The Economist magazine, about which James Waterton wrote a few days ago (it is getting a new editor), has an interesting cover article ‘Soft Paternalism’, chronicling the growing trend of governments to devise ways to make people behave in certain ways, usually in order to meet some supposedly desirable objective, such as losing weight, saving for a pension and so forth. I do not think the Economist hits the issue nearly hard enough but I absolutely love the picture associated with the article.
I rather like this quotation in the final paragraph:
Private virtues such as these are as likely to wither as to flourish when public bodies take charge of them. And life would be duller if every reckless spirit could outsource self-discipline to the state.
Some people, including libertarians, are a bit hard on the Economist, which often veers away from its historical attachment to free markets, liberty and limited government. I occasionally find its tone condescending but on the whole that magazine is a force for good. Let us hope that under its new editor, the Economist continues to beat the drum for classical liberalism in an era when liberty is all too often on the back foot.
Soft paternalism? How about soft fascism?
Soft paternalism sounds like the lips in front of the teeth.
I think you’re a bit harsh Fiona. Most of what the article discusses is done to drive positive outcomes. There is a big difference between trying to engineer people towards healthier lifestyles or saving for their future and the genuinely malevolent and restrictive agenda of Princess Toni and his cronies
I can forgive a politician bleating on about low fat (I’ll ignore them mind you). I can never forgive the blatant self serving lies told about ID cards, jury trials, the House of Lords, our relationship with the EU, asymetrical devolution, crime and punishment, pensions, public spending, etc, etc ad nauseam.
Its champions will say that soft paternalism should only be used for ends that are unarguably good: on the side of sobriety, prudence and restraint.
So how does that figure with the most fun I’ve had in ages. I blew up my knackered old fridge in the back-street. I had a couple of drams, stuffed it with The Times and aerosols, ignited it, taped the door shut and ran like hell. It harmed nobody (though it almost set a tree on fire).
It wasn’t sober, prudent or restrained but had me cackling for a week. And the council shifted the smouldering ruin the next day, something they hadn’t done with the extant fridge for weeks.
It actually produced a small mushroom cloud!
The article “The avuncular state” linked to within the leader article makes interesting reading. The “new” paternalism appeals to my view of humanity – people tend not to make particularly smart choices, nor do they tend to act in their own best interests. I see this as self-evidently true and have long wondered why those of a libertarian or anarchic bent fail to realise it. I also see it as a fundamental weakness in the libertarian argument – libertarianism doesn’t have a particularly good or accurate view of the generality of human nature.
Whilst one can say that even such avuncular paternalism, if that makes sense, is an unwarranted interference in private life, I think one must also recognise that whilst that may be theoretically valid, in practice it is likely to be the lesser of two evils.
Throughout human history, there has been some force or other encouraging or compelling restraint in personal behaviour. This has variously been tribal myth, organised religion or state demand, but the point is that there has always been some such mechanism. I think it is, like government in general, a regrettable necessity but, given the reality of human nature, a necessity nonetheless. I think also that as western society moves further and further away from non-governmental mechanisms such as the churches and a generally accepted code of moral restraint, it will become ever more necessary for the state to make requirements like this, simply because no-one else is doing it.
I note that a surprisingly large number of libertarians are atheist or at best agnostic (as well as being perhaps disproportionately white, male and middle class), and it is somewhat odd that people such as this denigrate the state but also denigrate one of the most significant alternatives to the state in this respect. Whatever the theory says, some form of paternalistic guidance is in practice necessary in a functioning society, and it is IMO a further weakness in the libertarian case that this does not seem to be widely understood in such circles.
EG
I disagree with you, and that is why I describe myself as classically liberal. Since the dawn of sedentary existence (and perhaps earlier; I do not have the historical knowledge of those ancient times to confidently include this period), I believe it’s self evident that people have – as a general rule – become increasingly capable of making “smart choices” and acting in their own best interests more ably as time progresses. I believe that as man advances, he is more capable of dealing with increased responsibility in a self beneficial manner, and I would argue that this is borne out by the course of history. I cannot see why this trend towards increased responsibility should not continue its (I believe) natural course. I think humanity will at some point in the future be able to exist productively without the aegis of a state that interferes in the honourable interactions of individuals. I also believe that this process of acquiring the ability to manage increased responsibility can be hastened – partially by the exchange of ideas. Hence my participation in this forum.
The record of history would suggest otherwise. It’s perfectly true that people increasingly have the means – in the form of greater information, better education and so forth – to make smart choices and act in their own best interests, but the depressing reality is that they don’t actually *use* these greater means any more than they previously used lesser means – they may be more capable, but they’re no more willing. Mankind is still mankind, and hasn’t changed one jot since the Stone Age. We are still subject to the same selfish and selfless urges we always were, and failing large scale genetic manipulation we always will be.
Ah, yes, the old perfectability of humanity notion, a common thread in both libertarianism and Marxism. It’s not valid. As *culture* advances, yes, but that’s not the same thing. Even if they are more capable, this does not imply they will actually use the capability – so far, they don’t.
But it will always need something that interferes with the *dishonourable* interactions of individuals, which is really the point. It’s unreasonable to argue that the state, or anyone else, should interfere to stop people bringing up children properly or looking after grandma in a decent fashion, and that’s not the issue. If without prompting or guidance people will not on the whole act in their own best interests – and all the evidence plainly shows that they do not – then in certain areas it is reasonable to suggest that such guidance, prompting or sometimes compulsion is a prudent and sensible measure.
EG
Of course people do not always do what is in their own interest and they suffer for it. That is how people either learn or become a statistic. Thats life. And thats the way I want it.
The idea that anyone should have the right to influence or manipulate another consenting adult is repugnant.
The only way an adult can have dignity and pride is to be responsible for themselves and their own actions. If they get it wrong and harm themselves too bad. If they harm others then the others should seek reparation through the courts, and, if a jury of peers find that they have been harmed the offender should make reparations.
There will never be a time when the state can stop people from harming themselves and IMO they should not be trying.
EG I find your ideas, as ever, charmingly stated and utterly wrong headed. I would hate to live in a world where you make the rules.
There are many problems with the benign paternal (big brother?) approach.
One, the government has to be trustworthy to pick the right conduct to incentivise. Who believes they are capable of that? This is one more battle field for special interest groups. One more piece of government power to be for auctioned to the highest bidders.
Two, the idea is inherently collective. If it is to be doable, then people must be placed in categories and incentives given to each according to what category they are in. And, if incentives are to be individualized, then who better than the individual to do it?
How soon before incentivising one form of lawful conduct over another is replaced with just outlawing the unapproved conduct?
I think we need not more incentives, but less. Less subsidies to counteract market forces. Less incentives for people to not work. Less protecting people from the consequences of their choices. Less taxpayer funded rewards for taking dangerous risks.
Subsidize anything and you’ll soon have a surplus. Almost all of our problems now can be traced to government incentives for people to conduct themselves badly. All of the conduct mentioned in the article is already being encouraged by the government and insurance being mandated to assume the cost of the consequences.
This idea is just one more way of growing government.
‘Classical liberalism’ is even deader than ‘fascism’, which helped kill it. You lads need a new vocabulary.
And up to a point that’s how you’ve got it. But it seems that what you want is a selfish desire not to be bothered by the demands of others, which is fine insofar as it goes and you can indeed have that – many churches run closed monasteries where there is no technology and no outside interference, doubtless they would welcome a new entrant. However, I assume you also want such fripperies as a functioning society, medical systems, electricity, sewers, running water and some means of controlling crime. You can’t get that without some form of interference.
If you want sewers, you need rules to limit what people throw down them, otherwise they stop working. If you want medical care, then you accept restrictions and limitations on your life whether this is by state demand or the numerous petty exclusions of private insurance. If you want electricity, you must accept intrusion on property as plants are built and distribution cables run. And so on. And all these things mean restriction, regulation and manipulation. *That* is life – you can’t have these things without paying the price, and it is not necessary or advantageous to make it a simply cash price for those who want them.
Now, if you say let people pay for all these things, you’re putting a cash price on liberty and you’re effectively creating a society where the more money and/or property you have, the more liberty you get. A feudal society, in essence, which is IMO the logical outcome of an attempt to institute a libertarian order.
That’s all very well, but nobody really wants that and, amazingly enough, western society developed beyond that level several centuries ago. There is simply no necessity for, nor any advantage in, nor any general desire to reinstate such a society.
But necessary for a society to function, and as society becomes more complex, so this becomes more necessary. Indeed, as Hayek said in his “New Studies”
“I am the last person to deny that increased wealth and the increased density of population have enlarged the number of collective needs which government can and should satisfy”
Society has developed beyond the point – far beyond it, in fact – where libertarian ideas of a minimalist government are of any practical utility.
Yes, what the western world is really crying out for today is even more lawyers and even more petty litigation.
But equally, there will never be a time when people will stop harming themselves and in many cases causing collateral harm to others, and it is unlikely that there wil be a society in which such a state of affairs is permitted unchecked. Generally speaking and within reasonable limits, it is more efficient and effective to have a general rule apply to all rather than allowing individuals to buy the bits of right they want, because the concomitant of that is that the bits of right are denied to those who cannot pay. This is an unreasonable and unnecessary state of affairs.
Within limits, there is nothing wrong in a gentle paternalism encouraging people to act in a certain beneficial way, and indeed in some cases requiring that they do so. But in most cases, usually but not always where there is no impact on others, there is no good reason to regulate.
I have a feeling you wouldn’t actually like to live in a society based on the rules you seem to want. It sounds great in theory, but it isn’t so hot in practice, and it is because of this dismal mismatch between ideal and reality that government is necessary, that some form or other – not necessarily state inspired – of paternalism or avuncular guidance is necessary.
EG
In many aspects of their life, people are also inherently collective. This is an inevitable consequence of being a social rather than a solitary species. Denying the collective aspects of many parts of human nature is basically denying our genetic makeup.
As stated several times before, an approach based on a wholly collective view of humanity – such as Marxism – fails just as inevitably as one based on a wholly individualistic view of humanity – such as several strands of libertarianism.
Man is, like it or not, part individual and part collective. Any political philosophy which ignores this reality will fail, because it denies human nature.
EG
Euan,
I don’t think you understand the difference between collective and cooperative.
Yes, I do. Sometimes cooperative is best, sometimes collective, sometimes individual.
Do you want electricity in your house? Individual choice.
Do you want overhead power cables run through your neighbourhood, or buried cables, or do you all want to microgenerate your own power? Cooperative choice.
Do you want an electricity distribution system to be built at all, complete with its necessary intrusion on private property and limits and regulations on what you can connect to it? Collective decision.
The point here, though, is that we are talking about areas where collective rather than cooperative or individual choices are pertinent. It’s not feasible to have a society run solely on individual and cooperative choice, or at least not if you want the little luxuries of modern civilisation such as clean water, public order and effective healthcare.
