Answering Ben Stein's Question

Posted byRandall 310 Comments on Answering Ben Stein's Question

Ben Stein published a pretty awful editorial defending Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF head arrested for sexual assault. Now, I don’t disagree with him about the presumption of innocence, but the rest of the article effectively argues that smart, rich people simply don’t commit crimes. In particular, he says this:

In life, events tend to follow patterns. People who commit crimes tend to be criminals, for example. Can anyone tell me any economists who have been convicted of violent sex crimes?

On a whim, I just did a little research, and couldn’t believe what I found.  Guess who holds an economics degree?

Paul Bernardo.

For those not familiar with the case, Bernardo is one of the nastiest serial killers in history. He and his wife drugged, raped, and tortured to death a number of schoolgirls in the late 80’s and early 90’s. The story is the stuff of nightmares.

I’ll leave the debate over the rest of Mr. Stein’s article to others. But as for his suggestion that studying economics precludes becoming a violent sex criminal, it seems history provides one hell of a counterexample.

Edit: James Urbaniak has a list of some other economists involved in sex crimes.

310 replies on “Answering Ben Stein's Question”

  1. Not even really touching on Stein…

    The maid was recorded saying to her shady boyfriend (recorded because she called him while he was in prison) that she was going to do these things. =( Boo.

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  4. Wow. Even giving Stein the benefit of the doubt, and taking his meaning as, “legitimately financially successful people don’t commit crimes,” he’s totally ignorant of, oh, let’s say the past 30 or 40 years of Wall Street denizens.

    Just…wow.

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  5. Dude you totally missed the point of his piece and honestly that’s a little surprising considering the point is right there in the title. He wasn’t daring you to name an economist who has committed a sex crime because he believes there is none. He’s pointing out that in order to treat an suspect the way Strauss-Kahn has been treated, you need far, far more than the word of one person. Arrestees in the United States are presumed innocent. To deny bail, detain at Riker’s, etc. there should be more evidence of wrongdoing. The evidence a judge ought to consider when making that decision should include criminal record and other past indicators of a propensity for violence or criminality. His comments regarding the man’s profession and socio-economic status are only meant to highlight the complete lack thereof, especially taken with the fact that the overwhelming majority of crimes are committed by a small minority of the population, most of whom already have criminal records. Moreover, the fact that the case is now on the verge of dismissal only goes the strengthen Stein’s overall message that both the media and the citizenry need to cool it and let the criminal justice system do its job. Sensationalism almost never serves justice.

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  6. And as to the “smart, rich people don’t commit crimes” aspect you mentioned, I think that his point was that there is a tendency among the media and population to assume that a powerful person is guilty of a crime like this because it fits our stereotype of the dynamic between these two parties. “Of course the big bad powerful global financial leader raped that poor lowly hotel maid. Men like that think they can do whatever they want.” It’s the perfect expression of what people want to believe about powerful white men. I’m not suggesting that powerful white men don’t commit crimes and neither is Stein. Obviously that isn’t true. What’s being pointed out here is that it’s way too easy to get caught up in the tidy expression of our own stereotypes and justice can suffer as a result.

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  7. Human experience has developed the observation, “Behind every great fortune is a great crime.”

    But as long as those fortunes can prevent those crimes from being officially recognized for the horrorshows they are, Stein is correct. They are not ‘criminals,’ in the strict reading of the statues. Only ‘alleged criminals.’

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  8. I find it amusing that early in the schoolgirl murder investigation, Paul Bernardo was found “”was far more credible than…Alex Smirnis who, with his awkward, strange way of speaking, might just be trying to collect the reward.” (Invisible darkness: the strange case of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka via the wiki). Also, much more relevant, “The detectives concluded that such a well-educated, well-adjusted, congenial young man couldn’t be responsible for the vicious crimes” (quoted from the wiki).

    I’m not quite sure if this supports Stein or Randall, but either way it’s amusing.

