Category Archives: Tyranny

Secession and Other Remedies for Intrastate Revolt

14 Monday May 2018

Posted by in Federalism, Regulation, Tyranny, Uncategorized

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How many states will we have in the Union in twenty years? Probably 50, but there’s an outside chance that the number will be 55 plus. That could include a split of upstate New York from New York City, downstate Illinois from Chicagoland, eastern from western Washington State, eastern from western Oregon (or eastern Oregon combining with Idaho), and a division of California into as many as six states, as one proposal has it. There are secessionist movements alive in all of those states and it has happened before, as Glenn Reynolds notes in his recent paper “Splitsylvania: State Secession and What to Do About It“.

The origins of state boundaries and state governments were probably based on combinations of natural geographic features and confluent economic and political interests existing at the time. It would be surprising if those factors remained in static alignment over time, however. For various reasons, West Virginia seceded from Virginia many years ago, and Tennessee was once part of North Carolina. But to the extent that interests diverge within states, would a series of secessions promote better representative government? Reynolds’ approach to this question is fairly even-handed, though he apparently leans toward less disruptive solutions to the kinds of grievances voiced by secessionists.

Secession is a complex process; it obviously involves a major task in establishing a new state governmental apparatus. Also, legislative roadblocks to secession movements exist at both the state and federal levels. Nevertheless, there is great disaffection among rural interests in the states mentioned above for the policies they say are forced upon them by “urban elites”, as Reynolds calls them. At present, the secession of rural areas would tend to benefit republicans at the federal level, as two new Senate seats would be created to offset the seats held by democrats elected in more urban areas. Conceivably, however, the same process could work in reverse in other states, such as Texas. Even the proposal for six Californias seems designed to at least neutralize any possible negative impact on democrats in national politics.

Reynolds’ paper outline a few ways in which interests represented by legislative minorities, such as rural populations, could be better served without a step so drastic as secession. State regulation is often what rankles secessionists. To add fuel to the fire, states are free to adopt rules that are more strict than rules established under federal legislation, if they so choose, but never rules that are less strict. Today this applies to wages, working conditions, gun regulation, and environmental law. Reynolds suggests turning this on its head:

“The federal government’s legislative role has traditionally been the opposite: To use (as in the case of the 1964 Civil Rights Act) a national majority to ensure that local majorities can’t oppress local minorities. I thus suggest that federal laws regulating these key subject-matter areas be recast to pre-empt more restrictive state laws, meaning that urban regions would be unable to impose stricter laws on less- powerful rural areas. If this seems too inflexible, perhaps that pre-emption should in some cases be defeasible at the county level; if the government of a county affirmatively wants to accept stricter state regulations, then it may do so, but if not, then the federal regulations are a ceiling, as well as a floor.”

Reynolds contends that this approach would be relatively easy to defend against state challenges. The idea that federal rules provide minimum standards of regulation is only one interpretation of the Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the Constitution. There is no reason why federal legislation cannot be written in the way Reynolds describes. Moreover, Reynolds asserts that the Guarantee Clause of Article IV, which assures that mandates are to be established according to republican principles, could be used to buttress this argument. But he offers another remedy to curb secessionism among rural voters that states could exercise:

“There is nothing to stop a state from being mindful of the differences between urban and rural areas when crafting legislation or regulations, after all. States could adopt a local-option regulatory scheme relating to key subject areas on their own, and by doing so would lighten their footprint in rural areas and lessen the likelihood of festering resentments.”

Perhaps that’s hoping for too much. State majorities are unlikely to cede power to rural minorities, but it’s nice to imagine that sort of cooperation. There is no question that this sort of state regulatory approach would protect local interests from the tyranny of one-size-fits-all state regulation, but it wouldn’t eliminate the burdens created by the standard interpretation of federal supremacy.

In general, federal preemption of stricter state laws is no less consistent with the principles of federalism than federal pre-emption of more lenient state laws. One could even argue that the best way to apply federal supremacy depends on the issue, so there is some symmetry in Reynolds’ proposal. In terms of representative democracy, it is less an evil than federal preemption of less restrictive laws. It does what a democratic republic is supposed to do: protect minorities from the tyranny of a majority.

Secession from states is an intriguing possibility. Perhaps it is even the best approach in some cases. Nevertheless, Reynolds’ suggestions for revising federal and state regulatory approaches would be less costly and would avoid a nationwide race to subdivide states in order to gain a federal political advantage.

Post-Election Thoughts: The “Idiocracy”

11 Friday Nov 2016

Posted by in Free Speech, Liberty, Tyranny

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racism

I keep reading about “idiots” in my news feed, directed by angry supporters of Hillary Clinton at anyone who voted for Donald Trump. These crestfallen partisans do not appreciate an irony: their very arrogance and desire to proscribe the freedom of others to speak and act freely actually helped to coalesce Trump’s support. So smug are they in their beliefs and attitudes that they are able to render high-handed judgements as to whether certain beliefs are socially acceptable. That there are many dimensions to social problems is lost on this crowd: it’s all or nothing. You are an idiot, a racist, a misogynist, or a homophobe if you support free speech (because it might offend), private property (you are greedy), free markets (capitalist pig), law enforcement (racist), gun rights (violent), or if you hold attitudes that are “traditional” or religious. In fact, you are probably suspect if you are white, asian, or in any way successful: you are too privileged to understand the negative consequences of your privilege.

