The Market for Liberty, or how the Mahon Report made me a free-market anarchist

Permabear · 30-03-2012 01:53AM #1

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Valmont · 30-03-2012 09:59AM

Excellent, I've printed it off and will begin this evening. (Not the Mahon report, mind you!)

Eliot Rosewater · 30-03-2012 12:14PM

Hmmm ... I'm currently heading into a month long study break so I could probably join you on this one. I haven't read any anarchist books!

(I might have to temporarily sacrifice Ayn Rand for it, but I'm not enjoying Atlas Shrugged anyway...I hope we can still be friends

)

Can start on Monday -- away for the weekend.

Valmont · 30-03-2012 02:11PM

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

(I might have to temporarily sacrifice Ayn Rand for it, but I'm not enjoying Atlas Shrugged anyway...I hope we can still be friends )

Haha!

The first chapter is steeped in Ayn Rand's system of ethics -- it reads just like Galt's speech.:pac:

Well not really but the flavour is there.

Cannibal Ox · 30-03-2012 03:47PM

I've made my way into the second part and this is kind of what I'm thinking.

The first part was fairly bog standard liberalism, so grand. It even included your classical mire of how to guarantee the security of the individual without an authority, but they say they'll address that later in the piece, so I'll leave them with that.

But in the second part, they start evoking evolution in such a way as if it can provide a position to divine certain essential features of human nature. They then go on to try and do this, even going so far as to assume that a human nature is relative to the environment in which it produces insofar as it thinks what to produce in that environment.

This brings up all sorts of issues that they aren't really considering. On a very simple level, you can't really build essential features of an animal on a theory of change and then go on to assert a universal quality. If you want to make that argument, you're going to have to do a hell of a lot more groundwork than they do.

If productivity is relative to the environment and if, as I guess everyone will agree, there are different environments, then productivity is not a thing that we can define as a fundamental feature of a human being, but a multiplicity of productivities that can only be defined in relation to the particular environment those productivities exist within, which would assume the existence of a multiplicity of human natures.

They are trying to assert universal laws and rules that can provide a program for social and political change based on an essential nature of human beings. But the approach they've taken means that you cannot assert an essential nature applicable to all human beings because your fundamentals are built on a theory of change and a nature that is relative to the environment it finds itself in.

And then they start talking about thinking and I imagined for a moment that if I were a psychologist or a neurologist, I'd probably close the window about now. Because the writers are just fundamentally wrong in how they approach mental processes.

I mean that as a joke rather then an insult, but if you don't like that, then try and square the idea that "...man must initiate and maintain the process of thinking by an act of choice, no one else can force him to think or do his thinking for him." with everything we know about consciousness, genes and evolution.

We know that you do not make a choice to think. It is possible that you can reflect on your thought processes and make a reflexive choice based on those processes, but the idea that you choose to think is tantamount to saying that thinking about thinking is prior to thinking.

I read more, but if I keep going on this'll be too long, so I'm going to stop here.

Permabear · 30-03-2012 04:20PM

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KyussBishop · 31-03-2012 04:27AM

Out of my curiosity regarding Libertarianism the last while, have read a couple of chapters in but am currently massively sidetracked researching Objectivism, which the book appears to base some of its core principals on.

There's a lot of controversy over some of Ayn Rand's theories, which I know very little about at the moment, but I remember there being some fairly well pointed arguments against these principals.

The whole 'self-interest as morality' thing (among much else) doesn't sit well with me at all, but I don't know enough to provide a thorough argument against it yet.

c_man · 31-03-2012 01:01PM

I'll admit to having never heard of the term. Is 'free-market anarchism' another name for Anarcho-capitalism? If not, where do the differences lie?

Permabear · 02-04-2012 11:45AM

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Channel Zero · 02-04-2012 08:00PM

Permabear wrote: »

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Thanks. Just a quick post and will leave ye at it.

