Markets, Not Mandates Nader Shrugged Medical Marijuana Muddle reason Progressives vs. Democracy Free Minds and Free Markets Whole Foods Health Care Organic-foods magnate John Mackey talks about his controversial health care proposals, why he was investigated by the feds, and “conscious capitalism” January 2010 $3.95 U.S. & Canada

January 2010 reason Volume 41, No. 8 Free Minds and Free Markets

Departments Features Briefly Noted (cont.) 54 Brian Doherty on Michael Moore’s 2 Why I Prefer French Health Care 22 The Gatekeeper movie Capitalism: A Love Story The U.S. system’s deep flaws How a little bureaucratic office 56 Katherine Mangu-Ward on Joel make socialism more tempting. became the biggest impediment Waldfogel’s Scroogenomics Matt Welch to Barack Obama’s health care 58 Brian Doherty on government- plans. Peter Suderman sponsored online comics and 4 Contributors pamphlets 26 The States’ Failed Experiments 6 Letters The major provisions of Obama- 54 Nader Shrugged Using unions as weapons; Care have already been tried. The anti-corporate crusader tries inflation returns!; payday of reck- And they don’t look good. Peter to write an Ayn Rand novel. Joseph oning; the debtorship society… Suderman Mailander “Only the Super-Rich Can Save 10 Citings 30 Progressives vs. Democracy Us!”, by Ralph Nader Fourth Amendment victory; The health care debate reveals Sudafed crackdown fallout; a nasty tendency within liberal 57 It Takes a Village Atheist fighting secrecy; Castro vs.CO2 ; politics. Brian Doherty Barbara Ehrenreich’s jeremiad D.C. stimulus boondoggle; against cheerful thinking. Kerry geoengineering the climate; 36 Whole Foods Health Care Howley like a virgin; the red album… Organic-foods magnate Bright-Sided: How the Relentless John Mackey talks about Promotion of Positive Thinking his controversial health care Has Undermined America, by Columns proposals, why he was Barbara Ehrenreich investigated by the feds, 9 Medical Marijuana Muddle and “conscious capitalism.” 60 Driving Miss Lazy Obama’s new policy sounds Interview by Nick Gillespie and In praise of drive-through good, but it may not make much Matt Welch windows. Greg Beato difference. Jacob Sullum 62 Artificial Housing Respiration 16 Canned Laughter Lives! Culture & Reviews Government-sponsored housing The ghost of the laugh track inflation is locking the next survives online. Greg Beato 48 Beyond Pleasantville generation out of homeowner- Permissiveness wasn’t born in the ship. Tim Cavanaugh 19 Have a Coke and a Tax ’60s. Jesse Walker The economic case against soda The Permissive Society: America, 64 Artifact: Conan the Cruel? taxes. Veronique de Rugy 1941–1965, by Alan Petigny When the feds ban films of animal cruelty. Jacob Sullum 44 Markets, Not Mandates Briefly Noted What would real health care 50 Katherine Mangu-Ward on the Cover Photo: Courtesy Whole Foods reform look like? Ronald Bailey National Building Museum’s Market Inc. exhibit “House of Cars” 46 The Criminalization of Protest 52 Damon Root on James Ellroy’s Police and politicians ignore the Blood’s a Rover First Amendment when we need it the most. Radley Balko

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Why I Prefer French Health Care The U.S. system’s deep flaws make socialism more tempting.

By now I’m accustomed to being the only per- medicine. You might pay the doc $40, but then son in any given room with my particular set of his office sends you a separate bill for the visit, cockamamie politics. But even within the more and for an examination, and those bills also go familiar confines of the libertarian movement, to your insurance company, which sends you I am an awkward outlier on the topic of the day an adjustment sheet weeks after the doctor’s (and the topic of this issue of reason): health office has sent its third payment notice. By the care. time it’s all sorted out, you’ve probably paid a To put it plainly, when free marketers warn few hundred dollars to three different entities, that Democratic health care initiatives will without having a clue about how or why any of make us more “like France,” a big part of me the prices were set. says, “I wish.” It’s not that I think it’s either fea- In France, by contrast, you walk to the sible or advisable for the United States to adopt corner pharmacist, get either a prescription or a single-payer, government-dominated system. over-the-counter medication right away, shell But it’s instructive to confront the comparative out a dozen or so euros, and you’re done. If you advantages of one socialist system abroad to need a doctor, it’s not hard to get an appoint- sharpen the arguments for more capitalism at ment within a day or three, you make payments home. for everything (including X-rays) on the spot, and the amounts are routinely less than the co- For a dozen years now I’ve led a dual life, payments for U.S. doctor visits. I’ve had back spending more than 90 percent of my time and X-rays, detailed ear examinations, even minor money in the U.S. while receiving 90 percent of oral surgery, and never have I paid more than my health care in my wife’s native France. On maybe €300 for any one procedure. a personal level the comparison is no contest: I’ll take the French experience any day. Obama- And it’s not like the medical professionals in Care opponents often warn that a new system France are chopped liver. In the U.S., my wife will lead to long waiting times, mountains of had some lumps in her breast dismissed as paperwork, and less choice among doctors. Yet harmless by a hurried, indifferent doctor at Kai- on all three of those counts the French system ser Permanente. Eight months later, during our is significantlybetter , not worse, than what the annual Christmas visit in Lyon, one of the best U.S. has now. breast surgeons in the country detected that the Need a prescription for muscle relaxers, lumps were growing and removed them. an anti-fungal cream, or a steroid inhaler for We know that the horrific amount of third- temporary lung trouble? In the U.S. you have party gobbledygook in America, the cost insen- to fight to get on the appointment schedule of sitivity, and the price randomness are all prod- a doctor within your health insurance network ucts of bad policies that market reforms could (I’ll conservatively put the average wait time at significantly improve. (See “Markets, Not Man- five days), then have him or her scrawl some- dates,” page 44.) We know, too, that France’s thing unintelligible on a slip of paper, which low retail costs are subsidized by punitively you take to a drugstore to exchange for your high tax rates that will have to increase

2 | reason | January 2010 unless benefits are cut. If you are the 12 months preceding my applica- uncovered by anything except COBRA rich and sick (or a healthy doctor), tion (I filled in the “3-5 times” circle, for nearly two months even though you’re likely better off here. But as to reflect the three routine and inex- both employers used the same health long as the U.S. remains this ungainly pensive check-ups I’d had in France). insurance provider. That incident public-private hybrid, with ever- Blue Cross rejected me too. There alone cost me thousands of dollars tighter mandates producing ever- weren’t many other options. Months I wouldn’t have paid if I had con- fewer consumer choices, the average later, an insurance broker told me I’d trolled my own insurance policy. consumer’s health care experience ruined my chances by failing to file I’ve now reached the age where will probably be more pleasing in a written appeal. “You’re basically I will better appreciate the premium France. done in California,” he said. “A rejec- skill level of American doctors and What’s more, none of these tion is like an arrest—if you don’t their high-quality equipment and anecdotes scratches the surface of contest it, you’re guilty, and it’s on techniques. And in a very real way my France’s chief advantage, and the your permanent record.” family has voted with its feet when main reason socialized medicine It wasn’t as if I wanted or it comes to choosing between the remains a perennial temptation needed to consume much health two countries. One of France’s worst in this country: In France, you are care then. I was in my early 30s, and problems is the rigidity and expense covered, period. It doesn’t depend I wanted to make sure a catastrophic that comes with an extensive welfare on your job, it doesn’t depend on a illness or injury wouldn’t bankrupt state. health maintenance organization, When free marketers But as you look at the health care and it doesn’t depend on whether you solutions discussed in this issue, ask filled out the paperwork right. Those warn that ObamaCare yourself an honest question: Are we who (like me) oppose ObamaCare, will make us more “like better off today, in terms of health need to understand (also like me, France,” a big part of me policy, than we would have been had unfortunately) what it’s like to be says, “I wish.” we acknowledged more loudly 15 serially rejected by insurance com- years ago that the status quo is quite panies even though you’re perfectly my family. When I finally found a awful for a large number of Ameri- healthy. It’s an enraging, anxiety- freelance-journalist collective that cans? Would we have been better inducing, indelible experience, one allowed me and my wife to pay $212 off focusing less on waiting times in that both softens the intellectual a month to hedge against a car acci- Britain, and more on waiting times ground for increased government dent, it a) refused to cover pregnan- in the USA? It’s a question I plan to intervention and produces active cies or childbirths at any price and ask my doctor this Christmas. In resentment toward anyone who b) hiked the monthly rate up to $357 French. r argues that the U.S. has “the best after a year. One of the main attrac- health care in the world.” tions of moving from freelance sta- Matt Welch ([email protected]) is editor in chief of reason. tus to a full-time job was the ability Since 1986 I’ve missed exactly three to affix a stable price on my health days of work due to illness. I don’t insurance. smoke, I don’t (usually) do drugs or drink to excess, and I eat a pretty This is the exact opposite of the healthy diet. I have some back pain direction in which we should be now and then from a protruding disc, traveling in a global just-in-time but nothing too serious. And from economy, with its ideal of entrepre- 1998 to 2001, when I was a freelancer neurial workers breaking free of in the world’s capital of freelancers corporate command and zipping (Los Angeles), I couldn’t get health creatively from project to project. insurance. Don’t even get me started on the Kaiser rejected me because I had Kafkaesque ordeal of switching jobs visited the doctor too many times in without taking any time off, yet going

reason | January 2010 | 3 reason Editor in Chief Matt Welch ([email protected]) Contributors In “Nader Shrugged” (page 54), the Los Angeles– Editor, reason online Nick Gillespie ([email protected]) based writer Joseph Mailander, 52, reviews Managing Editor Jesse Walker ([email protected]) the fiction debut of the activist, gadfly, and Senior Editors perennial presidential contender Ralph Nader, Radley Balko ([email protected]) Brian Doherty ([email protected]) “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!” Mailander, Katherine Mangu-Ward ([email protected]) Michael C. Moynihan (mmoynihan@ who calls himself “a tax-averse liberal,” didn’t reason.com) Jacob Sullum ([email protected]) find himself especially impressed by Nader’s Associate Editors Damon Root ([email protected]) attempt to write a heroic novel in the mode of Peter Suderman ([email protected]) Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey Atlas Shrugged. “This book is largely the result ([email protected]) of Ralph Nader’s relentless self-promotion,” he Editorial Assistant Mary Toledo Joseph Mailander ([email protected]) says. Art Director Barb Burch ([email protected]) Photo Researcher Sylvia Ohlrich If you enjoy reading our interview with Contributing Editors Whole Foods CEO John Mackey (page 36), you Peter Bagge, Greg Beato, Gregory Benford, Tim Cavanaugh, Veronique de Rugy, James V. might want to watch the video version posted DeLong, Charles Paul Freund, Glenn Garvin, Mike Godwin, David R. Henderson, John Hood, Kerry Howley, Brink Lindsey, Carolyn Lochhead, online at reason.tv/mackey. The video was shot Loren E. Lomasky, Mike Lynch, John McClaughry, Deirdre N. McCloskey, Michael McMenamin, and edited by Meredith Bragg, a reason.tv Michael Valdez Moses, Charles Oliver, Walter Olson, John J. Pitney Jr., Julian Sanchez, Thomas producer since March. Before then, Bragg, 33, Szasz, Jeff A. Taylor, David Weigel, Cathy Young, Michael Young Meredith Bragg produced online programs for C-SPAN, shot a Legal Adviser Don Erik Franzen documentary about high school football play- Editorial and Production Offices 3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 400 ers, and was hired to write broadcast and online Los Angeles, CA 90034-6064 Tel: 310-391-2245 Fax: 310-391-4395 pilots for Warner Brothers and Turner. Bragg, Washington Offices 1747 Connecticut Avenue, NW who lives in Alexandria, Virginia, with his wife, Washington, DC 20009 Tel: 202-986-0916 Fax: 202-315-3623 is also a singer-songwriter; his most recent Advertising Sales Burr Media Group album is Silver Sonia. Ronald E. Burr, 703-893-3632 Joseph P. Whistler, 540-349-4042 The Mackey Q&A also owes a debt to Donna ([email protected]) Packard, who has been transcribing interviews Subscription Service Donna Packard P.O. Box 8504, Big Sandy, TX 75755 for reason for nearly a decade. Packard, 62, lives 1-888-reason-8 (1-888-732-7668) ([email protected]) on a 30-acre farm outside of Charlottesville, Circulation Circulation Specialists Inc. Virginia. When she started her transcription Newsstand Distribution Kable Distribution Services business 28 years ago, she worried she would 212-705-4600 be lonely, since “I’m very outgoing and there reason is published by the Reason Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational foundation. Contributions to the Reason Foundation are are no neighbors.” But it turned she had a fasci- tax-deductible. Signed articles in reason reflect the views of the authors and do not necessarily nating cast of characters to keep her company. represent those of the editors, the Reason Foundation, or its trustees; articles should not Packard has transcribed interviews with Robert be construed as attempts to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before any legislative body. De Niro, Willie Nelson, and Charles Barkley for The claims and opinions set forth in paid adver- tisements published in this magazine are not men’s magazines, typed up the novelist Rita Mae necessarily those of the Reason Foundation, and the publisher takes no responsibility for Brown’s handwritten manuscripts, and even any such claim or opinion. Reason Foundation done work for Charlottesville’s resident Thomas Trustees William A. Dunn (Chairman), Thomas E. Beach, Jefferson impersonator. Packard, who recently Drew Carey, Derwood S. Chase Jr., James R. Curley, Richard J. Dennis, David W. Fleming, recovered from a bout with cancer, says that get- James D. Jameson, Manuel S. Klausner, David H. Koch, James Lintott, Stephen Modzelewski, ting out of bed during chemotherapy was tough, David Nott, George F. Ohrstrom, Robert W. Poole Jr., Vernon L. Smith, Richard A. Wallace, Fred M. but she was grateful to have interesting work Young Jr., Pierluigi Zappacosta, Harry E. Teasley Jr. (chairman emeritus), Frank Bond (emeritus), that she could do in pajamas. Walter E. Williams (emeritus) President David Nott Vice President, Magazine Nick Gillespie Vice President, Research Adrian T. Moore Vice President, Operations; Publisher Mike Alissi Chief Financial Officer Jon Graff

4 | reason | January 2010 © Shutterstock.com Master the Science behind the Complexities of Your World

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DVDs $199.95 NOW $39.95 ACT NOW! + $5 Shipping, Processing, and Lifetime Satisfaction Guarantee Priority Code: 38581 1-800-TEACH-12 www.TEACH12.com/2rs Letters Using Unions as Weapons the asset collapse of 2008. We have The figures in Veronique de Rugy’s already seen the havoc that attended chart (“Using Unions as Weapons,” just one wave of deflation: Debt values October) suggest that investors are imploded, and financial markets—from much better off with UPS’s 62 percent stocks to commodities to property— union work force than with FedEx, were revalued dramatically downward. where a “small percentage” of workers Trends never go in a straight line, so the (pilots) are union members. current partial recovery is par for the The UPS return on sales was 7 per- course. But bank credit has begun con- cent, more than double the 2.9 percent tracting again, indicating that the next at FedEx. This despite the fact that UPS, wave of deflation is imminent. with 35 percent larger revenues, bears As for the Fed, it cannot monetize 3.7 times the compensation costs of the entire overhanging supply of bad FedEx. On average UPS pays its workers debt without self-destructing, which it $74,400, versus $29,300 at FedEx. is unwilling to do. The Fed has talked Economic theory holds that higher the federal government into guarantee- wages can be used to attract and retain ing some debts, but even that option more productive workers. Economic will soon face limits due to political theory also holds that bearing these opposition. When markets turn back higher labor costs would encourage down and bank failures accelerate, the more efficient and effective use of capi- Fed’s widely presumed ability to inflate tal by UPS. the money-plus-credit supply at whim De Rugy’s column sent me to the will be revealed as a chimera. disclosure statements of both com- Robert Prechter panies, which reveal that while UPS’s Gainesville, GA shareowner equity is a scant 8 percent greater than FedEx, profits are more Payday of Reckoning than 2.2 times as large. Last year UPS Katherine Mangu-Ward’s article on earned 23.2 percent on its equity, payday loans, “Payday of Reckoning,” according to finance.yahoo.com, more (October) states that Jews are associ- than five times the 4.6 percent return at ated with moneylending because Jew- FedEx. UPS also has an operating mar- ish law allows interest to be charged gin double that of FedEx. to non-Jews. While the reference to One-year comparisons can be mis- Jewish law (Deuteronomy 23:20) is cor- leading, but the data reason presented rect, it should be noted that through- indicate that paying higher wages can out the Middle Ages, the business of Letters are welcome and should help maximize profits. moneylending was one of the few not be addressed to David Cay Johnston prohibited to Jews by most European reason Rochester, NY countries. 1747 Connecticut Avenue, NW David Altschul Washington, DC 20009 Inflation Returns! Berkeley, CA fax: 202-315-3623 In the “Inflation Returns!” forum [email protected] (October), one possibility was conspicu- The Debtorship Society ously missing: that a powerful deflation In “The Debtorship Society” (October), is inevitable and has already begun. Tim Cavanaugh reports that “owner’s This minority opinion deserves a spot equity as a percentage of household in the debate, if only for the reason that real estate dropped” and argues that a conventional economists never foresaw “portion of this decline can be attrib-

6 | reason | January 2010 uted to the steep drop in house prices.” P ORTABLE S PINAL D ECOMPRESSION This does not seem reasonable. For example, assume that someone bought a $200,000 house a decade or more ago with a 20 percent down payment ($40,000). After some years of payments let us assume the owner’s current equity is now $45,000, but the market value of the house has dropped to $166,000. Hence, the owner actually owns 27 percent of the market value of the house rather than 22.5 percent of the original price. Thus one would expect that a decrease in market price Away would increase the owner’s percentage equity ownership. Frank Ditto Charles Town, WV Back Pain Tim Cavanaugh responds: The amount of mortgage principal that you have The patented new ’Spinal Stretch’™ retired is not your equity. Your equity is the value of the house minus the princi- administers a powerful, therapeutic pal on the mortgage. pulling force that can relieve low back pain In the example, the person has retired $45,000 of a $200,000 debt. and promote restorative disc healing. That leaves $155,000 of principal. So if the house currently appraises at Learn more at SpinalStretch.com $200,000, the equity stake is $200,000 minus $155,000: $45,000. That’s a 22.5 percent stake, as Ditto notes. But if the house appraises at only $166,000, the equity stake is $166,000 minus $155,000: $11,000. That’s a little less than 7 percent. As the house value shrinks, your equity stake shrinks as well, but your mortgage is constant. So in a declin- Weighs just 4 lbs! ing market your equity percentage will decline.

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Congratulations to Shikha Dalmia, a senior policy analyst at the Reason Foundation and a regular contribu- For home, office or travel- reason tor to , for winning the 2009 All you need is a door and a floor. Bastiat Prize for Online Journalism.

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Simply go to reason.com and click on subscribe reason Free Minds and Free Markets Columns: Jacob Sullum Medical Marijuana Muddle Obama’s new policy sounds good, but it may not make much difference.

During his presidential campaign, resources should not be used to cir- providing for the medical use of mari- Barack Obama repeatedly promised cumvent state laws.” juana.” to stop federal interference with state The mixed signals continued. In California especially, that medical marijuana laws. In October “The policy is to go after those people phrasing leaves a lot of wiggle room the Justice Department seemed to who violate both federal and state for federal meddling. A 2008 deci- deliver on that promise with a memo law,” Attorney General Eric Holder sion by the California Supreme Court telling U.S. attorneys to avoid pros- declared in March. Less than a week rejected the idea that medical mari- ecuting people who use or provide later, the DEA raided a medical mari- juana suppliers are legal as long as medical marijuana in compliance juana dispensary in San Francisco, their customers designate them as with state law. reportedly because of irregularities “primary caregivers.” Patients who The new policy sounds a lot bet- associated with the collection of state are not up to growing marijuana on ter than the Bush administration’s sales tax (as opposed to violations of their own can still organize as “collec- refusal to tolerate any deviation from state drug laws). tives” or “cooperatives,” but local offi- federal law in this area. But it may not In light of Holder’s announce- cials disagree with state officials and make much difference in practice. ment, a federal judge in Los Angeles each other about what that means. While campaigning in New delayed the sentencing of Morro Bay Los Angeles County District Hampshire in 2007, Obama said dispensary operator Charles Lynch, Attorney Steve Cooley, for example, “prosecuting and raiding medical only to be told by the Justice Depart- maintains that state law does not marijuana users” is “really not a good ment that the case against Lynch permit over-the-counter sales, which use of Justice Department resources.” was consistent with the new policy. would make virtually all of the 800 or In a March 2008 interview with Ore- In August the DEA arrested a medi- so medical marijuana dispensaries in gon’s Mail Tribune, he said, “I’m not cal marijuana patient and grower in L.A. illegal. Cooley’s position conflicts going to be using Justice Department Upper Lake, California. The DEA also with the views of more cannabis- resources to try to circumvent state has continued to participate in raids tolerant officials in places such as laws on this issue.” Two months later, initiated by local officials, hitting two Oakland and San Francisco. It also when another Oregon paper, Wil- Los Angeles dispensaries in August contradicts guidelines issued in 2008 lamette Week, asked Obama whether and 14 San Diego dispensaries in Sep- by California Attorney General Jerry he would stop Drug Enforcement tember. Brown, who says patient collectives Administration (DEA) “raids on The October memo, which White may charge for marijuana as long Oregon medical marijuana growers,” House spokesman Robert Gibbs said as they do not take in more revenue he replied, “I would, because I think merely describes what “has been than is necessary to cover their over- our federal agents have better things administration policy since the begin- head and operating expenses. Until to do.” ning of this administration,” helps the law is clarified by the courts or the Critics of the drug war (and con- explain these apparent inconsisten- legislature, the federal government sistent advocates of federalism) were cies. It tells federal prosecutors in the will have plenty of opportunities to therefore disappointed that the DEA’s 14 states that recognize cannabis as a continue interfering with the distri- raids continued after Obama took medicine they “should not focus fed- bution of medical marijuana. r office. There were five in January and eral resources…on individuals whose February, all in California, even as the actions are in clear and unambiguous Jacob Sullum ([email protected]) is a senior editor at reason. White House affirmed that “federal compliance with existing state laws

reason | January 2010 | 9 Citings D.C. bribery scandal Graham’s chief of staff. Loza Since Franco’s Taxi Scam was arrested and charged with strawberries, accepting bribes. It turns out blueberries, Katherine Mangu-Ward that someone identified in court and rasp- In September more than 1,000 papers as “Individual Number berries Fourth Amendment taxi drivers went on a one-day 1” wanted to limit the number are often strike to protest a proposed of taxi licenses in order to make much victory; Sudafed requirement that D.C. cabbies a planned exception for hybrid cheaper pay a monthly medallion fee cars more valuable. In exchange than those crackdown fallout; for the right to operate their for a few months of bill advo- at local gro- fighting secrecy; Castro vehicles. The rule was explicitly cacy, he allegedly offered Loza cery stores, such permission may aimed at reducing the number “a stream of things of value” be hard to come by. But Franco vs. CO2; D.C. stimulus of taxi drivers in the city. “The including “cash, the use of vehi- doesn’t have much choice. Fail- fact of the matter is that we are cles and trips.” r ure to comply triggers a penalty boondoggle; overwhelmed by the number of $250 per hour. geoengineering the of operators,” the bill’s sponsor, In September, the Institute Council Member Jim Graham Permission to compete for Justice, a libertarian public climate; like a virgin; (D-Ward 1), told The Washington Pushcart War interest law firm, filed a suit Post. That assessment will come arguing that the ordinance vio- the red album Damon Root lates the Washington State Con- Street vendor Gary Franco stitution’s Privileges or Immu- had been selling fresh fruits and nities Clause: “No law shall be vegetables to the people of San passed granting to any citizen, Juan County, Washington, for class of citizens, or corporation three decades without trouble. other than municipal, privileges Things changed in 2009, when or immunities which upon the the San Juan County Council same terms shall not equally adopted a new ordinance requir- belong to all citizens, or corpora- ing vendors to apply for a per- tions.” Although the ordinance as a surprise to anyone who has mit, pay a daily fee of $50, and was billed as a measure “to pro- tried to hail a cab in the nation’s receive the “written consent of tect the public health, safety and capital, which boasts 8,000 taxis all business owners within 25 welfare,” the institute’s attorneys for 600,000 residents. feet of the application site.” note, it exempts ice cream trucks, Two days after the taxi strike, In other words, the ordinance farmers’ markets, charitable a dozen federal agents raided the requires vendors to get permis- organizations, and other favored

