Hungarian socialist political economist Karl Polanyi made the antitheical argument to Hayek in the book The Great Transformation. Polanyi wrote that an uncontrolled free market would lead to repressive economic concentration and then to a co-opting of democratic governance that degrades civil rights.
Three generations of human rights
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Why does college cost so much?
At Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen puts up a post titled Why does college cost so much?
This is a common right-wing meme, aimed at generating discontent with the intellectual class and used as an excuse to review all the normal libertarian ways of blaming any problem on government. And you can tell, because Tyler and his claque ignore the obvious facts about the market.
First, we know there is a huge market failure because statistics have always shown that the increases in lifetime earning AFTER a college education more than pays for the costs of the education. In an efficient market, the marginal cost of an extra degree should equal the marginal increase in lifetime earnings. That's why it is efficient for society to pay even for the education of the mentally challenged, if you view the expense of caring for them to be reduced by education. We probably should be spending significantly more on education because ignorance is the costly alternative.
Second, the assaults on the middle class and increased demand for highly educated workers have, if anything, made this market failure even larger by continuing to reward education with increased lifetime earnings.
Third, we expect the price to increase until it reaches what the market can bear. That's why private colleges charge such enormous and increasing tuitions.
Fourth, the education market suffers from other fundamental market failures which keep it dominated by non-profit institutions at almost all levels except nursery schools and trade schools worldwide. We've seen innumerable for-profit educational enterprises attempted and fail. It's not "barriers to entry" worldwide. And it's not "barriers to entry" in the USA: private non-profits are started successfully at all levels all the time. State universities, state colleges, and community colleges have enlarged tremendously.
While I often get something interesting out of Tyler's posts, I think of him as employed to keep feeding a steady stream of libertarian propaganda through his blog. Much of the time, all he has to do is point and his commenters complete the task for him. And that's what we see here.
This is a common right-wing meme, aimed at generating discontent with the intellectual class and used as an excuse to review all the normal libertarian ways of blaming any problem on government. And you can tell, because Tyler and his claque ignore the obvious facts about the market.
First, we know there is a huge market failure because statistics have always shown that the increases in lifetime earning AFTER a college education more than pays for the costs of the education. In an efficient market, the marginal cost of an extra degree should equal the marginal increase in lifetime earnings. That's why it is efficient for society to pay even for the education of the mentally challenged, if you view the expense of caring for them to be reduced by education. We probably should be spending significantly more on education because ignorance is the costly alternative.
Second, the assaults on the middle class and increased demand for highly educated workers have, if anything, made this market failure even larger by continuing to reward education with increased lifetime earnings.
Third, we expect the price to increase until it reaches what the market can bear. That's why private colleges charge such enormous and increasing tuitions.
Fourth, the education market suffers from other fundamental market failures which keep it dominated by non-profit institutions at almost all levels except nursery schools and trade schools worldwide. We've seen innumerable for-profit educational enterprises attempted and fail. It's not "barriers to entry" worldwide. And it's not "barriers to entry" in the USA: private non-profits are started successfully at all levels all the time. State universities, state colleges, and community colleges have enlarged tremendously.
While I often get something interesting out of Tyler's posts, I think of him as employed to keep feeding a steady stream of libertarian propaganda through his blog. Much of the time, all he has to do is point and his commenters complete the task for him. And that's what we see here.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Ron Paul Versus the Kochtopus.
Monetary Policy Hearing Today, or: Ron Paul Versus the Kochtopus.
From Rortybomb, a brief glimpse into the Rothbardian faction's (paleolibertarians such as Rothbard, Mises, Rockwell, Paul) view of the Kock brothers' faction.
From Rortybomb, a brief glimpse into the Rothbardian faction's (paleolibertarians such as Rothbard, Mises, Rockwell, Paul) view of the Kock brothers' faction.
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Academic tendencies.
"Academic bias" is another right-wing "When did you stop beating your wife" term. Using the term, even in defense, just repeats and ingrains the accusation.
Is there an academic tendency towards liberalism? Very likely, and for the same reason there is a tendency towards liberalism amongst mothers. Both are charged with a non-profit-making task, the development of children into responsible, educated, more independent adults. Both understand that they need to get the resources for this task from others without shackling the children into servitude in exchange. That means redistribution, bane of conservatives.
Some people have noticed that economics has the most conservative academics of all. Small wonder: economics departments have been the special recipients of conservative-funded welfare for long periods of time. The U. of Chicago and George Mason University famously have capitalist-funded economics departments, and the financial industry is a notorious funder of economics research. There is nothing comparable on the liberal side. There is a huge feeder system for conservative economics, with vast amounts of public propaganda promoting "free markets", chambers of commerce, innumerable think-tanks, and outreach programs to exceptional students that is unparalleled by moderates or liberals.
Is there an academic tendency towards liberalism? Very likely, and for the same reason there is a tendency towards liberalism amongst mothers. Both are charged with a non-profit-making task, the development of children into responsible, educated, more independent adults. Both understand that they need to get the resources for this task from others without shackling the children into servitude in exchange. That means redistribution, bane of conservatives.
