The libertarian in the highly intelligent and articulate Jane Galt mourns the abrogation of property rights that is associated with New York City's plan to ban smoking* in restaurants and bars starting March 30, 2003.
I find this--as I find much of modern libertarian thought--bizarre, incoherent, and self-contradictory. You see, I had always thought that libertarians believed that your right to swing your arms comes to an end when it comes into contact with my nose. Smoking in the presence of Jane Galt gives her an asthma attack--"every night out with friends... a couple days of breathing trouble"--which I see as considerably more serious than a bloody nose. Surely one person's right to protect her health has priority over other people's rights to take noxious and dangerous drugs when they conflict? Perhaps you could make a libertarian case that people should be allowed to contract with Jane Galt to invade her lungs with noxious chemicals in return for appropriate side payments. But to my knowledge nobody has ever made such a contract with her. The Coasian bargaining process never got started.
So it seems to me that the only "property right" being abrogated is that of smokers to smoke wearing gasmasks that capture and trap the fumes. And I've never seen anyone doing so--smoking, that is, in a bar or restaurant a way that does not injure potential asthmatics sitting nearby.
This is in striking contrast to the state of affairs in the past, in which Jane Galt's rights to go about her life without being exposed against her wish to chemicals that are, as the signs put it, "known to the state of California to cause harm to her health" had been snatched from her by the State without compensation.
*No discussion of smoking should be allowed without bringing up one important question: when someone says they want to smoke, who is talking: the person or the addiction? W. Kip Viscusi's arguments that smokers are making a rational decision to greatly enhance their quality of life now in return for a risk of early death via hardened arteries, lung cancer, or emphysema later would be much, much, much more believable if Kip and the tobacco-industry executives who employ him chain-smoked like fiends.
Posted by DeLong at January 10, 2003 05:44 PM | TrackbackThe libertarian in me is against abrogating the right of the bar owners to allow, if they wish, smoking on their property. Yet, clearly, there are huge negative externalities to smoking that affect people like me.
I think the most interesting question in all this is the potential hole it exposes in the strong libertarian thesis (to which I'm not a subscriber.) A good libertarian will tell you that if people wanted to go to a bar with no smoking, their demand should produce bars with no smoking. Yet no such creature exists. Since bars are pretty much the only place a group of people can spend time together in inclement and real-estate challenged New York, my choice is to go to bars, and suffer, or forgo meeting my friends.
Yet it should exist. Even in New York, the smokers in a group are a small minority, well under 50%. Everyone else hates the small of smoke on their hair and clothes, and some, like me, have more serious concerns. Nonetheless, the bars are smoky. Perhaps a professional economist could comment on the possible causes of this market failure?
Posted by: Jane Galt on January 10, 2003 05:55 PMThere are 8 million people in NYC, 1.1 million smokers...much less than 50% and less than the national average as a whole.
Tobacco - the leading epidemic of our times. There are 1.1 million smokers in New York City; two-thirds of them want to quit but can’t. New treatments can more than double the likelihood of success in quitting (Quit Line: 1-888-609-6292). About 10,000 New Yorkers will die this year of tobacco-related causes - one third of all preventable deaths in New York City. Forty New York City children become smokers every day, and one out of three of them will die an early death from this addiction.
More data, more meaning, more of us living longer. What we need are more effective, healthy alternatives that create the same pleasure tendencies.
Posted by: Zack Lynch on January 10, 2003 06:00 PM> This is in striking contrast to the state of affairs in the past, in which Jane Galt's rights to go about her life without being exposed against her wish to chemicals that are, as the signs put it, "known to the state of California to cause harm to her health" had been snatched from her by the State without compensation.
Wow.
You don't play softball, do you.
Posted by: julia on January 10, 2003 06:16 PMSmokers (even if they're not actually smoking at the time) are more likely to drink heavily than non-smokers. In addition, smoking, drinking coffee, and drinking alcohol are complementary activities. So a non-smoking bar would expect to sell many fewer drinks per patron-hour than a smoking bar. That makes the non-existence of non-smoking bars easier to understand.
Posted by: Mark Kleiman on January 10, 2003 06:20 PMSmokers (even if they're not actually smoking at the time) are more likely to drink heavily than non-smokers. In addition, smoking, drinking coffee, and drinking alcohol are complementary activities. So a non-smoking bar would expect to sell many fewer drinks per patron-hour than a smoking bar. That makes the non-existence of non-smoking bars easier to understand.
Posted by: Mark Kleiman on January 10, 2003 06:20 PMSmokers (even if they're not actually smoking at the time) are more likely to drink heavily than non-smokers. In addition, smoking, drinking coffee, and drinking alcohol are complementary activities. So a non-smoking bar would expect to sell many fewer drinks per patron-hour than a smoking bar. That makes the non-existence of non-smoking bars easier to understand.
Posted by: Mark Kleiman on January 10, 2003 06:21 PMIn addition, smoking, drinking coffee, and drinking alcohol are complementary activities. So a non-smoking bar would expect to sell many fewer drinks per patron-hour than a smoking bar. That makes the non-existence of non-smoking bars easier to understand.
Why isn't this true of coffeeshops, then? I mean, why is the niche for no-tobacco-permitted cafes so successful, but not the niche for no-tobacco-permitted bars? Or, to put it another way, if legislation was responsible for creating the niche of successful tobacco-free cafes, why should tobacco-free bars expect to fail?
As for the market failure issue that Jane worries about --- smoking in front of others is a norm-governed activity, and the default expectation has tipped over the last 25 years, from having to ask others to not smoke to having to ask others to be allowed to smoke. It's not just a question of market demand. (Which should really be working in the opposite direction, if at all, given that smokers are well outnumbered. The real question is why is there no 'Smoke House' niche --- a place whose main function is to let patrons buy and smoke tobacco on the premises.)
Incidentally, has anyone ever thought that the glass-walled smoking lounges in airports --- with their yellowish ceilings and pathetic clumps of unhealthy- and unhappy-looking people puffing away in the haze, not talking to each other --- is a terrific public health advertisement? Those things look like mini leper-colonies.
>>The libertarian in me is against abrogating the right of the bar owners to allow, if they wish, smoking on their property.<<
Hmmm. Does ownership of a piece of land and a building on it give a bar owner the right to allow the air to be filled with chemicals that are noxious to certain patrons? If so, then it would seem that "ownership" gives the owner the right to commit various assaults and batteries upon those who enter into the property, and probably gives the owner the low and middle (if not the high) justice on the property as well. This seems to me to be not libertarianism but some form of feudalism...
:-)
More seriously, it seems to me that the world justy does not carve itself up into bundles of rights and responsibilities in a way in which libertarianism makes any sense at all. (And, in fact, one of the most important things that our common law system of justice does is to try to carve bundles of rights and responsibilities "at the joints" so that we can have a functioning classical liberal--but not libertarian) society.
Still more seriously, the experiment I would like to see would be to have the government charge X for a (bar) liquor license, and X+Y for a bar liquor + smoking license. I bet then that the non-smoking bar business would get itself jumpstarted. And then one might be able to reduce and eliminate the extra financial incentive Y...
Brad DeLong
By this logic: "Hmmm. Does ownership of a piece of land and a building on it give a bar owner the right to allow the air to be filled with chemicals that are noxious to certain patrons?", Professor DeLong will next propose banning peanuts from bars because of the toxic allergies they cause for a minority of the population (note: peanuts and related products are banned from some elementary schools already).
If all or most bars are known to be smoke-filled, then people with serious allergies can drink or meet friends in their smoke (and peanut?) free homes.
And the assault analogy falls flat. A better analogy is bars with very loud music. THAT causes hearing damage. But should bars with loud acid rock bands be banned, or should patrons who don't like the music just be allowed to leave?
I have to add that the effete Mayor is doing a great imitation of a Manhattan Nero, banning smoking and pedaling a bicycle while the finances of the Metropolis go up in flames.
Posted by: Anarchus on January 10, 2003 07:45 PM"And the assault analogy falls flat. A better analogy is bars with very loud music. THAT causes hearing damage. But should bars with loud acid rock bands be banned, or should patrons who don't like the music just be allowed to leave?"
Except that the effects of loud music can quickly and easily be mitigated by using earplugs, which most live music venues I've been to have on hand. There's nothing analogous you can do with respect to smoke.
Posted by: Josh on January 10, 2003 08:56 PM>>By this logic: "Hmmm. Does ownership of a piece of land and a building on it give a bar owner the right to allow the air to be filled with chemicals that are noxious to certain patrons?", Professor DeLong will next propose banning peanuts from bars because of the toxic allergies they cause for a minority of the population (note: peanuts and related products are banned from some elementary schools already).<<
Don't be silly and thick.
Nobody in a bar goes into shock from breathing peanut fumes. And surely peanuts should be banned from places where there are people who are (a) too young to pay attention to warning labels who will (b) go into shock if you eat them.
Brad DeLong
Posted by: Brad DeLong on January 10, 2003 09:09 PMThere are at least a couple of nonsmoking liquor-licensed hangouts in Seattle; both the ones I'm familiar with are also dancefloors. I don't know if social dancers especially dislike smoke or it's a quirk of the real estate big enough to have a good floor or if nonsmoking nondancing drinkers hang out there to avoid the smoke.
Other economic oddity: people there to dance aren't likely to drink a lot, except water, which is available in one of these places from a convenient and tasty hallway fountain; but it's a mild social norm to buy a couple of bottles of water at the bar anyhow, subsidizing the hall the way T-shirt sales subsidize musicians.
I would guess that the dancehalls don't want to raise ticket prices enough to not depend on the liquor income because a dance is better when lots of people come.
Posted by: clew on January 10, 2003 09:16 PMAnarchus:
It's easier to plug your ears than
it is to plug your lungs. Noise
attenuation is easy and cheap
(and aesthetically tolerable).
Smoke filtration may be easy,
and cheap, if you're willing to
wear a filter mask. But that's
not really acceptable to most
people in a social setting.
Loud music is different than
smoke, because individuals can
easily act to reduce the effect
of the noise. Some bars sell
cheap earplugs; if earplugs
aren't available, I imagine
there are ways to improvise
with tissue paper.
