Good Movie about how the public discourse is pretty well controlled

Its Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent


http://www.hulu.com/watch/118171/manufacturing-consent

If you can't explain it to a six year old,

you don't understand it yourself. - A. Einstein.

Altruism Stuff

Here's two articles brought up by Prof Geisinger:

Becker and Stigler

Akerlof and Kranton

Topics

Week 9: Public Choice Theory

Week 10: Fran and Jess

Week 11: Alex and Flossy

Week 12: Mike and Mike

Week 13: BigDog and The Stead - WXPN 8pm Sundays

Regarding Sagoff

Two things:

• Does this cause anyone else to worry about applicability issues? Accepting, for the sake of argument, the notion that social regulation shouldn't be defended on economic terms, by what process should a regulator hope to achieve a legitimately fair outcome? Political process, Sagoff's choice, seems weak, as it demands that a pretty exacting and exhaustive amount of democracy occur. I don't see how legitimately shared values can be understood, let alone realized, without recourse individual consumer choice. People don't consciously care enough to make the choices through voting that they make through incentivized consumer behavior. No?
• The Mineral King example is great, but I came to the opposite conclusion as the author. Within reason, isn't there an acceptable and achievable hybrid between the economic and the social good? When Sagoff spoke of the Forest Service violating "the public trust" and of the class and the American electorate responding in "overwhelming opposition", I could only wonder as to how much information digestion was required to manufacture so many opinions. Were people really eschewing the utility that would be derived from the land through its proposed use, or were they maximizing the utility that comes with feeling like a righteous, anti-corporate defender of Gaia? This isn't judgment - I am completely self-righteous. But isn't Sagoff just trading overt consumer choices for covert ones, and, in the interest of consistency with his program, a useful and reasonably legitimate process of preference measurement for an inexact process, one weighted toward the severity, rather than breadth, of public opinion?

Mark Stehr

Seat Belts

Possible Class Discussion Topics

1: Mark Stehr, a professor of economics at LeBow, seems to LOVE measuring compliance with incentives under different regulatory regimes. He has papers on the effects of cigarette taxes, seatbelt laws, sunday alcohol sales, bicycle helmet mandates and condom usage. His paper on seat-belts is provided in the post above. Maybe we should read this or another of his articles for an upcoming class and I'll contact him to gauge his interest in coming in for a conversation. Your thoughts?
2: Martha Nussbaum's book, Animal Rights, contains a debate between Judge Posner and Peter Singer, regarding the boundaries of moral existence. Posner argues for a human-centric view of morality, while Singer espouses a utilitarian perspective based upon the ability of creatures to feel pain. Is this something we want to discuss, or is it too far afield? My initial thought is that it may fall way outside the range of our discussion, but I wonder, based on our recent conversations, whether insights gleaned from this sort of argument might affect our consideration of incentives and the reactions groups and individual actors have to them. Again, thoughts?