EG
Euan,
Collective is compulsory and uneccessary. When electrification came down our road, the power company paid my grandfather for powerline right-of-way.
It wasn’t always done. Where my cousin lives, they didn’t sell right-of-way to the power company. The just let them install it without rights. And if you don’t want it, they don’t install it at all.
I haven’t lived on a collective (government) water system since I was 8 years old. In a subdivision I lived in had about 80 houses in a cooperative water system that was set up by a developer. It surrounded many properties that retained their own water supplies and did not join the co-op.
Public order is too vague a category. The courts are government. But enforcement can be any authorised agency. THere are many private police departments. And health care! We’ve seen what a wonderful success that is when the government does it.
You not only don’t understand the difference between collective and cooperative, you don’t understand the effects either.
Euan, there’s one very obvious weakness in your argument. Why should one ascribe great wisdom and hence the ability to guide the great unwashed to certain selected members of society?
What criteria should determine who is to be one of the elect.
When push comes to shove I, who have spent my working life in the groves of academe, would put my trust in the man in the street rather than my overly doctored colleagues.
Possibly for you, not necessarily for everyone else.
Most people, however, and especially outside the US, do live on such a system, and that’s because most people live in relatively high density urban environments. This affects not just water or electricity but all manner of other things, and in some cases collective action and/or compulsion is necessary. Of course, it’s easy to assume such things are never necessary if you don’t happen to need them yourself, but that just shows a pretty narrow and unimaginative “I’ve got mine, I’m all right Jack” view.
Do you support the idea, then, that there should be no rules about the cleanliness of drinking water? Which is better – to allow people to die from dirty water and have their surviving family sue, or to prevent the situation arising in the first place by collective compulsion on drinking water standards? Would you rather fly in a cheap plane and face a higher risk of death but in the knowledge your wife and children can sue when you die, or reduce the risk at the cost of a higher ticket price as compulsory collective regulation is enforced?
There nothing wrong in my view with having private water provision, or electricity, or many other things. Provided certain rules are set, and are made compulsory. The question is not whether the state or private interest, or both, should supply these things, but whether there should be some regulation of them, some paternalistic guidance in a collectively derived direction. In some cases the answer is no, in others it is yes. It is wrong to assume the same answer applies in all circumstances, because it simply is not true.
And we have also seen that it isn’t a hell of a lot better when private interest does it. America has one of the highest degrees of private healthcare of any western country, and yet healthcare costs a greater share of national income in America than in almost all other western countries. It’s more expensive, it’s not a lot better – in fact, judging by what British expats in the US have told me, it’s often no better and sometimes even worse than the ghastly old NHS. A glib assumption that the market cures all isn’t borne out in reality, since things are a little more complex.
I do understand them, I just don’t fall for the simplistic assumption that if I don’t need a certain thing then nobody else needs it either, and furthermore I can see that the price of not having some degree of collective compulsion now and again is rather higher than the price of having it, even if it does personally inconvenience me sometimes.
EG
One shouldn’t, and I don’t. However:
The first great advantage of a democratic system is that more or less anyone can put his case to the people and argue for the chance to implement it. The people then make a collective decision to give him this chance or not give it, and this decision is binding and compulsory both on the individuals and on the collective. Of course, one can see at once the problems if the people’s collective decision is wrong, but this is where the second great advantage of a democratic system comes in – the people get to chuck the bad guy out and pick someone else to fix the problems. The collective decision they make is binding and compulsory for the now unemployed political individual.
It is not perfect, but it does work and it has served the western world well for the past couple of centuries. No, you don’t get everything you want as an individual, but that’s just tough because under no conceivable *practical* system of government could everyone possibly get all they want. It’s a compromise, like many things in life.
A democratic system, for all its numerous warts, gives the least bad trade-off between getting what you want and paying for what other people want.
EG
“…people tend not to make particularly smart choices, nor do they tend to act in their own best interests.”
True. So what ?
You can’t do social engineering. You can’t make people behave in ways you deem “smart”. You can’t even by “soft” methods (paternalistic incentives). Leave people alone. Build your society in such a way that it keeps functioning despite the weakenesses you percieve in people.
The notion that you can change people, or guide them, or make them do what you want is a delusion.
“Whatever the theory says, some form of paternalistic guidance is in practice necessary in a functioning society”
Correct. That is what we have fathers for (or mothers). Or peers, or social groups.
It’s starnge that so many people think everything must be done by government. That’s equivalent to saying that everything must be done by compulsion – that being the characteristic of government action.
Which in reality means not leaving people entirely alone. Sad but true. I don’t think anyone here or in the cited article is arguing for total state control or micro-managing paternalism, but equally the idea that one can simply dispense with government or formal regulation altogether is illusory, even if it is a rather pleasant illusion.
Indeed, but as alluded to above the problem arises when the long-standing social structure breaks down and society atomises as a result of an increasing self-obssession and a crass gimme-now materialism.
Not everything, but more things than hitherto, or rather more things than in a pre-industrial society. Refer to the quote from Hayek above. And, as also alluded to above, more things when the non-state structures which formerly provided the paternalistic guidance fail.
EG
EG I do not agree with you at all.
Saying that libertarianism means reverting to feudalism discounts all of the advances in society since the middle ages. Individual freedom does not mean that the strongest in society should have control over the weakest. A libertarian society would be a very wealthy society and, although some would have more than others, everybody would be better off than they are now. Being a libertarian does not stop a person cooperating with others, they just do it by choice rather than dictat.
There do not need to be rules regarding things like water supply because in a free market if the supplier provides tainted water or charges too much a competitor will do better in order to take business from him. And individuals can sue the supplier and seek reparations.
The society you advocate, that is the one we have now, has far more drawbacks because no matter how much you make rules, government run monopolies have no incentives to be efficient and therefore waste enormous amounts of money, and when they make mistakes no one takes the blame by losing their livelihood. In addition most government bodies will not allow themselves to be sued when they harm people.
Many people make the error of believing that a libertarian society would be a selfish society because no one would be forced to pay taxes to support those less fortunate than themselves. All the evidence shows, however, that, left to themselves, people are far more generous to their fellow man on a voluntary basis than they care to be when they are coerced. Most of the really effective charities and support groups were founded, not by governments, but by free individuals giving up their time and money on a voluntary basis.
Further, I firmly believe, that what people call the breakdown in traditional values, has been caused by taking individual responsibility away from people. A society of free individuals is likely to be a far politer and respectful society than the forced collective you seem to want.
Euan,
We can know a thing to be true in one of two ways: deductively, or inductively. In reading your arguments, I find them wanting of deductive logic — you seem to be employing your intuition. To roughly quote Friedman, “Poor analysis is always better than any form of intuition.” In other words, you are saying a lot of things, but you don’t make clear what your axiomatic assumptions are, and your deduction from them lacks any form of rigor. So, at the very least, I think we can fairly agree that a QED isn’t quite merited. And in fairness, this applies equally well to your opposition.
On the other hand, we could test your perspective inductively. I make the following hypothesis: if there is a negative correlation between liberty and quality of life, then among a set of societies which are similar in all other regards (i.e., not just finished with a civil war), we could expect the libertarian societies to rank poorest in the quality of life department.
Now we need a data set — I suggest the USA. It’s 50 states have existed for quite some time now, with each enjoying the same high amount of stability as the other. And being members of one nation, I think we can get as close to a true apples-to-apples comparision as possible with this data set.
The hard part is performing an analysis of which states are the most livable, and which states are the most libertarian. I do not have the resources to perform such an analysis personally, and I don’t think you do either. But, thankfully, we can perform a meta-analysis of existing anaylsis 🙂
Morgan Quitno Press has been handing out a “Most Livable State” award for 17 years now. And the Free State Project, which aims to gather libertarians in a libertarian state to ensure greater liberty, has chosen and ranked the 10 most libertarian states in the nation. We can cross reference the findings of these two groups and look for any correlations.
Here are the links to the relevant data:
http://www.morganquitno.com/sr06ml.htm
http://www.freestateproject.org/archives/state_data/
(If you’d like, I can paypal you the $4.99 needed to buy the full report from Morgan Quitno.)
Looking at the data, you’ll find that New Hampshire has been named the most livable state of 2006, and is also the target of the Free State Project. A closer analysis reveals that the average livability rank of the 10 most libertarian states is 13.3, putting them roughly in the 74th percentile.
If there was no correlation between liberty and quality of life, we would expect the most libertarian states to be in the 50th percentile of livability. And if there was a strong negative correlation between liberty and quality of life, we would expect the most libertarian states to be in the 25th percentile. The data clearly conflicts with the hypothesis.
I am hesitant to say that there is a postive correlation between liberty and quality of life, or that there is a negative correlation between illiberty and quality of life, for I feel that such requires a more detailed analysis that what I’ve offered up. But I feel confident to conclude that there is no negative correlation between liberty and quality of life.
I do not think this is a slam dunk in favor of liberty — obviously, there is much more analysis to be done. But the notion that libertarian societies are less livable than their illibertarian brethren is wrong.
For what it’s worth, I was once a Marxist, and I voted for Bush last election. Point being that I have no dogmatic bone to pick with anyone or anything. My goal is always and only to Do the Right Thing.
Fiona,
I do think the Fascism bit is rather interesting and it has come up a number of times in discussions like these. I got interested to the point where I took the time to compare Tony Blair’s “respect” speech with Mussolini’s “Doctrine of Fascism”. Fair enough, there are some non-trivial similarities. Let’s not forget though that the differences aren’t trivial either: Blair may have gone to war in Iraq, but I don’t think he values war in itself as a sign of a strong, empire building nation and I don’t think he’ll be attacking Albania any time soon.
(I have a longer rant on this here: )
“… long-standing social structure breaks down and society atomises as a result of an increasing self-obssession and a crass gimme-now materialism.”
So the all benevolent, idealistic and moral Government is to be our saviour, as it’s the only thing not yet tainted by “a crass gimme-now materialism.”…..
You see, since man is a sinner, he needs a Saviour, and Government is our saviour ! The religion of the left.
But many of these advances are in fact the elimination of feudalism by the restriction of the liberties of the wealthier and consequently more powerful elements of society. After that, and from the 19th century onwards, advances in society have generally been a levelling trend by increasing the rights – and more importantly the ability to actually exercise these rights – of the poorest at the expense of the wealthiest.
I accept that it doesn’t mean this *should* happen, but I think the reality is that it *would* happen. Unintended consequences, and what not. A libertarian society would by its very nature put a cash value on liberty since it would inevitably be grounded on a much more strict interpretation of property rights – although it wouldn’t necessarily be a completely propertarian society – than today, and it would, by requiring that people pay for everything, place a preponderance of right in the hands of those who own more property.
