A Book Review of All the Kingdoms of the World: On Radical Religious Alternatives to Liberalism, by Kevin Vallier. 1 Integralists are on the march. The ideas of a small group of mainly American but also British and Austrian Catholic scholars who identify themselves as integralists have received considerable attention over the past ten years. Now, an entire book has been written about them. In All the Kingdoms of the World: On Radical Religious Alternatives to Liberalism (2023), political philosopher Kevin Vallier has provided us with a systematic analysis of a political movement that posits itself as a radical alternative to liberalism. The book’s primary purpose is to help readers understand the nature of integralism in the present and past, and its relationship to liberalism in our time. By “liberalism,” Vallier does not mean what Americans usually associate with the term: i.e., those who favor widespread intervention in the economy and/or have broadly liberal social views. Rather, liberalism encompasses anyone—whether on the right or left, religious believer, agnostic or atheist—who holds to things like liberal constitutionalism and rule of law. In this regard, liberalism need not mean the insistence that people’s religious faith may have no role whatsoever in how they behave as citizens in the public square (though some self-described liberals do hold that position). It does imply, however, that 1) religious institutions do not exercise direct or indirect authority in the secular realm by virtue of their ecclesial status and should not seek to do so; and 2) religious authorities should not call on state authorities to address, for example, problems of heresy among adherents of a given faith. At the heart of integralism is opposition to these two precepts. Though integralists do not agree about everything, they do believe that the Catholic Church and its hierarchy enjoy an indirect authority to compel secular officials towards the realization of specific spiritual goals. This includes the punishment of those who are apostates from the Catholic faith or who have embraced heretical views. Politically and constitutionally speaking, the integralist model is a dyarchy in which church and state rule together in predominately Catholic societies, and in which the claims of canon law and civil law are distinct and yet overlap and reinforce each other. Vallier himself is not an integralist. Much of the book’s second half focuses on critiquing integralism’s theoretical premises and practical implications. Vallier does, however, want to explain what he considers to be integralism’s internal coherence. In doing so, he establishes himself as the preeminent scholar of integralism writing from “outside” this political and religious tradition. One reason for this is Vallier’s willingness to invest time in actually reading what integralists say and write. He doesn’t, for example, dismiss them with tired bromides like “you can’t legislate morality,” which deny the obvious fact that even the most seemingly innocuous of laws have some type of a moral grounding and structure built into them. For Vallier, integralism cannot be dismissed as the frantic cogitations of a tiny group of eccentric intellectuals aghast at the relativism that plagues modern Western societies or the disarray into which many Christian confessions are mired. Integralism, Vallier illustrates, has a clear and developed structure of ideas about the relationship of religious faith and the ecclesial realm to the political and legal order, and vice versa. Moreover, Vallier points out that there were periods of history—most notably, Medieval Christendom—in which “High Integralism” was the dominant political system, even if the phrase was not used at the time. Vallier goes to some lengths to illustrate that contemporary integralism is not a monolithic phenomenon. Among its ranks are numbered thinkers like the distinguished British philosopher and historian Thomas Pink. He has focused explicitly on intra-Catholic arguments about the meaning of Vatican II’s 1965 Declaration on Religious Freedom Dignitatis Humanae: On the Right of the Person and of Communities to Social and Civil Freedom in Matters Religious2 (to give the declaration its full title) and what it means for the Church’s relationship to the secular political order. Pink has shown no particular interest in pushing specific political and economic programs like the corporatism typically favored by integralists. His primary concern is ad-intra (to use a Latin phrase used during discussions at Vatican II): that is, his attention is overwhelmingly upon the Church’s self-understanding and then what that means for the Church’s relationship with the state. By contrast, the priority of integralists like the Harvard professor of constitutional law Adrian Vermeule is ad-extra. Such integralists are often cagey, Vallier observes, about the precise theological-political roots of their agenda. They are not, however, shy about working towards the realization of very specific political, constitutional, legal, and economic programs in the world outside the Church in ways that go far beyond anything proposed by Pink. These invariably involve rigorous use of state bureaucracies like the administrative state to reshape