If so, then it would seem that "ownership" gives the owner the right to commit various assaults and batteries upon those who enter into the property, and probably gives the owner the low and middle (if not the high) justice on the property as well.
In what fundamental way does this not describe the NFL? Certainly battery occurs on every play, and justice is meted out not by the state-run judiciary but by the commissioner's office.
I'm surprised to read Jane Galt describe the lack of non-smoking bars in Manhattan as a "market failure." I assume she was kidding. Would she consider the fact that I can't run down to the market for a pepperoni and marshmallow diet coke a "market failure," or just evidence of the lack of consumer demand?
Posted by: Scott Wood on January 10, 2003 09:28 PMInteresting. Bar time is (for most) a social activity, and thus a collective good. It's not the sort of thing you could buy if you were the only interested buyer. [Same for most things, actually.]
No-smoking bars lose smokers (most of whom have little option), and smokers' friends, and smokers' friends' friends in some network-related fashion. In the absence of non-smoking bar competition, they'll lose only the most extreme anti-smokers.
In the presence of non-smoking bars (and such do exist, even without regulation), it's a tug of war -- but smokers are chained to their cig's, while all but a few non-smokers are flexible.
Depending on local regulation, bars/restaurants can be notoriously marginal or notoriously robust business propositions. Still, why so few smoke-free establishments? Maybe in practice the joints sort themselves into a spectrum of smoky to less-smoky atmospheres, accomodating a range of social fauna. It's still a good puzzle.
What to make of solitary drinkers/smokers? I dunno. That may be the bigger economic mystery.
Posted by: RonK, Seattle on January 10, 2003 09:42 PM>>Incidentally, has anyone ever thought that the glass-walled smoking lounges in airports --- with their yellowish ceilings and pathetic clumps of unhealthy- and unhappy-looking people puffing away in the haze, not talking to each other --- is a terrific public health advertisement? Those things look like mini leper-colonies.<<
Excellent point. An opium den without the Orientalist glamour.
By the way, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas says hello. He's in Berkeley trying to solve his household two-career problem...
Brad DeLong
Where's the market failure? The negative externalities of smoking are *captured* in the patron's choice of establishment. The Coasian bargain among patrons does not occur within the bar (transactions costs are too high -- best for the manager to set policy), but occurs between bars where consumers reveal their preferences amongst alternatives.
Moreover, there is differentiation among bars in smoking policy. You'll notice that higher-priced bars ($8-$12 drinks - NY prices) rarely have smokers, and consumers are willing to pay for this. Smokers that derive no benefit from this environment self-select and visit lower-priced establishments (alongside non-smokers such as myself that can tolerate smoke).
It's not enough to point out that non-smokers are a substantial portion of the population. The relevant segment is the group that is *willing to pay* to avoid smoke-filled bars, or willing-to-be-paid to bear costs in the form of lower prices.
If there are any New Yorkers out there, try visiting Milk & Honey.
Posted by: Ram Ahluwalia on January 10, 2003 10:05 PM[disclosure]
I smoked Marlboro Reds for over five years during the end of high school and afterwards. After realizing the damage being done to me (yes, I was aware of the potential before I started), I quit cold-turkey successfully over two years ago.
Every single one of my friends smoke.
It could be described as libertarian. ;)
[/disclosure]
A "free" bar opens and the first patron enters. A non-smoker, he orders a drink and sits down. Another patron enters with two friends and they all order drinks and sit down. However, they also light up. Over time, both smokers and non-smokers walk in. Eventually, the air is permeated with tobacco smoke and anyone breathing the air just outside the entrance can tell. The non-smokers who aren't sensitive to the smoke ignore it and enjoy themselves, along with the workers who are the same way. The non-smokers who are sensitive to the high levels of smoke decide it's time to leave and maybe find another place or retire for the evening. Ditto for the sensitive employees, who have the option of quitting or asking to be let off early.
Potential patrons who don't want to be exposed to tobacco smoke experience the offering and decide they aren't interested. Those that are interested choose to expose themselves when they enter. It's a tired phrase, but no one forced them to frequent the bar. Lack of other choices (if this is the case) does not mean they must enter. It does mean that there is now a market for a non-smoking bar.
Similiarly, when a potential employee seeks employment at a bar and that potential employee is concerned about his or her health while working there, it is up to them to decide if they wish to expose themselves to chronic second-hand smoke. If they don't want to work there, then fine. If they do, they know full well what's in store for them. Also, if they feel they can handle it and are proven wrong, they can quit at any time.
That's how I see it. Nearly all educated people know the risks of smoking. Bar owners, knowing that they'll make more money by allowing smoking in their establishments, overwhelmingly choose to keep them open for smoking. But as is plainly obvious from the comments here and elsewhere, there is a significant portion of society that doesn't want to be exposed to tobacco smoke when they go out. They want something that isn't being provided in enough quantity: smoke-free bars.
The actual problem, as I see it, is that not enough businessmen are reacting to this opportunity. I am not sympathetic to complaints that people can't find places they they find suitable for socializing. That isn't justification to encroach upon property rights.
I was just at a smoky, noisy, crowded bar tonight. But don't pass me off just because I had a few Bass Pale Ales. :)
Posted by: Charles Hueter on January 11, 2003 02:36 AMIt won't wash to say that those with respiratory problems can go elsewhere. There isn't an elsewhere. The average New York apartment won't fit more than five people, and the number of smoke-free venues for doing anything in a large group except attending church in the late evening is small-to-nonexistant.
There may be only 1m regular smokers, but on the other, a number of my non-smoking friends smoke when they're drinking. Still, the number of people who ever smoke in a bar must be well below 50%, and the demand among those who don't smoke for a non-smoking venue must be high. How do the smokers capture the group -- or rather, since there are very few non-smoking venues, how do the bar owners decide that the smokers would capture the group if they went non-smoking? I think Mr. Kleiman's excellent point is probably a big part of it, but I think there's also a social dynamic here that I don't quite grasp yet.
It's easy on a forum to tell folks that they can just suck it up if they don't like it, but it's a lot harder to look at a real person and say, "If you don't like it, go home and do needlepoint". There are simply too few alternative venues in the city for socialization. I know asthmatics who can't go to bars because it's simply too bad, and their social life is extremely limited as a result. They go along with their friends to the movies -- but when people want to hang out with each other in a group and, y'know, interact, the serious asthmatics get left behind. Do you protect the right to socialize or the right to smoke? It gets complicated when you throw in the property rights of the bar owners, but the question is a valid one.
On the other hand I try not to be one of those people who is against regulation except when my own personal ox is gored, so while I'm glad the regulation is going into effect on a personal note, I would have voted against it.
On the separate licensing fee -- I think you'd have to spike the fee awfully high to make a difference. It might have some very unsalutory effects on the overall number of bars in New York, as the bars remained smoky, but the number contracted to the number that could afford a smoking license. Or so I mote.
Posted by: Jane Galt on January 11, 2003 05:47 AMBrad,
You miss the point. No one forces a patron to go into the bar. That is where your statement of "You see, I had always thought that libertarians believed that your right to swing your arms comes to an end when it comes into contact with my nose." is flawed.
If people were forced to be in the company of smokers...such as on planes and trains...then a libertarian smoker understands that she cannot smoke because it would be forced upon others. However, in a free market where choice is allowed, the libertarian smoker understands that he can smoke because the others patrons _choose_ to be there.
The question would be for Brad Delong the economist is: if only bars that are successful are the ones that allow smoking, is it then appropriate for the State to intervene? This is the position of many anti-smokers.
Posted by: Jody Dorsett on January 11, 2003 05:53 AMBy the way, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas says hello. He's in Berkeley trying to solve his household two-career problem...
Hey Brad -- Hire Pierre! He's great! And so is Marion, who's easily one of the best sociologists of her age-group in the country. More importantly, they have the whole French thing going: eating at their house is an education in the good life.
--
Back to smoking: I'm still arguing that what's missing from this thread is a recognition that society isn't simply a network of contracts between rights-holding individuals.
As a Manhattanite for eight years in the 1980s and 1990s, this strikes me as ridiculous: "It won't wash to say that those with respiratory problems can go elsewhere. There isn't an elsewhere. The average New York apartment won't fit more than five people, and the number of smoke-free venues for doing anything in a large group except attending church in the late evening is small-to-nonexistant." Some of the best parties I ever went to in Manhattan had 15-20 people in a small one-bedroom apartment (with tiny kitchen) . . . . but that's not the point, anyway.
I can't begin to understand why radical non-smokers and the mayor thing they have the right to enforce no-smoking everywhere. For example, there are bars that specialize in cigars. Should every single one of those be banned?
I am sympathetic to the people who are sensitive to smoke - but if the problem is as widespread and serious as Jane Galt would have us believe, there ought to be a lot of extremely successful smoke free bars already. And there are not. Could be a short-term market failure, or maybe not.
Anyway, the idea that you have to fight smoke in bars by banning smoking in all bars strikes me as extreme. Very extreme.
Anarchus: it's not in question that there are a large number of people who are sensitive to smoke; in New York city, with its extremely high rates of respiratory illness, the number may well be as high as the number of smokers. When you say
"I am sympathetic to the people who are sensitive to smoke - but if the problem is as widespread and serious as Jane Galt would have us believe, there ought to be a lot of extremely successful smoke free bars already. And there are not. Could be a short-term market failure, or maybe not."
you are begging the same question that I am asking. There are a large number of people who are sensitive to smoke, there should be the bars -- and yet, there are not.
Posted by: Jane Galt on January 11, 2003 07:19 AMLooks like Megan (aka Jane) is on the verge of flipping her position in the course of this debate. May I suggest that one possible reason why there isn't enough of a market demand for non-smoking bars is because there are actually two justifications for the latter, and effective market pressure only works for one of them? A lot of people find smoke-filled rooms distasteful, but apparently for most of them the Bar Experience is still attractive enough on the whole that they're willing to enter a smoke-filled bar anyway.
