Being the sort of person that I am, I soon solicited Mike for a backlink.
From decoy@iki.fi Mon Jan 14 18:22:40 2002 Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 05:15:45 +0200 (EET) From: Sampo Syreeni <decoy@iki.fi> To: Mike Huben <mhuben@world.std.com> Subject: My take on the non‐libertarian FAQ Hi! I’ve been meaning to write down some of my objections to your non‐libertarian FAQ for well over a year, now, and I finally got around to the task. The first version of the text is now up at http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/l‐diaries/l‐diaries‐c‐09‐01 . Would you want to add it to your list of known critiques of the NLF? (Don’t be surprised if my site is a bit trickier than the average one. Just in case you experience trouble, the URL above *is* correct, and the site *has* been more or less constantly up for a few years, now.) Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy ‐ mailto:decoy@iki.fi, tel:+358‐50‐5756111 student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front openpgp: 050985C2/025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2
To my surprise, Mike answered with quite a speed. Oh yes, and his trademark tang, of course… ;)
From mhuben@TheWorld.com Wed Jan 9 16:42:22 2002
Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2002 22:34:09 ‐0500 (EST)
From: Mike Huben <mhuben@TheWorld.com>
To: Sampo Syreeni <decoy@iki.fi>
Subject: Re: My take on the non‐libertarian FAQ
Hi! I’ve been meaning to write down some of my objections to your
non‐libertarian FAQ for well over a year, now, and I finally got around to
the task. The first version of the text is now up at
http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/l‐diaries/l‐diaries‐c‐09‐01 . Would you want to
add it to your list of known critiques of the NLF?
It’s been added just now.
While your writing is very good, your arguments are rather poor, except perhaps
in the rhetorical sense that they might persuade people initially. Anybody
who spends a little time with them can find how truly bad they are, though they
have to be alert for a very wide gamut of informal fallacies.
It’s as if you’ve studied debate, but not learned how to restrict your arguments
to valid arguments.
The most annoying thing about it is when you claim to derive implications from
what I’ve said. Since you don’t do it the way I would, you’re putting words
in my mouth, a tactic that is rather rude in public.
I’ll point out just a few of your more obvious mistakes. Pretty much any part
of what you’ve written has similar problems. Your statements are in quotes.
"I cannot agree with Mike’s comment. It is true that us libertarians have to
use an extraordinary amount of time explaining the basics of our ideology and
worldview, but once discussion moves past the premises…"
It’s funny how you confirm my statement while denying it. I wrote:
"Libertarians like to restrict the argument to their notions…." and here
you admit you spend most of your time indoctrinating in them.
As for the breadth of the spectrum of issues considered, that’s nothing new for
ideologues: they all try to fit all of life into the procrustean bed of their
ideology. That’s not a strength: it’s a sign of foolishness.
"I doubt ideas which are patently false could ever gain enough force to
propagate very widely…"
What a patently stupid thing to say. Remember how Marxism and Communism spread?
Why, by the same "PR" means libertarianism is spread. So if you can’t see what
is wrong with "sheer rhetoric", then you are rather pathetic.
"The claim is that this compromise was basically a moderate libertarian one."
And that claim is unsupported nonsense. First, because there is no coherent
definition of "moderate libertarian" (an oxymoron). Second, because the
compromise included many patently non‐libertarian features, such as slavery,
taxation, etc.
"If the Constitution was meant to grant the federal government only limited
powers, this particular interpretation must simply go against its purpose."
What idiocy. This interpretation simply grants the federal government the
SAME power that state governments have over their own internal commerce.
If you were stupid enough to view commerce as the only activity, then there
would be no limitation, but otherwise your comment is foolish on the face of it.
"But just as the Federalist Papers Mike quotes above this comment, that too is
a valuable aid in fleshing out what precisely it was that the US was originally
founded on."
The US was not founded on a list of grievances. It was founded BY CONGRESS
on the Articles Of Confederation. And later refounded on the Constitution.
Wartime propaganda is not to be mistaken for "foundations". The Federalist
Papers, on the other hand, were meant precisely to be an explication of the
intentions and expected workings of the Constitution by the authors.
