Degrees of Freedom: November 2006: Politics, Philosophy and Economics from a libertarian point of view.

America's Brutal Prisons Thursday, November 30, 2006

Here is a documentary from the BBC showing what I'm sure is not uncommon in many American prisons. (HT: LewRockwell.com)

The video speaks for itself. But it's worth considering the way people typically react to the reality of how brutal the treatment of prisoners frequently is. For all that people may talk about "rule of law," "social justice," "the rights of the marginalized segments of society," and so on, I know of very few people and essentially zero aspirants to politics who are terribly concerned with the institutional arrangements that make the frequent occurrence of such abuses possible.

The common attitude when some prisoner is treated more forcefully than could ever be considered necessary is usually along the lines of "Well, he shouldn't have provoked the cops to start with." And yet the same people who would say this would never make the reflexive claim that, "Well, he should not have provoked that drug dealer to start with," when some police officer is injured or killed on duty. Very few of us wouldn't recognize the second rationalization for violence as entirely absurd. It's only out of unwarranted deference to the state that people are able to believe that victims of police violence are the ones responsible for their victimhood.

What Monopoly? Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Two of the favorite villains of the left are Wal-Mart and Microsoft - they are so powerful that they can get away with anything. Or that's the claim anyway.

The common approach to such claims is to argue that Microsoft or Wal-Mart is great and the benefits outweigh the costs that these behemoths may impose on the marketplace. But this is really the wrong approach because it concedes that Wal-Mart and Microsoft are, indeed, monopolies. It takes a very liberal (excuse the pun) definition of monopoly to fit Wal-Mart or Microsoft into the definition.

The right approach is to show how unmonopolistic these companies actually are. It makes perfect sense - how better to counter an anti-capitalistic argument than to show how the market really works? Fortunately, this holiday season has already shown how inept these giants can be at times and that size (and past success) do not guarantee future success.

Yes, monopolies pop-up from time to time, but the market always corrects them as long as government stays out of the way.

Price Discrimination Friday, November 24, 2006

Dell is following an industry trend and eliminating mail-in rebates.

Dell said Tuesday that it would be eliminating rebates from its Dimension desktops and services in an effort to simplify pricing for consumers. The move means that the company would no longer use mail-in rebates on any of its products.

Its not often that I can't see the benefit of corporate actions, but this is a case I can't seem to figure out the market forces at work.

Mail-in rebates are nearly a perfect implementation of price discrimination. Companies are always trying to figure out ways to charge cost-insensitive people more while keeping hold of the bargain shoppers. Mail-in rebates are a transparent form of this practice. Bargain shoppers actively seek out the rebates while the rest of us promise to mail them in but never do.

Is the market signaling that bargain shoppers just aren't worth it anymore? Best Buy has all said that they don't make enough money on bargain shoppers because they only buy the loss leaders and never the high margin items.

Or is the market saying that customers don't like rebates? That's possible, but it doesn't explain eliminating them. After all, if customers don't like rebates they simply wouldn't mail them in.

Is there some other explanation that I'm missing?

Praxeology, persuasion and brain drain, Part II Thursday, November 23, 2006

I've written before against the claim that Austrian economics represents some sort of brain drain within libertarianism, drawing otherwise intelligent people into a way of thinking that is generally unpersuasive.

A short summary of the argument I made there is as follows: A large number of persons encounter neoclassical economics in their college years, and their exposure usually comes from multiple classes with professors who are pretty confident that neoclassical economics is correct. Very few people encounter Austrian economics unless they seek Austrian ideas out on their own, or perhaps in passing remarks from college professors who don't think terribly well of Austrian economics. About half of all hard core libertarians favor Austrian economics. This can't be attributed to exposure. The explanation that I find most plausible is that Austrian economics provides a more persuasive grounding for libertarianism.

Now, granted, this isn't the only possible explanation. It's just the one I find most plausible. I'm certainly open to hearing alternative explanations. But the one alternative that I've received in the comments on the post linked above is not an explanation at all.

Before I get to that, consider a seemingly unrelated question: Why does gas cost more in neighborhoods with high crime rates? A popular explanation is greed. Most economists will reject the idea that greed has any explanatory power here on the grounds that greed is present in areas with high crime rates and in areas with low crime rates. In order to explain a disparity, there must be some related disparity in the proposed cause. (If there were more greed in high crime neighborhoods, this explanation would work.) To generalize, a difference in one variable can only be explained by differences in another variable.

Back to the popularity of Austrian economics relative to neoclassical economics. As I said, I'm willing to hear alternative explanations, but an explanation, even a bad one, should differ between Austrian and neoclassical economics. The claim that the popularity of Austrian economics relative to neoclassical economics is attributable to the fact that Austrian economics can be used to accommodate preexisting libertarian beliefs only makes sense if Austrian economics accommodates preexisting libertarian beliefs better than neoclassical economics. (I'll just pass over the implied claim that libertarians are starting from the conclusion and working backward.) As it happens, Austrian economics, neoclassical economics, Georgist economics (some varieties anyway), classical economics, and plenty of other approaches can all be grafted onto preexisting libertarian ideas. So the fact that Austrian economics can be used to make a case for libertarianism is a possible explanation for why some libertarians choose Austrian economics. But this cannot account for the popularity of Austrian economics among libertarians relative to other approaches.

This post is part of a series on Austrian economics.

Compromising Positions, Pt. II Tuesday, November 21, 2006

In the past, I've written here about my views on compromising one's positions. While I stand by what I wrote in that post, it is now very obvious to me that I was too abstract. In order to compromise at all, one needs some issue to compromise on. So I'm hoping for a free consultation here.

Now keep in mind, I have absolutely no authority to set policy. The only thing I can compromise on is what I actually believe. Well, I do take some rather extreme positions.

As I write this, I take the rather extreme view that there is no type of act which is so laudable when committed by agents of the state that it should be encouraged when agents of the state do it and at the same time so terrible when committed by private actors that it should be condemned when private actors do it.^[1] Not only that, I take the position that for any two types of acts (call them A and B), acts of type A are less bad than acts of type B when committed by agents of the state if and only if acts of type A are less bad than acts of type B when committed by private actors.

This is all pretty darn extremist. I mean, any claim beginning with "for any" or "there is no" is pretty bold. Well, perhaps I'm wrong and ought to compromise. But how? On what issue should I compromise?

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[1] We can worry about why those acts are laudable or terrible later. Just assume that I already agree with you as to what makes a type of act good or bad.

Libertarians and Compromise Monday, November 20, 2006

As a matter of principle I don't think that I would differ from James on very many issues. As a practical matter I also doubt that I would propose those principled positions.

Its not that James' principles are wrong, its just that convincing 51% of the population that he is right is an dauntingly difficult task - lets take education as a simple example.

In general, I do not think that public funding of primary education is necessary. In fact, once I had been convinced that this was true I argued fiercely for this position. But most people just don't get it. Just like most people fail to understand the unseen in Bastiat's Broken Window fallacy, they can't imagine the unseen effects in a world without government dollars driving education.

Most people don't understand in the absence of government funding of primary schools someone else will likely pick up the tab and they don't understand the positive impacts that this can have. Even trying to explain the effects will get you no more than odd looks and muttered insults.

So once you know that you will never achieve the ideal - no government funding - what is a (l)ibertarian to do? My approach is to support a solution that solves the important problems while avoiding terrifying the general public.

In the case of education this means solving the incentive problems without taking away the scary part - government funding. For me, vouchers solve this problem. It forces private and public actors, both, to compete for dollars which will increase the quality of education while maintain that 'seen' source of the money.

If this goal can be achieved, and I think that it can, the battle is not over. Small government advocates must fight to decrease the level of voucher spending and fight to 'liberalize' other aspects of government that can be handed over to private actors.

Taking a hard, principled stand merely loses the war before the first battle is fought.

Tom-ay-to Tom-ah-to

One thing that I have tried to highlight on my blog is that politicians are really all the same. They care only about one thing and that one thing is getting elected.

Something that (l)ibertarians seem to understand intuitively is once that hurdle is passed its all about handing out the goodies.

One thing that Democrats campaigned on is caring about the little guy - "Republicans only care about the rich!" they said. The solution?

Reforming Alternative Minimum Tax - a tax that only affects incomes over $100K. Republicans get taken to the cleaners for cutting taxes for everyone, but the Democrats priority is cutting taxes for the top 10%. Nice.

Probably the most important issue that won November for Democrats was corruption. "Republicans are too fat and happy," they said. "Trust us Democrats to clean house." The solution?

Take a pass on senior representative Jane Harman for chair of the Intelligence Committee and appoint Rep. Alcee Hastings. You know, one of thirteen judges in the history of the US to get impeached. And impeached by a nearly unanimous Democratic house no less.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Self-Defense: An Ethical Conundrum Sunday, November 19, 2006

As David Friedman has noted in The Machinery Of Freedom, while natural rights arguments work most of the time in explaining the "rightness" of a given libertarian position, they can fall prey to extenuating circumstances in which the outcome of an event, holding strictly to libertarian principles, may result in a lesser degree of freedom than if one was willing to "compromise" on one's principles.

I accidentally stumbled upon one of these scenarios two days ago, when explaining the libertarian position on war and self-defense to two nominally-libertarian friends of mine at a local ice cream parlor.

Our conversation had perused a number of topics, including anti-drug laws, public education, the governments use of deadly force to back its laws and edicts, etc. Somehow we diverged to war, and here I questioned whether or not it was correct to bomb a foreign enemy's cities in retaliation for a military attack on our soil. The specific situation I was considering was our military response to the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor. I argued that bombing Japanese cities was not an appropriate response, given that discerning what was inside each and every Japanese citizen's heart was unknowable, and therefore there was a strong likelihood that people would be harmed or injured in the bombing who were not actively supporting the opposing war effort of their government.

I referenced the common libertarian example of someone attacking you, and you spraying down a crowd of people across the street in response. I think this example is a valid demonstration of principle in a clear-cut, black and white/right and wrong type of situation. But one of my conversation partners wasn't quite convinced-- what if someone attacked you and your family (or another group of people whose good health is important to you) on one side of the street, and this person stood in front of a group of complete strangers on the other side of the street. He might dance wildly back and forth in front of them, making it hard for you to get a bead on him without harming someone uninvolved, or he might even grab one of the people and use them as an unwilling human shield.

