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THE LIGHTHOUSE
"Enlightening Ideas for Public Policy..."
Vol. 6, Issue 9
March 1, 2004
Welcome to THE LIGHTHOUSE, the weekly e-mail newsletter of the
Independent Institute, the non-politicized public-policy research
organization. Edited by Carl P. Close, THE LIGHTHOUSE provides you
with updates of the Institute's current research, publications,
events and media programs, plus commentary on current affairs.
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IN THIS WEEK'S ISSUE:
1. The Haitian Temptation
2. Wendy McElroy Defends Alternatives to Public Schools
3. Bad Fads in Government Policy
4. Richard A. Epstein to Defend the Free Society -- Next Independent
Policy Forum (3/9/04)
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THE HAITIAN TEMPTATION
Haiti -- and what, if anything, the U.S. government should do about
it -- may soon become an important issue in the U.S. presidential
race. Florida's democratic senators have already urged President Bush
to send in troops to quell civil war, lest a wave of Haitian boat
refugees land on the shores of the Sunshine State. Bush may even do
so -- particularly because Florida may again play a key role in a
close presidential race. But the U.S. military already has its hands
full with Iraq and Afghanistan, so Bush will likely be criticized for
whatever decision he makes.
In cases like these it is especially helpful to maintain a historical
perspective, as Ivan Eland, director of the Center on Peace & Liberty
at the Independent Institute, does in his latest op-ed.
The United States, Eland explains, has a history of intervening in
Haiti, from the military occupation ordered by President Woodrow
Wilson, to its 19 years of governing the country. More recently,
despite efforts to undermine Haiti's struggling democracy, President
Clinton threatened to invade unless the dictatorial regime of Raoul
Cedras returned power to Haiti's President Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
who hasn't exactly been a good friend of human rights.
"Even though Aristide had originally been genuinely elected, he held
an unfair election in 2000 and uses armed gangs to repress the
Haitian people," writes Eland. "Recently, in the wake of violent
opposition to Aristide's repressive rule, the Bush administration's
policy has been muddled. First, the administration made known its
desire that Aristide should step down, implicitly supporting an
opposition supported by the dark forces from Haiti's authoritarian
past. Then the U.S. government reversed course and decided that
Aristide should finish out his term in office, which ends in 2006,
but allow the opposition to be part of his cabinet."
The opposition's rejection of this offer does not bode well for a
quick conclusion to the current crisis. The prospects for a stable,
multiparty, republican political culture in Haiti do not look
particularly bright, no matter what U.S. policymakers decide.
Concludes Eland: "The U.S. efforts to teach Haitians to 'elect good
men or women' at gunpoint are futile, and often counterproductive,
because the Haitians need to change their political culture
themselves to have any lasting effect. If, in the worst case, an
all-out Haitian civil war ensues and refugees begin to flow, the
wealthy United States should simply take them in and do what it can
to avoid violating the sovereignty of a another country and thus
undermining its image as the 'beacon of liberty.'"
See "Avoid the Temptation to Meddle in Haiti," by Ivan Eland
(2/24/04)
http://www.independent.org/tii/news/040224Eland.html
Center on Peace & Liberty
http://www.independent.org/tii/tii_info/centerpeaceliberty.html
OnPower.org -- U. S. Foreign Policy
http://www.onpower.org/foreign.html
PUTTING "DEFENSE" BACK INTO U.S. DEFENSE POLICY: Rethinking U.S.
Security in the Post-Cold War World, by Ivan Eland
http://www.independent.org/tii/catalog/cat_putting_defense.html
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WENDY McELROY DEFENDS ALTERNATIVES TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Homeschooling and apprenticeships are unjustly maligned and should be
considered two important alternatives to public schooling, argues
Wendy McElroy, research fellow at the Independent Institute.
In "The Separation of School and State," her latest column for
FoxNews.com, McElroy notes that U.S. literacy rates were high before
public schooling. A French statesman who emigrated to America -- a
contemporary of Thomas Jefferson -- wrote that "Not more than four in
a thousand are unable to write legibly, even neatly" -- a result of
widespread homeschooling.
"Today homeschooled students often perform better on standardized
tests than those from public schools," writes McElroy. "In 2001, for
example, homeschooled SAT-takers averaged 568 on the verbal test and
525 on the math; the national average was 506 on verbal and 514 on
math."
