Yesterday I went up to Blackpool for a couple of off-conference meetings.
In one of these meetings (a joint meeting – debate with John Redwood) Mr Richards of the ‘Independent’ newspaper spoke.
Mr Richards stated that everyone should forget about the EU because the Euro was not going to be introduced into Britain and the Constitution had been voted down.
Various people (such as a member of the European Parliament who was at the meeting) carefully explained to Mr Richards that EU was taking more power (in all area’s of people’s lives) all the time and that even the voted down Constitution was in fact being implemented a bit at a time (for example the EU Defence College is being set up even though its legal basis, the EU Constitution, was not enacted).
Mr Richards simply repeated what he had already said.
So more specific examples of the growth in the activities of the EU, all of which the European Court, committed as it is to “ever closer union”, claims, possibly quite correctly, are allowed by the existing treaties. The growth in power is in all areas of life and is going on all the time, specific example after specific example were all explained to Mr Richards.
And Mr Richards simply repeated what he had already said, plus stating that it was “dangerous” not to vote for someone to be leader of the Conservative party on the grounds that they did not oppose the EU taking these powers unto itself. The Conservatives “would not win the election” if we thought like this (as if winning an election to what was becoming a powerless Parliament would interest anyone apart from the most corrupt).
The only other thing (on this area) that Mr Richards said was to mumble about the needs of “enlargement” of the EU – even though nothing that had been said to him, by anyone, had anything to do with the EU having more members than it used to.
What was depressing was not that (as some might think) that Mr Richards was a dishonest crony working for his master Mr Clarke (who sits on the board of the ‘Independent’). No, I suspect Mr Richards honestly meant every word he said. It was a matter of his being unable to understand what was being said to him.
Now not everyone who spoke to Mr Richards was on top form or used the exact words they should have done (for example, I was not on good form at all) – but most people did well enough. However, it was clear that argument and evidence simply could not reach him.
Now Mr Richards is an intelligent and well educated man, and so if argument and evidence can not reach him, what about the rest of the population? And remember, Mr Richards was exposed to evidence and logical argument for quite some time at the meeting (most people are not exposed to such things, in matters of public affairs, for very long at all).
Reasoning (not just on the EU – on every matter) depends on evidence and logical argument (in some subjects, perhaps, just on logic).
If most people (even the intelligent and well educated) can not be reached by evidence and logic then libertarians (and other people who try and use reasoning in public affairs) are wasting their time.
Perhaps most people really are at the level of being little above dogs or cats – “I like him, he has got a big belly and a nice voice”.
Few here have a deep faith in democracy so they may say “so what, we knew that anyway”, but if most people really are at this mental level it undermines rather more than democracy.
I entirely share your state of depressive realism.
If it were not a true picture of things, how could one possibly explain the multitude of wrongs being done to this country and then the perpetrators of those wrongs being voted back into office?
As yet, though, I haven’t been able to think of a better alternative and nor has anyone else I’ve encountered.
But I’m open to suggestions because the current method of government stinks.
I don’t see how a representative of the Daily Moonbat can be taken as a reliable indicator of what the British public in general are thinking (or not thinking). If he’s in any way in tune with the outlook of his newspaper, Mr Richards is likely to be well to the left of the British mainstream, far more ideological, and far more prone to dogmatism. You’re generalising from a single highly atypical sample, which is just the kind of thing that people who believe in “evidence and logical argument” should avoid doing.
(Link)Do not despair, I think you and the two commenters and myself all share the faith of reason. It may be that we are a minority, but for any question those people who do not use reason will be divided, so we who have attempted a reasoned answer to the question will joined by people who agree with us by some other route. Over time and many questions this irrationality will be cancelled out leaving our reasoning as a constant force, hopefully to the advantage of all.
Paul: I find it is mainly the intelligent who refuse to give up their perceptions readily if a superior explanation is presented – unless the counterargument is coming from a trusted/admired source.
If these aforementioned people consider themselves particularly knowledgeable in the area where a superior counterexplanation is given, they dig their heels in further and require even more time and explanation to adjust their views.
I must admit, I do this to some extent – although I was considerably worse as a teenager. You couldn’t tell me anything. The human ego is a remarkable thing.
David Roberts: It may be that we are a minority, but for any question those people who do not use reason will be divided, […]
That does not follow. In practice, those who do not reason–even the educated irrational–are much more prone to herd mentality and moral panic.
James Waterton:
What you say about those who deem themselves well-informed digging in their heels in the face of strong counterargument is true, though in my experience the more someone’s education has outrun their intelligence the more rigid they tend to be. Everyone who has thought about a subject has an emotional investment in their point of view, and it takes rare intellectual honesty and clearmindedness to admit you were completely wrong.
Where I do think you are profoundly wrong is in implying the less intelligent and less well-educated are more willing to be swayed by a rational case. First you have to get them to listen to it, then to understand it. This is very difficult.
There is in this whole discussion the shadow of the phenomenon I call the Scholar’s Fallacy. People often assume (and educated people more often) that intelligent people of goodwill independently presented with the same facts must necessarily draw the same conclusions for policy. There’s no groud for this.
I hate this blog. Mind you I hate mine too.
Wtf is a “social individualist”. A libertarian with friends?
As much as I nominally appreciate individual liberty and democracy, I think the sheer stupidity of a majority of the population is always going to be the levelling factor and the factor which reduces individual liberty. As someone once said, imagine a person with an IQ of 100 (or maybe it was ‘imagine an average person,’) and then imagine that half the population is more stupid than them.
I think the only thing that kept politics in this country relatively ‘real’ was the unwillingness of intelligent men – and I do think that most of our ministers are intelligent – to really appreciate how stupid people are and how easy they are to control.
This is, to me, the true danger of the current Labour party – their knowledge of the sheer stupidity of the ‘common man’ combined with the media skills (aided by the desire of media companies and workers to work on Labour party material because it’s ‘their team’) that allow them to really target these people. The result is the total desertion of logic and intelligence from the field of politics – and of course as you can’t fool all of the people all of the time, eventually people (even the stupid ones) come to realise they’re being spun a line and have deserted politics entirely.
I see a light dawning over yonder horizon…
The bulk of the people, however smart, indeed CANNOT be reached by evidence and logic. People are NOT the rational individuals libertarians seem to assume they are, and this applies to economics as well as to politics. They make decisions for all manner of silly reasons, logic and evidence rarely comes into it. I have been saying this for ages, and even a cursory glance at humanity shows that this is how it works. Libertarianism ignores the reality of human nature, and because of that I suggest libertarians ARE wasting their time.
I think it’s more to do with the fact that the English are generally resistant to ideology. They are a generally conservative and pragmatic people who don’t mind change provided it is slow enough for them to adapt to. This means they won’t go for communism, but it equally means they won’t go for libertarianism. It’s all very well having this wonderful theory, they’ll say, but how do you know it actually works? Is it practical?
EG
It’s likely that the desire for something to be so provides a person with the necessary mental skills to acknowledge and then completely ignore arguments that contradict or otherwise diminish what it is they desire.
I too did stuff like this when I was younger (may still be a little guilty of it now). One keeps ones mouth shut while the other speaks because it’s polite to do so and then launches back into ones own chosen worldview as if the other person had not even spoken. The mind switches off for a little while when it’s hearing bad news.
Mr Richards is probably not very stupid at all. He simply wants something – European integration – and his brain does what’s necessary for him to not have to forsake his desire.
I would include you in that category, Euan, because…
…no matter how often it is pointed out to you that libertarianism or just plain old classical liberalism, works just fine without ANY such assumptions, you persist in regurgitating the same old canard about how your fictional libertarians think everyone is a clever rational individual. That is why I think you are not generally worth engaging in extended dialogues and why I suspect the only “light dawning over yonder horizon” you will ever see is your notions of what anti-statists think going up in flames.
For the last time, one of the main motivations and underpinning notions that gets libertarians and classical liberals and rational conservatives working for a smaller state is precisely because most people are NOT completely rational or particularly intelligent. This is because you need to make sure that political power is limited, because it is these very same irrational and stupid people who will end up running or at least driving the political process. As is so often the case, whenever you write “as libertarians assume…” or “according to libertarianism”, you get it 180 degree arse about face.
Guy Herbert – No, I wasn’t suggesting that stupid people are necessarily easily convinced/led. I just didn’t cover the entire breadth of the various levels of human intelligence in my few words. I agree with what you say; if someone has placed some emotional investment into an intellectual position, more often than not the more rigid they become. I used intelligent people as my main example because, as a general rule, they think about abstract concepts more and therefore have more stated positions – more things to dig their heels in over. Being stubborn, however, is not limited to the intelligent by any stretch of the imagination.
I agree with you on the intellectual honesty and clearmindedness bit. Both those qualities I strive for – along with consistency and responsibility – but am sadly falliable.
I don’t really understand how your “Scholar’s Fallacy” fits into the discussion. It’s not something I have pondered before, nor have I seen much evidence of it outside of socialist/collectivist movements.
