Brian Micklethwait did a posting a blog age ago (on Saturday) about higher education, and commenters have been gouging occasional lumps out of each other ever since. Normally such comment wars can be left to the consenting adults (or not-so-adults) directly involved. However, the latest comment (number 47) in this particular ruckus is such a choice one that it deserves a separate posting here. Brian not sure if it is entirely fair to its victim, but he loves it anyway.
Guessedworker,
I am very far from being an idealist, I am however an ideologue in that I am a consistent advocate of the doctrine of pure anarcho-libertarianism.
You are quite right that the dogmas of the liberal left are a menace and they need to be refuted, I spend much time doing that whenever I encounter such people, especially the marxoid greens who abound. However also a threat to liberty are the equally pernicious dogmas of the social conservatives, of which you are an advocate. I do not think that the state should be supporting or oppressing any groups at others expense. You may not want to sort out the laudable traits in people but I certainly do and the only way to do this meaningfully is to allow the market to work.
There has been nothing like a free market in personal behaviour and self expression for the last forty years. There has been instead a mixture of on the one hand repression and on the other hand state subsidy of fecklesness. This looks to you like a free market because you haven’t the first idea of what a free market actually is. It may well be that we have an ‘eternal nature’ as you say but your narrow and clumsy understanding of it is a useless guide to policy, it is the dumb interplay between the fools on the left and you fools on the socially conservative right over the last forty years that have brought forth the ‘rivers of pain’.
For my own lifestyle I seek no subsidy but I certainly will not tolerate any repression. I want not equality but freedom.
Paul Coulam
But it cannot be said often enough that it is only social conservatism that makes a libertarian society possible. Social conservatives do not believe what they do because they want some excuse to expand government, but because they recognise that certain forms of behaviour force a burden onto others. If you really believe that a permissive society will vote for an end to welfare, you aren’t living in the real world. The only way to get rid of the big state is to persuade people to take responsibility for their own actions so they don’t need to turn to government for a handout when they have more kids than they can afford by five different men or when they are addicted to drugs or unemployable. All libertarians do by disparaging social conservatives is to secure an insurmountable voting base for those who defend big government.
If Brian Micklethwait ‘loved’ Paul Coulam’s critique of Guessedworker, then he is easy to please. Paul Coulam is simply rehashing a somewhat extreme version of libertarianism that isn’t taken awfully seriously by many people other than himself. He is not so much a libertarian as the caricature of a libertarian — a basically simple soul whose mental development appears to have come to a standstill after he understood the logic of ‘private vices, publick virtues’ as first set out in Mandeville’s ‘The Fable of the Bees’.
Would that the world were as uncomplicated! But it isn’t. And it is absurd to claim that the ‘dogmas’ of social conservatives are just as ‘pernicious’ as those of the liberal left — unless by ‘social conservatives’ Paul means the Al Qaida brigade. Social conservatives, as I understand them, basically want society to, well, survive — and if that involves compulsory minimum education plus a bit of sexual repression plus a tad of shame plus a pinch of guilt, plus a big dollop of anti-immigration measures, so it has to be. Of course, wanting society to survive is a ‘value judgment’. Perhaps Paul would prefer his ultralibertarian society even if it led to the sky falling in — just like those feminists who promote the destruction of the family, regardless of the costs. I at any rate would prefer a somewhat repressive society to no society whatsoever.
Guessedworker, in emphasising the importance of sociobiology, put his finger on it. Allow me to quote him at length:
“Cultural education as an outcome of market demand is not the same nor necessarily as beneficial as cultural education per se. The preservation of the latter will surely require on-going, top-down management long after your mighty Rothbardian revolution sweeps the world. We can debate that, of course, but actually it is of secondary importance to me.
Of primary importance is sociobiology. You use the term “discrimination” which demonstrates – sorry about this – that your intellectual notions are essentially cultural-marxist. It is the freedom from such mental trash that I seek, and sociobiology happens to be the magic bullet in this regard.
It works like this. We are fixed, we humans, by intelligence, by sexual mores, by our physical natures and emotional tempers. But this fixity is not the same in men as in women, or among the races. It is all a question of mean and of heritability. This isn’t controversial or difficult to accept unless you are a liberal-marxist environmentalist. For them difference disproves their century-old Boasian faith and, consequently, brings the cultural “re-education” of European and American societies to an end.
We all know how astronishly successful in that re-education the academics, philosophers and identity politicos of the left have been. In government, the media, NGO’s and in our schools and universities (about which we are, after all, debating on this thread) their dictat is practically unchallengable. If, however, difference were to infiltrate public discourse their entire philosophy would be exposed as a time-espired falsehood. And that’s what this IQ business is really all about. It is political and domestic, Paul, and it is important that everyone – everyone – who prefers freedom to marxism understands that. It is as stark as that: freedom and difference or racio-cultural egalitarianism. ”
That so many libertarians (and not just the lunatic fringe) have failed to understand the success of the Left’s Kulturkampf against the Western tradition … that’s perhaps the real tragedy of our times.
Would that the world were as uncomplicated! But it isn’t. And it is absurd to claim that the ‘dogmas’ of social conservatives are just as ‘pernicious’ as those of the liberal left — unless by ‘social conservatives’ Paul means the Al Qaida brigade. Social conservatives, as I understand them, basically want society to, well, survive — and if that involves compulsory minimum education plus a bit of sexual repression plus a tad of shame plus a pinch of guilt, plus a big dollop of anti-immigration measures, so it has to be. Of course, wanting society to survive is a ‘value judgment’. Perhaps Paul would prefer his ultralibertarian society even if it led to the sky falling in — just like those feminists who promote the destruction of the family, regardless of the costs. I at any rate would prefer a somewhat repressive society to no society whatsoever.
Indeed. Social conservatism for the most part has nothing to do with state power, but with society ensuring through stigma on certain behaviours that people act in a way that does not impose costs on others and so increase state power.
The current welfare state costs what, 40%, 45% of national income? You point me to any prominent or mainstream social conservative who wants government to make 40% of your non-financial decisions for you. It’s almost inconceivable. Yet the left doesn’t blink at spending 40% of every pound you earn, except when deciding it is far too little.
aaah… the fine tradition of discriminating against darkies on the basis that they’re clearly less intelligent than us, according to the clever tests we’ve devised… yeah, let’s keep that one. Great idea. You’re doing an excellent job of selling me social conservatism, Charles.
If there’s such a ‘racial’ difference in IQ, how come when I was at school with people from 70 different nations, no single race stood out as the most intelligent? Or could it simply be that good education & surroundings have everything to do with it how well you do in some simplistic pattern-matching tests, eh?
Its very simple really any state that gets the largest ROI on it’s inhabitants by whatever means will dominate the other states over time.
Most Libertarians beleive that the largest ROI comes from tigthly defined minimal government.
Socialists beleive the largest ROI comes via theft, rewarding failure, the rejection of personal responsibility and ignorance of reality.
Extreme libertarians don’t care about the state because they think it’s irrelevant ( as they’ll be dead).
I guess I’m not sure either what is so choice about yet another trumpet blast from the sex-and-drugs school of libertarianism. Talk is cheap, and real liberty cannot be defended by people who define themselves by the extent of their alienation from everyone else.
Though I’m unconvinced by guessedworker’s conclusions on race I’d wholeheartedly endorse his view that one hundred years of Marxism have wrought untold damage on the human sciences – it must be exposed wherever it is found. What he or Charles Copeland don’t seem to appreciate is that not who would refute their genetic/racial determinism is a closet Marcusean.
A_t writes:
aaah… the fine tradition of discriminating against darkies on the basis that they’re clearly less intelligent than us, according to the clever tests we’ve devised… yeah, let’s keep that one. Great idea. You’re doing an excellent job of selling me social conservatism, Charles.
A_t is clearly not very familiar with the IQ controversy.
Firstly, the claim that Whites have higher IQs than Blacks (on average, that is) is itself in no way controversial – everyone from the Ku Klux Klan to the radical left and Black Americans themselves agree on this particular point, because it is so blindingly obvious. Here, at least, unanimity rules. The IQ controversy does not concern the existence of an average IQ gap between Blacks and Whites, which is undisputed. It concerns the cause of that gap.
The ‘politically correct’ viewpoint is that the depressed average IQ of Africans is exclusively due to environmental causes and in particular to some form of racial discrimination, such as (in the United States) the ‘legacy of slavery’, or to some form of bias in test design; or it is claimed that IQ tests do not really measure intelligence, or that the gap is due to some other non-genetic cause such as the adverse effects of welfare policy or black cultural norms (one that conservatives relish in particular). That viewpoint now has the status of dogma.
But not everyone agrees. There are some heretics. The standpoint of many experts specialised in ‘differential psychology’ and/or evolutionary biology is that heredity does in fact play a major role in determining intelligence – not only within human breeding populations but also between them. To put it bluntly, they contend that even if different breeding populations were brought up in an identical environment, there would still be some difference in average intelligence between the groups, for genetic reasons. In my view, one of the most powerful and easily understandable arguments in support of this hypothesis is that, if racial discrimination has adverse effects on the intelligence of ethnic groups, then it cannot explain the intellectual superiority of such minorities as Ashkenasi Jews (average IQ: 115) or Chinese and Japanese immigrants (average IQ: 105) – groups who certainly suffered discrimination. Either discrimination makes you dumber, or it doesn’t, or you’ve got to hobble together some pretty convoluted theory to explain how the same treatment can depress the intelligence of some groups while raising that of others. Besides, if racial discrimination is the root cause, how do you explain the low intellectual achievements of Africans even before the age of imperialism and the slave trade? At any rate, the hereditarian hypothesis can not be dismissed out of hand simply because it falls foul of the wishful thinking of the intellectual status quo.
A_T asks:
If there’s such a ‘racial’ difference in IQ, how come when I was at school with people from 70 different nations, no single race stood out as the most intelligent? Or could it simply be that good education & surroundings have everything to do with it how well you do in some simplistic pattern-matching tests, eh?
Good education and surroundings no doubt play a role, though interracial adoption studies (where, say, black or Chinese children are brought up by white families) clearly demonstrate that a child’s intelligence is largely determined by that of its biological parents, not that of its adoptive parents and not by the kind of education they receive. Black children brought up in educated white families have only a marginally higher IQ than black children brought up by their own parents. Similarly, Chinese children adopted by white couples have the same high intelligence (on average) as Chinese children brought up by their own parents.
If A_t finds IQ tests so ‘simplistic’, how come they correlate so closely with social status and (to a lesser extent) with income? How come countries with high average IQ tend to be so much wealthier than countries with low average IQ?
We simply have to address these issues — after all, the whole politically correct affirmative action brigade bases its case on the alleged ‘discrimination’ of women, people of colour, etc as the cause of their ‘underrepresentation’ in high status and high income jobs. If it is true that ‘discrimination’ is the cause of ‘underrepresentation’, then affirmative action has some justification, even from a libertarian perspective — at least in respect of coercive (i.i. government imposed) discrimination as opposed to private discrimination (which comes within the remit of freedom of contract).
If underrepresentation is not due to discrimination, then what is it due to? Either to some form of non-discriminatory environmental circumstances (‘black culture’?) or to natural selection. Not easy questions to answer, but it’s worth a try.
Time for you guys to read ‘The Bell Curve’ again.
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Peter Cuthbertson’s suggestion must inevitably make us wonder how many members of the Conservative Party are any sort of “social conservative”, given that the figures he cites represent a pretty consistent share of GDP (not the welfare state exactly) accounted for by state spending in recent decades, including of course the considerable period in office enjoyed by the Thatcher & Major governments.
Some answers to some question-begging questions from Charles Copeland:
Besides, if racial discrimination is the root cause, how do you explain the low intellectual achievements of Africans even before the age of imperialism and the slave trade?
