Cafe Hayek - Latest Comments in I Am a Liberal

Re: I Am a Liberal

Martin Brock — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 07:10:04 -0000

The hope and dream of progression from capitalism, through socialism, to real communism is about as empty a hope as ever existed.

Sort of like the hope and dream of a full reserve gold standard, which never existed and is never likely to exist.

Re: I Am a Liberal

Martin Brock — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 07:06:44 -0000

History shows the progression never really even makes it into pure socialism ...

Right. History shows the progression into ever expanding state employment, vast military contractors, nationalized health care and old age pensions, unemployment insurance, agricultural subsidies benefiting vast corporate farms producing food at very low prices, compared with other products, ever growing entitlement to tax revenue, bank bailouts and the rest.

Maybe the socialists are onto something after all. Maybe what we call "capitalism" is really "state socialism", but like you, I'm very skeptical of any progression from state socialism toward anything I'd call a "withering away" of the state. I certainly don't see it withering away now. I only see more and more state pensioners wiling away their idle hours on the web.

Re: I Am a Liberal

Daniel Kuehn — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 07:06:09 -0000

vidyohs -

RE: "When one is free, one lives and acts in the knowledge that there is personal responsibility in his actions that accord all others the same treatment as he believes he owns as a fact of natural law."

I'd be careful not to conflate what freedom is with how free people live and act.

Re: I Am a Liberal

vidyohs — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 06:54:30 -0000

Muirduck,

Don has suggested that you not write about economics, markets, and capitalism until you learn a least some basics.

I suggest that you not write about freedom until you learn the basics.

The state does not give, protect, create, or guarantee freedom.

The only thing the state can do is give privilege and license.

When one is free, one lives and acts in the knowledge that there is personal responsibility in his actions that accord all others the same treatment as he believes he owns as a fact of natural law.

That personal responsibility means self motivated limitation on one's actions. One becomes self regulating, which was the hope and dream of the founding fathers.

Freedom means self rule, which means self regulating.

License is doing anything you want, anytime, anywhere, without regard to others.

Re: I Am a Liberal

Martin Brock — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 06:54:23 -0000

You define the word, in this case, substitute freedom for the word so that anyone who disagrees with you is obviously against freedom. You can't lose as such.

Actually, many people don't value freedom so highly, so he can lose as such.

... freedom isn't free.

I don't like this often heard term, because it's oxymoronic. I prefer to say that we're free only within stately constraints, including forcible property rights, and the issue in any political debate is the utility of particular constraints.

A state could essentially make medical doctors state employees with highly secure employment, high income, pensions and other benefits. Would this policy be useful to anyone other than medical doctors? I doubt it, but many other people understandably worry a lot about their health and the cost of catastrophic illness, so statesmen may offer a protection racket satisfying both well enough.

These institutions, once established, tend to persist, if they're satisfying enough, particularly if we may not compare them with alternatives.

Re: I Am a Liberal

vidyohs — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 06:47:12 -0000

The following quotes are taken from this website:

http://www.geocities.com/co...

Those quotes are repeated in other sources on the study of communism and socialism.

"Socialism is the stage between Capitalism and Communism. It builds upon the previous system (Capitalism) by nationalizing the "means of production" (i.e. corporations, resources, banks, etc.), but not by making everyone equal. In other words, people will be paid wages based on several factors (social need, difficulty, amount of schooling required, etc.), so not everyone will make the same wage -- as is often a misinterpretation of Socialism.

Communism is the point where the state "withers away." This will be quite a few years in the future. If I had to guess, I'd say at least 10 generations of established Socialism has to occur before people evolve enough to realize that hurting others or the system ends up hurting themselves.

As Communists we advocate Socialism because it is the next necessary step to get to Communism. That is, it's not that we've given up on building a house, we just realize there is a need for a sturdy foundation first."

Socialism to the truly commited is intended to be but a pitstop.

