Democracy works well for simple things, like church pot lucks. Democracy is ill suited as a means of governance. The confusion is that democracy is very important for citizen involvement in a community, but we cannot have nor expect the citizenry to govern society.
A healthy society needs citizens who largely govern themselves. We want a community where the police and social workers are scarcely needed, because the people follow the law and take care of themselves and dependents and do so without coercion.
The less society expects the citizenry to govern itself, the more it invites FOOLs to disrupt the citizens and complicate society. So just as a healthy community creates a virtuous cycle of prosperity, an unhealthy community invites a negative spiral of constant interference of foolish interference.
One of my fantasies which led to my Chartertopia was to imagine a government stripped of its enforcement powers.
* No prosecutors or police; all enforcement is by private citizens.
* Loser pays everything associated with the prosecution: court costs, travel, time off work, investigation.
* Throw out laws and regulations which are not consistently enforced. FBI 2017 stats say murder has a 61% clearance rate, rape 34%. Both are far better than speeding, which is probably 1 out of 1000 at best. or the drug war.
In effect, if people don't like laws, they don't prosecute them, and they are thrown out. If enforcement is too inconsistent because laws are too muddled and confusing, throw them out.
I don’t “fear” the woke, but I don’t want them indoctrinating my children and grandchildren in public schools. Nor do I want them demanding that I celebrate, affirm, and pay for their choices. Marry your washing machine for all I care, just don’t put a gun to my head and demand that I use the machine’s proper pronouns.
Having significant experience in natural gas flames and a reasonably deep knowledge of Thermodynamics ( Ph.D. level experience), I know that most of the so-called research on gas stoves is inconsistent with reality. I looked at the papers claiming impacts and NOx creation and how they did their experiments, and it smelled of "tobacco science," where you get the answers the government and activist NGO's funders wanted. The formation of NOx from N2 and O2 in the air is a process where the absolute temperature is exponentially critical. In the 1970s, we could never get enough NOx from stoves and water heater burners to measure the generation rates (these flames were not hot enough). The flames in a 100 MW gas-fired boiler were hot enough, and so was the flame at 10 atmospheres pressure in a gas turbine or a diesel/gasoline engine.
I have watched the quality of science in government regulatory agencies decay over the decades as the HR seems to staff these agencies with environmental activists and lawyers who don't really understand the subject they are responsible for. Fools is a generous description of these bureaucrats. The kinetic equations for NOx formation haven't changed in over half a century.
It is a bit ironic that California wants to eliminate gas stoves and use electricity, which will produce more NOx pollution. The net CO2 emissions issue is more complex as cooks breathe out CO2.
Arnold ascribes the growth in government to increased interdependency leading to more instances of friction, and to people's "fear of others' liberty." I see the growth in government as primarily due to its having become a vehicle for legal social predation, a new Hobbesian war of all against all. Crony capitalism has replaced much of the market economy, and it is amazing what wealth can be gained for relatively little political investment. All under the spurious moral justification of Progressive meliorism, of course.
There are good reasons as to why people fear the autonomy of others. Sometimes economics relies on big assumptions such as "if everyone obeys the law" and "if all parties involved have perfect information" and similar such. The reason why we have regulation is to make society straight and more predictable. There's good reason to believe that people will use their freedom to repudiate their debts and avoid taxation. When the citizens of Massachusetts earned freedom from the British, they used it to stiff their creditors in Shay's Rebellion. The rebellion strengthened the hand of the federalists in overturning the Articles of Confederation among other things. Then there was the Whiskey rebellion not long afterwards over taxes. So, why fear the freedom of the masses? They'll use their freedom not to pay their bills to stick someone else with the losses. Elites can do that too: see 2008.
It is also not crazy to fear the beliefs of other people because of the lessons of history. Europe's most horrible wars were wars of religion, and later wars of ideology. The Russians who played footsie with the proto-Bolsheviks were not paranoid enough; the lesson to draw is rather that only the paranoid survive.
When groups of people share sharply divergent beliefs about the important things, civil war becomes a distinct possibility. This helps to explain why most states regulate the beliefs of the population: it's a predicate for maintaining the state in the first place. One of the stories of the United States is that it was able to establish a durable order across a multiplicity of Christian sects without a state church. It also maintained a federation between two groups of states with fundamentally different approaches to property until 1861; after which it regulated slavery out of existence. So there is some level of regulation that is excessive and some that may be necessary.