But the other justification for smoke-free public places is the possible health hazard -- and, at least, for non-asthmatics (that is, most of us), that may not be an incentive that people respond to rationally to an adequate degree, for classic Homo Sapiens-type psychological reasons. Many of us (including Yours Truly) eat like big fat pigs without really properly considering, or keeping tabs on, its probable life-shortening effect, because the latter isn't immediately obvious. Ditto for non-smokers who enter smoke-filled bars. Maybe the best solution is to tax all bars which allow smoking an amount equal to the estimated cost of the health damage they do to the people inside them.
Posted by: Bruce Moomaw on January 11, 2003 07:48 AMRegaring Ram Ahluwalia's claim that upscale NYC bars have fewer smokers and charge a premium: I've found the expensive gin mills that I frequent don't have fewer smokers, but better ventilation systems--of course, this may be a function of their being attached to overpriced restaurants, and my propensity to overeat in pretentious establishments. Observer bias? You bet! Hey, one piece of anecdotal evidence deserves another. But I will check out Milk and Honey. Do they serve food?
Posted by: Curtiss Leung on January 11, 2003 07:56 AM"Many of us (including Yours Truly) eat like big fat pigs without really properly considering, or keeping tabs on, its probable life-shortening effect, because the latter isn't immediately obvious. Ditto for non-smokers who enter smoke-filled bars. Maybe the best solution is to tax all bars which allow smoking an amount equal to the estimated cost of the health damage they do to the people inside them."
And the tax on McDonalds and KFC begins when? The tax on music systems that produce volume loud enough to damage a user's hearing is how much?
Society _is_ a system of social contracts between rights-holding individuals. Society also determines who gets to be a rights-holding individual and when those rights may be changed. Government is the mechanism we use now to implement those changes in other people's rights, as opposed to say...purely social pressure such as shunning. The argument is: how much do we want Government to change the rights of others, to what degree, and how much of social interaction should actually be our own responsibility as individuals to make choices?
The answer is somewhere between anarchy where the only rule would be the Non-aggression Priniciple and totaliarism where all of your choices are made by others;)
Posted by: Jody Dorsett on January 11, 2003 08:15 AMA related affront to libertarian sensibility may be the must-see "water cooler" TV series phenomenon. Friends is a current exemplar (in an earlier period, the comedic bar-soap Cheers), so dominant in its slot that abstainers are marginalized in workplace social chatter the next day, and can be incrementally ostracized from larger circles of career and social opportunity.
A lot of people watch Friends because it's popular. In any circle of office buddies, there's likely a Friends addict who won't miss an episode and won't let discussion drift off-topic. Like non-smokers, non-addicts enjoy greater liberty ... but social bonds (however superficial) link them to their compelled friends, and if you know you're going to end up talking about Friends, you might as well watch Friends.
If your friends don't watch Friends, they probably display an alternate set of subculture identity markers, and their interaction boundaries are skewed accordingly.
On another plane of linkage, each of six principal "friends" can veto continuation of the series. (It's a tighter dramatic knit than the ensemble-style Cheers.) They can bid up their individual rewards accordingly ... so successfully that advertising can't cover production costs.
That's OK. Another plane of linkage makes the economics work for the network and its affiliates. Fans tend to stay home on "Friends" night, watch more TV, watch adjoining offerings on the same channel, and even extend residual loyalty to other nights. In the game of network programming strategery, competitors tend to defer to the Friends franchise.
In a related linkage, Friends audience numbers blur into the top-line ("page view" priority) headline of ratings aggregates. This confers an aura of success, and the aura confers bargaining advantage with advertisers and creative content providers alike. Ratings battles are fought for ordinal position as much as for absolute attendance.
Extended longitudinal linkage applies, too, rewarding continuity and punishing change. An isolated episode of Friends delivers limited utility. Most of the comedic action makes imperfect sense without cultural investment -- knowledge of characters, backstories, continuing plotlines.
Beyond those briefed here, wider webs of non-market, non-government governance govern the Friends economy.
Does economic rationality reign here? In a Darwinian, path-determination, creative destruction, punctuated equilibrium kind of way, maybe yes. Still, it's a far piece from the libertarian homeworld -- that borderless elastic Euclidean level playing field of frictionless indifferent independent bilateral exchanges in proprietary continuously-divisible utilitarian commodities. Most everything in the observable universe is, though, isn't it?
Sorry for the longish tangent ... and cheers, friends!
I'm kinda agnostic on this issue, but I think Prof. Delong underestimates the anti-peanut brigades. There are some radical anti-peanut groups (I'm not kidding) that have petitioned airlines to ban peanuts, since some people are so so sensitive they have been known to go into shock by being in the vicinity of peanut dust. Personally, I have abandoned my neo-libertarian leanings and now favor price controls, and subsidies, for 15 year old Laphroaig, and until that peaty wonder from Islay can be purchased for the same price as a gallon of milk, I shall not rest! I am a victim!!!
Posted by: Will Allen on January 11, 2003 08:19 AMI wonder: if Jane (as presumably a representative libertarian New Yorker) had a rent controlled apartment or a really great job above a dry cleaner that had chosen, for reasons of their own, to use toxic chemicals in the course of their business, would she move/quit?
If she owned a restaurant next door to the dry cleaner, would she move that?
Posted by: julia on January 11, 2003 08:28 AMWho needs wetlands, say? Who needs, birds? Who needs coasts? Plow, plow, plow. Chop, chop, chop. Fence, fence, fence. Who needs water. Gush, gush, gush. I have quite enough.
Posted by: on January 11, 2003 10:32 AMIt's simple: the bar owner owns the bar, the State owns the air..........The bar is an enclosing easement on the State's air......
Posted by: Ian on January 11, 2003 10:37 AMTo Jody Dorsett: What I'm thinking is that such a tax would force smokers' bars to charge more, which in turn would provide a more appropriate level of incentive for non-smokers to actually frequent non-smoking bars -- a reminder, if you will, of what they'll do to themselves otherwise.
As for overeating: the logical solution in the eyes of a market economist would be to slap a tax on the less healthy foods -- if, of course, you could ever persuade the public to back such a tax, which you almost certainly couldn't. But I will agree that, both economically and morally, these are fairly complex problems (and I notice that the only conclusion you yourself can come to is that SOME kind of compromise between anarchy and totalitarianism is optimal for any society -- which, to put it mildly, doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know).
Posted by: Bruce Moomaw on January 11, 2003 11:13 AMJody Dorsett wrote:
>>If people were forced to be in the company of smokers...such as on planes and trains...then a libertarian smoker understands that she cannot smoke because it would be forced upon others. However, in a free market where choice is allowed, the libertarian smoker understands that he can smoke because the others patrons _choose_ to be there.
The question would be for Brad Delong the economist is: if only bars that are successful are the ones that allow smoking, is it then appropriate for the State to intervene? This is the position of many anti-smokers.<<
Good questions from Jody Dorsett. I'm not sure the libertarian position requires non-smoking cars on trains and planes. After all, one does have a choice: non-smokers could travel by oxcart, after all?
I agree that the issues are hard and complex. And I think that part of how one evaluates the situation is by looking at whether it works or not--whether Jane Galt can go out with her friends in the evening without suffering two days of respiratory trouble afterwards. And that kind of consequentialist argument is anathema to rights-folk like libertarians (and Hegelians, and others)...
Posted by: Brad DeLong on January 11, 2003 11:13 AMBrad DeLong's last paragraph above raises still another question, however: while I enthusiastically support the likes of the Americans With Disabilities Act, can we really say that the minority of people allergic to smoke have a fundamental civil right as Americans to frequent bars, and that laws should be passed to that effect? After all, nominally speaking there should be plenty of other places for them to go out together socially -- even to each other's homes.
Posted by: Bruce Moomaw on January 11, 2003 11:18 AMI think I detect energetic theorizing in the absence of evidence. While voluntarily no-smoking bars do apparently exist, they seem to be far less common than the percentage of non-smokers in the population would predict. Yet many municipalities and some states are moving to restrict smoking in bars; given that there are energetic lobbies for the status quo, this would not happen without widespread popular support. Where to find the facts illumninating the apparent inconsistency? Ask bar owners, especially owner-operators. Presumably some are non-smokers who wouldn't mind less smoke in their own air, setting aside their employees'. Many presumably have a sufficient entrepeneurial streak to grab for a market niche if they thought it would be profitable. My guess is that most bars compete in rather small markets, a neighborhood or other modest-sized pool. The idea of affirmatively rejecting a significant minority of potential customers when one's competitors are not doing so runs against perceived basic "marketing principles" so strongly as to outweigh other considerations. But back to the facts: I am a non-economist and non-academic, but I would wonder if there isn't a worthwhile student project here.
Posted by: Ken Doran on January 11, 2003 12:05 PM>The question would be for Brad Delong the economist is: if only bars that are successful are the ones that allow smoking, is it then appropriate for the State to intervene? This is the position of many anti-smokers.
If we attempt to model this to assess a general case and consider market (instead of proscriptive) solutions there seem to be some interesting parallels with Steiner's paper in QJE 1952 relating to competition between broadcasting channels: Program Patterns and Preferences ...
Competing sponsored broadcasting channels will tend to converge with majority preferences to maximise ratings but as the numbers of channels proliferate it will become profitable for some channels to address minority preferences if and as majority preferences reach satiety - or so the model goes. However, detached observers tend to be sceptical as to whether unfettered commercial competition does eventually cover the waterfront of tastes. With broadcasting, PSB is supposed to plug the holes that competitive commercial broadcasting leaves unfilled but otherwise few would seek to justify state intervention in broadcasting to ensure minority tastes are catered for - BBC devotees apart, that is.
While we are at restaurant markets, there is a small but instructive literature (eg by Gary Becker in JPE 1991) on how and why queues and waiting lists effectively develop at peak times at highly rated and fashionable places when mainstream micro theory has it that in unregulated competitive markets prices will rise to clear excess demand. It appears that oddly shaped virtual demand curves, with positive slopes over part of their range, have to be posited to explain the phenomenon. If so, perhaps smoking bars and restaurants might raise their prices (or be obliged to via targeted taxes or license fees) but nevertheless continue to attract a loyal clientele that wants to go where the best action is by accounts here above.
Simple simple. Second hand smoke causes disease. Do not put my family in a situation where we are forced to inhale disease causing smoke. We have no problem with YOU smoking, but we do not wish to.
