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Samizdata quote of the day Poverty is a solved problem – all they have to do is abolish taxes and regulations which cripple those intelligent, capable, and responsible men and women and destroy their productive capacity, then stand back and watch the economy boom.
– L. Neil Smith
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I’m afraid I have to disagree. The market clearing wage for some people is negative. True, the welfare state and employment protection laws exaggerate the number of people who have negative value in the labour market, by encouraging sloth, inflexibility and bolshiness, but sadly there are still plenty of people who are unemployable (at a profit to the employer.)
Hence the solution of poverty requires not just low taxes, light regulation and a booming economy. It also requires charity. (Which is of course by no means inconsistent with low taxes, light regulation etc.)
The wording in the quote seems ambiguous. Does he mean repeal ONLY those laws and regulations which have a bad effect on poverty, or does he mean repeal ALL laws and regulations, because they ALL have an effect on poverty?
I think this is a quote from “The probability broach”, and that describes a parallel-world USA which got rid of most governments and laws, though there is still a President, and a Congress of sorts. (I still think he could have had a snappier title- perhaps “The world that Killed Washington.”, because one of the differences between our versions of History is supposed to be that Washington is killed in a duel, and never has a Capital named after him, because of his support of taxation.)
So he probably means ALL laws should go.
Quite a lot depends on how one defines poverty. Some definitions make it insoluble
The trouble with egalitarianism is that politicians move the boundaries to get elected.
It has to be remembered that politicians can’t get a job elsewhere so they go into politics so we’re governed by the incompetent.
I fantastic example of the danger of mixing up “which” and “that,” and the value of punctuation. Assume that he meant to leave out the comma but also meant to use “that” and it means one thing; assume that he merely left out the comma and it means something quite different. Someone needs to re-read Elements of Style!
(It’s a good quote regardless of the interpretation, though. Just needs an editor.)
Sorry, “_A_ fantastic example.”
There’s an old saying about advertising:
“half of all the money spent on advertising is a waste – but which half?”
I feel the same way about taxes and regulations. Some laws are necessary for good order, health and safety and some taxes are necessary to support enforcement. But which ones really don’t harm enterprise? Or me?
Everybody’s sure they know, and everybody knows different.
For God’s sake don’t read Elements of Style. It will damage your writing. Yes, the absence of a comma is important, so important that I think we can assume he meant to leave it out, and so refer only to those laws and taxes which…
There is, indeed, a lot of truth in what he says.
We are now crippled almost to the point of non-viability by interventionism.
Do we need some regulation of productive effort? And do we need taxes?
It would seem the world would be far better off without them.
Or would human nature have run riot and we all have beaten each other to death?
I heard a psychologist say that the basic problem of the human race is the desire to tell (or otherwise influence) other people what to do.
Smith believes in law – laws derived from the nonaggression principle of to each there own (the traditional view of “justice” – the sworn enemy of “social justice”).
See (for example) Bastiat’s “The Law”.
As for what would happen if the Welfare State was ablished over night….
Well it is hard to see how some 90 year old on expensive health treatment could support themselves.
True if they had not been taxed into the ground all their lives…. but they were taxed into the ground all their lives. They have no savings, and no private health care.
“But the young”.
Many of the young are the product of “Progressive” education (Rousseau and his followers), they had lots of fun in school and did learn some things – but, unfortunatly, what they mostly learnt was “self esteem” and “social justice” (“fair shares for all”).
Many (although not all – perhaps not a majority) of the young (and the not so young) do not have the skills needed to get a good job (indeed, perhaps, any job).
“So does this mean we should not take action concerning the Welfare State?”
No it does not – because the Welfare State is going bankrupt and it is dragging the various Western nations down the drain with it.
If the Welfare State is not reformed (rolled back) it will COLLAPSE.
“Good we want it to collapse….” – use brain before saying that (think of millions of very old and sick people).
However, reform (even if it happens) will not be attractive – there will be terrible suffering even if things do NOT collapse.
Private aid (both religious and secular) will be needed – desperatly needed.
So what? Smith is not saying “there will be no stupid, indolent or disabled people”, indeed he is not saying in this quote “there will be no poverty”… he is saying the solution to poverty is removing the impediments to the people whose action can ‘solve’ the problem. A more effective economy means that not only are their less poor people, supporting those people who remain poor for whatever reason is a problem more readily solvable.
Paul – this is one of those sad occasions when I have to disagree. The welfare state can never be rolled back, not when there are elections to win and masses to appease. Any attempt to do so what cause utter chaos before it had even really started to bite.
Sadly, I think it can only collapse, or be collapsed.
