Libertarian policy analysts William Eggers and John O’Leary recently published a provocative article entitled ““Five Reasons Why Libertarians Shouldn’t Hate Government.” The article generated good responses by Bryan Caplan (here and here), and my fiancee. Tyler Cowen and Will Wilkinson have defended Eggers and O’Leary.
Eggers and O’Leary make some good points. On balance, however, I agree with most of what the critics say. As they point out, it is often unclear whether Eggers and O’Leary are saying that libertarians should learn to like government because that is the right view on the merits, or whether libertarians should merely pretend to like government for the sake of political strategy. If the latter, it is certainly true that a radical libertarian platform is unlikely to win elections — a point that few would deny. The same, of course, is true of a radical conservative or left-wing platform.
That does not mean, however, that libertarians can’t make gains by tapping into popular suspicion and distrust of government. In addition, as Bryan notes, there is a natural division of labor between moderate and radical libertarians, with the first group concentrating on incremental reforms of the existing system, and the second focusing on more comprehensive critiques of it.
If Eggers and O’Leary mean that loving government is actually the right position in itself, then I think they conflate intelligent and sophisticated analysis of government with affection for it.
Here are my comments on Eggers and O’Leary’s five specific points:
#1: Bad government leads to bigger, badder government….
[I]n societies where people distrust large institutions–whether government or big business–the demand for more regulation and for more government is higher, even when government is incompetent or downright corrupt.
This is true in some cases, but far from universally so. Distrust and dissatisfaction with government was an important cause of most of the major free market reforms achieved in democratic societies over the last several decades. Think of the US in the 1980s and 90s, Thatcher in Britain, the free market reforms in Ireland and New Zealand, and so on. In every case (with the possible exception of Ireland), the leaders who promoted these reforms made a point of tapping into popular frustration with and distrust of government. This is even more true of successful free market reforms in post-communist societies such as Poland, Estonia, and the Czech Republic.
Eggers and O’Leary are, of course, correct in suggesting that distrust in government doesn’t necessarily lead to support for reducing its size. It could lead to a belief that things will be better if only the right people are elected to office. This is the sort of conviction that libertarians have to work to dispel. Nonetheless, it’s hard to deny that people who distrust government and believe it performs poorly are more likely to support shrinking it than those who trust the state and believe it works well.
#2: To shrink government, you need to love government….
Until small-government types better master the nuts and bolts of the public sector–how to design policies that work in the real world and how to execute on large public undertakings–their initiatives to downsize government will continue to disappoint.
This is mostly false. It’s true that downsizing government sometimes requires “master[ing] the nuts and bolts of the public sector.” But such mastery doesn’t require you to “love government.” You can study something closely even if you view it with suspicion and distrust. People can study dictatorship, crime, and racism without loving dictators, criminals, and racists. The same is true of “the nuts and bolts of the public sector.” Moreover, Eggers and O’Leary write as if libertarians have largely ignored the workings of the public sector. In reality, libertarian scholars have produced a vast literature on this subject. For example, libertarian economists William Niskanen and Gordon Tullock are two of the founders of modern economic analysis of government bureaucracy. There is a also a large libertarian literature on the details of environmental policy (co-blogger Jonathan Adler is an important contributor), privatization strategy, land use regulation and many other related topics. This literature surely has its flaws. But it’s wrong to assume that libertarians have mostly ignored the workings of the public sector.
#3: Market-based reforms are not self-executing….
Without a keen appreciation of the process by which legislation and programs are designed and implemented, efforts to move from monopoly to markets carry a high risk of failure.
As Bryan points out, this is true for some market-based reforms but not for others. Privatization of state-owned enterprises and partial deregulation require careful planning lest disaster ensue. Many harmful government interventions, however, can be simply abolished. The repeal of Prohibition in 1933 and the abolition of price controls in the 1970s and 80s were great success stories of this type.
Moreover, “keen appreciation” of the details of reform strategies doesn’t require you to “love government” or even not hate it. And as with point #2, libertarian scholars have in fact produced a vast literature on strategies for privatization and deregulation. They certainly haven’t ignored these issues. Robert Poole is a leading contributor to that literature, which he summarizes here.
#4: Government bashing alienates those you want to reach….
Incessant government-bashing may make you feel good, but alienates most everybody who knows and loves a police officer, firefighter, teacher, social worker, anyone who has ever collected an unemployment check, and anyone who saw NASA put a man on the moon.
There is some truth to this, but it is overstated. First, “bashing government” doesn’t require trashing all the people who work there. The point of libertarian government-bashing is not that government employees are unusually bad people, but that they operate in institutions with poor incentives. The Postal Service and public schools can be dysfunctional even if your daughter’s teacher and your mailman are wonderful people. Liberals, for their part, routinely attack corporations without anyone assuming that they are thereby “bashing” all the millions of people who work for them.
Second, we should not underrate the massive distrust of government that exists in society today, and the growing belief that its scope should be reduced. Most of the people who feel this way are not consistent libertarians. But they may be willing to support substantial reductions in government relative to its current size.
Finally, some categories of government employees really are widely hated by the public, especially politicians. I think that the public overrates the extent to which politicians are bad people and underrates the ways in which they simply have bad incentives. Nonetheless, the political process does favor of the election of ruthless power-seekers, and libertarians should do all they can to point this out. On this point, public opinion may be more receptive to libertarian insights than on most others.
#5: Nobody will care what you know until they know you care…
Many voters today may indeed want smaller government, but what they want most of all is competent government. In addition to pointing out the flaws of government, free-marketers also need to communicate a genuine interest in the effective performance of the important duties of government.
I don’t think these two objectives are mutually exclusive. All but anarchist libertarians would concede that there are “important duties of government” that should be performed as well as possible. However, we must make the case that smaller government is also likely to be more competent government. I don’t think libertarians need to love government in order to do that. The right strategy for libertarians is to persuade people that you can “care” without supporting big government, indeed that the objectives of caring people are often best accomplished by shrinking the state. I doubt that we can achieve that goal by learning to love government or by pretending to do so. Indeed, if people come to think that government is so wonderful that even libertarians love it, why would they want to reduce its power?
There is also an issue of comparative advantage here. Lots of people of varied political persuasions focus on improving government performance. The special insight of libertarians is pointing out those areas where we should eliminate or at least greatly reduce government intervention.
