Deserted islands and spreading the love.

Allow me to borrow a scenario from Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel, Robinson Crusoe. You will remember that Mr. Crusoe landed on a deserted island where he was forced to fend entirely for himself.

Let us assume that a modern wayward wayfarer finds himself in a similar predicament. Our modern Robinson, no doubt known to all and sundry as Rob is cast onto the island when his boat hits a reef and sinks. The island is a good size place and with a modicum of effort Rob is able to survive.

He is alone on the island. No one tells him what to do or when to do it. He is entirely self-sufficient, finding all the food he consumes. He pays no taxes. He endures no regulations of any kind. There are no laws except those that are imposed by nature itself.

Is Rob a libertarian? Is the situation libertarian?

I think how people look at the answer may be indicative of thinking errors about libertarianism.

First, I would argue that we have no idea whether Rob is a libertarian or not. And we couldn’t possible say that he lives in a libertarian environment. He is completely free, that is true. He is as free to live unmolested by others as is possible. But we can’t describe that freedom as libertarian.

The necessary component to define the situation as libertarian, or not, is missing. And what is the component? It is other people.

In Defoe’s original novel his Crusoe does interact with others. There are cannibals who come to the island to have dinner now and then. And one of the main courses, a man Crusoe names Friday, escapes. Together Crusoe and Friday form a society of two that eventually grows with others who they rescue from the cannibals.

What makes, or doesn’t make a person a libertarian, is not whether they live in some stateless paradise. It is not whether they are taxed or regulated or control. What makes them a libertarian is how they treat others.

If Crusoe had enslaved Friday and forced him to labor on Crusoe’s behalf, it would be clear that Crusoe was no libertarian. There is nothing libertarian about Crusoe or his island situation, in spite of his freedom and self-sufficiency, because other people are missing. Libertarianism describes an ethical system that individuals adopt concerning how they will relate to other people. Libertarian politics is simply the application of those ethical principles to realm of politics or government.

When Friday appears on the scene then our Rob would be able to act in accordance with libertarian ethics, or in violation with those ethics. If he used forced or violence against Friday, not in self-defense but in order to secure something he merely desires, he would not be a libertarian. If he voluntarily shares with Friday or makes voluntary exchanges with him, then he is living in accordance with libertarian ethics.

Libertarianism sets the minimal standards by which we should treat one another. It merely says we must respect the choices of others, the property of others, and the rights of others. In libertarian parlance that means respecting life, liberty and property. All exchanges are voluntary, without force or fraud. Each individual has the equal and same rights as each other individual. Of course Friday may be a better fisherman than Rob but Rob might find it gather fruit. Friday may end up with a surplus of fish, and Rob a surplus of fruit. They have unequal results from their labor but neither has infringed on the rights of the other. And they may choose to exchange the fruits of their labor for a bit of variety in their diet.

Our modern Crusoe cannot be defined as libertarian when he is alone because libertarianism describes a set of ethical rules that individuals adopt for mutual interaction. Without the ability to interact there is no ability to interact in a libertarian manner.

This is why I argue that libertarianism cannot possible be construed as a “selfish” philosophy or a self-centered one. When Rob is on the island he is entirely self-centered because he is the only one there. He couldn’t center his actions on others because there are no others. Friday’s arrival changes it. But now that Friday exists there is the opportunity to act as a libertarian would. Once another person enters the equation libertarianism is possible. When only the self exists libertarianism does not, and cannot exist. Only with others is libertarianism possible. It is entirely and wholly other-directed and not self-centered.

Crusoe and Friday, if they act voluntarily with one another are acting within a libertarian framework. That is all that is necessary for it to be libertarian. Suppose they become quite fond of one another and help each other out of pure affection. That is still libertarian. If they don’t care for each other and voluntarily exchange goods for their own self-interest they are still being libertarian. Only the use of force or fraud turns the exchanges they have into something unlibertarian.

A libertarian is not required to only exchange value for value. He may do so or may not. He may give away value simply because he cherishes others. He may dispose of his possessions in a manner that is entirely altruistic and still be a libertarian. He may even despise the market exchange system and set up a communal organization where voluntary participants live with common ownership. If it is voluntary it is libertarian. If it is involuntary it is not.

In a libertarian society individuals could form entirely non-capitalist structures for themselves. They may well live in communes or some state of collective ownership. Provided they do impose their will on others they are entirely consistent with libertarian ethics.

People in a libertarian society can and do act out of live, charity or benevolence. But libertarians recognize that there are limits to love. Adam Smith notice this over two hundreds years ago. There are billions of people in the world. We are incapable of loving them all. You can’t love someone that you are totally unaware of. Even if every act in your life were motivated by a selfless love you couldn’t act on, or with people that you have no interaction with.

