You say changes in sexual mores can be explained in largely economic terms. If so, why can't we use economics to predict further changes?

Hi Judge Posner,

Always enjoy reading your take on things. Do you have any data supporting your comment that "In communities (and there are still some) in which premarital sex is strongly disapproved, young people marry to have sex, but marriages so motivated are likely to end in divorce, producing more unmarried people and so more demand for nonmarital sex"? I would've expected a lower divorce rate. I think of women who are promiscuous, I doubt they make good future marriage partners - less likely to remain faithful to their husbands, less feminine and traditional, more selfish. Again, not a good candidate for long-term marriage.

I wondered about that part too. When premarital sex is "disapproved of" in a community, it's usually because people there still respect the institution. Marriage is not just a social liscense to have sex.

I think of women who are promiscuous, I doubt they make good future marriage partners - less likely to remain faithful to their husbands, less feminine and traditional, more selfish.

FYI, "willing to participate in premarital sex" is not the same as promiscuous. Furthermore, this stereotyping of women is completely unfair since for every woman having premarital sex, there is a man having premarital sex (or worse, sex outside of his marriage). Thus, if your point about marriage holds, it is just as likely to be the fault of the men involved as the women.

Erica,

You sound extremely naive if you think a man having pre-marital sex is the same as a woman having pre-marital sex. Young men have more testosterone (thus, the need for sex) and face more pressure to engage in pre-marital sex than women. Men can "recover" and still have strong committed marriages after having pre-marital sex. Once a woman is "tainted", it's harder for these women to settle down, change their ways and make good marriage partners. Of course, there are lots of stupid men out there who don't care. But a women who is having pre-marital sex is unlikely to find a "good man".

AJ,

You are joking, right?

While the chance of sitting in on one of their lectures would be a small one, I enjoy being able to read their writings and process their ideas. Thank you Dr. Becker and Dr. Posner for having this blog.

But a women who is having pre-marital sex is unlikely to find a "good man".

I'm willing to side with Erika--note the "k" for future reference, ne?--on this issue. I don't think I can agree where that comment was going unless I'm inferring your point incorrectly. Using vague qualifiers like "good" or "bad" makes the discussion spin its tires for me. What is a "good man"? What is a "bad man"? Either way, any broad generalization about human sexuality between the sexes is going to have a hard time being defended.

Generalizations are not generally unfounded, heh heh.

In the above dispute, if women tend to do more child-rearing and men tend to do more bread-winning, the husband has more to lose from his wife sleeping around and bearing a child by another man, which the husband than supports for years, than vice versa, where the husband may have another child out somewhere that he does not have to support by virtue of marital ties to the mother. That is a valid generalization.

The only major question, then, is whether women tend to be more nurturing and child-rearing by nature, and men tend to be the competitive go-getters who win the bread for the family by nature. That is how men and women by and large are in the world today, cross-culturally and cross-historically. Hard to chalk that up solely to the caprices of cultural habit.

I have one economic factor to add to the mix. I think it is subtly very important, perhaps moreso than people might thing, and that is the public education entitlement. The education entitlement has dramatically lowered the cost of having a baby out of wedlock or by a financially irresponsible man. Once the child turns 5, and 4 in some states, daycare is guaranteed for most of the working hours of the day, and it is paid for by the state. Hence, sexual irresponsibility (having unprotected sex out of wedlock without birth control) comes at a significantly lower price. The long-term effects of this sort of economic entitlement creep into culture over a period of decades–as the cost of irresponsibility is lowered, the social mores against it also tend to water down over time, to the point that responsibility is actually castigated by many people.

In criminal terms at the district court I work at, sentencing defendants with multiple children by multiple mothers they have never married is the rule, not the exception. This will continue, because irresponsibility continues to breed as long as the economic cost of that is low.

RWS's comments about irresponsibility make me wonder a bit if society might be a bit on the far side of the pedulum swing in terms of sexual morality. Often the argument about sexual morality takes on a tone of "it's gotten worse, therefore it will keep getting worse". However, if you think of this in terms of the economic cost of responsibility, the cost of being irresponsible cannot keep going down. Eventually some other factors will come into account and drive the cost of being irresponsible back up. Whether that cost be medical (like AIDS) or monetary (obligation to support all children one creates), an increased cost should increase responsibility.

To look at it in a less economic light, perhaps society is in something like it's college days of sexual morality. The heady fragrence of sexual freedom leads people to take too much advantage of that freedom. That does not mean the freedom was bad; it will just take time for people to learn how to not abuse it.

I think of women who are promiscuous, I doubt they make good future marriage partners - less likely to remain faithful to their husbands, less feminine and traditional, more selfish. Again, not a good candidate for long-term marriage.

Thanks AJ. You have aptly demonstrated a point I was trying to make on a couple of British blogs. Apparently, Britain is even further removed from traditional sexual mores than the US: sex on the first date is exceedingly common in Britain and dates are not as formal as in the US. I made the point that American men often discount the suitability of such women as long term partners.

AJ succintly describes some of the causes of "Chasing Amy" syndrome. (IMDB the term if you aren't familiar.) I wonder how much "Chasing Amy" syndrome impedes sexual satisfaction or mate-search satisficing in the U.S. compared with more libertine nations?

I think it is interesting that the article mentions the conservative religious communities, for lack of a better terms, view of marriage and sex. Specifically, the idea that the only reason why couples get married is to have sex.

I do not really dispute this claim, having grown up in a similar community. I recognized that I did not wish to participate in this almost utilitarian view of marriage a few years ago. If I marry, it will not be to have sex. Rather, it will be because I wish to spend my life with this particular person and to raise a family with her.

I am currently (between studying for exams) reading John Paul II's book "Love and Responsibility". In it, he outlines his "personalistic" norm for marriages. Quite frankly, it is a challenging book. It calls for greater love and respect then I am naturally inclined to give the fairer sex. Basically, it calls me to be a better man (ala Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets).

To RWS:

Granted, I won't say that there aren't kernels of truth to broad statements, but when you start stating that "good" people do X while "bad" people do Y, I tend to automatically ask "Why?" or "Where is the proof?". It may be there, but just stating "Once a woman is 'tainted', it's harder for these women to settle down, change their ways and make good marriage partners" seems way off base.

I would think these kind of women could easily change their ways if someone would be willing to give them a chance. It is just that the "taintedness" makes potential mates take a bee-line away from such people. The more that I think about this issue, I would imagine that it is just a case of being unable to end the cycle. Granted, choices a person made during adolescence and early/mid/late twenties are a good sign as to how the rest of their life is going to develope, but let's not call the issue dead and bury them.

Erika, AIDS is an interesting phenomenon from an economic perspective. In this country, it appears to spread rapidly through permiscuous homosexual cultures. Incredibly, permiscuous homosexuality appears to persist in the face of AIDS. I have several friends (younger) who frequent gay bars and engage in promiscuous sex that is almost certainly unprotected, even after we have had 20 years living with AIDS. The tendency towards more monogamous homosexuality, in my observations, is more frequent in older, highly educated gay couples (over 40 or 50 years old), and monogamy in several I know seems to me very likely and is stable. But, among the young, the male enjoyment of promiscuity is just too large a pull. Some of the young gay men I know have expressed a desire for a woman, but the great expense of finding a compatible one and dating for a long time and showing great commitment, not to mention the exposure to shame of rejection and so forth, is just too great in the face of much pleasure at lower cost.
I think that AIDS has changed *how* people have sex, though. That goes especially for homosexual relationships. Let’s not get into that one, *wink*, but there are less risky activities that have grown up in response.

The problem with child support being a deterrent to out-of-wedlock births is that, often, it is not really a deterrent. In federal criminal sentencings, that issue often comes up, and the simple fact is the men generally have no known assets, or credit card debts that greatly exceed assets. Amazingly, too, a lot of women refuse to go to court to get child support. That is just not that great a deterrent for all too many men.

