being remanufactured.

The law stems from lawsuits between Lexmark and Greensboro, N.C.-based Static Control Components over rights to refill some inkjet cartridges manufactured by Lexmark for its printers. Lexmark has accused Static Control of selling chips that disarm Lexmark's "technological controls" and infringe on its patents.

Static Control alleges that Lexmark has attempted to monopolize the market for toner cartridges that are used in Lexmark printers and contends the Lexington company is in violation of antitrust laws.

Officials with Lexmark could not immediately be reached for comment.

Company officials previously have defended the company's "prebate" program, which sells discounted printer cartridges to consumers who agree to return empty cartridges to Lexmark to be refilled.

Tim King, director of corporate public relations at Lexmark, told Business First in March that rather than stifling competition from competitors, the prebate program "adds another layer of choice" for Lexmark customers. He said that competitor companies still are able to refill basic Lexmark printer cartridges that are not discounted.

On Monday, Static Control issued a news release touting the North Carolina law as a victory in its battle with Lexmark.

"I think the issues are extremely simple," Static CEO Ed Swartz said in the release. "Does the (original-equipment manufacturer) have the right to tell as a matter of public policy that their product cannot be remanufactured and therefore it must go into landfills? I am glad that the legislature intervened to protect the jobs of North Carolinians and our environment."

The invocation of "public policy" is predictable, if not misleading. If you're a rationalist, it's good "public policy" to enforce voluntary private contractual agreements. If you're a mixed-economy proponent, as Lexmark's competitor appears to be, "public policy" is a subjective matter of getting some state legislators to pass a law favoring your company's interest over your competitors.

Here's what the North Carolina law in question says:

Any provision in any agreement or contract that prohibits the reusing, remanufacturing, or refilling of a toner or inkjet cartridge is void and unenforceable as a matter of public policy. Nothing in this section shall prevent any maintenance contract that warrants the performance of equipment under the contract from requiring the use of new or specified toner or inkjet cartridges in the equipment under contract.

It's worth noting the legislature felt no need to address Lexmark's allegation that Static Control was illegally infringing upon its patents. Obviously protecting valid intellectual property rights--or private contract rights--are not a matter of "public policy" in North Carolina. No wonder the Justice Department was able to destroy Asheville-based Mountain Health Care without a word of protest from state officials.

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 10:37 AM | link | donate |

Antitrust News: DOJ Loses to Dentures

Contrary to popular myth, a government antitrust prosecution does not inevitably result in a government victory, as one company happily found out last week:

A judge in the U.S. District of Delaware recently ruled in favor of Dentsply International�s distribution practices of artificial teeth.

The decision came down late Friday afternoon and the outcome is positive for the company and its shareholders, said John C. Miles II, chairman and CEO of the dental product designer and manufacturer.

Though artificial teeth represent about 5 percent of the company�s business and don�t have a great impact on earnings per share, Miles said the decision removes a level of uncertainty and could save legal fees if the government decides not to appeal.

Gina Talamona, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice, said it�s too soon to say if the department will appeal.

The Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice began investigating the company for antitrust violations in 1995, Security and Exchange Commission documents state.

Within the company�s Trubyte Division�s distribution clause, Dentsply maintains the right to pull its products from the distributor if the distributor decides to carry competing products.

In 1999, the federal government filed suit against the company saying that this clause affected 80 percent of dealers nationwide because they don�t carry brands that compete closely with Dentsply�s products.

In April and May 2002, a trial took place leading to the recent decision.

On Monday, Miles said the company holds the distribution policy because it invests time and money into training the distributor�s employees on the products, which are similar among competing products. If it allowed its distributors to carry other products, it would be training them for free, he said.

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 9:59 AM | link | donate |

Monday, August 11, 2003 :::

Sports: Miracle on Ice Coach Killed

WTEM-AM in Washington is reporting that Herb Brooks, the coach of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, was killed in an automobile accident in Minnesota. That 1980 hockey team was of course the "Miracle on Ice" team that upset the top-ranked Soviet Union in the semifinals en route to a gold medal at Lake Placid, New York. It was one of the great moments in sports history, if not contemporary American history, which makes Brooks' life all the more worth remembering in light of his passing.