society in non-liberal directions. These arrangements and goals—such as those associated with the corporate state—are largely antithetical to those which characterize the United States Constitution. If the changes desired by integralists were to be realized democratically, it would require 1) the mass conversion of a majority of Americans to Catholicism 2) plus the conscious decision of these Catholics to embrace integralism, and then 3) overcoming the presumed opposition of millions of non-Catholic Americans to integralism. “The parallels between progressives and integralists cannot be understated.” The sheer unlikeliness of this progression makes an alternative approach more probable: that is, integralists doing what progressives have been doing since the 1900s—working to subvert the Constitution via creative reinterpretation of the Constitution and building bureaucracies that gradually neutralize the influence of political institutions identified in the Constitution. The parallels between progressives and integralists cannot be understated. Much of Vallier’s explorations of these two faces of integralism involve him systematically defining the key aspects of integralist thought and showing how the different parts fit together. In several places, this takes the form of the type of models beloved of many political scientists—the utility of which, I will confess, I remain skeptical of. In the case of contemporary ad-extra integralists, Vallier’s analysis involves sifting out the implications of various writings and commentaries mostly penned by Vermeule. He shows how these add up to a theory and praxis for state capture. Given that Vermeule goes a long way to cover his tracks to all but the few who understand the full meaning that he invests in expressions like the common good, Vallier makes crystal clear what this leading integralist has in mind for America. Here it is important to note that Vallier demonstrates the degree to which ad-extra integralists draw upon the thought of Carl Schmitt and his precise approach to the theological-political problem. Schmitt is famous for his overt political authoritarianism, his view of all secular political philosophies as covert theologies, and his famous friends-enemies distinction as critical to grasping the essence of modern politics. The extent to which some integralists rely upon Schmittian premises illustrates just how antagonistic ad-extra integralism is to both institutional liberal arrangements and liberalism per se. Exploring the implications of ad-extra integralism for politics takes Vallier into discussions of the integralists’ significance for contemporary American political debates. That integralists are intent upon a radical reshaping of American conservative politics is no secret. Despite the relatively small number of integralist intellectuals, integralist ideas and language have worked their way into the rhetoric and stated priorities of parts of the New Right. But Vallier also demonstrates that realizing integralism in the conditions of a country like America would not only be mathematically challenging (even among run-of-the-mill orthodox Catholics like myself, integralists constitute a telephone-box minority). More significantly, Vallier argues, such a transition would involve grave and intentional damage to the common good that integralists claim to be trying to realize. In light of Catholicism’s famous insistence that there is never a good reason to do evil, ad-extra integralists could well find themselves violating their church’s own moral teaching. To my mind, however, the deeper significance of Vallier’s book is its analysis of the history and development of Catholicism’s approach to the temporal realm. The importance of this discussion goes far beyond the specifics of Catholicism insofar as it also touches upon the wider question of religion’s relationship to liberal order. The idea held by many people today that religion is a strictly private affair is, Vallier points out to his readers, “peculiar” (p.1). For one thing, this idea has not been the norm in history. Second, human beings seem to be inherently religious creatures. At some point of their life, every person wonders 1) if there is a God; 2), if yes, then how we know this Being; 3) what this Being has revealed about himself; and 4) the significance of this revelation for our private and public actions. At a minimum this indicates that trying to push religion and religious believers out of the public square is a sure-fire recipe for the very type of internal social and political conflict that liberalism ostensibly seeks to moderate. These facts make integralism seem far less strange than we often suppose it to be. It does, after all, provide clear answers to the question of how the spiritual realm relates to the temporal realm. That particular question emerges directly from the radical step that Christianity took in making a distinction between the spiritual and the temporal that was incomprehensible to pagan Greek and Roman minds that invested the polis with divine qualities. The pagan position achieved a type of apotheosis with the ascription of divine-like qualities to the Roman Emperor. Distinction and separation, however, are not the same thing. Moreover, how the Church works through