“Now Mr Richards is an intelligent and educated man”, writes Paul Marks. Judging by his comments, this fellow from the Independent is, in fact, a certified moron.
It’s The Endarkenment, Paul. Just like I keep saying.
I am more and more convinced that the past two hundred years or so have been a futile anomaly (although it was all definitely worth the effort), and that we are headed into The Age of The Eloi.
I don’t like it at all, but that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.
No, Perry, I do NOT.
People are not on the average very bright, nor are they ruthlessly logical calculating machines. I don’t say they are. Libertarians don’t say they are.
But what I DO say is that most people do NOT make very many decisions using reason – irrational prejudice, gut feeling and emotion are often more important. When they DO reason, they often make surprising errors, and it seems that this inability to reason particularly well is built in to our biology. To argue from that to the necessity of limiting the size of the state is not valid, because you assume that the average desire and ability of the average person is the driver. It isn’t. You’re indulging in a hasty generalisation, I suspect.
Democracies generally have built-in limits on actual democratic exercise of power, because as most recognise true democracy would be a disaster. Thus we have the British Parliament, rather than a series of referenda; we have the electoral college for the US president rather than a straight vote, and so on. Amazingly enough, people CAN be disinterested and objective, but not all of them and not about all things. But enough can be on enough subjects to enable the creation of practical but very high standards and rules for certain state offices – for example, would you compare the reasoning ability and disinterest of a High Court judge to that of the man driving the bus outside it? Although the average person is not terribly clever and is not particularly unbiased, NEVERTHELESS a society containing ordinary human beings can still come up with, and enforce, the requirement for, say, judges to be qualified to a given standard and to be impartial, for regulators to regulate something without being bribed, for people to make a public decision that is actively counter to their own personal interest, and so on. I mean, people do this all the bloody time, what’s so amazing or unlikely about it?
So even though people aren’t terribly impressive, they can still construct and run a society with a significantly sized state and avoid problems of corruption, self-interest, and so on. It’s not perfect, but it does work. This does really mean that the argument that state MUST be shrunk because people are venal and stupid fails because it does not take account of the fact that NOT ALL PEOPLE are venal and stupid. You just have to pick your people from a subet of the population which has the necessary characteristics, and it’s eminently possible to set impartial rules for this.
Not only can this happen, it actually DOES happen. According to your notions, it couldn’t happen, but it does. And it happens all over the western world. How do you explain the lamenatable and inconvenient fact that the world does not actually function they way your pet nostra predict?
EG
Euan, the point Perry made, as ought to be obvious, is that a liberal order works precisely because it does not require people to be all-knowing and supremely intelligent. State central planning requires that, which is why it fails.
And your “pragmatic” political philosophy, which seems a sort of mule-like defence of the status quo, is not very intelligent in my humble opinion.
Andrew Z. points out that I give a wild generalization from a single unrepresentative sample – I apologize.
Guy H. warns me against the well known fallacy of thinking that intelligent men of good will reach the same policy position if they are presented with the same information.
I accept that this is a common fallacy, but (with respect) I do not think I am quite guilty of it.
If Mr Richards had said “the E.U. is taking more power, jolly good thing” it would have been one thing, but to presented with example after example and not understand that the E.U. was taking more power – well that is quite another thing.
Just this morning it was reported that a Court has declared that convicted criminals must not have their “right to vote” taken away. This is the sort of the thing that Mr Richards would not understand, I am not saying he would not understand why we are letting them order us about – no I am saying he would not understand this as a further power grab and part of a process.
Mr Gray says that most people are stupid in dealing with their own lives as well as in politics.
Well, of course, people only have one vote (out of millions) in politics and the person they vote for may not do the things he said he was going to do anyway – so it does not make rational sense for an individual person to study politics in the way he would study the choices of his own life.
However, there is more than this here. What Mr Gray is saying is that because people are stupid the state should control their lives.
This is not (as Mr Gray might think) tradtitional conservatism based upon a respect for human nature, it is totalitarianism.
I firmly uphold Mr Gray’s right to express his totalitarian opinions, but I also uphold my right to oppose these opinions.
People may make a mess of their lives (as I have done), but more state control is not going to help them. For all its faults human freedom is the only path not only to long term economic growth, but also to moral growth (and indeed the disintergation of society is directly linked to the usurpation, by the state, of the freedom of individuals and voluntary associations).
To see the modern state as a way of improving the moral and spiritual nature of the population is a terrible error – its interventions have undermined these very things.
Contrary to student radicals and Guardian readers there is a vast gulf between traditional Conservatism and Fascism. The Fascist (and I freely admit that many Fascists may not only have good aims, but may also be good people in many ways – and I certainly would not make the absurd error of confusing Fascism with racialism) is in fundemental error – not just in error about economic policy, but error about the nature of state action and the nature of human beings.
You said, “If most people (even the intelligent and well educated) can not be reached by evidence and logic then libertarians (and other people who try and use reasoning in public affairs) are wasting their time.”
Jonathan Swift said, “It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.”
Which is, of course, the problem.
Yes, but up to a point, and more in the social than the economic sphere. The assumption that a completely deregulated market would regulate itself does imply that the participants in the market would have to exhibit a greater general rationality and intelligence than they have hitherto shown. I believe one argument is that as the consumers are more informed they are more capable of making rational choices (by which I do NOT mean choices made on the basis of utilitarian economic calculation). I think this is valid enough for simple economies only, and it’s dumb anyway because people aren’t as rational (in the non-computerised-Boolean-logic way) as all that. It isn’t backed up by historical evidence, either – quite the reverse.
What I’m trying not terribly well to say is that if you must choose between only a small range of options for a limited range of goods in a basic economy, then there is no real reason to expect that the market could not regulate itself reasonably well, and up to a point you see this borne out in history. However, as the economy grows and the range of products increases & the range of options within each product type grows, the consumer is unable to process the amount of data. This means that ON THE AVERAGE people will make less rational decisions (remember, I don’t mean rational in the computer logic sense) and will be more susceptible to misleading. This, again, actually happens. To avoid that you need a degree of regulation to prevent the worst excesses of market abuse.
I think the proponent of an unregulated economy needs to explain the real world behaviour of the British and American economies in the 19th century, say from industrialisation up to the 1870s. This was the closest we have come to a real laissez-faire system, and it didn’t work quite as well as the philosophy might suggest. Also, anyone proposing commodity money also needs to explain why the boom-recession-depression cycle it necessarily creates (because it is impossible to adjust the money supply to counter recession) and which actually happened is a good thing, or is at least better than the avoidance of depression under Keynesian or neo-Keynesian economics.
If things are simple, the liberal model works. As they get more complex, it shows weaknesses. Regulation is intended to correct those weaknesses.
But who is arguing for state central planning? There is no merit in creating the false dilemma that we can have either a minimal libertarian state or a socialist behemoth with nothing in between.
To regulate the market does NOT imply that anything needs to be planned. It implies you have externally set and enforced rules which say things like you may not collude, cartel is forbidden, you need to be honest about what you’re selling, etc.
Where the state does take direct economic action, for example in roads, drains, etc., then a degree of planning is required. But central planning for a specific task isn’t so difficult – companies do it all the time, of course – and thus it can be done. It’s quite likely that the planning process might be more efficient if undertaken by a company, but it isn’t certain (anyone who has worked for a large company knows they can be just as incompetent and inefficient as states), but it does work well enough for all practical purposes.
Pragmatism is good. Ideology kills.
I don’t say nothing should change. I do say that the need for government is inescapable and that some degree of economic and social regulation is necessary. I’d say we can do with less government and less regulation than we have now, but we can’t dispense with either altogether. I think there are perfectly good reasons for believing this and I try to explain them, although sometimes it’s hard to explain (and harder to understand why an explanation should be necessary, but it is) just how and why society is a bit more complex now than it was in 1850. And I try to do it politely.
EG
Rubbish.
Because people are stupid, WHEN the consequences of their actions are actively harmful AND when the consequences of regulating are less harmful than the consequences of not regulating, then, and ONLY THEN, either society or the state is entitled to regulate. If society can’t or won’t do it, then state should.
Hardly the same thing, is it?
EG
This is a really interesting discussion. I’m glad this kind of talk has returned to Samizdata.
Yes, Euan, but don’t you think that humans have constantly adapted and evolved throughout the ages, and don’t you think that the swathe of human history has illustrated that humans are – throughout the ages, yes – increasingly able to accept more and more and more responsibility – and thus freedom?
Consider the last two thousand years, for example.
Yes.
No. Culture has evolved (and de-evolved, and re-evolved) but the human species has not, at least not in the length of recorded history. Minor changes such as modern humans being a foot taller than mediaeval ones don’t count, that’s nutrition and health rather than evolutionary change.
I think that’s a little sweeping. The responsibility and liberty granted to the people has gone up and down repeatedly over time and I really don’t think one can see any sort of trend of adapting steadily to ever greater liberty. I don’t think there’s anything other than the level of education (both moral and academic) that determines what level of liberty people are in principle capable of enjoying responsibly.