"it in no way follows that everything that, or indeed most of what, the
government does is consistent with the principle of individual freedom."
I should hope not! Because that is hardly the only objective of government
that we want. That’s the precise problem with libertarian ideology like yours:
the fact that other people have other values is given no credence. Your one‐
dimensional scale is foolish.
"From this it then follows that in order to use economics to build the rest of
the libertarian case, one first needs a minarchy to enforce the basic rights."
Well, if you are going to IMPOSE a minarchy, it is a social contract whether
you call it one or not.
"Besides, why can’t I contract with another state on its terms without moving
to that state? Why can’t I and my libertarian friends set up a virtual
libertarian government, invite every libertarian in the world to contract with
it instead, and have a cybersociety of happy, non‐tax paying libertarians all
over the globe?"
For the same simple reason you cannot contract with another landlord and forgo
paying rent to your current landlord without moving out. If you are stupid
enough to presume away widely accepted property rights, then you deserve a
rude rebuke from the real world, whether it be a landlord or a government.
And both ultimately enforce their rights with guns ‐‐ all rights are ultimately
enforced with guns.
"In order for the the restaurant example, next, to apply, the government would
have to own its territory, something which is extremely difficult to show to
be the case without assuming it."
You have a fundamentally reified notion of ownership. Ownership is merely a
social convention, no more. It is a claim of privilege, backed by a threat
of force to those who wouldn’t respect it. I prefer this sort of basic,
positive argument to imaginary notions like yours which have as much
demonstrable existence as souls.
With my definition, it is trivial to show that government has a very strong
claim of ownership.
"Ah, but in insurance business competition takes care of price discrimination,
and causes the expected benefits to settle to a sum approximately equal to the
price paid (plus expenses, plus a share of the transaction costs from trouble
like moral hazard and the like, minus interest)."
I’m afraid this analysis is dreadfully simplistic and wrong. First, I was not
talking about price discrimination (something the airlines employ widely, which
is why you can pay 3 times what the person next to you paid, and which is
supposedly economically efficient.) Second, I was talking about the fact that
different amounts are paid out to individuals, not average expected amounts.
"No such thing happens with governments, because they do not compete on a free
market, and so severe price discrimination can result."
You are confusing free markets with ideal markets. The real world is modelled
poorly by both, because the real world is riddled with market failures.
There are two reasons why governments do not act as in ideal markets: first,
there are significant transaction costs in changing governments; and second,
government services are sold as a complex bundle. However, both those problems
are common in other real markets, as anyone who has switched between MicroSoft
and Mackintosh computers could tell you. This suggests a third reason, which
might be network externalities (increasing benefits from more users.)
"This is of course one of the fundamental reasons governmental monopolies
are seen as bad in libertarian thought: they tend to produce less goods for
the money, and lead to suboptimal generation of general welfare."
You are really funny: "governmental monopolies" is a self‐contradiction.
You could salvage your argument by changing to "local monopolies of government",
but you’d still look stupid because real‐world local monopolies are extremely
common in business as well. And they would be far more common if not for
anti‐trust enforcement.
The correct answer from a libertarian point of view (if you knew enough
economics) is to claim that of the several second‐best solutions, government
is not the best. But that claim happens to be false for MANY goods that
government currently produces: I recommend that you read "The Economics Of
The Welfare State".
"As for social contracts, nobody ever agreed to such a one."
Any USA naturalized citizen, such as both of my parents, can easily say you are
a liar here.
"The state is not a legal person, since if it was, the laws it passes would
apply equally to itself. They clearly don’t."
This is as stupid as declaring that a landlord would apply all the rules his
tenants must follow to himself.
I’m sorry, but your response is really rather bad. Not worse than the other
bad responses, but still bad. I recommend that you read my "So You Want To
Discuss Libertarianism…." page, and read about the principle of charity.
Mike Huben mhuben@world.std.com http://world.std.com/~mhuben/
For rebuttals to libertarian arguments, check out:
Critiques of Libertarianism http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html
Liberalism Resurgent http://home.att.net/~Resurgence/tenets.htm
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so
certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Bertrand Russell
My answer to Mike. Not perhaps as strong as I would have hoped, but not entirely dead either, I hope.
