Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein leaning suggestively on a doorframe

I spent most of the afternoon yesterday obsessing about Cass Sunstein, whose views on just about everything from free speech to animal rights confuse the heck out of me on first glance.

In general, that means it’s time to learn more.

Here’s what happened: a friend of mine on Facebook, yelling about other things, was gracious enough to share this The New York Post :

Advance copies of Sunstein’s new book, “On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done,” have gone out to reviewers ahead of its September publication date, but considering the prominence with which Sunstein is about to be endowed, his worrying views are fair game now. Sunstein is President Obama’s choice to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. It’s the bland titles that should scare you the most.

[...]

Sunstein was appointed, no doubt, off the success of “Nudge,” his previous book, which suggests that government ought to gently force people to be better human beings.

Fascinating! I haven’t read Nudge, either (this is what happens when one’s book budget goes down the drain) but from what I know, Sunstein seems to enspouse a modified form of libertarian paternalism.

The Post column has actually made me more interested in Sunstein’s work. Considering the press Pop SocSci authors like Malcolm Gladwell get, it seems to be not very well understood outside of law and behavioral economics.

I guess I should stop ignoring the guy.

Most brazen part of this: I have a copy of Cass Sunstein‘s 2007 book Worst Case Scenarios sitting right in front of me.

The beer is gone, but the book remains unfinished.

Thomas Jefferson is rolling over in his grave.

An otherwise interesting BBC article on the Google book scanning deal ends with this:

Many believe the issue of rights over out-of-print books would best be solved by legislation and not the courts.

“It is never a good thing for private parties to make deals for the public good,” said Martin Manley, the founder of Alibris.com, an online store which sells used, rare and out-of-print books.

“The public good is meant to be solved by regulators who are somewhat accountable and by legislators who are wholly accountable,” Mr Manley told BBC News.

Now, I’m not a big fan of copy right law and I support Google in their efforts, but Mr. Manley has this completely wrong. The enforcement of private contracts is certainly within the realm of the judicial system. Google is not trying, nor should be expected to, make deals for the “public good.”  They are simply trying to provide a service that consumers find desirable – and working around stone age copyright law in trying to do so. But don’t think for a second that just because Google doesn’t charge internet users directly for their services that Google is acting for the purposes of the “public good.”

Make no mistake, this is a private deal for private interests.

And as for his second quote… yes, copyright law needs to be reworked by legislatures, but it doesn’t sound like this is what he’s saying. It sounds like Manley wants congress to pass some bill that would erase private contracts and copyrights to “protect the public good” of having free books online (which, incidentally, I don’t think one of the rights protected by the constitution).

I hope this quote was taken out of context. Imagine what kind of precedent it would set if congressman could just erase copyrights or patents when deemed to violate the “public good”? Manley claims that legislators are more accountable that judges, but was it judges that were trying to interfere with private contracts during the financial bailouts?

What Manley is suggesting, using erroneous assumptions, is that judges are trying to legislate from the bench via private interests (which is false, they’re just trying to uphold bad laws) in a way which violates the public good (also false: he confuses Google and google customers for the general public). His claimed solution, if I’ve interpreted correctly: give legislators even more power to uphold subjective public good.

Hint – what legislators claim is the public good is more often than not special deals for private interests. In this case, what Manley wants is a deal that works out for Google. What happens when the next special deal is struck for some pharmaceutical company that Manley doesn’t like so much?

There is a good reason why we have checks and balances and that political power is divided the way it is. I would say this recommendation is borderline unconstitutional.

I’ve started listening to audio recordings of the Federalist Papers. I have to say that, at least so far, I’m not impressed by some of the arguments that they where making in favor of passing a Constitution that would unite the States under a Federal government. I realize that I can’t relate to some of them, just because the world we live in and the state of the country is just completely different.

For example, the argument that  a large Federal government is more efficient and has a larger pool of talent to draw on than many decentralized confederacies seems a bit silly now. However, during a time of inept local politicians (well maybe that hasn’t changed) and a much smaller population, this argument (from Federalist #3) must have made a lot more sense.

However, take this argument from Federalist #2 (written by John Jay):

They [the people] considered that the Congress [of 1774] was composed of many wise and experienced men. That, being convened from different parts of the country, they brought with them and communicated to each other a variety of useful information. That, in the course of the time they passed together in inquiring into and discussing the true interests of their country, they must have acquired very accurate knowledge on that head. That they were individually interested in the public liberty and prosperity, and therefore that it was not less their inclination than their duty to recommend only such measures as, after the most mature deliberation, they really thought prudent and advisable… every succeeding Congress, as well as the late convention, have invariably joined with the people in thinking that the prosperity of America depended on its Union.

Jay’s premise is that the majority of people were happy with the federalist goals of the original continental congress (a premise which he doesn’t provide support for) and then assumes that because the members of the congress were popular, they must have also been wise and knew what was best for the country. Then he rounds it off with a fallacious appeal to authority and historical precedence to support a large federal government.

It’s interesting to note that the Federalists were also against drafting the Bill of Rights.

I wonder if this isn’t a display of information bias – besides for the obvious problem of the small sample size.  American politics and issues are probably on the news in Iran a lot more often than we’re exposed to Iranian politics.  Maybe there is some neutral terroritory that we can quiz to eliminate the information bias, which tells us nothing about the relative and subjective “informative-ness” of Americans and Iranians.