Ok, have just read the first 60 or so pages. Let's see. What have we got so far:

Greed is good. Altruism is bad. Government is evil, it's actually "slavery" and "the cause of many of our social ills". (Always thought it was poverty and inequality myself)

Taxation is theft.

There's actually no such thing as civil rights, or any other form of collective rights. Or at least there shouldn't be in Freedomland.

"Free" unfettered markets are the only way. Any form of regulation is bad bad bad and leads to instability and distortion. Free markets will of course 'stabilise' themselves and will not lead to ever increasing monopoly of power and wealth in the hands of a few.

All workers rights and the minimum wage need to be abolished. It's bad for business you see. It's bad for everyone in fact.

Abolish all welfare as it's apparently also bad for us. In Freedomland, the wealthy will of course pick up the slack, providing healthcare and welfare to their chosen serfs.. i mean less fortunate citizens out of their own pockets. This will also have the added effect of forcing the poor to have less children, as they can't afford them. (page 45) So that's that sorted and boxed off!

Abolish all forms of public education. Why? Because it's inefficient. Privatise it and make it available only to those who can afford it. This is of course a good thing. Ditto public health care.

Scrap the F.D.A. and all government regulation of food standards. It's a silly concept and only does such pointless things like protecting consumers and ensuring food is safe to eat.

Obviously scrap things like prescription drug regulation. If a company manufactures a dangerous drug and people start to drop dead, sure it won't take long for people to cotton on to the fact and stop buying it. Self-regulating see? Oh and scrap the idea of doctors needing a license to practice. Stupid things those licenses. The logic of this is that Dr. Nick Riviera types whose "treatments" harmed their patients wouldn't stay in business long. Again beautifully self-regulating.

Abolish public ownership of land. Anything with the potential for being property would be in private hands. Everything; land, streets, parks, beaches. The lot. "The situation of total property ownership would automatically solve many of the problems plaguing our present society. For instance, shiftless elements of the population, who had acquired no property and were unwilling to work in order to earn enough money to rent living quarters, would be literally pushed to the geographic edge of the society. One cannot sleep on park benches if the private owners of the park doesn't permit bums on his property; one can't search the back alleys for garbage if he is trespassing on alleys belonging to a corporation; one can't even be a beachcomber if all the beaches are owned." (page 61)

KyussBishop · 02-04-2012 10:01PM

^^ I didn't get that far

(though as far as I did get, I was building up a similar litany of issues in notepad)

I'm really really curious what proponents of libertarianism think of all that; maybe this text is just an extreme version of libertarian principles, I'm still trying to keep an open mind and be open to reasonable alternative implementations (that still fit libertarianism).

The more I read up on it though, the more (apparently pretty glaring) flaws I start to see in libertarian principles; a lot of the posters I've seen supporting it across various subforums seem to be smart enough people, and not generally extreme in their views, so I'm finding it very hard to understand how some of them are supporting a movement, which appears to have some very messed up worldviews.

southsiderosie · 02-04-2012 11:25PM

Hm. I will try to give this a read next week. I am reading a lot of Habermas right now, so I suspect that this book will give me something radically different to consider. :pac:

Eliot Rosewater · 03-04-2012 08:52AM

Channel Zero wrote: »

Ok, have just read the first 60 or so pages. Let's see. What have we got so far:

In fairness, listing out some of the consequences of the book just for "shock value" is hardly the best way to discuss it or to determine its merit. For example, the mantra "tax is theft" is something that appears slightly ridiculous to people when they hear it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the statement is without merit. In fact, if one believes, like the authors do, that all government action is illegitimate then one is kind of compelled to believe that "tax is theft". The (Concise Oxford) definition of steal is "Take without permission", after all.

Specifically about collective rights, that's a very serious philosophical/moral issue that can't be brushed aside just because we're so used to the collective having such strong rights. If individuals don't have the right to initiate force against other individuals to get what they want, why does this right suddenly appear when 50%+1 individuals get together?