the implications of this distinction occurs within human history and that process is thus subject to the vicissitudes of historical change. Absent, for example, the Roman Empire’s gradual implosion in fifth century Western and Southern Europe and the need for some type of authority to fill the gap, would Catholic bishops have found themselves having to take on essentially temporal political functions? And yet the Church is clear that historical change cannot somehow displace revealed truth: most especially, truths about the Church itself. That raises the question of whether integralism is in fact much more than a reflection of historical conditions that are no longer in play. Put another way, is true Catholic doctrine on the relationship between the spiritual and the temporal essentially integralist? Vallier’s broad conclusion is that this seems to be the case. He is more convinced by the argument of integralists like Pink that Dignitatis Humanae represents a change in church policy towards the state, than those who maintain that Dignitatis Humanae is what is known as a “development in doctrine.” Among other things, development means “change” and “growth” in a doctrine that does not involve contradiction of previous teaching. The most well-known modern expostulator of this idea was John Henry Newman in his An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, written before Newman converted to Catholicism in 1845.3 This is surely where the discussion about integralism needs to go. There is not presently, Vallier notes, a single Catholic bishop in the world in full communion with Rome who embraces (at least openly) integralism in any form. But if Dignitatis Humanae is what Pink suggests it is, then a policy switch back towards a more explicitly integralist position on the part of the Catholic Church sometime in the future is at least conceivable. In this sense, Pink’s challenge to the widely accepted understanding of Dignitatis Humanae is ultimately more important than the agenda being pursued by the ad-extra integralists. For if Pink is right, then those integralists whose focus is ad-extra will be able to insist that they are working on the basis of solid doctrinal foundations. By contrast, if Pink is mistaken, and Dignitatis Humanae does constitute a legitimate development of doctrine in the way that it ground the right of religious liberty of individuals and communities squarely upon 1) natural law and 2) a return to older Catholic sources on the topic (such as several Church Fathers), then integralists have a problem. For if the interpretations of Dignitatis Humanae offered by figures like Joseph Ratzinger, John Finnis, Martin Rhonheimer, and, further back, by the Swiss theologian and Cardinal Charles Journet (a far more important figure in Vatican II’s debates about Dignitatis Humanae than John Courtney Murray, S.J.) are right, the ad-extra integralists’ theological-political principles and agenda are in deep tension with Catholic doctrine. Quite where all this will end is unknown. It is tempting to review integralism and ad-intra and ad-extra integralists as a passing reaction to arguments going on inside the American conservative movement and the Catholic Church, as well as frustration with the state of the West. For more on these topics, see “The Revanchist Right,” by Arnold Kling. Econlib, Sep. 4, 2023. Political Catholicism Reborn? Symposium on Kevin Vallier’s All The Kingdoms of the World. Law and Liberty, Sep. 21, 2023. Anthony Gill on Religion. EconTalk. Yet as some integralists have correctly observed, major changes in the political, social, and economic order have often come about because of the work of a small cadre of dedicated intellectuals and activists. Early twentieth century progressives or Lenin’s Bolsheviks come to mind as prominent examples. Thanks to Kevin Vallier, however, we have a comprehensive outline of the ideas and agenda that motivate those integralists who have chosen to act in an analogous manner. As the saying goes, forewarned is forearmed. Footnotes [1] All the Kingdoms of the World: On Radical Religious Alternatives to Liberalism, by Kevin Vallier. [2] Available from the Vatican archive online at “Declaration on Religious Freedom: Dignitatis Humanae: On the Right of the Person and of Communities to Social and Civil Freedom in Matters Religious”. [3] Available online at “An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine,” by John Henry Newman. NewmanReader.org. * Samuel Gregg is Distinguished Fellow in Political Economy and Senior Research Faculty at the American Institute for Economic Research. He has written and spoken extensively on questions of political economy, economic history, monetary theory and policy, and natural law theory. He is the author of sixteen books, including On Ordered Liberty (2003), The Commercial Society (2007), Wilhelm Röpke’s Political Economy (2010); Becoming Europe (2013); Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization (2019); The Essential Natural Law (2021); and The Next American Economy: Nation, State and Markets in an Uncertain World (2022). As an Amazon Associate, Econlib earns from qualifying purchases. (0 COMMENTS)

