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TAKING SIDES: CLASHING VIEWS ON ECONOMIC ISSUES
BONELLO wydawnictwo: MCGRAW-HILL , rok wydania 2005, wydanie XI cena netto: 190.00 Twoja cena 180,50 zł + 5% vat - dodaj do koszyka This debate-style reader is designed to introduce students to controversies in global
issues through readings that reflect a variety of viewpoints. Each issue is framed with an
issue summary, an issue introduction, and a postscript. The Taking Sides readers feature
annotated listings of selected World Wide Web sites. Taking Sides is supported by our
student website at www.dushkin.com/online/.
Table of Contents
PART 1. Microeconomic Issues
ISSUE 1. Are Profits the Only Business of Business?
YES: Milton Friedman, from “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its
Profits,” The New York Times Magazine (September 13, 1970)
NO: Robert Almeder, from “Morality in the Marketplace: Reflections on the Friedman
Doctrine,” in Milton Snoeyenbos, Robert Almeder, and James Humber, eds., Business
Ethics, rev. ed. (Prometheus Press, 1998)
Free-market economist Milton Friedman contends that the sole responsibility of business is
to increase its profits. Philosopher Robert Almeder maintains that if capitalism is to
survive, it must act in socially responsible ways that go beyond profit making.
ISSUE 2. Should the Regulations Regarding Overtime Pay Be Changed?
YES: Elaine Chao, from “Bush Administration Proposal,” Congressional Digest (March
2004)
NO: Ross Eisenbrey, from “On the Department of Labor’s Final Overtime Regulations,”
Testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and
Education (May 4, 2004)
Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao believes that today’s workers are "severely
disadvantaged" by current regulations regarding overtime pay, and she believes it is
time to institute new rules that would "benefit more workers." Ross Eisenbrey,
Economic Policy Institute vice president, believes that the Department of Labor’s
proposed changes will mean "longer hours and less pay for millions of workers-and
more litigation for our entire economy."
ISSUE 3. Is There Discrimination in U.S. Labor Markets?
YES: William A. Darity, Jr., and Patrick L. Mason, from “Evidence on Discrimination in
Employment: Codes of Color, Codes of Gender,” Journal of Economic Perspectives (Spring
1998)
NO: James J. Heckman, from “Detecting Discrimination,” Journal of Economic
Perspectives (Spring 1998)
Professor of economics William A. Darity, Jr., and associate professor of economics
Patrick L. Mason assert that the lack of progress made since the mid-1970s toward
establishing equality in wages between the races is evidence of persistent discrimination
in U.S. labor markets. Professor of economics James J. Heckman argues that
markets—driven by the profit motive of employers—will compete away any wage
differentials that are not justified by differences in human capital.
ISSUE 4. Will the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 and Its Drug Discount Cards Lower the
Cost of Prescription Drugs for Seniors?
YES: Mark Merritt, from Testimony before the Senate Committee on Finance (June 8, 2004)
NO: Robert M. Hayes, from Testimony before the Senate Committee on Finance (June 8, 2004)
Pharmaceutical Care Management Association President Mark Merritt believes that the
introduction of drug discount cards has stimulated competition among drug card sponsors,
retail pharmacies, and drug manufacturers, and this competition will generate drug
discounts for the elderly of about 17 percent on brand name drugs and 35 percent on
generic drugs. Medicare Rights Center President Robert M. Hayes asserts that drug discount
cards "will do some people some important good, but the discount cards are leaving
the overwhelming majority of people with Medicare without help and angry."
ISSUE 5. Should Markets Be Allowed to Solve the Shortage in Body Parts?
YES: Charles T. Carlstrom and Christy D. Rollow, from “The Rationing of Transplantable
Organs: A Troubled Lineup,” The Cato Journal (Fall 1997)
NO: Nancy Scheper-Hughes, from “The End of the Body: The Global Traffic in Organs for
Transplant Surgery,” Organs Watch, (May 14, 1998)
Free-market economists Charles T. Carlstrom and Christy D. Rollow argue that the simple
use of market incentives can go a long way to solving the shortage of transplantable
organs. They contend that although some people may have “qualms about the buying and
selling of organs, the cost of our current approach is that shortages will remain endemic,
and ultimately, more lives will be lost.” Professor of anthropology Nancy Scheper-Hughes
acknowledges that markets in and of themselves are not evil. But she asserts that “by
their very nature markets are indiscriminate, promiscuous and inclined to reduce
everything, including human beings, their labor and even their reproductive capacity to
the status of commodities, to things that can be bought, sold, traded, and stolen.”
ISSUE 6. Is It Time to Reform Medical Malpractice Litigation?
YES: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, from “Confronting the New Health Care
Crisis: Improving Health Care Quality and Lowering Costs by Fixing Our Medical Liability
System” (July 24, 2002)
NO: Jackson Williams, from “Bush’s Medical Malpractice Disinformation Campaign: A
Rebuttal to the HHS Report on Medical Liability,” A Report of Public Citizen’s
Congress Watch (January 2003)
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) argues that although the United
States has a health care system that “is the envy of the world,” it is a system that
is about to be brought to its knees by aggressive attorneys who force the medical
community to practice costly “defensive medicine.” Jackson Williams, legal counsel for
the watchdog group Public Citizen, charges that the position taken by the HHS is factually
“incorrect, incomplete, or misleading” and even contradicted by other governmental
agencies.
