AmericanScholarship - Update on Scholarships in America

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

"Thereoughta be a law!" Every day, politicians and policymakers propose newlegislation designed to make society a better place and make us betterpeople. iLiberty.org challenges students to think about the ways suchlaws affect our behavior in both predictable and unexpected ways.

ESSAY QUESTION

Allpolicies have consequences. When the government enacts a newregulation, mandate, or ban, legislators and advocates have in mind aparticular set of consequences that they hope to achieve. However, inmany cases, legislation brings other consequences that were neitherintended nor desired by those who supported the law. And sometimes,laws don't even achieve the goals they were meant to bring about.

Whenevaluating legislation, we must consider both whether the legislationachieves its intended goals and what unintended consequences it maycause. Thinking about unintended consequences is especially importantfor laws designed to influence people's behavior in their personallives 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 orhealthier that may have led some people to engage in less safe behavioror encouraged behavior that harms others.

Your essay should address the following:

Thinkof a law, current or proposed, that is intended to make people betteroff by preventing them from engaging in voluntary behavior that mayharm them. Does the law achieve its goal? What unintended consequencesmay result from enacting or enforcing the law? Are people actually madebetter off by the law? Are there other, less restrictive ways toachieve the proposed goal?

Essaysmay address regulations on food and diet, drug prohibition,anti-smoking legislation, or other areas of behavior in whichgovernment 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 1, 2006.

Website: http://www.iliberty.org