The Petition of the Blogmakers
In his famous “Petition of the Candlemakers,” the great classical liberal thinker Frederic Bastiat lampooned the protectionist arguments of his day by imagining a campaign—launched by the producers of artificial illumination—against “ruinous competition” from that “merciless” scab… the sun. Via In These Times and the Lawyers, Guns & Money blog, I see that someone forgot to explain to the Newspaper Guild and National Writers Union that Bastiat’s petition was, you know, satire.
Borrowing a page from writer Jon Tasini, whose meritless lawsuit against the Huffington Post was roundly and justly ridiculed back in April, those two groups are advocating a boycott of the opinion and news site. They complain that, though HuffPo pays salaries to an enormous number of staff writers, reporters, and editors—apparently more than the New York Times does, if you count the whole AOL newsroom—the site also has the temerity to run lots of unpaid essays and blog posts from volunteer writers, comprising a motley assortment of entertainment celebrities, elected officials, veteran journalists, academics (both famous and obscure), and political activists. As we can see from the millions of individuals clacking away at their keyboards for lesser-known personal or group blogs—or, for that matter, signing up for open-mic nights or posting photos on Flickr—there’s no shortage of people who want the opportunity to share their ideas or their creativity with an audience, but aren’t necessarily looking to make a career of it. Isn’t it great that some companies have found a way to make a profit by providing so many amateur writers, photographers, moviemakers, and artists with a platform?
Not so great, apparently, if you’re among those who feel entitled to be paid for what many happily do gratis—but can’t improve on the amateurs enough to demand a premium for their copy (And all those heartless people in consensual sexual relationships—won’t someone think of the escorts!?). Since their target audience isn’t hugely sympathetic to a “sharing is evil” message (isn’t that what we Rand-besotted Cato folks are supposed to believe?) they’re doing their best to persuade folks that if someone is making a buck, somebody else must be getting exploited:
Ultimately, HuffPo is surviving on the adjunct model. Like higher education with its hordes of PhDs with no job prospects, there is a huge supply of writers who want to make a living in journalism. HuffPo offers the promise of gaining valuable experience and readership so that someday, maybe, you can make it big.
This is a dishonest proposition by HuffPo. It is almost impossible in 2011 to go from a no one to a big name blogger. The blogosphere is ossified. During the explosion of the medium from 2004-06, young writers could produce excellent work and become big name people. Then, by 2007, those were the only blogs people read. Today, those are the prominent and still young writers of the progressive blogosphere. And they aren’t going anywhere.
Now, on a random Thursday evening at The Passenger in DC, I could probably pick out half a dozen successful young progressive writer-bloggers who were unknown in 2007, but let that pass. Skimming the site’s current blog sidebar, I spot such naifs as veteran CBS News correspondent Bob Simon, American Prospect co-founder Bob Kuttner, longtime Harper’s editor Lewis Lapham—all, apparently, hoping for their big break at the Huffington Post! Not to mention UCLA law professor Adam Winkler, movie star Nia Vardalos, or Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu, all dreaming wistfully of an internship offer from the New Republic. And will nobody shed a tear for poor, powerless Sen. Claire McCaskill? Was Jerusalem builded here, among these dark satanic mills?
The reality, of course, is that lots of industries are finding it hard to adapt to an age where the Internet’s ability to harness, aggregate, and distribute so much amateur effort and creativity is creating disruptive abundance where scarcity once promised a steady income. How many of your friends have bought a hardcover dictionary or encyclopedia in the last five years? When did you last need to buy a map on a long car trip? How many of us have decided that, with so many clever people sharing their creative visions on YouTube (and the best of television available for purchase a-la-carte), paying for a cable subscription is a mug’s game? You can love the new reality or hate it, but it seems perverse to blame it on Arianna Huffington, who’s been among the few to find a viable model for turning a profit by fusing amateur contributions and paid professional content.
Heritage and Prop. 19
Over at the Huffington Post, I scrutinize a recent Legal Memorandum published by the Heritage Foundation on the Prop. 19 ballot initiative.
