LETTERS
Letters Courage and Cpwardice Continued In answer to your invitation to write [“More on Courage and Cowardice,” August, 19691, I believe: 1) Resignations smack a little of “tantrums” in...
...He should wait for a bigger issue or a series of issues I. CARTER FAHY Center Ossipee, N.H...
...FPC does not have authority to plan for utilities or even to order the construction or operation of critical transmission lines or generating stations...
...In the balance sheet that you and many others have added up, it’s necessary to add my impression that Clark Clifford would not have begun a reversal on Vietnam without people around him who had stayed even though they might like to have resigned, and who could take advantage of his coming in, to press arguments that, had previously been repressed or frustrated...
...Lily...
...There is a parallel line of argument which seems to me worth taking: take the credential society as it is, take the need for whole new sets of human skills, take the diplomas now distributed, since these are basic institutionalized arrangements which, as you say, are a son of a bitch to move...
...in fact, it often makes them worse...
...forces and strive for a military solution...
...Inasmuch as I did not resign, it could not have been for the reason stated...
...Although every senior F.S.O...
...1969) wrote that I took my “demotion to ‘director of research’ hard, and resigned...
...ROBERT 0. MARRITZ Denver Mr...
...Bell, like most of the rest of us, has to make a living, and that uninformed and indiscriminate criticism of institutions like the Foreign Service is an undemanding activity for apprentice journalists, but, as a Foreign Service Officer I prefer my criticism-like my wine, food, friends, and ideas-to be of a relatively high quality...
...Many regulatory activities, at both the federal and state level, flunk this threshold test and should be phased out...
...Insulated from the discipline of competition and denied the incentive of profits, regulatory personnel are largely free to substitute personal goals for those of society...
...where is that small consulate headed by a Foreign Service Officer whose staff includes an Air Force Officer aide...
...If the implication is that foolish economic legislation would not be enacted if it couldn’t be handed over to independent regulatory agencies for implementation, it is incorrect...
...I realize that Mr...
...Supreme Court is to blame for all the de facto segregation which still exists in the country...
...Thanks for making it available to us, particularly at a time when there’s so much nonsense published and more said...
...This makes it extraordinarily difficult to evaluate the success of regulatory agencies, to establish a system of rewards and penalties that will encourage good performance and discourage bad, and, in short, to impose adequate social controls on regulators...
...Goodman reported...
...uly...
...Flat factual errors-such as stating that desk officers have clearance authority over Bureau of Intelligence and Research reports -- are serious enough, but what is really wrong is the evident ignorance of the author of (a) the theory and realities of a professional civil service, (b) the theory and realities of a professional diplomatic service, (c) the American Foreign Service and in particular the people in it, (d) the theory, history, and practice of diplomacy, and finally and most damning (e) the legion of journalists, academics, diplomats, politicians, and just plain folks who wrote about the Foreign Service long before Mr...
...August, 19691 with great anticipation, being professionally concerned with activities of the Federal Power Commission...
...2) It’s too early and Finch too valuable to the country for him to have to step aside...
...RICHARD A. POSNER Chicago Mr...
...HUBERT H. HUMPHREY Washington Correction Walter Goodman (“The Committee Revisited...
...And the reasons for this failure are inherent in the character of the regulatory process, just as the reasons for market failure are inherent in certain types of market structure...
...I am troubled, too, by a certain patness in his approach, typified by his statement: “When competition is reaffirmed and antitrust law is refurbished, there will be no need of regulators...
...DAVID RIESMAN Cambridge ”The Cost of Cowardice: Silence in the Foreign Service,” [July, 19691 is a very bad article, primarily because of the author’s obvious lack of knowledge of his subject - the American Foreign Service...
...The farm subsidy program, among others, contradicts any such thesis...
...One may still prefer unregulated to regulated monopoly...
...But you can do an enormous amount of rearranging inside the diploma-credit system, especially in the community colleges and some of the new movements in student-initiated courses and student experimental colleges...
...Goodman wrote about me are not true...
...I therefore consider Kohlmeier’s emphasis on “restructuring” the government somewhat misplaced...
...Posner is a Drofessor at the University of Chicago Law ‘School...
...Taylor, a former president of Sarah Lawrence College, is the author of the recent book, Students Without Teachers: The Crisis in the University...
...Even in those areas where free market processes will not operate efficiently, because of the factors mentioned, it would, be wrong to jump to the conclusion that the government should automatically intervene...
...Furthermore, in the world in which they live, not that of the career civil servant, to stay in a corrupt, contaminated, venomous government may take more courage than to get out...
...In the real world, the choice for public policy is always between imperfect arrangements...
...My own assessment of the situation resulted in my removal from Saigon...
...That is, if we wish to cushion farmers from the income effects of fluctuations in the amount of crops produced, we can pay them directly: we don’t have to effect our goal by the roundabout, inefficient, and, as it turns out, inequitable method of keeping prices high by restricting output...
...It would begin by seeking to identify those markets or industries in which market processes cannot be depended upon to bring about a reasonably efficient use of resources...
...I should myself prefer to see a somewhat different approach taken to the problem of defining the appropriate scope of government regulation of business...
...There is such a vogue of purity now that it may cloud judgment as to which decision, in all the complex circumstances in which an individual finds himself, is the truly moral course...
...Kohlmeier’s proposals for abrogating regulatory controls and giving greater play to market processes [“The Regulatory Agencies: What Should Be Done...