Eliot Rosewater · 03-04-2012 09:11AM

KyussBishop wrote: »

The more I read up on it though, the more (apparently pretty glaring) flaws I start to see in libertarian principles; a lot of the posters I've seen supporting it across various subforums seem to be smart enough people, and not generally extreme in their views, so I'm finding it very hard to understand how some of them are supporting a movement, which appears to have some very messed up worldviews.

That's an interesting point. The worldview espoused in Market for Liberty is more extreme than the one I would promote on Boards or in real life. First, I am not sure if my actual view is as anarchist at the author's (I have not found it necessarily to "pin my colors to the mask" other than to say that I am broadly libertarian.) Second, discussing a particular topic as one does on Boards is different to the kind of thing the book is aiming for.

The book is trying to give a logically consistent account of all of human action based on one premise, that individuals cannot initiate force against other individuals. Perhaps it's inevitable that such a book will paint the most extreme view possible. There's no scope for what we would call compromise or middle-ground, or ignoring certain issues, as it is aiming for such total logical and moral consistency. On the other hand, when I'm discussing, say, political corruption it's not necessary for me to completely espouse a consistent world view -- I can just "zoom in" on the particular issue at hand and discuss that is psuedo-isolation. I can argue about corruption in such a way as to make my views on social welfare irrelevant -- but the point of the book is to link everything together.

Permabear · 03-04-2012 09:17AM

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A Primal Nut · 03-04-2012 09:29AM

Certainly, the incompetance of government is the strongest argument for libertarianism. It's ironic that so many socialists criticise government, call it corrupt, but at the same time wish that the government controlled everything.

That said I'm not an out-an-out libertarian by any means.

Scofflaw · 03-04-2012 11:05AM

Permabear wrote: »

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That is also a parody, though, since the limits on what the state can do are defined by dialogue with the people. The libertarian tendency to conflate democratic states with tyrannies is not something that lends them credibility.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Permabear · 03-04-2012 11:34AM

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benway · 03-04-2012 12:10PM

Eliot Rosewater wrote:

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Permabear wrote: »

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I think that this is a grossly simplistic reading. In practice, the Supreme Court, in the late 60s and early 70s, driven by Judge Walsh, acted as a counterbalance to the legislature in seeking to vindicate the rights of the individual, the likes of Ryan -v- AG, McGee -v- AG, and the general jurisprudence of unenumerated rights had a profound role in defining a sphere of individual liberty, enforceable as against any prospective encroachment by the state.

Obviously, this process took time, and adapted to a changing society, plus I still wouldn't regard it as anywhere near complete.

Point is, there's a mechanism within the "statist" paradigm to ameliorate the worst effects of majoritarian rule. I think that the state model is much more sophisticated, robust and nuanced than you may be giving it credit for.

20Cent · 03-04-2012 12:16PM

Reading it at the moment.

Are they seriously contending that the mentally ill should be sold for medical experiments on page 103?

NOT trolling, read it.

Permabear · 03-04-2012 12:49PM

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Permabear · 03-04-2012 12:57PM

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benway · 03-04-2012 01:00PM

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Maybe this is a typo, but it appears to me that it's the insurer or other "creditor" who will be selling the misfortunate's services. Very fine definition between committing someone to a research institution to discharge a "debt", and selling them, from where I see it.

Noting the similarity in the view of mental illness to the kind of Randroid psychotherapy set out in the Rothbard article you posted.

Permabear wrote: »

Twenty years and six governments later, that decision has still not been enshrined in law.

Because it's accepted that women can travel to England relatively easily in order to avail of these services, I would imagine that the bullet would have been bitten a long, long time ago if this weren't the case.

Political pragmatism has its place - lawmaking around abortion is a hugely divisive issue, even now.

