The One-Sided Literature on Corporal Punishment

The peer-reviewed literature on corporal punishment is one sided. In a superficial way, not a rigorous way. This article points out flaws in the current literature and suggestions for improvement.

1. The literature admits the data is weak and unlikely to get better bc it's hard to approve an experimental study on spanking (what about sadomasochism? spanking where they like it lol)
2. Most of the literature conflates abuse with corporal punishment.
3. The literature refers to the Western practice of corporal punishment, but it's not a Western institution. In fact, it's a worldwide traditional value. Note Tiger Mom, Wolf Dad, and the ancient Middle Eastern literature such as Proverbs 13:24.
4. The literature documents various negative outcomes. Many are truly concerning while others are not.
   1. For example, anxiety is not so disconcerting. Fear can be a good thing. Internal consistency from Proverbs: \"Fear of the LORD is the beginning of all wisdom.\"
   2. The tendency of people who received corporal punishment to enact such on their children later in life is not bad either, supposing it turns out to be good.
5. The literature documents a high degree of immediate compliance and a lesser degree of internalization, or later compliance. However, these benefits are not compared to the costs in a balanced way. At least, from the perspective of an economist. There is no CBA or MC/MB analysis. It's more like \"10 outcomes are bad, 2 are good, so overall it's bad,\" which is of course terrible analysis.
6. Economics of corporal punishment: Fear and loss are stronger incentives than gain.
7. The literature suggests corporal punishment has an externalizing effect.
   1. This is spoken about in a bad way, but it seems to be a way to develop a type A personality.
   2. Type A's are not necessarily better, but they are associated with various traditional metrics of success including income and academic achievement.
   3. In theory there is an A-B spectrum and some level of externalization is optimal, so it may be that the externalizing effect is valuable in some cases. The A-B spectrum is not the full story, though, and it's the realistic optimist personality which is most associated with success.
8. The academic bias explanation:
   1. Sociologists are a bunch of liberals with priors that discipline is bad, so they analyze the way discipline is bad without paying attention to obvious possible benefits.
   2. At a high level, this approach allows the public sector to crowd out the nuclear family and play the role of parent. The state may even have an interest in this research and it may be observable by tracing out research grants.
   3. The sociological literature on corporal punishment often intersects with healthcare considerations, and the healthcare literature is a highly risk-averse literature. From a healthcare perspective, corporal punishment carries some risk of extending into severe physical punishment, injury, and abuse (accidental or otherwise).
9. The Biblical Model of Corporal Punishment may be quite tricky to validate in the usual ways scientific articles proceed, but I stand with the theory that a loving parent disciplining their child is a good thing. If for no other reason than the anecdotal evidence that I think I turned out quite well, and I've seen others turn into spoiled or lazy people without discipline. I'd like to get a data set and analyze the outcomes for people who have never been punished.
10. Does the nuclear family constitute a socialist government? If so, is the nuclear family a hard case or even a defeater for the absolute advantage of laissez faire political economy?