The Sheer Awesomeness of Adventure Tourism

Yes, elephants are - and should be - a commodity. Photograph by Eric Isselee.Several years ago, before I traveled across the Pacific Ocean to explore Japan, I considered becoming an economics professor, wrote an article on space tourism which appeared in the Duke Journal of Economics, applied for a Fulbright Grant to study economics in the Tanzanian bush, was rejected, and realized a future as an economics professor wasn't meant to be.  But in the process I did almost a year's worth of research into the various forms of tourism and the capacity of tourism revenues to provide economic incentives for conservation in places like East Africa.  I'm still convinced that my project would have established tourism as both an environmental panacea and the key to East African development.

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Rejoinders to "Conservatism's Moment"

The Empire of Japan: protecting Asia from ImperialismThere have been several suggestions for changing the contents of my article, "Conservatism's Moment", posted Monday morning.  The best of these are that (1) social conservatives feel the Republican Party has failed to effectively represent them and are primed to leave; (2) it would be better for American politics and make more sense for libertarian conservatives to form a third party; (3) social conservatives and neoconservatives also share a strong commitment to Israel; and (4) the neoconservative international agenda greatly resembles the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere".  I will address these concerns briefly here. 

The first point, that social conservatives are loyal to the Republican Party only because the Democrats suddenly didn't represent them is true at a national level, however, I think the problem of potential social conservative disaffection could be solved with more federalism.  Were the Republicans to make that a core element of their party platform going forward, I think it would please socially conservative leadership.  Federalism is a fundamental tenet of libertarian conservatives.  So, an alliance with libertarians would give social conservatives the power to actualize their platforms at the state level.   

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Mass-Cooperation in Common-Pool-Resource Management

Elinor Ostrom, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in EconomicsMass-cooperation is a term usually reserved for internet phenomena: wikipedia and couch-surfing are two common examples.  The idea of mass-cooperation flies in the face of received economic wisdom: that humans are rational and self-interested--or, as pro-regulation types interpret it: people are cold and selfish.  This is often expressed through the parable referred to as "The Tragedy of the Commons", the lesson of which is that people are too short-sighted to plan for the future, and, if given the opportunity, will use up all of their common-pool resources due to individual self-interest trumping group-consciousness.  The tragedy of the commons paradigm has been applied to both small-scale resource pools, such as local fisheries, and large-scale resource pools, such as the world's oceans.      

Nevertheless, the recent Nobel recognition of Elinor Ostrom, whose empirical research into common-pool-resource management turns the "tragedy of the commons" trope upside down, indicates that theories of mass-cooperation are finding a mainstream audience.  For years, evolutionary game-theorists such as John Maynard Smith and Brian Skyrms have been quietly chipping away at the wall between biology and economics while authority figures have continued to justify their own intrusion into collectively-owned and managed resources via the "tragedy of the commons" allegory.  The debate between the tragedy of the commons and mass-cooperation pits the narrative against the empirical, and while there is no doubt that the former is the sexier of the two, perhaps we should pay heed to the latter when formulating solutions for tricky, controversial topics.  Ostrom's discoveries could have radical implications on how we solve problems as diverse as welfare, aid for Africa, and climate change.

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The Slow Creep towards Weed Legalization

 Irv Rosenfeld is one of four U.S. citizens who get their medical marijuana from the federal governmentFederalism is so powerful that it can even bring progress in the intractible feild of drug reform.  This cover-story in Fortune about how medical marijuana combined with Obama's distinterest in prosecuting violators federally has led to a de facto legalization of marijuana in many states, and especially in California, is fascinating.  My favorite part is when Roger Parloff, the even handed writer and senior editor, is seduced by the lure of that sweet ganja:

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