Megan McArdle and Tony Woodlief give their answers to an interesting question: What three books would you recommend to a thoughtful person who disagrees with you politically, in the hopes that reading them will change their mind?
My recommendations would depend a lot on whether the person in question disagrees with me from the right or from the left, and also on the extent of their previous knowledge of social science. Let’s assume, however, that the person is well to the left of me, and that they are an intelligent layperson rather than a scholar or public policy professional. In that case, I would probably pick Thomas Sowell’s Knowledge and Decisions - an excellent summary of the reasons why private sector institutions generally process information and make decisions better than government; William Mitchell and Randy Simmons’ Beyond Politics: Markets, Welfare, and the Failure of Bureaucracy — a good, accessible exposition of the economic shortcomings of government relative to markets; and Richard Epstein’s Simple Rules for a Complex World, which explains how simple, libertarian legal systems are likely to work better than complex ones with more statism and regulation. The biggest area of disagreement between libertarians and liberals is over the role of government in controlling the economy. These three books focus on that issue. I have also picked books that try to persuade by analysis and evidence rather than emotional appeals — even though I have to admit that the latter are often more effective.
There is much less in the way of libertarian literature specifically directed at persuading conservatives. However, F.A. Hayek’s classic essay “Why I am Not a Conservative” is surely relevant for reasons I elaborated here.
Tim says:
I don’t believe there is a “right” or a “left,” as both are fabrications of simple-minded media people who refuse to actually analyze the issues and instead force us into a one-dimensional spectrum that explains nothing.
With that said, I suggest Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom to everyone. It contains few, if any, equations, numbers, or graphs. No difficult modeling–just a rational argument for some of the most controversial, but proven effective libertarian economic ideas that have ever existed. That book is over 55 years old and we still haven’t realized even half of its virtues.
Many economists have published more, but none have done so much with so few words. And Friedman wasn’t even a wordsmith–just someone who really understood the issues and drove them home....and while doing so, became a household name, for better or worse.
Interestingly, however, Friedman made contributions to economics as a science that nobody in the field can deny. Every 100-level student who discovers the “Natural Rate of Unemployment” can thank only one man. And economists can argue about inflation and the Phillips Curve until they are blue in the face. But the concept of a rate of unemployment below which stable prices are unsustainable is nearly universally accepted by all mainstream economists–the work of a very controversial, libertarian, Nobel Prize winning, you guess it–Milton Friedman.
Let he naysayers speak as they wish–few 20th century economists could ever fill Friedman’s shoes. I can think of a few who definitely gave him a run for his money, but it’s definitely hard to pick them apart at the margin.
I will also add that I think that avoiding Hayek and Rand at all costs is in our best interest. The former abhorred the empirical analysis that is fundamental to scientific understanding, and the latter angered even her closest friends, despite having made prominent contributions to both literature and philosophy.
I know that bagging on Rand isn’t going to be popular in these circles. She certainly reached a greater number of people than most of us will in our lifetime. But her personality also bleeds though, and for better or worse, drove plenty of people away, too.
Friedman would debate anyone...and I’ve heard (from Gary S. Becker) that he seldom ever lost. I have no reason to doubt that, either.
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October 25, 2009, 4:31 amGlenn Bowen says:
“Liberal Fascism”/Goldberg
“Basic Economics”/Sowell
“The Haunted Wood”/Weinstein and Vassiliev
“Witness”/Chambers
...
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October 25, 2009, 8:33 amJonathan H. Adler says:
For conservatives, I would recommend Frank Meyer’s In Defense of Freedom, primarily because it explains why a true American conservatism is quite “libertarian.”
JHA
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October 25, 2009, 9:13 amDjDiverDan says:
I would echo Tim’s thoughts on Milton Friedman, but I have to disagree with his thought that Hayek should be avoided; for non-quantitative types, I think Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom” should be the first step (or at least close) after John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty”.
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October 25, 2009, 10:06 ampgepps says:
I second the nod for Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism and also for reading Friedman. While Tim’s faith in the epistemic priority of percent signs is touching, however, I have to agree with DjDiverDan that he’s wrong about Hayek. Road to Serfdom is way up there. And of course there’s always Bastiat.
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October 25, 2009, 10:26 amsteve har says:
Nonsense, blathering irrelevant, myopic recommendations.
Any books you recommend to “defend libertarianism” need to deal with the wreckage of the last 30 years in the United States:
–broken, unregulated financial markets
–reactionary even revenge oriented political discourse
–a shared sense of values that engage and encourage democratic civil society
What is needed is cleaning the stable not re-mounting old and infertile ideological hags.
Possibly useful stable cleaners:
–in the just completed 30 years war between Hayek & Keynes: Hayek & Chicago School lost: Tony Jundt 2009 Remarque Lecture
–Sam Tanenhaus: The Death of Conservatism
–Andrew Sullivan: The Conservative Soul
–Ross Douthat: Grand New Party
Libertarians: Please begin a new discourse & stop hugging dead... ah views. You are stuck in some nostalgic time warp. The old paradigm is broken. Speak right into the blog microphone please with some new writers, new economists, new philosophers. If the writing steps around the broken stuff, who needs it?
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October 25, 2009, 10:43 amGov98 says:
Hayeks why I am not a conservative has little to do with american conservatism but all to do with the fact that european conservatives took the support of the monarch. American conservatism however is a tradition of liberty so I don’t think that applies.
The one book I would refer one to if I hoped to change their mind would be the Gospel of John. You cannot change someones mind until their heart is changed and “these things were written that you might believe.”
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October 25, 2009, 11:07 amTwirlip says:
“Why I Am Not A Consevrative” always struck me as a masterful exercise in the manufacture and demolition of strawmen.
Hayek’s “conservatism” has nothing at all to do with Burke. Considering that Hayek regarded himself a Burkean Whig, this suggests that Hayek had some emotional block against the very word “conservative”.
In a similar vein, the actual liberalism of the 18th and 19th centuries bears scant relationship to that which he venerates.
He’s very much worth reading, but the reader has to be aware that Hayeks use of common political labels is frequently very unorthodox. Even his “liberty” is not quite what modern libertarians think of by the term. It’s much more Burkean, much more “conservative”.
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October 25, 2009, 11:23 amTwirlip says:
Burke supported the monarch, and Hayek described himself as a Burkean Whig. His reasoning on this matter is obscure.
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October 25, 2009, 11:25 amTwirlip says:
The Road to Serfdom seems overrated to me. The Fatal Conceit is the one Hayek book I’d recommend, if I could recommend only one.
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October 25, 2009, 11:28 amAuntiegrav says:
As the American Anarchist website used to say, “If you have to ask where to join up, we don’t want you.”
I have accumulated a lot of opinionated views of things over time, and read an awful large pile of books. What I have found is that when you read, you allow someone else into your head to tell you what to think. This isn’t bad if you know this is what you are doing, but it isn’t good if you don’t. Reading isn’t all that much different from plopping on the couch in front of a TV, except you have more time to absorb someone else into your mind. The best way I have found to convince someone to change their perspective on something is to tell them a joke, or to tell them a truth with a smile that may or may not have come from something I’ve read. In this dog-eat-cat world, who has time for reading an entire book just to find out a little tiny viewpoint of economics? The bottom line between government and private enterprise is which contributes more back to the source of our existence. If you are religious, this would mean “Which respects God’s work more?” If you are a naturalist, “Which respects the earth more?” Economics is simply a side effect of how we live in this world. It is not supposed to be the driver of the car.
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October 25, 2009, 12:03 pmChas C-Q says:
“I have also picked books that try to persuade by analysis and evidence rather than emotional appeals ...”
And this will influence a liberal ... how?
The “philosophy” of the left is a hodge-podge of attitudes — intended to assure the bearers that they are “good people” — not a study of causes, means and ends.
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October 25, 2009, 12:12 pmjimM47 says:
+1: Simple Rules for a Complex World
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October 25, 2009, 12:14 pmOff Kilter says:
I think you’re all taking the wrong approach. It’s not like we’ll convince them.
The three books I’d recommend:
1. Artamène, ou le Grand Cyrus by Madeleine de Scudéry
2. Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust
3. Mission Earth by L Ron Hubbard
At 2.1, 1.5, and 1.2 million words, respectively, these books, listed as the three longest books in Latin or Cyrillic alphabets, will keep them out of my hair for the longest period of time...
[for comparison: Atlas Shrugged is 645,000 words]
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October 25, 2009, 12:20 pmMark N. says:
American conservatism isn’t royalist, true, but it’s had persistent elements that share the anti-liberty tradition of European conservatives. A particular point on which a libertarian would need to convince them would be that, generally speaking, it’s better to allow corrupting influences to exist, and try to counteract them through counter-influences, than to try to ban them. So, for example, no blasphemy laws, no banning of sexually explicit literature, no banning of Marilyn Manson concerts or CDs, no banning strip clubs, etc.
