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Another Reason Not to WorryOne of the constant themes of today's media is crisis
and panic. Everywhere we look we are told there is some dreadful social problem,
a threat to all that is good and true. Moreover, it is getting worse and will
bring disaster upon all of us-unless "we do something." (The authors
of these jeremiads always have well worked-out ideas as to what "we"
should do.) Most of the current
favorites in this genre relate to children (going to the dogs), the state of the
natural environment (we’re doomed), or the condition of the popular culture
(uniquely degraded). There are, however, many others. These kinds of accounts
come from all parts of the political spectrum and seem to have a great appeal to
both publishers and readers. Truly, life seems grim. And yet my advice is (to quote the late Douglas Adams's
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), "Don't Panic!" You
should, in fact, take all such accounts with a very large pinch of salt: not
only because they frequently contain elementary errors of fact, logic, and
argument, but also for a more profound reason. Not only is it likely that in
many or most cases there is no problem (or much less of one than the prophets of
doom would have us believe) - in most instances the "problem" is
diminishing and is actually on the way to disappearing. The accounts of social
crisis that bombard us from every corner are examples of a principle I propose
to call "Spencer's Law," after the man who first formulated it, the
great Victorian philosopher and sociologist Herbert Spencer. Spencer's Law states, "The degree of public
concern and anxiety about a social problem or phenomenon varies inversely as to
its real or actual incidence." In plain English this means that when a
social problem is genuinely widespread and severe it will attract little notice
or discussion. It will only become the object of attention, concern, and
controversy precisely when it is in decline and its severity is diminishing. So
the less of a problem there is, the more that is written about it! Spencer made
this point on several occasions, perhaps most pointedly toward the end of' his
life in his essay of 1891 "From Freedom to Bondage," remarking on
"the way the more things improve the louder become the exclamations about
their badness."1 The
point of course is that complaints about social problems that are actually on
the way out have a long history. In the work cited and elsewhere Spencer gives
several examples: Drink. In the early nineteenth century Britain suffered
from a truly horrendous drink problem. Alcohol abuse was commonplace and a major
cause of ill health and crime. By the 1880s consumption of alcohol had declined
sharply and there had been a marked shift from hard liquor to beer. However, it
was the years after 1880 that saw an upsurge in temperance
campaigns in both Britain and the United States, culminating in the "noble
experiment" of Prohibition in the United States and restrictive licensing
laws in Britain. Education. In
the late eighteenth century illiteracy was frequent and innumeracy and ignorance
were so common that they attracted no attention. By the 1860s the huge majority
of British were literate and numerate and there was strong demand for popular
educational materials.2 The later nineteenth century saw a campaign against the
"public ignorance," which led to the establishment of compulsory state
education at the primary (1870) and secondary (1902) levels. Poverty. By every single indicator (such as average
income, cost of living, conditions of life, number on poor relief) the condition
of working people in Britain was far better in 1870 than it had been in 1840.
This was well known, as shown in the statistical works produced at that time,
such as Porter's State of the Nation. It was the years after 1870 that
saw the "discovery of poverty" through the works of men like Rowntree
and Booth and the growth of an intellectual and political movement that led to
the creation of the welfare state in Britain. The status and treatment of women and children. Spencer pointed out on several occasions that women and children enjoyed more rights and were better treated in the nineteenth century than at any other time in history. Yet the years after 1850 saw the growth of feminism and the appearance of the first campaigns against child labor and cruelty to children. More casesTo Spencer's examples we can add: Pollution and the slate of the environment. Contrary
to popular belief pollution is steadily declining and the quality of the
environment has improved since 1900.3 Poverty. This is less of a problem for much of the world
than at any time in history, and the long-term trend is for absolute poverty to
decline everywhere. In fact, all indicators of human well-being show a steady
rise over the last hundred years. So how do we explain Spencer's Law? Why do we become
exercised by social problems precisely when they are in decline or much
diminished? One reason is lack of historical perspective - most people do not
know of the comparison between the present and the past and so are unaware of
the trend. They only see the problems today without realizing how much worse it
was in the past. Second, there is a problem of perception. When a phenomenon
such as poverty, child labor, or mistreatment of women is widespread, it is not
noticed, but simply taken for granted as part of "the way things are."
