Articles 2000
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How Not to Treat Elephants Like Fish
A clever neoclassical model offers new ideas for conserving endangered species.
The New York Times, "Economic Scene", May 18, 2000
The recent film title, "I Dreamed of Africa," captures a common Western attitude. We tend to see the continent as a mythic place of romantic dreams -- of exotic adventures, lost ancestors and awesome creatures.
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"Laboratory Rats"
What should state governments do about the "new economy"?
Reason, May 2000
Back in 1988, when Democrats and faddish business pundits believed in a "Massachusetts Miracle" created by state economic policy, "reinventing government" guru David Osborne published a book called Laboratories of Democracy. It argued that activist governors were creating a new sort of economic role for government--not "negative," like the Reaganite emphasis on lowering taxes and cutting regulation, but not the musty old bureaucracy of New Deal days either
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Open-Source Software Arouses Researchers' Curiosity
The arrival of open-source software arouses researchers' curiosity on what motivates programmers to work free.
The New York Times, "Economic Scene", April 20, 2000
When technology stocks took their sharp tumble last week, many companies appeared to lose one of their most important assets -- the ability to lure talented employees with options. To attract and hold the best, you have to offer the chance to strike it rich.
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Do You Deserve To Live?
Forbes, April 16, 2000
THE QUESTION IS A STAPLE OF POLITICAL TALK shows: "Should George W. Bush pick a pro-life running mate?" We all know what it means. The issue is abortion, not life in general, and the political challenge is to hold together a divided coalition. Nobody remarks on the implication that the alternative is a "pro-death" running mate.
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"The In-Box Presidency"
What's behind the politics of personality.
Reason, April 2000
This truly is the first presidential race of the 21st century, a period defined not simply by dates but by states of mind. The 20th century was an age of ideological combat, of political visions clashing on printed pages and bloody battlefields, an age of heroic rhetoric and executive power. The century began in 1914, with the start of World War I, and ended in 1991, with the failed Soviet coup. We have been in an interregnum ever since, slowly adjusting to a changed world
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The Golden Formula for Hollywood Success
The New York Times, "Economic Scene", March 23, 2000
As Hollywood gathers on Sunday to heap Oscar praise on such surprise hits as "American Beauty" and "The Sixth Sense," producers and studio marketing heads are revamping their idea of what makes for box-office success. Action heroes, happy endings, special effects and high-concept synopses are out. Flawed protagonists, shock value, downbeat twists and hard-to-explain plots are in. The formula movie is dead. Long live the formula movie.
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We Are Not All Hayekians Now
Forbes, March 19, 2000
LAST YEAR THE GERMAN NEWSWEEKLY DIE ZEIT asked Berkeley philosopher John Searle to single out a "book of the century." He chose Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom. With its argument that socialist planning would inevitably collapse into stagnation and oppression, it was a prophetic work--remarkable for 1944.
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"Prescription for Trouble"
Online pharmacies challenge traditional medical models, and the regulatory backlash threatens broader Internet freedoms.
Reason, March 2000
Ah, the Internet! A new world of pure thought, free of the limits and coercion of the physical world. "Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live," wrote John Perry Barlow four years ago in "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace."
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The Ethics of Boosterism
Forbes, February 06, 2000
THE LOS ANGELES TIMES RECENTLY RAN A 14-PAGE, ad-free "special report" investigating itself. The charge: that the newspaper breached journalistic ethics when it agreed to split advertising income from a special issue of its Sunday magazine with the issue's subject, the new downtown sports palace called the Staples Center. The verdict: guilty by reason of ignorance, incompetence and excessive devotion to financial goals.
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"Seattle Surprise"
The WTO protests caught free-traders off guard. They shouldn't have.
Reason, February 2000
When protesters descended on Seattle in the tens of thousands, blocking World Trade Organization delegates and ordinary citizens from going about their business and, in some high-profile cases, wrecking "corporate" stores, the mainstream media and political establishment finally woke up to an ideological movement that has been building for at least a decade. International trade is no longer just a matter of interest-group politics. It has become a highly charged symbol of markets in general and, even more broadly, of the cultural dynamism that they unleash