So you have private courts, say, private law enforcement and private lawyers. What happens if you cannot afford to hire a lawyer? You cannot afford to pay for the policing you need? What happens if you’re arrested for something you didn’t do because somebody paid an enforcement agency to bring you in, and you can’t afford a lawyer to defend you, and you aren’t capable of defending yourself too well in court? You may well get jailed, or face a fine you cannot pay, for something you didn’t do. It’s already often enough the case that people who can afford the best lawyers get off with things, and a libertarian society would make that more, rather than less, likely.
Rights and liberties are meaningless if you are unable to assert them.
I’m not sure about that. Certainly the ability of the rich to get richer would be there, but I’m not at all sure the least well off would benefit.
If you have to pay for everything, including justice and law enforcement, then you really do depend utterly on having property or money. This inevitably leads to a greater degree of fear of the consequences of losing employment, and it is inevitable that employers will use such increased fear to worsen – i.e. cheapen for the employer – the conditions of employment. Yes, you can go and get another job somewhere else, but for the unskilled and unintelligent, sadly a large fraction of humanity, this is not always as easy as it sounds. Further, it is pretty much in the interests of all employers to reduce the cost of employment, and doing the opposite doesn’t necessarily confer an advantage. And yet further, the necessity of paying the full cost of education will inevitably mean that a larger fraction of the least well off will go without sufficient education to avoid that trap.
You’d create an underclass of minimally educated unskilled labour with few practical rights supporting a small class of very wealthy employers and landowners with simply oodles of rights, and that basically is a feudal system.
It’s hard to sue if you’re dead, though.
The problem with this system is that it is reactive rather than active. Yes, you can sue, or rather your surviving dependants can sue – if they can afford a lawyer and if they can pay the court costs if they happen to lose their case. What happens in practice is that abuses go uncorrected because people *cannot* assert their rights of redress because they cannot afford to or cannot afford the risk of failing.
Is it really such a big deal to avoid all of that by having a legally enforced system of quality requirements for drinking water? Is it really better to give Mrs Smith the solace of suing the company that killed her husband than it is to try and avoid Mr Smith getting killed in the first place? Aren’t you just putting a cash value on life as well as on liberty?
And just what do you think people are going to do with their new-found riches when they don’t have to pay tax any more? Are they going to dole the same money out to the less fortunate, or are they, in our materialistic world, going to toddle off to the nearest car showroom and get a better car? And given that in Libertaria money and property = liberty, aren’t they going to hang on to their money (or convert it to tangible property) rather than give it away?
Why is it that people used to fell they *should* give to charity? What moral imperative did they subscribe to, and do you think it’s still widely subscribed to?
Consider also that advances in technology and the complexity of society have also rendered things like healthcare and education *much* more expensive than in the days of charitable and private funding. ISTR that in the late 19th century Britons gave about 10% of their income to charity, and now it’s about 1%. Education now costs on the average (state or private, it’s about the same) about 20% of mean income. Healthcare costs about 10% of GDP, more even in the US. In the charitable age, healthcare was by today’s standards rudimentary in the extreme, and education for the average Joe was extremely basic – enough to create unskilled factory labour.
Society’s needs are simply not like that any more, and it is no longer possible to fund it entirely privately or charitably.
To an extent that’s true – over-generous welfare encourages irresponsible behaviour. That doesn’t mean, however, that all welfare is necessarily bad.
Another reason, in my view possibly more important, is the decline of widespread religious belief and its replacement by a secular materialism. Much of the impetus to charity is gone, replaced with selfishness. I think it quite likely that a more libertarian order would perhaps see a revival of at least outward religious observance as the churches became more important as a source of welfare, but although I have certain religious views I would not advocate libertarianism as the price of seeing them more widely held.
Sadly, “take all that you have and give it to the poor” is nowadays less appealing than “buy the new Blingmeister 5000 personal pleasure system.” What to do?
I don’t want that at all. However, it may well be that a (radically) more free society might be a more polite one, but it is also highly likely to be a more polarised one, less at ease with itself. I don’t think it’s a price worth paying, and going by the extreme lack of popularity of neo-Victorian libertarianism, neither do many other people.
EG
Man is lamentably prone to “sin” if you wish to use the term in this context, and as such is pretty much in need of some form of salvation.
It doesn’t need to be the state, nor for that matter does it need to be the market or the church or anything else. But it *does* need to be something, and that something does need to work. Libertarianism won’t cut it, and nobody wants it anyway.
EG
EG is on the thread. He’s being very EG and cleverl in his usual leftie kinda way – I haven’t read his posts, I just know. From his rarefied heights he clearly doesn’t give a monkey’s about a fridge being blown to kibbles and bits in South Manchester… For shame. He should get out and retire appliances. The thrill, the giggling, the “I love you, but…” from the woman in your life…
I betya EG was very earnest in the 80s and listened to U2 B-sides.
I prefer Bach.
EG
Oh you would, you so would. You well tempered klavier, you.
Bet you never blew a fridge up though?
Apart from its support for the credit bubble financial system (which one as to expect as so many major companies are connected to it), the greatest fault of the Economist is its support for “public services”.
Whatever place it is writing about (whether it is Brazil of Alberta – or whereever) there will nearly always be a plug for more money for state education and/or health care in the article somewhere.
Oh E.G. is back – as usual insisting on telling us all about libertarianism (a subject he knows nothing about).
It is a waste of effort but…..
Libertarianism is a political principle (the non aggression principle) holding that violence may only be used in the defence of the bodies or goods of agents (some pacifist libertarians would go further than that as say that violence should never be used – but I will not go into that here).
Libertarians are divided between anarchists (or anarchocapitalists) and mininal state (or minarchist) people.
Some libertarians base their political belief on an interpretation of natural law, and others on utilitarianism (and other libertarians have different political beliefs).
Some libertarians are religious and other are athiests.
Nearly all would hold that some bad actions exit that are not crimes (i.e. violations of the nonaggression principle – it is rather difficult for a libertarian to be a legal positivist, holding that a “crime” is whatever the state says it is, although a few libertarians do hold this position, they just hold “crimes” to be unimportant and use a different word for violations).
Whether one call some of noncriminal bad actions “sins” is a moot point. Some people hold that using the word “sin” implies a religious position.
However, as for libertarianism “not cutting it” – no political doctrine can either punish crimes OR improve the morals of people.
Human beings do such things – not political doctrines.
If a murderer needs to be hunted down it is a human being who will do the job – he may be a liberatarian, but it is not “libertarianism” or any other “ism” which is doing it.
As for improving the morals of people.
Well I do not have Gladstone’s exact words, but the gist went something like this.
“Of one thing I am certain, it is not from the state that we should look for moral enlightenment”.
Efforts by the state to make people better (to produce a moral society or whatever) are at best useless, and (far more often) undermine and corrupt people’s morals.
By the way, although I am (sadly) not a cultured man, I rather like Bach as well (I assume you mean J.S. – although the rest of the family also produced good music).
I assume that, as you a cultural conservative, you despise Mr Cameron (with his endless efforts to appear “cool”).
At least you have that much in common with other people on this site.
I must confess that my life is somewhat lacking in the refrigerator detonation department.
On the other hand, like so many masculine pursuits, this form of appliance destruction seems full of sound and fury, signifies nothing and is over in a matter of seconds. I suspect I’m not missing much.
EG
EG logorrhoea is with us once more. Geography precludes my access to the current Economist, so I am a little disadvantaged…………
However, I know intuitively what is right & what is wrong. I don’t need Big Brother’s direction.
My semisenile brain is telling me the word was “improvment” not “enlightenment”.
As usual I apologize for all my typing errors.
“But it you were really sorry you would check before you send.”
Good point.
Nothing wrong with Bach…….J.S. or K.P.E…..I just can’t get on with E.G.
Selbstdarsteller.
“…people tend not to make particularly smart choices, nor do they tend to act in their own best interests.”
If the individual cocks up tough but if our lords and marters cock up,just look at the almighty balls up NuLabor have made of the country. Examine their private lives,do you want these tossers doing the same with yours?
Libertarianism seems to be whatever the libertarian decides it is, something that can change repeatedly throughout a discourse as the libertarian realises his position on topic X has been demolished. It seems to strive to be all things to all men, and thus inevitably winds up being nothing to everyone.
Atheism seems somewhat more common in libertarianism than in, say, conservatism or liberalism. This may have something to do with an unconventional personal morality, which might well be an attracting factor for some libertarians, or it may be because some strands at least of libertarianism are somewhat Utopian and millenarian, or possibly because the concept of liberty taken to the extreme negates the concept of discipline and self-sacrifice found in most religions. I’m sure it’s quite possible to be a religious libertarian just as it is possible to be an atheist conservative – I don’t see any incompatibility, per se.
Sin is a religious concept. The word was used above in metaphor and thus should not be taken literally.
Indeed, but do bear in mind that Gladstone spoke in a very different time and culture. Something valid at one time is not necessarily valid 100 years later.
I don’t despise Cameron – I voted for him in the leadership election – although I do find his endless quest for coolness somewhat tacky.
EG
Saying that the average person makes very bad choices and needs to be controlled is not a very strong argument for giving him the right to vote to make choices for me.
– Josh
As pointed out above, one of the advantages of a democratic system of politics is that someone can subsequently be elected to reverse the cock-up. A cock-down party, perhaps?
EG
But giving him the right to vote choices for you also entails giving you the right to vote choices for him.
Given that some form of government, even if limited, is necessary, there must be some mechanism for ensuring insofar as practically possible and within reasonable bounds that the tenor of that government bears some passing resemblance to the desires of those choosing it. Allowing people to vote and on the basis of their votes selecting a government seems to be the least bad way yet discovered of doing that.
You cannot get perfection in this world, and it’s pointless to think you can. Equally, the false dilemma of bad government or no government needs to be neutered, not least because it implies that if you can’t get perfection you shouldn’t try at all, and that’s just silly.
EG
“As pointed out above, one of the advantages of a democratic system of politics is that someone can subsequently be elected to reverse the cock-up. A cock-down party, perhaps?
Wrong again Euan,the State cocks up on such a monumental scale that it becomes impossible to reform,NHS,education,transport,I could go on but it is Saturday night and I’ve just been paid,fool about my monet don’t try to save,my heart says go go have a time,cos it’s Saturday night and I feel fine.
EGregious
Euan, although your comments always concern the unpopularity or unfeasability of libertarianism you do nevertheless seem to share some political preference for greater liberty from the State. Yet how much of that preference you share is not clear. So, would you care to declare your preferences (briefly) regarding the following issues?
Income tax – low, high, flat or progressive?
A national ID database along with the ID card, or continuing with the status quo?
Legalisation and taxation of narcotics (including tobacco & alcohol) vs the criminalisation of narcotics?
Those three would probably be enough to get a better idea of where exactly you sit, politically.
A progressive system. Flat tax is unreasonable, and flat rate tax not much less so, since they put a disproportionate burden on those least able to bear it. Flat tax in particular is unpopular and always has been – remember Wat Tyler.
