Introduction to the Becker-Posner Blog

Blogging is a major new social, political, and economic phenomenon. It is a fresh and striking exemplification of Friedrich Hayek’s thesis that knowledge is widely distributed among people and that the challenge to society is to create mechanisms for pooling that knowledge. The powerful mechanism that was the focus of Hayek’s work, as as of economists generally, is the price system (the market). The newest mechanism is the “blogosphere.” There are 4 million blogs. The internet enables the instantaneous pooling (and hence correction, refinement, and amplification) of the ideas and opinions, facts and images, reportage and scholarship, generated by bloggers. We have decided to start a blog that will explore current issues of economics, law, and policy in a dialogic format. Initially we will be posting just once a week, on Mondays. In time we may post more frequently. The first postings will be tomorrow, December 6. Becker is a Nobel-prize-winning economist who in addition to scholarly publications on a wide range of economic issues including education, discrimination, labor, the family, crime, addiction, and immigration, for many years wrote a monthly column for Business Week. Posner is a federal circuit judge and also a writer of books and articles in a variety of fields, including antitrust, intellectual property, and other fields in which economics is applied to law, but also topical fields such as impeachment, contested elections, and national-security issues. (The rules of judicial ethics preclude Posner from commenting publicly on pending or impending litigation or participating in politics, as by endorsing candidates.) We wish in closing this brief introduction to our blog to thank Lawrence Lessig, Jacob Wachman, and Matthew Haughey for their valuable assistance in setting up the blog.

Comments

[Rob]

I am sure this is going to be a wonderful venture and there are many who will be very grateful for this blog.

With that said, I wish you two the best of luck with this blog, and I will be sure to check back every week!

[Queenie]

At least you both appear to sound smart, so far.

Q

[LawDawg]

Just when I'd gotten the Judge Posner-haunting out of my dreams from first year, he starts a blog that I will, of course, be compelled to check weekly!

I wish you the best of luck with in this new endeavor and look forward your weekly posts.

[Scott Ginsburg]

Welcome to the world of blogging. I am a recent Wash U Law grad living in Chicago. I love blogs and was excited to read that Judge Posner, one of my favorite jurists, will be online. I will be reading regularly.

Scott Ginsburg

[Legally Brunette]

I am but one of many law students across the country looking forward to adding Posner posts to my already heavy load of weekly reading! Becker posts too, of course...

[scott cunningham]

Welcome to the blogosphere gentlemen! I've made you my homepage, and look forward to the emergence of the new community of commenters that will soon form here.

[S.W. Donnelly]

This should be very interesting! Best of luck!!!
"Never fear (the public) or despise it. Coax it, charm it, interest it, stimulate it, shock it now and then if you must, make it laugh, make it cry, but above all... NEVER, NEVER, NEVER bore the hell out of it." Noel Coward

[Matt Stoller]

Those Nobel things are rigged to make sure the smart people win them.

Welcome.

[A dude]

The King of the Blogosphere welcomes you to his dominion. Because you are both honored visitors to my realm, the annual Blog tax will be waved. If royal E-knights give you any trouble, just tell them the King of the Blogosphere said you were not the Nobel Laurettes they were looking for.

Also, I hereby proclaim you both Earls of the Blogosphere. The kingdom does not yet have any Noble Nobel's, and the idea is too good to pass up.

[Marc Perkel]

Welcome to my server. It's an honor to host your site.

[VN]

I think you should switch off commenting and restrict this system to just trackbacks!

[in NYC]

Welcome.
No, I am not a law student, just a regular "human" interested in reading thoughtful comments on issues affecting us today and for years to come.

[Russell Nelson]

Speaking of correction, did you mean to say "as is" where you said "as as"?
-russ

[Weco]

This is the best Christmas Present ever. X'mas has come early for this Law and economics geek. (Though in general economics, it will have to work very hard to beat Brad Delong's SDJ, which has a brilliant group commentating.)

Would the economics focus on theoretical development or current issues?

[shrikanthk]

Could you please address Dollar Depreciation
and the twin deficits in your upcoming posts?

[quasimod]

Wow, this will be like watching a couple of concert pianists blunder into a mosh pit. I wonder how long they will be able to stand it.

[Michael at the Calico Cat]

Judge Posner,

I think you're too famous to allow comments on your blog.

But while you're allowing them, here are my two comments:

(1) I very much enjoyed your book about sex.
(2) I disagree with your take on the book Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe, which you wrote about in a law review article once. That's a really great book that certainly belongs in a Law and Literature class.