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October 25, 2009, 12:24 pmJakeCollins says:
“Liberal Fascism”? Really? Friedman, Hayek, etc. are brilliant thinkers that even leftists can admit are intellectually honest and possess genuine insight–JG lacks all these qualities. He’s a two-bit hack for the right, sort of like a low-rent right wing Michael Moore who writes books rather than makes movies.
I couldn’t think of a better book to make your left wing friends more convinced that right wingers are douches.
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October 25, 2009, 12:25 pmAllan Walstad says:
I second Sowell’s Knowledge and Decisions. That’s the book that taught me to think economically, not just about goods and services but about the whole range of social and political issues. Sowell was also a regular on Friedman’s Free to Choose television series, where politically diverse commentators would discuss one of Friedman’s documentary films. He ate the left-leaning commentators’ lunch every time.
Unfortunately, he has become a staunch supporter of global military interventionism, which is an embarrassment to me, since he was one of my intellectual heroes.
Steve har: much of the economic wreckage follows precisely from failure to heed the wisdom of people who explained why more and more government intervention would not work. Your reference to “broken, unregulated financial markets” betrays an apparent utter ignorance of the fact that financial markets have been heavily regulated and meddled with by pols and government bureaucrats, resulting in bubbles and busts that get blamed on “unregulated” markets for the purpose of further expanding political intervention.
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October 25, 2009, 12:26 pmCornellian says:
I can’t take anything Sowell says seriously after a particularly moronic article he wrote about the job of a Supreme Court justice. He claimed the problem with the Supreme Court was that the justices were too smart, that Supreme Court cases were easy and so what we needed was dumber Supreme Court justices who wouldn’t expend so much brain power thinking about them.
Based on that assertion, I think Sowell is dumb enough to qualify for a position on his ideal Supreme Court.
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October 25, 2009, 12:32 pmJakeCollins says:
Are there libertarian books that document historical cases where states have followed libertarian or quasi-libertarian policies and have achieved low poverty and inequality, universal health care, low levels of discrimination against minorities and women, and a clean environment?
I’ve read Hayek and Friedman, and find their arguments convincing in general. Most liberals agree that markets work better at delivering goods all things being equal. It’s the failure of the market to deliver vital social goods like the ones mentioned above that keep us from signing up for libertarianism.
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October 25, 2009, 12:38 pmSuperSkeptic says:
Good thing we have people like you JakeCollins, to tell us all what a “social good” is and how to best deliver it to us all.
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October 25, 2009, 12:52 pmhallj says:
It really depends on the target audience, but I’d prefer to recommend a book that isn’t overtly political or philosophical. Therefore I’d probably go with titles like Fahrenheit 451, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and Brave New World. If it was someone who would be amenable to non-fiction, I would go with an assortment like Simple Rules for a Complex World by Epstein (legal), Conflict of Visions by Sowell (philosophical), and The Road to Serfdom by Hayek (economic).
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October 25, 2009, 12:53 pmJakeCollins says:
The discussion thread was about how to persuade liberals. Those are things we care about, so you should point us to some books that address those issues.
Recommending libertarian books that prove that the markets are efficient is like recommending that an atheist read C.S. Lewis for conversion. It could work, but it’s unlikely to address the actual reasons that they are atheist.
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October 25, 2009, 12:54 pmJakeCollins says:
F-451 and BNW are libertarian books? They looked like anti-totalitarianism books to me. Most liberals are already convinced that banning books and eugenics are bad. BNW had more in common with Gault’s Gulch than contemporary liberal societies.
Anyway, Bradbury was more a liberal than a libertarian–as was Aldous Huxley.
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October 25, 2009, 1:04 pmFlash Gordon says:
I agree with Gov98 that Hayek was talking about European Conservatives and British Tories in his essay at the end of The Constitution of Liberty, and not American conservatives. His main complaint is that European conservatives and British Tories do not make any real effort to stop the advance of socialism, but are satisfied making deals with labor to slow it down but allow it to creep along nevertheless. Socialism then will still come to dominate the economy eventually. Conservatives would need to actually stand for something other than a slower form of socialism to win the approval of Hayek.
Even though I don’t think he was talking about American conservatives at the time he wrote the essay, I believe he would include them today if he were around to update it. I think he would find John McCain to be a fine Tory. Same for George W. Bush.
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October 25, 2009, 1:06 pmStarman says:
Montaigne’s Essays, particularly the Apology for Raymond Sebond.
And this would help regardless whether the mistake is from the left or the right.
It would also have the side benefit that it would (presumably) help you examine your own beliefs and positions in a skeptical light.
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October 25, 2009, 1:22 pmSuperSkeptic says:
F-451 and BNW are libertarian books? They looked like anti-totalitarianism books to me.
Exactly, that’s what makes them libertarian. That you don’t see that is striking.
Most liberals are already convinced that banning books and eugenics are bad.
Even more breathtaking of a statement. They weren’t against eugenics when it was popular. Give them what they think is a good reason to start banning books (say, someone wrote a racist book perceived as “hate speech” for example) and the banning might come right back on. The very fact that people who call themselves liberal had to be convinced in the first place is the problem.
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October 25, 2009, 1:25 pmhallj says:
If the point of the exercise is to pick books your liberal friends will read, I figured those would be a good start. There are certain points where the beliefs of liberals and libertarians overlap. Anti-authoritarian themes are presumably one of them. Your liberal friends are not going to read Rand, and even if they did, it wouldn’t do anything to help your cause, because it frames libertarian ideas in a way that your liberal friends already know and dislike.
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October 25, 2009, 1:32 pmCornellian says:
I’m surprised we got this far without anyone recommending “Animal Farm.”
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October 25, 2009, 1:41 pmAk Mike says:
JakeCollins — your list of what you would like shown historically in a libertarian tract is quite a grab-bag. Some of your goals have become of interest to large segments of society only quite recently, e.g. the discrimination and pollution issues. I do think some of the libetarian books point out that slavery was ended almost universally after existing since time immemorial simultaneously with the rise of the liberal idea of limited government in the 19th century.
As far as poverty goes, Friedman and perhaps others show the close correlation between free societies and wealth, and on the other hand between highly controlled societies and poverty.
Inequality, on the other hand, is not viewed by most libertarians as a problem. I think it fair to say that the libertarian view is that objections to inequality stem from envy, not a very attractive human quality, and that in fact inequality is a big social plus, because it provides incentives for people to be more productive and creative. Friedman and others have shown that serious poverty in the undeveloped world can best be addressed through limited-government policies, thus promoting more general equality throughout the world.
“Universal health care” is a virtually meaningless phrase. Are you speaking of government-provided health care services? Health care now is universal, the same way food, clothing, shelter, and other necessities are — you can buy it anywhere. If you want a libertarian book to show how libertarian policies result in government-provided medical services, you’re obviously not going to see that.
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October 25, 2009, 1:49 pmJakeCollins says:
The fact that you think liberals support totalitarianism and eugenics demonstrates why most people think libertarians are clowns; people of all political stripres supported eugenics. No one intrerested on honest debate would make such wild accusations.
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October 25, 2009, 1:59 pmGordon Langston says:
The God of the Machine by Isabel Paterson
The Discovery of Freedom by Rose Wilder Lane
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October 25, 2009, 2:01 pmJakeCollins says:
@akmike
Liberals do consider inequality a problem; you’re not going to convince your opponents by accusing them of envy.
Liberals are part of the liberal tradition that ended slavery–Lincoln was a big government liberal, and it took the CRA to end slavery.
By univ health care I mean the ability of the poor to access health care. The fact that libertarians don’t consider these issues problems is why others consider ya’ll overgrown adolescents at best, and sociopaths at worst.
If you want to convince liberals, then you need to adress their issues.
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October 25, 2009, 2:07 pmJakeCollins says:
sorry typo
it took the CRA to emd discrimination
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October 25, 2009, 2:13 pmAeon J. Skoble says:
@JakeCollins — perhaps Hernando De Soto’s The Mystery of Capital would qualify for what you’ve asked about.
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October 25, 2009, 2:20 pmJakeCollins says:
I’m familiar with DeSoto.He does a great job of explainig why institutionalized property rights are good for the third world. Most liberals like capitalism–they just think we need safety nets, and I don’t think DeSoto addresses this issue. The fact that he emphasizrs that property rights are historical institutions is very congruent with a liberal viewpoint–too many libertarians consider markets “natural” rather than human institutions.
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October 25, 2009, 2:28 pmMalvolio says:
Most people think libertarians are clowns because they think things that you admit are true? Saying things that you admit are true constitutes “wild accusations”?