The Whiskey Rebellion is an example of what made America different and also great. It was wrong for the rebels to cause harm to the tax collectors. It was right for the rebellion to be squashed. But note what happened afterward. The politicians recognized that they needed to be careful in the laws they pass or they might pay for it with their lives. And Washington pardoned the rebels.
A similar outcome happened with the Civil War, once a truce was made, the accepted ideal was that everyone on both sides was simply doing their best. Americans built monuments for generals on both sides and the North and the South were romanticized.
We no longer possess this social grace of making lemonade out of lemons. Rather than having "charity for all", modern society seems consumed with getting even and pouring salt onto wounds. Couple this acrimony with increased cries for "Democracy" and you have a recipe for very bad laws and policies.
The past dozen years especially in American has been laws and judgments given, not out of desire for fairness and goodwill, but out of spite and scoring political points. This needs to end. But will it?
I think you are much too short-sighted. Politics has only changed in how much is at stake, not the manner of retribution. The Whiskey Rebellion is a good example. The core problem was government money losing its value as all fiat moneys do, paying war veterans with worthless money yet demanding taxes be paid in good money, and the government courts siding with the merchants and banks who wanted to foreclose on the farmers who couldn't pay their bills in good money. The Whiskey Rebellion was one of the primary excuses for the powerful federal government of the 1787 constitution. The winners did not forgive and forget in that larger sense.
Government has gotten worse because it has reached deeper and deeper into daily lives, and people can't close their eyes and pretend otherwise. It has become more profitable, literally and figuratively, to sic government on others rather than mind your own business.
One’s liberty does not include license to break contracts. It exists within boundaries imposed by others’ liberty. As for taxes, they are not mandated by God.
Yes it does. Breaching a contract has legal consequences, but you are purely within your rights to do so. It is not considered unethical. A lawyer can counsel you to breach a contract if it is in your interests: it's not considered to be like fraud. As for taxes, God did say "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's," but that's open to some interpretation.
Your reply is self-contradictory: “you’re within your rights but there are legal consequences.” Seriously? Try “You’re within your rights to murder but there are legal consequences.” “Ability” does not equal “right”, or as I put it, “license”.
two comments. 1. under certain conditions, the wisdom of the crowds (a proxy for democracy) works way better than expert decisions 2. unfortunately the marxist approach that dominates many western societies sells the supposed expert decisions (often learned ignoramus) as democracy without even an hint of cost and benefit analysis (think energy policies)
Democracy works when people know themselves to be equally worthy in the eyes of a Higher spiritual realm from which we emerged. Without that sense of inherent dignity—despite our propensity to rely on “specialness” or ego defenses, we succumb to our worst instincts. When the ego is left unchecked, principles of decency degrade, a society unravels and, regardless of draconian machinations to control one another, we find ourselves o in greater and greater chaos. We must come to learn how the ego within each of us undermines our capacity for wisdom —which is intelligence that “knows” the primacy of heart-centered values. There is no crustal ball, but the power of conscience and Greater Consciousness will never steer us astray. In the craziness humans have made by denying our inner divinity, we find ourselves now in the midst of a huge reckoning with our collective karma. We are all in this together whether we are ready to admit it if not. The sooner we do, the sooner we can correct course and evolve rather than devolve.
There's also what someone called the law of bureaucrats: they can only measure success by the number of subordinates, the size of their budgets, and the number of new regulations they issue. Therefore their instinct is to grow, and the last thing they want is to solve the problems on which they depend for existence.
Government and private bureaucrats are different only in government bureaucrats having no competition to keep their numbers down, and in governments defining their own limits instead of customers and competitors. The clearest example in my eyes is immunity. The Supreme Court "confirmed" absolute judicial immunity and invented qualified immunity for all government employees in 1967, and invented absolute prosecutorial immunity in 1976. When police break the law to collect evidence, the evidence is thrown out rather than prosecute the crime committed by the police. They are all government employees looking out for each other in ways that private citizens cannot.