I have travelled through many of Mainland China’s provinces, and recently landed in Taiwan for the first time.  In this post, I’ll argue that Taiwan is China’s best province.  But first I need to consider whether Taiwan is actually Chinese.  Here are a few points in favor: 1. Both the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China officially regard Taiwan as a Chinese province.  A small portion of the Republic of China is part of Fujian province, but Taiwan is the main part of the Republic of China.  It’s odd to call your country “China” if it’s not China. 2. I flew to Taipei on China Airlines, the official airline of Taiwan.  Why does it have that name? 3. I visited the Palace Museum, which holds the very greatest treasures of Chinese civilization.  It would be odd to locate such a museum in a non-Chinese country.  I saw schoolchildren learning about “their history”. 4.  On Taiwan they still use the traditional Chinese script.  Thus by one measure Taiwan is the province that adheres most closely to Chinese culture. Of course there is an alternative view—Mainland China is controlled by the CCP and Taiwan is controlled by a rival government.  Over time, it has diverged from Mainland China in many ways. Even so, I think that in most respects Taiwan is Chinese, in the same sense that East and West Germany were both Germany, and North and South Korea are still both Korea.  So in that respect I might be seen as being in sympathy with Mainland Chinese nationalists. But Mainland Chinese nationalists also must reckon with the fact that Taiwan is China’s best province, and not by a small margin: 1. It has the best political system, with democracy and human rights.  In some respects it’s even superior to other East Asian democracies. 2.  It has the best economic system, much more productive than other Chinese provinces.  It relies more on the free market. 3.  It has the best culture.  Even Mainland Chinese tourists typically acknowledge that visiting Taiwan is a pleasant surprise.  The service is friendly and many aspects of the culture are quite charming.  Mainland China has its appeal, but the service can be brusque and the rules are often excessively burdensome.  Things feel much freer in Taiwan. 4.  Urban planning seems better in Taiwan.  The big cities are not structured with wide streets and large walled-off compounds, as in Mainland China.  On the mainland, even college campuses are walled off like high security military bases. 5. The air seems cleaner than on the mainland. 6.  Taiwanese achievements in the arts are especially notable, with Taiwanese film directors being world leaders from the 1980s to the 2000s. 7.  There are many other advantages:  Uber > > > Didi, Taiwan’s internet works far better, etc. Taiwan seems so far ahead in so many dimensions that its superiority is not even up for debate.  The only question left is what to do about it.  I see three possible options: 1. Mainland China adopts Taiwan’s political system, its economic system, and its cultural practices.  This seems far and away the optimal outcome.  One China, with a Taiwanese system. 2.  The status quo is maintained.  This is the best option if Mainland China refuses to adopt Taiwan’s system. 3. Mainland China invades Taiwan.  I wonder if Chinese leaders understand how big a mistake this would be.  Not in the sense that they would lose the war (I have no expertise on that issue), rather as a public relations disaster.  Taiwan is increasingly seen by outsiders as a cute and lovable place.  For a giant country like China to come in and crush the system would be seen as being deeply unfair—far more so than the recent takeover of Hong Kong. Mainland China’s government is too proud to publicly embrace the first option.  But it’s not too late for them to begin quietly edging their system in the Taiwanese direction.  As the two systems become more similar, it becomes easier to solve the problem. Ill-informed people often claim that democracy is incompatible with Chinese culture, citing 4000 years of Chinese history.  Taiwan shows that this is not true.  Ill-informed people often claim that the Chinese are copiers, not innovators, ignoring the fact that many key Western technologies first came from China.  And Taiwan shows this is still the case, with ethnic Chinese firms in Taiwan having the most sophisticated chip making plants on the planet. When you think about all that has been achieved by 24 million Chinese people in Taiwan, just imagine what could be achieved if 1.4 billion mainlanders had the same freedom to innovate.  A win-win for the entire world. PS.  Here’s a picture I took of Taipei.   “Pei” means north, and is the same word as “bei” in Mandarin—i.e. Beijing is “northern capital”.  Taipei is on the north of the island.  Taichung is in the center, and Tainan is in the south.  On the mainland, chung is spelled zhong.  Thus the Chinese call their country Zhongguo—“central country”.   (0 COMMENTS)

Loss of taste for most foods, vision problems, loss of muscle mass and bone density. In light of these and the many unpleasant our outright dangerous effects of space travel on human physiology, science writer and cartoonist Zach Weinersmith wonders: When it comes to the dream of space expansion, what exactly do we hope to […] The post Zach Weinersmith on Space Settlement and A City on Mars appeared first on Econlib.