I think Posner is omitting the primary causal factor--increases in urbanization.

The relative economic freedom of women only explains (partially) one side of the equation. For every committed female, there is a committed male. Has male economic freedom increased? If so, would this explain the effect?

Urbanization leads to distributed social burden sharing. This later factor is more accurately that factor which undermines marriage as an institution. The notion that it is only due to the relative economic independence of females relies on "old-fashioned" stereotypes of women as servants in an unfair bargaining position. How can this be when the whole institution relies on a 1-1 pairing? Supply and demand doesn't square with this preposition. The only change in that equation is in the distribution of goods being supplied and demanded (follow this line too much further and trouble lies ahead....).

So the primary dynamic is an integrated economy (mechanization), leading to urbanization, leading to social burden sharing, leading to the decreased need for vertically structured relationships (families), leading to a decreased need for stable marriages.

On the other hand, there are societies where woman share an equal social status and do have stable families/marriages but which are not urbanized.

One trend that Posner doesn't mention but that may also be at work relates to the interpretation of texts.

Protestantism has since its inception emphasized the use of biblical texts in arriving at moral judgments as to what moral principles are God's. An economist might say that the protestant movement itself was made possible by the invention of the printing press, which allowed much cheaper access to those biblical texts. Traditionally, believers had to rely on those who could afford an education and books to tell them what God's will was. Since the reformation, the trend toward believers better informed on what scripture actually says had led to more, and more nuanced interpretations of scripture.

As Posner points out I think accurately, the Bible has relatively little to say about sex. The traditional interpretations of what little it does say have remained almost unchallenged since around the Reformation perhaps because of the cultural factors that Posner cites didn't change much in that period and because of a background norm that exists within Christianity of leaving traditional beliefs unchallenged without convincing evidence against them.

In the last 100 years in the United States, protestants have begun to move from a "plain meaning" approach to the interpretation of scripture into a more nuanced "contextual" approach that incorporates more of an understanding of the historical background to the texts, and even the personalities of the authors (a consideration that the plain meaning approach tends to shun). As a result, there are some who calls themselves Christians today who would have experienced tremendous internal and external resistance had they tried to do and maintain a particular lifestyle even fifty years ago. Peter Gomes, for example, has given a pretty careful analysis of each passage in the bible that traditionally has been interepreted to show homosexuality sinful, concluding finally that these interpretations are not the most accurate.

If it's true that information and education is cheaper now than it ever has been, then it seems a greater variety of more nuanced intepretations of scripture might be possible now than ever before, allowing for many who could not traditionally without at least psychological tension call themselves Christians and engage in a particular behavior to do so with at least some claim to legitimacy. Thus I think that at least some part of the sexual revolution in the United States may be a result of the explosion of the traditional, simple Christian justifications for certain moral beliefs about sexuality into a multitude of more sophisticated moral beliefs still ultimately tied to the bible (and so Christian in that sense) but not necessarily to the traditional conclusions.

At least by protestants, sex might come be treated as a morally indifferent activity not because it is no longer considered dangerous physically, but because it is no longer considered morally relevant scripturally. Or at least, because it has become so much more difficult for any particular scriptural interpretation to claim superiority socially.

As always, an interesting topic. However, I'm left wondering if there are additional factors not directly attributable to economics and the role of women in society. Modern, urban culture, though possibly created in part by a change in the role of women, has created a new social dynamic. Communities are larger and more diverse.

With this increase in community size, there is an increase in annonymity. Members of the community become less involved in the activities of their neighbors and the instance of being caught declines, as does the level of punishment for the crime. Individuals from small rural cultures are highly aware of the crimes of their neighbors, while large communities make this much more difficult. Likewise, being shunned from a small society is much more common and damaging to an individual, whereas being shunned from a large city is next to impossible. The lack of recognition of and punishment for a socially evil act makes doing the act much more common. Urbanization has brought this about and is the reason that in many communities around the world today, there is a direct correlation between the size of the city and moral decline.

Increase in globalization has also created a situation where communities are much more diverse than in the past. This diversity exposes people to differing viewpoints, including those regarding sexual mores. This exposure cannot be exclusively responsible for the change in moral attitudes, but I believe it is a significant factor that cannot be ignored.

This argument is obviously not exclusive to Catholicism, but is as true of Catholics as it is of Jews and Moslems.

I was wondering whether Judge Posner had read Roger Finke and Rodney Stark's book Acts of Faith, which is an economic study of religion by two sociologists. In it, they argue that the fall in the supply of Catholic priests, nuns and monks is due to Vatican II, which fundamentally changed the psychic incomes of religious professionals. For instance, V2 relaxed the strict requirements that religious professionalism was needed for "spiritual perfection" - it was perfectly legitimate and holy call for a Catholic to serve in a "secular" calling.

My thoughts, after reading the book, were that if it is true that the current priest shortage (which they note in the book) is due to Vatican II, then perhaps the pedophila among priests is due to adverse selection in the labor supply of priests created by Vatican II. For instance, if there always existed two reasons for men to enter into the clergy (one being a spiritual call; two being sexual guilt), then Vatican II, by reducing the benefits of being a priest (while holding constant the costs, such as celibacy), could have reduced the incentives needed to produce the right kind of priests. This might then explain the church's reluctance to fire erring priests - Vatican II had created a shortage, and the priesthood now consisted of a larger proportion of wayward priests.

Heh heh. Posner said "extrude." Heh heh heh he heh heh.

joking now, right?

I think scott's correct about Vatican 2 and the supply of priests. To echo what he said, a Catholic buddy of mine told me that the "unstated" viewpoint on homosexuality and the priesthood was that it was a good place for them because, *wink*, they shouldn't be having sex anyway.

I also think that ch's point that urbanization leads to lower social condemnation of sexual licentiousness is very key, to which I would add that the cost to one's reputation among members of the other sex of sleeping around has also gone way down in urban communities.

Interesting link to a libertarian argument in favor of a traditional approach to sexual relationships:

http://www.policyreview.org/apr05/morse.html

What about that "AIDS notwithstanding?"

How can you "notwithstanding" AIDS when you're claiming that the cost of sex is reduced?

And how can you claim that the cost of sex really is reduced, partly due to things like condoms, when AIDS is running rampant -- suggesting that many people in the U.S. and the world aren't using them? (Condoms, that is.)

And how can you explain anything in seemingly rational "economic" terms when people aren't taking the di minimis extra cost of condom usage and using it to minimize the risk of AIDS?

Doesn't AIDS in fact completely defeat the idea that sex can be seen as "largely" an economic cost-benefit thing? Any rational actor would use the rubber and avoid the death. But we're not dealing with rational actors when we're dealing with sex, we're dealing with mystic darkness and pure reptillian brain-stem evolutionary responses. You can't economize that.

(I'm not even going to touch RWS's suggestions as to homosexuality.)

As a male, I wonder how the invention of the condom for (relative) safe sex has affected men's view of the sexual act. For the most part, I can agree with JP II when he says that contraceptives lead to a utilitarian view of the partner. In the end, I do think there is a causual relationship in contraceptive use and the objectivization of women, from a man's perspective.

Maybe this is from my experiences in university, but most sexual acts are short term, with no real intention of commitment. In the end, the guys are using girls to achieve orgasism. That is the only reason why there is a girl. I do not know about anyone else, but I would be hurt if someone did that to me.

Paul Gowder:

The economic answer to your concern is that some people obviously ascribe an exceedingly high value to sexual activity, enough to offset the risk of AIDS. They also may have a high discount rate, which means that they value their future life significantly less in present value terms than they do their present quality of life.

Economics fully explains such phenomena. The people you suggest are so irrational as to lack all economic explanation would almost certainly not engage in sexual activity if someone were pointing a gun at them and guaranteed that they would be shot to death upon completion. At that point, the cost and certainty of the activity outweigh the gains, and so they do not do the activity.