City Hall offices of Ted G. Loza, sion from their competitors. groups. r Pieprzyk/iStockphoto © Miroslaw Taxi, © Eliandric/iStockphoto reading, Businessman Konkle/iStockphoto cart, © Kathy Fruit 30 years ago in reason

“Were the federal government to pro- same public purse. And ‘rights’ to care bring with them hibit the reading of certain materials, certain obligations: the doctor is required to treat the the best people would be up in arms, patient considered ill, and the patient must comply.” and justifiably so. Free citizens are pre- —Juliana Geran Pilon, “Doctors As Instruments of sumed competent to choose their own Repression” reading matter. But the courts have held that they are incompetent to choose the fuel consumption of their cars and “Some things are so obvious it disgusts. Take the appliances.” recent FCC brainstorm report that ‘more TV stations —Robert J. Michaels, “Hell No, We may be needed to give viewers greater programming Won’t Go (To the Energy War)” variety’—this from the very bureaucratic bunch that handed monopoly rents to the three major syndicates to begin with.” “[In the Soviet system] the doctor and —Thomas Winslow Hazlett, “Brickbats” his patient are both sustained from the —January 1980

10 | reason | January 2010 Fourth Amendment victory local paper, under the headline requires much less pseu- Quotes Carry, Opened “17 Arrested in Drug Sweep.” doephedrine, uses easily avail- Her crime: buying a box of able household chemicals, and Brian Doherty Zyrtec-D allergy medicine for can be executed inside a two- “The Republican Party has In June 2008, off-duty Air Force her husband, then buying a box liter plastic bottle. According to thrown in its lot with the Staff Sgt. Matthew St. John was of Mucinex-D decongestant for Marion County, Alabama, Sheriff terrorists—the Taliban and searched and detained for car- her daughter at another phar- Kevin Williams, “It simplified Hamas—this morning in rying a holstered gun in a movie macy less than a week later. the process so much that every- criticizing the president for theater in Alamogordo, New That second transaction put body’s making their own dope.” receiving the Nobel Peace Mexico. But open carry is legal in Harpold six-tenths of a gram The downside: While “every Prize.” r New Mexico, so St. John sued the over Indiana’s three-gram-per- meth recipe is dangerous,” said —DNC Communications city, arguing that it had violated week limit for purchases of pseu- Mark Woodward, spokesman Director Brad Woodhouse, his Fourth Amendment rights. doephedrine, a decongestant that for the Oklahoma Bureau of Politico, October 9 A federal court agreed, and in happens to be a methamphet- Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs September 2009 the City of Ala- amine precursor. Such restric- Control, “in this one, if you mogordo paid him $21,000 in tions, aimed at suppressing meth don’t shake it just right, you can “It’s time that we raise up damages and legal fees. production and enforced by build up too much pressure, and above immature name call- The officers who detained St. requiring customers to request the container can pop.” When ing and start talking to the John claimed they were acting heretofore off-the-rack medica- the old-style labs had fires, he teabaggers.” r in their legitimate role as “com- tions from a pharmacist and sign added, “it was usually on a stove —Mike Elk, a staffer at the munity caretakers” when they a log, have proliferated across in a back room or garage and liberal group Campaign for grabbed him by both arms and the country in recent years. In people would just run, but when America’s Future, writing in physically removed him from the 2006 a federal version took these things pop, you see more Truthout, October 2 theater. As the court explained, effect, albeit with limits a little extreme burns because they are “Under the community caretaker more generous than Indiana’s: holding it. There are more fires exception, officers may seize an up to 3.6 grams of pseudoephed- and more burns because of the “When I go to town hall individual in order to ‘ensure the rine a day and nine grams a close proximity, whether it’s meetings, I’ll say ‘You’re safety of the public and/or the month. on a couch or driving down the crazy’—in a respectful way.” r individual.’ ” U.S. District Court There is little evidence that road.” r Judge Bruce Black rejected the the pseudoephedrine crackdown —Sen. Lindsey Graham officers’ claim, explaining that has reduced meth use, which (R-S.C.) on how he deals “they had no basis for believing (according to the federal govern- Chickens and Volkswagens with anti-Obama conspir- that anyone’s safety was at risk.” ment’s survey data) has been fall- Trade War acy theorists, at an Atlantic Since the officers should have ing since the late ’90s. But that Monthly/Aspen Institute known that a citizen’s legal pos- doesn’t mean it hasn’t had an Katherine Mangu-Ward forum, October 1

Taxi, © Miroslaw Pieprzyk/iStockphoto Pieprzyk/iStockphoto © Miroslaw Taxi, © Eliandric/iStockphoto reading, Businessman Konkle/iStockphoto cart, © Kathy Fruit session of a weapon does not impact. Pseudoephedrine limits Last fall, after Washington justify searching or detaining have helped shift meth produc- imposed a 35 percent tariff on him, Black wrote, they could not tion from local mom-and-pop imported tires, the Chinese “I don’t have a problem 30 years ago in reason claim qualified immunity for labs to the large-scale Mexican retaliated with a tax on American with it. But it should not their actions. traffickers who already domi- chicken. If a full-fledged trade be used for wrong pur- The settlement is one of at nated the business, and they war breaks out, it won’t be the poses.” r least four recent cases in which have driven explosive innovation first time our poultry had an —Iranian President Mah- overzealous police officers try- in manufacturing techniques. impact on the auto trade. moud Ahmadinejad, dis- ing to enforce nonexistent laws The Associated Press reports In the early 1960s, West Ger- cussing Twitter with Ann against weapon possession were that a newly popular “shake and mans developed a taste for Amer- Curry of NBC News, tweeted slapped down and made to pay bake” meth-making method ican chicken. Europe decided by Curry on September 18 for it. At least five more such to impose a tax on imported cases are pending. r chicken to protect domestic fowl from overseas competi- tion. President Lyndon Johnson Sudafed crackdown fallout responded by taxing imports Meth Method Madness of delivery vans and trucks at a whopping 25 percent, a measure Jacob Sullum aimed at punishing Germany’s Early on the morning of July Volkswagen. Forty-six years 30, Sally Harpold and her hus- later, most manufacturers build band were awakened by police trucks and vans intended for the banging on the door of their U.S. market in the United States home in Parke County, Indiana. to avoid the tax. The officers hauled Harpold But Ford figured out a away in handcuffs, charging workaround. The American the grandmother with a Class automaker employs 65 work-

C misdemeanor. Her mug shot ers in Baltimore who perform a ≥

Sneeze, © Jayesh Bhagat/iStockphoto © Jayesh Sneeze, appeared on the front page of the simple job: They receive Turkish-

reason | January 2010 | 11 List tancy cient in any math class. claims In the movie, Escalante tells that to his kids, “If the only thing you Fighting Secrecy stop global know how to do is add and sub- warming tract, you will only be prepared In 1994 Larry Klayman and Judicial each person to do one thing: pump gas.” Watch started filing suits to extract on Earth should be lim- More than 25 years after Escal- information the Clinton admin- ited to emitting only two ante taught there, graduates of istration would rather have kept tons of carbon per year. Garfield High may not even be hush-hush. Unlike many of Clin- The average American qualified to pump gas, much less ton’s critics, Klayman continued emits more than 20 tons solve quadratic equations. But to fight for freedom of information annually while going about the city’s educational experiment in the Bush era, joining the Sierra his business in a highly produc- will give those kids a chance to Club in suing Vice President Dick tive, developed society. Thanks to escape a failing monopoly. r Cheney for the records of his Castro’s strenuous efforts, pov- energy task force. In October, Klay- erty-stricken Cuba comes much man published Whores: Why and closer to Carbon Footprint’s goal, Not-so-private concern How I Came to Fight the Establish- Larry Klayman at 2.3 tons per person. Once a Billboard Big Brother? ment (New Chapter). Klayman, few more of Cuba’s pre-embargo who recently launched a new group classic American cars break Samuel R. Staley called Freedom Watch, describes himself as “more libertarian down, it’ll get there. The United Kingdom’s Driver at this point than conservative.” We asked him to identify the What countries already keep and Vehicle Licensing Agency three most egregious examples of government secrecy under per capita carbon dioxide emis- has been selling access to its Barack Obama. sions below two tons a year? database for commercial pur- The Troubled Asset Relief Program. “Where the TARP funds Climate champions include Togo poses. Most recently, it helped 1 were spent, and why they were spent in a particular way. (per capita GDP: $900), Bangla- Castrol Motor Oil with an ad They seem to have gone to banks that didn’t really need it. desh ($1,500), Ethiopia ($800), campaign. Goldman Sachs benefited from it, and of course Obama had Uganda ($1,100), and Mali Castrol spent hundreds of very close ties with Goldman Sachs. As did Bush, for that mat- ($1,200). The last time Ameri- thousands of dollars on a two- ter.” cans emitted as little as 2.5 tons week campaign that relied on Obama’s alliance with ACORN. “How far, wide, and deep of carbon dioxide per capita was technologies used to identify is that? We may have just scratched the surface of major in 1870. r individual vehicles. A camera election2 fraud.” snapped pictures of license tags as they passed by. The license Foreign policy. “Not that it’s discoverable, but what is School choice in L.A. numbers were then cross-refer- Obama’s motivation in cutting a deal with the Iranian 3 Stand and Deliver enced with government records. leadership when there’s a significant revolution under way?” Then, a few hundred feet down Lisa Snell the road, a sign would flash the > manufactured Ford passenger jumping through by the year In August, Los Angeles parents oil grade and quality that the vans from the massive ships that 2055. r persuaded their school board vehicle’s owner should be using dock in the city’s ports. Once the to designate up to 250 dysfunc- in his car. vehicles are safely on American tional schools as “schools of The billboard prompted soil, having been imported at the Castro vs. CO2 choice,” essentially handing the inquiries into how the oil manu- low tax rate of 2.5 percent, Ford Commandante Climate buildings over to charter school facturer came by the valuable employees rip out the brand-new operators. One of the first acad- vehicle information. The London backseats and rear windows. Ronald Bailey emies to go was Garfield High Mail on Sunday found that the It takes about five minutes per “Consumer societies are School. The place was made licensing agency has a habit of vehicle to turn the passenger incompatible with saving the famous by the 1988 filmStand letting private companies use vans back into the delivery vans natural and energy resources and Deliver, which chronicles names, vehicle makes, and other they were always intended to be. that development and the pres- the unlikely success of Jaime data for billing and marketing Now the Chinese and the ervation of our species require,” Escalante, a teacher who built a purposes despite bans on such Americans are facing off over former Cuban dictator Fidel rigorous calculus program with practices. During the last five chickens and tires. Castro declared in September. disadvantaged students during years, according to just-auto.com, One can only imag- Cuba’s former maximum leader the 1980s. the agency has received $16.3 ine what hoops blamed impending catastrophic After Escalante left, Garfield million for selling personal importers will be climate change on the “polluting fell far from its Stand and Deliver information about more than 6 gases that the most industrial- peak. Its dropout rate is more million vehicle owners. r ized countries have launched than 50 percent, and its Aca- into the atmosphere.” demic Performance Index score Castro can rest assured that (based on student test results) New energy sources his workers’ paradise is not fell from 597 in 2008 to 594 in Oil Without Dinos? among the most climate-damag- 2009. The state benchmark is ing consumer societies. The U.K.- 800. Last year, only 5 percent of Ronald Bailey

based Carbon Footprint consul- Garfield students tested as profi- The apatosaurus, a symbol of Totallyjami/iStockphoto © Chicken © Diane555/iStockphoto footprint, Carbon

12 | reason | January 2010

petroleum’s origin as a fossil fuel, Brickbats has been the trademark of the Sinclair Oil Corporation since 1930. It may be time for Sinclair to retire its dino. In July three He also had a two-inch pocket knife he got from researchers published a study his grandfather. When officials at his high school in the journal Nature Geoscience in Lansingburgh, New York, found out about the suggesting that the heavy hydro- knife, they suspended the honors student for 20 carbons that compose oil could days for violating the school’s zero tolerance policy be produced without dinosaur on weapons. detritus. The researchers transformed The Michigan Department of Human Services a simple compound—methane, threatened Irving Township mother Lisa Snyder the chief component of natural with legal sanctions if she con- gas—into heavier petroleum- tinued to watch a like compounds by subjecting it British prosecutors have charged 11 neighbor’s chil- to temperatures and pressures dren for a few found far below Earth’s surface. individuals with impersonating police officers during aG-20 protest earlier this minutes each They argue that a similar process day as they may have produced petroleum year. But the 11 weren’t exactly dressed in police uniforms. Leah Borromeo, for wait for their in the past, affecting methane school bus. The deposited in Earth’s crust as the instance, was dressed in overalls rolled down to her waist, exposing her bra. “If agency accused planet was forming billions of Snyder of run- years ago. One of the research- I’m guilty of anything,” she told the press, “it’s impersonating a stripper.” ning an illegal day ers, Vladimir G. Kutcherov of the care center. Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, believes this finding A Maryland state trooper gave Erik Bon- will make it easier for oilmen to strom an $80 ticket for driving too slowly. The federal Bureau of Prisons twice rejected inmate locate new petroleum reserves, Bonstrom was doing 58 in a 65 mph zone. Ali Omar Abu Ali’s request to read Barack Obama’s pushing back against the predic- books Dreams From My Father and The Audacity tion that global oil production is of Hope. Officials said the books contain material about to peak. r Travis Peterson knew he was too drunk “potentially detrimental to national security.” to drive home after a concert by the Dave Matthews Band, so he decided to sleep D.C. stimulus boondoggle it off in his car. When a Wisconsin state In England, organizers of an interschool sports day banned parents from the event because of Fighting Fire With Pork trooper woke him up, Peterson explained he was too drunk to drive, but the officer concerns about kidnappers and pedophiles. More Peter Suderman ordered him to leave. As soon as his than 270 students from four schools competed in After Congress earmarked a car exited the parking lot, Peterson was various athletic events as parents didn’t watch. portion of the stimulus bill for arrested for DUI. Paul Blunt, a spokesman for the organizers, fighting wildfires, angry law- explained: “All unsupervised adults must be kept makers from Western states had away from children. An unsavory character could to douse a plan to spend nearly In California, postal have come in, and we just can’t put the children in $3 million of it in Washington, worker Dean Hudson the event or the students at the host school at risk D.C.—a city that has no national has been found like that.” forests. According to Sen. John guilty of stealing money from chil- Barasso (R-Wyo.), who wrote Two Gwinnett County police sergeants have the amendment that nixed the dren’s birthday cards. resigned and Cpl. Gary Miles has been arrested appropriation, this marked the after Miles allegedly used a Taser on a Georgia Waf- first time Congress overturned a fle House waiter as a joke. The sergeants report- planned use of stimulus funds. USA Today reports that a Dallas ban on edly saw the incident and did not report it. The The plan, developed by the soliciting money in the street has hurt department is U.S. Forest Service, was to send more than just panhandlers. Collections investigat- $2.8 million to the District of by the Muscular Dystrophy Association, ing claims Columbia from the $500 million which raises funds by approaching peo- that in a allocated by the stimulus plan ple in their cars, dropped from $260,000 separate for “wildland fire management.” to less than $50,000 after the ban took incident a Instead of fighting fires, the D.C. effect. fourth offi- money would have been used to cer pointed repair the capital’s public parks a Taser at a and watersheds as part of the Matthew Whalen is an Eagle Scout who waiter’s groin. effort to promote “green jobs.” takes the “Be Prepared” motto seriously.

The package also included He keeps a sleeping bag, water, and food ≥

Chicken © Totallyjami/iStockphoto © Chicken © Diane555/iStockphoto footprint, Carbon $90,000 to employ D.C. teenagers Colon Terry by Illustrations in his car in case he ever breaks down. Charles Oliver

reason | January 2010 | 13 Follow-Up hibiting the transport of women across state lines for “immoral Geoengineering the Climate purposes.” Judging from court documents and reports by local Ronald Bailey journalists, Weiner was arrested for using the Internet to meet In November 1997, University of California-Irvine women. physicist and best-selling science fiction author FBI agents claim to have Gregory Benford wrote a reason story describing received a tip that Weiner was how various technical schemes might be deployed downloading child pornography to prevent global warming. “Some geoengineer- from a Memphis-based website ing systems appear possible to deploy now, and called sugardaddyforme.com. at reasonable cost,” wrote Benford. “They could It turned out there was no child be turned on and off quickly if we got unintended porn. The site is a dating service effects.” that matches wealthy, older men Benford reviewed proposals for reforestation with younger women looking for and for fertilizing the oceans with iron to pull someone to spoil them. excess carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. He When the child porn tip also considered such ideas as injecting sulfate didn’t pan out, agents spent aerosols into the stratosphere and burning sulfur hours posing as prostitutes in the in ships to boost reflective cloud cover over the site’s chat rooms, attempting to oceans. Benford even mentioned the possibil- get Weiner to agree to pay them ity of building a reflective space mirror. All of the to make an 80-mile trip from concepts except the space mirror were relatively Memphis to his home in Clarks- cheap. dale, Mississippi. Weiner refused, at one point stating flatly that Twelve years later, geoengineering has become there’s “a difference between a more respectable as a possible emergency sugar baby and a hooker, and I’m measure to cool the planet down. “It’s got to be three times per day to inject about 1 mil- lion tons of sulfur particles into the strato- not interested in a hooker.” looked at,” White House science adviser John One agent posting as “Mary” Holdren told the Associated Press in April. “We sphere each year would cost about $4.2 billion annually. Oceanic cloud brighten- claimed to be in Memphis and don’t have the luxury of taking any approach off repeatedly offered to drive to see the table.” Congress held its first hearings on it in ing would take a fleet of 1,881 vessels, costing $5.8 billion annually. Weiner for a sex-for-pay ren- November. Some of Benford’s original proposals dezvous. Weiner again refused. are at the forefront of the current geoengineer- “The next century will see a protracted After several attempts, Mary ing discussion. Chemistry Nobelist Paul Crutzen battle between the prophets who would told Weiner she was driving to has endorsed a plan similar to the one Benford intervene and the moralists who see all Mobile, Alabama, anyway, would described to inject sulfate particles into the strato- grand-scale human measures as tainted,” be passing through Clarksdale, sphere. Stephen Salter, an engineer at the Uni- Benford concluded. “Even now, many and suggested they get together. versity of Edinburgh, suggests having ships inject argue that even to speak of geoengineer- Weiner finally agreed. At the seawater into the atmosphere, where salt particles ing encourages the unwashed to more last minute, Mary called to say would serve as extra cloud condensation nuclei. excess, since the masses will think that she had no intention of going In September the Copenhagen Consensus Center once again science has a remedy at hand.” to Mobile and was actually looked at estimates for implementing various He added, “Some, though, will say quietly, coming solely to see Weiner, a geoengineering proposals. A space mirror turned persistently, Well, maybe science does.” requirement to trigger the Mann out to be wildly impractical, at a total of $500 tril- Twelve years later: Well, maybe science Act. When Weiner drove to the lion. By contrast, a fleet of 167 F-15 airplanes flying does. gas station to meet her, he was arrested by fiveFBI agents. > in “a green summer job corps.” ing regional forests, the condi- Weiner was arrested at a Missis- In August, U.S. District The D.C. Department of tion of which, he said, “is directly sippi gas station for violating the Judge Neal Biggers nearly Transportation’s Urban Forestry related to crime.” Mann Act, a century-old law pro- threw out the charges against Administration, which was to Sen. Barasso wasn’t im- Weiner because the government administer the funds, touted the pressed by such arguments. “The wouldn’t turn over cell phone program in a September press last major fire in D.C.,” he told records related to the case. release, with director Gabe Klein The Washington Times, “was The records showed that arguing that “this is what the likely lit by British troops Mary was never actually stimulus money was intended in 1814.” r in Memphis; she had to do—to put people to work.” been propositioning Steve Coleman, the director of a Weiner from Missis- nonprofit organization that was Mann Act manhandlers sippi and thus never expected to receive the bulk of Crossing the Line crossed state lines. At a the money, offered a different hearing last September, the explanation. He told the A.P. that Radley Balko local blog NMissCommentor.

the grant was aimed at improv- In May cardiologist Roger com reported, Biggers ques- © LuisaPizza/iStockphoto Cyberlove,

14 | reason | January 2010 tioned the zeal with which Soundbite federal agents tried to induce Weiner to commit a federal The Red Album crime, saying, “You’ve come a long way from the purpose of Michael C. Moynihan this statute.” At press time, the government ideas. And they saw it as a deviation from what they planned and wanted for the youth. is still planning to try Weiner. r Q: How did you come across Western punk rock music in Cuba? Sex in the Arab world A: Among punk groups, I like the Sex Pistols a Like a Virgin lot. I like Black Flag, the Clash, the Ramones. Katherine Mangu-Ward In Cuba it’s been very difficult to get access to information, not only of an artistic nature, The Chinese company Gigimo but of any kind. Information regarding music advertises its Artificial Hymen reaches Cuba about 10 years late. That’s why Virginity kit across the Arab I listened to bands like Led Zeppelin in the world. The kit, which allows 1980s. Today, thanks to technology, it’s a little women to fake sexual purity easier gaining access to information on music. on their wedding night, is the But it’s still not easy. sort of product one might find in a novelty store or sex shop in Q: Explain the name of the band. America. But in Egypt, nuptial A: Porno Para Ricardo, to simplify, is the opposite night virginity is deadly seri- of patria o muerte [“fatherland or death”]. The ous business. Women who buy fatherland for me is an agglomeration, a col- the product may be nonvirgins Gorki Aguila lective. Ricardo stands for the individual. And afraid of discovery, or just brides pornography is pleasure, joy, life. Death is… death. So Porno Para Ricardo is the opposite of “fatherland or death.” Gorki Aguila is blunt in his assessment of Q: Explain why you were arrested most recently Fidel Castro’s half-century of revolution: and what it was like being in a Cuban prison “Communism is a failure. A total failure. for, essentially, playing music. Please, leftists of the world—improve your A: We were recording our most recent album [El capitalism! Don’t choose communism!” Disco Rojo, or The Red Album] when the police Aguila, a Havana resident, wears home- show up and arrest us and don’t tell us why. made anti-government T-shirts, frequently Once at the police station, they tell me that it’s denounces the Castro brothers as geriatric for “pre-criminal behavior.” That’s something tyrants, and heads up what may be Cuba’s they routinely use against people like us, who only explicitly political punk band, Porno are opposed to the regime. It’s very easy; they Para Ricardo (Porn for Ricardo). Because don’t have a solid pretext, so they use this law of his belief in free speech—and his stub- that is quite applicable to us, which is “social born willingness to criticize the communist dangerousness.” regime—he is routinely arrested. In 2009, Q: That’s very punk rock, by the way, to be tired of his anti-government music, the “socially dangerous.” looking for a little extra insur- Cuban authorities made the rare decision A: (Laughs.) What happened on this one occa- ance that they’ll be able to fly the to grant Aguila a visa to travel abroad, per- sion was something that had no precedent in bloodstained sheet. haps hoping he wouldn’t return. Cuba, to my knowledge. I was freed thanks to Lawmakers from Egypt’s In September, Senior Editor Michael C. international pressure, thanks to the solidarity conservative Muslim Brother- Moynihan caught up with Aguila on the I got from outside the country, and within the hood party have called for a ban Washington, D.C., leg of his American pro- country. on sales of the kit. Sheik Sayed motional tour. To see more, go to reason.tv/ Askar, a member of the party Q: How do you get people together to see you video/show/gorki-aguila-of-porno-para-ric. guys play without the regime’s sanction? who serves on the parliament’s Translated from the Spanish by Ivan Osorio. religious affairs committee, A: That’s very difficult. We play out at most once a proclaims, “It will be a mark of Q: Che Guevara banned saxophones, year. It’s very difficult for us to organize a con- shame on the ruling party if it and the Cuban regime banned Beatles cert. That’s something that the government has allowed this product to enter the records. What is the regime’s issue with taken from us. What we mostly do is record our market.” rock and pop music? CDs and give them away to the public. Cosmetic surgery to repair A: For them, popular Cuban music—spe- Being a musician in Cuba is very difficult for a damaged hymen, a procedure cifically jazz or rock—was not politically those who are not intertwined with the authori- that is illegal in many Arab coun- correct. It meant a deviation from their ties. Even for musicians who are tied in with tries, can cost hundreds of dol- ideology. They knew that that music was the establishment, it’s difficult.