UPDATE: I should mention that I don’t think that Eggers and O’Leary are simply unaware of the libertarian literature on privatization, bureaucracy, and other “nuts and bolts” of government. Eggers is himself a privatization scholar. But it does seem that they failed to consider its relevance in this particular article.
David Welker says:
Hah! Libertarians don’t have any insight, much less “special” insight.
You are mistaking empty cynicism, which doesn’t take any intelligence or insight, with an actual contribution.
Libertarianism is doomed to fail, although it may take a major disaster before the majority of people see that empty cynicism isn’t getting them anywhere. As Benjamin Franklin put it:
So, it is true that the rhetoric of libertarianism is poisonous in that it undermines the strength and efficiency of government. But the people are not going to thrive on poison and eventually they will hopefully realize it.
Maybe not, but then they will deserve exactly what they get.
February 5, 2010, 7:31 pmCameron says:
The more money spent on retired police officers, the less money is left over for hiring new police officers to actually police a city’s streets. The figure the authors evoke of the police officer or even the social worker everybody “knows and loves,” doesn’t quite cover it. We all know and love someone who has collected an unemployment check, too, but we can all understand that there’s less money left over for the unemployed when government employees win yet another raise and yet more benefits. Who would defend the public pensions debacle?
February 5, 2010, 7:32 pmEvilDave says:
Might as well.
February 5, 2010, 7:42 pmTo quote boxer Mike Tyson, “[Government is] going to you rape you till you love [it]“.
Oren says:
Reason #0 to love government – it protects my right to life, liberty and property. Perhaps not 100%, but certainly more that not government.
/Snark
This is libertarian academics. Libertarian pols/journalists are rarely on point on how to design efficient policy — that is, they don’t explain how to accomplish goals without stepping on libertarian ideals, they only get angry when those ideals are stepped on.
For instance, while I very much support the work of Balko, he rarely delineates how he would lead an effective police force while concurrently improving civil rights. His advocacy is certainly valuable, but it would be even more valuable if he was putting forth positive theories for police departments to actually implement (as opposed to negative ones).
After all, effective deterrence and punishment of crime is most certainly among the most “important duties of government” — there should be a whole industry of libertarians agitating on positive theories for best policing practices.
February 5, 2010, 7:48 pmIlya Somin says:
This is libertarian academics. Libertarian pols/journalists are rarely on point on how to design efficient policy — that is, they don’t explain how to accomplish goals without stepping on libertarian ideals, they only get angry when those ideals are stepped on.
Very few pols and journalists of any kind know these things. They are necessarily dependent on academic and other experts for the design of policy details. That is no less of true of liberals and conservatives than libertarians.
February 5, 2010, 8:23 pmIlya Somin says:
Hah! Libertarians don’t have any insight, much less “special” insight.
Yes, I guess I’ll just have to take the word of a truly great thinker like David Welker that people like Hayek, Friedman, James Buchanan, and most recently Elinor Ostrom won Nobel Prizes despite the fact that they “didn’t have any insight.” Similarly, Richard Epstein, Randy Barnett, and co-blogger David Bernstein got to be among the most-cited legal scholars in the world without ever having any insights too.
It’s wonderful that Welker is back to favor us with brilliant comments such as this one.
February 5, 2010, 8:25 pmAnonsters says:
Do libertarians actually think that there is any hope of having “small government” in the 21st century? I mean, as a matter of honest belief about what is likely to happen in the future.
(I’m not implying anything about what you should or shouldn’t believe. I’m just really curious about whether (realistic) libertarians have any hope for achieving their goals… ever.)
February 5, 2010, 8:40 pmAllan Walstad says:
As a quick response, the points to which Ilya is responding all highlight the difference between getting out of a hole and not getting into one in the first place. When government programs become entrenched and crowd out private alternatives for an extended period of time, it becomes difficult for people to envision how they would get along without them, even if, by and large, they’d be better off if the programs never existed. Furthermore, government programs typically produce situations which, while dysfunctional, are very difficult to escape.
Social Security is a prime example. This pay-as-you-go ponzi scheme has diverted astronomical quantities of resources from what could have been productive capital investments, making society as a whole (i.e. people by and large) worse off. But, by now, for generations of folks who have been taught to assume that it’s the feds’ job to look after their retirements, the idea of taking responsibility for themselves in that regard must appear daunting. And just how do we terminate it anyway? We have to keep collecting the tax to support people who, themselves, were robbed of possible savings and now rely on SS in their old age. But then the younger generation, having had a substantial fraction of their earnings confiscated to support the system, will be in the same position later. There is a way out of course, based on gradually raising the retirement age, but collectivist political demagoguery makes it a very difficult proposition.
I think the most important step to solving these problems lies in helping people come to an understanding that the vast expansion of government intrusion in the marketplace was a bad mistake. Only then can we move forward to a freer society. Rather than libertarians coming to “love government,” we need to press on with educating people about how much damage has been wrought by unfettered coercive government.
February 5, 2010, 8:50 pmOren says:
Point accepted.
February 5, 2010, 9:05 pmOren says:
Well, at the very minimum, the current levels of government debt coupled with the lack of economic growth mean that government is not likely to get any bigger.
Big governments are a luxury good, after a fashion — you don’t buy more of them when you are drowning in debt and looking for a job.
February 5, 2010, 9:07 pmIlya Somin says:
Do libertarians actually think that there is any hope of having “small government” in the 21st century? I mean, as a matter of honest belief about what is likely to happen in the future.
It’s a fair question. My own view is that we can achieve a government much smaller than the one we have now. I wrote about some of the reasons why in this series of posts. I doubt that we can achieve a fully libertarian society in the foreseeable future, even if libertarians agreed among themselves on what such a society would look like. But we should not let the best be the enemy of the good.
February 5, 2010, 9:21 pmNorthern Dave says:
Being an unrecalcitrant Whig (and hence strictly speaking I am not any sort of libertarian in the libertine sense) I would argue that libertarians are already totally in love with government.
My reasoning is that we as humans communicate about that which we hold most dear more than other things – to the point of irritating our friends and neighbours. I have yet to meet a libertarian who isn’t er somewhat fixated on government so, ergo sum, libertarians are already in love with government :-)
(Caveat – I don’t include anarchists as libertarians as the libertarians I have encountered all seek liberty inside of a society whereas the anarchists don’t give a fig for anyone else and are positively antagonistic to any form of collective community life. Such are only fixated on the total destruction of society per se and hence have a hate-on for society exclusive of any feelings of amity.)