How do you protect yourself and your family/friends now? Keep in mind this person is in a position to continuing doing harm to you and your side, while you are unable to effectively retaliate without risking killing people who have nothing to do with it.

This is obviously a situation designed to be synonymous with the realities of modern war, where the enemy may hide amongst non-combatants, disguise himself as such, or even go so far as to purposefully use non-combatants as human shields.

What is the appropriate response for a principled libertarian? Looking for a directive solely from natural law won't give a result you'd like, because natural law would say it is wrong to risk these uninvolved people's lives, therefore limiting your retaliatory discretion and most likely resulting in further injury to you and your group. Maybe you say you value your people more than the strangers and are willing to kill the strangers if you must to protect your people. But are you ready to personally face imprisonment/execution as justice after the fact?

What's a libertarian to do?

Computer Recycling Fees

I just helped my computer-illiterate parents purchase an Apple Macbook laptop computer. I was excited that they were saving about $100 off the system by exploiting my current university student status at the "Education" version of the Apple online store.

I am going through the check-out process, making sure I didn't accidentally add anything to my cart I didn't mean to purchase for them, when I see "Recycling Fee - $6.00" in the cart.

I know California passed a law awhile ago saying that new computer sales would be taxed with this "recycling fee," but I had forgotten about it until now, so it came as a bit of a shock. Recycling fee? What is this horse crap? Does anyone really buy this crap anymore?

Let's think about the logic involved here with collecting a disposal fee on something prior to the disposal taking place. Computers in my family last about 2-3 years before we replace them with newer technology. I would imagine the average family is getting at least 4-5 years out of their computer purchases, probably more (I don't want to say something outrageous like a decade, so I'll err on the side of too little rather than too much time). Looking ahead four to five years from now, I see two things happening-- the value of the dollar will have decreased further, and recycling, like all things, will cost less. So recycling a computer in 4-5 years might cost only $3, in less valuable dollars.

People paying recycling fees now are getting RIPPED OFF. Where is this money going during the meantime? Certainly the state isn't doing anything intelligent with it. It's probably getting spent on pork projects and political patronage, or on advertising to further harass Californians about their consumption patterns.

And what if the computer is never recycled? What if the owner uses the system forever (or a duration of time long enough to be forever in terms of human generations)? In this case, the computer owner is being robbed, because he's paying for something he never has the advantage of enjoying.

What is it about a computer, by the way, that makes it deserving of a special disposal fee, compared with all the other trash people throw away on a daily basis? All kinds of household chemicals, metals, etc. get thrown away in general waste every day, they pollute just as much, if not worse, than the cathode ray tubes, LCD panels and other components of a computer. No one is charging any extra for them.

Nope, again, trash collection is by and large a public utility in most cities and states in America, so pricing is arbitrary and open to political manipulation. Keeping in mind the anti-human politics of environmentalism that are so popular in California these days, this fee makes sense.

It's just another anti-technological, anti-human progress policy-backed tax aimed at punishing people for enjoying human innovation.

UPDATE: Here's the text of the "What's this?" from the Apple website, concerning the recycling fee

How were the costs determined?
According to the legislation, the fees cover the actual costs of recycling and disposing of the equipment.

Where does the money go?

The fees are sent directly to the State of California, which will redistribute the funds to organizations that transport for recycling and/or recycle equipment.

It all makes sense now. Special interest groups have reared their ugly head. I bet if you dig around in this garbage (PUN INTENDED) long enough, you can find the smell of a ratfink politician who is real friendly with a few disposal agencies and helped write them some legislation that is putting some pretty profits for non-disposal in their pockets.

UPDATE 2: Another thing to consider-- what if you take the computer outside of the state and end up disposing it outside California? Probably won't be getting a rebate check from Sacramento.

UPDATE 3: This is funny. I found this video of a Penn and Teller documentary on recycling from a link in George Reisman's blog. Funny, it turns out recycling is nonsense!

Some things must be seen to be believed

I don't normally write here about the details of my own life but some things are too bizarre not to mention. While waiting in the checkout line at the grocery store, I saw that the two women with gold teeth in front of me were having difficulty paying for some deli subs with what seemed to be a credit card or debit card. The poor cashier didn't quite understand what to do next, so for a few moments she became the victim of the two women's sarcasm. Granted, a supermarket cashier may not be exactly a "high status" position, but I still think that the superior attitude of the two women was entirely inappropriate. Most people, having suffered through one or two entry level positions themselves, tend to be polite with folks in similar jobs. These two women apparently did not share the same sympathies, demanding instead that the cashier "Just go and call your manager since you obviously don't know how to do your job." The poor cashier, likely wanting backup more than anything else, did exactly that. When the manager arrived, she explained that customers could not pay for prepared foods, including deli subs, using food stamps.

Transparent Society or Circus Maximus Saturday, November 18, 2006

Patri at Catallarchy has a new post making reference to the idea of a transparent society, meaning a society where the misdeeds of the agents of the state are made public, giving pause to those who would use the authority of the state to harm others. This is an idea that I'd love to accept, as it implies a regular progression of governments becoming gentler and ever gentler out of a concern for the negative public response which would follow any well publicized abuses.

What I fear, however, is the possibility of public reactions becoming less and less negative as misdeeds by government become more and more common. Apathy, then, would be the best case. The Waco massacre was rather well documented, if not necessarily on camera, and there wasn't much of a negative public response. Here and there, shows like 60 Minutes and Dateline will show footage of guards abusing inmates at some prison and there is hardly any public response, or if there is, it concerns white guards abusing black inmates as though that were the real problem. Seldom is a thought given to the problem of agents of the state abusing those who are not agents of the state.

What I would hope most strongly against is the possibility that people might come even to take an enthusiastic view toward state brutality as a result of seeing it. To some extent, this already occurs now. Witness the fact that you can buy "uncensored" footage from shows like COPS. Such a product would not exist unless there were some demand for it. Don't get me wrong; I really hope that a transparent society will discourage agents of the state from doing things that would disturb the moral and the squeamish. But if past and present events are any guide, publicity may just as well lead to support for state brutality. State sponsored shows like Dallas SWAT seem pretty clearly intended to inculcate enthusiasm for violence, so long as it is the kind of violence the state approves of. Of course this is nothing new. For states to seek support by making public various acts of violence is a longstanding tradition.

It's a sad day today Friday, November 17, 2006

I can't say anything that anyone else has not already said about Milton Friedman and his influence on people's thinking about politics, economics and individual liberty. His death is a loss to all of us. Kindest sympathies to David, Patri and Rose.

Compromising positions Thursday, November 16, 2006

Libertarians are known for, among other things, their intramural disagreements on topics such as school vouchers, a consumption tax, government funded treatment for drug addiction rather than criminal prosecution, taxes on "public bads," monetary policy and the like. On just about every topic on which libertarians may disagree, the position I take tends to be the same position that other libertarians call extremist. Very frequently, I hear it suggested that I ought to compromise more. Compromise, I believe, means that I should tolerate exactly as much government interference as the person making the suggestion is willing to tolerate. Now speaking for myself, I'd feel embarrassed making the symmetrical suggestion that less extreme libertarians should be willing to compromise, if what I meant was that they should refuse to tolerate any more government interference than I'm willing to tolerate. But that's just me.

What I find more puzzling is the (always unstated) position that these pro-compromise libertarians have toward compromising on such things as, say, private property.

Is the argument that compromise against one's principles is, in itself, a good thing? I certainly don't believe that and I don't imagine that many of the libertarians who constantly suggest compromise believe this either. Though if they do, then let them compromise against their own principles in my direction, toward less government.

Is it that my own principles are actually wrong and I should compromise toward better principles? Well, if so, fine. I'll readily change my mind as soon as they can explain why some other principles are better. But I don't think that's the argument either; whenever some other libertarian suggests to me that I be more compromising, the last thing they seem to want to talk about is the comparative merit of different philosophical principles.

Is the argument that I should be willing to compromise my principles in order to increase the odds that I could have some impact on what governments actually do? Maybe, but this seems an odd argument for a libertarian to make. In general, libertarians don't get into the business of telling others that their marginal rates of substitution are wrong, so I can't see a libertarian making an argument that amounts to "You ought to trade off a few more marginal units of the desirability of what you advocate in order to get a few more marginal units of likelihood of success in in getting what you advocate made into policy."^[1]

Now I'll be the first to admit when I've exhausted my imagination. I can only think of one other possibility: the libertarians who claim their more radical fellows need to compromise believe that there are certain acts which are tolerable if and only if they are committed by agents of the state. Sadly, I suspect that this is the idea underlying most every call for radical libertarians to compromise. Why?

Because I've been reading reading libertarian books, papers, blogs and so on for years now and I've never seen any of the compromise loving libertarians advocate compromise when private actors engage in the same activities which, when committed by state actors, elicit calls for more and ever more compromise. If I were to complain in vitriolic language about

- any agency other than the state printing money and using it to manipulate the bond market

- private thieves preying extra heavily on affluent victims because they have the most to take

- men not employed by the state going downtown in a van, fraudulently soliciting the services of a prostitute, binding her at the hands and ankles against her will and locking her in a cage for months

- private individuals taking other people's money by force and giving it to their business associates

- people not acting on behalf of a government blowing up a city block, or even a whole city because a few of the inhabitants, according to rumor, may be planning to do something bad at some point in the future

or any other acts of force or fraud by actors outside of the state, no one would argue that I should be more willing to compromise. It's only when the act of force or fraud being objected to is being committed by the state that the pro compromise libertarian seriously endorses compromise.

What has the state done to merit such consideration?

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[1] If I could push a button and get a government only twice as big as the Libertarian Party platform calls for, with no hope for still more freedom and no risk of turning into less freedom, guaranteed to last for as long as I live, I'd push the button in a heartbeat. But my marginal rate of substitution is such that my odds of actually changing policy at any level of compromise are insufficient to motivate me to make such a compromise.

The Most (un)Wonderful Time Of The Year Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Election season pretty much sucks for most small government types. The campaigns really only promise what government can do for you with nary an argument that says:

"You know what? You really do a better job at X than government could ever dream of."

So we get promises for more and more government programs with no real justification about why we need it, and you only get that between ads about racism, sexism, Playboy mansions and macaca (whatever that means).

So I took the only option that I really had and didn't vote. It was really hard, this is the first election that I have missed since I was old enough to step into a voting booth. But I'm sick of telling one party or the other that I agree with them.

