DEADLINE EXTENDED TO DECEMBER 15!
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
"There oughta be a law!" Every day, politicians and policymakers propose new legislation designed to make society a better place and make us better people. iLiberty.org challenges students to think about the ways such laws affect our behavior in both predictable and unexpected ways.
ESSAY QUESTION
All policies have consequences. When the government enacts a new regulation, mandate, or ban, legislators and advocates have in mind a particular set of consequences that they hope to achieve. However, in many cases, legislation rings other consequences that were neither intended nor desired by those who supported the law. And sometimes, laws don't even achieve the goals they were meant to bring about.
When evaluating legislation, we must consider both whether the legislation achieves its intended goals and what unintended consequences it may cause. Thinking about unintended consequences is especially important for laws designed to influence people's behavior in their personal lives because individuals may react in unpredictable ways.
Read the Core Concepts background brief on Unintended Consequences. The piece gives several examples of laws meant to make people safer or healthier that may have led some people to engage in less safe behavior or encouraged behavior that harms others.
Write an essay of 600-2500 words addressing the following questions: Think of a law, current or proposed, that is intended to make people better off by preventing them from engaging in voluntary behavior that may harm them. Does the law achieve its goal? What unintended consequences may result from enacting or enforcing the law? Are people actually made better off by the law? Are there other, less restrictive ways to achieve the proposed goal?
Essays may address regulations on food and diet, drug prohibition, anti-smoking legislation, or other areas of behavior in which government intervenes to protect people by limiting their choices. Check out our list of issues for more examples.
The prizes for the essay contest:
1st prize: $2000 2nd prize: $1250
3rd prize: $750 Honorable mention (four prizes): $250
Authors of the top 30 essays to each contest will receive a free book.
Submission Deadline: 11:59 P.M. EST on December 15, 2006.
http://www.iliberty .org/About/ pageID.769/ default.asp
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