Paul Romer argues that developing nations with severe economic and political problems (such as Haiti) should invite developed nations to operate charter cities within their borders. The developed nations would enforce laws that both nations had agreed to in advance.
Romer believes charter cities would help developing nations more than does foreign aid, which provides a benefit in the short-run as a one-time transfer, but which does not help the developing nation get out of poverty in the long-run. What is needed to get developing nations on the path to prosperity are better governmental institutions, and who better to provide those than nations which have already succeeded in doing so within their own territories.
This is a clever idea, but it is not clear that charter cities would fare any better than have charter schools. The problem is (at least in part) one of incentives. What is to guarantee that the government of the host nation will ask for the right kind of laws to be enforced? Do the interests of the governors of developing nations in fact represent the interests of the people as a whole? What is to guarantee that the government of the guest nation will live up to its side of the bargain? What incentive will either side have to improve the quality of government services and lower the costs of such services?
Don't let worries about developing nations' sovereignty or about neo-imperialism distract you from the even deeper problems regarding incentives. Charter cities might work, but there is plenty of reason to be skeptical.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Friday, February 05, 2010
What's Wrong with Libertarianism (A Continuing Series)
The title of this post is apt for a book, not a blog entry.
Nevertheless, I might as well start getting some of this stuff off of my chest, to clarify the sense in which I am and am not a libertarian.
I count as a libertarian, broadly speaking, because I am a fan of the free market, and of traditional, meat and potatoes, Enlightenment-era civil liberties such as the right to free speech, the freedom of religion, and all that sort of thing. It is also fair to call me a classical liberal or neoliberal.
What's wrong, then, with libertarianism? Libertarianism is primarily a political theory about the nature of liberty and the proper role of government, but many libertarians also as a matter of fact have ethical beliefs that I find suspect. Robin Hanson, though he may be a sex-obsessed misogynist (hey! I said may be), is right about this: an axiom about the value of liberty (as conceived of by most libertarians) should not be taken as the basis for libertarian political theory. The reasons for this are many, but one of them is that the theory risks becoming question-begging. Why is it wrong for the government to restrict a person's liberty? The libertarian axiomatist's reply: because it's always wrong to restrict liberty! It would seem that the putative libertarian axiom is in fact the conclusion which is need of prior justification. Moreover, there is liberty and then there is liberty. Even if the normative value of liberty were quite fundamental to our political theory, we need an argument for why we should adopt the libertarians' conception of liberty, and some alternative conception (such as the Marxist).
Nevertheless, I might as well start getting some of this stuff off of my chest, to clarify the sense in which I am and am not a libertarian.
I count as a libertarian, broadly speaking, because I am a fan of the free market, and of traditional, meat and potatoes, Enlightenment-era civil liberties such as the right to free speech, the freedom of religion, and all that sort of thing. It is also fair to call me a classical liberal or neoliberal.
What's wrong, then, with libertarianism? Libertarianism is primarily a political theory about the nature of liberty and the proper role of government, but many libertarians also as a matter of fact have ethical beliefs that I find suspect. Robin Hanson, though he may be a sex-obsessed misogynist (hey! I said may be), is right about this: an axiom about the value of liberty (as conceived of by most libertarians) should not be taken as the basis for libertarian political theory. The reasons for this are many, but one of them is that the theory risks becoming question-begging. Why is it wrong for the government to restrict a person's liberty? The libertarian axiomatist's reply: because it's always wrong to restrict liberty! It would seem that the putative libertarian axiom is in fact the conclusion which is need of prior justification. Moreover, there is liberty and then there is liberty. Even if the normative value of liberty were quite fundamental to our political theory, we need an argument for why we should adopt the libertarians' conception of liberty, and some alternative conception (such as the Marxist).
The Link between Ayn Rand and Karl Marx
I have been sitting in on Fred Miller's Economics and Political Philosophy seminar here at Bowling Green State University. The seminar is for graduate students in philosophy, but is also attended by faculty members like me and visiting scholars such as Stephen Hicks and James Otteson. The purpose of the seminar is to help its attendees design introductory PP&E courses (that's philosophy, politics, and economics, for the unititiated). PP&E programs have recently been sprouting up in the United States, in imitation of the famous program at Oxford (which shines like a Platonic form in the heavenly firmament, and compared to which our best efforts are no doubt merely degraded imitations).