The relative absence of enduring cultural artefacts is not the same as “low intellectual achievement”. I’m presuming you don’t count the Egyptians and Carthaginians, and, say, Saint Augustine as Africans and you just want to talk about sub-Saharan Africans? Perhaps we’d better find out what you think is an intellectual achievement: Would Mayan cities count? If so, why not contemporaneous Songhai or Zimbabwe?
Even if we allow cities and lost complex cultures don’t amount to an intellectual achievement, it might still tell us nothing about the potential of the people if they operated under adverse conditions. The tropics are places where even now it is hard to live. A parasitized, fevered and overheated population might not be giving of its best. (Consider the transformation of the US Deep South by aircon, antihelminthics and DDT.)
If A_t finds IQ tests so ‘simplistic’, how come they correlate so closely with social status and (to a lesser extent) with income?
The if… how come doesn’t really follow. Regardless of what IQ tests measure, correlation on its own doesn’t tell you anything about causation.
Given that IQ tests are abstract measures of, er, something, it is more plausible to suggest that poverty and low social status are among the causes of low IQ than the other way round.
How come countries with high average IQ tend to be so much wealthier than countries with low average IQ?
The same argument applies. Segmenting geographically tells you nothing, unless you can demonstrate a geographical effect that’s significantly stronger than the poverty relationship within the geographical segments.
If it is true that ‘discrimination’ is the cause of ‘underrepresentation’, then affirmative action has some justification, even from a libertarian perspective — at least in respect of coercive (i.i. government imposed) discrimination as opposed to private discrimination (which comes within the remit of freedom of contract).
Actually, no. Most libertarian opposition to discrimination on irrelevant grounds is a moral one, based on an expectation of fairness of process to individuals, not back-calculated from presumptions about outcome.
If underrepresentation is not due to discrimination, then what is it due to?
Well it is a combination of factors. There is and has been discrimination, of course, but it is not necessary to grant it most of the effect to disagree that there’s much genetic going on.
In most of the cases that believers in “underrepresentation” talk about, it is largely an illusion caused by failure to acknowledge class and social mobility. If there are few members of a given ethnic group in the recruitment cohort of an occupation, then it will appear to be underrepresented with respect to the population as a whole.
For example, if judges all have 20 years in the law behind them, almost all barristers come from middle-class homes, and 30 years ago almost all British heads of household of Caribbean background were in working class occupations; then we shouldn’t be quite so surprised at how few black barristers we have.
Either to some form of non-discriminatory environmental circumstances (‘black culture’?) or to natural selection.
You underestimate culture, too. “Black culture” is a chimera. It’s as imbecilic to suppose all black people share a common culture as to accept the piety of the race relations industry that all groups somehow “oppressed” by whites have common cause as a result. But that people who share cultural assumptions and background should have similar goals in life, come from the same place and share a genetic heritage should be unsurprising.
Of course it produces strong effects that are correlated with “race”, but one only assumes that they derive from “race” if the it coincides with pre-existing prejudice.
Once upon a time British schoolmasters were disproportionately Welsh. Was it because they were driven into education by their Brythonic genes? I doubt it. More likely it was a way for a bright, poor boy to escape a miserable life in the mines and earn a decent living with the approval of bible-bashing, rigidly-conforming non-comformist family.
Not easy questions to answer, but it’s worth a try.
It certainly is; but they aren’t simple questions at all. By trying to simplify it by linking the complexities of individual and group behaviour to stereotyping out of the colour of people’s (and worse, peoples’) skins, you guarantee to make the subtleties of the real world incomprehensible.
This is an interesting discussion. Assuming for the sake of argument that IQ tests accurately measure intelligence (and I am aware that this can be disputed on many grounds), let us look at their results from the standpoint of evolution.
It seems to me that intelligence, or reasoning power, or whatever one chooses to call it, would evolve over time as a response to what humans need to survive. Perhaps it is a response as well to what humans are called upon to do repeatedly in the course of their lives that are not related as directly to physical survival as most things are in the rest of the animal kingdom.
If this is the case one might expect higher IQ scores, on average, from the descendants of people who interacted regularly with a wide variety of other people than from the descendants of people from isolated tribes, and higher scores from people descended from generations of merchants or artisans than from the descendants of peasant farmers. As differences in the way people live narrow one might expect differences in IQ scores to narrow as well, but this change — presumably like the differences in IQ scores today — could only occur over many generations. It would not be noticeable in the span of a single lifetime. Indeed, considering the length of time humans have been around the differences between them are quite small. And, the differences between races are much smaller than the differences between individuals of the same race, except with respect to such very specific things as skin color and susceptibility to certain diseases.
I understand why this subject is sensitive from a political point of view, though I regard any controversy over things that man cannot change as unfortunate.
The urge to stereotype people based on marginal characteristics is very strong, but rarely justified.
After all the unadulterated crap about bloodlines and race for centuries, culminating in the pre-Nazi blood and race theories of the 19th century, genetic research has now shown there are no meaningful genetic differences which can be explained by race.
Humans seem to love equilibrium. The cultural history of the world records many instances of stable cultures that are unchanged for long periods, at least on a macro level.
Perhaps the only reason Western culture accepted cultural, technological, and social change more than others is because it was so often devastated by war, famine, and pestilence. When you have to remake your society over and over again, change becomes more acceptable, and the rules restricting what is allowed and what is taboo break down.
For someone seriously interested in the topic, read “A Distant Mirror, The Calamitous 14th Century” by Tuchman. It may very well be argued that the black plague was the midwife of the Reformation and Renaissance in Europe.
What the calamities of the 20th century are the harbingers of I cannot imagine. I would like to think that the relentless drive to ever more powerful statist structures is winding down, but it certainly hasn’t happened yet.
I’m sorry Charles, your racism really has gone too far for me, now. Racism, or the grouping of the race, means collectivism, and collectivism means evil, and evil means death.
The whole of humanity is more related, genetically, than two different groups of chimpanzees, living on two different sides of a mountain. I don’t know whether this is due to ice ages, or Sumatran volcanoes which left only 10,000 humans alive 64,000 years ago, an evolutionary INSIGNIFICANT time period, or whatever the hell it was. But there are only 18 peripheral genes which cover skin colour, and there are around 50,000 genes which make up the human genotype.
The skin (and the lips, and the hair, also controlled by these few virtually insignificant external genes to control how we survive in high external temperatures) really are absolutely peripheral to everything that is meant by being a human being. As significant as nail varnish, or underarm deodorant, or hair conditioner.
And it’s only us really UNLUCKY pale-skinned freckly white ones, like poor sun-burned me who don’t have these 18 genes on our side, who are inferior. Because this means we have to spend a fortune on total sub-block sun-tan lotion – which still fails to work – which means we’re more likely to die of skin cancer in sunshine, though hell, I never suffer from a shortage of vitamin D – is that what it means to be superior? To be sufficient in a low sun climate, of vitamin D supplies? Aha, Ich bin ein Uber Mensch etwas Vitamin D.
These few 18 genes are as significant AS sun tan lotion, and I’m sick to death of you banging on about it, again and again, and again and again. One might almost suspect that you are a socialist trying to discredit Samizdata with a bout of national socialism.
I had no idea being a libertarian meant you had to be a fellow traveller with Ku Klux Klan, the ultimate collectivist organisation, but I am me myself I, and I feel no more closely related to you, than I do to the blackest of black wood carvers on Easter Island.
And let’s face it, with all the southern states Ulster-Scots slavers who raped their female black slaves, being a descendant of Ulster Scots myself, I probably AM more closely related to most of the African Americans of the US, than I am to you. Which makes me feel pretty fucking good.
I have a dream. I have a dream that one day it won’t matter what the fuck the colour you are. Christ, I thought that day had already come. I didn’t realise in the 21st century we had to keep banging on about it.
The only thing that matters is what you think. Not the genetic composition of the organ with which you think. Ich bin ein human being. What the hell are you, Charles? No, don’t tell me. I don’t care.
You are beyond the pale. Pun intended.
Jesus. Congratulations, Andy. You’ve actually made Copeland’s argument sound better.
Sadly this discussion had to come down to slavery and accusations of national socialism, thanks andy for ending another discussion of nature vs nurture with emotibve pc claptrap, cheers.
There *are* small discernible differences between the races, but the variation between individuals of each race is nearly always very much wider.
Also, the vastly increased racial mixing due to the mobility of the last few centuries makes it quite hard to find anyone “pure”.
And the average IQ of whites has increased over the last generation by more than the supposed current difference between whites and blacks! Hardly genetic, then.
There are a few remaining visible examples such as sickle cell anaemia that almost exclusively afflicts black people. And white people can be shown (with infra-red cameras) to recover blood circulation to their extremities much quicker than black people after exposure to extreme cold.
However, it’s only in carefully controlled extreme conditions that racial differences show up – such as the Olympic Games where people of West African descent (including black Americans) do exceptionally well in sports such as boxing or sprinting that require short bursts of rapid power.
On the other hand, black Africans from Kenya and similar places (where tribal hunters are lauded for their ability to track animals incessantly for days at a time until the animal collapses from exhaustion) are excellent at distance events.
However, combined power and endurance sports are usually excelled at by whites (how many black faces do you see in the rowing events?).
May I suggest a variation of the Turing test? How many of the contributors to this blog could you positively identify as being of one particular race (without some explicit giveaway)?
Going back to the original comments to this posting, I agree with Peter Cuthbertson.
It’s like a theatre – you need a solid stage and safely wired lighting rigs, etc, so that the actors or dancers can feel free to perform on a solid foundation.
Likewise, society needs a solid foundation of social conservatism so that the economic liberalism can flower.
Social and economic liberalism combined is like trying to perform Riverdance in a mudbath.
Milton Friedman was quite radical in his day when he attacked the notion that political and economic conditions can be separated – that any set of economic circumstances is compatible with any set of political conditions and so on. He went on to show how dependent upon capitalism democracy and liberty really are.
Someone needs to write a book showing the same regarding social and economic conditions. That far from any set of social and economic circumstances being compatible with any other, the only way you can really have small government and economic freedom is if people take responsibility for themselves enough that the pressure for the state to step in does not overwhelm. It is no coincidence that most of the forms of behaviour that social conservatives condemn as immoral and irresponsible are the behaviours that create problems for others, forcing a burden on society. And once these forms of behaviour reach a critical mass, the democratic pressure for government to step in and do something is too strong for anything else to occur. Then you lose your economic freedom.
So just as liberty is dependent on capitalism, small state capitalism is dependent on social conservatism.
Andy takes his first lesson in logic.
FREE OF CHARGE FROM CHARLES
Andy writes:
“I’m sorry Charles, your racism really has gone too far for me, now. Racism, or the grouping of the race, means collectivism, and collectivism means evil, and evil means death. ”
Charles replies:
I’m sorry Andy, your libertarianism really has gone too far for me, now. Libertarianism, or the grouping of the libertarians, means collectivism, and collectivism means evil, and evil means death.
There’s quite a good webpage that might suit woolly thinkers like yourself, especially if you want to make your thinking even woollier. It’s called ‘The Woolly Thinker’s Guide to Rhetoric’. You’ll find it at ‘Butterflies and Wheels’:
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/rhetoric.php
THIS LESSON IS BEING OFFERED FREE OF CHARGE BY AN OFFICIAL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES
More later.
[sarcasm on] It’s off to work I go, to build the Europe of tomorrow [sarcasm off]
The only way to get rid of the big state is to persuade people to take responsibility for their own actions so they don’t need to turn to government for a handout when they have more kids than they can afford by five different men or when they are addicted to drugs or unemployable.
…so why, Peter, are you in favour (elsewhere) of tax incentives for even ‘respectable’ married couples, child allowance etc? Surely these people should be responsible enough not to make decisions without being able to finance them?