Egyptians, © Freesurf69/Dreamstime.com Egyptians, lars. The Chinese kit costs $30. r very powerful for the transmission of

reason | January 2010 | 15 Columns: Greg Beato Canned Laughter Lives! The ghost of the laugh track survives online.

NEWSBUSTED, a three-minute comedy news benevolent intentions. In the early days of radio, show that appears on the Internet, doesn’t have producers started staging their shows in front a fancy set like The Daily Show or The Colbert of live audiences in a bid to make at-home lis- Report. Nor does it boast an Emmy-winning teners feel less at home. They might not be a staff of writers, a stream of high-profile guests, part of the happy crowd, but at least they could or branded coffee cups. There’s no room for an hear that crowd. audience either: NewsBusted appears to be shot When TV came along, the convention stuck. in a closet at the Media Research Center, the At-home viewers expected an audience to be a conservative nonprofit that produces the show. part of the show, but live TV audiences didn’t But when host Jodi Miller cracks one-liners always deliver suitable performances. They got about senior citizen stimulus giveaways or Mike distracted by the crew and equipment it Huckabee’s presidential chances in 2012, a cho- took to film a show. Sometimes spectators rus of hoots and guffaws erupts just the same. missed important bits of action. Sometimes That the laugh track has fallen into the they laughed too long. So the industry’s sound hands of upstart outsiders is the sort of irony engineers got to work, “sweetening” audience that deserves a mechanical chuckle of its own. responses when they weren’t up to par, and in For most of its 60-year life, the eternally jovial some cases simply dubbing in an entire audi- chorus that graced so many of America’s favor- ence from scratch. ite sitcoms has been portrayed as a tool of monopolist coercion, favored by heavy-handed In 1953 one particularly enterprising engineer, network executives attempting to orchestrate a CBS employee named Charles Douglass, cre- our responses to their force-fed fare. “Canned ated the “laff box,” a proprietary mirth-making laughter is the lowest form of fascism,” Paul machine. Inside it were tape loops of various Krassner opined in a 1990 issue of The Realist. kinds of laughter and other audience responses: “It is propaganda that falsely—almost sublim- a chorus of applause, a lone hysterical woman, inally—implies something is funny when it scattered giggles. Each loop was connected to isn’t.…It is TV’s ultimate insult to the audience.” a button on the outside of the laff box. Using a knob to control volume levels and a foot pedal But there’s another way to view the laugh track, to fade the various effects in and out, Doug- a way that also explains why its migration to lass played his laff box like an organ, creating the Web is so appropriate: The laugh track was, appropriately joyous crowds on the fly. if not our first virtual social network, then at Eventually, Johnson left CBS and started his least our most ubiquitous one. It acclimated us own company, Northridge Electronics. When to the idea that sharing our leisure hours with his machine wasn’t in use, he kept it padlocked unseen strangers in the privacy of our own shut. If the laff box suffered technical diffi- homes was a perfectly normal, extremely enjoy- culties while he was on the job, he wheeled it able endeavor. into the men’s room, locked the door behind While critics like Krassner portray it as him, and made repairs. “About 80% of sitcoms a cheap trick corporate hacks use to pass off in Hollywood were ‘sweetened’ by one man, shoddy merchandise, its origins suggest more Charles Douglass,” Jib Fowles writes in his 1992

16 | reason | January 2010 SiteworksReasonK 10/10/08 2:28 PM Page 1

book Why Viewers Watch. So much for ton Johnson’s “Laughing Song,” the network hegemons angling to make chorus of which consisted simply of audiences enjoy The Beverly Hillbillies Johnson laughing. The Enduring against their will. The laughter that But television laugh tracks didn’t boomed from millions of television just beget more laughter. They also Elegance of sets for the latter half of the 20th provided people with a sense of century was largely the product of a virtual community. “No one likes to Limestone single hard-working entrepreneur. laugh alone,” NBC president Sylvester From a technical perspective, the Weaver told the comedian and New laff box was a tool of liberation, free- York Post columnist Joey Adams in ing producers to film in studios that 1956. “An honestly made laugh track weren’t big enough to accommodate can project you right into the audi- an audience, or on a desert island ence, with the best seat in the house, in the South Pacific where seven to enjoy the fun.” strangers on a three-hour tour had the misfortune to get shipwrecked The fun was decidedly communal. for eternity. It also allowed actors to While TV may have been turning do take after take after take, secure us into isolated shut-ins, seeking in the knowledge that they would amusement in far more solitary ways still get a big reaction no matter how than we once did, the boob tube’s many times they repeated the same limited choices also united us. In the punch line. late 1940s and early ’50s, millions of Americans spent their Tuesday More important, canned laughter nights doing the exact same thing increased viewer enjoyment. A 1957 at the exact same time: watching Time article explained how the rat- Milton Berle on Texaco Star Theater. ings for a show called Dear Phoebe They were watching alone or in small plummeted after its sponsor ordered groups perhaps, but they were also the removal of its laugh track. Then watching together, and the synthetic, the sponsor’s advertising agency overamplified laughter blaring out showed versions of the show on sta- of their TV speakers represented not tions in two cities, one with a laugh just an idealized studio audience but track and one without. “The laugh- themselves as well, collectively. It packed version ran 25% higher in its was the sound of an entire country ratings,” Time reported. having the time of its life, celebrating No doubt the laugh track’s effi- technological innovation, affluence, cacy derived partly from the fact that leisure, and a unity of purpose no Liberate Your Fireplace we enjoy the sound of laughter—so communist country ever came close from ordinary ... to EXTRAORDINARY much so that it doesn’t matter all that to achieving, all by virtue of sharing With the enduring elegance of much if the laughs are mechanically a laugh over a loud Jewish man wear- limestone. reproduced. As Jacob Smith recounts ing a dress. SITEWORKS in the 2008 book Vocal Tracks: Per- Over time, of course, TV offered Custom Limestone Mantels 1-800-599-5463 formance and Sound Media, recorded more choices to its viewers. Video www.siteworkstone.com laughter as a source of entertain- games and the Internet popularized ment predates both television and the idea that personalization was the Call Today For Your radio. In the early 1890s, one of the future of media. With power shift- FREE Color Catalog! best-selling records of the nascent ing from content creators to content music industry was George Washing- consumers, the laugh track, with its

reason | January 2010 | 17 Announcing the 2010 Robert Novak connotations of top-down direction, seemed increasingly out of place. Journalism Fellowship Program As if to prove that it finally does get interactivity and does respect the $75,000, $50,000, and $25,000 Fellowships autonomy of its customers, Holly- f you are a print or online journalist with less than ten years of professional experience, wood began to distance itself from Ia unique opportunity awaits: $75,000 and $50,000 full-time and $25,000 part-time the laugh track: Of the 15 shows that journalism fellowships. have been nominated for an Out- The Phillips Foundation is dedicated to advancing the cause of objective journalism. standing Comedy Series Emmy since The fellowship program seeks journalists who share the Foundation’s mission to advance constitutional principles, a democratic society and a vibrant free enterprise system. 2005, only four have used one. Winners undertake a one-year project of their choosing focusing on journalism But Hollywood’s problem is not supportive of American culture and a free society. In addition, there are separate that the laugh track is obsolete; it’s fellowships on the environment, on the benefits of free-market competition, and on that the Internet offers better ones law enforcement. Applications are now being accepted for 2010. Applications must now. While sitcom auteurs abandon be postmarked by February 22, 2010. The winners will be announced at an awards the simulated community of ersatz dinner in Washington in the spring. The fellowships will begin on September 1, 2010. Applicants must be U.S. citizens. laughter in pursuit of more sophis- For applications and more information, visit our website or write: While sitcom auteurs Mr. John Farley The Phillips Foundation abandon the simulated One Massachusetts Avenue NW, Suite 620 • Washington, DC 20001 community of ersatz Telephone 202-250-3887 ext. 609 Email: [email protected] laughter in pursuit of more www.thephillipsfoundation.org sophisticated program- Deadline February 22, 2010 ming, the masses flock to richer, more expressive laugh tracks such as Face- The perfect companion to reason magazine… book and Twitter. the 15 oz. Free Minds and Free ticated programming, the masses Markets coffee mug with reason flock to richer, more expressive laugh logo! tracks such as Facebook and Twitter. When Kanye West bum rushes Taylor Swift, or when Balloon Boy allegedly takes flight, these services project you right into a vast virtual audience, in the best seat in the house, to enjoy the fun. You can listen to the 140- character cackles of unseen strangers. You can contribute a snort or giggle of your own. Best of all, the show never ends, so you never have to LOL alone. r

Contributing Editor Greg Beato (gbeato@ soundbitten.com) writes from San Francisco.

Order yours today at reason.com/stuff

18 | reason | January 2010 Columns: Veronique de Rugy Have a Coke and a Tax The economic case against soda taxes

With the federal deficit reaching $1.4 trillion of the high monetary price, consumers will and most state budgets deep in the red, policy reap the moral and/or physical benefits of not makers are desperately searching for new indulging, thereby bettering themselves and sources of revenue that the tapped-out Ameri- society. can public might support. They think they’ve The story sounds plausible. The trouble is found one at the corner store: a tax on carbon- that sin taxers don’t appreciate human creativ- ated beverages. Charging a few more cents ity: Consumers have a knack for replacing one for a soft drink, legislators claim, will not only sin with another. When the price of a “sinful” refresh exhausted state and federal revenues; it good increases, people often substitute an will make us thinner. equally “bad” good in its place. Several versions of this year’s health care A 1998 study by William N. Evans, an bills included a soda tax to help offset new economist at the University of Notre Dame du costs. In a September interview with Men’s Lac, and Matthew C. Farrelly, a public health Health, President Barack Obama called it ‘‘an researcher at RTI International, found that idea that we should be exploring” because smokers in high-tax states tend to consume “our kids drink way too much soda.” The idea cigarettes that are longer and higher in tar and had been dropped from the health care legisla- nicotine than smokers in low-tax states. This tion at press time but is expected to resurface effect is especially pronounced among 18-to- next year. 24-year-olds because they are more responsive The proposal is perennially popular on to tax changes than older smokers. They have the state and local levels too. Thirty-three states less money, so they want more bang for their tax the sale of soft drinks, at an average rate of bucks. 5.2 percent, and politicians in other jurisdic- tions are eager to jump on the bandwagon. A 1992 study by University of Michigan econo- After New York Gov. David A. Patterson floated mist John E. DiNardo and University of British the idea of a soda tax in December 2008, New Columbia economist Thomas Lemieux found York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched that when states raised beer taxes or increased his own campaign to tax sugary drinks. “All the minimum drinking age, teen marijuana the studies show that young kids drink an consumption increased. A 1994 study by Uni- enormous amount of soda, and if they drink versity of Illinois economist Frank Chaloupka the sodas with all the sugar in it, it adds a great and Chulalongkorn University economist Adit deal of weight to them,” Bloomberg said in Laixuthai replicated those results—and also April. found that beer consumption declined in states that decriminalized marijuana. The economic literature tells a different story. Are soda lovers likely to do something The rationale behind a tax on soft drinks, similar? Richard Williams and Katelyn Christ, or any sin tax, is that when the government two economists at the Mercatus Center (where raises prices on a certain good, it will become I work), argue that soda drinkers would. In a so expensive that consumers will give it up. 2009 study, they wrote: “The assumption is that Having been forced to eschew that sin because this sin tax would reduce caloric intake because

reason | January 2010 | 19 consumers would stop drinking been effective at reducing the num- high-calorie drinks and/or switch ber of smokers. Yet several widely Calories Per Cup of Popular Drinks Declare Your Own Independence to lower-calorie drinks. However…if reported studies found that the tax Drink Calories consumers respond to the proposed on cigarettes as a whole has reduced Per Cup sin tax on sodas and sports drinks by smoking in adults by just 2 percent Gatorade 63 2010 switching to some of the potential and in teens by 7 percent. FreedomFest substitute drinks [see table], their So the soda tax won’t do much to Coca Cola 97 July 7-11, 2010 � Bally’s Las Vegas Event Center � www.freedomfest.com caloric intake would either remain help us lose weight. But does it raise Orange Juice 105 the same or actually increase.” much revenue? Supporters say yes, Apple Juice (unsweetened) 117 Dear freedom lovers, Plus Tom Palmer (Atlas Foundation), Ken Schoolland In a 2008 working paper, Emory but there’s a problem here too. If the (Pacifi c Hawaii University), James Gwartney, Doug 2% Milk 120 Get ready for the 7th Annual FreedomFest: Just think Bandow, Wayne Allen Root, and many more. University economists Jason Fletcher, tax is effective at discouraging soda 7-11 in Vegas! Last year we had over 100 speakers, 90 Homemade Cocoa w/Skim Milk 135 David Frisvold, and Nathan Tefft consumption, it won’t raise much exhibitors, and nearly 1700 attendees, with over 200 Alexandra Colen, Belgium member of Parliament, and Dr. Paul Belien on “What Every American Must Know examined the impact that changes money because people won’t be buy- Sweetened Lemonade 131 showing up at the door. One couple got married and celebrated their honeymoon at FreedomFest. about the Dangerous New Europe.” in states’ taxation rates from 1990 to ing soda. Which does the government Whole Chocolate Milk (4%) 208 2006 had on body mass index and actually prefer? Skinnier citizens or “FreedomFest 2009 was a miracle. In the midst of a recession Top all your favorite fi nancial writers and tax advisors, such as Rick Red Table Wine 200 obesity. They concluded that soft fatter coffers? and two successive election losses for the cause of freedom, Rule, Adrian Day, Keith Fitz-Gerald, John Dessauer, Van Simmons, you increased the attendance at FreedomFest 25% and the Alex Green, Louis Basenese, David Fessler, Frank Trotter, Martin drink taxes have a vanishingly small Last July the Congressional Bud- Source: Richard Williams and Katelyn Christ, number and quality of the speakers was a feast for lovers of free Truax, and Peter Zipper. And tax and estate planning specialists “Taxing Sin,” Mercatus On Policy, August 18, impact on weight because, even when get Office estimated that a federal 2009, online at mercatus.org/PublicationDetails. markets. You clearly are offering a product that people want. All Jeff Verdon, David T. Phillips, Vern Jacobs, Marshall Langer, Ron untaxed, soft drinks represent only 7 three-cent-per-12-ounce soft drink aspx?id=27916. lovers of liberty are in your debt – thank you.” —Richard Viguerie Holland. percent of the average soda drinker’s The trouble is that sin “FreedomFest is developing into the most effective international total calorie intake. the Master Settlement Agreement, This year’s speakers include: free-market gathering and you have me wondering why I spend so much time at ‘lesser events’.” —Ron Mann, Australia taxers don’t appreciate the deal that ended state litigation Rick Santelli, CNBC’s top reporter from Chicago and inspiration Yet in a recent New England Journal human creativity: against the major tobacco compa- behind the “tea parties” in America. Ten Debates in 2010, including . . . of Medicine article, Arkansas’ surgeon nies, was supposed to fund smoking Alan Charles Kors, controversial history professor at U Penn and Consumers have a knack founder of FIRE (Foundation for Individual Right in Education), on general, New York City’s health com- cessation programs and defray the Dinesh D’Souza debating a top atheist on his new book, “Life After for replacing one sin with “Your Right to Speak Your Mind is on Trial.” Death: The Evidence.” missioner, and five experts on health costs that smoking imposes on pub- another. Nathaniel Branden & Barbara Branden: on “The Life & Ideas of Michael Shermer takes on “2012: The Truth About the Mayan and economics insisted that a penny- lic health systems. Once they had Ayn Rand.” Calendar.” per-ounce tax on sugared beverages tax would generate $24 billion over the money, though, states used it Steve Moore (Wall Street Journal) on “The Worst Bill Ever!” “The Future of Israel: Pro and Con.” George Gilder, author of “The could lead the average consumer to the next four years. Needless to say, as a giant slush fund, diverting it to Steve Forbes (Forbes magazine) on “Can Anything Good Come Out Israel Test” versus . . . of Washington?” reduce soda consumption by about that won’t fix the current budget schools, roads, and various pet proj- “It really was a WOW! experience at FreedomFest. I heard that 10 percent and lose two pounds. The crisis, but the NEJM authors argue ects. They even invested some of it in John Mackey, CEO, Whole Foods Market, on “The Fight for Freedom from many attendees.” —Terry Brock, Charlotte Business Journal authors argue that the soda tax would that it could have an effect on obesity tobacco stocks. in Health Care”, Plus “The Whole Foods Diet Update: You Can Still Live to be 100 and Enjoy Life.” be effective at reducing the number rates in America. They propose using Americans may be fat, but the Announcing Two Special Anniversaries Back by popular demand, our All-Star Prediction Panel, with Bert of soda drinkers because the federal any money raised by the tax for child federal budget is morbidly obese; Dohmen, Peter Schiff, Alex Green, and Dennis Slothower at FreedomFest 2010 cigarette tax, which amounts on aver- nutrition and obesity prevention pro- our hunger for chips and soda is (moderated by Mark Skousen). We celebrate two anniversaries at FreedomFest 2010: the 25th age to $1.34 per cigarette pack, has grams. That way, the thinking goes, nothing compared to the feds’ hun- Pulitzer Prize winner Daniel Walker Howe (UCLA) on “What Hath anniversary dinner of the Advocates for Self Government, led by even if people still drink soda the tax ger for our money. If I had to choose God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848.” Sharon Harris....and the 30th anniversary reception of Forecasts & please patronize our advertisers will help the fight against fat. between putting the average citizen Jerry Jordan, former Fed Board member, on “What’s Really Going On Strategies. please patronize our advertisers Like every year, we plan on having an expanded exhibit hall with all or the government on a diet, I know Inside the World’s Most Powerful Central Bank.” please patronize our advertisers the top freedom and fi nancial organizations, two celebrity luncheons Charles Murray on his next book, “Coming Apart at the Seams,” please patronize our advertisers If that does happen, the government which would be better for our fiscal each day, and a grand unforgettable Saturday night banquet. All the about racism in America since Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s won’t be able to use the funds to health. r major think tanks and freedom organizations will be there—Cato, assassination in 1968. reduce the deficit, subsidize health Heritage, Reason, Newsmax, FEE, Goldwater, and more. Contributing Editor Veronique de Rugy insurance, or fulfill the other hopes “You’ve made FreedomFest into THE mandatory conference. Yours for liberty, AEIOU, ([email protected]) is a senior research fel- politicians have for the money. But Congratulations!” —George Gilder Mark Skousen, Producer please patronize our advertisers low at the Mercatus Center at George Mason please patronize our advertisers there’s a fair chance it wouldn’t hap- University. please patronize our advertisers pen in the first place. Governments EARLY BIRD SPECIAL – Sign up early and save $100 per person/$200 per couple on the registration fee. please patronize our advertisers don’t always spend sin tax money Normally the cost is $495 per person/$795 per couple, but if you register before March 15, you pay only $395 per person/$595 per couple. Plus the fi rst 100 to sign up this year receive a free 2010 American eagle silver dollar, the symbol of FreedomFest. Hurry, these coins go fast. the way they promise. Money from To register, call Tami Holland at 1-866-266-5101 or visit www.freedomfest.com 20 | reason | January 2010

FreedomFest-Reason Ad (11-4-09).indd 1 11/4/09 9:57:29 AM Declare Your Own Independence FreedomFest 2010 July 7-11, 2010 � Bally’s Las Vegas Event Center � www.freedomfest.com

Dear freedom lovers, Plus Tom Palmer (Atlas Foundation), Ken Schoolland (Pacifi c Hawaii University), James Gwartney, Doug Get ready for the 7th Annual FreedomFest: Just think Bandow, Wayne Allen Root, and many more. 7-11 in Vegas! Last year we had over 100 speakers, 90 exhibitors, and nearly 1700 attendees, with over 200 Alexandra Colen, Belgium member of Parliament, and showing up at the door. One couple got married and Dr. Paul Belien on “What Every American Must Know celebrated their honeymoon at FreedomFest. about the Dangerous New Europe.” “FreedomFest 2009 was a miracle. In the midst of a recession Top all your favorite fi nancial writers and tax advisors, such as Rick and two successive election losses for the cause of freedom, Rule, Adrian Day, Keith Fitz-Gerald, John Dessauer, Van Simmons, you increased the attendance at FreedomFest 25% and the Alex Green, Louis Basenese, David Fessler, Frank Trotter, Martin number and quality of the speakers was a feast for lovers of free Truax, and Peter Zipper. And tax and estate planning specialists markets. You clearly are offering a product that people want. All Jeff Verdon, David T. Phillips, Vern Jacobs, Marshall Langer, Ron lovers of liberty are in your debt – thank you.” —Richard Viguerie Holland. “FreedomFest is developing into the most effective international This year’s speakers include: free-market gathering and you have me wondering why I spend so much time at ‘lesser events’.” —Ron Mann, Australia Rick Santelli, CNBC’s top reporter from Chicago and inspiration behind the “tea parties” in America. Alan Charles Kors, controversial history professor at U Penn and Ten Debates in 2010, including . . . founder of FIRE (Foundation for Individual Right in Education), on Dinesh D’Souza debating a top atheist on his new book, “Life After “Your Right to Speak Your Mind is on Trial.” Death: The Evidence.” Nathaniel Branden & Barbara Branden: on “The Life & Ideas of Michael Shermer takes on “2012: The Truth About the Mayan Ayn Rand.” Calendar.” Steve Moore (Wall Street Journal) on “The Worst Bill Ever!” “The Future of Israel: Pro and Con.” George Gilder, author of “The Steve Forbes (Forbes magazine) on “Can Anything Good Come Out Israel Test” versus . . . of Washington?” “It really was a WOW! experience at FreedomFest. I heard that John Mackey, CEO, Whole Foods Market, on “The Fight for Freedom from many attendees.” —Terry Brock, Charlotte Business Journal in Health Care”, Plus “The Whole Foods Diet Update: You Can Still Live to be 100 and Enjoy Life.” Announcing Two Special Anniversaries Back by popular demand, our All-Star Prediction Panel, with Bert Dohmen, Peter Schiff, Alex Green, and Dennis Slothower at FreedomFest 2010 (moderated by Mark Skousen). We celebrate two anniversaries at FreedomFest 2010: the 25th Pulitzer Prize winner Daniel Walker Howe (UCLA) on “What Hath anniversary dinner of the Advocates for Self Government, led by God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848.” Sharon Harris....and the 30th anniversary reception of Forecasts & Jerry Jordan, former Fed Board member, on “What’s Really Going On Strategies. Inside the World’s Most Powerful Central Bank.” Like every year, we plan on having an expanded exhibit hall with all the top freedom and fi nancial organizations, two celebrity luncheons Charles Murray on his next book, “Coming Apart at the Seams,” each day, and a grand unforgettable Saturday night banquet. All the about racism in America since Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s major think tanks and freedom organizations will be there—Cato, assassination in 1968. Heritage, Reason, Newsmax, FEE, Goldwater, and more.