After composing the below, I went through Mike’s Critiques of
Libertarianism
site. I’ll have to say that it represents quite a
feat on behalf of Mike, what with the vast spectrum of hard questions he
has managed to assemble into one. I must say I thoroughly recommend the
site and whatever its extensive collection of links leads to. Aspiring
libertarians would do good to test their assumptions against the
material, and to flesh out easily stated limits to their commitment to
the many stated libertarian aims. Also, the questions are highly
relevant to other political backgrounds as well—I’m fairly certain I
will use a couple of arguments found through Mike’s work if the debate
with him is to continue!
From decoy@iki.fi Wed Jan 9 16:42:49 2002 Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 23:24:13 +0200 (EET) From: Sampo Syreeni <decoy@iki.fi> To: Mike Huben <mhuben@TheWorld.com> Subject: Re: My take on the non‐libertarian FAQ On Sun, 6 Jan 2002, Mike Huben wrote: >>The first version of the text is now up at >>http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/l‐diaries/l‐diaries‐c‐09‐01 . Would you want to >>add it to your list of known critiques of the NLF? > >It’s been added just now. And at an amazing speed. Thank you. Since you bothered to answer some of my objections, I’ll continue the discussion and incorporate it into the online text. >It’s as if you’ve studied debate, but not learned how to restrict your >arguments to valid arguments. I’m of the opinion that there is no such thing as an objectively valid argument, myself. There are convincing ones, laughable ones and anything in between. As to that, the audience decides. >The most annoying thing about it is when you claim to derive >implications from what I’ve said. Since you don’t do it the way I >would, you’re putting words in my mouth, a tactic that is rather rude in >public. Actually there’s a big difference between putting words in someone’s mouth and pointing out inconsistencies in what they’ve actually said. The former is bad manners, and something which we both would likely want to avoid in a reasoned discussion. The latter is, at least to me, a fairly standard rhetorical device, and a favorite one amongst libertarians ‐‐ one of the prime features of libertarian thought is that it strives for internal consistency and structural simplicity. As far as I can tell, internal consistency is then one of the better measuring sticks for arguments in general. >>I cannot agree with Mike’s comment. It is true that us libertarians have >>to use an extraordinary amount of time explaining the basics of our >>ideology and worldview, but once discussion moves past the premises…" > >It’s funny how you confirm my statement while denying it. I wrote: >"Libertarians like to restrict the argument to their notions…." and >here you admit you spend most of your time indoctrinating in them. Not really. What I say is that libertarians need to invest some effort into making their thoughts comprehensible in the first place. It is easy to mistake this for (or even dismiss it as) indoctrination, while what it really is is a kind of explanatory note to what follows. As I said, once the rudiments are understood, libertarians do consider a wide variety of issues. Second, one of the libertarian aims is to show that individual freedom and a strong right of ownership form a coherent whole with favorable implications to the society as a whole. In this sense there is nothing wrong with assuming the libertarian axioms in order to derive the rest of the theory and to test it ‐‐ it would not be an error if the opposition did the same. In this sort of argument both sides try to poke holes into the other’s construction and to derive unfavorable implications from it, while trying to display favorable outcomes from their own. When one of the rival theories is then seen to be better, we have an argument for adopting its definition of rights (and whathavewe) as "the right ones". This comparable to the scientific method: assume, derive the consequences and test them against reality. (I do realize this isn’t quite the scientific method, since empirical testing is usually out of the question in matters societal. Here, the test is against people’s gut feelings, as it is in most politics.) >As for the breadth of the spectrum of issues considered, that’s nothing >new for ideologues: they all try to fit all of life into the procrustean >bed of their ideology. That’s not a strength: it’s a sign of >foolishness. Or, when they are willing to adjust their ideology to match, just about the best one can do. Besides, if the alternative is complete relativism, I cannot see how that could fare better. >"I doubt ideas which are patently false could ever gain enough force to >propagate very widely…" > >What a patently stupid thing to say. Remember how Marxism and Communism >spread? Why, by the same "PR" means libertarianism is spread. Didn’t capitalism, social democracy, aristocracy, etc.? Your argument is flawed in that it would taint all politics and social structures equally, yours included. It also neglects the possibility that even useful ideas could die if they were not supported by a heavy dose of sales‐speak. >So if you can’t see what is wrong with "sheer rhetoric", then you are >rather