Interesting concept. Let me add a point that many Americans seem to miss. A rule-based international economic order is a powerful instrument to constrain the FOOLs worst instincts. Although the EU is often regarded as a bureaucratic nightmare, its Single Market and competition rules have mightily worked to sustain economic freedom especially in countries where there is little traditional attachment for it (eg Italy). Unfortunately things seem to have taken a turn for the worse recently, under the joint pressure of the ‘green’ ideology and perceived ‘unfair’ competition from outside the bloc. In this connection the effective repudiation by the US of a rule-based international economic order - in particular, the WTO regime - is a major tragedy. I find it depressing
that American commentators, including those of liberal (in the European sense of the term) bent, seem to have very little to say about it. Freedom is not a state of nature but demands institutions, both domestically and internationally. If you consider that more democracy would be overall bad for America - and I tend to share your ‘heretic’ sentiment including for Europe (which I know better) - should not the same consideration lead to the conclusion that it would be good for America to be more restrained by international rules?
The UE is a bureaucratic nightmare that invites FOOLs. All the while it is possible the EU is preferable to the alternative approaches of international agreements of nations that share so many boundaries and are so geographically close.
Bothersome government is preferable to world wars. People should, as a common objective, want to avoid having awful government so as to avoid the military conflict such government invites. But who decides what is awful government?
I think this is why BREXIT is an acceptable democratic vote. It is better to allow the people to express their frustration with a ballot than with a gun. And government being what it is, no vote is final. Has the UK actually done "BREXIT". But at least the citizens of Britain had a chance to say they prefer a little more national autonomy, even if their elected leaders disagree.
The less onerous way to express democratic disapproval of a socially negative behavior is a sin tax. Like the vices of smoking & drinking. That the Woke, power hungry Dems choose absolute forbidding of something that has long been normal, is an example of a good reason to fear them and them being in power. They use their power to hurt others.
It’s sadly telling that AK focuses on Reps being afraid of Dems, without examples, before adding the vice versa.
A) far more Reps have voted for bugger, er, bigger govt programs that Dems support, than have Dems supported Rep programs.
B) there is the inevitable dynamic that those who get elected mostly do so thru promises to Do Something, which usually means new, increased govt spending.
AK should give examples of what Reps, or Trump, has done to be afraid of. Also a few things Dems have done, like Amy Wax persecution, multiple releases of crazy & dangerous Neely leading to his crazed threatening of innocents, then a restraint which led to his death. Dems support for Hamas, like support for the hot assassin Luigi, seem like good reasons to fear them. Dem fear of tax cuts, or govt cuts, is far less based on real life examples.
Reps fear stuff that has happened and is more likely to happen again, while Dems fear their speculative dystopias. Tho yes, Dems fear that human rights to life might be granted to totally innocent human fetuses which are unwanted by their mothers. Which has become, more correctly, a state by state abortion issue, most often with the pro-abortion side winning and Reps accepting such laws.
Concerning cigarettes I quiz myself on how I, as a classical liberal, could support the regulations that have so greatly reduced smoking. For I am certainly glad smoking in public has been effectively banned. When I see a film that shows people smoking in trains or restaurants I am reminded of much I, as a younger person, hated walking through a cloud of smoke.
Am I a hypocrite for supporting smoking bans? How can I reconcile my support of anti-smoking laws while at the same time being ardently opposed to climate laws and child safety laws?
I don't have a good answer for this. I think on these issues democracy matters. The people have to have a say and if the people don't want to walk through clouds of tobacco smoke at a restaurant or airport, then maybe that is something the people get to decide. And if the people go crazy and decide to make marijuana smoking legal, then maybe we do it. And in time the people will realize there should be restrictions on that smoking and the law will adjust.
And, if nothing else works to get a people to exercise common sense as I see it, then a last resort is to move. This is actually my answer as to why Federalism is the best system of government. I want New York to be different than Kansas because I, as an American, want to be able to have choices if I decide I want to live in a different state that has different government policies.
I am sympathetic to your ambivalence. To be a society at all, a society must have the right to enforce some pro-social standards (i.e. basic morality). This may require balancing conflicting objectives of decency and liberty.
I would rather the offended sneer at people, make fun of them, and apply individual peer pressure, than leave it in the hands of third party bureaucrats tasked with enforcing laws they probably don't care about in the intended manner, written by politicians whose only goal is reelection.
Completely agree. I like to say that liberalism pairs well with religion. Religion lifts the standard of decency without requiring a heavy hand from government. Religion (at least the kind I am talking about) focuses on encouraging internal personal morality while also providing a dose of (perhaps sneering) external judgement as a useful side effect.
Then you rely on mob rule to decide what and how to make those decisions, and third parties with different interests to enforce those decisions. Who watches the watchers?
Federalism at the individual level is the answer, which is peer pressure.
