Year: 2013

Unemployment: What Is It?

Warren Gibson Current Events, Economics, Liberty, Politics , , ,

Unemployment has regained center stage now that the debt crisis has receded from that position, at least for a time. Unless things change dramatically over the next year unemployment will be the number one issue in the forthcoming presidential election. Hardly any proposal will escape being labeled “job-killing” or “job-creating” or both.

To begin with some basics, what is work and what is a job? For economists, work is any activity that we would not perform without tangible compensation, usually money. In our work lives almost all of us are also motivated by nonmonetary considerations, and to the extent we diverge from the most remunerative activity available to us, we are blending work and leisure. A retired person who takes up college lecturing may do the work primarily for the satisfaction it brings. If his salary were withdrawn and he continued to teach, he would be enjoying leisure.

The goal of all economic activity is consumption, which to economists means not just mundane goods like faster cars but also “noble” ends like cathedrals. Jobs are therefore not ends in themselves, as much as public discussion would suggest otherwise. They are means to acquire income to be used for consumption and saving, in addition to personal satisfaction, learning opportunities, or socializing.

A person who lacks a job is unemployed if he or she wants work, has suitable skills, and has realistic expectations about compensation. These are vague terms; they make unemployment a murky concept. That goes double for underemployment, though both remain very real phenomena. Continue reading →

Religion or Institutions: A Final Word

Brandon Christensen Comments, Current Events, Liberty, Religion , , ,

Over at Facts Matter, I believe I finally settled the issue of whether or not Islam is to blame for the violence in the Middle East. I put the nail in the coffin with this:

Still no evidence. I am, again, arguing about the real color of a unicorn’s horn…

Dr J asks:

Refresh my memory: Blasphemy laws where? “Popping up….”

Right now? Post-socialist Europe. And post-coup Thailand. And post-monarchist Nepal. Go ahead: Google it!

Are you implicitly stating that Russia is part of the historical West? Peter the Great just another Montesquieu?

Nope. You didn’t specify that the examples had to be from the traditional West. Speaking of moving the goalposts:

Death for converting, anywhere? (I did add this.)

Can you provide me with an instance of this happening in a Muslim state?

One more from Dr J:

With what penalties? (Death or more?)

Fines as far as I know. Again, can you give me an instance of a death sentence carried out in a Muslim state in the name of blasphemy?

David: rather than try to rebut every one of your points, I think I’ll just let your comments stand on their own. For your own benefit, insert the word “Muslim” in place of the word “Christian” throughout your lengthy defense of the latter.

If you do this, you’ll not only be proving my point, but you’ll have a better understanding of what is going on in the Middle East today. The difference between the United States and, say Russia or Egypt, is institutional.

Max Weber famously argued that Protestantism was responsible for the rise of capitalism in the West. There was something about Protestantism that changed the way northern Europeans thought about the world, as well as how they justified their actions. He was wrong, of course, but his argument continues to influence large swathes of opinion today. Why? Because of “selective anecdotal evidence that is fortified by the perceived well-being of contemporary Protestant states.”

The myth of Islam’s violent penchant should die with the same last breath of the imperialist’s claim of superior foresight. If anybody wants to go a couple more rounds in the ‘comments’ section here, I’d be glad to take you on. If you are hesitant, ask yourself if this is because you are afraid you might be proven wrong, or because you know deep down inside that you are absolutely correct about Islam’s mythical penchant for violence.

Some introductory links

muricaderp Law, Links, Politics , , , ,

It’s a great privilege and honor to be invited to write at Notes On Liberty. Brandon’s invitation for me to join the team actually came as something of a pleasant surprise, since my economic politics tend to fall pretty far to the left of the consensus here. I cast a straight libertarian ticket in the 2000 general election (the first election in which I was eligible to vote) and I voted for Gary Johnson last year, but I much more often vote for Democrats, generally because I find the social and civil liberties policies advanced by their Republican opponents absolutely frightening and the economic policies advanced by their Libertarian opponents naive, unduly dogmatic and hence unfeasible.