Experience has shown that mankind will not prosper or function sufficiently under socialism to ever reach the point where this fool's idealistic goals lie, which is in the state withering away. We have seen repeated attempts to go through socialism to communism, we have seen those nations that call(ed) themselves Communist, and we have seen the disaster that resulted. The corruption and naked power of the party bosses would make even Bernie Madoff blush, the efficiency choking naked stupidity of the party bureaucrats would make even a Teamster's Union president blush, the Catch-22 idiocy of the party policies would make the Post Office seem a model of effective organization.

This is why I point out and stand by the observation that Communism is simply soicalism carried to its natural excess.

The hope and dream of progression from capitalism, through socialism, to real communism is about as empty a hope as ever existed. History shows the progression never really even makes it into pure socialism before the people began to practicing revolution at the street level. Black markets spring up, barter systems evolve, and willful defiance begins to show in ways that thwart officialdom.

Re: I Am a Liberal

muirgeo — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 06:42:31 -0000

George, will we always have to act like apes?

Or do we have some potential to rise above being mere political animals?

Posted by: Sam Grove

Sam,

How long have we been blogging together? I am all for rising above the ape level. That requires using what is different about us and what makes us special. That would be our intelligence and out ability to plan. You guys are the ones who want to make planning a bad word and prefer to run society like an ape pack tribe??, clan ...whatever the hell you call a bunch of apes.

Those guys on Wall Street they are acting like fricking apes. People who believe they need and deserve hundreds of millions of dollars to survive are acting like apes. We need to set up society with at least some regard for the bigger picture because our ability to survive as a species will not be selected for on an individual basis. Nature and evolution is capable of hierarchical levels of order and selection. It doesn't give a shit about super-wealthy jackasses. That a society allows such to perpetuate may actually be a negative selection factor from an evolutionary perspective. We will survive if we are able to plan a fair, just, equitable and THUS efficient society. Having a small group of knuckleheads thinking the one with the most money gets to be the Silverback and mates with all the females is a good way to ultimately get our population down to their level the great apes currently enjoy

Re: I Am a Liberal

Martin Brock — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 06:36:54 -0000

Capitalism Does Not Exist.

Right. What you call "capitalism" may not exist, but lots of other people use the word, and what the word commonly describes does exist. In this broader usage, Haliburton and Lockheed-Martin and Goldman Sachs and AIG and the Fed and the World Bank and WIPO and the rest are "capitalism".

What you call "capitalism" is also hopelessly vague and idealistic. So are my ideals for that matter, but I try not to confuse my ideals with common institutions, when I like them, so I can claim credit for all that glitters on behalf of my ideological compatriots while blaming "the other guys" for all the crap.

Re: I Am a Liberal

muirgeo — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 06:28:22 -0000

Wow John that's a great approach. You define the word, in this case, substitute freedom for the word so that anyone who disagrees with you is obviously against freedom. You can't lose as such.

Where you are wrong lies in the often heard term that freedom isn't free. Unless you are talking as an anarchist, which I have no patient for, your freedom ultimately derives from how the state is set up. Which means planning of some sort. Which I'm guessing you would be the best to do the planning rather than other people because they obviously know nothing of freedom compared to one such as yourself.

Now I could be wrong and maybe there has been or exist now a place called LaLa land where absolute freedom exist and property is doled out in exact direct proportion to a persons true absolute worth with out need for a government but if so I must have missed it.

Re: I Am a Liberal

vidyohs — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 06:28:04 -0000

Off topic, but needs to be seen.

http://3us.enghunan.gov.cn/...

Damn global warming and the melting Arctic, nice pictures though.

Re: I Am a Liberal

Martin Brock — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 06:15:25 -0000

This approach to defining the meaning of a term is nonsense -- it essentially renders the term meaningless.

I disagree. Precisely, what is your problem with the definitions, besides the fact that you identify with the word "capitalism" but want to distinguish yourself from particular policies in the U.S. or some other nominally "capitalist" nation that you don't like?

Some of those who “govern capital” create vast fortunes, generate millions of jobs and produce life-enhancing products, ...

Why don't the millions of people with the jobs generate the jobs and produce the life enhancing products? Why describe the generation and production as you do?

... and do so through sheer productive, competitive effort with no special help from government -- ...

Which ones do so without special help from government? The ones at GM? At AIG? At my corner grocer?