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 5:52 PM | link | donate |

Antitrust News: J. Thomas Rosch Named Antitrust Lawyer of the Year

This from Latham & Watkins and the Antitrust and Unfair Competition Section of the State Bar of California:

California State Bar's Antirust and Unfair Competition Law Section is proud to announce that Latham & Watkins' San Francisco partner J. Thomas Rosch, has been named Antitrust Lawyer of the Year for 2003. The State Bar will officially honor Rosch at its 13th Annual Antitrust Lawyer of the Year Award Dinner on October 23, 2003.

"We're very pleased to honor Tom with this award. His work and achievements of the past thirty-eight years clearly show Tom is a leader in the field," said James E. Herman, President of the State Bar of California.

Rosch, internationally regarded as one of the preeminent practitioners in the areas of antitrust and trade regulation law, has been with Latham for nearly a decade. He has been lead counsel in more than one hundred federal and state court antitrust cases. He has successfully tried many of them and has won summary judgments in many more. Additionally, Rosch has acted as antitrust counsel in the planning and implementation of numerous joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions.

* * *

"This richly-deserved award recognizes Tom's exemplary career," said Robert Dell, Chairman and Managing Partner of Latham & Watkins. "Tom's encyclopedic knowledge of the antitrust laws combined with his years of experience in the courtroom make him a treasured resource among clients and colleagues alike."

Talk about dubious achievement. In recognition of Mr. Rosch's role as an antitrust practitioner, CAC offers its congratulations, but needless to say, our summary judgment is that Rosch will not be awarded "Capitalist of the Year" from us any time soon.

UPDATE: According to Skip, Rosch is not as bad as his press release might indicate. Perhaps. But as with most members of the antitrust bar, we won't be hitting the links together any time soon.

::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 4:46 PM | link | donate |

Education: Fun with Numbers

The Associated Press reported last week on the decline of Germany's completely government-run school system. This passage caught my attention:

Once in college � government funded and free of charge like lower schools � students take an average of seven years to earn a degree. And 32 percent of them actually do so, well below the average of 48 percent for industrialized nations.

Germany has relatively few private schools, and they are expensive. Private universities are almost nonexistent.

To put this number in further perspective, consider the plight of American college students who play Division I-A sports. Years of negative press would lead you to assume major college "student-athletes" are among the lowest academic performers in all of civilization. In fact, the NCAA's most recent numbers for the 120-or-so Division I-A schools show 60% of student-athletes who entered school during the 1995-1996 academic year graduate within six years, as opposed to the 32% of all Germans who graduate within seven. The 60% figure is consistent with the average for the last four classes studied by the NCAA, and it's on par with the overall graduation rate of U.S. students under the same NCAA formula.

Now, when it comes to the big sports�football and men's college basketball�the numbers start to slide into German-like territory. Football players graduated at about a 50% rate, while male basketballers only averaged about 35%. Still, that is higher than the national German average.

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 1:38 PM | link | donate |

Capitalism: Taxing Yourself into Prosperity

My esteemed colleague Daryl Cobranchi debunks a particularly nasty anti-capitalist theory of wealth creation:

Dennis Redovich's latest weekly column is particularly inane. He first predicts a world-wide depression similar to the Great Depression. No data are provided to back up that prediction (NOTE: data "are", right?). It then goes from bad to worse, promoting g-schools as an engine of prosperity. Or, more precisely, promoting the money spent on the schools as creating wealth.
Government spending on programs that benefit largely low and middle class income citizens for education, health and welfare is the greatest stimulus for an expanding and prosperous economy and �also� improve the quality of life for individuals and the entire population. The Milwaukee Public Schools is the largest employer in Milwaukee, and with a budget in 2002-2003 of more than $1 Billion is the largest single source of money for consumer spending in the entire southeastern area of Wisconsin. Public school systems and universities are the largest employers in many communities in the State of Wisconsin. (Education jobs are stable and better than average paying jobs. Better in most cases than the jobs created with millions of corporate welfare that may be gone tomorrow when someone offers a better deal)

Sure, except for the fact that the money for those high-paying education jobs came from TAXES. Last time I checked, taxes were a drag on the economy. So, schools are just a form of welfare for educrats? Good to know. The rest of the column is no better. Give it a click only if you want to see how the other half thinks.