But the free exchange of markets allows you to do that. You do it everyday. You benefit others who are entirely anonymous to you. If you go to your refrigerate and eat a banana you benefit others—probably many others. If your loving actions give benefits to others then voluntary exchange also gives us a portion of the same thing. These benefits give them a portion of what they may have had were it possible for you act only in a loving manner toward them. But you can't love everyone, it is not possible. But through exchange you do give them benefits as real and concrete as if you had been motivated only by altruistic purposes.

Someone grew that banana but you don’t know whom it was. You don’t know if you would love this person, hate this person or feel indifferent toward him. But it doesn’t matter. He has a banana and you want a banana. Your purchase of the banana, through an unknown chain of middlemen, benefits the original owner and all the people who acted in that exchange. The grower of the banana has no idea who you are. Yet he or she acted in a way that benefited you.

When you know people you can act out of love. But we live in a world where it is not possible to know everyone and thus impossible to act lovingly toward all those people. But through market exchanges you do things that improve the lives of others and they do things that improve your life. None of you know each other. None of you do it purely for altruistic reasons. You each act because you want to better your own life but because you act in voluntary way you can’t benefit yourself without the consent of others. And they are unlikely to consent unless they benefit as well.

Voluntary exchange turns selfishly motivated actions into mutually beneficial ones. Markets allow people to benefit one another without every knowing each other and without caring for one another. If you consider it loving to benefit others then voluntary markets are a great means of spreading the love to people who otherwise wouldn’t experience it.

Wanker's molehill is newspaper's mountain.

Warning: This post is not suitable for small children or conservatives. Really. You have been warned!

Allow me to play Devil’s Advocate, for there are times the Devil needs an advocate, regarding an uproar at the University of Hawaii. The student in question, who I shall identify by his first name only, Tim, enjoys showing his body off. By his own admission he is an exhibitionist. (I warned you conservatives not to enter here.) Tim uses the screen name Speedostudent for himself.

From what I have been able to discern, this self-proclaimed anarchist, is an ethical exhibitionist. That is, I know of no claims that he exhibited his sexuality in a way that forced others to watch him. He wasn’t one of those men in raincoats searching out unwilling participants to their game of show-but-don’t-tell.

Speedostudent’s exhibitionism seems to have been confined to videos of himself masturbating, which he uploaded to an adult website. Three weeks ago he filmed himself, in the act of self-love, in an empty classroom at the university. Of the five such videos he has posted, this is the only one that was filmed outside the privacy of his room, or outside the confines of his parent’s home.

From what I can tell Tim made sure that no one was there to see his performance. For his video he chose an empty room; well after classes had ended for the day. The only way anyone could see the video was by logging into an adult site dedicated to sexually explicit films and photos, many of them posted by individuals like Tim. It is a perfect, market-based solution to the voyeur/exhibitionist dilemma.

The dilemma existed because, under prior legal codes, both acts were illegal and technology did not allow the happy coordination of willing voyeurs finding willing exhibitionists. Those who wished to practice voyeurism found it difficult without resorting to peeping at unwilling performers. Those who wished to be seen equally found it difficult to illegally indulge their proclivities. Now the Internet, and video technology, allows willing exhibitionists to perform for thousands of happy voyeurs, all without involving unwilling individuals. It is a consenting, peaceful, voluntary exchange that makes everyone happy—except the moralists who seem only truly happy when they are miserable.

Tim’s situation was a bit more complicated as he chose to film his display on the campus where he is a student. Before I go into this uproar further, I need to take a detour back to the reality of college life at a fairly typical university.

I will discuss what I saw at the main university I attended as an undergraduate.

The first thing I can confirm was that students were having sex on campus all the time. I definitely know that students would, as they now say, “hook up” and engage in various sexual activities in numerous places. The fifth floor of the library was notorious as a spot where students would meet for sex. There were private study rooms that could be commandeered or some couples (sometimes more than couples) would find out-of-the-way toilets to use. Add to this the romps in cars in the parking lot, empty classrooms, dorm rooms, in the nearby wooded area and just about any other place you can think of, including various campus offices

I don’t want to leave the impression that the campus was one tangled mass of writhing, lubed bodies, as much as you might wish me to, but sex was both frequent and rather inconsequential. Many students on campus were actually glad that others were using the library, offices, empty classrooms or their cars for sex. Otherwise the common complaint was that roommates would use the dorm room instead. For many students this meant the non-participating roommate had to watch and/or listen to the amorous activities of the other roommate. Even worse was when they were asked to wait in the hall until it was over. Some ended up “locked out” all night. Of course, now and then, they got invited to participate, much to the horror of the conservatives who are still reading this in order to be horrified and titillated.