However, the issue today is not direct proportional income taxes but indirect taxes such as duties, VAT, etc., which again hurt most those least able to pay.
I don’t have a problem with a system of identity verification in principle, but I don’t think it is necessary or particularly advantageous to have a single centralised system for it and therefore I oppose the British government’s plan for this. I’m not paranoid about government, as many (especially American) libertarians seem to be, but again I do not see the need or advantage for a heavily centralised database in this regard.
Consider alcohol separately – I have no problem with legal and taxed alcohol. I think tobacco should be discouraged – I should say I am a smoker – and I do not agree with the legalisation of narcotics. The libertarian view of drug legalisation is understandable from a personal freedom point of view, but fails to take into account the externalities of drug use and more especially abuse. Although libertarians don’t seem to appreciate it frightfully well, there is a huge difference between the odd snort of coke in middle class drawing rooms and the pernicious effects of drug use on the addict class, and these adverse effects are not simply related to the price of the stuff or the fact that it is illegal.
I should say in general that a desire to have greater liberty from the unnecessary intrusion of the state in private life does not imply that one should favour the abolition of tax or the legalisation of drugs.
EG
Incorrect, but a common enough fallacious assumption.
It is not the case that reform is impossible, that the increase in state power or intrusion is irreversible. History shows repeatedly the ebb and flow of state intrusion in private and public life, the correction of errors, reform of unpopular measures and improvements in the general situation. This doesn’t mean that things inevitably improve, but equally it doesn’t show that they cannot improve.
EG
Flat-rate taxes, as opposed to poll taxes, are progressive – just not progressive enough for most people. Also, if a flat tax is combined with an Earned Income Tax Credit or rebate, your concerns presumably disappear.
But you are right that the biggest issue is indirect taxation.
Only by imposing a strain on the English language it was never intended to bear. They aren’t progressive – a progressive taxation system is one where the rate of taxations get progressively higher as income gets progressively higher.
The idea of some form of geometric rather than arithmetic progression of taxation in relation to increasing income is very old, and goes further back than Adam Smith and the Founding Fathers. The idea of flat rate taxation is something that appeals to people who attract higher rates, but not really to anyone else – and most people don’t attract higher rates of taxation. In order to get the same revenue, by virtue of the fact that most people don’t pay the higher rates, you’d have to *increase* the basic rate which in an unprogressive measure and frankly an unnecessary burden on the less well off.
You want less well off people to get richer. You won’t achieve that by increasing their burden of taxation. People who are already well off, or better off than average at least, don’t face the same day to day financial pressures and can more easily afford to pay higher rates. They also tend to be better educated and more capable of increasing their income by their own efforts.
No, because this is an unnecessary complication of the tax system – look at the current British system for a clear example of how it doesn’t work too well.
It’s much easier to have a simple system of progressive tax bands, starting at zero and working up to the most effective peak of about 35 to 40%. Do this over say three or four bands and don’t have allowances or tax breaks for anything (although personally I’d except marriage), and you have a simple, easy-to-calculate income tax system which requires minimum staff to administer and which anyone capable of operating a pocket calculator can work out for himself.
Because it’s simpler, you’d get greater compliance together with reduced cost and thus would likely increase state revenue, which means in turn you can decrease tax rates or, better yet, increase thresholds.
The issue is the overall burden of taxation in general in relation to income. Flat rate taxation would make this situation worse rather than better, and thus it isn’t a terribly good idea.
It’s worth noting that in Britain the emphasis is on indirect taxation and income tax rates are fairly low. In most the rest of Europe, income tax rates are rather higher but indirect taxation is lower, and thus arguably the least well off get a better deal.
EG
Peter,
I missed your post and so didn’t respond to it. However, there are a couple of issues that merit a reply:
It is unwise, to say the least, to assume that a sound basis for society, politics or economics can be arrived at through a process of deductive reasoning. This is a seductive error, but it is one that both Marxists and certain types of libertarian fall for over and again.
Logic is indispensable in mathematics and science, but it is not particularly useful for economics or politics. Indeed, much of the time of economic and political theorists seems to be taken up with trying to explain why reality doesn’t match their logically derived expectations.
Marxism, as you will be aware, also relies on logical analysis. NEVER trust a hippie, a church which is a limited liability corporation, or any ideology which says it can prove it is right.
The FSP is a hoot for the pragmatist. Why is it that radical individualists need a collective programme to make them happy? Why bother with a project – if you like it, move there and be done with it. Why do you need to wait for 19,999 others to reach the same decision?
It’s also seriously unimpressive. It’s taken 5 years to reach a third of the target and the takeup rate appears to be falling – nine months to go from 1000 to 5000, a year to get from 5000 to 6000, a year and a half to get to 7000. I suspect that, like all previous libertarian projects, it will end in fraud and embezzlement.
There are no libertarian societies, so it’s hard to say that. However, it can be said that we have had societies which have at least approached a libertarian order, most notably Victorian England and America. They were not pleasant places.
Unsurprising, and like quite a few libertarians. What is the appeal of libertarianism to the Marxist, or ex-Marxist? The same type of millenarian ideology, the same dogmatic insistence on the one logically proven true way of doing things? The same attraction of simple solutions to very complex problems? The thought that if one’s ideology is shown to be a crock, one must adopt the polar opposite since that must logically be not a crock?
EG
Euan writes that libertarianism changes its meaning depending on the tactical demands of debate – this is mistaken.
I have given Euan the defintion of libertarianism many times. Both political libertarianism (the nonaggression principle) and philosophical libertarianism (the belief in agency – “free will”). And pointed out that not all philosophical libertarians are political libertarians and that a few political libertarians are philosophical determinists (although I find the combination of political libertarianism and philosophical determinism deeply problematic).
I have also (again many times) explained the different ways that the nonaggreesion principle can be interpreted (whether in an anarchist or minarchist direction) and stated the different philosophical justifcations that various people have for being political libertarians (for example, some being a certain type of natural law supporters, others being utilitarians).
However, as this is a complex area I will have to accept that Euan is mistaken rather than simply telling lies in order to anger people.
The same does not hold true for Mr Cameron. A man who tells lies about very simple matters (for example, last week stating that most members of the U.K.I.P. were “mostly” “closet racists”).
Mr Cameron has still not apologised for his lie. And nor has Mr Francis Maude apologised for the lie of saying that U.K.I.P. wanted an “all white Britain”.
These are NOT complicated matters of political philosophy – they are simple matters of Mr Cameron and Mr Maude choosing to tell lies.
The latest smear was today in the Sunday Telegraph Matthew d’Ancona stated that the U.K.I.P. quoted Adolf Hitler on their website – but failed to point out that the website attacked Hitler (rather than supported him).
This deception is not confined to smearing the U.K.I.P. Last week the Spectator (which Mr d’Ancona edits) printed that Mr Cameron’s line about Mr Brown being a “analogue” person in a “digital age” was thought up by Mr M. Grove M.P.) it was, of course, used by G.W. Bush against Albert Gore in 2000.
Mr Cameron also has a record of deception. For example, when working for Mr Green of Carlton Television during the time when the shareholders were being looted to prop up “On Digital”, Mr Cameron said “we are not doing that, and if you print that we are I will have you sacked” to several financial journalists.
Mr Maude has a record of plotting and dishonesty that is well known in the political world – so perhaps it should come as no surprise that Mr Cameron supports him as Chairman of the party.
I am not a member of the U.K.I.P. I am a member of the Conservative party and have worked in support of it since 1979.
I do not blame Euan for voting for Mr Cameron – he did not know what Mr Cameron was like (indeed I am impressed by Euan’s honesty in stating that he voted for Mr Cameron).
Nor do I doubt that Euan will utterly condemn the policy of lies and smears followed by Mr Cameron and his supportes.
The sort of person I do blame is me.
People like me voted for Mr Davis (because we knew a few things about Mr Cameron – although not as much as I know now).
But what did we actually DO to prevent Mr Cameron getting elected?
In my case, virtually nothing. I sat there like a rabbit transfixed by the headlights of an oncomming car.
Euan writes that libertarianism changes its meaning depending on the tactical demands of debate – this is mistaken.
I have given Euan the defintion of libertarianism many times. Both political libertarianism (the nonaggression principle) and philosophical libertarianism (the belief in agency – “free will”). And pointed out that not all philosophical libertarians are political libertarians and that a few political libertarians are philosophical determinists (although I find the combination of political libertarianism and philosophical determinism deeply problematic).
I have also (again many times) explained the different ways that the nonaggreesion principle can be interpreted (whether in an anarchist or minarchist direction) and stated the different philosophical justifcations that various people have for being political libertarians (for example, some being a certain type of natural law supporters, others being utilitarians).
However, as this is a complex area I will have to accept that Euan is mistaken rather than simply telling lies in order to anger people.
The same does not hold true for Mr Cameron. A man who tells lies about very simple matters (for example, last week stating that most members of the U.K.I.P. were “mostly” “closet racists”).
Mr Cameron has still not apologised for his lie. And nor has Mr Francis Maude apologised for the lie of saying that U.K.I.P. wanted an “all white Britain”.
These are NOT complicated matters of political philosophy – they are simple matters of Mr Cameron and Mr Maude choosing to tell lies.
The latest smear was today in the Sunday Telegraph Matthew d’Ancona stated that the U.K.I.P. quoted Adolf Hitler on their website – but failed to point out that the website attacked Hitler (rather than supported him).
This deception is not confined to smearing the U.K.I.P. Last week the Spectator (which Mr d’Ancona edits) printed that Mr Cameron’s line about Mr Brown being a “analogue” person in a “digital age” was thought up by Mr M. Grove M.P.) it was, of course, used by G.W. Bush against Albert Gore in 2000.
Mr Cameron also has a record of deception. For example, when working for Mr Green of Carlton Television during the time when the shareholders were being looted to prop up “On Digital”, Mr Cameron said “we are not doing that, and if you print that we are I will have you sacked” to several financial journalists.
Mr Maude has a record of plotting and dishonesty that is well known in the political world – so perhaps it should come as no surprise that Mr Cameron supports him as Chairman of the party.
I am not a member of the U.K.I.P. I am a member of the Conservative party and have worked in support of it since 1979.
I do not blame Euan for voting for Mr Cameron – he did not know what Mr Cameron was like (indeed I am impressed by Euan’s honesty in stating that he voted for Mr Cameron).
Nor do I doubt that Euan will utterly condemn the policy of lies and smears followed by Mr Cameron and his supportes.
The sort of person I do blame is me.
People like me voted for Mr Davis (because we knew a few things about Mr Cameron – although not as much as I know now).
But what did we actually DO to prevent Mr Cameron getting elected?
In my case, virtually nothing. I sat there like a rabbit transfixed by the headlights of an oncomming car.
It seems that both efforts at writing a comment have gone on the system.