Some people have noticed that economics has the most conservative academics of all. Small wonder: economics departments have been the special recipients of conservative-funded welfare for long periods of time. The U. of Chicago and George Mason University famously have capitalist-funded economics departments, and the financial industry is a notorious funder of economics research. There is nothing comparable on the liberal side. There is a huge feeder system for conservative economics, with vast amounts of public propaganda promoting "free markets", chambers of commerce, innumerable think-tanks, and outreach programs to exceptional students that is unparalleled by moderates or liberals.
Saturday, February 05, 2011
The biggest pot of money in the world.
About thirty years ago, it occurred to me that the baby boomer's retirement savings would be the biggest pot of money that the world has ever seen. It would consist primarily of (a) savings and investment (b) home ownership and (c) social security: the "tripod" system (that we used for nuclear deterrence as well, with bombers, submarines, and ICBMs.)
Using this simplistic model, I predicted for myself that there would be bubbles in investments as demand for retirement investments grew bigger and bigger. I was right. I didn't forsee bubbles in housing: I'm not that economically astute. And we've all witnessed decades of conservative and libertarian attempts to plunder Social Security by reducing obligations or abolishing it.
The problem with a pot of money is that everybody else wants to take money out of it. This has been very successfully done with investments as 401K's became 201K's with stock market bubbles. Even with a conservative portfolio of money market funds and index funds, I have lost money over the past decade, and I am not unusual. The boomer's retirements are being systematically pilfered in the investment system; they are averaging below market growth, negative growth when inflation is taken into account. Likewise, the recent housing bubble has taken a huge hunk of boomer retirement assets.
Where is the anger? This is the greatest opportunity for rebuilding a liberal movement in opposition to conservatism that we've had in decades. Unlike tea party themes, this one is valid.
In addition, we're shorting the intergenerational compact by shorting funding for the needs and development of children. We are horribly and predictably underfunding investment in education by reducing public funding of higher education and public education. No other developed nations are so shortsighted. The beneficiaries of these awful policies are not other generations: this is class warfare by the super rich who have been promoting these policies for decades.
Using this simplistic model, I predicted for myself that there would be bubbles in investments as demand for retirement investments grew bigger and bigger. I was right. I didn't forsee bubbles in housing: I'm not that economically astute. And we've all witnessed decades of conservative and libertarian attempts to plunder Social Security by reducing obligations or abolishing it.
The problem with a pot of money is that everybody else wants to take money out of it. This has been very successfully done with investments as 401K's became 201K's with stock market bubbles. Even with a conservative portfolio of money market funds and index funds, I have lost money over the past decade, and I am not unusual. The boomer's retirements are being systematically pilfered in the investment system; they are averaging below market growth, negative growth when inflation is taken into account. Likewise, the recent housing bubble has taken a huge hunk of boomer retirement assets.
Where is the anger? This is the greatest opportunity for rebuilding a liberal movement in opposition to conservatism that we've had in decades. Unlike tea party themes, this one is valid.
In addition, we're shorting the intergenerational compact by shorting funding for the needs and development of children. We are horribly and predictably underfunding investment in education by reducing public funding of higher education and public education. No other developed nations are so shortsighted. The beneficiaries of these awful policies are not other generations: this is class warfare by the super rich who have been promoting these policies for decades.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Egyptian Internet
A favorite civil liberties quote by John Gilmore:
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
Libertarians have often paraded that hopeful message as gospel, but Egypt shows that it isn't true.
I've heard civil defense proposals that cell phones should act as text relay stations so that even if towers and satellites are down (say during a hurricane, other natural disaster, or human-made disaster) you can still communicate. I think it is a great idea for a standard, but there are two major reasons why it would be opposed strongly:
(1) First, the idea that people could communicate electronically at some base level without having to pay phone companies will be opposed by the entire communications industry.
(2) Governments will oppose uncensorable and unspyable communications. Including the US government, which has required all mass communications media to be legally spyable with a court order and routinely intercepts and processes all mass communications anyway.
The US internet and (cell) phone services could just as easily be shut down.
In actuality, civil defense phones could be shut down just as easily with denial of service attacks. It's hard to think of a two-way mass communications system that couldn't be shut down with denial of service attacks.
The solution is a citizenry that is attentive to good government, and seeks to change bad features. Libertarianism doesn't solve that problem, because it has no method for deciding what constitutes good government, good life, or anything else.
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
Libertarians have often paraded that hopeful message as gospel, but Egypt shows that it isn't true.
I've heard civil defense proposals that cell phones should act as text relay stations so that even if towers and satellites are down (say during a hurricane, other natural disaster, or human-made disaster) you can still communicate. I think it is a great idea for a standard, but there are two major reasons why it would be opposed strongly:
(1) First, the idea that people could communicate electronically at some base level without having to pay phone companies will be opposed by the entire communications industry.
(2) Governments will oppose uncensorable and unspyable communications. Including the US government, which has required all mass communications media to be legally spyable with a court order and routinely intercepts and processes all mass communications anyway.
