When I think with my own brain and look with my own eyes, it's obvious to me that some combination of civil rights, democratic institutions, educational capital, social trust, consumer choice, and economic opportunity make me free.
What libertarian would disagree with this statement. The question is, do these things arise in a libertarian world or from government? Were civil rights imposed from above, or won from the bottom-up against government-imposed laws restricting women and minorities? Were democratic institutions handed down to us from the monarchs they replaced, or did they emerge from the bottom-up, as a new spontaneous order form of government? Is educational capital granted by government, or earned by individuals who decide whether or not they want to learn? Is social trust created through more policing and the creation of orderly neighborhoods by government planners, or do they emerge as Jane Jacobs described, spontaneously in complex neighborhoods that emerged naturally, without government interference in the growth process? Is consumer choice dictated by government, or created through market competition? Does government create economic opportunity by taxing companies and interfering in pricing and production, or does the free market create economic opportunity?
Government creates monopoly, thus undermining both economic opportunity and consumer choice. Government subsidizes companies, thus undermining economic opportunity and consumer choice. Government creates barriers to entry in a variety of ways, thus undermining economic opportunity and consumer choice. If he wants these things, he should support the free market, meaning libertarianism. If he wants social trust, he will help us get rid of the laws that undermine it. If he wants to increase educational capital, then he will work to ensure people are getting a real education rather than supporting a system that creates an education bubble that will burst, wreck havoc, and which undermines true learning. If he wants democratic institutions and civil rights, he will work to get rid of those laws that undermine and violate them. But I suspect he doesn't want to do any of that. Which means, he doesn't actually want any of those things. They are slogans to him, and nothing more.
Metcalf is an idiot.
4 comments:
Tis a shame that the one comment I have received on this so far has been deleted by the author.
The author raised the issue of libertarians being against smoking and environmental laws. He is half right.
Libertarians are against smoking laws insofar as they are a violation of property rights. You have a right to smoke or allow smoking on your property -- or to prohibit it. That is and should be your decision, it being your property.
Libertarians are environmentalists -- yes, that's right, I said we are environmentalists -- for the same reason: property rights. If you can figure out how to pollute the water on your land without polluting the groundwater running under my land or the streams running over my land or the ocean lapping up against my land, then feel free to pollute it. And if you can figure out how to pollute the air over your land without polluting the air over mine and everyone else's land, then, again, more power to you. Naturally, one cannot do these things. In economics, pollution is known as a negative externality precisely because it cannot be so contained. When you pollute my land with your pollution, you are violating my property rights. You owe me for the damage. That is, you owe the people actually damaged, and not "society," which is not actually harmed, and certainly not the government, who won't hand the money over to those actually harmed, but put in in their own coffers to use to buy votes from constituents by paying for other projects unrelated to pollution. No libertarian is against market-based, property rights-based solutions to pollution and other environmental problems. What we object to is the violation of property rights and special rights and privileges granted by government.
Good points Troy. Few people realize how the current state of pollution is due to a lack of enforcement of property rights.
Want your advice on something: I'm preparing a blog post regarding argumentation from a deontological perspective versus a consequentialist perspective. Positive economics talks about consequences, but often libertarians (like Rothbard) use deontological methods to argue against certain policies, for example.
My idea is to look at both in terms of effectiveness when dealing with non-libertarians. Any thoughts on this, or suggested readings?
It seems to me that there are several problems with a deontological approach. The questions must always be: whose rules? duty toward whom? why those and not some other(s)? Also, one must follow the rules no matter the consequences. There is more than a hint of this in Mises and Hayek as well (I recall Hayek several times saying that one should support liberty even if it doesn't give the best outcome), but in the end it seems to end up with the excuse, "But I meant well!"
On the other end, the problem with consequentialism is that the end may be used to justify the means.
It seems to me that the two must be united. I have discussed these issues to some degree on my blog in the past. Search for "morals" or "ethics" and you may find some of those discussions.
Post a Comment