This, I guess, was one of the issues Paul was referring to: the social conservative cry seems to be ‘no welfare for the feckless, welfare for those who toe the line.’
The big-government welfare scam of tax allowances for married couples and child allowance and so on forces a burden on others, who are forced to work to subsidise the ‘lifestyle’ of such people.
Let me choose whom I give my money to, whom I deem morally worthy. Government is not a moral agent: it can only ever be a faceless money-redistribution scheme.
Peter, you need to be a lot tighter and more precise in your definition of “social conservatism”. Without this, it is very hard to get a purchase on what your particular beef with Coulam’s original point.
For example, many libertarians – like myself – agree that a free society, in order to flourish, requires rules, most of which are not even written down as laws, but which are tacitly observed by its members. This, however, does NOT necessarily imply that such a society requires wholesale State prohibitions against certain forms of consensual behaviour.
Also, Peter, you refer to the harm that can be inflicted on others (the “negative externality argument”), from persons’ actions, even if those actions are freely chosen. But then there are also positive third party effects from persons’ actions as well.
The danger is that unless some proper limits to state action are involved, the kind of “social conservatism” referred to here could be used, and has been used, to justify prohibitions on all kinds of human behaviours, even if they are between consenting adults.
That is why the argument that “we need social conservatism to have liberty”, while at first glance seems plausible, is in fact an incoherent position. Sorry Peter, but you will have to do better than that.
A good place to start is to examine past and present societies and civilisations.
Some have lots of natural resources to make them wealthy, some don’t. Some didn’t have any, then discovered them. Others had some that ran out or were rendered worthless by technology.
Some survived for centuries or millennia through incessant persecution. Others imploded under their own internal contradictions within a few decades, or when their charismatic founder died.
Some lived on islands or otherwise inaccessible places. Others lived on busy continental trading routes.
Some had a set of morals and social stigmas to keep people in line, some didn’t. Some had them but later rejected them.
I can’t believe that someone hasn’t done a PhD unravelling the common factors that distinguish between long-term survival and/or wealth, and rapid disintegration and/or poverty.
If not, someone should!
Here’s the latest Toynbabble:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1034403,00.html
“The Machine Must Have More Of Your Money!!!”
Whatever the scientific merits (or otherwise) of Charles Copeland’s argument, Andy Duncan’s intemperate ad hominem attack on him was more worthy of Polly Toynbee than a habitué of Samizdata – let alone one of its licensed contributors.
Boris Johnson’s representative on earth suddenly possessed by the spirit of Yasmin Alibhai-Brown?
Not a pretty sight.
I can’t believe that someone hasn’t done a PhD unravelling the common factors that distinguish between long-term survival and/or wealth, and rapid disintegration and/or poverty.
Wouldn’t this be Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies?
Haven’t read it, though – so can’t vouch for it. I imagine Google would throw up a few synopses, and there might even be some consensus as to what it was about.
Johnathan Pearce is right on the money… Viable social conventions are pretty much what defines a society and lack of such conventions are what defines the worlds shit holes where civil society has collapsed.
When I say ‘social conservatism’ and I suspect when Paul Coulam says ‘social conservatism’, what we are talking about is politically imposed modes of behaviour, such as criminalising homosexuality, smoking weed and painting your house purple with bright green stripes.
In other words, social STATISM as carried out by people who describe themselves as ‘right wing’.
On the other hand, I open doors for ladies, often wear a tie, dislike (most) rap music, have good table manners, do not approve of abortion, would offer to marry any woman I got in a ‘family way’ regardless of the fact I might not really want to and I paint my house white… I am in many ways ‘socially conservative’… but that has nothing to do with politics and laws, that is a personal preference.
But the reason I detest most of the Tory party and large elements of the US Republican party just as much as I loath the Labour party, LibDems and the US Democrats, is that so many of them would make my behaviour, of which they would approve, the law of the land (at least some of it), thereby creating a situation of both moral hazard and gravely undermining the civil society they claim to be defending by replacing its underpinnings with state edicts.
Hear, hear Jonathan. “We need social conservatism to have liberty” is perilously close to the “freedom is submission to the Will of God” that neatly defines personal choice out of the way for a range of fundamentalist groups. In those cases the Will of God usually has a remarkable correspondence with rules that are socially conservative for the group in question.
Social conservatives say, “We want liberty without license”: but if there is no license, you can be pretty sure you haven’t got liberty.
(BTW: I’m not wholly comforted by the idea that tomorrow belongs to Charles Copeland. If he’s an EU official, let’s hope he’s not here in an official capacity. But I still think he’s trolling… surely no one even marginally bright really believes that stuff?)
The extreme libertarianism espoused by Paul Coulam seems to rest – correct me if I am wrong – on the lazy assumption that any expression of a general truth – e.g., civilised people read books by dead white males – is “subjective”, & so must not be “imposed”. Who am I, after all, to say what is “civilised”? The answer is that I am a rational human being with reasoned arguments for calling certain practices civilised & certain not. But there is no point in going into these arguments if they are discounted *in advance*, & my views dismissed as “subjective”. So I won’t bother.
I’ll just point out that any general truths enunciated in any (honest) exposition of extreme libertarianism – e.g., that freedom is more important than anything else – are just as “subjective” as statements that libertarians don’t like.
Incidentally, Charles Coupland’s views on race are perfectly unexceptionable. All he’s saying is that there are racial differences between average I.Q. scores – which, as he says, is undisputed – & that the most plausible explanation is genetic, which, when the desperate efforts of left-liberal researchers to prove otherwise have all come to nothing, is hard to disagree with. As he says, this can be used to counter the idiotic left-wing assumption that average racial differences in, say, academic attainment are the result of something called “discrimination”, an assumption used to justify diminishing our freedom in ways that libertarians must deplore.
It is irrelevant if few genes are involved. We share 70% of our genes with yeast, for heaven’s sake. In genetics, a little goes a long way. It is irrelevant that there are greater differences between individuals in one race than in the averages between races – of *course* there are: the range in a single race is from the lowest to the highest individual in that race, whereas the range between one average & another is a range between scores that have already been averaged out (hence the term “average”). It is irrelevant that sub-Saharan Africa has a harsh climate, because Western colonisers had to cope with that climate (with rather less practice) just as the natives did, yet achieved rather more than the natives ever had. None of the excuses will wash.
It doesn’t follow that any race is “superior” to any other, or that one race has the right to enslave another, or that members of lower-I.Q. races are any less human or important than members of higher-I.Q. races, or that all races don’t have individuals with extremely high I.Q.s (they have), or that any individual should be “judged” on grounds of his race. It doesn’t follow that I.Q. isn’t a blunt instrument – God knows whether Plato, Newton, & Shakespeare had I.Q.s of 120 or 220, & even He doesn’t care. It just follows that “discrimination” is very far from being the whole story.
Hadrian Wise is correct that collective “racial” differences in IQ may well exist (buried under lots of other variances), but that they are without consequence in any case.
(He’s wrong to suggest climate I offered climate as an “excuse”: Unlike other commentators, I’m not making a moral comparison–or any comparison at all–of “races”. I’d note that colonisers had developed techniques elsewhere and imported material and healthy men from more favourable regions, so to say they achieved more under the same conditions is simply untrue. They had contingent advantages.)
What IS exceptionable about Charles Coupland’s views is that–entirely to the contrary of Wise–he continually returns to the subject of the group-average IQ of groups arbitrarily defined by skin-colour or location, with heavy implication that it is of great social, political and economic consequence. His comments read like a sophisticated (in the most pejorative sense) justification of a crude racial obsession.
Since it is starting to drown out genuinely interesting topics, I shall say no more on this subject in Samizdata comments.
Hadrian Wise:
Then allow me to indeed correct you because you are quite wrong. Paul is a editor who publishes books by live and dead white males as it happens… and all he is saying is that he does not want you and your conservative arbiters of what is and is not civilized to use the violence of state to force people to read (or not read) books by dead white males via some system of state imposed educational conscription.
Your reply to his remarks suggests to me that you either did not read that Coulam wrote or more likely are just so caught up in the conservative/liberal (in the weird American sense of the word) view of the world that you attribute all sort of subtexts to Coulam’s remarks where none exist. He is a Popperian so can hardly be a ‘subjectivist’.
A strawman argument. He, nor I, do give a damn what views you rationally argue for, just so long as you do not want the state to use the violence of law to impose them. You may or may not like the ‘alternative life styles’ which seem to derange otherwise rational conservatives, but unless an aspect of those lifestyles involves robbing people of their money and threatening them with violence, you have no business calling for the state to rob me of my money to fund the police so that they can threaten such people with ‘alternative lifestyles’ with violence because you find they disturb your socially conservative sensibilities.
The further education of Andy Duncan … continued
FREE! FREE!
Andy Duncan writes:
“I had no idea being a libertarian meant you had to be a fellow traveller with Ku Klux Klan, the ultimate collectivist organisation …”
I presume that this warped logic was triggered by my statement that Ku Klux Klan members, inter alia, believe that blacks have lower IQ scores than whites.
Now watch the ad hominem approach in action:
The Ku Klux Klan believe that blacks have lower IQ scores than whites.
Charles Murray believes that blacks have lower IQ scores than whites.
Ergo, Charles Murray is a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
Likewise:
Nazis believe that the world is round.
Andy believes that the world is round.
Therefore, Andy is a Nazi.
Frankly, as an old-fashioned paleoconservative anarcholibertarian, I am somewhat disappointed at Andy Duncan’s malicious diatribe. I really had thought that libertarians were ‘a cut above the others’ — but no doubt Andy is an exception, or just had a bad day ..
Andy goes on:
“I have a dream. I have a dream that one day it won’t matter what the fuck the colour you are. Christ, I thought that day had already come. I didn’t realise in the 21st century we had to keep banging on about it.”
Andy, we all have dreams. And we are all liable to succumb to wishful thinking. I, too, wish that that day would come. But it hasn’t. If you are applying for a job or for a university place in the United States, for example, it matters very much the fuck. If you’re a White, or an Asian, or a Jew — well, fuck off because you don’t belong to the privileged Black or Hispanic minorities.
It’s called affirmative action, Andy — racial discrimination against Whites and, in particular, white males.
As long as organisations that represent blacks or other ‘disadvantaged’ minorities continue to vilify their fellow citizens and demand special treatment, regardless of their educability and skills, we are duty bound to bang on, and on, and on. We must tell them, again and again:
The reason you guys are underrepresented in the upper ranks of society is that, on average, you don’t have what it takes in the brains department. Sorry, we don’t like to say it. We would prefer to remain silent. But if you wrongly accuse us of discrimination, you force us to defend ourselves. It’s a pity your average IQ is lower than ours. We wish it wasn’t. But it is. And therefore you will be overrepresented in the lower ranks of society, and we will be overrepresented in the higher ranks. Tough, tough tittie. But that’s how the cookie crumbles. We feel your pain, but we also feel our own. We, unlike you, do not discriminate. It is we, not you, who are colour-blind.
Guy Herbert – thanks for a reasonable reply. I take your point about the colonists – all I’d say in reply is that if climate really is that significant an influence, it could well exert selective pressure on genetic developments, such as, perhaps, average I.Q.
As for Charles Coupland, he must speak for himself. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest that one reason African countries haven’t done very well at turning themselves into Western industrialised societies is that they don’t have enough people with high enough I.Q.s to run industry, government, civil service, medicine, law, etc., properly, but I agree this racial I.Q. business is neither hugely important nor all that interesting, not least because I personally have grave doubts about measuring intelligence in the first place (while not doubting that I.Q. measures an important *aspect* of intelligence). While I agree with most of the substance of Charles’s latest message, its slightly crowing tone might have been softened by a readier recognition that whatever the differences between whites & blacks, orientals are on average have higher I.Q.s than whites.