The central issue of the seminar is whether capitalism is morally defensible. Now, for those of you not in the know, Fred Miller is a director of the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, a research center which is to capitalism roughly as the Dominicans are to Catholicism. Therefore, one expects to confront more dogmatism than skepticism in the matter of the moral defense of capitalism. Nevertheless, the sessions of the seminar have seemed both fair-minded and intellectually stimulating (albeit from the point of view of this dyed-in-the-wool free marketer). For example, this week we talked about Karl Marx's theory of capitalism and alienation, and I think we did a pretty good job of just trying to understand the theory and its place in the history of ideas, as opposed to trying to just mercilessly rip it to shreads. In particular, we disucssed the inspiration Marx took from some of Aristotle's passages in the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics about justice in exchange and the nature of money.
It turns out that both Karl Marx and Ayn Rand were influenced by the man nicknamed "the Brain" while he was a student as Plato's Academy. It's worth noting that Marx and Rand, like Aristotle, were both empiricists, and they were also both materialists and atheists. In addition, Chris Matthew Sciabarra has argued that both Marx and Rand shared a dialectical methodology. Of more direct relevance with respect to their economic and political views, both Rand and Marx share a similar conception of human flourishing, derived ultimately from that of Aristotle.
Now, on the Objectivist end of the spectrum, Neo-Aristotelians such as Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl have taken more than a page from Rand in their attempt to apply an Aristotelian ethic to a defense of capitalism and liberal political institutions. But it was not until yesterday that I realized that Neo-Marxists have done the same with regard to Aristotle and Marx. In particular, Paul Gomberg has done a great job developing a broadly Aristotelian reading of Marx's conception of the good life, and fleshing out the relationship between this conception and a Marxist theory of justice which he calls "contributive justice". I have only read three chapters from Gomberg's book, but I already want to buy it and read the whole thing. Gomberg makes good use of insights from psychological research on human happiness, from shop-worn bits such as the relative independence of income and happiness (once subsistence has been taken care of), to rarer gems such as the importance of a sense of self-efficacy to well-being, the importance of the perceptions of others to decisions we make that might at first seem purely self-interested (such as what car to buy or what career to pursue), the use of social norms to police behavior within traditional and contemporary societies, et multa alia. In particular, Gombeg makes a compelling case for the regarding labor as a good worthy of choosing for its own sake, partially constitutive of human flourishing, following Aristotle's conception of the function of man as an activity involving reason, and against Smith and the other classical economists' narrow view of labor as little more than an odious burden.
And the best part is that Gomberg is scheduled to present to us next week as part of the Economics and Political Philosophy seminar. I look forward to sitting back and letting him entertain us with insights from his book. From each according to ability, to each according to need.
Of course, Marxism is still rubbish. But 'tis a small man who is unable to learn great lessons from his greatest opponents. Besides, I met Gomberg once, long ago when he was visiting Bowling Green for a conference, and he seemed a swell sort of chap. One wishes for more Marxists of his character and intellectual calliber!
The central issue of the seminar is whether capitalism is morally defensible. Now, for those of you not in the know, Fred Miller is a director of the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, a research center which is to capitalism roughly as the Dominicans are to Catholicism. Therefore, one expects to confront more dogmatism than skepticism in the matter of the moral defense of capitalism. Nevertheless, the sessions of the seminar have seemed both fair-minded and intellectually stimulating (albeit from the point of view of this dyed-in-the-wool free marketer). For example, this week we talked about Karl Marx's theory of capitalism and alienation, and I think we did a pretty good job of just trying to understand the theory and its place in the history of ideas, as opposed to trying to just mercilessly rip it to shreads. In particular, we disucssed the inspiration Marx took from some of Aristotle's passages in the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics about justice in exchange and the nature of money.
It turns out that both Karl Marx and Ayn Rand were influenced by the man nicknamed "the Brain" while he was a student as Plato's Academy. It's worth noting that Marx and Rand, like Aristotle, were both empiricists, and they were also both materialists and atheists. In addition, Chris Matthew Sciabarra has argued that both Marx and Rand shared a dialectical methodology. Of more direct relevance with respect to their economic and political views, both Rand and Marx share a similar conception of human flourishing, derived ultimately from that of Aristotle.