That only covered sexual acts with two or more individuals. When it came to the so-called “solitary vice” it was far more widespread. Bathroom stalls and showers were particularly chosen in these cases, as well as just about every place else as well. Having attended boarding school for several years, I was pretty much immune to being shocked by the masturbatory delights of others. I first saw such a thing in a dorm room before I even had any idea as to what it was. I was in grade school then. The swimming pool seemed to be a favorite location as were the group showers and the toilets. I will not attempt to recount how many times, in the course of daily life, such a thing would be stumbled upon. I can’t say I was ever really bothered by it. It didn’t break my leg, or pick my pocket, so I was rather blasé concerning the matter.

But someone who had come across Tim’s video did not find the matter as yawn inducing as I did. They filed complaints on campus. A female student, in her column for the campus newspaper, resorted to some pretty ugly tactics in misreporting the incident.

She claimed that Tim “has been endangering students by leaving his body fluids in many classrooms.” First, I have to chuckle that she can’t say sperm but resorts to using the euphemism “body fluids” instead. In reality there is hardly a risk to anyone from this. In medical reality this is less risky than some germ-ridden child spitting all over a birthday cake in order to blow out candles. If dried spunk were a threat to civilization, it would be illegal to shake hands with any adolescent male on the planet

The risks of disease, of any kind, are minimal. If the risk were larger, certainly the university I attended would have died off before second semester. I remember reading once that studies were done of what was found on stairway railings in various public locations. It is far more disgusting and revolting than some dried spunk—which I should note was one substance widely found on such railings. It really is best not to think of such matters, otherwise a compulsive fear may take control of you. We seem to survive fairly nice, in spite of these substances floating about us, so it’s best to forget about them. Just consider for a moment that you eat in restaurants using devices that were in the mouths of thousands of people before you—including some really disgusting people. And you really don’t know how well washed those utensils were—see what I mean, it’s best to simply not think of such things.

Also, from reading Tim’s blog, and his own comments, it is clear that there were five videos and only one was filmed in a classroom. This journalist, with all the ethics of a real journalist I might add, was exaggerating when she referred to “many classrooms.” It was one. Tim did have photos of himself taken, wearing Speedos, hence his nom-de-porn, in many classrooms. But when it came to “bodily fluids” it was one classroom and that classroom would be easily identifiable from the video—in case teams of “toxic waste specialists” are required.

Our ethically challenged journalist said that Tim “shows pictures and videos of himself masturbating in building such as [several were listed here]….and possible more.” Wrong again. There were no such pictures, taken in a classroom, posted on Tim’s blog or at the adult website. The only such photos were of him in a bathing suit and he was not doing anything to induce the flow of bodily fluids. This instigator then tells students to “take appropriate precautions like disinfecting desks and washing hands frequently.”

With this sort of exaggerated, panic-inducing comments she has a future as an environmental reporter. Maybe Al Gore will hire her as a publicist.

What was even worse was that this journalist describes Tim, fairly accurately—think Christopher Atkin’s in Blue Lagoon—and then warns students to “not attempt to approach” him. She says if anyone sees him, or anyone else who is “sexually deviant” with “psychotic behavior,” that they should call campus security.

The term sexually deviant doesn’t say much and never did. It is a moral judgment, not a clinical one. But “psychotic” has some precise meanings. And there is absolutely nothing about this young man that indicates he is psychotic. Since some symptoms of psychosis include hallucinations, delusions and paranoia, I would say the student journalist is more psychotic that this kid. She was the one who hallucinated that this happened in numerous classrooms, and she was the paranoid bleating about disinfecting desks and warning students that they must not approach the young man in person.

I do not think it was a good idea for this young man to film himself in a classroom (though I do know of one such incident when I went to university). But neither do I think it was the tormenting disaster that the campus newspaper made it out to be. In one story, now deleted, they compared the young man to a pedophile. That the hysterics manage to drag that into everything and anything having to do with sex, will never cease to amaze me.

I am the first to say that the university has the right, within certain boundaries (limited because it is a state university) of regulating actions on campus. And, as long as they treat all students equally, I’m fine with that. But the rules for such things are vague and unevenly enforced. I’m not sure if it were revealed that a female student had masturbated a male student in an empty classroom, that there would have been this call for disinfecting desks and frequent washing of hands. If a university were to wish to attempt to ban all sex on campus I suggest they will end up without any students. But it also seems that Tim made an effort to prevent anyone from involuntarily witnessing his hobby.

Here is how I would have handled it, had I been a university official. I would meet with Tim and tell him that using classrooms, for his extra curricula endeavors, creates a problem. I would thank him for his cooperation in the future and suggest that if he ever markets his video that he share some of the proceeds with the university and perhaps steer him to a good porn agent in LA. I would also call in the student journalist and the newspaper editor and caution them about such hysterical, unethical distortions of the facts. According to Tim’s blog, “the student newspaper has retracted the libellous statements it made about me” and the “complaints about the video have been resolved with the school administration.” But it also clear that these reports deeply troubled and upset him.