Here’s my disclaimer: I don’t particularly like Donald Trump and some of his antics. I strongly disagree with a few of his most prominent policy proposals. Nevertheless, I voted for him because Hillary Clinton is so obviously a devotee of centralized power and she is irredeemably crooked. I was repelled by the identity politics she celebrated, and I found a certain aspect of Donald Trump’s disregard for political correctness to be refreshing.

The fact is that many voters are sick and tired of the name-calling by the left, and of the proscriptive behavior it enables. I’m one of them. Robby Soave at Reason just wrote an excellent article on this point:

“The leftist drive to enforce a progressive social vision was relentless, and it happened too fast. I don’t say this because I’m opposed to that vision—like most members of the under-30 crowd, I have no problem with gender neutral pronouns—I say this because it inspired a backlash that gave us Trump….

There is a cost to depriving people of the freedom (in both the legal and social senses) to speak their mind. The presidency just went to the guy whose main qualification, according to his supporters, is that he isn’t afraid to speak his.“

In the wake of an election that didn’t go their way, the identity politickers are proving themselves to be petulant and vulgar creeps. They decry the Trump election as racist by placing entire demographics and regions into an “idiot” trick bag. They cry racism on counties in which the majority voted for Barack Obama in 2012, but flipped to Donald Trump in 2016.

But no one is shamed. I’d have loved it if Carly Fiorina had been nominated. I’d vote for Walter Williams if he ran for president. I have great respect for Peter Thiel but I don’t know whether I’d vote for him. I might. In the end, it’s usually about policies, and if your policy portfolio has an excessive basis in identity politics and political correctness, and if you are strident about it, don’t be surprised if you stir some resentment. The idiots just might be the ones shooting themselves in the foot.

Note: Yes, I’ve used that cartoon before. I like it!

Coerced Fairness: Wronging Every Right

14 Thursday Apr 2016

Posted by in Discrimination, Liberty, Tyranny

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A nurse says, “If I can bring myself to treat a patient tattooed with a swastika, then a baker can bake a cake for a gay wedding.” Of course, the statement ignores any differences in the values held by these individuals, their right to hold different values, or at least their right to act peacefully on those values. It makes an arbitrary presumption about what is “fair” and what is “unfair”, which is seldom well-defined when two parties hold sincere but conflicting beliefs. Yes, the baker can bake the cake, but should he be forced to do so under state compulsion? Coerced behavior is the product of aggression, but declining business for personal reasons is not an act of aggression, though the “safe-space” crowd would do its best to convince us otherwise. Sorry, hurt feelings don’t count!

Imposing the machinery of the state on private decisions about how and for whom one’s art must be practiced invites even more coercive action by the state going forward. Jeffrey Tucker addresses this in “Must a Jewish Baker Make a Nazi Cake?“, using the teachings of Ludwig von Mises on the implications of voluntary and coerced behavior.

Discrimination occurs in markets in many forms. Consumers discriminate between sellers and products based on quality, price, convenience and trust. In turn,  producers or sellers discriminate between workers based on skill, effort, wages and trust. They discriminate between local markets or areas of specialization based on profitability. They discriminate between buyers based upon ability and willingness to pay. All of these forms of discrimination are rational because they result in better value for the discriminating consumer or better profitability for the discriminating producer. In other words, these forms of discrimination align with economic self-interest.

Other forms of discrimination do not align strictly with economic self-interest, but they may be preferred by the individual based on other criteria. It’s probably not possible to justify these forms of discrimination from all perspectives. Some may be abhorrent to most observers, including me. Certainly more consensus exists on some than on others. Nevertheless, these non-economically motivated forms of discrimination are always costly to the discriminator. For example, a consumer who refuses to frequent certain establishments owned by members of an out-group will forego opportunities for more varied experiences. Also, she will tend to pay higher prices due to her lack of interest in the competitive effort made by the out-group. An employer who refuses to hire certain minorities faces a more limited labor pool. He is likely to face a higher wage bill and will get a less efficient mix of skills in his workers. A seller who discriminates against certain groups by turning them away foregoes revenue, and the action may have negative reputational consequences. Obviously, other competitors can profit from another seller’s discriminatory behavior. Almost by definition, markets impose penalties on discrimination not borne out of economic self-interest.

Anyone with doubts about the effectiveness of markets and capitalism to overcome this latter type of discrimination should look no further than the broadly integrated activity that occurs within markets every day, and at the extent to which markets have become more diverse over time. Here is a choice quote of Tucker:

“Commerce has a tendency to break down barriers, not create them. In fact, this is why Jim Crow laws came into existence, to interrupt the integrationist tendencies of the marketplace. Here is the hidden history of a range of government interventions, from zoning to labor laws to even the welfare state itself. The ruling class has always resented and resisted the market’s tendency to break down entrenched status and gradually erode tribal bias.