Many of my small government compatriots were going to vote Democrat to 'punish' Republicans - and rightly so, the party of small government turn populist while no one was looking. But I have a hard time believing that this is the lesson that will be learned. No politician is going to look at election returns and say to themselves - "Gee, I got 55% of the vote, but 6% of them were from dienfranchised libertarians. I guess I better scale back government or I won't win next time."

Granted, not voting doesn't send the right signal either. They only care about the percentages, not the gross votes. But if a small government type does come out (and that's a big if) and we turn out in droves, maybe then politicians will see what many of us really care about - we just want to be left alone.

Hello My Name Is

Thanks to the folks here at Degrees of Freedom for inviting me to blog.

Who am I? I'm smilerz and I typically blog over at Life, Liberty and the Pursuit... I'm not a huge fan of labels, but you could call me libertarian (notice the small 'l') though I prefer to say that I understand the power of incentives.

I typically blog on a wide range of topics from technology to liberty to politics to economics to football. I'm not sure how I'm going to divy up my blogging, but let me know what you like and you don't like and we'll figure this thing out together.

What The Dems Shouldn't Do

Greg Mankiw asks "What should the Dems do?" over at his blog, and then proceeds to provide what he thinks are some helpful policy suggestions. I quote in reverse order for dramatic effect:

The tax system is probably the best vehicle to accomplish the Dems' goal. One possibility would be to reduce the payroll tax rate and to make up the lost revenue by increasing, or perhaps even eliminating, the cap on taxable payroll. That would benefit, approximately, the bottom 90 percent of the income distribution.

Ah, yes Mr. Mankiw, that sounds like a reasonable policy to suggest.

But let's suppose for a moment that a free-market economist were hired by the Dems to offer policy advice.

Oh, I see what you're saying now! You're saying that if the Dems hired an actual free-market economist (not someone who claims to be one, as you do), that economist would point out that the best economic policy the Dems could pursue would be no policy. Or, seeing as how interventionist our government has already become, the economist could recommend a policy of scaling back and eliminating previous government interventions in the market.

But a free-market economist would never recommend government intervention into the economy. And he'd never advocate redistributive tax policies... he's got a moral conscience, after all, and he couldn't live with himself if he tried to cloak common robbery with lofty economic terms and present it as a reasonable, rational political policy that could be pursued in the best interests of everybody.

This is the point I keep trying to make here and there seems to be a lot of people who just refuse to accept it. I've seen people defend Mankiw, saying he's a compromiser and he realizes that politics is about compromise and he's just trying to help politicians make the least worst decisions.

If you've got a friend who comes to you and says he's thinking of killing himself, and he doesn't know if he should shoot himself or hang himself, what kind of a friend would you be if you gave him any advice besides "Don't kill yourself." It doesn't matter if you're sure your friend is going to kill himself no matter what you say, if you're a responsible friend you should go on the record that killing oneself is wrong and you don't support it. You can't "compromise" and suggest the most efficient method of suicide.

And that is what is going on here, in more general terms. Politicians in this country are slowly but surely enslaving us, destroying our present and future prosperity. Anyone who is observant enough to notice should be yelling, "Stop! Stop! For cryin' out loud are you trying to get us all killed?!" No one should be saying, "Well, if you have to kill us, you ought to do it this way, it's the least painful after all."

Turning Back The Pigovian Tide Friday, November 10, 2006

N. Joseph Potts over at the Mises Institute Blog has thankfully addressed the existence of N. Gregory Mankiw's Pigou Club.

Statist economist Greg Mankiw launches a fresh offensive on freedom with the Pigou Club (to view which, you must register at facebook.com, but Mankiw describes it on his blog). There he and a familiar list of famous (Al Gore) statists and their fellow travellers advocate increased taxes on gasoline to bolster government revenues (now there's a lofty goal) and alleviate global warming at the same time - a one, two punch as it were.

As James reported in an earlier post, Mankiw recently shared the results of his political quiz on his blog, which labeled him a libertarian. But the truth is, Mankiw is just another statist economist as Potts points out, and he's giving libertarians a bad rap.

The post also mentions Terence Corcoran's NoPigou Club and blog, which has been established in hopes of combatting the raging statism of Mankiw. The best news, however, is that Arthur Pigou has joined Corcoran's NoPigou Club!

Since Greg Mankiw has no problem unilaterally enrolling people in his campaign to raise gasoline taxes—the Pigou Club—I hereby induct a new member into the NoPigou Club—Arthur C. Pigou. Pigou is widely credited with creating the concept of externalities, even though he never used the word himself. The standard statement on Pigou is that he argued that the existence of externalities was sufficient justification for government intervention.

Well, maybe he did at one point. But in 1954, five years before his death, Pigou seemed to have changed his mind.

Again, serious economists (which is what Mankiw is supposed to be) should know better than to advocate "corrective" taxes of any kind, for any purpose. And they should definitely know better than to climb into bed with politicians, any politicians, but especially politicians like Al Gore.

Three cheers for Corcoran, for making an honest effort at combating this false ideology.

I Jest France, I Jest Thursday, November 09, 2006

Over at the Guardian, a new UN report on water and the world's poor has been announced. Of course, the report claims that the solution to the poor's water problem is massive government intervention.

The report mentions many of the negative externalities (oh, negative externalities, how fun!) of water not being cheap/free for the world's poor, but this is the one that got my attention--

Poor people also waste much time walking miles to collect small amounts of water. The report estimates that 40bn hours are spent collecting water each year in sub-Saharan Africa - an entire working year for all the people in France.

An entire working year for all the people in France? I don't see what the big deal is then, I mean it's not that much time being wasted.

In all seriousness however, this article is outstanding because it's representative of the archetype assembly of words and opinions that passes off as "news" at the Guardian. It's got barely veiled finger-pointing at the supposed failures of the free market, no opinions from other authorities on the topic that might be contradictory to those put forth by the UN report, depictions of the poor and their hardships that serve to elicit emotional, rather than rational response, the inclusion of contradictory "climate change" effects (climate change will cause droughts for some thirsty poor people and floods for others!)... it even mentions the Palestinians! It's hard to imagine a Guardian piece (on anything) that would feel complete without mentioning how the story relates to those poor, beleaguered Palestinians, the most sorely oppressed, most blighted of all the members of the human race!

Read the article, and then ask yourself something: why is the market failing here? As the article plainly states, the water problems of the poor are not one of supply (though I'm sure they'll issue an editorial retraction once they realize they just admitted all the conservationist rhetoric about dwindling world fresh water supplies would thus be accordingly false), but one of affordability. The world's poor, the UN report states, are paying more for water than people in Britain and the US, even though they use less. The Law of Supply tells us that producers increase their supply when consumers are willing to pay a higher price, so why aren't water suppliers rushing to the world's poor to provide them with water, and making a hefty profit in the process?

If the best you can come up with is "malice," you're incurable. Then again, I'm the one who is supposedly radical for arguing that the problem lies not with the market, but with the governments involved.

Voting

Fortunately, the mid term elections are now over, which means no more unwanted phone calls, no more devoted followers standing in the street holding up tacky signs, and no more political ads on television disrupting more interesting content like, say, just about anything. Unfortunately, the results of the election are rather bleak, at least by my standards. Oh, I don't care much about who won or lost or how the colluding firms major parties now stand. Rather, what I find unfortunate is that voter turnout was so high.

I'm not a big fan of democracy, for a variety of reasons. I suspect that many people, even those that claim to like democracy, share my opinion on the matter. Why?

Democracy enthusiasts could make their own lives far more democratic whenever they please. All they would need to do is make arrangements with a few thousand of their dearest democracy loving friends to start voting on the decisions that they had previously made individually. They could choose what kind of car to buy, or what to eat for dinner, or even who will marry whom by voting. But they don't. Despite their professed enthusiasm for collective decision making, their actions reveal a preference for decision making based on individual choice.

Most advocates of democracy would immediately object that these suggestions are silly. And they'd be right. Such suggestions as I am making here are, indeed, silly. But then, if it's silly to be enthusiastic about using votes to decide fairly trivial stuff like what to eat or what to drive, is it not worse than silly to leave even more important decisions like, say, whether or not to conduct a war in the Middle East or whether or not to nationalize the health care industry up to democratic decision making?

Conservatives these days... Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Lawrence M. Mead is quoted by Keith Burgess-Jackson as saying that

"So most conservatives have accepted that, at least in antipoverty policy, promoting good behavior must come ahead of smaller government."

Really?

Last I checked, governments don't have a particularly good track record in promoting good behavior and the tradeoff between big government and poverty doesn't quite seem to work the way Mead thinks. See here to understand what I mean.

Don't get me wrong; I'm all in favor of the promotion of good behavior, even as most conservatives understand the concept i.e. acts consistent with moral virtue. Rather, I believe that promoting good behavior is best handled by communities and the voluntary institutions that make them up, rather than by the state. There was a time when that was the conservative position.

Quote of the day Monday, November 06, 2006

At Matt Yglesias' blog, a commenter asks,

"What is a Libertarian if not a sociopath who thinks he's going to have a brilliant career?"

Wow. I'm unsure what to think. Are libertarians not already outspoken enough about what they believe? Here's a clue: Libertarians oppose a whole host of violent acts that non-libertarians would absolutely love for the government to commit. I'm not one to throw around pyschiatric jargon in an attempt to discredit those with whom I have some differences, but if I had to use the word "psychopath" to refer members of some group, that group would not be libertarians.

And, yes, I realize that the words of an anonymous blog commenter only mean so much. Comments like this are not representative of the best critics of libertarianism, but if casual empiricism is any indication, such comments are representative of a large portion of libertarianism's critics.

Coin Flip Politics

The upcoming midterm election is being made out to be the usual spectacle by the media. This political circus, if the media is to be believed, is going to be a referendum of sorts over the Iraq War. From the New York Times to CNN, journalists and newscasters are endlessly chanting about the American public's frustration with how the war is being handled. Many, we are told, want out.

Of course, up to this point the war has been conducted under the auspices of a Republican-controlled executive and legislative branch, not that it particularly matters that the legislative branch is also under Republican control, because Congresspeople don't seem very interested in exercising their constitutional right to arbitrate on issues of war.

The idea here is that Republicans have royally screwed up the war, and that by voting for Democrats, voters are voicing their frustration and helping to put into power a real alternative... or at least they're voicing their frustration. But how different are the Democrats and the Republicans?