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  9. Oh, hey, and it’s looking like Stein might have been right after all and this accusation was probably groundless. Correct conclusion is not necessarily equivalent to correct reasoning, but it’s something to consider.

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  10. Did you read to the last sentence???

    “He may well, in the future, be found guilty of atrocious conduct towards the complainant and maybe towards others. But, so far, he’s innocent, and he’s being treated shamefully. If he’s found guilty, there will be plenty of time to criticize him and imprison him. But nothing has been proved yet except that the way this case has been handled so far is an embarrassment to this country.”

    You missed the point entirely. How odd.

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  11. The horrible fact is this : any one of us can, at any time in the future, be brought before justice because a person we had consensual sex with decides to claim at a later date that consent was not given.

    We then become sex criminal suspects after the fact, and whether or not we are guilty of it we are BRANDED forever in the eyes of the public.

    Perhaps DSK did it. Perhaps not. He’s definitely no angel, but every public person lives with Damocles’ sword hanging above his head and I for one do not enjoy the thought.

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  12. @ Brian:

    The evidence a judge ought to consider when making that decision should include criminal record and other past indicators of a propensity for violence or criminality.

    How about the fact the DSK has been involved in at least two past sexual assault allegations (that did not go to court) in the past (as mentioned, for example, here: http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/05/18/further_allegations_of_dsks_past_assaults_emerge)?

    Either the guy is a pervert who can’t control his one-eyed trouser snake, or he’s been repeatedly framed by a huge conspiracy to overthrow him.

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  14. After he wrote Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed I lost all respect for Stein… or whatever minimal respect I had for him before that anyway. Is anything he writes henceforth worth reading? Let alone worth talking about when the man denounces proven scientific facts?

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  15. @DM

    “1. DSK (or anybody with a similar career) has much to lose by acting in the alleged way, more than, say, a no-life loser.

    2. DSK has had a career where self-control is an important personal quality.

    3. DSK is rich and can buy himself a high-end call-girl or a trip to some exotic place should he need it.

    Thus, the act seems incomprehensible.”

    I haven’t followed the case at all, but most criminal psychologists believe sex crimes are about power and control, not the sex itself. He may indeed buy a high-end call girl, but then she’s willing to do what he wants because he has money. He doesn’t get his kicks out of that, he gets his kicks out of controlling and dominating women through sex. The problem with such a trait is that he won’t necessarily realise that he thinks like that, so won’t come to a decision to take a legal route to do it, e.g. call up a local BDSM parlour and go dominate to his heart’s content. In a lot of cases, the offender believes the women are there as playthings, and rationalises his actions through dehumanising the victim in his mind. It’s very hard to profile a sex crime suspect based on his job alone, because the correlation is minimal.

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  16. This answer to Ben Stein is like answering someone’s claim that “people don’t survive jumping out of airplanes without a parachute” by finding the handful of exceptions.

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  17. The DSK case is complicated for all sorts of reasons.
    1. His arrest occurred shortly before the Socialist Party primaries, at which he was the red-hot favourite and only credible opponent for Sarkozy at the next French presidential election. He was also leading the FMI in a controversial direction. Those are enormous stakes and he would have been a very easy target for entrapment given his reputation… even if the charges never made it to trial.
    2. On the “people tend to keep doing what they have always done” goes against him: there are plenty of anecdotes about his bad behaviour with women. But he has no proven offences and it seems dangerous to use unproven acts as evidence in subsequent cases.
    3. There is presumption of innocence, but every opportunity for character assasination by the media. Hypothetically, if he is found not guilty he will still have resigned from the head of the FMI and maybe have lost his chance to be president. That’s a pretty big price to pay for having been suspected of a crime.
    4. There was evidence of sexual activity with a person for whom there was little prior expectation that she would have been having consensual sex with him… so certainly the prosecutor didn’t act without any reason.
    5. There was little chance that the Head of the FMI was going to do a runner while on a mission to discuss the Greek economy, and even less that he would attempt a a Chuck Norris-style break-out from custody, so the hand-cuffs served only as a symbolic humiliation that gave the media the perfect image to accompany their “He’s a perv” stories.
    6. If I was arrested in NYC I’d get cuffs, so why shouldn’t the rich and powerful suffer the same indignity?

