Archive for James L. Payne

Contributing editor James Payne has taught political science at Yale,Wesleyan, Johns Hopkins, and Texas A&M. His latest book is Six Political Illusions: A Primer on Government for Idealists Fed Up with History Repeating Itself.

Perspective: Advice to Youth Seeking to Go Down in History from the Editors of Time

Last fall, Time magazine put out a special issue on “The Millennium,” a survey of the history of the past one thousand years. Among the offerings is a list of the ten “Greatest People” of this entire period. The list comes as something of a surprise, when placed alongside Time’s weekly editions. In their regular [...]

1Jun1993 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | Continued

Can Voluntarism Survive the Taxman?

James Payne is President of Friends of the Shelter in Sandpoint, Idaho, and author of a recent book on the burdens of the U.S. tax system, Costly Returns, published by ICS Press. The envelope from the Idaho State Department of Employment carne on a Friday. I remember because it was the day after our Thursday [...]

1Apr1993 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | Continued

Tough Love for the Needy

James L. Payne is director of Lytton Research and Analysis in Sandpoint, Idaho. He is the author of The Culture of Spending: Why Congress Lives Beyond Our Means, published by ICS Press. Why do government welfare programs keep failing? Much of the problem can be summed up in one word: dependency. Government programs reinforce social [...]

1Aug1992 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | Continued

Throwing Money at Social Problems

Political scientist James L. Payne lives in Sandpoint, Idaho. His latest book is The Culture of Spending: Why Congress Lives Beyond Our Means. Otto von Bismarck once said that people fond of either laws or sausages shouldn’t look too closely into how they are made. His advice applies emphatically in today’s media era, where politicians [...]

1May1992 | James L. Payne | 1 comment | Continued

How Many Laws Are Enough?

James L. Payne, a political scientist, is the author of The Culture of Spending: Why Congress Lives Beyond Our Means. In the debate surrounding the Thomas-Hill episode in the Senate Judiciary Committee, . there was one point on which participants seemed to agree, namely that “sexual harassment in the workplace is an extremely serious matter.” [...]

1Apr1992 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | Continued

School for Scandal

James L. Payne has taught political science at Wesleyan, Yale, Johns Hopkins, and Texas A&M University. His book The Culture of Spending: Why Congress Lives Beyond Our Means has been published this fall by the Institute for Contemporary Studies in San Francisco, and is reviewed on page 439 of this issue. Are wasteful scandals like [...]

1Nov1991 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | Continued

Rethinking the Free Rider Problem

James L. Payne is a political scientist who lives in Sandpoint, Idaho. This article is adapted from his column “The Volunteer Beat,” which appears in the Bonner County Daily Bee. On the Bottle Bay Road, in North Idah’s Bonner County, they’ve confounded the professors. In the academic world, voluntarism is generally considered a hopeless way [...]

1Sep1991 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | Continued

Should Government Subsidize Higher Education?

James L. Payne has taught political science at Yale, Wesleyan, Johns Hopkins, and Texas A&M. He is now an independent scholar living in Sandpoint, Idaho. When it comes to agricultural subsidies, scholars line up to criticize. They point out that these government funds cause overproduction and waste, that they stifle innovation, and that they are [...]

1May1991 | James L. Payne | 6 comments | Continued

The Roots of the Liability Crisis

James L. Payne has taught political science at Wesleyan, Yale, Johns Hopkins and Texas A&M. He is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, California. Swapping stories about the outrages going on in American courts these days is like playing “Can you top this?” There seems to be no limit to either the [...]

1Apr1991 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | Continued

80 Million Volunteers, But Where Are the Voluntarists?

James L. Payne has taught political science at Wesleyan, Yale, Johns Hopkins, and Texas A&M University. He is working on a book about the potential of voluntary problem-solving systems as alternatives to government. Volunteering is in the air. Magazines and newspapers run features on the helpful activities of volunteers. Charitable donations top $114 billion, and [...]

1Jan1991 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | Continued

Whats Happened to Community Spirit?

James L. Payne has taught political science at Yale, Wesleyan, Johns Hopkins, and Texas A&M. He is working on a book on negative effects of tax systems, Hosting the Federal Banquet: The Overhead Cost of Taxation. Are people as considerate as they used to be? Drive through any large city and you don’t even have [...]

1Sep1990 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | Continued

The Real Case Against Taxes

If we hate taxes so much, why do we keep on approving them? We’ve just had an episode in Sandpoint, Idaho, where I have lived for several years, that points up the paradox. Civic leaders proposed a 2 percent tax on restaurants, bars, and hotels, with the revenues to be used to beautify the city [...]

1May1990 | James L. Payne | 4 comments | Continued

Why Public Schools Fail

Mr. Payne is an independent political scientist who lives in Sandpoint, Idaho. The 1980s have not been kind to supporters of public education in the United States. Early in the decade came evidence of the shortcomings of the public schools from the massive 60,000-student “High School and Beyond” survey. As sociologists James Coleman, Thomas Hoffer, [...]

1Jun1989 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | Continued

Who Are the Problem-Solvers?

James L. Payne is a political scientist who is writing a book on the theory and tactics of voluntary methods of reform. The following is the author’s reply to a correspondent who wrote him urging greater use of government to right social wrongs. Dear Mr. _____________: You write that you are disturbed by the suffering [...]

1May1989 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | Continued

The Real Meaning of Tax Loopholes

James L. Payne is a political scientist specializing in Congress and economic policy. His latest book, The Culture of Spending, sponsored by the Cato Institute, examines congressional confusions about the budget. Tax loopholes are one of the great mysteries of modern politics. They are wrong, everyone seems to say, and crusades are mounted against them [...]

1Apr1989 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | Continued

How Smart Is Big Brother?

James L. Payne has taught political science at Yale, Wesleyan, Johns Hopkins, and Texas A&M. His latest book, The Culture of Spending, examines the popular arguments for big government. One of the attractions of government as a problem-solver is its presumed advantage in information and technical expertise. We tend to assume that government will be [...]

1Mar1989 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | Continued

What Should We Do About Luck?

James L. Payne is a political scientist who is writing a book for the Cato Institute on the attitudes underlying government spending programs, The Culture of Spending. What should we do about the fact that some people are able to earn more money than others? Should government redress the resulting disparities in income? The answer [...]

1Sep1988 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | Continued
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