I assume Jake is trying, in some weak way, that libertarians are being intellectually dishonest by saying “liberals did something bad”, when in fact almost everybody did that bad thing, so liberalism shouldn’t bear special opprobrium. First of all, I don’t think the line of reasoning is correct. We criticize Jefferson for owning slaves, even though many other people of the same era and class did the same thing. Just because other people are making the same mistake doesn’t make you right. Second, and perhaps more salient, Jake is factually wrong. 80 years ago, support for both eugenics and totalitarianism was a hallmark of liberalism — every lib from Margaret Sanger to Cole Porter believed they were the waves of the future.
In sum, Jake, stop being a tool, do your research, and most important, turn on spell-checking.
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October 25, 2009, 2:34 pmJakeCollins says:
@ Malvio
80 years ago, people of all political persuasions supported eugenics, and plenty of liberals opposed them.
If we wanted to play silly games, I could point to the much more recent support of Chicago School people for death squads in Latin America. But I prefer to stick to arguing with my actual opponents rather than relying on their elective affinities with my favorite strawmen.
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October 25, 2009, 2:50 pmAk Mike says:
JakeCollins — calling differing viewpoints adolescent or sociopathic is not productive. Libertarians are smart and well meaning people whose approach differs from yours. I don’t agree with calling liberals names either.
Here’s the thing. To the extent that liberals see economic equality as non-negotiable, there is no real point in trying to persuade them to be libertarians. On the other hand, if it is persuasive to show that allowing inequality in fact makes everyone better off (which it certainly does), then maybe liberals can see that equality as a goal is not that compelling. I guess it depends why people think inequality is bad. Why do you think it is bad?
So, with respect to paying for people’s health care. You are now reducing the goal from “universal health care” to “the ability of poor people to access health care.” (And, first off, why does this not merely call for a beefing up of Medicaid, which is supposed to address this very problem?) Obviously this is a new issue that won’t likely have historical examples — medical care was pretty much as affordable as other normal costs of living before the last few decades.
If the purpose of your post was just to say “libertarianism stinks, its best suppporters can’t show any positive results that anyone cares about, libertarians are just a bunch of adolescents and sociopaths,” then your comment is not really directed to the topic at hand.
If you are asking why libertarian books don’t see the world from a liberal perspective, then the answer is that they try to show that the real problems of the world (poverty, tyranny, misallocation of scarce resources) can best be addressed by limiting government intervention, and that the liberal perspective does not lead to the good results its supporters intend.
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October 25, 2009, 2:51 pmDavid McCourt says:
Some of my other choices have been mentioned, so I would go with:
Paul Johnson, Modern Times
Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism In Politics And Other Essays (1991 version)
Dorothy Rabinowitz, No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusation, False Witness, and Other Terrors of Our Times
Each in its own way, from the global to the parochial, from the rarified to the homespun, points to the dangers when people permit themselves to be seduced by ideology, and to turn over their critical faculities and commonsensical scepticism to the certainties of the systematizers.
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October 25, 2009, 3:12 pmSuperSkeptic says:
I’m glad Malvolio and akMike have stepped up, my patience is thin today.
(emphasis added).
I’m waiting for this answer (bearing in mind that he thinks libertarians are adolescents).
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October 25, 2009, 3:13 pmJakeCollins says:
@ AK Mike.
We don’t consider inequality to be non-negotiable–but it’s hard for any democratic polity to maintain cohesion if there is gross inequality. The burden on libertarians would be to show that historically libertarianism doesn’t result in gross inequality–a fuzzy and perhaps moving target, but still an important issue for liberals.
An expansion of Medicaid would solve part of the problem of health care, but wouldn’t solve for middle class people that have pre-existing conditions. Health care is a great example of the failure of the market–if libertarians had an empirical example of a country that achieved universal access without coercive government intervention then that would be a major step forward in convincing liberals. Is there a book documenting such a case?
The way that you frame the problem–poverty, tyranny, misallocation of scarce resources–shows why libertarians and liberals are talking past each other. Liberals admit that markets are good at solving poverty, checking tyranny, and allocating resources efficiently. But they point to exceptions–such as health care–where the market even when “efficient” achieves results undesirable from a liberal perspective.
Rather than dismissing the fact that tens of millions of Americans can’t get health care, or that capitalism tends to destroy the environment as non-problems–libertarians need to produce works that talk the language of liberalism–at least in terms of addressing liberal problems. When you accuse us of of “envy” and a desire for totalitarianism, it only reinforces the perception amongst liberals that libertarian philosophizing is juvenile.
That impression is especially strong because I know many people (myself included) who were libertarian when 16 and read many of the philosophers you describe–then became liberals when we actually became acquainted with the world and a broader array of policy literature.
To me, you look like myself at 16. If you want to correct this perception, then libertarians need to take seriously the problem that poor people can’t get good health care.
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October 25, 2009, 3:15 pmJakeCollins says:
Inequality is bad because it undermines out democratic polity, results in lots of unhappiness due to the inequality*, and means that there is little social mobility**.
*Social science research has emerged that people evaluate their circumstances relative to their neighbors. People are actually happier when poorer if they feel others are poorer, and feel less happiness from absolute gains if they feel relatively worse off.
You can say that’s a problem with human nature. But unless you are willing to institute a eugenics program to correct the problem, then it’s a major obstacle to people feeling they are equal participants in our democracy.
**Since the Reagan era, America has less social mobility than Europe. When governments pursue policies that promote equality, that tends to open up more possibilities for people to be more prosperous than their parents.
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October 25, 2009, 3:20 pmSuperSkeptic says:
Ignoring at first your claim that inequality “undermines our democratic polity” because I have no idea what you mean, I’m left with: So, inequality is bad because it makes people unhappy.* You also cannot claim that you want to promote “social mobility” (ostensibly meaning a largely economically based upward social mobility here) when your own proposed goal of equality would quash that if it were actually implemented.
* your social science research reveals envy, that “feel[ing]” which you denied was at work initially. Surprise!
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October 25, 2009, 3:30 pmJakeCollins says:
Expanding on the libertarian-adolescent connection:
Most adolescents and early 20-somethings seek some grand philosophical scheme that explains the world.
Some find communism, some anarchism, some fundamentalist religion, and some libertarianism.
Most grow out of this philosophy by their mid-20s as they realize the world is too complex to be explained by an all-encompassing ideology, but a small percentage remain stuck inside their totalizing system. These are the aging hippy douffases, the religious nuts, and yes the libertarians.
The fact that you think all political problems have one answer makes you look juvenile to the rest of the world which tends to views reality as quite complex.
So yes, ya’ll do look like arrested adolescents, and the fact that ya’ll tend to dismiss the fact that tens of millions can’t get access to health care as a non-problem reinforces my point.
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October 25, 2009, 3:32 pmJakeCollins says:
By my first point, I meant that people don’t feel part of our democracy is there are gross inequalities of wealth. In fact, it tends to lead to the kind of hard-left revolutions you abhor.
The periods of greatest social mobility have been during very liberal periods of our politics (e.g., the post WWII era). Social mobility has decreased drastically since the Reagan era, except for the brief interlude of the Clinton administration. Those are facts, although I expect ya’ll to mostly dismiss their significance since facts never convinced an ideologue.
You say envy, I say justice. But even if you don’t think people should feel this way, they do. Income equality makes people miserable. Once again, the perpetual 16 year olds at the VC say they don’t care if much of the population is miserable. Bravo!
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October 25, 2009, 3:37 pmSuperSkeptic says:
Oh Jake, Jake, Jake, it’s no wonder such enlightened souls as yours lead us blindly toward a totalitarian state.
Maybe someone who is more persuasive or doesn’t mind hitting their head off of a wall could do something, but
Like Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinny: “i got no more use for this guy”
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October 25, 2009, 3:44 pmTen Four says:
@JakeCollins
If I understand you correctly, you suggest that liberalism recognizes that markets are usually the best approach to optimizing social results, but that in a few cases of “market failure” — you cite “affordable” health care for the middle class — government coercion is warranted.
You case would be stronger if these few cases did not seem to be perpetually expanding. Today the government intervenes in everything from selecting the people to whom banks should offer mortgages,to how cereal boxes should be labeled, to MPG criteria for passenger cars. Liberals have a LONG list of other areas and behaviors that they advocate should be regulated — for our own good, of course, the voters not being quite bright enough to make these decisions on their own.
The UK is often considered a generation or so ahead of the US in adopting many of these interventions, and its easy to find reports on almost a daily basis of an incredible level of government involvement in daily life there.
Can you suggest any practical limits on government intrusion under liberalism, or any reasons we should not be concerned that it will grow without limit?
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October 25, 2009, 4:04 pmAllan Walstad says:
Actually, it works the other way around in my experience. That is, it takes a mature, thoughtful perspective to overcome childish “do something” or “there ought be a law” reflexes and take account of higher-order, longer-term effects of political power levers and government interventionism.
...a indication that perhaps Jake is not among the amenable to persuasion.