In addition, the fact that someone may consider sex with a condom to be much less satisfying does not defeat the fact that this preference can be subjected to economic analysis. That is his value judgment, which is then entered into the cost-benefit marginal analysis.

Economics also explains such things as tree pollen strategy, insect feeding behavior, and so on. Consciousness or “sophistication” of thought is not a prerequisite for economic analysis.

Why no mention of the rise of consumerism and increasing sophistication in identifying and selling towards a particular consumer's needs, wants and desires? We're talking about the commoditization of desire, which affects how we think of sex and sexuality. I'm not referring as much to the incidences of sex in popular media (which is simplay a reflection of the times), but, rather, the use of behavioral science in business and marketing.

Sex sells on many different levels. Of course, it's not just sex, but all of the other human frailties like greed, envy, hate, hubris, et al. Each of those weaknesses is a starting point for manipulation. And, if the only virtue left is to get people to take a particular action, then we really are worse off.

But I don't think it's so much that social mores have changed all that much. Rather, I think that what was once inherently private or kept behind closed doors of clubs and families is now increasingly public due primarily to technology. Sex and promiscuity are universal to every culture that I've experienced. And we're kidding ourselves in defining a purer, more innocent time in our own western culture. There was perhaps a time when propriety constrained certain actions and expressions of human desire. But make no mistake that the desire and behavior have always and will always be there.

So, rather than an erosion of public morality, we have simply become a more tolerant (ironic, isn't it), honest, transparent society.

Judge Posner,

Speaking of legalizing abortion in response to a change in sexual more, please tell me one state -as opposed to a court decision within a state - where the people (including elected members) have recently passed laws granting more freedom to have abortions? It has been the exact opposite. States and Congress have both passed laws to restrict late term and partial birth abortions, only to have judges strike them down. You're talking about judge-made law.

As for the costs of sex in relationship to AIDS -

It may be the case, too, that in ethnic communities, where biracial matching is relatively rare, and the ratios of men to women are relatively low, that males have disproportionate power in the bargaining over whether or not to wear a condom. It is known, for instance, that women incur more risks from unsafe sex than men, both in terms of possible fertility risks (though abortion and the pill have reduced these), as well as a higher probability of contracting and STD. The probability of infection from male-to-female is 20% higher than it is for female-to-male. Plus, condoms reduce the sensual pleasure for males, and probably have a negligible effect on females. Hence, with asymetries in the risk across the two partners, low sex ratios (and therefore increased male bargaining power in a Nash cooperative game context) and low biracial matching, you may have both increased concurrency (ie, simultaneous sexual partnerships) among men, as well as decreased condom usage. That could account for the HIV/AIDS epidemic among blacks, which exhibit low sex ratios at the urban level (the lowest sex ratio since modern censuses began taking note, actually), low rates of biracial matching, and diminished condom usage.

Also, Emily Oster at Harvard (second year graduate student) has an upcoming QJE publication on HIV/AIDS in Africa and its relationship to the presence of STDs. If there are high occurences of STDs in a population, then those alone may explain as much as 50% of the HIV/AIDS rate, because many STDs amplify the transmission of HIV/AIDS. For instance, ones that create open wounds near the genitalia may amplify the transmission rate of HIV/AIDS.

Lastly, to Paul's point, keep in mind that when you are thinking about disease transmission, you may be dealing with instances where an individual does not fully internalize the social costs of his actions. For instance, we know that STD epidemics are largely driven by both high average number of sexual partners in a population, as well as the variance of the number of parters in that population. If you have a population in which the average individual has several partners in their lifetime, and you have a "core group" of individuals who are extremely sexually active, then that core group can help drive the entire epidemic. Yet, when they increase their partnerships, while putting the network at greater risk because of their high connectivity, they most likely are not internalizing those kinds of social costs (if that is the right way to think about it). Ian Ayres and Katherine Baker have a law review article that came out recently (I think it was either Yale law review of Chicago law review) called "Criminalizing Reckless Sex" in which they discuss one possible policy response to these types of externality problems in sexual networks (they propose to criminalize first-time sexual contacts in which individuals do not wear condoms. It's a compelling article, and discusses the problem not only from an economic perspective, but also from a social norms perspective).

To bring up the conservative community again, Posner says "In communities (and there are still some) in which premarital sex is strongly disapproved, young people marry to have sex, but marriages so motivated are likely to end in divorce, producing more unmarried people and so more demand for nonmarital sex". I don't think this is accurate. We have to ask "Why is premarital sex strongly disapproved?" Probably because of religion. So those that follow the community norm of not having pre-marital sex are probably more religious on average and are not getting married primarily to have sex, but for religious reasons as well (starting a family, etc.). Being raised in such a community, I will say that sex is a strong incentive to getting married - but not the primary factor.

I would expect less divorce in such communities because not only are these people more religious and looking for religious people to marry, but just as there is strong disapproval of premarital sex, there is strong disapproval of divorce too. I view this as a good thing. If I have to tough it out through rough times in marriage, I am more likely to have a more fulfilling marriage overall. If I divorce at the first sign of trouble, then I am likely to have multiple, shallow marriages.

RWS: I think we need to step into philosophical territory for a bit. What is this "economics" of which you speak which completely disregards consciousness and claims to be able to explain "tree pollen strategy" ("strategy??"), insect feeding behavior, etc. Is it nothing, then, but behavioral psychology with more math? Completely disregard consciousness and analyze things only in terms of observed (or, as in the bankruptcy bill discussion, not even observed but merely theorized, evidence be damned) responses to reward and punishment?

If economics is nothing more than behaviorism + math, those who advocate it will have to contend with the litany of critiques of behaviorism, such as the fact that it amounts to a bald attack on the concept of free will -- an attack that RWS implicitly endorses by the equation between the forces motivating human behavior and the forces motivating insect behavior.

So what of it, RWS? Do humans have free will? Or are they purely a product of the stimuli imposed on them which you call "economics?"

Moreover, the idea that economics can explain instinctive behavior (bugs) and even evolutionary biology (I assume by "tree pollen strategy" you mean those biological aspects of trees which attract e.g. bees to distribute their pollen.) reduces economics to a single sentence: "if it works, it will keep happening." This whole enterprise, both Posner's sex-as-economics and RWS's evolution-as-economics reminds me of the Soviet prediliction for claiming to have invented everything, like airplanes, in the face of superior claims. I can see it now. "Darwin? He was an economist."

--

Scott: I've read the Ayres/Baker article -- interesting stuff, but I think not well thought out. My comments are here. It makes for an interesting theory, but I think it would be extremely dubious in practice.

Also, what's the economic explanation for suicide in cases where there's no terminal disease or chronic disability? Teenagers jumping off cliffs, etc.

Paul, I think you make good points, but the extreme you present is not actually that far off. Economics (or, at least, microeconomics) is the science of decisionmaking under budget constraints. It is not a theory of the world, metaphysics, self-hood, or anything else. It sounds like that is where you are having a problem. Economics merely explains, in positive terms, the process of decisionmaking. Trees maximize the number of other trees they can fertilize under the budget constraints of sunlight, water, etc. If conditions change, they probably will change their fertilization method by the process of genetic evolution. In that respect, physics, biology, and economics are all sciences. Economics is just a specialized form of explaining the process of decisionmaking among humans.

I think humans have some free will, but not unlimited free will. We live in the real world, which is a world of decision-making under budget constraints.

As far as the economics of suicide, I’m sure you can guess my answer: that can be explained by extreme conditions in which the value placed on future existence, when perceived benefits and costs are calculated, is negative. It may be unfortunate or tragic or anything else, but that is the explanation for the decision process. The goal for those who want to deter suicide is obviously to try to get the person to value life more and consider costs to be less. Sounds a little dry, but that is part of it. I mean, that is what you usually see in the “person on the window sill ready to jump” scenes in movies. The hero either tries to encourage a revaluation of some sort.

