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Understanding the Second-Order Entropies of Voynich Text
by Dennis J. Stallings
May 11, 1998
Abstract
    The anomalous second-order entropies of Voynich text are among its most puzzling features. h1-h2, the difference between conditional first- and second order entropies, equals the difference H1-h2, the difference between the first-order absolute entropy and the second- order conditional entropy. h1-h2 or H1-h2 is a theoretically significant number; it denotes the average information carried by the first character in a digraph about the second one. Therefor it was chosen as a simple measure of what is being sought, although the whole entropy profile of text samples was considered.
    Tests show that Voynich text does not have its low h2 measures solely because of a repetitious underlying text, that is, one that often repeats the same words and phrases. Tests also show that the low h2 measures are probably not due to an underlying low-entropy natural language. A verbose cipher, one which substitutes several ciphertext characters for one plaintext character, can produce the entropy profile of Voynich text.
Table of Contents
    Introduction
    Measures of Relative Second-Order Entropy
    Entropies of Voynich Texts
    Verbose Ciphers
    Repetitive Texts
    Schizophrenic Language
    Low-Entropy Natural Languages
        Japanese
        Hawaiian
        Discussion of Phonemic versus Syllabic Notation
            The Size of the Character Set
            The Effect of Word Divisions
            Redundancy
            The Effect of Syllable Divisions
        Final Thoughts on Low-Entropy Natural Languages
    Suggestions for Further Work
    Acknowledgments
    References for Electronic Texts
    Printed References
Introduction
    William Ralph Bennett first applied the entropy concept to the study of the Voynich Manuscript in his Scientific and Engineering Problem Solving with the Computer (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1976). His book has introduced many people to the VMs.
    The repetitive nature of VMs text is obvious to casual examination. Entropy is one possible numerical measure of a text's repetitiousness. The higher the text's repetitiousness, the lower the second-order entropy (information carried in letter pairs). Bennett noted that only some Polynesian languages have second-order entropies as low as VMs text. Typical ciphers do not have a low second-order entropy either.
    This paper examines other possible reasons for the low second- order entropy of Voynich texts: a verbose cipher or a repetitious underlying text. It also examines the low-entropy natural languages Hawaiian and Japanese for further insight into that hypothesis.
Measures of Relative Second-Order Entropy
    Jacques Guy's MONKEY program was used to calculate second-order entropies. (Note: the bug-free, "sensible" MONKEY on the EVMT Project Home Page was used; the author believes that the version of MONKEY on Garbo as of this writing has bugs.) Note that MONKEY in its present form only takes the first 32,000 characters in a file. Some long texts were divided up into portions so that MONKEY could analyze them separately.


    The conditional entropies were used, as is customary on the Voynich E-mail list. Say that H1 is the absolute first-order entropy and H2 is the absolute second-order entropy. Then h1 and h2 are the first- and second-order conditional entropies. h2 = H2-H1, since it is conditional on more than one character. h1 = H1, since it depends on only single characters; thus h1 is really not conditional.
    The following measures were considered:

    h0: zero-order entropy (log2 of the number of different characters)
    h1: first-order conditional or absolute entropy
    h2: second-order conditional entropy
    h1-h2: difference between conditional first- and second order entropies, which equals the difference -
    H1-h2: the difference between the first-order absolute entropy and the second-order conditional entropy.


    As will be seen, there is a need here to compare systems with very different numbers of characters, to scale the statistics somehow to the size of the character set. h1-h2 or H1-h2 is a theoretically significant number; it denotes the average information carried by the first character in a digraph about the second one. It is perhaps the best single, simple measure of what is being sought.
    The % of the second-order maximum absolute entropy might have been used. One could calculate the % of H2 from the total H2 that could be delivered by each alphabet. Using digraphs with an alphabet of m characters, H2(max) is:


    log2(m^2)
and the %H2(max) is:

    (H2/log2(m^2))/100

    However, the H2(max) depends tremendously on m, the size of the character set chosen. For Voynich text, Currier has 36 characters and Basic Frogguy has 23 characters. Characters that are hardly ever used have little effect on h1 and h2, but could make a tremendous difference in H2(max). Therefore, this measure was not used.
    To start the discussion, here are some data from the English King James Bible:









Table 1:
English King James Bible - 1 Kings



Passage Beginning at   
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
1:1   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.022
  
3.068
  
0.953
8:19   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.028
  
3.090
  
0.939
15:27   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
3.998
  
3.092
  
0.906
Average of three   
27
  
96000
  
4.755
  
4.016
  
3.083
  
0.933
    The h1-h2 range for different portions of the same text is 0.906-0.953.
    And here are data on the corresponding portions of the Latin Vulgate Bible:







Table 2:
Latin Vulgate Bible - 1 Kings



Passage Beginning at   
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
1:1   
24
  
32000
  
4.585
  
4.002
  
3.309
  
0.692
8:19   
24
  
32000
  
4.585
  
3.994
  
3.287
  
0.707
15:27   
24
  
32000
  
4.585
  
4.005
  
3.304
  
0.700
Average of three   
24
  
96000
  
4.585
  
4.000
  
3.300
  
0.700
    The average h1-h2 is 0.700, compared to 0.933 for the English text. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that English uses more combinations of two or more letters to represent single phonemes than Latin does. The range of h1-h2 for the Latin text is 0.692-0.707, narrower than for the English text.


    The next table shows the h1-h2 statistic for assorted files in various languages and notations. This shows how the h1-h2 statistic sometimes shows unexpected information. For instance, Hawaiian and Japanese have low h2 values, approaching Voynich text, in phonemic notation. However, the h1-h2 values for Hawaiian and Japanese are far less than Voynich text.





Table 3:
h1-h2 Statistics for Selected Texts



File   
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Latin - Vulgate Bible, 1 Kings, first 32K   
24
  
32000
  
4.585
  
4.002
  
3.309
  
0.692
Hawaiian (Bennett, limited phonemic)   
13
  
15000
  
3.700
  
3.200
  
2.454
  
0.746
Hawaiian newspaper (full phonemic)   
19
  
13473
  
4.248
  
3.575
  
2.650
  
0.925
English - King James Bible - Genesis, first 32K   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
3.969
  
3.020
  
0.949
Japanese Tale of Genji - Section 1 (romaji)   
22
  
32000
  
4.459
  
3.763
  
2.677
  
1.086
Japanese Tale of Genji - Section 1 (kana)    
71
  
20622
  
6.150
  
4.764
  
3.393
  
1.370
Voynich Herbal-B (Currier)   
34
  
13858
  
5.087
  
3.796
  
2.267
  
1.529
Voynich Herbal-B (EVA)   
21
  
16061
  
4.392
  
3.859
  
2.081
  
1.778
Entropies of Voynich Texts
    Here are entropy results for Voynich texts, a sample of Herbal-A and Herbal-B. The Herbal-A sample's h1-h2 ranges 1.479-1.945, depending on which transcription alphabet is used. The Herbal-B sample's h1-h2 ranges 1.529-1.897. All these are far greater than the 0.93 for English and 0.70 for Latin.
    The choice of transcription alphabet also makes an enormous difference. From Currier to Frogguy the range of h1-h2 is 1.5-1.9. The direction is what one would expect. Currier is the most synthetic, while Frogguy is the most analytical, decomposing single Currier characters into several Frogguy characters. Thus Currier Q = Frogguy cqpt.



Table 4:
Voynich Texts



Type of Voynich Text   
Transcription Alphabet
  
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Herbal-A   
Currier
  
33
  
9804
  
5.044
  
3.792
  
2.313
  
1.479
Herbal-A   
FSG
  
24
  
10074
  
4.585
  
3.801
  
2.286
  
1.515
Herbal-A   
EVA
  
21
  
12218
  
4.392
  
3.802
  
1.990
  
1.812
Herbal-A   
Frogguy
  
21
  
13479
  
4.392
  
3.826
  
1.882
  
1.945
Herbal-B   
Currier
  
34
  
13858
  
5.087
  
3.796
  
2.267
  
1.529
Herbal-B   
FSG
  
24
  
14203
  
4.585
  
3.804
  
2.244
  
1.560
Herbal-B   
EVA
  
21
  
16061
  
4.392
  
3.859
  
2.081
  
1.778
Herbal-B   
Frogguy
  
21
  
17909
  
4.392
  
3.846
  
1.949
  
1.897
    The samples of Voynich text are relatively small. The following statistics of samples of a single known Latin text gives some idea of how much difference this might make.









