The Association of Private Enterprise Education is Decadent and Depraved: 2012

Hunter S. Thompson, Miami Book Fair International, 1988 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This past weekend was the annual Association of Private Enterprise Education (APEE) Conference, which meets in Las Vegas in alternate years. Scholars across disciplines presented research, held roundtable discussions of books new and old, and hosted panel discussions on subjects of interest. In plenary sessions, Robert Levy discussed Supreme Court decisions that expanded the reach of the state, Lawrence White talked about his forthcoming book The Clash of Economic Ideas, and Peter Leeson discussed his in-progress book Anarchy Unbound. I (and others) tweeted observations at the hashtag #APEE. A good time was had by all. Here are a few observations and thoughts on the 2012 edition of APEE, held at Harrah’s.

I spoke as part of three panels and moderated another session. In the first panel, I gave an abbreviated version of a talk I’ve titled “Why Not Socialism?” that will appear as a working paper sometime soon. In the second panel, I discussed Gordon Lloyd and Nicholas Capaldi’s edited voume The Two Narratives of Political Economy, which I recently reviewed for Conversations on Philanthropy. The third panel I was on was called “The Best of The Freeman,” and I discussed my article with Steven Horwitz in which they summarized Thomas C. Leonard’s research on the eugenic origins of Progressive Era reforms like minimum wages and child labor laws.

In one of the first sessions of the conference, I was part of a panel that included Bradley Thompson, James Otteson, Peter Boettke, and an overflow crowd. Professors Thompson and Boettke made powerful cases against the notion that Marxism is a benign (or benevolent) social ideal that was handled poorly. Professor Thompson defended the thesis that “Marxism’s moral ideal is repulsive,” noting that Maoism and Stalinism were not corruptions of Marx’s doctrine but implications of it. Professor Boettke and his co-author asked whether Marxism was good for anything and answered “absolutely nothing.” In this session, I discussed Mises and Hayek’s critiques of socialism. While I didn’t spend much time discussing Marx, here’s an article on Marx I wrote a few years ago.

The plenary sessions were especially informative. Robert Levy discussed some of the seemingly-inexplicable Supreme Court decisions that have allowed the state to expand its grasp, Lawrence White discussed changing ideas about political economy and how they mattered for economic performance, and Peter Leeson discussed his research on anarchy.

Leeson’s talk was especially interesting for people interested in global development issues. Leeson’s work suggests that statelessness is not only feasible but almost certainly better than the governments that rule some African countries. He focused some of his attention on Somalia, which performs better in the absence of a state than many of its neighbors that actually have governments. Given that governance of the quality they enjoy in the United States is probably not an option for many African countries, attempting to build state capacity in developing countries could very well be a fool’s errand. Here is more from Leeson and others in a Cato Unbound symposium on anarchy.

The sessions I attended were extremely interesting and informative. In a session on “Industrial Change and Organization,” I learned from Andres Marroquin and Grete Pasch about the history (and future) of privately-provided library services. I learned from Brian O’Roark and Clair A. Smith about social norms in the open-source programming community. I learned from Clemson University graduate student Anna Chorniy and her advisor Michael T. Maloney about drug pricing.

I also learned from L. Dwayne Barney and Paul A. Cleveland about the insanity of the NCAA cartel. In particular, Barney and Cleveland are exploring how complex regulations emerge and how organizations tend to get unwieldy. Apparently, it is permissible for institutions to provide student-athletes with bagels between meals, but there is a serious discussion going on within the NCAA about whether cream cheese counts as an “extra benefit.” I’m not sure whether there are rules on the kinds of bagels that can be provided as an everything bagel is clearly superior to a plain bagel, but I’m sure professors Barney and Cleveland will have an answer when their paper is finished.

In another session, Edward Lopez, Douglas Rasmussen, and David Henderson discussed the economics of “security” with applications to the Transportation Security Administration and other regulatory agencies (here, via Twitter, are a few things I’ve written on the TSA). Professor Lopez pointed out that some 75% of Americans think the TSA is effective when there is considerable evidence to the contrary.

David Henderson questioned the assumption that the government actually provides security and pointed out how prescription drugs are more expensive and harder to get because of FDA efficacy requirements. For those who might think this is acceptable in the name of “safety,” Henderson cited estimates from the economist Daniel Klein suggesting that there are some 50,000 preventable deaths every year because of FDA-related delays in drug approval. Professor Henderson also pointed out how Social Security also makes us less secure because there is such a low probability that the government will make good on its promises. Finally, Professor Henderson--who teaches at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California--discussed how war and foreign interventions actually make us less safe by turning people against us and by destabilizing the areas where they intervene. In short, a lot of the things that are done in the name of keeping us free and safe actually make us less free and less safe.

Finally, I attended a roundtable session discussing Robert Higgs’s Against Leviathan. Professor Higgs was unable to attend, but panel chair Peter Boettke and panelists Edward Stringham, Sanford Ikeda, and Christopher J. Coyne provided us with a very useful summary of Higgs’s contributions to a general criticism of the idea that government is necessary.

I also came out ahead, but not by gambling. There’s a Starbucks in the lobby at Harrah’s, and I noticed that at various times the line was really long. There’s also another Starbucks just around the corner and up the escalator from the first Starbucks. And there was basically no line. I earned a whopping ninety-seven cents by buying two cups of coffee at the upstairs Starbucks for $7.03 and then selling them at the downstairs Starbucks for $8. I used some of my ninety-seven cents in new wealth to mail postcards to my kids.

In addition to a series of panels on a variety of issues, the conference featured its second annual (?) undergraduate research poster competition. Students from across the country brought their A-Games to the poster session. Four of their students from Rhodes competed, and Rhodes student Ian Engdahl won second prize.

APEE has always been a great conference. This year’s edition was no exception. Every year, APEE assembles a small army of bright, energetic scholars who are working hard to advance the cause of a free and prosperous society. In this light, it’s hard not to be a little optimistic about the future they can create for their children.

In the past, I've posted my APEE write-ups (with the same title) at Division of Labour (here, here, and here). If you don't know where the title comes from, it comes from this. Also, I'd like to say "thanks" to the anonymous angel who gave me two postage stamps at the airport in Las Vegas when the newsstand didn't have any. If you're memorizing this, thank you. I'll pay it forward at my earliest opportunity.

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