This sort of explanation tends to be accompanied by criticisms that it’s life-negating or missing something or whatnot, so as for my own assessment of how it intersects with life, I go to church every week and do lots of volunteer work, but I also enjoy economics. No different to me than being Catholic and accepting Galileo and Darwin.

Didn't Gary Becker win his Nobel partly because of his work in the economics of marriage and such? He's already broken those eggs for a round or two. Judge Posner also has a book on sex and law, though I haven't ever looked at it. Anyway, that's kind of interesting now that they are blogging on the subject.

RWS: I guess that's my core objection to economics in general (which shows up in dozens of different ways). It's just so immensely reductive (and yes, life-negating), turning humans to nothing more than the pattern of their choices, and at the same time nihilistic, in that it presumptively makes all decisions (such as the suicide thing) into presumptive cost-benefit analyses -- even when those decisions are influenced by mental illness or drunkenness or some such. (And, indeed, economics probably would impute drunkenness-decisions to some implied cost-benefit analysis in the decision to get drunk...)

I think we need to remember that science (and I'll concede arguendo that economics is a science, though I question the committment of its practicioners to the scientific method) is the servant of philosophy, not the other way around. Human life, being finally constrained by mortality, is only worth anything if it is given some meaning -- any meaning -- beyond that of mere unreflective stimulated action. ("The unexamined life is not worth living," as it were.) There is no question that we in fact have a consciousness that attempts to give meaning to what we do, and that consciousness influences our decisions. In the face of that, I'm inclined to categorically reject any science that refuses to take this consciousness into consideration.

But hey, I'm an existentialist (somewhat). You pick your own philosophical poison. There are any number of schools of philosophy that are perfectly compatible with the reductive theory of economics. However, I think it's important for those who espouse economics to realize that there are also a significant, substantial number of attempts to find meaning for humanity that are incompatible with economics as presently practiced, and are yet still legitimate and both internally and externally consistent. Economics, science though it may not be, is not an exclusive system: its explanations must necessarily permit of alternative, equally valid, explanations.

Paul, post the entire link. For some reason, that link is not working for me. I keep getting sent to a blogger sign-in page. -sc

Scott: whoops. Try this.

This is not because these religions have become increasingly prudish (though Catholicism takes a harder line against abortion than it did until the nineteenth century . . .

Increased opposition to recreational sex may indeed be a sign of increasing "prudism," but I don't see how a change in attitude on the life-and-death issue of abortion can be so characterized.

Hyh's comment: "I'm not referring as much to the incidences of sex in popular media (which is simplay a reflection of the times), but, rather, the use of behavioral science in business and marketing."

I think it's a mistake to see the media as a reflection rather than a projection of the times. Everyone knows that the media is constantly pushing the envelope of what is immoral in order to make it permissible. The media normalizes immoral behavior, an easily observable fact in every medium that I am surprised the judge omits from his analysis.

The weakest presumption in this analysis is the idea that the male marries in order to have a stay-at-home wife to raise children. How can this be more than an exception in an economy where the vast majority of couples both work?

So Posner is left with the obvious contradiction to his utilitarian thesis: people marry. On one hand he posits that originally, this was done for sex. Yet, the economies throughout US history were stable in regards to child raising. Couples would marry when they expected to be able to afford a family and raised the size family that could be accommodated by their local economy--all this despite the fact that we did not have social insurance or AFDC. Out of wedlock childbirth was relatively rare. Yet, contraceptives were also rare. So, the human animal must have applied some control that is not being applied today.

Becker seems to believe that such control is impossible. Well, history asserts otherwise.

Again we are left with the question, "Why do people marry?" Posner has no good answer according to his utilitarian view. Companionship does not require marriage.

Well, the answer is obvious (I discussed it earlier). This fundamental dynamic however entirely escapes Posner's model of human behavior. Isn't it odd to have a model of a process with no plausible explanation of the fundamental character of the process?

Pope John Paul II seemed unusually conservative in matters of sex not because he was making Catholic sex doctrine more severe, but because he was refusing to yield to strong pressures to relax it. He was swimming against the tide.
Wouldn't a better metaphor be "He was standing firm against the tide"? After all, he wasn't changing the rules, just reaffirming them.

Didn't Karl Marx try to explain history as a progression of economic (production) relations? This sounds like another attempt to explain the present without any reference to subjective human choice and only as a result of economic circumstances. Not only that it predicts the evolution of the future by extending a "straight line".

What do you mean Posner has "no good reason for why people marry"? They marry because the the joint utility exceeds the single utilty. Why that is the case mayh be because of public goods within the family (children, for instance), economies of scale, whatever. but there's nothing in Posner's argument that I can detect which states marriage is somehow an anomaly.

Scott,

How is that precisely? Posner does not say. In fact, the criteria underlying the trends that Posner cites do not explain the simple fact that people marry.

The explanation that Posner offers is pathetically weak and contradictory to the great percentage of married working couples in our economy.

How is marriage an economic or social benefit? For a while (before tax reform) it was actually penalized.

It is a gaping hole in his model.

"The costs of engaging in sexual activity have fallen dramatically over the last half century (AIDS notwithstanding), for many reasons. One was the discovery that penicillin is a safe, certain, and inexpensive cure for syphilis."



In it's place we have new diseases that have no cure, you're lucky if you just get syphilis - Hepatitis A, B, C, to infinity and beyond!, herpes, venereal warts (HPV), etc... there's plenty we have no cure for, AIDS is just one in a million.



This is not to even mention that penicillin-resistant syphilis, gonorrhoeae, and staphylococci is on the rise...

Paul,

There's no gaping whole. I don't know what is difficult to understand, but I suspect the source of your confusion is found in your caricature of economics.

Economics allows for social and emotional value. That is included in what economists call "utility." The utility (benefits) of marriage exceeds the costs of marriage for those who marry (or at least expected benefits and costs). Those benefits can exclusively be personal satisfaction. I really don't think you have reflected on this very much. Many monetary exchanges serve purely emotional ends, yet economics explains those transactions perfectly fine. Economics is not just about transactions, but about decision making of any kind. Is that what is giving you trouble? Think of benefits and costs as broadly as possible, and that is what economics uses. Economics isn't just about money and economic growth. It is about human decisiion making. Economists can come to opposite conclusions without ever doubting the power of economic thinking. The difference is found in the assessment of the costs and the benefits. Difference can also be found in how rational individuals behave. Maybe you think humans run more off of instinct without reflection. That's legitimate. But that doesn't mean economics cannot, in its way, explain human behavior. It would only mean that economics provides a false description. Which is your position?

Palooka,

Precisely, in economic terms, what is the utility of marriage as opposed to cohabitation?

Saying that economics includes emotional valued items is hand waving.

As far as concrete benefits, there are all those "incidents" of marriage which gays are now clamoring for, apparently. Those nearly one thousand benefits which it is absolutely unjust to keep from them, remember?

Secondly, there is often religious and social value attached to being married over cohabitation. It is a way to signal to your partner and to society a level of committment that cohabitation does not provide. Again, I am not sure what is so difficult to grasp.

It's not hand-waving. One of the things people value which causes them to undergo the marriage commitment is the love and companionship they receive from marriage. Take that benefit out and marriage is less likely to occur. You are correct that it is part of the decision process but wrong to believe that decision science cannot include that in the mix of factors, and also wrong to believe that Judge Posner is oblivious to that. His post is not an all-encompassing statement of his views on these matters or some comprehensive model, and should not be taken as such.

RWS, Palooka:

In a model, it is necessary to identify the key forces that make the thing work.

Do people get married for simplified estate planning? Is that what all the trouble is about?

Is there a social stigma to cohabitation that is so serious as to overcome the loss of opportunity (divorces can be costly)?

If for religious reasons, then explain the Catholic phenomena.

Love and companionship? Phooey! That does not require marriage.

Even still, people marry and marry again. Why?

What is the value of marriage?
(If you don't get it by next go round, I will not leave you dangling for long).

Chicks dig weddings.