That the innocent, though they may have some connection or dependency upon the guilty (which, perhaps, they themselves cannot help), should not upon that account suffer or be punished for the guilty, is one of the plainest and most obvious rules of justice. In the most unjust war, however, it is commonly the sovereign or the rulers only who are guilty. The subjects are almost always perfectly innocent. Whenever it suits the conveniency of a public enemy, however, the goods of the peaceable citizens are seized both at land and at sea; their lands are laid waste, their houses are burnt, and they themselves, if they presume to make any resistance, are murdered or led into captivity; and all this in the most perfect conformity to what are called the laws of nations. This is from Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. One of my goals, in traveling to and from the Mont Pelerin Society meetings in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, was to get through at least 200 pages of The Theory of Moral Sentiments. I’m reading it through for the first time, in preparation for an OLLI talk I’m giving in Monterey in December. Although I found it hard slogging at first, after a while, I found a rhythm. That guy was sharp.   (0 COMMENTS)

I’ve frequently argued that differences in state income tax rates help to explain interstate migration patterns, especially for high-income individuals,  Places like Tennessee, Texas and Florida are drawing residents from more highly taxes areas.  Bloomberg reporter Jonathan Levin recently made the following claim about Jeff Bezos’s decision to move to Florida: Lastly, I’d be remiss to ignore taxes completely. Washington, where Bezos founded Amazon in 1994, recently approved a new 7% capital gains tax targeting investment profits over $250,000, and that always stood to have a big impact on Bezos, who has sold down billions in Amazon.com stock over the years. In March, after the state Supreme Court upheld the new tax, his fellow Washington billionaire Ken Fisher announced (with characteristic grandstanding) that he was moving his money-management firm to zero-state-tax Texas. Bezos didn’t mention taxes explicitly, but the math must have crossed his mind. Perhaps Bloomberg editors were unhappy with his article, as they added the following headline: Bezos’ Miami Move Is Not About Washington’s Taxes The billionaire is returning to a city where he went to high school and where his parents live — it’s as simple as that. Really, that simple?  (Most people probably never look beyond the headline.) PS.  On September 24, Bloomberg published an article full of nonsensical made-up figures.  Nearly six weeks later, they have yet to correct the article.  Do they have an editor? (0 COMMENTS)

In this episode of EconTalk from the archives, Russ Roberts hosts Rodney Brooks for a conversation on the current state of AI alongside its projections. Rodney Brooks is a professor of Robotics Emeritus at MIT. Brooks, also a robotics entrepreneur, is the co-founder of Robust AI. How soon will there be driverless cars? Will AI technology take over the workforce? Roberts and Brooks discuss these questions and more. Brooks finds his position on the future of technology in accordance with Roy Amara’s law: “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.”     Speaking of driverless cars, Roberts and Brooks predict several challenges that may come about regarding their acceptance and use. Russ points to tech, regulation, and culture as the three key challenges in the development of driverless cars. In a world of driverless cars, questions would arise if a child was in the driverless car by themselves; Brooks presents the overall question of who is in charge? What issues do you think will come to the surface with the widespread development of driverless cars? What should be the balance between technological excellence and human-like capability of AI? Given that this podcast was recorded in 2018, did you expect that driverless cars would be up and running by now in 2023? Is there an issue with the majority of people falling into Amara’s law? Could this norm affect the development of groundbreaking tech? Amara’s law also reminds us of the danger of treating technology as magical. For example, Brooks shares the common theme of pundits mistaking performance for competence in technology. How should regulation put a check on focusing solely on the capability of technology as opposed to its shortcomings? To what extent might President Biden’s recent executive order accomplish this? What is a prospective technology that concerns you in terms of its competence, and why?   Another example of our underestimation of technology in the future is illustrated by the story of showing Isaac Newton an iPhone. Newton is one of the most brilliant minds ever, and yet Brooks believes that Newton would be dumbfounded by the capabilities of the iPhone, while also making conclusions about its ability. In terms of its capabilities, to what extent would you consider the current iPhone magic if you took the mindset of the time before it was created? What are your expectations for the future of personal devices?   Brooks, having worked in AI for forty years, believes in the ‘baby steps’ and ‘ladders’ that have been developed n the road to groundbreaking technological advancements as opposed to the trend of impatience for those achievements from the general public. Given the prevalence of ChatGPT and AI this year, what are some the conclusions people might reach as they overlook the ladders yet to be built for its advancement? Why is the hypothesis of robots and technology developing into some sort of human demise so popular? To what extent do you think humans can stay ahead of AI? Brennan Beausir is a student at Wabash College studying Philosophy, Politics, and Economics and was a 2023 Summer Scholar at Liberty Fund. (0 COMMENTS)