Let’s discount slaves and women from the equation. Most human societies are patriarchal and the idea that women should be educated to the same level as men is a relatively recent one. Slavery was common everywhere until about the 17th/18th centuries, when the beginnings of industrialisation made it economically inefficient.
Considering, then, free men, one can say that the general level of liberty and personal responsibility in, for example, late Republican and early Imperial Rome was higher than in Tudor England. It’s arguable that Greece and later Rome placed a higher emphasis on education – and on liberty – than most of their contemporaries.
This is certainly the case for the equestrian and patrician ranks (i.e. the middle and upper classes), but even amongst the plebeians it still holds – illiteracy was not that common. In its heyday, Rome was the beacon of liberty that Britain was in the 19th century. Romans had the idea of educating people and the concept of free enquiry. That doesn’t mean everyone was educated to a uniformly high standard, or that enquiry as free in every area. Considering alternative systems of government was not prudent in Imperial times.
That’s all very well, but the Christianisation and collapse of Rome destroyed the education system. From then, the education would be provided largely by the church, which was fine if you wanted to be a priest but otherwise of doubtful utility. Illiteracy even up to the 17th/18th century was widespread, and not just amongst the plebs. And is it not striking that in parallel with the decline of education we see the decline of liberty? Or that the rise of liberty in the past 200 years has been in parallel with the rise in education?
So, before my comment lasts 2,000 years, I think we can say that the previous 20 centuries show a correlation between the level of general education and the level of personal liberty responsibly enjoyed. I DON’T think there’s anything else that explains it, but am of course open to suggestions. Polite ones.
EG
Reading through it again, it’s a bit disjointed thanks to my efforts to trim somewhat. Thrust is this:
Greeks and Romans were relatively free. Greeks and Romans were educated. Tudor England was not free. Tudor England was not educated. In between, we see the decline in liberty running alongside the decline in education. Later we see the rise in liberty alongside the rise in education. There’s a connection.
EG
How, which really means who should govern seems to be the discussion here. The assumption, which may be correct, supported by the evidence of the net progress of the last two centuries, is that reason works. Therefore our problem is to find a method to identify those who using reason will best govern.
My view is that an educated populace are best able to appreciate reason.
How will libertarians persuade those to be governed of their ability to rule, even if it is minimally?
Mr Gray says that I am radically in error concerning his opinions. Well he should know his own opinions better than I know them.
However, let us see if I have now understood him correctly.l
The state should only act when the consequences of its so doing are less bad that the consequences of it not acting.
First we must get rid of one word that Mr Gray uses, the word “harm” this goes back to J.S. Mill’s “harm” principle and this principle is not useful as a guide to law.
Should I choose to buy the “Tmes” rather than the “Daily Telegraph” I will harm the people who work for the Daily Telegraph their families and so on. And I may indeed harm myself (so it could be argued) by cutting myself off from a better source of information and comment.
As I am too stupid (being a human being) to be trusted to decide which newspaper to buy (or to read a report from a non profit consumer group on medical services or whatever) should it be decided for me by the state? But the state is also made up of human beings who are also stupid – so that does not help.
Unless one believes in a superior elite of human beings (whether one is talking of the Guardians of Plato or the ruling elite of 20th century Italian thought) who would not be stupid.
On the question of the “harm” I would do to the Daily Telegraph people, of course I will do harm to the “Times” people if I do not buy their product. This is not a matter (I would argue) for law.
It is best to discard the “harm” principle and simply state (in line with Common Law ideas) that one should counter violation either of person or possessions (including any land, water or air supply) either by the criminal law (in case of the guilty mind of direct attack) or the civil law (in case of unintentional violation – say a man runs his car on to the pavement, due to his bad driving, and removes one of my legs).
As for the idea in economic policy (which, contrary, to J.S. Mill is NOT a seperate matter from general liberty) that the state can possibly calculate when it is going to cause more harm to get involved that to stand aside – well I am afraid that is utterly absurd.
It is utterly absurd to think such matters can be decided on a case-by-case basis rather than by general rule (“oh I think I will have an antitrust law, but I will not have an incomes policy”).
Even if governments were controlled by saints (or the supermen of totalitarian thought) rather than ordinary human beings (which is not likely) they could not make these calculations.
Interventions fail in the objectives set for them, and the failure of an intervention leads to other interventions.
See the last section of Ludwig Von Mises’s “Socialism” (the section titled “Destructionism” – which concerns interventions rather than socialism-all-at-once) or the examination of intervention in Von Mises’ work on Liberalism (1927 if my semisenile memory serves).
“Case by case” interventions do not lead to the consequences that their supporters expect, and (in the hope that they can make the expected nice consequences appear) these supporters are led to more and more interventions (with worse and worse effects).
There are, of course, many other writers who have dealt with the fallacy of interventionism. Am I correct in thinking that Mr Gray has never read much of such examinations?
This is not a recent thing. David Hume in the early 18th century and Sir Dudley North in the late 17th century had a fairly good idea of some of the limitations of even the wisest and most honest rulers.
Nor has technology altered matters for the better for the dream of effective government action. Computers can no more calculate the interventions that Mr Gray says he supports than they can calculate the general plans that he says he opposes – they are as helpless as Sir William Petty with his interventionist ideas for Ireland in the 17th century. Oh yes they can do things (for example help kill large numbers of people), but they can not achieve the positive objectives that mathematical interventionist like Sir William Petty wished for.
The Sword of State is just that – it can be used for destruction (and sometimes destruction is called for), but a sword is not good for other things. The principle of violence can not be used as the organising principle of civil society (although it can be used to counter other violence), and if one rejects civil society one is left with either chaos or a planned order.
An order that accepts violence as is basis is most clearly seen in Italian Fascist thought (although, I would argue, it is inherent in Marxism it is more hidden there – hidden by vague language). In short I was not trying to insult Mr Gray, I was trying to work out the logical end of his postion. For whilst Mr Gray knows his own opinions best, he may not know where they would lead (this is partly because he refuses to read the works that deal with these matters, no doubt he has read the “Road to Serfdom” because most people interested in politics have, but I suspect that is about as far as it goes).
I am sorry, but in the end there is no “middle way”.
I suggest by example. Start a libertarian community somewhere. Religious communities seem perfectly able to set up their own society and pay only the bare minimum notice to the state, so why can’t libertarians do the same thing? Oh, yes, the fraud and deception stuff, forgot that…
Now, if they did set up Little Libertopia and if it worked and worked better than our current society, then you’d have a strong case.
However, if you expect to be able to convince people by means of reason and evidence that they should adopt a system which would remove much of their comforts and do it on the say-so of a tiny minority of people, then you’re whistling in the wind. I think people are a tad sceptical of theoretically sound ideology – the experience of the USSR is an object lesson in what happens when you let theory overrule reality.
Put your money where your mouths are instead of preaching that you’re right and everyone else is wrong and you can prove it, and you might have a chance.
EG
Mr Gray has made some historical points.
Well under Henry VII (as Mr Gray knows, the first of the Tudor rulers), slaves were a rather rare thing in England and serfdom had virtually died out before he came to the throne.
I do not think one can say the same of Classical Rome (at least after the Punic wars started – before the first Punic war slaves may have been rare in Rome, at least there was no special slave market) or most Classical Greek states.
There was also trial by jury in England – as there was (in various forms) in Republican Rome and some of the Greek city states.
Of course people suspected of treason were treated badly by Henry VII – but that was also often the case in Rome and Athens.
I agree that a constitutional Republic is better than an unlimited monarchy (and we can all debate how far, if at all, the doctrine of limited monarchy was held to Tudor England), perhaps a constitutional Republic (which, in theory, may include a King – Res Publica, of the public business not “elected head of state” or whatever else the school books say) does depend on a large number of people being well educated – perhaps Mr Gray is correct.
For myself, I wish I had been taught Latin (which I suspect Mr Gray was), but at my school we were taught very little of anything (I was taught to read by an old lady in a village near my home town), and I did not have the strength of character to seek out Latin when my mind was young enough to learn languages (I am ashamed to say that I know none but English – and I am not even very good in the knowledge of own native language).
In Iceland at the start of the 20th century there were few schools (even few private schools) but the vast majority of people were literate (in spite of the country being poor), and often literate in more than one language. Within a few years a system of government schools was set up (and booze was banned, and other things were done) – there was no need for them, but it was the spirit of the age (it still is).
If people value such things as education they will seek them and pass them on to their children. I suppose the same is true of liberty.
Euan, I was hoping that a Libertarian government would result is more comforts not less. Also if obiously dotty ideas like Communism and Fascism have their day why not so dotty Libertarianism.
Paul,
Your argument that I advocate a centrally planned state calculus of which newspaper you ought to buy on the basis of minimising harm, and thus that my entire argument is flawed on the basis of the impossibility of such a calculus, is utterly absurd.
You will note that I said “when the consequences of regulating are less harmful than the consequences of not regulating.” You even paraphrased it, so you must have noticed it.
In such a case, the consequences of regulating are patently vastly worse than the consequences of not regulating, therefore even by my own evil, statist logic I would never advocate such a stupid course of action.