(Incidentally, just because white & black I.Q.s have both risen in recent decades, presumably partly owing to environmental factors, doesn’t mean that the static *difference* between them is environmental. *Absolute* I.Q. may be influenced by environmental factors without this entailing that any particular *relative* difference is.)
Perry, Paul himself has used the term “subjective” to dismiss other people’s attempts to argue for principles other than liberty. If such principles are, in fact, *not* subjective, then why *shouldn’t* we sacrifice a little bit of liberty for their sake? What is so *bad* about funding 10% of the people to study real subjects with a high degree of rigour for the sake of an elite with some appreciation of the best that has been thought & said? Maybe we all have to settle for slightly cheaper dishwashers, but big bloody deal.
If, on the other hand, my principles *are* “subjective”, then my original argument proceeds.
I shall take some time off from my glamourous ‘alternative lifestyle’ to thank Brian for being so appreciative of my scribblings.
I will make it clear to Hadrian though that although I have used the word ‘subjective’ is was in reference to people’s _preferences_, nowhere have I described _truths_ as subjective. I am very much an objectivist with respect to truth. In particular the doctrine of anarcho-libertarianism I consider to be objectively true.
Charles Copeland is right to point out that saying he is a total arse is an ad hominen attack, nevertheless it has the great virtue of being objectively true also.
Believe it or not but I’m getting fed up of this IQ debate myself. It is pretty wearisome to try to make what you believe to be an empirical statement about the world and then to find yourself on the receiving end of a bucketful of ad hominem attacks. If collecting hate mail is one’s idea of fun, Samizdata is clearly where it’s at.
It is quite obvious to me that most people (including, sadly, most libertarians) are simply incapable of distinguishing between empirical claims and value judgements, between race realism (the theory of human biodiversity) and racism (the ideology that justifies coercion of certain human breeding populations on grounds of their alleged moral inferiority). You can be a race realism without being a racist and vice versa (a very ignorant racist might believe, say, that all interracial differences were environmentally determined). At any rate, the fact that one is a race realist does not mean one spends one’s weekend burning crosses on one’s lawn.
Guy Herbert claims I am ‘obsessed’ with race and IQ. Well, perhaps I am. But perhaps libertarians aren’t obsessed enough, so to speak. Perhaps libertarians simply fail to realize just how many people are obsessed by these matters. Perhaps libertarians are blissfully unaware of the reality of ethnic hatred and how often it is fanned by envy — the envy between the less talented and the more talented ethnic groups, between life’s losers and life’s winners.
Recommended reading: Amy Chua’s ‘The World on Fire – How exporting free market democracy breeds ethnic hatred and global instability’. Amy Chua highlights the link between globalisation and ethnic hatred the world over and convincingly rubbishes the prevailing view that “markets and democracy are a kind of universal prescription for the multiple ills of underdevelopment.” She puts paid to the illusion that “working hand in hand, markets and democracy will gradually transform the world into a community of […] civic-minded citizens and consumers. In the process, ethnic hatred, religious bigotry and other ‘backward’ aspects of underdevelopment will be swept away.” As Chua puts it, markets often make things worse, since they benefit different ethnic groups. The markets benefit the ethnic elites and although the ‘rising tide lifts all boats’, it lifts the elite boats so much higher than the non-elite boats that the non-elites often feel the tide has been retreating rather than rising.
My only caveat about Chua is that she does not address in depth the underlying causes of the performance differentials between ethnic groups, claiming merely that these causes are “poorly understood, difficult to reduce to tangible factors, and in any event highly intractable”. She mentions the “centuries of subjugation” of natives by the European-blooded elites as a possible determinant, which may well be true, but this hardly explains the market dominance of the Chinese in the Philippines, the market dominance of Jews in post-Soviet Russia, or the market dominance of Indians in Uganda. The Chinese, Jews and Indians didn’t go round subjugating anybody but that didn’t prevent them from becoming dominant elites wherever they went. They dominated because they were smarter than the majority ethnic groups in their host countries.
At any rate, these are important matters. And being ‘obsessed’ with important matters isn’t such a bad idea after all.
Charles
P.S. Thanks to H. Wyse for his comments and (rational) criticism.
Charles – I agree that “exporting” our own ways of doing things to radically different peoples & cultures is daft, though I am open-minded about how a big a role race plays in messing it up. We don’t know nearly enough about it yet to draw extravagant conclusions, & anyway, we don’t need to: it is already obvious that Islamic societies (for example) are going to be much less keen on democracy, free markets, & nation-states than we are, for clear *ideological* reasons.
Paul, glad to hear you believe in objective truth, & in at least one objective principle. But am I allowed to have my objective principles, or are all principles apart from anarcho-capitalism just preferences? A genuine question, despite the sarky tone.
Zathras writes,
“I guess I’m not sure either what is so choice about yet another trumpet blast from the sex-and-drugs school of libertarianism. Talk is cheap, and real liberty cannot be defended by people who define themselves by the extent of their alienation from everyone else.”
It is fortunate then that I don’t ‘define myself’ by the extent of my alienation from everyone else. Nor do I recall any mention of ‘sex and drugs’ so how what I wrote amounts to a ‘trumpet blast’ for whatever that is, is a mystery.
Hadrian,
A true statement is merely an accurate description of the facts. It may be a true statement that “The economy needs more people to be taught maths than media studies”, my point is that only the operation of the free market will reveal the truth of this or not. Assuming that it is true because you like maths or because your dogmas about social conservatism tell you so and then imposing this as a solution runs the great error that you may be mistaken in your assessment of the truth of the statement. My point is one of epistemology and the nature of the market mechanism in testing conjectural statements as candidates for objective truth. Many social truths are very subtle and not at all obvious, cranking them out of your dogmas, be they socialist or socially conservative is a futile way of accomplishing the epistemological task or sorting truth from error from among all candidate statements. My contention is that the market is the only know mechanism able to achieve this. Cuthbertson makes the identical error about prescribing rules of social conduct as the socialists make in prescribing economic plans for industrial output. Neither of them, regardless of the quality of their intentions, have enough information to enable them to make the appropriate decision, only the polycentric mechanism of the market can adequately test the truths of social statements.
When you ask ‘can I have my objective principles’ well principles are either true or not. I am either right about anarcho-libertarianism or I am not. Of course the critics on this thread have so far been totally unable to even understand it, never mind offer any serious criticism.
Hope this help Hadrian.
Paul,
It may be a true statement that […], my point is that only the operation of the free market will reveal the truth of this or not.
Sometimes the market will only reveal it in catastrophic failure – the cost of which is far higher than that of (hopefully) reasonable constraints on people’s behaviour.
What is reasonable?
All of us have grown up over 20, 30, 40, whatever years experiencing the world in micro and macro form. From this we gain our prejudices (oooh – Guardian hate-word!) about what is reasonable.
As an extreme illustrative example, if I gave you a choice of driving a train full of children over a bridge made of matchwood or a bridge equally well-made of steel girders, would you “let the market decide” by driving the train over the matchwood bridge and seeing what happens?
Obviously not – so why do some people not accept that some opinions on moral behaviour based on experience (direct or vicarious) might be the best ones, that ought to be enforced.
Which goes back to my previous post about investigations into which societal factors work and which don’t. If we don’t have all the information – then test it on a small sample, not the whole population.
Presumably Perry would object to a law forbidding people to drive trains full of children over matchwood bridges…?
Ron:
“if I gave you a choice of driving a train full of children over a bridge made of matchwood or a bridge equally well-made of steel girders, would you “let the market decide” by driving the train over the matchwood bridge and seeing what happens?”
Sorry Ron, you’ve lost me. How can a market drive a train over a bridge or even decide whether to drive a train over a bridge?
“Presumably Perry would object to a law forbidding people to drive trains full of children over matchwood bridges…?”
Why is that a hard case? Murder or manslaughter which would be just as much against the law in a libertarian society as in any other society.
Cydonia
Praising the Red, White & Green
Reading all this Anglo Saxon angst makes me feel immensely privileged to be an A S amongst the Italians. They’re pro-EU, not bothered about the Identity Card, relaxed about the gathering of data by the state, generally disinterested in the machinations of the parliament & the senate, and usually unimpressed with the antics of the great leader Berlusconi. Why do I like them? Because they’ve got the joke. Don’t worry about the state. Don’t be preoccupied with the manouevrings of the politicians. The solution is :- live comfortably, wonderfully and totally free, completely OUTSIDE of the system. No-one I have met, from police inspectors to lawyers to shopkeepers, takes a blind bit of notice of the rules, regulations, and edicts issued by Rome or Brussels. For them, the rolling out of the EU mantle is a preoccupation of the Northern states (excepting France) who follow the rules. They’ve a great way of dealing with immigrants too. 1. Even EU citizens are required to sign a declaration that they’re not here for the beer, relinquishing, (I’m sure “illegally” Brussels wil think) the right to claim benefits. 2. Even better, non-EU immigrants (including my magnificant and perfectly sculpted Albanian answer to Conan The Barbarian, Albert the Albanian, who incidentally built my swimming pool in about 3 days, and has an appetite for work rarely seen these days) gets zippo benefits, and even better, is required to pay, no questions asked, no further info required, an appropriate sum IN CASH each year to cover the potential costs of his health and other emergency requirements. He’s not a burden and is certainly nor therefore resented. You see an Albanian in Tuscany – you see a real grafter and not an object of resentment.
Perhaps we should adopt this refreshing attitude and system in England. Not the driving technique though.
Ron: Murder and manslaughter are perfectly acceptable legal concepts to me. I really have no idea what you are talking about.
Thanks, Paul, that helps a lot. You’re not a fan of von Mises by any chance, are you?
The point of Ron’s example is that there are ways of finding out the truth about things – even about what works – other than seeing what people buy in a free market, & these other ways are sometimes better.
But Paul can simply qualify his argument by saying that the market is the best way of finding out what people want.
This is where I disagree with him. The market is certainly the best way of finding out how much how many people are prepared to pay for what, but most people have preferences that they would prefer not to translate into cash. If man were reducible to homo economicus, then Paul’s argument would be hard to answer; but man, or at least non-libertarian man (the bulk of the species) is more than homo economicus. Most of us want to be reasonably free to buy & sell as we choose, without crippling taxation & burdensome regulation, but we also want to be part of something larger than ourselves (a nation) that is protected from external hostility (by a state) & *that is worthy of our affection*, which it can be in numerous ways: by looking after the sick & poor, by facilitating the transmission of tradition & culture, by protecting our landscape from despoliation, & so on, none of which is considered as valuable primarily in cash terms, & none of which is likely to be done well in a totally free market, where, for example, developers have more money to spend on developing than residents (who have mortgages to pay) have to spend on setting up countryside parks. So if that part of ourselves that is not homo economicus is to see a decent part of its preferences realised, there must be restraints on the market.
Another point is that the proliferation of goods & services in a free market places each consumer in a position analagous to the director of a command economy, in that no consumer has nearly enough information or time or indeed inclination to make a truly informed choice between the goods & services available to him. So the information provided by the free market even about our economic preferences is merely the conglomeration of inaccurate information about every individual’s econonmic preferences.
Hadrian Wise’s remarks above are an impressive collection of collectivist fallacies regarding what Free Markets are all about… when I have more time I will dissect at more length and then move on to the volk and soil basis of why so many ‘paleo-conservatives’ think the way Hadrian does.
The short version is:
A free market, the way Paul used the term about social mores, has nothing to do with the exchange of cash and thus nothing to do with Homo Economicus… the term ‘market place of ideas’ is a well known one and clearly that is what Paul was talking about. Hadrian simply wants to force people to accept a degree of social rigidity beyond that which society itself has evolved towards by using the violence of law to impose certain ways, i.e. he does not want to allow the social dynamism that actual liberty brings. Economics is not directly the issue.