[SocialJusticeNow]

It is quite remarkable that the deal between the Department of Defense and Halliburton unit Kellogg, Brown & Root leads our attention to the resurgence of White Supremacist ideologies. Clearly, a minority of warmongers and apologists can be seen in the light of the apparent fabrications which lead to the theocrat Ashcroft's suspension of our civil rights. It is not heartening that the American state, with its unelected president, venal Supreme Court, silent Congress, gutted Bill of Rights and compliant media represents the repudiation of international law in order to bring about the seizure of the Iraqi Oil Ministry. This suggests that the influence of Leo Strauss belies justifications given by the world's leading apologists for the essential Western imperial interests.

[Greg Newburn]

It's fascinating that the Internet and, more specifically, blogs, allow people from all disciplines and backgrounds to comment on the ideas of heavyweights like Becker and Posner.

When was the last time a "regular guy" got to comment on, say, a law review article by a Nobel Laureate? Who says technology is divisive?

This is amazing!

[Anonymous]

I look forward to each of your insights. I wanted to ask if you could share your opinions on the issue of relieving the foreign debt of developing countries. I've followed this topic for some time, especially since the Paul O'Neil-Bono tour of Africa a few years back. I was wondering what political economic justifications (from the American perspective) exist for either forgiving, reducing, or restructuring the debt. Thank you. Keep blogging.

[Michael Kim]

This blog will be on my daily must reading.
A question for Dr. Becker: Any opinion about the reaction to Dr. Kydland and Dr Prescott winning the Noble Prize for economics? I read about some old-line Keynesians, especially Dr. Gordon at Northwestern, making some critical comments. In my opinion, if it really matters, both men revolutionized macroeconomics. Even those opposed to the market clearing models have adopted their method of building models based on utility maximization behavior. Thanks.

[Anarchus]

One interesting aspect of this quote "A rational decision to go to war should be based on a comparison of the costs and benefits (in the largest sense of these terms) to the nation" is that it pretty much ignores moral/religious considerations in favor of economic/utilitarian costs & benefits.

If you believe that cultural and religious structures evolve competitively, and that the world has become progressively more good and less evil over time, you can conclude that what we Americans think of as "good" is simply the most competitive "meme" over time.

I don't think that's what Dr. Becker's post means, though, and I do think he made a mistake in ignoring the moral & religious elements of preemptive war.

I'd look at it more in these terms: For virtually all of human history, the destructive potential of a small number of anarchists was quite limited. In those circumstances, perhaps, preemptive war might be too great a risk to global instability to be useful. And for the most part, since 1648 the Treaty of Westphalia has been a good foundation for international law.

Today, however, a small number of anarchists armed with a CBN could conceivably destroy an entire country (ie, Israel) in short order. Westphalia doesn't work so well in the modern era.

[Munir Umrani]

I was very pleased to learn that Judge Posner and Gary Becker have launched The Becker-Posner Blog. It is not often that people of their stature subject their ideas to scrutiny outside of academia. Since The Becker-Posner Blog is permitting comments, lesser academic lights can offer opinions on subjects Becker and Posner write about. The exchange of ideas should prove beneficial to everyone. It is a sign of the social utility of the blogosphere. Judge Posner and Mr. Becker's presence, I think, adds to the credibility of bloggers. Bloggers of their stature can not be summarily dismissed by mainstream media pundits.

[Bennett]

My grandfather was an economist who wrote several textbooks back in the day, and was directly involved in the startup of the social security system.

It breaks my heart that the years of difficult work that he and many of his peers did to increase the odds of economic survival of the average American in his/her later years for generations to come, is being systematically undone through the efforts of the Republican Party to fund their spending excesses.

Before anyone can make the claim that it's being replaced by a "better" system based on personal investments, I would point out that the majority of the investments that people have been building for eventual retirement have lost a very large portion of their value in recent years and there is little sign that this trend will reverse.

What are your thoughts on this?

[Art De Vany]

Gary and Richard:

What a great idea for the two of you to comment on the world's events from the deeper perspective of economics and law that you have done so much to advance. I look forward to Mondays, though you will be competing with the Golf Channel Academy now that I have retired.

One thing that I urge you to incorporate in your perspective is the ``wild'' uncertainty that seems to be true of most natural and human activities; expected values may or may not exist and the variance of the expectation will usually be infinite. This is particularly true of terrorism-related matters.

A question: how do you feel about the legitimacy of states that are not endorsed or accountable to their populations? Are they to be considered on the same level as democratic states? On the one hand, they may not be rational, but in the narrowest sense of the rulers and their survival. On the other hand, they exist and call the shots and must be dealt with in some rational way.

I think it is unlikely that non-democratic states will honor commitments. Therefore, they should not be trusted and, therefore, there are no agreements that would be honored by such states. How then may they be dealt with?