Let’s think of something more plausible, shall we? How about a currently contentious issue – let’s say 24 hour pub opening.
Many have expressed doubts about this, arguing that the increased availability of the demon Drink will lead to lawlessness, violence, middle aged Telegraph readers being disturbed over breakfast and similar manifestations of the End of Civilisation. Others say quite the opposite, that it will usher in an age of responsible drinking by eliminating the pressure to drink up at closing time. Who’s right? Who knows.
So what we do is permit the 24 hour drinking and let it run for a while. This, you could say, would be the unregulated condition. If the prophets of doom turn out to be right and it does lead to increased lawlessness, disorder, damage and so forth, then it will be readily apparent in the shape of increased arrests, bills for damages, complaints from neighbours, etc. It is hardly necessary to posit some infinitely complex centrally planned calculus to figure it out, now is it?
So, if that turns out to be the case, do you say the liberty to drink 24 hours should be preserved, in spite of the fact that it causes increased damage to person and property? Or do you say that perhaps it was a mistake, let’s tighten things up again? Which is worse in your view, the consequences of regulating (a restriction on liberty) or the consequences of not regulating (increased violence and damage to property)?
That’s not a rhetorical question – which do you think is worse and why?
They’re not as closely linked as you’d think. You can high pretty stiff regulation of general, personal liberty at the same time as having a relatively lightly regulated economy. Hong Kong and Singapore show that not only is this possible, but it actually works very well.
So do you think then that we can regulate absolutely nothing? Or is it not more reasonable to regulate that which we know is a problem and then look at the effects of the regulation & if it didn’t work think of something else?
EG
Euan you have again said “when the consequences of regulating are less harmful than the consequnces of not regulating” – thus showing that you have not understood (or are pretending not to have understood) anything I wrote.
As you will not read any works I suggest (written by better men than myself), and do not understand (or pretend not to understand) what I write, there is no point in continuing this.
I am told that you are a “troll” which (again I am told) is someone who seeks an argument for the sake of argument – or as we used to say in my home town “someone who likes to take the piss”.
I do not know whether this is true or not, so I must assume that it is NOT true – you simply do not understand what I (or anyone else) says to you, which is unfortunate.
As for your point about public houses. If people violate other folks persons or property (even by singing loudly when passing their property late at night) then, of course, I would support either criminal or civil action against them (depending on what was done, and whether there was criminal intent). And if the publican was keeping disorderly house (for example where crimes where planned with his knowledge, or where singing disturbed people’s sleep in their houses near by) then I would support action against him (again on a civil or criminal basis depending on the above mentioned factors).
But, no, I do not support a special “licence” just to sell booze that is drunk in the building in which it is sold – although I do prefer the present licence regime to the new so called “24 hour” system, which is just an excuse for vastly more administration and for forms that few independent publicans can understand.
There are pubs in some towns that keep on selling drink long after 2300 anyway as things now stand – if their customers do not bother anyone people do not complain (and not all policemen are barmy – although it would be better not to have to rely on them to turn a “blind eye” that can lead to petty, or not so petty, corruption).
The new regime will be yet another nail in the coffin of indepedent publicans and another boost for the corps. It will also be a total nightmare for local councilors (the people I know of Kettering Council are desperate to avoid being put on the licensing committee, because they do not understand the new system and wish it had been left with the old system under the J.P.s).
So in short while I reject the old system, I dislike the new one even more. Like the “big bang” in the City this bit of “deregulation” actually means more regulations (in the case of the City it led first to the Financial Services Act and now to things like the F.S.A.).
But I am making a fool of myself, because you will just write back saying you do not understand. And perhaps it IS my fault – although I talk about my “semi senile brain” and make a joke of it all, I really am not the man I once was.
Why would it? The market would work more efficiently, but a libertarian economy would probably be based on commodity money, and thus recessions are inevitably going to turn into depressions since the state (if there is one) will be unable to counter recession by expanding the money supply. One therefore has to question whether, on the average, the economy would perform as well a conventional neo-Keynesian economy. My bet, going by the record of history, is the same or slightly less well.
Another, perhaps temporary, reason would be that an absence of welfare would require people to save more against future misfortune. This inevitably means les money available for buying consumer goods, and thus fewer comforts. Private unemployment insurance could of course be taken out, but if the financial market is unregulated then the spectre of fraud and embezzlement raises its head, and people might be reluctant to invest in either banks or insurance. They may instead hoard cash, which is likely to cause a recession (which would become a depression) and even if it doesn’t it means less money for comforts.
A third reason is very likely to be the distortions of the market caused by an absence of regulation leading to abuse in the form of cartel, adulteration, and so forth. Some libertarians say this wouldn’t happen, but the matter they don’t address satisfactorily is that it DID happen, and frequently, in the early to mid 19th century. The same people typically deny that cartel exists today without state support, in the face of insurmountable evidence to the contrary. And I’m not getting into another debate about whether or not cartel does or did happen without state support – it does and it did and the evidence is all there for you to look at.
A fourth reason, put forward by Brendan Halfweeg in another thread, although perhaps unwittingly, is that forcing landlords to pay the true price of things would compel more efficient use of resources. This means real price increases. It would increase the value of land and property, but this is of little account if everything else is also more expensive.
A fifth reason is that the ending (presumably) of taxation, or at least of progressive taxation, would result in a decrease in living standards for the poor.
A sixth reason is that the socio-economic Darwinism necessitated by libertarian logic would increase the number of poor people in society. This may well lead to increases in property crime, with a resultant increasing expenditure on security, which in turn decreases the money available for comforts.
I think it’s reasonable to say that a libertarian society would show a significant increase in comfort for people who are already fairly well off. However, I think this would come at the price of a decrease for the less well off, an increase in absolute poverty and an increasing gap between rich and poor.
EG
For goodness’ sake, Paul, what have I not understood? You make an argument about the impossibility of calculating what newspaper you ought to buy as if my logic leads me to advocate such a thing. But I say that in this case the consequences of regulating are worse than of not regulating, therefore one oughtn’t to regulate.
You seem to be saying that it is impossible to regulate some things but not others, and therefore my thesis of assessing the relative harm of regulation is invalid. Unfortunately for your case, however, regulating some things but not others is how society has worked through all of recorded history. Were it impossible, it is highly unlikely that our civilisation would have reached its present state of advancement, or even exist at all. I take it as self evident that it is quite possible to do this, not least because we’ve been doing it for six thousand blasted years. Whether it is the best way is another question, but I don’t think you’re really asking that.
Do you expect me to accept the notion that what has been going on for the past 60 centuries is actually impossible, and argue from there? Are you saying that intervention always fails and taking this as self evidently true despite the evidence that not all interventions do fail? Are you suggesting that if I posit the assessment of some things I must of necessity admit the assessment of all?
And you have evaded my question on licensing hours. Never mind the question of the bureaucratic burden, the question was:
Which is worse in your view, the consequences of regulating (a restriction on liberty) or the consequences of not regulating (increased violence and damage to property)?
EG
Euan, what I am hoping for from a Libertarian government is an attitude of respect for the individual. To leave us all to live our own lives as we chose. Conflicts will arise but are best resolved by the individuals concerned than by some well meaning official. None of this however precludes individuals from agreeing to cede some authority to a government body as they deem necessary. So are we only debating where exactly we place the bounderies of responsibilities between ourselves and our government?
“Which is worse in your view, the consequences of regulating (a restriction on liberty) or the consequences of not regulating (increased violence and damage to property)?”
If you don’t mind Euan – in Paul Marks’ abscence I’ll offer you an answer. The former (consequences of [State] regulation) is the less desirable choice in my view. You will appreciate, from the earlier distinctions drawn in your discussion with Paul, that in addtion to direct policy intervention by the State, other forms of regulation are also possible that may, over time, reduce the increased lawlessness you say the 24-hour drinking license would lead to.
To be clear, when I say ‘other forms of regulation’ my reference spans the state action issued through the civil courts and criminal justice system but also the combined voluntary action of customers. For example, a pub that gradually becomes known for entertaining large numbers of lager louts on a friday night would no longer be the ideal drinking place for many other kinds of people who would now take their custom elsewhere. This may or may not be sufficient to persuade the publican to change the way he runs his pub. Of course, I am sure you will argue this point to the negative…
However, my point is simply that these forms of ‘regulation’ are potentially sufficient to deal with the problem of increased lawlessness – and since they do not require further incursions upon the liberties of the public, they are a better alternative to direct political intervention by the State.
Fair enough, but the probable consequences of trying to do that the libertarian way are, I suspect, somewhat less pleasant than many libertarians seem to think.
What’s wrong with accepting that we do in practice, if not in theory, actually need some form of government beyond the night-watchman state and keeping up our efforts to limit its extent to the minimum practical? And the night-watchman state is not the minimum practical level, society is more complex than that now.
You commented earlier:
to which I did not respond, although I meant to.