My ignorance of computers is clearly vast.
EG,
So how come, if it’s that unpopular, has flat tax been so successful in the Baltic states?
The whole point of flat tax is to encourage people to earn more and declare more of th9eir earnings. Round where I live you can get a terraced house for 60 grand and a lot of them have Mercs and BMWs parked outside that are worth 2/3 of that. I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that they weren’t paid for by taxed income.
Although libertarians don’t seem to appreciate it frightfully well, there is a huge difference between the odd snort of coke in middle class drawing rooms and the pernicious effects of drug use on the addict class, and these adverse effects are not simply related to the price of the stuff or the fact that it is illegal.
And now we see the beast’s true colours. Who has “drawing rooms” these days? So drugs are OK for the posh but not the “addict class”. Obviously the “middle-classes” are immune from drug-addiction.
the externalities of drug use are entirely down to the illegality. If supermarkets sold cocaine d’ya think Sainsburys would engage in drive-by shootings of Tesco? You have, I assume, heard of the nineteenth ammendment and the roaring success that was?
You voted for that chutney ferret Cameron. For shame!
And that wasn’t homophobic. I just think Cameron takes it up the council gritter in a way that isn’t sexual at all. The torys are so obsessed with T Blair that they’ve elected his glove puppet as leader.
But giving him the right to vote choices for you also entails giving you the right to vote choices for him.
But I dont WANT to make choices for him – that should be his business, not mine. This is exactly the patronising, meddling and sanctimonious basis for Socialism – the “we know better, so we give you a choice of only good§ things so we can do it for all.”
§ as we see it.
The “new” paternalism appeals to my view of humanity – people tend not to make particularly smart choices, nor do they tend to act in their own best interests.
Sometimes that is true, sometimes not. And in any event, if the great unwashed are so hopeless at making choices, what makes one think that politicians, bureaucrats and the special interest lobbies that try to boost the system are any smarter?
In any event, as the Economist article explains, one of the great costs of trying to guide we dumbasses into a utopia of health and happiness is that it treats people essentially as children, and by so doing, infantilises the public. The current trend of trying to remove all hazard and risk from life is having this impact now, I think, although these things cannot be measured in an exact way.
Actually, when I wrote this article, EG was exactly the person I had in mind: superficially persuasive, articulate, and so utterly, utterly wrong-headed. EG is like one of those earnest, public school educated colonial governors sent to lord it over a bunch of African tribesman in late Victorian times. Maybe Euan’s experiences in Africa and other parts of the world have led him to hold a rather low view of humanity, although, to his great credit, he has not a racist cell in his body.
“It is not the case that reform is impossible, that the increase in state power or intrusion is irreversible. History shows repeatedly the ebb and flow of state intrusion in private and public life, the correction of errors, reform of unpopular measures and improvements in the general situation. This doesn’t mean that things inevitably improve, but equally it doesn’t show that they cannot improve.”
Wrong again Euan
The state gets ever more intrusive and ever more incompetent.Ebb and flow,oh they might tinker at the edges but the main thrust is ever more control and bureaucracy,it is what politicians do.Now we have two sets of the buggers,one in Brussels and one in Whitehall sweeping up whatever subsidiary powers that are left.
That’s mistaken from the most fundamental assumption: how can you possibly determine their best interests if you can’t even determine from outside what’s good for them? “Good for” is only definable with reference to the individual’s goals and beliefs. Therefore, only the individual can determine their own best interests! That’s where “soft paternalism” falls down; it assumes everyone would welcome the paternalists’ choice.
Ron Brick: don’t be ahistorical. A great many past states have been far more intrusive than modern democracies. There is no ratchet in history, only the aggregate of individual choices.
“So how come, if it’s that unpopular, has flat tax been so successful in the Baltic states?”
Or Russia.
The flat tax is successful not because it is flat but because it is low – 10-20%. Lower than the lowest rate in other progressive tax countries.
What matters is not so much the system of taxation, but the overall burden of it.
But “unideological” people like EG want a progressive tax on principle – mind you – an “unideological” principle. As EG put it: “You want less well off people to get richer. “.
Well, I don’t want “less well off people” to get richer. That is – I don’t mind it, I would even encourage it if they work hard for it, but I don’t especially want them to get richer off me.
Of course, what the lefties want (again, “unideologically” – god forbid that they confess their ideology, the are always terribly impartial and unideological… ), what the lefties want is the rich to get poorer, not the poor to get richer…. the poor are getting richer in capitalist, low taxation societies, but that’s not good enough for the lefties, because the rich get richer too.
Jacob’s right, but it’s simpler to see from a mathematical perspective: since “flat broke” is always going to be the nadir of poverty, the only way to “reduce inequality” is to impoverish high-achievers.
Inequality is good. Only skewed inequality is bad, and the only way it can be skewed is by some sort of coercion. The proper way to fight skewed inequality is to find and root out the coercion – definitely not to impose more!
“The flat tax is successful not because it is flat but because it is low – 10-20%. Lower than the lowest rate in other progressive tax countries.”
Depending on the kind of country you are considering the tax being flat may matter as much. A single flat rate tax is a lot simpler to administer than even a two rate progression. If all wage income is consistently taxed at x% the state simply charges an employer x% of the wage bill, no matter how many employees there are and no matter who earns how much. So the more inept and corrupt the government’s bureaucracy, the greater the attraction of the flat tax, at least for the government. To the extent that less resources leak into a complex and expensive tax collection system this should make it popular with tax payers too.
“EG is like one of those earnest, public school educated colonial governors sent to lord it over a bunch of African tribesman in late Victorian times. Maybe Euan’s experiences in Africa and other parts of the world have led him to hold a rather low view of humanity, although, to his great credit, he has not a racist cell in his body.”
To his GREAT CREDIT? How so, Johnathan? Is it so easy to fall for bigoted reactionary pseudo-scientific flat-earth tosh which every truly *modern* person knows was ‘discredited’ decades ago?
Why, you’ve only to look at Africa then and now to appreciate how little difference there is between white colonial rule and black self-government. Onward and upward! Perhaps one day Zimbawean females’ life expectancy will reach 35 again.
? Is it so easy to fall for bigoted reactionary pseudo-scientific flat-earth tosh which every truly *modern* person knows was ‘discredited’ decades ago?
I rarely praise Euan Gray, but I take my hat off to the guy for how, several weeks ago, he tore your racist crap apart, even volunteering the information — which he probably knew might provoke an attack — that he had been married to a non-white. I will not lightly forget the attacks that ensued, probably the worst stuff I have ever read on this site and I hope not to see the likes of it again.
You have already been banned from this site, so I find it doubly appalling that you have ignored the request to leave us alone. Go away.
Of course under a flat rate system of income tax the rich pay far more than the poor.
Ten percent of one million Pounds is rather more than ten percent of ten thousand Pounds.
This is why the Isle of Man has put a limit of £100, 000 pounds on total income tax liability – otherwise a very wealthy person would pay vast sums to the government whilst not getting any more service from it (or rather, in reality, just not living in the Isle of Man – going to live in one of the many small nations that do not have an income tax).
When Ronald Reagan reduced the top rate of American income tax from (if my memory serves) 60% to (by the end of his time in office) 28% the amount of money paid by the wealthy went UP.
It went up not just in money terms – but as percentage of income tax paid.
Productive activity encouraged (instead of doing nothing or getting involved in complex tax avoidence “investments”) – the only losers were the tax lawyers.
However, government spending went up so much in the 1980’s (not just on defence – oddly enough farm subsidies went up faster, and [of course] the “entitlement programs” continued to grow like the cancers they are) that there was a deficit.
But (as I have shown) this deficit was nothing to do with “tax cuts for the rich”.
About the only good thing than George Walker Bush has done has cut some taxes – and again revenue has gone UP (although sadly President Bush’s record on government spending is the worst of any President since Richard Nixon).
In Britian the tax reduction of the top rate from 83% per cent (higher on “unearned income”) to 40% also produced a great increase in revenue – not just in money terms, but as a fraction of total income tax revenue.
Indeed the biggest argument AGAINST “flat taxes” is that they (within a few years) produce more revenue for government to waste.
From a moral point of view one might argue that it is not right for a rich man to pay many times more money than a poor man for the same (or less) service from government (going back to the point that 10% of, say, a million Pounds is a lot more than 10% of ten thousand pounds).
However, I doubt that Euan would care much about that.
I think he would care that “progressive” (i.e. graduated) income taxes are a wonderful way for tax laywers, politicians and others to make the tax system complicated (which is a cost in its self) and direct people’s efforts into unproductive tax avoidance behaviour – distracting them from productive behaviour.
On colonial government:
Ouch this is a complicated topic.
However, (without writing a book here) I think you will find that the way that man like Lugard ruled (in both East and West Africa) was wildly different from the way men like Sir Andrew Cohen ruled. Lugard and the old hands did not really rule at all – they left village disputes to the elders and left the chiefs on their sacred chairs. As long as mad tryants were not mudering thousands, men like Lugard did not see it as their place to mess with people.
It is true that the last generation of colonial governers set up many of the “planning boards” and “development plans” that post independence African governments so expaned (to the ruin of Africa).
But old hands like Lord Lugard were not like that. Things began to go rotten in Africa in the 1930’s (when modern types like Oliver Littleton began to gain control of the administration back in London).
Lugard’s main concern was with stamping out slavery, mass murder and human sacrifice. “Racist, racist” – well I am sorry but it just happens to be the truth. Luguard and men like him did not believe that Africans should be left at the mercy of tyrants, simply because these tryants happened to have the same colour skin as their victims. Although it is also true that the “old hands” (unlike French administrators or later British administrators) did not believe it was their job to turn Africans into copies of Europeans – to transform their beliefs and customs.
The only “customs” than men like Lugard wanted to crush were crimes (terrible crimes) – and they did (whilst they lived) and risked their lives doing it.
Before people scream “they just cared about the money” perhaps they should study the lives of men like Lugard (or Raffles a century before), you would see that things were a lot more complicated than that. For example, Lugard never got vast sums of money and he was that interested in money.
However, (to return to the fate of the Empire) in some areas of the Empire things never went rotten at all – for example Hong Kong.
A Scotsman saved Hong Kong from catching sickness of overgovernment – and yes the man did not hold with “progressive” income tax.
If I recall the really poor paid nothing and everyone else paid 15%.
Too low a percentage for the government to engage in grand schemes to transform humanity? Well better for that.
Many thinkers in history (a lot of them not libertarians) wanted to limit government to a flat rate ten percent tax (a tithe) with the really poor not paying anything.
No room for a vast government? Again, all the better for that.
As Couperthwaite (spelling alert) of Hong Kong back in the 1960’s said when asked about population stats “poulation figures, what would we want them for?”
I want to second Paul Mark’s comments about flat rates. I admit I have hardly read the rest of the thread, but EG’s taxation policy is pretty flimsy.