The US internet and (cell) phone services could just as easily be shut down.
In actuality, civil defense phones could be shut down just as easily with denial of service attacks. It's hard to think of a two-way mass communications system that couldn't be shut down with denial of service attacks.
The solution is a citizenry that is attentive to good government, and seeks to change bad features. Libertarianism doesn't solve that problem, because it has no method for deciding what constitutes good government, good life, or anything else.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Austrian Economics: an example of greedy reductionism.
Greedy reductionism is a term coined by Daniel Dennett for pretense of explanation in simpler terms while ignoring or underestimating enormous complexities or layers of understanding.
Cosma Shalizi, in Must Macroeconomic Theories Have Microfoundations?, explains seven ways people insisting on microfoundations (which I think includes Austrians insisting on "action" or "rational man" explanations) are foolish or go wrong.
Brad DeLong (who does permit comments) notices and calls attention to a physics aspect of the article in The Microfoundations of Condensed Matter Physics Was a Doomed Research Program Until the 1920s. The comments are well worth reading.
Cosma Shalizi, in Must Macroeconomic Theories Have Microfoundations?, explains seven ways people insisting on microfoundations (which I think includes Austrians insisting on "action" or "rational man" explanations) are foolish or go wrong.
Brad DeLong (who does permit comments) notices and calls attention to a physics aspect of the article in The Microfoundations of Condensed Matter Physics Was a Doomed Research Program Until the 1920s. The comments are well worth reading.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
The pseudoscience of libertarian morality.
Ronald Bailey, in The Science of Libertarian Morality (an article in Reason) directs us to:
Understanding Libertarian Morality: The Psychological Roots of an Individualist Ideology by Ravi Iyer et al. Which, by the way, bases one of its "predictions" on the title of Reason. And thus the echo chamber is closed.
The fundamental fallacy of this paper purporting to discuss "psychological roots" that surveys DEVELOPED attitudes is that they do not consider the indoctrination process. Libertarians differ strongly from liberals and conservatives in that they are heavily indoctrinated at early ages. Ask a 25 year old how many liberal, conservative, or libertarian books they've read. Most liberal and conservative 25 year olds will say very few if any, but we know that the libertarians will reel off a list starting with Ayn Rand, the Friedman's, etc. You might just as well ask where Catholic ideas about God come from compared to atheists: it's the indoctrination, stupid.
If they truly wanted to study "psychological roots", they should start with 16 year olds (most of whom have no idea of libertarianism) and observe how they change with time.
They make the ridiculous "prediction" that "Libertarians will value liberty more strongly and consistently than liberals or conservatives, at the expense of other moral concerns." That's about as serious as predicting that "Zombies will value eating brains more strongly and consistently than humans, at the expense of other moral concerns." They cite the writings of Ayn Rand as a source for this prediction: I must then cite Dawn Of the Dead, I suppose.
Another huge problem is that they have really drunk the Kool-Aid of adopting libertarian terminology and propaganda claims throughout their paper.
Take, for example, "It is clear, then, that libertarians cannot be readily classified on the standard left-right dimension." No, that is not at all clear as anybody familiar with Lakoff 2002 would know. Lakoff clearly places libertarians in the conservative (right) end of the scale. They cite Lakoff 2002 just a few paragraphs earlier, but haven't the wits or honesty to admit that some real academics disagree. Nor is it clear that there is a single definition of "the standard left-right dimension."
The methodology is also highly susceptible to spoofing: they've used an internet survey site open to anybody. As anyone from Pharyngula would know, it is easy to send droves of readers with similar points of view over to any poll. And it took me about two minutes to find the first example of libertarians being steered over to it: "If you’re interested in answering that question, and consider yourself libertarian, register at yourmorals.org and take the Moral Foundations Questionnaire."
What we have here is an attitude survey of libertarians which is larded by repetition of standard libertarian talking points with no academic credibility. These talking points are the product of decades-long public relations campaigns, which (among other things) rely on incessant repetition of propaganda. Funding of this "study" by an investment banker strongly suggests to me that this is just another excuse to repeat propaganda yet again.
I will be very interested to see where this "study" gets published.
Understanding Libertarian Morality: The Psychological Roots of an Individualist Ideology by Ravi Iyer et al. Which, by the way, bases one of its "predictions" on the title of Reason. And thus the echo chamber is closed.
The fundamental fallacy of this paper purporting to discuss "psychological roots" that surveys DEVELOPED attitudes is that they do not consider the indoctrination process. Libertarians differ strongly from liberals and conservatives in that they are heavily indoctrinated at early ages. Ask a 25 year old how many liberal, conservative, or libertarian books they've read. Most liberal and conservative 25 year olds will say very few if any, but we know that the libertarians will reel off a list starting with Ayn Rand, the Friedman's, etc. You might just as well ask where Catholic ideas about God come from compared to atheists: it's the indoctrination, stupid.
If they truly wanted to study "psychological roots", they should start with 16 year olds (most of whom have no idea of libertarianism) and observe how they change with time.