February 5, 2010, 10:03 pmbyomtov says:
Yes, I guess I’ll just have to take the word of a truly great thinker like David Welker that people like Hayek, Friedman, James Buchanan, and most recently Elinor Ostrom won Nobel Prizes despite the fact that they “didn’t have any insight.”
I don’t know about the others, but Friedman, not unlike Paul Krugman, won the Nobel for his technical work in economics, not his political views.
February 5, 2010, 10:17 pmDavid Welker says:
I will say one final thing. I have mentioned where I disagree with you.
Here is where I agree with you.
Smaller government is possible. We live in a democracy. There is no reason it cannot be achieved. Well, the filibuster, disregarding unimportant questions concerning constitutional propriety, in some ways makes it more difficult. But on balance is probably a net plus since it prevents the normal operation of democracy, which is usually not your ally.
Indeed, I will further observe that the “starve the beast” theory has definitely advanced the cause of smaller government. Clinton’s ambitions were curtailed in large part by concerns about the deficit. The current fiscal situation has curtailed Obama’s ambitions. Further, even the Medicare Part D expansion may have helped limit the size of government, as it makes it more difficult for Democrats to provide benefits to seniors though an expansion of health care. Maybe passing tax cuts without paying for them really is a good way to reduce the size of government or at least prevent or slow its expansion.
Whether this is wise policy or not is left as an exercise for the reader.
February 5, 2010, 10:22 pmArthurKirkland says:
It is difficult to learn anything from this thread because of differing (to put it nicely) views concerning what qualifies one as a “libertarian.”
February 5, 2010, 10:49 pmMark N. says:
Yeah, that seems to be a general problem in any libertarian debates (though admittedly, also in liberal ones). My vague impression is that much of the opposition to this piece comes from a “small-government, low-tax” style of libertarianism. My own interests are more focused on civil liberties and problems of regulation as opposed to tax rates, which leads me to be more sympathetic towards the thrust of the piece. In particular, I think social safety nets, even if you don’t care about them for their own sake, are often useful tools for building coalitions in favor of libertarian policies on non-tax issues.
February 5, 2010, 11:00 pmNorthern Dave says:
What’s your definition, AK?
I had fun taking the “Are you a Libertarian” quiz at http://www.lp.org/
February 5, 2010, 11:05 pmSenatorX says:
Yawn, same old strawman. First make a false caricature of what libertarians are then knock it down with some “I am so much wiser” fluff.
#1. Confuse anarchists with most libertarians
#2. Covered by Ilya
#3. Same as # 1
#4. Just stupid
#5. Same as # 1
Here is what I think most contra-libertarians don’t get. Most libertarians arrive at libertarianism through the back door. First they believe other things, then they get tired of the B.S., then they seek the truth, then they wonder if there are others who believe the same truths, then they find out those others are libertarians. Good luck destroying those truths with fluff.
February 5, 2010, 11:08 pmrequired says:
#3 is particularily galling, especially when the example they use (“de-regulation’ of California energy markets) was anything but a market solution. Yes energy companies gamed the system, not the market system but the government imposed and controlled system. Plain and simple regulatory capture, the system did what it was designed to do quite well and created a market quite poorly. During the design process market efficiency became irrelevant. The “de-regulation” did what it was designed to do, it shifted profits from the old utility companies to energy management companies while keeping the expenses in the hands of the utility companies. The situation that occurred should not have surprised anyone who was paying attention, there were many people and think tanks which pointed out the flaws that would occur if the system were “de-regulated” they way California did it.
Mind you I am not a libertarian, and I believe that regulated electricity (at least) markets are a good thing, but even I can recognize that while a water-heater can function as a paperweight it is poorly designed for that task. If someone were to show me a water-heater paperweight I would not call it poorly designed just because it was a poor paperweight, it may be well designed for it’s intended purpose.
February 5, 2010, 11:14 pmMC says:
Mr. Welker’s comments frequently confuse me. Why exactly should we care about the “national IQ” and how exactly do you go about measuring when it is raised or lowered?
Also, when he comments on Mr. Somin’s posts, I feel as if Mr. Welker and I are reading two different things. Where Mr. Welker sees “self-flattery” I just see Mr. Somin defending an idea. Where Mr. Welker seems to have some sort of un-explained issue with Mr. Somin’s philosophy and thinks that what Mr. Somin advocates would be disastrous, I see in Mr. Somin’s posts, tempered, measured, and well-thought out ideas.
I am no libertarian and find myself disagreeing with the various posters of this blog about as often as I find myself agreeing with them. But one thing about all of the blog’s posters is that they generally engage in stimulating intellectual debate.
I completely fail to see the self-flattery or disastrous ideas that Mr. Welker speaks of.
February 5, 2010, 11:15 pmShould Libertarians Learn to “Love Government”? | Liberal Whoppers says:
[...] rest is here: Should Libertarians Learn to “Love Government”? [...]
February 5, 2010, 11:27 pmMark Field says:
Because you love the country, believe that republican government should succeed, and recognize that people like Glenn Beck make responsible government less likely.
February 5, 2010, 11:28 pmMark Field says:
I’m a little skeptical of this quiz. It classified me as a “centrist”. I’ll let regular readers here decide how accurate they think that is.
February 5, 2010, 11:29 pmStephen Lathrop says:
I’m pretty ignorant about libertarianism, so maybe someone can help me out with answers to two questions that trouble me whenever I try to think about it.
1. I take it as a founding principle of the United States that people have the right to form the government they prefer, whatever it may be. Seems like libertarianism, with its regard for the sanctity of property, is inconsistent with the principle of unlimited freedom of self government. You have to keep people from forming governments that frustrate the libertarian management of property. So where does the authority to establish a libertarian form of government arise, since it can’t be with the people, and what are the boundaries?
2. Libertarians warn about encroachments of the state on individual liberty–a view I welcome. However, I’m even more worried about the encroachments of corporations on individual liberty. Corporations sometimes compete with states for sovereignty. Sometimes it looks like corporations are winning. In a libertarian system, what restrains corporate encroachments on individual liberty?