Also, an asymmetry of information is the essence of what free markets are all about: its a feature, not a bug. Perfect information is impossible in a complex system and thus a free market, by allowing the possessors of local information to act on the basis of that partial information, both the value of local information usage is maximised (speed gaining by local use of the information minimises information decay)… a command system attempts to act on the basis of wider information (or even total information of the whole complex system) by reducing the number of people who can act on local information, thus slowing the rate of action by reducing both the number of people making decisions and widening the area of information that needs to be viewed by this smaller number of decision makers (and thereby increasing information decay). Free markets allow decisions based on information closer to the people who will act on it and also, by dispersing the risks/rewards, makes bad decisions less harmful to the overall system.
Because knowledge itself is conjectural, which means we can never be 100% sure our understanding of reality is totally correct, the idea that restricting people’s ability to act on information can make things ‘better’ presupposes that the people imposing the restrictions have much better understanding of reality than the people they seeks to regulate by violence backed laws. This is generally not the case.
Lastly, you may want a ‘nation’ to feel all wonderful and tribal about but I do not. I feel affinities for some societies, sure, but that is because those societies are spend less time trying to impose politics on me than others and thus are worthy of my affections more than others. I am glad to be one of those ‘rootless cosmopolitans’ that Marx (and Himmler) disliked so much, like so much of the global capitalist class from which I come.
Sorry, Perry, but I have difficulty understanding the concept of a market without money, or at least without material transactions of some sort, except as a metaphor. Between friends, there is (we hope) a free exchange of ideas, but it is ludicrous to miscall this a “market”, unless you wish to stretch the term to cover any activity not directly subject to coercion, in which case, we are all participating in a market when we go to sleep or have sex with our wives. A trifle absurd, I respectfully submit.
Anyway, Paul’s example was “The economy needs more mathematics graduates than media studies clones”, which again I respectfully submit is an explicitly economic one. Personally, I couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss what the economy needs, but as far as I am concerned, mathematics is an important way of learning the truth about the world & media studies isn’t, societies in which people know important truths are better than ones in which they don’t, so mathematics should be publicly funded & media studies shouldn’t be. Now, my judgments about mathematics do indeed involve judgments about what is “better” & do indeed presuppose that I am right, but it would be a strange statement of opinion that didn’t presuppose *that*. So what? I can argue my case, & my local position in a “market” is utterly irrelevant to its truth or falsity, neither of which can be acted on *except* collectively, since I am arguing in general terms about society as a whole, about principles, in other words, & not about matter.
You’re a rootless cosmopolitan – I’m not. You’re perfectly free to remain a rootless cosmopolitan (which ultimately is a state of mind) while the rest of us feel part of a nation-state, though you will certainly be missing something. If you don’t like the laws that go with that, tough: the majority isn’t going to let you impose your rootless cosmopolitanism on it. You’ll have to go and buy an island or something & set up a libertarian commune there.
I’ll put is simply: you guys think it generally true that liberty is more important than anything else, yes? I don’t. Why does my opinion have a different status from yours? Why am I illegitimately trying to say what is “better” & you not?
This is one of the saddest comment sections I’ve seen on Samizdata. There is an awful lot of ignorance shown here… Lots of people ignoring both reality and the reality of what commentors have written.
Perry – just taking as an example your last comment to Hadrian… You start off by slagging Hadrian’s comments by deriding them as “collectivist fantasies” – yet Hadrian has not stated anything overtly collectivist. (Unless you are absolutely determined to read between the lines and cling rigidly to the idea that partial equals total!)
As for the last paragraph – I swear that looks like a backhanded attempt to call Hadrian a Marxist and Himmlerite by stating that you are glad to be from a “class” that they dislike – infering that Hadrian isn’t- and therefore damned by association!
Come on Samizdata- these are the exact tactics you despise when used by statists… yet here you are using them left right and centre!
Sorry Perry for picking on you personally – but the Samizdatistas state that they are pro individual thinking – yet that isn’t what’s happening in this topic’s comments
Hadrian: Because you, unlike us, are trying to impose you views by force. I do not care if you hold wacky views and have no urge to force you to act in any way other than not to use violence against me and mine. You, on the other hand, wish to use violence to prevent me doing things which are not do anything more than upset your notion of what is better.
You want to force me to pay for people to study mathematics because you think it is better than media studies. Why should I tolerate you and people like you having that power over me, particularly as I might think it is not important for people to study mathematics on my dime? The reason I do business across borders in the manner I do is precisely to keep as much of my money as possible out of the reach of you, your vote and your intolerable violence backed politicization of civil society.
Now this is not to say there are no conditions whatsoever that I too would happily use violence against you to prevent you doing things to me, either directly or indirectly (such as via a collective agency such as a state)… the difference is in my case it would always be a case of self-defense (i.e. to prevent your direct or proxy actions against me) rather than imposing positive obligations (such as illegitimate taxation) on you.
And as your your idea that ‘the rest of you’ happy statists will prevent us evil cosmopolitans from undermining the sanctity of the blood and soil nation-state… I was rather under the impression we had been doing that extremely successfully for over 100 years. Globalisation… that is the result of what people like me do every day.
Joe… but Hadrian is indeed a collectivist, how can he be otherwise? I would be surprised if he would disagree himself given his attachment to nation. As for my reference to Marx and Himmler, they have nothing to do with Hadrian directly, about whom I know nothing personally, but a great deal to do with the notion of cosmopolitanism. Marx was the author of the ‘rootless cosmopolitan’ remark and Himmler talked about the concept frequently and accuratly, and the concept is very germane to a discussion of why some people such as a minarchist like myself (and even more so an anarchist like Paul Coulam) do not regard any state as the legitimate centre of civil society.
Sorry but I will not edit out references to the thinkers behind the two most important strains of nation-based collectivism because others might make wider associations, particularly given that I think modern centre-left and paleo-right have been steadily moving towards a more fascist economic model.
Thanks, Joe, but the best thing with “dirty tricks” is to ignore them.
Perry – Hegel is probably a better example of a nationalistic collectivist thinker than Himmler.
As far as I can see, Perry, we both have ideas of the kind of society (for want of a better term) we want. In my kind of society, there is some opportunity for people’s second-order preferences – their preferences with respect to society as a whole – to be acted on, & plenty of scope for people to argue about which such preferences should be acted on, with, yes, the necessary minimum condition that we abide by the results of whatever decision-making procedure is adopted to resolve disputes, be they general elections or whatever; & to this extent, there is a small trade-off between second-order preferences & first-order preferences about my immediate individual circumstances, which, frankly, don’t loom terribly large in any but the most shallow lives, in material terms at any rate. In *your* kind of “society”, there is no opportunity for anybody – except you & your friends, who, ex hypothesi, will already have seen them realised – to have his second-order preferences met at all, but there is no interference in anybody’s meeting his first-order preferences. What I want to know is why first-order preferences are more important than all second-order preferences except yours. Perhaps because second-order preferences can affect first-order preferences? Since the reverse is also true, that is circular as a justification. Have you a better one?
As for why you should be obliged to act on anybody else’s second-order preferences, presumably you conduct your “business” under the jurisdiction of a state that protects your property from theft & your person from attack. I’d be quite happy for you to forfeit that protection in return for not having to pay to live in the kind of educated society that considers it important to protect people’s property. Now you can’t say fairer than that.
Globalisation is indeed the repellent result of “businessmen’s” activities, but unfortunately it has done rather little to undermine people’s instinctive feelings of loyalty to their nation, & nothing at all to bring down the percentage of G.D.P. spent by most Western governments. Long may it continue to fail!
Perry, when you say: ” but Hadrian is indeed a collectivist, how can he be otherwise?”…
It all depends on degree… If you use the idea of his “attachment to nation” as a sign of collectivism – then you must also call yourself “a collectivist” in that you yourself stated earlier in the comments: “I feel affinities for some societies” …or would you define that as being a degree too far? Where do you draw the line?
I draw the line at calling someone a collectivist only where collectivism is espoused beyond all other methods. Below that line people are starting to think for themselves because they aren’t caught in the trap that only one ideology is correct at all times and for all places.
Hadrian came nowhere near this line in my estimation. That is why I pulled you up on your use of the word as a label for him.
I’m not against you using quotes of Marx or Himmler or anyone… but I thought it worth pointing out how your use of them in that instance equated to the way the extremists so often use inference to damn their enemy!
I have no wish for you to edit references, hahaha none whatsoever- I may be wrong – I may be right- but the revisionist idea of wiping them out benefits no one and any chance for learning is lost… No – I was just telling you how this particular comments section read to me because it was obvious to me from the comments that you and a lot of the other commentors were reading things very differently than I was and then commenting much more rigidly and extremely than seemed either necessary or useful. But of course I could be wrong- and I might be misreading them too – It depends on what you bring to the reading.
Fools to the left of us, jokers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you. Perry you are doing excellent work here educating these people about Popperian rationality and the manifold benefits of the free market.
I think that I should reiterate my point, since all of the critcs here have come from the socially conservative right and there have been none from the left defending a socialist outlook, that the conservative statists are every bit as mistaken in their outlook as the socilaists, the dogmas are every bit as socially damaging, I see absolutely no alliance between libertarianism and statist social conservatives.
People like Ron, Hadrian, Peter Cuthbertson et al. are so confident in their assumptions about socially conservative mores that they think not merely that they are right to use the power of the state to impose their ideas accross whole countries, but they are victim to such hubris that they think this is socially beneficial and essential. It is easy to see in this modern age how ridiculous are the orders of a socialist commisar when he insists that the national steel output must be X thousand tonnes. It is obvious now that he has absolutely no rational authority for issuing such a command. Yet the conservatives still seem to think that they can issues directives about what subjects are taught at college, what the laws regarding marriage should be, how children should be raised, without realising that their commands are as lacking in authority as the socialists. They are so convinced that they are right on these matters that they find it impossible to see that all knowledge is held conjecturally and must be subject to the severest tests of our devising to root out the mistakes. The libertarian insight is that the free market is indeed the most severe and ongoing test that can be devised. The social conservatives are indeed deluding themselves that their 30 years of experience and feeble inferences from subjects such as sociobiology can beat the market as a means to discovering truth for the very point of the market is that is harnesses all sources of knowledge and experience scattered diversely throughout society.
This works in the economic sphere for goods and services and it works in the social sphere for social practices.
Well, Joe, I think you are absolutely right.
Obviously, when contrasted with an extreme libertarian such as Perry, I and most reasonable people are “collectivists” – anybody who is prepared to countenance any diminution of liberty, to any end, is. In that sense, I am glad to be a collectivist, but the term usefully describes me only in the mouth of a libertarian, & even then doesn’t do a great deal to differentiate me from socialists, liberals, Marxists, Fascists, Nazis, or social democrats.
Hadrian writes,
“Obviously, when contrasted with an extreme libertarian such as Perry, I and most reasonable people are “collectivists” -”
I have always thought Perry’s libertarianism to be quite tame, he was even wavering about the word libertarian a few months ago at the height of war fever.
Oh dear, I didn’t mean to intrude on a religious rite! 🙂
Paul, all that Popperian stuff about testability – why do libertarians always uncritically accept it (with its absurd consequence that the predictive power of a theory is no reason for accepting it), & why do they always forget that it’s meant to apply to empirical phenomena? The nature & importance of culture isn’t an empirically decidable question, so all your Popperian market testabillity is irrelevant to it.