They make the ridiculous "prediction" that "Libertarians will value liberty more strongly and consistently than liberals or conservatives, at the expense of other moral concerns." That's about as serious as predicting that "Zombies will value eating brains more strongly and consistently than humans, at the expense of other moral concerns." They cite the writings of Ayn Rand as a source for this prediction: I must then cite Dawn Of the Dead, I suppose.
Another huge problem is that they have really drunk the Kool-Aid of adopting libertarian terminology and propaganda claims throughout their paper.
Take, for example, "It is clear, then, that libertarians cannot be readily classified on the standard left-right dimension." No, that is not at all clear as anybody familiar with Lakoff 2002 would know. Lakoff clearly places libertarians in the conservative (right) end of the scale. They cite Lakoff 2002 just a few paragraphs earlier, but haven't the wits or honesty to admit that some real academics disagree. Nor is it clear that there is a single definition of "the standard left-right dimension."
The methodology is also highly susceptible to spoofing: they've used an internet survey site open to anybody. As anyone from Pharyngula would know, it is easy to send droves of readers with similar points of view over to any poll. And it took me about two minutes to find the first example of libertarians being steered over to it: "If you’re interested in answering that question, and consider yourself libertarian, register at yourmorals.org and take the Moral Foundations Questionnaire."
What we have here is an attitude survey of libertarians which is larded by repetition of standard libertarian talking points with no academic credibility. These talking points are the product of decades-long public relations campaigns, which (among other things) rely on incessant repetition of propaganda. Funding of this "study" by an investment banker strongly suggests to me that this is just another excuse to repeat propaganda yet again.
I will be very interested to see where this "study" gets published.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Does School Choice "Work"?
Does School Choice "Work"
Frederick M. Hess of the American Enterprise Institute gives a surprisingly lukewarm answer of "barely, and much less than had been promised." After more than 20 years of efforts, you'd think we'd see some clear results, but they are really equivocal.
And it's precisely what opponents predicted based on the fact that very few schools are in any way significantly different than public schools. They tend to draw from the same pool of teachers, texts, administrators, and students. They tend to teach to the same requirements.
My personal opinion (as a public school teacher) is that almost all of the low-hanging fruit for school improvement has long since been picked. Class sizes have been reduced. Early learning opportunities for preschoolers have been greatly increased by educational television, good day care and more preschool. Disabilities are tested for and recognized much earlier, before much harm is done. Many of the social issues such as equal access, integration, language barriers, cultural insensitivity, and access for the handicapped have been dealt with. These are huge improvements since the 70s.
And all these have been done by public schools, without bashing teachers or public schools, and with the enthusiastic support of teachers.
They have been unsuccessfully blocked by conservatives who (a) want to maintain patterns of class and racial discrimination (b) don't want to spend the money or (c) want public institutions to fail so that their religious alternatives look good. These are many of the same people who are agitating for school choice and a host of other attacks on traditional public schooling.
Enormous pressure is put on administrators and school boards to keep improving public schools, but you can only get so much blood from a stone no matter how hard you squeeze.
The remaining big, relatively easy improvement in education will come from parents creating better family environments that encourage learning. Train parents to inspire their children to be well educated, and to perform the needed supervision to keep students on track in their studies. There is huge room for parental improvement, and we should vigorously explore public and private options for providing training and inspiration for parents.
It would also help if there is a promising economy that can provide jobs for all the educated: our 10% unemployment rate does not inspire scholarship. Imagine if we promised employment opportunities to anybody with a HS diploma as a form of social insurance, with government counter-cyclicly providing useful low-wage jobs when the private sector does not (such as in a recession.) That would be a HUGE incentive to graduate.
Frederick M. Hess of the American Enterprise Institute gives a surprisingly lukewarm answer of "barely, and much less than had been promised." After more than 20 years of efforts, you'd think we'd see some clear results, but they are really equivocal.
And it's precisely what opponents predicted based on the fact that very few schools are in any way significantly different than public schools. They tend to draw from the same pool of teachers, texts, administrators, and students. They tend to teach to the same requirements.
My personal opinion (as a public school teacher) is that almost all of the low-hanging fruit for school improvement has long since been picked. Class sizes have been reduced. Early learning opportunities for preschoolers have been greatly increased by educational television, good day care and more preschool. Disabilities are tested for and recognized much earlier, before much harm is done. Many of the social issues such as equal access, integration, language barriers, cultural insensitivity, and access for the handicapped have been dealt with. These are huge improvements since the 70s.
And all these have been done by public schools, without bashing teachers or public schools, and with the enthusiastic support of teachers.
They have been unsuccessfully blocked by conservatives who (a) want to maintain patterns of class and racial discrimination (b) don't want to spend the money or (c) want public institutions to fail so that their religious alternatives look good. These are many of the same people who are agitating for school choice and a host of other attacks on traditional public schooling.
Enormous pressure is put on administrators and school boards to keep improving public schools, but you can only get so much blood from a stone no matter how hard you squeeze.