“You’ve made FreedomFest into THE mandatory conference. Yours for liberty, AEIOU, Congratulations!” —George Gilder Mark Skousen, Producer

EARLY BIRD SPECIAL – Sign up early and save $100 per person/$200 per couple on the registration fee. Normally the cost is $495 per person/$795 per couple, but if you register before March 15, you pay only $395 per person/$595 per couple. Plus the fi rst 100 to sign up this year receive a free 2010 American eagle silver dollar, the symbol of FreedomFest. Hurry, these coins go fast. To register, call Tami Holland at 1-866-266-5101 or visit www.freedomfest.com

FreedomFest-Reason Ad (11-4-09).indd 1 11/4/09 9:57:29 AM

The Gatekeeper How a little bureaucratic office became the biggest impediment to Barack Obama’s health care plans. Peter Suderman

It was January 2009, and Democrats were triumphant. Their party had won major victories in both the House and the Senate, and Barack Obama, arguably the most economi- cally left-wing president in decades, had just won the White House on a promise to finally achieve what had eluded liberals for so long: universal health care. As the new era unfolded in Washington, plans for over- hauling one-sixth of the economy began to take shape. Health care reforms, Democrats vowed, would extend insurance to every American and be fully paid for without requiring middle-class tax hikes, all while cutting costs sig- nificantly enough to save the country from financial catas- trophe. To sell these claims the party trotted out one of the most respected number-crunchers in town, Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, a former Brookings Institution health care expert obsessed with cost cutting. With 60 votes in the Senate, nothing seemed to stand in the Democrats’ way. Nothing, that is, except the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a nonpartisan federal agency that until this year was run by none other than Peter Orszag. As drafts of various health care bills began to emerge on Capitol Hill, the CBO, responsible for devising Congress’ official legislative cost estimates (known as “scores”), released a series of reports that demolished key Democratic claims. According to the CBO, both the “tri-committee” bill proposed in the House and the bill proposed in the Senate Finance Committee would cost in excess of $1 trillion over 10 years, might leave tens of millions uninsured, and would not curb rising health care costs. Indeed, both would add substantially to the bud- get deficit in the long term. As the year progressed, theCBO

Warren Gebert/Images.com Warren proved a more effective check against key elements of the

reason | January 2010 | 23 Democrats’ domestic agenda than anything concocted by of Government, “I don’t think anybody had the Republican strategists or libertarian wonks. In an October faintest idea what this place would be—if it would article, The Washington Post concluded that the CBO had be two people, if it would be a group that advised “essentially condemned two legislative proposals by slap- the budget committees only, if it would ever come ping them with trillion-dollar price tags.” to exist.” Created as an afterthought and initially intended as a Before birthing their new bureaucracy, the low-profile congressional calculation service, the CBO has House and Senate had to reconcile sharply dif- quietly risen to a place of unique prominence and power in ferent ideas about how the agency would be run. Washington policy debates. Widely cited and almost univer- The House, according to then–Special Assistant sally respected, it is treated as judge and referee, resolving and later CBO Director Robert Reischauer in the disputes about what policies will cost and how they will Harvard study, wanted a quiet, low-profile orga- work. nization, “basically a manhole in which Congress But the agency’s authority is belied by the highly specu- would have a bill or something and it would lift lative nature of its work, which requires an endless succes- up the manhole cover and put the bill down it, sion of unverifiable assumptions. These assumptions are and you would hear grinding noises, and twenty frequently treated as definitive, as if on faith. In practice, minutes later a piece of paper would be handed this means the CBO is not merely an impartial legislative up with the cost estimate.” It was to be “noncon- scorekeeper but a keeper of the nation’s budgetary myths, troversial, the way the sewer system is.” a clan of spreadsheet-wielding priests whose declarations The Senate, by contrast, envisioned a more become Washington’s holy writ. prominent office, one that would provide not only calculations but extensive analysis—a full- Birth of a Budget Office service congressional think tank. After a pro- The CBO’s history goes back to the 1974 Congressional Bud- tracted power struggle, the Senate conception get and Impoundment Control Act, one of many mid-’70s won out. Senate Budget Committee Chairman attempts to wrest back power from an executive branch Ed Muskie (D-Maine) helped pick the economist that had expanded to new levels under President Richard Alice Rivlin as the firstCBO chief, with a mandate Nixon. The act, which passed over Nixon’s veto, was part to remain objective and nonpartisan, providing of an ongoing effort to get Congress more involved in the detailed analysis but avoiding policy recommen- budgeting process, which many legislators felt was too dations. dominated by the White House. It launched the House and Rivlin had been (and remains) a senior fellow Senate Budget Committees, changed the way the annual at the center-left Brookings Institution, where she budget was prepared, and created the Congressional Bud- has worked, on and off, in various capacities since get Office. 1957. Now 78, Rivlin is a petite woman with short, Few in Congress knew what the new agency would look dark hair, and the wry, knowing confidence of a like. As CBO Special Assistant David Mundel recalled in a longtime Washington hand. She holds a visiting 1988 case study prepared for Harvard’s Kennedy School professorship at Georgetown University’s Public

In 1975, the CBO estimated that a health care bill proposed by Ted Kennedy would cost $185 billion over five years— three times higher than the number put forth by Kennedy’s staff. In the 1980s, the CBO became a staunch opponent of Ronald Reagan’s supply-side economics.

24 | reason | January 2010 Policy Institute, serves on the board of the New York Stock Exchange, and was a 1983 recipient of the MacArthur Foundation’s “genius” grant. Rivlin was not merely the first head of the CBO; she was one of the agency’s architects as well, quickly expanding its mission beyond what even the Senate had in mind. Early on, Rivlin pushed for, and received, independence in hiring. Staffing on Capitol Hill back then was rife with nepotism—Rivlin has described it as a “schmoozy, good ol’ boy Hill culture”—and those making hiring decisions were expected to play along when powerful leg- islators sent their former staffers out with recom- mendations. Muskie largely shielded Rivlin from such expectations. Thanks both to Muskie’s protection and the hear people say it doesn’t make any difference what [a bill] agency’s vague conception, Rivlin had a great really costs. It only matters what CBO says it costs.” When deal of leeway to staff and organize the CBO as the president declared during a September 2009 prime time she saw fit. Disregarding the Senate’s estimate address that he would not sign a health care bill unless it was that 158 staffers would be sufficient, Rivlin and deficit neutral, the universal assumption was that the CBO her initial team hired 259 instead, every one of would make that particular call. whom she made a point to interview herself. But looking into the future is an inherently uncertain Rivlin’s goal was for the CBO to be respected enterprise, as much magic as science. Just how accurate is by the budgeting community. Analysts kept their the CBO’s crystal ball? judgments conservative by relying on pre-ex- isting economic models. Even when pressed by Making Assumptions legislators, Rivlin says, she “religiously” avoided During the last major push for health care reform, under policy endorsements. The result was an agency President Bill Clinton in 1994, the CBO drew up a model of that quickly attained a high degree of respect and the existing system, extended that model into the future, authority on Capitol Hill. and calculated how the future would change under the From the beginning, CBO figures provided proposed legislation. In doing so, the agency made scores meaningful reality checks for big-ticket items of estimates and assumptions, both about the state of the on both parties’ legislative wish lists. In 1975, existing system and how millions of individuals might for example, the agency estimated that a health react to the proposed changes. care bill proposed by Ted Kennedy would cost In order to determine how much the bill would cost, it $185 billion over five years—three times higher had to account for dozens upon dozens of variables, includ- than the number put forth by Kennedy’s staff. In ing how many people had health insurance and how many the 1980s, Rivlin turned the CBO into a staunch didn’t, how many people with insurance got it through an opponent of Ronald Reagan’s supply-side eco- employer, what types of plans those people had, the total nomics, insisting that tax cuts could not bring in amounts of their premiums, the percentages of the pre- enough revenue to pay for themselves. miums the employers paid, the coverage and cost-sharing Though there has been some periodic push- requirements of those plans, whether or not uninsured indi- back against the agency, over the years the CBO viduals had options to obtain insurance and what those

Photo has accumulated enough authority to be seen as options might be, the health of the insured, the frequency AP one of the last honest arbiters in Washington. As and type of care used by the insured, the nature and size of Brookings budget analyst Henry Aaron recently the companies providing insurance for their workers and

Alice Rivlin, © Rivlin, Alice told The American Prospect, “It’s not infrequent to the business reasons that led them to do so, regional break-

reason | January 2010 | 25 downs of health care use patterns, how new treatments and to the greatest extent possible, but by and large new medical technologies would change medical practices the necessary information simply did not exist. and costs, the impact of hospital consolidations and other So the analysts did what they could, and what developments in the business of medicine, how enforceable they still do today: They guessed. Specifically, and effective new cost controls would be, and what choices they estimated that the Clinton plan would raise patients would make with regard to doctors, medicines, and the deficit by about $70 billion over the first six treatments under the proposed legislation. years, contradicting the White House’s estimate To build their working model, CBO analysts worked with that the proposal would lower the deficit by $60 data pieced “together from several inadequate or dated sur- billion. veys and sources,” according to a 1995 article in the journal To be sure, their guesswork is as good as it Health Affairs by Robert Reischauer and Linda T. Billheimer, comes. On the left and the right, most economists the CBO’s director and deputy assistant director, respectively, will testify to the CBO’s general excellence. Even during the 1994 debate. Surveys and census data were used those who criticize the office tend to do so deli-

The States’ Failed uninsured by making medical coverage anteed issue and community rating Experiments more accessible, particularly to those is not unique. In 1996 similar reforms The major provisions of ObamaCare who don’t have employer-provided in Washington state preceded mas- have already been tried. And they insurance. sive premium spikes in the individual don’t look good. New York’s reforms haven’t worked market. Some premiums increased as out very well, according to a 2009 much as 78 percent in the first three Peter Suderman Manhattan Institute study by Stephen years of the reforms—10 times the rate Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis T. Parente, a professor of finance at the of medical inflation—according to a famously envisioned the states serving University of Minnesota, and Tarren study presented at the annual meeting as laboratories, trying “novel social and Bragdon, CEO of the Maine Heritage of the Association for Health Ser- economic experiments without risk to Policy Center. In 1994 just under vices Research in 1999. Other results the rest of the country.” On health care, 752,000 individuals were enrolled in included a 25 percent drop in enroll- that’s just what they’ve done. Like par- individual insurance plans, about 4.7 ment in the individual market and a ticipants in a national science fair, state percent of the nonelderly population. reduction in services offered. Within governments have tested variants on This put New York roughly in line with four years, for example, none of the most of the major health care reforms the rest of the U.S. Today that figure state’s major carriers offered individual Congress is considering. The results has dropped to just 0.2 percent. By insurance plans that included maternity include dramatically higher premiums contrast, between 1994 and 2007 the coverage. in the individual market, spiraling total number of people insured in the A 2008 analysis by Patricia Lynch public costs, and reduced access to individual market across the U.S. rose of Kaiser Permanente, published by care. In other words, the reforms have from 4.5 percent to 5.5 percent. Health Affairs, noted that in addi- failed. The decline in the number of tion to Washington and New York, New York is Exhibit A. In 1993 the people enrolled in individual insurance the individual insurance markets in state prohibited insurers from declining plans, the authors say, is “attributable Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, New to cover individuals with pre-existing largely to a steep increase in premi- Hampshire, New Jersey, and Vermont health conditions, a policy called “guar- ums” because of the state’s regula- “deteriorated” after the enactment of anteed issue.” New York also required tions. Parente and Bragdon estimate guaranteed issue. Individual insurance insurers to charge everyone enrolled in that repealing guaranteed issue and became significantly more expensive, their plans the same premium, regard- community rating could reduce the and there was no significant decrease less of health status, age, or sex, an price of individual coverage by 42 in the number of uninsured. idea known as “community rating.” percent. Supporters of federal health The goal was to reduce the number of New York’s experience with guar- care reform argue that the problems

26 | reason | January 2010 cately. In an August New York Times op-ed argu- you’re talking about figuring out the effects of health care ing that the agency’s health care numbers were policy, it’s very difficult.” consistently unreliable, Jon Gabel, a senior fellow Part of the difficulty is that theCBO is trying to replicate at the University of Chicago’s National Opinion systems it can’t really see. To understand the problems with Research Center, began by praising the office building an economic model, consider what it takes to make for its competence, integrity, and well-earned a working scale-model train. To build that train, you’d first respect. need accurate information about how the full-size train Nevertheless, even good guesswork is still works: how big its parts are, at what speed those parts move, guesswork. As the George Mason economist its power consumption and control system. Imagine trying Arnold Kling says, “it is literally an impossible to build a model train without ever being allowed to look task” to accurately make the sort of projections inside the engine compartment. A smart engineer would be the CBO specializes in. “We don’t do controlled able to make reasonably educated guesses about the inter- experiments in economics,” Kling says. “So when nal workings by measuring the outside and by looking at

associated with these regulations can care costs have continued to grow insurance premiums increased by 74 be addressed with the addition of an rapidly. According to a 2009 RAND Cor- percent during its first four years—to individual mandate, a requirement that poration study, health care spending is $499 a month from $287 a month— everyone purchase health insurance. “projected to increase about 8 percent according to an analysis of Dirigo data Guaranteed issue alone, the argument faster than the state’s GDP over the by the Maine Heritage Policy Center. goes, results in slightly more expen- next decade.” The Globe recently The cost of DirigoHealth to taxpayers so sive premiums, which drives healthier reported that state health insurance far has been $155 million. individuals out of the risk pool, which commissioners are worried that medical Tennessee’s plan for universal in turn further drives up premiums. The spending could push both employers coverage, dubbed TennCare, fared end result is that many healthy people and patients into bankruptcy and may even worse after it was launched in the opt out, leaving a small pool of sick even threaten the continued exis- 1990s. The goal of the state-run public individuals with very high premiums. tence of the state’s universal coverage insurance plan was to expand coverage An individual mandate, however, would system. to the uninsured by reducing waste. spread those costs across a larger, On top of that, survey data from the But the costs of expanding coverage healthier population, thus keeping Massachusetts Medical Society indicate quickly ballooned. In 2005, with the premiums down. that the state’s primary care providers government bankruptcy, the state was The experience of Massachusetts, are being squeezed. Family doctors say forced to cut 170,000 individuals from which imposed an individual mandate they are taking fewer new patients and its insurance rolls. in 2007, suggests otherwise. Health seeing increases in wait time. Despite these state-level failures, insurance premiums in the Bay State Reform measures in other states President Barack Obama and congres- have risen significantly faster than the have proven to be expensive duds. sional Democrats are pushing a slate national average, according to the Com- Maine’s 2003 reform plan, Dirigo of similar reforms. Unlike most high monwealth Fund, a nonprofit health Health, included a government insur- school science fair participants, they foundation. At an average of $13,788, ance option resembling the public seem unaware that the point of doing the state’s family plans are now the option supported by many House experiments is to identify what actually nation’s most expensive. The Boston Democrats. This public plan, Dirigo- works. Instead, they’ve identified what

Globe reports that insurance companies Choice, was supposed to expand care doesn’t—and decided to do it again. r are planning additional double-digit to all 128,000 of Maine’s uninsured by hikes, “prompting many employers to 2009. But according to the U.S. Census Peter Suderman ([email protected]) is reduce benefits and shift additional Bureau, the 2007 uninsured rate an associate editor at reason. A version of this article appeared in The Wall Street Journal. costs to workers.” was roughly 10 percent—essentially Meanwhile, Massachusetts health unchanged. DirigoChoice’s individual

reason | January 2010 | 27 various external controls, but those guesses would almost any number of factors. But the more detailed a certainly come with a high margin of error. model, the more moving parts it needs. Inside That’s no small part of the problem for the CBO. When every CBO formula is a patchwork of sketchy scoring legislation, they’re essentially trying to build small- assumptions about both human behavior and the scale working models of systems using fairly limited data state of the current system, many of which, as in sets. For example, according to Reischauer and Billheimer, the case of Clinton’s health care plan, are backed the National Health Interview Survey provided CBO ana- by remarkably little data. Each of these assump- lysts with data on “health insurance coverage, health states, tions increases uncertainty. use of health services and socioeconomic variables.” But The CBO, to its credit, is entirely open about these sources provided “no data on premiums or cost-shar- both the significant uncertainties in its reports ing requirements, and no indication of the exact share of and the general problem of modeling. Testifying premiums paid by employers.” to Congress in 2002 about the agency’s budget These days, CBO analysts are scoring bills using intri- projections, former CBO chief Rudolph Penner cate computer simulations based in large part on survey was blunt: “No one forecasts anything very well. data. The raw information is interpreted through academic That is true whether one looks at pundits fore- research on how human beings respond to various eco- casting the course of the war in Afghanistan, nomic assumptions. In an interview with The Washington demographers forecasting worldwide birth rates, Post, the CBO’s chief health care analyst, Phil Ellis, compared or pollsters forecasting the French presidential the process to playing Sim City, a computer game that simu- election.” He was equally candid in his assess- lates urban development. But even the best model is still ment of the CBO’s work. “I recently studied the only as good as its input data. And for policies that have no history of errors,” he said, “and I would like to real-world antecedent, it’s extremely difficult to come up submit my results for the record. They are pretty with accurate input data. discouraging.” In theory, it would at least be possible to know with Penner’s testimony focused on the CBO’s woe- reasonable precision, say, what the spread of employer con- ful record in both budget forecasting and esti- tributions to the cost of health insurance actually looks like. mating “revenue and expenditure feedbacks”— But all the data in the world still wouldn’t solve the main basically, in correctly identifying behavioral problem: human beings. According to Jim Manzi, a senior responses to policy changes. On the budget, fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the founder of an Penner noted that “the average error made in the applied artificial intelligence company, “The fundamental forecast of the budget balance used to formulate problem is that no one has a good model of the human the budget resolution is over $100 billion for mind.” We can know what people have done, but not why the first year covered by the resolution and over they did it, and certainly not how that reasoning will trans- $400 billion five years out” and that “the projec- late into future decisions. Moreover, Manzi notes, “It’s not tion for the budget balance in 2007 changed over just one mind. It’s many human minds interacting.” $800 billion between early 1997 and the summer A capable modeler can introduce variables to adjust for of 2000.”

“I recently studied the history of errors,” former CBO chief Rudolph Penner told Congress in 2002, “and I would like to submit my results for the record. They are pretty discouraging.”

28 | reason | January 2010 Less wonky are the criticisms made by parti- tisans, who would simply pick the numbers that favored sans. CBO scores frequently provoke annoyance their position. Rivlin contends that the question is moot. from both Democrats and Republicans, although “Decisions have to be made in light of the best information the complaints tend to center on different issues. available,” she says. “There isn’t really an alternative.” For Democrats, the CBO’s biggest sin is its failure to score savings from changes to govern- Not Just a Scorekeeper ment-run health care programs. In July Bruce With the estimated costs for the Senate and House health Vladeck, formerly a top staffer at the Health Care care bills both coming in at $1 trillion or more, the CBO Financing Administration, argued in Roll Call that proved one of the most powerful roadblocks for the presi- “the CBO has routinely overestimated the costs dent’s agenda over the summer. But anyone depending on of expanded government health care benefits the CBO to blockade reform reliably will be disappointed. and underestimated the savings from program When the Senate Finance Committee released the pre- changes designed to reduce expenditures,” point- liminary draft of its health care bill in September 2009, the ing specifically to its overestimation of the five- accompanying CBO analysis reported that the legislation, as year cost of the Medicare prescription drug ben- written, would reduce the budget deficit over the next two efit. Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the decades. This projection was based on the highly dubious Senate Finance Committee, huffed at a February assumption that Congress would follow through on the hearing that “we’re not in the old situation where bill’s proposed Medicare payment cuts—cuts Congress has whatever the CBO says is God.” been loath to make in the past. The report acknowledged Republicans, on the other hand, tend to worry these past failures, but the CBO is prohibited from making more about the office’s record on taxes. Accord- judgments about the likelihood that Congress will keep its ing to a report that the Joint Economic Commit- own promises. tee, a panel of economic advisers to Congress, After a year of relying on the CBO’s scores to prove the prepared for then-Rep. Dick Armey (R-Tex.), CBO high cost and disastrous deficit effects of health care reform, analyses in 1989 and 1990 “failed to take into congressional Republicans and other ObamaCare oppo- account the effects of higher capital gains taxes nents were suddenly faced with an analysis that confirmed after 1986, producing huge forecasting errors.” the Democrats’ most contentious fiscal point: that over time In a 2003 essay for National Review Online, Rep. the changes would more than pay for themselves. The CBO Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) noted the office’s repeated fail- projection of deficit reduction was arguably the best break ures to accurately forecast the budget and com- the Democrats had gotten in months. The bill’s prospects plained that the agency did not do enough to improved overnight. provide “real-world estimates that account for But based on what? The CBO admitted in its report that the interaction between federal taxes, federal its “estimates are all subject to substantial uncertainty,” programs, and individual behavior.” particularly those dealing with deficit effects in the second But the agency’s inaccuracies must be judged decade. Yet neither the inherent uncertainty nor Congress’ relatively. “They’re the second worst source of history of reneging on planned Medicare cuts had much forecasts on the effects of health care policy,” says effect on the ensuing debate. All that mattered was the Arnold Kling. “As far as the worst, all the rest are score. tied. I’m sure that their forecasts are flawed and The CBO had effectively given the bill a go-ahead—and subject to huge error. But the next question to ask revealed, once again, how influential the agency is in deter- is: Compared to what?” mining the success or failure of major legislation. It’s not Manzi concurs. “No matter how bad the situ- just the scorekeeper; it’s the gatekeeper. ation is,” he says, “would no scorekeeper at all be “That,” Rivlin says carefully, “is what I’ve known all even worse?” along.” r Other approaches are unlikely to produce better results. Releasing a range of scores, for Peter Suderman ([email protected]) is an associate editor at reason. example, would underline the uncertainties, but it would also provide greater ammunition to par-

reason | January 2010 | 29 Progressives vs. Democracy The health care debate reveals a nasty tendency within liberal politics.