As for another market-based solution: I might note that Tim really would like to have a career in adult entertainment, he enjoys what he does. So any producers out there might wish to cash-in (literally) on the publicity by hiring him for their next production. Those offended need not purchase it, those who wish to see it may do so and enjoy it. Tim is happy, his voyeuristic fans will be happy, the producer will be happy and a small band of moralistic types will be unhappy. It sounds like a win-win situation for everyone, even the moralists who relish every bit of “bad news” they receive.

Note: The DSM tends to define exhibitionism as a paraphilia where the individual is aroused by showing their genitals to unsuspecting strangers usually in a shocking way. This was more accurately modified later to refer to it as a psychiatric disorder ONLY if it included "acting out against others or substantial distress." In Speedostudent's case he did not act out against others and is most clearly not distressed, but actually rather pleased. I would suggest, as I did in the piece above, that much of the problem of exhibitionists "acting out against others" existed in the past because other options, for legal, consensual "acting out" did not exist. The current state of the law and technology created a more liberal atmosphere and has thus reduced the "harm" associated with this activity. Of course, I'm sure the Puritans are working hard to interfer with it, by numerous laws, all guaranteed to make matters worse for everyone.

UPDATE: The university newspaper has retracted and apologized for the remarks.

More information here.

Hope all you want but don't expect change.

America’s current nightmare is about to end. Actually new current nightmares are about to end. One is that George Bush will be officially voted out of office (to take effect in January). The second nightmare is this horrendous election will be over.

Unfortunately a new nightmare are about to begin. One will be the vapid, destruction administration of Barack Obama. McCain has conducted his campaign so badly in recent months that I think he will have a hard time winning. It’s not impossible but not likely. I do, however, think it will be closer than people assume at this time.

Obama has been big on rhetoric and weak on specifics. He has spoken out against free trade and for free trade. He opposes the odious Proposition 8 in California that would ban gay marriage and he opposes gay marriage. His rhetoric is against the corporatist elite and the way they use government to plunder taxpayers. Yet his campaign is heavily in debt to that very elite and he pals around with them making them promises.

On specific issues Obama will be little different from John McCain. Hope all you want but don't expect change.

I do think Obama will try to implement some policies -- all of them bad. I fully expect him to put bureaucrats and politicians in control of more our medical care than ever before. The major medical corporations will love it since Obama will effectively transfer wealth from working taxpayers to the medical establishment.

A majority of Americans, even a majority of intelligent voters, are unaware of the last century of the history of the relationship between corporate interests and “reformers”. Invariably the “reformers” only change the system in favor of the corporate interests. Of course they will issue copious comments along the way indicating that they wish to do the very opposite. So the public will be lead to believe that the politicians are defending them against corporate greed when in reality the politicians will be picking the public purse in favor of the corporatist elements which funded their campaigns.

Right from the Progressive Era to today Big Business has managed to use the naive, unthinking positions of the socialist Left to establish a regulatory regime that restricts competition. The socialist actually thinks that is good. So does the corporate elite. But, for the latter at least, it is good. This restrictive business atmosphere makes it easier for them to make non-market profits, that is profits derived from their politicking not from offering consumers goods and services they actually want.

Bell Telephone wanted a regulated telephone industry because the regulations kept out competition. When deregulation came anyway Bell was the giant that dissolved and today the market is dominated by new technologies that were stifled under the old regulatory regime -- and the result is far lower costs to the public. Obama and the corporate lobby will do their best to make sure that sort of thing doesn’t happen again! Follow the money -- and the corporate money has been flowing to Obama. The Democrat will have received more funds from major corporations than any candidate in history -- in fact, when all is said and done he’ll have received more corporate financing than many previous candidates combined.

The Republicans, especially under Bush, were open and obvious about their cozy relationship with certain corporate interests. The Democrats are deceptive and devious about theirs. But Republicans appeal to voters who think corporations aren’t so bad and Democrats appeals to those who think they are Satanic. Both parties serve those corporate interests but have different campaign styles reflecting their need to appeal to their base.

I should also note for the naive in history that there is a big difference between corporate capitalism and free markets. Free markets mean markets that can’t be manipulated by bureaucrats and politicians in order to bestow privileges or subsidies on specific corporate entities while using regulations and taxes to hamper their competition. A free market is one where political favoritism can’t play a role. America is not a free market society. What we have is a corporatist economy with many of the features of fascism -- and Obama has no intention of changing any of that. One thing which the Democrats, and the corporate elite, are in total agreement about (with George Bush I might add) is a complete and total abhorrence of free markets. All favor the system of political allocation of profits.

Corporate plunder as the consequence of state power.

Many people speak of the “profit motive” and attach it to free markets. Of course, there is a profit motive but the idea that the profit motive vanishes in the absence of markets is absurd. The desire to profit exists regardless of the economic/political system under which one labors.