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October 25, 2009, 4:10 pmAllan Walstad says:
One of the problems with liberals’ complaints about poverty and inequality is that if poverty is defined comparatively, while actual overall advances in wealth depend on permitting inequality, then by definition no matter how much goods the market system delivers, and no matter how much better-off people become, by & large, in a free economy, there will still be poverty and inequality to complain about.
I once asked a confirmed collectivist to choose between two alternatives. 1. Everyone is equally poor. 2. Everyone is at least twice as wealthy as in 1, but some are 10 times as wealthy as others. He opted for the former. There’s no convincing such folks. I’m afraid that holding them up to ridicule is about the best we can do.
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October 25, 2009, 4:20 pmsputnik says:
Allan Walsted.
As an old fashioned European liberal
I agree with the point number 2 more then #1, in case the #3 –eveybody is well off and have enough to have basic means and basic health care not available.
Did you think about that # 3 option?
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October 25, 2009, 4:40 pmChrisTS says:
Wow. The OP asks for books to persuade non-libertarians. Very quickly we get rude snark aimed primarily at ‘liberals,’ and then when a self-proclaimed liberal enters the discussion he gets jumped all over. Nice work, Gentlemen.
I think the Oakeshott book is a good suggestion, although most liberals will sniff out the conservatism. I’m surprised no one has suggested Nozick or anything by Tibor Machan.
I have read Sowell’s ‘Conflict of Visions.’ I don’t want to offend anyone here, but I thought it was just dreadful. Shallow and clichéd.
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October 25, 2009, 5:14 pmMichael Brazier says:
It’s quite true that a polity in which the typical member is poor in the absolute sense, meaning dependent for his livelihood on the largess of someone in the wealthy minority, can be expected to explode in revolt. The rub for Jack Collins is that this applies just as much when the wealthy minority is the staff of a government bureau who regulate the economy for the public good (as best they understand it) as it does when they’re financiers out to make a profit.
The mere fact that a few people are much, much richer than the typical person, doesn’t prove anything about the power relations between the two classes. The key question to be answered is not “is A richer than B?” but how far A could deprive B, if he chose, of the necessities of life. Progressives treat difference in wealth as a proxy for that question, and thus fail to see that a bureaucrat working for a modest salary and a pension has more real power than a billionaire.
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October 25, 2009, 5:41 pmloki13 says:
ChrisTS,
I think the battle was lost about two comments in when Glenn Bowen, in what I can only believe was all seriousness, posited that “Liberal Fascism” was the book that he would recommend to persuade non-libertarians.
*ahem*
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October 25, 2009, 5:51 pmConstantin says:
Have you read Liberal Fascism? I found it to be a piece of serious scholarship. If you’ve read it, which of Goldberg’s theses (or what evidence supporting them) did you disagree with?
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October 25, 2009, 6:02 pmloki13 says:
Constantin,
Nothing I can write will disabuse you of your beliefs. In my mind, the fact that you believe that “Liberal Fascism” is a piece of serious scholarship (as opposed to some bizarre cherrypicking in search of an a priori conclusion) says as much about you as it does about the book. If you want, you are more than welcome to look at the many examinations of the book elsewhere. The google is your friend. Not that it will change your mind since the book already confirmed what you knew in your heart to be true. Funny, that.
Anyway, what about that book (in going with the OP) is likely to convince, say, liberals about the benefits of libertarianism, as opposed to reinforcing the belief system of the already-converted? Would you read “serious scholarship” called “Liberatarian Fascism”?
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October 25, 2009, 6:12 pmAk Mike says:
ChrisTS — I think the reason that JakeCollins was jumped on was that his attitude was that if it’s not liberalism, it cannot persuade liberals, and moreover is juvenile. It is certainly his privilege to refuse to be persuaded, but mere billingsgate (“adolescent” “juvenile” “sociopaths”) isn’t useful dialog.
I think he has some useful things to say when he points out that liberals are not so interested in solving poverty or checking tyranny, but rather in making sure that there aren’t people making too much money. It’s useful because it shows that there is a profoundly different point of view about life generally among liberals as compared to libertarians. Maybe works of fiction, or more philosophical works such as those of Hayek, might allow some to see that in fact there is a different way of looking at things that is in fact not adolescent or sociopathic.
Mr. Collins (?) is not so useful when he challenges on specific issues such as health care or pollution. That’s because issues like that invite argument that cannot be resolved. We might think that what created a crisis in the availability of medical care is the already massive government intervention; he maintains it is a market failure; we can argue about that all day and neither will ever convince the other. If Mr. Collins in fact read a libertarian book that explained that with limited government medical care would become more accessible, or environmental damage would be reduced, he just wouldn’t believe it.
Even his reasons for his attitudes, such as the claim that inequality is destructive of democracy, are not useful. What both sides should understand is that there are plenty of facts that each can use to back their views. I do appreciate his responding to my challenge on that score. Basically, JakeCollins just thinks there is something wrong with some people having a lot more money than others. I’m afraid that all the other reasons he gives look like rationalizations. No doubt the same can be said, in reverse, for those of opposing views.
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October 25, 2009, 8:02 pmAmerican Psukhushka says:
I think discussion is more important than reading to get a quick grasp of libertarian ideas. So I would recommend the following as long as I was able to discuss them with the individual in question.
(1) This paragraph from Ludwig von Mises (It’s from a long, wordy essay I don’t have the cite for right now.):
It is not easy to explain this state of affairs to people misled by the passionate anti-capitalistic agitation. As the self-styled intellectuals see it, the capitalist system and the greed of the businessmen are to blame for the fact that the total sum of products turned out for consumption is not greater than it actually is. The only way to do away with poverty they know is to take away — by means of progressive taxation — as much as possible from the well-to-do. In their eyes the wealth of the rich is the cause of the poverty of the poor. In accordance with this idea the fiscal policies of all nations and especially also of the United States were in the last decades directed toward confiscating ever-increasing portions of the wealth and income of the higher brackets. The greater part of the funds thus collected would have been employed by the taxpayers for saving and additional capital accumulation. Their investment would have increased productivity per man-hour and would in this way have provided more goods for consumption. It would have raised the average standard of living of the common man. If the government spends them for current expenditure, they are dissipated and capital accumulation is concomitantly slowed down.
The key to understanding why laissez faire capitalism is the best way to raise standards of living for everyone and why true socialism and communism result in disaster are all in this one paragraph. It explains why the economy is not a zero-sum game and why redistribution damages the economy. When someone understands that every $1 taken from the taxpayers (above that necessary for essential services) actually weakens the economy and makes everyone poorer then explaining the rest is much easier.
(2) Bastiat’s essay or collection of essays on “That Which is Seen, and That Which is Unseen”, paying special attention to Section I., on the “Broken Window” fallacy:
http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html
(3) A bunch of essays from the Ludwig von Mises Institute, including these (I would include several more.):
Essay on why Socialism requires totalitarianism:
http://mises.org/story/1937
Mises essay dismissing Marxist class conflict theory, racism, and nationalism:
https://www.mises.org/epofe/c6sec2.asp
Essay by Thomas Murphy pointing out a lot of the misconceptions of mainstream economics about “stimulus”, “the thrift paradox”, “liquidity traps”, etc.:
http://www.mises.org/story/3194
Since this isn’t much material I would probably throw in Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson” as well.
PS: Sorry for the long links, my pop-up blocker won’t allow the new link system.
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October 25, 2009, 8:27 pmAllan Walstad says:
Sputnik–(if you’re still out there after my yard work and supper)–Your #3 is simply irrelevant to the point I was making. I offered up the question described, in order to see if the collectivist would take the bait and descend into absurdity, and he went all the way. The underlying premise, of course, is that a relatively free market system delivers a higher rate of economic growth, which, compounded over time, results in astronomical differences in overall well-being compared with stubborn collectivism. Coerced equality is incompatible with such growth, in my opinion. If “basic” care keeps getting defined by comparison to what the most well-off people can afford, then by definition there will likely be people lacking in “basic” care in a wealthy free society, even though what’s available to them might well be greater than the equal care available under long-term collectivism.
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October 25, 2009, 9:05 pmrpt says:
“Liberal Fascism”/Goldberg = Taitz/“Litigating Successfully in the Federal Courts”.
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October 25, 2009, 9:35 pminmypajamas says:
ChrisTS — Your dismissal of “Liberal Fascism” without even having read it actually says a lot about you. You have been told what to think about the book and that is sufficient for you. The book is a serious, non-polemic look at the history of the left in the United States and you are probably one of those people who would benefit the most from reading it.
JakeCollins is honest when he says that liberals need to be assured of their moral superiority before they will support a policy or political identity. They do not seem to be impressed with historical evidence, the track records of different economic policies or reasoned philosophical arguments. They just want to feel good about what they are doing and know that they belong among the enlightened and morally superior. That is why they are so quick to categorize opposing viewpoints as “evil”. Books explaining other viewpoints are anathema and go unread (see ChrisTS). They can only be persuaded by events, personal or public, which jolt them out of their world view, the way 9/11 did for some.