Even my corner grocer calls the police when his burglar alarm goes off or files a claim at court if I don't pay my bill. He calls the police, and I do not, because he holds title to the store and its contents, and I do not.

I think my local grocer is a fine man with a useful occupation. I don't oppose his title to the store and contents, but I won't deny the role that statesmen play, for better or for worse.

[Frankly, I don't really have a "corner grocer". I use the local branch of a large corporation. I typically shop at Kroger, but you get my point.]

... others who “govern capital” waste fortunes, dissipate jobs and defraud investors -- still others who “govern capital” seek to live without competition and use government to crush their competitors -- still others who “govern capital” funnel their profits to Islamic terrorists seeking to impose a totalitarian theocracy -- while still others who “govern capital“ become drunks or drug addicts.

Certainly. All governors of capital are not the same. I never assert such a thing.

Obviously, if “capitalism” is whatever those who “govern capital” happen to do, then “capitalism” means anything and everything -- which is only another way of saying it means nothing in particular.

No, I don't go as far as you say, because I suppose that Stalin was a "socialist", explicitly above, and we typically distinguish "socialists" from "capitalists".

My point is that the U.S. does not have a "socialist" economy in common parlance but rather has a "capitalist" economy. If Capitalist ideologues may simply pretend that everything glittering in the U.S. is their golden Capitalism while everything dull and dingy is something else, these ideologues seem to me the ones defining the term so vaguely that it's practically meaningless.

I don't define the term meaninglessly. I define it to mean precisely what the U.S., as the world's premier "Capitalist" nation, actually is, at least what it has in common with other "Capitalist" nations.

If you want to claim that no Capitalist nations exist at all, then you agree that your "Capitalism" is hardly more meaningful than "Unicorn". What is a Unicorn precisely anyway? Distinguish its genotype from that of a horse.

In my misspent youth, after finding a book on "anarchism" in my high school library, I started calling myself a "mutualist", after the fashion of Proudhon, Tucker and others. Benjamin Tucker and others laid the ideological foundation for modern the modern libertarian movement in the nineteenth century, as men like Murray Rothbard freely concede.

I didn't use "anarcho-capitalist" or "capitalist" more generally, because as a matter of historical fact, Proudhon, Tucker and others were called "socialists" and opposed "capitalism" in their own day, though they weren't "Marxists" or "state socialists" and didn't advocate a totalitarian model at all. They were far more like Rothbardians (or Rothbard like them), but they didn't like the word "capitalist" in its contemporary usage. That's all.

But I adopted "mutalist" and didn't call myself a "socialist" either, because I accepted the modern linguistic consensus that "socialism" described what states like the Soviet Union really were in my day. Of course, these states didn't exist at all in Tucker's day.

Capitalism and Socialism were the dominant thesis and anti-thesis of my day, and I had no special preference for either, so I approached the terms consistently. "Socialism" means what the dominant "socialists" (people commonly described so) really do, rather than some idyllic dream world imagined by other people who like the word "socialism". I use "capitalism" similarly, and I don't march under either banner. I don't march under any banner for that matter.

If some party of Mutualists ever (paradoxically) takes the reigns of a state, flies a banner and expects me to march under it, I'll probably drop "mutualism" too, but that hasn't happened yet. In the last couple of decades, when "libertarianism" seemed to me too much associated with the Republican party and its concrete objectives, I was more reluctant to use this term too, but fortunately for my association with "libertarianism", Bushniks effectively ended this alliance.

Why do you seek to evade the fact that “capitalism” has a specific meaning -- and that what we see today in the U.S. is not “capitalism”?

What is this specific meaning? Whatever you say it is?

And do you also say, as most self-described "socialists" do these days, that Stalin's U.S.S.R. was not "socialism"?

Re: I Am a Liberal

John Galt — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 05:44:10 -0000

Capitalism Does Not Exist.

Re: I Am a Liberal

michaelsmith — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 05:18:55 -0000

Martin Brock wrote:

U.S. citizens already have capitalism. Capitalism is what real capitalists do, not some Rothbardian utopia.

And he wrote:

"Capitalists" govern capital (means of production) by definition.