I also have doubts about how, say, the desirability of this or that marital arrangement could be “tested” by the free market anyway. If there were no laws about marriage (which, incidentally, would mean that marriage as we know it would no longer be an option – which would certainly make me feel a *lot* more free), then we might see which kinds of arrangements people *wanted*, but I don’t see how we’d find out which arrangements were *good for society*. For that, we need to use sociological data. Such data may be right or wrong, our conclusions may be true or false, our arguments valid or invalid, but we do the best we can. And if we find that traditional marriage is better for society, we do our best to encourage it. Yes, we may be wrong, but we’re reasonable people, this is a democracy, things can change if people want them to – so if you think we’re wrong, *make your case*, & if people are convinced, the law will change. But it really isn’t good enough just to say we *might* be wrong. I might be wrong to think my train’s going to be on time, but I still turn up at the station,.
Peter, Hadrian, Joe: spot on as regards (almost) everything you’ve written.
The problem with some of our fellow-libertarians is:
(a) they are just as gung-ho when it comes to character assassination as any dyed-in-the-wool Marxist and
(b) they really have got stuck in some awful time warp, like as though their minds went into deep freeze the day they finished reading Ayn Rand or Ludwig von M. or the immortal Hayek. Pathetic. I recommend that those who are still open-minded subscribe, say, to the quarterly ‘Critical Review’ and read something new instead of repeating the same old mantras ad infinitum and ad nauseam.
Many people consider that libertarians belong to the ‘lunatic fringe’, albeit a pretty harmless and even cuddly and loveable one. I reckon if they had a glance at this blog, they’d even think there was a lunatic fringe within the lunatic fringe.
One caveat re Hadrian, who writes:
“Globalisation is indeed the repellent result of “businessmen’s” activities, but unfortunately it has done rather little to undermine people’s instinctive feelings of loyalty to their nation, & nothing at all to bring down the percentage of G.D.P. spent by most Western governments. Long may it continue to fail!”
In my view, globalisation is more like a mixed blessing than a curse: some countries appear to have benefited very well from it; others seem to have been torn apart. As I suggested in a previous comment, libertarians would do well to read Amy Chua’s ‘World on Fire – How exporting free market democracy breeds ethnic hatred and global instability’. But that’s another story.
And sorry for being repetitive — I don’t want to end up being a real pain in the Coulam.
Hadrian,
The critical rational method (Popperianism) is not confined only to hard science, although it is true that this is how Popper originally developed it. In fact very few libertarians are critical rationalists, Perry and I and a small handful of others are in a tiny minority. Most libertarians, sadly, are just like yourself, confident that they can prove the truth of their theory by some means of justification or inductive analysis. They are as deluded as you are in this respect. Libertarianism is like all knowledge, a bold conjecture which should be discarded as false should someone devise a convincing refutation. Of course you haven’t even come close to understanding it yet let alone manage to offer any serious criticism.
You, like Popper, are a fan of ‘democracy’, but democracy is a very poor substitute for the market. No sociological data is required to work out what is ‘good for society’ if many people find a particular social practice good then they can voluntarily opt for it in a free market, those who dissent can do what feels best for them. In short people can be left free to find the solutions that suit them for their own problems, no centrally directed scheme is necessary.
The idea that by some mystical method the social conservatives can come to know what is good for us is a plain fallacy, it is also a collectivist one.
I see that Charles Copeland, who for some strange reason thinks of himself as a libertarian, imagines that some of the science fiction comics he has been reading lately represent an intellectual advance over the works of Mises and Hayek. Charles to thinks that intellectual theories are like clothes, to be changed with the passing of fashion. Apparently my clothes are just not trendy enough for Charles who decks himself out in all the latest that sociobiology has to offer because the pretty new theories are like a kaleidescope of moving colours mesmerising and beguiling his easily distracted mind. Here I am, smartly dressed in timeless style and there you are Charles, looking like a clown at a dinner party with everyone laughing at him.
Okay, since I don’t want this to degenerate into a slanging match, & since libertarians don’t like criticism & I don’t like unargued dismissals, this will have to be my final comment on this thread.
There’s nothing mystical about the research that shows marriage is the best way to bring up children, that children brought up in marriage are less likely to be criminals, who, unfortunately, diminish the freedom of us all. It’s all in black & white. If too many people decide that their own solutions to their own problems involve doing something that makes the society I live in a worse one, I’m going to support efforts to stop them.
I can just about be bothered to point out that there are many social practices that would be impossible without some legal framework & central direction. Take contracts, for a start.
Why do non-empirical claims have to be testable? The whole point of Popper’s argument is that empirical truths are contingent, so statements *cannot* be empirical if they are not falsifiable, i.e. contingent too. What is the point of applying this criterion of empiricism to avowedly non-empirical statements? Don’t tell me you’re a logical positivist….
Until the next time….
Paul, When you say: “No sociological data is required to work out what is ‘good for society’ if many people find a particular social practice good then they can voluntarily opt for it in a free market, those who dissent can do what feels best for them.”… but it kind of ignores one important factor: REALITY.
That theory of yours ignores some very important aspects of life.
Just one aspect is natural market control(and I’m not talking about just money market) … In a completely free market there are no controls except the natural control of “the stronger wins”! Which is a bit of a bummer if you have little strength in the marketplace. The strongest person in the market will gain vastly against the losses of the weaker people. Then as that one person is seen to continually gain “unfairly” the rest of the people will tend to band together (eventually) and remove them from the market place altogether. Of course if that person has gained enough market strength they will be able to “buy” enough supporters to crush the rebellion and enforce their market value on everyone else and surprise surprise – instant Tyranny… bye bye free market!
That is only one aspect of free market theory but it alone shows how self destructive a completely free market is.
Hadrian,
The research about marriage is not mystical, but you think that this tells you something about whether particular claims about marriage are true or not. It doesn’t, induction is a myth. All of these questions are empirical conjectures and open to testing and criticism.
Your fear is that the market might throw up the wrong result. Indeed it may but this is a less likely scenario than with paternalistic imposition. You think that many social truths are obvious, this is just a psychological mistake on your part. You confuse the fact that you are convinced about something with it actually being true.
Consider a free market in marriage, no welfare, no state support for single mothers, no state financed fecklessness at all, my guess is that this will strengthen families and marriages, you do not need any extra encouragements or repressions of minorities, that will simply cause unecessary distress to innocent others. Your fear that libertarian freedom will mean wholesale recklessness is quite without foundation.
On your other point, you may be bothered to say that contracts require central authority, but you are mistaken about this.
Joe,
Your misunderstanding of the nature of markets is very extensive. Markets are not tests of strength, people who do well in a free market situation are those who perform the best possible service to others by the most efficaceous means. Your analogy of all out war is good for practically every other political arrangement except free markets.
It is a complete fallacy that free markets do not have rules… this is sub-economics 101 stuff.
Take a stock market… lots and lots of rules, most of which are not imposed by the state but rather are a condition of joining the stock market, which are generally not owned by the state.
The difference is that if you don’t like the stock market’s rules, you are free to try and raise capital via a private placement or whatever: you do not have to play.
An paucity of state laws does not mean an paucity of rules by which people agree to play… if you think that is not true then do not kid yourself that you are a ‘conservative who values civil society’, in fact, you do not think civil society can exist outside the framework of the state at all (regardless of all the evidence to the contrary) and so please stop using the word ‘society’ when you really mean ‘state’.
But of you agree that civil society is a rather robust thing when not grossly distorted by replacing social interactions with political (i.e. force imposed) ones, then please acknowledge that there is a great deal more to social interaction that ‘the big beast eats the small beast’. If you think otherwise then socialism (in its right or left form) is the only rational end point to which you must head. In truth, people do form affinity groups, give money to charities, run lifeboat services, look after their children, open doors for ladies and trade without fraudulent practices etc. all without the deadening hand of the state compelling to.
Also, durable monopoly in a free market is a myth and any but the most transient monopoly is a product not of free markets but of state distorted markets or very small and primitive markets ‘protected’ from outside players. The notion that is an ever more globalised and networked market that harmful monopoly is sustainable in the long run is really daft.
Okay, okay, one more, one more.
Paul, induction is *not* a myth. Attempts to dispense with it as a principle altogether, if rationally argued, are self-refuting, since language involves the use of general terms that are themselves inductive in character. Any alternative to induction that is perservered with will rely on an inductive inference about itself, namely that it will continue to work. Try as we may, we cannot do without induction, or I *certainly* wouldn’t turn up to the station. And then I wouldn’t be here writing this now – quelle domage.
I do understand that I may be wrong about things. I’ve explicitly admitted that. I just think we have to *get over* our fallibility & act on the best arguments & evidence available.
I take your point about marriage if there’s no welfare state. You may be right – but I’d rather not take the risk, & anyway, I’m in favour of a small welfare state & would rather not sacrifice it. And the risk isn’t just that people won’t get married, but that marriage, without the (legal) sanction of an established church, without even the recognition of a registrar, will lose its “specialness”, which I suspect may be the secret of its effectiveness.
Paul, I’m absolutely sure that I do have extensive misunderstandings…. I also have a few little understandings.. let me share one with you:
Markets are made up of vastly different people all with wants, desires, and ambitions… thus every market of every commodity or idea follows the “strongest” wins model unless there are limiting factors introduced… we often call these limiting factors “laws”!
It is all very well performing the “best possible service by the most efficaceous means” until someone bigger and meaner than you comes along and tells you to clear off or die- or where commodities are involved perhaps suggests you pay “protection money”.
If you can show me ANY market where “strongest wins” is not a aspect that operates (usually under some form of control) then I will be much amazed.
*Right*, very last one.
Perry, your reply to Joe uses (at the end) the familiar libertarian tactic of saying that the only reason free markets have these appalling monopolies & oligopolies that are almost totally unresponsive to customers’ wishes is that they are *not free enough*. Of course! Take away regulation, & we could *all* be major suppliers of railways, water, & electricity. That’s *bound* to work. Cost of entry, finitude of resources – well, if they don’t exist in classical economic theory, they certainly can’t exist in the real world.
More seriously, too much reliance on this “not free enough” stuff, & you lot begin to sound suspiciously like another lot of economics-obsessed anti-statists. Remember why the Soviet Union failed? It wasn’t Marxist *enough*, of course! Conveniently enough, there’s never been a Marxist enough society for us to put the Marxist’s claims to the “test”, & I begin to suspect there’s never been a libertarian one either.
On your other point, of course there are many aspects of civil society that do not require state support, that, indeed, are damaged by state interference, but there are others – the monarchy, for example, or cultural homogeneity (think border controls) – that do, & as a conservative, I’m not going to sacrifice them in the name of anti-statist dogma.
Joe,
No markets are as you describe. What you take to be criticism of markets is actually anti-market (political) behaviour. Of course laws are required in a market, no one has suggested that they are not, they are the laws against stealing and violent aggression. What libertarians want to do away with are the state laws which are actually interventions in the market.
Hadrian,
I see you were tempted in to comment again, very weak willed. I’m glad you have conceded at least some ground on the issue about marriage, keep reading libertarian sites and eventually you will be ours.
Induction is an utter myth in all ways. The only route to knowledge is through conjecture and refutation. Amassing mountains of evidence in order to prove some theory has truly been called the ‘maximisation of expected futility’.
Paul,
In spite of your (sorry) rather off-putting manner, you said some things which aroused my curiosity. So to combat my “catastrophic” ingnorance I have been at the library investigating Karl Popper and the Austrians. There are very many interesting books to choose from and I don’t have time to read them all, but here are my thoughts so far.
First, there is no doubt in my mind that Popper was, among other things, a political philosopher. So I find it surprising that you regard politics as the enemy.
Clearly we mean two different things by the free market. Yours philosophy seems to require lawlessness in order to function, while mine is premised on the idea that ther must be rules, whether of the formal or informal variety.
Didn’t Popper believe in the rule of law as indespensible in a market-based economy? I gather that he sugested that the French or German legal code be adopted in Russia as a band-aid for its lack of a functioning legal system.