Table 5:
Texts from Latin Vulgate Bible, 1 Kings, For Study of Effect of Sample Size on Entropy Data. Passages All Begin at 1:1



Passage Ending at    
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
2:18   
23
  
8929
  
4.524
  
3.994
  
3.263
  
0.731
4:21   
24
  
18623
  
4.585
  
3.995
  
3.298
  
0.697
7:17   
24
  
29647
  
4.585
  
4.003
  
3.309
  
0.694
    It is doubtful whether h1-h2 or any other single measure can tell us all we want. However, the representation system is probably the heart of the issue. The following discussion of verbose ciphers is a case in point.
Verbose Ciphers
    A verbose cipher, one that substitutes several ciphertext characters for one plaintext character, can produce the entropy profile seen with Voynich text. Such a system is Cat Latin C, which is to be applied to Latin plaintext. Vowels and consonants were added roughly in proportion to their occurence in Latin. This keeps the h1 roughly the same as with Latin and Voynich FSG. The repeated digraphs are what reduce h2 to where it is desired. If q is followed by u, it is as with normal Latin; otherwise it fits one of the consonant patterns. So this scheme is unambiguous. This scheme does produce VMs-like entropies!


    This table shows the Cat Latin verbose cipher:





Table 6:
Cat Latin C



Plaintext     Ciphertext
a     a
b     bqbababa
c     c
d     dqdede
e     e
f     fqfififi
g     gqgogogo
h     h
i     i
j     jqjajaja
k     k
m     mqmememe
n     nqninini
o     o
p     pqpopopo
qu     qu
r     rqrarara
s     sqsesese
t     tqtititi
u     u
v     v
w     w
x     xqxoxoxo
y     y
z     zqzazaza
    For comparison here are VMs results in FSG, since the size of that character set is closest to Latin.



Table 7:
Verbose Cipher Compared to Voynich Text



File   
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Voynich Herbal-A (FSG)   
24
  
10074
  
4.585
  
3.801
  
2.286
  
1.515
Voynich Herbal-B (FSG)   
24
  
14203
  
4.585
  
3.804
  
2.244
  
1.560
Latin Vulgate, 1 Kings, 1:1 - 2:11   
23
  
8232
  
4.524
  
3.996
  
3.262
  
0.734
Above passage, Cat Latin C   
23
  
28754
  
4.524
  
3.873
  
2.278
  
1.595
    However, it's clear that this is not the same pattern as Voynich text. It might be best to look for patterns subjectively. Here are some text samples.
    The start of the Voynich Herbal-A sample file (f29v, lines 1- 9), in EVA:
kshol qoocph shor pshocph shepchy qoty dy shory
ykcholy qoty chy dy qokchol chor tchy qokchody cheor o
chor chol chy choiin
tshoiin cheor chor o chty qotol sheol shor daiin qoty
otol chol daiin chkaiin shoiin qotchey qotshey daiiin
daiin chkaiin
pchol oiir chol tsho daiin sho teo chy chtshy dair am
okain chan chain cthor dain yk chy daiin cthol
sot chear chl s choly dar

    The beginning of a Hawaiian sample file, from a Hawaiian newspaper, to be discussed later:
    kepakemapa mei puke kepakemapa mei mahalo 'ia ka 'Olelo hawai'i e nA mAka' na ho'Olanani kim ma ka lA o malaki ua noa ka pAka 'o kapi'olani no ke anaina na lAkou ke kuleana 'o ka mAlama 'ana ma ka 'Olelo 'ana aku i ka 'Olelo hawai'i ma laila nO i 'Akoakoa ai ka po'e haumAna ka po'e kumu ka po'e mAkua a me ka po'e hoa o kElA 'ano kEia 'ano o ka 'Olelo hawai'i a ma laila nO ho'i i launa ai ka po'e ma o ka 'Olelo hawai'i kapa 'ia kEia lA hoihoi 'o ka lA 'ohana
    Finally, the beginning of the Latin Vulgate 1 Kings in Cat Latin C:
    etqtititi rqrararaexqxoxoxo dqdedeavidqdede sqseseseenqnininiuerqrararaatqtititi habqbababaebqbababaatqtititique aetqtititiatqtititiisqsesese pqpopopolurqrararaimqmememeosqsesese dqdedeiesqsesese cumqmememeque opqpopopoerqrararairqrararaetqtititiurqrarara vesqsesesetqtititiibqbababausqsesese nqnininionqninini calefqfififiiebqbababaatqtititi dqdedeixqxoxoxoerqrararaunqnininitqtititi erqrararagqgogogoo ei sqseseseerqrararavi ...
    Look at these samples and think about the kind of repetition involved in each case! The "Cat Latin C" verbose cipher is clearly not the same thing as Voynichese.
    Here are the entropy values for these samples:







Table 8:
Statistics on Text Samples



File   
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Voynich Herbal-A (EVA)   
21
  
12218
  
4.392
  
3.802
  
1.990
  
1.812
Hawaiian newspaper (full phonemic)   
19
  
13473
  
4.248
  
3.575
  
2.650
  
0.925
Latin Vulgate, 1 Kings, 1:1 - 2:11, Cat Latin C   
23
  
28754
  
4.524
  
3.873
  
2.278
  
1.595
    The author's personal opinion is that the rigid internal structure of Voynich text accounts for the low h2 measures. The majority of Voynich "words" follow a paradigm. Robert Firth (Work Note #24) and Jorge Stolfi (Voynich Page) both have identified paradigms. Captain Prescott Currier (Currier's Papers ) identified several other kinds of internal structure in Voynich text.
Repetitive Texts
    From time to time, some have suggested that the Voynich Manuscript is simply a very repetitious text. Here is a magical spell in medieval High German that is repetitious:

         eiris sazun idisi             sazun her duoder
         suma hapt heptidun            suma heri lezidun
         suma clubodun                 umbi cuoniouuidi
         insprinc haptbandun           inuar uigandun
         phol ende uuodan              uuorun zi holza
         du uuart demo balderes uolon  sin uuoz birenkit
         thu biguol en sinthgunt       sunna era suister
         thu biguol en friia           uolla era suister
         thu biguol en uuodan          so he uuola conda
         sose benrenki                 sose bluotrenki
         sose lidirenki
         ben zi bena                   bluot zi bluoda
         lid zi geliden                sose gelimida sin
    Merseburger Zaubersprüche (Magic Spells from Merseburg) in Old High German. Note: 'uu' = 'w'.
    An experiment to test this idea is to take samples of known repetitious texts (food recipes, religious texts, catalogs) and compare their second-order entropies with those of known texts that should be less repetitious (prose fiction, essays).
    Note that some long texts were larger than MONKEY's 32,000 character limit; in those cases MONKEY just took the first 32,000 characters. Some long texts were divided up into separate portions that MONKEY could analyze.
    Jacobean English. Ever since its publication, many commentators have noted how repetitious the Book of Mormon is. The Bible itself is, of course, somewhat repetitious. A (relatively) non-repetitious text in Jacobean English is the Essays of Sir Francis Bacon.
    The Book of Mormon appears to be the most repetitious. h1- h2 for the Book of Mormon excerpts range 0.931-0.980. The King James Bible is next, 0.904-0.983. The non-repetitious Essays of Francis Bacon have 0.827-0.837. Taking averages, the difference for h1-h2 between the most repetitious text and the least is 0.951 versus 0.831, a difference of 0.120.