That said, I believe I’m what one of my favorite bloggers, Fabius Maximus, usually regards less as an accurate self-description than as a self-serving pretension: a true nonpartisan. Fabius occasionally posts survey data indicating that the incidence of nonpartisanship in the electorate is exaggerated, an exaggeration that he attributes largely to voters’ desire to be hip. By contrast, one of my most common reactions to the two major US political parties (probably to the annoyance of many of my Facebook friends) is that they’re both overdue for the federal death penalty, and that there’s room for both of them on the prison van to Terre Haute. There’s a certain facetiousness and poetic license to my peddling of this imagery, but it does not exaggerate the disgust and exasperation that I all too often have with the behavior of both parties, and especially that of their leaders.

I’ll probably have more on that theme in future posts. Tonight, however, I’m going to devote the rest of this post to links that I’ve found inspirational, resonant, or too ghoulish to resist, from various corners of the internet. The only caveat is that the links are going to have a more disjointed appearance than they would in a standard list format; I like to provide some context for links that I include in my writing, especially since the links themselves can be longer than some readers have time to read, so tonight I’ll be providing a synopsis for each.

Fabius Maximus

Fabius Maximus is the pseudonym of a geopolitics blogger who, as far as I can tell, is based in the Washington, DC area and employed in something pertinent to the federal government, although he is extremely coy about himself. His tone can be authoritative and brash, rather like a less screechy literary version of John McLaughlin, and he can be very cynical. But cynicism, I’d say, is warranted in times such as ours, particularly as an antidote to the saccharine earnestness that many mainstream journalists and commentators seem to regard as the only appropriate approach to the world.

The liberty of local bullies

This piece by Noah Smith is one of the most provocative broadsides on Ron Paul and libertarianism that I’ve found. It takes a more strident tone than I’d be inclined to take, but I have to support any essay that includes the phrase “my freedom to punch you in the face curtails quite a number of your freedoms.” That’s a pretty succinct articulation of one of my longstanding critiques of the libertarian movement and likeminded classically liberal movements abroad: that they all too often ally themselves with thieves and other unsavory, predatory characters. These unholy alliances strike me as a big reason that libertarianism has such trouble gaining popular traction as an alternative to the two-party status quo, manifested by the tendency of Libertarian Party candidates to win less than five percent of the vote in three-way contests. This is a very unfortunate situation, if for no other reason because libertarians are damn near the only people willing to take a serious stand against the erosion of civil liberties in the United States.

The Lazarus File

A Case So Cold It Was Blue

Dateline NBC, formerly a respectable news magazine, has taken to devoting Friday nights to lengthy reviews of sordid murders, a great thing for those of us who find that Keith Morrison’s hushed tones and ever more skeletal face appeal to our dubiously maudlin tastes. I don’t see why I shouldn’t do the same, especially for a case involving Brandon’s fellow Bruin, LAPD Detective Stephanie Lazarus.

I actually don’t remember whether I’ve ever seen a Dateline NBC special on Lazarus or just saw the 48 Hours version, but the pieces above, in the Atlantic and Vanity Fair, respectively, are better in any event. (I can’t exactly recommend my own television viewing habits.) The Lazarus case wasn’t spectacular just because the suspect (since convicted and sentenced to 27 years to life in prison) was a highly regarded police detective. The intricacy and sensitivity of the investigation were also far beyond what I’ve ever seen a broadcast account do justice. The investigation was started by a cold case squad at the Van Nuys Division (in the provinces by LAPD standards) before being reassigned to the Robbery-Homicide Division, the elite squad at LAPD headquarters that is responsible for high-profile murder investigations. That posed an even touchier problem: Stephanie Lazarus worked across the hall from RHD at Parker Center and was friendly with many of the division’s detectives. The detectives ultimately chosen for the case, Dan Jaramillo and Greg Stearns, were in effect chosen because they were out of the loop socially. (Judging from their portrait in Vanity Fair, Det. Stearns is also out of the loop sartorially, and proudly so. The portrait suggests that those two are classics, and know it.) On the morning of the arrest, teams were posted in Simi Valley, Lazarus’ hometown, with sealed envelopes instructing them to execute search warrants on her house and car. One of their colleagues surreptitiously trailed Lazarus downtown on a Metrolink train. It was the LAPD at its best, in contrast to the original investigation of Sherri Rae Rasmussen’s murder, which was the LAPD at its most incompetent. Lyle Mayer, the lead detective in the original investigation, will be forever remembered as the idiot who let a murderer stick around at the LAPD for another 23 years after telling her victim’s father that he watched too much TV. (Unless he was crooked. Reasonable people disagree on this point.)