OT but I can’t help it: Please, if I hear one more person say universal health care is to give the poor access to health care, I will pull out every freakin’ hair on my head! I have worked seeing poor patients in public health almost my entire career and the poor most definitely have access already, whether paid for by Medicaid or just “unpaid” (taxpayer dollars). They have different priorities and just don’t use health care the way the middle class and the wealthy do. You have to really convince them that they need a regular Pap smear or diabetes evaluation and it has nothing to do with cost. A portion of the uninsured are those who know the public health system will not turn them away, regardless of insurance or ability to pay, so why bother to get the Medicaid they are clearly eligible for? They just don’t. Our health care system does need reform in several areas but only the uninformed think it is to provide the poor with care.
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October 25, 2009, 9:50 pmChrisTS says:
inmypajamas says:
As I have said nothing whatsoever about this book, I can not be accused of dismissing it with or without reading it. But thank you so much for your advice.
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October 25, 2009, 10:08 pmChrisTS says:
AK Mike:
We may be reading the thread differently. As I saw it, he first criticized one book as a good one to persuade liberals of the value of libertarianism.
He did, in fact, say twice that he thinks Hayek and Friedman are serious and respectable choices. Not quite the same as saying liberals would not be persuaded by any non-liberal book or that others ideas are all childish.
Then he wrote:
To this, SuperSkeptic replied:
Jake Collins made two more on-topic comments, and then hallj wrote that liberals favor eugenics and banning books. Only after that did he become testy.
This could and should have been an interesting thread.
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October 25, 2009, 10:20 pmloki13 says:
inmypajamas,
I wouldn’t speak for ChrisTS, but I think I was the one that was harshing on Liberal Fascism, not him.
If you enjoy it as a political work, more power to you. But here’s the thing:
1. The OP was about books that might convince others that disagree with you of your bona fides; if you don’t see why this is a poor choice, you have already had too much kool-aid.
2. Just because a book has historical research does not mean the conclusions are, in any way, valid. For example, I could claim make the following historical observations:
a) Marilyn Monroe had some unsavory organized crime connections.
b) Joe D. knew Marilyn (oh, did he).
c) Therefore, MLB is part of organized crime.
A and B are correct, but C doesn’t necessarily follow. But allow me to point you to what might be a convincing review (I could point you to thousands of “Goldberg is a big fat liar” reviews, but those wouldn’t be helpful) so that you might begin to see what I mean:
This review is much more measured than I would be.
3. I’ve read many books with an opposite point of view than my own; some I even find in parts to be convincing (I enjoyed reading Milton Friedman). I don’t enjoy hackery like this (I had to stop when I got to the whole Hitler as vegetarian... just like PETA bit) but I think anyone who takes these ideas too seriously as scholarship (as opposed to partisan drivel/fun) needs to be more well-read.
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October 25, 2009, 10:22 pmConstantin says:
So that’s a no, you haven’t read it. But, you know liberals can’t be fascists. Which is the main point of the book, actually. And re Google, the primary criticism of the book from the serious Left is that Goldberg says nothing new, not that he says something wrong.
Philistine.
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October 25, 2009, 10:22 pmArthurKirkland says:
There blog features a strong flavor of ‘libertarians and conservatives are cousins, leaving liberals on the outside.’
This is gibberish — libertarian principles greatly favor neither conservatives nor liberals in today’s America — although apparently attractive gibberish to conservatives.
Any libertarian who can tolerate (let alone not be outraged by) massive planks of the current conservative platform in America — imprisonment for recreational drugs, ostracization of homosexuals, pre-emptive military action, warrantless surveillance, torture, religion in school and public affairs, evisceration of the Fourth Amendment — is a conservative who mistakes himself for, or wishes to masquerade as, a libertarian.
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October 25, 2009, 10:29 pmbgates says:
“Liberal Fascism”/Goldberg = Taitz/“Litigating Successfully in the Federal Courts”.
So we have learned that “Taitz” is a book title, and its author is someone with the odd last name “Litigating successfully in the Federal Courts”.
I’ll bet that was Anglicized.
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October 25, 2009, 10:41 pmAlanDownunder says:
The books for those rightwards of you, Ilya, could only be on topics psychiatric.
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October 25, 2009, 10:51 pmSuperSkeptic says:
I’m sorry Chris, I was very impatient today, please try to understand — I mean, read his statements in real time...
You deserved a better thread, admittedly.
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October 25, 2009, 11:04 pmhallj says:
I’d just like to point out that I am not the one who said that. I like a good flamewar as much as the next guy, but I generally avoid statements that I think will actively incite them.
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October 25, 2009, 11:06 pmChrisTS says:
A correction: I said it was hallj who raised the claim of liberals being in favor of eugenics and book banning. It was SuperSkeptic.
My apologies to hallj.
Oh, and now I see you already posted on this. Oh well. Again, I do apologize.
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October 25, 2009, 11:14 pmChrisTS says:
SuperSkeptic:
I did read them in real time.
Look, you do not owe me an apology, sweet though it is of you to do so.
One of the many things I like about VC is the opportunity to have reasonable conversations with people who are not just like me politically. There are plenty of blogs where no one who differs from the meme would dare to raise their heads.
Anyhow. Good night, All.
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October 25, 2009, 11:18 pmSuperSkeptic says:
Whoa whoa whoa — the first reference to banning books and eugenics was by our friend Jake at 1:04pm, where he admitted/stated that “[m]ost liberals are already convinced that banning books and eugenics are bad.”
Granted, I indulged him in “debate” (which, you are correct, I should not have) where I stated:
“They weren’t against eugenics when it was popular. Give them what they think is a good reason to start banning books (say, someone wrote a racist book perceived as “hate speech” for example) and the banning might come right back on. The very fact that people who call themselves liberal had to be convinced in the first place is the problem.”
Snarky, yes. Unnecessary, probably. Ahistorical, I think not. But, I did not “raise[] the claim of liberals being in favor of eugenics and book banning.” It was
SuperSkepticJakeCollins. I merely ran with it.Quote
October 25, 2009, 11:26 pmBrian K says:
I think he has some useful things to say when he points out that liberals are not so interested in solving poverty or checking tyranny, but rather in making sure that there aren’t people making too much money
if this is really what you think liberalism is, the only thing that you are going to convince a liberal of is that you do not know what liberalism is.
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October 25, 2009, 11:38 pmDavid Nieporent says:
I have found that Sowell’s books are quite good... and his columns are quite bad. So bad — and of so much lower quality than his long-form writing — that I wonder if he writes them himself, or if he has an intern paste them together from the conservative-talking-points-of-the-week press release.
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October 25, 2009, 11:56 pmTim says:
I can’t believe that I forgot the best book I have ever read on libertarianism without being labeled as one.
Kindly Inquisitors by Rauch. It was given to me this past summer, and required reading while I was interning at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and suggested by University of Wisconsin Professor Donald Downs.
Downs and I disagreed on some pretty serious subjects, but I’m forever indebted to him for suggesting this book to my colleges and me.
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October 26, 2009, 12:33 amloki13 says:
Constantin,
I’d recommend reading the post.... um.... directly above yours. Might do wonders for your reading comprehension. Might also address your claims about:
1. Having read the book (yes, I did try, for I am a voracious reader, but.... damn....).
2. What other reviewers have said. The link I provided not only has a review, but has links to (gasp) other reviews. In addition, the post I made (directly above yours) deals with the claim, “but goshdarn there’s accurate stuff in it!”.
For the people following along, just because you reference a true fact does not make your assertion correct. For example, if I say that 1 is odd, and –1 is odd (both true!), and therefore say 0 is odd because 0 is really close to (and, in fact, in between!) two odd numbers, people might have a problem with my final assertion *despite* my impeccable math research previous to that.
IOW, if you don’t settle on a definition of fascism, then cherry pick a few examples of it, then conveniently ignore any examples of the right associating with fascism (no small trick, that), than tar by association, VOILA!... it all fits together.
In other news, it’s a fact that 9/11 was predominantly carried out by Saudi nationals. It’s also a fact that GWB has significant ties to the Saud family. My extensive research allows me to state unequivocally that GWB is a fascist. Um, or something. See, it’s fun, the guilt by association.
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October 26, 2009, 12:51 amFrater Plotter says:
Except that the “health-care system” that we have today is not, in actual historical fact, the result of the free market. It is quite common for critics of “the free market” to conflate “the free market” with “the status quo”, that is, to assume that the state of affairs we have to live with today is the result of the free market — even when a brief look at the relevant history would show that it is, rather, the product of careful and deliberate regulation.