Committing to moral principles can be a good strategy if a sufficient number of other people in your social environment share these principles: it will reduce your transaction costs in social cooperation. Commitment adds a recognition sign to the paradigmatic Tit-for-Tat model in game theory: if you can commit to cooperate, others will incur less risk in cooperating with you, and everybody will be better off. (Robert Axelrod’s 1984 book The Evolution of Cooperation, which developed a simple model without the possibility of communication, generated a voluminous literature). In other words, if you are virtuous and enough others in your environment are too, virtue signaling is a good strategy. If others know that you are in the habit of honesty and decency, your life will be easier. With respect to a free society, committing to principles of reciprocity among natural equals (to use James Buchanan’s terms) will also contribute to maintaining or developing that society. This is a major idea in Buchanan’s Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative; I think it is approximately translatable in Hayekian terms. This small book by Buchanan is a good and non-technical introduction to his ethical theory but (trigger warning!) you may be challenged. The idea of committing to moral principles even has implications for the conduct of war. Trying to occupy the high moral ground in wartime may not lead the enemy to compete for the top of the barrel: after all, if your group is waging a just war, moral principles are probably not the enemy’s strong point. However, the moral principles that political leaders signal may help keep some human decency in their soldiers, which will be useful after demobilization. Furthermore, this strategy will certainly economize on the capital of support from other people with moral principles in the world. (Buchanan and Hayek were probably less radical than the ideas I am expressing in matters of war, but I would be surprised if they wouldn’t have agreed with this paragraph.) (0 COMMENTS)

In my previous post, I described the effects of the oil reseller boom to explain why U.S. consumers paid record-high prices—even approximating the price of world oil—despite maximum price regulations at every transaction point to ensure the opposite result during the oil shortages of the 1970s. Despite years of regulatory tailoring and thousands of committed administrators (consolidated in the U.S. Department of Energy in 1977), the gasoline lines reappeared in 1979 with oil cutoffs from the Iranian Revolution. Enough was enough even for President Carter, whose National Energy Plan of two years earlier was in shambles. With support from Democrats, a phased decontrol bill was enacted with a windfall profit tax that was accelerated into full decontrol by President Reagan upon taking office in early 1981. It had been planned chaos, to use a term of Ludwig von Mises. The initial EPAA regulations covering 27 pages in the Federal Register would be supplemented by more than 5,000 pages of amendments in its first two years. Under this law, there would be “no fewer than six different regulatory agencies and seven distinct price control regimes, each successively more complicated and pervasive.”[1] The unprecedented peacetime exercise in cumulative intervention went far beyond the EPAA. Between 1977 and 1980, more than three hundred energy bills were considered in Congress. State legislatures considered many more. Before it was over, even the most anti-oil politicians had regrets. Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) complained about the “outrageous weed garden of regulation.”[2] James Schlesinger, the first head of the U.S. Department of Energy (created in 1977), called the experience “the political equivalent of Chinese water torture.”[3] The regulatory tsunami included dozens of state and federal mandates for energy conservation. In the name of energy security, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (1975) and the Synthetic Fuels Corporation (1980) were born, each introducing their own issues and challenges. “Gapism”—regulation, taxation, and subsidization intended to either increase supply or decrease demand—threw good money after bad in the price controls-shortage program.[4]   Conclusion In reference to the 1970s oil crisis, Milton and Rose Friedman wrote, Economists may not know much. But we know one thing very well: how to produce surpluses and shortages. Do you want a surplus? Have the government legislate a minimum price that is above the price that would otherwise prevail…. Do you want a shortage? Have the government legislate a maximum price that is below the price that would otherwise prevail.