Indeed, commerce is the greatest fighter against bigotry and hate that humankind has ever seen. And it is precisely for this reason that a movement rooted in hate must necessarily turn to politics to get its way.“

The hypertext within the quote links to an excellent piece by Andrew Berstein on “Black Innovators and Entrepreneurs Under Capitalism”, which covers the sad history of efforts to use government to undermine black commercial success.

Social justice activists argue that the state has a compelling interest in ending all discrimination, but the courts have followed a circuitous path in thrashing out whether (and what parts of) the U.S. Constitution might protect individuals or groups against private discrimination. But my interest is in what happens when the state endeavors to end discrimination in markets that are otherwise self-regulating: the state infringes on other rights that are clearly and definitively enshrined in the Constitution, and it arrigates power to itself that far exceeds the limits defined there. It may compromise the freedom of association, the freedom of religion, the right to private property, and the right to privacy. I believe the government has a compelling interest in protecting those rights, which apply to all individuals. It is also worth noting the absence of a limiting principle in defining what counts as fairness or discrimination. The Left finds it easy to denigrate and dismiss these as selfish concerns, proving how little regard they have for individual liberty. Establishing government control over the extent of those rights represents the end of our Constitutional Republic and is a prescription for tyranny.

Consider the ways in which government often attempts or is asked to create accommodations for marginalized groups, through laws on hate speech, compulsory service, hiring quotas, admission quotas, lending fairness, pricing equity, wage laws, work rules, mandatory facilities and the forced transfer of income. Tucker argues that this complex web of resource manipulation and mandatory and proscribed behaviors has several “unintended” consequences. I already mentioned the obvious abridgment of freedoms. Another negative consequence is that this approach does not promote unity; it breeds resentment and is likely to end in greater disunity. Furthermore, self-sufficiency is undermined by policies that hamper economic growth, and all of the general measures just mentioned redound to the detriment of that objective. Finally, many of these “fairness” policies run directly counter to the interests of the marginalized, such as wage floors that eliminate employment opportunities for the least-skilled, and means testing that discourages labor market effort through income “cliff” incentives.

The most menacing aspect of the effort to stamp out all forms of discrimination is a state with power to impose its own rules of legal “fair” treatment. Tucker appeals to Mises’ views on this point:

“[Mises] said that a policy that forces people against their will creates the very conditions that lead to legal discrimination. In his view, even speaking as someone victimized by invidious discrimination, it is better to retain freedom than build a bureaucracy that overrides human choice. …

Sacrificing principle for the sake of marginalized groups is short-sighted. If you accept the infringement of human rights as an acceptable political weapon, that weapon will eventually be turned on the very people you want to help. As Dan Sanchez has written, ‘Authoritarian restriction is a game much better suited for the mighty than for the marginalized.’“

Proponents of legal, compensatory  handicapping by the state in favor of those pressing any and all grievances ask us to compromise basic constitutional rights, including the rights of association, free expression, privacy and private property. A corresponding effect is to grant the state more complete coercive power in almost every aspect of life. The unavoidable focus of such policies is not unity, but group identity, a divisive result that should give us pause. The power granted to the state in this context is as arbitrary as the currently fashionable definition of “fairness”, and it cannot be rolled back easily. Furthermore, economic vitality is not easy to restore once basic institutions and freedoms have been destroyed. This is evident from the sad history of socialism throughout the world. Ultimately, the coercive power granted to the state can be used in ways that should horrify today’s proponents of social and economic redress for every real or imagined inequity.

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Addendum: Just over a year ago, I made a qualified defense of the right of a business to refuse service based on religious principles in my post “Suit Me, Or Face a Lawsuit: Adventures In Litigationland“. There, I made a distinction between “public accommodations” versus work for which a business-person must use her art, which is a form of expression, to provide customized service to a potential customer. I had the baker in mind, or the photographer asked to work a gay wedding. As I have in this post, I maintained that if a business-person finds some aspect of a request objectionable for any reason, she has the right to discriminate by refusing the business as a matter of freedom of expression.

I left a huge loose end in the argument I made in the earlier post. It had to do with the presumed requirement to serve all potential customers through the “public accommodations” of a private business. However, if the baker creates a beautiful “love cake” for sale to the general public, why can’t he refuse to sell it to a gay couple for their wedding as a matter of freedom of expression? After all, it involves the baker’s art. If a stationer has created an artful collection of cards for sale to the public, why can’t she refuse to sell them to a gay couple for their wedding invitations on account of her religious convictions? And what about the nurse? If he is in private practice, can’t he refuse to practice his art of healing on the “swastikaner” as a matter of free expression? I believe that’s a constitutional absolute, though professional oaths may dictate that care be delivered. An emergency room nurse would not have any choice but to deliver care under federal law, but it is not clear whether the law would withstand a constitutional challenge by a private hospital on these grounds. As things stand, the nurse can only refuse employment or resign if the rules are not to his liking.