PART 2. Macroeconomic Issues
ISSUE 7. Is Wal-Mart Good for the Economy?
YES: Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, from “Wal-Mart Supercenters:
What’s in Store for Southern California?” http://www.laedc.info/data/documents.asp
(January 2004)
NO: Democratic Staff of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, from
“Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart,”
http://www.mindfully.org/Industry/2004/wal-mart-labor-record16feb04.htm (February 16,
2004)
The Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation believes that the introduction of
Wal-Mart supercenter stores into the Southern California market will generate significant
savings for consumers on their grocery, apparel, and general merchandise spending, and the
redirected spending from the savings will create over 35,000 new jobs. The Democratic
Staff of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce believes that Wal-Mart, in its
efforts to achieve and maintain low prices, has "come to represent the lowest common
denominator in the treatment of working people."
ISSUE 8. Should Social Security Be Changed to Include Personal Retirement Accounts?
YES: The White House, from “Strengthening Social Security for the 21st Century,”
(February 2005)
NO: Dean Baker, from “Bush’s Numbers Racket: Why Social Security Privatization Is a
Phony Solution to a Phony Problem,” The American Prospect Online Edition (January 14,
2005)
The White House identifies a number of problems with the present structure of the Social
Security system and proposes personal retirement accounts as a way of resolving these
problems, and "dramatically reduce the costs of permanently fixing the system."
Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, argues that
President Bush’s plan for personal retirement accounts would not fix Social Security;
instead, it would "undermine a system that has provided security for ten of millions
of workers, and their families, for seven decades, and which can continue to do so long
into the future if it is just left alone."
ISSUE 9. Should the Double Taxation of Corporate Dividends Be Eliminated?
YES: Norbert J. Michel, Alfredo Goyburu, and Ralph A. Rector, from “The Economic and
Fiscal Effects of Ending the Federal Double Taxation of Dividends,” A Working Paper of
the Heritage Center for Data Analysis (January 27, 2003)
NO: Joel Friedman and Robert Greenstein, from “Exempting Corporate Dividends From
Individual Income Taxes,” A Report of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
(January 11, 2003)
Free-market economists Norbert J. Michel, Alfredo Goyburu, and Ralph A. Rector applaud the
George W. Bush administration’s initiative to eliminate the double taxation of corporate
dividends. They assert that this action will improve economic efficiency and that, in the
long run, this tax cut will pay for itself because it will stimulate economic growth.
Economic policy analysts Joel Friedman and Robert Greenstein argue that there are no valid
economic justifications to propose the elimination of the tax on dividends. All that
cutting dividend taxes will really do, they say, is reduce the tax burden of high-income
individuals.
ISSUE 10. Are Credit Card Companies Exploiting American Consumers?
YES: Robert D. Manning, from “Perpetual Debt, Predatory Plastic,” Southern Exposure
(Summer 2003)
NO: Michael F. McEneney, from “Written Statement of Michael F. McEneney on Behalf of the
Consumer Bankers Association,” Testimony before the House Subcommittee on Financial
Institutions and Consumer Credit (September 15, 2004)
Professor Robert D. Manning lists a number of problems with credit cards, including high
interest rates, misrepresentation of the cost of debt consolidation loans, use of double
billing cycles, use of "bait and switch" techniques, improper use of personal
consumer credit information, and the proliferation of a number of practices that are of
little or no benefit to consumers. Lawyer Michael F. McEneney stresses the benefits that
consumers experience because of the "ever-expanding choices available to
consumers," and he supports his claims by reporting that a Federal Reserve study
found that "91% of credit card holders are satisfied with their credit card
issuers."
ISSUE 11. Is It Time to Abolish the Minimum Wage?
YES: Thomas Rustici, from “A Public Choice View of the Minimum Wage,” The Cato Journal
(Spring/Summer 1985)
NO: Charles Craypo, from “In Defense of Minimum Wages,” An Original Essay Written for
This Volume (2002)
Orthodox neoclassical economist Thomas Rustici asserts that the effects of the minimum
wage are clear: It creates unemployment among the least-skilled workers. Labor economist
Charles Craypo argues that a high minimum wage is good for workers, employers, and
consumers alike and that it is therefore good for the economy as a whole.
ISSUE 12. Are Declining Caseloads a Sign of Successful Welfare Reform?
YES: Michael J. New, from “Welfare Reform That Works: Explaining the Welfare Caseload
Decline, 1996–2000,” Policy Analysis No. 435 (May 7, 2002)
NO: Evelyn Z. Brodkin, from “Requiem for Welfare,” Dissent (Winter 2003)
Cato Institute researcher Michael J. New presents statistical evidence that welfare
reform, and not a growing economy, is the primary cause of the recent decline in welfare
caseloads. This means that welfare reform has been a success. Evelyn Z. Brodkin, an
associate professor in the School of Social Service Administration and lecturer at the
University of Chicago Law School, contends that in assessing welfare reform, one must look
beyond the decline in welfare caseloads and ask, What has happened to those who no longer
receive welfare? Her answer to this question evokes in Brodkin nostalgia for the “bad
old days” of unreformed welfare.
