Ignorance is Bliss - Maybe; W. Williams

The Pursuit of Happiness by Walter E. Williams Ignorance Is Bliss-Maybe N ot having experienced much of the past is a mixed blessing. What's grotesque, shocking, and unheard of to older Americans might seem normal, perhaps just a bit curious, to younger Americans. For example, last year New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial brought suit against gun manufacturers to recover carnage costs in his city. This January, Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell met with his advisers to consider whether the city should sue gun man ufacturers for creating a public nuisance since guns were used in its 400-plus homicides. The city would seek to recover the cost of every thing from cleanup after bloody murders to court and social workers for victims. Mayor Rendell's imagination has also led him to dis cover a new liability for tobacco companies: since some of Philadelphia's fires have careless smoking as their origin, why not sue tobacco companies to recover the city's fire losses?

Decades ago anyone suggesting bringing lawsuits against gun manufacturers for homi cides, or tobacco companies for fires caused by careless smoking would have been consid ered a prime candidate for a lunatic asylum. If one generalizes from the lawsuits brought against gun manufacturers because people use their product to commit murder and mayhem, and against tobacco companies for smoking illnesses and fires caused by careless smok ing, one would conclude that people are not to be held responsible for anything they do. It is Walter Williams is the John M Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and chairman of the eco nomics department at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. 63 the inanimate object, while incapable of act ing, that is responsible. That is, a gun is responsible for murder, not the gun's user. A cigarette is responsible for a fire, not the care less smoker. That being the case, it "logically"

follows that manufacturers of the offending inanimate object are culpable. After all, had the manufacturer not produced the gun or cigarette there would be fewer homicides, smoking-related illnesses, and fires caused by careless smoking. "It's Not My Fault" This it's-not-my-fault principle can be broadened to include just about anything. If a scantily clad young lady prancing along the street distracts my attention, and I have an automobile collision, the it's-not-my-fault principle would hold the young lady liable for my accident. But she might make the case that it is the manufacturer of her miniskirt who is really liable. If we Americans were to carry the it's-not-my-fault principle to its logical conclusion, we would virtually guarantee poverty. There would be little production. Why should I manufacture irons if I could be held liable for anything a person might do with the iron, including assault or leaving the iron unattended and thereby causing a fire.

Suppose by some mi~acle a person who died as recently as 1950 were to come back to visit today's America. How might we explain all this to him? At first blush we might tell him that Americans and their leaders have taken complete leave of their senses and wish 64 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY. JULY 1999 to abandon all notions of personal responsi bility. But there is a more flattering explana tion though nonetheless still troubling: Amer icans simply want other people's money, and the courts and the legislature have provided them with a mechanism for getting it. I do not believe we have reached a point where the courts would countenance legislatures' brazenly picking out a corporation and say ing, "You look as if you have a lot of money; give it to us." Thus, we have to create an aura of legitimacy to extortion. We do it with pro paganda impugning the company's moral character and with bogus science. Health and professed concern about the nation's children have been two successful strategies. After all, who can be against health and the welfare of America's children?

Where it all ends is difficult to predict but there are some signs on the horizon. "Caffeine is the new drug of choice among kids," warns Helen Cordes writing in The Nation magazine (April 27, 1998), adding, "Caffeine Inc. [soda manufacturers] is raking it in, often targeting teens and younger kids.... The major caf feine suppliers to kids have been throwing millions into advertising and giveaways." The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) agrees and wants the FDA to regulate caffeine content of soda, coffee, tea, and chocolate. Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University is also concerned about coffee's addictive qualities and says, "If health risks are well-documented, caffeine could be cata pulted in public perception from a pleasant habit to a possibly harmful drug of abuse." That vision, along with bogus science, might become justification for lawsuits and FDA regulation.

Michael Jacobson, CSPI's director, also thinks Mexican and Chinese restaurants offer servings much too large and says, "It's high time the [restaurant] industry begins to bear some responsibility for its contribution to obesity, heart disease and cancer." Got Milk? Since obesity impacts heavily on health care costs, why not bring lawsuits against the food industry like those against the tobacco industry? Yale University's Professor Kelley D. Brownell, director of the Center for Eating and Weight Disorders, proposes that foods high in fat or with little nutritional content be taxed. He recommends that the tax proceeds be used to build bike and hiking trails. He also says that since the average child sees 10,000 food commercials each year, 95 per cent of them for junk food and sugared cere als, Congress ought to regulate junk-food commercials. The cigarette tyrants got "Joe Camel" advertisements banned. Why not go after Rice Krispies' "Snap, Crackle, and Pop"?

In New York City, Anti-Dairy Coalition Executive Director Robert Cohen, author of the book Milk: The Deadly Poison, says that "Milk products, like tobacco, are an enor mous threat to the health of both children and adults, yet we see the dairy industry protected by constitutionally questionable laws while the tobacco industry is held accountable." If there is a blessing to being at an age when one contemplates the arrival of the grim reaper, it is the knowledge that one will not be around to witness the end of sanity in America. D August 1999 Ideas On Liberty' Vol. 49, No.8 8 , 12 16 20 23 27 31 35 39 43 48 , 51 Train Wreck by Gregory Bresiger A College Fund on the Social Security Model by William B. Conerly Freedom and Morality in the Plays of Tom Stoppard by Norman Barry Friendship and the Free Society by Andrew I. Cohen The Immorality of Antitrust Law by D. T. Armentano Paranoia About Paranoia in American Politics by James Bovard Socialized Medicine-One Size Fits None by Karen Selick William H. Hutt: A Centenary Appreciation by Richard M Ebeling Greens Against Greens by Raymond J Keating Banned in Austin by George C. Leef Protection for Bad Managers by Christopher Mayer Academic Freedom on Religious Campuses by James R. Otteson 4 14 25 33 , 46 54 63 THOUGHTS on FREEDOM-True False Consciousness by Donald J Boudreaux IDEAS and CONSEQUENCES-James U. Blanchard III: Champion of Liberty and Sound Money by Lawrence W. Reed POTOMAC PRINCIPLES-Voluntarism Should Be Voluntary by Doug Bandow PERIPATETICS-May the Force Not Be With You by Sheldon Richman ECONOMIC NOTIONS-Conservation and Speculation by Dwight R. Lee ECONOMICS on TRIAL-Say's Law Is Back by Mark Skousen THE PURSUIT of HAPPINESS-An Open Letter to the California Legislature by Charles W. Baird 2 6 56 Perspective-Winners and Winners by Sheldon Richman Markets Need a Hidden Fist? It Just Ain't So! by Andrew P. Morriss BookReviews The Choctaw Revolution by Peter 1. Ferrara, reviewed by George C. Leef; The Great Depression: An International Disaster of Perverse Economic Policies by Thomas E. Hall and 1. David Ferguson, reviewed by Michael R. Adamson; The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity Through the Ages: by Tom Bethell, reviewed by William R. Allen; Two Lucky People by Milton and Rose D. Friedman, reviewed by Bill Field; Global Greens: Inside the International Environmental Establishment by James M. Sheehan, reviewed by Jane S. Shaw.