CIngram:
So we’re supposed to assume that he’s perfect enough to never make a punctuation error, but imperfect enough not to know where to use “which” and where to use “that.” Or do you not know the difference yourself, and so still don’t see the problem? (The answer is on page 59 of the third edition of EoS.)
I think if you look at the quote in context, I think he used “which” instead of “that” because he was trying to avoid using the same word twice in succeeding sentences. I don’t think the omission of the comma was accidental.
(“Merchants of Fear“)
I think he is advocating the abolition of all taxes and regulations. Which doesn’t surprise me, as Smith is essentially an anarchist. Nor does it offend me, as it is only by taking extreme positions such as this that we ever going to get anything accomplished. We will never be rid of all taxes or all regulations. But the counterweight must be greater than the seemingly inexorable pull of institutionalized socialism if we’re ever to begin moving the needle in the other direction.
Yes, because this all worked SO well in the 1890s……
Last I checked, we aren’t living in the 1890s.
This boils down to the question of whether Mr. Smith intended the clause “cripple those intelligent” (etc.) to be restrictive or non-restrictive.
In British English it’s considered acceptable to use either “that” or “which” as the pronoun introducing a restrictive clause. It’s also normal to offset a non-restrictive clause with commas. So, if Mr. Smith is a Brit, and considering that there are few (if any) punctuation mistakes elsewhere in the section Laird quoted, it’s reasonable to assume that Mr. Smith meant not to use a comma and meant the clause to be restrictive. He is therefore proposing only to abolish those taxes and regulations that cripple (etc.).
In American English it’s normal to use “that” as the pronoun introducing a restrictive clause. That’s where the ambiguity comes from for an American reader: the use of “which” suggests a non-restrictive clause, but the absence of a comma suggests a restrictive clause. I’m inclined to agree with Laird that the omission of the comma was deliberate, suggesting that the clause was intended to be restrictive and the use of “which” instead of “that” was simply informal language (in American terms). So, again, the conclusion would be that he’s proposing only to abolish those taxes and regulations that cripple (etc.).
It’s possible that both the omission of the comma and the use of “which” instead of “that” don’t convey his intended meaning, and he intended the clause to be non-restrictive. In that case he would be proposing to abolish all taxes and regulations. But the quality of the writing elsewhere in the quoted section suggests to me that that is a less likely explanation.
Tedd
The thing is I can’t see any sign that Smith has been taking lessons in style from Strunk and White. That particular injunction of theirs has found its way into style manuals in the US, but unless you have to follow one (as a journalist or an academic publishing a paper for instance), people make the choice depending on the euphony and rhythm of the sentence, and they always have. Any good writer, on the other hand, would distinguish the defining from the non-defining relative clause by the use of a comma, to avoid ambiguity.*
I agree with Laird in that Smith is avoiding the repetition of ‘that’ in the third and fourth paragraphs by using and alternative word, but their exactly parallel construction suggests that both clauses are defining. The first certainly is; he’s not advocating the repeal of all laws, and in the same way I understand that he isn’t advocating the abolition of all taxes. Laird, on the other hand, reaches the opposite conclusion from the same starting point, so God knows what he really meant to say.
In case I’m drifting off topic here, I’ll say that I agree with the spirit of the QOTD, although in practice it runs into the sort of trouble that leads us to let governments step in in the first place.
*Just to be clear, I agree with Strunk and White in that it would also help to avoid ambiguity if people used only ‘which’ in non-defining (non-restrictive) clauses, but the fact is they don’t.
Tedd
I posted without refreshing, otherwise I needn’t have bothered, as you’ve said what I said more succinctly. I didn’t mention the US/UK divide on the which/that debate because I’d gone on long enough anyway, and also because Smith is, according to Wiki, from Colorado.
CIngram, I reached the opposite conclusion because while the construction of the two paragraphs is indeed parallel it is not exactly so. In the paragraph on violent crime he advocates the repeal of “the laws that . . .”, whereas in the one on poverty he advocates the repeal of “laws and regulations which . . . .” The former (due to the presence of the article “the”) is referring to specific laws, while the latter (because of its omission) refers to all laws.
At least, that’s how I read it. But as you say, it’s not clear. Perhaps Mr. Smith will notice this discussion and enlighten us all.
Laird
Good point about the article, I hadn’t noticed. I was wondering myself whether we should just ask him, it’s what these ‘ere intertubes are for, after all. I will if I have a moment.
You may be right whOOps.
However, there was some reform in Ontario (under Harris) and even in the United States, Florida (the fourth largest State in the Union) is actually spending LESS money than it did in 2006.
Reform is not easy (witness the buckets of lies that are thrown at Governor Rick Scott every day) – but it is possible.