Posted by: on January 11, 2003 12:36 PMIf some restaurants/bars are non-smoking while others allow smoking there is a choice. A blanket proscription removes choice. The policy issue is how to ensure there is a choice.
Posted by: on January 11, 2003 02:29 PMI have no time for Libertarian absolutism. Smokers should not be allowed to impose their nasty habit upon nonsmokers in a conventional public setting. My family’s health should not be endangered by the idiocy of these folks. Let them go to hell in a hand basket on their own time. Libertarian extremists make the mistake in believing that we are placing a foot onto the slippery slope leading to Armageddon each and every time we restrict the destructive behavior of our fellow brain dead citizens. This is utterly ridiculous. I compare public smokers to automobile drivers driving thirty miles over the speed limit in a residential area.
Bars and nightclubs, however, should be exceptions to the general rule. One should expect to endure tobacco smoke in such environments.
Posted by: David Thomson on January 11, 2003 03:24 PMI once saw an (I believe) Irish comedian on tv (can't remember his name though) who explained that he went to a bar in California and was not allowed to smoke inside. When he grabbed his pint and wanted to go outside to have a smoke, the bouncer told him that he could not drink his beer outside.
He then told the audience, which was already in stitches, that in his country, separating alcohol and cigarettes would be considered against God's will.
It is stories like this that make Europeans chuckle whenever they hear about American regulation.
But from a theoretical point of view - quite an interesting discussion.
Posted by: Tobias on January 11, 2003 04:03 PM
Whether I'm smoking a cigarette or not, few things nauseate me as much as "second-hand sanctimony."
I'll leave you to enjoy your righteousness.
Posted by: Charles on January 11, 2003 04:05 PMI once saw an (I believe) Irish comedian on tv (can't remember his name though) who explained that he went to a bar in California and was not allowed to smoke inside. When he grabbed his pint and wanted to go outside to have a smoke, the bouncer told him that he could not drink his beer outside.
He then told the audience ... that in his country, separating alcohol and cigarettes would be considered against God's will.
As an Irish person living abroad, I strongly advise you to pay no attention to the wide-eyed in-my-country schtick practised by Irish people living abroad. ;-)
Shortly after I moved to the U.S., I went for a drink in Boston with a friend who'd been there a while. He said we were going to an Irish bar, run under franchise from Guinness (you may know the type --- ole Irish bric-a-brac out the wazoo). I asked him was it really like a bar at home. He thought about it for a second and said, "Well, there's plenty of seating, the music's not blaring, people aren't smoking and you can find the toilets. Not like an Irish bar at all, really."
Posted by: Kieran Healy on January 11, 2003 05:16 PMBeing a resident of Boston (which is going smoke-free soon as well) and somewhat asthmatic I enthusiastically support the coming smoking restrictions (exposure to smoke doesn't give me days of breathing trouble, but it's not like it is a good or even neutral thing).
I think Mark Kleiman is correct about the perception (or reality) of smoking and drinking being complementary activities. In my experience, restaurants usually have good non-smoking sections and often voluntarily go non-smoking entirely - one would presume the connection between smoking and drinking is less important for restaurants than for bars. Maybe a study that compared restaurants and their likelihood of being voluntarily non-smoking based on whether they serve alcohol (or their percentage of income from alcohol) might provide further evidence.
P.S. Some non-smokers do go out of their way to frequent non-smoking bars. The major reason the ESPN Zone in Chicago won my loyalty even though they are more expensive than most other sports bars in the area was because they had a non-smoking section where I could see the game I wanted 90% of the time.
Posted by: Ravi Nanavati on January 11, 2003 06:22 PM“It is stories like this that make Europeans chuckle whenever they hear about American regulation.”
We American do not laugh at the silly European regulations against genetically modified food---which dooms millions of people to death in the Third World. How does it feel to have so much blood on your hands?
Posted by: David Thomson on January 11, 2003 06:30 PMDavid,
I can't seem to grok your position. It is ok for Americans concerned with health issues to ban smoking from public places. Yet it isn't ok for Europeans concerned with health issues to ban genetically modified food.
It's kinda like Chomsky or Lysenko...what I believe is the truth and the rest of you can bugger off.
What you seem to want is government intervention as long as it is government intervention that you agree with. If you don't agree with a particular government intrusion, then you react with the strongest of emotions. But there is only one way to do this...reduce government intervention in those aspects of your life over which you have control of. Euro's who are afraid of GMF should not eat it. You and your family should frequent establishments which do not allow smoking.
And Me? I'm going to head out to a loud, smoky bar to find...uhmm...friends. Where I will drink too much, smoke too many cigarettes and possibly engage in risky sex. _My_ choice.
Posted by: Jody Dorsett on January 11, 2003 07:13 PM
Talking about a certain Cambridge based economist with a long list of publications apparently in defense of the tobacco industry:
His smoker sister died of lung cancer a few years ago.
-----------------------------------
People and their motivations are not easy to understand.
Posted by: Cambridge Econ on January 11, 2003 08:00 PMPlease explain the logic behind your relating European refusal of eating genetically modified food with deaths of hunger in the Third World.
I can see no relation between the two.
Posted by: making sense of David on January 11, 2003 08:03 PMIf subjecting others to second-hand smoke can reasonably be termed an assault, shouldn't parents be forbidden to smoke in the same room as their children?
(Of course, there are many things permitted to parents which would not be allowed between strangers, but these are all -- so far as I can think of examples -- putatively for the good of the child.)
Posted by: Jeffrey Kramer on January 11, 2003 08:09 PM"Please explain the logic behind your relating European refusal of eating genetically modified food with deaths of hunger in the Third World.
I can see no relation between the two."
A number of African nations that desperately need to feed their starving citizens refuse to use genetically modified food due to the “concerns” of the Europeans. The anti-Capitalist extremists are frightening the hell out of folks who fall for their junk science silliness. This is resulting in the deaths of thousands, if not even millions. Many Europeans are our not our true friends. They are jealous and embittered pacifist jerks who only wish to see how much they can parasite off the United States. We saved their rear ends during the Balkans crisis and they thank us by continuously stabbing us in the back.
Susan Sontag recently made a fool of herself be expressing her desire to be a so-called sophisticated European. I sure hope she plans to move to Europe in the very near future.
Posted by: David Thomson on January 11, 2003 08:47 PM"If subjecting others to second-hand smoke can reasonably be termed an assault, shouldn't parents be forbidden to smoke in the same room as their children?"
Parents should not smoke in the same room as their children. That is simply another form of child abuse.
Posted by: David Thomson on January 11, 2003 08:56 PMI don't smoke and am not a libertarian, but...
>> I had always thought that libertarians believed that your right to swing your arms comes to an end when it comes into contact with my nose ... Surely one person's right to protect her health has priority over other people's rights to take noxious and dangerous drugs when they conflict? <<
Well, I don't want to be maimed or die in an auto accident caused by another. And (1) the chances of that are *much* larger than my being harmed by second-hand smoke, and (2) I can't reduce that risk by staying away from roads, they way I can so easily reduce it by staying out of smoke filled bars.
So, if I can use politics to keep you from smoking and creating a much lesser risk to me, can I use it to keep you from driving, when driving imposes a much greater risk?
I don't see why not -- not even if I greatly overestimate the risk to me of your driving, so that the cost I impose on you is much larger than the value of my actual benefit.
And the same for many, many other things -- alcohol consumption being a nice example. It creates *far* more dangerous second-hand effects than second-hand smoke (even with all the legal proscriptions that exist regarding it now). So, on the merits, shouldn't there be an alcohol prohibition movement to at least match the anti-smoking one?
>> So it seems to me that the only "property right" being abrogated is that of smokers to smoke wearing gasmasks that capture and trap the fumes.<<
As if I significantly reduced your ability to use your car, the only property right compromised would be my right to live in my anti-car bunker? Or if I shut down your winery, the only property right compromised would be mine in the mace I carry to protect myself from noxious drunks?
>> And I think that part of how one evaluates the situation is by looking at whether it works or not -- whether Jane Galt can go out with her friends in the evening without suffering two days of respiratory trouble afterwards. <<
Realizing, however, that Jane Galt is not the only person to be considered. How much should Jane Galt's pleasure be subsidized at the expense of others' pleasure and others' income? Can we quantify that? (And are politicians in particular good at sort of thing?)
Especially when -- in Manhattan, of all places -- Jane Galt has so many close entertainment substitutes that impose no cost on her or anybody else.
ISTM that when people are, as we know, so bad at estimating risk, and politicians are so good at exploiting that fact, one needn't be a libertarian to look with healthy skepticism at politicians who rush to benefit politicially by claiming to save people from risk.
And Bloomberg *rushed*, as soon as he was in. Just one of the things highlighting the political, um, disingenuousness of his whole crusade was his insistence that it would be *free*, even *profitable* to bar owners, because his evidence showed that when bars voluntarily ban smoking their business goes up and they make more money -- and bar owners are just too dumb to do it, in spite of all the examples.
Which, if true, indicates the city should take over all the bars outright, since it knows better than the dumb bar owners how to run bars financially and please bar patrons.
BTW, regarding the shot at Kip Viscusi, I'd think the relevant thing is whether his data and analysis are correct about things like how people overestimate the risks of smoking, not who's paid him. Unless we are going to say other economists at prestigious institutions should be dismissed without a hearing because they've been employed by partisan groups like labor unions, or Republicans, or even Democrats.
>> You are begging the same question that I am asking. There are a large number of people who are sensitive to smoke, there should be the bars -- and yet, there are not. <<
In fact, as public opinion surveys regularly show people now overestimate the health risk of smoking by about 3x, and *greatly* overestimate the risk of second-hand smoke, there ought to be *even more* of them.
>> A lot of people find smoke-filled rooms distasteful, but apparently for most of them the Bar Experience is still attractive enough on the whole that they're willing to enter a smoke-filled bar anyway.<<
IOW, they find it attractive, and voluntarily accept what slight risk may exist from occasional short-term exposure to second-hand smoke, as much as they overestimate it. Revealed preferences, it seems. ;-)
>> The question would be for Brad Delong the economist is: if only bars that are successful are the ones that allow smoking, is it then appropriate for the State to intervene? This is the position of many anti-smokers. <<
If everyone voluntarily agrees to take a risk for what they deem to be their mutual benefit, even while overestimating the risk, sure, why shouldn't the state stop them?