Anything so unpopular that it justifies mob rule enforced by third parties will already be unpopular enough to be enforced by peer pressure.
Unless you're referring to murder, assault, theft, and other aggressions and violations of self-ownership. I am no economist, and maybe those are negative externalities. But those are not the kinds of things I think of.
If you equate local democracy with mob rule, ok. “Federalism at the individual level” is a cute way of saying “anarchy“. I’m a fan of anarchic ideals, but in practice, people living near each other must agree on which negative externalities are acceptable. If the perpetrator persists despite peer pressure? It’s posse time! Or hire a gunslinger.
As for smoking, negative externalities affect the liberty of others, and as you support federalism (although ideally it should be implemented below the state level), you are not a hypocrite.
I suggest reading "The Unaccountability Machine" by Davies about the industrialisation of decision-making – the methods by which, over the last century, the developed world has arranged its society and economy so that important institutions are run by processes and systems, operating on standardised sets of information, rather than by individual human beings reacting to individual circumstances.
Davies, Dan. The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions - and How The World Lost its Mind (p. 3). Profile. Kindle Edition.
The problem with Greater FOOL Theory is that it lacks gratitude. The pessimistic libertarian is biased toward FOOL theory whereas the realist sees truth in GET Liberty Theory.
Good Enough for Today (GET) Liberty
“What libertarians hope for is elites who will take on the task of putting restrictions on the FOOLs. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights were attempts at that. But from a libertarian perspective, those attempts failed to stem the tide.”
We have a fairly pessimistic post here. I imagine the older libertarians tend to cheer in agreement, while the younger ones say, “Hold on a second. We got this.”
The truth of the matter is that we don’t know how the scope and magnitude of freedom changes over time in any general sense. We can measure changes in gun restrictions, car safety regulations, the number of TSA employees, but we don’t know how this translates into an overall measure of liberty, or flourishing.
So this is an entertaining post with educational value, but as far as economic accuracy goes it is more opinion than scientific rigor.
Each of us has been given an opportunity to ask: “What should I do today?” The fact that we can ask this question is Good Enough for Today (GET) Liberty.
To Ponder: Arnold thinks of himself as a Good Enough Parent; perhaps he should find ways of seeing himself as a Good Enough Libertarian?
Of course, the answer is each consumer should because the externality of the CO2 released by the gas stove has been incorporated into the price of the gas.
Arnoldl's point was about a ban on gas stoves, not about a carbon tax:
"Who should make the decision about whether you can have a gas stove in your new house?
The libertarian answer is that it should be up to you.
What I might call the elitist answer is that the decision should be made by by experts, who decide either to forbid gas stoves or allow you to have one."
I agree it should be up to the consumer, but they should take account of the externality in making their decision. That's what a tax on net CO2 emissions does.
Are you talking about stove emissions, or gas emissions? If the stove, why should stoves be singled out more than any other product?
How about crops? Crops consume lots of CO2 while growing, perhaps farmers should be paid to grow crops. But tending, harvesting, processing, and eating crops all release CO2, so those should have separate CO2 emission taxes.
My point exactly. A tax on net CO2 emissions applies to all activities.
Oh, I think I may see the problem. You may be thinking that as tax on net CO2 emissions requires a separately administered tax for each activity -- totally infeasible, I agree. Rather the tax is on first sale of carbon-containing fuels in proportion to carbon content and a subsidy of that equivalent rate for sequestration of CO2 removed from the atmosphere.
And why do the "experts" never discuss the positivities of CO2? It points to the insanity of the experts that they are so dogmatic on a thing being evil when the thing is demonstrably natural and necessary and needful for a thriving ecology.
Why are the "experts" like this? It is because their motivation is power - for it is their power to control that makes them "important" and guarantees them a job and income.
I'll go with Nordhaus. But when Congress gets around to this, they'll no doubt want to do it over and in more detail. And of course it will need to be adjusted as climate-economic models and technology improve.
Democracy works well for simple things, like church pot lucks. Democracy is ill suited as a means of governance. The confusion is that democracy is very important for citizen involvement in a community, but we cannot have nor expect the citizenry to govern society.
A healthy society needs citizens who largely govern themselves. We want a community where the police and social workers are scarcely needed, because the people follow the law and take care of themselves and dependents and do so without coercion.
