Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 20:13:18 -0700 From: spooner@doitnow.com (Rick Tompkins/Kathy Harrer) Subject: [lpaz-repost] Fw: The costs of one's ideas To: lpaz-repost@yahoogroups.com
>From: "Marc Victor" <marcvictor@home.com>
>
>This is an excellent lesson.
>
>Marc
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Butler Shaffer <bshaffer@swlaw.edu>
>To: <mises@Egroups.Com>
>Sent: Friday, January 05, 2001 12:45 PM
>Subject: The costs of one's ideas
>
>
>> A number of years ago, I would begin my first day of classes (in law
>> school) by having my students respond to a questionnaire asking them to
>> "agree" or "disagree" with various normative propositions. (Their
>> responses were anonymously given.) Among the numerous propositions were
>> the following key ones in which I was most interested:
>>
>> "Because the principle of 'equality' is so important, we must
>> act to further equality whenever we can."
>>
>> "Business firms should regard the 'public interest' as more
>> important than the 'private profit motive.'"
>>
>> "A person should regard the interests of the group as being more
>> important than his or her own personal interests."
>>
>> (Upon later calculating these responses, I found students "agreeing"
>> with such propositions from anywhere from 35% to 50% of the time,
>> depending upon the particular proposition and with responses varying
>> from one year to the next.)
>>
>> Immediately after giving them this questionnaire (and, of course, no
>> mention having been made by me, of the significance of the above
>> propositions), I told the students that we would be trying an
>> alternative system of grading for the class. Students could choose to
>> be graded on either the traditional, INDIVIDUALLY based method of
>> grading (in which their personal final exam grade determined their
>> personal grade), or a COLLECTIVE, GROUP-AVERAGED system of grading, in
>> which those who opted for the latter method (and only those) would have
>> their final exam grades pooled, and each student in the collective would
>> receive the same, average grade (e.g., if three students selected this
>> method, and one received a "A," another a "C," and the third an "F,"
>> each student in the collective would receive a grade of "C.") I told
>> the students I wanted them to sign a contract that day - an agreement
>> they could revoke at any time up to the day of the final exam - and
>> handed out a form asking them to make a selection between the two
>> methods and to sign it.
>>
>> In the various times that I have given this exercise, I have NEVER HAD A
>> COLLECTIVE created by the students. I have occasionally had ONE student
>> opt for the group method of grading, but NEVER TWO or more.
>>
>> The next day, I went into the classroom to discuss the phenomenon: "how
>> could so many of you have embraced these egalitarian and other
>> collectivist sentiments yet, when it came time to put your beliefs into
>> practice, none of you were willing to sign up? Can you explain this to
>> me?" After some embarrassing giggling on their parts - and, again, only
>> they knew whether they had agreed or disagreed with these propositions -
>> we got into a discussion (a la Bastiat, Richard Weaver, etc.) of how we
>> are often prepared to advocate various doctrines because there appears
>> to be no "cost" associated with doing so. One can appear to be a
>> devotee of altruism and egalitarianism - which might bring with it
>> certain social rewards - without having any adverse effects on one's own
>> interests.
>>
>> I then offer the example of the "beauty queen" contestants who are
>> invariably asked that most inane of questions: "if you had but one wish,
>> what would it be for?," to which each parrots the politically correct
>> mantra: "peace and brotherhood for all mankind." I then ask them why
>> these contestants so answer, and I get the expected answers: "because
>> they want to win," or "because that's what they're expected to say,"
>> etc. I tell them, "no, they give this answer because they do not
>> believe that they really have a wish. If they DID truly believe they
>> had a wish, what do you suppose their answer would then be?"
>>
>> The exercise has proved to be a good introduction to economic analysis,
>> particularly as it relates to the seemingly "cost-free" activity of
>> advocating normative propositions that few of them would be willing to
>> accept in fact. "If you don't want to live out the consequences of such
>> ideas, why do you want to advocate them?"
>>
>> Butler Shaffer
>> Southwestern University School of Law
>> Los Angeles
>>
>
>
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