Jay Ambrose: Dangerous Ralph Nader

Hey, his defenders might respond, this anti-corporate, pro-consumer, ultra-dedicated public interest lawyer has been one of the best things to happen to this country. Since the mid-'60s, they might continue, he has fought for us, helping to win passage of crucial laws and warning us of all manner of evil through the many books he has written, his speeches, his TV appearances and the 150-plus advocacy groups he has helped form and support.

The problem is that time and again, he has been wrong. Sophisticated students of the sorts of regulation he has furthered know that they can have unintended consequences, frequently doing more harm than good. Knowledgeable people who have looked at some of his public-issue analyses can point to where his leftist bias has overridden scientific scrupulosity.

Let's get down to a few of the specifics:

-- Nader has supported the fuel-limit standards that have taken thousands of lives, and continues to support them.

The idea of these standards is to reduce the amount of gasoline that cars consume per mile, and Nader seems to think that passing a law can give us improved technology. It doesn't work that way. To meet the requirements, Detroit has produced smaller cars, causing consumers to buy more small cars than they otherwise would have. Small cars are more dangerous than larger cars. Studies by researchers at such institutions as Brookings Institution and Harvard have calculated that fuel-limit cost in lives for a period could have been as high as 2,000 a year.

Sam Kazman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute has written that Nader himself once understood the perils of small cars. He quotes him as having said in 1989, "Well, larger cars are safer -- there is more bulk to protect the occupant."

-- When Congress was rescinding the nationally imposed 55 mph speed limit in 1995, Nader said, "History will never forgive Congress for this assault on the sanctity of human life." My hope is that history never forgets that Nader was acting so much holier than his opponents while also being mistaken.

What happened, contrary to the ghastly predictions of Nader and others, is that the number of deaths per mile traveled actually decreased. There is a good chance that the limits he favored had actually contributed to fatalities. Writers have noted, for instance, that the 55 mph limits endangered motorists by keeping people on the road for long periods of time and that the limits set up dangerous situations on interstate highways where some people would obey the speed signs and others go as fast as the roads invited.

I can understand how Nader and others could have fouled up their prognostications. But notice his style -- how he figures those in disagreement have vile motives while he himself is purer than pure.

-- The vilest of the vile, in Nader's view, are America's corporations. He seems to see virtually anyone who supports them as a captive of special interests. Thus it is that he has castigated biotech food developments as a kind of corporate hijack of the wealth of farmers and consumers. The expectation of any number of scientists is that biotech can save literally thousands of lives in places like Africa.

Nader himself, according to published accounts, has received significant contributions for his causes from a special interest: trial lawyers. He simultaneously is opposed to tort reform, even though the abuses of these lawyers have been ruinous for industries and have done serious damage to consumer pocketbooks.

I don't think the contributions mean he has sold his soul. I take him to be honest. My point is that the same sorts of charges that he makes against others could just as easily be made against him if you simply want to assume the worst.

In a 1990 Forbes article, I found that liberal commentator Michael Kinsley once wrote, "In all statistical probability, at least several dozen of you who are reading this issue of the New Republic would be dead today if Nader hadn't single-handedly invented the issue of auto safety." It seems to me at least possible that some of those not reading my article today aren't around anymore because of some of Nader's causes.