PART 3. The World Around Us
ISSUE 13. Are Protectionist Policies Bad for America?
YES: Murray N. Rothbard, from “Protectionism and the Destruction of Prosperity,”
Ludwig von Mises Institute, (July 13, 1998)
NO: Patrick J. Buchanan, from “Free Trade Is Not Free,” Address to the Chicago Council
on Foreign Relations (November 18, 1998)
Free-trade economist Murray N. Rothbard objects to the prospect of protectionism, which he
sees as an attempt by the few who make up special interest groups “to repress and loot
the rest of us” who make up the many. Social critic and three-time presidential hopeful
Patrick J. Buchanan argues that America’s “new corporate elite” is willing to
sacrifice the country’s best interests on “the altar of that golden calf, the global
economy.”
ISSUE 14. Should We Sweat About Sweatshops?
YES: Richard Appelbaum and Peter Dreier, from “The Campus Anti-Sweatshop Movement,”
The American Prospect (September–October 1999)
NO: Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, from “Two Cheers for Sweatshops,” The New
York Times Magazine (September 24, 2000)
Sociologist Richard Appelbaum and political scientist Peter Dreier chronicle the rise of
student activism on American campuses over the issue of sweatshops abroad. Students demand
that firms be held responsible for “sweatshop conditions” and warn that if conditions
do not improve, American consumers will not “leave their consciences at home when they
shop for clothes.” News correspondents Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn agree that
the working conditions in many offshore plant sites “seem brutal from the vantage point
of an American sitting in his living room.” But they argue that these work opportunities
are far superior to the alternatives that are currently available in many parts of the
world and that what is needed are more sweatshops, not fewer sweatshops.
ISSUE 15. Are the Costs of Global Warming Too High to Ignore?
YES: Lester R. Brown, from Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth (W. W. Norton,
2001)
NO: Lenny Bernstein, from “Climate Change and Ecosystems,” A Report of the George C.
Marshall Institute (August 2002)
Lester R. Brown, founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute, describes his vision
of an environmentally sustainable economy, which includes food supplies, population growth
issues, water availability, climatic changes, and renewable energy. Lenny Bernstein, head
of L. S. Bernstein & Associates, which advises companies and trade associations on
political and scientific developments on global environmental issues, acknowledges that
ecosystems are sensitive to climate change, but he argues that the change that we have
seen repeated again and again over the course of history can lead to benefits for our
children and our children’s children.
ISSUE 16. Do Living Wage Laws Improve Economic Conditions in Cities?
YES: Chris Tilly, from “Next Steps for the Living-Wage Movement,” Dollars & Sense
(September–October 2001)
NO: Steven Malanga, from “How the ‘Living Wage’ Sneaks Socialism into Cities,”
City Journal (Winter 2003)
Professor Chris Tilly supports the living wage for two basic reasons: (1) It is only fair
to increase the incomes of those who earn the lowest wages, and (2) the living wage laws
that have been passed "have not escalated costs, nor repelled businesses."
Author Steven Malanga believes that the actions to pass living wage laws represent a
"savvy left-wing political movement," and that living wage laws threaten the
economic health of cities by increasing wage costs and "send businesses fleeing to
other locales."
ISSUE 17. Has the North American Free Trade Agreement Hurt the American Economy?
YES: Robert E. Scott, from “NAFTA’s Hidden Costs: Trade Agreement Results in Job
Losses, Growing Inequality, and Wage Suppression for the United States,” EPI Briefing
Paper (April 2001)
NO: Daniel T. Griswold, from “NAFTA at 10: An Economic and Foreign Policy Success,”
Free Trade Bulletin (December 2002)
Economic Policy Institute director Robert E. Scott argues that besides the loss of a
significant number of jobs, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has generated
a number of less visible harmful effects on the American economy. These include increased
income inequality and reduced fringe benefits. Daniel T. Griswold, associate director of
the Cato Institute’s Center for Trade Policy Studies, contends that NAFTA has helped the
American economy by producing better-paying jobs and contributing to increased
manufacturing output in the United States between 1993 and 2001.
ISSUE 18. Is the No Child Left Behind Act Working?
YES: House Education and the Workforce Committee, from “Fact Sheet: No Child Left Behind
is Working,” http://edworkforce.house.gov/issues/108th/recess/nclbworks.htm (October 7,
2004)
NO: Gerald W. Bracey, from “The Perfect Law: No Child Left Behind and the Assault on
Public Schools,” Dissent (Fall 2004)
The House Education and the Workforce Committee lists a number of positive results for the
No Child Left Behind Act, including higher reading and math test scores in several states
as well as improved data and information for teachers and parents. Professor Gerald W.
Bracey believes that the No Child Left Behind Act is, from the perspective of the
Republican party, a perfect law because it will ultimately transfer billions from the
public sector to the private sector, because it will reduce the size of government, and
because it will "wound or kill" a large Democratic party power base.
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