And there's no reason to stop at smoking.
Alcohol kills *way, way* more people through second-hand effects than does second-hand smoke. And displays of drunkenness can be far more socially noxious (not to mention dangerous) than a little smoke wafting at one.
Let's ban alcohol from bars!
(I mean, anyone who's worried about the health effcts of bars and who is fixated only on second-hand smoke is missing the elephant in the room.)
Oh, wait, we tried that -- the argument for doing so at one time being so persuasive that it actually got the Constitution ammended! Yet it proved quite a bad idea -- why was that again? Does one have to be a libertarian to remember?
Like I said, I'm not a libertarian or a smoker, but for an economist giving a libertarian-type view on all this (with footnotes) there's http://www.econlib.org/library/Features/feature5.html
“Alcohol kills *way, way* more people through secondhand effects than does secondhand smoke. And displays of drunkenness can be far more socially noxious (not to mention dangerous) than a little smoke wafting at one.
Let's ban alcohol from bars!”
This is a false argument. There are absolutely no health benefits whatsoever associated with smoking. At best, there are a few studies indicating that smokers might be a bit more alert than nonsmokers. Other than that, smoking is bad for one’s health---and it is always an imposition on nonsmokers. The medical benefits of moderate alcohol use, however, is indisputable and perhaps even overwhelming. Also, a nondrinker remains unmolested if the drinker is in the same room. There are legitimate tradeoffs when discussing the imbibing of alcohol. One cannot say the same concerning smoking.
Many years ago, I concluded that only affluent people possess the moral right to smoke. The smoker should be able to financially handle all the health issues resulting from their stupid decision to destroy their own health. The rest of us should not be picking up their medical bills. They should be compelled to pay far more for private health insurance, and be refused treatment in a public health facility.
Posted by: David Thomson on January 12, 2003 05:06 AM"Parents should not smoke in the same room as their children. That is simply another form of child abuse."
That seems the logical conclusion of the argument. But I have never seen it suggested that this behavior be made illegal, while there is a strong and often-successful movement for smoke-free restaurants, etc. This despite the fact that the child of chain-smokers is both more vulnerable to the effects of smoke, and less able to avoid the exposure, than the adult restaurant patron.
Posted by: Jeffrey Kramer on January 12, 2003 05:10 AMWhy not use tradable pollution credits? With every license for an N-seat bar, provide a tradable credit that permits smoking in an (N/2)-seat bar. If Moe and Joe each get licenses for bars with the same number of seats, and Moe wants to permit smoking in his, he just has to buy Joe's smoking license; Joe would set the price high enough to make up for the lower income of a nonsmoking bar.
Posted by: Seth Gordon on January 12, 2003 07:50 AM> Please explain the logic behind your relating European refusal of eating genetically modified food with deaths of hunger in the Third World.
> I can see no relation between the two.
I'm guessing that this has to do with the fact that the company which offered genetically modified grain (designed to produce infertile seeds in the second generation, and capable of passing that trait on to other crops) to famine relief refused to mill the grain first, so the country they offered it to declined to be a toehold for the company in question to become the only source of grain in future crop years.
This was spun in the press as "those wacky ignorant africans and their superstitions turned down free food"
Kind of vulgar to bring it up in this context.
That doesn't make any sense. If the problem is that the seeds are infertile, there's no "toehold"; the farmers can switch back at any time.
Rather, the issue seems to be that they are afraid that farmers will reserve the seeds for planting, causing the GM strains to enter the food stock, and making the food ineligible for export to the EU. This is not a superstitious fear; they are absolutely correct. They are weighing millions of current lives against the future viability of their agricultural economy. Unfortunately, I'm told there is no way to move significant stocks of non-GM corn in time to avert the famine. The only way to avert it is with an EU import waiver, which the EU won't grant. So, yes, the EU laws combined with some arguably poor decisions on the part of local governments (and Mugabe's disastrous "land reform") are going to kill a large number in Africa.
But I don't think the parallels are very good. In my opinion, anti-GM legislation is ignorant Luddism, but the EU people are acting, however misguidedly, out of concern for their own health. I can see no moral reason why they should feel they're required to consume dangerous substances in order to enable the Africans to consume those dangerous substances. One could argue that, in fact, the moral runs the other way: why should non-smokers run the risks associated with smoking, so that smokers can enjoy them?
It's true that people overestimate the trivial risks associated with casual second-hand smoke inhalation. But I am not overestimating the risks, nor are other people with respiratory impairment; I almost died sitting at an outdoor cafe with the wind blowing the wrong way because I'd forgotten my inhaler at home. I am not trying to argue that people ought to be able to legislate their superstitions on everyone else, nor that disliking the smell of smoke should be cause for preventing it. The smug moralistic tone of the anti-smoking movement irritates me. But genuine negative health externalities fall into a different category from public annoyance. We don't legislate every health risk out of existance, but we should consider when the benefits of the activity are outweighed by its negative effects.
I haven't changed my mind. I think it's bad law. But I think the question of why smokers tend to take over wherever they are allowed by law bears examination.
Posted by: Jane Galt on January 12, 2003 09:08 AM“But I don't think the parallels are very good. In my opinion, anti-GM legislation is ignorant Luddism, but the EU people are acting, however misguidedly, out of concern for their own health. I can see no moral reason why they should feel they're required to consume dangerous substances in order to enable the Africans to consume those dangerous substances.”
One has every right question the motives which resulted in their decision to condemn genetically modified crops. And we have every right to suspect that they did so due to their anti-Americansim and hostility towards Capitalism. These Europeans are not our friends and are merely looking for a reason to stab us in the back. They are very nasty people. Also, these folks don’t dare to oppose the farmers who wish to be “protected” from competion.
“I'm guessing that this has to do with the fact that the company which offered genetically modified grain (designed to produce infertile seeds in the second generation, and capable of passing that trait on to other crops) to famine relief refused to mill the grain first, so the country they offered it to declined to be a toehold for the company in question to become the only source of grain in future crop years.”
Gosh, why don’t you let it all hang out? You forgot to mention the evil collusion of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney with the powerful major corporations that dominate American life. My guess is that you also believe that the CIA murdered J.F.K.! It’s too bad that so many people must die to satisfy your radical Liberal fantasies.
The "toehold" comes in when, as the canadians discovered, the genetically modified crops crossbreed with the traditional crops, which then can come up infertile.
Actually, the Bush administration is considering forcing the EU to accept genetically modified (and highly subsidized) crops, thanks for asking.
Posted by: julia on January 12, 2003 10:25 AMSpeaking of ventilation: if a bar were designed with controlled airflow (intake in front, exhaust in back -- somewhat on the model of clean rooms, surgery suites, etc) it would be possible to have an effective smoking/non-smoking bar.
Nonsmokers would still have to decide whether or not to sit with your smoking friends.
It would be interesting how it would turn out. Would the smoking area become this dungeon for malefactors? Alternatively, would all the fun gravitate to the smoking area while the vegans sat primly in their seats on the other side? It would be interesting to see.
David Thomson: I confess. I did it. I killed about 60 million Chinese and 40 million Russians and East Europeans, and right now I'm taking care of the Africans. Stop me if you can.
Posted by: zizka on January 12, 2003 10:31 AMNext time you're in the Pacific Northwest, Jane, I will personally escort you to the smoke-free bar-restaurant of your choice. We're civilized out here.
But, this is an interesting question, why, in a major city like New York are there no smoke free bars, but in places like Seattle and Costa Mesa, California they're a dime a dozen (and thriving)? Maybe there's a self-employment opportunity for the intelligent MBA who otherwise has been unable to find a job. Raise start-up capital and open your own smokeless place.
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan on January 12, 2003 11:41 AMPerhaps Ms Galt could come to the libertarian paradise of the UK: here in Cambridge (the one in England, with the funny wee boats) there are two non-smoking pubs within walking distance of my house, both of which serve excellent beer. I don't visit them much myself, though, because my wife is a light smoker and demands a fag with her G&T: network effects in action.
Posted by: Iain J Coleman on January 12, 2003 03:27 PMIt does mean that there is now a market for a non-smoking bar.
While voluntarily no-smoking bars do apparently exist, they seem to be far less common than the percentage of non-smokers in the population would predict.
As a complete amateur, I'm going to suggest there's something wierd about the market for bars and smoking that results in a winner-take-all effect. Possibly in NY there's just enough smokers to force all bars to be smoking, while in Seattle there's just enough non-smokers to force them all to ban smoking? Unfortunately, Google produces nothing on the general structure. Maybe someone should turn an eager grad student loose?
BTW, regarding the shot at Kip Viscusi, I'd think the relevant thing is whether his data and analysis are correct about things like how people overestimate the risks of smoking, not who's paid him.
Transaction costs for acquiring information aren't zero.
Posted by: Jason McCullough on January 12, 2003 03:32 PMI've lived in NYC for almost a year and have not had any trouble socializing outside of bars. Cheap restaurants, especially Indian and Chinese which expect large groups? Coffeeshops, some of which have couches and private nooks for groups? Chain bookstores with same? Those huge lobbies of apartment buildings with conversation nooks that no one ever sits in? Small dinner parties? (I have also been in many tiny NY studios, at stand-up mingling parties and dinners with plates on laps and people sitting on the floor.) Dances?
Maybe the problem is being part of a cohort that likes the Bar Experience in general and is therefore willing to put up with the smoke. The social circles I am running in currently just don't tend to congregate in bars.
That said, I feel exactly the way Jane does about smoke. I'm not asthmatic but it makes me nauseous and gives me a severe sinus headache.
Posted by: Yehudit on January 12, 2003 07:52 PMWhyever would a bar owner value the custom of people who prefer current pleasure to nebulous future health benefits?
I regard it as a far greater market failure that I can't find a gym anywhere in town that will let me have a cigarette (actually I can, but I'm too old to box these days).
I also might suggest, as politely as possible, that a quick glance up and down this thread suggests that keeping militant anti-smokers out of the bars might not be a *negative* externality.
Posted by: dsquared on January 12, 2003 11:26 PMRestaurants are great, but they usually won't let us hang out from 7pm-2am.