Let us take the issue of the Iraq War and examine it more closely, as it is the supposed "decisive" issue at stake in the election. Regardless of votes for or against war resolutions prior to the war taking place, how are senators on both sides of the aisle, for instance, voting when it comes to appropriations for the war effort? Let's just say they don't seem very interested in peace. (Hint: See how many "+" marks show up in Issue #3's column for Senators, representing a vote FOR peace by voting no to war appropriations.)

Someone reading this right now might try to stop me with two objections: 1.) Even if they're against the war, a senator who supports our troops can't just vote no to sending supplies to our troops-- what do we want to do, strand them in the deserts of Iraq with no supplies and let them find their own way home? and 2.) Even if they're against the war, they couldn't show it by voting down an appropriations bill, it'd be political suicide!

I'll address these concerns quickly: 1.) If we stop spending money on the war effort, this doesn't mean the troops become stranded and have to find their own way back. It just means the military gets its stuff together over there, puts it back on their boats and airplanes and sends everyone home once the war tap runs dry. The military still has plenty of money to pay for transportation costs and other costs incurred in bringing the troops home. War appropriations go towards specific costs of establishing and resupplying occupational bases and carrying out operations conducted in theatre. 2.) Isn't that kind of the point? If someone really and truly is against the war, if the Democrats really are anti-war and the Republicans aren't, shouldn't they be voting that way to prove it? How can somebody vote one way and claim their sympathies lie the opposite way? All that counts is the act, not the intent.

No, the truth is that there really are no consequential differences between Democrats and Republicans. They both want to violate the Constitution anytime it's politically expedient for them to do so. They both want to rob you of your hard earned money (taxes) and then spend it on what they think is best, which often means blowing it on pork projects for special interest groups in their home districts. They both want war, because it enriches them politically.

Politics, you see, is like flipping a quarter-- you might get heads, you might get tails, but either way, you've always got a quarter. Of course, we're being told that this election the quarter is war (specifically the Iraq War), and whether you flip Republican or Democrat, in the end you still get war.

Don't blame me... Friday, November 03, 2006

... for my radical views. According this, one's beliefs about politics are partly attributable to genetic factors. From the link,

About 8,000 sets of identical and fraternal twins answered a series of questions on topics such as school prayer, nuclear power, women's liberation and the death penalty.

Identical twins, who share their entire genetic code, answered more similarly than fraternal twins, who are no more similar than non-twin siblings.

If you assume that both identical and fraternal twins share an environment, then the disparity between the results must be genetic, Hibbing and colleagues conclude.

Speaking as a sample of one, I'm inclined to think this may not be entirely off the mark. I just think the researchers are identifying the cause in a way that is so general as to make it seem implausible. Can anyone really believe that there is some gene which affects a person's outlook on capital gains taxes? On school vouchers? On the other hand, it's fairly uncontroversial that intelligence is a heritable trait. It makes some intuitive sense to think that a person's beliefs about policy issues will correlate with intelligence. There is also some empirical evidence to that effect.

Karen DeCoster Gets Something Right For Once Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Although Karen DeCoster usually spends her time at LRC idiotically pumping up fringe foods, internet programs and other commodities for their supposed libertarian-ity, her latest post at the LRC blog on the recent NYT article (requires login to view, full article reproduced in her post) about calorie-deprived monkees is spot-on for once. From her post:

Scientists are using monkees to prove out their theories that we age better, have more energy, and live longer and healthier when we adopt the Auschwitz look intentionally. Scientists are using lab monkees as they compare monkees with normal diets to those with a restricted calorie diet. According to these yahoos, research shows that the monkeys with the normal diets suffer from being "frail" with "poor posture," while those that take in less calories are more vigorous and less haggard. All that follows is a movement to 1) increase the life span of humans, and 2) to do it by starvation means - which is really what calorie restriction is all about. The other solution to living a better life is, of course, a steady diet of "wonder drugs" that will make billions for pharmaceutical coompanies while hoodwinking the misinformed populace into swallowing chemicals to live a "healthier" life.

I for one am glad DeCoster took the time to tackle this insanity. For those who aren't frequent (and careful) readers of the NYT, this latest article-study appears to be yet another arm in their conservationist arsenal.

I suppose it's only logical for the paper of record that's ecstatic about reducing our standard of living and energy consumption per capita to also blindly rally around a health regime that puts what would normally be considered undernourishment on a pedestal. I'm just stupefied that a group of people could be logical about the irrational.

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Recent Comments

sologue on Wed Nov 29, 01:13:00 AM EST: I see what you're getting at, but to be picky...

A monopoly, appropriately defined, is a business that exercises complete control over its market and uses physical force to prevent competitors from entering the market and competing against it.

Even if a company controls 100% of the market, it isn't a monopoly unless it is forcibly keeping competitors out. This is something critics of Wal-Mart and Microsoft fail to understand.
James on Wed Nov 29, 08:07:00 AM EST: I'm pretty sure that Microsoft uses force via the copyright system to keep competitors out of the market for such products as Windows and Excel.
olly on Wed Nov 29, 10:44:00 AM EST: The only way that a monopoly can even exist is when the State coddles them in such a way that true competition isn't possible. In the case of Microsoft (whether you think they are a monopoly or not), a large part of their success has been using the copyright system for all it's worth (even though intellectual property is truly a State myth). In the case of Wal-Mart, a good portion of their success has been reliance on the State Welfare system (medicare, medicaid) to underpay their workers, and thus have an advantage to lower their prices.

If you eliminate the State's help, both of these companies would be forced into a position where true Market competition was at play, and the playing field would level itself eventually.

-olly
sologue on Wed Nov 29, 11:08:00 AM EST: James,

Good point, but copyright protection is provided by the government. Microsoft isn't the one actually in charge of the coercion and enforcing of copyright law. So I think what I said earlier still stands.

The point is that monopoly can't exist without government force. I don't think forceful barriers to entry would be tolerated in a free market.
James on Wed Nov 29, 12:40:00 PM EST: sologue,

I wasn't really disagreeing. The copyright system which Microsoft relies on so heavily is an instance of government force.

Olly,

You are basically right about Wal-Mart's reliance on state entitlement programs. However, I don't know that Wal-Mart is necessarily underpaying their workers. If there were no welfare system supplementing worker incomes AND no Social Security and Medicare withholdings reducing worker incomes, Wal-Mart's labor costs could go up or down as a result.
smilerz on Wed Nov 29, 12:41:00 PM EST: James - I'm not sure how Windows and Excel are monopoly products when there are plenty of substitutes for both.

@Olly - I doubt that welfare and medicare come into play for Wal-marts benefits packages at all. They pay more than the 'mom&pops' that they are accused of replacing.
Neal on Wed Nov 29, 04:43:00 PM EST: So the big take-away here seems to be that monopolies cannot exist without government. Alternatively, all existing monopolistic forces are derived from the existence of government.
James on Wed Nov 29, 05:52:00 PM EST: smilerz: whether or not there are substitutes is a matter of the subjective evaluation of the consumer, but I think it fair to say that the substitutes for Windows and Excel are very imperfect for a large enough consumer base that Microsoft can be properly said to have a monopoly, though a case could be made for the opposite position as well. At the end of the day, the definition of a monopoly is about as squishy as unfair trade or price gouging.

neal: Absolutely. I once had a professor who challenged all of his principles students to name a monopoly that was not either a government agency, a government owned company, or protected from rival entry by a government. I'm unaware of any.
Eric H on Sat Dec 02, 05:41:00 PM EST: You can always find a monopoly if you define the market narrowly enough: Excel is an example. Similarly, only Post sells Post Raisin Bran. At one time, ALCOA had a monopoly on virgin aluminum (the first batch was kept in a safe). They of course created a competitor: used aluminum. And of course there was always steel, copper, and so on, depending on the application.
Gabriel on Thu Nov 23, 04:23:00 AM EST: Oh man, I meant to go back to that but I didn't manage and then forgot. Sorry. I'll try to address the everyone-does-verbal-logic point, maybe on my own site, later in the week (there I go again!).

As for this matter... If you don't like the idea of people working backwards (come on, most people do!), think of it in terms of bias. If you prefer blonds, you're not going to be on the look-out for brunettes.

Now, as a matter of historical fact, how do people come across austrianism? Less likely, they take a class and the teacher is an Austrian and he had enough academic leeway to make Austrianism required reading, but this usually backfires for most people because the tendency is to argue with your teachers (I know one Austrian that gets to hear Caplan's critique each semester, simply because his students search for things to use against him).

More likely, people find sites like mises.org, lewrockwell.com or the sites of local think-thanks following links from blogs, personal sites or when searching for capitalism resources.

It is *much* more likely for someone to find this culture, via a political interest, than, let's say, while searching for new research on purchasing power parity , options pricing or endogenous growth theory.

Now, about one thing being harder than the other re: arguing for libertarianism, OF COURSE that austrianism makes it easier for you. There are two issues here: first mainstream welfare theory vs. Rothbard's reconstruction of welfare theory (I won't go into details) and secondly, it's the literature: you'll find a more-or-less normal distribution of political beliefs among top mainstream economists, perhaps more skewed to the Left. So, as a practical matter, this impacts the image of mainstream economics for its students, when they read their professors' bias woven into their textbooks.
(Krugman, Stiglitz and Mankiw all teach the same intro. material but their textbooks have subtle and important differences. For example in the discussion of the Pareto-efficiency of competitive markets.)

Also relevant, mainstream economists seems to be much more aware of the complexities of issues involved, maybe because of the degree of refinement of the analytical tools (quantitative models where "better" is pinned down as a matter of measurement). They know that even tentative judgments are tricky, so they are naturally draws to a sort of Center, reaching for profession-wide consensus ("stylized facts").

On the other hand, heterodox schools have always seemed to claim that they figured out everything, that they have all the answers, that the writings of the Master (be it Mises or Marx) are The Word and that there's no reason not to proceed and create the utopia. (Never mind pesky issues of incentives, externalities, stability, etc. etc. -- this is most often brushed aside by turning to a non-Pareto and non-KH notion of welfare, which won't accommodate externalities in the usual sense, for example.)