Here is an excerpt:
The Heritage memorandum claims that if Prop 19 were approved, it would conflict with the federal criminal statute, the Controlled Substances Act and thus “invite litigation that would almost certainly result in [Prop 19] being struck down” as unconstitutional. This legal claim is dead wrong. While it is true that the supremacy clause of the Constitution makes it clear that federal law will override a conflicting state law, that clause simply has no application here. The federal law on marijuana remains in force, but that does not mean that a state government is under any obligation to assist the feds. As the Supreme Court noted in New York v. United States (1992), the state governments are neither “regional offices nor administrative agencies” of the federal government. Let’s take another example. Suppose Congress were to criminalize, say, cotton candy–would California be in violation of the Constitution because its police agents are not now empowered to arrest people producing and possessing cotton candy? No. Nor could Congress compel the California legislature to move against cotton candy producers and consumers. Here again is the Supreme Court: “Even where Congress has the authority to pass laws requiring or prohibiting certain acts, it lacks the power directly to compel the States to require or prohibit those acts.” (New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 166 (1992)). Prop 19 is consistent with the constitutional principle of federalism.
For additional Cato scholarship on drug policy, go here and here.
My Overdue Response to Jesse Larner
Back in August of 2007, I issued a challenge to Jesse Larner, who blogs at HuffingtonPost. One week later, Larner took up my challenge in a post that I’ve just finished reading.
Larner very graciously admitted to a couple of misstatements, and I must reciprocate. I wrote, “I challenge Larner to show where a Cato scholar … describes America’s as a ‘free-enterprise system of health care.’” Sure enough, Larner found an oped where one of my colleagues wrote, “I live in a country with a free-market health-care system.” Obviously, I disagree with that claim. But Larner was right, and I will have to look into this.
A few remaining areas of disagreement:
- I wrote that Larner “claims that people don’t die on waiting lists in Canada’s health care system.” Larner responds: “Actually, that’s not what I claimed. I claimed that people don’t often die on waiting lists.” Canada’s Supreme Court writes that “in some serious cases, patients die as a result of waiting lists for public health care.” Is some as many as often? I hope not.
- Larner: “the Canadian system has problems … [but] it worked better before a series of conservative provincial governments began to de-fund it.” This isn’t the first time that advocates of socialized medicine have blamed its shortcomings on politicians who (supposedly) oppose socialized medicine. But it is an inherent feature of such systems that they will inevitably fall into the hands of whatever viable political parties exist in that nation. As I explained to Paul Krugman, “Unless you have a plan to abolish Republicans, they’re part of your plan.”
- Larner writes: “a public health care plan is a public good.” Public good is an economic term with a specific meaning. A public health care plan is not a public good.
- Larner: “is Cannon saying that we do not have rationing in the US?” Hardly.
- Larner: “In a free-market system, what mechanisms would prevent insurers from cherry-picking their customers, and denying coverage to those who are likely to require expensive treatment?” The question presumes that insurance should do something that insurance cannot do: insure the uninsurable. In this chapter of the Cato Handbook on Policy, I explain the (amazing) things that health insurance can accomplish, and why “health insurance markets are completely justified in not covering preexisting conditions.”
- “So here’s my challenge to Cannon: show me a way that a true free-market system can provide decent coverage to everyone, regardless of ability to pay, without rationing.” Elsewhere in his post, Larner acknowledges this is an impossible task. In this magazine article, I explain that there is no way to reform health care that can guarantee that no patients will fall through the cracks. In this Cato paper, I explain how a free market would minimize the number of people who do.
- “Cannon is not in favor of universal coverage as a social right.” True, that. “As a libertarian, he doesn’t even recognize the concept of social rights.” I believe it was Friedrich Hayek who said there’s no better way to strip a word of its meaning than to place the word “social” in front of it. Try it yourself . I suggest using words like security, contract, justice, responsibility…
Grasping for Rationales, Feeding Conspiracy Theories
On June 13, the New York Times reported that America “just discovered” a trillion dollars worth of mineral resources in Afghanistan (HT to Katie Drummond over at Danger Room for offering some enlightened skepticism on the topic).
