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08/20/2005

Response to Comment on the State and Religion-BECKER

Not many comments, so my task is much easier than Posner's.  However, the comments are of high quality even though I disagree with most of them. 
I am surprised by the claim-especially given who wrote it- that competition among religions might lead to a "race to the bottom".  Why should that be any truer for religion than for competition among cars or telecommunication companies?  What is known is that competition among religions increases the degree of religiosity (measured in various ways), and that more religious persons are more law-abiding, more honest, and so forth.  However, it has been difficult to determine whether religions improve behavior rather than that more law-abiding and honest families are more likely to be religious.  The little good evidence on this suggests some causation from religion to better behavior. 
Several persons misunderstood me on one major point, and I apologize if I did not make myself clear.  When I speak about free competition and a level playing field among religions, I was not simply referring to government monetary subsidies.  To take the example provided in one comment, it would violate the concept of free competition if the government only allowed Catholics to vote.  Free competition and level playing field should apply to all areas of government involvement, such as who votes, who can run newspapers, who can set up denominational schools, who can open churches, etc. 
A closely related misunderstanding is that I have never advocated competition among religions, newspapers, or anything else, solely on a mechanical notion of "efficiency".  The case for competition is that it better satisfies and influences people‚Äôs preferences-in effect, that it gives them greater choice.  This case for competition applies just as strongly to religions, political parties, and other non-material activities as to the markets for clothing or computers. 
Someone questioned whether the Constitution prevents the establishment of an official church because of the desire to allow competition among religions.  I do believe that was a crucial consideration.  For support, one only need read Thomas Jefferson's Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in the State of Virginia.  Much of what he says there in making the case for religious freedom is best interpreted as showing the advantages of allowing different religions to compete for members on a level playing field.  The Constitution also outlaws monopoly in a few other areas as well.  The first of the Bill of Rights states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion‚Ä¶or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press".  These are all arguments against monopoly and for free entry into the print world and the world of ideas as well as religion.  Free entry is really all that competition means.  One would not expect a blanket condemnation of monopoly because the founders might well have expected cases of "natural" monopoly;that is, cases where competition would not be efficient or feasible. 
I accept the criticism that several of the Ten Commandments might not now be accepted by everyone.  Still, my main point is surely right, that allowing a display of these Commandments on public property is minor compared so many other activities that governments engage in. 
I definitely agree that property owned by religious institutions should not be tax-exempt.  My reason is not that this discriminates against atheistic groups since they can have non-profit organizations that would also be tax-exempt.  My main reason is that I am generally doubtful about the tax-exempt status for all non-profits, including, but not confined, to religious groups. 
This is a bit off the topic, but I cannot let pass the claim that vouchers would drain the good students from public schools, and would leave the students who remain there much worse off.  The true situation illustrates how competition works.  Schools that lose students to better schools would be under great pressure from parents and others to improve themselves.  They would tend to get new principals, change their teaching, etc.  This is not just theory, for it is backed up in the studies by Carolyn Hoxby of Harvard and others. 

Comments

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It is interesting to see how blogs evolve - eventually people (not the bloggers but the blog readers) start having conversations, some which are not related to the topic at hand.  This spontaneous dialogue can be interesting and entertaining. 

Professor Becker cites Caroline Hoxby for evidence that greater school choice increases average student performance.  But Jesse Rothstein has found some serious problems with that evidence.  See http://papers.nber.org/papers/w11215.pdf.  Hoxby's response is at http://papers.nber.org/papers/w11216.pdf
Both are forcoming in the American Economic Review. 

I think you have mispriced the fundamental structure of religious inclination. 

From what I have experienced, the economics of religion include a number of fundamental groups trading ideals.  These groups are elements of religious structure existing in all societies and appear to be religion independent. 

These groups tend to exist in a social equilibrium that can be mapped from time to time and from country to country. 

Religious expression, for instance, in the United States from 1860-1900 was remkarably deistic, following naturally Lincoln's expressions. 

Religion today is more active in trying to define political questions, and there is an Orthodox revival throughout the world. 

So in response to the rights of an Athiest, I believe their rights should be more limited than the Diest in our country, which amounts to saying that I do not approve of the Soviet Union, which was an Athiest society and persecuted the religious. 

I do not think we can have it both ways economically.  Either the political market rewards those who believe in God or those who do not.  This does not mean the state has to sanction a religion.  At a fundamental level, it simply means that the state has to be thankful to God for its existance.  A state may also choose to promote a particular religion, which is common in many countries through out the world.  I personally believe in the separation of Church and State, but I also recognize that the secular state is secular from religion and not from God. 

An interesting study of the economics of religious thought is China.  If you carefully study the Ming dynansty, and the extensive war against the Bhuddists that began a number of centuries earlier, you will appreciate the effects of law upon cultural developments. 

At one point, Bhuddists enjoyed considerable freedom in China.  I believe Emporer Wu took your position, that religion should not be free from property taxation.  The motivation was not kindness to the people, but rather a challenge to the cultural value of religious practice. 

In the end, Bhuddist practice in China declined and the cultural development stagnated. 

It is not clear why religious development is important to cultural development, but economically, this seems to be a positive externality. 

You have spent considerable amounts of your life mapping externalities both positive and negative. 

One aspect of religion is that it encourages the development of literate minds.  Great artistic works began in our world first with religious roots.  Music itself was almost entirely religious until the 15th century. 

Of course, a person could claim that the state should not involve itself in religious practice.  This is a very different ideal than promoting the belief in God. 

Of course, China and Russia were Athiestic states throughout most of the 20th century and to a large regard today.  Their political legal cultures advanced the argument that religion should not be promoted and should be properly taxed. 

Taxation policy is naturally a very complex equation, and at the federal level, one for Congress to decide. 

"Schools that lose students to better schools would be under great pressure from parents and others to improve themselves." 

I find this assertion to be logically unsound. 

implicit in the assertion is the assumption that there is strong positive correlation between parental involvement with a school and its performance.  moving a student to a new school requires a high level of parental involvement with the student and suggests the likelihood of a high level of parental involvement with the old school.  hence, a student's move to a new school suggests a likely decrease in the overall level of parental involvement in the old school contrary to the assertion's hypothesized increase. ( implicit in the assertion is the assumption that the loss of students will somehow stimulate increased parental involvement among the remaining parents, but that's questionable on two grounds: first, the assumption is that the old school is underperforming, so why weren't these suddenly motivated parents motivated by that?  second, mightn't they choose instead to increase their involvement with the student rather than with the old school by moving him/her too? 

of course, this says nothing about the assumed increase in the involvement of "others", whoever they might be.