Perhaps in response to the growing recognition that homeschoolers
often outperform their age-cohorts in the public schools, foes of
homeschooling are now claiming that it often acts as a mask for child
abuse. All homeschoolers in New Jersey, for example, "may be
subjected to indignities like criminal background checks and
obstacles like health regulations more stringent than those imposed
on public schools."
Apprenticeships -- which are actively promoted in Germany and
Switzerland -- have been erroneously attacked in the United States as
brutal child labor.
"My purpose is not to dispute with parents who send their children to
public schools," writes McElroy. "I believe the system is a brutal
failure, but parents must decide for themselves. I advocate extending
alternatives far beyond the typical private versus public school
debate, and even beyond homeschooling. . . . A universe of
educational possibilities has been obstructed by the attempt to
enforce a government monopoly over how, where, when, and what
children learn."
See "The Separation of School and State," by Wendy McElroy (2/25/04)
http://www.independent.org/tii/news/040225McElroy.html
Also see:
"Homeschooling Must Be Decriminalized: Parents Really Do Know Best,"
by Ariel Dillon (9/18/03)
http://www.independent.org/tii/news/030918Dillon.html
SCHOOL CHOICES: True and False, by John D. Merrifield
http://www.independent.org/books/brief_school_choices.html
CAN TEACHERS OWN THEIR OWN SCHOOLS? New Strategies for Educational
Excellence, by Richard K. Vedder
http://www.independent.org/tii/catalog/cat_can_teachers.html
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BAD FADS IN GOVERNMENT POLICY
There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come,
Victor Hugo once said. Hugo's maxim is both true and interesting, but
it doesn't attempt to explain how an idea gets its power. For that,
economists have developed "cascade theory," a new field that
describes the mechanics of herd behavior -- from political
revolutions, to bank runs, to the latest environmental scare.
Clearly, the "power" of an idea does not rest on its validity,
because even false ideas have taken the world by storm. Rather, what
is crucial is that information-gathering can be costly and
time-consuming, so individuals often look to others' behavior or
statements to aid in forming their own opinions -- a simple notion
but one described with rigorous precision in the models used by
cascade theorists, as Pierre Lemieux, research fellow at the
Independent Institute, explains in a new article for REGULATION
magazine.
If herd behavior can be hard to understand, it can be even harder
when politicians and bureaucrats try to base public policy on it.
Because elections are infrequent and highly imperfect, policymakers
read the equally imperfect tea leaves of public opinion -- radio
talk-show chatter, constituent letters to their offices, newspaper
editorials -- and draw inferences, true and false, about what voters
really want. The result is that government policy is highly
vulnerable to the influence of false inferences.
"At worst, the state will turn cascades with no objective or
scientific basis into bad public policies," writes Pierre Lemieux,
research fellow at the Independent Institute, in a new article for
REGULATION magazine.
In part this is because special-interest groups often set the terms
of public debate by starting a "cascade." There is evidence, for
example, that the anti-smoking campaign has something to do with
support from nicotine patch manufacturers, just as Prohibition owed
something to the financial support of soft-drink manufactures.
Lemieux offers a few recommendations to help prevent uninformed
cascades from leading to bad policy. First, prevent governments from
responding quickly in the absence of much evidence of the
effectiveness of a particular policy proposal. Second, promote free
speech and debate, so that ideas can more easily be improved upon.
Third, encourage widespread experimentation by the public, as this
creates more information than centralized decisions.
"Cascades are only one of the factors that influence what people
think and how they behave, and which public policies follow," Lemieux
writes. "Long-term ideology and political and bureaucratic processes
interact with cascades. Many people can be wrong for a long time, but
there are good reasons to believe that false cascades, even supported
by special interests, can be reversed by free speech, individual
liberty, and the dispersion of power in society."
See "Following the Herd," by Pierre Lemieux (REGULATION, Winter 2003-2004)
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv26n4/v26n4-2.pdf (PDF, 6 pp, 422
kb)
On the related topic of network effects, see WINNERS, LOSERS &
MICROSOFT: Competition and Antitrust in High Technology, by Stan J.
Liebowitz and Stephen E. Margolis
http://www.independent.org/tii/catalog/cat_winners_losers.html
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RICHARD EPSTEIN TO DEFEND LIBERTY AGAINST RECENT ATTACKS -- Next
Independent Policy Forum (3/9/04)
http://www.independent.org/tii/forums/040309ipf.html
Speaking of bad faddish ideas and public policies, Richard A. Epstein
will refute the latest attacks on liberty, and offer a bold new
defense of the free society, at the next Independent Policy Forum,
"The Promised Land of the Free," on Tuesday, March 9, 2004, at the
Independent Institute's conference center in Oakland, California.