Of course, the U.S. Geological Survey has known about Afghanistan’s “large quantities of iron and copper” since 2007. The Los Angeles Times reported that geologist Bonita Chamberlain, who has spent 25 years working in Afghanistan, “identified 91 minerals, metals and gems at 1,407 potential mining sites” as far back as 2001. Chamberlain was even contacted by the Pentagon to write a report on the subject just weeks after 9/11 (possibly to expound upon the findings of her co-authored book, “Gemstones in Afghanistan,” published in 1996.)
Given the recent failure of Marjah, which Gen. McChrystal recently called “a bleeding ulcer,” this new “discovery” could offer Western leaders a new way to convince their war-weary publics that Afghanistan is worth the fight. Government officials are already touting this new “discovery” as yet another “decisive moment” or “corner turned” in the Afghan campaign.
In the NYT article, head of Central Command, Gen. David Petraeus, said, “There is stunning potential here. There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.”
Afghanistan epitomizes the fate of countries too dependent on foreign patronage, which over time has weakened its security by undermining their leaders’ allegiance to the state. In the long run, $1 trillion worth of mineral deposits could eventually help Afghanistan stand on its own two feet. However, two problems emerge. First, there is little assurance that revenue from mineral resources (which will take years of capital investment to extract) will actually reach the Afghan people and not be siphoned off by Karzai and his corrupt cronies–like much of the international community’s investment does now.
Second, in the short-term, this discovery may feed conspiracy theories that already exist in the region. Though unwise to generalize personal meetings to an entire population, some conspiracy theories that I heard while I was recently in Afghanistan should give U.S. officials pause before announcing that America can help extract the country’s mineral deposits. Some of the wildest conspiracy theories I heard were that the United States wants to occupy Afghanistan in order to take its resources; the Taliban is the United States; the United States is using helicopters to ferry Taliban around northern Afghanistan (courtesy of Afghan President Hamid Karzai); America is at war in order to weaken Islam; and the list goes on.
This “discovery” may force more people in the region to ask: what are America’s real reasons for building permanent bases in Central Asia?
This piece originally appeared on the Huffington Post on June 15, 2010.
George Will on Rand Paul
George Will, whose speech at the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty Dinner can be heard here, writes today about Rand Paul’s victory in Kentucky:
Democrats and, not amazingly, many commentators say Republicans are the ones with the worries because they are nominating strange and extreme candidates. Their Exhibit A is Rand Paul, winner of Kentucky’s Republican primary for the U.S. Senate.
Well. It may seem strange for a Republican to have opposed, as Paul did, the invasion of Iraq. But in the eighth year of that war, many Kentuckians may think he was strangely prescient. To some it may seem extreme to say, as Paul does, that although the invasion of Afghanistan was proper, our current mission there is “murky.” But many Kentuckians may think this is an extreme understatement.
These critical commentators range from David Frum and Commentary to the Huffington Post — the entire spectrum of the welfare-warfare state. But as Will says, Paul’s opposition to the Iraq war is shared by 60 percent of Americans. And plenty of mud was thrown at Paul by his Republican opponents, and Republican voters had this reply:
(H/T: DailyPaul.com)
Will also notes the surprising support for Rep. Ron Paul’s book End the Fed from Arlo Guthrie, whose anti-bailout song “I’m Changing My Name to Fannie Mae, was celebrated here.
Libertarian Policy Blogs
Looking for more commentary and analysis from Cato scholars? You can find their own blogs here:
Daniel Griswold – Mad About Trade
Jim Harper – Washington Watch & Tech Liberation
Daniel J. Mitchell – International Liberty
Will Wilkinson – WillWilkinson.net
Jeffrey Miron – Libertarianism, from A to Z
Patrick Michaels – World Climate Report
Randal O’Toole – The Antiplanner
David Boaz – DavidBoaz.com
Malou Innocent – Huffington Post
Julian Sanchez – JulianSanchez.com
Gene Healy – GeneHealy.com
Tom Palmer – TomGPalmer.com
Week in Review: Bailout Bonuses, Marijuana and Eminent Domain Abuse
House Approves 90 Percent ‘Bonus Tax’
Sparked by outrage over the bonus checks paid out to AIG executives, the House approved a measure Thursday that would impose a 90 percent tax on employee bonuses for companies that receive more than $5 billion in federal bailout funds.