Table 9:
Elizabethan English Texts of Varying Repetition



File   
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Book of Mormon - 1 Nephi   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.033
  
3.090
  
0.942
Book of Mormon - Alma   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.041
  
3.109
  
0.931
Book of Mormon - Ether   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.009
  
3.029
  
0.980
King James Bible - Genesis   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
3.969
  
3.020
  
0.949
King James Bible -Joshua   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.012
  
3.029
  
0.983
King James Bible -Acts   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.041
  
3.137
  
0.904
Francis Bacon's Essays, Part 1   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.048
  
3.220
  
0.827
Francis Bacon's Essays, Part 2   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.042
  
3.214
  
0.828
Francis Bacon's Essays, Part 3   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.066
  
3.229
  
0.837
    Latin (Late Classical). Samples of the Vulgate Bible and Boethius' Consolations of Philosophy were analyzed. There is little difference in the statistics between the Vulgate Bible and the presumably less repetitious Consolatio Philosophiae.









Table 10:
Latin Texts of Varying Repetition





File   
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
1 Kings, Vulgate, 1:1   
24
  
32000
  
4.585
  
4.002
  
3.309
  
0.692
1 Kings, Vulgate, 8:19   
24
  
32000
  
4.585
  
3.994
  
3.287
  
0.707
1 Kings, Vulgate, 15:27   
24
  
32000
  
4.585
  
4.005
  
3.304
  
0.700
Boethius - Consolatio Philosophiae - Books 3 & 4   
25
  
32000
  
4.644
  
3.971
  
3.272
  
0.699
    Modern English. Repetitive texts: food recipes (chicken and Cajun), a catalog of technical standards, and a Roman Catholic litany. For a non-repetitious text: a short story, "The Blue Hotel" by Stephen Crane.
    The non-repetitious short story "The Blue Hotel" has an h1-h2 of 0.826, while the repetitious Roman Catholic Litany has an h1-h2 of 0.968. The difference is 0.968 - 0.826 = 0.142. The other texts mostly fall in between, although the presumably repetitious Cajun recipe has an h1-h2 of 0.827, almost identical to the short story.







Table 11:
Modern English Texts of Varying Repetition





File   
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Modern English - Roman Catholic litany   
26
  
9492
  
4.700
  
4.071
  
3.103
  
0.968
Modern English - ISO 14000 catalog   
27
  
6696
  
4.755
  
4.076
  
3.137
  
0.939
Modern English - The Blue Hotel by Stephen Crane (short story)   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.073
  
3.247
  
0.826
Modern English - Cajun recipe   
27
  
27363
  
4.755
  
4.124
  
3.297
  
0.827
Modern English- Chicken recipe   
27
  
18461
  
4.755
  
4.131
  
3.193
  
0.938
    For comparison, here are data for Voynich texts in FSG, which has the character set closest in size to the ordinary Latin alphabet.





Table 12:
Voynich Texts in FSG



Type of Voynich Text   
Transcription Alphabet
  
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Herbal-A   
FSG
  
24
  
10074
  
4.585
  
3.801
  
2.286
  
1.515
Herbal-B   
FSG
  
24
  
14203
  
4.585
  
3.804
  
2.244
  
1.560
    When one compares the h1-h2 values of Voynich text with the differences due to repetition in English texts (0.968 - 0.826 = 0.142 for modern English and 0.951 - 0.831 = 0.120 for Jacobean English) with the h1- h2 values for Voynich text (1.515 or 1.560), it becomes clear that repetitious underlying format or subject matter could not change a text in a normal European language to a Voynich text! Thus, Voynich text does clearly not have its low h2 measures solely because of a repetitious underlying text, that is, one that often repeats the same words and phrases.
Schizophrenic Language
    In an important paper that discusses the Voynich Manuscript, Professor Sergio Toresella says that the VMs author had a psychiatric disturbance. In one of the works cited by Toresella in this connection, Creativity by Silvano Arieti, Arieti talks about the distorted language of schizophrenics but not other language phenomena.
    At the Kooks Museum, there is a sample of schizophrenic language. In the Schizophrenic Wing, there is a transcript of flyers by Francis E. Dec, containing two Rants:
    Kooks Museum
    Francis E. Dec, Esquire
    Transcripts of flyers

    Here is an excerpt from Rant #2:


    "Computer God computerized brain thinking sealed robot operating arm surgery cabinet machine removal of most of the frontal command lobe of the brain, gradually, during lifetime and overnight in all insane asylums after Computer God kosher bosher one month probation period creating helpless, hopeless Computer God Frankenstein Earphone Radio parroting puppet brainless slaves, resulting in millions of hopeless helpless homeless derelicts in all Jerusalem, U.S.A. cities and Soviet slave work camps. Not only the hangman rope deadly gangster parroting puppet scum-on-top know this top medical secret, even worse, deadly gangster Jew disease from deaf Ronnie Reagan to U.S.S.R. Gorbachev know this oy vay Computer God Containment Policy top secret. Eventual brain lobotomization of the entire world population for the Worldwide Deadly Gangster Communist Computer God overall plan, an ideal worldwide population of light-skinned, low hopeless and helpless Jew-mulattos, the communist black wave of the future."
    The samples and discussion of schizophrenic talk in Arieti resemble Francis Dec's, in repeated but disconnected ideas, alliteration, etc.
    MONKEY was run on the two Rants and the results were compared with examples of normal English text:







Table 13:
Schizophrenic Rant Compared to Other English Texts





File   
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Schizophrenic rant   
27
  
12967
  
4.755
  
4.182
  
3.428
  
0.755
King James Bible - Genesis   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
3.969
  
3.020
  
0.949
Francis Bacon's Essays, Part 1   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.048
  
3.220
  
0.827
Modern English - Roman Catholic litany   
26
  
9492
  
4.700
  
4.071
  
3.103
  
0.968
Modern English - The Blue Hotel by Stephen Crane (short story)   
27
  
32000
  
4.755
  
4.073
  
3.247
  
0.826
    The second-order entropy of the schizophrenic rants is definitely higher, and h1-h2 lower, than any of the ordinary texts. As with the repetitive texts, the nature of the text itself would not by itself explain the puzzling nature of VMs text.
Low-Entropy Natural Languages
    One may write Japanese in Latin characters (romaji) or in syllabic scripts (hiragana and katakana, the kana). In romaji Japanese is a low-entropy language because of a relatively low phonemic inventory and severe phonotactic constraints. A Japanese syllable may begin in zero or one consonant (counting ts, ry, and ky as one consonant), have one vowel, and end with nothing or -n (although the following syllable's consonant may be doubled). (There are at least some long and short vowels in Japanese, which complicates this a little.)
    However, the very fact of these severe phonotactic constraints makes only a limited number of syllables possible in Japanese and therefore makes a syllabic script such as kana feasible. One would expect Japanese in kana to have a higher relative h2 (lower h1- h2) than Japanese in romaji.
    Hawaiian has even more severe phonotactic constraints, and thus one ought to be able to write Hawaiian in a syllabic script. In Hawaiian a syllable may begin in zero or one consonant, have only one vowel, and may only end in nothing! Hawaiian has a much more limited phonemic inventory than Japanese. Hawaiian is especially significant because Bennett compared Voynichese to Hawaiian and noted that they had similar second-order entropies. Bennett said that some Polynesian languages are the only natural languages with second-order entropies as low as Voynichese.
    Therefore, in order to gain insight on these issues, Hawaiian and Japanese are compared in syllabic as well as phonemic notation.
Japanese
    The classic Japanese novel Tale of Genji is written almost entirely in kana. Gabriel Landini kindly adapted this both into romaji and into a kana notation that MONKEY could analyze.