And yes, I am quite content to allow majoritarian rule, better that than the whims of an elite vanguard. I would wish for greater democratic accountability, but it's better than no accountability at all, as would be the case with private sector governance.

I would also like to see an expanded sphere of enforcable individual rights, including socioeconomic rights, but that's an ongoing process. The point is that there are safeguards built in to the system - checks and balances.

Suryavarman · 03-04-2012 01:01PM

Scofflaw wrote: »

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Permabear hasn't claimed that the people don't limit the power of the state, he just claimed that those limits aren't reached very often. To look at some of the specific examples he gave:

Permabear wrote: »

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Nearly every single country on the planet currently deems most recreational drugs to be illegal. And in every country it isn't illegal to ingest these recreational drugs, the amount of these drugs one can possess at any one time is strictly limited.

what clothes she wears

As Permabear pointed out, in France it is currently illegal for a woman to wear a burkha in public. A 2011 poll found that 66% of British people were in favour of banning people from wearing the burkha.

what thoughts she expresses

Only last week a British student was jailed for tweeting some racist statements. In Ireland it is illegal to engage in blasphemy.

what sexual practices she engages in

It was only in 1993 that homosexuality was criminalised in Ireland. In most western countries it is still illegal to get married to somebody of the same sex.

and how much of her own money she can keep.

What country doesn't currently levy an income tax? Tax cuts for high earners are frequently labeled by many in the media as "giveaways" as if it is the government's money and that which isn't taxed, is a gift.

So Scofflaw are these examples of government power not tyrannical or are even western democracies partial to occasional tyranny?

benway · 03-04-2012 01:16PM

Suryavarman wrote: »

As Permabear pointed out, in France it is currently illegal for a woman to wear a burkha in public. A 2011 poll found that 66% of British people were in favour of banning people from wearing the burkha.

It's unlikely that such a law would be constitutionally sound in this country.

The current position is that curtailments of constitutional rights should be in pursuance of a legitimate policy goal, and proportionate to the issue. Personally, I think this is a reasonable compromise.

Do you believe, by that rate, that individual rights should be absolute, and may not be subject to any qualification or limits?

Suryavarman · 03-04-2012 01:28PM

benway wrote: »

It's unlikely that such a law would be constitutionally sound in this country.

The current position is that curtailments of constitutional rights should be in pursuance of a legitimate policy goal, and proportionate to the issue. Personally, I think this is a reasonable compromise.

If it were in pursuance of a legitimate policy goal then would you find it acceptable for the Government to ban the burkha?

Do you believe, by that rate, that individual rights should be absolute, and may not be subject to any qualification or limits?

As long as individuals are not initiating force against another individual then I believe that there should be no limit on individual rights.

benway · 03-04-2012 01:37PM

Suryavarman wrote: »

If it were in pursuance of a legitimate policy goal then would you find it acceptable for the Government to ban the burkha?

Can't see how it would be proportionate to any legitimate policy goal, but if such a goal could be cogently maintained, the delimitation to individual rights of religious freedom and expression are minimised, and any delimitation is shown to be proportionate to that particular goal, then yes.

Only the right to life is more-or-less absolute ... which is why abortion is such a difficult area.

Suryavarman wrote: »

As long as individuals are not initiating force against another individual then I believe that there should be no limit on individual rights.

Is that only physical force? There are plenty of other categories of coercion and oppression, why should they be excluded?

KyussBishop · 03-04-2012 02:00PM

Interesting points of view regarding the state; I can see the merits of arguments regarding state tyranny, and it is a genuine danger, though personally I think that (slowly) over time, state intervention (on the social side anyway) is being continuously rolled back to balanced levels.

Some of the primary examples would be feminist movements, in the US equality for black people, and LGBT rights; it is a very monumentally slow change, but it's happening.
There are cases of states misusing and inappropriately expanding their powers of societal control (various forms of prohibition, for one), but (in western societies mostly) it seems to be on a constant trend of (slow) improvement.