February 5, 2010, 11:37 pmPaul says:
Ilya:
It seems pretty clear that point #2 is not about “loving” gov’t per se. As their nuts/bolts explanation below that heading implies, “love” is essentially just a euphemism for earnestly acquiring a competency in implementing and executing public policy in general. I’d argue that Bush 43 aptly demonstrated how rolling back regulations, without a corresponding, consistently-evident competence in implementing the remaining ones, does not always mean “good times.”
Obviously, that does not mean we were better off with “more” regulations, but it does mean that as long as remaining regulations are not competently executed, we are not necessarily better off. A regulatory purgatory, one might say.
For that reason, your analogy to “love” of racism or dictators seems misplaced.
February 5, 2010, 11:57 pmAllan Walstad says:
The quiz at the LP site has changed over the years. I did not used to score 100% but I did just now.
Libertarianism is all about self-government: you govern yourself, that is, direct your own affairs, and leave others free to govern themselves (direct their own affairs). “People have the right to form the government they prefer”? What if you and I prefer differently? Then I take it you are talking about majority rule. But libertarians would ask, how much “rule” is necessary or appropriate (if any)? The ideal would be for people to interact non-coercively, “win-win or no deal.” Decisions do have to be made about how physical resources are to be used, and freely-transferrable private property rights are most consistent with liberty. After all, do you really expect freedom of the press if the government owns all the media? Freedom of religion if the government owns all the churches?
The free market and defense of individual liberty (one of the few proper government functions to all libertarians except anarchists). But wait–what restrains corporate encroachments in a government-dominated system? Who bailed out the banks and the car companies at our expense? Who imposes the tariffs and quotas that make us pay inflated prices for many goods, like sugar?
February 6, 2010, 12:14 amAllan Walstad says:
Agreed. That’s why I hope Ilya or one of the other bloggers would do a thread just on that topic.
February 6, 2010, 12:21 amanti-interventionist says:
The prime example we have of the destruction of private industry is the automobile industry. Not content with subsidizing two companies that will ultimately go bankrupt anyway, the omniscient government is now targeting Toyota for destruction. Toyota has been hounded by government bureaucrats to recall millions of cars and shut down production for alleged “defects” that affect only a few hundred cars.
Why are cars so expensive? Because they must meet “standards” that allegedly improve their safety, when it is only the government bureaucracy that profits, by creating non-productive government jobs. The market should be the vehicle (pun intended) to promote safety, not the government. The same applies to pharmacuticals and any other industry from which the public needs “protection.” Let the market decide what level of safety is necessary, not unelected (and possibly unconstitutional) bureaucrats.
February 6, 2010, 12:40 amSarcastro says:
Not only is this on point about how to be a better libertarian, but it’s logic is awesome! Yep, it was that quote from LaHood and not the media recordings of those dead people what is causing the problems!
As for the market deciding safety, this is such a good idea I’m sure it will be adopted and popular with the public in no time! And apply it to drugs, and food, and banks! What could possibly go wrong?
February 6, 2010, 12:56 amStephen Lathrop says:
Allan Walstad:
Thank you for your answers to my questions.
As I read the response to question 1, I think you have said that if we interpret “right to government” to imply the ability of people to form states, organize principles of governance, and apply them by force to everyone, then libertarianism simply doesn’t acknowledge any right to government at all.
I don’t want to distort your point or put words in your mouth, just to see if I have understood you. Is that a statement you can endorse?
On question 2 you seem to be saying that nobody has figured out a way to restrain corporate encroachments, so libertarianism is in roughly the same boat we find ourselves in now.
Again, have I understood you fairly?
February 6, 2010, 1:01 amDavid Welker says:
This libertarianism of which you speak is simply naive. We don’t have the option of saying “no deal.” Not if we live in the same community, which can and will face external threats that involve military action. No one likes coercion, but there are tradeoffs. If you lower taxes and don’t fund public education, then a lot of talented people are not going to be able reach their potential. They will be taken advantage of by those born into a better position and amount to much less than they could in a more enlightened society.
Do you think that child labor is “non-coercive”? Of course it is not. Do you think that those with access to resources do not coerce those without such access in private sector contexts? Of course they do.
Libertarianism doesn’t minimize coercion or maximize liberty in general. Not if you really think about it. Democracy and majority rule (with some but not excessive protection for minority rights), in contrast, really does maximize both opportunity and true liberty.
Finally, lets keep in mind that minimizing coercion is only one of our values. We also value creating opportunities for people to reach their full potential. Taxation is certainly coercive to some degree. But we need taxation in order to advance the general interest, including in education, transportation, basic research and development, the creation of a social safety net, the protection of intellectual property, and so on.
We would not be a more free society without a social safety net. Just the opposite. People are already risk adverse. Good luck incentivizing entrepreneurs to take real risks (as opposed to the rich taking fake “risks” with a small percentage of their wealth) without a social safety net.
What is clear is that libertarianism in its more extreme manifestations is both naive and ironically liberty minimizing.
I recognize that many people who call themselves libertarianism are not in fact against such things as a social safety net. As has been mentioned, there is a basic definitional issue here concerning what does and does not constitute libertarianism. But, to the extent that you abandon the principles of a harsher sort of libertarianism, one wonders why one bothers to call themselves a libertarian at all.
Almost everyone values liberty, in terms of people being able to follow their own path in life. It is the libertarian conceit that only libertarians value liberty.
February 6, 2010, 1:07 amCareless says:
On a libertarian/non-libertarian scale, you are a centrist. You skew socially libertarian and economically non-libertarian.
February 6, 2010, 1:08 amorca says:
A simple purity test will suffice.
February 6, 2010, 1:08 amAnonsters says:
I think Sarcastro has been out-Sarcastroed.
It said I was a liberal. I guess it doesn’t know that “progressive” is the preferred term these days.
February 6, 2010, 1:27 amThe Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Should Libertarians Learn … | 1st Gov says:
[...] Read this article: The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Should Libertarians Learn … [...]
February 6, 2010, 1:33 amOren says:
A quick check on the average fatality rate per mile driven indicates that this allegation is, at the very minimum, plausible.
February 6, 2010, 2:59 amDNJ says:
As a New Zealander, I must take issue with your statement about distrust and dissatisfaction with Government being a major cause of the free market reforms in New Zealand. The main causes of them were the exigencies of the fiscal situation (in other words, the fact the country was nearly bankrupt) and the high degree of executive control of Parliament that enabled enabled a core of free market Ministers holding key economic Ministerial positions to push through reforms that lacked public support (as evidenced by the fact that the Government that implemented these reforms suffered one of the largest elections defeats in New Zealand history).
