[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Building Pro-Monopoly Judges
[Hmm. Apparently Charles is reluctant to defend his position here on
cypherpunks. Small surprise. --Declan]
==========
Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 18:49:41 -0500 (EST)
Reply-To: [email protected]
Originator: [email protected]
Sender: [email protected]
Precedence: bulk
From: charles mueller <[email protected]>
To: Multiple recipients of list <[email protected]>
Subject: Building Pro-Monopoly Judges
Declan McCullagh, still displaying a reluctance to debate with
graciousness (below), now wonders if I've heard of the Federalist Society.
"PS: I wonder if Mueller knows about the Federalist Society, which is a
group of libertarian-leaning lawyers and law professors. Among other things,
they make a point of educating judges about (gasp!) economic theory and this
concept of a government strictly limited in its powers..."
I've been reporting on this propaganda mill for roughly 2 decades--
and have published hundreds of pages on it. (See my January post on the
subject, below.)
Charles Mueller, Editor
ANTITRUST LAW & ECONOMICS REVIEW
http://webpages.metrolink.net/~cmueller
*************************8
**
>
>>Return-Path: <[email protected]>
>>Date: Wed, 15 Jan 1997 19:04:50 -0500 (EST)
>>Errors-To: [email protected]
>>Reply-To: [email protected]
>>Originator: [email protected]
>>Sender: [email protected]
>>From: [email protected] (cmueller)
>>To: Multiple recipients of list <[email protected]>
>>Subject: GMU's "Law & Economics Center"
>>X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas
>>
>> Perhaps I can add some information on the "Law & Economics Center"
>>at George Mason. My journal first reported on its teach-in with the federal
>>judges in 1981 (Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 70-71) and the following year I
>>physically visited the University of Miami campus (where it was then housed)
>>and did extensive interviews with several of the Center's people. Those
>>interviews, plus another interview series I did at Emory University in
>>Atlanta when the Center moved there, and finally at George Mason itself
>>after the 3rd move, fill a number of my issues, beginning with Vol. 14, No.
>>2 (1982). I've also reported on a couple of the legal challenges
>>(unsuccessful) to the Center's indoctrination of the federal judges.
>> For example, U.S. District Judge Spencer Williams presided over a
>>predatory pricing case against ITT Continental Baking (Wonder Bread) some
>>years back. The day after the jury began its deliberations, Judge Williams
>>left San Francisco to begin attendance at a 2-week "economics" seminar
>>presented by the Law & Economics Center at the Royal Biscayne Hotel in
>>Miami. While he was gone, his jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff in
>>the amount of $5 million which, under the law, he was bound to triple to $15
>>million. Instead, he returned from Florida, overturned the jury's verdict,
>>and wrote a letter to Henry Manne in Miami that read in part as follows:
>>"As a result of my better understanding of the concept of marginal cost, I
>>have recently set aside a $15 million antitrust verdict. I will send you a
>>copy of the memorandum [opinion] as soon as it is prepared." (See my
>>journal, Vol. 17, No. 2 (1985), p. 13.)
>> Nan Aron and her colleagues at the Alliance for Justice in
>>Washington published a monograph on the subject--Justice for Sale In
>>America--in 1993 and I reprinted the key chapters in my journal, beginning
>>with Vol. 24, No. 3 (1993). For earlier background, see Fortune, May 21,
>>1979; Washington Post, January 20, 1980; and The Nation, January 26, 1980.
>> Put simply, this "Center" is a right-wing propaganda mill
>>masquerading as a purveyor of academic "economics." The "teachers" have
>>been Harold Demsetz and others from the University of Chicago and its major
>>academic outposts (paid at an hourly rate commensurate with the up to $600
>>per hour commanded by George Stigler and the others as antitrust "experts"
>>in court). No opposing economists have ever been allowed to appear before
>>the judges. When I asked the Center's people why they didn't permit
>>distinguished non-Chicago economists to share the podium at these judicial
>>teach-ins, they laughed and said, "Let them go start their OWN seminars for
>>the judges!"
>> I asked to be allowed to just sit in as an OBSERVER with the judges
>>and/or the 200 antitrust law professors (who have been run through a similar
>>indoctrination program) and Henry Manne himself responded to my request (by
>>telephone), No, "We keep it all in the family." (Manne, who had been a law
>>professor at the University of Rochester, founded the "Center" in 1974 at
>>the University of Miami, then moved it to Emory and finally to George Mason.
>>A federal judge--Judge Hoffman, as I recall--helped him get the approval of
>>the judiciary's executive body in Washington, headed by the Chief Justice of
>>the Supreme Court. The money to finance these sessions at luxury resorts
>>(mostly at Key Biscayne and other Florida beach towns) was originally gotten
>>directly from Fortune 500 companies who had experienced the sting of
>>antitrust prosecution; in response to some criticism of that obvious
>>conflict of interest, Manne, with some creative accounting, arranged it so
>>that the seminars for the judges themselves--in 1981, the cost was $5,000
>>per judge per 2-week seminar--were thereafter paid for exclusively by the
>>corporate foundations, e.g., Schaife, Olin, etc., rather than by active
>>firms that frequently appear before the judges as antitrust defendants.
>>With this accounting twist, the judiciary gave its full blessing to the
>>operation.)
>> I also did an interview with a federal appeals judge in Washington
>>(DC Circuit). He saw nothing wrong with Manne's program, even assuming it
>>was pure propaganda designed specifically to bias the federal judiciary
>>against the antitrust laws and in favor of corporate monopoly. Why? (1)
>>First, he said, judges are, by the nature of their work, "immune" to
>>propaganda of all kinds. They hear so much argument on so many sides of
>>every issue that it's simply impossible to "bias" them via argument. (2)
>>Second, he told me, federal judges have every RIGHT to be as intellectually
>>"biased" as they like and to DEVELOP those intellectual biases with the help
>>of WHOEVER they please.
>> For example, he said, suppose I go to the beach for a weekend with 3
>>volumes of Karl Marx's writings in my briefcase. I find Marx so persuasive
>>that I come back to my chambers on Monday, throw away an opinion I had just
>>written on one of the cases before me, and proceed to write a new one
>giving my
>>decision to the opposite party. Karl Marx "biased" me to change my
>>decision. He had every right to do it--and I had every right to LET him
>>do it.
>> George Mason University law school and its economics department
>>aren't scholarly enterprises at all; they're hired propagandists, awash in
>>corporate money awarded precisely for the purpose of making a contrived
>>"economic" case for laissez-faire monopoly. They get away with it for one
>>reason and one reason only: Manne's operation had the approval of Reagan's
>>Justice Department (rember Ed Meese?) and now it has the blessing of
>>Clinton's. All it would take to bring it to a halt would be a couple of
>>speeches by, say, the Attorney General and, if necessary, by Clinton
>>himself. If Justice treated it as the outrage that it plainly is, the
>>press--and the ensuing public condemnation--would purge the judiciary of
>>this 20-year scandal within a matter of weeks.
>> Charles Mueller, Editor
>> ANTITRUST LAW & ECONOMICS REVIEW
>> http://www.metrolink.net/~cmueller/
>>
>>
> ***********