David Boaz

In a column bemoaning Ayn Rand's influence in America, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend writes:

I also see a moral issue with Ayn Rand's insistence that all of us, CEOs included, should be totally free of the ties that bind. I especially disagree when it comes to CEOs. As I wrote here a few months ago, the wealthy have a special responsibility. Much will be asked of those to whom much has been given. Participating in government and civic life, serving in war, helping the less fortunate, and--yes--paying a fair share of taxes are inescapable responsibilities for all Americans, especially for those who have realized the American dream that inspires us all. (emphasis added)

I hear this idea a lot, and of course it can be traced to the words of Jesus: "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required." (King James Version, Luke 12:48) But something struck me in its being quoted by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. Much has been given to her, and to her relatives. And thus wealth has always seemed to her something that falls like manna from heaven. Townsend is the granddaughter of Joseph P. Kennedy and of coal magnate George Skakel. Wikipedia sums up the charmed life her grandparents' wealth gave her:

Townsend was born in Greenwich, Connecticut....She spent most of her childhood in McLean, Virginia and attended Stone Ridge School in nearby Bethesda, Maryland. She graduated from The Putney School in Vermont. She attended Radcliffe College (which later became part of Harvard University), receiving her bachelor's degree in history and literature with honors in 1974.

It's a wonderful life. To her and her family, much was given -- by the hard work of an earlier generation. But most CEOs are not given anything. They have to create wealth. The ones who get the richest, the entrepreneurs, typically work very hard for years. They invent things -- cars, copying processes, software systems, computers, business practices. Sam Walton became fabulously wealthy by delivering mundane items a few pennies cheaper to tens of millions of people, Ray Kroc by standardizing the cheap and efficient delivery of reliable hamburgers. Sure, some CEOs inherit their jobs, but they still have to work to update their products and keep up with the competition. A person who makes money doesn't feel that "much has been given" to him, though rich Americans do nevertheless give a great deal to charity. Perhaps we might change Kennedy Townsend's mantra to

To those from whom we have received much -- the incredible standard of living that investors and businesspeople have helped us all to achieve -- much gratitude is owed.  And if they also devote some of their own wealth to charitable endeavors, they are doubly beneficent.

Or, as Timothy Egan titles it at the New York Times: "Nature Without the Nanny State." After reporting on a higher level of deaths this year at Yosemite, and an increased level of warnings and lawsuits, Egan notes:

My experience, purely anecdotal, is that the more rangers try to bring the nanny state to public lands, the more careless, and dependent, people become.

That point might have broader application than national parks.

A former congressional page tells the Washington Post that the recently ended page program was "well worth the money." At the Encyclopedia Britannica Blog, I note:

Well, it would be, wouldn’t it? For those who benefited from it, it is indeed well worth the money. But, as with all government programs, the beneficiaries weren’t paying for it. Did the program do the taxpayers much good? Yes, in the days when members of Congress needed a way to get documents to one another, the page program may well have been an efficient use of resources. But times change; technology has eliminated a lot of jobs in the private sector, and there’s no reason to think it shouldn’t have the same impact in the public sector. Cynics point out that pages were mostly the children of people with good political connections. And then they make better connections: The writer who thought the program was “well worth the money” now runs a company that boasts of having made more than 500 million political robocalls over the past 30 years. So we all owe something to the page program!

Much more on the problem of concentrated benefits and diffuse costs, some appalling examples, and a suggestion as to how we might determine whether each government program is "well worth the money."

David Boaz , ,

Lockheed is the main job source in Owego. If you shut down the program, my mom may lose her job and a lot of other people too... . Owego will be a ghost town. I've lived here my whole life and I love it here! Please really, really think it over.

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Why we should support the Animas-La Plata Project: Because someone else is paying the tab! We get the water. We get the reservoir. They get the bill.

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Three months ago I wrote a long, thoughtful (ahem) critique of the Washington Post's use of the word "anarchists" to describe people outraged at the possibility that governments might finally be forced "to cut social benefits and slash public payrolls." "Odd anarchists," I harrumphed, who "object to the state reducing its size, scope, and power." Today, Michael Cannon made the same point to many more people in a few pithy sentences on the Post's letters page:

Anne Applebaum informed us that “the anarchists in Athens wanted more government spending” [“The smartphone riots?” op-ed, Aug. 11]. Which is it? Were they anarchists, who want no government? Or were they statists, who want more government?