Brian Doherty

30 | reason | January 2010 At press time, the House-Senate reconciliation over cal thought that cannot comprehend how anyone some version of a health care bill was still lurching along. could disagree with a big-government solution to Although key details were changing daily, one fact has health care without being evil, stupid, insane, or remained constant: Any legislation that might end up pass- all three. Faced with the infuriating complication ing through the Democrat-controlled Congress will involve of democratic dissent, advocates of greater gov- enormous new government subsidies, onerous mandates ernment involvement in health care, including

Photo/Susan Walsh Photo/Susan on private insurance companies (and their customers), and some federal officials, have unleashed a vicious AP tighter government controls on a large and growing per- campaign against a sizable political minority. centage of the U.S. economy. For many, the Obama administration botched Yet the process has already proven to be an uncon- reform from the get-go by ruling out one long- scionable disappointment to many liberal legislators and standing progressive goal: a universal “single commentators. Their increasingly shrill reaction to the payer” system, in which the government spends

President Barack Obama addresses doctors on health on health doctors addresses Obama Barack President 5, 2009. October reform, care debate has revealed a disturbing strain of American politi- every health care dollar, instead of the current 50

reason | January 2010 | 31 Faced with the infuriating complication of democratic dissent, advocates of greater government involvement in health care have unleashed a vicious campaign against a sizable political minority.

percent, with no competitive market in medical mula in an August column. “The recent attacks by Repub- insurance at all. “In the real world,” declared the lican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the incendiary Rolling Stone columnist Matt Taibbi, effort to reform the health-care system have been so mis- who combines Hunter Thompson–style invective leading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from with policy wonkery, “nothing except a single- a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage,” Pearl- payer system makes any sense.” Having to live stein wrote. “They’ve become political terrorists, willing to in our allegedly nonsensical world has driven say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a single-payer enthusiasts mad. consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.” Their consolation prize was supposed to be If the mainstream press was boiling, what about the a “public option,” a government-run insurance progressive netroots? A Daily Kos blogger who calls him/ plan that all Americans could buy into (not just herself “Nuisance Industry” voted to deport those citizens the elderly and poor, as with existing Medicare who don’t acknowledge the wisdom of the public option. and Medicaid), theoretically outcompeting pri- “You heard me, get out,” Nuisance wrote, in a popular post vate insurers on both cost containment and care that was cheered by hundreds of Daily Kos commenters and quality. But when the on-again, off-again public jeered by only a few. “You hate the people here enough that option appeared (prematurely, it turned out) to you want them to die.…You are un-American. Get out of my have died in the fall, it was, Taibbi wrote in Octo- country.…You’d rather have our people die than provide ber, “the moment when our government lost us them health care that doesn’t bankrupt them.” for good. It was that bad.” Compared to such vitriol, the administration sounded Such uncomprehending hyperbole is not like a voice of temperance, if not reason. Still, the executive limited to opinion journalism, and it has been branch also has played the evil-or-stupid card. In August, only sporadically directed at the people who actu- White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs blamed pub- ally hold power. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D- lic opposition to ObamaCare on “misconceptions” rooted Calif.) in July slammed health insurers—who in deliberate disinformation. The voters, alas, are dupes. have largely supported and helped shape most President Obama has repeatedly gone after the lying liars reform efforts this political season—as “immoral above them, using the kind of shadowy language that hints …villains,” even while she continued to back at conspiracy. plans that would force every American to buy “I will not stand by while the special interests use the insurance from them. Pelosi’s counterpart in the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are,” the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), president said in a September speech to Congress. “If you called the many U.S. citizens who spoke out misrepresent what’s in the plan, we will call you out.” Call against health care legislation at town hall meet- you out, yes, but not by name— an understandable strategy, ings last August “evil mongers.” considering that all the major corporate interests within The hate bath of policy disagreement was just the health care industry have been busy negotiating with warming up. Washington Post business colum- (and lending support to) the White House and Congress. nist Steven Pearlstein echoed George W. Bush’s “Because we’re so close to real reform,” Obama similarly you’re-either-with-us-or-with-the-terrorists for- warned in a Labor Day speech, “the special interests are

32 | reason | January 2010 doing what they always do: trying to scare the American The attitude is disturbingly illiberal: They know people and preserve the status quo. But I’ve got a question the proper solution to a problem, a solution that for them: What’s your answer? What’s your solution? The involves commanding the resources and liberty truth is, they don’t have one. It’s do nothing.” of the entire country. Anyone who objects or obstructs is dangerous and deserves to be ignored, Illiberalism, Left and Right shouted down, marginalized, even deported. It takes an impressive amount of willful ignorance—or There are decent, smart, independent thinkers some worse quality—to conclude that opposition to a com- who want to make sure all Americans should plicated overhaul of a complicated health care system live and be well. Then there are those, wallowing could only be rooted in a do-nothing fondness for the status in their own greedy crapulence, who, because quo. For extended demonstrations to the contrary, read the either their pockets or their heads are filled with magazine you are holding in your hands, starting with “The the filthy detritus of insurance industry cash and Gatekeeper” (page 22), “Markets, Not Mandates” (page 44), lies, want Americans to die. That second group, and the interview with Whole Foods CEO John Mackey it should go without saying, scarcely deserves a (page 36). As Mackey learned the hard way, offering alter- place at the table of American democracy. native solutions to health care’s problems is an invitation This tarring of the minority is not limited not to discussion-advancing dialogue but to discussion- to progressives. From a perspective of political ending boycotts. “realism,” the conservative writer James Pinker- You would think that the dissonance between advocat- ton suggested in October at Fox News’ website ing sober cross-partisan policy discussion and preemptively that libertarian-leaning voices in the debate need dismissing the political opposition would be enough to to realize that government management of huge make some heads pop, but you’d be wrong. Los Angeles parts of the health care economy are so univer- Times columnist Tim Rutten in August bemoaned the lack sally popular that it’s a waste of time and brain of “substantive and realistic discussion of the critical issues power to even talk about opposing them. Such surrounding healthcare reform,” then in September wrote voices should back Republican proposals for big- that ObamaCare’s opposition “is overpopulated with nuts, government solutions and show “respect for the fundamentalists and paranoids who won’t be easily stopped majority,” he concluded. by a few congressional reprimands.” The president himself, There was a legitimate point buried in Pinker- in his address to Congress, said his door was “always open” ton’s piece. Libertarians who expect American to those bringing “a serious set of proposals,” even while politics to produce pure libertarian policies (or ruling out any attempt to break the link between employ- even to stay within the limits of the U.S. Consti- ment and insurance. tution) are as delusional as the progressives who The odd debate reveals something disturbing about how thought the public option (or even a single-payer American progressives, in and out of power, view politics. system) was inevitable. But that doesn’t mean After eight years of what they perceived as illegitimate, health care free marketers shouldn’t fight as tena- dangerous, and idiotic government, it was time for their set ciously as they can to sell their points to the pub- of sweeping solutions, so inarguably right, to be enacted. lic and policy makers. And is it really showing

“They’ve become political terrorists,” Washington Post business columnist Stephen Pearlstein wrote of opponents to ObamaCare, “willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.”

reason | January 2010 | 33 “respect for the majority” to pass a bill that not forced all insurance companies to offer certain kinds of KING JAMES WOULD LOVETH THIS NEW BIBLE! even the majority of legislators will read in full, coverage. “Excellent“Excelle let alone understand? Something approaching true market competition— The i5IF
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How long divine inspiration. was He in the tomb? When was He resurrected? Congress, and President Obama will sign those with outcomes still unsatisfying, politicians will once again It is a widely unknown fact that the original What does it mean to be born again? What are words. Suddenly, people will be unable to do systematically rethink health care markets. That pattern will manuscript order of both the Old and New works of law? What are the true teachings of Testament books was altered by early church the early apostolic New Testament Church that things they used to be able to do, under penalty continue until government realizes that the troubles with fathers. The Holy Bible In Its Original Order Jesus founded? Also, biblical and historical of fines or eventual jail time. Suddenly, people the health care economy are exacerbated by its attempts includes commentaries that trace precisely how chronologies show an accurate timeline from the Bible erroneously came to be in its present the creation of Adam and Eve to the present. will be required to do things they didn’t for- to solve them, and chooses, carefully and thoughtfully, to 66-book format—revealing how and why its There are detailed footnotes and marginal merly have to do, with the same framework of disengage itself from the industry. books were mysteriously repositioned from their references explaining hard-to-understand original order by fourth-century “editors.” passages of Scripture. threats and penalties. People will be forced to In the meantime, the national debate will move on to Second, this version is a new translation—A With 1442 pages, The Holy Bible In Its pay for things that a group of people in other items from the progressive wish list, starting with a Faithful Version—that refl ects the true meaning Original Order is only 1-3/8 inches thick—and of the original Hebrew and Greek with fi delity measures 8-1/4 by 10-1/2 inches. The genuine Washington have decided they have to pay for. massive cap-and-trade bill aimed at reducing the emission and accuracy, showing the unity of Scripture handcrafted lambskin cover features gold The legislation will create a new set of incen- of greenhouse gases. If the health care debate is any guide, between the Old and New Testaments. Today, in stamped lettering. The paper is high-quality the face of rampant religious confusion, those French Bible paper with gold gilded edges. The tives and costs, with results as unintended as the calls for deportation may soon reach an all-time high. r who read and study the English Bible deserve a pages are easy to turn and do not stick together. current health care system was unintended by quality translation that can be trusted. Reviewer The Bible also features wide margins for Dan Decker of Bible Editions and Versions note-taking, and a center column with selected those who invented Medicare, who linked insur- King James I (1567 - 1625) (January 2009) writes of this new version of references, word defi nitions and alternate Senior Editor Brian Doherty ([email protected]) is the author of ance tax deductions to employment, who barred the Bible: renderings for various key words. This is Burning Man (BenBella), Radicals for Capitalism (PublicAffairs), “It is an excellent translation for those It comes in a highly durable presentation box, he Holy Bible In Its Original Order interstate competition among insurers, and who and Gun Control on Trial (Cato Institute). desiring a literal one.... We heartily beautifully adorned with original artwork. is an extraordinary Bible—unique recommend this fi ne translation.” Other Features: Triple bound for extra long life in two ways. First, it is the only This new Original Order Version uses (Smythe stitched, spine stitched and glued) complete Bible ever published— • beautiful original artwork of the Temple in with both Old and New Testaments—that modern English, but retains the original grace and granduer of the KJV, by eliminating the Jesus’ time accurately follows the original canonical • 14 commentary chapters n “Big Government Goes Big for Health reason.com/archives/2009/07/24/ manuscript order as recognized by most King James-isms like thee, thou, hath Online Resources and shalt. • 25 appendices Care Reform,” by John Stossel buy-now-pay-later scholars. In addition, once the original order • six chronologies Don’t miss reason’s up-to-the-minute of the 49 biblical books has been restored, Included are vital Commentaries providing Why drug companies and insurance • various maps coverage of health care at reason.com the Seven Divisions of the Bible are also re- accurate accounts of the history, canonization providers are backing ObamaCare. n “The Evil-Mongering of the Ameri- established. The Old Testament contains: 1) The and preservation of the books of the Bible: and reason.tv. Here are some of the Law, 2) The Prophets, and 3) The Writings. The Who wrote them? When were they written? Includes over 250 reason.com/archives/2009/08/13/ can Medical Association,” by Shikha pages of commentaries highlights: New Testament contains: 4) The Gospels and When were they canonized and by whom? big-business-goes-big-for-heal Dalmia and appendices! How protectionist doctors raise medical n “Natural Food Fight” n costs. A video report on the Whole Foods “Obama’s Lies Matter Too,” by Matt 1st Printing of 10,000 Sold Out! reason.com/archives/2009/08/27/ health care debate. Welch This new second edition of the Original Order Bible is now available in 3 styles: The president pushes back against the-evil-mongering-of-the-amer t
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Interview by Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch

On August 11, 2009, Whole Foods co-founder and chief executive officer John Mackey published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal recommending “eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit.” The ideas, many of them familiar to market- oriented health policy wonks, ranged from malprac- tice reform to eliminating the tax incentives that tie insurance to employment. “The last thing our country needs,” Mackey warned, “is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dol- lars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer

John Mackey. Courtesy Whole Foods Market Inc. Market Foods Whole Courtesy John Mackey. to a government takeover of our health-care system.”

reason | January 2010 | 37 “I mean, CEOs write op-ed pieces all the time. Steven Burd, the CEO of Safeway, had written an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal on health care reform just a month or two before I did, and nobody reacted at all to it. So it was rather bizarre.”

It was as if a bomb had gone off in the arugula line. Some ernment control and more individual empowerment.” of Mackey’s customers, who tend to be urban, upscale, and Why do we need health care reform and why should left of the political center, went ballistic. Protests were held the government not be a part of health care? outside and occasionally even inside several Whole Foods John Mackey: We need health care reform because the cur- outlets. A Boycott Whole Foods group on Facebook attracted rent system, in the way it’s structured and regulated, is more than 34,000 members. “Mackey’s campaign,” warned becoming more and more expensive. We’ve gone from one boycott leader, “results in the deaths of 60 Americans spending 4 percent of our gross domestic product on every day due to lack of health insurance. Mackey is respon- health care in 1960 to almost 17 percent today, and the sible for these deaths as much as anyone.” trend lines aren’t really slowing down. The “intense” reaction took the soft-spoken 56-year- reason: Were you surprised by the vociferous reaction to old by surprise, but the protests quickly faded away. What your op-ed? remained after the hubbub died down was a contentious Mackey: I was surprised. I mean, CEOs write op-ed pieces White House health care plan still very much up in the air all the time. Steven Burd, the CEO of Safeway, had and a businessman still eager to have a calm policy conver- written an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal on sation with people who now regarded him as a libertarian health care reform just a month or two before I did, traitor to his customers’ political beliefs. and nobody reacted at all to it. So it was rather bizarre. John Mackey is used to confounding conventional polit- reason: Do you think employer-based health care is a right, ical categories. A cutting-edge entrepreneur who is comfort- or even a good idea? able quoting both Ludwig von Mises and astrology, who Mackey: Well, if you look at the history of it, it came about both practices veganism and sells some of the best meat in in World War II when the government put wage and America, and who both chases profits and is an outspoken price controls on but exempted insurance. So employ- advocate of charitable giving, Mackey is an advocate of ers began paying for insurance because that was a way what he calls “conscious capitalism.” He is that rarest of they could compensate people. After World War II, it businessmen: an articulate and passionate defender of free continued to be a special tax exemption that encour- enterprise and free individuals. aged employers to be picking up the insurance. It sort Mackey—who has contributed in the past to the Rea- of spread through the culture. son Foundation, the nonprofit organization that publishes I’m not sure that’s the best way to do it, primarily this magazine—sat down with reason Editor in Chief Matt because as long as you work for Whole Foods, we’ve got Welch and reason.tv Editor Nick Gillespie in September. For this great health insurance program, but what if you a video version of the interview, go to reason.tv/mackey. want to leave? What if you get a better job offer some- place else, or you’re ready to do some thing else? It’s not reason: In your Wall Street Journal op-ed, you wrote, portable. So that restrains people from maybe leaving “While we clearly need health care reform, we should because they’re not sure they can get as good a health be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite care program. I think it’d be better if individuals did it direction of more government control toward less gov- themselves.

38 | reason | January 2010 reason: Let’s say you suffer from Down syndrome. You’re The Mackey Plan at a Glance going to live to age 50; you probably won’t work very well. Where do you get your health insurance under “Equalize the tax laws so that employer- the John Mackey plan? provided health insurance and indi- Mackey: Obviously, there are always the tough cases, the marginal cases, and what we’re suggesting for reform vidually owned health insurance have the wouldn’t necessarily be a solution for them. The same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance reforms that I advocated [see “The Mackey Plan at a benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual Glance,” right] would help tens of millions of people health insurance is not.” have better health care and health insurance. It may not solve everyone’s problem, and so maybe those need “Repeal all state laws which prevent insur- to be solutions that are provided elsewhere, either ance companies from competing across through the not-for-profit sector or through some type state lines. We should all have the legal of government voucher program. right to purchase health insurance from any insur- reason: You started out in 1978 as Safer Way in Austin, ance company in any state and we should be able to Texas. What were your goals in creating that original outlet and then becoming Whole Foods in 1980? use that insurance wherever we live.” Mackey: That question kind of assumes I knew what the heck I was doing back then. I mean, I had just turned “Repeal government mandates regarding 25 when we opened Safer Way. My girlfriend who co- what insurance companies must cover. founded the company with me, Renee, was 21, and we These mandates have increased the cost didn’t have any grandiose plan. We thought opening of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is our own store would be fun. We could make money insured and what is not insured should be deter- to support ourselves and we’d be providing food that mined by individual customer preferences and not would nurture and help people be healthier. through special-interest lobbying.” Safer Way was a vegetarian store; we didn’t sell any meat. We sold a lot of bulk foods, produce. We had a little vegetarian cafe on the second floor. We had an “Enact tort reform to end the ruinous office on the third floor which also served as where lawsuits that force doctors to pay insur- Renee and I lived because the office couch was a futon ance costs of hundreds of thousands of that we could fold out at night. So we literally lived dollars per year.” above the store, and it was fun. reason: What were the guiding principles or ethics as they “Make costs transparent so that consum- evolved in the first couple of years? ers understand what health-care treat- Mackey: We were selling food that you couldn’t find in con- ments cost.” ventional supermarkets back then. We were selling lots of organic produce. We did a huge business in bulk foods in the early days. We had tofu. I mean, nobody “We need to face up to the actuarial fact sold tofu in Austin, Texas, in the 1970s. that Medicare is heading towards bank- We sold bulk honey and maple syrup. You have to ruptcy and enact reforms that create remember that in the late ’70s the industrialization of greater patient empowerment, choice, and responsi- the food process was pretty well complete, and most bility.” people just ate foods out of frozen dinners, TV din- ners, and macaroni and cheese out of boxes or cans. “Revise tax forms to make it easier for The whole idea of eating a whole food natural diet was individuals to make a voluntary, tax- kind of a revolutionary act back in the late ’70s and early ’80s. deductible donation to help the millions of Now that’s changed as we’ve become more suc- people who have no insurance.”

reason | January 2010 | 39 cessful. All our competitors picked up a lot of the foods to define it in a very narrow fashion, and we define it that we sell, which forces us to innovate and come up in a much larger fashion, and that was what the argu- with new value propositions for our customers. ment was about. We’ve done a lot of mergers in our reason: How do you decide to site a store? history, and this is the first time we’ve ever had one Mackey: Well, there’s no more important decision that challenged. you’re going to make than where you locate a store. reason: Isn’t that a sign of success, when you finally get If we’re going to invest, depending on the size of the challenged? store, anywhere from $8 million to $20-plus million Mackey: Is it a sign of success when the government in capital for a new store, and sign a lease of usually starts hassling you? I don’t know. I guess so. I mean, 20 years or longer, we’re making a long-term com- it was a bizarre experience. It’s not one I want to go mitment and putting up a lot of capital. So we spend through. a lot of time and energy sorting through that. We do It wasn’t a good experience, I’d have to say. We site analysis. We analyze our competition in an area. received a lot of negative publicity about it. They We look at the demographics of who’s living there. downloaded all my emails and a lot of stuff I’d prefer We look at education levels, income. There’s a whole that nobody read, particularly the government lawyers, bunch of variables, but I think by far the most impor- and they basically treated us as if we were criminals or tant variable is the number of college graduates within guilty of some horrible crime for just being successful. a 16-minute drive time. So it cost us tens of millions of dollars in legal fees and reason: Why is that? countless hours of management time. We had to pre- Mackey: I don’t know exactly why. I can tell you that about pare millions of documents. It’s not possible that they 80 percent of our customers have college degrees. I could have read all those documents. can speculate that our customers, on average, are bet- reason: You also had an SEC probe that ended up looking ter educated and better informed. And a college degree, at whether or not you had tried to manipulate Whole while not a perfect proxy for that, is the best we have Foods’ stock price by posting on Yahoo! message in terms of demographic data that we can get. If peo- boards. ple are going to change their diets and become more Mackey: One of the consequences of the FTC getting all health conscious, they need to be generally better my emails is they discovered that I had been posting informed. Otherwise, you tend to eat the diets that you on Yahoo! bulletin boards under Whole Foods and ate when you were a child. Most Americans don’t eat on other bulletin boards, and then the SEC wanted to diets that are particularly healthy, so it takes conscious launch an investigation to see whether I’d been doing effort to alter your diet and your eating and shopping anything illegal in terms of trying to manipulate the patterns. And that correlates with education. stock. reason: You recently completed a merger with Wild Oats, They were asking me questions like, “In this another national chain of organic stores. You had to posting, were you trying to signal people in special go through the Federal Trade Commission, and they code?” I was just playing, frankly. Millions of people blocked it. Why? post on Internet bulletin boards; it’s fun. And I didn’t Mackey: The FTC argued that Whole Foods Market had a at the time see any reason why I was outlawed from monopoly position in a narrow market, which they doing so. It turned out in retrospect to have been, called the “premium natural and organic supermar- I think, a mistake in judgment. Somewhere along ket market,” and that if Whole Foods and Wild Oats the line between when I started posting and when I merged, there really would be hardly anybody left stopped posting, I’d become semi-famous, and this in that category. And of course our position was that became sort of a scandal. we don’t compete against just stores in the premium I am happy to say that it had a happy ending. They natural and organic supermarket market; we compete did their investigation and decided to take no action. against everybody retailing food. We compete against I might have been foolish to make such postings, but Safeway and Kroger, Trader Joe’s, Wegman’s—we’ve I hadn’t done anything that they considered to be got more competition than we’ve ever had before. So against the law. it’s all about how you define the market. They chose reason: One of the ways that you add value is by tracing

40 | reason | January 2010 “They downloaded all my emails and basically treated us as if we were criminals or guilty of some horrible crime for just being successful. It cost us tens of millions of dollars in legal fees and countless hours of management time. We had to prepare millions of documents.”

your foodstuffs from origin to the market to the shelf. and you compete to satisfy those preferences. Why Why are your customers interested in that? judge other people’s choices? If you don’t value that, Mackey: We’re so intimate with food. We eat food, we then you don’t. But other people do value it, and I don’t consume it, it becomes a part of us. Many people are see any good reason to judge it. intensely interested in where the food is grown, how I think that’s what business—every business— it’s grown, what was the farmer’s philosophy. Is it a should do. You’re in business to satisfy the needs, local product? If it’s coming from a Third World devel- desires, of your customers, and if you don’t have that oping nation, is it fairly traded? Is it ethically traded? Is philosophy, you’re not going to be successful. It’s not it organically grown? very good or smart business to be going around judg- If you think about what a retailer is, he’s a middle- ing why people want what they want and telling them man, a broker between the farmer or the producer and that they’re irrational for wanting that. the consumer. So the more information we can provide reason: How you would describe your politics? about how that food is produced, where it comes from, Mackey: I’m a conscious capitalist. I have a great passion what the philosophy of the farmer or the producer is, for capitalism, but the capitalism I see that we need to the better we’re serving our customers. Particularly in evolve in the 21st century is a little bit more conscious an Internet-linked world, where you can provide all of what it is and why it exists. I think capitalism has that information, I really can see over time that all that done a very poor job of branding itself to people. In the information will be available at our stores and online 20th century, we had a great, titanic struggle, and capi- for people so you can get total transparency of the food talism won that struggle. Except it didn’t capture the system. minds of the intellectuals or the hearts of the people. reason: Some critics argue that you are consciously build- I think that’s because it’s done a poor job of marketing ing or catering to some kind of irrationality, or self- itself and branding itself. flattering tendencies, among your customers. What’s I believe in capitalism. I believe in markets. I your response to that? believe in individuals—individual empowerment and Mackey: I don’t completely understand the question. Or if individual choice. So that’s my philosophy of politics. I do understand it, I think it’s an odd question. If peo- reason: Where did that come from? ple want to buy produce that’s locally raised, I don’t Mackey: These ideas have been evolving for me for many understand what would be wrong with that. If it’s years. There are many sources for the ideas, many clas- grown nearby, that food’s going to be incredibly fresh; sical liberal thinkers, from Adam Smith to John Stuart it’s going to be at the peak of nutritional value. There’s Mill, from Friedrich Hayek to Ludwig von Mises, Mil- less transportation mileage, obviously, from where ton Friedman. it was produced to getting into our store and into the The philosophy that I had prior to starting Whole consumer’s stomachs. So I don’t think it’s irrational. Foods was just kind of “business is evil and govern- People have preferences, and the great thing about a ment’s good.” Then I started a business and was try- market system is that there’s a diversity of preferences ing to meet a payroll and realized that a lot of people

reason | January 2010 | 41 “If you ask the ordinary person what the purpose of a business is, they’ll say, ‘Well, it’s to make money.’ Which is kind of a strange answer. Most entrepreneurs I’ve known were pursuing some type of dream, some type of passion.”

thought now I’d become the bad guy because I had So he followed that passion, and obviously he changed become a greedy businessperson. And so I had to the world. throw out my worldview. It might have been Milton It’s not why I started Whole Foods Market, to Friedman’s Free to Choose; that might have been the first make as much money as possible. It was to sell healthy book. Or it might have been Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. food and help people earn a living, do something I felt It’s kind of fuzzy, but I started reading a whole bunch good about. I was on fire about eating healthy food; I of books that are part of the freedom movement, and had passion about that. I read them voraciously. I don’t know the order I read So we become conscious that business has the them in, but somewhere along the line I started read- potential to have a deeper purpose. That is key to this. ing Mises, and I thought his book on socialism and his We’ve created this wall in the world. On the one book on human action were just brilliant. hand, we believe that not-for-profits and government reason: Define “conscious capitalism.” are motivated by a deeper purpose—public service— Mackey: There are three key principles. One is that busi- and then on the other side of this wall, we have corpo- ness has the potential to have a deeper purpose. If you rations and businesses, and they’re motivated strictly ask the ordinary person what the purpose of a business by selfishness and greed. And frankly, most young, is, they’ll say, “Well, it’s to make money.” Which is kind idealistic people are more drawn toward the one that’s of a strange answer, because you don’t get that answer not motivated strictly by selfishness. I just think that’s if you ask what the purpose of a doctor is or what the a false dichotomy. I want to tear that wall down and get purpose of a teacher is or an architect or an engineer or people to see that business is motivated by, or has the any of the other professions, yet they all have to make potential for, a deeper purpose. money. To be a doctor, you can’t operate at a loss, at The second principle of conscious capitalism is least not for very long. that the best way to think about business is in terms Most entrepreneurs I’ve known—and I’ve known of a complex system with stakeholders who are inter- lots of them—none of them started their businesses dependent: customers, employees, suppliers, investors primarily to make money. Instead, they were pursu- in the larger community. If the business flourishes, the ing some type of dream, some type of passion. They individual stakeholders that are trading and exchang- wanted to make the world a different place, or they ing with that business are also going to flourish. Too had an idea that they wanted to test out. Bill Gates much time is spent focusing on the tradeoffs in busi- wouldn’t tell you that he started Microsoft to become ness, the conflicts of interest, rather than the syner- the wealthiest man in the world. He was on fire about gies and the harmony of interest. Capitalism is cre- software and about personal computers, and he could ating value for all of these people, creating value for just see in his mind’s eye that this could be a transfor- customers, creating value for employees by providing mative technology. Everybody could have a computer; jobs, creating values for our society through taxes, can you imagine? When he was doing that in the ’70s, creating value for investors. It’s creating prosperity. It’s that was the utopian idea. Now we take it for granted. wonderful, and yet how poorly we do articulating that.