February 6, 2010, 4:59 amDavid Nieporent says:
Look! A self-refuting argument!
February 6, 2010, 6:26 amex parte animal says:
Classic Somin: not an ounce of data as far as the eye can see, just claims of “mostly [this]” and “a majority of [that].”
February 6, 2010, 6:34 amArkady says:
I’m curious, Ilya, under a purely libertarian regime, how would things like this be prevented?
Bruised Maid Dies at 12, and Pakistan Seethes
Or is this just another “market failure”?
February 6, 2010, 6:51 amBladeDoc says:
Look! Another self refuting argument! If you have trouble figuring out why the clue is Pakistan is not a libertarian regime. Nor BTW is the US.
February 6, 2010, 7:04 amArkady says:
I asked how, under a purely libertarian regime, the exploitation of children, as illustrated in the cited article, could be avoided. Can you provide me with an explanation?
February 6, 2010, 7:18 amFub says:
I certainly don’t speak for Radley Balko, but I’ve read his work regularly for years.
From what I’ve read of his reportage and analysis, the most effective “theories for best policing practices” are mostly “negative theories”. They boil down to:
1. Don’t lie, cheat or steal.
2. Don’t be a jerk just because you can get away with being a jerk.
3. Take personal responsibility for your actions.
How difficult is that for police or any other government officials to understand? Some people actually learn it in kindergarten.
February 6, 2010, 7:30 amCato The Elder says:
I totally agree with you, man. I agree Pakistan should immediately pass legislation banning child labor — after all it’s not as if she was laboring for a reason. I agree that instead of dying very publicly it would be better that she and her family and millions others starve very quietly. That way we can dress her up in her colorful native dress in her vibrant seething slum and still sell many issues of National Geographic!
February 6, 2010, 8:04 amCato The Elder says:
I totally agree with you, man. I agree Pakistan should immediately pass legislation banning child labor — after all it’s not as if she was laboring for a reason. I agree that instead of dying very publicly it would be better that she and her family and millions others starve very quietly. That way we can dress her up in her colorful native dress in her vibrant seething slum and still sell many issues of National Geographic! (Aren’t those children just darling in pink?)
February 6, 2010, 8:07 amSarcastro says:
Indeed, Cato The Elder. Yay, sweatshops!
February 6, 2010, 8:09 amRicardo says:
Is this supposed to be a critique of, say, article Hayek’s “The Use of Knowledge in Society” published in American Economic Review? It sounds more like a talking point (similar in content to “evolutionists have faith in science!” or “why aren’t skeptics skeptical of skepticism!?”) than the criticism of someone who is familiar with Hayek’s work.
One of Hayek’s main insights — and one that did inform his political and philosophical views — was the way in which important knowledge and information gets dispersed throughout society and the role that markets play in aggregating all that information that would otherwise be unavailable to us. I suspect Hayek would be very impressed with wikipedia and the blogosphere if he were alive today as well.
February 6, 2010, 8:13 amOren says:
Fub, those are good principles to run a police force but they aren’t much of a strategy. When your precinct captain comes up and asks you whether you want more foot patrols or more deep investigation, are you going to answer “don’t be a jerk and everything will work out”? Should we focus more on organized crime or low-level thugs? Should we spend money on better wiretapping equipment or more boots on the ground? What offense should we prosecute and which ones can be let slide? Should we try to contain the rowdy pub crowd or focus on property crimes? Most importantly, once we’ve answered all these questions (and few hundred more), what metrics can we use to assess whether we’ve succeeded?
You have no substantive answers, just “don’t be a jerk”. Yes, honest policing is a fine thing but it’s neither substitute for, nor detriment to, good policing.
First, there is no such thing as “purely libertarian”. Libertarianism is a set of principles, not a
Second, while some more stringent libs might disagree, I think there is room for stricter regulation of minors than adults, especially at the age of 12.
February 6, 2010, 8:13 amCato The Elder says:
Don’t take it from me, Sarcastro — I am an easily-recognized counter-revolutionary. Take it from that great mensch Paul Krugman: Yay, sweatshops.
February 6, 2010, 8:20 amRicardo says:
Krugman was talking about factories employing adults, not households employing illiterate 12-year-olds as maids when they should be in school. Many parents in Pakistan sell their children into servitude to pay off debts or because they suddenly realized they can’t afford to feed another mouth in the household.
It’s not as simple as blaming poverty. Look at how much money even the poorest of the poor Pakistanis spend on weddings sometime. Some might even have children in expectation that they will make money off of them once they are put to work at around age 8 or 9. Much better to ban child labor and get the parents to start using birth control the way Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand all have.
February 6, 2010, 8:32 amTRE says:
EV was a computer programmer at a very early age whom sold products and made significant money. He wasn’t illiterate but he wasn’t Pakistani either. The state should protect workers as part of the marketplace, but not protect them from helping themselves if they choose it work.
My school experience was basically, in class, I read the textbook and finished it quickly. Then I brought in outside books and read those. My time was wasted. I would have been better off earning minimum wage at a job that gave useful experience like McDonalds. I could have focused on computer programming like EV.
If the police weren’t largely going after drug crimes they wouldn’t have to bust into places guns blazing because most crimes don’t have prime evidence that can be easily flushed down the toilet. Unless we are talking about a hostage situation I can’t think of many examples of searches and seizures where the police would necessarily have to put their lives on the line at all.
February 6, 2010, 9:51 amMark Field says:
I guess if that’s the axis, then fair enough. That’s certainly how I’d describe my views, so you are probably right about the poll. Still, I think there are issues which might affect the outcome.
February 6, 2010, 10:57 amChris Travers says:
I don’t consider myself to be a libertarian. I suppose I am more libertarian than most folks I know. However, I see a number of important roles that government can and should undertake well beyond what the libertarian party line is.
The basic thing is that I think that government has a role to play in providing common goods in such a way that competition can thrive. Infrastructure is something which government does a good job in general of running. Services? Not so much.
This means that I see the public domain as good as well, and want copyright terms to be decreased back to the original time limits that this country enacted.