    Like life in general and sex in particular, it’s complicated.

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  18. I am annoyed by his self-proving assertion that

    “People who commit crimes tend to be criminals, for example.”

    Of course they do! That’s the definition of a criminal–someone who commits crimes!

    He is probably asserting that most crimes are committed by repeat offenders, but that’s a different issue. And true or not, sexual assault is a fairly easy crime to avoid conviction on because it is usually the word of the victim against that of the rapist. So a given man accused may (or may not) have a history of sexual assault without any prior convictions.

    This means that, in some respects, as long as people continue to entertain a bias that rich, educated white men do not commit sexual assault, it is a self-fulfilling legacy. When it comes to judging the credibility of the accuser and the accused, people will find the accuser less credible if she accuses a rich, educated white man than if she accused a poor, uneducated black or hispanic man (particularly one with a record of even unrelated crimes). More rich, educated white men are cleared of the accusation, or it never comes to trial, because the accuser’s story lacks “credibility.” The conviction statistics become skewed to reflect the race/class bias.

    This is actually true about most crimes (white-collar crimes being a notable exception), and it explains a lot about our criminal justice system. As a mental exercise, try to imagine the Casey Anthony trial (if you were following that ridiculous public spectacle) if Ms. Anthony were African American.

    Thanks for reading this far.

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  19. Loved the game show and all, Ben Stein, but I really don’t need a lifelong Nixon apologist to be my arbiter of who is and isn’t a criminal.

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  20. That reminds me of that very unfunny joke, the one that asks what the Jewish guy said about the French guy.

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  21. You’ve all been brainwashed. There is little difference between violent and financial crime. Consider the man who has worked and saved for forty years. Shortly after retirement, he finds his accountant has taken everything. The man’s forty years are gone. He can never get them back. The accountant has stolen a significant portion of the mans life.

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  22. It’s like people have completely forgotten the anti-globalization movement of the late 90s, the main point of which was attacking the policies of the IMF and World Bank, which required third world countries to eliminate social spending and local economic development policies and completely expose themselves to first world market penetration, in exchange for refinancing loans.

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  23. So, how would one go about between distinguishing between two alternate worlds to discover which we live in? In one world the rich and famous are less likely to commit crimes but because they are rich and famoust they attract many more unflounded allegations. In the other world the rich and famous are more criminal but because of their better/more expensive legal representation they are aquitted more often.

    Which world (if either) do we live in? In both worlds the conviction rate of the rich and famous would be lower.

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  25. My Sister once met Ben Stein Professionally and he Creepily hit on her, so I take anything he says with a grain of NACl. (She is at least 20 years younger than him)

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  26. When I hear IMF I think “Impossible Missions Force” (the people in Mission: Impossible).

    “Your mission, Dominique, should you decide to accept it, is to rape someone, and get caught.”

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  27. @Martin

    “The horrible fact is this : any one of us can, at any time in the future, be brought before justice because a person we had consensual sex with decides to claim at a later date that consent was not given.”

    Unless you don’t go around randomly fucking people. How many celibate monks do you see dragged up for rape? For that matter, although it is technically possible to rape one’s spouse, it’s likely you’d only be brought up on charges for doing this if you did a really, really bad job of picking a spouse, and of being a decent human being in the first place.

    So, as a counterexample: no. I cannot, at any time in the future, be brought before justice because a person I had consensual sex with will decide to claim at a later date that consent was not given.

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  28. @Jackson

    I have heard many stories of celibate monks accused of rape! And not just rape, raping children! If you say no celibate monks ever rape, look up Catholic Church sex scandals. Even devout Catholics around the world are disgusted by the actions of these monks, who are supposed to be celibate, and molest and rape many innocent children! I’m not Catholic, but have heard about these stories from the Daily Show, the newspaper, and news magazines!