Posted by: Jane Galt on January 13, 2003 06:36 AMI've detected two assumptions in this very interesting discussion that merit pointing out:
1) People should always act in "health-maximizing" ways; hurting oneself is an often-seen phenomenon but shouldn't exist. Smoking is in fact a type of drug-taking that is the result of complex, mysterious behavior.
2) "Society" has a right to limit and/or recover costs that impinge on health because "society" pays for health care. I'm wary of slippery slope arguments but if that isn't the leading edge of creeping totalitarianism, I don't know what is. Brad needs to be very cautious when he rejects individualism and espouses the right of the government to regulate behavior.
Posted by: JT on January 13, 2003 08:03 AMBrad DeLong writes, "Hmmm. Does ownership of a piece of land and a building on it give a bar owner the right to allow the air to be filled with chemicals that are noxious to certain patrons?"
Yes. Just as you owning your house gives you the right to have cats and dogs that may cause allergies to certain people.
"If so, then it would seem that "ownership" gives the owner the right to commit various assaults and batteries upon those who enter into the property,..."
Can a person going into that bar reasonably expect to be assaulted and battered? (A patron going into a bar with cigarette smoke in it can reasonably be expected to know the bar has cigarette smoke within a few seconds of entering.) If the patrons can't reasonably expected to be assaulted, then the owner is essentially committing fraud. If the owner posts signs that say, "Caution: We assault patrons" (better have a second sign that says, "We're not kidding!" ;-)) then there would be no fraud involved. I don't expect the bar would have too many customers, though. Especially after word got out that the signs--even the second one--weren't a joke.
"More seriously, it seems to me that the world justy does not carve itself up into bundles of rights and responsibilities in a way in which libertarianism makes any sense at all."
Complete nonsense. The whole of history can be viewed as a trend towards libertarianism (a very slow one, unfortunately). And countries of the world are successful in almost direct proportion to the degree that they are libertarian.
In the U.S., slaver and government-enforced segregation were two of the most significant violations of libertarianism. They both dramatically reduced economic growth and quality of life in the South. Similarly, the New Deal, the Great Society, and post-WWII U.S. military adventurism have greatly reduced economic growth rates in the U.S.
It is completely logical to have a government that does nothing more than protect people from physical force and fraud. If the entire Congress, Executive Branch, and Supreme Court were filled with people like the Honorable Ron Paul of Texas (1988 Libertarian Party candidate for President...now a libertarian Republican), this country would be a much better place to live. To start out with, we'd have GDP growth rates consistently better than 6% per year.
Brad DeLong continues: "(And, in fact, one of the most important things that our common law system of justice does is to try to carve bundles of rights and responsibilities "at the joints" so that we can have a functioning classical liberal--but not libertarian) society."
There is essentially no difference between a "classical liberal" and a libertarian. There is just a difference in time. Classical liberals were merely constrained in their thinking by their time, much like runners of the early 20th century were constrained in their bodies by their time (e.g. their diets, and their training techniques). It was once thought impossible to break a four minute mile...now it's done routinely. Similarly, "classical liberals" (e.g. Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry) could not approve of zero penalties for homosexuality, because they had no concept of a biological basis for homosexuality, and because the influence of their religious teachings was too strong in their thinking.
A classical liberal like Thomas Jefferson SAID things that were completely libertarian. The Declaration of Independence is essentially a libertarian document. Similarly, Jefferson wrote:
"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as they are injurious to others." -Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1781-1785).
That quote IS libertarianism, in a nutshell...legitimate government only extends to dealing with physical violence and fraud.
Both "classical liberals" (Locke, Jefferson) and libertarians (Harry Browne, Ron Paul, Ayn Rand) firmly support the right to property. (Just because Jefferson changed Locke's "pursuit of property" to "pursuit of happiness" doesn't mean that Jefferson didn't support property rights. He was simply attempting to include many rights other than property.)
Finally, Dr. DeLong writes, "Still more seriously, the experiment I would like to see would be to have the government charge X for a (bar) liquor license, and X+Y for a bar liquor + smoking license."
I think a better experiment would be for Jane Galt to set up, on her web page, a list of bars in New York that are non-smoking. In the unlikely case that no such bar exists, I'd like to see her set up a ranking of smoke problems in NYC bars, from best to worst, based on her experiences, and those of her NYC readers. Alternatively, she should call someone at the New York Times, and suggest a story on smoke-free bars.
Oh, I see that about 30 seconds on Google returns a partial answer already:
http://www.smokefreeworld.com/nyc.shtml
Has Ms. Galt tried the Brooklyn Brewery? How about The Fez on LaFayette Street (Manhattan)? Also, Madison Pub? ("Basic burgers and beer." Can't get much better than that! ;-))
Finally, as an environmental engineer, I'm certain that relatively low-cost measures could be taken in most bars to significantly reduce cigarette smoke exposure. The key is to close-capture the smoke. Once the smoke is allowed to expand outward to fill the room, the costs of treating it increase dramatically.
I recommend Ms. Galt talk to the owners of some bars she frequents. For those who are agreeable, Ms. Galt should send me a sketch of the floor layout (minimum), and some digital photographs (would help). I could make recommendations for appropriate barriers and filtration equipment. I wouldn't charge for the recommendations, and I'd provide a range of suggestions, to cover a range of total costs. As incentive to the owners of the bars, Ms. Galt could offer advertise the progress of the project on her blog. A published letter/article in the New York Times would be even better.
Mark Bahner (Libertarian, environmental engineer...and cigarette smoke gives me sinus headaches)
"Brad needs to be very cautious when he rejects individualism and espouses the right of the government to regulate behavior."
The problem isn't only Brad's incaution in that area. The problem is that his incaution is shared by a majority of the population.
Posted by: Mark Bahner on January 13, 2003 09:33 AM"I have no time for Libertarian absolutism."
It's called "consistency," David. Libertarians are consistent. Republicans are a joke. (A sick joke, but still a joke.)
Posted by: Mark Bahner on January 13, 2003 09:39 AM"Transaction costs for acquiring information aren't zero."
They're extremely low, given the current availability of the Internet (with the Google search engine...possibly the greatest accomplishment in human history ;-)).
In 30 seconds, I could identify at least a FEW smoke-free bars in NYC (including the various boroughs).
Posted by: Mark Bahner on January 13, 2003 09:45 AM"I'm not sure the libertarian position requires non-smoking cars on trains and planes. After all, one does have a choice: non-smokers could travel by oxcart, after all?"
Or they could travel on airlines that forbade smoking. (There was a time when certain airlines were "smoke-free" on international flights, while others were not. That may still be the case?)
Or they could travel only on airplanes that were designed with stong physical separation and separate air handling systems for the smoking and non-smoking sections. ("Airbus beats Boeing, in tests of smoking separation.")
Posted by: Mark Bahner on January 13, 2003 09:57 AMThe on-topic material here would make a brief but interesting thread. Again, why are nonsmoking bars (without controversy) rare when the majority of bar partons prefer (without controversy) smoke-free air? [This question is intriguing in its own right, quite apart from the debatable virtues of smoking and/or coercion.]
It's a good puzzle, whatever your perspective. I suspect the key [the key to a good puzzle is always a blind spot] is in the economist's wont to conceive of transactions as bilateral [between bar owner and patron], rather than multilateral [between the bar owner and me-and-my-Friends-and-any-other-folks-we-might-run-into]. The same puzzle and key likely applies to patronage of, e.g., a comment board infested with, e.g., fuming libertarians.
Posted by: RonK, Seattle on January 13, 2003 12:16 PM“David Thomson: I confess. I did it. I killed about 60 million Chinese and 40 million Russians and East Europeans, and right now I'm taking care of the Africans. Stop me if you can. “
The irony is that your sarcasm is actually very accurate. Indeed, hundreds of millions of Chinese, Russians, East Europeans and Africans have died due to ideological movements that started in Europe. This is why you hate and envy America. The socialist European continent is going to hell in a hand basket, and it is only the United States that offers significant hope for the rest of the world.
Posted by: David Thomson on January 13, 2003 01:06 PM“David Thomson: I confess. I did it. I killed about 60 million Chinese and 40 million Russians and East Europeans, and right now I'm taking care of the Africans. Stop me if you can. “
The irony is that your sarcasm is actually very accurate. Indeed, hundreds of millions of Chinese, Russians, East Europeans and Africans have died due to ideological movements that started in Europe. This is why you hate and envy America. The socialist European continent is going to hell in a hand basket, and it is only the United States that offers significant hope for the rest of the world.
Posted by: David Thomson on January 13, 2003 01:11 PM“David Thomson: I confess. I did it. I killed about 60 million Chinese and 40 million Russians and East Europeans, and right now I'm taking care of the Africans. Stop me if you can. “
The irony is that your sarcasm is actually very accurate. Indeed, hundreds of millions of Chinese, Russians, East Europeans and Africans have died due to ideological movements that started in Europe. This is why you hate and envy America. The socialist European continent is going to hell in a hand basket, and it is only the United States that offers significant hope for the rest of the world.
Posted by: David Thomson on January 13, 2003 01:16 PMIt seems to me that the argument for banning smoking from bars, or from other public places is, and should be, simply an extension of the argument for placing warning notices on tobacco products, banning tobacco ads from TV, etc.
The point is, some issues of public health simply trump the property rights which producers and consumers ordinarily enjoy to exchange and talk about products.
Given that society has already consented to these OBVIOUS exceptions to property rights, why pretend that the case of bars derives from some other principle?
If one wished to be a consistent Libertarian, it's easy enough: bar owners have the absolute right to decide whether their bar allows smoking, and it is of course obliged to make all prospective patrons aware that it is so, and that they therefore enter at their own risk.
It seems to me that consistent Libertarianism has no room for the sort of exception to property rights that most current regulations against smoking entail.
And so much the worse for Libertarianism.
Posted by: frankly0 on January 13, 2003 02:10 PM"Again, why are nonsmoking bars (without controversy) rare when the majority of bar partons prefer (without controversy) smoke-free air?"
Perhaps it's because bar owners own the bars, and not the patrons? (This isn't strictly true, as "the mob"--aka "republican democracy"--actually claims at least partial ownership. For details, skip the next paragraph, and go to the asterisks.)