Russian and US Relations: Definitely Cooler and a Further Inquiry Into Why This Is

Brandon Christensen Current Events, History , , , , , ,

I appreciate Evgeniy’s recent remarks on the deterioration of Russian and American relations. This is an issue that has not received as much attention as it should.

From my own point of view, I can think of a few items that have caused deterioration on the American side of the relationship. Here is a small and by no means comprehensive list:

  1. The missile shield being built in Eastern Europe, ostensibly for the prevention of missile attacks from Iran. This is pure garbage. Iran has zero interest in attacking Europe with missiles. The Europeans have proven themselves to be very even-handed when it comes to affairs in the Middle East over the past few decades, and especially in regards to all things Israel. The missile shield in states previously under Moscow’s thumb is a direct provocation towards Russia, and there is absolutely no need for it. Russia, for its part, has no need of attacking Europe either. Moscow currently has a symbiotic relationship with Europe and its energy needs and its own problems in the Caucasus and the Far East.
  2. The contempt that establishment foreign policy figures in Washington have shown, and continue to show, towards Russia. The remnants of the Cold War have simply refused to go away in Washington. I think this is largely because if the establishment consensus were to acknowledge that Cold War policies are irrelevant, then they would all be out of their lucrative jobs. This contempt spills over into the political arena as well. Remember Mitt Romney’s comments about Russia being the “number one enemy” of the United States? Pure nonsense and both the American people and the Russian people deserve better.
  3. The continued occupation of the Balkans by Western coalition troops. NATO should have either dissolved or become an all-European alliance once the Warsaw Pact came apart and the Soviet Union split up. Taking sides in the Balkan conflict was designed to do two things at once: 1) stick the West’s thumb in Russia’s eye and 2) convince the Muslim world that the West was paying attention to its needs. A few years after attacking Serbia and initiating the process of splitting it up into smaller states, two skyscrapers full of innocent people were bombed by two jet planes filled with innocent people in New York City. The attacks were done in the name of Islam. In addition to the failure of the Balkan invasion to court the Muslim world, the exercise of power in Russia’s traditional backyard did indeed infuriate the Russians. Instead of an ally or a friend, the policies of NATO have led to cool receptions and deep levels of mistrust in Moscow.

These three policies are a good starting point for understanding why Russian-US relations have cooled considerably since the collapse of the USSR and the presidency of George HW Bush. I think more reaching out is needed on both sides, and I again thank Evgeniy for initiating this discussion. I am hoping for a long and prosperous friendship between free thinkers from two magnificent societies. A friendship that is dedicated to peace and understanding between two peoples who should have never been enemies in the first place.

The Predictable Failure of the Iraq War

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Liberty , , , , , , , , ,

I’ve gone over the knowledge problem associated with foreign policy before, and I believe it is sufficient to say that libertarians were right in deflating predictions by hawks that the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq would go over smoothly. Hawks on both the Left and the Right oversimplified the situation in the Middle East. Their condescending tone towards both the Iraqi people and the broader Middle East guaranteed failure from the outset. Anybody who believes that a state – no matter how wealthy and powerful – can just waltz in to another state – no matter how poor and weak – and impose its will upon it is a fool.

Gene Healy reports from DC:

In a 2001 debate on Iraq with former CIA Director James Woolsey, my Cato Institute colleague, then-Chairman William Niskanen, argued that “an unnecessary war is an unjust war” and one we would come to regret having fought.