Table 14:
Entropies of Japanese in Romaji and Kana



File   
Orthography
  
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Tale of Genji - Section 1   
Romaji
  
22
  
32000
  
4.459
  
3.763
  
2.677
  
1.086
Tale of Genji - Section 2   
Romaji
  
20
  
31505
  
4.322
  
3.751
  
2.627
  
1.124
Tale of Genji - Section 3   
Romaji
  
20
  
29474
  
4.322
  
3.749
  
2.639
  
1.110
Tale of Genji - Section 4   
Romaji
  
20
  
32000
  
4.322
  
3.750
  
2.641
  
1.109
Tale of Genji - Section 5   
Romaji
  
20
  
27064
  
4.322
  
3.744
  
2.630
  
1.114
Tale of Genji - Overall   
Romaji
  
22
  
152043
  
4.459
  
3.751
  
2.643
  
1.108
Tale of Genji - Section 1   
Kana
  
71
  
20622
  
6.150
  
4.764
  
3.393
  
1.370
Tale of Genji - Section 2   
Kana
  
71
  
20622
  
6.150
  
4.764
  
3.393
  
1.370
Tale of Genji - Section 3   
Kana
  
70
  
18574
  
6.129
  
4.709
  
3.410
  
1.298
Tale of Genji - Section 4   
Kana
  
70
  
20386
  
6.129
  
4.716
  
3.464
  
1.252
Tale of Genji - Section 5   
Kana
  
70
  
17096
  
6.129
  
4.698
  
3.362
  
1.337
Tale of Genji - Overall   
Kana
  
71
  
97300
  
6.150
  
4.730
  
3.404
  
1.326
    As one would expect, the absolute h0, h1, and h2 numbers for kana are much higher than those for romaji. However, the differences for h1-h2 are consistently higher for kana, which one would not expect.
Hawaiian
    Bennett did his Hawaiian study with a limited Hawaiian orthography that did not recognize vowel length or the glottal stop. Therefore, statistics were run both on Hawaiian in limited phonemic and syllabic spellings, with long/short vowels not separated and glottal stop not indicated, and in full phonemic and syllabic notation.


    Hawaiian has the following phonemes:


    Consonants: h k l m n p w '(glottal stop)
    Vowels: a e i o u A E I O U (cap's means long)

    Bennett used a "lossy" Hawaiian orthography that did not distinguish the long vowels and did not write the glottal stop (call this Hawaiian limited phonemic). He also had his own Voynich transcription alphabet. Finally, he only compared the absolute h2 values and not relative measures such as h1-h2. It's as good as any an illustration of the problems here.
    Here is a sample of the Hawaiian newspaper text used in this paper for statistics in Bennett's notation:
    ma ka la o malaki ua noa ka paka o kapiolani no ke anaina na lakou ke kuleana o ka malama ana ma ka olelo ana aku i ka olelo hawaii ma laila no i Akoakoa ai ka poe haumana ka


    And here is the same text in full phonemic notation:
    ma ka lA o malaki ua noa ka pAka 'o kapi'olani no ke anaina na lAkou ke kuleana 'o ka mAlama 'ana ma ka 'Olelo 'ana aku i ka 'Olelo hawai'i ma laila nO i 'Akoakoa ai ka po'e haumAna ka


    Here are the entropy values.





Table 15:
Entropies of Hawaiian Texts in Different Orthographies





File   
Orthography
  
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Hawaiian (Bennett)   
limited phonemic
  
13
  
15000
  
3.700
  
3.200
  
2.454
  
0.746
Hawaiian newspaper   
limited phonemic
  
13
  
13097
  
3.700
  
3.224
  
2.437
  
0.787
Hawaiian newspaper   
limited syllabic
  
39
  
9533
  
5.285
  
3.816
  
2.929
  
0.887
Hawaiian newspaper   
full phonemic
  
19
  
13473
  
4.248
  
3.575
  
2.650
  
0.925
Hawaiian newspaper   
full syllabic
  
77
  
9160
  
6.267
  
4.361
  
3.162
  
1.200
    And here are data for Bennett's and this paper's Voynich texts for comparison:







Table 16:
Voynich Texts for Comparison with Hawaiian



Type of Voynich Text   
Transcription Alphabet
  
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Voynich (Bennett)   
Bennett
  
21
  
10000
  
4.392
  
3.660
  
2.220
  
1.440
Herbal-A   
Currier
  
33
  
9804
  
5.044
  
3.792
  
2.313
  
1.479
Herbal-A   
FSG
  
24
  
10074
  
4.585
  
3.801
  
2.286
  
1.515
Herbal-A   
EVA
  
21
  
12218
  
4.392
  
3.802
  
1.990
  
1.812
Herbal-A   
Frogguy
  
21
  
13479
  
4.392
  
3.826
  
1.882
  
1.945
Herbal-B   
Currier
  
34
  
13858
  
5.087
  
3.796
  
2.267
  
1.529
Herbal-B   
FSG
  
24
  
14203
  
4.585
  
3.804
  
2.244
  
1.560
Herbal-B   
EVA
  
21
  
16061
  
4.392
  
3.859
  
2.081
  
1.778
Herbal-B   
Frogguy
  
21
  
17909
  
4.392
  
3.846
  
1.949
  
1.897
    Bennett compared his Voynich text in a 21-character transcription to Hawaiian in a 13-character orthography (including the space character). He got h2 values of 2.220 for Voynich text and 2.454 for his Hawaiian text. However, a sample of Hawaiian text in a full phonemic orthography, with 19 characters including spaces, has h2 of 2.650, even higher. A comparison of h1-h2 values shows a dramatic difference between Hawaiian and Japanese on one hand and Voynichese on the other. h1-h2 equals 1.8 for Voynichese in EVA. h1-h2 is 0.746 for Bennett's Hawaiian data, 0.925 for Hawaiian in full phonemic notation, and 1.1 for Japanese romaji. These figures are all very different from Voynichese.
Discussion of Phonemic versus Syllabic Notation
    While perhaps not germane to the Voynich Manuscript problem, it is odd that h1-h2 increases from phonemic to syllabic notation, both for Japanese and Hawaiian. In syllabic notation, given the first character, the second character is more predictable than it is in phonemic notation. This is quite puzzling. How can we explain these results for Hawaiian and Japanese?
The Size of the Character Set
    In going from phonemic to syllabic, the text becomes shorter, more information is packed into fewer characters --but that is accomplished by using a larger character set. The numbers of characters for the syllabic notations are more than three times those for the phonemic notations. The measure h1-h2 was chosen to minimize the effect of the size of the character set, but surely is not entirely successful in doing that.


The Effect of Word Divisions
    Perhaps one loses predictability because the number of space characters in relation to the total is greater for syllabic notation than for phonemic. If that were the case, leaving out the spaces ought to decrease h1-h2 for syllabic notation more than for phonemic notation. MONKEY runs were made leaving out the spaces to test this. However, the h1-h2 results for syllabic notation decrease less than those for phonemic notation do.





Table 17:
The Effect of Word Divisions on Statistics for Japanese and Hawaiian







File   
Orthography
  
Spaces Included
  
# ch.
  
File Size
  
h0
  
h1
  
h2
  
h1-h2
Japanese Tale of Genji - Section 1    
Romaji
  
Yes
  
22
  
32000
  
4.459
  
3.763
  
2.677
  
1.086
Japanese Tale of Genji - Section 1    
Romaji
  
No
  
21
  
26106
  
4.392
  
3.803
  
2.935
  
0.868
Japanese Tale of Genji - Section 1    
Kana
  
Yes
  
71
  
20622
  
6.150
  
4.764
  
3.393
  
1.370
Japanese Tale of Genji - Section 1    
Kana
  
No
  
70
  
14051
  
6.129
  
5.666
  
4.330
  
1.337
Hawaiian newspaper   
Full Phonemic
  
Yes
  
19
  
13473
  
4.248
  
3.575
  
2.650
  
0.925
Hawaiian newspaper   
Full Phonemic
  
No
  
18
  
10433
  
4.170
  
3.622
  
2.935
  
0.687
Hawaiian newspaper   
Full Syllabic
  
Yes
  
77
  
9160
  
6.267
  
4.361
  
3.162
  
1.200
Hawaiian newspaper   
Full Syllabic
  
No
  
76
  
6120
  
6.248
  
5.156
  
3.982
  
1.174
Redundancy
    Gabriel Landini, who did graduate studies in Japan, noted that the redundancy of Japanese is only apparent, that it is actually rather ambiguous. In writing this is overcome with ideographs (kanji), while in speech it is overcome with the context of the speech and with rigid structures (phrases and expressions).
    However, Jacques Guy (doctorate in Polynesian languages, was once fluent in Tahitian) notes that Tahitian (similar to Hawaiian) is no more ambiguous than English or French! So redundancy is not likely the explanation.
The Effect of Syllable Divisions
    Could the (relatively) high h1-h2 values for syllabic Hawaiian and Japanese mean that combinations of two syllables (eg. yama in Japanese, wiki in Hawaiian) are as repetitious and fixed as combinations of phonemes within syllables?
    The phonemic vs. syllabic problem here is more complex than this. Take "yamamoto" in romaji and in kana: (ya)(ma)(mo)(to). When we are analysing the second-order entropy in romaji, one is looking for the distributions of "ya" "am" "mo" "ot" "to", while for kana it is "(ya)(ma)" "(ma)(mo)" "(mo)(to)". For half (or so) of the romaji, one deals with combinations of letters ("am", "ot") that are never represented in kana. So the second-order entropy in one type of text is not strictly comparable with the second-order entropy in the other. The second-order entropy order of the romaji text is in principle "near" in meaning to the first-order entropy of the kana, but about only half of the digraphs correspond to kana.
    While the differences in statistics between syllabic and phonemic notation are interesting, they are not necessarily relevant to the Voynich Manuscript. They are chiefly interesting in raising questions about the use of the entropy concept.