The less society expects the citizenry to govern itself, the more it invites FOOLs to disrupt the citizens and complicate society. So just as a healthy community creates a virtuous cycle of prosperity, an unhealthy community invites a negative spiral of constant interference of foolish interference.
One of my fantasies which led to my Chartertopia was to imagine a government stripped of its enforcement powers.
* No prosecutors or police; all enforcement is by private citizens.
* Loser pays everything associated with the prosecution: court costs, travel, time off work, investigation.
* Throw out laws and regulations which are not consistently enforced. FBI 2017 stats say murder has a 61% clearance rate, rape 34%. Both are far better than speeding, which is probably 1 out of 1000 at best. or the drug war.
In effect, if people don't like laws, they don't prosecute them, and they are thrown out. If enforcement is too inconsistent because laws are too muddled and confusing, throw them out.
I don’t “fear” the woke, but I don’t want them indoctrinating my children and grandchildren in public schools. Nor do I want them demanding that I celebrate, affirm, and pay for their choices. Marry your washing machine for all I care, just don’t put a gun to my head and demand that I use the machine’s proper pronouns.
Having significant experience in natural gas flames and a reasonably deep knowledge of Thermodynamics ( Ph.D. level experience), I know that most of the so-called research on gas stoves is inconsistent with reality. I looked at the papers claiming impacts and NOx creation and how they did their experiments, and it smelled of "tobacco science," where you get the answers the government and activist NGO's funders wanted. The formation of NOx from N2 and O2 in the air is a process where the absolute temperature is exponentially critical. In the 1970s, we could never get enough NOx from stoves and water heater burners to measure the generation rates (these flames were not hot enough). The flames in a 100 MW gas-fired boiler were hot enough, and so was the flame at 10 atmospheres pressure in a gas turbine or a diesel/gasoline engine.
I have watched the quality of science in government regulatory agencies decay over the decades as the HR seems to staff these agencies with environmental activists and lawyers who don't really understand the subject they are responsible for. Fools is a generous description of these bureaucrats. The kinetic equations for NOx formation haven't changed in over half a century.
It is a bit ironic that California wants to eliminate gas stoves and use electricity, which will produce more NOx pollution. The net CO2 emissions issue is more complex as cooks breathe out CO2.
Arnold ascribes the growth in government to increased interdependency leading to more instances of friction, and to people's "fear of others' liberty." I see the growth in government as primarily due to its having become a vehicle for legal social predation, a new Hobbesian war of all against all. Crony capitalism has replaced much of the market economy, and it is amazing what wealth can be gained for relatively little political investment. All under the spurious moral justification of Progressive meliorism, of course.
There are good reasons as to why people fear the autonomy of others. Sometimes economics relies on big assumptions such as "if everyone obeys the law" and "if all parties involved have perfect information" and similar such. The reason why we have regulation is to make society straight and more predictable. There's good reason to believe that people will use their freedom to repudiate their debts and avoid taxation. When the citizens of Massachusetts earned freedom from the British, they used it to stiff their creditors in Shay's Rebellion. The rebellion strengthened the hand of the federalists in overturning the Articles of Confederation among other things. Then there was the Whiskey rebellion not long afterwards over taxes. So, why fear the freedom of the masses? They'll use their freedom not to pay their bills to stick someone else with the losses. Elites can do that too: see 2008.
It is also not crazy to fear the beliefs of other people because of the lessons of history. Europe's most horrible wars were wars of religion, and later wars of ideology. The Russians who played footsie with the proto-Bolsheviks were not paranoid enough; the lesson to draw is rather that only the paranoid survive.
When groups of people share sharply divergent beliefs about the important things, civil war becomes a distinct possibility. This helps to explain why most states regulate the beliefs of the population: it's a predicate for maintaining the state in the first place. One of the stories of the United States is that it was able to establish a durable order across a multiplicity of Christian sects without a state church. It also maintained a federation between two groups of states with fundamentally different approaches to property until 1861; after which it regulated slavery out of existence. So there is some level of regulation that is excessive and some that may be necessary.
The Whiskey Rebellion is an example of what made America different and also great. It was wrong for the rebels to cause harm to the tax collectors. It was right for the rebellion to be squashed. But note what happened afterward. The politicians recognized that they needed to be careful in the laws they pass or they might pay for it with their lives. And Washington pardoned the rebels.
A similar outcome happened with the Civil War, once a truce was made, the accepted ideal was that everyone on both sides was simply doing their best. Americans built monuments for generals on both sides and the North and the South were romanticized.