The bureaucrat under the system of state socialism is just as driven to improve his life as the so-called robber baron. No system eradicates this motivation.

The political/bureaucratic system abolishes “profits” in the sense of creating value in excess of costs. But it does not abolish profits for the individuals who labor in that system. Politicians don’t earn profits in the sense that business owners do, yet they profit by their political activity. They gain things which are important to them and that includes monetary gain, prestige, power, praise, etc.

The idea that profit is only monetary in nature is naive at best. Once, when I sponsored a dinner with Milton Friedman, his entire compensation, in terms of material goods, was dinner for himself and Rose and a reduced parking charge at the hotel garage. When I handed him his discount coupon for the parking I commented: “This has to be one of the lowest honorariums that you have ever received.”

Friedman, never one to miss a chance to make an important point smiled and said: “Any good economist will tell you that their is more to profit than mere monetary gain.”

The basic reality is that all humans are profit-maximizers especially when you realize this covers more than “profits” in the pure business sense. Politicians and bureaucrats profit. All people are “greedy” in the same sense. Everyone wants to improve their life.

Political control doesn’t eradicate such greed and neither does the free market. But the two systems do create different incentives as to how one uses their “greed” in relationship to others.

In a totally free market, one without subsidies or political control, the entrepreneur must produce a good which I am willing to buy. For me to be willing to buy his product I must conclude that the value of the product is worth more to me than the value of the money which I am paying for it. If I conclude that I am worse off, I simply don’t purchase the product. In order for the entrepreneur to be “better off” by having me part with my money he has to make me more satisfied than I would be without the trade. His profit is dependent on his ability to increase my well-being. That is because the market is voluntary, and in order to get me to “volunteer” to part with my money, he must increase my well-being.

This is most certainly not the case with politics. Where markets rely upon voluntary exchange the political process relies upon state coercion. Politicians and bureaucrats have the ability to force individuals to make less than optimal exchanges. In fact they have the ability to expropriate private wealth in exchange for nothing at all.

The German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer explained this difference in 1919 in his classic work The State. Oppenheimer contrasted the two systems of profiting this way:

There are two fundamentally opposed means whereby man, requiring sustenance, is impelled to obtain the necessary means for satisfying his desires. These are work and robbery, one’s own labor and the forcible appropriation of the labor of others. Robbery! Forcible appropriation! These words convey to us ideas of crime and the penitentiary, since we are the contemporaries of a developed civilization, specifically based on the inviolability of property. ...I propose ...to call one’s own labor and the equivalent exchange of one’s own labor for the labor of others, the “economic means” for the satisfaction of needs, while the unrequited appropriation of the labor of others will be called the “political means.”

Even though he was socialist Oppenheimer saw clearly that the “state is an organization of the political means.” As Oppenheimer puts it: “The ‘state’ is the fully developed political means, society the fully developed economic means.” This fits precisely with Felix Morley perspective in his classic The Power in the People. Morley, a well-known journalist and peace activist (he became the president of a Quaker college), noted that society “carries the flavor of voluntary companionship” but with the state “the association tends to be involuntary”.

“Society” is all interaction, economic or not, which is voluntary and cooperative in nature. It encompasses not just the economic market but social clubs, charitable organizations, private associations and individual activities. It should be noted that the bulk of social good that we experience comes out of this undirected, unorganized, spontaneous social order that free individuals naturally create. The state, on the other hand, is that entity which imposes involuntary actions on people within a certain geographic area. In society many competing and varied organizations seek to do the same good. Within the state there is no room for “a thousand flowers” blooming -- it is a monopolized entity claiming the exclusive right to initiate force.

As Morley sees is, the state is the same an Oppenheimer’s “political means” and society is the same as his “economic means”. You can dichotomize them as the voluntary versus the coercive as well. I tend to see the one as peaceful action verses violent action.

The political means of wealth acquisition relies upon the use of force or the threat to use force. The economic means requires cooperation and peace. It is said that markets are seductive while political controls are rape. In each case they could potentially achieve the same end, but the one requires seduction or persuasion while the other relies upon orders, threats or violence.

My tendency toward limited pacifism means that I prefer the latter sort of social structure. I say “limited pacifism” because I believe it is immoral to initiate force against others but not necessarily immoral to use force to defend one’s self against violence from others.

And this brings me to my main point -- that businessmen are not inherently inclined toward one system or the other. The profit motive, which we all acknowledge inspires them, exists in both systems.

A profit-seeking businessman could be an advocate of social, voluntary exchange based on the peaceful exchange of value for value, benefiting all parties to the exchange. He, or she, can just as easily prefer the political means of wealth acquisition which uses state power to impose involuntary exchanges upon unwilling individuals. What we call “the profit motive” exists in both situations. But, as I see it, the one is inherently immoral and other moral.