Niskanen was right. A new report from the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University tallies up the costs: nearly 4,500 U.S. troop fatalities, an eventual budgetary cost of some $3.9 trillion and more than 130,000 civilians as “collateral damage.”

[…]

Bill Niskanen, who passed away last year at the age of 78, never tired of reminding conservatives that war is a government program — and an especially destructive one at that.

If you add up the harsh economic sanctions imposed upon the Iraqis by the Democrats earlier in the decade, the 130,000 civilian toll increases significantly (to about half a million, most of whom were children).

Only a foreign policy based around commerce, peace and honest friendship will succeed in both the short and the long runs. Luckily for us, it appears that there is a growing consensus on this argument among the population of the United States. It helps that most advocates of the war are either remorseful or they are becoming more and more discredited by the day. From Hitlery Clinton to Dubya to John McCain, the old guard is steadily giving way to a breath of fresh air. Air that is more suitable for a republic dedicated to individual liberty.

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links
  1. Israelis hit the beach. None of the comments I saw paid any tribute to…you’ll see.
  2. James Buchanan on the Chicago School. Thoughts on the school from Virginia.
  3. A Profession with an Egalitarian Core. Economists have confirmation bias.
  4. Why Nations Fail. Acemoglu and Robinson give us an excerpt from their popular book.
  5. Bush’s War (and Part 2). Top-ranking Democrats thought Iraq had WMDs too. Therefore, the Iraq War was…a success? A good idea? A noble cause? Imagine trying to pitch these arguments to specialists (or laymen) in any field, anywhere in the world.
  6. An Ottoman map of Africa from the 17th century.

How to Rebut the Condescending Leftist

Brandon Christensen Current Events , , , , , , , ,

Economist Bryan Caplan, in responding to calls for more to be done by governments for the world’s poor, writes the following:

Isn’t the entire problem that the world’s poor have little of value to sell on the world market? The answer, surprisingly, is no. The world’s poor have a very valuable good to sell: their labor. Though Third World workers often earn a dollar or two a day, even unskilled labor is worth $10-$15,000 per year on the world market.

There’s just one problem: First World governments’ immigration policies effectively forbid international trade in labor. The world’s poor cannot legally work in a First World country without that government’s permission. For most current residents of the Third World, this permission is almost impossible to obtain. If you’re an unskilled worker with no relatives in the First World, you have to endure Third World poverty, win the immigration lottery, or break the law.

Do read the whole thing. It’s from the recent Cato Unbound symposium on “Authority, Obedience and the State.” The Cato Institute is probably one of three think tanks that actually puts out work I can count on (the other two being Brookings and Hoover). Their monthly Cato Unbound is one of the best symposiums on the web.

Dr. Delacroix has written on immigration before. Here is a piece he produced for the Independent Review. Here are his blog posts on immigration.

Cooling of relations between the U.S. and Russia

Evgenii Grigorev Liberty , , ,

Добрый день, читатели сообщества! Сегодня я хотел бы поделиться с Вами моими соображениями касательно последних событий в мире, имеющих отношение к России и США. В частности, меня интересует проблема некоторого ухудшения отношений между нашими странами. Началось все, если рассматривать только недавние события, с дела о смерти Магнитского и принятии закона, запрещающего депутатам из России иметь счета в зарубежных банках. После этого рассматривались несколько дел о смерти русских детей в американских семьях – и как следствие – принятие закона, запрещающего американским семьям усыновлять моих соотечественников из детских домов. Закон, понятное дело, чудовищный. Я не понимаю, почему депутаты, которым слегка ограничили права решили отыграться на русских детях. Русский народ, кстати, тоже не понимает. Данный закон, принятый несколько месяцев назад собрал большое количество негативных откликов со стороны граждан России, однако он так и не был отменен. В этом вопросе я полностью поддерживаю Америку и право американских семей усыновлять детей из России. Законы остаются в силе, а наши отношения между странами ухудшились. Большое количество детей лишились своего права на счастье. Что скрывать, средняя американская семья способна предоставить ребенку из России больше, чем средняя русская. Дело, в основном, в различии материальных уровней и сложившемся менталитете. Именно с финансовой стороны вопроса, а также со стороны “возможностей”, одинокие дети могут получить в Америке больше вариантов развития. Не буду касаться такого понятия как “патриотизм” и “любовь”, так как боюсь быть непонятым в сообществе, равно как и непонятым моими русскими друзьями. Я стараюсь трезво оценивать вещи, не углубляясь в эфемерные материи.