42 | reason | January 2010 The third principle is a different philosophy of ideas, I’m going to embrace that. I believe people need leadership. What greatly harms the brand of capitalism to think for themselves. is to read about Wall Street executives taking home reason: Who did you vote for in the 2008 election? $100 million or— Mackey: I voted for Bob Barr, Libertarian candidate. Ron reason: Aren’t they worth it? Paul didn’t get the Republican nomination, regretfully. Mackey: I don’t think markets are largely deciding that. I reason: How do you think the 21st century is going? think you’ve got a rigged game here, and I could go Mackey: Well, entrepreneurs tend to be very optimistic into that in some detail if you want to. An organization people, and I’m a very optimistic person. I never would has to think about not only compensation in terms of have started a business if I wasn’t. the external equity, what other competitors might be If you just watch the news at night or read reports paying, but also internal equity, what everybody else on all the things that are going wrong, you can really in the organization is getting paid, and you have to bal- become frightened with all the problems that are out ance that out. Leadership should be serving the deeper there. I do think we have enormous challenges right purpose of the business. now. You’ve got to make a distinction between the I don’t think the government should be determin- short term and the long term, because I think things ing that, by the way. move in spirals, and if you look at a spiral, sometimes reason: Do you pay yourself? it loops back on itself. It’s kind of like it takes three Mackey: I have paid myself, but right now I’ve cut my sal- steps forward and one step back. In some ways, I think ary to a dollar a year. we’re taking a step back right now, but I’ve got great reason: It’s useful, especially when you’re under fire for hope that we’ll take three steps forward over the next being a greedy capitalist who smashes unions with his several years. boot heel, to say, “I pay myself one dollar.” It’s very dis- I feel like I’ve been in the jungle with a machete arming. hacking out a path for organic food, conscious capital- Mackey: Well, it fits into that third principle of conscious ism, the freedom movement, animal welfare, all the capitalism, that the leader should be serving the pur- different causes I’m involved in. And sometimes peo- pose of the business. By not taking any money, it’s ple come up and they say, gosh, haven’t you gotten any pretty obvious that I’m not trying to get as much further? I mean, they’re driving up an air-conditioned money out of the company as I can. I mean, I was a co- SUV to where I’m still in the jungle hacking away.… founder. I have enough money. I’m not superwealthy I like the quote by Michelangelo. He said, “Criti- the way Bill Gates or Steven Jobs is, but I have plenty cize through creating.” It’s easy to be a critic. It’s much of money. On Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs,” once harder to create something. I always want to encour- you get past a certain point, money is less satisfying age young people to take their passion for making the and other needs—self-esteem, self-actualization, self- world a better place and channel it to help us create transcendence—become more important. So I would new solutions to our challenges. say it’s good for the morale of our organization that the I’ve devoted my life to trying to build a business CEO only makes a dollar a year. that makes a difference in people’s lives and in the reason: Do you have any political team that you root for? not-for-profit world, in ways that I think also serve Mackey: A political team? It’s funny that you would say that. our society and culture. So I’m optimistic, because I’ve I think part of the polarization that exists in America is seen how much progress we’ve made. If we can just that people try to size you up for what team you’re on. get people to become more conscious about what capi- If you’re on their team, they love you, and if you’re the talism is, because I think capitalism is a tremendous other team, they hate you. force for positive change in the world, and take the col- I’m not on either one of the big teams. I really feel lective human intelligence and creativity and begin to like I’m independent. I think for myself. If there are channel it in constructive ways, there’s really no limit good ideas that the left or liberals or Democrats have, to where humanity will be in the 21st century. r then I’m going to embrace those ideas. If there are good ideas that Republicans or conservatives have, I’m going to embrace those ideas. If libertarians have good

reason | January 2010 | 43 Columns: Ronald Bailey Markets, Not Mandates What would real health care reform look like?

While congressional reform efforts screech could purchase insurance at reasonable prices and shudder along, let’s take a moment to dream in the future. about real health care reform. Imagine a system Such policies are available already. The that is genuinely transparent, competitive, and online clearinghouse eHealthInsurance pulls driven by consumers. a quote of $131 per month from Anthem Blue Right now, thanks to incentives built into Cross Blue Shield for a single 55-year-old the tax code, patients are locked into the health male with a $3,000 annual deductible, no co- plans their employers choose. Consequently, payment after the deductible, reasonable phar- most of us don’t have a clue what our health maceutical benefits, and lifetime maximum insurance and health care cost. We have no way benefits of $7 million, with an option for health to reduce those costs and no incentive to do so savings accounts. (With such accounts, consum- even if we could. Worse yet, it’s precisely when ers make annual tax-deductible contributions, you need the system the most that it fails you. then take tax-free withdrawals to pay for unin- In the words of the Princeton economist Uwe sured medical costs.) That was the cheapest Reinhardt, “when you’re down on your luck, plan, but more than 80 other insurance policies you’re unemployed, you lose your insurance.… were available. As deductibles went down, of Only the devil could ever have invented such a course, the prices went up. system.” So the first step toward real reform is to A lot of routine care could be handled through give consumers responsibility for procuring retail health clinics located in shopping malls, their own insurance. The laws undergirding the drug store chains, and megastores. Such centers third-party payment system must be dismantled, would be staffed not with physicians but with allowing the money employers spend for insur- nurse practitioners or other qualified person- ance to be converted into additional income for nel. Consumers generally would pay for routine, the employee. This would immediately inject everyday transactions directly out of their health cost consciousness into insurance decisions. savings accounts. Competition would also reveal more medi- What would the results look like? It’s impos- cal information. Even in our stunted market- sible to predict all the specifics, but here’s one place, Angie’s List allows consumers to submit partial vision of what markets might bring us. reports about their experiences with physicians. The typical American might purchase In a real health care market, sources of informa- high-deductible insurance policies that cover tion for comparison shopping would proliferate, expensive treatments for chronic diseases such just as there are now dozens of publications as heart disease, cancer, AIDS, diabetes, and devoted to comparing the features and prices of multiple sclerosis, as well as the catastrophic cars, computers, guns, and vacations. A corps of consequences of accidents. Coverage would also savvy shoppers in the health care market will include expensive treatments such as heart sur- mean better price and quality comparisons for gery, organ transplants, dialysis, and radiation everyone. therapy. In addition, we’d be able to buy health For a hint of what free market medical shop- status insurance that would guarantee that we ping might be like, check out the California gov-

44 | reason | January 2010 ernment’s admittedly clunky website and suburbs filled with ranch houses, suitable treatments. Prostate cancer for comparing the costs of common Tudors, and Cape Cods. Competition patients can evaluate and choose surgeries. Browsing there reveals that in medicine would force physicians, between options such as watchful the price of a heart valve replacement hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, waiting, various radiation therapies, varies from $72,000 to $368,000, and other practitioners to figure out surgery, and, soon, a new biotech while angioplasty runs from $9,000 ways to reduce costs. Perhaps a medi- immunological treatment. Informa- to $204,000. Other sites, such as cal general contractor model would tion gathering would take no more newchoicehealth.com, enable con- prove most effective at lowering costs, time than the current wait for a fol- sumers to shop for relatively routine but why not let some people go a dif- low-up appointment. procedures such as colonoscopies, ferent route? As medical care becomes ever laparoscopic hernia repair, and MRI Gawande argues that consum- more affordable, the government scans. A colonoscopy in Washington, ers are not in a position to negotiate could dismantle its medical entitle- D.C., for instance, could cost any- prices. Quoting the Texas cardiolo- ment programs—Medicaid, SCHIP, where from $580 to $1,386. gist Lester Dyke, he tries to imagine and Medicare—and instead provide how an elderly woman might bargain vouchers directly to the poor, who Would health care be cheaper as over bypass surgery. “Who comes could then purchase health insurance well? President Barack Obama up with this stuff?” Dyke asked him. and health care in the private market. famously read the surgeon Atul “Any plan that relies on the sheep to Hardly anyone in Washington is Gawande’s June 2009 New Yorker negotiate with the wolves is doomed interested in such changes. If a health article “The Cost Conundrum,” to failure.” care bill does pass this session, it will which argues that medical costs are probably make the system worse, high because incentives are skewed But Gawande and Dyke miss the not better. But if Obama’s top-down toward providing ever more treat- crucial point: Markets force the proposals collapse, perhaps they will ment so physicians can earn more wolves to compete among them- open up a policy discussion about money. Gawande analogizes health selves. Physicians would vie with one how markets, not mandates, can care to building a house without a another for clients, pushing down improve health care and reduce its general contractor. Without someone costs. Competition would also give costs. A man can dream. r keeping an eye on what’s really neces- doctors more of an incentive to pro- sary or desirable, home buyers might vide patients with good information Ronald Bailey ([email protected]) is reason’s science correspondent. well pay an electrician for every outlet about the effectiveness of various he recommends, a plumber for every treatments. Dyke’s hypotheti- faucet, and so forth. Doctors get paid cal heart patient would be in for each procedure they recommend. a much better position to con- Curing patients becomes an inciden- sider the risks, benefits, and tal side effect of their treatments. costs of bypass surgery, stent- Gawande gets the diagnosis right, ing, pharmaceuticals, and/ but he botches his prescription, call- or stem cells for treating her ing for the government to impose disease. such a general-contractor model. But Opponents of markets in cost-conscious contractors exist in the health care worry that patients housing market because of consumer in extremis will be in no posi- demand, not government mandate. tion to make such decisions. Similarly, consumer choices have But the slow progress of the driven the housing market to create kind of chronic illnesses that a huge variety of options, includ- are driving up health care costs, ing high-rise condominiums, gated such as cancer and coronary communities, rental apartments, artery disease, allows consum-

© Miroslaw Pieprzyk/iStockphoto © Miroslaw manufactured housing, townhouses, ers time to shop around for

reason | January 2010 | 45 Columns: Radley Balko The Criminalization of Protest Police and politicians ignore the First Amendment when we need it the most.

I’ve lived in the Washington, D.C., area for unmarked car, apprehend a young backpack- the better part of the last 10 years. So I’ve seen wearing protester, stuff him into the car, and my share of demonstrations, although more drive off. The sequence evoked the “disappear- often than not I just try to avoid the traffic ances” associated with Latin American dicta- nightmares they cause. Among the various torships or Soviet Bloc countries. When Matt classes of protests—pro-life, anti-war, environ- Drudge linked to the video, he described the mental, and now tea parties—the most destruc- officers in it as members of the military. They tive are the anti-globalization marches. So when weren’t, but it’s easy to understand how some- cops clashed with anti-globalization demonstra- one might make that mistake. tors at the Pittsburgh G-20 summit in Septem- In another video, members of a police unit ber, it was easy to assume that most of the alter- from Chicago who took vacation time to work at cations represented justified police responses to the summit prop up a handcuffed protester and overzealous protesters. gather behind him. Another officer then snaps But a number of disturbing photographs, what appears to be a trophy photo. Two men in videos, and witness accounts told a differ- faraway Queens were arrested for posting the ent story. Along with similar evidence from locations of riot police on Twitter, as though other recent high-stakes political events, they they were revealing the location of troops on reveal an increasing, disquieting willingness to a battlefield. Another video shows dozens of smother even peaceful dissent. police in full body armor confronting and even- On the Friday afternoon before the G-20 tually macing onlookers (who weren’t even meeting kicked into high gear, a student at protesters) in the neighborhood of Oakland, far the University of Pittsburgh snapped a photo from the site of the summit, as a recorded voice showing a University of Pittsburgh police orders any and all to disperse. Students at the officer directing traffic at a roadblock. What’s University of Pittsburgh claim cops fired tear troubling is what he’s wearing: camouflage mili- gas canisters into dorm rooms, used sound can- tary fatigues. It’s difficult to discern a practical nons, and shot bean bags and rubber bullets. reason why a man working for an urban police The most egregious actions took place on department would need to wear camouflage, September 25, when police began ordering especially while patrolling an economic sum- students who were in public spaces to disperse mit. He’s a civilian dressed like a soldier. The despite the fact that they had broken no laws. symbolism is clear, and it affects the attitudes Those who moved too slowly, even from public of both the cops wearing the clothes and the spaces on their own campus or in front of their people they’re policing. dorms, were arrested. A university spokesman said the aim was to break up crowds that “had The campus cop wasn’t alone. Members of the potential of disrupting normal activities.” police departments from across the country Apparently a group of people needn’t actually came to Pittsburgh to help during the summit, break any laws to be put in jail. They must only most of them dressed in paramilitary garb. In possess the “potential” to do so, at which point one widely circulated video, several officers not moving quickly enough for the cops’ lik- dressed entirely in camouflage emerge from an ing could result in an arrest. That standard is a

46 | reason | January 2010 license for the police to arrest anyone values free expression and consti- delegates or media representatives anywhere in the city at any time, tutional rights but of one willing to could hear them, surrounded by two regardless of whether they’ve done grant police powers normally seen in walls of riot police who outnumbered anything wrong. In all, 190 people authoritarian states. them at least 2 to 1. Denver’s police were arrested during the summit, This projection of overwhelming union later issued a commemorative including at least two journalists. force at big events is becoming more T-shirt of the event emblazoned with common. At last year’s Republican an illustration of a menacing cop It can’t be easy to both keep order National Convention in Minneapolis, wielding a baton and the slogan, “We and protect civil liberties at such police conducted peremptory raids get up early to beat the crowds.” events. But that doesn’t mean on the homes of protesters before the police and city officials shouldn’t be convention began. In all, 672 people The trend may have started at the expected to try. Yes, some protesters were jailed, including at least 39 jour- 1999 World Trade Organization sum- damaged some property at the G-20 nalists. According to the Minneapolis mit in Seattle, which saw both actual summit, although there wasn’t much Star-Tribune, 442 of those 672 later rioting and police overkill. Mayor of that this time around. But the pres- had their charges either dropped or Paul Schell not only declared a state ence of a few unruly demonstrators dismissed. of emergency, imposed a curfew, and doesn’t give the police carte blanche Four years before that, more than designated swaths of the city “no-pro- to crack down on every young person 1,800 people were arrested at the pre- test” zones; he actually banned civil- in the general vicinity, nor should it vious Republican National Conven- ian possession of gas masks. Police give the city free rein to suppress all tion in New York City. Ninety percent then gassed entire city blocks. The public protest. It’s unfortunate that were never charged with a crime. victims included many owners of the when the global press and the leaders One notorious photo from the 2008 stores the police were ostensibly pro- of the world’s 20 largest economies Democratic National Convention in tecting from looters. Assistant Police came to Pittsburgh, the images that Denver shows a small mass of pro- Chief Ed Joiner, who was in charge emerged were not of a society that testers, zoned far off from where any of security for the event, would later tell reporters that future summits should be held only in destina- tions with military governments. These are precisely the kinds of events where free speech and the freedom to protest need pro- tection the most: when influential figures make high-level decisions with far-reaching consequences. Instead, we see the opposite. The higher the event’s profile, the more powerful the players involved, and the more important the decisions being made, the more determined police and poli- ticians are to make sure dissent is kept as far away from the VIPs as possible. Or silenced entirely. r

Radley Balko ([email protected]) is a senior editor at reason. Pittsburgh G-20 summit, © Flickr user Chris Bail Chris user © Flickr summit, G-20 Pittsburgh

reason | January 2010 | 47

Culture and Reviews

Beyond Pleasantville Permissiveness wasn’t born in the ’60s. Jesse Walker

The Permissive Society: America, 1941–1965, rights oratory and modern art; on went a rapid and radical change long by Alan Petigny, New York: Cambridge Univer- the soundtrack, we hear the rocka- before the love-ins. sity Press, 312 pages, $24.99 billy of Gene Vincent and Elvis Pres- ley, the jazz of Miles Davis and Dave Take sex. Several statistics may ini- Was any movie of the 1990s as Brubeck, the soulful blues of Etta tially seem to support a portrait of misunderstood as Pleasantville? A James. None of those were imported the ’50s as a time of coital conserva- fantasy film about a pair of modern from the ’90s. All were available, and tism. The number of shotgun mar- teens who enter the world of a 1950s in many cases created, in the ’50s and riages increased while the number suburban sitcom, the story was widely early ’60s, the very period that pro- of divorces came down; women had construed as a critique of the ’50s duced the sitcoms lampooned in the more children and married at an themselves. The Pleasantville of Pleas- film.Pleasantville doesn’t contrast the earlier age. There are other numbers, antville seems perfect at first, but it repressed ’50s with the liberated ’90s. though, that complicate this picture turns out to be sterile and conformist. It contrasts the faux ’50s of our TV- considerably, starting with the rate of After the kids from the ’90s arrive, fueled nostalgia with the social fer- single motherhood, which increased the town is jarred into embracing the ment that was actually taking place dramatically at the same time. Since wider world of sex and self-expres- while those sanitized shows first this happened even as women were sion. aired. marrying younger and contraception The critics didn’t agree as to Alan Petigny, a reporter turned was becoming more acceptable, the whether the picture was any good, historian who teaches at the Univer- implication is, in Petigny’s words, that but they were nearly unanimous sity of Florida, examines how deep “the overall frequency of premarital when it came to saying what the story that ferment went in The Permissive sex was rising so briskly during the was about. Jonathan Rosenbaum Society, an important new study of Truman and Eisenhower years it was called it a tale of “the 90s bringing the postwar period. The Truman and able to overcome the suppressive life and spirit to the 50s.” Janet Mas- Eisenhower eras, he writes, were effects of birth control, and still force lin wrote that it featured “teens from marked by “an unprecedented chal- illegitimacy to soar.” the ’90s…awakening the benighted lenge to traditional moral restraints.” Note that this shift began before it ’50s types from their slumber.” Roger Petigny isn’t referring to a bohemian started to be reflected in popular cul- Ebert declared that it “encourages us subculture or to rock ’n’ roll rebel- ture. The debut of Playboy in 1953 may to re-evaluate the good old days and lion: There are only a few scattered have been a watershed moment in the take a fresh look at the new world we references to beatniks in this book, sexual revolution, but it didn’t spark so easily dismiss as decadent.” and its discussion of pop music that revolution. “Placing changes The trouble is, the apparently devotes more space to Pat Boone in sexual behavior after those in the alien influences that gradually infect than to Elvis Presley. Petigny is talk- consumer culture—or, in other words, Pleasantville don’t hail from the ing about the great American middle, putting Elvis or Hefner before mass future. The townspeople encounter whose values in areas ranging from changes in behavior—essentially puts

, © New Line Cinema/Ralph Nelson/Newscom , © New Line Cinema/Ralph Pleasantville J.D. Salinger and D.H. Lawrence, civil child rearing to religious piety under- the cart before the horse,” Petigny

reason | January 2010 | 49 Briefly Noted writes. “The crucial distinction between the fif- tator was as likely to be a woman as ties and sixties lay in word, not in deed. During a man.) This pattern appeared in the the 1960s, Americans were simply more willing working class as well as the middle to acknowledge the extracurricular activities of class, in rural areas as well as cities. their youth than they had been during the pre- And it was on the rise, with couples vious decade.” (Journalists frequently cite the increasingly likely to prefer partner- introduction of the birth control pill in 1960 as ship to patriarchy. the moment that made ’60s sexuality possible, At the same time, more women but Petigny makes a reasonable case that more went to college. Religious groups time passed before the pill was widely used by were more receptive to female lead- unmarried women.) ership. Even politics, that eternally Free Parking lagging indicator, saw women elected The horse-crowded streets hen there’s the American family. Here again, to office in greater numbers. All this of New York City in the 1880s Tthe normal narrative claims the postwar came before—indeed, paved the way ran with 4 million pounds of years were marked by cultural conservatism. for—the feminist revolts of the sub- manure and 40,000 gallons The period is bookended on one side by Rosie sequent decades. “The primary chal- of urine every day. The car res- the Riveter, when the wartime shortage of man- lenge to the subservience of women cued us from the flood. Even as power led to a proliferation of women in the came not from the culture’s periph- Americans used the vehicles workplace, and on the other side by the feminist ery but from its very core,” Petigny to flee to newly viable suburbs, movement of the late ’60s and the ’70s. It’s easy argues, “not from pockets of resis- we continued to honor our to dismiss that space in-between as a time of tance but from the larger culture,” chrome gods with temples in resurgent male domination. with “conservative, churchgoing, and, the cities that they saved from Petigny tells a different story. Citing a series not infrequently, suburban” ladies fecal oblivion. of sociological studies and marketing surveys, in the lead. Throw in Dr. Spock’s “House of Cars: Innova- he finds that families built around an “equalitar- extremely influential 1946 book of tion and the Parking Garage” ian” model, in which “each spouse was allotted child rearing advice, with its push (October 17, 2009–July 11, roughly equal power in making family deci- for parents to respect the autonomy 2010) at the National Building sions,” were about twice as common as families of their children, and you had a full- Museum in Washington, D.C., in which one person ruled the roost. (Where fledged familial revolution in the age collects images, models, and one spouse did wear the pants, the domestic dic- of Father Knows Best. films of these holy places. Once cars were weak. They needed shelter with walls, heat, and minions to tend them. But then the vehicles grew stronger, fac- ing the elements in open-sided concrete garages with only their owners to whisk them up ramps or onto lifts. Lektropark, Park-o- Mat, File-A-Way, and Circ-L-Park became part of the American landscape as human civic inge- nuity found ways to manage the inconvenience of moving about in a valuable, space-consuming machine. —Katherine Mangu- Ward ZipCar Dispenser proposal. Courtesy Moskow Linn Architects Inc. Linn Architects Moskow Courtesy proposal. Dispenser ZipCar detail) (cover Society The Permissive