^ Nail, meet hammer.

It is an energy balance.

Marriage provides micro-stability (trading entropy for energy) that allows the couples to concentrate their energies elsewhere.

Sex is an energy sink (not the great recreational source that some imagine--this is actually potential energy being expended that might better be used building castles and such. This is actually a common thread throughout cultures).

That micro-stability is necessary not only to raise children which may have some future economic utility (not so much these days), but also to allow the individuals to focus their productive energies in their professional careers.

Both sides of the equation are seeking security through a social construct that gives up sexual opportunity as the cost of creating the social barrier within which these microcosms of stability can be created.

So, contrary to Posner's take on sex as a good to be acquired and bargained for (this makes no sense when sex is essentially free), it is the stability of limiting sexual opportunity and minimizing its energy cost that people seek in marriage (so much for romance). An integrated society that provides social insurance devalues this security since overall risks to economic viability are lessened. Nonetheless, since the need for economic growth is a consistent force on the individual, we seek ways that allow us to focus our limited energies towards this end. Marriage helps us leverage our energies.

Of course it is possible to translate energy to economic values.

The point is that Posner has the relationships fundamentally wrong.

His model would be unstable in terms of marriage.

This essay reminds me of essays that medievals used to write about the origins of the universe and man, etc. Posner uses an accepted modern discipline, economics (in medieval times, exegetical readings of the bible & rhetorical logic) to create a bunch of seemingly plausible propositions, which he strings together into a seemingly comprehensive essay about modern sexual behavior with absolutely no proof. It's more revealing of his own personal prejudices than it is of any "truth." Note especially the paragraph on women entering the workforce--because, he says, of the increased availability of "service" jobs--light labor that we weak women could handle. I have news for Judge Posner--women have always worked, including performing manual labor. Whether we worked outside the home, whether we were paid and whether we controlled our economic products or destiny is another question. Women receive paychecks now, we have a legal right to property, and a theoretical legal right to hold nearly any job we want (excepting, notably, the priesthood). This isn't because now we have a "service" industry which we didn't have before, it's because of changes in the law.

The comments similarly do a better job revealing the writers' (mostly misogynistic) biases. I don't count myself as an exception, don't worry.

The variety of alarmism that attends most pop-statistics about sexual behaviour from a variety of interest groups of various stripes should not be taken as evidence for the institutionalization of casual sex. The fact remains that sex is mere liesure only amongst those that have the time for such liesure in lieu of any other activity. Further, lacivious behaviour has never been encouraged or unproblematic in any society, even those fun-loving ancient greeks.

Paradoxically, and sadly, those in the worst position to raise well-adjusted offspring are most likely to have children in significant numbers despite the availability of contraception. Sexual knowledge, like any variety requires of the participants some understanding of the mechanics and stakes involved. The same people who would lack the education or attention span to pick up a book are less likely to follow doctor's directions about the proper use of birth control, or "coincidentally" end up being the 1 in 500 who suffer "condom malfunction."

The goal of any social policy should be to maintain balance between our animalistic urges, and our capacity for higher reason. Neglecting the former leads to what Nietzsche disparagingly referred to as "decandence" not unlike religious zealots preaching complete abstinence as the sole message of sexual education, and neglecting the latter leads to social decay and barbarism.

When you're young and have little to no life beyond the basic fulfillment of your bodily urges, you tend to spend the preponderance of your time on those urges which has the unfortunate side-effect of producing more human beings. Sadly, our popular culture is full of the kind of nihilism and skepticism that implies that immediate material gratification is all there is.

A possible, although troubling, solution is some variety of government-sponsored birth control programs where one can target communities where teen-pregnancy rates are high. This has the rather unsettling odour of eugenicism, but as Holmes put it in one of his more eugenically sympathetic moments, and as a visit to any bar or liquor store would support:

"public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the state for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence... Three generations of imbeciles are enough."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes [Buck v. Bell (1927)]

Where is Becker's reply to Posner's poses? I just got this and am curious.

There is an extremely interesting possibility that niether Judge Posner nor Prof Becker, nor anyone posting comments has addressed regarding religion. Namely, certain religions, such as the Roman Catholic Church may have an economic motivation to become more distinct from the mainstream, rather than follow (witha lag) mainstream culture. To see this imagine that people choose their religious affiliation based based on standard U=u(...). Now think about what might go in the function (i.e. fill in the (...). Obviously, a number of variables would not have an impact on the non-mainstreamness of the reglion (e.g. people choosing a relgiion to foster social connection.) However, a critical variable is going to be the desire for some eternal reward and the somewhat related concept that adhering to special rules (which of course may be a way to further one's eternal reward). Both of these elements, seperately and in tandem, are obviously major factors in many relgiions: think the special dietary laws of orthodox jews, the special dress of the Amish, the special dress and dietary restrictions of conservative muslims. If a religion such as the Catholic Church adopts adopts certain restrictions that run counter to the rest of society they may attract adherents who get particular utility from special practices. Of course they will lose adherents who do not want to follow special practices or who find these special practices offensive. However, tis MAY not be a bad thing from an economic perspective since these people may have been less comitted in the first place and been more "price conscious" (i.e. more willing to go to another church). In other words, a stricter theology, may alienate some adherents but gain other adhenerents with more inelastic demand. On balance this may be in the interest of the church.

Now coming out of theory world I am not sure whether this would explain the conservatism within the Catholic church. At least in Europe and North America the vast majority of catholics do not follow the church's teaching on contraception. On the other hand this is not where the church is gaining adherents. in addition dramatic growth has occured in mroe conservative strains of a number of relgiions (Wahabism in Islam for example). This could also be explained by people's desire to follow special rules and/or through this adherence to spcial rules gain some type of eternal reward. In short, I am not sure that Posner and Becker are correct in their implicit assumption that relgions such as the Catholic Church will become less strict as societal mores change. A plausible economic arguemnt exists that they may become mroe strict.

Sex can never be equated with eating. We know in our hearts that sex is different than eating. Just think of our obsession with sex. Do people spend hours on the internet looking at pictures of steaks and apple pie? Sex is biological, but it is much more than that.

Fascinating discussion - I have one wee point.

Paul Barnes stated: "For the most part, I can agree with JP II when he says that contraceptives lead to a utilitarian view of the partner. In the end, I do think there is a causual relationship in contraceptive use and the objectivization of women, from a man's perspective."

With all due respect to the Pontiff, I don't think it is the condom that leads to the utilitarian view of one's partner because men have been using women for sex with or without condoms, whether for pleasure and/or reproduction, inside and outside of marriage, well since time began, though usually men of "higher station" if I may use that archaic term, and women have always paid the higher price historically for having let themselves be so used, regardless of their station.

Because historically marriage has been more about economics and reproduction than love and sex, via the arranged marriage, I suspect many husbands and indeed wives have viewed their spouses in purely "utilitarian" perspectives. [As a modern example, think Chuck and Di - she was just there to provide the heir and the spare except someone forget to tell Di, she thought she was entering a "companionate" marriage]

M. Webb makes some very interesting points.

Will the Catholic Church get more strict or loosen the rules regarding contraception?

The problem I have with the Catholic Church's position on contraception is what about the economics of uncontrolled or unsustainable population growth.

Ironically the Church's largest growing constituencies are in those areas where populations are already having a problem with sustainability.

Let's look at China - you may hate the one child per family policy [it is going to create its own problems admittedly since I hear the current generation has a disportionate ratio of males to females, I'd read the ratio is 3 males to 1 female, because of the unfortunate preference of a male over female child, but then again it means there will be far fewer females to reproduce the next generation which is a good thing if you are trying to limit population growth] but the general consensus is that if the Chinese had not implemented the one child per family policy when they did, the results would have been catastrophic. China has since been able to push itself forward economically and is reportedly loosening up the policy a bit.

Even if you could get most people to "behave", does there come a time when the economics of uncontrolled or "unsustainable" population growth, even if decades, centuries away yet, comes into a direct clash with religious doctrines?