Redovich, of course, does nothing more than reiterate the core of Keynesian economics�government spending drives the economy. While that theory has been wholly disproven at every turn, the Keynes mantra continues to hold sway over government officials, especially the permanent bureaucracy that depend on high taxes and spending. Indeed, the most popularly reported measure of the economy, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), reflects an anti-capitalist bias, as Club for Growth's Stephen Moore and Phil Kerpen explained last week in the Washington Times:

The headline-grabbing number of 2.4 percent growth, immediately applauded throughout the media as strong, is about double the real rate that the private economy grew. While the private economy grew at about 1.3 percent, the federal government component of GDP increased by a staggering 25 percent, the largest quarterly increase in more than three decades. The increase was due almost entirely to the high cost of the war in Iraq. But even domestic agencies saw growth in their budgets far surpassing private sector growth.

The important word here is "cost." Wars are a cost, not an asset.

You fight wars because you have to � because there are bad people in the world. But to suggest the war was good for the economy would be as dimwitted as suggesting Saddam Hussein deserves a medal of honor for helping revive the U.S. economy.

Defending U.S. interests militarily is a legitimate and necessary function of government, but it eats up resources and reduces growth, rather than enhancing it. So to a large extent, the growth reported this past quarter is a statistical mirage. The way we currently measure GDP makes billions of dollars spent on military expenditures look like productive economic activity.

The war example is actually quite telling. After all, pro-government spending leftists rarely call for more military spending to drive the economy, even though military spending arguably makes the GDP-with-government go up a lot faster than than it would with spending on education and public welfare.

Moore and Kerpen suggest, quite sensibly, that future GDP be calculated solely as a function of private sector spending. Such an act would deflate a lot of the pro-government spending bias now seen in the media, since GDP would no longer be subject to wholesale political manipulation. It certainly won't solve the problem of big government, but an honest GDP will at least allow the people to receive better information.

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 1:25 PM | link | donate |

The Good Life: Falling Water

Art historian Lee Sandstead visited Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater over the weekend. See http://sandstead.com/images/fallingwater/

If the goal of life is happiness, Wright was a master at building it, and Lee is becoming a master in photographing it.

::: posted by Nicholas Provenzo at 11:37 AM | link | donate |

Antitrust News: More Hospital Trouble

I can already see the battle lines being drawn at the FTC over this deal:

Baptist Health South Florida has reached an agreement to buy Doctors' Hospital of Coral Gables, giving the nonprofit health giant its sixth medical center in South Florida and making it Miami-Dade County's biggest employer.

The deal, announced Friday, would extend Baptist Health's coverage area from northern Monroe County into Coral Gables and boost its Miami-Dade workforce to more than 9,800 employees. The acquisition would give Baptist Health more leverage in negotiating agreements with insurance providers, doctors and suppliers.

Mercy Hospital, which lost out on the bidding for Doctors', said it would challenge the sale.

''We do not believe that this transaction is in the best interest of the community and will result in higher healthcare costs to employers and consumers,'' John E. Matuska, Mercy president and chief executive, said in a statement.

Mercy isn't alone in their displeasure. Baptist beat out Mercy and six other bidders. Those losing bidders will likely provide the FTC (or DOJ) with grist for the antitrust mill. That's how it works in antitrust: when you lose in market competition, you get the government to rewrite the rules after the fact or simply declare the initial competition was "unfair" because the bigger company won.

Another possibly important fact: the city of Coral Gables will lose $1.2 million in property taxes under this deal, because Baptist, a nonprofit corporation, is acquiring a currently for-profit hospital. Don't think that won't contribute to a possible federal antitrust prosecution.

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 8:35 AM | link | donate |

Antitrust News: Hospital Wars

The Justice Department's witch-hunt for antitrust violations in the hospital industry continue:

The Department of Justice is scrutinizing Premier Health Partners, apparently to see if the seven-year-old hospital merger has violated antitrust law by resulting in higher prices than would have happened otherwise.

"We have no reason to believe that the action is anything but a routine investigation," Dale Creech, Premier's chief legal counsel said Friday. The Justice Department indicated several months ago that it would review some of the many U.S. hospital mergers in the 1990s, he said, and Premier is among more than a dozen to have received requests for information.

A Justice spokeswoman declined to comment on the investigation, or even to confirm its existence, citing office policy not to discuss any ongoing matters.

"We're providing a lot of documentation about what we've done since the affiliation in terms of cost-savings and improving efficiency," Creech said. "We are cooperating fully."

Miami Valley and Good Samaritan hospitals have operated jointly as Premier since 1996, when the Federal Trade Commission decided not to challenge the affiliation on antitrust grounds. Fidelity HealthCare, Samaritan North Health Center, Maria-Joseph Living Care Center and a physicians network are also part of Premier.