50 | reason | January 2010 DD_Reason_twothirdpage_11-02 10/30/09 12:21 PM Page 1

The changes extended to religious faith as well. Over the course of the NEW IN PAPERBACK ’50s, American churches grew more tolerant of gambling, dancing, film- Levy and Mellor, in this going, and failing to honor the Sab- “

bath. Pastors increasingly turned to excellent examination of twelve

psychologists and psychiatrists for far–reaching Supreme Court cases, lessons in guiding their flocks, and in the process let a host of humanist force readers to question the direction“ ideas enter their churches. in which the judiciary has led our How far did the secular influence go? “For a minister or minister-in- country over the past century. training to graduate from the [Coun- — Publishers Weekly cil for Clinical Training’s] pastoral counseling program,” Petigny points out, “an independent, secular psychi- The values of the Ameri- can postwar middle class underwent a rapid and rad- ical change, in areas rang- ing from child rearing to religious piety, long before the love-ins. atric institute first had to certify that the student had acquired some mea- sure of proficiency in the fundamen- tals of modern psychiatry. In practical terms, this meant a para-religious organization had granted secular experts the prerogative to prevent aspiring clerics from advancing in their studies.” Meanwhile, with the rise of ecumenicism, abstract piety took precedence over the prescriptions of The Dirty Dozen is an unprecedented analysis of cases that changed particular denominations. The early American history. Coauthors Robert Levy of the Cato Institute and outlines of the modern Church of William Mellor of the Institute for Justice reveal their ongoing Oprah, the feel-good faith in doing impact on free speech, economic liberty, property rights, and more. what works for you, can be seen in this period. As President Eisenhower PAPERBACK: $9.95 himself put it, “Our form of govern- WITH A NEW PREFACE ment makes no sense unless it is founded on a deeply felt religious BY THE AUTHORS faith, and I don’t care what it is.” Then as now, many churchmen Buy your copy at bookstores nationwide, call 800-767-1241, or visit Cato.org. ZipCar Dispenser proposal. Courtesy Moskow Linn Architects Inc. Linn Architects Moskow Courtesy proposal. Dispenser ZipCar detail) (cover Society The Permissive

reason | January 2010 | 51 Briefly Noted fought such trends, but it’s revealing to see just of repressive rules. In Chauncey’s how much the right-wing resistance was will- words, “the state built a closet in the ing to accept even as it drew lines in the sand. 1930s and forced gay people to hide The religious conservatives of the ’30s and ’40s, in it.” Petigny notes, would react with “shock and What’s more, the repression of disapproval” to figures such as Pat Robertson gay sexuality was driven not merely and the late Jerry Falwell, “whose universities by religious intolerance but by psy- boast departments of psychology, whose min- chiatry, one of the forces Petigny istries speak of the persistent consumption of credits for the move toward the per- pornography as ‘addictions,’ and in the case of missive society. Gay Americans faced Robertson, whose school’s shops are wide open the risk not just of being jailed for Pulp Revisionism for business on Sunday.” their orientation but of undergoing Crime novelist James Ellroy electroshock, nausea-inducing “aver- says his books are about “bad or the most part, Petigny is persuasive. As sion therapy,” even lobotomy. With white men, doing bad things Frevisionist as his account might appear time, of course, mainstream psychia- in the name of authority.” His today, many conservatives sounded similar try and psychology would radically latest, Blood’s a Rover, deals notes as the changes were happening around revise their beliefs about homosexual with the baddest of them all: them. When the media hyped hippies in the late behavior. You can make a case that the government. The final 1960s, for example, National Review, the flag- this turn, like so many others, began volume in Ellroy’s acclaimed ship organ of the right, observed that “society in the ’50s. But the important point Underworld USA Trilogy, which does not aggrandize that which truly threatens isn’t the state of homophobia in the includes American Tabloid it.” Denying that the counterculture was really a Eisenhower era. It’s the fact that secu- (1995) and The Cold Six Thou- rebellion against the dominant American ethos, lar authorities can be coercive too. sand (2001), Blood’s a Rover the magazine declared that “bigotry, prurience At the beginning of the book, is a conspiracy-driven, blood- and authoritarianism no longer characterize Petigny mentions one way America spattered alternate history of the American middle class; it is on the contrary has changed in the last half-century: America from 1968 to 1972. more likely to be college-bred, progressive and Where once a man might “walk into a Focused in part on J. Edgar dogmatically broad-minded.” Petigny deepens drugstore to buy a pack of cigarettes— Hoover’s deranged attempts our understanding of this change, and he puts and timidly ask to be slipped a pack to destroy the black liberation it in a larger historical context, arguing that the of prophylactics,” these days “the movement after Martin Luther social transformation began in the 19th century, procedure is precisely the reverse.” In King’s assassination (at the quickened after World War II, and continued effect, The Permissive Society tells the hands of Hoover’s FBI, in Ell- after the ’60s were through. tale of the condoms while neglecting roy’s telling), the book features That said, his portrait of a steady shift the cigarettes. But the descent of a a gallery of crooked pols, psy- toward greater social tolerance conceals some new social taboo—and, along with it, chopathic feds, trigger-happy complications. For example, as he briefly new legal restrictions—suggests that mobsters, and corrupt union observes, the ’50s saw a Cold War–fueled permissiveness is not the same thing officials, all involved in a web crackdown on homosexuality. Petigny notes as liberty. The term suggests a master of state-sanctioned violence some countervailing trends—the growth of gay loosening a leash, not an individual and deceit. As Ellroy told enclaves, the earliest stirrings of the modern gay charting his own course. At one point National Public Radio, “I get to rights movement—but by focusing on the ’50s Petigny argues that the rise of the rewrite American history to my he misses a larger truth: The status of sexual disease model of addiction reflected own specification, assassinate minorities actually regressed in the middle of the rise of permissiveness, since the political leaders, suffer nervous the 20th century. George Chauncey’s 1994 book perspective’s proponents “viewed breakdowns, have a blast, Gay New York describes a lively and visible urban the self as essentially innocent, the use the grooviest drugs of the homosexual subculture that flourished a cen- victim of a disease process beyond its era, and no one gets hurt.” tury ago but went into decline in the Depression own control and causation.” But the

—Damon Root years, as the authorities enforced a new wave idea also suggests a loss of personal detail) (cover a Rover Blood’s

52 | reason | January 2010 responsibility, and a government’s on the self,” an idea that surfaced applied them in their lives. The result right to forcibly liberate its subjects as a celebration of spontaneity and was a vast cultural transformation, from the habits that enslave them. authenticity and a deep distrust both for better and for worse, with of conformity. The flipside of this effects everywhere from the pulpit to Petigny challenges the idea that the individualist ideal was the fear of the movie screen. 1950s were a time of moral panics, an anthill society, an uneasiness so It even surfaced in sitcoms. arguing that the mass phobias histori- pervasive that it infected both the Petigny mentions an episode of Leave ans find in the decade—McCarthyism, supporters and the opponents of the It to Beaver in which June Cleaver the crusade against comic books, the Cold War. It’s often said that the 1956 frets about her older son’s new hair- heightened fear of “sex deviants,” filmInvasion of the Body Snatchers— style. She doesn’t force him to change the exaggerated threat of juvenile one of the central pop-culture texts his hair, and the school principal delinquency—were not “the product of the decade, a picture that spawned refuses to intervene, telling the mom of mass paranoia” because “the social countless imitations—can be read that the way a kid combs his hair is crusaders who sought to uphold the as a critique of either communism “one of the first forms of self-expres- traditional moral order seemed to or McCarthyism. Fewer people note sion.” In the end, the boy rejects the have a greater awareness of moral the corollary: that the opposition to style on his own. change than the majority of scholars both communism and McCarthyism “The most notable feature” of the who write about the 1950s today.” He fed on the same dread that animated episode, Petigny concludes, is “the has a point, but he takes it too far: The the movie, a horror at the thought nonauthoritarian approach of the scares may have been rooted in real of being swallowed by the conform- adults.” Even in Pleasantville, there social changes, but that doesn’t mean ist collective. The same individualist was more to life than Pleasantville. r people weren’t paranoid or panick- anxiety surfaced in the work of writ- ing. As Petigny himself acknowledges, ers as diverse as William Burroughs, Jesse Walker ([email protected]) is the managing editor of reason. the people who embraced such scape- Ayn Rand, and Jean-Paul Sartre; it goat theories were “boxing at shad- appeared in intellectual critiques of ows,” swinging “wildly—even blindly “mass man” and in worries that sub- —praying that someway, somehow, urbia would become a Pleasantville- News You Don’t something would connect.” style dystopia. If America was becom- More important, it wasn’t just ing more tolerant and permissive, Hear Anywhere conservatives who were paranoid. one reason was that Americans were Petigny calls the efforts to censor increasingly afraid of the alternative. Else comic books “clumsy responses to the rise of progressive parenting and similar set of fears and hopes was Silver to $200 the decline of patriarchal authority.” Apresent in humanist psychol- But the chief crusader against comics, ogy, an individualist and egalitarian Gold to $5,000 Fredric Wertham, wasn’t a reaction- approach to therapy that was influen- Dow to 4,000 ary. He was a left-wing psychiatrist tial in the postwar years. The human- with feminist sympathies. Like the ists were analysts seeing voluntary doctors who offered modern, secular, clients, not asylum keepers admin- WWW.ECONOMICRANT.COM supposedly rational reasons to muti- istering snake pits; their legacy was late gay patients’ brains, Wertham much more libertarian than, say, Fre- • Weimar hyperinflation coming was a sign that the new order was dric Wertham’s. But you can’t always still quite capable of moral authori- disentangle those authoritarian and • Free twice monthly Newsletter tarianism. anti-authoritarian threads in the real Not that you needed to be a moral world. Both sets of ideas mixed freely • That’s right — Free as in free authoritarian to participate in the in the great American mainstream, • Funny and informative paranoia of the period. Petigny shows as ordinary people absorbed differ- that the ’50s saw a “new emphasis ent lessons from different places and

reason | January 2010 | 53 Briefly Noted Nader Shrugged Nader himself has called “Only The anti-corporate crusader tries to the Super-Rich Can Save Us!” his write an Ayn Rand novel. “response to Atlas Shrugged,” and the books do line up in enough ways to Joseph Mailander invite extended comparison. They’re both national in scope, portraying a “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!” by Ralph Nader, New York: Seven Stories Press, New York, 733 pages, $27.50 dystopic America that can be saved only by daring captains of industry From the Orange County chapters of the led by a corporate swashbuckler. Lincoln Club to the interior pages of The New (Nader’s John Galt stand-in is War- York Times and The Wall Street Journal, it’s been ren Buffett.) In both books, character Capitalism: Not Just for a good year for Ayn Rand and especially Atlas development often runs to caricature, the Rich Anymore Shrugged. Fifty-two years after her book’s publi- and “dialogues” turn into exhausting Michael Moore’s latest movie, cation, Rand’s hero John Galt is still shaping the economic manifestos. In both books, Capitalism: A Love Story, tries American political landscape. immense, moralizing speeches sug- to link foreclosed homes, Across the tracks from Atlas Shrugged, gest an author pulling strings rather underpaid pilots, judges another American icon with a politically incen- than investing the characters with sending kids to juvie hall in diary reputation, Ralph Nader, has been qui- ideas of their own. And both books exchange for payoffs, and dead etly working on a book of his own during the killed a lot of timber, though Nader’s workers whose employers col- better part of the last decade. “Only the Super- 733 pages are a backstretch breeze lected on life insurance. It’s a Rich Can Save Us!” takes 17 of our best-known compared to any edition you may package meant to indict private plutocrats—people like Bill Cosby, Ted Turner, have of Rand’s magnum opus. property and free markets as, Phil Donahue, and Yoko Ono—and puts them in the words of a priest inter- on a path to American and global domination he first great hint that Nader will viewed in the film, “contrary to through a method antithetical to that of Atlas Tfall short in the comparison is that all that’s good.” Shrugged: unvarnished social altruism. These 17 the author feels obliged to hedge on Moore doesn’t notice that come to be known as the “Meliorists”: people the question of whether he is writing two of his framing anecdotes— who are making things better. a work of fiction at all. “This book,” man doesn’t pay debt on house writes Nader in the author’s note, “is and has it occupied by bank, not a novel. Nor is it nonfiction. It business doesn’t pay wages it might be described as a ‘practical uto- owes and has factory occupied pia.’ ” Indeed, the text is more wishful by workers—are the same in thinking than novel on nearly every justice and logic. His real point page, ultimately making it more farci- is that people richer than you cal even than fiction can be. (not than him, necessarily) The slightest of cultural moorings must be punished, somehow. could have helped the book along. He loses his whole game Rand, for all her pedantry, always when he asks a woman from aspires to be the best friend of the the factory why the workers creative artist, and sometimes even don’t form a co-op and run it of the reader, and this comes as a themselves. They don’t have relief, especially for the nonbelievers. money, she explains; they Culturally, Nader is tone-deaf, even aren’t capitalists. That’s a ben- illiterate, a quality that makes reading efit the wealthy provide to the his book like watching an accident;

working man that Moore won’t you know it’s going to be awful, and detail) image (publicity acknowledge. —Brian Doherty it remains awful, but you helplessly (c0ver detail) (c0ver Us!” Save Can the Super-Rich “Only watch anyway. Capitalism

54 | reason | January 2010 In Super-Rich, for instance, a character named Luke Skyhi (sorry, reason no choice but to report it) describes a Free Minds and Free Markets media event where “a quartet of jazz vocalists broke into the theme song A Notice To Our Yoko had composed for the glorious Subscribers weekend, ‘If It Takes Forever, I Will From time to time, our Wait For You, but the Polar Bears free minds subscriber list is rented to Won’t.’ ” This is so absurd on so many others. We carefully screen levels that it may take forever to list those to whom we rent them all, but chief among them must free markets our list and try only to rent be that ’60s icon Yoko, an artist whose to those whose offers we believe may interest our enormous wealth derives from the cool stuff subscribers. If you do not particulars of royalty contracts and wish to have your name song ownership, knows better than to included on our rental list, desecrate any well-known music. simply let us know by writ- go to reason.com/ ing us at: As that example suggests, it is cul- stuff.shtml to see turally—musically, environmentally, reason reason t-shirts, 3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd. even horticulturally—that Nader bel- sweatshirts, mugs, Suite 400 ly-flops. He shows almost no acumen caps, and more. Los Angeles, CA 90034 for anything either cultural or natural Attn: List rentals and even politicizes nature itself. On Rand’s third page, we encounter something of nature: an oak tree. It’s a symbol: It has been struck by light- ning and revealed to have a hollow core. Well played. I don’t remember encountering a single species of tree in all of Nader’s 733 pages. In lieu of nature, we encounter sentences like this: “Morning found the early risers strolling through the hotel’s lush gar- dens, which were alive with colorful bird life.” I picture Nader in Hawaii with a rumpled suit, barely touching the tropics at all, strolling through a very domesticated tropical hotel garden, thinking, “Wow, a colorful bird.” To the ceaselessly self-absorbed man, genus and species cease to mat- ter. This incuriosity is the product of a lifetime of relentless self-promotion, of hotel rooms and broadcast booths and hired time at the National Press

(publicity image detail) image (publicity Club, fighting the good fight. As in his thorny political career, (c0ver detail) (c0ver Us!” Save Can the Super-Rich “Only Capitalism Capitalism Nader’s fantasies for America so often

reason | January 2010 | 55 Briefly Noted amount to solipsistic goofiness that the cease- greatest capitalist tool of all: a cal- less suspensions of disbelief become part of the culator. Buying three seats on Wal- entertainment. You ultimately feel like you’re Mart’s board? In real life, this kind stuck in a room not with any of his characters, of hostile takeover would require or even a book at all, but only with Nader him- more than a year’s time, some ambi- self; you’re thinking that these hours you spend tious proxy votes that all turned out together will be insufferable and horrifying but favorably, and at least $30 billion for also something worth telling your friends about the stock itself, a steep price even enduring. Did I tell you that in the conclusion for billionaires. For $30 billion, you to an eight-page speech, Meliorist George Soros could hire 100,000 professional labor quotes Nader’s father? It is sweet, but nothing organizers at $100,000 a year for Boo Santa more brands this work as not only a practical three-year contracts—25 top organiz- Wharton economist Joel Wald- utopia but Ralph Nader’s practical utopia. ers per American store, or one for fogel has written a pocket-sized Even the character names Nader invents are every 15 Wal-Mart employees. But in book, the kind you grab at the mostly sophomoric wheezes on other notables. Nader’s fantasy, this is simply how register at Borders on impulse. There is a bloated right-wing blabbermouth The book takes 17 of our Published just in time for the named Bush Bimbaugh, identified as the king of Christmas season, Scroog- shout radio; another broadcaster is called Pawn best-known plutocrats— enomics: Why You Shouldn’t Vanity. When there is nobody in particular to people like Bill Cosby, Ted Buy Presents for the Holidays lampoon, the names are often tritely alliterative: Turner, and Yoko Ono—and (Princeton), isn’t bad. Or, as Lancelot Lobo, Michelle Mirables, Roland Rev- joins them on a crusade Waldfogel would say, the dead- elie, Wardman Wise. The chairman of the House weight loss of getting this book Transportation Committee is Harry Horizon. antithetical to that of Atlas as a gift would be less than you There is a CEO named Cumbersome and a sena- Shrugged: unvarnished might expect. tor named Crabgrass, bringing to mind a post- social altruism. Waldfogel calculates the modern Pilgrim’s Progress. total value destruction of billionaires do things, without much Christmas at about $12 bil- f Nader’s novel has one character with human thought for cost, time, or ROI. lion a year, combining holiday Iqualities, it is Sol Price, the fabled retail “America was not built by wish- spending figures with his own magnate. Sol Price the historical figure is the ful thinking,” Adlai Stevenson said surveys gauging the relation- founder of the deep discount retailers Price on Kennedy’s 1960 campaign trail, ship between money spent and Club, FedMart, and Costco, the last noted for hoping to save the country from the the value of a gift to the typical taking care of its worker bees far better than twin scourges of Richard Milhous recipient. But Scroogenomics Wal-Mart. The Sol Price in Nader’s book is a dry Nixon and Norman Vincent Peale. “It is not all gloom and doom. Sib- martini-favoring nonagenarian who regular- was built by realists, and it will not lings, parents, and significant izes his haphazard billionaire life with a Sunday be saved by guess work and self-de- others aren’t terrible givers, he evening brisket when not engaging in Meliorist ception. It will only be saved by hard argues; it’s the great aunts who corporate crusades. He walks away with some work and facing the facts.” Rand’s are dragging the average down. of the book’s most compelling moments, one of magnum opus sees reason as an ally —Katherine Mangu-Ward which comes in the dead center of the novel: Sol and wishful thinking as a foe. Nader’s pressures Wal-Mart to unionize by brandishing book is the inverse: Full of fantasy the three board positions he and his billionaire and wishful thinking, it challenges buddies have bought via that good ol’ pro- reason on nearly every page. r gressive tool, stock accumulation on the open market—and the CEO, cornered, capitulates to Joseph Mailander (joseph.mailander@gmail. com) is a writer living in Los Angeles. Price’s demands. But Nader removes this moment from the

province of reality by failing to employ the detail) (cover Scroogenomics

56 | reason | January 2010 It Takes a Village Atheist mined America, she accuses positivity levees can withstand the force of a Barbara Ehrenreich’s jeremiad freaks of corrupting the media, infil- hurricane. against cheerful thinking trating medical science, perverting But Ehrenreich seems less wor- religion, and destroying the economy. ried about what positivity fans value Kerry Howley In her attempt to link starfish-shaped than what they ignore. Her idea of “reach for the stars” beanbags and a life well-lived, as she repeatedly Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, global economic devastation, Ehren- tells us, involves storming into the by Barbara Ehrenreich, New York: Metropoli- reich gets ahead of herself, but along world and demanding progressive tan Books, 256 pages, $23 the way she pushes back against a political change. Positivity’s decid- kind of cultural pressure so totalizing edly inward focus—in which the One of my earliest memories is no we sometimes fail to notice its exis- solution to every problem lies in a more than a command: “Smile.” The tence. mere attitudinal shift—thus seems directive was delivered by my father, troubling, a “retreat from the real standing over me in a church pew, ll the Oprah-ready gurus you drama and tragedy of human events.” definitely not smiling. I wasn’t so Awould expect to populate this When a Kansas City pastor declares much a morose kid as a deeply inter- polemic show up to share some his church “complaint-free,” Ehren- nal one, and whatever expression I advice—here’s Joel Osteen warn- reich sees a demand that Americans made while lost in thought lacked the ing us never to “verbalize a nega- content themselves with their dismal cheerfulness expected of little girls. tive emotion,” there’s Tony Robbins lot. When companies hire motivators As I would learn soon after that day exhorting us to “Get motivated!” to boost morale in the workplace, in church, an American female with In turning the United States into a she sees “a means of social control” a downward-sloping mouth cannot 24-hour pep rally, charges Ehren- by which disgruntled employees escape the tyranny of smile-pushers. reich, these professional cheerleaders are brainwashed into acquiescence. My dad’s request was echoed by have all but drowned out downers “America’s white-collar corporate teachers (“Try to look interested”), like “realism” and “rationality.” work-force drank the Kool-Aid,” she relatives (“Why so glum?”), and, Their followers are trained to dismiss writes, “and accepted positive think- much later, random construction bad news rather than assimilate or ing as a substitute for their former workers (“Smile, baby!”). reflect upon its importance. Motiva- affluence and security.” So it’s more than a little refresh- tors counsel an upbeat ignorance— ing to know that Barbara Ehren- the kind of illusory worldview that Life coach/professional-motivator- reich doesn’t care whether you smile. might, say, convince a president types are soft targets. They don’t seem Indeed, she’d rather you not. In that his soldiers will be greeted as particularly bright, they use verbs in Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promo- liberators in a foreign state, or a dumb ways (as in “God will prosper tion of Positive Thinking Has Under- mayor that his city’s crumbling you”), and they cultivate a general air of overcaffeinated quackery. One wonders how anyone takes them seriously. But no one takes them more seriously than Ehrenreich, who believes them capable of driving Americans toward a bizarre array of conflicting behaviors. In blaming so much evil on positive thinking, she casts optimism as both an opiate— numbing us into a kind of stoned complacency, as with the wronged employers—and a stimulant, pump- ing us up for an ill-advised invest-