The lesson? Write letters to the editor. People read them. Meanwhile, two other letter-writers on the same page complain that the Post should not reveal how our tax dollars are spent, lest the masses turn against Washington. I disagree.

NPR's Ari Shapiro reports from New Hampshire on Ron Paul, including this heart-warming story:

Robin and Tom Jacubic are husband and wife who had sat on opposite ends of the political spectrum for years. "I was for Ned Lamont because he was anti-war," says Robin, "and when the Democrats took over in 2006, nobody did anything to stop the war, so I found Dr. Paul from there." "He is the only one in the Republican race that knows what he's doing, knows what he's saying and has the answers," adds her conservative husband. After a decade of married life supporting opposing political candidates, "We found each other in libertarianism," says Robin.

For more on fiscally conservative, socially liberal voters, read "The Libertarian Vote."

David Kestenbaum of NPR Planet Money reports this morning:

You would never look at a map of the Hudson River, point to the spot where the Tappan Zee Bridge is, and say, "Put the bridge here!" The Tappan Zee crosses one of the widest points on the Hudson — the bridge is more than three miles long. And if you go just a few miles south, the river gets much narrower. As you might expect, it would have been cheaper and easier to build the bridge across the narrower spot on the river.

Was there in fact a good engineering reason to put the bridge there, one that escaped the notice of the NPR reporter? Was there a good economic reason, perhaps avoiding expensive property confiscations? Well, it won't surprise readers of Cato-at-Liberty to discover that the bridge is in the wrong place because it made money for the State of New York:

If the bridge had been built just a bit south of its current location — that is, if it had been built across a narrower stretch of the river — it would have been in the territory that belonged to the Port Authority. As a result, the Port Authority — not the State of New York — would have gotten the revenue from tolls on the bridge. And [Gov. Thomas E.] Dewey needed that toll revenue to fund the rest of the Thruway.

Now the bridge needs repairs, which will cost more because the bridge is three miles long, instead of one mile long as it could have been. In Libertarianism: A Primer (page 199), I cited the work of the Italian fiscal theorist Amilcare Puviani, who asked, If a government were trying to squeeze as much money as possible out of its population, what would it do? He came up with 11 tactics, from inflation and borrowing to extraordinary budget complexity. I wonder if "placing a bridge in an inefficient place so that we get the tolls instead of another government" is covered by one of his strategies.

The news out of Russia the past few years has been depressing for believers in liberal democracy. Twenty years ago, it was sometimes said that Russia had put political reform before economic reform, and China had started with economic reform. Many people, following the analysis of Fareed Zakaria in The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, thought that China's path was more likely to lead to the development of a middle class, civil society, and eventually democratic capitalism. And that may yet be the case. But today, on the 20th anniversary of the attempted communist coup in Russia and Boris Yeltsin's victory for democracy, Masha Lipman has some interesting things to say in the Washington Post about the state of freedom in Russia. She says the previous hopes for democracy have been replaced by Vladimir Putin's "recentralizing power and reinstating state dominance over the people," leading to a withdrawal of most citizens from political involvement and thus to "increasing corruption, cronyism and lawlessness." But there's good news beyond the headlines:

The freedom of individual pursuit — as long as one stays away from politics — is one undoubted achievement of Russia’s post-communist development. Putin’s government reinstated the Soviet-style political monopoly and uncontested governance but did not encroach on individual rights. The constraints that existed in the USSR on entrepreneurship, artistic or academic self-fulfillment and lifestyle were not brought back. If one views the events of August 1991 as people rising in defense of freedom against a communist comeback, today’s individual freedoms should be seen as a goal fulfilled. Another post-communist achievement is the rise of a consumer society. Although a sizable number of Russians still have low incomes, never has the proportion of those who enjoy reasonable wealth and comfort been so high. During Soviet times, frustrated consumers faced chronic shortages and ubiquitous lines; after August 1991 and the adoption of a market economy, this cause of discontent was eliminated. These days in Russia, individual freedoms and the developed consumer society are taken for granted.

That's good news, 20 years after the fall of communism.