The entities have cut costs by consolidating administrative departments, purchasing in greater quantities, avoiding duplication of medical equipment and sharing more effective medical and administrative practices, Creech said. The savings have grown year by year to more than $50 million annually "that the citizens of the Miami Valley no longer have to pay," he said.

Think about this: The Clinton administration FTC decided not to challenge this merger when it took place, but the Bush administration FTC--which allegedly represents the pro-business conservative Republican way of life--is looking to undo mergers years after they were completed. How this fits in with "compassionate conservatism," I don't know. What I do know is that at a time when the economy is still in recovery, meritless investigations like this divert valuable resources from economic production to the enrichment of lawyers, both in the government and those inevitably retained by the hospitals.

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 8:28 AM | link | donate |

Antitrust: Taking on Zimbalist

Andrew Zimbalist is an intellectual leader among baseball conservatives who believes with great frevor that the only way to improve his beloved sport is to�drumroll, please�repeal the antitrust exemption. Andrew Alexander, co-editor of the Intellectual Conservative website, begs to differ:

For Zimbalist, the roots of baseball�s problems are clear: Major League Baseball is an unregulated monopoly. The Supreme Court�s 1922 Federal Baseball decision exempted MLB from the nation�s antitrust laws on the grounds that baseball did not constitute �interstate commerce;� baseball has enjoyed exempt status ever since. This exemption is unique to MLB; football fans may recall that Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis successfully brought an antitrust suit against the NFL and was able to move his team to Los Angeles in 1980. Applying antitrust law, the judge in that case held that the NFL engaged in an �unreasonable restraint of trade� by preventing the Raiders from moving out of Oakland. If Congress were to remove MLB�s antitrust exemption, MLB would be unable to prevent teams from changing cities � except when preventing such movement was �reasonable.�

Like most monopolists, MLB artificially restricts supply to increase demand, according to Zimbalist. The �restriction of supply� takes the form of limiting the number of Major League ballclubs. The most glaring example of this restraint on trade is the lack of a baseball team in Washington, DC, the nation�s sixth-largest market. According to Zimbalist, MLB uses Washington as economic leverage against current baseball cities. MLB threatens to relocate teams to Washington if current host cities fail to publicly finance stadiums for their teams. On the other hand, if MLB were subject to antitrust regulation, it would be unable to prevent the creation of an expansion team in Washington unless such action was found to be �reasonable.� Nor could MLB prevent an owner from moving its team to Washington -- or any other city -- unless such action was deemed �reasonable.�

* * *

What is needed is not antitrust regulation but a salary cap or a strong luxury tax. Repealing MLB�s antitrust exemption seems like a way of avoiding confrontation with those most responsible with maintaining the status quo � the players union and the high-revenue owners.

And it is not clear why Zimbalist thinks MLB is a �monopoly� anyway. He states that baseball is a monopoly because �it is the only provider of top-level professional baseball in the country.� But so is the Professional Bowlers Tour, and is anyone clamoring for increased antitrust scrutiny of bowlers?

Alexander, of course, misses the point: Antitrust is generally designed to punish successful businesses. Although, to be fair, the current administration likes to use antitrust against financially struggling businesses as well, making it a political weapon of mass destruction rather than just a tool to use against unpopular "greedy" businesses.

Chief Justice Rehnquist, dissenting from the denial of certiorari petition in the early 1980s, suggested the professional sports leagues should be viewed, for antitrust purposes, as competitors with each other, rather than construing the individual franchises within a league as market competitors. This would certainly make economic sense, but antitrust has nothing to do with making sense, but empowering government lawyers to decide how the market should be run.

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 8:23 AM | link | donate |

Sunday, August 10, 2003 :::

The Culture: Sports, Capitalism, and Other Evils...

Syndicated columnist Dan Thomasson exhibits a great deal of sanctimony in trying to convert the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case into an indictment of the entire professional sports culture. Not only does Thomasson decry the culture of professional sports, he also professes to know the ultimate culprit behind Bryant�s possible downfall:

The root cause of all this trouble in professional athletics is money. We are all culprits who supply it in irrational, unbelievable quantities to undereducated, exploited youngsters, who have little understanding of its value or how to manage it. They are not atypical in their age group. They are just wealthy enough to indulge the normal excesses of youth. Add that wherewithal to environmentally and socially deprived backgrounds and the combination is lethal.