The remaining big, relatively easy improvement in education will come from parents creating better family environments that encourage learning. Train parents to inspire their children to be well educated, and to perform the needed supervision to keep students on track in their studies. There is huge room for parental improvement, and we should vigorously explore public and private options for providing training and inspiration for parents.
It would also help if there is a promising economy that can provide jobs for all the educated: our 10% unemployment rate does not inspire scholarship. Imagine if we promised employment opportunities to anybody with a HS diploma as a form of social insurance, with government counter-cyclicly providing useful low-wage jobs when the private sector does not (such as in a recession.) That would be a HUGE incentive to graduate.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
World's Biggest Writing
World's Biggest Writing
Time for a contest for the world's biggest ridicule.
This bozo claims he drove a route that mapped out the message "Read Ayn Rand" across the USA.
Just what is he compensating for? Snigger.
All that driving because he wouldn't ask for directions, and relied on "Wrong Way" Rand.
Judging from the picture, he lost his crayon and so decided to write it bigger.
The hi-tech equivalent of writing in the snow.
You try too: think of some creative ridicule for the comments.
(Hat tip to Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature)
Time for a contest for the world's biggest ridicule.
This bozo claims he drove a route that mapped out the message "Read Ayn Rand" across the USA.
Just what is he compensating for? Snigger.
All that driving because he wouldn't ask for directions, and relied on "Wrong Way" Rand.
Judging from the picture, he lost his crayon and so decided to write it bigger.
The hi-tech equivalent of writing in the snow.
You try too: think of some creative ridicule for the comments.
(Hat tip to Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature)
Saturday, October 09, 2010
What Is Libertarianism?
I'm working on a new page for my site. Here's a preliminary version, for comment, criticism and suggestions.
What Is Libertarianism?
It's obvious that definitions of libertarianism by opponents are prone to bias. By the same standard, self-serving definitions by proponents are also prone to bias. The simple solution is to present multiple viewpoints, each true to some degree, to construct a picture of the whole. The story of The Blind Men and the Elephant illustrates how ridiculous clinging to a single viewpoint can be, and how building a more realistic picture would require critical acceptance of multiple viewpoints. Viewpoints of proponents of libertarianism are well known; here are some viewpoints of opponents.
* A Rhetoric Of Liberty
Libertarianism is united only by a rhetoric of liberty. "Liberty" is the central glittering generality of libertarian propaganda.
Who can reject "liberty"? That makes it a powerful rhetorical tool; as long as you don't start getting specific. Different people have different ideas of liberty, and can divide over those issues. The defense against attempts to get specific is "equal liberty", but that rhetoric also begs important questions. We all might have equal liberty to kill each other, but do we want such liberty?
"Liberty" unspecified is vague enough to justify any atrocity. We routinely see libertarians promoting Barry Goldwater's "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." In the name of liberty, John Galt plans genocides dwarfing those of Communist states in "Atlas Shrugged". In actual history, liberty to own slaves was a frequent claim. Liberty to head your own family and religious liberty excused beating wives and disobedient children, sometimes fatally.
"Liberty" is the rhetorical tool of choice that unites libertarians: it can back any claim they make, no matter how bizarre. Libertarians have no single claim in common except this rhetoric, and they can gloss over their conflicting beliefs through the persuasion of their own rhetoric of liberty.
* A Rightwing Populist Movement In Miniature
While libertarians may profess socially left ideas such as freedom of choice, their right-conservatism becomes obvious if you ask them what parts of the right-wing economic agenda they'd be willing to sacrifice to realize their left social goals. They just won't give up their opposition to government and taxation, nor will they give up their allegiance to absolute property. No matter what social goals you propose in exchange.
* A Childish Selfishness
Libertarianism is a tiny movement of people who primarily want (a) to freeload on society by not contributing their share (b) to avoid social prohibitions and (c) want to lock in their good fortune. It's really that simple: all the supposed philosophy is really just after-the-fact (post hoc) rationalization. Everything springs from the childish "I don't wanna pay", "I wanna do that anyhow" and "no, it's mine!"
* A Catspaw For Corporations
A great deal of libertarian literature is written by corporate hirelings. Sure they can throw in the occasional socially liberal complaint about warmongering to genuflect towards the purported ideology, but they do NOT bite the corporate hand that feeds them. Otherwise they'd be pointing out that corporations are government creations of special privilege, and asking that they be abolished the way they ask that public schools be abolished. And those authors would be looking for new jobs, as we've seen so often from think-tanks. Professional libertarians tend to be reliant on the corporate right-wing welfare employment of think-tanks, lobbying and astroturf organizations.
The liberty these corporate hirelings write of is generally the liberty desired by corporations, not the liberty desired by ordinary people. Hence we see propaganda such as the "Index of Economic Freedoms".
* A Long-Running Public Relations Campaign
The extent of libertarianism today is largely the result of decades-long public relations campaigns that have been working on insinuating libertarian ideas throughout our society. The time, the ambition and the resources applied over the past 60 years are extraordinary. Generations of propagandists, scholars, lobbyists, think-tanks, astroturf organizations and political parties have been financed by large corporations and billionaires.