Тем не менее, закон принят, и русские сироты навсегда потеряли возможность перебраться в Америку. Возможно, многие обвинят меня в излишнем либерализме или про-западных взглядах, но я со своей позиции не сверну. Есть некоторые вещи, на которые нельзя закрывать глаза.

Government and Governance

Fred Foldvary Law, Politics , , , , , , , , , , ,

Policy debates typically center around the role of markets versus the role of governments. But this is a misleading distinction. Human society always has governance. Private organizations such as corporations and clubs have management, rules, and financial administration similar in function to those of government. The difference is that private governance is voluntary, while state-based government is coercively imposed on the people within some jurisdiction. So a central question is not whether the market or the government can best accomplish some task, but whether the governance shall be voluntary or coercive.

The Market-Failure Doctrine

Most economists would agree that we don’t live in the best of all possible worlds. But the doctrine of market failure found in most economics textbooks fails to distinguish between consensual and coercive governance as correctives. The prevailing theory asserts that while markets might provide private goods efficiently in a competitive economy, markets fail to provide the collective goods that people want. There are two basic reasons offered as to why markets are not sufficient. Markets can easily determine the demand for private goods, but how can we tell how much each individual wants of a collective good? We could ask people how much they are willing to pay, but how do we get a truthful answer? Free riders also are a problem. Once the collective good is provided, folks can use it whether they pay or not, so why pay?

So, the market-failure story goes, markets fail to deliver collective goods. Entrepreneurs lack incentive because they can’t get their customers to pay for the service the way they can get people to pay for individually consumed private goods. Continue reading →

Am I Smarter Than Everyone? Experts and Advocates (Revised)

Jacques Delacroix Religion , , , , ,

“Do you think you are smarter than everyone, Jacques?” asked the young intelligent liberal man with whom I have occasional conversations. He was referring to my deep skepticism regarding global warming, its consequences, its remedies, its very existence, when it comes down to it. He was also implicitly referring to an alleged “consensus” about global warming, of course.

Good question. Let me answer in two steps. First, I don’t think I am smarter than everyone and I don’t have to. Fortunately, the question does not arise. (See Part Two below.) Rather, I think I am smarter than most. It’s not much of a claim. It does not involves much conceit. “Most” means the same as “a majority.” That’s half, or 50%, plus one person. If you divided the human race in two equal halves based on intelligence, I think I would be standing somewhere to the right of the divide. So?

Part One

Here is my second answer to the question (That’s Part One – 2): I am much smarter than most in two important respects. I don’t have a religious fiber in my body and I don’t care if I belong to the club or not. In fact, I would rather not join. Many intelligent people, many much smarter than I, have a religious streak and they crave belonging. (The whole history of Communism in the West tells us that this is true.) Religiosity and wanting to belong have a great deal to do with belief in the global warming syndrome, I am sure.