Worshiping fans must bear part of the blame. But a major share belongs to the corporations that fuel the entire big-time sports industry. They buy the overpriced boxes and blocs of seats in the arenas for clients and pay the hefty endorsements to sell the shoes and paraphernalia for which less fortunate children have been known to kill one another. Their advertising supports the huge television revenues distributed among the various teams. The average NBA fan can't afford to see a game first-hand, so high are the prices for anything close to a decent seat and minimal concessions. Often the corporate seats are empty in surreal defiance of the announced "sell-out."

In a perfect world, no one whose only skill is throwing a ball through a hoop would be paid anywhere near the kind of money that Kobe Bryant and his fellow players enjoy, and in the old days they weren't. The great player and coach, John Wooden, used to get $5 a game as a professional, the same as a Ford assembly worker. But that was before endorsements and television. This is a world intoxicated by the vicarious thrill of celebrity. It is a world where hitting a baseball can earn a person a million times more than a distinguished teacher or an artist of immense talent would be paid, where the athletes are far more valued than the doctors who must constantly patch them together.

In these three paragraphs, Thomasson flawlessly demonstrates what Ayn Rand once called �hatred of the good for being good.� Thomasson doesn�t simply criticize; he exhibits moral contempt for those who do not share his idealized, conservative view of how the world should behave. In doing so, he reveals a contempt not for professional sports or �money,� but for the very principles that underlie our free society and, ultimately, man�s ability to prosper on this earth.

Take, for starters, Thomasson�s breathless condemnation of �money� as the root of �all this trouble in professional athletics.� In the first place, one could not classify an endeavor as �professional� unless the participants are paid, so in this sense Thomasson is condemning professional athletics as per se evil. Beyond that, he mislabels his premise. Money cannot cause trouble or evil. Money is not a volitional creature, but a medium of exchange devised by man for his benefit. Without money�the root of Thomasson�s evil�man would be reduced to a bartering culture, where wealth would lack portability, and commerce itself would be impossible except on the village or household level.

What Thomasson means with his words is that capitalism is the root of evil in professional sports. He reserves his most hated criticism for the various instruments of capitalism: corporations, consumers, producers, and the marketplace. Without any of these instruments of evil, Thomasson reasons, sports could return to the purer, egalitarian ideals of his memorialized youth.

Of course, the sports culture was far from ideal in the time �before endorsements and television.� Thomasson, making the classic conservative�s error, excludes the unpleasant details of the past while finding nothing but fault with the present. While it�s nice that John Wooden was once paid no more than a Ford worker, what about the men who played in the NFL prior to the modern rise in salaries? Many, if not most, of the pre-1960s era players found their bodies broken and their wallets empty when their careers ended, a testament to the low salaries of the era �before endorsements and television.� Find any linesman from the 1950s, 1960s, or even the 1970s, and ask them how things were in the good old days. What you�ll find is that they have small pensions and multiple surgeries (and quite probably some permanent injuries) to their credit. This was the world without the evils of modern capitalism.

Thomasson dismisses such notions by trying to denigrate the work of athletes. He says men like Bryant should be cast aside by society because their �only skill is throwing a ball through a hoop.� This is not just false; it is a vicious slander on the millions of Americans who actively participate in all walks of sports. A professional basketball player puts thousands of hours into training and development, both physical and mental, before he ever sets foot on an NBA court. Even high school phenoms like LeBron James�who Thomasson considered undereducated and exploited�has put more time into perfecting his body and skills than most typical college freshmen. Basketball is certainly not rocket science, but nor is it easy; if it were, everyone would be earning multi-million dollar contracts and the NBA would have 300 franchises rather than 30.

Thomasson tries arguing Bryant and James are incapable of handling their fortunes at such a young age. That�s just nonsense. It�s also reflective of another conservative sentiment�young people are useless except as compliant drones for infallible authorities. Blame the spread of four-year high schools for this. There was a time in this country, when the nation was far less advanced economically, when men were reasonably expected by the age of 16 to be capable of working for a living, possibly starting a family, and in general making something of their lives. Today, men like Thomasson decry the gainful employment of 18 year old high school graduates as unreasonable and unethical. Yes, there is always a risk that a young man with money will consume himself into financial ruin. But one cannot presume that will always be the outcome, and one cannot deny a man the fruits of his labor simply because an outside critic deems him unworthy of his fortune. Furthermore, there is no evidence in Bryant�s case�the alleged source of Thomasson�s angst�that Kobe was foolish with his money (the $4 million ring for his wife notwithstanding), only that he committed adultery. Cheating on one�s wife is a moral transgression that defies age, and it is hardly unique to athletes as a group.

