Eugene Volokh is an “optimistic libertarian.” His arguments are uplifting. I wonder if he listened to today’s Talk of the Nation, featuring Liberalism’s public enemy number one, John Banzhaf. (Remember the definition of “Liberal” employed in this site.)
Banzhaf’s anti-tobacco and anti-fast food arguments are totalitarianism pure and simple. Mr. Banzhaf's opening rhetoric (that is, after he finished gloating about the success of the anti-tobacco cabal) is that he'd prefer legislation, but that hasn't worked, so he'll try litigation. He never, I suppose, stops to consider the possibility that legislation hasn't worked because people basically don't agree with him.
Can there be a shred of a doubt that next lowest hanging fruit on the “bad personal habits” tree will eventually succomb to the trial lawyer onslaught? Eventually they’ll find a 300lb 8 year old girl to sue everyone from MacDonald’s to Hersey. Does personal choice stand a chance?
The health naziis make major hay out of a probably inaccurate claim that tobacco and fast food lead to increased government costs. It is simply assumed that this gives the government the right, even the mandate, to regulate "unhealthy" behavior. But, as a former economist-in-training, I have to note that the point behind getting individuals pay the full social cost of their actions is to ensure that they consider all costs before making their choices. It's not actually to change their behavior per se, but to ensure that they change their behavior if the full social costs of their actions are greater than their private benefits. But surely the private cost of a potentially early death swamps the partially social cost of additional, earlier medical expenses. In short, it isn't at all obvious that almost all of the people who eat 10 Big Macs a week wouldn't do exactly the same thing even if they did pay the full social cost of their actions. So the distributional question becomes "should they eat 10 $12 Big Macs, with $8.50 a mac going to the Dickie Scruggs of the world (or the government), or should they get to keep their money
Banzhaf succeeds in debates because his arguments are so larded with linked non sequiturs that his opponents are left to either go into excruciating logical detail in explaining his mis-conceptions, or actually skip over them and just defend fatty foods and tobacco and push over-blown rhetoric of their own. Banzhaf’s opponent does the former to a reasonably acceptable degree, and the latter to a rhetorically unappealing degree. This is an argument best left to essayists..
Banzhaf’s anti-tobacco and anti-fast food arguments are totalitarianism pure and simple. Mr. Banzhaf's opening rhetoric (that is, after he finished gloating about the success of the anti-tobacco cabal) is that he'd prefer legislation, but that hasn't worked, so he'll try litigation. He never, I suppose, stops to consider the possibility that legislation hasn't worked because people basically don't agree with him.
Can there be a shred of a doubt that next lowest hanging fruit on the “bad personal habits” tree will eventually succomb to the trial lawyer onslaught? Eventually they’ll find a 300lb 8 year old girl to sue everyone from MacDonald’s to Hersey. Does personal choice stand a chance?
The health naziis make major hay out of a probably inaccurate claim that tobacco and fast food lead to increased government costs. It is simply assumed that this gives the government the right, even the mandate, to regulate "unhealthy" behavior. But, as a former economist-in-training, I have to note that the point behind getting individuals pay the full social cost of their actions is to ensure that they consider all costs before making their choices. It's not actually to change their behavior per se, but to ensure that they change their behavior if the full social costs of their actions are greater than their private benefits. But surely the private cost of a potentially early death swamps the partially social cost of additional, earlier medical expenses. In short, it isn't at all obvious that almost all of the people who eat 10 Big Macs a week wouldn't do exactly the same thing even if they did pay the full social cost of their actions. So the distributional question becomes "should they eat 10 $12 Big Macs, with $8.50 a mac going to the Dickie Scruggs of the world (or the government), or should they get to keep their money
Banzhaf succeeds in debates because his arguments are so larded with linked non sequiturs that his opponents are left to either go into excruciating logical detail in explaining his mis-conceptions, or actually skip over them and just defend fatty foods and tobacco and push over-blown rhetoric of their own. Banzhaf’s opponent does the former to a reasonably acceptable degree, and the latter to a rhetorically unappealing degree. This is an argument best left to essayists..
posted by Scott at
7:44 PM