Practical realities vs principle?

Unsustainable population? In what sort of an economy?

Family sizes vary by society based on degrees of mechanization. So the size of a sustainable family is larger in poorly mechanized societies than in those such as Western Europe which has to import labor from abroad (also the US).

China has the problem it has because of draconian central planning and dictatorial control. The society is far less stable than that of the US because of these policies. Chinese authorities fail as a matter of policy to mechanize agricultural production so as to concentrate manufacturing capabilities so as to leverage its clout in international affairs. Meanwhile, they have a policy of isolation of rural peoples to prevent political upheavals.

This is not "unfortunate"; it is a human rights travesty.

One reason for the need for legal marriage, as opposed to cohabitation, is how marriage benefits the female. Without a legal contract, the female may be caught in the midst of a type of hold-up problem in which, after she's made some kind of relationship-specific investment with this man, he opts to leave her after impregnating her. So, in exchange for intercourse, the female has a guarantee that she will be supported while she leaves the labor market to have children.

Don't ask me if I believe what I just wrote. I'm just saying that that may be one economic explanation for why marriage would persist and is preferred over cohabitation. Also, Posner is clearly drawing upon Becker's 70s, 80s and 90s articles and books on marriage and the family. You should check those out, if you haven't (not meaning that to sound condescending at all; simply saying that if you want to criticize the model that Posner is working out of, you should familiarize yourself with Becker's work on the subject).

Judith - the usuallly respond to comments towards the end of the week. This one will probably merit a lengthy response from both, given the activity in the forum.

Paul - Becker's models, FWIW, never prescribe a single motivation for marriage. He also, at least in the original JPE pt. I paper from what I remember, focused just on marriage. But in it, I think he began simply with the assumption that the joint utility from marriage had to exceed the single state. So whatever reason people marry for is not important to his models - they do so because the match leaves them with a higher personal level of utility than otherwise was possible. The consumption of the public goods in marriage are, I believe, the reason for the match. And if some of those public goods are positively related to marriage over cohabitation, that is the place to begin. I do think that the hold-up problem I mentioend could have some justification to the institution of marriage, although I am not going to tell my wife that just yet.

"public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the state for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence... Three generations of imbeciles are enough."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes [Buck v. Bell (1927)]

You know, if you are going to quote that case, you should disclose that Holmes was actually approving of the forced sterilization of a mentally disabled mother who had been raped while under the care of an institution. Some 60,000 Americans were forcibly sterilized in the years following. Later, an evil Nazi doctor quoted the case in his defense at the Nuremburg Trials. It has never been explicitly overruled. Just some fun facts.

"... you tend to spend the preponderance of your time on those urges which has the unfortunate side-effect of producing more human beings."

Did No-Kidding have a recruitment drive on college campuses or something? Its easy to be cynical. Wisdom does not lie on that path.

This week's discussion makes me want to tell a good economist joke. How many economists does it take to... you can fill in the rest.

I can't think of a topic less suited to dispassionate economic analysis than intimacy and procreation. When relationships are the primary focus of an activity, a science which treats each person as an individual, self-interested market actor is bound to produce stupid results. There is a deep and interesting legal scholarship explaning why.

Judgo Posner makes an interesting point that the "sexual revolution" is related to the changing economony and, specifically, the changing role of women. But I think Judge Posner avoids -- perhaps consciously -- discussing the sexual revolution as a political movement spurred by the political awakening of 52% of the population. I think it should be obvious to any student of history that the expanded economic opportunities for women were a product of this political revolution, and once women gained a more or less equal position in society, they demanded sexual freedom (which men had previously, through prostitutes and mistresses). That sexual freedom necessitated the right to use birth control and the right to have abortions.

As to Judge Posner's comments on homosexuality, I think he ignores the fact that it has always been present, just not out in the open. This too is a political revolution that is just starting to happen. The backlash among social conservatives is not unexpected, but it will probably be short-lived. 50 years ago, there was the same sort of opposition to inter-racial dating and marriage.

David, I think the current majority opposition to homosexual marriage runs a bit deeper than interracial dating issues. Homosexuality, the choices involved, and the psychology of it have been the subject of cultural discussion across continents and history. I don't think that, 50 years from now, we will look at discussions of the normative aspects of homosexual activity as being kind of silly in the way that we look at miscegeny questions.

Riding the righteousness of the civil rights movement will only get gay marriage so far. I love how Andrew Sullivan and others decry the scaremongering of the polygamy question. But what would have civil rights leaders said about gay marriage flowering from the elimination of miscegenation statutes? I think, quite rightly, they would have insisted that was nonsense and scaremongering. But here we are today, where perfectly reasonable people think that gay marriage is the natural extension of Loving v. Virginia but can't fathom the possibility that Goodridge could be a basis for legalizing polygamy or polyamory. That logic never fails to astound me. Loving was different because that was addressing racial classifications which hold a special and established place in our history and legal traditions. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective, there is no such basis for court-mandated gay marriage. Finding a "right" to civil marriage based on sexual orientation does, indeed, open up a can of worm which Loving, by virtue of the classification it addressed, did not.

"That sexual freedom necessitated the right to use birth control and the right to have abortions."

At least today, I don't think women are any more likely to favor abortion rights than men. In fact, I think they may be slightly less likely. Let me fill you in on a little secret, the legalization of abortion in this country wasn't the result of democratic processes. Roe overturned abortion laws in every state in the union. Some populist revolution.

Scott,

I'm just referring to Posner's model presented in the post.

I have not read any material outside this, do not infer it, and do not presume that anyone else has either.

So here is Posner's model:

1. Sex is a good to be maximized. We are currently maximizing sex through advances in technology.

2. Institutions that stand astride of this dynamic will diminish since these constraints are artificial.

3. The stability point for sexual gratification is satiation.

Criticisms of this model:

1. Sex is a controlled variable that has an inherent cost in terms of energy. It produces nothing of lasting value outside of a committed relationship.

2. Sex produces something of value within committed relationships.

In short, "recreational" sex is a symptom and not a cause of the fundamental dynamic which has not changed significantly despite the cost adjustments brought on by widely available contraceptives. There is an intrinsic limit, also, to the ability to satisfy the recreational sex demand in an economic maximization problem due to the necessity for the development of energy preserving social micro-structures.

So, my fundamental criticism of Posner's analysis is that it is "half-baked". Again, I attribute this effect to technology (as advertised in the commercial media and spam) and admit that this technological effect produces a stable energy dissipating cycle that is peripheral to the fundamental dynamic (so we have this essay and an otherwise inexplicable demographic for red Corvette/Porshe demand).

Why men marry:

Men want sex from the highest quality women they can get but prefer not to be in committed relationships. Women want a committed relationship (with sex) from the highest quality man they can get. If a man chooses a woman that is below his qualtiy level, he gets sex without a relationship. However if a man chooses a woman who is above his quality level, he has to give her a committed relationship to get sex. While it is true that the couple has sex before marriage and the man can leave when he is tired of having sex with her, he implicitly promised marriage when having premarital sex. The same as we do not explicitly have to give a tip after a good meal but we all do it anyway.

I should add that I do not buy the opportunity cost argument for increasing the presentages of women in the workplace due to light industry.

However, if there is a thorough economic analysis that can back up this assertion (one that includes the value of domestic work adjusted for the relative worth of vertical structures (families) v. horizontal structures (social insurance) I might be persuaded otherwise.

It appears for now that the workplace disparity of the past was an adaptation to maximize total economic good through specialization that continues today in many industries despite the alleiviation of the aforementioned costs, i.e. the degree of specialization relies on intrinsic factors not a part of this model. I think this was recently discussed by Summers.

JS,

Then explain Prince Charles. Yikes!

Good point.

Palooka: what's wrong with legalizing polygamy? (Apart from the logistical problems that it would create with inheritance and tax laws.)