Anyway, ya, I don't want to rehash these social arguments much, as I'm all for rolling back state intervention in most (don't know if all) societal things.

Permabear wrote: »

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I agree with that, and libertarian views in general when it comes to social things (thus far at least, as am still learning the full extent of it), and have noticed that it seems to be libertarian economic policies which are the most controversial part of things (something I've been bringing up a bit on main politics forum).

Libertarian economic policies appear to be (by a long way) the most fundamentally flawed/weak part of libertarian principles; there appear to be a lot of enormous problems with the policies, which would disproportionately harm the poor (making them poorer), and which have the potential to create corporate tyrannies that would be more harmful than analogous state tyrannies.

An example of a problem I've been trying to find an answer for would be this:

KyussBishop wrote: »

[Libertarian regulation of banks and the financial markets:]
The principle problem I could see with this, was that if you deregulate the banks and financial markets, and (rightly) insist on not bailing out banks that fail, you get a scenario where customers of banks get unfairly harmed, through no fault of their own.

It would happen like this:
In an unregulated market, banks will be opaque about their business practices (how they invest customers/shareholders money), leaving customers with no way to gauge the risk of putting their money in a particular bank, whereas shareholders can demand some level of information and can make a more informed risk.

In an unregulated market with opaque business practices, it is easier for the owners of a bank to undertake risky practices with other peoples money and get away with it, leading to the inevitability that some bank will eventually collapse through fraud or mismanagement.

When a bank collapses, the shareholders will lose their money (they had opportunity to ascertain the risks, fine), but the customers of the bank will lose their money too (they had no way to determine risk, or determine which bank is better/worse than any other, so you can't put fault on the customers).

This seems inherently unfair on the customers of the bank, and could potentially ruin the lives of many customers, or at least effectively wipe out the 'x' years of their lives they spent earning that money. To me, that seems totally unacceptable.

Is there a solution to this issue, which is not inherently unfair on banks customers, and which still sticks to libertarian principles? To me, the solution to this (though not compatible with strict libertarianism) is to regulate the banks adequately and enforce transparency.

Suryavarman · 03-04-2012 03:08PM

benway wrote: »

Is that only physical force? There are plenty of other categories of coercion and oppression, why should they be excluded?

I also believe that a credible threat of violence would be considered force. TBH I haven't really given much thought as to what can defined as force.

benway · 03-04-2012 03:18PM

Suryavarman wrote: »

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I think you probably should. Personally, I think that people's rights to being duplicitous, fraudulent, to blackmail others, to apply emotional and psychological manipulation, to threaten another with unemployment, or financial ruin through spurious legal proceedings should also be curtailed.

Along with many, many others.

Permabear wrote: »

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I read quite a bit of the report myself. Have you completely forgotten about the private sector's role in all of this? They're equally complicit in corruption to the politicians.

As if market manipulation, price-fixing, cartels and financial bullying would magically disappear in your market utopia ...

Plus, how would you propose to deal with, say a section of Dublin going all Hamsterdam once all drugs were legalised? Or with the real social consequences of letting the banks fail?

The fundamental point I think that anarchists of every stripe are missing is that we can't just wish away power, only recognise its discourses and its effects, as well as its physical manifestations, and either resist, direct or ameliorate as best we can.

Why a state based solution is preferable, is that it is designed around mechanisms designed to do just that, however imperfect they may be. A libertarian arrangement is basically in invitation to unchecked private sector power - I don't see how that's preferable to trying fix the state's undoubted flaws. Baby with the bathwater territory, if you ask me.

Suryavarman · 03-04-2012 03:29PM

KyussBishop wrote: »

Some of the primary examples would be feminist movements, in the US equality for black people, and LGBT rights; it is a very monumentally slow change, but it's happening.
There are cases of states misusing and inappropriately expanding their powers of societal control (various forms of prohibition, for one), but (in western societies mostly) it seems to be on a constant trend of (slow) improvement.

