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Cooperation and Coercion: How Busybodies Became Busybullies and What that Means for Economics and Politics

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Antony Davies

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“President Lyndon Johnson declared “all-out war on human poverty and unemployment in these United States” in his 1964 State of the Union address. Since then, the United States has spent $22 trillion on the war on poverty. This does not include Social Security and Medicare spending. The curious thing about all of this, though, is that the poverty rate in the United States was already declining prior to the declaration of this particular war. The US poverty rate fell steadily from 22.4 percent in 1959, to 19.5 percent in 1963. By the end of 1964, it was 19 percent. The poverty rate then declined steadily from 1965 until 1973, when it bottomed out at 11.1 percent. Since then, the poverty rate has averaged 13 percent, moving between 11.1 percent and 15.2 percent ever since. What we have been waging war on since about 1973 is unclear. If it is poverty, we will have to admit that we are not winning, as the poverty rate has remained largely unchanged for about 45 years.”

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Book:Cooperation and Coercion: How Busybodies Became Busybullies and What that Means for Economics and Politics
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“Since President Johnson launched the War on Poverty, the government has spent more than $22 trillion (adjusted for inflation). That’s more than three times what the United States has spent on all the actual wars it has fought in its history - combined.”

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Book:Cooperation and Coercion: How Busybodies Became Busybullies and What that Means for Economics and Politics
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“Gun control proponents point to Australia’s 1996 gun ban as evidence that gun control does reduce firearm homicides. In Australia’s case, an initial look at the data appears compelling. Gun homicides fell from an average of 71 per year in the 7 years prior to the ban to 55 per year in the 7 years after the ban. That’s a 22 percent decline! But a closer look reveals two concerning things. First, knife homicides in Australia appear to move in the opposite direction to gun homicides. This suggests that, at least in a portion of the cases, the gun ban didn’t reduce homicides but rather caused the perpetrators to switch weapons. In Australia, knife homicides outnumbered gun homicides by more than 2 to 1 prior to the gun ban, and more than 3 to 1 after. In Australia, knife and gun homicides, combined, fell only 8 percent in the seven-year period following the gun ban compared to the seven-year period preceding the ban. This is a much less impressive story than the reported 22 percent decline in gun homicides. Second, if we compare the same two seven-year periods in the United States, we find that annual U.S. gun homicides fell from an average of 18,577 to an average of 12,780. That’s a 31 percent decline. The U.S., without a gun ban, experienced a larger relative decline in gun homicides than did Australia with the ban!”

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Book:Cooperation and Coercion: How Busybodies Became Busybullies and What that Means for Economics and Politics
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“Everything feels utopian at some point or another. The ideas we have accepted today felt utopian in the previous era. If reformers would have given up their 'fight to abolish Sati' as an utopian idea, we would have never gotten rid of the practice. The question is; how far is our generation ready to go against the grain, when we see injustice happening in our day? Are we ready to introspect, why the idea of brotherhood across religious and caste lines feels utopian and radical today?”

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“Consider how the minimum wage impacts workers with different educations. Over the past 30 years (on average) each ten-percentage point increase in the federal minimum wage as a fraction of the average U.S. wage rate has been associated with no increase in unemployment among workers with college degrees, a one and a half percentage point increase in unemployment among workers with high school diplomas, and a three and a half percentage point increase in unemployment among workers without high school diplomas. Politicians are picking winners and losers, but they are lying about whom they’ve picked.”

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Book:Cooperation and Coercion: How Busybodies Became Busybullies and What that Means for Economics and Politics
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“Finally, the money to pay for an increased minimum wage must come from somewhere, and there are only four places from which it can come: other minimum wage workers, in the form of layoffs and reduced hours; higher wage workers, in the form of static or reduced compensation; investors, in the form of lower profits; or customers, in the form of higher prices. How much each of the groups pays for the minimum wage hike depends on how competitive the various marketplaces are.”

GovernmentPoliticsSocietyEconomics
Book:Cooperation and Coercion: How Busybodies Became Busybullies and What that Means for Economics and Politics
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