Why do we have the insurance bureaucracies we do? We have them for the specific reason that employers have a significant tax incentive to offer group health plans as part of the compensation package for employees. It is substantially more expensive to pay your employees $5,000 more each than to buy them $5,000 in health insurance, since the former hits you with payroll tax and hits your employees with increased withholding, while the latter does not.
So we do not have a market situation, where consumers of a service (health care) are making the choices about it. We have, rather, a sort of feudal, precapitalist situation: not the consumer, but the consumer’s employer — typically at the large corporate level, an impersonal HR department — is choosing insurance providers. Thus, the providers that succeed are not the ones that best serve the consumer, but the ones that are the best at playing the “working with other big organizations” game.
Health insurance is only slightly more free-market than, say, military contracting. Our current system is not the result of market processes, but rather of tailored tax incentives which take health-insurance choices away from the consumer and put them in the hands of employers ... and thereby take health care choices away from the consumer and provider, and put them in the hands of insurance-company bureaucracies.
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October 26, 2009, 12:51 amrpt says:
Pajamas:
“They [liberals] do not seem to be impressed with historical evidence, the track records of different economic policies or reasoned philosophical arguments.”
One might consider neocon Goldberg’s, the Bush administration’s, and others’ track records; pretty bad. So far no one has identified any example of leaders or states following libertarian policies to successful results. Where is this historical record? Witness Rand’s defender du jour, Mark Sanford.
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October 26, 2009, 1:56 amyankee says:
Actually, this resembles a perverse version of Rawls’s argument in A Theory of Justice, which is a defense of the social democratic welfare state. Roughly speaking, Rawls acknowledges that allowing inequality can make the poor better off, and should therefore be accepted for that purpose. To Rawls, inequality beyond what makes the poor better off is not acceptable. In policy terms, this is something like what American liberals believe: radical egalitarianism is not desirable, but more moderated egalitarianism is. If you’re going to convince liberals that we shouldn’t care about inequality you need to find something stronger than “complete equality would be a bad idea.”
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October 26, 2009, 2:19 amyankee says:
I haven’t read any of the books Ilya references, but do any of them address liberal concerns about how markets will achieve liberals’ goals for social policy? Any liberal will consider a parade of horribles that would occur in the unregulated market: poor people being turned away hospital emergency room, incomprehensible derivatives causing major financial crises, widespread sales of tainted meat, people being forced to sell themselves into slavery in order to avoid starvation. Convincing liberals that those aren’t bad things is not going to be an effective strategy, so a book that convinces liberals is going to need to have an extremely convincing argument that the parade of horribles isn’t going to happen. Do the books you recommend really contain such arguments?
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October 26, 2009, 2:38 amAmerican Psukhushka says:
Jake Collins–
low poverty and inequality
Equality of outcomes is not a great goal, because you could have everyone equal in a state of relative poverty, as what happens when true socialism and communism are tried.(Except for a small, very wealthy political elite in communist/socialist regimes. So even in those “equal” societies you have startling inequality.)
Instead, what should be aimed for is a relatively high and increasing standard of living. For example even some of the lower socio-economic strata in the US would be considered middle class by third world standards.(Not that conditions in third world countries are great, the goal should be for increased standards of living there as well. Same for everywhere else.)
The problem is that to have a high and increasing standard of living value creators must be rewarded. The rewards have to be there or they will go elsewhere, possibly shut down, spend time on other things, etc. So in order to have the minimum amount of poverty possible — have a high and increasing standard of living — there is going to be some inequality as those that create the most value collect the most rewards. Note this is morally correct under natural law arguments as well — the person who writes and then sells the most books because they are the most entertaining should collect more profits because they are creating the most value.
universal health care
The first problem is that our current healthcare system is not a “free market” system. It is much more expensive than it should be because of distortions due to government intervention on behalf of various corporate and other special interest groups. See here:
http://mises.org/story/3793
So if favorable economic policies were adopted:
- The price of healthcare would go down across the board as the government intervention/distortion and cronyism was done away with.
- Rising standards of living would allow more and more people to afford the cheaper medical care.
- A growing economy and decreased tax load would free up more private charity resources to help anyone left.
Would it be “universal”. Not quite, but basically. Just like there will never be a poverty rate of zero there would always a percentage — hopefully the smallest percentages possible — relying on private charitable resources.
low levels of discrimination against minorities and women
I’m not sure where you’re coming from here, perhaps you think libertarians are racist or chauvinist or something. There likely are some racist or chauvinist libertarians, just like there are racist or chauvinist liberals and conservatives. Personally I don’t encounter that many, and I am not racist or chauvinist myself. Generally, libertarians support equal protection of rights, equality before the law, and the like.
If you notice libertarians mainly have a problem with some of the speech infringements — like the “hate speech” legislation. Not because they think it is necessarily a good idea to verbally abuse various groups, but because they suspect that it will eventually be abused by the government and other groups to silence politically and intellectually important speech. Much like provisions of the Patriot Act that were only going to be used in terrorism cases are magically being used in drug cases and the like.
clean environment
Not sure what you’re getting at here. If a libertarian dream society were created tomorrow:
- There would still be criminal and civil laws against pollution, illegal dumping, etc. There would be reduced government enforcement of those laws in the favor of private enforcement of those laws. Libertarians like clean water too.
- There would still be private conservation and environmentally conscious charities and action groups. If you notice a lot of the environmental litigation that you see is private charities like the World Wildlife Fund, Sierra Club, etc. suing various parties.(Including the government.) These would still exist, and indeed there would likely be more funding for groups like this because there would be a healthy and growing economy and a much lighter tax load.
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October 26, 2009, 7:03 amno relation says:
The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town — John Grisham.
I support the death penalty, and would nevertheless recommend this book — especially to those who agree with me.
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October 26, 2009, 8:31 amno relation says:
To be fair, here’s the other side of the story: http://myweb.cableone.net/ldpeterson/grishamsfolly/grishamsfolly.htm
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October 26, 2009, 8:58 amGlenn Bowen says:
(_!_)
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October 26, 2009, 10:12 amvic says:
@jake collins
Social science research has emerged that people evaluate their circumstances relative to their neighbors. People are actually happier when poorer if they feel others are poorer, and feel less happiness from absolute gains if they feel relatively worse off.
and Loki says essentially similar stuff
and yes, they and this asertation is essentially correct.
why?
the answer may lie in evolutionary psychology and sexual selection
most of human history ( and of course the history of our predecessors)was characterized by two things
1. a constant struggle for resources and survival
2. whoever accumulated more resources,had greater access to partners and therefore more likely to leave behind progeny.
a zero sum game from both perspectives
the evolutionarily derived behavioural consequence of these were:
a. the greed/ aquistive/ power impulse
b. envy and hate towards the more resourceful, as either I or you could have the harem, not both.
As a consequence of the industrial revolution and free market capitalism, productivity increased to the point that condition 1. above, no longer applies, at least in the post industrial developed countries, and perhaps soon in the rapidly industrialising economies like china and india (consequent, perhaps, to the essentially free market policies that they had begun to adopt in the 70’s and the 90’s respectively).
So what happened to condition 2.
well, surprisingly, the underpriviledged underclasses, while having access to less material resources, have ssentially much more unfetterrd access to procreative partners and a higher fecundity esp in comparison to the elites ( the travails of spitzer, sanford etc etc )
so one could make a convincing argument that as aconsequence of free market capitalism, both of the historical conditions above have been overturned.
But not so fast,
evolutionarily derived behaviors in an atavistic way outlast the conditions that made them adaptive.
Thus, while the condions 1 and 2 no longer apply
the behaviors a and b consequent to them still do.
thein lies the knee jerk response of liberals like jake and loki, where they would trade off abundance and inequality for penury and ” equality”
The liberal nonsense is couched in words that express concern for the poor etc etc. However, two factoids make these claims hollow
1. through human history, poverty has been associated with malnutrion– kwashiorkor and marasmus if you will, NOT obesity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marasmus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwashiorkor
I didnt grow up in america, and was exposed to the sight of poverty — i mean real grinding third world poverty, and consequently flirted for a couple of years with radical socialism until i saw the light. let me just say for the record, their is NO poverty in america, none nada. most middle class people where i grew up would exchange their lots for the american urban underclasses in a jiffy.
so what problem does this somewhat blindly following of our atavistic evolutionary derived behavioral impulses lead to:
libralism to intellectual decadence to civillizational collapse, with the chinese waiting in the wings to fill up the hegemonic vacuum. And if jake and loki think that the world with the west in decline and a chinese hegemonic power would be preferable, well.... words fail me.
on an aside
loki... in a criticism of liberal fascism linked to a review which he thought was authoritative.
i followed the link, the review was by an unrepentant trotskyite and fairly unsubstantive, more concerned with the reviewrs own scholarship than anything else, however there was a reference to trotsky on fascism
so i googled.
here is an exerpt from trotesky on fascism:
“After fascism is victorious, finance capital
directly and immediately gathers into its hands, as in a vise of steel,
all the organs and institutions of sovereignty, the executive
administrative, and educational powers of the state: the entire state
apparatus together with the army, the municipalities, the universities,
the schools, the press, the trade unions, and the co-operatives.”
sounds familliar anybody!!
as in the goldman saks — obama nexus.