 

 

Evil Force Multiplication

15 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by in Liberty, Socialism, Tyranny

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big-govt compassion

Following up on “Socialism Is Concentrated Power“, check out “Because government is a force multiplier for evil, a vote for the small government candidate is a vote for good” from the Bookworm Room. I’m four days late making my 2nd anniversary post on Sacred Cow Chips, so this is it. I’ll try to keep it brief so I can get it out before bedtime on a school night.

I don’t agree with everything in Bookworm’s analysis, but I certainly agree with the general thrust:

“The problem with government is that, as it grows, no matter the original good intentions behind it, it invariably becomes a force multiplier for evil. Thus, once government power passes a certain point, government becomes the equivalent of a bull in a china shop, with its every motion causing massive damage. Incidentally, the china in that shop is always you — the individual.“

Bookworm discusses two major forms of force multiplication of evil by the state: money and death. Governments are incredible graft machines and resource wastrels. More tragically, the many genocidal acts over the course of history would not have been possible without government as the machine of authority and “legitimization”. Fear of the government’s police power may ultimately spur normal people to participate in “banal” acts of unspeakable evil. And here, Bookworm points out a few ironies about the “nice” people who root for state control:

“A compassionate government will talk itself into euthanizing people who, because they are very old or sick, use up more than their fair share of medical care. This has already happened under England’s National Health Service, which kills off old, sick people, and whose ‘ethicists’ advocate even more killings (out of ‘compassion’ of course).

A compassionate government dedicated to efficiency will convince itself that individuals or organizations that stand in the way of efficiency must be controlled and, if they won’t be controlled, must be destroyed. After all, without mandated efficiency, people will suffer.

A compassionate government dedicated to “fairness” (usually thought of in economic terms), will quickly conclude that it’s entirely unfair that one distinct group or another is wealthier or healthier than the rest. That group must be brought to heel and, failing that, destroyed.

A compassionate government dedicated to national purity will naturally have to kill the impure within its borders and, once that’s done, it would be even more compassionate to extend that purity throughout the world.

Even the most murderous theocracies will argue that compassion guides them. Their tortures, executions, and Holy Wars are meant to bring people closer to God, which is the highest form of human existence. Isn’t that a nice, compassionate thing to do?“

Bookworm offers praise to the genius of the U.S. founding fathers in crafting governing principles designed to limit government power. And Bookworm recognizes Senator Ted Cruz as the only major party candidate to consistently stand for small government and constitutional principles. I’m not all in on this endorsement, as Cruz has taken stands and aligned himself with individuals not supportive of civil liberties such as gay marriage. However, in many important ways, Cruz recognizes the danger of government power. Bookworm might have mentioned Gary Johnson, the likely Libertarian Party nominee, as the most consistent critic of big government among the names likely to appear on presidential ballots in the fall.

Some might object to Bookworm’s discussion of the many failed experiments with government domination of society by noting that he never mentions the alleged success of European social democracies, particularly the Nordic states. Sweden and Denmark are the most cited examples. However, Europe is not an economic success story, with median incomes comparable to states with the lowest incomes in the U.S. Moreover, the “Nordic Nirvana” is something of a myth. In “How Laissez-Faire Made Sweden Rich“, Johan Norberg gives a detailed history of Sweden’s political and economic evolution:

“It was not socialist policies that turned Sweden into one of the world’s richest countries. When Sweden got rich, it had one of the most open and deregulated economies in the world, and taxes were lower than in the United States and most other western countries. The Social Democrats kept most of those policies intact until the 1970s, when they thought that those excellent foundations—unprecedented wealth, a strong work ethic, an educated work force, world-class exports industries, and a relatively honest bureaucracy—were so stable that the government could tax and spend and build a generous cradle-to-grave welfare state on them.

They couldn’t. At least not without costs. Because that welfare state began to erode the conditions that had made the model viable in the first place. And the fourth richest country became the 14th richest within three decades.“

Fortunately, for more than 70 years, Western Europe has avoided the kind of dire, genocidal consequences that often flow from a dominant state, but Europe has stagnated economically. Hazards await them as a growing and increasingly diverse population competes for diminished economic gains; government control is a dead-weight on their prospects. I hope we can avoid that fate in the U.S., though we’re already far down the road. Like the Bookworm says, vote for small government!

 

 

Child Quotas: Family as a Grant of Privilege

05 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by in Liberty, Tyranny

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china one child

How could any self-described liberal believe for a second that China’s “One Child Policy” was anything but repressive? By utterly failing to live up to liberalism! The policy was “reformed” last week after more than 35 years by a Beijing government trying to face up to the huge demographic and economic crisis posed by an aging population. But as Nicholas Eberstadt reports, now it is a “Two Child Policy“, which is less tyrannical only by degrees. (The link takes you to a Google search to bypass the WSJ paywall — choose the top result there.) Here are some of the awful consequences of the one-child policy noted by Eberstadt:

“First came alarming reports that female infanticide, an ancient practice, had once again erupted throughout the countryside. China’s 1982 census, released some years later, showed an unnatural imbalance in the sex ratio for birth-year 1981 on the order of hundreds of thousands of missing baby girls.