The advantage of the EITC or rebates is that they are often ‘cheaper’ than progressive tax bracketing, because low rates in the early brackets are benefits to everyone.
Consider A) progressive brackets and individual tax units as more or less now, and B) a flat 25% rate charged on individual units with family based rebate.
Consider i) single income family two kids, poor; ii) same family but rich, splitting income to all four members (ie benefiting from four series of progressions); same family, double-income two kids using a trust to dispense income in bottom-bracket amounts to all four earners; same family, double incomes, both below average; same family no incomes at all.
I am ideologically revulsed by the idea of taxation, but studying it has convinced me the present least-worst solution is to collect universally form individuals, and distribute then only to those whom you really want to distribute to.
The same logic can apply to a consumption tax – if you have eg 25% consumption tax, that taxes the rich like nothing else. If you couple it with a 25% of average household expenditure rebate to families on below-average earnings, or similar, then it becomes progressive.
It is worth bearing in mind that it is easier and simpler to give progressively than take progressively, because it is much less easily manipulated.
No, they aren’t. There are externalities resultant from the illegality, but there are others – unemployability and hence either a drain on welfare or property crime to feed the habit, even if drugs are cheaper because legal, for example, or increased waste of resources on healthcare, or degradation of public spaces. Holland largely decriminalised drug use in certain areas because of the idea that the externalities are solely due to illegality – they have since realised that this is not true, and are bit by bit reversing the decriminalisation for reasons like this.
Yes, because it is a reasonable and practical principle that provides economic stimulus by reducing the burden of tax on the poor and thus facilitating their desire to get richer, as well as producing a less divided society, and it has for a very long time been realised that this is the case. The alternatives put a larger burden of tax proportionately on the poor, and it’s not hard then to create a poverty trap. Over complex taxation and welfare systems, such as we have in Britain, produce similar effects.
Quite often you need money to make more money, for example to invest capital in starting your own business, and thus the poorest do need the taxation burden reduced otherwise they don’t have the capital and thus cannot invest and thus cannot so readily improve themselves by their own efforts.
Quite.
How so? If you levy 25% tax on goods, the goods cost the same cash sum whether you are rich or poor. However, if you are poor they are disproportionately expensive whereas if you are rich you may grumble but you can afford them easily enough. Indirect tax like this hurts the poor FAR more than the rich.
EG
Julian,
Never in history have there been the means of control that there are now in what are ostensibly democratic countries.Have you forgotten the ID card,that our nationalised health service can terminate our lives,that the Deputy Prime Minister wants to check if we have a nice view,that even in supposedly unenlightened times people could bear arms.
Have you forgotten what the thread is about?
Have you forgotten that laws can be repealed as well as made? Have you forgotten that 18th century England was a byword for corrupt and grasping government, that in the early 19th century people were ridden down by cavalry in their own town for having the temerity to disagree with state censorship?
And have you forgotten that in those unenlightened times people could indeed bear arms but that it made no difference whatsoever to the predations or lack thereof of the state? And indeed it still makes no difference in the armed United States?
EG
Actually, EG; you must have neglected to read on as far as the proposed rebate.
Also, income taxes can be avoided in a plethora of ways – but consumption can’t; and rich people consume vastly more than poor people. Which makes it relatively cheap to refund the poor people, whilst not missing out on a single cent of rich person tax – your ‘non-ideological’ self should recognise that the ideological impurities of this proposal are outweighed by its practical possibility.
Euan, you completely ignored the thrust of my post. You need to fix that. Otherwise, going by the standards you yourself laid out in your response, you lose the debate.
As far as I can tell, your political outlook is simply a belief, no different than any religion. If you disagree, then address the actual point of my post. If you agree, then what you say has no merit.
Everyone else — save your breath. The ball is in Euan’s court. The facts are on the table. If he can’t address those facts, what’s the point in arguing with him? An eloquent troll is still a troll.
Yes, because it is a reasonable and practical principle that provides economic stimulus by reducing the burden of tax on the poor and thus facilitating their desire to get richer, as well as producing a less divided society, and it has for a very long time been realised that this is the case.
You are making a lot of very contentious, question-begging points there, which could be easily taken apart, and have been.
The first point is that there is no objective rule by which one could decide how steep such a progressive tax code should be. What would be the upper bracket set at: 30 percent, 50, 90? And don’t come back with some nonsense about “pragmatism”, Euan: that does not wash.
As far as I can tell, if we want to tax fairly (assuming we have to tax at all), is to tax all folk at the same percentage rate, with tax not kicking in until a fairly high threshold, to protect the poor.
The purpose of tax is not to generate a supposedly more “equal society” or some other collective goal, but to raise revenue as efficiently as possible while doing the least to interfere with the plans and ambitions of the public.
In any event, practical experience with progressive tax codes suggests they often foster a climate of tax avoidance, encourage a mass of economically pointless tax “planning”, blunt incentives and so forth.
It is not a competition seeking a winner and a loser, it is an exchange of ideas. I am not interested in participating in logic-swapping exercises about whose thesis is the true one – I leave that to the ideologues and dogmatists.
Furthemore, you are incorrect in stating that we can know something is true by either deductive or inductive reasoning. We can also perform empirical observation:
There’s an old story of a man coming across two philosophers who were arguing about how many teeth a horse has. They could not agree, and asked him to judge their arguments. He heard them both and agreed they were both good arguments, but he’d have to go away and think about it. Shortly thereafter, he returned and told one of the philosophers he was right and the other wrong. When they asked him how he had reached this conclusion, he told them he found a horse and counted its teeth.
It does not matter a damn how good your argument is, how impeccable your logic or how much rigour there is in your analysis, because it is all worthless if it does not match reality. Don’t rely on logic unless you’re a mathematician.
EG
Johnathan,
The purpose of tax is not to generate a supposedly more “equal society”
You completely missunderstand EG (representing a typical-middle-of-the-road man). His “non-ideology” is explicitly this:
1. The purpose of the tax code is definitely to generate a (more) equal society.
2. The fastest and surest way of acheiving this is to tax the rich, tax their richess away, make them poor like everybody. Thus is social justice served.
(It is by far easier and faster to make the rich poor that vice versa)
3. Justice is thus served also in another way – as it is evident that the rich got rich by exploiting the poor; the riches belong to society.
As I said before – they don’t care so much about the poor, it is the rich that bug them. It is convenient to mask rich-bashing as poor-caring.
Ain’t it so EG ?
No.
EG
Generally you wouldn’t want it too steep because there is then little incentive to improve. Indeed there is no objective rule, but in politics, economics and social questions there rarely is such an objective rule. Dogmatists, and ex-Marxists, could benefit from understanding that. I see why it would be desirable to have a set of proven rules, but unfortunately reality often has the lack of decency not to comply with theoretical assumptions and is generally considerably more messy than these assumptions expect. This is why simplistic solutions don’t often work.
In most cases, it’s pointless having a peak marginal rate above about 35 to 40% since avoidance becomes worthwhile and revenue reduces. The actual rate for maximum state income will vary from country to country and across time, since it will depend on many factors such as the ease of, penalties for and rewards in avoidance schemes, pricing of basic goods and services in relation to incomes, and so on. Again, no objective rule.
But taxing at the same rate doesn’t help the poor because the burden upon them is disproportionately high. A way around that is to reduce state expenditure so far that the thresholds can be raised by very significant amounts, but quite frankly that’s not going to happen in a modern economy. We aren’t any longer in a basic agrarian society and the economic assumptions that worked then simply don’t hold any more – significant state expenditure is pretty much inevitable, although I do agree it could be somewhat lower than it currently is.
Another way is to focus more on consumption taxes, but the problem with that is that the item taxed costs the same whether you’re rich or poor, and if you’re poor it is disproportionately expensive. That’s fine if it’s a tax on expensive luxuries, but not if it’s on food or transport.
The trick is to ensure a balance between the mitigation of the adverse effects of an excessive inequality in income on the one hand, and on the other maintaining the incentive to improve oneself. Having a progressive taxation system does not prevent people becoming rich, provided the rates are reasonable, but it does ensure that the money is available to prevent people sinking irretrievably into abject poverty. Essentially, the bargain is that you have the liberty to become wealthy but you need to pay a contribution towards those who cannot, and you have the liberty to become poor but you won’t be allowed to starve.
People must be allowed to become wealthier, and the necessary concomitant of that is that they must be allowed to fail and become poor. Thus is the impetus to improvement preserved. It is not reasonable, however, to say if you lose, that’s tough and you’ll just have to starve if you weren’t good enough. The price for this is that the better off pay a little more, but not to the extent incentives are elminated.
It also needs to be remembered that in *any* society you will only ever have a small number of people who become (legitimately) very wealthy. You will always have people who cannot make themselves better off, either through their own fecklessness or bad luck or simply inability. It is absurd to assume that anyone and every can, if they so wish, make themselves rich – it just doesn’t work like that. It is generally accepted that membership of society confers the protection of the ability to improve yourself but exacts the obligation to support those who cannot.
And charity ain’t enough to cover this, so you have a more or less progressive system of taxation.
This happens when marginal rates are excessively high and/or where the taxation system is overly complex. A simple progressive system with reasonable marginal rates doesn’t have these effects, and this is one of the reasons why you’d generally want to cap the top rate at about 40%.
EG
EG
Every statement you make states explicitly your ideology – a well established one, though not shared by all…
For example:
“In most cases, it’s pointless having a peak marginal rate above about 35 to 40% since avoidance becomes worthwhile and revenue reduces. The actual rate for maximum state income will vary from country to country …”
Here you stated clearly that you don’t beleive in any property rights, that everything belongs to the state and is it’s for taking, and that the only proper consideration for a tax code is to maximize the state’s income.
You gracefully concede that you have to give the rascals some rope, so, in their endeavour to enrich themselves, they will generate the maximum of income for the state.
We call this ideology Statism.
No, I stated:
1. Taxation is not theft
2. Property is an invention of society and has no meaning outside society, therefore society may be considered competent to define its disposal just as it defines its existence; more particularly, it is the product of property and not property per se that is more rightfully belonging to the person
3. Whatever amount of money the state wants to raise from tax, 35-40% is the highest level it should set as a marginal income tax rate – but it could as easily set a lower rate if it didn’t need as much money; there is no reason for the state to maximise tax revenue for the sake of it and this is economically inefficient
Bully for you. I call it the way the world works.
EG
EG,
Let’s see. The state can take whatever it wants because “society” makes certain definitions about property, and it can pretty much tell you what to do “because there always have been pressures to do so”.
Nice.
You pretty much gave licence to every tin-horn dictator that was the supposed mouthpiece for the people. Castro would love your ass.
You lost any credibility a few years back when you said “well, the government just won’t make good on their promises” in response to the vast accrual debts Western countries have made for themselves. I’ve pretty much ignored you since. But this nonsense is too much to bear (and likely your in a mood to cross swords, hence the bait).