No bar owner wants to turn away ANY customer, unless other customers will pay him or her more, to make up for the lost business from the customers he/she turns away. Or unless smokers make it clear that they will refuse to come to the bar, in sufficient numbers that the bar owner will lose business by including smokers.
***Complicating all this, of course, is the practical fact that, in the United States (and most of the rest of the world) "owners" truly don't "own" their property. Instead, statist citizens (such as Democrats and Republicans on this thread), insist that the government actually has an "ownership" claim. Specifically, governments like Mayor Bloomberg's intervene, with the support of citizens whose own ox isn't being gored (for the moment).
"I suspect the key [the key to a good puzzle is always a blind spot] is in the economist's wont to conceive of transactions as bilateral [between bar owner and patron], rather than multilateral [between the bar owner and me-and-my-Friends-and-any-other-folks-we-might-run-into]."
No, I think the key is that the transaction truly IS bilateral. (At least until Mayor Bloomberg intrudes.) As Thomas Sowell so eloquently puts it, "Prejudice is free, but discrimination costs." Likely, a fair number of bar owners are themselves non-smokers, and would just as soon that no smokers frequented their establishments. But to discriminate *against* the smokers (by banning them from the bar) would cost the bar owners money, unless an increase in volume of non-smokers would more than make up the difference. Similarly, it would also cost bar owners money even to discriminate *between* smokers and non-smokers, by providing larger/better ventilation for smoking areas...or even setting up such areas at all.
There would be non-smoking bars, or bars that better protected their non-smoking customers, if bar owners could be convinced it would pay to do so.
Or if The State stepped in. In that case, the costs of the change would be shifted to the bar owners and the smokers. Of course, the bar owners could charge more, to make up for the loss of their non-smoking customers. But that would probably drive away some non-smoking customers, that otherwise didn't care about the smoke. So I suspect the bar owners would truly lose money. Regarding the smokers...their cost of not being allowed to smoke might be partially or wholly offset by the avoided medical costs from smoking less.
"The same puzzle and key likely applies to patronage of, e.g., a comment board infested with, e.g., fuming libertarians."
Let me take a wiiiiild guess, and assume this was directed at me? :-/
The reason I come to this comment board is that it seems to me that a blog run by an economist, and populated by people with an economics background, ought to be receptive to the idea that non-force resolutions of problems frequently work better. Even if those involved start out with force-oriented thinking.
This particular thread is a good example. Everyone agrees that Jane Galt has a problem. Does analysis from an economics standpoint lead to the conclusion that government intervention in this matter yields the lowest societal cost? (Including the lost property rights for the owners of the bars?) And which people are bearing the costs, with the different solutions?
My suggestion is that a solution that doesn't use force, or uses less force, could yield a lower total societal cost in this instance. Plus, the "cost" would be born by those who would get the benefits. (For example, if Jane Galt advertised "asthma-friendly" bars in New York, the costs would primarily be born by her. Alternatively, if she sent me materials on bars that had already agreed to consider better ventilation arrangements, the costs of analyzing and recommending those systems would be born by me. Voluntarily, as a matter of professional interest. And the costs of the systems would be voluntarily born by the owners.) (Or perhaps, Ms. Galt and X number of other non-smoking patrons could kick in the money for the new system?)
Another reason I come here is it gets boring trying to persuade the statist conservatives on Frontpagemagazine.com that non-force solutions might work better. And it gets really depressing reading all the statist conservatives at "Free Republic." :-(
Posted by: Mark Bahner on January 13, 2003 02:27 PM"It seems to me that the argument for banning smoking from bars, or from other public places is, and should be, simply an extension of the argument for placing warning notices on tobacco products, banning tobacco ads from TV, etc."
"The point is, some issues of public health simply trump the property rights which producers and consumers ordinarily enjoy to exchange and talk about products."
Yes, and federal government control of airline security, and consequently increasing the time one has to be at the airport by 30 minutes, or 1 hour, is simply an extension of the argument that was used for requiring airlines to screen their passengers.
And imprisoning people for advertising on political issues 30 days before a primary, or 60 days before an election, is just an extension of other places where the government has restricted speech...such as smoking ads.
"It seems to me that consistent Libertarianism has no room for the sort of exception to property rights that most current regulations against smoking entail."
You're not "merely" talking about property rights. You also mentioned advertising (free speech). But yes, consistent Libertarianism has no room for those exceptions. Libertarians don't think people should be forced to give up property rights, or free speech rights, simply because the majority is offended by some aspect of the property ownership or speech.
"And so much the worse for Libertarianism."
No, in general, so much the worse for society. Libertarianism promotes wealth, diversity, tolerance, and freedom. We're all the worse off, that more people don't think like Libertarians.
Posted by: Mark Bahner on January 13, 2003 02:49 PMBahner, let's take this head-on. No, my post wasn't directed at you. You arrived late in the thread. It was already thick with tangential byplay. And I hadn't read any of your posts ... I rarely do. (That's how I adapt to the presence of fumers in shared spaces of this sort.)
Ms. McArdle ("Jane Galt") made a pair of factual observations, and noted a divergence between markets-in-theory and markets-in-reality. This the sort of situation by which we might refine our understanding of markets, regardless of whether anybody proposes doing anything about it, by statist thuggery or otherwise.
It seems the observed anomaly is lost on you. [I don't imagine explaining it again would help.] If we understood the underlying dynamic, we would know something about markets that we did not know yesterday. Most of us think that might be a good thing. It might, for instance, suggest market-oriented opportunites to increase everyone's satisfaction for equal or less resource input.
Others might see that increment of understanding as a bad thing. It might, for instance, pose a challenge to a heretofore complete system of rigorous Truth, and suggest the potential existence of even more questions not yet asked and not yet answered. Discussants in this camp might engage in circular argument to avoid getting the question.
Posted by: RonK, Seattle on January 13, 2003 03:19 PMI looked at that smoke-free page. There are *five* "Bars," that is "resturaunts with a bar or just bars" that are smoke-free in the entire goddamn NYC area, apparently.
Obviously, the market for late-night drinking establishments is not a boring little standard market. There's just no way to get that result with so few smokers around.
Here's an attempt at an explanation off the top of my head:
1) People get into a habit of either going or not going to bars, and the vast majority of bar income comes from regular customers.
2) People's smoking preferences are split into A - must smoke, B - don't care, and C - cannot stand smoke. The majority of the potential bar-going populace falls into B, with unknown amounts in A and C.
2) The "regular customer" + "drinking in public is a social habit" phenomenons combine to steamroll whichever of the "must smoke" and "cannot smoke" crowds begin with a larger population in bars relative to the other; if there's more non-smokers to start, then bars become more and more non-smoker friendly in the attempt to cater to them, which drives out smokers, brings in more non-smokers, and the self-reinforcing process continues apace. Ditto for the reverse.
3) This market results in a non-efficient outcome if all bars end up smoking. The reason is that, unless someone has evidence there's more smokers than people who cannot stand smoke, bar owners end up with less total patrons. Furthermore, the exposure of the B population to smoke is quite clearly a loss to them, even if its not enough to make them stop showing up, but this loss is not present when non-smoking bars win out.
Now, an individual bar just can't reverse this outcome; the lot of them would have to all decide simultaneously to do so. Which a smoking ban does.
Now, I have no *idea* if this is right, but it certainly sounds plausible. Anyone?
A classical liberal like Thomas Jefferson SAID things that were completely libertarian. The Declaration of Independence is essentially a libertarian document.
Didn't we go over this before, and I posted a ton of not-libertarian quotes from Jefferson?
Posted by: Jason McCullough on January 13, 2003 04:42 PMBrad,
I know you are not big on restricting your web log, but you should consider keeping out all mention of peanut allergies. The people associate with this particular malady are utterly rabid, totally obsessed, prone to launch into tedious lectures about the horrific state of official indifference and unrecognized risks associated with the goober pea. When held up as another set of whiners trying to impose on the liberties of others, they are prone to all sorts of embarrassing behavior …
…um, since you mentioned it, did you know that those with serious enough peanut allergies actually can die from inhaling peanut dust? That’s one of the reasons that restricting peanuts from schools where peanut allergy sufferers attend is a really good idea (as you so foolishly mentioned). It is often not a decision on the part of the child (just to kill off comparisons to other forms of risky behavior) that puts the child in danger. Sitting where a peanut butter consumer happens to have wiped her hands risks anaphylactic shock, but the allergy sufferer very likely will not know the peanut butter eater was there. Airlines were making some progress in going peanut free, which seems natural enough, since being stuck in a cabin that offers very little opportunity for peanut from those little bags to disperse and that is far from medical intervention pretty much means that peanut allergy sufferers can’t safely fly. That progress has reversed, starting apparently around the time that airlines ran into money problems (some of those associated with peanut allergies are
highly prone to conspiracy theories). Airlines now recommend that you stand ready to provide your own medical treatment should something go wrong. School personnel lie that (sorry, are misinformed that) New York requires peanut butter on the school lunch menu, so it cannot be banned. Did I mention that school attendance is mandatory?
(Thanks for starting from the position of humanity, rather than some rigid dogma, in judging how society ought to function. Oddly, dogma seems very readily bent to justify smoking, not smoking, death penalty, no death penalty... Common humanity sometimes seems more incisive and consistent.)
"A classical liberal like Thomas Jefferson SAID things that were completely libertarian. The Declaration of Independence is essentially a libertarian document.
Didn't we go over this before, and I posted a ton of not-libertarian quotes from Jefferson?"
That's right. Gosh, it turns out that even Jason McCullough can be right about something once in awhile. Jefferson was not a Libertarian purist. His views were all over the ideological landscape. So much so, that many considered him to be inconsistent, if not outright hypocritical.
Posted by: David Thomson on January 14, 2003 11:44 AMHere's a clue to the mystery:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-smoke08.html
<<---------quote-----------
No-smoking bid inflames restaurants
January 8, 2003
Banning smoking in restaurants and bars would destroy the "Chicago-style" dining experience of "big steaks, big martinis and big cigars" and send customers fleeing to the suburbs, restaurant owners fumed Tuesday.