pathetic. Actually what prompted me to take this line of argumentation is your own reasoning with might: if rights are by definition something which can be enforced, then there is nothing wrong with defining truth as whatever people happen to believe. It’s just relativism, applied to its fullest. The way I see it, social progress is a trial‐and‐error process. Even when one obviously needs to try and predict, one cannot always see what lies ahead. In the case of ideologies, one can at best try to pick the best one, and live by it. One of the ways to make the choice is to subject many enough people to the ideas, and let them judge. If people judge correctly, stupid ideas die immediately. If they don’t, stupid ideas die when people trying to live by them do. Either way, it is better for the good ideas to be kept alive long enough to be tried out. If not else, then by rhetoric alone. >"The claim is that this compromise was basically a moderate libertarian one." > >And that claim is unsupported nonsense. First, because there is no >coherent definition of "moderate libertarian" (an oxymoron). So what would you call someone like me, bent on a libertarian minarchy but open to social‐democratic extensions where they can be shown to be useful? I’d say that’s moderate libetarianism, or, from a European standpoint, radical liberalism. I think people *do* understand me when I use either term. >Second, because the compromise included many patently non‐libertarian >features, such as slavery, taxation, etc. Does it follow that the USSR was not a socialist state because part of its factors of production were privately owned? You can see that the argument is comparative. Few states have existed which better adhered to libertarian ideals than the early US, hence, the early US can be accurately described as libertarian. (Of course, were libertarians to found a new state, it would have little in common with the US of the past.) Besides, few libertarians would say that the above non‐libertarian elements weren’t there. That does not in itself alter the fact that there must have been a compromise, and that the content of that compromise is separate from the Supreme Court’s interpretation of what the content itself is. When libertarians argue from "original intent", they are also raising a utilitarian point: history has already shown that the political order of the early US was advantageous, whereas the efficiency of the current order has yet to be gauged. Economic theory can then be used to carve out the non‐libertarian parts to arrive at a basically libertarian framework as the reason for the American advantage. It then becomes completely irrelevant whether the current interpretation of the Constitution is "right" or "wrong" ‐‐ we only know that we have better reasons to believe that the older interpretation was a good one. >"If the Constitution was meant to grant the federal government only limited >powers, this particular interpretation must simply go against its purpose." > >What idiocy. This interpretation simply grants the federal government >the SAME power that state governments have over their own internal >commerce. If you were stupid enough to view commerce as the only >activity, then there would be no limitation, but otherwise your comment >is foolish on the face of it. Yes, well, my point was that the Supreme Court *does* seem to view economic activity as the only thing there is. There don’t seem to be appreciable limits to how far the Commerce Clause carries, nowadays. Right now everything from gun ownership to sexual discrimination to medical care is being legislated under its authority. Besides, you should also remember the common US libertarian objection to this reasoning: the Commerce Clause was meant to grant Congress the power to tear down trade barriers between the states, not make new ones. Again, if the latter was meant to be included, e.g. duties on import would be covered. Why did they have to be separately mentioned in the Constitution? I haven’t delved into the Federalist papers, but I suspect some support for this view is to be found, there too. >The US was not founded on a list of grievances. It was founded BY >CONGRESS on the Articles Of Confederation. And later refounded on the >Constitution. Wartime propaganda is not to be mistaken for >"foundations". The Federalist Papers, on the other hand, were meant >precisely to be an explication of the intentions and expected workings >of the Constitution by the authors. As far as I can tell, that is a distinction without a difference. Neither of these texts has a legal standing, and both of them are useful in understanding the sentiments of the time. >"it in no way follows that everything that, or indeed most of what, the >government does is consistent with the principle of individual freedom." > >I should hope not! Because that is hardly the only objective of >government that we want. That’s not what I asked for. I said "consistent with", not "only to further". >That’s the precise problem with libertarian ideology like yours: the >fact that other people have other values is given no credence. I should give credence to the fact that other people want the government to do things not consistent with the principle of individual freedom? Sure. I simply do not agree with them, and I