Do I accept that reality has been a certain way throughout history? Certainly. The mass seems to need superstitions to make sense of their world. The eras that were dominated by the Church, which was, for practical purposes, was the State, are seen as the lowest of mankind. Most people have an apparent need for something otherworldly and removed from themselve, a security blanket, to make themselves feel better. More power to them. It’s when they are so enamored of their fictions that they foist them on other people that problems result.
And it is revealing that you can only think in terms of the secular State and the religious alternative, and point at us as if we’re the ones being inconsistent. Your whole frame of reference is Statist, and all your arguments end up being circular, until, that is, the State doesn’t do what it said it was going to do and gives itself a free pass. That’s about the only facet of your position that doesn’t need a circular precedent, just an apathetic shrug of the shoulders.
Most people seem to think that a minarchic, libertarian society will usher in the dystopian future. And yet we’ve got more laws (here in the US, anyway) than any other “society” in the history of the world, a Federal goverment that has a budget greater than 3/4 of the rest world’s GNP’s, respective, it has an accrual debt of $45 trillion, and the incredibly poor economic behaviors by those who think they’re actually going to have those promises met. As the days go by, a world defined by “that which isn’t forbidden is mandatory” is coming about, and will continue to do so as it endeavors to make “good” on its promises, primarily dictating what you can eat and rationing health care.
The reality of all the forms of Statism we’ve ever had is how to the elite can deal with the rabble masses. Lead them on with fictions, they’ll love you for it, and try not to abuse the privilege too much as they’ll come with pitchforks soon enough and replace you with another all knowing prophet. Perhaps Jefferson had it the most correct in that revolution is inevitable. ALL institutions rise and fall eventually, every conglomeration of people will fail, and new ones born. There is no disputing that humans want to associate with each other. The failure comes when one brand of fiction becomes too outmoded, but has the majority of the guns, that bloody revolution starts. In other words, associations, and the rationale that predicate them, should be maximally free and open, allowing for relatively painless enterance and exit. Perhaps it’s understanding that that makes a libertarian a libertarian. Too much Force laying about being used to tell people how much fat they can eat is a marker that it is high time for a revolution.
But then again War was never waged based on the bleak treasuries of “the people”, so I guess revolution isn’t based on a lack of freedom, either.
And, yes, I know this will only generate more circular arguments, more of the same, but oh well. It’s a free country. For now anyway.
Hmm, lots of fascinating points there, and this is probably not the time to post yet another lengthy screed.
I’m trying to set up a blog of my own now and will post something there. I’m not sure if it’s in order to explicitly show a link to one’s own blog in the text of a comment, so it’s in the URL box and should be available at the bottom.
EG
EG,
“Property is an invention of society and has no meaning outside society…”
No.
Property is what one produces. It is the tangible goods that one has produced and not yet consumed.
Society can rob that property, but cannot produce it. Society can also encourage individuals to produce more, and the way to do it is to protect property.
Property is something that is far more organically tied to individuals than to societies. Conceptually it precedes society.
There is a second kind of property – natural resources (land, minerals) – here society has a greater say in their distribution. But natural resources need to be converted into tangible, useful goods, and only individuals can do that. So, here too, the best way for society to manage natural resources is to establish property rights for them and firmly protect them.
“I call it the way the world works.”
There no such thing “the way the world works.” (At least as far as social organization is concerned).
Different societies work in different ways. Some protect property to a greater degree, while others (communist societies) don’t protect property at all, but confiscate it (“nationalize” it).
We are debating which of the different “ways the world works” is best. We are debating how to modify “the way the world works” here and now, how to improve it.
You seem to beleive that the best way is for society (as embodied by some individuals) to take 40% of what people produce, and protect the other 60% .
Well, your’e entitled to your beliefs as much as the next guy.
No, it doesn’t. Society is not something that formed ab initio when individuals decided to stop being individuals and started to band together. Man is a social animal, which is to say he lives naturally in groups, just as lions do but tigers don’t, and he evolved this way. In no sense can you say that the concept of property pre-dates human social organisation. Society – the nature of humans to live in groups – long pre-dates the concept of property. It also pre-dates language, tool use, and just about any other human attribute.
rty
Well, there is property and there is the product of property. Land is property, processed minerals are the product of property.
I think there’s something to be said for the idea that the product of property is more yours than the property. For example, if you own 10,000 acres of land but do absolutely nothing with it – no farming, no houses, you just own it and leave it alone – should you have the same right over that property than if you used it for farming, housing, industry, or some such? And if so, why?
And don’t you think you can extend from that to questioning somewhat the merit of other forms of idle property, especially in large quantities?
Or several individuals working collectively, of course, such as a company. I don’t think there are very many individuals who own a mine, dig their own ore, smelt it and make it into steel all on their own. Such things on any but the tiniest scale are group ventures.
No, I don’t. I think it sensible to accept that the price of society is the ceding of some personal sovereignty to that society in return for the benefits one cannot attain individually. It doesn’t have to be 40%, or 10% or 1% – just whatever works for the society in question. There is no one “right” way of doing it.
EG
“…just whatever works for the society in question.”
How do you determine that ?
There is the status quo – what we have now – it might be working more or less, but surely you can’t argue that this is the best state possible or the optimal one.
We are looking for ways to improve, to change “what works now”. As conservatives we should avoid radical and abrupt changes in favor of gradual and moderate ones, but we need improvements.
How do you know what improvements to seek and in which direction to seek them? How do you know that your proposed (not yet implemented) improvements will work? You need some theoretical principles to guide you. For instance – in our case: do we need to increase taxes or lower them ? Make them more flat or more progressive ? You can’t decide those issues without reference to some philosophical framework.
Whichever way your decision falls – some philosophy is implied in it, even if you deny that.
Trial and error? Democratic choice?
Perhaps so, but what you *don’t* need is some logically “proven” ideology that just knows it is the One True Way. What is “right” for a society may simply be what that society decides it wants, and it may not be the case that just because something works in a certain way in theory then it is necessarily the “right” way to do things.
And the same “right” things don’t apply in every society, as should be abundantly clear from the most casual glance around the world.
Well, yes, you can. You consider what effects flattening or otherwise the profile of tax rates, or adjusting the rates themselves, or both, has, and consider how far this addresses the problem you have to solve. For instance, if you wish to reduce the unfunded debt, you can either repudiate the debt or you can fund it, or you can do some of both. Each has its implications both good and bad, and each possible remedy has the same. You need to make a judgement on which blend of solutions provides the least painful answer to the problem. If you repudiate it, you screw up a lot of people’s lives. If you fund it, you increase the tax burden on a lot of other (and some the same) people. If you do something in between, you get a bit of both but that might be better.
What will absolutely not help you is an ideological assumption that taxation is theft. Quite apart from anything else, nobody will take you seriously if you use that kind of bombastic language, or indeed if you have that kind of absolutist view of the problem. This is quite probably one of the reasons why libertarianism is a micro-fringe philosophy and looks set to remain so.
EG
What will absolutely not help you is an ideological assumption that taxation is theft. Quite apart from anything else, nobody will take you seriously if you use that kind of bombastic language, or indeed if you have that kind of absolutist view of the problem. This is quite probably one of the reasons why libertarianism is a micro-fringe philosophy and looks set to remain so.
Euan, I would not dismiss the power of certain slogans, even if you, a self-confessed paternalist and supporter of Big Government, finds them to be bombastic. Slogans have their uses in conveying, very fast, important ideas.
Taxation is Theft is the title of a Libertarian Alliance pamphlet written by the great, late Chris R. Tame and has been one of the best known publications of that organisation. It has influenced thousands of people, including policymakers in parts of Eastern Europe.
So sadly for you, these bombastic messages can have an impact.
If you read the preamble to the U.S. Declaration of Independence, it is full of “bombastic” stuff about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. How naive of Jefferson and Madison et al to write such nonsense. If only they had written something more pragmatic and grownup instead.
Sigh.
***No, it doesn’t. Society is not something that formed ab initio when individuals decided to stop being individuals and started to band together. Man is a social animal, which is to say he lives naturally in groups, just as lions do but tigers don’t, and he evolved this way. In no sense can you say that the concept of property pre-dates human social organisation. Society – the nature of humans to live in groups – long pre-dates the concept of property. It also pre-dates language, tool use, and just about any other human attribute.***
And those “societies” typically have a dictator of sorts, the Alpha male who lords it over the rest by brute force and intimidation. A great model to go by. Once again the Castros and Hitlers of the world love you.
Or, in nature, there are creatures who live in hives, should we model ourselves after such instead? Blindly obedient drones and a queen that is pretty much a prisoner waited on hand and foot.
You always go on about man’s desire to interrelate, no one contradicts you there, IT IS THE FACT THAT MAN BREAKS FREE AGAIN that you seem to lose focus. THAT is what markets allow, the free coming into and exiting from association, not some centralized dictator ruling by fear and brute force. The market IS a social function.
Well, as time passed things did become more pragmatic, didn’t they? Such is life.
False dilemma. The choice is not between markets for everything or dictatorship.
EG
Banned. Spare us the pseudo-science and just stick to your own Nazi site
Well, as time passed things did become more pragmatic, didn’t they? Such is life
What, you mean the over-rated and largely useless New Deal, prohibition, the Civil War, the creation of the FBI, to name a few assaults on the Constitution. Ah, all that naive nonsense about rights: I can just see you regarding that as so much tosh from guys in whigs!
Euan, do you have any guiding philosophy at all? Because all you come out with is a sort of “what works” utilitarianism, which ultimately leads to nihilism. And yet you often defend things like egalitarian tax policies — as on this thread — which suggests you do have some sort of yardstick for judging policies, and yet at the same time you denounce the likes of us for being ideologues. But as other commenters have pointed out, your “pragmatism” is just as ideological as that of any fired up libertarian like me. I am just honest about it.
Give me liberty or give me chocolate fudge cake!
Society – the nature of humans to live in groups – long pre-dates the concept of property. It also pre-dates language, tool use, and just about any other human attribute
When humans were closer to apes, that might be true, but of course it is impossible to know at exactly what point we became in sense recognisably human. Arguably, that point coincided with some very crude idea of “mine and thine”: the idea that we are separate beings able to trade things and exchange stuff, like axe heads or meat.
In other words, property and some idea of ownership, however, basic, has probably been around for as long as human civilisation has existed.
Johnathan, you’re surely far too bright to fall for the literalist constitutional fetishism Jefferson warned against when discussing the reform of the constitution of Virginia:
“Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment”
Jefferson also favoured progressive taxation, by the way.
Things change, and there can be no justification for the notion that the constitution was intended as some sort of eternal and unchanging document. Even the people who signed it knew that. It’s somewhat daft to assume 200 years later we have a better understanding of the intent of the people who signed it than they did themselves, especially when they warned us against such idiocy.