This approach to defining the meaning of a term is nonsense -- it essentially renders the term meaningless.

Some of those who “govern capital” create vast fortunes, generate millions of jobs and produce life-enhancing products, and do so through sheer productive, competitive effort with no special help from government -- others who “govern capital” waste fortunes, dissipate jobs and defraud investors -- still others who “govern capital” seek to live without competition and use government to crush their competitors -- still others who “govern capital” funnel their profits to Islamic terrorists seeking to impose a totalitarian theocracy -- while still others who “govern capital“ become drunks or drug addicts.

Obviously, if “capitalism” is whatever those who “govern capital” happen to do, then “capitalism” means anything and everything -- which is only another way of saying it means nothing in particular.

Why do you seek to evade the fact that “capitalism” has a specific meaning -- and that what we see today in the U.S. is not “capitalism”?

Re: I Am a Liberal

Martin Brock — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 04:59:38 -0000

... emigration restrictions.

He should also discuss U.S. immigration restrictions, because these forcible proprieties affect the prospects of Chinese people as well.

Re: I Am a Liberal

Martin Brock — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 04:53:53 -0000

So to the extent that you were self interested you would care more about a stranger inside your state than in another part of the country because an in-state stranger could do more harm to your life by creating new taxes than someone outside your state.

In the sense of "caring" in which I "care more" for a mugger in a dark alley than for my best friend in broad daylight, you're right.

I don't assume that someone in Rome, Georgia can offer me better terms of trade than someone in Rome, Italy, simply because he's in Georgia rather than Italy; however, if folks in Italy consistently offer me better terms, even on fruits for which Italian soil is not particularly suited, I wonder why.

Comparative advantage is a clever theory, and I'm persuaded that it meaningfully describes a virtue of freer trade, but I might find better terms of trade in Rome, Italy because some Italian mafia forcibly seizes fruits from growers in Rome, Georgia (or from their own countrymen or otherwise) and then sells the fruits to me from their stores in Italy.

In other words, Italians may have a comparative advantage in the mafia business. Maybe I'm only brainwashed by ideologically anti-imperial academics preaching their own theories from ivory towers, but I suppose successful empire has always operated this way and still does. I suppose U.S. empire is no different. That I happen to benefit from it myself is no evidence to the contrary.

Frankly, I suppose the Chinese offer attractive terms of trade not only because they're clever, industrious people advancing rapidly toward more productive organization but also because a totalitarian state commands them to offer goods they produce on more attractive terms, because these terms somehow advance ambitions of the statesmen rather than the producers.

After all, China is less developed, and producing goods there is more costly, all else being equal, not less so. If trade were ideally free, I suppose productive Chinese workers earning a fraction of my income, in terms of its real buying power, while providing many goods I consume, would either demand more from me in trade or would move here and compete for my more enviable position.

That the Chinese don't so often demand more or move here suggests to me that they aren't really so free. If I'm deluded in this way, someone needs to explain the delusion to me. He should begin with China's legal tender, its fixed exchange rate and its emigration restrictions.

The United States has a wonderful Baskin Robbins operation of government going on by 'selling' 50 different flavors of government to its population and allowing each individual to vote with their feet as to which state they like best.

At best, the U.S. had this form of government a century or so after its founding. I personally have never experienced it. I only hear tell of it, and what I hear could be mostly mythical.

Re: I Am a Liberal

Daniel Kuehn — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 04:49:30 -0000

Don -

I'm sorry I wasn't around Saturday afternoon or evening to be more involved in the initial commenting that went on. Instead of digesting all 34 of those comments I'll just respond to the initial post.

RE: "I love and care for my family and friends more than I care for mere acquaintances, and I care about most mere acquaintances more than I care about total strangers. But the nationalities or physical locations of these people's residences are irrelevant to me. I care no more for a stranger in my town of Burke, Virginia, than I care for a stranger in Beijing, Beirut, or Berlin."