Final Thoughts on Low-Entropy Natural Languages
    Consider again the start of the Herbal-A sample file (f29v, lines 1-9), in EVA:
    kshol qoocph shor pshocph shepchy qoty dy shory
    ykcholy qoty chy dy qokchol chor tchy qokchody cheor o
    chor chol chy choiin
    tshoiin cheor chor o chty qotol sheol shor daiin qoty
    otol chol daiin chkaiin shoiin qotchey qotshey daiiin
    daiin chkaiin
    pchol oiir chol tsho daiin sho teo chy chtshy dair am
    okain chan chain cthor dain yk chy daiin cthol
    sot chear chl s choly dar

    And then the beginning of the Hawaiian newspaper sample file:


    kepakemapa mei puke kepakemapa mei mahalo 'ia ka 'Olelo hawai'i e nA mAka' na ho'Olanani kim ma ka lA o malaki ua noa ka pAka 'o kapi'olani no ke anaina na lAkou ke kuleana 'o ka mAlama 'ana ma ka 'Olelo 'ana aku i ka 'Olelo hawai'i ma laila nO i 'Akoakoa ai ka po'e haumAna ka po'e kumu ka po'e mAkua a me ka po'e hoa o kElA 'ano kEia 'ano o ka 'Olelo hawai'i a ma laila nO ho'i i launa ai ka po'e ma o ka 'Olelo hawai'i kapa 'ia kEia lA hoihoi 'o ka lA 'ohana
    One sees that the low h2's of Hawaiian and Japanese are due to their very strict consonant-vowel alternation. The EVA Voynich sample shows that the consonant-vowel alternation of Voynichese (as determined by the Sukhotin vowel-recognition algorithm) is not as strict.
    Once again, h1-h2 equals 1.8 for Voynichese in EVA. h1-h2 is 0.746 for Bennett's Hawaiian data, 0.925 for Hawaiian in full phonemic notation, and 1.1 for Japanese romaji. These figures are all very different from Voynichese.
    For these reasons, it seems unlikely that an underlying low- entropy natural language explains the low h2 measures of Voynich text.


Suggestions for Further Work
    The various h2 measures are only crude, partial measures of all the factors that interest us. However, the entropy measure will continue to be useful. It would be nice to have a program that would calculate the entropies of files larger than 32K and calculate higher- order entropies more accurately.


    The author believes that the "paradigms" and other structural restrictions of Voynichese explain the low h2 measures. Further study of these structural constraints will be most useful.
Acknowledgments
    Many of these ideas and data were previously discussed on the Voynich E-mail list. A special thanks to Gabriel Landini and Rene Zandbergen for their assistance.


References for Electronic Texts
    Voynich Text
        Rene Zandbergen kindly provided samples of Herbal-B and Herbal-A from voynich.now.
        Herbal-B: 26r, 26v, 31r, 31v, 33r, 33v, 34r, 34v, 39r, 39v, 40r, 40v, 41r, 41v, 43r, 43v, 46r, 46v, 48r, 48v, 50r, 50v, 55r, 55v, 57r
   
   
        Selected Herbal-A: 28v, 29r, 29v, 30r, 30v, 32r, 32v, 35r, 35v, 36r, 36v, 37r, 37v, 38r, 38v, 42r, 42v, 44r, 44v, 45r, 45v, 47r, 47v, 49r, 49v
   
   
    Jacobean English
    Book of Mormon
    Bible, KJV
    Sir Francis Bacon, Essays
    Late Classical Latin Vulgate Latin Bible
    Estragon
    or
    Gopher
    Boethius: Consolatio Philosophiae: Book 3 & Book 4
    Modern English
    Catholic Litany
    ISO Standard Catalog
    "The Blue Hotel", by Stephen Crane
    Chicken Recipe
    Cajun Recipes, Part 1 and Part 2
    Japanese Text
        Gabriel Landini kindly prepared this. The text is from the Genji monogatari's [Tale of Genji, a classic Japanese novel mostly written in hiragana] first 4 parts: 01 Kiritsubo 02 Hahakigi 03 Utsusemi 04 Yugao.
        The "kana" output is not kana, of course, but an arbitrary substitution for kana so that MONKEY could be applied.
   
   
    Hawaiian
        The author prepared the Hawaiian texts. Hawaiian has the following phonemes:
   
   
        Consonants: h k l m n p w '(glottal stop)
        Vowels: a e i o u A E I O U (cap's means long)
   
        However, the difference between long and short vowels is often not indicated. Also, the glottal stop is often not written. Obviously both of these things need to be written, since even with them Hawaiian has a rather limited phonemic inventory!
   
   
        The Hawaiian text came from all the articles in this issue of a Hawaiian newspaper:
     Na Maka o Kana
    Puke 5, Pepa 5
    15 Malaki, 1997
   
        The text was changed to the notation above. All numbers, English, Japanese, and other foreign words were removed until the character set (the number of characters MONKEY showed) matched the Hawaiian notation. A syllabic script for Hawaiian using characters that MONKEY recognizes was devised.
    Schizophrenic Language
        At the Kooks Museum, in the Schizophrenic Wing, there is a transcript of flyers by Francis E. Dec, containing two schizophrenic Rants:
     Francis E. Dec, Esquire
    Transcripts of flyers
   
Printed References
    Arieti, Silvano. Creativity : the magic synthesis. New York : Basic Books, c1976. Library of Congress call number: BF408.A64
   
   
    Bennett, William Ralph. Scientific and Engineering Problem Solving with the Computer. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1976. [Contains a chapter on VMS.]
    D'Imperio, M. E. The Voynich Manuscript--An Elegant Enigma. National Security Agency, 1978. Aegean Park Press, 1978?
    Toresella, Sergio. ``Gli erbari degli alchimisti.'' [Alchemical herbals.] In Arte farmaceutica e piante medicinali -- erbari, vasi, strumenti e testi dalle raccolte liguri, [Pharmaceutical art and medicinal plants -- herbals, jars, instruments and texts of the Ligurian collections.] Liana Saginati, ed. Pisa: Pacini Editore, 1996, pp.31-70. [Profusely illustrated. Fits the VMS into an ``alchemical herbal'' tradition.]
   