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October 26, 2009, 10:32 amvic says:
Having had my full of diatribe
let me get back on topic
the books i would recommend are:
1. dawkins: the selfish gene—-a left liberal
2. Pinker: the blank slate—another liberal
and
3. Sir meghnath desai: marx’s revenge — former marxist economist
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October 26, 2009, 11:22 amTwirlip says:
Yes and no. There is an abundance of libertarian literature on how following libertarian ideas has achieved low poverty. Of course, achieving low poverty means dispensing with certain other liberal ideas, such as the neccessity for government provided health-care and and goodness of “non-discrimination”.
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October 26, 2009, 3:44 pmTwirlip says:
.
That’s pretty poor quality guilt by association, as the Saudis are not fascists. Maybe you’re prefer to “state unequivocally” that GWB is a monarchist.
Of course then you’d have to explain Obama’s groveling bow to the Saudi king.
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October 26, 2009, 3:51 pmloki13 says:
Hmmm... it’s interesting. I posted a link that I said was “much more measured” than I thought it shoulf be. Suddenly, it gets transmorgified into an “authoritative” review. I thought it was fair, and had links to a number of other (pro– and anti-) reviews, and made the following observation without going into ad hominem:
“So while many academics may well stick to the prudent technique of rather understating findings and avoiding inferences to what cannot strictly be held up by empirical evidence, Mr Goldberg uses the opposite method of rather exaggerating the points he has to make. I say this because Mr Goldberg does have some useful historical points to make in the book but they are probably not the ones that scream at us when we see the title ‘Liberal Fascism’.”
That is much more fair than what I would say. In fact, the penultimate paragraph of the review is:
“Nevertheless Jonah Goldberg’s book is an entertaining read, even if it tends towards the intellectually sloppy, and perhaps should not to be taken too seriously. It would for example be to accord the arguments put forward in the book a gravity that they do not deserve to suggest that it is a work of historical revisionism trying to airbrush the dreadful realities of fascism out of history. It is polemic not revisionism. As a sympathetic review in the Daily Telegraph noted it is an ‘entertaining political romp’”
But, of course, anything that does not accord this book absolute fawning raves is suspect, and causes the usual “foam at the mouth brigade” to attack.
This, of course, is fascinating. Instead of posting one of the many “take-down” reviews, I posted a rather thoughtful, not completely negative review and the Usual Suspects(tm) immediately attack the messenger. Perhaps this is why you cannot understand that this is a poor book to convince people that disagree with you; since you are already right about everything, what reason is there to disagree or, for that matter, to engage with those who disagree?
Liberalism is fascism. War is peace. Lies are truth. And so on. Words can mean whatever you want, if you just define them correctly.
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October 26, 2009, 3:56 pmTwirlip says:
And yet if we look around at the real world we find that the greatest inequality occurs in places which are bastions of left-liberal thought, such as NYC, which have income inequalty comparable to Third-World banana republics. You belief system is a failure not only by libertarian terms, but even by its own. Make that “especially by its own”.
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October 26, 2009, 3:58 pmsteve har says:
Re Vic’s “Wild Things” post:
Vi’c’s attempt to convince un-repentant liberals of the viability of libertarianism is based on a convincing recitation of “Wild Things” decked out in colorful costumes worthy or Maurice Sendak’s children’s story and now movie. [See Vic’s list of wild things below].
Like Max who was mugged by his mother in the story, Vic has been mugged by history, apparently, and left home to become king of the Rumpus where the “Wild Things Are”. Maybe Vic will take off his wolf suit, give up the Rumpus perseveration and come home to a late night snack and the civilizing process like Max does in the story. In the event there is a need for a little transformative soteriology, I recommend Matthew Aaron Tennant at the University of Oxford who seems to grasp the redemptive possibilities of of mugged libertarians.
http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:Er_XHl76TYkJ:users.ox.ac.uk/~rege0695/tillich_wildthings.pdf+existential+ontological+soteriological&hl=en&sig=AFQjCNG_IoS7_Atl7NYhhIpiyYB1H3_nKQ
Vic buddy, if you decide to give up the Rumpus may you be safe. May you be happy. May you be content with your neighbors and return to the civilizing process. I have the same wish for reactionaries and revenge makers who were mugged by the last 30 years of Wild Things: Regan/Hayak economics, Christianist polemics and Neocon delusions.
—
The Wild Things in Vic’s Rumpus
science research, evolutionary psychology, sexual selection & human history
evaluation of circumstances relative to neighbors
zero sum games
greed envy & hate for the resourceful
industrial revolution
free market capitalism
industrializing economies
Underprivileged under classes
comparisons to Spitzer, Sanford unfettered access to procreative partners
kwashiorkor, marasmus & obesity
blind following of atavistic evolutionary behavioral impulses
unrepentant Trotskyites
after victorious fascism as in Goldman Saks Obama nexus
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October 26, 2009, 3:58 pmloki13 says:
Twirlip,
I recommend getting your humor module checked out. I was alluding to the similarity to truthers in particular (and conspiracy theorists in general) who can always bend any particular historical fact to match their a priori conclusions.
Like how you managed to put Obama in there. Clever! It’s almost like you look... for... every.... opportunity to slam him. Whereas I was making fun of people tying GWB into 9/11....
*sigh*
BTW, my contributions to the list would be as follows:
1. Some Friedman. (Perhaps Free to Choose– it’s readable)
2. Wealth of Nations (of course)
3. Dawkins/Pinker (great books, recommend them, not sure how libertarian they are).
4. Hoest Graft (a little dated, but it might give big government types an idea of how decisions are really made)
5. de Tocqueville
6. The Federalist Papers (just in general)
7. The Problem of Social Cost & Wealth and Welfare (compare and contrast)
I think the key would be getting the person to understand why free markets are a good thing to begin with; once that is established, the quibling about market failures and normative goals can be more contained.
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October 26, 2009, 6:24 pmBernie says:
You think too much.
2 books:
The Little Red Hen
I Had Trouble Getting To Solla Sollew, by Dr. Suess
simple straight forward.
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October 26, 2009, 6:49 pmvic says:
steve:
were you using some recreational chemicals while composing your post
I have read it a few times and for the life of me am completely clueless as to what you were trying to say
I am beyond the age when i pay much attention to kids movies or books
Loki13:
the reason for darwin/pinker is that even though they are NOT libertarian books. if you just look at the data presented without their ( esp dawkins) unsupported conclusions, ie make some cohesive conclusions of your own, it makes what i would call a biologic/ evolutionary case for free markets. The manner in which free markets self correct and amplify is in many ways analogous to the evolutionary process.
de Tocqueville is a good choice
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October 26, 2009, 8:32 pmvic says:
loki13: the review you quote was written by
Reviewer:
Keith Flett
Convenor, Socialist History Seminar, Institute of Historical Research
he goes on to say:
Goldberg starts the book by reviewing definitions of fascism. He runs through a good number although ignores what I would see as being the most relevant – that of Trotsky, whose work on the united front to fight German fascism has remained required reading for those opposing the modern day far right although of course he was quite unable to achieve it in Germany in the 1930s.
and thus my trotsky quote
This is hardly what i would consider an unbiased review
readers can judge for themselves.
also consider
massive bailouts of monopolistic finance capitalists who are political insiders– Goldman Sachs ( direct bailouts along with counter party money from the AIG bailout).
the questionable practices involved in the sale of troubled assets backed by the US govt. — i forgot the acronym of the program
Goldman guys everywhere
too big to fail get bigger
plus
the attempts at muzzling what is about the only media outlet opposing administration policies– see fox
the street goons made of lumpem elements — see acorn/ black panthers
the cult of personality around O
threats– see protests at the houses of AIG executives
threats — see GM / chrysler bond holders
i could go on
but at least to me in my paranoid delusional way the patterns while not fully formed are inescapable.
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October 26, 2009, 8:58 pmLarryA says:
My debates tend to be a little more specific, because of who I am, so I’ll start with an oldie (1979) but goodie, Restricting Handguns; The Liberal Skeptics Speak out.
Since The Moon is a Harsh Mistress has been listed, I’ll toss in Fallen Angels, Niven, Pournelle, and Flynn.
Then a minor cheat, a video. Other Peoples’ Money. The free market “bad guy” Danny DeVito flat sneaks up on you.