Did he not belive that the aim of political philosophy was to formulate rational rules to govern society: practical problems and rational solutions? Likewise, is he not criticized by anarchist radicals for not being a revolutionary but a reformist?
Also, as I understand the Austrian economic philosophy thus far, I am much more in tune with their thinking than you appear to be. Its classic Reaganism/Thatcherism: (1) free trade (2) deregulation and (3) reduced–not eliminated–public spending and privatization. This all requires a state.
So I am a bit confused about your anarchism: you don’t seem like a Popperian (but I could be wrong).
Finally, I just don’t support anarchism. The great paradox of libertarianism is that the state is the ultimate defender of freedom, and it depends on force (or Perry’s “violence”) to do so. As Popper would say, I am either right or wrong. But the empirical evidence shows that anarchy is a formula not for freedom, but misery. We need not look far for an illustration. I am persuaded that in Africa, examples abound.
Paul, you say: “What libertarians want to do away with are the state laws which are actually interventions in the market.
But if a free market is to be applied to everyone then those laws that govern the market must apply to everyone – then you need a method of enforcing the laws – et voilá – you have created a STATE!
Just to knock this blessed IQ thing on the head, and help out Guy:-
1) Differences in black/white average IQ’s are not really germane to inter-racial dispute. They are of real utility, though, in refuting the pernicious blank slate environmentalism of the liberal left, upon which depends the entire agenda for equality (or inclusiveness, equity, access, justice etc).
2) Not regional climate as such but the incidence of disease, drought and availability of food were the formative factors in racial difference. At least, this is Phillipe Rushton’s idea with which I find much resonance.
He argues that ancient sub-Saharan man could obtain food fairly readily. The threats to life were the other two factors, neither susceptible to man’s intervention. He adapted by heavy breeding. Natural selection favoured high sexualisation.
The migrants who travelled north about one hundred years ago entered regions where food was hard to find for much of the year. But drought and disease were virtually negligible. Extra mouths to feed were now a big disadvantage. The strategy had to adapt to low reproduction with a heavy investment in child care. Concomitant with a decline in sexualisation, child development proceded more slowly and intelligence was fostered accordingly.
This is only Rushton’s theory, of course. But there is a nexus of persuasive, supporting evidence.
One other point on which I would like to set the record perfectly straight. For me, at least, social conservatism is still principally about a high investment in child care. I often bang on about our sociobiological imperatives and perhaps I lack the words to communicate my motives to Paul and others. For that I apologise. For criticising the years since 1963 I offer no apology. Our children’s stability has been sacrificed in part at least through government policy. There’s nothing foolish about wishing to reverse that, my friend. But there might be attacking me for it.
Joe wrote – “In a completely free market there are no controls except the natural control of “the stronger wins”!”
True. But if the stronger consists of an association of people dedicated to preserving freedom, then that is a highly desireable state of affairs.
Joe – “if a free market is to be applied to everyone then those laws that govern the market must apply to everyone – then you need a method of enforcing the laws – et voilá – you have created a STATE!”
Well, you have certainly created a system of enforced common law. Whether that is a state or not is a matter of semantics. However, I’m sure that virtually all libertarians (anarcho-capitalist included) agree with the existence of a system of enforced common law, however it is labelled. What they don’t agree with is going beyond that function, into group actions that coerce unprovoked, and would be illegal and immoral if done by one individual to another. That is what most of us are thinking of when we refer to the objectionable actions of “the state”.
Abby wrote – “Finally, I just don’t support anarchism.”
No libertarians support true anarchism (i.e. no enforcement of anything), as explained above. So you’re attacking a straw man.
Abby – “The great paradox of libertarianism is that the state is the ultimate defender of freedom, and it depends on force (or Perry’s “violence”) to do so.”
The ultimate defender of freedom is the defensive (or retaliatory) use of force. If one defines a system dedicated to implementing this defensive force (and nothing else) as a state, then your alleged paradox is a chimera, since virtually all libertarians support such an arrangement.
You are confusing two positions: i) the libertarian opposition to aggressive initiation of force which restricts liberty – i.e. classical statism ii) libertarian support for defensive use of force in order to preserve liberty.
Cobden,
Read all the origional posts and I think you’ll have a better idea of what I’m talking about. For example, “force” is my short hand for force of law, which is more like the threat of force or the threat of jail. In this sense, the state does indeed promote my liberty by protecting me from criminals who would like nothing better than to trample my liberty, among other things.
Also, all libertarians do not support defensive force–if it is directed by a government. That would mean conceding legitimacy to that government. You must be careful when claiming to speak for what is in reality an extremely diverse group of people.
If you want to see things like reasonable securities regulation as statism or oppression then that’s fine. I don’t. I see it as the state protecting my property from the likes of Ken Lay.
Hadrian wrote –
“presumably you conduct your “business” under the jurisdiction of a state that protects your property from theft & your person from attack.”
The state does not protect property or person from attack – there are no police guards or bodyguards assigned to each citizen. In the vast majority of cases, all it does is try (usually unsuccessfully) to arrest and then punish someone *after* they have committed a crime.
“I’d be quite happy for you to forfeit that protection in return for not having to pay to live in the kind of educated society that considers it important to protect people’s property.”
Ok so now you are not talking about a state, but a voluntary security club. It is precisely the fact that no states in the world would willingly make your offer that best illustrates their coercive nature.
“On your other point, of course there are many aspects of civil society that do not require state support, that, indeed, are damaged by state interference, but there are others – the monarchy, for example, or cultural homogeneity (think border controls) – that do, & as a conservative, I’m not going to sacrifice them in the name of anti-statist dogma.”
In other words you are going to steal my property and threaten me with jail if I resist, just to subsidise your personal aesthetic preferences. Doesn’t that make you a violent thief?
Paul Coulam wrote –
“fact very few libertarians are critical rationalists, Perry and I and a small handful of others are in a tiny minority. Most libertarians, sadly, are just like yourself, confident that they can prove the truth of their theory by some means of justification or inductive analysis. They are as deluded as you are in this respect. Libertarianism is like all knowledge, a bold conjecture which should be discarded as false should someone devise a convincing refutation.”
How is libertarianism knowledge, or even conjecture? Isn’t it just a strong personal preference for liberty? A personal preference cannot be false, by definition, therefore the existence of a refutation is logically impossible. At most libertarianism is a moral principle, that liberty is an end in itself. But moral principles are entirely subjective (their truth can’t be tested empirically). Where then does critical rationalism come into it?
If you are talking about the superior efficiency of free markets in allocating resources compared to central planning, then this is indeed an empirically testable question. But it is a question of market efficiency, not liberty per se. Besides, nobody here (I hope) is questioning that assumption, rather they are asking why is efficient allocation of resources the highest good? Why promote that goal ahead of any other? In what way can critical rationalism help you settle that question?
Forgive my asking some basic questions but this libertarian thing bugs me. Social perfection and human nature are not natural bedmates.
Is the pure, stateless anarcho-libertarian society possible only if everyone therein has the same aspirations? What happens if the inevitable conflicts of aspiration arise? What happens, indeed, in the case of biologically driven conflicts, these being irredeemably fixed and not susceptible to persuasion.
Would not this perfect society have to be highly homogenous, if only intellectually. Would not this homogeneity have to be defended by repressive action?
Cobden, My contention is that if you start with a free market- rules will automatically form- these rules will be enforced and what amounts to an authoritarian control (state, government whatever) will then be in existance.
Also – from historical experience we can see that the freer the market you start with, the greater the chance you have of ending up with a tyranny as the authoritarian control mechanism… unless there are rules in place and an authoritarian system already in place to prevent this. Therefore the most free market that you can hope for requires an authoritarian framework to maintain its freedom.
It is an ideal for every individual to have a libertarian aspect – but the dynamic changes the instant that groups of people come together. Group mentality allows many people to relax their thinking and let others do it for them. From historical and also day to day experience (empirical evidence) we can see that most people enjoy this … it is only a small percentage that truly like to think for themselves all the time (yet even the most hardened individualist relinquishes their thinking and authority to others by necessity from time to time)
That is the dynamic that is found in all social interactions. To ignore it is foolish.
Guessedworker makes the point that people are not homogenous.
Therefore you have to take the social and the conservative dynamics into account as those are the aspects that in REALITY apply to most people in any society.
What good is a libertarian theory that ignores reality?
Cobden,
I urge you not to provoke Paul. He is very bright, but extremely high-strung.
You have just stumbled into a mine field. Allow me to diffuse it before someone gets hurt.
Popper was concerned with the demarcation between science and pseudo-science. He wanted to formulate and criticize standards which could become rules for social life. The rules must be improved by critical discussion and trial and error.
He developed his criterion of falsification to seperate testable scientific theories from the other variety. Theories must be capable of refutation (e.g. Einstein’s theory was capable of refutation if one observed a particular phenomenon during an eclipse).
Libertarianism is a theory of society and is capable of refutation. Of course, I believed I had done that with respect to a stateless society of completely free and spontaneous markets.
I used the example of the American frontier during settlement and argued that government on the frontier arose organicly in response to market forces–the market needed it. In other words, society needed it.
Ever hear of frontier justice? Not very pretty, and carried out by “hired guns”. The market brought forth these men (rather than police hired by the government) because the people needed protection and paid for it. Well, there were many a shoot out at the OK Corral, and people got sick of it.
Government was needed to ride herd on the thugs and criminals, and to conduct a trial before it hung cattle thieves. Hired guns skipped the trial.
Paul didn’t buy it, nor will he buy your announcement that Libertarianism is a “prefrence.” I suggest you don’t tell him that again.
Cobden,
Libertarianism might just be a preference for liberty over other things, as you say, but I conjecture something much bolder than that. What I think is true is that there is _no practical clash between human liberty and human welfare_. The more liberty we have, the more welfare (meaning satisfaction in terms of our own choosing) we have, the possibility of a trade off between the two is not open. All diminutions of general welfare come about through anti-liberty actions – theft, violence, fraud and the like. The state is the overwhelming practitioner of these things.
This is the conjecture that I believe is the truth of libertarianism, it has been around for quite a long time and is more generally know as ‘The classical liberal compatibility thesis’. I do not think that this thesis can be in any way proven or justified, to attempt this would be to commit the foundationalist error. I accept Popper’s insight that all knowledge is conjectural, never justified. Popper thought that _democracy_ was a good analogy for the critical rational method in the social sphere, that the free interplay of ideas in a democracy would be the most severe tests that could be devised. I think he wasn’t bold enough in this idea, I think that the market itself is a much better method for testing candidate social truths and democracy is a very poor substitute for it. So, no Abby, Popper was not a libertarian, he was right about the epistemological method but I think erred in his political thinking preferring democracy to the market.
Abby, not all Austrians are anarchists, that is certainly true, but many are, most famously Murray Rothbard. Where you made errors in you understanding of the free market was in your acceptence of such ideas as ‘level playing fields’ and ‘equality of opportunity’ these are two erroneous memes that all Austrians scorn, anarchist or no. I believe Gene Callahan has written a good intro to Austrian economics recently though I haven’t read it yet.
Guessedworker asks:
“Is the pure, stateless anarcho-libertarian society possible only if everyone therein has the same
aspirations?”
No, the an-lib society is the society best able to reconcile a wider multiplicity of wants and aspirations in peace and prosperity.
“What happens if the inevitable conflicts of aspiration arise?”
All peaceful aspirations will be reconciled on the market, there will be a huge variety and diversity of different communities in an-lib society.
“What happens, indeed, in the case of biologically driven conflicts, these being irredeemably fixed and not susceptible to persuasion.”
You seem to think that there is going to be some sort of inevitable race war. If this is indeed the case then I can’t imagine what we might do about it, however I think you draw way to many silly conclusions from your ideas about sociobiology.