There is nothing about businessmen that makes them more inherently moral than the public at large. Just as some individuals prefer to live by theft from others there are some businessmen who prefer to use the political means, or state coercion, in order to acquire wealth for themselves.

We are witnessing this sort of lolly scramble with those corporate interests who are using state power to confiscate wealth from productive individuals in order to bail out themselves. The entire debacle we see on Wall Street is one where government interventions created distorted incentives and encouraged risky investments, so risky in fact, that they failed. The State then comes in and uses its coercive monopoly to confiscate the wealth of individuals and make them involuntary “partners” in the losses created by the mismanaged corporations.

I do acknowledge that the politicians created the incentives to mismanage things. But that doesn’t exonerate the corporate leaders who choose to use these incentives in an attempt to enrich themselves. Long-term the reliance upon state coercion to gain wealth is doomed to fail. It is inherently destructive. Dr. Martin Luther King noted: “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.” Because the state means of profiting uses force, because it is involuntary, because it is inherently violent, is multiplies the very evils it seeks to address. It tends to exacerbate problems not solve them.

The problem with the State socialist is that he doesn’t see how the use of evil means creates more evil. He is willing to use violence to address the needs of people. He wants to improve the lot of the poor and powerless and for this he creates state power. But power doesn’t fall into the hands of the powerless by definition. The centralized, violent system of statism always ends up in the hands of a powerful elite who use it against the interests of the very people it was meant to help.

Classical liberalism, or libertarianism, properly understood has always been a political philosophy of the Left. This was clearly indicated when the great liberal thinker, Frederic Bastiat, sat on the Left of the French Assembly. Bastiat shared the Left’s desire to improve the lot of the poor and powerless, but, unlike the state socialist, he understood the dangers of using state power to accomplish these goals.

I believe in a libertarianism that speaks out for the powerless and for those who are denied their full equal rights before the law. And I realize that to achieve such a system of justice requires the abolition of concentrated power--not its monopolization. When power is monopolized in the hands of the political classes the results will always be one where the rich and powerful use state coercion to pick the pockets of the poor and powerless.

The “bailouts” that we see today are the plundering of the working classes by corporate elites. It is a plundering that could NOT take place in a truly free market. It is only possible when the State has the power to transfer wealth involuntarily. And the statist Left needs to recognize that they are largely guilty for creating the system that makes such plunder possible.

If the Left wants to put an end to such corporatism they will have to re-evaluate their belief that the use of involuntary, state power can achieve a peaceful, prosperous social system. Violence does not beget peace, coercion does not create cooperation, plundering does not create wealth. Both the ends and the means must be consistent with one another. That means the eradication of concentrated power and the creation of truly free, voluntary markets.

Big Business and politicians: a dangerous combination.

It was 1988, but I still remember one particular night at the movies. It was unusual in several ways. First, the film being shown had never been shown to a large audience prior to this. Second, the showing was being hosted by the film makers, Francis Ford Coppola and George Luckas. Third, Luckas attended with his then girl friend Linda Ronstadt. Fourth, the film, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, instantly became one of my favorites and did so entirely on its own.

Admittedly the film does what Hollywood always does with factual stories --- make them better. Reality rarely lives up to Hollywood standards. And if films were meant as historical documentaries that would be a problem. But the artist, the film maker, recreates reality. Good art ought to always be better than reality.

What this film does is dramatize an important political reality but first a brief synopsis. Preston Tucker wants to build the “car of the future”. But in post-World War II America that means getting hold of assets that the government tied up for war production and is now releasing according to what benefits the politicians who have the power. Preston surprisingly gets to use a factory but only due to union pressures for a new car factory.

He sets about building his dream car. But men brought in through financial deals, who have connections with the auto industry, want to interfere and prevent his innovations. A U.S. Senator, working on behalf of the Big Three auto companies, begins to interfere and targets Tucker. The Big Three fear the innovations and the cost of “retooling” to catch up with him. They want to use political power to stifle competition. The Senator wants to be cozy with the Big Three since that is profitable to him. The Senator, from behind the scenes, uses the court system and the media to try to destroy Tucker and his company.

Here you have big business portrayed as corrupt, uncompetitive, and opposing an open, free market. In other words, you have a dramatic representation of what actually does happen in the world of state capitalism -- which is vastly different than the world of the free market.

Adam Smith, the first major author of a treatise on capitalism wrote about how businessmen use will enter into agreements to use political power to rip off people. Big Business thrives on political interference and fears free markets. They always have and always will. There are a few exceptions, of course, but the low-lifes that you find at Archer Daniels Midland or Enron are more than typical.