Richard A. Epstein is one of the country's leading legal scholars and
civil libertarians. Epstein shook up the legal profession when he
published his book TAKINGS, which argued that numerous government
regulations were violations of the Fifth Amendment's "takings"
clause. With the publication of SIMPLE RULES FOR A COMPLEX WORLD -- a
work defending the legal institutions necessary to secure freedom --
he secured his reputation as one of the brightest defenders of
liberty writing today. With his latest book, SKEPTICISM AND FREEDOM:
A Modern Case for Classical Liberalism, Epstein provides a spirited
and systematic defense of classical liberalism against the critiques
directed at it over the past thirty years.
Joining him will be economist and historian Jeffrey Rogers Hummel,
best known for his study of how the American Civil War led not only
to the end of slavery, but to a vast enlargement of the federal
government.
Please join us for a stimulating discussion.
SPEAKERS:
Richard Epstein is Professor of Law, University of Chicago, and
author of SKEPTICISM AND FREEDOM: A Modern Case for Classical
Liberalism (University of Chicago Press).
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel is Professor of Economics, San Jose State
University, and author of EMANCIPATING SLAVES, ENSLAVING FREE MEN
(Open Court Publishers)
WHEN:
Tuesday, March 9, 2004
Reception and book signing: 7:00 p.m.
Program: 7:30 - 9:00 p.m.
WHERE:
The Independent Institute Conference Center
100 Swan Way
Oakland, CA 94621-1428
For a map and directions, see
http://www.independent.org/tii/tii_info/about.html#map
TICKETS: $15 per person ($10 for Independent Institute Members), or
$45 for admission and a copy of SKEPTICISM AND FREEDOM. (25% off
cover price!) Reserve tickets by calling (510) 632-1366 or ordering
online at
http://www.independent.org/tii/forums/040309ipf.html.
Praise for SKEPTICISM AND FREEDOM: A Modern Case for Classical
Liberalism, by Richard A. Epstein (University of Chicago Press):
"Epstein's new book, SKEPTICISM AND FREEDOM, belongs on the same
shelf with [Adam] Smith's THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS. It is a book of
enormous erudition lightly worn, working its way through the great
issues of public policy conversationally, sensibly, and humanely."
-- Charles Murray, American Enterprise Institute
"SKEPTICISM AND FREEDOM is a signal, comprehensive, clear statement
by a preeminent legal thinker. In the tradition of Hume, Hayek, and
Friedman: Richard Epstein is radical without being unreasonable,
practical without being compromised."
-- Charles Fried, Harvard Law School
"This is an elegantly written and powerful defense of classical
liberalism -- of belief in a system with great economic and political
freedoms and with only a limited role for government. Of particular
interest is Epstein's argument that the proper scope of government is
not made any greater on account of modern views holding that
individuals do not have stable preferences, behave irrationally, and
are subject to cognitive biases."
-- Steven M. Shavell, Harvard Law School
"Epstein has to be taken seriously, and not only because of the power
of his reasoning and his authoritative command of the common law and
political philosophy. . . His reasoning is strong, the knowledge of
specific areas of policies is deep, and behind them stands his basic
commitment to a more productive and efficient society."
--Nathan Glazer, The New York Times Book Review
For more information about this event, see
http://www.independent.org/tii/forums/040309ipf.html
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THE LIGHTHOUSE, edited by Carl P. Close, is made possible by the
generous contributions of supporters of the Independent Institute. If
you enjoy THE LIGHTHOUSE, please consider making a donation to the
Independent Institute. For details on the Independent Associate
Membership program, see
http://www.independent.org/tii/tii_info/associate.html or contact us
by phone at 510-632-1366, e-mail at
info@independent.org, or snail
mail to: The Independent Institute, 100 Swan Way, Oakland, CA
94621-1428. All contributions are tax-deductible. Thank you!
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For previous issues of THE LIGHTHOUSE, see
http://www.independent.org/tii/lighthouse/Lighthouse.html.
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For information on books and other publications from The Independent
Institute, see
http://www.independent.org/tii/pubs.html.
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For information on The Independent Institute's upcoming Independent
Policy Forums, see
http://www.independent.org/tii/forums/events.html.
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THE LIGHTHOUSE
ISSN 1526-173X
Copyright © 2004 The Independent Institute
100 Swan Way
Oakland, CA 94621-1428
(510) 632-1366 phone
(510) 568-6040 fax
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