I'd agree that in the area of equal rights there is a steady rollback of state power. In this area though the government is going beyond giving people equal treatment before the law and enacting affirmative action policies and anti-discrimination laws. In other areas though government is increasingly curbing our freedoms. Many countries are increasing limits on freedom of speech and increasing the cost of exercising certain freedoms through an increase in sin taxes.

Libertarian economic policies appear to be (by a long way) the most fundamentally flawed/weak part of libertarian principles; there appear to be a lot of enormous problems with the policies, which would disproportionately harm the poor (making them poorer), and which have the potential to create corporate tyrannies that would be more harmful than analogous state tyrannies.

The way many libertarians look at this is that much of what government is doing is harming the poor and helping to create large powerful corporations. We for the most part also accept that in the short run, the poor will be worse off because of our policies but they will, in the long run, be better off through faster economic growth and more opportunities to enter into commerce.

If you look at historical examples of corporations with a lot of power you will be hard pressed to find one that got into that position without a lot of government help. If we were to live in a libertarian/anarchist society it would be much easier for people to enter into business and much harder for corporations to maintain positions of power.

An example of a problem I've been trying to find an answer for would be this:

I'll deal with that now:

The principle problem I could see with this, was that if you deregulate the banks and financial markets, and (rightly) insist on not bailing out banks that fail, you get a scenario where customers of banks get unfairly harmed, through no fault of their own.

In a highly regulated market like we have now the taxpayer gets unfairly harmed through having to bailout failed banks. This is surely a much more unfair scenario than what you would claim to happen in an unregulated market. Also in an unregulated market without deposit insurance or bailouts there would be an incentive for savers to seek out banks with more conservative lending practices. If savers fail to do that then I have no sympathy with them.

It would happen like this:
In an unregulated market, banks will be opaque about their business practices (how they invest customers/shareholders money), leaving customers with no way to gauge the risk of putting their money in a particular bank, whereas shareholders can demand some level of information and can make a more informed risk.

Banks are opaque about lending practices now as goverment has created the moral hazard of people thinking that because government is regulating banks they are all safe to save with. What makes you think that they will be opaque in a free market when people are trying to find out how risky their lending practices are before they save with them? Also you have to remember that all information that shareholders receive is freely available for all to see.

In an unregulated market with opaque business practices, it is easier for the owners of a bank to undertake risky practices with other peoples money and get away with it, leading to the inevitability that some bank will eventually collapse through fraud or mismanagement.

As I have already said, there is good reason to believe that banks will not be opaque in a free market. It is then up to the saver whether they are going to save with a bank with risky loaning policies. If a bank engages in fraud and fails, then savers and shareholders would be able to sue the fraudsters. If a bank fails through mismanagement then that's just tough luck, bad businesses fail all the time and banks shouldn't be any different.

When a bank collapses, the shareholders will lose their money (they had opportunity to ascertain the risks, fine), but the customers of the bank will lose their money too (they had no way to determine risk, or determine which bank is better/worse than any other, so you can't put fault on the customers).

Customers of a bank have the same information available to them as shareholders do.

This seems inherently unfair on the customers of the bank, and could potentially ruin the lives of many customers, or at least effectively wipe out the 'x' years of their lives they spent earning that money. To me, that seems totally unacceptable.

Most financial experts advise that people should diversify their investment portfolios. If people are keeping their life savings in one bank and that bank fails, then they have nobody to blame but themselves. Also if a bank fails it is highly unlikely that savers would be completely wiped out.

Is there a solution to this issue, which is not inherently unfair on banks customers, and which still sticks to libertarian principles? To me, the solution to this (though not compatible with strict libertarianism) is to regulate the banks adequately and enforce transparency.

As I have pointed out, I believe that most of your assumptions are false and that there is no need for regulation of banks.

The Market for Liberty, or how the Mahon Report made me a free-market anarchist

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