I think libertarianism HAS had its day. I suspect that what is now called libertarianism is what happens when society industrialises and, consequently, expands rapidly in complexity, ability and wealth, BUT that society is still based around the agrarian sufficiency of a small government and very limited regulation. I think that it passes when the realisation dawns that the increased complexity, ability and wealth have unpleasant side-effects which the agrarian model of small government is no longer sufficient to constrain.
I’ve said before, and say again here, that I think there is no reason why a libertarian (minarchist, not anarchist) order would not work perfectly well in an agrarian society. When things are simple, it does work, but it is not up to the task of supporting a far more complex industrialised society.
On a more general note, I think we have probably passed the time when logically thought out and theoretically wonderful ideologies really have much persuasive power. The experience of fascism and communism has probably done enough to end that age of ideology.
EG
Potentially sufficient, eh? And if they are not in reality sufficient? There is ample historical evidence to suggest that they are not, so it’s a valid question.
If the combination of social disapprobation, potential or actual loss of trade, civil penalty and criminal sanction for damage caused is NOT enough to deal with the problem, is it not sensible to conclude that perhaps the idea of allowing unrestricted opening was a bit of a mistake and that it should be restricted by the minimum amount necessary to correct the problem?
The “potentially sufficient” bit doesn’t really answer satisfactorily the fundamental question of whether, in the event of a conflict, personal liberty is more or less important than private property.
If you say personal liberty is more important, then you infringe upon the value and security of property and such a policy put into practice would have consequences for economic activity that depends upon real property.
If you say property is more important, then you elevate material possession above human worth, which is somewhat crass and does little but feed the perception that libertarians care more about their stuff than about other people, which is hardly popular.
If you say you need to strike a balance in each case then you’re basically agreeing with my pragmatic view and such a policy would necessarily lead to a rather larger state than many libertarians seem to think is necessary. This would doubtless cause system failure in the binary brain of the libertarian ideologue, so really it’s a choice between the first and second options.
So which one is it?
EG
James. Sorry it has taken me so long to respond. My point was that the herds direction is random, therefore sometimes good sometimes bad. So over time the net result is nothing, this does assume parity between good and bad directions, which is questionable. From this discussion it is accepted that two reasoning individuals can arrive at opposite conclusions from the same evidence. However my contention is that the soundest conclusion will be identified eventually by those who reason. Maybe I am just a Panglossian but otherwise what has driven the progress since the enlightenment if not individuals reasoning?
Euan, you have put your finger on the point, I think we are agreed that pre-thought out structures are now inadequate, but this includes how we are currently governed.
I disagree with your view that life is more complicated today than in the agrarian past. The progress the rational endeavour of the last three centuries has allowed the majority of us in the “West” to minimise the complications of physical survival. Thus freeing many more of us to reason and think.
Unpredictable is not the same as random.
There is no reason (no pun intended) why this should be so. Reason doesn’t mean that rational conclusions will be reached, even eventually. Have a look here for a fascinating paper on rationality and reasoning.
The upshot of the paper is that people reach surprising and sometimes odd conclusions when they reason, and this applies to smart people as well as anyone else. There can be no confidence that people considering the logic and evidence of the libertarian case would necessarily be persuaded through reason. Frankly, it’s more likely they’ll vote for the statist if that guy has a good haircut, speaks well and appeals to their notions of what a leader ought to be.
Partly that. Partly also pragmatism, self-interest, interest in others, ideology, nationalism, war, et cetera et ad nauseam. It’s more complicated than just reason.
So the fact that we have now cars, a more urbanised population, a vastly higher level of technology, a greater choice of goods and services, the ability to travel easily pretty much anywhere, a greater dependence on external services (e.g. electricity, sewerage), new goods and services that were not dreamt of then, and so forth does not in any way complicate things?
But at the cost of a hugely increased dependence on others to provide services. If those services don’t come, we are in trouble. Things are more complex, although we often don’t see the complexity because we take it for granted. Having lived and worked in places where those services are at best erratic and at worst non-existent, I can see exactly how things are very much more complex and interdependent than before. People who haven’t experienced their absence probably don’t see it the same way.
And if one looks at the now relatively leisured labouring classes, freed as they are from the relentless busyness of sheer survival, one sees the product of the reason and thought – vandalism, drunkenness, indiscipline, selfishness, the desire for instant gratification and material satisfaction. Most people don’t think or reason all that much, and when they do it is unreliable (see paper cited above).
EG
Euan, thank you for the link, it underlines the necessity to strive to understand our own nature. In response I do not have an appropriate link for you. However if you are not already familiar with Isaiah Berlin’s ‘Against the Current’, my suggestion that our ancestors lives were just as complicated, to them as ours are to us, is wonderfully made by Giambattista Vico.
Mr Gray says why do libertarians not set up a community that igores the state – errr the little thing about taxes and regulations not being optional.
Of course if someone has a nice island or space colony somewhere…….
Mr Gray also says (as I predicted) that he does not understand what is wrong with “regulate when the costs of regulating are less than the costs of not regulating”.
As I have said there are several things wrong with the idea.
The regulation will not lead to the nice results the statists think it will (so their calculation is flawed from the start).
The regulation will lead to direct and indirect nasty things that the statists do not expect (which invalidates their calculation again).
Law is supposed to be about general rules, not ad hoc interventions one hopes might increase overall utility (so this “case by case” regulation idea shows a basic misunderstanding of what law should be).
The structure of politics is such that there is always pressure for more interventions (that is the nature of power), so unless there is a general rule against such things they will increase and increase – regardless of whether “the costs of regulating are less than the costs of not regulating” i.e. government (freed from general restraint) will always claim that a regulation will increase utility – and there will be plenty of academics and media types who will say the same.
So even if I accepted that a particular intervention would increase general utility (and I am not saying that I do), it would still be sensible to oppose all “regulation” (at least as Mr Gray would understand that term), for if one accepts one or two interventions one soon ends up with what we have now – hundreds of thousands of regulations that cause (together) vast harm.
Only then do we get to the libertarian point that to violate the nonaggression principle, (which is what a regulation, in the sense that the term is being used here, is) even in the hope of improving general utility, is evil.
It is like stealing someone’s property and giving it to a developer, and then saying “but the govenment will get more property tax revenue now – think of all the good we can do with the money”.
One does not have to accept this last point (the only libertarian moral point here) to understand that “case by case” regulation is very bad idea indeed – as the above points have shown.
Mr Gray will now say that he does not accept or does not understand the above.
Lastly on libertarians being “social darwinists”. If you do not know very much about libertarianism Mr Gray (and you seem not to know very much about it), and you refuse to read any libertarian work (which you, de facto, do refuse to do), why do you write about libertarianism?
You are a troll, are you not?
At least (in this case) I can now be sure that the problem is not my mental decay.
For any person who has been following this without knowing what libertarism is (unlikely as this is a series of comments about a posting on a libertarian blog).
Philosophical libertarianism is the belief that humans can make choices (choices not fully determined by prior events), i.e. that humans are beings, subjects not just very complex objects. It is the belief that humans are agents (in that they have agency – i.e. can make choices), they have “free will”.
A political libertarian need not be a philosophical libertarian (although most are philosophical libertarians, some are actually determinists – i.e. people who believe that all actions are fully determined by prior events and that there is [in the end] no agency, no “free will”).
All a political libertarian needs to be is someone who believes in the “non aggression principle” which means someone who thinks that is wrong (a violation of justice) to violate someone’s body or their goods (their property – although there is a qualification to be made here).
Some libertarians may be “social dawinists”, but I doubt Mr Gray could name many such people. Especially as “social dawinist” is often used (in school text books and other such stuff) as a term to cover racialists and other nasty types.
Of course the first man to be called a “social darwinist” (because he used terms like “survival of the fittest”) was Herbert Spencer – a man who was against not just racialism, but also imperialism and war. Spencer believed that society was subject to social evolution (but then people had taught that long before Darwin was born).
Whilst Herbert Spencer may not have been a full libertarian (he cast doubt on the private ownership of land at one time) and said some odd things at times (he was born in 1820 and died in 1903 – it would be odd if he used modern language all the time) I would certainly not be ashamed to be connected with him (although I have many philosophical disagreements with some of Spencer’s thought).
However, saying libertarians are like a man who opposed the cruel treatment of black people in the West Indies (which happened, at certain times, long after the end of slavery) and opposed aggressive war is not what is meant when people like Mr Gray call libertarians “social darwinists”, they have in mind (if they have Spencer in mind at all) the hate figure that is presented in schools and universities.
And this is certainly not what I had in mind when I talked about moral growth of society needing freedom.
A political libertarian may believe in a mininal state (a minarchist) or he may believe in no state at all (an anarchist – a private property respecting anarchist, but see later).
People are also libertarians for various reasons. Some people believe in libertarianism because they think such a principle promotes good consequences (“rule utilitarians” – who will tend to base their arguments on economics) , and some will hold to the libertarian principle on nonconsequentialist moral grounds (such people will tend to stress natural rights and/or natural law – although there are other moral justifications for the libertarian principle).
And, of course, a person may support the libertarian non aggression principle for a mixture of reasons – both based on consequences and on moral first principles.