   
Copyright © 1998 by Dennis J. Stallings, all rights reserved.
1

Electronic Journal of Sociology (1998)
ISSN: 1198 3655
Ronald Reagan and the Commitment of the Mentally Ill:
Capital, Interest Groups, and the Eclipse of Social Policy
Alexandar R Thomas
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Northeastern University
alex@telenet.net
Abstract
Conventional wisdom suggests that the reduction of funding for social welfare policies during the 1980s is the result of a conservative backlash against the welfare state. With such a backlash, it should be expected that changes in the policies toward involuntary commitment of the mentally ill reflect a generally conservative approach to social policy more generally. In this case, however, the complex of social forces that lead to less restrictive guidelines for involuntary commitment are not the result of conservative politics per se, but rather a coalition of fiscal conservatives, law and order Republicans, relatives of mentally ill patients, and the practitioners working with those patients. Combined with a sharp rise in homelessness during the 1980s, Ronald Reagan pursued a policy toward the treatment of mental illness that satisfied special interest groups and the demands of the business community, but failed to address the issue: the treatment of mental illness
Introduction
Almost ten years after Ronald Reagan left office as president, the legacy of his administration continues to be studied. What is almost indisputable is that the changes in public policy that were implemented during the 1980s were sweeping and marked a turning point in American domestic policy. Faced with increasing competition from overseas, American business found it necessary to alter the social contract. This would require a realignment of the political economy so as to weaken labor unions and the social safety net. In Reagan, the Right found a spokesman capable of aligning conservatives, centrists, and working class whites. With this coalition, Reagan was able to bring about a number of reactionary changes in public policy (Alford, 1988).
This paper provides an illustration of this co-optation by examining the policies regarding involuntary commitment of the mentally ill. The shifts in such policies were not the result of overt attempts at change, but rather part of an overall effort to realign the political economy to be more profitable for business. The overall result was that political discourse shifted from a focus on social policy to a focus on fiscal policy. As such, social programs that necessitated financial outlays on the part of the federal government were overlooked in favour of policies that seemed less costly.
Still, the administration did not, and perhaps could not, act in isolation and without public support. But they didn't have to. By the middle of the 1970s, there was a consensus among interested groups that reform of the Mental Health Care System was n ecessary. Lobbying on the part of special interest groups and a commitment on the part of President Jimmy Carter led to passage of the Mental Health Systems Act.
With the planned transfer of responsibility for the mentally ill to the states, reformers needed to build coalitions of fiscal conservatives concerned with the cost of social programs; "law and order" Republicans concerned with crime; and those who dea lt with the mentally ill who, in the absence of more comprehensive reform, sought more limited alternatives (Becker, 1993). Within this context, statutes and procedures dealing with involuntary commitment of the mentally ill were attractive. Easing standards cost relatively little, allowed the Administration to claim action simultaneously on mental health care policy, crime, and homelessness, and appeased health care providers and families of the mentally ill.
The Economy
In the aftermath of World War II, the United States experienced a period of dramatic economic growth. The industrial economies of Western Europe and Japan were by and large devastated by the war. As a result, American firms found little competition abr oad in an expanding world market. The implementation of the Marshall Plan under President Truman provided American goods and services on credit to the war ravaged economies. During this period of economic hegemony, American companies were able to make con cessions to labor in regard to wages and fringe benefits. Thus, the postwar political economy of the United States was characterized by relative peace between management and labor. With record corporate profits and rising standards of living, the United States government passed a series of liberal reforms throug hout the period. Among these reforms was the passage of the Civil Rights Act, various social welfare programs, the construction of the interstate highway system, and the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the rebuilt economies of Europe and Japan began to give American companies stiff competition in the world marketplace. The growth experienced by American firms during the previous two decades began to slow, and profit margins were deemed to be too low (Barlett and Steele, 1996; Gruchy, 1985). In order to increase profits, many American firms attempted to become more comp etitive by trimming labor costs through layoffs and the relocation of factories (Bluestone, 1990; Bluestone and Harrison, 1982; Gruchy, 1985; Harrison and Bluestone, 1988; Moriarty, 1991; Perrucci et al, 1988; Sassen, 1991; Wallerstein, 1979). In addition , the reduction of corporate taxes was pursued with a renewed vigor (Barlett and Steele, 1994).
In order to reduce corporate taxes, it was necessary to reduce the size of the welfare state. This objective was carried out by the Reagan administration (Abramovitz, 1992). After taking office in 1981, the administration set out on a course to alter t he (relatively) labor sensitive political economy to be more business friendly. Reagan appointed anti-union officials to the National Labor Relations Board, "implicitly [granting] employers permission to revive long shunned anti-union practices: decertify ing unions, outsourcing production, and hiring permanent replacements for striking workers" (102). Reagan himself pursued such a policy when he fired eleven thousand striking air traffic controllers in 1981. Regulations designed to protect the environment , worker safety, and consumer rights were summarily decried as unnecessary government meddling in the marketplace (Abramovitz, 1992; Barlett and Steele, 1996). Programs designed to help the poor were also characterized as "big government," and the people who utilized such programs were often stigmatized as lazy or even criminal. With the help of both political parties, the administration drastically cut social welfare spending and the budgets of many regulatory agencies.
The new emphasis was on "supply side" economics, which essentially "blamed the nation's ills on 'big government' and called for lower taxes, reduced federal spending (military exempted), fewer government regulations, and more private sector initiatives " (Abramovitz, 1992, 101). Thus, to effect a change in the political economy, Reagan was able to win major concessions regarding social policy that continue today. By taking away the safety net, the working class was effectively neutralized: workers no lo nger had the freedom to strike against their employers or depend upon the social welfare system as a means of living until finding employment. Business was thus free to lower wages, benefits, and the length of contracts. The overall result was that the av erage income for the average American dropped even as the average number of hours at work increased (Barlett and Steele, 1996; Schor, 1992).
It should be understood that a realignment of the political economy did not require the complete dismantling of the welfare state -- although ideally this would be the case. Rather, the welfare state had to be rearranged in a way favorable to business. The concept of the new federalism would perform this function. The new federalism was an outgrowth of the debate over the appropriate role of the federal government relative to that of the states. While liberal Democrats argued that social welfare progra ms and governmental regulation fell within the purview of the federal government, many conservatives argued that such powers should be reserved for the individual states. Since the new environment supported conservative ideologues, the federal government was seen to have improperly assumed powers it had not been granted in the Constitution. The new federalism required that individual states create their own social policies tailored to their own particular needs. Thus, each state would have its own regulat ory and social welfare system. As each state tried to pay for such programs, this would mean fifty different state taxation policies. This effectively pitted states against each other in competition for the most favorable business climate.
Among the policies in need of reform to suit the corporate agenda were those that affected the mentally ill. The funding cuts that altered these policies were part of the overall attempt to alter the political economy in a way that would be more profit able for business rather than a direct assault on the policies themselves. Within the scope of the cutbacks, interest groups operated both in opposition and in support of the changes, both within and outside the government.
Growing Discontent
The fight over involuntary commitment during the 1980s was in some ways separate from the Reagan agenda. But it was fortuitous since it coincided with the administration's desire to dismantle the liberal era reforms. However to understand why groups made committment an issue in the 1980s, we have to take a step back and look at reforms that occurred during the 1960s.
During the early 1960s a series of initiatives designed to reform the mental health system were passed. At issue was the system of state run hospitals for the mentally ill, which were increasingly perceived as inhumane and, with the help of new medicat ions, rather unnecessary for large portions of the patient population. In 1961, the Joint Commission on Mental Illness released Action for Mental Health, calling for the integration of the mentally ill into the general public with the aid of Commun ity Mental Health Centers. In 1963, the Mental Retardation Facilities and Community Mental Health Centers instituted the centers, but due to the financial drain of the Vietnam War during the 1960s and the financial crisis of the 1970s, the program was not fully funded.1 The result was the release of patients into an environment lacking the Community Mental Health Centers to adequately treat them (Becker and Schulberg, 1976; DeLeonardis and Mauri, 1992; Hollingsworth, 1994; Rachlin, 1974; Rachlin et al, 1975; Saathoff et al, 1992; Shwed, 1978, 1980; Talbott, 1992; Worley and Lowery, 1988;).