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  29. It is true that most economists are not rapists. But most postal workers also are not rapists. And most gardeners, computer programmers, priests, politicians, and even unemployed people are not rapists.

    The only rational conclusion based on Ben Stein’s implied logic is that there aren’t any rapists, because every single segmented member of society is unlikely to be a rapist (except, I suppose, for rapists, if that can be considered a profession).

    Ben Stein is committing an offense known as Base Rate Neglect (or perhaps it should be called Probability Rape). You ignore the fact that the total average incidence of a characteristic is extremely low, and you can make the modifiers appear to prove all kinds of crazy things.

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  30. So, does this mean that “economist = violent sex criminal” or Did I get something wrong?

    😛

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  31. @IMF, You seem to be using the wrong definition of “celibate.” Jackson seems to define it as “one who does not have sex.” You seem to define it as “one who vows not to has sex, but secretly has consensual sex with children.” So, under your definition, yes, the poor “celibate” monk has been accused of raping the preteen boy that he had “consensual sex” with.

    Under Jackson’s definition, the actually celibate monk cannot be accused of rape by a boy he had sex with, because he does not have sex with boys. He can still be accused by someone he didn’t sleep with–however, this falls outside the parameters of Martin’s original statement, which talked about being “brought to justice” by someone you had consensual sex with. Though it’s hard to get a truly fair rape trial, if you’re accused of rape by someone you’ve never had sex with, period, there are at least strategies available to bring evidence of that sex did not occur. If you had consensual sex, it largely becomes of a contest of credibility.

    I also take issue with your presumption that priests having sex with preteen boys can be truly consensual and that it should be acceptable so long as its not (to quote Whoopi) “RAPE rape”, but that’s neither here nor there.

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  32. I’m actually really surprised at the comments left here that state we missed the point.

    On a level, yes, Stein is right in that people should be considered innocent until proven guilty. But spend some time doing research on the portrayal of rape victims and accused rapists in the media. You’ll find two things are common: victims are often accused of lying for financial gain, especially if they belong to a minority group or are of low socio-economic status; and accused rapists are often painted guilty by the media, especially if they belong to a minority group or are of low socio-economic status. Notice a trend? In the battle of weights between accused rapist and victim, rich + white outweighs poor + minority. This is a rare case, though, in which the media is painting him guilty. (But don’t think the media hasn’t dropped some stories about this woman’s past, hinting she’s lying about this like she’s lied in the past. In fact, she’s only gone public to speak out against these accusations: http://articles.boston.com/2011-07-29/bostonglobe/29830171_1_dominique-strauss-kahn-immigration-status-hotel-room)

    Ben Stein has never written articles in defense of victims (the college lacrosse team a few years ago is a prime example) who have been called liars. Nor has Ben Stein written articles in defense of the many men who are immediately painted guilty by the media before their trials.

    What bothers me more than his pompous attitude about how embarrassing our judicial system and national media is acting is the fact that he chooses this rape case to speak out.

    It’s all well and good for the media to paint other men as rapists, monsters, animals, etc. But an economist (especially by a minority woman)? That just crosses a line.

    Fine time to complain about a long-broken system. :/

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  33. I’m in agreement with you, Michelle.

    While Ben rightly holds for “innocent till proven guilty” he still manages to pass judgement himself when he says (in his last point) “this is a case about the hatred of the have-nots for the haves, and that’s what it’s all about.”

    Isn’t that the same as saying that that is ALL that the case is about?

    What if its actually all about force-able or corrosive sexual advances?

    Ben is playing the victim card for peer, blatantly arguing that he’s (probably) innocent and that the charges are (probably) false, while saying we shouldn’t prejudge.

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  34. @Dellu That would be true if Ben Stein had not asked “Can anyone tell me any economists who have been convicted of violent sex crimes?” Any economists. Randall answered that question. Ben’s implication was that “only criminals commit crimes,” which is inarguably true, but some criminals also inarguably hold economics degrees. One’s field of study and profession say nothing about whether one is guilty of rape.