It also means that I am in favor of government ownership and control of roadways, power grid, and last-mile infrastructure for communications. However, I do not want to see the government providing phone service, internet service, (electricity generation by the government I think should be limited to hydro dams which really are public projects, but I am undecided on nuclear power plant operation) etc. One way that this can be done is for the government to run the lines, but not offer the services.
For example I have a fiber-optical line running to my house that is owned and maintained by the county public utility district. The PUD owns and operates the line and the basic network infrastructure to allow for phone, cable tv, and internet service to my house. However, they don’t offer any of these things. Instead they require that I sign up with any of a number of competing businesses which connect the PUD network to the larger phone network and internet, and/or provide cable tv over the line. This is great. Compared to anywhere else I have lived, I have so many more choices for services and the costs are driven down by competition.
This suggests that true natural monopolies should probably be run by the government, but that the government should maintain these as infrastructure for a competitive marketplace.
February 6, 2010, 11:48 amChris Travers says:
(The only truly libertarian historical culture I really like was the medieval Icelandic republic. It had a legislature and a court system, but no executive-type institutions. One major issue though was that this culture caused ecological devastation in their territory. Over half of the grasslands and most of the forests were turned into barren wasteland.
It was a cool system while it lasted, but the ecological problems created helped seal their fate, and eventual takeover by Norway.
Jesse Byock has written a number of impressive surveys on this system, for those who want to learn more.)
February 6, 2010, 11:52 amAllan Walstad says:
Your message must have come in just after I went to bed. Libertarians don’t all agree on everything. On question 1, the anarcho-capitalists do take non-coercion all the way to denying legitimacy to any coercive government. For them, what you call a “right to government” is a false claim of power to infringe on rights via coercion. Many others, who still consider themselves strict libertarians, are concerned that anarchy leaves too much of a door open to an authoritarian takeover, either via invasion or from within. So they endorse the existence of a government, but one limited in scope precisely to defense of liberty, which may include armed forces, police, courts. Others go somewhat farther to allow for the government to establish things like rights of way for roads and railroads, and perhaps even some of the infrastructure itself, along with some responsibility for the common environment. As you move farther along the spectrum of allowing greater scope for coercive government, you are talking about classical (as opposed to modern American) liberals. They are still quite libertarian in the sense of wanting much smaller, less expensive, less coercive government than we have now: “libertarian” being used here as a relative term, as we generally use “right” and “left.”
On 2, it’s not that nobody has figured out a way to restrain corporate encroachments, it’s that coercive government is precisely the mechanism whereby business interests, like other groups (labor unions come to mind) exert coercion. The most effective way to defend ourselves from this sort of coercion is to bring back strict limits on the scope of government, and a good place to start would be simply to enforce the Constitutional constraints on the power of the federal government, constraints that have been overrun by pols and bureaucrats with the acquiescence or even active complicity of the courts.
February 6, 2010, 12:34 pmJim Hlavac says:
Libertarians like myself, are gadflies — and every healthy organization needs someone to point out the truly crazy parts, and to come up with any number of new and strange ideas. Then the practical people come in and make it work. It cannot be that we are all practical, or all intellectual, or all policy wonks, or all gadflies and decontructionists and dismantlers either — but what we need to do is allow the idea people to throw out ideas, and let practical people put them into effect.
February 6, 2010, 1:07 pmAs an analogy, in an ad agency there are people who are paid to just come up with whatever ideas they can, and then for graphic designers, and media buyers, and marketing strategists to put those ideas into practice, which might just mean not including the wackier ideas, or portions thereof.
Libertarians are our nation’s gadflies. Few truly believe they have a chance at success, but if we only nudge the practical people towards the libertarian ideal, well, then that’s half the battle.
Allan Walstad says:
The status of children is surely a harder question for libertarians than it is for collectivists. Under collectivism, children are subject to government control as adults are, so it’s just more of the same. For libertarians, non-coercion can’t mean that 6-year-olds do whatever they want and nobody has a legal responsibility for their care. Generally, the understanding is that parents are the choosers and controllers as well as the providers, but there have to be some limits on what they can do. How those limits are set and enforced represents a problem for strict libertarian philosophy.
Nevertheless, I think the pendulum has swung way too far toward government control. The reason why children had to work in the past was that the economic productivity of society was low and their labor in many cases was needed. Child labor laws would have been a death sentence for some. Nor would it be such an abomination now for young people to be more economically productive. My dad told me (and he wasn’t joking) that he was running a team of horses on the farm at age 10 (which would have been around 1926). I didn’t get the impression that it was a blight on his childhood–quite the contrary. Suppose your family doesn’t have a family farm–are we to take seriously the idea that if, say, 12 to 18-year-olds do some productive and remunerative labor for an employer that it constitutes “exploitation” or “abuse?” I think a fair case can be made that getting locked up in dysfunctional government schools 5 days a week, 9 months a year is abusive.
February 6, 2010, 1:29 pmFub says:
They are a baseline stategy for public officials who wish to be effective.
No matter what technical policing methods a police agency uses or how adeptly (ie: foot patrols, deep investigation, focus on organized crime, etc.), if its officers lie, cheat, steal and behave like jerks, they will be less effective at actually preventing or solving crime. They may also find themselves featured on Radley Balko’s blog.
Honest policing is the sine qua non of good policing. Dishonest police are indistinguishable from gangsters. All the technical methods in the universe won’t make them otherwise.
I think the rest of your comment was addressed to Arkady.
February 6, 2010, 2:10 pmDangerMouse says:
I’m not a libertarian, because libertarians are generally pro-abortion.
Incessant government-bashing may make you feel good, but alienates most everybody who knows and loves a police officer, firefighter, teacher, social worker, anyone who has ever collected an unemployment check, and anyone who saw NASA put a man on the moon.
Not so much true anymore. With the proliferation of SWAT teams and TSA agents, most people encounter government as an indifferent, sometimes brutal, thug.
In general, I’m in favor of almost anything that reduces the size and power of government. Whether starving the beast through tax decreases, slashing spending, wholescale firings and downsizes, etc. I’m in favor of all of it. The only reason why the government is as big today as it is, is because libs get their jollies ruling over the peasants and feel that big government is the stick they need to get their policies enacted.
February 6, 2010, 2:12 pmDangerMouse says:
You have no substantive answers, just “don’t be a jerk”. Yes, honest policing is a fine thing but it’s neither substitute for, nor detriment to, good policing.