When, however, such phenomena become rare or exceptional they stand out more by
contrast and so attract attention. As the problem becomes less commonplace,
attitudes change from (at best) resigned acceptance to outraged rejection.
Finally, there is a basic fact of human psychology: Bad news sells while good
news does not; gloomy pessimism seems to have an appeal lacking in sunny
optimism. This explains why accounts that present a declining
problem as acute and worsening are believed or found plausible. However, they do
not fully explain why such accounts are produced in the first place. In addition
to the above factors, two others come into play. First, people who are concerned
about a problem or issue and want to do something about it now realize that they
have to present their message in a certain way if it is to have any impact.
"Situation improving, a bit more needed" does not excite in the way
that "situation desperate-urgent attention required" does. Also, such accounts often have a specific agenda. In
contrast to Spencer's time, when many social activists called primarily for
self-improvement and private (non-state) action, such as philanthropy or mutual
aid, modern campaigns typically call for an increase in the power of government.
Instead of arguing that processes such as economic growth, which reduce social
problems, should be allowed to take their course or be encouraged, or calling
for action by individuals or voluntary cooperation, they advocate some kind of
collective action via politics; that is, through legislation and the state. The
evidence suggests that this will be at best ineffective, at worse
counterproductive. However, in many cases the "problem" is being used
as an excuse for advocating something that is wanted for other, philosophical
reasons. Experience has taught advocates of power that to openly advocate
increasing the size of government is to court defeat. Much easier to describe a
"terrible problem" and argue that government action is the only
solution. That is the final lesson to draw from this. In all the examples of
Spencer's Law there is a common feature. These are all cases where things are
improving without resort to planned, collective action. In Spencer's own time
living conditions were improving, levels of education were rising, and the
problem of drink was diminishing, as a result of orderly yet unplanned social
processes, These desirable trends were the unplanned outcome of many millions of actions and decisions made by individuals. Even where
there was conscious action ( as in the case of charities or mutual aid) it was
piecemeal, localized, and diffuse. Many people, then and now, simply find it
difficu1t to accept that improvement or social reform can come about except by
conscious, collective action, by using power to direct people's affairs. Does this mean we should simply sit back, believing
like Doctor Pangloss that "All is for the best in the best of all possible
worlds"? Not at all. In
the first place we should all be 1ooking to do what we can to make matters
better in our own sphere, by practicing the virtues of personal responsibility. Second, there is a role for public policy. The
benevolent trends identified by Spencer and contemporary authors such as Stephen
Moore and the late Julian Simon can only exist and continue in the right
institutional framework.4 Get the "rules of the game" wrong and all
that improvement will stop or go into reverse. The irony, as Spencer pointed
out, is that when government grows in response to panics and jeremiads, that is
usually just what happens. The growth of state action in response to misleading
panics is often self-defeating. Frequently, the outcome is to actually
diminish or even reverse the previous beneficent trend.
This can be seen most clearly in education, where the rise of state
schooling has brought about a decline in general knowledge, literacy, and
capacity for critical reasoning. Similarly, controls on the sale of alcohol
actually made drinking problems worse. The role of law and government should be to create the
right conditions for human ingenuity and good-spiritedness to do its work.
2. E G West, Education and the Industrial Revolution
(London Batsford, 1975) and Education and the State (London Institute
of Economic Affairs, 1970) 3 Julian L Simon, The Ultimate Resource 2
(Princeton NJ Princeton University Press, 1996), pp 335--40 4 Julian L Simon and Stephen Moore, 115 Getting
Better All the Time: 100 Greatest Trends of the Last 100 Years (Washington,
DC Cato Institute, 2000) and Julian L Simon, ed" The State of Humanity (Oxford
B1ackwell,1996) by Stephen Davies.
reprinted from Ideas on Liberty August 2001 |
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