Infanticide was then replaced by mass sex-selective abortion, made possible in the late 1980s by increased rural access to ultrasound machines. China’s sex ratio climbed to nearly 120 baby boys for every 100 baby girls, where it plateaued around 2000. Although a war against baby girls is evident in other countries—India and Taiwan among them—leading Chinese demographers have suggested that half or more of China’s imbalance may directly result from the one-child policy.“

Bret Stephens discusses the support historically offered by the Left for the one-child policy. (This piece is also at wsj.com and it’s apparently a free link, but use Google if it doesn’t work.) Stephens rightly calls the policy “the ultimate assault on the human rights of women and girls.” He traces the Left’s penchant for central authority over family autonomy back to Paul Erlich’s “The Population Bomb” and the Club of Rome‘s discredited “Limits to Growth“, but it also descends from an earlier Leftist fascination with eugenics. The ideas live on today. Stephens notes the Malthusian connection to another great Lefist shibboleth, our purported climate change crisis:

“For much of the 20th century it was faith in History, especially in its Marxist interpretation. Now it’s faith in the environment. Each is a comprehensive belief system, an instruction sheet on how to live, eat and reproduce, a story of how man fell and how he might be redeemed, a tale of impending crisis that’s also a moral crucible.“

Amartya Sen asks whether the one-child policy really influenced fertility rates at all, but I question the reliability of the figures she cites. The high ratio of male to female births contributes to my suspicions. According to Eberstadt, a number of Chinese demographers have been warning against continuing the one-child policy for at least a decade. Other reports give the strong impression that it has been a binding constraint.

Economic growth provides a voluntary and effective brake on birth rates. The continuing agitation for restraints on economic growth to reduce carbon emissions short circuits this mechanism. Not only is the climate change “crisis” ill-founded, these measures hinder the development and diffusion of technologies that would be more efficient in reducing carbon discharge, instead imposing immediate remediation that is often uneconomic. The unimaginative solution offered by the progressive Left is central control over our progeny and our production of goods. Repression is always their best answer. That ain’t liberalism!

Statists and Stasis: The Dismal Solutions of Anti-Capitalists

26 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by in Capitalism, Markets, Socialism, Tyranny

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Thought Hanging

The anti-capitalist Left is quick to condemn private businesses of unfair practices and even unethical behavior. In their estimation, certain prices are not just and profits are somehow undeserved rewards to private property, risk-taking and entrepreneurial sweat. They somehow imagine that meeting market demands is an easy matter, or worse, that market demands are not “socially useful”. Few have ever attempted to run a business, or if they have, they were unsuccessful and resent it. They also cannot grasp the social function served by private markets, to which we owe our standard of living and much of our culture.

What alternatives do these deep thinkers suggest? A socialist utopia? Jonathan Newman discusses the many practical problems presented by socialism and why it always fails to achieve success comparable to societies that rely on free markets. Newman’s treatment covers the inability of administered pricing to convey accurate information and effective incentives, the waste induced by queuing, neglect of comparative advantage, waste induced by production quotas, retarded innovation and technological development, and a deeply embedded stasis in the face of changing conditions. Little wonder that poverty is a consequence.

Warren Meyer at Coyote Blog has written of the stasis seemingly promoted by the progressives. They are quite protective of the status quo. Ironically, and quite rightly, Meyer calls them “deeply conservative”, too conservative to accept the dynamism of a capitalistic society. From Meyer:

“Progressives want comfort and certainty. They want to lock things down the way they are. They want to know that such and such job will be there tomorrow and next decade, and will always pay at least X amount. Which is why, in the end, progressives are all statists, because only a government with totalitarian powers can bring the order and certainty and control of individual decision-making that they crave..

Progressive elements in this country have always tried to freeze commerce, to lock this country’s economy down in its then-current patterns. Progressives in the late 19th century were terrified the American economy was shifting from agriculture to industry. They wanted to stop this, to cement in place patterns where 80-90% of Americans worked on farms.“

Freezing the diffusion of technology and often the state of technology itself is a consequence of socialist policy. And technology may well be the enemy of the Left in another sense: An interesting twist is provided by Fred Foldvary of the Mercatus Center in “Government Intervention Is Becoming Obsolete“. He writes that technology is undermining all of the usual economic rationales for intervention: asymmetric information, external effects, public goods, and monopoly. The article is brief, but he refers the reader to more extensive treatments.