Now, on the Objectivist end of the spectrum, Neo-Aristotelians such as Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl have taken more than a page from Rand in their attempt to apply an Aristotelian ethic to a defense of capitalism and liberal political institutions. But it was not until yesterday that I realized that Neo-Marxists have done the same with regard to Aristotle and Marx. In particular, Paul Gomberg has done a great job developing a broadly Aristotelian reading of Marx's conception of the good life, and fleshing out the relationship between this conception and a Marxist theory of justice which he calls "contributive justice". I have only read three chapters from Gomberg's book, but I already want to buy it and read the whole thing. Gomberg makes good use of insights from psychological research on human happiness, from shop-worn bits such as the relative independence of income and happiness (once subsistence has been taken care of), to rarer gems such as the importance of a sense of self-efficacy to well-being, the importance of the perceptions of others to decisions we make that might at first seem purely self-interested (such as what car to buy or what career to pursue), the use of social norms to police behavior within traditional and contemporary societies, et multa alia. In particular, Gombeg makes a compelling case for the regarding labor as a good worthy of choosing for its own sake, partially constitutive of human flourishing, following Aristotle's conception of the function of man as an activity involving reason, and against Smith and the other classical economists' narrow view of labor as little more than an odious burden.
And the best part is that Gomberg is scheduled to present to us next week as part of the Economics and Political Philosophy seminar. I look forward to sitting back and letting him entertain us with insights from his book. From each according to ability, to each according to need.
Of course, Marxism is still rubbish. But 'tis a small man who is unable to learn great lessons from his greatest opponents. Besides, I met Gomberg once, long ago when he was visiting Bowling Green for a conference, and he seemed a swell sort of chap. One wishes for more Marxists of his character and intellectual calliber!
The Placebo Effect
Aaron's comment about the placebo effect got me thinking. This question shows my ignorance, but do all clinical trials that use a placebo have some other kind of control? They better, right? If not, how do you tell the difference between a true placebo effect (where the mechanism is the expectations of the subject) and a person getting better (off the drug being tested) for some other kind of reason (such as time passing)? Or are all trials that use a placebo also designed so as to have a "no treatment" control, such that there would be three experimental treatments: the drug to be tested, the placebo, and no treatment (that is, neither drug nor placebo)?
See, this is what happens when you have the training of a philosopher but to try to think about scientific studies.
Nevertheless, in conversation, people have often confused a placebo effect where the mechanism is the expectations of the subject with any improvement in a subject's condition that has not caused by the drug to be tested.
See, this is what happens when you have the training of a philosopher but to try to think about scientific studies.
Nevertheless, in conversation, people have often confused a placebo effect where the mechanism is the expectations of the subject with any improvement in a subject's condition that has not caused by the drug to be tested.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Antidepressants Work No Better Than a Placebo
An article in Newseek discusses meta-analyses by Irving Kirsch and others which show that anti-depressants work no better than a placebo. There are lessons to be learned about the methodology of medical research and about the marketing strategies of drug companies. Also of interest is the role played by the FDA:
Libertarian critics of the FDA often claim that the FDA is risk-averse when permitting potentially beneficial remedies and procedures, because the political cost to the regulators of unsuccessful applications of a remedy or procedure outweighs the political benefit to regulators of successful applications of the remedy or procedure. One death caused by a drug ignites a political firestorm, even if the the drug has saved hundreds or thousands.
Why, then, did the FDA give a pass to antidepressants in the absence of evidence of effectiveness? Perhaps the FDA does not have as much an incentive to care about effectiveness as about risk. If the FDA has no reason to suspect politically dangerous amounts of ill effects from a remedy, perhaps they will permit it even if there is insufficient evidence that it is effective. In both cases, though, the FDA does not seem to function the way in which its supporters claim.
Two other factors are at work in the widespread rejection of Kirsch's (and, now, other scientists') findings about antidepressants. First, defenders of the drugs scoff at the idea that the FDA would have approved ineffective drugs. (Simple explanation: the FDA requires two well-designed clinical trials showing a drug is more effective than a placebo. That's two, period—even if many more studies show no such effectiveness. And the size of the "more effective" doesn't much matter, as long as it is statistically significant.)
Libertarian critics of the FDA often claim that the FDA is risk-averse when permitting potentially beneficial remedies and procedures, because the political cost to the regulators of unsuccessful applications of a remedy or procedure outweighs the political benefit to regulators of successful applications of the remedy or procedure. One death caused by a drug ignites a political firestorm, even if the the drug has saved hundreds or thousands.
Why, then, did the FDA give a pass to antidepressants in the absence of evidence of effectiveness? Perhaps the FDA does not have as much an incentive to care about effectiveness as about risk. If the FDA has no reason to suspect politically dangerous amounts of ill effects from a remedy, perhaps they will permit it even if there is insufficient evidence that it is effective. In both cases, though, the FDA does not seem to function the way in which its supporters claim.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)