Oren, “don’t be a jerk” can produce substantive answers. First, it suggests that multiple-review processes and union power of cops should be slashed. I think, from reading the Injustice Everywhere blog, that it takes as much as 5 levels of review for a cop to be administratively punished in Seattle, and even then he can still sue in court to get his job/benefits back. Most cops that commit crimes are at most merely fired (or given a paid vacation), and not prosecuted. Then there’s the whole problem of state crime labs that have a vested interest in supporting the police as opposed to finding the truth, DAs who refuse to prosecute cops, and judges who refuse to stop cops from committing crimes right in their own courtroom.
February 6, 2010, 2:18 pmDesiderius says:
MarkField,
“I’m a little skeptical of this quiz. It classified me as a “centrist”. I’ll let regular readers here decide how accurate they think that is.”
Well, the radical center, then. Were we allowed a couple extra dimensions, perhaps more could be said.
Ilya,
One doesn’t have to love government in order not to hate it, any more than than one either hates or loves, say, the alphabet. It just is. One would do well to master it, regardless of one’s feelings for it, or lack thereof.
As for Welker, I sometimes wonder whether he’s a libertarian agent provocateur…
February 6, 2010, 3:44 pmBladeDoc says:
The child labor thing is a ridiculous question. There are as many grades of “purely libertarian” as there are of statist/socialist. If you are trying to ask what an anarcho-capitalist would do about child labor — I don’t know. I do know that the role of government in a libertarian regime would be to enforce contracts. As part of that role the government would of course define who is competent to enter into contracts, i.e. an age of majority. Trying to pretend that the generic “libertarian” would allow the enforcement of contracts with incompetent individuals is a strawman. Where that age should be is another question.
February 6, 2010, 4:12 pmRexx Shelton says:
“it is certainly true that a radical libertarian platform is unlikely to win elections — a point that few would deny. The same, of course, is true of a radical conservative or left-wing platform.”
Obama won, didn’t he?
February 6, 2010, 4:39 pmThe less deceived says:
When a candidate promises to cut spending and taxes, and says that defeating the terrorists in Afghanistan is his “top priority,” he’s not running as a leftist ideologue. If he was running as a leftist ideologue he’d be out there defending high spending and high taxes by talking about children in Pakistan. In America, government employees get pay raises when in the private sector they’d lose their jobs. And the excuse for that, apparently, is children in Pakistan.
February 6, 2010, 4:55 pmOren_ says:
February 6, 2010, 5:33 pmChris Travers says:
As a note, republican Iceland lasted about 400 years without a police force…..
February 6, 2010, 5:38 pmMark Field says:
I’m happy to be a radical centrist. Revolution Now, baby.
February 6, 2010, 7:50 pmStephen Lathrop says:
From your response to No. 1 I now take it that your description is that libertarians come in various stripes, that they differ on the appropriate degree of liberty, and on the question of a right to self government, at least insofar as that implies something beyond the government of the individual by himself. And the question of where in principle the right to govern comes from goes unaddressed by libertarians?
From No. 2 I think I understand you to say that making the state weaker will make corporations weaker and less able to encroach on individuals, and making the state stronger will make corporations stronger and better able to encroach on individuals. I also infer from your comment that libertarians deny that the state could function as a check on the encroachments of corporations against individuals.
Once again, thanks for your comments. Your take on point 2 above stirs the skeptic in me, but also prompts reflection. History seems to show the error of any assertion that the state can not be a defender of individuals against corporations–food safety, public health, child labor, flight safety for airlines, and on and on. I have to think harder to recall examples that cut the other way, but presume they are there to be found. Can you help me out with a few?
I guess it would be helpful to find out if there is any agreement among libertarians that an imbalance in material means among individuals tends to give rise to coercive relations. My inclination is to believe that it does, and to suggest that economic theory and history too show that weak government tends to open the field for that kind of coercion. However, I’m mindful that strong governments can enforce private coercion, and thereby deliver nightmares. Does libertarianism offer any philosophical approach to sort through that issue?
February 6, 2010, 8:31 pmDesiderius says:
MarkField,
We’d all love to see the plan.
February 6, 2010, 9:04 pmmack says:
What would be a government that I could love? Well I don’t think things will change for the better. Too much politics, too much power, too much money in government – people don’t want to give up power and money. The only way to effect real change and to move towards real liberty would be to take all the power and money out of government.
Can’t get rid of politics without getting rid of the political parties – the only way to do that would be a random lottery drawing from the general population for all elected houses of government, state and federal, with people serving their term and then returning to private life.
Then the bureaucracy would be too powerful and you would have to neuter that by limiting government service to 10 years total, excluding judges – employment on a first come basis. Qualification for jobs based on passing a test of basic job knowledge available to all citizens – if you pass you are in line to be hired.
Then get back control of the judiciary – in jury trials jurors are chosen at random and no selecting of jurors – you get what you get – then a clear understanding of jury rights including jury nullification must be given in instructions to each jury – a mechanism must be in place for jurors to directly ask questions of the judge and attorneys and with the judges agreement of witnesses. Supreme Court Justices would be selected and approved by the house and senate.
Money – limits on corporations – collectives like corporations do not have standing as individuals, – no federal reserve – tax rate limited to a 5 percent sales tax on goods for federal govt., 5 percent for state government, and 5 percent for local government. No other taxes allowed except duties or tariffs and those only if foreign governments are engaged in subsidies or similar unfair trade practices. Commerce clause limited to eliminating only barriers to trade between the states. Budget must be balanced.
Get rid of the gatekeepers in trades, education, and professions – have national standards tests – established through the cooperation between the private sector and government to develop competency testing for government approved certifications in trades and professions – available for anyone to take. Allow anyone to open any business they want whether or not they know what they are doing – allowing individuals to choose – whether they want someone who has chosen to pass certification competency testing or just Joe Blow. Private institutions could offer any degrees or certifications they want – but professions and trades would be open to all whatever their formal or informal educational background.
Get rid of all victimless crimes. Sentence all non-violent offenders to community service.
That would be a start towards a government I could love.
February 6, 2010, 11:17 pmSenatorX says:
Most libertarians believe in the Rule of Law. The concept and (just as importantly) the application.