A good example of socialism’s perverse appeal is the rhetoric of Senator Bernie Sanders, now a candidate for the Democrat Presidential nomination. Sanders has criticized the “the dizzying (and socially useless) number of products in the deodorant category….” At Reason.com, A. Barton Hinkle wondered what Sanders might consider the appropriate number of deodorant choices in our society. Would he wish to dictate a limited number as a matter of policy? And what other “socially useless” choices might he choose to limit in his failure to grasp that these choices reflect the incredible health and vibrancy of a market economy. Here’s Hinkle:

“… central planners think they can allocate economic resources better than the unguided hand of individual free choice. Like any good scientific experiment, this one is easily replicated, and has been time and again. See, for example, Venezuela, which has now run out of toilet paper, tampons, and other basic necessities because some people there think they should make all the choices for other people. And yet for many, the repeated lesson still has not sunk in. In an unintentionally hilarious essay about Cuba not so long ago, one writer noted that “the people are hungry here. There are severe food shortages. I do not understand why a tropical island would lack fruits and vegetables . . . and my only assumption is that maybe they have to export it all.”

Never forget that government can only pursue policy objectives via coercive power. I don’t think socialists have forgotten at all. Without the power to coerce, nothing proposed or done by the state can be accomplished and enforced. This is the course that progressive, anti-capitalists must follow to achieve their collectivist vision. But Chris Edwards reminds us that “Coercion Is Bad Economics” with the following points about government:

  • When it “uses coercion, its actions are based on guesswork.“
  • Its “actions often destroy value because they [arbitrarily] create winners and losers.“
  • Its “activities fail to create value because the funding comes from a compulsory source: taxes.”
  • Its “programs often fail to generate value because the taxes to support them create “deadweight losses” or economic damage.“

By arranging voluntary, mutually beneficial trades, market forces avoid all of these problems. As Robert P Murphy explains in The Freeman, “Capitalists Have a Better Plan“.

The anti-capitalists do not hesitate to saddle private businesses with confiscatory tax and regulatory burdens in the name of their own vision of society. Want to live in a bleak world of decline? Then here’s your prescription, courtesy of the anti-capitalist Left: regulate heavily, monitor transactions, impose wage and price controls, dismantle markets, tax at punitive levels, confiscate property, censor “offensive” speech, extend dependence on the state, absorb private savings and crowd out private investment with government borrowing, and inflate the money stock. Smells like a crappy “utopia”.

Manipulating Temperatures, People & Policy

21 Friday Aug 2015

Posted by in Global Warming, Tyranny

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The heavily-manipulated global surface temperatures quoted by NOAA and NASA point to another “hottest month on record” in July, but the satellite temperature measurements do not agree. Nor do several other widely-followed global temperature series maintained elsewhere, such as the UK Meteorological Office (UK Met Office). I wrote about the manipulation of surface temperatures by NOAA and NASA in January in “Record Hot Baloney“, and in “Fitting Data To Models At NOAA” in June:

“If the facts don’t suit your agenda, change them! The 18-year “hiatus” in global warming, which has made a shambles of climate model predictions, is now said to have been based on “incorrect data”, according to researchers at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Translation: they have created new data “adjustments” that tell a story more consistent with their preferred narrative, namely, that man-made carbon emissions are forcing global temperatures upward, more or less steadily.“

The last link provides detail on the nature of the manipulations. Perhaps surprisingly, rather large downward adjustments have been made to historical temperature data, reinforcing any upward trend in the late 20th century and hiding the current 18-year pause in that trend. Suffice it to say that the “adjustments” made by these agencies are at fairly detailed levels; some of the before-and-after comparisons shown by gifs at this link are rather astonishing. Some climate researchers have started to refer to the temperature series as “reconstructions” instead of “data”, out of respect for the legitimacy of actual data.

In the meantime, the “warmist” propaganda keeps flowing from NOAA and NASA, and it is hungrily swallowed and then regurgitated by media alarmists. The media love a good scare story. They are so complicit in reinforcing the warmist narrative they will ignore the revelation of a faulty temperature sensor at National Airport in Washington, D.C. (another hat tip to John Crawford). It has been recording temperatures averaging 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit too warm for the past 19 months. Now that the sensor has been changed, NOAA states that it will not make any adjustments to the past 19 months of recorded temperatures from the National weather station, despite the fact that they have routinely made many other changes, often without any real explanation.

Here is a recent opinion from Duke University Professor Robert Brown on the divergence of satellite and NASA/NOAA surface temperatures and the adjustments to the latter:

“The two data sets should not be diverging, period, unless everything we understand about atmospheric thermal dynamics is wrong. That is, I will add my “opinion” to Werner’s and point out that it is based on simple atmospheric physics taught in any relevant textbook. …

This does not mean that they cannot and are not systematically differing; it just means that the growing difference is strong evidence of bias in the computation of the surface record.“

Every new report issued by NOAA/NASA on record warm temperatures should be severely discounted. They are toiling in the service of a policy agenda; it will cost you dearly, and it will severely punish the less fortunate here and especially in less developed parts of the world; and it will reward the statist elite, bureaucrats and Green crony capitalists. Ronald Bailey in Reason recently weighed in on the consequences of this “apocalyptic anti-progress ideology“. Or read the wise words of Matt Ridley on “The recurrent problem of green scares that don’t live up to the hype“. Hey greens, relax! And don’t waste our resources and our well being on precautions against exaggerated risks.