The global warming syndrome is first and foremost a successful contemporary cult: It has its dogma (the world is ending because of our sins) and its priesthood (climate scientists with no scientific conscience, and other scientists who have no training regarding climate issues, a large majority of signatories of climate change manifestos, by the way.) It has its promised Armageddon, the Death of Life on Earth through global warming. But it’s a religion of redemption, like Christianity. We can still avoid the End, collectively, if we repent, give half of our money to the poor and accept future poverty for ourselves and for the poor themselves in the form of much diminished economic activity. The originality of this cult is that its Holy Places are nomadic. Its Rome used to be Kyoto, then it was Rio; today it’s Copenhagen. It will be somewhere else tomorrow (unless the End catches up with us first, of course. )

The cult also allows for individual salvation but only through rigorous methods: Sinners must reduce their individual carbon footprint, whatever it takes. As in some other religious groups, high-ranking members are exempted, however. The manager of the biggest limousine service in Copenhagen says she had to bring (gasoline and diesel) cars from Sweden and Germany because there aren’t enough in all of Denmark to satisfy the demand from delegates to the climate conference. It has now exceeded 1,200 vehicles of which five (5) are electric. (Confirmed by the Wall Street Journal on 12/14/09.)  I am not that smart actually so, I wonder why militant environmentalists seeking to reduce everyone’s carbon footprint can’t use the city’s vaunted public transportation.

Last but absolutely not least (see below), the global warming cult has its Grand Poopah. Like the Pope in Rome the Grand Poopah is infallible when speaking on matters of faith. No amount of evidence, and certainly, no misdeeds by his clergy, can persuade him to alter the intrinsically truthful dogma.

So, finally to answer the question: Yes, I think I am smarter than most because I am an atheist, Thanks God! None of the trappings of the global warming cult makes any impression on me. Zero! And, no, I have no desire to follow to the cult. As I have said, I have no wish to belong in general. In fact, I take a small and discreet but nevertheless real perverse pleasure in not going to church.

Part Two

The global warming cult uses the idea of science the way the Catholic Church used the arts, graphic, statuary and musical, for centuries, as an attractive wrapping for ideas that are basically unsound and unpalatable. The cult betrays itself when its spokesmen claim that there is a “scientific consensus” about climate change. There isn’t and if there were, it would not matter. The way a scientific theory comes to dominate any part of reality is through elimination of competing theories. That’s what happened with evolutionary theory for example. It was never “proven.” Rather other ways of explaining the same observations fell by the wayside and lost almost all their advocates. The global warming cult tries to pass for “scientific” precisely as it combats as forcefully as it can the consideration, and even the production, of competing explanations.

The public allows this to happen because of an excess of generosity, paradoxically. There is widespread confusion about what the holder of any intellectual position owes the public. The confusion is about the important distinction between “expert” and “advocate.” The American public generously allows the latter to operate with the rules intended for the former.

Experts are your doctor, your dentist, your car mechanic, your “chef de cuisine.” It’s generally accepted that experts’ performance should be assessed as a ratio of good decisions to bad decisions. People don’t withdraw their confidence from an expert because of the occasional misdiagnostic, because of a slip of the drill, or because of the rare extra nut on the car floor. It hurts me to say this but even a boring dish coming from a great chef allows him to remain a great chef. In this country, the courts even admit this kind of assessment. “Negligence” won’t get you much; it takes “gross negligence” to cash out.

An advocate is someone who is trying to make you change your ways and therefore, trying to make you change who you are. Because of the seriousness of their endeavor, and,often, its irreversibility, advocates must be held to a higher standard of truthfulness than are experts. Like this:

“If you don’t know what you are talking about, why should I change my life to make it conform to what you preach?”

And,

“If you have to lie for your cause, it’s a bad cause and I am not for it.”

The global warming cult had some of its clergymen in good standing caught telling untruths recently. The so-called “scientists” at the University of East Anglia both showed that they didn’t know what they were talking about and they lied. To make matters worse, the cult did not immediately spew them out but it tried to defend them and to minimize their crimes against truth. End of story. It’s absolutely fair and intellectually appropriate to stop believing any of the cult’s pronouncements.

And I haven’t even touched on he cult’s heartlessness. The best example is turning food crops into unnecessary and expensive fuel, which was sure to raise the price of food for the poorest of the poor in the world.