Chris Edwards, Cato’s director of tax policy studies, says the outrage over AIG is misplaced:
While Congress has been busy with this particular inquisition, the Federal Reserve is moving ahead with a new plan to shower the economy with a massive $1.2 trillion cash infusion — an amount 7,200 times greater than the $165 million of AIG retention bonuses.
So members of Congress should be grabbing their pitchforks and heading down to the Fed building, not lynching AIG financial managers, most of whom were not the ones behind the company’s failures.
Cato executive vice president David Boaz says this type of selective taxation is a form of tyranny:
The rule of law requires that like people be treated alike and that people know what the law is so that they can plan their lives in accord with the law. In this case, a law is being passed to impose taxes on a particular, politically unpopular group. That is a tyrannical abuse of Congress’s powers.
On a related note, Cato senior fellow Richard W. Rahn defended the use of tax havens in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, saying the practice will only become more prevalent as taxes increase in the United States:
U.S. companies are being forced to move elsewhere to remain internationally competitive because we have one of the world’s highest corporate tax rates. And many economists, including Nobel Laureate Robert Lucas, have argued that the single best thing we can do to improve economic performance and job creation is to eliminate multiple taxes on capital gains, interest and dividends. Income is already taxed once, before it is invested, whether here or abroad; taxing it a second time as a capital gain only discourages investment and growth.
Obama to Stop Raids on State Marijuana Distributors
Attorney General Eric Holder announced this week that the president would end federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries that were common under the Bush administration.
It’s about time, says Tim Lynch, director of Cato’s Project on Criminal Justice:
The Bush administration’s scorched-earth approach to the enforcement of federal marijuana laws was a grotesque misallocation of law enforcement resources. The U.S. government has a limited number of law enforcement personnel, and when a unit is assigned to conduct surveillance on a California hospice, that unit is necessarily neglecting leads in other cases that possibly involve more violent criminal elements.
The Cato Institute hosted a forum Tuesday in which panelists debated the politics and science of medical marijuana. In a Cato daily podcast, Dr. Donald Abrams explains the promise of marijuana as medicine.
Cato Links
• A new video tells the troubling story of Susette Kelo, whose legal battle with the city of New London, Conn., brought about one of the most controversial Supreme Court rulings in many years. The court ruled that Kelo’s home and the homes of her neighbors could be taken by the government and given over to a private developer based on the mere prospect that the new use for her property could generate more tax revenue or jobs. As it happens, the space where Kelo’s house and others once stood is still an empty dustbowl generating zero economic impact for the town.
• Daniel J. Ikenson, associate director of Cato’s Center for Trade Policy Studies, explains why the recent news about increasing protectionism will be short-lived.
• Writing in the Huffington Post, Cato foreign plicy analyst Malou Innocent says Americans should ignore Dick Cheney’s recent attempt to burnish the Bush administration’s tarnished legacy.
• Reserve your spot at Cato University 2009: “Economic Crisis, War, and the Rise of the State.”
Obama Intel Chief Sought National ID?
While Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee have written a letter objecting to the experience level of National Intelligence Council Chairman Chas Freeman, Ashley Rindsberg at the Huffington Post reveals that Freeman advocated creating a national identity system in the US as a part of the “war on terror.”
During a 9/11 Commission interview, Freeman remarked that of three major changes the US government should make to effectively combat terror, one was that “the United States should implement a national identity system, so we better know who is who.”
Seems Freeman lost track of why we have intelligence and security – to preserve our freedoms. We don’t abandon our freedoms to preserve our intelligence. Not that a national ID would help with that . . . .
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