They have attempted (quite successfully) to subvert the language, to pack propaganda into textbooks and academic publications, to subvert science (smoking, pollution and global warming), to create intellectual shock troops to disperse their propaganda, to stack the legal system with specially trained judges, to direct politicians with think-tank plans and offers of revolving-door employment, and a host of other activities.
Because "he who pays the piper calls the tunes", the result is that libertarianism has benefitted major corporations and billionaires far more than it has benefitted the middle-class pot smoker (now approaching lower class.)
* Philosophical Fairytales
There are three dominant libertarian fairytales. They are natural rights, the Nozickian night-watchman state, and Objectivism. All three are non-positivist: they are not founded on observable facts and just plain make stuff up that contradicts what's known of reality. Each has produced large, complicated apologetics that attempt to explain away their myriad failings. Like science, they create models, but unlike science their models cannot be validated because they presume the unobservable.
Most libertarian authors rely on natural rights.[1] Natural rights were originally invented to oppose stories such as rights of kings. They are "nonsense on stilts" that is as popular, insubstantial and unprovable as souls.
The supposedly just and non-coercive Nozickian minimal state of Anarchy, State and Utopia is notorious for its failure to justify initial acquisition of property, the basis of the entire scheme. The whole thing appeals to gut feelings as fallaciously as Steven Colbert does, starting with the first sentence: "Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights.)"
Objectivism starts with the fairytale of a priori knowledge. "A is A", for example. But that doesn't work for the real world, because the real world has time: A at time 1 is not necessarily the same as A at time 2. It's never the same water in the river, and even protons can spontaneously decay. There is no supposed a priori knowledge that doesn't have this basic sort of problem.
* A Justification of Personal Righteousness
Which emphasizes the notion of virtue in selfishness and has as its historical genesis the exceptional American experience. As such, it appeals mostly to white American males who are moderately above-average in intelligence, economically secure, independently-minded, and prefer simplistic theoretical constructs for making political and moral decisions. It validates their own affluence/privilege not by group affiliation, but by inherent individual merit; and it likewise superficially validates the poverty and lack of privilege of others not on the basis of group affiliation, but inherent fault. In this it mimics a meritocratic view, which allows the libertarian to congratulate himself on his lack of bigotry; but, in fact, it is a facade behind which his true bigotry hides. Keith M Ellis
* A Simplistic Ideology
Kevin Carson calls this "vulgar libertarianism": "Them pore ole bosses need all the help they can get." Simple rules for identifying friends and enemies, righteous and unrighteous. Private or public? Statist or freedom loving? Individualist or collectivist? Market or coercive? Ignorant or enlightened? Libertarians portray themselves as elite because of their ideological righteousness: but they are really just the bosses favorites, the house slaves. Read some Atlas Shrugged to learn that mentality.
* A Blinkered Ideology
Libertarianism is often easy to recognize by the things it will not consider. For example: market failures, public goods, benefits from government, benefits from spending tax money, deadweight costs from private sources, threats to liberty from private sources, rights other than property rights, values other than economic values, social harms from private actions (such as drug usage), anything but methodological individualism, Keynesianism, etc.
Shunning these ideas is essential for "consistency" in the beliefs of many libertarians. If you don't admit contrary data, your theory is unfalsifiable.
* A Cargo Cult
Many libertarians expect gifts from the sky if they perform the right philosophical rituals: surrender of political rights, surrender of all government property claims, etc.
They wish us to hand over political sovereignty of the richest, most powerful nation in the world. They wish us to hand over the lands, roads, and other property held in common by the government. They wish us to hand over the biggest pot of money in the world: social security funds for the retirement of essentially the entire US population.
What do they offer the rest of us for these enormous gifts? Nothing. They do not expect us to do it as an exchange, but as a magical summoning. They summon these gifts magically by re-interpreting liberal philosophy and Constitutions.
* A Millennialist Cult
Many libertarians think they can promise pie-in-the-sky in libertarian heaven. In the libertarian future we would all be amply repaid for having had the faith to bring about the fabulously free and wealthy libertopia where the privately owned streets are paved with gold, a gun in every pot field, etc. They have the unrealistic assumption that if they succeed, they will have an advantage because they learned libertarian principles first. But in reality, a class of oligarchs would quickly form as they did in Russia, leaving the majority in much worse condition. The large middle classes we enjoy are a result of government programs promoting equality. They do not occur otherwise.
* Technological Utopianism
Much libertarian literature relies on technology to create their fantasy world, usually by creating a new frontier. Heinlein and others relied on space travel to open a new frontier. Transhumanists look forward to recreating humans to develop new frontiers. Many libertarian authors write of a forthcoming singularity in technological development. Seasteaders look forwards to marine frontiers in international waters. Rand relied on fictional technology to conceal Galt's community.
What they all miss is that creation of a new frontier doesn't change those left behind into a libertarian society. And as the frontier matures, density and competition will bring about the same problems that led to the governance that libertarians object to, the same as happened in other frontiers in the past. Libertarianism might "work" on the edges of expansion, but creates problems that grow until a government solution is needed.