We no longer possess this social grace of making lemonade out of lemons. Rather than having "charity for all", modern society seems consumed with getting even and pouring salt onto wounds. Couple this acrimony with increased cries for "Democracy" and you have a recipe for very bad laws and policies.
The past dozen years especially in American has been laws and judgments given, not out of desire for fairness and goodwill, but out of spite and scoring political points. This needs to end. But will it?
I think you are much too short-sighted. Politics has only changed in how much is at stake, not the manner of retribution. The Whiskey Rebellion is a good example. The core problem was government money losing its value as all fiat moneys do, paying war veterans with worthless money yet demanding taxes be paid in good money, and the government courts siding with the merchants and banks who wanted to foreclose on the farmers who couldn't pay their bills in good money. The Whiskey Rebellion was one of the primary excuses for the powerful federal government of the 1787 constitution. The winners did not forgive and forget in that larger sense.
Government has gotten worse because it has reached deeper and deeper into daily lives, and people can't close their eyes and pretend otherwise. It has become more profitable, literally and figuratively, to sic government on others rather than mind your own business.
One’s liberty does not include license to break contracts. It exists within boundaries imposed by others’ liberty. As for taxes, they are not mandated by God.
Yes it does. Breaching a contract has legal consequences, but you are purely within your rights to do so. It is not considered unethical. A lawyer can counsel you to breach a contract if it is in your interests: it's not considered to be like fraud. As for taxes, God did say "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's," but that's open to some interpretation.
Your reply is self-contradictory: “you’re within your rights but there are legal consequences.” Seriously? Try “You’re within your rights to murder but there are legal consequences.” “Ability” does not equal “right”, or as I put it, “license”.
two comments. 1. under certain conditions, the wisdom of the crowds (a proxy for democracy) works way better than expert decisions 2. unfortunately the marxist approach that dominates many western societies sells the supposed expert decisions (often learned ignoramus) as democracy without even an hint of cost and benefit analysis (think energy policies)
Democracy works when people know themselves to be equally worthy in the eyes of a Higher spiritual realm from which we emerged. Without that sense of inherent dignity—despite our propensity to rely on “specialness” or ego defenses, we succumb to our worst instincts. When the ego is left unchecked, principles of decency degrade, a society unravels and, regardless of draconian machinations to control one another, we find ourselves o in greater and greater chaos. We must come to learn how the ego within each of us undermines our capacity for wisdom —which is intelligence that “knows” the primacy of heart-centered values. There is no crustal ball, but the power of conscience and Greater Consciousness will never steer us astray. In the craziness humans have made by denying our inner divinity, we find ourselves now in the midst of a huge reckoning with our collective karma. We are all in this together whether we are ready to admit it if not. The sooner we do, the sooner we can correct course and evolve rather than devolve.
There's also what someone called the law of bureaucrats: they can only measure success by the number of subordinates, the size of their budgets, and the number of new regulations they issue. Therefore their instinct is to grow, and the last thing they want is to solve the problems on which they depend for existence.
Government and private bureaucrats are different only in government bureaucrats having no competition to keep their numbers down, and in governments defining their own limits instead of customers and competitors. The clearest example in my eyes is immunity. The Supreme Court "confirmed" absolute judicial immunity and invented qualified immunity for all government employees in 1967, and invented absolute prosecutorial immunity in 1976. When police break the law to collect evidence, the evidence is thrown out rather than prosecute the crime committed by the police. They are all government employees looking out for each other in ways that private citizens cannot.
Interesting concept. Let me add a point that many Americans seem to miss. A rule-based international economic order is a powerful instrument to constrain the FOOLs worst instincts. Although the EU is often regarded as a bureaucratic nightmare, its Single Market and competition rules have mightily worked to sustain economic freedom especially in countries where there is little traditional attachment for it (eg Italy). Unfortunately things seem to have taken a turn for the worse recently, under the joint pressure of the ‘green’ ideology and perceived ‘unfair’ competition from outside the bloc. In this connection the effective repudiation by the US of a rule-based international economic order - in particular, the WTO regime - is a major tragedy. I find it depressing
that American commentators, including those of liberal (in the European sense of the term) bent, seem to have very little to say about it. Freedom is not a state of nature but demands institutions, both domestically and internationally. If you consider that more democracy would be overall bad for America - and I tend to share your ‘heretic’ sentiment including for Europe (which I know better) - should not the same consideration lead to the conclusion that it would be good for America to be more restrained by international rules?