Trump Flaunts Shape-Shifting Powers

06 Thursday Aug 2015

Posted by in Government, Liberty, Tyranny

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trump characature

Donald Trump could take just about any position on any issue and defend it with conviction and blustery passion… until he changes his mind. At this point in his presidential bid, there is nothing on his campaign web site in the way of specific policy statements. Here is an “On The Issues” post showing the evolution of Trump’s positions in a number of policy areas. Just about anyone on the left or the right should be able to get a few chuckles out of this list. It’s truly astonishing.

A few of Trump’s current policy positions are discussed below, but before getting into that, it’s interesting to consider the overall tenor of his rhetoric. Most observers will happily admit that they find his bombast entertaining, and I do too. He’s outspoken and unapologetic, confronting his critics head-on, often to powerful effect. Many are drawn to this sort of candidate, and his popular image as a skilled businessman doesn’t hurt. But while all politicians are capable of disappointing supporters, Trump fans do not know, and cannot know, what they’re getting.

Trump is almost always critical but rarely suggests actual solutions, making it difficult to discern whether he really has policy positions. So much so that it’s incredible to hear praise for his “clarity”. For a more sober take, read Andy Kroll’s account of frustrated attempts to get direct responses on a few policy issues from the Trump campaign, and of Trump’s bizarre tour of Laredo, Texas. A related piece by Peter Suderman appears at Reason.com. Politico has emphasized the same point in “Will the real Donald Trump please stand up?“. Kroll says this:

“I have zero to report about Trump’s plans for actually being president—except that, from all available evidence, he hasn’t given it a moment’s thought.“

An interesting piece on Trump comes from Jeffrey Tucker in “What is Trumpism?“. A longer version appeared as “Trumpism: The Ideology“. Here is one bit from Tucker, written after hearing “The Donald” speak at FreedomFest:

“The speech lasted an hour, and my jaw was on the floor most of the time. I’ve never before witnessed such a brazen display of nativistic jingoism, along with a complete disregard for economic reality. It was an awesome experience, a perfect repudiation of all good sense and intellectual sobriety. …

His speech was like an interwar séance of once-powerful dictators who inspired multitudes, drove countries into the ground, and died grim deaths.“

Here are a few examples of Trump’s “nativism”, as described by Tucker:

“I did laugh as he denounced the existence of tech support in India that serves American companies (‘how can it be cheaper to call people there than here?’ — as if he still thinks that long-distance charges apply). 

When a Hispanic man asked a question, Trump interrupted him and asked if he had been sent by the Mexican government. He took it a step further, dividing blacks from Hispanics by inviting a black man to the microphone to tell how his own son was killed by an illegal immigrant.“

Two issues on which Trump has been outspoken are international trade and immigration. As an aside, I note that he is always quick to qualify any aggressive statements he makes on these topics with a quick “I love the Chinese”, or “I love the Mexicans”. Tucker, at the link above, highlights Trump’s backward views on trade, which focus almost exclusively on U.S. producers without considering the benefits of trade to U.S. consumers. He sees big ships coming into port, and thinks only of cash flowing abroad: “What do we get?” Well, we get nice foreign goods, thank you very much. But Trump blames foreign trading partners for many ills, despite the fact that his Trump-label ties are made in China! Are we somehow being cheated on those ties? Trump says we need smarter people negotiating “these deals”. Okay… is that a policy?

We don’t need trade wars if we want to avoid a much weaker economy. Yet Trump’s trade rhetoric suggests that he would be tempted to employ trade restrictions like tariffs as a bludgeon. For example, consider one of his other big talking points: illegal immigration (despite the fact that the inflow of illegals has slowed to a trickle over the past few years). Trump wants to build a wall across the length of the U.S.-Mexican border, and he says he’ll make Mexico pay for it. To get a wall built, Trump might well decide that he can raise tariffs on Mexican goods to prohibitive levels as a way of twisting Mexican arms. That sort of action is likely to be very costly for U.S. consumers, and ultimately producers as well.

Trump’s latest pronouncements on immigration policy have been described as confusing. In a nutshell, he wants to deport “the criminals” (and not just those already doing time) and deport all other undocumented aliens; create an expedited process whereby we can let “the good ones” back into the country with legal status; “maybe” create some sort of path to citizenship (because “who knows what’s going to happen”), but not right away; and “we’re going to do something” for the “DREAMers”. Trump says he’ll know how to identify the “good ones”. If he’s so confident of that, then why would he, a smart “business guy”, allow the country to incur the expense of deporting millions of them?