I see the free market society as a replacement for democracy, I see no reason to imaging that it will be any less stable than any other society, it will certainly be freer and more prosperous satifying a greater multiplicity of its inhabitants desires and aspirations than any other society. Basically an-lib society is the rejection of violence and deceit, as violence and deceit decrece then society moves more towards anarcho-libertarianism. To advocate anything else is effectively to call for more violence and predation though usually euphemisms such as taxation, regulation etc are used.
Paul, you state your basis for your “An-Lib society” as this: “Basically an-lib society is the rejection of violence and deceit, as violence and deceit decrece then society moves more towards anarcho-libertarianism. “
One question that is immediately raised by this: How do you get every individual to reject violence and deceit?
This raises other questions;
In your “An-Lib” society when someone desires something belonging to someone else… and that other person doesn’t want to give it too them…. what stops them taking it?
In your “An-Lib” society what stops groups of people who want something from banding together to take it by force from others… or from manipulating the society by force?
Joe,
These are all good questions and I will try to answer them, though if you really want to understand this ideology and how it will make everyone freer and better off I can only advise you to read some of the extensive literature on it. The best book in my opinion is ‘The Ethics of Liberty’ by Murray Rothbard.
However in brief the answers are these:
“How do you get every individual to reject violence and deceit?”
I suspect that you can’t get every individual to rejct violence and deceit but nor is this necessary. The overwhelming majority of violence and deceit is committed by the state and people acting on its behalf, the amount of private civilian crime is tiny by comparison, compare how much is taken by burglars each year with how much the government takes in taxation. With the state gone there will still be the civilian crime of course but most civilian crime is committed in areas of great social disadvantage, a libertarian society will be vastly more prosperous and the will be no inflation nor unemployment, these causes of crime will not exist. The remaining crime, committed for reasons of passion or becasuse an individual has a violent nature will be combatted by the normal insurance, police and court functions, which instead of being administered by the state will be administered competatively by firms on the free market.
“In your “An-Lib” society when someone desires something belonging to someone else… and that other person doesn’t want to give it too them…. what stops them taking it?”
Few people commit crimes out of sheer malice or uncontrollable passion, those who do will be dealt with by the (non-state) police. As there will be ample opportunity to work in the flourish economy of an an-lib society most people will behave in accordance with the usual normal social rules and work honestly rather than commit crimes.
“In your “An-Lib” society what stops groups of people who want something from banding together to take it by force from others… or from manipulating the society by force?”
Again, this is not normal social behaviour in free and propserous countries, rather it is typical of impoverished tribal societies. Anarcho-libertarianism will look a lot more like Las Vegas than Monrovia despite people mistaken assumptions about anarchy. Anarchy merely means ‘without the state’ rather than ‘total chaos and disorder’ though I accept that both definitions occur in the dictionary.
A P.S. for Cobden,
I agree that it is usual to defend libertarianism in moral terms, and I personally think that a libertarian society will be morally desirable. However morals do not form a part of my defence of the truth of the compatibility of libert and welfare, I think that this is the case whether one approves of it or not, this defence would not therefore impress a vehment Islamic fundamentalist then, it is an argument for those who cliam to take either liberty or welfare seriously as all the commenters on this thread have so far done.
I think Islamic fundamentalism is intellectually incoherent for other reasons than that it may reject both liberty and welfare.
I just wanted to get in the last word.
Guessedworker:
“One other point on which I would like to set the record perfectly straight. For me, at least, social conservatism is still principally about a high investment in child care. I often bang on about our sociobiological imperatives and perhaps I lack the words to communicate my motives to Paul and others. For that I apologise. For criticising the years since 1963 I offer no apology. Our children’s stability has been sacrificed in part at least through government policy. There’s nothing foolish about wishing to reverse that, my friend. But there might be attacking me for it.
I’m not sure I’ve got this straight. Are you saying that the might of the State (compulsory taxation and regulation etc) are necessary to ensure your preference for “a high investment in child care.” ?
If not, are you agreeing with people like Paul, me and Perry that the State is the problem (in this area as in all others)?
(I guess I shall have to forfeit that last word)
Paul, something important stands out in your answers… for example when you say: “The overwhelming majority of violence and deceit is committed by the state and people acting on its behalf, the amount of private civilian crime is tiny by comparison, compare how much is taken by burglars each year with how much the government takes in taxation.” ….
…You are holding the idea of the “state/government” as being an entity that is totally separate and apart from the “people” yet this cannot be the case as it is a section of the people (whether we like it or not) that forms the government and all of the people (even those oppressed by it) form part and parcel of the “state”.
The two are not separable as government exists by reason of the existance of society which exists because of the cohesive nature of (the) people. The two are totally interactive even though there may be plenty of rules which appear to keep them separate.
With regard to criminality- It doesn’t matter how few people commit crimes out of malice- crimes can be committed for all sorts of reasons. Mostly in order to gain a selfish advantage… for example: Hitler was one man- yet he managed to convince the majority of his country to commit or conspire in the committing of (very malicious) crimes yet do you think they all did it out of malice? Most of them just did it because it as part of something that their “society” did based on a certain ideology.
You say that people banding together to commit crimes is not normal behaviour. I’m sorry but on that I totally disagree: People band together to gain advantage for themselves and their families. Poverty is a very relative idea. I doubt if anyone who lived in true Poverty in Western civilisation 100 years ago would regard many, if any. of those in western society who are called poor today as even close to being really poor… because almost everyone has their basic needs made available to them. Most people follow trends and do stupid things because they see or hear that other people do them. Normal human existance often causes people to do very stupid and often malicious and criminal things. Bad things that we think abnormal can become normal through simple cultural trends. No impoverishment is required – all that is required is a proactive idea… stating – we must/should/can do this because “the idea exists that says we must/should/can”.
It’s called “rationalisation”…everybody all over the world does it, therefore we can say it’s a normal human trait.
Anarchy cannot exist for long in modern human society because of peoples social needs and desires. People band together in groups naturally. It fills basic needs for security – and as a conduit for their desires etc… Whenever something occurs that destroys a society leaving an Anarchy… as soon as a grouping together starts to take place then rules become necessary and also a method for enforcing them. That is the end of the Anarchy.
People don’t like Anarchy because they like the security and other bonuses supplied by the group. These group functions don’t work in an anarchy because people are not identical… they have different wants needs and desires which often can only be fulfilled through group endeavours.
Joe: I am not an anarchist but I do need to point out that anarchy is not the same as chaos, therefore to argue that you cannot have anarchy and security is not correct. Paul is pointing out that security can be provided privately.
Cydonia – the state is not the problem – the unrealistic ideologies which dominate and drive the state’s actions and the actions of everyone who derives authority from it – those ideologies are the problem.
If you change the dominant ideologies by which everyone operates within the state – then you have effectively changed the state even though the same people may be in authority!
Perry, of course anarchy and chaos are not the same thing… though that difference makes no difference to the reaction of groups of people to anarchy… whenever society and anarchy mix – society moves from anarchy and forms ruling authority asap. I’m only stating the facts as history has shown us. There is no place where anarchy remains once family or other groups form.
Joe:
“the state is not the problem – the unrealistic ideologies which dominate and drive the state’s actions and the actions of everyone who derives authority from it – those ideologies are the problem.”
I disagree, but let’s suppose you are right. Even then, so what? Are you suggesting that a State can exist without becoming a vehicle for “unrealistic ideologies”? How do you propose that such ideologies be kept at bay? All historical evidence suggests that limited constitutions and the like, are quite insufficient to stem the inexorable growth of statism.
“There is no place where anarchy remains once family or other groups form.”
Why are family or other groups inconsistent with anarchy (in Paul’s first sense) ? Anarchy does not mean atomism.
Joe,
Your argument is hinging on your persistent use of the most pejorative possible understanding of anarchy. Ranting at straw men rather than seriously considering if security can be provided without a state is a waste of your intelligence.
You are correct in identifying ideology as the key issue. I seek to replace the ideology that a state is necessary with an alternative ideology that it is not. This will liberate both those people who are victims of the state and those who perpetrate crimes in its name.
You are quite wrong to suggest that tribal predation is normal human behaviour, if that were the case advanced society wouldn’t be possible at all. Even under state rule, people don’t behave themselves solely because the state tells them to.
It is true that not all crime is caused by social alienation, yet much is, a libertarian society will be less socially alienating because of full employment. It is this rather than crude measures of relative poverty that libertarianism will solve.
Cydonia, what I am suggesting is that the ideology of the state is open to control. Manipulating the ideology manipulates the state.
With regards to Anarchy… when any form of hierarchical authority structure exists to control any group – that control cannot be termed anarchy. To date in history all surviving groups structures have developed and depend on hierarchical control structure with control of that authority weilded by a few over the whole of the group. These group authority structures exist in many forms but not as an Anarchy.
As soon as a group of anarchists meet a problem that they cannot overcome as individuals but that requires group structure with a leader to make decisions…. the anarchy has ceased to exist. They can revert to an anarchical structured society but this doesn’t happen often and I can’t think of any historical society in which this happened with any stability. Stability is the crux. Anarchy remains unstable because groups need to make group decisions… and someone has to make the final say. People prefer stability and quite enjoy relinquishing the pressure of responsibility to others- it takes a weight off their minds. Anarchy can’t offer those benefits.
Paul, To seek for an ideology in which a state is unnecessary is quite some task… You are up against some tough problems – not from the State itself, but from the individual people that make up society.
In order for people to live in harmony without a hierarchical state structure – your ideology needs to make the adults within that society willing to accept FULL responsibility for their own actions and for the actions of their family/children/pets/livestock/plants/robots/machinary etc etc… and importantly – they have to accept responsibility for destructive accidents or malicious happenings that occur to them or their kith and kin.
They have to provide their own security or arrange for security to be provided and accept the responsibility for any actions taken to secure their homes and family.
They have to take personal responsibility for providing for all forms of welfare for themselves and their families wellbeing including protecting the country and society they reside in as well. They have to arrange for the flood, fire, earthquake, volcano, and the meteorite striking unexpectedly protection etc etc… that is a lot for any individual to do. And I’m not just talking insurance- I’m talking preventive and recovery measures.
That is where you run into trouble… when people get all this laid on their shoulders they don’t think of responsibility as a freedom – they see it as a chain of bondage. When the state sidles up and whispers sweet words of – “let us take some of that burden off your shoulders- you don’t have to carry that all by yourself- we can take care of you”… that’s it -game over – the people heave a huge sigh of relief and say – “Take it!- We give you our individual power in return for your care and protection and all the other goodies you offer.”
Then the state sadly goes and screws up what could work quite happily. Its all down to human individuality – some people are complete shits and will happily screw everyone else for no other reason than “it seemed like a good idea at the time” or just by accident. The problem that causes most problems within state structures is good ol human nature.
You think seem to think that I have misunderstood the theory of anarchy… but the way I see it is this… no matter what the theory – it has to be processed through human nature… Ignore human nature when dealing with humans and things will go awry.
Take hierarchy and anarchy… which is really the difference between state and anarchy…
The difference between hierarchy and anarchy lies in the minutae of process. The process is controlled by ideology (and a smattering of circumstance). It is possible to have a similar process in a hierarchy as would fit the ideology of anarchy. Getting the process to work is the problem. It requires people to fully understand and do their jobs properly and to a fairly high standard… and sadly we are talking about humans! Damn! Working with humans -That’s a spanner thrown in the works before we even start the engine hahahaha. Is it any wonder we have problems with the state?
People – they’re wonderful- don’t you just love them 😉
Paul,
I have one last question. If theories must be refutable, and libertarianism is a theory, what is its test? Under what circumstances can we say it has failed?
Anybody got a good job for a troll?
I can provide good references, and have been proven to stretch discussions and argumentsa by 30% at least…