Re: [RC] Questionnaire: the market vs. the state Re: community morality

[David R. Block]

Title: "Remember, to a liberal, anyone who makes money in an endeavor frowned upon by liberals is 'greedy' and any person who express

Not Kevin, but couldn't resist. David "Remember, to a liberal, anyone who makes money in an endeavor frowned upon by liberals is 'greedy' and any person who expresses an idea contrary to basic liberal dogma is preaching 'hate.'  How shallow these people are."—Neal Boortz   On 11/29/2011 6:50 PM, Dr. Ernie Prabhakar wrote: Hi Kevin, I'm just catching up after several days offline. As Billy said, we greatly appreciate your perspective and participation. That said, there are a number of things about the Libertarian mindset that still flabbergast us. We went through many of these before with another Centrist-leaning libertarian in what we now refer to as The Great Libertarian Dispute of '06. It was both exhausting and inconclusive, and I'd rather not let history repeat itself... I get the impression that we're operating from a very different set of assumptions about the nature of reality. I'd like to identify what those underlying differences are, to avoid arguing over minutiae. Here's a list of statements I think you'd agree with, but I'd disagree with. Let me know if I'm right -- or if I'm wrong where and how you disagree. 1. Market failures are natural and self-correcting. Governance failures are artificial and structural because they stem from government being too big. DRB: They do not always stem from the government being too big. They also stem from collusion between lawmakers and regulators WITH those whom they impact with legislation or regulation. Remember the BP spill? BP, a big Obama donor, got little to no regulation, and sometimes even the regulators let BP fill out the forms instead of actually doing an inspection and filling out the forms themselves. We are also now hearing about members of Congress trading stock based on the information gathered in closed door hearings. Not to mention the large contributions that the legislators get to run their campaigns from the very people they oversee. You and I would go to jail for such insider trading. Size is only part of the problem. Corollary: Market inefficiency is minor and tolerable. Government inefficiency is massive and intolerable. DRB: Well it certainly appears to be massive. A several TRILLION dollar budget is massive, is it not?? And what kind of quality are we getting for this several TRILLION dollar budget?? Besides being screwed, that is? Market inefficiency is not always minor or tolerable. DRB: And it's not just the inefficiency, it is the regulating beyond the state of the technology. Several coal power plants in Texas are being closed because regulation is being proposed that makes it cost ineffective to run them or convert them. So they close, wasting several millions of dollars in capital spent on their construction and placing the workers on the unemployment line. They tell us that they are concerned about creating jobs. It appears that they are more interested in destroying jobs. What they are doing speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what they are saying. 2. Governance at the state level operates on a completely different set of rules than corporations and civil society, because i) membership is involuntary, and ii) the state has a monopoly on legitimate physical coercion DRB: True to a point. Corporations are often rife with non-physical coercion, political correctness run amok, social engineering run amok, peer pressure to the point of absurdity... 3. All the societal problems that were historically solved by government intervention (e.g., slavery, child labor, elder poverty, racial segregation) were either i) caused by government intervention in the first place, or ii) would have eventually been solved by market forces anyway. DRB: Lacking the ability to forecast with certainty the destruction of those things, point 2 runs into difficulties. Slavery is one area where it should have just not been allowed past the founding, but there's that 20/20 hindsight again. I'm not aware that the government intervened to cause child labor or elder poverty (the latter maybe by forced retirement dates?). I think that racial segregation, at least in the south, was a natural outcome of the Civil War.  4. When the market gives us crap, it is our fault. When the government gives us crap, it is because of design flaws. DRB: Don't get the first part. Sorry. It is not necessarily design flaws in the latter case. I do think that the "law of unintended consequences" is the biggest problem. The government at all levels doesn't seem to get the fact that the people will react negatively to government actions, no matter how many good intentions are given for that action. 5. Governments which support a strong volunteer military for defensive purposes, and strong legal protection of property rights and contracts, but few others services, are inherently stable. DRB: The basis of this is probably Switzerland, but it neglects the fact that they have tried for years to be a neutral country. 6. Enlightened businesses want no public investment in any "commons" so as to maximize the scope for private enterprise. DRB: And "Enlightened government" seems to think that they know what the people want better than the people themselves. Hence we get Obamacare. They also have this habit of taking some of the most promising oil holdings and making them off limits to oil production. 7. The collapse of our present social structures would be a good thing, because the principle of spontaneous order ensures that a superior society would soon replace it. DRB: NO. 8. The U.S. Constitution reflects a Libertarian view of the role of government, because the Federalists largely shared most key Libertarian beliefs. DRB: Well, it seems that they wanted enumerated powers, with many things left to the states (see amendments 9 and 10 of the Bill of Rights). That's not what we have today, sadly. 9. There is abundant evidence supporting the Libertarian viewpoint. There is virtually no evidence contradicting it. DRB: Now, now, no need to pretend that I live in a cave. This is pretty near insulting. 10. Human beings can be trusted to act rationally when incentives are not distorted by government intervention. DRB: People don't always act rationally, with or without government intervention. However, to deny that government incentives influence behavior is just crazy talk. I will use every tax break I can find, legally of course. If that means I may have to make some sacrifices to do so, I will probably do it. My hope is that if we can at least agree about where we disagree, we might actually make some forward progress. Thanks! -- Ernie P. P.S. If any of the rest of you want to share your answers, feel free! On Nov 27, 2011, at 7:25 AM, Kevin Kervick wrote: Sure. The market gives people what it wants in order to sell stuff. But the market also creates demand by offering prurient crap and telling us it is gold. I blame us. 11/25/2011 5:54:38 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, kerv...@comcast.net writes: My response is how have we devolved to a place in which so many people are so susceptible to so much such trash? A few reasons: Empty people - created by the entitlement culture and the mental health industry. Single parent and divorced families - fueled by Great Society government failures and postmodern philosophies. Cultural Marxists in bed with Progressives and University overseers tell us that God is dead, thus anything goes. Anything traditional is bad. Fatherlessness - a creation of the Great Society and Gender Feminism, both Progressive onslaughts. On Nov 27, 2011, at 7:14 AM, Kevin Kervick wrote: I agree that Libertarians are usually great believers in personal morality, but it often seems that they want the state to be amoral -- or at least maximally agnostic about moral issues (beyond "natural rights" narrowly defined). Is that a fair characterization? I would think so Ernie. And this does get at the core disagreement. Human nature tends toward central organization and consolidation of leadership as systems evolve. So, healthy systems need to be in a constant state of reform and reinvention in order to thrive and prosper. The danger of a Progressive impulse is that it sets the stage for institutional consolidation of power. Roosevelt's moral crusade opened the door for the coming welfare state and the foreign policy expansionism that is oppressive today. I want government to ensure freedom and to protect an individual when another assaults his rights. Laws should be minimal and should follow community morality not the other way around. To respond to your question about how far I'd like to roll back the clock in the United States, I'd rethink the moral conclusions and the draconian solutions derived therein during the Progressive Era orchestrated by Roosevelt, Wilson, and later Roosevelt, et.al. When man decides he can fix stuff by adding and regulating, he opens the door for abuse of power, tyranny of the majority, and related unintended consequences. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <RadicalCentrism@googlegroups.com> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org