* Conclusion
No one libertarian exemplifies all of these viewpoints, nor do any of these viewpoints match all libertarians. There might be a libertarian who doesn't match any of these viewpoints.
But it is easy to find libertarians who are well-described by any these characterizations. A large, diverse ideology such as libertarianism requires large, diverse description the same way blind men describing an elephant used a lot of analogies.
Some of these characterizations are repulsive: hurrah for the libertarian who avoids matching the repulsive ones. There aren't too many of them in print because the vast majority of libertarian authors are sponsored by corporate funding (especially the Koch brothers) or rely on philosophical fairytales. A great many libertarians are repulsed by each other for one or more of these problems.
* References
1 David Boaz, Libertarianism: A Primer pp.82-87
What Is Libertarianism?
It's obvious that definitions of libertarianism by opponents are prone to bias. By the same standard, self-serving definitions by proponents are also prone to bias. The simple solution is to present multiple viewpoints, each true to some degree, to construct a picture of the whole. The story of The Blind Men and the Elephant illustrates how ridiculous clinging to a single viewpoint can be, and how building a more realistic picture would require critical acceptance of multiple viewpoints. Viewpoints of proponents of libertarianism are well known; here are some viewpoints of opponents.
* A Rhetoric Of Liberty
Libertarianism is united only by a rhetoric of liberty. "Liberty" is the central glittering generality of libertarian propaganda.
Who can reject "liberty"? That makes it a powerful rhetorical tool; as long as you don't start getting specific. Different people have different ideas of liberty, and can divide over those issues. The defense against attempts to get specific is "equal liberty", but that rhetoric also begs important questions. We all might have equal liberty to kill each other, but do we want such liberty?
"Liberty" unspecified is vague enough to justify any atrocity. We routinely see libertarians promoting Barry Goldwater's "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." In the name of liberty, John Galt plans genocides dwarfing those of Communist states in "Atlas Shrugged". In actual history, liberty to own slaves was a frequent claim. Liberty to head your own family and religious liberty excused beating wives and disobedient children, sometimes fatally.
"Liberty" is the rhetorical tool of choice that unites libertarians: it can back any claim they make, no matter how bizarre. Libertarians have no single claim in common except this rhetoric, and they can gloss over their conflicting beliefs through the persuasion of their own rhetoric of liberty.
* A Rightwing Populist Movement In Miniature
While libertarians may profess socially left ideas such as freedom of choice, their right-conservatism becomes obvious if you ask them what parts of the right-wing economic agenda they'd be willing to sacrifice to realize their left social goals. They just won't give up their opposition to government and taxation, nor will they give up their allegiance to absolute property. No matter what social goals you propose in exchange.
* A Childish Selfishness
Libertarianism is a tiny movement of people who primarily want (a) to freeload on society by not contributing their share (b) to avoid social prohibitions and (c) want to lock in their good fortune. It's really that simple: all the supposed philosophy is really just after-the-fact (post hoc) rationalization. Everything springs from the childish "I don't wanna pay", "I wanna do that anyhow" and "no, it's mine!"
* A Catspaw For Corporations
A great deal of libertarian literature is written by corporate hirelings. Sure they can throw in the occasional socially liberal complaint about warmongering to genuflect towards the purported ideology, but they do NOT bite the corporate hand that feeds them. Otherwise they'd be pointing out that corporations are government creations of special privilege, and asking that they be abolished the way they ask that public schools be abolished. And those authors would be looking for new jobs, as we've seen so often from think-tanks. Professional libertarians tend to be reliant on the corporate right-wing welfare employment of think-tanks, lobbying and astroturf organizations.
The liberty these corporate hirelings write of is generally the liberty desired by corporations, not the liberty desired by ordinary people. Hence we see propaganda such as the "Index of Economic Freedoms".
* A Long-Running Public Relations Campaign
The extent of libertarianism today is largely the result of decades-long public relations campaigns that have been working on insinuating libertarian ideas throughout our society. The time, the ambition and the resources applied over the past 60 years are extraordinary. Generations of propagandists, scholars, lobbyists, think-tanks, astroturf organizations and political parties have been financed by large corporations and billionaires.
They have attempted (quite successfully) to subvert the language, to pack propaganda into textbooks and academic publications, to subvert science (smoking, pollution and global warming), to create intellectual shock troops to disperse their propaganda, to stack the legal system with specially trained judges, to direct politicians with think-tank plans and offers of revolving-door employment, and a host of other activities.
Because "he who pays the piper calls the tunes", the result is that libertarianism has benefitted major corporations and billionaires far more than it has benefitted the middle-class pot smoker (now approaching lower class.)
* Philosophical Fairytales
There are three dominant libertarian fairytales. They are natural rights, the Nozickian night-watchman state, and Objectivism. All three are non-positivist: they are not founded on observable facts and just plain make stuff up that contradicts what's known of reality. Each has produced large, complicated apologetics that attempt to explain away their myriad failings. Like science, they create models, but unlike science their models cannot be validated because they presume the unobservable.
