Tag Archives: Jennifer Roback Morse

Commentary

Featured blog: Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse

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One of my favorite topics is the interplay between economics and marriage. And the best blog on the topic is Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse. She has excellent credentials as a sound fiscal conservative and a staunch social conservative. She is not only solid on abortion and traditional marriage, but she is one of the few people with enough vision to know the damage caused to the family by no-fault divorce and big government, as well.

Note to you young men who are thinking of marrying: marry someone like Dr. Morse, who understands how economic policy affects the marriage. Regular readers will know how I regularly gush over Michele Bachmann’s attempts to try to wrestle with Democrats to cut spending. That is how wives ought to be – defending their family from high taxes and regulations.

Articles

Here is one of the papers from Dr. J that I really liked. (the PDF version is better!)

In the paper, she addresses many topics related to feminism:

  • work/parenting balance
  • no-fault divorce
  • marriage vs. cohabitation
  • domestic violence
  • fertility
  • single-mother subsidies
  • income disparities
  • recreational sex
  • power struggles in marriage

She also discusses remedies from a Catholic perspective. (Note: the Wintery Knight is a proud evangelical Protestant)

Dr. J’s full list of articles is here.

Lecture

Here is a 30-minute lecture version of that paper by Dr. J, if you prefer watching and listening to reading. The title is “Freedom, the Family and the Market”.

The description of the lecture is:

“The socialist ideal of equality has played an independent role in the breakdown of the family. Socialism has attacked the family directly, and has adopted policies that have led to demographic collapse. Christianity and capitalism offer more appealing solutions to the problems socialism claims to solve.”

I highly recommend this lecture. It’s as good as William Lane Craig, just on a different topic. This lecture is especially suitable for men.

Here’s her bio:

Born into a Catholic working class family, Dr. Morse earned a doctorate in economics during her twelve year lapse from the faith. A committed career woman before having children, she taught economics for fifteen years at Yale University and George Mason University.

The devastating experience of infertility brought her to her knees and back to the practice of the Catholic faith. In 1991, she and her husband adopted a two year old Romanian boy, and gave birth to a baby girl. She left her full-time university teaching post in 1996 to move with her family to California. She is now a part-time Research Fellow at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty.

Dr. Morse writes about the family and the free society. Her first book, Love and Economics: Why the Laissez-Faire Family Doesn’t Work, shows why the family is the necessary building block for a free society and why so many modern attempted substitutes for the family do not work. Her second book, Smart Sex: Finding Life-Long Love in a Hook-Up World, exposes the sexual revolution’s fraudulent promise of freedom and points the way to the most thrilling adventure of all–life-long love.

Her public policy articles have appeared in Forbes, Policy Review, The American Enterprise, Fortune, Reason, the Wall Street Journal, Vital Speeches,
and Religion and Liberty.

Dr. Morse’s scholarly articles have appeared in the Journal of Political Economy, Economic Inquiry, the Journal of Economic History, Publius: the Journal of Federalism, the University of Chicago Law Review, and the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Social Philosophy and Policy, The Independent Review, townhall.com, and The Notre Dame Journal of Law Ethics and Public Policy.

I know I don’t have to tell you George Mason University is home to Walter Williams, one of my two favorite living economists, whose work I often feature. GMU has the best economics school in the entire nation, featuring 2 Nobel prize winners. (Their only black mark is their shoddy treatment of intelligent design theorist Dr. Caroline Crocker).

News

Birth control funding to stimulate the economy?

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Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse is an ideal exponent of the view that conservative libertarian capitalists do have an interest in promoting intact families as the best environment for raising children. She argues that certain social issues can impose huge costs on the taxpayer, and also increases the size and scope of government. Government should at least do no harm in discouraging traditional marriages and even stay-at-home mothers.

In this article, she examines Nancy Pelosi’s recent comments regarding the inclusion of contraceptives in the the Democrat’s so-called stimulus package. This bill is no stimulus. It is a giveaway to the secular left’s special interest groups, on the backs of the productive private sector. Dr. Morse argues that supporting marriage instead of contraceptives would reduce taxpayer costs.

Here is an excerpt from Dr. Morse’s excellent article:

If Nancy Pelosi wants to reduce the costs to taxpayers, she should be promoting marriage. Out-of-wedlock childbearing is one of the surest roads to poverty and, thereby, to taxpayer expenditure. A recent study by the Institute for American Values conservatively estimated the taxpayer costs of non-marital childbearing to be $112 billion per year, or roughly the GDP of New Zealand. Responsible, sustainable childbearing takes place within marriage. And, incidentally, if Speaker Pelosi really wants to reduce abortions (which she hinted at, but did not say) she should also be promoting marriage. Some 80 per cent of abortions, year in and year out, are performed on unmarried women.

Here is a related research paper by Christine C. Kim of the Heritage Foundation on teen sexuality and the effects of family structure and stability in curbing it.