One month after the anti-smoking steamroller barreled out of the City Council's Health Committee, the hospitality industry tried to slow it down, even as the Illinois Restaurant Association offered to compromise by increasing the mandatory percentage of non-smoking seats in Chicago's 6,500 restaurants.
In a 3-1/2-hour hearing before a Council chamber packed with cheering wait-staff and bartenders, restaurant owners painted a dire picture of Chicago as a smoke-free island.
[snip]
Tip income that typically makes up 50 percent of an employee's paycheck would also take a nosedive, restaurant employees maintained.
"I'm a lifelong non-smoker and, yet, I request to work in the smoking section. There's only one reason: I make more money from smoking tables," said Glen Garlisch, a waiter at the Chicago Chop House, 60 W. Ontario.
----------endquote--------->>
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan on January 14, 2003 01:20 PM
RonK writes, "Ms. McArdle ("Jane Galt") made a pair of factual observations, and noted a divergence between markets-in-theory and markets-in-reality."
No, she didn't. She noted a *perceived* "divergence between markets-in-theory and markets-in-reality." I don't think any such divergence actually occurred.
What she wrote was, "A good libertarian will tell you that if people wanted to go to a bar with no smoking, their demand should produce bars with no smoking. Yet no such creature exists."
First, such creatures DO exist in NYC...although their percentage is very, very small. Second, she commits the logical error of thinking that others are like her. (This is among the most common errors in logic. I make it all the time.)
She apparently has some SERIOUS problems with cigarette smoke. (She relates that she almost *died* from being downwind of smokers in an *outdoor* resturant, without her inhaler.) Based on what I know of asthma's occurrence and severity in the general population, I can safely guess that less than 5% (and probably less than 1%) of the general population has that kind of problem with cigarette smoke.
OK, after a 1 minute Google search, I see that 6.6% of adults in Pennsylvania are asthmatic. That makes me even more sure that the percentage of adults with Jane Galt's severe asthma/cigarette allergy is less than 5%...and probably closer to 1%.
http://www.phmc.org/chdb/asthma.htm
We have already been provided with an estimate that there are 1.1 million smokers out of 8 million New Yorkers. That would be about 14%. But I personally wouldn't rely on the number 14%, when analyzing the situation. For one thing, those 8 million presumably include those who are too young to legally be in bars. So the real question is the percentage of ADULTS in New York City that smoke. (An even more pertinent question would be the percentage of *bar-attending* adults in New York that smoke.)
Once again, I'd go to Google for the answer. This is the answer I got (again, in 30 seconds of effort...truly remarkable!):
"The CDC also investigated the percentages of smokers in 99 metropolitan areas across the US. Similarly to the state-based figures, they ranged from 13% to 31%. Toledo, Ohio had the highest percentage of adult smokers and Orange County (Los Angeles), California had the lowest, they found."
Let's assume NYC is right in the middle (since I'm too lazy to pursue the matter further). That would mean that 22% of New York adults smoke.
So....the REAL situation is that 22% of New York adults smoke, and certainly less than 5%, and possibly less than 1%, have Ms. Galt's problem with cigarette smoke.
Therefore, the number of non-smoking bars in New York City is completely as expected, based on an *unbiased* economic analysis. (Again, I'm not criticising Ms. McArdle for thinking more people are like her...that is a classic logical error.) Absent a law compelling non-smoking bars, there are very few such bars, because there are so many more smokers than people like Ms. McArdle (with serious problems with secondhand smoke).
So I see no divergence between markets-in-theory and markets-in-reality.
Further, I think that there are plenty of solutions, or at least partial solutions, that don't require any government force, and preserve the right of the *owners* of the bars to run the bars as they see fit. (Allowing for non-force persuasion to change how they run their bars, such as might occur from Ms. Galt's website naming their bar in the "Ten Smokiest Bars in NYC.")
P.S. RonK ends with, "Discussants in this camp might engage in circular argument to avoid getting the question."
You mean, like some discussants might babble on about Friends...a subject completely irrelevant to the question of smoking in bars? (The Friends derailment also revealed how clueless said discussant is about libertarianism. Apparently, said disscussant is under some sort of bizarre impression that libertarians consider peer pressure as "force.")
P.P.S. Since we're already completely off the subject of smoking in bars, I want my vote on the important "babe" question recorded as "yes." ;-)
Posted by: Mark Bahner on January 14, 2003 02:47 PM"(Thanks for starting from the position of humanity, rather than some rigid dogma, in judging how society ought to function. Oddly, dogma seems very readily bent to justify smoking, not smoking, death penalty, no death penalty... Common humanity sometimes seems more incisive and consistent.)"
What can be more humane than starting with the philosophy that, unless people are physically harming or defrauding someone, they should be left alone (free to do as they choose)?
Mark Bahner,
What could be more humane? Simple. Start with the proposition that, if your philosophy takes you to a position that might be less than humane, obstinate, or stiff-necked (did I repeat myself?) you will recognize that you, all other humans and all human philosophy is fallible, and back off a bit. I have no problem starting with liberty for each one of us, as long as that is where we end up. My point was, we often don't end up there. My observation is that lots of people start with two things in mind -- where they (think they) stand philosophically and where they stand on a particular issue. They end up, not surprisingly, considering that the two dearly held notions are consistent, no matter how much logical or factual torture is necessary along the way. None of us is smart enough to have all the right answers in our intellectual inventory, or to get to them with all the effort in the world. We get lucky sometimes. That is all. Given the high likelihood of our getting answers wrong, including policy answers, I have a strong appreciation for anybody who leavens his prescriptions with humanity, restraint, and kindness. You might argue that libertarianism is a guide to avoiding the worst risks of getting things wrong. Adherents of any other philosophy are likely to have similar feelings about their own views. In the particular case I had in mind, anyone who says that their freedom to eat peanuts anytime, anywhere is worth my daughter's life needs to leaven their strongly held, philosophically adjudicated views with a bit of humanity.
Posted by: K Harris on January 15, 2003 08:40 AMNo surprises here, are there? Oh, well ...
Posted by: RonK, Seattle on January 15, 2003 09:02 AMThat would mean that 22% of New York adults smoke.
Google pops out 1.3 million smokers in New York, so more like 16%.
What can be more humane than starting with the philosophy.....
Libertarianism, specifically, seems to assume an awful lot of controversial things in its premises. If the premises might be wrong, it doesn't follow that the conclusions are definitely true.
Posted by: Jason McCullough on January 15, 2003 11:27 AMI wrote, "That would mean that 22% of New York adults smoke." (I was taking the average of 13% and 31%, which were given as the minimum and maximum percentage of smokers in the cities analyzed by the CDC.)
Jason replied: "Google pops out 1.3 million smokers in New York, so more like 16%."
Heh, heh, heh! Thanks, Jason, for showing me, once again, what a friggin' genius I am! ;-)
You didn't read how that number of 1.3 million was derived. Go to the line below "NEW YORK CITY DATA SOURCES." You'll see:
"Number of smokers (1,310,690)= Census Bureau 2000 New York City 18+ population (6,068,009) multiplied by CDC’s 2000 percent of adults who are smokers in New York (21.6%)."
In other words, that 1.3 million figure was actually a *derived* figure. The actual CDC figure was that 21.6% of adults in New York smoke. I swagged (swag = scientific wild-assed guess) 22%.
So rounding the CDC value of 21.6% to 2 significant digits, you get my swagged number of 22%, exactly. Amazing. :-)
(Your number of 16% was wrong, because you divided the 1.3 million by the total population of New York, rather than the *adult* population of 6,068,009.)
Jason continues, "Libertarianism, specifically, seems to assume an awful lot of controversial things in its premises."
Let's review libertarianism's premises:
1) "We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose."
That's informally known as the "non-agression principle." An individual can do whatever he or she wants, as long as he or she doesn't forcibly interfere with someone else.
2) From the non-agression principle, it follows that government (or any collection of individuals) can only legitimately deal with force or fraud. In other words, the government can collect taxes for dealing with national defense, murder, rape, robbery, fraud...but not for anything else. Not for running a Post Office, doing medical or scientific research, building roads, or even running schools. (I personally have a bit of a problem with the "running schools" part...except regarding federal funding of schools, which I completely oppose. The "running schools" is about my last objection to libertarianism. And even there, I can see the significant benefits of allowing large amounts of choice and competition.)
Similarly, libertarians oppose any government laws against consensual crimes, like prostitution and drugs. And libertarians oppose laws against gay/lesbian marriage.
Libertarians oppose government programs that take money from some people, to give to others (like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare).
Libertarians oppose government ownership of land (National Forests, National Parks, Wilderness Areas).
All those things fall basically out of the single premise of libertarianism: People should be free to do whatever they want, as long as they don't forcibly/fraudulently interfere with anyone else. (The idea that government should only deal with force and fraud comes naturally from the main premise.)
What is controversial about that premise?
Posted by: Mark Bahner on January 15, 2003 02:14 PM"No surprises here, are there? Oh, well ..."
I don't see any. The fact that the percentage of smokers is so much greater than the percentage of people that have serious problems with smoke (like Jane Galt) will mean that bar owners will be more likely to cater to smokers.
So I don't see any surprise. The fact that 78 percent of adults in NY are non-smokers--versus 22 percent smokers--doesn't enter the equation, because most of those non-smokers aren't severely affected, like Jane Galt. So those non-smokers wouldn't mind the bar banning smoking, but they just don't say anything.
Posted by: Mark Bahner on January 15, 2003 02:24 PMOn a non-peanut issue, there are (at least) two restaurant/bar associations that have membership in the New York area. The largest has opposed a smoking ban for some time. The other has now officially endorsed it. This offers up another explanation for the proposed ban -- restaurant owners have asked for it. If some restaurant owners want to have a smoke-free joint but are concerned about loss of business, one approach is to get the government to keep anybody else from offering a smoke-filled joint as competition. I had wondered about the possibility, but since I have not been in a bar in some years, I didn't really care to look into it. This development, to me, makes the world look much neater and more understandable. I am guessing this is an development that libertarians will find interesting...
Sorry, I don't remember the name or either association. Heard it on the morning news.
Posted by: K Harris on January 16, 2003 12:31 PM