Consenting adults should be able to arrange, and legally establish, their romantic relationships on any basis they please, non?

BTW, the simplest generic relationships are the most efficient for intergenerational development.

The key aspect is making the information-responsibility loop most direct. Otherwise, society would have to pad the relationships (and they would be less efficient). Note that diversity requires male-female pairings.

So polygamous relationships should not be encouraged by law. Be sure to distinguish between encouragement and prohibition. Any sort of private sexual relation (except with minors, farm animals (FDA problems), pets (SPCA), etc. is de facto allowed--see Lawrence.)

Paul D.: are you suggesting that we should somehow be concerned about encouraging breeding, or breeding in a certain fashion? And all this time, I thought we were overpopulated, with predictable consequences for our media, democracy, etc. (Massification of public discourse, lack of access to both governmental and corporate decisionmakers, etc. -- read some Habermas to start, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere is useful on issues of massification, though I don't recall him tracing it to overpopulation, I do.)

I didn't know Judges blogged!

"Palooka: what's wrong with legalizing polygamy? (Apart from the logistical problems that it would create with inheritance and tax laws.)

Consenting adults should be able to arrange, and legally establish, their romantic relationships on any basis they please, non?"

No. I don't have an opinion on whether polygamy should be criminal or not, but the state is not required to give that relationships any sort of "legal" recognition at all.

Paul G:

While things are more crowded then they used to be, technically speaking, there is no overpopulation problem. As long as there is a responsibility-information linkage between the procreators and the economic cost/benefit of procreation, history has shown that humans adapt very well to their environment.

Problems occur when the linkage is destroyed or broken down or when sudden unpredictable environmental changes occur (potato famine, displacements due to war).

All societies need to encourage "breeding" in order to persevere. The US and Western Europe are presently facing a gentrification problem because of the influences of socialistic governmental policies. Otherwise, we would have adapted naturally to the economic influence of technology as a time scale compatible with that technology.

In short, contraception is not necessary for population control as long as the responsibility of parenthood is borne adequately by the procreating decision makers.

History supports this analysis. The system is inherently stable.

By the way, Palooka... Abortion was legal in at least a couple states before Roe v. Wade was decided. The democratic process was working. In my opinion, it's even stronger evidence that Roe was wrongly decided.

Roe is a perfect illustration that the sexual revolution was a political movement and was not wholly an economic phenomenon. Roe (and her lawyer-advocates) convinced the Supreme Court of the United States that a woman has a fundamental right to control her reproductive function. The groundwork for that decision was laid in Griswold, in which the Court recognized the fundamental right to personal sexual choice regarding birth control. Perhaps economic factors had something to do with the changing societal view of sex, but politics had much to do with it as well.

Also, I dispute Posner's point that the sexual revolution was necessarily related to technological advances (e.g., the birth control pill). True, that was part of the equation. But many nations in the world today (Saudi Arabia, for instance) have yet to undergo a sexual revolution, despite the existence of the technology. Those countries will "catch up" to the west when their politics changes; that is, when women begin to assert their political muscle, and when egalitarian-minded men aid the cause of women's rights. This is starting to happen in some countries, but in sexually-repressed societies, it will be a slow and volatile process, as it was here.

Alternatively, the West will find that promiscuity is not good policy and that stable productive societies rely on social responsibility.

"Catching up" infers progress towards some goal. That doesn't really fit the situation that we have arrived at.

"By the way, Palooka... Abortion was legal in at least a couple states before Roe v. Wade was decided. The democratic process was working. In my opinion, it's even stronger evidence that Roe was wrongly decided."

Yes, but those laws were far more restrictive than what Roe allows, and were therefore nullified. I am not sure what you mean by "the democratic process was working." It's always working if it's translating majority preferences into law. That may or may not be a good thing in a particular case, but just because you don't like the law doesn't mean democracy is broken.

"Roe is a perfect illustration that the sexual revolution was a political movement and was not wholly an economic phenomenon."

What is the SOURCE of the political movement? Is it really moral philosophy of "choice" and bodily autonomy? I have no doubt those are contributing factors, but it's unwise to dismiss the power of economic forces. It's supportive of Posner's thesis (though one could attribute it to other variables) that educated women are more likely to support abortion rights. As the opportunity cost of pregnancy increases, one would expect abortion to become more acceptable. That seems a perfectly plausible explanation, unless you think economic realities can never effect moral decision making. And I doubt any one thinks that is a rational position, do they? Can economic forces never effect moral decision making?

Palooka: legally, at least, the state must have a rational basis for its legislative classifications -- the Supreme Court has recognized "class of one" challenges under the equal protection clause, and class challenged not based on any traditionally suspect class (see Village of Willowbrook v. Olech for the first and Cleburne, Tx. v. Cleburne Living Center for the second, as I recall -- I don't have cites handy, but a google search can probably produce 'em.)

I don't think there's any rational, legitimate reason that the state has to limiting the legal benefits of marriage to a man and a woman. The only reasons anyone ever cites are biblical, which aren't legitimate per the establishment clause. I suppose encouraging breeding, but nobody in this debate has ever suggested that as a reason for these laws (and it would be a pretty stupid reason, although the state is allowed to propound stupid reasons to resist equal protection challenges). As for polygamy, there's probably a rational basis in prohibiting that because of, as mentioned earlier, the whole inheritance/tax problems it would create.

But really, what reason does the state have for putting its fingers in marriage at all?

Paul D: I'm not talking about an overpopulation problem in terms of taxing resources. I think there IS one, worldwide, but not necessarily in the U.S. In the U.S., however, there's quite clearly an overpopulation problem straining out democratic and social institutions. The sheer mass of people means that individual citizens and small groups have next to no influence in the political process (just try and get an elected official on a larger scale than town council on the phone), few opportunities to become meaningful participants in the public discourse or politics.

It amazes me to think that, at the time of the American Revolution, Thomas Paine could circulate "Common Sense" and have some reasonable shot at influencing people with it. Today, he'd have to compete with 10,000 other, slightly different, common senses, and if Atrios or Instapundit didn't link him, forget it! Martin Luther? Hah! Religions schism on a daily basis today, but the schisming isn't felt beyond the local congregation.

The mass media and the mass politics have all but gutted any chance for real, non-media-personality, non-wealthy, people to participate in the public culture at any meaningfuly level and rate. And that is why I say we are overpopulated.

You must not follow the gay marriage debate very closely if you think the only reasons cited for prohibiting it are "biblical."

I am well aware of rational basis review, and believe Goodridge failed to apply it properly. The only gay or lesbian on the Masssachusetts Supreme Court, Judge Sosman, wrote a powerful dissent to that effect. You won't hear that little factoid in the media.

Rational basis review is a highly deferential examination. It doesn't mean the Court must be persuaded by the wisdom or rationality of the distinction, there must only be a "conceivable" rational basis for the distinction which furthers a legitimate state interest. The importance of marriage not being in dispute, the state's interest in the health of the institution should not be in question. Is the policy of limiting marriage to one man and one women "conceivably" rational, given the information available to the state? Yes. It is uncertain how gay marriage would impact the institution of marriage, or if gay marriages are equally efficacious in the rearing of children (probably the principal reason for the state's involvement in marriage). Uncertainty of the effect of the policy is reason alone for the state's discrimination under rational basis review. Moreover, it is important to take note that heterosexual and gay marriages would probably be quite different on average. The former having and raising children, the latter usually for companionate reasons alone. Further, the state has traditionally been involved in marriage to protect unequal gender spouses. Gay marriages, of course, lack this hallmark of traditional marriage. When things are substantively different, it usually makes sense to treat them differently.

Paul G:

If you have been following the Social Security problem at all, you will understand that the US does not have an overpopulation problem, it has a gentrification problem. At the same time, we import labor and export labor-intensive jobs.

Ergo, we have an underpopulation problem in social and economic terms.