Who knows what Trump will propose in terms of tax reform, health care and gun control? Ditto on welfare policy, defense, the drug war, foreign policy and energy. He wisely spoke against the drug war in 1990, but I’m not aware of any recent statements on the issue. Also in his favor, he does not accept the “consensus” on climate change and opposes Common Core. He has criticized crony capitalism but has undoubtedly benefited from cronyism, enlisting governments in the pursuit of eminent domain action. He is said to favor cuts in federal spending, but he has opposed cuts in Social Security and Medicare. He opposes an increase in the minimum wage, but he has proposed a wealth tax in the past.

Trump has not offered many specifics in this campaign, and the GOP debate this Thursday night will not provide a decent forum for articulating policy. In general, his positioning is a very mixed bag. One gets the sense that he is doing his best to appeal to a sort of populist conservatism. Unfortunately, his signature “positioning” on trade and immigration qualify him as something of a statist. He has certainly held a number of other statist views in the past, though he has disavowed at least some of those.

In closing, here are two more quotes from Jeffrey Tucker about Trump that I found both ominous and plausible:

“What’s distinct about Trumpism, and the tradition of thought it represents, is that it is not leftist in its cultural and political outlook (see how he is praised for rejecting “political correctness”), and yet still totalitarian in the sense that it seeks total control of society and economy and demands no limits on state power.“

“These people are all the same. They purport to be populists, while loathing the decisions people actually make in the marketplace (such as buying Chinese goods or hiring Mexican employees).“

The Banality of Evil Is No Defense

31 Friday Jul 2015

Posted by in Tyranny

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Psychology is not my usual bailiwick, but this article “questioning the banality of evil” caught my interest. A long-accepted view in the field is that ordinary people are willing to commit heinous acts under authoritative instructions or when they find themselves in certain kinds of roles. Does that view somehow imply that such a perpetrator is less accountable because they were “just following orders”, or because they were overwhelmed by the pressure imposed by their role?

The authors of the article, S. Alexander Haslam and Stephen D. Reicher, cite recent research challenging the standard view. They argue that even when individuals are tasked with doing evil, they are often fully engaged and even creative in the execution of their assignments. They discuss the case of the Nazi tyranny and especially Adolf Eichmann, who was one of the chief architects of the Holocaust. His trial on war crimes, however, originally reinforced the “banality of evil” narrative:

“… Eichmann worked hard to undermine the charge that he was a dangerous fanatic by presenting himself as an inoffensive pen-pusher. … [but] Eichmann [was] a man who identified strongly with anti-semitism and Nazi ideology; a man who did not simply follow orders but who pioneered creative new policies; a man who was well aware of what he was doing and was proud of his murderous ‘achievements’.“

This reminds me of a great film called “Conspiracy“, in which Stanley Tucci is brilliant in the role of Eichmann. The film depicts a meeting of the top echelon of the Nazi bureaucracy, based on actual meeting notes, at which the “Jewish question” is addressed. Anyone who has ever attended a fairly large corporate meeting will experience an eerie familiarity with the banality of the proceedings, at least until a certain point. These are bureaucrats. Soon enough, however, it becomes clear that the participants are discussing something horrific, despite the opaque jargon and their hesitation to give voice to the plain meaning of the agenda. First, a consensus has to be established. But like so many corporate meetings, the consensus and the outcome are preordained. There are objections, and some of the participants voice them more strongly than others. They are ultimately either cajoled or bullied into submission. But those objectors do not blindly accept the evil they are being asked to do. On the other hand, the monsters putting forward the killing agenda, including Eichmann, know exactly what they are doing and believe in it.

Haslam and Reicher insist that “ingenuity” is more descriptive of evil actions performed by individuals under tyranny than “banality”; that’s a takeaway from “Conspiracy” as well. However, Haslam and Reicher present these competing characterizations of evil-doing as if they are mutually exclusive hypotheses. In fact, it’s likely that these two “kinds” of evil coexist and are almost certainly complementary in their effects. Is there any reason to rule out the possibility that some individuals are simply “good” soldiers who faithfully follow orders? Who, like the timid Mr. Twimble in “How To Succeed…”, always play it “the company way”?  They might not be the most intelligent members of society, but there are certainly those who will do as they are told, and there are others who might need motivation to act. In fact, the authors admit as much in their discussion of leadership as a catalyst for action by others:

“… people are surrounded by would-be leaders who tell them what to make of the world around them. For this reason, the study of leadership must be a central component of any analysis of tyranny and outgroup hostility. Indeed, tyrannical leaders only thrive by convincing us that we are in crisis, that we face threat and that we need their strong decisive action to surmount it.“

This is where the distinctions get muddy. I’m no psychologist, but to my way of thinking, further action and support for tyrannical evil by the members of a motivated in-group may be quite banal. Even a conscious decision to follow abhorrent orders in one’s own self-interest may qualify as an act of banality.

A group may well be convinced by their leaders that their actions are right, and that is frightening. Some will act consciously and viciously. Some will attempt to resist. Under great pressure, not all are capable of marshaling sufficient moral or intellectual resistance to the call to participate in evil acts, but none of that that offers justification. Banal or otherwise, participation in heinous acts against an out-group cannot be forgiven by mankind.