A person may also accept the libertarian principle of justice (definined as the non aggression principle) and still accept that there are other moral principles (such as benevolence – which used to be called “charity” before this became a “boo word” in modern society) – indeed I have never heard of a libertarian who thought that libertarian justice was the only moral virtue.
There may be clashes between principles (for example the clash between the principle of justice and the principle of benevolence – if one has the “thousand poor children dying of thirst” and the only source of water is owned by someone who will not sell some of his, unlimited, supply of water at any price) although some people like to pretend that clashes between moral principles are much more common than they in fact are.
Lastly on property.
A libertarian need be no fan of “capitalism”. If people want to live in communes (or whatever) that is up to them. All a libertarian has to be against is people being forced to live this way.
If people wish to pay a higher price for the products of a cooperative farm instead of buying from a farm owned by Mr Brown the farmer (assuming that yhe cooperate does charge a higher price) that is up to them – as long as Mr Brown the farmer does not have his farm invaded.
Sorry for the guide to libertarianism (which people who use this site are not exactly likely to need), but it occured to me that someone might read some of Mr Gray’s stuff and assume it was true.
There is a serious point here. The postings on this site tend to ASSUME that people know all the basic information about what libertarianism is – how can we be sure that is so?
No, I don’t. I actually said a community that would pay “only the bare minimum notice to the state,” which is hardly the same thing. And there’s no reason why it cannot be done.
I quite accept that it is impossible to build a complete Libertopia in, say, the United States or Britain. But, what can be built is a society based, insofar as it is possible within the constraints of law, more closely on libertarian principles. Do you say this would have no advantages over our current society? If it does not, why would one assume anything about a libertarian society would be advantageous?
I understand what you think is wrong with it, but I don’t agree that your are right and have given reasons why I think you are wrong.
It is invalid to assume that the regulation WILL fail to achieve the results intended. It may do so, but this is far from a certainty. We both know we could each give numerous examples of regulations either way, so let’s not bother wasting each other’s time doing so.
Nothing human is perfect, Mr Marks. An individual buying something on the open market will not make a perfectly rational decision and may in fact be adversely affected by his decision. Does that mean he should not buy anything, ever?
True. Everything a human does has unexpected consequences, often unpleasant. Again, does this mean we should do nothing about anything, ever?
Well, no. It really shows that one should be careful when framing regulations to ensure that (a) it’s necessary, (b) the foreseeable adverse consequences do not outweigh the beneficial and (c) if the consequences aren’t even remotely predictable, the regulation should not be made.
Again, no. It merely shows that this concept of what law should be is somewhat at variance with the pragmatic reality of what law actually is. It may very well be that your idea of what law *should* be is perfectly correct on a valid philosophical and moral basis. However, reality seems unaccountably to have failed to conform to your idea of what it should be.
Law is a system of rules governing conduct within a given society. Nowhere is it set in stone that these must only be general rules (but they must apply to all people) or that ad hoc rules may not be made. Law is pragmatic, not dogmatic, and it changes to suit the changing nature of society.
Again, not true except in the most general of terms and even then not in all cases. Laws can be repealed as well as created, and in fact are repealed on a regular basis.
Ah, yes, the non-aggression principle. Property exists only because of coercion. At some point in the past, somebody said for the first time “this is my land” and decided to use main force to defend it from anyone else who wanted to say the same thing. This is coercion. Much of what is now America is land obtained by force, but do you dispute the rights of the people who own it now? What about the rights of the people from whom it was forcibly taken? Or of the rights of the people before that? At what point in history do you say “coercion after this is wrong, but before this is ok?”
The law of property is basically the coercive enforcement of rules relating to a thing which is itself ultimately the product of coercion. So much for non-aggression.
I understand it, but I don’t accept it. The latter is not a prerequisite of the former.
The whole series of arguments presented betrays the essentially binary logic of the ideologue. It can be your way or it cannot be, it works exactly the way you say it does or it does not work at all, some regulations fail therefore all regulation fails.
Reality just isn’t like that.
Socio-economic Darwinism, actually. It is a necessary consequence of a combination of an unregulated market and a complete absence of organised welfare. By removing the crutch of the state and its concomitant redistributive taxation, people are going to sink or swim on their merits, with charity expected to provide support for the poor. Essentially you would have a Darwinistic, evolutionary approach to the progress of individuals, whether or not this is the intended consequence. In such a process, there will be winners and losers. The gap between the winners and losers will increase, again even if this is not intended. The experience of America and Britain under Reagan and Thatcher, which saw some measure of deregulation of the economy and a scaling back (to a limited extent, I know) of welfare DID result in precisely that happening.
After all, if you expect libertarianism to give you the freedom to succeed on your merit, is it not logically inevitable that others will fail because of their lack of merit (or bad luck, or numerous other causes)? And if you dismantle all the welfare system, more people will sink into poverty. And what do you call this if not Darwinism?
Not so. I’ve read – contrary to your insistence that I have not – ‘Human Action.’ I think it’s bilge. I’ve read ‘The Machinery of Freedom.’ Ditto, and it contradicts a whole slew of other libertarian works. And so on, from Hayek to Hoppe via loonies such as Friedman and Nozick. And one thing I’ve discovered reading books, magazine articles, web pages and usenet posts on the matter is that the people libertarians disagree with most seem to be other libertarians.
Slightly more seriously, why do you presume that because I do not agree with you I have therefore not read the same books? Do you think that libertarianism is so utterly persuasive that merely opening the cover makes one a convert? That if I have read the Holy Writ of Hoppe I *MUST* become libertarian? It’s not so persuasive – in fact it is full of holes, many rather obvious and some more subtle.
No.
Hmm.
EG
“Potentially sufficient, eh? And if they are not in reality sufficient?”
Well, tough luck is one possible answer. But just one.
I do actually agree with you Euan that trade-offs are necessary from time to time, and that these will lead to more government. No big thing. You still agree with the rest of us that less government is generally desirable.
If you want to discuss the particular details of political trade offs to show that a binary libertarian logic does not provide a decent solution, then why not do this instead of harping on about libertarian ‘loonies’? It is just such exuberant flair of worldly charm as you dance around this diminishing topic that earns you the accusation of troll…
So “Human Action” is “bilge”, an “unregulated market” leads to lots of nasty things that can be prevented by regulation – and other nonsense.
I will not reply to Mr Gray in future. He has shown what he is.
On Mike’s argument:
Trade-offs will not tend to lead to the results that an honest government hopes for (a dishonest government will know that the regulations will not tend to achieve their objectives but will impose them anyway).
Also the regulations will tend to lead to direct and indirect nasty things – that can not be reliably guessed at in advance. This is the nature of violating civil interaction by force (which is what a “regulation” in the sense the word is being used here does).
Even if is possible (and I am not saying that it is, or that it is not) that their a few instances where a regulation may lead to an increase in utility (and we ignore moral arguments, even rule utilitarian arguments, that an such an increase in utility does not justify the violation of human beings or their goods) this would still not justify regulation.
This is because, once one has accepted the principle in a few cases, one opens the flood gates to hundreds of thousands of regulations causing vast damage – i.e. the modern situation.
No doubt we can all think of a “pet” regulation that we would like to impose (outside the general principles of law), but one does not have to accept any libertarian moral argument to know that the politics of this is very bad. The pet regulation may indeed do good (although I doubt it) – but then what about all the hundreds of thousands of other regulations that will (have) followed?
I covered all this in my previous comments. Perhaps I was too long winded – but I was trying to cover a lot of ground.
As for any unclearness in my writing style – well I apologize for that.
What is the point in quoting particular examples of trade-offs which work, only to be countered by examples of trade-offs which don’t? I suggested above that this was pointless, because there are numerous examples of both and throwing them back and forth proves nothing. Having said that, a single example of a regulation which has a net beneficial effect does tend to defeat the argument that all regulation fails.
What I’m arguing is that the concept that there should be no regulation because some regulation fails, or because it will lead to a flood of other regulations, or because one cannot perfectly predict the consequences, is absurd. It may be theoretically correct, but it is in practice impossible to have a real world society which strictly observes this principle.
Now, some regulation does fail. And once you admit one regulation, you concede the principle of having regulations at all. And indeed, one cannot completely and reliably predict all the consequences of a specific regulation, and some of these consequences may well be bad.
I fail to see how this results in the proposition that a real society could actually function with no regulation, no trade-off. No such society has ever existed – indeed, the very concept of society necessarily involves the individual members compromising and making trade-offs, since ths is necessary in order to interact with other people.
If you insist on a practical example of where a compromise must be made between the unregulated property rights model, for example, and state regulation, there are any number of them. Industrial pollution, for example – there are numerous cases where property rights fail to prevent actual harm being done to others and where the imposition of regulation has corrected this. Yes, there is a short-term cost to the industry in complying, but this is less than the long-term cost to everyone else of permitting the pollution. Which is more important – the liberty of the business to pollute or the liberty of everyone else not to suffer the consequences of that pollution? And if the property rights or civil litigation methods don’t work to correct the problem, and they don’t work in every case, then what to do?
