29. 10.

2020 The Vodnoy Paradox - Econlib

Econlib 

FEATURED POST
Sep 29 2018

BEN ROGGE

BROWSE BY TOPIC

BROWSE BY AUTHOR

SEARCH ECONLOG

RSS FEEDS

BLOGGER BIOS

< PREV NEXT >

The Vodnoy Paradox 7

By David Henderson

SHARE
POST:    
When I was a child and young adult, my optometrist was Dr. Bernard Vodnoy. I remember his energy, curiosity, and
exuberance. He had contracted polio a few months before the vaccine was available, and he was confined to a wheelchair
—except it did not seem like confinement. He had rigged ramps through his office and the speed with which he moved
with his wheelchair left the impression that it was his version of a skateboard. He was entrepreneurial in attitude and
action, founding a small firm to make visual therapy equipment.

I remember him being conventionally liberal, wanting the government to protect us from a host of evils. But I also
remember one conversation in which he became quite animated about the ignorance and stupidity of government
regulations related to optometry.

Government regulations sound plausible in areas where we know little and have thought less. But usually those who
know an area well can tell us of the unexpected harmful consequences of seemingly plausible and well-intentioned
regulations. As a result, the same person often advocates government regulations in areas in which they are ignorant and
opposes them in areas where they have knowledge. I call this the “Vodnoy Paradox.”

This is from Arthur M. Diamond, Jr., Openness to Creative Destruction: Sustaining Innovative Dynamism, forthcoming in 2019 from
Oxford University Press. Art asked me to read his manuscript and give a blurb for his book, which I was pleased to do. He tells
story after story about various entrepreneurial successes—and failures—and had me saying after many of them, “I didn’t know
that.”

I’ve seen the Vodnoy Paradox over and over in my adult life. Now I have a name for it.

Incidentally, what I hadn’t known is that we have someone in common early in our intellectual lives. Art credits the late Ben
Rogge, an economics professor at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana, for turning him on to Schumpeter. Rogge was the
first speaker the University of Winnipeg Libertarian Club had after I joined. He came in February 1969.

Categories: Regulation

READER COMMENTS
READ COMMENT POLICY

https://www.econlib.org/the-vodnoy-paradox/ 1/4
29. 10. 2020 The Vodnoy Paradox - Econlib

Jacob Egner 
Sep 29 2018 at 6:13pm

The Vodnoy Paradox seems very similar in nature to the Gell-Mann amnesia effect.  The former for government policy, the
latter for news/journalism.

David Henderson 
Sep 29 2018 at 7:06pm

Thanks, Jacob. Yes, it does indeed.

Michael Gray 
Sep 30 2018 at 8:16am

The Vodnoy Paradox sounds very similar to Robert Conquest’s First Law of Politics: “Everyone is conservative about what
he knows best.” There is some doubt about whether Robert Conquest was the author of the “Three Laws of Politics”
ascribed to him, but I suggest his First Law goes some way to explaining why we see the behaviour labelled as the Vodnoy
Paradox and even removes the element of paradox in the behaviour.

For the record, Robert Conquest’s Three Laws of Politics are:

Everyone is conservative about what he knows best.

Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.
The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its
enemies.

David Henderson 
Sep 30 2018 at 11:55am

Thanks, Michael.

I don’t quite understand Conquest’s Third Law of Politics:

The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its
enemies.

Are bureaucracies to weak that their enemies can control them? That’s certainly not how I read the EPA’s
behavior during the Obama administration.

Michael Gray 
Sep 30 2018 at 4:52pm

I think that “Conquest’s Laws” should be regarded as generalisations, frequently helpful in

understanding the behaviour of bureaucracies but not ironclad rules, and slightly tongue-in-cheek like
Parkinson’s Law and The Peter Principle. If they are truly from the mind and pen of Robert Conquest,
they are probably influenced by his decades of study and writing about Soviet Communism. There are
variations, the third law sometimes being expressed as “…assume that it is controlled by a cabal of the
enemies of the stated purpose of that bureaucracy.” In Australia where I live the Third Law frequently appears
to explain the behaviour of our two main political parties, the – sort of – conservative Liberal Party (small
“l” liberal as it is often said) and the very left wing Labor Party. Right now I wonder whether it explains
the behaviour of your Democrats regarding the latest Supreme Court nominee.

Weir 
Sep 30 2018 at 6:38pm

Robert Conquest was “Bob” to Kingsley Amis. (To Martin Amis they were Kingers and Conquers.)

Anyway, this is from pages 145 and 146 of Kingsley’s memoirs:

https://www.econlib.org/the-vodnoy-paradox/ 2/4
29. 10. 2020 The Vodnoy Paradox - Econlib

“In deliberately inverse order I now set down something about Bob’s real or proper concern, a sufficiently serious one as a
writer on politics and authority on the Eastern bloc, particularly the USSR and its internal history. His political position
has come to be on the libertarian Right, and he has always been implacably anti-Soviet, an unfashionable stance for an
intellectual and poet in those early 1950s days. In those same days I was some sort of man of the Left, and this brought us
into mild conflict. Some time later he was to point out that, while very ‘progressive’ on the subject of colonialism and other
matters I was ignorant of, I was a sound reactionary about education, of which I had some understanding and experience.
From my own and others’ example he formulated his famous First Law, which runs, ‘Generally speaking, everybody is
reactionary on subjects he knows about.’ (The Second Law, more recent, says, ‘Every organisation appears to be headed by
secret agents of its opponents.’)”

It was John O’Sullivan who said that any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.

David Seltzer 
Oct 1 2018 at 6:19pm

Somewhat related, NIMBY; a person who objects to the siting of something perceived as unpleasant or potentially
dangerous in their own neighborhood, such as a landfill or hazardous waste facility, especially while raising no such
objections to similar developments elsewhere.

Comments are closed.

Enter your email address to subscribe to our monthly newsletter:

Email address SUBSCRIBE

RELATED CONTENT By Benjamin A. Rogge

Can Capitalism Survive?
One of the signs of advancing age in the American college professor is a tendency for him to write less and publish more. This seeming paradox is easily
explained by the phenomenon of Collected Works, that is, by what on television would be described as reruns. As in television, no great public outcry is
needed to bring forth the reruns; a question from his wife, a polite suggestion from a colleague, and the cut-and-paste operation is under way.I have put
together here what I believe to be the ...

EXPLORE MORE

COLLECTION: REGULATION

The article you’re reading is part of Econlib’s Regulation collection. Explore other Regulation articles:

Oct 28 2020

Manitoba COVID-19 Data

David Henderson

Oct 27 2020
One of Tyler Cowen's Points is Right
David Henderson

Oct 26 2020
Tyler Cowen Doubles Down
David Henderson

Oct 25 2020
Illinois Restaurants Collude to Expand Output
David Henderson

https://www.econlib.org/the-vodnoy-paradox/ 3/4
29. 10. 2020 The Vodnoy Paradox - Econlib

Search Enter at least 3 characters SEARCH

Econlib MORE OPTIONS

The Library of Economics and Liberty

Econlib

HOME PAGE ARTICLES ECONLOG ECONTALK

VIDEOS CEE
GUIDESBOOKS
SEARCH ABOUT ECONLIB CONTA

  
Enter your email address to subscribe to our
monthly newsletter:

Email address SUBSCRIBE

Contact Us Privacy Policy

Copyright @ 1999-2019
Liberty Fund, Inc.
All Rights Reserved

ADAMSMITHWORKS LIBERTY FUND, INC. ONLINE LIBRARY OF LIBERTY LAW AND LIBERTY

https://www.econlib.org/the-vodnoy-paradox/ 4/4