Let us start with the premise that all businessmen, and the rest of us as well, are greedy. We want as much as we can get for as little effort as possible. In free markets the way to expand wealth is to produce what people want. To advance yourself you must advance the living standards of others. Since you have no power to force them to purchase from you then you must seduce them with things they want and are willing to buy. That is the economic means of profit.

The other method for profiting is the use of the political means. Through state power one redistributes wealth from unwilling consumers to favored business interests. This can be done in a multiplicity of ways. Sometimes the state merely bans competition outright. This how Bell Telephone grew so big -- other competitors in there markets were forbidden for decades. This is often true of electric companies for instance.

Another use of political power to redistribute profits to the wealthy is the use of tariffs. They drive up the costs of foreign competition thus encouraging consumers, of their own free will (as they see it) to buy the local product. Another method favored by the business elite is a series of regulations which actually cost business lots of money.

Why would they impose such high costs on themselves? This is favored by the established big companies in order to prevent smaller companies from arising and effectively competing with them. Each regulation drives up the cost of business. The major corporations can afford to have an entire department which just dots the "i" for the bureaucrats. The small guy can’t. This additional cost is not really a cost to the big corporation, but an investment that pays hefty dividends by preventing new competition from coming into the market, thus favoring the established, wealthy few.

The more political involvement in the market place the happier the major big corporations will be. They know how to influence that process. They have the massive sums of money necessary to buy the candidates. All one has to do is watch how Big Business interests purchased the support of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama when it comes to the ethanol scam. The only people who really benefit from ethanol are the major Agricultural companies and the Big Energy companies that produce it and collect the subsidies.

Too often our friends on the Left think that this process is capitalism at work. But this process is politics at work. Remove the power of the politician and the business interests are forced to compete in open markets. Those seeking wealth via the economic method love that. Those seeking wealth via the political process hate it. Because the Left doesn’t understand this well they frequently end up being used by the very Big Capitalists that they hate.

The business interests whip up some hysteria demanding regulations. The Left climbs on board, foolishly thinking that will reign in Big Capital. Big Capital uses the regulations to stifle competition screwing over the consumers and small and mid-size businesses wanting to compete. One need merely read the history of the antitrust legislation to see precisely how major Wall Street interests used Left-wing sentiments and political pull to push through legislation that made industry less competitive and more profitable for the Big Boys.

This is not to say that Conservatives are any smarter. They certainly aren’t. They have a tendency to think that all Big Business is some bastion of morality and a testament to the virtues of free enterprise.

What the Conservatives also fail to understand is that it is precisely this kind of political power that creates the welfare state which they oppose. If government were simply to regulate markets, stifle competition and monopolize power and capital in the hands of the few, it would eventually collapse or face a revolt.

Instead the government then purchases the support of the public by offering them benefits to try and undo some of the unpleasant consequences of previous interventions in the economy. When regulations are put into place, which increase the profits of the Big Boys, there are unhappy consequences. Unemployment, for instance, will be higher. The politicians then buy off the unemployed with benefit schemes. As Sheldon Richman puts it, government is very good at breaking people’s legs and then making them happy by giving them crutches. And the Left is always ready to hand out crutches without considering how that helps the process of breaking legs in the first place.

This works because the crutches from government are very visible. But the process by which legs are broken is not so obvious. A make-work program creates obvious jobs for the “unemployed”. The regulations which prevent jobs from opening in the market, and thus creates that unemployment, are not so obvious. Often the measures which harm people are subtle, difficult to see, and complicated to understand. The benefits are always visible, obvious and simple. That the benefits are always less than the costs is rarely understood.

Whether Tucker isn't entirely accurate, when it comes to the facts, that is not the point. That the film shows how major business interests use political power, however, is important. And this film shows that process very well. It is a process that I wish more people understood, both on the Left and the Right.

I say that because, if it were understood better, a great deal of the division that people assume exists between Right and Left would actually disappear. Certainly there would still be points of differences, some real, some as illusionary as this one. But understanding this political process would help bridge our gaps and move us toward a more unified solution. This understanding is amazing because it really does unite some views long believed to be polar opposites. It does show the ugly side of Big Business and it also illustrates Reagan’s point that “government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem.”

Given my druthers, I'd take Walmart.

I went by the Great Satan the other day. Yes, I visited our local Walmart, the icon of hate from the Left.

Let me tell you a bit about it.

This Walmart was built in an area that was pretty much undeveloped. They used to be in the nearby city but the organized forces of resentment did their level best to drive them out. You heard all the nonsense about how Walmart was driving other business into bankruptcy.

So Walmart found a new location, built a larger store and moved. And the area they went to didn’t really have any businesses to drive under.

As I drove past the location I noticed lot of new shops being built in that stretch of road. This was in addition to the many new businesses which opened nearby already. The presence of Walmart attracted thousands of customers, per day, to a location that had previously been pretty dead. The net result was that dozens of new shops and businesses are thriving there.