None of that means that there is any need to impose some state calculus of EVERY possible eventuality based on minimising harm, to the extent that the state decrees what newspaper one ought to buy. That’s reductio ad absurdum.
We’re getting to down to fundamental practical reality here, and I find it somewhat bizarre that elementary concepts such as the need for compromise or the realisation that things are not perfect actually have to be explained. The black-and-white ideological viewpoint espoused is absolutely impractical even if it is frightfully good in theory – it just does not work in the real world.
EG
Paul, thank you for your explanation of Libertarianism. It has prompted me into some thoughts on categorization and labelling. They are very useful and powerful tools in human thought, but they have their limits. Alfred Korzybski’s ‘The map is not the territory’ and Ghandi’s ‘I am a sort of anarchist’ best illustrate my concerns. I suggest that people are people and not Marxist, Capitalists or Libertarianists. Marxism, Libertarianism etc. etc, are grouping of ideas which may approximate some of the time to an individuals philosophy of life. Further even when individuals believe they have settled on a particular label that describes their views there will be differences. Then because at some point the differences are manifest they end up in unpleasant disputes over who is the true believer. Do you have an opinion, which may or may not be Libertarian, in this area?
“On Mike’s argument”
What argument?
“Trade-offs will not tend to lead to the results that an honest government hopes for”
Well as I said one option is to say ‘tough’ and put up with things without regulating. The trade-off Euan challenged you on involved a choice between regulating or not regulating – and I understand your libertarian case for not regulating perfectly well thank you.
I agree with Euan that regulations are a matter of practical necessity from time to time. Perhaps a hard-and-fast rule as to not regulating has more appeal now following the stupidities of two terms of government by the left (and the prospect of at least one more term).
However, to argue for a hard and fast rule and so ignore the problem of choosing when to regulate and when not to is to despair of government entirely (but that is precisely your point is it not!?!). Common-sense must be used to distinguish the reasonable regulation (e.g. industrial pollution) from the absurd (e.g. PC language).
On this problem of when to limit government power and so prevent the floodgates opening, constitutions have some importance do they not?
I agree with David Roberts that “people are people” and that we have to try and see beyond the labels.
And (of course) we all know of examples of people with socialist beliefs who are decent people, and people with libertarian beliefs who are not decent at all.
However, I do regard the labels as useful. If a label is used correctly (and I admit they often are not) they can save a lot of time.
If a man says he believes in X belief in political philosophy or general philosophy or other subjects, it saves trying to work out his beliefs are by asking lots of question – it also helps people themselves understand their own beliefs (the beliefs of many people are a mess – I do not mean wrong, I really mean a mee, i.e. they have never sat down and sorted them out and so they contradict themselves in ways that could be avoided).
On what Mike says.
O.K. Mike I will not use the term “Mike’s argument” which over formalizes a internet thing (I have an an over formal mind at times – I have to admit that because it is obvious to anyone who comes into contact with me).
I do not think that to hold to the general principles of law is to “despair of government” (at least in theory), indeed quite the opposite.
I hold (against the position of many anarchists) that it is possible to limit government – but (of course) this is only possible if one holds to the general principles of law.
By this I mean law as an effort to apply the principle of justice (the nonaggression principle – perhaps best outlined, in legal terms, by Bastiat in his short work “The Law”).
Of course applying the principle of justice in the circumstances of time and place can be a very complicated and messy business and there is a lot of scope for disagreement.
But that is not what we are dealing with here. We are not dealing with “how do we apply the nonaggression principle in such and such difficult situation” (which is basically what the judge made Common Law is about – or, rather, was about) we are dealing with “how can I make life better via regualtion”,
Making life better is not what law is about – law is a negative thing. It is about trying to protect people’s bodies and other goods (all the complex matters of property rights which may include different people have rights to different things on the same land), and enforcing contracts (when they are contracts that fit the general principles of law – some do not, for example a contract to murder someone).
The principle on which law is based does not come from any legislature, which is why (at least in a community that is not been tottally corrupted) such things as juries are possible in criminal and civil trials. All the Founders rightly believed (as did Englishmen of the time) that a jury had the right and duty to judge both fact AND LAW.
This is not because jury trial is the only way to get justice (there are other traditions), it is because law and the justice that it tries (however imperfectly) to enact do not come from a “lawgiver” – still less from a “regulator”.
The law is about disputes between parties (civil or criminal) it is not about how people regulate their lives.
All these things are hard enough without someone saying “I have thought of a regulation that can make people’s lives better”.
We need such people in the way we need a bullet in the back of the head.
We can all think of science fiction (or even non science fiction) examples where a violation of justice (i.e. a regulation in the “let us make people’s better” sense) might be argued for – but once you open the flood gates (open Pandora’s box) all hell breaks loose.
It is not general rules (the principles of law) that make me despair of government – no it is only if they abandoned (as they have been) that I am pushed towards despair.
It may be that “limited government” is a fantasy and that the real choice is beteen the modern state (a government that grows and grows like a cancer – till it kills off civil society) or anarchism.
However, I continue to believe that limited government is possible.
In the end it is the unlimted state (the state that judges things on a “pragmatic” basis) that is not possible – for such a state destroys itself.
It does so by growing so big that kills off civil society, and without civil society the unlimited state (which has become a tyranny) eventually dies.
Tryanny and chaos are blood brothers – one leads to the other.
It may be that the Sword of State is too dangerious for anyone to use (that it corrupts and destroys them), but I believe that this is not inevitable.
I believe by strict adherance to the principles of law one can minimize the risk of an out of control government – the sort of government that we have now, which we can see destroying civil society (and, in the end, itself).
At first it (departures from the principles of law, and allowing the growth of regulations) seems so small – not worth bothering about (just as tax and spending programs start very small) – but it grows and grows.
The anarchist would say that the growth of government is inevitable (but I hope that they are wrong).
The “practical” man says that one can use regulations to solve “social problems”. Some of these “practical” men do not know the evil that they let loose, and some of them know only too well.
It is not for me to decide which group any given “practical” man (although, these days, perhaps I should say person – rather than man) is part of.
As for nomal politics. One does not despair, one tries to drag government back. Arguing for a more limited government in any way one can. Fighting over regulation, trying to decentralize as much as possible (so that people can “vote with their feet” as a collectivist once put it – a man who later tried to prevent anyone voting with the feet by leaving the nation he took control of), using ever constitutional document, every traditon, every method of arugment (philosophical, political, economic….), every last bit of reason and will.
Of course when government has reached the size it now has (stretching to every aspect and insitution of life) the chances of success are low.
It may well be that our civilization is doomed. But that it is not relevant, it is our duty to struggle on to the bitter end if bitter it must be.
My apologies for my typing – “mee” for “mess” and all the rest of my errors.
Constitutions can be amended. A constitution which could NOT be amended could only be changed by abolition, and in time this would be almost certain. The idea that things can be set in stone for all time is folly, because things change. Society changes, technology changes, morality changes. All these things have an effect on what society expects from the law, and thus lead society to change the law. Preventing this happening is impossible.
As a practical illustration, the US constitution, which strictly limits the scope of the federal government, has not prevented that same federal government growing enormously.
Hyperbolic exaggeration. It’s a question of “how can we solve a problem?” The answer may be regulation, or it may be something else, or it may be that there is no answer. My question, the answer to which has been consistently evaded, is whether there should be an absolutist interpretation of what to do. I say no – weigh the consequences. You say yes – always do nothing. Which one is tyranny?
In reality, it’s about both. To say it’s just about disputes between people is grossly over-simplistic.
EG
Perhaps unwisely I will reply to what Mr Gray has said, I have no belief what-so-ever that anything I could say would influence him (I doubt anyone could, although the possibility is always there), however there is the point about other people who might read this. So I will offer a quote from a moderate mainstream man.
“Thus in a free society the state does not administer the affairs of men. It administers justice among men who conduct their own affairs”.
That was from Walter Lippmann right from the New Deal 1930’s – “An Inquiry into the Principles of the Good Society” (Boston, 1937) page 267 (quoted in F.A. Hayek’s “The Constitution of Liberty”, University of Chicago, 1960, note 18, page 446).
Good and evil are often regarded as “simplistic” by people who regard themselves as above such things. But there is no way to know for sure (from words on a screen) whether a man really regards himself as above such things or not.
I am an enemy of Mr Gray and this may well be as much my fault (because of my short temper and other flaws) as it is his (perhaps more my fault than his).
However, be that as it may, it is not for me to try and save his soul – that is nothing to do with libertarianism (or any other political philosophy), and nor am I am man of good enough moral character for such work. Nor can I know whether there is any wickedness here at all – all could be totally innocent (simply a matter of a different way of thinking)
Perhaps I am simply misled by distaste for someone who seems (to me) neither for nor against the powers of the E.U. (wishing to “consider” action rather than take action), and neither for or against the general principle of government take over of civil society (wishing to judge each intervention “on its merits” or “case by case”). I think I smell evil and the twisting of words – but I could just smell my own ill temper. Again be that as it may
One day Mr Gray may understand that these “simplistic” things (i.e. the idea that there should be clear limits to when and how violence and the threat of it can be used) are all a man has to cling to in affairs of politics (that one must make choices, and not try and combine principles that can not be combined) or he may not.