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October 26, 2009, 10:56 pmChrisTS says:
Assuming we are still interested in the question posed in the OP:
I don’t think novels – wonderful though they can be – will persuade many [thinking] liberals or conservatives to become libertarians. I realize that, historically, conservatives favor of non-rationalism/sensibilism; still, I think the conservatives whom libertarians would want to win over are more inclined to rationalism. (I do not mean that fiction is always non-rationalist; rather, I mean that persuading someone of the rational cogency of one’s own views probably requires more directly rational means.)
Secondly, as others have noted, I would not select any book or article with a title or thesis that insults the persons I want to persuade; any such work is likely to be of little practical value. If, as Ilya proposes, I were to proffer such a work to a ‘friend,’ I would expect that friend to be offended.
If I wanted to persuade another person/friend of the cogency of my view, I would choose works that (1) lay out the issues as I see them, (2) provide good arguments for my position, and (3) seriously engage counter-arguments. If I were genuinely serious about this effort, I would also look for works that address the specific concerns of those who disagree with me, so that my conception of the important issues is not merely assumed.
Of course, I would not expect any single work to do all this. Perhaps I would throw in a work of fiction that captured the image/feeling if my view. But, on the whole, I would assume that my friends are rational and decent people to whose hearts and minds I want to appeal.
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October 27, 2009, 12:53 amAmerican Psukhushka says:
steve har–
Maybe Vic will take off his wolf suit, give up the Rumpus perseveration and come home to a late night snack and the civilizing process like Max does in the story. In the event there is a need for a little transformative soteriology, I recommend Matthew Aaron Tennant at the University of Oxford who seems to grasp the redemptive possibilities of of mugged libertarians.
What’s interesting is you claim that vic has “dressed up” libertarian ideas like the boy in the story, when your post is just one long string of ad hominem attacks, albeit dressed up in obnoxious and pretentious dialogue. The idea that libertarians need to be “civilized” is the height of arrogance, especially from those still supporting dangerous economic principles that have resulted in stagnation and far worse time and again.
I have the same wish for reactionaries and revenge makers who were mugged by the last 30 years of Wild Things: Regan/Hayak economics, Christianist polemics and Neocon delusions.
I understand it now. You think the last 30 years have been an expression of “libertarian” economic ideals. You couldn’t be further from the truth. Reagan did cut some taxes and reduce government in some areas, but he dramatically increased defense spending. And since then the size of government and government spending have increased mightily. The Neocons weren’t libertarian at all — they increased spending and increased the size of government. And basically all administrations have let the Federal Reserve devalue the dollar.
Perhaps you should try to actually understand libertarian economics and philosophy before you insultingly infer that libertarians need to be “civilized”.
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October 27, 2009, 7:39 pmsteve har says:
regarding: Am Psukhushka’ comments:
There is no ad hominem of Vic by intention: what I object to is the faux wolf clothing and the perseveration, the argument by worst case wild things not Vic’s fundamental humanity. It is the unending stream of cursing the darkness that I object to not Vic’s basic goodness.
Regarding those walking down the road for the last 30 years filled with pretense of Libertarian virtue, espousing various forms of Reganism, Randism, leave-me-alone Gaultism, Greenspanism, Limboism, government-is-the-problemism, I invite you to notice the stink on your shoes where you stepped in it and then do something different than make complain about current circumstances.
Mr. America Psukhushka I do not insult you, rather you take up insult yourself. I invite you and Vic to let go of your sniveling complaints, excuses & paranoia and take up the civilizing process with some fresh ideas and some new commitments.
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October 28, 2009, 8:13 amAmerican Psikhushka says:
steve har–
...what I object to is the faux wolf clothing and the perseveration, the argument by worst case wild things not Vic’s fundamental humanity. It is the unending stream of cursing the darkness that I object to not Vic’s basic goodness.
The problem is the “worst cases” that vic mentioned are the end of a continuum that we are traversing now. And many don’t realize that the policies being undertaken and proposed now ensure further travel down that path.
Taxation weakens economies. The current level of taxation cause more than enough stagnation and weakness, higher taxes will only weaken it more and ensure that things will remain depressed for a longer period.
So the belief that you can take taxes from the economy and then create prosperity by having experts determine where it can be redistributed and reinvested back into the economy — after the usual loss due to government friction, expenses, etc. — is a losing proposition. Businesses and individuals know far better what they need to do to improve their financial picture, the money they earned needs to be left in their hands. The economy right now is a sick mule, taking more of its food and bleeding it isn’t going to make it healthy and get it pulling again.
Mr. America Psukhushka I do not insult you, rather you take up insult yourself. I invite you and Vic to let go of your sniveling complaints, excuses & paranoia and take up the civilizing process with some fresh ideas and some new commitments.
I don’t snivel, I’ll let you know when I start. Don’t hold your breath.
The idea front is complicated. On the macro level, the ideas for having a healthy economy aren’t new — taxation weakens economies, they have to be lowered (and consequently government spending has to be lowered) as much as possible for an economy to recover from a depression and become strong and growing again. I try to share the ideas and principles behind this as much as possible. On an individual level I have plenty of ideas as well. Currently circumstances outside my control prevent me from developing them, hopefully this situation will improve shortly.
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October 28, 2009, 10:52 amsteve har says:
AP -
If we are going to have a real conversation about Tax policy then we have to first decide whether we are doing fact-based or dead fundamentalism– based reasoning.
So is your assertion “Taxation weakens economies” fact or zombie economics left over from the early 1970s?. I suspect you are a supply sider and your tax policy is based on supply-side economics.
Jude Wanniski invented the idea ‘supply-side economics’ –it dates back to the 1970s; was taken much further at a famous lunch meeting between Wanniski, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and University of Southern California economist Arthur Laffer] http://zombiecon.wikidot.com/
So, frankly it is not good enough to sharp-shoot liberal economic policy unless you can back up your views with some 21 century facts and arguments. As far as I can tell this recession was stopped by public sector investment [ and other things need to happen, of course]
The day is over when the basic Libertarian strategy was “drain the bathtub” of public policy and the answer to any hard question was “cut taxes”.
Bruce Bartlett who was a Reagan economic advisor disputes your view and actually wants to increase taxes Bruce Bartlet Supply Side Economics RIP
http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/1168/supply-side-economics-rip. He says: “I really don’t understand why the Republican Party insists on a one-size-fits-all economic policy consisting of more and bigger tax cuts no matter what the economic circumstances are.”
A group of rich Germans has launched a petition calling for the government to make wealthy people pay higher taxes.
The group say they have more money than they need, and the extra revenue could fund economic and social programmes to aid Germany’s economic recovery. Rich Germans demand higher taxes http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8321967.stm
So, do you have any thing current to say on the subject of tax policy? Do you disagree with Bruce Bartlett? Why? I’m interested in some fresh thinking not warmed over Reagan economics that might have made a difference 30 years ago in a completely different world.
Just to clarify who we are talking about in the USA here is a chart of the “Four Bears” what the economy is doing compared to other bear markets Four bears chart http://dshort.com/charts/bears/four-bears-large.gif
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October 28, 2009, 9:11 pmvic says:
The dow is not the economy
loose monetary policies create an asset bubble
greenspan/ clinton 1990’s — tech bubble
greenspan/ bush 2000’s — real estate bubble
bernanke/ geitner/ obama– ???? bubble and massive inflation to come
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October 28, 2009, 10:03 pmPaul says:
I am glad to see a bit of lively debate here; it is helpful to see how various points of view play out “in practice”. I have an observation and a question.
Observation: JakeCollins starts out by offering a useful opinion that for liberals to be “persuaded” they need to understand how libertarianism addresses topics that are important to the liberal point of view. I would like to echo that this is an important step, and those who ignored it or belittled it should consider their goals in this discussion.
I have generally identified with the Democrats on social issues, mostly out of a desire not to support the religiously motivated policies often picked up by Republicans on topics such as homosexuality and abortion. I also believe that a meritocratic system, which I think is effectively, although not perfectly, facilitated by capitalism, is, by and large, to be preferred over unearned handouts and a presumed homogeneity of abilities and needs — yet, I feel that it *does happen* that occasionally a person will truly end up screwed, through circumstances that could not have anticipated or properly “saved up for”, and I believe that it is unacceptable (inefficient, at the least) for society to simply leave that person to suffer or die as a result. Thus some kind of safety net is required for dire circumstances.
Finally, I have been largely persuaded that a majority of government “investment” money ends up wasted on poor choices that might have been better made by individuals or smaller, more local communities. Thus, for the programs I am in favor of having government work on, I am leaning more toward government incentives for market or individual behavior over direct investment (e.g., Mill’s idea that the public should fund education, but should not be in the business of running schools).
Does this collection of preferences make me a libertarian? I’m not sure. Maybe some of you are sure — please comment.
But what I’d like to ask is: what book or set of books would you recommend that will help me to (a) place the “current” ideological basis of libertarianism as it exists today and (b) see how that ideology applies to contemporary issues so I can “try it on” and see if I like how it fits?
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November 25, 2009, 3:53 am