(cover detail) (cover Scroogenomics detail) (cover Birght-Sided ment or attack on a foreign nation.

reason | January 2010 | 57 Briefly Noted She’d do far better to pick one. Does positivity she tends toward a hard-edged real- If You Don’t Give This Book lull us into quiescence or spur us toward risk- ism, and she feels increasingly iso- to Your Kids Now taking? lated from the group. She resents— Whichever it is, the effects cannot be com- rightly, I think—the attempts to coach prehensively awful. If we believe Tony Robbins her into infantile gratitude for a YOU’LL HATE YOURSELF LATER! can motivate an investment banker to throw disease that threatens to kill her. (As Don’t watch helplessly as your kids get swept up in the billions into a risky investment, shouldn’t we she points out in a fascinating sum- political storm of single payers, bailouts, and Recovery Acts. also grant him the power to motivate good risk- mary of the literature, the supposed You can take them to An Island Called Liberty, Joseph taking—say, helping a timid woman leave her link between optimism and cancer Specht’s stealth-libertarian book for children — and parents domineering husband? Maybe it’s true that survival rates is mostly myth.) Here, — who treasure liberty. “executive coaches” can quash dissent among as in nowhere else in the book, one You see, An Island Called Liberty starts out as a place Hey Citizens! Comics! employees by encouraging gratitude rather than senses the group bearing down on of freedom and prosperity. Then, because of the mistakes The University of Nebraska opposition. But if the positivity coaches really the individual, pushing each new of well-meaning people — and their inevitable taxes and has posted an online compila- can help people find happiness in what they patient toward the desired emotional regulations — prosperity  nally disappears. But after tion, with free downloads, of already have, they’ve surely convinced some response. everything falls apart, the good people of Liberty pull government-sponsored comics followers to forgo an unaffordable new McMan- It’s no surprise that I was first themselves up by their bootstraps and start all over again. and illustrated pamphlets. sion or a flashy new car. told to smile while sitting in a church Your kids will read this book and love it Available at contentdm.unl. Ehrenreich weighs down her argument Ehrenreich accuses posi- Specht’s simple story and rhymes have a simplicity and edu/cdm4/browse.php? with dubious chains of causation and ponder- tivity freaks of corrupting grace that will turn the heads of any child. And the eye- CISOROOT=/comics, the selec- ous overstatement, but her central point still the media, infiltrating popping illustrations by Justina Dzerzanauskas are guaranteed to tion is bursting with both come- shines through the mess. Platitudinous happy- pull young readers through the pages. You may  nd them reading dic kitsch and sobering insight talk seems so harmless that most of us barely medical science, pervert- An Island Called Liberty over and over again. “If you love ‘liberty, and the pursuit of into the state’s view of its role notice it, yet it can be a burdensome, even bul- ing religion, and destroy- In fact, you might decide to hunker down and read aloud right happiness’ then you owe it to our society to in citizens’ lives. lying, attempt to enforce emotional conformity. share this book with as many children as you ing the economy, for along with them. And afterwards, they’ll understand you — and Our government has Consider, for instance, the “pink-ribbon cul- can. I’m afraid to think what our world will be like starters. the world — a lot better. So your talks with them are bound to if our future leaders are only exposed to books expended its (our) resources ture,” a rose-tinted world Ehrenreich steps into improve dramatically. on child-level instruction about when she is diagnosed with breast cancer. pew. The world of positivity is one like “The Rainbow Fish” as children.” — Concerned Father, Amazon.com reader review poisons, the dangers of both of preachers, sacred books, incanta- This one-of-a-kind book also makes a special Holiday gift that’s sure to be appreciated. To give An Island Called Liberty to your “I can’t believe I have not before now sugar and fire (in different ositive thinking seems to be mandatory tions, revival meetings, and mysti- kids, just  ll out the order form below, clip, and mail it in with your reviewed the wonderful libertarian children’s comics), and how sad it will be in the breast cancer world,” she writes, cal teachings, all emanating from “P payment. Or go online to FreeMarketUnderdog.com and click on book, An Island Called Liberty by Joseph for your house servant if you “to the point that unhappiness requires a kind the idea that happy thoughts have Book: An Island Called Liberty. Or call our order line at Specht. My youngest daughter actually brought don’t pay her Social Security of apology.” Dour pathology slides are out; the power to transform the physical (815) 999-2196. It’s also available on Amazon.com. this oversight to my attention a few days ago. taxes. We have been given “remembrance” teddy bears are in. The women world. For some people, sometimes, This book should be owned by all liberty-loving There’s simply nothing else remotely like it. Don’t hate yourself images of a marine shooting Ehrenreich encounters insist that cancer isn’t this fulfills a real need. But in the parents.”— Liberty for Kids website later. Get it for your kids today! a flamethrower at an octopus a morbid tragedy but a life-transforming “gift.” absence of critics like Ehrenreich, “The book is meant to be shared between a with Tojo’s head and of “Mr. The words “victim” and “patient” are frowned we run the risk of passively absorb- parent and a child and read out loud. It is a quick read and doesn’t focus necessarily on negativity Civil Defense” warning a mayor upon; the preferred terminology is “survivor.” ing this dogma as it seeps into our An Island Called Liberty Special Order Form and anger, but on the hopes for the future and that he has a “pretty town” but Survivors “battle” or “fight” toward their “survi- lives, gently diminishing the sense YES! Rush An Island Called Liberty to my kids. I know they’ll delight in the right kind of reading, for a change. My payment and address info are the success of humans living without force. If lots of bad things might hap- vorhood,” while those who die from the disease, that some circumstances really are listed below. you’re looking for new ways to teach your child pen to it. in Ehrenreich’s telling, are barely mentioned at beyond our control. Positivity is a individuality with voluntary cooperation, here is Send Me ______Copies @ $14.95, Choose Payment Method: There are some famous faces all. When she posts a mildly angry message on secular religion. Sometimes it takes Plus $6.95 Shipping & Handling a great tool that will become more powerful as � e � y � w � r here: Spider-Man, Dennis the an Internet message board, she is chastised for a village atheist to remind us that we Regardless of Quantity your child ages.” � Check Enclosed (to FreeMarketUnderdog.com) Total Remitted: $ ______— The Global Unanimocracy Network Menace, and Li’l Abner were all her “bad attitude” and told to “get help.” can choose not to believe. r Credit Card #______drafted as propaganda agents, What is disturbing about the culture she Name______“5 Stars, Great Book. A must-read for every Exp. Date______primary school kid!” turning this joyous art form into describes is its uniformity, the sense that there Kerry Howley ([email protected]) is a Street ______contributing editor for reason. A version of Signature______— Chris Meisengal, Rochester, N.Y., JustBooks.com a tool of a state that apparently is no space for those who might react to trauma this article originally appeared in Double X. City______Phone______believes its responsibilities are with something other than plush toys and perk- State______Zip______E-mail______An Island Called Liberty by Joseph Specht. Price $14.95. 32 Pages, Hardback, 8 x 10. Oak Leaf Publishing. limitless.—Brian Doherty iness. As Ehrenreich confronts her diagnosis, detail) (cover Poison at a Poke Takes the Menace Dennis Mail payment to: Oak Leaf Publishing, Inc.• PO Box 1462 • Plainfi eld, IL 60544-1462 ISBN-10: 0-9766160-0-9 ISBN-13: 978-0-9766160-0-9 58 | reason | January 2010 If You Don’t Give This Book to Your Kids Now YOU’LL HATE YOURSELF LATER! Don’t watch helplessly as your kids get swept up in the political storm of single payers, bailouts, and Recovery Acts. You can take them to An Island Called Liberty, Joseph Specht’s stealth-libertarian book for children — and parents — who treasure liberty. You see, An Island Called Liberty starts out as a place of freedom and prosperity. Then, because of the mistakes of well-meaning people — and their inevitable taxes and regulations — prosperity  nally disappears. But after everything falls apart, the good people of Liberty pull themselves up by their bootstraps and start all over again. Your kids will read this book and love it Specht’s simple story and rhymes have a simplicity and grace that will turn the heads of any child. And the eye- popping illustrations by Justina Dzerzanauskas are guaranteed to pull young readers through the pages. You may  nd them reading An Island Called Liberty over and over again. “If you love ‘liberty, and the pursuit of In fact, you might decide to hunker down and read aloud right happiness’ then you owe it to our society to share this book with as many children as you along with them. And afterwards, they’ll understand you — and can. I’m afraid to think what our world will be like the world — a lot better. So your talks with them are bound to if our future leaders are only exposed to books improve dramatically. like “The Rainbow Fish” as children.” This one-of-a-kind book also makes a special Holiday gift that’s — Concerned Father, Amazon.com reader review sure to be appreciated. To give An Island Called Liberty to your “I can’t believe I have not before now kids, just  ll out the order form below, clip, and mail it in with your reviewed the wonderful libertarian children’s payment. Or go online to FreeMarketUnderdog.com and click on book, An Island Called Liberty by Joseph Book: An Island Called Liberty. Or call our order line at Specht. My youngest daughter actually brought (815) 999-2196. It’s also available on Amazon.com. this oversight to my attention a few days ago. This book should be owned by all liberty-loving There’s simply nothing else remotely like it. Don’t hate yourself parents.”— Liberty for Kids website later. Get it for your kids today! “The book is meant to be shared between a parent and a child and read out loud. It is a quick An Island Called Liberty Special Order Form read and doesn’t focus necessarily on negativity and anger, but on the hopes for the future and YES! Rush An Island Called Liberty to my kids. I know they’ll delight in the right kind of reading, for a change. My payment and address info are the success of humans living without force. If listed below. you’re looking for new ways to teach your child individuality with voluntary cooperation, here is Send Me ______Copies @ $14.95, Choose Payment Method: Plus $6.95 Shipping & Handling a great tool that will become more powerful as � e � y � w � r Regardless of Quantity your child ages.” � Check Enclosed (to FreeMarketUnderdog.com) Total Remitted: $ ______— The Global Unanimocracy Network Credit Card #______Name______“5 Stars, Great Book. A must-read for every Exp. Date______primary school kid!” Street ______Signature______— Chris Meisengal, Rochester, N.Y., JustBooks.com City______Phone______State______Zip______E-mail______An Island Called Liberty by Joseph Specht. Price $14.95. 32 Pages, Hardback, 8 x 10. Oak Leaf Publishing. (cover detail) (cover Poison at a Poke Takes the Menace Dennis Mail payment to: Oak Leaf Publishing, Inc.• PO Box 1462 • Plainfi eld, IL 60544-1462 ISBN-10: 0-9766160-0-9 ISBN-13: 978-0-9766160-0-9 Driving Miss Lazy fee, only to have the UPS man knock rise. In the utopian scenario, consum- In praise of drive-through on your door while you’re taking a ers speed from shop to shop to shop, windows nap. But if minimum-wage workers slowing for fuel breaks at Burger King can assemble extremely complicated and wallet refills at drive-through Greg Beato cheeseburgers while we idle in the ATMs but never actually coming to a drive-through lane, shouldn’t they be standstill until the cargo capacities of Pull up to a Wendy’s drive-through able to pluck an appliance off a shelf their cars are reached. Hey, maybe it’s window, and you can get a Bacona- just as easily? The Mygofer test store time to start thinking about getting a tor and a side of fries in 131 seconds. is exploring this proposition in a for- Hummer! But if you try ordering an upright mer Kmart that now functions mostly Not everyone shares this dream. bagless vacuum cleaner, you can wait as a warehouse. You order online, get In 2000 Wendy’s led the industry in forever and Wendy’s won’t be able to in your car, drive over, and collect speediness, taking an average of only accommodate you—and neither can your loot. 150.3 seconds to serve customers at McDonald’s, KFC, Sonic, Jack in the In an age where convenience is its drive-through window. By 2008 it Box, Taco Bell, or any other fast food king and productivity often trumps had reduced its average serving time chain in the land. Is there any good leisure as our greatest source of plea- to 131 seconds. But that’s still 131 sec- reason why we have dozens of places sure, drive-through commerce is an onds during which drivers are idling to procure deep-fried animal parts extremely timely expression of con- wastefully. According to Sierra Club without exiting the soothing cocoons sumer desire. It’s especially appealing estimates, people waiting at fast food of our automobiles but must battle to disabled people who’d prefer not to restaurants burn about 50 million for parking spots and bushwhack our get out of their cars, parents who have gallons of gasoline a year. At the U.S. way through maze-like department to manage sizable broods while shop- national average of $2.67 per gallon stores whenever we need a new pair ping, and criminals who don’t like to (as of October 26, 2009), that’s $133.5 of crew socks? dilly-dally. And for retailers and ser- million, or 27,300,613 Baconators, Sears has introduced a new con- vice providers, it’s even better. They which, at 830 calories per Baconator, cept store in Joliet, Illinois, that finally don’t need as much space. They don’t could feed exactly 35,273 100-pound addresses this weird imbalance of have to deal with slobs who think supermodels every day for a year. modern life. Called Mygofer, it is the that buying a cup of coffee gives them Actually, in the big scheme of world’s first drive-through depart- the right to pee all over the restroom things, 50 million gallons of gas isn’t ment store. floor. The drive-through approach all that much. In fact, it’s less than makes one of the most unpredict- 0.03 percent of the 140 billion gallons ver the years, the drive-through able and annoying components of of gas we use each year. And there are Ouniverse has grown to include commerce—the customer—more drive-through advocates who claim banks, pharmacies, coffee shops, manageable. It moves him through an drive-throughs are, relatively speak- wedding chapels, liquor stores, and assembly line of consumption, limit- ing, the environmentally correct dry cleaners. In New Alexandria, ing his options and choreographing way to go. In 2008, for example, the Pennsylvania, a strip club called Cli- his behavior. Canadian coffee and donut chain Tim max offers patrons a drive-through Hortons commissioned an engineer- option, charging $10 a minute for Shopping is transformed from an ing consulting firm calledRWDI to a peek at its dancers. Elsewhere in arbitrary pastime into a rationalized compare the environmental impact Pennsylvania, state Rep. Kevin Mur- process with clear steps to follow: of its drive-through outlets to that of phy (D-Scranton) maintains a drive- Order. Wait. Pay. Leave. Additional its outlets without drive-throughs. through window at his office to meet customers who enter the assembly Based on traffic surveys conducted at with constituents. (There’s no nudity line become the de facto managers four stores during peak hours, RWDI involved, but at least it’s free.) of those ahead of them, their pres- concluded that the outlets without Meanwhile, if you want to buy a ence pressuring stragglers to keep drive-throughs produced 40 percent new toaster, you either have to get out moving forward in efficient fashion. to 70 percent more smog pollutants of your car or pay a hefty shipping Labor costs drop and profit margins and carbon monoxide and 10 percent

60 | reason | January 2010 to 30 percent more greenhouse gases car-centric culture that’s making us In Frankenmuth, Michigan, there is than the ones that had them. The dif- fat and sick, poisoning the planet, even a drive-through farmer’s mar- ference was due to idling that occurs and locking us into an alienating, ket. It takes place in a McDonald’s in the parking lot as drivers hunt and stressed-out consumerist lifestyle parking lot, so if customers want to wait for spaces, the extra distance that, for all its abundance and vari- augment their Big Macs and Chicken traveled during this process, and the ety, doesn’t deliver true satisfaction McNuggets with freshly harvested

CORBIS extra engine start-up after custom- and is ultimately unsustainable. Fifty zucchini or leeks, they can. Health ers complete their transactions and years from now, anti-drive-through care providers now regularly offer return to their vehicles. advocates exclaim, it won’t matter drive-through flu shots and other how fast Wendy’s can serve you an medical services. And of course ranted, a single study of four Original Chocolate Frosty. We’re still there’s Mygofer, which, if it catches Gstores, commissioned by a com- going to be drowning in sizzling seas on, will pretty much allow you to pur- pany with a huge incentive to pro- made from melted icebergs. All across chase anything you can fit through mote the benefits of drive-throughs, Canada and the U.S., there are efforts your car window without ever turning is hardly going to stand as the last to prohibit drive-throughs, just as off your ignition. The drive-through word on the subject. For many, the there have been for at least the last lane may yet be in its infancy. r drive-through—and especially the two decades. fast-food drive-through—is the most But even as city councils contem- Contributing Editor Greg Beato (gbeato@ soundbitten.com) writes from San Francisco.

Dairy Market Express Drive-Thru in Lake Zurich, Illinois. © Bettmann/ © Illinois. Zurich, Lake in Drive-Thru Express Market Dairy potent symbol of the unhealthy, plate bans, drive-throughs proliferate.

reason | January 2010 | 61 Tim Cavanaugh rowers) from experiencing any fur- up from $625,500. With 20 percent ther decline in closing prices. When down, that’s essentially a $1 million I ask Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) home being funded by a government to explain his support for extending subsidy for the wealthy. When I raise exorbitant Federal Housing Admin- this point with Sherman, he replies istration loan guarantees even while (inaccurately), “Well, you don’t live in the real estate market continues to Southern California.” cool, he replies, “The economy of Interestingly, Sherman opposed Los Angeles would tank if prices the Troubled Asset Relief Program fell another 50 percent.” Here’s how and has taken a fairly courageous Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), in an stand against the Obama Treasury October interview with The New York Department’s proposed resolution Times, justified his support for the authority for banks, in both cases agency’s shoddy lending standards: out of principled opposition to the “I don’t think it’s a bad thing that too-big-to-fail trend in finance. Yet he Artificial Housing the bad loans occurred. It was an sees no contradiction between those Respiration effort to keep prices from falling too stances and his goal of encouraging fast.” Economy.com front man Mark banks to take on more and bigger Government-sponsored Zandi puts it even more bluntly. The taxpayer-guaranteed mortgage loads. housing inflation is locking housing market, he says, “is showing Unfortunately, the evidence is clear: the next generation out of improvement only because it is on Since 2008 the big four banks—Wells homeownership. government life support.” Fargo, Citibank, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase—have not only No major newspaper seriously ques- ife support is expensive. When grown bigger (they now control 60 tions the truism that foreclosures Lthat troubled borrower gets a 20 percent of American bank business) destroy neighborhoods. No news net- percent haircut, his bank has to take but have done so by expanding their work doubts that “troubled borrow- a loss, and the bank is compensated mortgage portfolios (with $800 bil- ers” are overwhelmingly good Ameri- for the loss by you, through the $50 lion in first mortgages, 8 percent of cans who have been set back by a job billion Home Affordable Modification the national total). loss or medical emergency. And what Program. The Treasury Department kind of anti-American Shylock would has paid more than $100 billion to It’s easy to see why interested parties claim that you shouldn’t give bad allow the failed government-spon- such as the National Association of borrowers government-backed loan sored enterprises Fannie Mae and Realtors would support interventions modifications, cutting their mortgage Freddie Mac to keep on guaranteeing such as those above and the $8,000 payments by 20 percent? questionable loans. Fannie and Fred- Home Buyer Tax Credit. (It’s notable, The interesting new wrinkle on die, in turn, have been expanding however, that sales data in the three those old, false arguments is that rather than reducing their loan port- years since the beginning of the real real estate interventionists no longer folios—the opposite of what you’re estate collapse strongly suggest that pretend they have any real goal other supposed to do when you’ve got an a low asking price is by far the most than keeping house prices inflated. unmanageable debt load. important factor in whether a house Even a year ago, the arguments for Sherman is sponsoring legisla- sells.) What’s not as clear is why so rescuing real estate prices were tion that will let the government keep many other interventionists are con- phrased in broad, spillover-style met- increasing its debt exposure, and on vinced that re-inflating the real estate aphors—“meltdown,” “implosion”— more expensive houses. As an eco- bubble serves the common good. that suggested a concern for the nomic emergency measure, Congress Frank, Sherman, and others main- common bystander. Today, the argu- raised the limit for the Federal Hous- tain that their efforts are a matter of ment is a lot plainer: We need to keep ing Administration’s guarantees in constituent service. “If you’re talking

existing homeowners (or home bor- high-cost areas to $729,750 in 2007, about international economic theory, Colon Terry

62 | reason | January 2010 that’s a separate matter,” says Sher- tively, of overall defaults. “Exces- According to the National Association man. “But there is no practical argu- sive obligations”—which in English of Realtors, the median down pay- ment that [underwriting $1 million means you bought more house than ment by first-time buyers, even after homes] is not in the interest of the you could afford—causes twice as a three-year, debt-driven economic district I represent.” many defaults as unemployment. shock, is just 4 percent. One-third of I guess that depends on what the And the shockingly high rate of re- homes are still being purchased with meaning of interest is. If foreclosures defaults on modified loans—more no money down. As we learned (or really destroyed neighborhoods, we’d than 60 percent in some classes— thought we learned) in 2006, num- expect to see some evidence in, for argues strongly against loan modifi- bers like these are a recipe for cascad- example, crime rates, which continue cation as a public interest. ing misfortunes. Renters should be to decline around the country. The angrier than ever. Washington Post, in a 2008 story on ore to the point, keeping real Imagine a yard sale outside the foreclosure-heavy Fairfax County, Mestate inflated is not an abstract biggest, fanciest house in town. You Virginia, pronounced, “As Foreclosed public choice experiment, in which get there early, eager to buy cool stuff Homes Empty, Crime Arrives.” Yet the benefits are concentrated and cheap. But every time you see some- a year later, year-to-year quarterly the costs distributed. The policy thing you like, a police officer comes statistics from the county’s police has a very discernable victim class: along with a Sharpie, crosses out the department show crime down 1.8 would-be home buyers, whose inter- price, and writes in another number percent, with double-digit drops in ests are served not by tax credits that’s two or three times higher. Scale murder, rape, and robbery. or massive debt commitments but that up a bit, and you have the Obama Meanwhile, according to the Fed- by lower asking prices. Perversely, housing plan. r eral Housing Finance Agency, “unem- foreclosures are the highest they’ve ployment” and “illness” account for ever been in American history, yet Tim Cavanaugh (bigtimcavanaugh@gmail. com) is a contributing editor at reason. just 9 percent and 6 percent, respec- it’s harder than ever to buy a house.

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reason | January 2010 | 63 Artifact

Conan the Cruel? Jacob Sullum

Does Conan the Barbarian have seri- ous artistic value? That’s one of the intriguing questions raised by a case the Supreme Court heard in October. Because Conan includes foot- age of horses tripped by wires, it is arguably covered by a federal ban on depictions of animal cruelty. If so, Amazon is committing a felony by selling it, unless the online retailer could convince a jury that the 1982 epic—in which a bare-chested, codpiece-wearing future governor of California declares that the best thing in life is “to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women”— has “serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical, or artistic value.” Defending the ban against an “endless stream of fanciful hypo- theticals” involving videos of hunt- ing, bullfighting, and all manner of hostile interactions between animals, Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal told the justices they needn’t worry about a chilling effect on constitu- Conan the Barbarian Conan tionally protected speech because the government uses the law judiciously. But when Justice Sonia Sotomayor pressed him to explain the legal dis- tinction between the dog fight videos that earned Virginia pit bull enthusi- ast Robert Stevens a three-year prison sentence and the much gorier but explicitly negative treatment of dog fighting in the 2006 documentaryOff the Chain, Katyal allowed that “the line will sometimes be difficult to draw.” r

64 | reason | January 2010

I have three young daughters fighting a deadly blood disease. Like thousands of Americans, they need a bone marrow transplant to survive, but there are far too few donors. I want to encourage more donations with scholarships and other creative awards, but that is illegal. I am fighting this unjust law to save lives. I am IJ.

Doreen Flynn Lewiston, Maine Institute for Justice www.IJ.org Economic liberty litigation

Doreen Flynn Reason.indd 1 11/3/09 3:57:43 PM