think I have good reasons not to. >Well, if you are going to IMPOSE a minarchy, it is a social contract >whether you call it one or not. It would be a social contract if people indeed signed it. If it is simply imposed, it isn’t. I’m in favor of the latter. If you think that the current "social contract" can be legitimately enforced, you cannot argue that the minarchist one couldn’t. If you argue that even minarchy cannot be imposed, you still ought to agree that it’s a lot less imposing than the status quo. >"In order for the the restaurant example, next, to apply, the government >would have to own its territory, something which is extremely difficult >to show to be the case without assuming it." > >You have a fundamentally reified notion of ownership. Ownership is >merely a social convention, no more. It is a claim of privilege, backed >by a threat of force to those who wouldn’t respect it. I prefer this >sort of basic, positive argument to imaginary notions like yours which >have as much demonstrable existence as souls. Yes, you’ve made this claim multiple times in the NLF. My point, above, was a response to your analogy which, at least to me, suggested that it was supposed to work in the libertarian ownership framework. (It would, if the state indeed owned its territory, or governance rights to it. I’ve countered that elsewhere.) But if your argument *wasn’t* so framed, why would you make it in the first place? The argument does assume that ownership gives certain rights to a territory/restaurant owner, since otherwise the restaurant owner/state would not have the power to require anything of the customer/citizen. You then go on to say that the definition of these rights is a social convention, i.e. arbitrary, and that its justification arises out of threat of violence alone. Why don’t you just say that might makes right, end of discussion, since that’s what your viewpoint appears to amount to? You should also remember that we need not think of the libertarian ownership framework as being a reification, but a possibility to be tested. I use the concept in order to see how useful it is. Yes, we get restaurants where one has to pay. No, we don’t get arbitrary governmental interference in people’s lives. All in all, I think the test turns out positive, and we have a case for "libertarianizing" our social convention of ownership. >With my definition, it is trivial to show that government has a very strong >claim of ownership. Sure, since the government gets to decide who owns what and what ownership means. But in this frame of reference, reasoned debate over how things should be is no longer possible ‐‐ whatever we have now is *always* perfect. If I reify, you’re making needlessly strong presuppositions. That’ll get you an empty theory as surely as making no assumptions at all. >"Ah, but in insurance business competition takes care of price >discrimination, and causes the expected benefits to settle to a sum >approximately equal to the price paid (plus expenses, plus a share of >the transaction costs from trouble like moral hazard and the like, minus >interest)." > >I’m afraid this analysis is dreadfully simplistic and wrong. First, I >was not talking about price discrimination (something the airlines >employ widely, which is why you can pay 3 times what the person next to >you paid, and which is supposedly economically efficient.) First, what is price discrimination if not different prices for the same product? Under this common definition, different taxes for the same public service clearly constitute price discrimination. Second, I take it that you do not like price discrimination? If so, why encourage it for public services? Third, certain forms of governmental price discrimination are possible which *cannot* arise on the free market. The prime example is taxation with no services received whatsoever. That is of course a direct analog of the cost of excess bureaucracy. >Second, I was talking about the fact that different amounts are paid out >to individuals, not average expected amounts. So you were, and I tried to point out why that is wrong. In insurance, there aren’t net expected losers whereas with governmentally funded services, there are. That means insurance is just probabilistic, and so not intrinsically unfair, whereas an unequal social contract really *is* just that. Taking an insurance is a voluntary way to share risks with a large number of people, and you’re charged approximately in relation to the expected service you get (plusminus complications). In the case of taxation, this does not hold, something which I’d call unfair. >However, both those problems are common in other real markets, as anyone >who has switched between MicroSoft and Mackintosh computers could tell >you. This suggests a third reason, which might be network externalities >(increasing benefits from more users.) I do not see how this relates to my comment about price discrimination. Competition *has* equalized the price of e.g. Macs to different buyers, whereas public healthcare *does* cost different amounts to different people. Most people knowledgeable about economics, like you probably are, would agree that a monopoly isn’t something we’d want on a market. Why should public services be an exception? >"This is of course one of the