The UE is a bureaucratic nightmare that invites FOOLs. All the while it is possible the EU is preferable to the alternative approaches of international agreements of nations that share so many boundaries and are so geographically close.
Bothersome government is preferable to world wars. People should, as a common objective, want to avoid having awful government so as to avoid the military conflict such government invites. But who decides what is awful government?
I think this is why BREXIT is an acceptable democratic vote. It is better to allow the people to express their frustration with a ballot than with a gun. And government being what it is, no vote is final. Has the UK actually done "BREXIT". But at least the citizens of Britain had a chance to say they prefer a little more national autonomy, even if their elected leaders disagree.
The less onerous way to express democratic disapproval of a socially negative behavior is a sin tax. Like the vices of smoking & drinking. That the Woke, power hungry Dems choose absolute forbidding of something that has long been normal, is an example of a good reason to fear them and them being in power. They use their power to hurt others.
It’s sadly telling that AK focuses on Reps being afraid of Dems, without examples, before adding the vice versa.
A) far more Reps have voted for bugger, er, bigger govt programs that Dems support, than have Dems supported Rep programs.
B) there is the inevitable dynamic that those who get elected mostly do so thru promises to Do Something, which usually means new, increased govt spending.
AK should give examples of what Reps, or Trump, has done to be afraid of. Also a few things Dems have done, like Amy Wax persecution, multiple releases of crazy & dangerous Neely leading to his crazed threatening of innocents, then a restraint which led to his death. Dems support for Hamas, like support for the hot assassin Luigi, seem like good reasons to fear them. Dem fear of tax cuts, or govt cuts, is far less based on real life examples.
Reps fear stuff that has happened and is more likely to happen again, while Dems fear their speculative dystopias. Tho yes, Dems fear that human rights to life might be granted to totally innocent human fetuses which are unwanted by their mothers. Which has become, more correctly, a state by state abortion issue, most often with the pro-abortion side winning and Reps accepting such laws.
Concerning cigarettes I quiz myself on how I, as a classical liberal, could support the regulations that have so greatly reduced smoking. For I am certainly glad smoking in public has been effectively banned. When I see a film that shows people smoking in trains or restaurants I am reminded of much I, as a younger person, hated walking through a cloud of smoke.
Am I a hypocrite for supporting smoking bans? How can I reconcile my support of anti-smoking laws while at the same time being ardently opposed to climate laws and child safety laws?
I don't have a good answer for this. I think on these issues democracy matters. The people have to have a say and if the people don't want to walk through clouds of tobacco smoke at a restaurant or airport, then maybe that is something the people get to decide. And if the people go crazy and decide to make marijuana smoking legal, then maybe we do it. And in time the people will realize there should be restrictions on that smoking and the law will adjust.
And, if nothing else works to get a people to exercise common sense as I see it, then a last resort is to move. This is actually my answer as to why Federalism is the best system of government. I want New York to be different than Kansas because I, as an American, want to be able to have choices if I decide I want to live in a different state that has different government policies.
I am sympathetic to your ambivalence. To be a society at all, a society must have the right to enforce some pro-social standards (i.e. basic morality). This may require balancing conflicting objectives of decency and liberty.
I would rather the offended sneer at people, make fun of them, and apply individual peer pressure, than leave it in the hands of third party bureaucrats tasked with enforcing laws they probably don't care about in the intended manner, written by politicians whose only goal is reelection.
Completely agree. I like to say that liberalism pairs well with religion. Religion lifts the standard of decency without requiring a heavy hand from government. Religion (at least the kind I am talking about) focuses on encouraging internal personal morality while also providing a dose of (perhaps sneering) external judgement as a useful side effect.
Agree, but in some cases negative externalities matter enough for communities to ban them. Federalism at the local level is the answer.
Then you rely on mob rule to decide what and how to make those decisions, and third parties with different interests to enforce those decisions. Who watches the watchers?
Federalism at the individual level is the answer, which is peer pressure.
Anything so unpopular that it justifies mob rule enforced by third parties will already be unpopular enough to be enforced by peer pressure.
Unless you're referring to murder, assault, theft, and other aggressions and violations of self-ownership. I am no economist, and maybe those are negative externalities. But those are not the kinds of things I think of.