[5] The peacetime experience of oil shortages is a case study of public policy gone wrong, and predictably so. The good news is that maximum price controls as an energy policy was driven from the debate and is a political nonstarter today. The bad news is that so much damage was done in a futile quest to plan petroleum from the center. Additionally, a policy of “energy security” (in wait for a third oil shock, the gasoline lines of which would not come without price controls) created new bureaucracies and new programs that remain to this day. History matters, and regulatory history informs public policy toward business. Never again.   Robert L. Bradley is the founder and CEO of the Institute for Energy Research. [1] Joseph P. Kalt, “The Creation, Growth, and Entrenchment of Special Interests in Oil Price Policy,” in The Political Economy of Deregulation: Interest Groups in the Regulatory Process, ed. Roger G. Noll and Bruce Owen (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1983), p. 98. [2] 124 Cong. Rec. S17071 (daily ed. June 9, 1978) (statement of Sen. Kennedy). [3] Quoted in Daniel Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), p. 659. [4] Edward Mitchell. U.S. Energy Policy: A Primer (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1974), pp. 17–26. [5] Milton and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979), p. 219. (0 COMMENTS)

What’s the deal with Ticketmaster and concert fans? Taylor Swift fans were upset at Ticketmaster when the company canceled the general sale of tickets for the first leg of her U.S. tour. And then they were equally frustrated with the inability to get tickets. Fans seemed to have two major complaints. One, people are upset they could not get tickets to the event. Two, people feel service fees charged are too high. The assigned culprit? The greed of Ticketmaster and parent company Live Nation. Does this culprit make sense? At least for Taylor Swift, the demand far outstripped the supply of tickets. Far more individuals signed up for pre-sale than tickets available. For the first U.S. leg of Taylor Swift’s tour 3.5 million individuals registered for the pre-sale while 2.4 million tickets were sold.  And in many locations hundreds of fans gathered in the parking lot to simply hear the concert. But this explanation doesn’t seem to satisfy hungry fans upset that they didn’t get tickets to the show. It is the greed and monopoly of Live Nation that seems to be the issue.  Fans argue Live nation owns the venues and the ticketing system, thus creating a monopoly. Who then has the power in this market? Live Nation argues they own only 5% of venues, but others estimate they control up to 70% of ticketing. I believe the bigger issue is one that is unavoidable due to the nature of the market.  Let’s consider for a moment the fast food market. If I really want a McDonald’s hamburger, but they are sold out or unavailable for some reason, I can simply have a Wendy’s or Burger King sandwich. Are they completely interchangeable? No, but they are close enough substitutes that it is reasonable to interchange them. Now back to Taylor Swift. If I live in Denver and all the tickets are sold out for the night she comes to Denver, what are my options for that night? There is no comparable substitute for Taylor Swift. There is no ‘Wendy’s’ equivalent to Taylor Swift. By the nature of the market, Taylor Swift has created a monopoly for her concert that night. Even if the best singer in the area came to a competing venue saying she was going to sing all the Taylor Swift songs in a concert for everyone that didn’t get tickets, this is not a comparable substitute. So who really has the power? Is it Live Nation or Taylor Swift? I would argue it is Taylor Swift. And also her fans.  So what is the solution? Suing Ticketmaster? Getting the government to come in and break up Ticketmaster? 26 fans are suing Ticketmaster and Live Nation for anti-competitive practices, saying the companies use their power to charge above market prices. Yet, they must not be charging above market prices because people are reselling their tickets for well above the sticker price. This indicates to me that the initial price of the ticket was ‘too low’ according to supply and demand.  In fact, artists including Taylor Swift, price “below market” to try to make their concerts accessible to all fans. Pre-sales and verified fans are systems put in place to try to get tickets into the hands of actual fans planning to attend the concert and not scalpers. But selling concert tickets at below the market value creates other problems. We have established that demand far exceeds supply. There has to be some way to allocate this scarce resource. One way is allowing prices to dictate who values them the most monetarily, one is to have a verified fan process and lottery system. But whatever the system, some set of fans will be disappointed in not being able to buy tickets.  Perhaps we can have the government come in and allow other sellers to sell tickets. The government can create competition in the selling of tickets. But what makes us think multiple sellers would make the market any different? If I know I am selling a ticket to a unique event with excess demand, I would have no incentive to try and undercut my competitor because I know the tickets will sell regardless.  