As I read somewhere on the web once, we no longer use 18th century medical techniques so why should we insist on confining ourselves to 18th century philosphical ideas, *especially* when our society and therefore its needs has changed out of all recognition in the intervening period.
Yes, but it’s complex and resistant to summing up in a few handy slogans. Since I appear to have achieved blogdom, I will at some point when I have the time write about it.
Humans *are* apes. That apart, it is impossible for something to pre-date another thing at one point in time, but not to pre-date it at a different point in time. Either it does or it doesn’t. Given that man was a social animal long before the rise of language or tool use, it’s a no-brainer that he was a social animal long before he developed a concept of property.
Civilisation and society are not the same things, so that’s an entirely different question.
Taxation is also pretty much as old as settled civilisation, but I don’t imagine you’d say that justifies it – although you seem to say it does justify property. Not sure you can have it both ways, though.
But, while we’re on the subject, we might recall that another Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin, was of the very clean opinion that private property is the creation of society, and therefore that society has the right to decide the disposal of property beyond that necessary for survival.
John Jay I quoted on another thread as saying that nothing was so certain as the necessity of government. He added that it was necessary for the people to cede to government some of their rights, since it is impossible for government to function otherwise.
EG
“he tore your racist crap apart, even volunteering the information — which he probably knew might provoke an attack — that he had been married to a non-white. I will not lightly forget the attacks that ensued, probably the worst stuff I have ever read on this site and I hope not to see the likes of it again.”
No attacks from me, Johnathan.
Mr Gray did not attempt to refute my presentation of current scientific findings about the reality and intractability of subspeciation in the bodies and brains of homo sapiens. Neither have you. Ranting and raving to show what good people you are isn’t going to stop the march of discovery, or its application to social policy. We realists are following where Darwin led, and it isn’t backward in Hume’s direction.
Matt, if I recall, Mr Gray did pretty much take apart your contentions that there are significant and meaningful differences between racial groups. I distinctly recall that you tried to enlist Gray’s support for your so-called genetic realism, only — in a delicious moment — for EG to push you aside. I thought that was rather funny. He made a particularly good crack about the Bulldog.
No, you did not directly attack folk for marrying a non-white (some other moron did) but let me ask you this: if you really do believe in the racial stuff you go on about, do you think the State should ban or limit things like intermarriage and so forth? Because that is what a lot of white supremacists do think.
Things change, and there can be no justification for the notion that the constitution was intended as some sort of eternal and unchanging document
Indeed, and having read the Federalist Papers and much else, I verry much doubt that Madison and Co intended to freeze any or all future changes, only that such changes should occur very slowly, be undertaken with great care, and not destroy the original spirit and intention of the Constitution. One does not have to be a rigid originalist to argue that many of the things I mentioned have had that effect, such as the present Patriot Act, which violates at least three Amendments to the Constitution, such as on search as seizure.
But back to my earlier point about “bombastic” slogans. They have a certain value in planting the seeds of key ideas in people’s heads. When a libertarian says “taxation is theft” or that “man is a self-owner”, one can of course pick over the details, but it does get a key idea across, such as tax is a necessary evil but still, however necessary, an evil. And so on.
So don’t dismiss slogans. History is full of very important ones.
But what is the original intent? The constitution must be interpreted, and this interpretation will naturally change over time as society changes, our understanding of society changes, and our view of the needs of society changes.
It’s a real stretch to say the original intent of the constitution was anything more that an attempt to provide for a peaceful and reasonably consensual system of government, in contrast to the monarchical absolutism that preceded it. The fine detail beyond that will inevitably change over time.
Which ones and why?
EG
EG, the Patriot Act violates the First, Fourth and Fifth. For instance, it weakens protections against searches and seizures without a proper warrant, to name just one; it also weakens contraints on self-incrimination, and so on.
But what is the original intent? The constitution must be interpreted, and this interpretation will naturally change over time as society changes, our understanding of society changes, and our view of the needs of society changes.
Question-begging terms. The Constitution is mainly about constraining the powers of the state at all levels. It is not just an empty form of words. By any objective standard, it is possible to say that a country is moving away or towards the values of such a document. For instance, slavery was clearly inconsistent with the Constitution, and that inconsistency had to go.
The Constitution did not ban some increases in state power, but was designed to hobble such changes as much as possible. For good reason.
Anyway, I am done with this thread. What is your blog going to be called and when does it go live?
Euan, I should also wish you good luck. Blogging is addictive, although I am going to take a break from putting main posts up for a few weeks. I have felt that someone like you should have a blog, since many of your comments are rather on the long side. We’ll link to you – promise!
Deleted. Banned. Offensive. Nazi raus
Naturally, I just had to pick “The Arch Pragmatist” as the blog title. It’s set up here, at least in a preliminary form, but I need to find the time to actually write for it. Easier said than done – it’s one thing to respond to posts, another to start them.
Frankly I don’t know if I’ll have that much time, so it may be short-lived. With luck it will soon look a little better, too.
EG
But what is the original intent?
To ensure that individuals can enjoy their inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I think that the preamble to the Constitution was possibly the clearest statement possible.
The problem with the Founders, of course, is that some of them were hypocrites (several kept slaves).
BTW, this I strongly recommend, by Randy Barnett(Link), one of the smartest, and nicest, scholars around.
No, you did not directly attack folk for marrying a non-white (some other moron did) but let me ask you this: if you really do believe in the racial stuff you go on about, do you think the State should ban or limit things like intermarriage and so forth?
No, I don’t. Such prohibitions do more harm than good.
Guilt by association is awfully tedious, you know. It’s as if I were to keep accusing libertarians of being promiscuous, money-mad heroin users.
Because that is what a lot of white supremacists do think.
I’ll take your word for that, never having met one. I recognise human biodiversity, which automatically excludes the possibility of one mammalian subspecies being ‘supreme’– if it were, it would have eliminated the other subspecies by now. I have no political affiliations or interests at all, and I do not think that understanding human nature in its varieties necessarily leads to any such course, though it supplies a missing ingredient in our efforts to understand why the best laid schemes gang aft agley.
That was why I began to hang around here, because (like Euan Gray) I was amused by your mounting fury and bafflement at why the world was failing to wag the way you wanted. I hoped to offer some clues based on the best understanding of biologists, geneticists, anthropologists and psychologists about what makes modern humans tick. I’m doing you a favour: if you shut your eyes and ears to these discoveries, you will look terribly silly in a few years.
I distinctly recall that you tried to enlist Gray’s support for your so-called genetic realism, only — in a delicious moment — for EG to push you aside.
That does not constitute a refutation. IIRC, I said that Mr Gray’s incessant correction of your loopier pipedreams appealed to a concept of human nature as more fixed and tribal than you cared to admit. Mr Gray may not agree with me about how that nature’s formation varies according to where and how one’s ancestors lived; but that is a detail compared with the central disagreement between blank-slaters and hereditarians– in which, malgre soi perhaps, Mr Gray finds himself in the latter camp.
Part of your perpetual puppyishness consists in seeing these discussions as battles in which one combatant can unilaterally declare ‘victory’. I do not come here for that.
Matt, it is a bit late in the day for you to portray yourself as some sort of high-minded teacher of us “puppyish” types when you have, from day one, insulted various main posters here, constantly mocked us for the supposed pointlessness of our views, hinted darkly at how genetics renders our views irrelevant, and so on.
This is the problem I have with nearly all so-called race realists (some might actually have intelligent things to say). Nearly all of you guys never actually spell out, in full, the implications of what you say, but tend to hint at it, usually making all manner of comments about our supposed belief in a “blank slate”, our naive faith in free will, etc. No wonder we twitch our noses in distaste when you show up, as you did, for example, on a post Dale wrote about space flight. How on earth can we assume you are some noble seeker for truth? You have done nothing to make us think so just yet.
How exactly are our views on the case for a liberal society made irrelevant by genetics, anyway? Give me some concrete examples. Then I might even debate you properly.
Banned. Spare us the pseudo-science and just stick to your own Nazi site
I’ve had cause to object to your using my name in connection, however indirect, with your squalid theories, and it seems I must do it again. Kindly stop it – I do not share your opinion on this matter and I do not appreciate you trying to give the impression that I do.
Man’s nature is more fixed than assumed by those who subscribe to the tabula rasa view of humanity. Man’s culture is tribal, but then man is a social animal and all social animals have powerful tribal (i.e. collective) instincts as well as individual ones. However, there are two points here – firstly, not all libertarians accept the tabula rasa view and I think I’m correcting in stating that Johnathan does not accept it; and secondly, differences between human cultures (or tribes, if you like) have nothing to do with genetics.
I assume you subscribe to the view that “you can take the boy out of Africa, but you cannot take Africa out of the boy” or something similar? You should then consider the different fates of black Americans who remain in a largely black urban subculture and those who assimilate into mainstream culture. Consider people like Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell. This is a cultural question, and for sure cultures differ widely, but culture is shaped by environment and not by genetics.
EG
EG,
“…society has the right to decide the disposal of property beyond that necessary for survival.”
Isn’t that a statement of ideology ? What kind of pragmatist are you ? Speaking of “rights” ? Shame on you.
(I know you only quoted B. Franklin, but quoted approvingly).
By the way: to conform to “the way things are” that statement should read: “”…society has the power to decide the disposal of property…”
Such prohibitions do more harm than good, writes Matt, arguing that he is not in favour of banning mixed marriages. Hardly an emphatic no, is it? You seem to be saying that bans on mixed marriages are unwise rather than immoral.
Euan, excellent points all. On this “blank slate” business that O’Halloran gets so excited about, I don’t think any major modern libertarian thinker actually believes that Man comes into the world a complete blank. Nor do I deny things like heritage, the influence of genes, and so on. I just don’t think that it is the whole picture. Even Ayn Rand, who regarded man as a rational animal (in the tradition of Aristotle), accepted that humans differ somewhat in their capacity for reasoning, but believed that pretty much all humans could reason, make choices, etc, (with the obvious exceptions of little children, the mentally disabled).
Yes, it is very annoying when a racist keeps trying to pray one in aid for their views. O’Halloran sounds a bit desperate to find allies for his views. How lame.
I should also add that the oft-repeated claim by Mr O’Halloran that we are prisoners of our genetic makeup sounds rather like those Marxists who argue that we are prisoners of economic class. To acknowledge the reality of genetics, or indeed economics and the weather, is not the same as saying we are prisoners of such things. You come across as a determinist Matt, and a fairly rigid one.
It does not require much imagination or study of history to realise how this way of thinking can undermine any idea of there being an objective morality. If free will and volition are illusions, why hold people responsible for their actions if they are puppets on genetic string? For instance, if a murderer kills someone and claims he was forced to act by his “genes”, it is rightfully given short shrift in the courts.
I should add that O’Halloran is now banned from this site.