Understanding the libertarian acceptance of the rule of law is refutation to most of the anti-libertarian view that libertarians are really anarchists.
February 7, 2010, 12:18 amAllan Walstad says:
The way I would put it is that libertarians differ on whether any coercive government at all is permissible, and, if so, to what extent it is permissible. To libertarians, the proper scope of liberty is broad, while the proper scope of coercive government, if any, is narrow and constrained. Libertarians would not speak of a “right to self-government” other than as another way of saying “right to liberty.” How can coercive government power be justified? As I suggested earlier, one sort of answer is that anarchy would leave a power vacuum that gets filled with a more coercive regime than one would have if limited power were given in the first place to a government to defend society against aggression. The argument would be that all libertarians should support what government is needed for the defense of liberty. Another answer has to do with the fact that we live on the two-dimensional surface of a planet, where interlocking property ownership can in principle make it impossible for people to travel and trade without some sort of collective establishment of rights of way. Then there is the problem of the limited environment; for libertarians, control of physical resources is properly via freely transferrable property rights, but it is hard to see how, for instance, how property rights can be established to parts of the atmosphere or the water of the oceans. That it may be difficult to specify exactly where to draw the line on government power does not mean that some things are not clearly beyond it–such as massive programs of robbery and subsidy, whether of the so-called “social welfare” sort or the mercantilist sort.
February 7, 2010, 12:40 amAllan Walstad says:
It’s not a matter of weaker and stronger. It’s a matter of limiting the scope of government action and thereby limiting the opportunity for some people to use government power levers to rob and coerce their neighbors. I’d want the government to be as strong as it needs to be to do a reasonable job of defense. I don’t want it using its power to benefit, say, corporations and/or unions at others’ expense via tariffs, subsidies and coercive restraints on free trade.
I don’t deny at all that the state could function as a check on the encroachments of corporations against individuals. If some corporation got a private army together and invaded my neighborhood to steal our land and homes, I’d damn well want the government to come to our aid. Of course, the way this happens now, as witness the Kelo case, is that corporations use their political influence to get government to “condemn” whole neighborhoods and take people’s land and homes.
February 7, 2010, 12:53 amChas C-Q says:
“Liberals, for their part, routinely attack corporations without anyone assuming that they are thereby ‘bashing’ all the millions of people who work for them.”
Remember Ward Churchill and his “little Eichmanns” comment? (He was justifying his schadenfreude over the 9/11/2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.) That undercurrent of contempt for the “cube-dwelling prairie-dogs” of corporate America certainly exists in the continuum of liberal opinion.
February 7, 2010, 7:25 amJoe says:
Of course, the way this happens now, as witness the Kelo case, is that corporations use their political influence to get government to “condemn” whole neighborhoods and take people’s land and homes.
There are other ways their actions “condemned” whole neighborhoods, including via pollution and other means.
Anyway, this is one mechanism used here. In some other countries, the corporation does sometimes have some sort of “army” that threatens the locals.
February 7, 2010, 9:01 amAllan Walstad says:
Libertarians regard pollution as a form of aggression, and, as such, to be dealt with either by a defensive government or by the private courts and protection agencies that would develop under anarchy. The details on this are not trivial (such as where to draw the line between what is incidental and virtually harmless versus what needs to be stopped or assessed damages), any more than they are with collectivism. But it may not be sufficiently appreciated that pollution is (or has been) a trade-off for higher productivity, and even though higher pollution levels in the past (or in developing countries now) might have been higher than we would tolerate, there was a net benefit in terms of survival, amenities, and further development. Then again, perhaps the worst single episode of pollution condemning a community was the Chernobyl disaster in collectivized Russia.
I gave this explicitly as an example of something that libertarians would not condone. What is the nature of the “threatening” to which you refer? Is this taking place in a libertarian society?
February 7, 2010, 9:54 amanother_anon says:
As opposed to, say, ‘feminist’, right?
February 7, 2010, 11:41 amStephen Lathrop says:
Private courts and protection agencies? Can you say a bit more about these, and how libertarians would restrain their reach, or restrict them from exercising power inappropriately on behalf of those who paid the bills.
Libertarian resort to “net” benefit strikes me as surprising–collectivist even. We hear pollution net benefit arguments all the time. My concern has been that the net benefit does accrue to the net polity, but disproportionately to some, while others suffer disproportionate detriment that far outweighs any gains for them. Those who deride pollution resisters with NIMBY labels concern me. It seems that people who stand to suffer without recourse have a moral advantage over those who stand to gain, and who would deny recourse. I would have thought libertarians would side more with the former than with the latter.
February 7, 2010, 2:27 pmAllan Walstad says:
There’s a pretty substantial literature. I respect the anarcho wing because they take on all the hard questions with very little flinching, but there’s a limit to how much I can speak for them since I’m not that far out. Some famous old books that you can probably get for a pittance these days include Murray Rothbard’s “For a New Liberty,” David Friedman’s “The Machinery of Freedom,” and the very old “The Market for Liberty” by Linda and Morris Tannehill. Robert Nozick’s famous “Anarchy, State, and Utopia” ultimately argued for a “minimal state” rather than anarchy, but it had a lot about the possibility of competing protection agencies.
As for pollution and net benefit, all I’m doing is pointing out that industrialization generated a vast increase in economic output of goods that helped people, even in many cases allowing people to survive who otherwise would not have. Populations started to go up rapidly with industrialization. But it might not have been possible, certainly not at the same level or rate of advance, without tolerance for more pollution than we (now much wealthier) would accept today. I’m not sure why you characterize my response as “collectivist.” Anyway, I’ve done my best to answer your questions about libertarianism as I understand it. If you’re really interested, I suggest delving into the literature. Perhaps we can continue a discussion on another thread.
February 7, 2010, 5:14 pmStephen Lathrop says:
Thanks to Allan Walstad for patient and interesting answers to questions.
As you may have surmised, I remain skeptical about libertarianism. You did give me a point or two to chew on. I think it’s obvious–especially after you point it out–that private interests commandeer state machinery for their own purposes. I hadn’t previously thought of that as a reason to limit government, but better understand now that there is something to think about.
Another (related) point your arguments have sharpened is the question of the balance between state power and private power, and the interesting task one faces in calibrating a sufficient, but not too large, state power and then keeping its exercise confined to the defense of liberty.
Interesting discussion.
February 7, 2010, 11:52 pm