What do the Catholic Church, the Israeli Supreme Court and Harvard University all have in common?

Walter Block 

What do the Catholic Church, the Israeli Supreme Court and Harvard University all have in common?

It is replicability. This phrase is usually reserved for the physical sciences. If I discover something in my laboratory, and you cannot replicate it in yours, aspersions are cast upon my supposed breakthrough. If no one else can duplicate my findings, either, then my results will be considered invalid. Maybe I didn’t work with clean test tubes.

This also applies to social science. Card and Krueger cast doubt on the empirical generalization that the minimum wage law creates unemployment for unskilled workers. But their data could not be replicated, and most economists thus reject their findings.

Replicability is used in an entirely different way when we consider the Catholic Church, the Israeli Supreme Court and Harvard University. Here, instead, it concerns the ability of an institution to reinvent itself; to stay virtually the exact way it once was, even given numerous retirements or deaths of its leaders; to retain its ideological make up at least through many decades, to say nothing of centuries. If a starfish loses one of its arms, pretty much the exact same body part grows back. For all intents and purposes, it remains at least roughly the way it once was.

Pope Francis has just passed away. The College of Cardinals has now chosen a successor. However, the recently departed Holy Father has during his pontificate appointed 108 members of this elite group. There are only 252 members, of which 135 are eligible to vote. According to official sources, “Out of the 135 Cardinals who are eligible to vote in the upcoming papal conclave, 108 were appointed by Pope Francis. This represents a large majority, with the Vatican News reporting that over three-quarters of the cardinals are Francis’s appointees.” As a result, while there is of course no guarantee, it is more than likely that the views of the new Pope Leo XIV will strongly represent those of his predecessor. The Catholic Church will then be able to replicate itself and remain as part of the hard left.

How about Harvard University? There are 2400 professors there. But this prestigious institution fails the Sodom and Gomorrah test. There are not even ten “righteous” academics on the faculty there: those who are committed to conservatism or libertarianism. This faculty, too, has for many years replicated itself. If there is one thing you can rely upon, it is that the professoriate of this institution of higher learning, in the absence of Mr. Trump’s efforts to upset this apple cart and promote some semblance of viewpoint diversity, will continue down this same garden path. Marxism, DEI, political correctness, affirmative action, will remain the order of the day.

What about the Israeli Supreme Court? Ditto, here. Whenever an opening in this august body appears, the other justices choose his replacement. Elected officials have no input whatsoever. The ideological make up of this institution has not changed by even one iota since its formation in 1948. Again, unless there is an intervention, it will remain a wholly owned subsidiary of the socialists.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is valiantly trying to change this. He is being vilified as an anti-democratic villain. Before the advent of the atrocity of the Al Asqa Flood in October 7, 2023 there were hundreds of thousands of Israelis marching in the streets in protest against his plans. The latter may well have led to the former; what better time to strike than when the enemy is in disarray?

But these protests are more than just a little bit curious. Surely, it is more democratic to allow the electorate to have an indirect impact on the make-up of the membership of the Supreme Court through their elected officials, then to allow this unelected body to continually replicate itself. The Likud Party is attempting to reorganize its Supreme Court along the lines practiced in the US, in which its ideological makeup can change upon occasion, thanks to the voters.

But all is not replicability. The Jesuit Order is a case in point. It started in 1540. Along with its brother order, the Dominicans, members were active in the School of Salamanca. What were the views of these scholars? Pure free enterprise! The just price was the market price. The just rate of interest was the market rate of interest. Profits and private property rights were the be all and end all of the proper economy. Does this sound like the modern Jesuits? No. Not a bit of it. This order has been hijacked. Its philosophy has been turned around by 180 degrees. No replicability here.

How can any, all of this, be rectified? How can a breath of fresh air be inputted into these three august institutions? Let us address this challenge in the order presented above. First the Catholics. Before I get to them, let me address a possible objection. Is it appropriate for a Jewish atheist such as myself to be offering advice to a tradition far from being one of my own? Yes, indeed, is my view. First, there is that little matter of free speech. Everyone, and I mean everyone, should be free to unburden themselves of their opinions. I am not, however an absolutist on free speech. Threats of physical violence should be considered criminal. Second, I am among other things,hopefully, a social scientist, and there should be no limit to this sort of thing. So, how can Catholics unburden themselves of the pattern in which they find themselves? It is simple: give the vote to more people. Obvious candidates are the bishops. We might go so far as to include every Catholic priest on the planet. I would not include parishioners. I am after all a moderate. Anyone, including myself if I wanted, could then have a vote. That is going too far. This is no panacea, since each the higher orders play a role in appointing members of the lower ones, but this might well open up matters a bit. If the Jesuit Order can turn from free enterprise from its inception in 1540 to its present woke state, there is at least hope for change.

What about the Israeli Supreme Court. The obvious and clear solution is to support Prime Minister Netanyahu’s attempt to reform this institution in the direction of democracy.

As for Harvard, and indeed for virtually every university, what is needed is Affirmative Action: do not hire any more tenure track professors until full ideological diversity is attained. Ditto for offering to award tenure to any academic. Then and only then can we have a professoriate of which half of them think like half of America.

Sources

Card, David, and Alan B. Krueger. 1994. “Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania,” American Economic Review, Vol. 84, No. 4, September, pp. 772-793

For critiques of Card and Krueger:

Block, 2001; Burkhauser, Couch and Wittenburg, 1996; Burkhauser, and Finnegan, 1989, 1993; Gallaway and Adie, 1995; Hamermesh and Welchm 1995; Neumark and Wascher, 2000.

Block, Walter E. 2001. “The Minimum Wage: A Reply to Card and Krueger,” Journal of the Tennessee Economics Association, Spring; http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/block_minimum-wage-once-again_2001.pdf

Burkhauser, Richard V., Couch, Kenneth A., Wittenburg, David.  1996.  “Who Gets What From Minimum Wage Hikes: A Replication and Re-estimation of Card and Krueger.”  Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 49, no. 3, April, pp. 547-552.

Burkhauser, Richard, and Aldrich Finnegan. 1989. “The Minimum Wage and the Poor: The End of a Relationship.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. 8.1: 53-71. Web. 18 Apr. 2012.  http://www.jstor.org/stable/3324424>. Does not appear in the f

Burkhauser, Richard V. and T. Aldrich Finnegan. 1993. “The economics of minimum wage legislation revisited.” Cato Journal, Vol. 13, No. 1, Spring/Summer, March, pp. 123-130; http://www.unz.org/Pub/CatoJournal-1993q1-00123

Gallaway, Lowell and Douglas Adie. 1995. Review of Card and Krueger’s Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage, Cato Journal, Volume 15, no.1, pp. 137-140; http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj15n1-8.html

Hamermesh, Daniel and Finis Welch. 1995. “Review Symposium: Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 48, pp. 835-838 and 842-848.

Neumark, David and Wascher, William. 2000. “Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania: Comment,” American Economic Review, 90(5), December, pp. 1362-1396