Most libertarian authors rely on natural rights.[1] Natural rights were originally invented to oppose stories such as rights of kings. They are "nonsense on stilts" that is as popular, insubstantial and unprovable as souls.
The supposedly just and non-coercive Nozickian minimal state of Anarchy, State and Utopia is notorious for its failure to justify initial acquisition of property, the basis of the entire scheme. The whole thing appeals to gut feelings as fallaciously as Steven Colbert does, starting with the first sentence: "Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights.)"
Objectivism starts with the fairytale of a priori knowledge. "A is A", for example. But that doesn't work for the real world, because the real world has time: A at time 1 is not necessarily the same as A at time 2. It's never the same water in the river, and even protons can spontaneously decay. There is no supposed a priori knowledge that doesn't have this basic sort of problem.
* A Justification of Personal Righteousness
Which emphasizes the notion of virtue in selfishness and has as its historical genesis the exceptional American experience. As such, it appeals mostly to white American males who are moderately above-average in intelligence, economically secure, independently-minded, and prefer simplistic theoretical constructs for making political and moral decisions. It validates their own affluence/privilege not by group affiliation, but by inherent individual merit; and it likewise superficially validates the poverty and lack of privilege of others not on the basis of group affiliation, but inherent fault. In this it mimics a meritocratic view, which allows the libertarian to congratulate himself on his lack of bigotry; but, in fact, it is a facade behind which his true bigotry hides. Keith M Ellis
* A Simplistic Ideology
Kevin Carson calls this "vulgar libertarianism": "Them pore ole bosses need all the help they can get." Simple rules for identifying friends and enemies, righteous and unrighteous. Private or public? Statist or freedom loving? Individualist or collectivist? Market or coercive? Ignorant or enlightened? Libertarians portray themselves as elite because of their ideological righteousness: but they are really just the bosses favorites, the house slaves. Read some Atlas Shrugged to learn that mentality.
* A Blinkered Ideology
Libertarianism is often easy to recognize by the things it will not consider. For example: market failures, public goods, benefits from government, benefits from spending tax money, deadweight costs from private sources, threats to liberty from private sources, rights other than property rights, values other than economic values, social harms from private actions (such as drug usage), anything but methodological individualism, Keynesianism, etc.
Shunning these ideas is essential for "consistency" in the beliefs of many libertarians. If you don't admit contrary data, your theory is unfalsifiable.
* A Cargo Cult
Many libertarians expect gifts from the sky if they perform the right philosophical rituals: surrender of political rights, surrender of all government property claims, etc.
They wish us to hand over political sovereignty of the richest, most powerful nation in the world. They wish us to hand over the lands, roads, and other property held in common by the government. They wish us to hand over the biggest pot of money in the world: social security funds for the retirement of essentially the entire US population.
What do they offer the rest of us for these enormous gifts? Nothing. They do not expect us to do it as an exchange, but as a magical summoning. They summon these gifts magically by re-interpreting liberal philosophy and Constitutions.
* A Millennialist Cult
Many libertarians think they can promise pie-in-the-sky in libertarian heaven. In the libertarian future we would all be amply repaid for having had the faith to bring about the fabulously free and wealthy libertopia where the privately owned streets are paved with gold, a gun in every pot field, etc. They have the unrealistic assumption that if they succeed, they will have an advantage because they learned libertarian principles first. But in reality, a class of oligarchs would quickly form as they did in Russia, leaving the majority in much worse condition. The large middle classes we enjoy are a result of government programs promoting equality. They do not occur otherwise.
* Technological Utopianism
Much libertarian literature relies on technology to create their fantasy world, usually by creating a new frontier. Heinlein and others relied on space travel to open a new frontier. Transhumanists look forward to recreating humans to develop new frontiers. Many libertarian authors write of a forthcoming singularity in technological development. Seasteaders look forwards to marine frontiers in international waters. Rand relied on fictional technology to conceal Galt's community.
What they all miss is that creation of a new frontier doesn't change those left behind into a libertarian society. And as the frontier matures, density and competition will bring about the same problems that led to the governance that libertarians object to, the same as happened in other frontiers in the past. Libertarianism might "work" on the edges of expansion, but creates problems that grow until a government solution is needed.
* Conclusion
No one libertarian exemplifies all of these viewpoints, nor do any of these viewpoints match all libertarians. There might be a libertarian who doesn't match any of these viewpoints.
But it is easy to find libertarians who are well-described by any these characterizations. A large, diverse ideology such as libertarianism requires large, diverse description the same way blind men describing an elephant used a lot of analogies.
Some of these characterizations are repulsive: hurrah for the libertarian who avoids matching the repulsive ones. There aren't too many of them in print because the vast majority of libertarian authors are sponsored by corporate funding (especially the Koch brothers) or rely on philosophical fairytales. A great many libertarians are repulsed by each other for one or more of these problems.
* References
1 David Boaz, Libertarianism: A Primer pp.82-87
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