By the start of the Carter administration in 1977, involuntary commitment had been restricted to those who were deemed as potentially dangerous to themselves or, perhaps more significantly, those around them.2 Typically, the commitment had to be sponsored by a family member and/or ordered by the court. A result of this policy was that the mentally ill patient who refused treatment typically did not receive any at all. If the patient had lost contact with family members, she or he would not be committed unless found to be a threat by the court. Often, those arrested ended up in jail rather than in treatment if they had not been found to be a threat but had committed a crime (Abramson, 1972; Conrad and Schneider, 1980). On e result was a high degree of stress and frustration experienced by the relatives of the patient. Throughout the 1970s, family members organized with the purpose of correcting a policy that they perceived was wrong.
Professional organizations also joined the backlash against the liberal era reforms of commitment regulations. One obvious reason for this is self-interest. When some mentally ill patients do not receive treatment, mental health professionals have lost (or never gained) a potential client. These professionals as a group have much to gain in terms of patients and income if the laws governing involuntary commitment are expanded to include those patients who refuse help but do not pose a serious threat to themselves or the people around them.
Perhaps more important than self-interest is the burden that deinstitutionalization put on mental health practitioners. Time spent in court took away time spent with patients. Moreover, the medical profession saw themselves as being second-guessed by o thers outside the medical community: lawyers, judges, policy makers, etc. The treatments that psychiatrists and psychologists viewed as necessary for the well being of the patient often could not be applied because of the legal rights of the patient. Invo luntary commitment would force those who needed care into the hospitals and force patients to keep appointments and take medication. Without commitment, these things were more difficult for the practitioners (La Fond and Durham, 1992, 112-13).
Critics of Community Mental Health charged that in the rush to shrink the state hospital population, many patients were released prematurely (Robitscher, 1976; Yarvis et al, 1978). Some patients went off their medications after being released into the community. The criteria of "dangerousness" for civil commitment also meant that some patients who needed treatment but were not a danger could not be committed. As a result, patients whose behavior was considered odd by the community in which they lived were increasingly arrested for bothersome and minor infractions such as vagrancy. These individuals were thus detained in the criminal justice system rather than the mental health system (Abramson, 1972; Conrad and Schneider, 1980).
Groups representing mentally ill patients also organized, but generally did not have the success that groups representing their families and practitioners had. Organizations representing patients, such as the Mental Patients Liberation Front and the Na tional Alliance for the Mentally Ill, lacked the political clout of larger organizations and tended not to be as well funded as the other organizations. Phillip Armour (1989) summarized the situation in this way:
 In sum, congressmen do not confront well-funded lobbyists for the mentally disordered in the halls of the Capitol, they typically do not receive large contributions from the residents of state and county mental hospitals or the clients of com munity service centers, and they do not have to calculate the electoral risks of offending a multimillion member association of former mental patients. (187-8)
Although many groups were interested in seeing reform, there was a general lack of coordination between them. In addition, the interests of each groups shaded in and out of congruence. No two groups saw the situation the same way. This essentially left the political arena open to corporate interests and other well funded organis ations interested in mental health and capable of lobbying the government (e.g., the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, etc.). Still, the discontent of the practitioners, families, and patients dealing with the mental health system led to new hearings on mental health care policy.
Shortly after taking office in 1977, President Carter appointed the President's Commission on Mental Health. This commission was charged with assessing the particulars of mental health services, and then making specific suggestions on how things should be changed. The commission collected data by holding regional hearings in order to hear testimony from professionals, relatives of the mentally ill, and other politicians. This technique has been utilized as a politically conspicuous means of proving tha t action is being taken, but often has little merit in terms of scientific methodology.3 The final reports from the commission and its task forces were characterized in this way by Levine (1981: 179):
 The quality of the Task Panel reports vary widely; apparently its members understood their instructions very differently. The reports range from very brief ones, which look as if they had been written by someone on the plane on the way to the meeting, to well-thought out analytic reviews. Some consist of little more than a list of recommendations. No more than a third of the Task Panel reports would pass muster as scholarly documents. The preparation of the reports was sloppy. Many are poorly written. Citations made in the body of the report do not appear in the bibliographies. Citations for key points are often to unpublished sources. To be fair, it should be stated that some of the Task Panels did not expect their reports to be published.
 The commission made special references to political interest groups throughout both the task panel reports as well as the final recommendations. After the reports were completed and the Congress attempted to codify these recommendations into law, the l obbying organizations continued to be a presence throughout the process. Some groups were by nature opposed to each other: the National Council of Community Mental Health Centers (NCCMHC) and the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directo rs (NASMHPD), for instance. The former of these groups represents the interests of community mental health centers that would benefit by expanding these services. The latter group represents the directors of state mental hospitals. They would benefit by i ncreases in the funding of such hospitals and reinstitutionalization (Armour, 1989, 185). On this point, the commission searched for a compromise.
 The final report of the commission to President Carter contained the recommendations upon which the Mental Health Systems Act of 1980 was based. Despite the methodological flaws of the earlier report, the act was considered a landmark in mental health care policy. The key to the proposals included an increase in funding for Community Mental Health Centers and continued federal government support for such programs. But this ran counter to the financial goals of the Reagan administration, these were of c ourse to reduce federal spending, reduce social programs, and transfer responsibility of many if not most government functions to the individual states. So, the law signed by President Carter was rescinded by Ronald Reagan on August 13, 1981. In accordance with the New Federalism and the demands of capital, mental health policy was now in the hands of individual states.
 Settling for Smaller Reforms
 In the aftermath of the non-implementation of the Mental Health Systems Act of 1980, the power of the various interest groups had been further weakened. Clearly, the groups that represented the patients themselves were the weakest. Such groups, represe nting the targets of involuntary commitment, tended to be opposed to the easing of commitment requirements. But facing interest groups representing mental health professionals and patients' families, the patient's rights groups found themselves underfunde d and understaffed.
 The interests of others fared somewhat better. Pressure from organizations (some of which represented the families of the mentally ill) lead to new legislation in several states that made it easier to commit a mentally ill patient involuntarily. As noted earlier, much of this pressure emerged because the current underfunded system was not providing adequate supports for patients or family. Families of the mentally ill were genuinely concerned about loved ones who they felt were not receiving adequate care. Also, families who were responsible for providing care for their mentally ill members could not support the burden which came from care provision without adequate institutional supports. From the position of the family member, deinstitutionalization appeared more like an attempt by the government to download responsibility. In this context a loosening of commitment standards would, it was thought, force patients to receive care and (hopefully) reduce the burden on the family.
 Mental health professionals were also concerned that patients were not receiving adequate care. Estimates of the homeless population ranged from 250 to 500 thousand people (Dear and Wolch, 1987; Jencks, 1994; Rossi, 1989; Wright, 1989). Of these, appro ximately a third were mentally ill (Rossi, 1989). In many cases, such mentally ill patients were arrested for vagrancy and other minor infractions and were processed by the criminal justice system. Concerned that this population was receiving no treatment at all, mental health workers advocated involuntary commitment as a means of getting the mentally ill homeless into treatment.
 With such activism, a coalition between the neoconservatives who opposed liberal reforms in general and the interest groups mentioned above was possible. In the absence of the comprehensive reforms planned in the Mental Health Systems Act, the interest groups who opposed specific outcomes of liberal era reforms, although not necessarily all the reforms, turned to the neoconservatives for narrowly focused reforms. The activism of the interest groups supplied the Reagan Campaign with a supportive constituency which could be used as a foil for reactionary reforms. However there was a deep irony here. The 1980 Reagan Campaign received support from a population which might have otherwise supported the liberal objectives of the previous era (had they been adequately funded, for example). The fact that these interest groups had become disillusioned with the implementation of liberal reforms (specifically deinstitutionalization which was largely viewed as a failure), meant that this population would support a change in policy even if it meant policy reforms that would otherwise be unpalatable.
 The composition of this coalition was of course antithetical to the interests of the mentally ill themselves. But groups representing the patients themselves were relatively weak. Despite the fact that groups representing the patients stressed the need for better treatment, debate most often revolved around issues defined by other stakeholders in the system like the growing homelessness problem and the burden on the families. And of course, better treatement automatically translated, in an underfunded system, to more more funding - this argument ran counter to the neoconservative need to cut back the welfare state. So often patients concerns were simply ignored.