If you equate local democracy with mob rule, ok. “Federalism at the individual level” is a cute way of saying “anarchy“. I’m a fan of anarchic ideals, but in practice, people living near each other must agree on which negative externalities are acceptable. If the perpetrator persists despite peer pressure? It’s posse time! Or hire a gunslinger.
As for smoking, negative externalities affect the liberty of others, and as you support federalism (although ideally it should be implemented below the state level), you are not a hypocrite.
This essay is a gem. Perspicuous, incisive, artful.
Alas, discouraging, too — "Libertarians have no reliable friends":
https://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/a-commenter-criticizes-libertarianism/
'experts' is just another way of saying "shut up"
because
knowing how to do a thing doesn't give you any special insight into IF the thing should be done
I suggest reading "The Unaccountability Machine" by Davies about the industrialisation of decision-making – the methods by which, over the last century, the developed world has arranged its society and economy so that important institutions are run by processes and systems, operating on standardised sets of information, rather than by individual human beings reacting to individual circumstances.
Davies, Dan. The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions - and How The World Lost its Mind (p. 3). Profile. Kindle Edition.
The problem with Greater FOOL Theory is that it lacks gratitude. The pessimistic libertarian is biased toward FOOL theory whereas the realist sees truth in GET Liberty Theory.
Good Enough for Today (GET) Liberty
“What libertarians hope for is elites who will take on the task of putting restrictions on the FOOLs. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights were attempts at that. But from a libertarian perspective, those attempts failed to stem the tide.”
We have a fairly pessimistic post here. I imagine the older libertarians tend to cheer in agreement, while the younger ones say, “Hold on a second. We got this.”
The truth of the matter is that we don’t know how the scope and magnitude of freedom changes over time in any general sense. We can measure changes in gun restrictions, car safety regulations, the number of TSA employees, but we don’t know how this translates into an overall measure of liberty, or flourishing.
So this is an entertaining post with educational value, but as far as economic accuracy goes it is more opinion than scientific rigor.
Each of us has been given an opportunity to ask: “What should I do today?” The fact that we can ask this question is Good Enough for Today (GET) Liberty.
To Ponder: Arnold thinks of himself as a Good Enough Parent; perhaps he should find ways of seeing himself as a Good Enough Libertarian?
After you ask yourself “What should I do today?”, ask yourself “Who must I ask for permission?”
True. And it’s hard to get new private ventures off the ground when public versions are “free.”
I don’t _like_ asking permission!
Neither do I.
So, obviously, I left out the third question: _Why_ must I ask permission?
Asking permission is optional. The choice is yours.
Great acronym!
Of course, the answer is each consumer should because the externality of the CO2 released by the gas stove has been incorporated into the price of the gas.
A query to AI reports that gas stoves account for 0.1% of CO2 emissions in the U.S.
No reason to (or way to) exempt them from the general tax on CO2 emissions.
Arnoldl's point was about a ban on gas stoves, not about a carbon tax:
"Who should make the decision about whether you can have a gas stove in your new house?
The libertarian answer is that it should be up to you.
What I might call the elitist answer is that the decision should be made by by experts, who decide either to forbid gas stoves or allow you to have one."
I agree it should be up to the consumer, but they should take account of the externality in making their decision. That's what a tax on net CO2 emissions does.
Are you talking about stove emissions, or gas emissions? If the stove, why should stoves be singled out more than any other product?
How about crops? Crops consume lots of CO2 while growing, perhaps farmers should be paid to grow crops. But tending, harvesting, processing, and eating crops all release CO2, so those should have separate CO2 emission taxes.
My point exactly. A tax on net CO2 emissions applies to all activities.
Oh, I think I may see the problem. You may be thinking that as tax on net CO2 emissions requires a separately administered tax for each activity -- totally infeasible, I agree. Rather the tax is on first sale of carbon-containing fuels in proportion to carbon content and a subsidy of that equivalent rate for sequestration of CO2 removed from the atmosphere.
So, Thomas, what is the cost of the externality- show your work.
And why do the "experts" never discuss the positivities of CO2? It points to the insanity of the experts that they are so dogmatic on a thing being evil when the thing is demonstrably natural and necessary and needful for a thriving ecology.
Why are the "experts" like this? It is because their motivation is power - for it is their power to control that makes them "important" and guarantees them a job and income.
I'll go with Nordhaus. But when Congress gets around to this, they'll no doubt want to do it over and in more detail. And of course it will need to be adjusted as climate-economic models and technology improve.