Generally speaking, I'd say I agree with you. It's not lines drawn by politicians on a map that command my allegiances. But in many cases those lines do coincide with shared values which do command my allegiances. I would say that I do "care more" for a stranger in Burke than a stranger in Beijing, in the sense that if I had to choose which to help or reward if I could only choose one, I would choose the total stranger from Burke. Why? Because even though I don't know them, I can be fairly confident that I share a great deal of my values with them. That if I did know them I would get along with them better. That they've had a lot of the same experiences I've had, etc. In other words - I fundamentally agree with Don's post, but I think it is naive in assuming that our friends, family, and acquaintances are restricted to the people that we've actually met. What ties people together are common values and common experiences - I know there are millions of people out there who have common values and experiences as me, even if I haven't met them.

Someone much higher up on the commments asked how any true liberal can have a sense of patriotism under Don's definition? I think we have patriotism because we are proud of the broader community of Americans who share our common history and our common principles - and on 9/11 all of us felt that those things were threatened.

My definition of liberalism and community doesn't have to devolve into tribalism or the Tancredo/Hunter reactionsim that was also referenced in the comments. After all - American values place primacy on tolerance and acceptance of people from all around the globe. And as I said in the trade post, my strong attachment to other Virginians and to other Americans is a positive attachment to them - not a negative reaction to the Chinese.

I think it's important to remember the fracturing that happened within the liberal consensus. Liberalism split into what can broadly be defined as communitarianism and cosmopolitanism. It won't surprise most people when I say that I don't think I fit in either category, and I think both liberal perspectives have something very important to add. But I would just emphasize that if someone finds themselves to be more "communitarian" than Don, they're still quite firmly in the liberal tradition.

Re: I Am a Liberal

JP — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 02:39:20 -0000

Prof Boudreaux,

I agree with the spirit here, and perhaps I'm not understanding your definition of 'care', but consider for a moment the role of taxation pressures and voting with your feet. I think you might be convinced that you do care more for your Burke stranger than your Berlin one.

...

If one of the fifty states created a tax code that was perfectly in line with what you wanted out of a state government then presumably you might move there. And if you did move there, then once there you would be interested in keeping those laws in place. So to the extent that you were self interested you would care more about a stranger inside your state than in another part of the country because an in-state stranger could do more harm to your life by creating new taxes than someone outside your state. Just so with Burke and Berlin.

The United States has a wonderful Baskin Robbins operation of government going on by 'selling' 50 different flavors of government to its population and allowing each individual to vote with their feet as to which state they like best. I might not have individual loyalties for strangers, but I do want strangers, to the degree that they can impact me, to behave responsibly, to be educated, to feel safe, and to be economically productive. And indeed, I want those things more for them than other strangers whose feedback loops have less influence on me.

The truth is that political relationships are highly compelling. They compel resources to leave your pocketbook(!). The aggregate position of your near strangers impacts you... 'caring' for them is merely being self interested.

Re: I Am a Liberal

Martin Brock — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 01:56:22 -0000

States are always the champions of protectionism because they are the monopoly providers of violence, which is what makes protectionism possible.

States make private property possible, because private property itself is a form of protectionism. I draw a line around some parcel of land and claim a right to exclusive use of it, including a right to charge you a rent for its use. I may exercise this right only because statesmen protect it, only because the statesmen will harm you if don't respect the right.

But statesmen don't enforce just anything labeled "proper" arbitrarily. Statesmen enforce standards that benefit statesmen. Particular property rights also are more useful to free consumers and laborers when organized within a free capital market, but subjecting property to market organization is only one policy that statesmen may pursue in their own interests.

Politicians get their jobs and their post-job sinecures by protecting favored industries and groups (think Cheney and Halliburton, etc.)

Right.

If US citizens insisted on capitalism, ...

U.S. citizens already have capitalism. Capitalism is what real capitalists do, not some Rothbardian utopia. To reason otherwise is to play the same game that "socialists" play when they claim that Stalin "wasn't really a socialist".

... and shrunk the role of the state to protection of people and property, ...

"Property" is whatever the statesmen protect. If I rule some monopoly of automobile production or a monopoly of labor turning a particular screw on automobile assembly lines, then this monopoly right is my "property". Libertarian idealists may imagine some Lockean or other ideal propriety, but our ideals are just that, imaginary.