fundamental reasons governmental monopolies >are seen as bad in libertarian thought: they tend to produce less goods for >the money, and lead to suboptimal generation of general welfare." > >You are really funny: "governmental monopolies" is a self‐contradiction. Perhaps I was being terse. I’m not talking about the monopoly on the use of force, but monopolies in other public services. Monopolies created by fiat, and financed by taxation, like healthcare or subsidized farming. >You could salvage your argument by changing to "local monopolies of >government", but you’d still look stupid because real‐world local >monopolies are extremely common in business as well. And they would be >far more common if not for anti‐trust enforcement. Perhaps. But the total harm might still be less than the alternative costs incurred by anti‐trust. Comparing the costs is almost impossible, so by default I’d say "leave it alone". (Anti‐trust is one of the things I don’t have a coherent stand on, yet.) >The correct answer from a libertarian point of view (if you knew enough >economics) is to claim that of the several second‐best solutions, >government is not the best. I don’t think this level of detail really needs to be spelled out in a rebuttal of a FAQ. You can rest assured, though: I don’t have any trouble differentiating between idealized markets and real ones. >But that claim happens to be false for MANY goods that government >currently produces: I recommend that you read "The Economics Of The >Welfare State". Picked it up, yesterday. About half way through, I’d say that it is not a bad exposition of the subject. (My own starting point is more in line with Coase and Buchanan.) However, its case for such things as hygiene regulation, public healthcare and the like does seem to rest more on a lack of innovativeness on behalf of the writer than real market failure. E.g. most of Barr’s information based arguments can be dealt with via 3rd party certification, alternative forms of social control and the like. (Market information distributed by 3rd parties is already considered by Barr.) He also makes the classic mistake of assuming purely public goods to be best produced publically. Lighthouses (contrary to a popular misconception) and broadcast radio/TV (quite obviously) offer good counter‐examples. And so on. Maybe I’ll put down a word or two when I’m finished with The Economics… In summary, I think that while some of Barr’s work is obvious hogwash, some of it *does* have merit. That’s what makes me a "moderate libertarian"… >"The state is not a legal person, since if it was, the laws it passes would >apply equally to itself. They clearly don’t." > >This is as stupid as declaring that a landlord would apply all the rules >his tenants must follow to himself. That’s as malformed as it gets. I’m using the basic legislative principle of equality in front of the law to argue that your analogy is flawed ‐‐ currently legislative power is applied in a manner which exempts the state from part of the obligations that go with property rights. Hence, if public property rights are precisely like their private counterpart, what the government now has cannot be property. Your analogy relies on the existence of such property rights, and is so flawed. However suspicious my argument might seem, it does imply you cannot use your earlier analogy to cripple it, but need to start from independent principles instead. You could argue that the state isn’t/shouldn’t be equal to individuals in front of the law. But do we want this? I don’t think so, and for a simple reason: if some entity can have property, we want to make sure the responsibilies that go along with property rights can always be enforced. This is absolutely essential if we wish to minimize the possibility of introducing unnecessary market failures due to increasing numbers of people hiding their property behind the state’s special privileges. After that, rules and laws have very little to do with each other. Rules can be arbitrary, but they have no legal standing. The only way to enforce them is to have the state enforce a contract, if such a thing exists, or to tell the tenant to leave and the government to make sure this happens. Under no circumstances may the government directly enforce arbitrary owner‐made rules. Laws, on the other hand, can be enforced but must conform to a much wider set of extra constraints. This interpretation gives property owners a distinct incentive not to be difficult: give trouble and people will begin to take that into concern when they contract with you. Evict a tenant and you’ll lose the business to someone else. Meanwhile we get the possibility of limiting laws to a small, "civil" subset of all possible rules. AFAICT, these are highly respectable goals. >I’m sorry, but your response is really rather bad. Not worse than the other >bad responses, but still bad. I recommend that you read my "So You Want To >Discuss Libertarianism…." page, and read about the principle of charity. I’ll do just that. And thanks again for the prompt reply. Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy ‐ mailto:decoy@iki.fi, tel:+358‐50‐5756111 student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front openpgp: 050985C2/025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2