 Cuts in funding for mental health services continued throughout the 1980s, with the emphasis being on the provision of services via the private sector. Overall, the number of beds available to the mentally ill in public and private hospitals dropped ov er forty percent between 1970 and 1984 (Reamer, 1989). Most of this decline was due to cuts in public hospitals. During the 1980s, the number of beds provided by general hospitals in psychiatric wards and in private hospitals for the mentally ill increase d. In 1970, there were 150 private psychiatric centers; in 1980, there were 184; by 1988, there were 450 in the United States. General hospitals offering psychiatric services increased from 1,259 in 1984 to over two thousand in 1988 (Reamer, 1989, 25; LaF ond and Durham, 1992, 115-16). With such growth in the private sector, there were substantial profits to be made in mental illness, assuming that the patient had adequate health insurance. Those without medical insurance frequently did not receive adequat e care.
 A Supportive Public Climate
 The intersection of interests noted above was an important factor in creating an environment within which reactionary reforms could take place. However other environmental factors also played an important role in creating conditions whereby the desires for progressive reform could be co-opted. For example, the goals of the Reagan Administration were well received in some quarters of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). In the 1980s, the NIMH started to come under the leadership of a different cohort of individuals. While the NIMH had originally been led by individuals who had come of age during the Great Depression, the leaders of the 1980s had come of age later. The result was that while the former cohort had been committed to innovations in government al social policy, the latter generation tended to be less interested in actual social policy and more supportive of measures to reduce the cost to the federal government (Armour, 1989, 187).
 The Administrations goals of fiscal restraint also received support from the general public due to the perception of a federal government too prone to waste revenues and not address other basic concerns, such as crime prevention. Certain forms of social welfare spending, such as programs for the mentally ill, were perceiv ed as wasteful and thus easy targets for budget cuts (Gans, 1995; Katz, 1989). In contrast, other social programs, such as Social Security, were perceived as being "earned" by the recipients, and thus equitable. Despite the fact that the average Social Se curity recipient receives more in return than they pay into the system, programs such as this are perceived as being a pension for which the recipient has already paid. As such, they are less susceptible to cuts than categorical spending programs, such as community mental health treatment centers. Indeed, Social Security funding per beneficiary increased under the Reagan Administration (Levitan, 1990, 30). Mental health policy lacks the widespread public support that benefits Social Security (Armour, 1989 , 186). In light of this, it is not surprising that the Reagan Administration was able to cut these programs relatively easily (186-7).
 The concerns of the general public were also mobilized in the context of fear over the possibility of a patient committing a violent or otherwise anti-social act. Media attention paid to the problems of the mental health system tended to concentrate in two areas: the growing homelessness problem of the early 1980s and the possibility of criminal acts committed by deinsitutionalized patients. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, hundreds of thousands of mentally ill people concentrated in the inner cities. With the rise of gentrification during the 1980s, many of them became displaced from their relatively affordable housing and were unable to fin d new accommodations. Many of these patients had lost contact with family members and were unable to work, and many did not have health insurance. Thus, they were unable to receive mental health services in the private sector. Media coverage of the growin g homeless problem helped to pressure legislators in many states to rewrite commitment laws to extend the net and make the streets "safer."
 This media attention played into, and supported, the growing perception of violent crime as a problem in the United States. The Reagan Administration answered this general alarm by calling for quick and severe punishment of offenders. For those offenders who were not mentally ill, prison was normally seen as the solution (Gans, 1995). For the mentally ill however, involuntary committment seemed the best answer. Either way, quick removal of individuals threatening the social order fit well with the administration's "law and order" stance (LaFond and Durham, 1992, 114).
 The new laws, however, were not intended to make it easier to commit the dangerous mentally ill. Rather, the new laws had more general application and made it easier to commit those only considered a threat (Lafond & Durham, 1992, 118). In addition to this, many of the existing liberal justices began to rule on a "right of treatment" clause rather than a straight civil libertarian viewpoint. The result was that at both the state and federal level, the court became increasingly reluctant to strike down legislation that broadened the definition of who was eligible for involuntary commitment (119). Again, this more stringent approach meshed well with the "law and order" stance taken by the administration.
 Discussion
 The net result of federal abdication of responsibility, the push to state orientated programs (often underfunded), the dis-organization of groups, and the confluence of public interests (in crime prevention and fiscal restraint) with state goals, were reforms that only marginally addressed the real concerns of stakeholders and that ultimately benefitted capital by reducing the cost of social safety net. To be sure, the shift in policies dealing with involuntary commitment emerged from larger social issues. By the middle of the 1970s, groups representing the mentally ill, their families, and those who cared for them had reached a consensus on the need for reform. This culminated in the passage of the Mental Health Systems Act. This implementation, though not without its problems, was seen as a progressive step forward. However the costs of these reforms were unacceptable in the new neoconservative climate and ran counter to the interests of capital. Reagan, who never presumed to support social policy, promised to cut federal spending and ensure a "favorable business climate." So under Reagan the new law was rescinded. This signaled that for Reagan's administration, social policy was of lower priority than fiscal policy. After this act, the interest groups would need to settle for piecemeal reforms within the limitations of the administration's desire for low cost reform measures.
 The "New Federalism" served as justification for relaxed federal "interference" in state issues, including mental health policy. The business community was facing a crisis of accumulation, and a shift in the political economy was perceived as necessary to guarantee adequate profit. With the abdication of the federal government, mental health policy was almost entirely in the province of the individual states.
 A survey of initiatives shows that they came primarily from individual state legislatures, and thus varied according to state (Peters et al, 1987; LaFond and Durham, 1992). The procedures for commitment of the mentally ill accordingly vary by state. Ma ny states have adopted outpatient commitment as an alternative to inpatient care, and this policy has met with mixed results. 4 Many state hospitals have been closed, and many others are facing the possibility. Debate around mental health policy is still, to a large degree, concentrated around issues of deinstitutionalization and reinstitutionaliza tion and the relative merits of each.5 Sadly, professional groups with opposing interests have stalled the implementation of a comprehensive mental health policy in most states (Becker, 1993; Wilson, 1993).
 Under the Reagan Administration, groups and individuals who had hoped for a change found that the federal government did very little to effect a change. The appointment of conservative justices for the federal court system was a part of the "law and or der" platform advocated by the administration and thus was never intended to have a direct effect on procedures regarding involuntary commitment or any other aspect of mental health policy.
 Perhaps what is most interesting about the change in policies of involuntary commitment is the coalition that helped bring it about: a combination of "law and order" conservatives, economic conservatives, and liberal groups that sought reform in the pr ovision of mental health services. But the policy shift had hardly anything at all to do with the mentally ill or the practitioners who treated them. It was designed to lower taxes and shift responsibility away from the federal government. Ironically then , the need for reform perceived by those involved and concerned with the mentally ill (practitioners and families) was co-opted by the interests of capital.
 Reagan's social policy is best seen as an abdication. Reagan's economic policy was to adjust government regulation so that it favored business once again, and social policy was merely an outgrowth of this larger issue. While family groups and professi onal groups and patient groups did clamor for respect, the real struggle was between the state and the business community. Reagan worked to lessen the tax load for the rich, and the social policies were meant to match this goal. Business needed a more fav orable corporate climate, and Reagan worked to that end. The coalitions that were necessary for election were either gratified (the elderly) or abandoned (the poor). As for the mentally ill, certain changes that their families and practitioners wanted wer e gained, and the administration pointed this out. Even though these changes came about primarily through state governments and the courts, the Administration would take credit. All in all, business interests were served. Families and doctors were appease d. Patients were forgotten.
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 Endnotes
 1. For a more detailed account of the development of policies regarding deinstitutionalization, see Mechanic (1989) and Wagenfeld and Robin (1976).
 2. For practical purposes, "dangerousness" has been a vague consideration in the United States as the definition changes from state to state. See Brooks (1974), LaFond and Durham (1992), and Teplin (1984) for greater discussion.
 3. For a further discussion of this practice, consult Grant and Murray (1985) and Midgley (1992).
 4. Consult Mulvey et al (1987), Korr (1988), Wilk (1988), and Scheid-Cook (1990) for further discussion.
 5. Examples include Shwed (1980), Tancredi (1980), Luckey and Berman (1981), Durham et al (1984), Hoge (1989), Lidz (1989), Segal (1989), and LaFond and Durham (1992).
 Copyright 1998 Electronic Journal of Sociology