In decrying the sports culture, Thomasson attacks capitalism for such alleged crimes as corporations buying �overpriced� arena boxes. This is a classic conservative attack that�s used to support such market �correcting� policies as antitrust. What makes an arena skybox overpriced? Well, Thomasson says they�re overpriced, ergo that must be the case. There�s no evidence the customers�those evil corporations�are unhappy. The same goes for the �average� fan who �can�t afford to see a game first-hand�. Here in Washington, for example, the Redskins have several thousand names on their waiting list, and have sold out every game for three decades, despite rising prices that men like Thomasson would consider insufferable capitalist plunder.

And incidentally, why is it that important that ticket prices be lowered to the �average� fan�s level? Personally, I am an avid sports fan, but I don�t go to many games. It�s not the ticket prices that keep me away, I just don�t care for crowds. But thanks to�gasp�television and their wicked corporate sponsors, I can watch just about any game I want to from the comfort of my home. Thanks to corporations, for example, for the relatively modest cost of a DirecTV system, I can watch every single NFL game on a given Sunday, something I could not do while sitting in a cramped section of FedEx Field. So far from exploiting the aggrieved fan, television benefits average fans by making sporting events available to him that would not otherwise be accessible on national basis.

So if corporations, money, and capitalism benefit players, businesses, and fans, who exactly is the loser here? People like Thomasson, whose corrupt sense of right and wrong lead them to hate institutions that, on balance, benefit man and improve the quality of their lives.

Thomasson�s last argument is that athletes shouldn�t be paid more than a �distinguished teacher or an artist of immense talent� or doctors. Let�s take those one at a time:

The teacher argument is actually fascinating when you consider the contrasting nature of a professional sports league to a government-run school system. In a capitalist system like the NBA, players essentially are paid based on merit and performance (or on future expectations of such) within the general guidelines established by a collective bargaining agreement. A veteran player, for example, is entitled to a minimum salary based on years of service, but the team can pay him more if both sides so agree. A �distinguished teacher� in a government school, however, does not have such opportunities, because �merit pay,� as it�s called, is considered an anathema to the political leadership of almost all teacher unions. Instead, teachers are paid solely on the basis of years served, without regard to merit, talent, or achievement. It is, in effect, a socialist system.

It�s also worth pointing out that government schools, unlike the NBA, are instruments that consume wealth rather than produce wealth. The NBA can only pay its players multi-million dollar salaries if the league actually earns the revenue. Government schools, in contrast, appropriate their funds from taxpayers under threat of force. Additionally, most teacher unions will eagerly use their legal protections as a collective bargaining unit (and sometimes their not-so-legal privileges) to extract salary increases by holding their customers�the children forced to attend government schools�hostage. Say what you will about professional athletes, but I can�t recall of a single sports labor dispute where children were forcibly used as bargaining chips.

Now as to the allegedly underpaid �artist[s] of immense talent,� I admit I�m confused. What artists are we referring to? Plenty of artists�actors, singers, etc.�make money on par with professional athletes. Clearly they�re not at a market disadvantage. Or maybe Tomasson was referring to artists that he likes but that others don�t, maybe the kind that rely on government grants to get by? Either way, Thomasson hasn�t proven much beyond restating his hatred of a free market that doesn�t produce the results he cares for.

Finally, as to doctors, I admit that I agree with Thomasson. Doctors are certainly underpaid relative to their actual value. Most of my days are spent studying this precise problem. One major impediment to justly compensating physicians is federal antitrust laws that are used to prevent doctors from collectively negotiating with health insurers. If only doctors could band together legally, they wouldn�t be at the mercy of health plans. Much the same way athletes were once at the mercy of franchise owners�and compensated even more poorly�until the players formed an effective union to leverage their economic power in the marketplace. The result, of course, is the decrepit capitalist system Thomasson now condemns. Thus, it�s unclear what Thomasson wants the doctors to do. Since money, capitalism, and free trade are not virtuous means of pursuing one�s interests, in Thomasson�s view, I suppose that leaves only force. But that�s not what Thomasson could have meant. He is, after all, a conservative...

::: posted by Skip Oliva at 2:24 PM | link | donate |

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