What about service fees? What is the purpose of fees? I previously would have had to stand in line to get tickets. For a massive concert, I might have had to sleep overnight or stand in line all day for a ticket at the actual box office. Online services allow me to save that time in line. I may have to ‘wait in the queue’, but it is virtual. I could continue working, watch a show, or tweet my favorite Taylor Swift lyrics while waiting. I no longer have to brave the elements to get my tickets. The service fee is me paying for the convenience to purchase my tickets at home. Service fees are relatively unavoidable. Typically, box office fees are less than online but not always. So, what is the solution to this? Well, I have the power in this case. I can simply stop giving the online providers my business. I can buy my tickets at the box office. Occasionally, I will have to forgo a show if I feel the service fees are too much. Taylor Swift still has all the power as the monopoly artist. She could negotiate different fees with Ticketmaster.  And if I genuinely feel prices and fees are too much, there is an alternative. It doesn’t feature the live Taylor Swift, but it does feature other dedicated fans. Some companies are hosting Taylor Swift themed parties, dances, and sing-alongs. Even in a market with a monopolist artist, individuals have found ways to create alternative experiences for fans to connect with one another and the artists music.  This situation is representative of broader implications of how markets work. People are quick to assign greed as the reason for various issues, but greed is ever-present. Issues with access to products in the market always come back to scarcity, which is also ever-present. There are various ways to deal with scarcity. Individuals can demonstrate their willingness to pay through money, time, or other means. The government coming in to dictate the way to run a particular market ignores the underlying issues with that particular market and the desires of the individuals involved.     Amy Crockett is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Economics and a Graduate Fellow in the F.A. Hayek Program at the Mercatus Center, both at George Mason University. (0 COMMENTS)

While there’s a lot of recent discussion about the impact of immigration, Americans often overlook the effects of emigration. Norman Douglas traveled extensively in southern Italy during the early 1900s and wrote a book entitled Old Calabria.  At one point he discussed how emigration was transforming Italy, which at the time was quite poor: What is shattering family life is the speculative spirit born of emigration. A continual coming and going; two-thirds of the adolescent and adult male population are at this moment in Argentina or the United States—some as far afield as New Zealand. Men who formerly reckoned in sous now talk of thousands of francs; parental authority over boys is relaxed, and the girls, ever quick to grasp the advantages of money, lose all discipline and steadiness. . . .These emigrants generally stay away three or four years at a stretch, and then return, spend their money, and go out again to make more. Others remain for longer periods, coming back with huge incomes—twenty to a hundred francs a day. . . .  It is nothing short of a social revolution, depopulating the country of its most laborious elements. 788,000 emigrants left in one year alone (1906); in the province of Basilicata the exodus exceeds the birthrate. I do not know the percentage of those who depart never to return, but it must be considerable; the land is full of chronic grass-widows.Things will doubtless right themselves in due course; it stands to reason that in this acute transitional stage the demoralizing effects of the new system should be more apparent than its inevitable benefits. Already these are not unseen; houses are springing up round villages, and the emigrants return home with a disrespect for many of their country’s institutions which, under the circumstances, is neither deplorable nor unjustifiable. A large family of boy-children, once a dire calamity, is now the soundest of investments. Soon after their arrival in America they begin sending home rations of money to their parents; the old farm prospers once more, the daughters receive decent dowries. I know farmers who receive over three pounds a month from their sons in America—all under military age. . . .Previous to this wholesale emigration, things had come to such a pass that the landed proprietor could procure a labourer at a franc a day, out of which he had to feed and clothe himself; it was little short of slavery. The roles are now reversed, and while landlords are impoverished, the rich emigrant buys up the farms or makes his own terms for work to be done, wages being trebled. A new type of peasant is being evolved, independent of family, fatherland or traditions—with a sure haven of refuge across the water when life at home becomes intolerable. When people emigrate to a more successful place, there is a flow of information back to the home country.  People learn that things don’t have to be this way, and there is pressure for change.  Like trade, migration is not a zero sum game; it tends to improve cultures in both the sending and the receiving country. (0 COMMENTS)