Most importantly, for the mainstream, the desirability of policy ends up, often, as an empirical matter. Things depends on the relevant elasticities, or the magnitude of feedbacks. -- So arguing for sweeping, general policy statements is considered to be unjustified.
Gabriel on Thu Nov 23, 04:36:00 AM EST: P.S. I just felt like adding... The main cause of the skewness of the mainstream to the Left is its systematic failure to apply the same critical, individualist, quantitative/empirical tools to governmental action.

But even if this is addresses, in the manner of Stigler or Public Choice, the picture gets blurrier, not clearer, I think.
James on Thu Nov 23, 01:02:00 PM EST: Gabriel,

I'm just passing over the issue of whether or not people work backwards. I see a distinction between starting with some assumptions and then evaluating the conclusions against what one already believes versus starting with a conclusion and seeking out a set of compatible premise.

Now I have to say, I do like the spirit of your objection to my argument which I take to be something like: People aren't choosing Austrian econ over neoclassical econ despite the much greater exposure given to the latter. Rather, Austrian economics is already getting plenty of exposure so there is no unexpected phenomenon to account for. Do I get you so far?

Well, I'd disagree with that view, only because I don't agree that Austrian econ is already getting plenty of attention. It might look that way if you limit your range of consideration to websites, but even then I doubt it. Even on the libertarian web, I see neoclassical economics getting a lot more play than Austrian econ. When I google for "libertarian economics" I have to scroll to fourth link to find any mention of Austrian economics and that one is critical. Most of the links are mainstream.

I don't know that Rothbard's welfare economics makes it any easier to argue for libertarianism, among other things, because most Austrians don't appeal to it when arguing for libertarianism. Seriously, pick any issue where libertarians have a view differing from non-libertarians. Most of the time, the Austrian argument is nearly identical to the neoclassical argument for the libertarian position. Is there any issue where the Austrian argument depends on Rothbard's welfare economics? (If you can cite three papers by three Austrians on three different issues which depend on Rothbard's welfare economics to argue against some policy, I'll concede this point.)

Re: complexities, I don't see how attention to complexities (presuming that neoclassicals give more attention to complexities than do Austrians) necessarily makes it harder to argue for libertarianism.

I certainly don't see how Austrians can be accused of ignoring such things as incentives, externalities and the like. Citations would be helpful.

"Most importantly, for the mainstream, the desirability of policy ends up, often, as an empirical matter."

I'm presuming you are using "desirability" to refer to some normative evaluation of a policy. I don't understand how this can be empirical, as the content of empirical observations is descriptive rather than normative.
James on Thu Nov 23, 01:06:00 PM EST: Gabriel,

I'd like to make a request since I like to be absolutely clear on things: When you get the time to address my claim that even neoclassical economists, when seeking to be persuasive to others, most frequently elect to use verbal logic rather than some other apparattus, could you start by stating what you believe to be the truth value of this claim? That is, is this claim true or false?
smilerz on Fri Nov 24, 10:35:00 PM EST: Perhaps an example would illustrate your point better - I'm not 100% sure I follow you.
James on Sat Nov 25, 12:13:00 AM EST: Smilerz,

One concrete example would be forcing people to pay for what they claim not to want.

If I were to force you to pay for things that you claim not to want, most people would claim that this is bad behavior. Presumably, that claim would be based on reasons. If the persons making that claim are not engaging in some kind of normative particularism, then those reasons are not contingent on the identity of the doer, and so those same reasons would be just as relevant whether it's me or the government forcing you to pay for things that you claim not to want. For the sake of consistency, they could take the position that it would be bad behavior for either me or the government to force you to pay for things that you claim not to want, or they could take the position that it would be good behavior for either me or the government to force you to pay for things that you claim not to want. But it's inconsistent to take the position that it's good behavior when agents of the state do it and bad behavior when anyone else does it.

You could probably think up a host of other examples. Pick any type of act that you would oppose (For whatever reasons you find compelling. My position is not based on any meta-ethical assumptions besides the rejection of normative particularism.) if it were committed by private actors. Would you *not* oppose this same type of act if agents of the state were to commit it? If not, why not? Do those reasons that you found compelling not pertain to agents of the state?
James on Mon Nov 20, 10:58:00 PM EST: Smilerz, you write that "Its not that James' principles are wrong, its just that convincing 51% of the population that he is right is an dauntingly difficult task."

I agree on both points. But when I claim that there is no type of act which is wicked (or has bad consequences, or violates natural law, or whatever) when done privately and which is at the same time good (by whatever measure) when done by agents of the state, I'm not making a claim about what a majority of people are likely to believe. Nor is it my aim, by making such claims, to influence policy makers, or to promote a widespread libertarian movement to affect electoral politics. I don't need to convince 51% of the population of anything.

If you believe that electoral politics is the best path to more freedom, have at it. I've got nothing against that, but my aims differ. I'd rather convince as many people as possible that governments are not above the same moral standards that are applicable to everyone else.

Having said that, I've got no problem with libertarian advocacy for things like educational vouchers as a change from the status quo, for largely the same reason that I think it would be great for North Korea to become a European style social democracy. Any move in the direction of more freedom is an improvement in my estimation. Reflexively, I'd take a dim view of any move toward less freedom, no matter how many people insist that it is a move libertarians ought to favor.

But let's be perfectly clear: The only compromises I could make are philosophical compromises. I don't control the school board. I couldn't compromise on the implementation of school vouchers even if I wanted to. The only thing I can compromise is what I can actually control: what I believe. Bearing that limitation in mind, what compromises should I make?
smilerz on Tue Nov 21, 12:09:00 AM EST: Perhaps none, perhaps everything.

Persuasion, like electoral politics, is based on known quantities. Most people do not have a firm philosophical idealogy (just look at the party platforms of Dems and Reps). Arguing natural rights or zero agression principles or whatever is beyond their scope.

I believe that the easiest route to persuasion is going be by degrees. You could convince a beer drinker to try scotch, but never a teetotaler; you have to get them to try wine first.

That's not to say you should change - I often fight unwinnable battles for the sake of the argument, but getting people to accept points of view that are completely foreign is not a battle that can be won.
Zach on Mon Nov 20, 10:59:00 PM EST: I think the AMT affects more people than just the >100K crowd. Last year I made less than half of that and I was not very far away from being AMT-ed. I am morbidly curious how my new job (as of March, with significant raise) will affect my AMT status when I file in 2007.

Granted, for my age and cost-of-living location, I am quite well off, but still...
James on Mon Nov 20, 01:10:00 AM EST: First of all, under any system of rules, there is some course of action that a bad guy could take and force you to choose between following those rules and doing what conforms to your moral intuitions. Friedman likes to use this kind of thing to undermine the natural law approach to libertarianism, and by way of consequence, to promote his version, which is essentially based on economic efficiency. But his version is prone to the same sort of criticisms. (e.g. Suppose someone threatens to kill your family unless you enforce a minimum wage on all of the businesses in your town until the lose consumer surplus exceeded to value of your loved one's lives. Assume that you could actually carry this out...)

Regarding the scenario you describe, this is not a problem so much with natural law as it is with lack of skill. If someone is a much better fighter than you, that's that. You may not be able to defeat them without fighting dirty. None of this ever implies that there is some extra range of activities which are permissible if and only if the persons engaging in such activities are acting on behalf of a government, so the theoretical possibility of such scenarios is hardly telling against libertarianism.
kurnalsam on Mon Nov 20, 01:00:00 PM EST: You should take a look at the actual recycling program that your $6 funds before spouting off: (http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/Electronics/Act2003/). The fee is only charged on video devices like TV's, monitors, and in your case, the LCD screen on your laptop. The idea is to keep the old poisonous CRT tubes out of your landfills and drinking water. The special interests in this case spent a lot of time trying to defeat this law which was the first of its kind here in the US.
sologue on Mon Nov 20, 02:24:00 PM EST: You might want to address one of my specific criticisms of the recycling fee program with a rebuttal rather than pretending I am ignorant about what the recycling fee was supposedly to help accomplish.
smilerz on Mon Nov 27, 09:59:00 AM EST: I'd be a little careful with the "recycling is bunk" meme.

There are many types of recycling that are completely legitimate - they are easy to spot too. The ones that are serving a real purpose are the ones that the recycler is making money. Aluminum, copper and other scrap metals are quite common. Used "junk" cars is another.

Paper, plastic and other "green friendly" recycling programs probably waste more energy than the proponents claim they are intended to save.
James on Mon Nov 27, 12:27:00 PM EST: Right. I'm recycling right now, eating lunch from a plate that I've used many times in the past, and with the same fork too. The problem isn't that recycling is bad; in many cases it's great. The problem is the common belief that recycling is good in and of itself.
sologue on Sun Nov 19, 03:57:00 PM EST: I was always surprised by the kind of raids they allow viewers to see on those shows. I caught an episode of Dallas SWAT once in which the SWAT team raided a duplex looking for drug dealers. In a situation terrifyingly similar to the circumstances Cory Maye found himself in several years earlier, the SWAT team raided the wrong part of the duplex, breaking into the home of a large immigrant family next door.

This family had tons of little kids and women who were absolutely terrorized and had no idea what was going on. The SWAT team broke down their doors, broke their windows and stormed in with guns drawn. This was all shown on the episode as if there wasn't really anything worth hiding here. But if you ask me, this type of thing should be drawing a lot of negative attention to the military-grade tactics of local law enforcement officials.

This was a huge screw up, a big violation of property rights... yet it's served up as entertainment on TV. I wonder if the family was even compensated? Can you be compensated for a shocking incident like that?
sologue on Sun Nov 19, 12:29:00 AM EST: I kind of feel bad for calling/implying Friedman was a statist... certainly he had a reputation for advocating for freedom, and he earned that reputation.

But I can not excuse a libertarian who supports monetarism. The government's control of the national money supply has been one of the leading causes of the erosion of freedom in this country. You can't ignore something like this if you want to seriously advocate for freedom, even if you do think that in the hands of the right people, monetarism would be a source of increased prosperity and freedom.

However, if a majority of people in this country were knowledgeable on Friedman's message and principles, this country (and world) would most likely be a much better place than it is right now.
James on Sun Nov 19, 01:39:00 AM EST: No, Friedman was a statist. I don't think it's necessary to pretend otherwise to see that Friedman was still a brilliant defender of liberty on the whole.

