Cafe Hayek

Two worlds

Here is a very nice essay by GMU student Geoffrey Lea on Hayek's argument that we need to behave differently when we interact with friends and family compared to the strangers we meet in the extended order of market transactions.

Choosing your parents

Walter Oi once told me that the two most important choices you make in life are your wife and your parents. By the latter "choice" he meant that your parents have a big impact on who you turn out to be. One of the important things included in that influence is where you are born and grow up. I am so fortunate to be born and raised in the United States. (HT: Donald Luskin) I think most immigrants to the US understand that—the overwhelming reason they come to the United States is for their children.

Sex ratios

The New York Times reports on some interesting data on marriage. Men without college degrees are much less likely to marry than in the past. Note the sex ratios by education at the bottom:

Hormones and Home

I have a new EconTalk podcast with Don Cox on the economics of inheritance, the grasping child, the manipulative parent and the role of hormones in maintaining civilization. Comments always welcome.

A "legitimate state purpose"

Read the opening paragraph of Fields, et al. v. Palmdale School District, a case handed down on November 2^nd by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The majority opinion – including the words below – are from the pen of Judge Stephen Reinhardt.

When parents of schoolchildren in Palmdale, California learned from their sons and daughters that they had been questioned in their public elementary school about sexual topics such as the frequency of "thinking about having sex" and "thinking about touching other peoples’ private parts," some of them exercised their constitutional right to take their grievance to the courts. The questioning was part of a survey the Palmdale School District was conducting regarding psychological barriers to learning. The parents brought an action in district court against the School District and two of its officials for violating their right to privacy and their right "to control the upbringing of their children by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex." They brought both federal and state claims. The district court dismissed the federal causes of action for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted and dismissed the state claims without prejudice to their right to re-file in state court. We agree, and hold that there is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children, either independent of their right to direct the upbringing and education of their children or encompassed by it. We also hold that parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students. Finally, we hold that the defendants’ actions were rationally related to a legitimate state purpose.

Read again the final three sentences of this quotation.

The state – government – politicians and their henchmen and toadies – strangers specializing in duping the masses into believing that these same duplicitous strangers are capable of superhuman feats of beneficence – are ruled by a U.S. court of appeals to have a "legitimate" reason to interfere with parents’ decisions about how to expose children to "sexual matters."

As my good friend Roger Meiners remarks about this ruling by super-lefty Judge Reinhardt, it’s rather anomalous that lefties so publicly bemoan the likelihood that non-lefty judges threaten personal freedoms.  Is this ruling not deeply offensive to all who love liberty?

Podcast on Biology and Economics

My podcast with Don Cox of Boston College is here.

We talk about sea horses, elephant seals, sexual dimorphism (males and females being different sizes), binge drinking, infidelity, Cosmo, Maxim, parenting and now and then, why all this has something to do with human behavior and the economic way of thinking.  Let me know if you listen to it, find it interesting, boring, fascinating, dull as dishwater, a waste of time.  Also, if people are interested, I'll post some suggested readings.

Thanks again to James Reese of Radioeconomics for hosting and making the technology transparent.

What's Love Got to Do With It

Should economists pay attention to biological differences between men and women when we try and understand behavior inside and outside the family?  How important are such differences for explaining how fathers and mothers treat sons and daughters?  How important are such differences for understanding differences in the labor market?  How important are such differences for understanding the impact of public policy?

This Friday at noon (ET) I'll be doing a podcast with Don Cox of Boston College on these and other topics.  After we're done, I'll post a link that wil let you hear the conversation on your computer or download to your iPod or MP3 player.  But you can also hear it live and submit questions or comments during the conversation for our reaction via a very cool technology called Macromedia Breeze.  Just go here a little before noon on Friday, enter as a guest, and you'll hear the conversation and be able to contribute via your keyboard if you want.  It gives  the experience a little bit of the flavor of a call-in talk show.

If you want to get the flavor of Don Cox's provocative and fascinating views on this general subject, check out this essay.

If you are teaching economics, please encourage students to listen in.

And a thank you for hosting to James Reese and Radioeconomics where you can find other podcasts as well.