By the way, I could have saved you all this tedious reasoning. You just have to look at the cult’s Grand Poopah: Al Gore is an ignoramus who believes the inside of the earth is “millions of degrees” hot (I heard this with my own ears); he is a liar on multiple counts; he is a hypocrite who uses private jets and lives in a house 25 times larger than mine, with a corresponding carbon footprint. He is a moron who could not even carry his own state when he was running for President. That’s the same state of Tennessee where is daddy was a beloved Congressman for nearly thirty years. Of course, he, little Al, invented the Internet, but still!

Reminder: My fellow rationalists, there is not much reason to despair. Whatever, if anything, comes out of Copenhagen, will be an international agreement. Contrary to rumors in some right-wing circles, the President does not have the constitutional authority to enter into such agreements. They must be ratified by the Senate. And whatever has been ratified can be un-ratified after the next election.

Rebirth of Competitive Federalism

ryancgorham Comments, Current Events, Liberty, Politics

Before I begin I have a confession, I am a Party man. That being said, I have ties to the Liberty movement beginning when I was at Florida State and I am well-versed in Libertarian Theory and the Austrian School. I believe in a concept, which was termed recently “Competitive Federalism”. I first heard the term used by former Senator Jim DeMint at a Gala for the James Madison Institute on Wednesday (March 13th). The Liberty Foundation recently released a report outlining the idea, written by Opportunity Ohio President Matt Mayer, linked above. Senator DeMint described the idea by discussing the on-going competition between Governors Rick Scott and Rick Perry over the State-level Job Creation numbers, working to create a business-friendly regulatory environment (history here and here). This healthy State versus State competition is what our Country needs to revitalize the economy and clean up the statutory mess at both the Federal and State level.

This idea has been something that I have been thinking about for a long time, through my search to define for myself where I stood on the political spectrum. Through college, there seemed to be a constant need for those politically involved or politically interested to define themselves with labels. What I discovered is my views aren’t all that hard to pin down, but there is no true label for them. Personally, I am conservative, but I don’t believe everyone must live their life how I choose to live mine. I espouse the belief that competitive federalism should guide our policy debate; as for many, I believe the Constitution is the guideline for which we were meant to restrain our Federal Government, and I believe the Federal level is not the place for the Social battles unless absolutely necessary.

Some battles are meant to be fought at the State level; if California as a State decides to vote for one issue and I don’t agree with it, I should have the ability to vote with my feet. This would create a much more hospitable environment in the movement as a whole, and open up the floor for the other issues looming over our heads. Winning the battles over these pertinent issues is the only way to move the National Discourse forward. While Social issues are vital to how we live our lives day-to-day, moving them back to the States where possible allows us to build a true coalition for issues such as Tax Reform, Governmental Spending, Education, Transportation, and Trade.

Look for more posts in my series on Labels and defining political views in a changing landscape in the coming weeks.

Pot Shops and the Evils of Government

Jacques Delacroix Law, Liberty , , , , ,

It seems to me that few people dare entertain the thought that government is inherently bad, that it’s bad even when it’s honest and well-intentioned. That was pretty much what the founders of this republic thought but the idea is almost lost. Even when ordinary people think of bad, oppressive government, they usually have the distant federal government in mind. But it’s too far, precisely, too large, it has too many tentacles. Perhaps it’s easier to understand the moral issue if you consider something smaller and closer. The city of Santa Cruz in California (population about 50,000) just gave us a clear example of well-intentioned government action with predictably bad consequences. It’s small and it’s innocent. Repeat: innocent.

The city council just decreed that there could be only two medicinal marijuana shops in the city. Two consequences.

1 The council has created by decision a quasi-monopoly. Absent such restrictions, there might have been one hundred pot shops at first. After a short time, the number would have dwindled to a small number, possibly only two. But the winners would have been those offering the best combination of price and quality. The latter, understood widely to include possibly diversity of products and quality of service, an essential ingredient in serving presumably sick buyers.