Concerning monetarism, I don't think the idea of a fixed rate of money growth (as Friedman advocated) has to be any more of a problem than, say, barbecue sauce made with mayonnaise. Both are ideas that I can see no merit in, but thankfully we have a market in barbecue sauce which would allow us to avoid any mayonnaise based concoction. On the other hand, we have legal tender laws which are the real problem with any idea about monetary policy, and which I don't believe Friedman ever claimed to be in favor of and which is certainly not an implication of the quantity theory of money. Under free banking, I just wouldn't accept money from monetarist banks.
Gabriel on Fri Nov 17, 08:32:00 AM EST: There's disagreement because there's actual thinking going on, because libertarianism is an intellectual movement and not a political party.

Diversity is our badge of authenticity.

Regarding everything else... if some people decide to be principled and stick to their story, and accept their implicit irrelevance, good for them I say. But they don't complain that you're not having an impact, that nothing changes.

If you're disgusted by the moral treason of gradualism... OK. As long as you know what you're giving up.
James on Fri Nov 17, 12:45:00 PM EST: Irrelevant to what, exactly?

By the way, I have no qualms with gradualism, which I understand to mean more and more freedom over time. But what is often passed off as gradualism is some program of less freedom now as a means to more freedom later.

Even the most compromising libertarian will see the problem with this as it concerns private actors. Would you take me seriously if I claimed that you could get more freedom later by compromising with the introduction of a new kind of forced exaction by private actors now? I doubt it. But this is the compromising libertarian's argument for, say, a Pigovian tax on gasoline. The only salient difference is that a Pigovian tax would be collected by a government.

I'm waiting to hear why cases involving rights violations by governments are occasions for compromise but rights violations by private actors are not. I suspect that the compromisers just have a soft spot for the state.
sologue on Sun Nov 19, 12:22:00 AM EST: There's disagreement amongst socialists, and there was disagreement among communists, that doesn't mean there is necessarily thinking going on, or that it's even good thinking.

And how does comparing libertarian orthodoxy to a political party make sense? Political parties are all about compromise, that's why libertarians have never had an effective and popular political party-- as soon as the libertarian party members take to compromise, they lose their moral imperative and the principles that distinguish them from other parties and they effectively stop representing radical, libertarian ideas.

There has to be a line when it comes to diversity. Can we accept someone who supports libertarian principles and ideas, and calls himself a libertarian, and yet calls for government ownership of agriculture? Is this something a libertarian could conceivably support?

I think James has touched upon something important here. If libertarians want compromise, why not compromise in the direction of extremity (James's position)? And would libertarians still call for compromise if the issue were to be handled by private persons?
James on Thu Nov 16, 12:11:00 PM EST: When I refrain from voting, it's not because I want to send a signal. It's because I'd rather do something else.
sologue on Sat Nov 18, 11:54:00 PM EST: I voted in 2004, which was the first election I was eligible to vote in. I chose not to vote during the 2006 election.

I've read a lot about voting versus not voting (there's plenty of material at the Strike The Root Non-Voting Archive, the No Treason Voting Archive and the Libertarian Nation Foundation Archive on Voting). I can't say I've read everything on the topic, but I can say I've read enough of it to have given the issue some serious thought.

Here's what I've come up with: ignoring the very real possibility that my vote may not be counted at all (fraud) and the fact that my vote is statistically insignificant in 99.9% of elections, by voting for a particular candidate I am technically lending my approval to anything and everything that candidate undertakes while in office. True, as Spooner points out in No Treason, because of the nature of the secret ballot, no one can be sure who voted for what and who is responsible for who, but I know I voted for candidate X, and that's enough. I don't feel comfortable helping to put into office someone who is going to oppress myself and others.

My whole problem with government in the first place is the fact that individuals choosing for themselves will always be more efficient than government choosing for them. It'd be the height of hypocrisy to vote for some candidate, any candidate, that goes directly against that principle in terms of what their platform advocates.

But that's not the only problem by any means. Another problem I have, which is probably clear from some of my previous posts, is that I see no real difference between the policies of the Democrats and Republicans. Even if there were a difference, when you vote for a particular candidate you vote for a package, not an individual policy. I might like the Democrats foreign policy, but hate their domestic policy. Unfortunately, I get the whole kit with my vote.

I could vote 3rd party, if I were to find some 3rd party candidate with a whole package I like, but then my vote REALLY doesn't matter.

So in the end, it comes down to what James said... I'd rather do something else. Like, instead of voting, I could spend ten minutes explaining my position on various issues to someone who was previously unaware such a perspective existed.

The thing I always wonder about on Election Day is... what kind of hit does GDP/national productivity take that day?
sologue on Sat Nov 18, 10:36:00 PM EST: Hi smilerz,

Glad to have you with us!
Eric H on Sat Nov 11, 08:57:00 AM EST: You might consider turning down the tone of rhetoric. Calling Mankiw a "raging" statist puts him on par with Stalin. He is no such thing: Mankiw, like Tyler Cowen, is a bargainer (see Klein's More Libertarianism: Blending Hayek and Rothbard).

Given that (a) people believe that climate change is a real risk, (b) our energy-intensive culture makes us increasingly dependent on raw materials that tend to come from hostile countries, and (c) the majority of legislators favor far more interventionist solutions (CAFE, subsidies for ethanol, etc.), Mankiw is favoring the least worst solution. You may challenge any of those assumptions; it doesn't matter because that's what the majority believes and that's who determines policy. Greg wants to bargain with them rather than challenge them.

For the record, I'm not in the Club. But I understand the sentiment.
James on Sun Nov 12, 02:04:00 AM EST: Eric,

I'll let Sologue take up for himself, and I'll admit that vehemence isn't all that pleasing to me for aesthetic reasons, but why is he the one that should tone it down? I mean, Mankiw is advocating that people use the threat of physical violence to extract my money and yours every time we buy gas. On top of that, he's trying to encourage other people to join him in this advocacy of violence. Sologue, on the other hand, is guilty of what? Vehemence? Do you really think Sologue is the one who needs to be toning it down?

Ok, tell you what: As soon as Mankiw advocates toning down the way that his beloved Pigovian tax should be enforced to, say, no more than a single polite request for a donation to the state, the official position of Degrees of Freedom will be a polite "No, thank you."

Since you mention it, Mankiw may think that he's proposing a bargain, but I doubt that the folks in Congress will pursue a Pigovian tax on gas instead of rather than in addition to something worse. Given that Congress will already be pursuing a host of policies contrary to freedom, adding in a new tax of any kind is hardly the least bad option.
sologue on Sun Nov 12, 02:44:00 PM EST: Eric,

After reading your comment, I did consider turning down the rhetoric. "Am I being too hyperbolic?" I asked myself, realizing that while hyperbole can be useful in making a point, if overused it can become distracting and even offensive to otherwise sensible and reasonable people.

But after some consideration, I decided that no, I won't turn down my rhetoric.

The problem here is that Mankiw is content to pass himself off as a libertarian, when many of the policies he advocates (along with his entire economic viewpoint of Keynesianism) are contradictory to that fact. Perhaps I am getting worked up over nothing, but Mankiw is one economist with quite a following... lots of young students going through college right now (as well as important politicians and "experts" in the field of economics or policy in general) pay attention to what he does and says. If Mankiw passes off his ideas as those of a libertarian, it's only a matter of time before other people start feeling comfortable supporting his position and calling themselves libertarians as well, and soon enough you have a situation where libertarianism doesn't have anything to do with the radical defense of freedom, much like the way the word "liberal" was co-opted by socialists and progressives to mean something much different than liberty.

Am I getting overly worked up about semantics? Not really. If you've read any Rothbard, especially his For a New Liberty (which I assume you have), you know that Rothbard states that the libertarian's position is always one of radicalism. Were libertarians open to compromise, they would forsake their name and enter the realm of regular old conservatives and liberals, depending on which side of the aisle they decided to compromise themselves and their principles. True libertarianism has no room for bargaining.

Now, to address your specific points on the nature of Mankiw's bargaining, consider the following:

a.) As economist George Reisman continues to point out in his personal blog, the entire debate over global warming is far from one of hard facts because it continues to be mired in a mud of factual uncertainty and emotional rhetoric. Consider the 3-page article at the NYT that Reisman links to. Remember, just because a lot of people THINK something is a real risk, doesn't necessarily mean it is. And it certainly doesn't mean that these people have the right to impose their paranoia on those unconvinced.

b.) Our energy intensive culture (like any economy with a high level of technological development and high standard of living) relies on foreign countries, as well as domestic producers, for our energy needs. Unfortunately, government intervention into the economy has limited the means and resources with which we can satisfy our needs domestically (think ANWR, coastal Gulf Shelf exploration, nuclear plants, etc.) Furthermore, the foreign policy our government has decided to pursue over the years is the leading, if not the only, cause for hostility by these resource-rich foreign governments.
c.) As a self-proclaimed elitist, Mankiw is well aware of the role he and other academics and intellectuals like him play in shaping not only public perceptions of the "best" and "worst" policies to follow on a given matter, but also the role they play in shaping the policy that legislators eventually adopt, often times regardless of public perceptions or "public intelligence." Mankiw is one of the few people in this country who is actually in a position to CHALLENGE policymakers, rather than bargain with them.

Taking these three points in total, I offer the following-- Mankiw knows full well that the policies he advocates are wrong, both on economic and moral grounds. Were this any other industry or scenario, you can be sure Mankiw and other serious economists would be decrying government intervention, because it is always uneconomical, inefficient and unjust. Unfortunately, Mankiw advocates these positions anyway, probably because he fancies himself an elitist and enjoys the power and prestige that comes with such a position of influence. It's hard work going against the political current... Mankiw, like many, realizes he can stand out with his "libertarianism" and still benefit from the system by swimming the same way as everyone else.

And to clarify, I didn't call Mankiw a "raging" statist, I said he was engaged in advocating policies that are forms of "raging statism." It would be dishonest to claim that Mankiw is some kind of raging statist like a communist or card-carrying socialist. But to call him a true advocate of the free market and libertarianism, he is not.

He is a statist though, as evidenced by his Pigou Club, his white-washing of the history of fiat currency in this country and his general support of Keynesian-style economics. To advocate any type of "corrective" actions in the economy by the government as consistent with free-market or libertarian economics is wrong, it ignores the very nature of "laissez-faire" or "let it be," which doesn't mean "let it be when you think it should be let alone" but which means "ALWAYS let it be."

