hawkerjock
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2002
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Alfred Kahn died yesterday of complications due to cancer at 93 today
As chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board in the 1970s, the economist Alfred Kahn persuaded President Carter and a Democratic Congress to deregulate the airways. Among Kahn’s most important allies: Stephen Breyer, then a top aide to Senator Edward Kennedy, now a justice of the Supreme Court. Kahn died Dec. 27 at age 93.
Among those who have shaped the experience of modern American life, Kahn mattered more than most politicians. His work inspired and enabled the transformation of flying from a luxury for the few to a basic commodity for the many.
He led a life of dazzling intellectual accomplishment, and the honors and tributes will flow today. Bloomberg has a full obituary.
Some meditations on Kahn’s achievement.
1) It’s worth remembering that the arc of American politics over the past 50 years has trended toward more economic freedom, rather than less. In 1960, government regulators set prices and terms of service not only for passenger aviation, but for rail freight, shipping, trucking, telephone service, retail interest rates, and other important businesses. The party of economic freedom has been winning the argument, not losing!
2) Deregulation of the airlines distributed its greatest benefits on the American middle class, who can now fly more cheaply to more places. More recent social policy has slighted the middle, concentrating benefits on the top and bottom of American society. It’s suspicion that “we will lose” that undergirds the opposition to the Obama health plan, which constrains the quintessentially middle-class program Medicare to expand Medicaid and other low-income subsidies.
3) The free-market resurgence of the 1970s and 1980s owed very little to arguments based on ideology – and a very great deal to arguments based on consumer welfare. The resurgence was not a triumph of one party over another, but a spread of ideas from outside the party system through both party competitors. It’s a reminder: if your idea can only persuade one side of the political spectrum, your idea is probably not powerful enough.
As chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board in the 1970s, the economist Alfred Kahn persuaded President Carter and a Democratic Congress to deregulate the airways. Among Kahn’s most important allies: Stephen Breyer, then a top aide to Senator Edward Kennedy, now a justice of the Supreme Court. Kahn died Dec. 27 at age 93.
Among those who have shaped the experience of modern American life, Kahn mattered more than most politicians. His work inspired and enabled the transformation of flying from a luxury for the few to a basic commodity for the many.
He led a life of dazzling intellectual accomplishment, and the honors and tributes will flow today. Bloomberg has a full obituary.
Some meditations on Kahn’s achievement.
1) It’s worth remembering that the arc of American politics over the past 50 years has trended toward more economic freedom, rather than less. In 1960, government regulators set prices and terms of service not only for passenger aviation, but for rail freight, shipping, trucking, telephone service, retail interest rates, and other important businesses. The party of economic freedom has been winning the argument, not losing!
2) Deregulation of the airlines distributed its greatest benefits on the American middle class, who can now fly more cheaply to more places. More recent social policy has slighted the middle, concentrating benefits on the top and bottom of American society. It’s suspicion that “we will lose” that undergirds the opposition to the Obama health plan, which constrains the quintessentially middle-class program Medicare to expand Medicaid and other low-income subsidies.
3) The free-market resurgence of the 1970s and 1980s owed very little to arguments based on ideology – and a very great deal to arguments based on consumer welfare. The resurgence was not a triumph of one party over another, but a spread of ideas from outside the party system through both party competitors. It’s a reminder: if your idea can only persuade one side of the political spectrum, your idea is probably not powerful enough.
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