Instead, we are going to end up with the first two applicants. That’s if the decision-making process is honest. Those two may be the worst possible or they may just be mediocre. The city’s decision is another factor, a small factor to be sure, of local high cost of living and a low level of satisfaction. Multiply this decision by 10 million and you have the Soviet Union’s economy. (Reminder: The Soviet Union did not just deny freedom, it denied a decent standard of living and the dignity that comes with not having to scramble for oranges.) Continue reading →

Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Links
  1. Tyler Cowen has an excellent (and short) video on the critiques of free trade that are regularly put forth by self-appointed proponents of cultural diversity.
  2. An excellent written piece on free trade and culture.
  3. Most-hated college basketball player since the 80s: a tournament proposal.
  4. How the establishment press got Rand Paul wrong. From Friedersdorf in the Atlantic.
  5. Economist Steve Landsburg has some thoughts on the minimum wage.
  6. The presumption of truth: murder and the state.
  7. Who was right about invading Iraq?

Private Means, Public Ends: Voluntarism vs. Coercion

Fred Foldvary Books ,

Do you have friends who are socialists? Show them Robert Zimmerman’s chapter, “New York’s War Against the Vans” in Private Means, Public Ends. Zimmerman shows private enterprise efficiently providing much-needed transportation, while the city transit police block passenger pickup, issue summonses, and otherwise harass van operators and passengers. If government is needed to provide such public goods, why does government keep blocking private services?

The essays in Private Means, Public Ends demonstrate how private efforts have effectively provided public goods. This collection of mostly recent articles reprinted from The Freeman will challenge those who doubt the workability of free markets and buttress the thinking of those already oriented to liberty with excellent examples. Case after case, nicely combining stories with analysis, shows voluntary and market means as more effective than government, despite state barriers and imposed costs.

The introduction by Professor Mixon begins with the metaphor of free human action as a wildflower field, in contrast to the potted plants of state institutions. If wildflowers disappear and all we see are flowers in pots, who can imagine the breathtaking beauty of the wild field—nature’s spontaneous order? Continue reading →

Just to say hello

Evgenii Grigorev Current Events, Religion , ,

Приветствую Вас, мои друзья! Это мой первый пост в блоге Notes On Liberty, и я хочу поблагодарить Brandon Christensen за любезно предоставленное право делиться с Вами собственными размышлениями над мировыми проблемами и событиями. Я живу в России и буду писать на русском языке (и иногда на английском тоже), поэтому настройте ваши переводчики. Надеюсь у нас не возникнет языкового барьера и мы будем понимать друг друга. Во всяком случае, мне гораздо проще писать по-русски, чем пытаться выжать из себя необходимый словарный запас английского языка, чтобы казаться грамотным собеседником. В общем, приступим к обсуждению!

На первый раз поговорим о религии в России, и о пресловутом “русском духе”. Народ у нас делится на два типа: тех, кто верит в бога, и тех, кто в него верит периодически, от случая к случаю. У нас даже есть поговорка: “нет атеистов в окопе под огнем”, что буквально можно перевести так: человек начинает обращаться к религии в России только в том случае, когда остальные методы решения проблемы уже не помогают, или когда надеяться больше не на что. Разумеется, есть и глубоко религиозные люди, которые ставят религию на один уровень с остальными проявлениями своего существования: походы в церковь, молитвы, мессы и прочее подобное… В России церковь очень сильно связана с государственным аппаратом. Многие законы издаются для поощрения действий церкви, и наоборот, многие церковные “недовольства” определенными вещами в конечном итоге могут послужить катализатором для официального принятия соответствующего закона.

Так, например, у нас есть закон об оскорблении чувств верующих. Если сказать религиозному человеку “бога нет” – он может обидеться и подать на тебя в суд, за оскорбление чувств. При этом противоположного закона у нас нет. Любой верующий может назвать меня “атеистом-идиотом” – и ему за это ничего не будет. Так что, получается, религиозностью в России очень удобно маскировать хамство, черствость сознания, серость и безвкусие. Я не верю в бога. Я никогда не верю в него. Если в моей жизни что-то плохо – в этом виноват, скорее всего, я. И я никогда не пойду в церковь чтобы попросить облегчения участи. Мне проще взять все в свои руки и исправить ситуацию.