The question that Mankiw and others who think like him seem unwilling or unable to answer is "Why is a collective solution necessary?" If some percentage of the population thinks global warming is a problem, are they not free to stop driving cars, to stop purchasing mass-produced items, to stop consuming electricity in general and to instead return to the hinterlands where they can live their lives of self-subsistence in quiet solitude? If Mankiw thinks that a simple $1/gal tax on gasoline will reduce consumption and increase government revenues enough that carbon-emissions can be reduced while simultaneously developing an alternative form of energy, are Mankiw and those like him not free to pay an extra dollar per gallon of gas NOW, or to keep receipts and voluntarily contribute these funds to the federal government? Why can't they form some big old club of the millions of like-minded people and pool THEIR money together to find this solution, and leave the rest of us out of it?

They won't, because they know it won't work. No one would ever volunteer to contribute to such idiocy, and that's why coercion is necessary. Now, what motivates Mankiw and others to call for this coercion is up to debate, I offered a suggestion above as to why but honestly I don't know the answer because I don't think like him so I can't fathom for what reasons he actually "believes" in such policies.

But it is coercion and it is wrong. I invite your further comments and ideas.
true dough on Mon Nov 13, 08:37:00 PM EST: 1.
“Were libertarians open to compromise, they would forsake their name and enter the realm of regular old conservatives and liberals...”

Does this make Milton Friedman a conservative for advocating Earned Income Tax Credit?

Research on the EITC shows that “the tax system can be used to transfer income with fewer distortions to labor supply and with lower administrative costs than are achieved in the current U.S. welfare system.”

Sounds like Uncle Milton's open to compromise.

2.
Sologue says:
“True libertarianism has no room for bargaining.”

Egad. Libertarianism is not a cult.
You're no longer debating economic theory. In fact, I still don't know what part of the tax you find economically distasteful. I'm not an advocate of the tax only because I'm not quite on par with how the 'optimal' tax level is calculated (it's set too high). What's your excuse? I gather only that it's against cult rules. ;)

3.
James says: “Mankiw is advocating that people use the threat of physical violence to extract my money and yours every time we buy gas.”

Violence? Care to expand on that?
true dough on Mon Nov 13, 09:07:00 PM EST: drats! I wish I had read
Gabriel Mihalache's post before I wrote #1 above. ha!
james on Mon Nov 13, 10:09:00 PM EST: "Violence? Care to expand on that?"

Sure. Suppose that Sologue starts a gas station and offers to sell me some gas on a cash basis and tax free. If the taxing agency gets word of this, they will demand money from Sologue and myself. Since we'd both rather not pay, the taxing agency will threaten to touch us or to touch our belongings in ways that we don't like unless we surrender to their demands.

Did you really need to have this explained?
sologue on Mon Nov 13, 10:12:00 PM EST: True Dough,

Thanks for your comments and questions. Allow me to provide some clarification:

1. Milton Friedman isn't a particularly principled libertarian, he's simply one of the most well-known ones. Friedman has never supported or advocated anarcho-capitalism, and his big statist calling is monetarism... he believes the government, if led by the right people, can establish a stable price level with fiat currency that would somehow best free market currency (ie, the gold standard) in terms of transaction costs, efficiency, standardization, stability, etc.

Milton Friedman, along with many other notable free-market economists, was a member of the Mont Pelerin Society organized by FA Hayek. I could be making this up, but I am fairly sure I remember reading in one of Lew Rockwell's memoirs of Ludwig von Mises that Mises became frustrated with what was ostensibly supposed to be an organization of free-market thinkers and ran out of one of the meetings once, shouting, "You're all socialists!"

The point is, you can be a "champion" of the free market and still be considered a statist by those with a more radical viewpoint. I know that I got frustrated during various parts of Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom, specifically instances where he started talking about externalities and crap like that.

Friedman has done a lot of good in terms of making people aware of the benefits of free markets and free people, but unfortunately it is his tendency to compromise on various things (taxation, school vouchers, monetary policy) that ultimately leave me wishing he were a bit more ideological. Of course, if he were, he may not have enjoyed the success and prestige he has, but that's the trade off I guess.

I'm willing to give people who call for the government to provide security and courts as a bare minimum ("minarchists") the title of libertarian if they so choose, but as soon as you start finding a role for the government in any enterprise beyond that (monetary policy, education, etc.) you've stepped off the plank of libertarianism into the pool of conservatism, in my opinion.

2. I don't find the references to a cult to be cute. I tried to explain earlier why the principles of libertarianism can not be flexible and up to compromise... libertarianism is supposed to represent the RADICAL position, not a political compromise between competing ends. That's for conservatives and liberals to work out. Libertarians should be more interested in maintaining the logical consistency and principled nature of their orthodoxy. This doesn't mean there can't be any disagreements among libertarians... there certainly can be and there certainly are. But to say that libertarians can start advocating "least worst" policies that involve the very things we find most reviling (coercion and its various forms), is to ask a libertarian to shape-shift from sheep dog to sheep.

I'm willing to accept that you're either not "my kind" of libertarian or aren't one at all and simply happened to swing by this site and are a little surprised at what you've found. That's fine. I'd call true libertarianism, the most logically consistent and radical, that of the anarcho-capitalist or market anarchist school. Next from there I'd put in minarchists, who want the government solely to establish national borders and serve people with police, national defense and a legal system. But as soon as you get further than that and begin advocating this tax or that one, you're a conservative, no longer a libertarian.

To be clear, it isn't a part of the Pigovian tax I find distasteful... it's the whole tax, along with the belief that supports it that says that the government can "correct" the market through targeted taxation. I am against taxation because I am against coercive practices, of which taxation is one (see my The Central Tenet Of Libertarianism). And I am against taxing as a corrective solution because I have the good sense to realize it'll only create further distortions and inefficiencies in the market. The proceeds will be foisted off to select politically connected parties, if an alternative energy source is found, it'll most likely be less efficient than the one the market might've found, and will delay the arrival of a market-bred solution, and its genesis will most likely herald more government intervention to force it onto the public.

3. I'll let James respond, but in case you are unclear on where the government derives its authority, I'd refer you to Laws of the Jungle. It might take a few hours to read it all the way through, but if you do I think you'll find it quite rewarding and quite enlightening. It'll answer a lot of other questions you might be having on this topic.
true dough on Tue Nov 14, 09:15:00 AM EST: James: Well, I still think you're bastardizing the English language, but I get the point you're trying to make.

Sologue: Thanks for such a robust response.

You have a fairly strict definition of what it means to be a Libertarian, which shouldn't be a surprise given the nature of this blog. I consider myself a minarchist and an advocate of such things as Friedman's public education agenda. I'm also a self-described Libertarian. You'd prefer to take that title away from me of course, but consider that my introduction.

"I don't find the references to a cult to be cute.”
No, I don't suppose you do find that as amusing as I do. Thanks for explaining your position. I can't say I'm on board with anarcho-capitalism, but I'm admittedly eager to take you up on your suggestion and read 'Laws of the Jungle.' Thanks for the suggestion.
sologue on Tue Nov 14, 10:46:00 AM EST: True Dough,

It all makes sense now.

Be careful about Libertarian and libertarian. There is a difference, after all. I think you mean you are a libertarian. (the capital version designates party affiliation normally).

I'm glad to hear you're going to read the Laws. Please let me know what you think of them after you finish reading them, I am always interested in hearing how people perceive the material contained within.
James on Tue Nov 14, 12:33:00 PM EST: true dough,

I try to be as straightforward and direct as possible here. Your criticism that I'm bastardizing the English language, if correct, is one that I'd take very seriously. Can you quote the sentence(s) where you think I'm doing this bastardization and clarify exactly what the problem is?
true dough on Tue Nov 14, 02:48:00 PM EST: I see I've touched a nerve.

You say: "Mankiw is advocating that people use the threat of physical violence to extract my money and yours every time we buy gas."

Perhaps you mean metaphorical violence. As Sartre or Bourdieu would have it, "inert violence," perhaps. I could see how your "psychological" balance may be thrown each time you pump gas, maybe.
But physical violence? hmm. I can't stretch my imagination far enough. At any rate, we're quibbling now, and I refuse to quibble.
james on Tue Nov 14, 05:59:00 PM EST: True dough,

Look, you raised the issue. Were you quibbling then?

I assure you, the enforcement of various taxes involves recourse to real, not metaphorical, violence.

To be frank, I've never heard anyone of any political stripe contest this point before.
sologue on Tue Nov 14, 10:21:00 PM EST: True Dough,

Again, I refer you to the Laws, which should make this entire concept lucid.

But in the meantime, it goes like this:

1. You don't pay your taxes.
2. The IRS finds out.
3. The IRS audits you.
4. The IRS fines you for your negligence.
5. (You ignore them/refuse to pay).
6. The IRS comes to arrest you.
7. You refuse to be arrested.
8. The IRS kills you.

You don't have a CHOICE in the matter. You can't say "I don't want to pay taxes" and the IRS says "Yeah alright, that's fine, just don't tell anyone else or they might get the same idea..." No, they make an example of you.

Remember, they're called taxes for a reason. If taxes were voluntary, we'd be in the realm of the private sector where businesses compete for your money and provide you services in return. The government is different.

The government is a firm that provides you with a service (however good or poor it may be) without you asking it to do so, and then it assesses what you owe (according to it) and asks you to pay. If you say "I didn't ask you to provide this service, so I will not pay" the gov will say "too bad you feel that way... BLAM!"

Of course, there is the intermediate recourse to arresting you, but the point is the only reason they could possibly arrest you is because you'd rather not die at their hands, which is what would happen if you resisted arrest.
Eric H on Thu Nov 16, 12:08:00 AM EST: True libertarianism has no room for bargaining

I haven't read a libertarian bible, so I can't comment on the truth of this. From what I've been able to glean, libertarianism is a rather broad term, and inflexibility among its various factions is probably one reason why there are so few libertarian legislators in a position to bring about actual existing libertarianism.

The Saudis and others may be hostile because of our government, but oil is more a curse than a blessing because it grows despots. Once they nationalize the oil industry, they tend to expend more and more power to defend first the oil and then their power. One way to do that is to demonize foreigners. They also are statists, much more so than Mankiw. I believe the hostility would exist regardless of the aggressiveness of our foreign policy.

James has a point when he notes that the Pigouvian tax is likely to be placed in addition to rather than instead of other taxes. Just one more reason why I'm not in the club.