...During my 26 years of diplomatic-military service and especially the last two assignmentsas Deputy to Lodge in Saigon 196364 and as Minister and Charge in Cairo 1965-87-1 certainly found that the overwhelming force in the bureaucracy is to conform to the views of one’s superiors and not to “rock the boat” with dissenting opinions I “‘l’he Cost of Cowardicx!: Silence in the Foreign Swvice...
...Kohlmeier’s sweeping, though quite possibly justified, condemnation of the federal regulatory agencies...
...Even if I felt so inclined to make a point by point refutation of Mr...
...This publication should be must reading for every man in public life...
...I hardly think such unsubstantiated reporting proves much of anything, as no one has ever seriously suggested that the Foreign Service was composed solely of paragons...
...Anyone with even the most cursory understanding of the Federal Power Act or FPC’s functions in administering it should know this...
...The heart of the problem is that the output of a regulatory agency is not sold in any market...
...it is not priced...
...What I cannot accept, and indeed can barely fathom, is the process of reasoning by which Kohlmeier derives his specific proposals for deregulation from the general reflections on the “fourth branch” that occupy the first half of the article...
...familiar with the problem agreed that the “counter-iIisurgency” effort which McNamara, Rusk, the Bundy and Rostow Brothers were relying on to assure our objective could and would not succeed, not one dared challenge their views or pose frankly and clearly the alternative options...
...not wholly to blame” for the Northeast blackout of November 1965, was at least partially to blame because of its “bad planning...
...I have made some similar suggestions myself (“Natural Monopoly and Its Regulation,” Stanford Law Review, February, 1969...
...These will chiefly be markets where the conditions of cost and demand make monopoly inevitable or where enterprises fail to take account of the full costs that their activities impose on society (the problem of pollution, broadly defined...
...but it is ordinarily possible, and more efficient, to meet the other goals by transfer paymentsdirect subsidies...
...The Regulatory Agencies I began reading your article on the regulatory agencies, (“The Regulatorv Agencies: What Should Be Done...
...Yet, it is likely to be many years before long-distance telephone service, to choose only one example, can bc efficiently provided on a competitive basis...
...Bell’s article, it would be difficult to do so as it is largely composed of selected (to make his point) Service cocktail-party and coffee-break gossip...
...HAROLD TAYLOR Ashland, New Hampshire Mr...
...There is now a fairly strong student movement, part of it running in the National Student Association Center for Educational Reform, in the direction of using practical social experience, new student curricula, workstudy programs, etc., for college credit...
...In addition, an author should make some effort to be informed and accurate about his subject (e.g...
...This is mentioned only to demonstrate that 3 of the 4 “facts” in the one sentence Mr...
...These reforms are happening not so much in the structure of the system (much of it is too deeply entrenched to get it changed in time for the present students) but in the content of the work for which course-credit is given toward the diploma...
...He is evidently troubled by the fact that the regulatory agencies do not fit neatly into one of the three branches of governmentlegislative, executive, and judicial- specifically discussed in the Constitution, with the result, he asserts in his concluding paragraph, that the agencies are not subject to “the discipline of constitutional doctrine...
...I agree with many of Mr...
...EDWARD MARKS Washington, D.C...
...It’s thoughtful, provocative, and, if you like politics, an exciting publication...
...I am particularly impressed with the August issue...
...It is little wonder that the regulatory agencies have such a poor record of serving the public interest...
...This implies that there are no natural monopolies on interstate services...
...Letters Courage and Cpwardice Continued In answer to your invitation to write [“More on Courage and Cowardice,” August, 19691, I believe: 1) Resignations smack a little of “tantrums” in not having one’s own way...
...Kohlmeier’s statement is comparable to saying that the U.S...
...Their resignations would not be effective, because they were not luminous...
...Quibbling about minor points doesn’t interest me, but I served as staff director of the committee for 6% years, not 5 as Mr...
...DAVID NES Owings Mills, Maryland Fan Mail I am not sure whether editors arc accustomed to fan mail, but let me toss in a letter of appreciation for the excellent quality of your publication, The Washington Monthly...
...Using this framework of analysis, it should be possible to demarcate the proper scope of regulation more precisely than heretofore, and thereby verify or disprove Mr...
...In view of the stated high purpose of your magazine, I trust that most of your contributors manage to do a little better than 25% on the matter of the accuracy of their reporting...
...If they turn out to be correct, forcing a superior to fire them would be more effective...
...FRANCIS J. MCNAMARA Bethesda, Maryland Diplomaism I agree with nearly everything David Hapgood says (“Degrees: The Case For Abolition,” August, 1969) and you have put into circulation a set of ideas which have to be dealt with by the educators...
...Bell really should realize that the Service is an institution of human beings, and therefore flawed...
...As you know, 19&l was the critical year of decision in Vietnam-whether we would cut our losses and extricate ourselves or go all out with U.S...
...The government often fails to rectify market imperfections by its interventions...
...Even when the structure of a market is such that competition will not allocate resources efficiently, it i s necessary to consider that administrative allocation will not be efficient either...
...Bell obviously thought he had discovered it...
...That is not to say that regulation is never warranted, but only that a careful comparison of the actual operation of alternative private and public modes of allocation is necessary before making a judgment for regulation...
...but that is a different, and harder, point, which Kohlmeier avoids...
...I think public officials should struggle on to the point of being “fired...
...they were not Cabinet or Subcabinet people...
...Marritz is executive director of the Missouri Basin Systems Group...
...I was disturbed, therefore, to discover a critical piece of misinformation in the fourth paragraph, where author Kohlmeier tells us that FPC, “if...
...One may object that efficiency is not the only goal of society, and that is true...
Vol. 1 • October 1969 • No. 9