... then capitalists and organized labor could lobby the state for monopolist protections all day long (which they now do) and get nothing but the cold shoulder.

"Capitalists" govern capital (means of production) by definition. If they can buy favor from statesmen (who govern the means of forcible imposition) by governing their capital in some particular way, they will.

Of course if they got nothing for lobbying, they'd quit doing it and find real jobs.

If they could ride to work on the backs of flying pigs, they might do that too.

Re: I Am a Liberal

Bastiat — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 01:32:17 -0000

One of the most inspiring postings (of many) on this blog, and fantastic to know that others think, and can express so well, my own mindset.

Re: I Am a Liberal

BoscoH — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 23:49:22 -0000

George writes:

Summing, there seems to be a real difficulty of liberalism to coordinate its philosophical side with a practical real world need for it to exist in a political system.

You assume that liberalism needs to exist in a political system by engaging in it on the terms of the system, i.e. inside one of the two major parties. I disagree. Liberal thinkers can be very influential by occasionally throwing wrenches into the system and being available to explain why things go horribly wrong. At the same time, liberal thinkers can use the events and politics of the day to shape their views.

There are a few recent examples where liberal thinkers have effectively engaged the widespread politics. Example 1: Cheye Calvo and the SWAT team that killed his dogs in Berwyn Heights, Maryland. For the first time in my memory, people are asking the police why they need to act like gangs of thugs. I even asked a sheriff deputy friend that, and was told that lots of people have been asking that lately and it's a very tough question to answer. Example 2: Charlie Lynch. Obama held an online Q&A and the biggest issue was marijuana. It's not just the 4:20 crowd that cares about this. It's symbolic of everything that is wrong with government, from nanny statism, to states' rights, to militarized police, to mandatory minimum sentences, etc. And this evening, it sure looks like the VP's daughter became the unwitting poster child for the abject failure of the war on drugs.

Liberals generally make terrible politicians. Ron Paul is certifiably nuts, basically a libertarian version of H. Ross Perot without the money. I'm not sure that even Mike Munger could break that mold if elected.

Find me the equivalent of Reason or Cato on the traditional right or left. They raise money, churn policy critiques, popularize classic liberal ideas, and engage the political system. They find allies where they can on the issues they push. They are not tied to either party, and certainly unfriendly to the leadership of both parties.

That George, is what I think you completely misunderstand about your interlocutors at the Cafe. It's not important to us to be part of the team that's in power. We can learn a lot by watching, and we can bring the hammer when the opportunities arise.

Re: I Am a Liberal

Bob Smith — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 23:14:36 -0000

irrational feeling that a stranger who happens also to be a fellow citizen of your country is thereby a more worthy person

Why is it irrational to feel that a person who shares my values is more worthy than a person who doesn't? That's why open immigration is insane, it means demographic conquest by people who don't share your values. Assuming you believe in the superiority of your values, why would you bequeath such a fate to your children? And if you don't so believe, you deserve to (and will) be conquered by those who do.

Re: I Am a Liberal

Oil Shock — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 21:43:50 -0000

Rape, Murder, Theft, slavery, racism & War always existed, and is likely to always exist, and so by the philosophy of Dr. Fraud ( borrowing from Mesa ), we should all just surrender to such crimes and never ever attempt to try to make it even a little bit better.

Re: I Am a Liberal

John V — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 21:35:54 -0000

T L Holaday,

What is the reasoning that immediately recognizes and protests the immorality of sugar tariffs and yet is silent about President Bush ordering torture?

Why don't you go to a site where the posters hold that inconsistent view and ask them?

Try RedState or something like that.

Re: I Am a Liberal

Gil — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 21:28:12 -0000

I sorta agree with vidyohs - we all know what 'Classical Liberalism' is and what 'Modern Liberalism' is. But so what? Conservatism has changed over time. Why should owning term 'Liberalism' mean anything? Everyone more or less knows what 'Libertarianism' is.

Re: I Am a Liberal

Sam Grove — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 21:15:14 -0000

George, will we always have to act like apes?

Or do we have some potential to rise above being mere political animals?