As for what he writes. I can not spend what remains of my life replying to it (well I could, but I choose not to).
No doubt it will be cultured, intellgent and well written. How much harm it will do I do not know.
Of course it is most likely that nothing written by anyone will make any difference. Our civilization may well be in its last years. Reform is possible, but I see no sign of it.
As for what may be rebuilt out of any collapse, that will be for younger and stronger men than me to work on. I certainly will not survive any time of troubles.
I don’t think it’s terribly fair to consider as “evil” someone who simply disagrees with your view of the world. It’s somewhat unlikey, I concede, that we would agree on much in the realm of politics, but I wouldn’t say you were actually evil because you have a different opinion, however strongly I might disagree.
I do think that the implementation of a truly libertarian policy in the real world would result in a great deal of net harm, which is one of the main reasons I object, but I don’t think you’re evil for supporting a policy that I think would cause harm. If you also thought it would cause harm and STILL supported it, that’s another matter. Similarly, most Marxists don’t propose working towards a communist society because they want to set up their own gulag. They propose it because they genuinely think it is the best solution. We can disagree with them and debate with them, but I think it is profoundly unwise to start slinging epithets such as “evil” at one’s political opponents. That is the mindset that DOES lead to the gulag.
One of the attractions of libertarianism is that it is in general (and to the extent anyone can agree for five minutes what it actually is) a very simple philosophy. I invite you to consider whether a simple solution for a complex world is not, perhaps, a little naive. I see WHY you consider all regulation to be bad, and I follow the logic of prohibiting regulation as a general principle for those reasons, but given that the assumptions you posit do not actually hold true in reality, at least not in the binary form presented, I submit that you are mistaken, and that the error may derive from an overly simplistic socio-political view of the world.
Be that as it may, you’re now bring another matter into the question – morality. Law and morality are not the same things. Morality is above law, and law is generally informed by morality. Again, this may not be how it should be, or how you or I would like it to be, or how some theory or other says it should be, but it is how things really are in the horribly pragmatic and cruel world.
But they are still different things. When morality is law, the question is “which morality?” Moslem? Christian? Post-modernist? And who says which morality is the “right” one? And what happens to people who don’t agree? When law is morality, then criminals are immoral, and we all know where that leads. It is necessary, then, to keep in mind the distinction between the two. But this opens up a couple of fascinating subjects. I can hear the sigh of tedium from here, by the way.
Suppose the morality is “natural rights.” The question nobody can answer is where these supposed natural rights come from. Locke suggested the rights that obtain in a state of nature, but this cannot be so because the concept of right has, to say the least, advanced somewhat under a civilised society. Even if this were not obviously true, the question still remains why these rights exist and where they come from. It is not good enough to say “they just are.” This is the rights equivalent of the fundamentalist saying “God did it” in answer to just about any question, and it is just as unsatisfactory.
The other problem with “natural” rights is that people don’t agree on what they are. This defies any conception of them as self-evident. If something is self-evident, it is unlikely that the entire history of the subject will consist of argument about what it is. Of course, we can say “ah, but in the 21st (20th, 19th, whatever) century we know better.” Again unsatisfactory, because this is basically what people have been saying since the dawn of civilisation. Then some tactless person comes along with a new idea and the process starts again.
Or you can limit it to propertarianism and contracts, saying that morality and thus law is simply that (a) if you say you’re going to do something and the other party agrees then you must do it, and (b) you must not infringe another’s property (including his self) without consent. This confines law to disputes amongst people, which seems to be your view of it. Again, though, it won’t do at all. Although these principles are sound and indeed are part of western law, they are not enough by themselves and they are not absolute and nor can they be absolute. Suppose you drive at 150mph on the motorway but avoid accidents. There can under this system be no question of penalty because you have not actually hurt anyone. Suppose you do it 19 times with the same lack of result. Should you be allowed to do it all the time? What about the 20th time when you cause an accident and someone dies? Suppose you’re a very good driver and I’m not so good – should we have different personal speed limits?
Finally, you can invoke the nonaggression principle. This is most easily disposed of, especially if you are propertarian. Private property is ultimately the result of the initiation of force and therefore, according to the simplistic logic of this narrow morality, private property is immoral and illegal and indeed your whole moral code is itself immoral. Furthermore, the concept of property also needs to be explained – is it an inherent right, and if so where does it come from? Who owned the land before man evolved? How do the rights of settlers compare to the rights of the people whose land they stole?
Now let’s get back to reality. What REALLY happens is that morality and rights change over time. Rights are a product of morality, they are a social and philosophical construct that varies as the generally accepted morality of society changes. We think now that slavery is immoral, but that is a relatively recent view and it is an example of the general morality of society changing. As the morality of society changes, so does the law (slavery becomes illegal) and so do rights (all people have the right to be free). Not all changes are as drastic as slavery. Other issues which have changed in morality, law and right several times are homosexuality, contraception, abortion, drug use, and so on. It can of course get absurd, when one reaches the level of the right not to suffer gender reassignment discrimination.
But the upshot is that, like it or not, rights are the product of law, which is in turn the product of the generally accepted morality of society, which like it or not changes over time. It is unlikely that in 100 years, whether we go libertarian or not, we will have the same ideas of what exactly constitutes a set of basic fundamental rights.
So why, exactly, should we restrict it to a narrow ideological view?
EG
Why is it believed that life is more complex today than previously? What is different between us today and our hunter gatherer or agrarian forebears? Only that a larger number of us are glimpsing the difficulties of bringing about beneficial change. Its not that life is actually any more complicated its just that our increased knowledge allows us to see the difficulties that have always existed. In the past we have mostly stumbled about in the dark, what our increasing knowledge of the universe and ourselves enables us to begin to see where we are going. Surely this is grounds for optimism not the gloomy view that Paul seems to hold.
“Life” in the sense of being a fundamental property of an organic being is not more complex. The point is that “life” in the sense of our existence within society is more complex, because society is more complex. Society is more complex because we no longer live a hand to mouth existence and are more dependent on the efforts of others to maintain our society. It is principally this greater interdependence which makes things more complicated. This is neither good nor bad, but I think the failure to realise that things are more complex is one of the reasons libertarianism is the damp squib that it has so far shown itself to be – it underestimates the complexity of society, and indeed some libertarians even deny that society exists.
I can’t speak for why Paul holds the view he does, but I would be sceptical of optimism. In almost every age there have been advances which lead people to think that we are beginning to see where we are going, but the record of history shows that this is often a short-lived optimism since we pretty quickly realise that our new knowledge mainly permits us to see other problems that we had not thought of before.
We do, of course, advance, but I think it is naive to assume that *this time* we have it cracked. We don’t, and I suspect we never will. We simply understand how to solve old problems but in learning this we discover new ones. Provided we also learn in time how to solve the new problems, we keep advancing.
EG
Society is certainly more complex than in the past, at least in the economic sense. I don’t think it follows that individual peoples lives are necessarily more complex. Quite the opposite, in fact – due to the complexity of society, individuals can get by with far fewer social complexities than before, if they so desire.
The big advantage of libertarianism over command-and-control type ideologies is that it copes better with more complex societies, not worse. Surely you have noticed how poorly the government deals with complexity, with its knee-jerk legislative approach to anything that squeaks the wrong way. Free economic agents are far more flexible, more capable of adapting to social change than the government can possibly be.
That doesn’t make sense – you’re saying that because society is more complex, society is less complex.
It’s the greater economic interdependence of people that makes society and thus life in that society more complex. Life is simpler because we can more easily light our homes, for example. But the flick of the light switch actually working depends on the operation and maintenance of an electricity production and distribution system, on this system working all the time, on reliable and timely supplies of fuel, on acceptable mitigation of pollution caused by power generation, on consent to power cables running across the landscape, on all that being done at reasonable cost, and so on. It’s much more complex than the local slaughterhouse refining animal fat to make candles. Just because you don’t necessarily see the complexity doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Think how delicate the balance of all these things is, how easily the whole thing can trip into chaos if a little thing goes wrong. We depend much more on others – in the example above, we depend not on a farmer, a slaughterman and a candlemaker, but instead on a legion of engineers, chemists, electricans, miners, oil workers, construction workers and indeed other ordinary people not objecting to these people doing what needs to be done.
The record of history really does show quite the opposite. As society becomes more complex, so more rules are necessary to keep it ticking over and so the libertarian approach of not having many rules becomes less effective. The rise of the modern state is nothing other than a response to the failure of a more libertarian, less regulated order to cope with increasing complexity.
Ideally, one should avoid ideology, since it is often ideology that causes the problems – especially simplistic ideologies like communism or libertarianism, they’re TOO simple. And the construction of false dilemmas should definitely be avoided – it is not the case that the choice is between libertarianism and communism.
EG