Furthermore, democracy is scalable. One person may not be able to influence national events: so? In the time of Paine, he could not influence the politics of Europe. On the other hand, today a handful of senators can. Meanwhile, were you to show up and speak as eloquently as Paine at a city commission meeting, you could influence 10,000.

I, an engineering student, influence 1000 people a month just with several hours worth or thought and writing. Posner reaches Paine-like numbers in relative terms through his blog.

BTW, if you have a really good idea, it is worth the value of its merit today to a far more accurate degree of approximation than ever before. (Check out the blog USS Clueless--its been dead for over a year and still racks up huge numbers based on the quality of den Beste's thoughts. Den Beste is a pauper, Paine was an aristocrat. What's your complaint?

People read Kos not for the thought, but for the social connection (that's the brilliance of his format). Kos can influence many, but not with original critical thought--just affirmation of what his readers want to believe.

Who changes minds? Well, I do. (read through my blog if you don't believe me.) You can do the same. In a world of banality, a good thought stands out like a beacon of light, thus the four million in the streets of Rome this past week.

Buck up, think smart, and have the courage to speak truth to power (they hate that).

(odd glitch: re-posting, sorry if this arrives twice) Palooka: I haven't been following it TERRIBLY closely -- my position on the gay marriage debate is and always has been: "Why am I paying my elected officials to oppress other people? This doesn't affect my interests in any fashion whatsoever: I'm straight, so the absence of gay marriage doesn't hurt me, and I'm sane, so the presence of gay marriage wouldn't hurt me -- so just make it legal and stop wasting my time and money with it."

But what arguments other than biblical are there? All you've articulated is some vague undifferentiated fear that gay people won't raise children properly or something. I'm going to refrain from taking a position at this time on whether I think that should pass a rational basis test, but note that there are some distinctions which are sufficiently ridiculous to get rejected even on a rational basis test. I refer you again to City of Cleburne, Tx. v. Cleburne Living Center, 473 U.S. 432 (1985).

Paul D: there's another way to look at the importing of labor and the exporting of labor-intensive jobs, and a way that I think is more accurate, to wit: other countries are even more overpopulated for the size of their economy. When corporations pay unsustainable wages abroad, it says more about the fact that there are no jobs in India than it says about the number of jobs as compared to population in the U.S. Regardless, I don't care about finding enough workers to support the consumption-based U.S. economy. I've explained why elsewhere. (point 2).

Economics aside (PLEASE!), democracy is not scalable. I agree that someone as effective a speaker as Thomas Paine could influence a city council today: at least in a small town where the city council members aren't already wedded to entrenched interests like everyone at a higher level of public office. (And lets not forget that they are thus wedded. Just look at the bankruptcy bill. A huge coalition of groups including the AFL-CIO, ACORN, Public Citizen, etc. campaigned like crazy against the bill, which is evil for dozens of reasons, and only managed to swing three lousy votes in the House of Representatives. Credit card company money had bought most of the rest of the votes.)

But you can't seriously believe that such small town city council members have the same level of influence as those Paine managed to convince, or that the people you (presumably) influence on your blog have any influence, or even that anyone with any influence (which means high-level elected/appointed officials and the rich) reads Posner's blog or even knows who Becker and Posner are unless they're actually IN the academy or have recently studied economics or law. Do you think Tom Delay knows who Becker is, or has ever been exposed to his work? (Who knows, maybe Delay is preparing a defense to the inevitable corruption charges based on Becker's theories...) MAYBE Delay's heard of Posner, just because Posner himself is a high-level appointed official.

As for USS Clueless, based on a quick search 'n skim (I'd never heard of it before, natch), it seems like the quality of the ideas is more in their provocativeness than in their objective merit. Cf., for example, his lame attempt to psychoanalyze all of Islam. Best quotes include: "You do not make a man proud by giving him charity" (based on faulty premise that pride is the goal) and "Historically, appeasement doesn't work" (based on ludicrous implied comparison between Islam and Hitler) and "To prove to the 'Arab Street' that we were willing to fight, and that our reputation for cowardice was undeserved" (based apparently on a projection of the author's personal genital deficiencies). I won't barrage this comment-space with links (if only because it seems to generate punishing error messages), but there are many fairly absurd posts on that site. Frankly, I think someone cruelly exposed that guy to Ayn Rand at a very young age, and the scars haven't healed yet.

Here's a rather convincing post on the social effects of gay marriage.

http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/005244.html

No biblical arguments, and I believe this would probably be enough for a state law to pass rational review if it were applied properly.

Paul G:

Here is the main point about USS Clueless:

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That and the fact that as you have found, den Beste wrote original substanitive work. (You don't have to agree with him, just respect the fact that he is a "nobody" with an inflential voice. The post that you cited was very influential. Ayn Rand is also extremely influential.

The way to change the minds of elected officials is by changing the mind of the electorate. It was the same in the times of Paine.

As per my blog, here are two influential posts: Connections and Consistency and Terri Schiavo Pledge Drive.

The first makes the original insight that the divergence in political affiliation is based on individual information processing (personality) and links this observation to gaming strategies. The second is an idea that was actually picked up on by a third party to the tune of $1,000,000. The effect was to force the hand of Greer into issuing this order:

“ORDERED AND ADJUDGED that absent a stay from the appellate courts, the guardian, MICHAEL SCHIAVO, shall cause the removal of nutrition and hydration from the ward, THERESA SCHIAVO, at 1:00 p.m. on Friday, March 18, 2005″

An execution order. Note the "shall" rather than "may".

Of course, the causal links are somewhat speculative. Nonetheless, action and information has influence. If the information is meaningful and potentially effective, a rational actor at any level will take the information into account. No one has a monopoly on this information, yet high level actors are bound to it like slaves.

Quite frankly, what I do or don't do with my genitals is no ones concern but my own. Unless of course, they figure into an assault or become a public nuisance or public health hazard.

As for the economics of it all; there are major concerns about the crass commercialisation of the ontological issues of existence and being by a relentless and rapacious business community that lessens and degrades humanity to the status of nothing more than a consumer unit to be exploited.

In terms of the religious take on the subject, the question was answered at Worms Germany some 484 years ago. When the reality of it all was expressed in the phrase, "Here, I stand, I cannot do otherwise, God help me!"

Paul G,

The Jane Galt article shared by a commenter above is superb and I recommend it.

I have no doubt that some (maybe even most) gay couples who choose to adopt children (or have through artificial insemination) make satisfactory parents. I am also sure there are some who make absolutely outstanding parents. But I have to say that if you have two similar couples, one gay and one straight, I think the straight couple will do a better job raising children. The reason I believe this isn't at all predicated on gays being less moral or less smart or anything like that. It is predicated on gender. Ask yourself this: Are you happy you had a mother AND a father? If you didn't have both, didn't you want the one you were missing and not just another father or mother? Are you happy you had a feminine and a masculine upbringing? I think every child should have both a mother and a father. Of course this is the ideal, and it is many times unfulfilled by absence or death. Nevertheless, I think it is an ideal which is rational to preserve and protect by limiting the benefits of marriage to heterosexual couples.

Daniel: sadly, the poster of the post you linked has disabled comments on the entry (naturally, one only finds that out after one writes an extended comment). I've put my comments up on my own blog. I don't think her argument is terribly convincing. (Whether it would survive a rational basis test, of course, is another question altogether and one that I don't have a position on.)

Paul D: "If the information is meaningful and potentially effective, a rational actor at any level will take the information into account. No one has a monopoly on this information, yet high level actors are bound to it like slaves." Uh... what world are you talking about? Just off the top of my head, did the White House take the available information on WMDs into account when invading Iraq?

Paul G:

Actually, the 2002 NIE is a prime example of my point. Their intelligence was wrong so they got it wrong. They were bound to their bad intelligence like slaves.

"Alternatively, the West will find that promiscuity is not good policy and that stable productive societies rely on social responsibility."

What is a more stable, productive society: Western Europe, or the Arab world? I wo