As to the violence, you are at least as free to avoid paying for gasoline as others are to avoid driving cars or to pay extra taxes.

AGW may or may not be true, may or may not be a threat if it is, but if it does exist and is a threat, what is your solution? Again, I'm not in the Club, but I at least understand and am willing to confront the problem, even it is one of perception.

Bargaining with 299,999,999 voters over public policy is not really the same as bargaining with one or two other people over personal issues, is it? This is politics in the real world, complete with unknowns, special interests, risk, and shifting alliances, not Debate Club. Declaring yourself unwilling to engage in those alliances pretty much puts you on the sidelines in a majoritarian government. Great philosophic fun, but not much of your agenda gets accomplished. If you were going to be consistent in defending your principles, you should refuse to pay taxes and risk jail; others have.

As to what Mankiw and other economists would say with regard to other problems in other industries, that certainly depends on what they are, doesn't it? Energy and natural resources are unique areas of concern. When most economists encounter a significant market failure, they are likely to consider second best solutions even if they ultimately reject them. For example, tradable permits for SO2 emissions, fishing quotas for depleted stocks, and so on. Are these the best solutions available? Possibly. Are they the best solutions possible in the breadth of time and depth of human ingenuity? Probably not. But the problems are real or at least potential and require real solutions.

Incidentally, given the state-supported infrastructure that you tacitly accept, one reason for choosing a collective solution is that it is a collective problem. The air is a commons, and I have no way of enforcing property rights to it.

Challenging the opposition by leveling charges of statist and proclaiming the inviolable absolute dogma of libertarianism is not likely to win converts to your cause, and it certainly doesn't constitute a reasonable counter-proposal.
sologue on Thu Nov 16, 12:39:00 AM EST: Eric H,

I see you've read James's How To Argue With A Libertarian and taken the message to heart. Congratulations!

Let's come up with a simple, agreeable definition of what ALL libertarians are supposed to stand for that we can both agree on... would you be willing to define a libertarian as someone who is concerned with maximizing freedom? Would you say this is what distinguishes libertarians from conservatives (who wish to restrict social freedom in favor of supposed cultural norms) and liberals (who want to restrict economic freedoms in favor of economic equality)?

What, then, is it about a new gas tax that maximizes freedom?

No, I'd go so far as to say (how outrageous this will be!) advocating any new tax is the same as ADVOCATING THE REDUCTION OF EXISTING FREEDOMS. And therefore, anyone who advocates such a thing could not possibly be a libertarian. Maybe he's libertarian-leaning in other ways, but he doesn't really have a place calling himself a libertarian when he's interested in policies whose express consequence is to restrict people's freedom via coercion.
James on Thu Nov 16, 12:09:00 PM EST: Eric,

I may be a bigger tent guy than Sologue, but I'm willing to call just about anyone a libertarian so long as they aren't advocating any new taxes or new government programs.

Re: pollution in general, the standard libertarian solution is property rights. Concerning greenhouse emissions, let's get rid of every government program that contributes to greenhouse emissions: no socialized roads (Does it really make sense to tax an activity that is simultaneously being subsidized?), no agricultural subsidies, no sovreign immunity when the governmnent pollutes, no price controls on utilities to stimulate overconsumption, etc.

More immediately, I recommend getting as rich as possible so that you can adapt to whatever the future climate may be. A gas tax won't be very helpful with that.

The present rules of the state create commons problems in all kinds of places, but the more libertarian solution is to change those rules, not to graft still more government programs onto the system.
Jay on Thu Nov 16, 08:34:00 PM EST: true dough says: "Perhaps you mean metaphorical violence"

Good lord. If the guns and prisons backing up every single government edict on the books were indeed "metaphorical", I think most opinionated libertarians would've packed up the blogs and newsletters and simply moved on with their much freer lives.

Under these conditions, a state threatening you with jail if you refuse to fork over your taxes would be about as effective as a church threatening you with hellfire if you refuse to throw in for collection.
Eric H on Sat Nov 18, 09:22:00 AM EST: Sologue;

No, I wouldn't be willing to accept that definition. I suggest you pick up a copy of Friedman's Machinery of Freedom and read Chapter 41 (it's also available online).

James;

Ah, now you're talking my kind of game. And notice that we don't have to impugn anyone's character to do it? But even as I favor that, I realize that short of revolution we are not going to get those things done wholesale. So now what?
sologue on Sat Nov 18, 11:26:00 PM EST: Eric,

Thanks. I have browsed Machinery of Freedom a few times and remember reading this specific chapter online before, but my memory was foggy and I ended up searching for it and rereading it.

If I understand correctly, Friedman believes in libertarianism because he thinks it does maximize freedom (or minimize coercion, which is the same thing). Maybe I read it wrong?

Basically, Friedman thinks that a libertarian society would maximize utility for all those involved and would be the best possible society. I think he thinks it'd be the best, because a libertarian society would be the most free. So I read from this that more freedom = better society, less freedom = worse society, and therefore policies that maximize freedom maximize the "goodness" of society.

Rather than spend more back and forth messages with you trying to figure out what it is that you think Friedman is saying, why don't you tell me? And along that line, why don't you tell me what libertarianism does mean, if not maximizing freedom?

In this way I might gain a better insight into how many and how different people can fit under this big tent, in your opinion.
sologue on Sun Nov 12, 02:49:00 PM EST: I think you make a good point concerning the silliness of it all. No one suggests the government be in charge of food or clothes production, for the very reason that they'd screw it all up. Consider the USSR, North Korea or government housing projects for good real world examples of what's at stake.

And yet, plenty of people are content to have the government handle other aspects of the economy. Maybe the problem is that people don't understand the economic nature of all commodities, including security and health care?

Of course, this post will invite some criticism by careful readers who will point out (as they did with my "This Isn't A Free Country, It's A Democracy") that we don't go to war or institute national health care programs through democratic fiat, that these are handled by Congress and the president.

True enough, but like I pointed out, it is a democratic vote that is at the base of the pyramid, so the entire argument can't be discounted.
James on Sun Nov 12, 03:11:00 PM EST: "True enough, but like I pointed out, it is a democratic vote that is at the base of the pyramid, so the entire argument can't be discounted."

Right. Different majoritarian institutions create different incentive and constraint structures, but they are majoritarian just the same. Whenever you criticize democracy, some people will reflexively point out that the US has a representative democracy, a bicameral legislature or whatever, as though this undermines the basic argument. This leads to the next question: Would you trust a representative democracy with a bicameral legislation and whatever other tweaks to decide minor stuff like what kind of car you'll drive? And if not, why would you trust such institutions (get excited about such institutions even) to make big and important decisions like whether or not to drop steel over Falujah?
sologue on Mon Nov 06, 09:46:00 PM EST: There's something deeply offensive about liberty in all things that drives certain people wild with anger when they hear about it.
James on Tue Nov 07, 12:14:00 AM EST: But I'm the dogmatic and heavy handed moralist. Maybe I should start getting wild with anger: What is a non-libertarian if not a sociopath who wants to take other people's things and thinks of the government as the premier means to that end?
John Markley on Tue Nov 07, 11:11:00 AM EST: It's funny; libertarians want to let others use their own resources as the other person, rather than the libertarian, wishes. Statists consider others to be means to their own ends, and think the resources of others should be forcibly directed towards the projects and desires of the statist. And somehow we're the selfish ones?
James on Mon Nov 06, 08:46:00 PM EST: I think there are at least two differences between the parties, one which I care about to some extent and one which I do not care about very much.

The one I don't care about very much is the way the parties treat the typical "family values" issues. When it comes, for example, to civil unions for homosexuals, I suspect that the R's and the D's really are different in what policies they'd support. As I said, I don't really care about that. (I have no intent to marry a man and if I did I wouldn't care if the state recognized it.) But many voters probably do.

The second difference, and one which motivates me to sympathize mildly with the Republicans is the difference in how the parties tend to think about government finance. To be sure, both parties believe that they can make society better by spending about 35% of national income. But Republicans seem to have a slight edge here. The Republican borrow-and-spend approach to finance says that if the government spends a dollar, then I must supply that dollar now or supply that dollar at some time in the future, with below-market interest. The Democrat tax-and-spend approach says that I must supply that dollar now. Both approaches are far from ideal, but I generally tend to like broader ranges of choices, including the mildly broader range of choice that goes along with borow-and-spend.

However, when it comes to Iraq, you are right. There is no meaningful difference. The Democrats, if they should gain an advantage in DC, will continue the Iraq war with minimal changes from the present aproach. Oh, they'll claim that they were philosophically opposed to the war (When? When the majority of them voted for it? Anyway...) but "have to" continue for "practical rather than philosophical reasons." As though decisions of what to practice and why are utterly divorced from any philosophical concern.
sologue on Mon Nov 06, 09:51:00 PM EST: There are obviously some differences in the two parties, but they're incredibly minor and non-important (at least in my eyes) that I disregarded them to better focus my post on what the two parties do not differ on: war.

I understand your point on the second difference, but I'm not sure if it applies much anymore (at least not with the contemporary group of Republicans). The Republican Party is barely represented by true "conservatives" anymore, the party being hijacked by the much more visible and nominally socialist "neo con" variety (oh how I hate the term, but I have to use it) and "evangelicals," as we are constantly reminded by anyone who calls himself a "liberal." Were there even enough actual conservatives left in the party to make themselves known, they still would be unable to influence the debate on financing, which when had between the current crop of politicians composing the Republican and Democratic parties, results in massive taxation, massive borrowing, and no general care or concern for ever actually paying any of it back.
james on Tue Nov 07, 12:08:00 AM EST: I think the second difference still applies. Bush is hardly a fiscal conservative but he seems to like the idea of letting citizens decide whether to pay for his wasteful spending by foregoing present consumption or future consumption. That was my only point. I certainly don't believe that either party would actually decrease the size and/or scope of the government.

(I can't believe I'm actually defending a politician...)
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DEANBERRY on Fri Nov 03, 07:58:00 AM EST: EXPECT A BIGGER, LOUDER 9/11. The amerinazis won't go without a fight. And, yes, they're just the type of "people" who would engineer another "terrorist attack" so they can declare martial law and suspend all elections. You heard it here first, folks. http://deanberryministries.org/index3.html
James on Fri Nov 03, 12:20:00 PM EST: For best results, try commenting while sober.

Seeking Co-Blogger. Interested?

Degrees of Freedom