    @IGM There is a HUGE difference between “celibate” and “supposed to be celibate.” Furthermore you are misusing the word celibate in a religious context. Religious celibacy refers to “remaining unmarried” and only includes abstaining from sexual relations because it would be a sin to have sexual relations outside of marriage. As a result, priests (who vow celibacy) having sex do not break their celibacy vow, they simply sin. Monks (and nuns), OTOH, vow CHASTITY. That makes having sex, for monks, a more serious offense than for priests, since they have not only sinned, but also broken their vows of chastity. (The sex scandal in the Roman Catholic Church involves priests rather than monks. Monks usually have little interaction with children.) Anyone who does truly abstain from sex cannot have the problem described, wherein a consensual partner later claims not have consented, since there would be no partner to make that claim.

    @Martin In all honesty I worry that you bring this up and would caution any prospective partners of yours to be awfully careful if they choose to be alone with you.

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  35. The following is just my opinion:
    Although I do like some of the pieces that Ben Stein has written, the last sentence in Ben’s quote does leave his quote open for a very easy retort.

    He said something like, [can someone name another economist who is a murderer]? Well Ben, being that there are over 6 billion people in the world, and a lot of them do crime, probably finding another economist/killer wouldn’t be to hard, in theory.
    Ben could have made his argument stronger by saying something like: most likely, 85-99% of economists will not do killings or violent crime. The “name another person” argument doesn’t do well, in the age of the cell phones + the information-laden internet.

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  36. This is kind of like the Eddie Izzard “Dressed to Kill” sketch:

    “Pol Pot was a History teacher and Hitler was a vegetarian painter so we learn murderers come from… the areas we least expect them to.”

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  38. Ben Stein actually was not right because his original points still remain weak and indefensible…except where he said that the presumption of innocence should prevail.

    As far as we can judge (as outsiders to the actual events) nothing else has changed with respect to the facts of the case.

    He hasn’t been shown to be innocent, nor has she recanted her statements.

    But even if she did recant Ben would still be wrong because its his argument itself that’s faulty.

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  40. Choosing not to prosecute does not mean he was innocent.

    It only leaves in place the legal presumption of innocence. Not the fact or proof of it.

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  42. The notion that a person’s education/economic status precludes them from committing crimes is preposterous. As a parole analyst, I know that the criminal element comes from all walks of life.

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  43. The notion that a person’s education/economic status precludes them from committing crimes is preposterous. As a parole analyst, I know that the criminal elemyesee

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  44. Must be embarassing that Stein turned out to be right eh? A woman cries that she was raped by someone rich and powerful and everyone assume he was guilty.

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  48. The thing I couldn’t get over in Stein’s article was this: “If he has a long history of sexual abuse, how can it have remained no more than gossip this long? France is a nation of vicious political rivalries. Why didn’t his opponents get him years ago?”

    Does this guy know *nothing* about France?

    I grew up in France and I love France. But when it comes to these types of issues…

    It’s common knowledge that French ex-president Mitterrand had a mistress and a child by her; they publicly attended his funeral, everyone knew who they were, etc. My (American) parents and I were in France during the Clinton sex scandals and everyone kept asking us what those Americans were so excited about–so he had sex with an intern (for Pete’s sake who doesn’t, etc), so what?–and frequently using the word “puritanical”. But that’s just sex. Then there’s the attitude toward rape.

    As a teenager in France I was watching TV one day as commentators were discussing the horrible case of a girl–a child–who had been gang-raped by a group of fairly young teenage boys. A man who was being interviewed and who spoke with some authority (unfortunately I don’t remember who he was) said that “she must have invited it. Otherwise it could not have happened.”

    There was no objection. No outcry. There are a lot of things I don’t like about the U.S.; but in the U.S. that man would have lost his job. *That* I like.

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