As for the town that didn’t want Walmart --- not particularly attractive. I had some tire work one there and had an hour to spare and wandered around. Sure I spent some money there. I had a very mediocre lunch and bought some videos at 50 cents each at a thrift shop. There were lots o thrift shops but I’ve notice they tend to crop up in areas where business is dying. And the town itself is in very deep financial trouble.

No doubt Walmart will be blamed for the problems of the town. where they were not welcomed, and get no credit for the dozens of businesses created in their shadow.

This doesn’t mean I like everything Walmart does. I don’t. Nor does it mean I like everything they sell. But compare Walmart to government.

Walmart has never been able to sell me a product that I didn’t want. Government constantly forces me to pay for goods and services that I don’t want.

When Walmart gets my money it does so because I voluntarily pay them for something I value more than the cost. Government, on the other hand, has entire agencies of armed goons whose job is to make sure you pay over the money they demand. If I don’t give Walmart my business they can’t do anything about it. If I refuse to give government my money they send me threatening letters followed up by use of force. If I still resist they take my property, kidnap me, and hold me in shackles as an example to everyone else.

Even when government provides services that I might want, such as education, garbage collection, policing, they tend to do so at vastly inflated prices. Sure they sometimes hide the true cost by charging me less than the actual cost but they get the rest, and then some, via coercive taxation.

When I go to Walmart it is to buy things that I want or need. I’m happy when I can get a pair of jeans for $12. When I leave Walmart I have more money in my pocket than I would have, had I shopped someplace else. Walmart tends to put money in my pocket while government pretty much just takes it out.

If Walmart has products I don’t want, and they do, then I don’t buy them. If government has services I don’t want they make me pay for them anyway.

If I get really irrate with Walmart I can shop elsewhere. If I don’t like their prices on clothes I can go to Target, or Macy’s or Sears, etc. If I don’t like the Department of Motor Vehicles, tough luck for me. I don’t have a choice. If I don’t like the way first class mail is delivered it is illegal for me to send a letter any other way.

Walmart expands my choices. Government restricts them. Walmart helps me save money. Government takes my money. Walmart can only sell me what I want. Government makes me buy what I don’t want. Walmart has to offer me good prices, government pretty much charges anything they want.

I have freedom to maximize my well-being when it comes to Walmart. I have no such freedom when it comes to government. Even if I were to vote in every election my vote wouldn’t change a damn thing. Every election would turn out just the same way.

But I don’t have to persuade the majority of Walmart shoppers in order to get the goods or services I want. I do have to persuade the majority of voters to give me the kind of government I want.

Every time I’ve been to Walmart the baskets of goods that I left with was different from the basket of goods that other shoppers left with. When I leave the voting booth I get the same government that everyone else gets.

And finally, whatever bad things you think Walmart has done they have never bombed anyone, never tortured anyone, and never executed anyone. The might use advertising but they don't use waterboarding. When I walk into their premises they greet me and welcome me. When I visit government premises I'm searched, identified and generally treated like a criminal.

All in all I prefer Walmart.

Victimless crimes and the traitors to capitalism.

What is meant by a victimless crime? It is when a voluntary action between consenting adults, is made illegal. It is victimless because all individuals who are involved are consenting. Too many people, especially on the Left, think of victimless crimes only in terms of things like using drugs or hiring a prostitute.

Yet most victimless crimes are what you would call capitalist acts between consenting adults. If the law says I must pay you X dollars per hour but you offer to work for half that, and I accept, that is a victimless crime.

I’ve been party to victimless crimes of this type. I needed some painting done. So I asked someone to paint my walls in return for $10 per hour. The painter agreed. But politicians, who are not party to my contract, had decided that they wanted different terms. They demanded that I not hire the painter I wanted at all. He didn’t have a permit, called a Green Card, from the government to earn money.

In my eyes what I did was negotiate a labor contract with another human being. It was his business and it was my business. It wasn’t your business or anyone else’s. We voluntarily engaged in a capitalist act. For that the clowns in public office think we were criminals.

Of course there are real criminals involved in the labor market. For instance just yesterday hundreds of people were kidnapped by armed thugs. The armed thugs were Immigration agents of the federal government.

At Pilgrim’s Pride (misnamed as you will see) hundreds of workers were carted off by these armed gangs. What had these people done? They were cleaning chickens. There is a serious crime for you. These were people who were doing the horrible crime of working so they could feed their families. Yet somewhere between 300 and 400 of them were shackled by armed government goons.

I should note that the collaborators who helped arrest these people were the cowards who run Pilgrim’s Pride. The original Pilgrims came to America to seek freedom and a better life for themselves. They did it without the permission of the inhabitants of this continent as well. The arrested workers did nothing different from what the Pilgrims did. No charges were filed against Pilgrim’s Pride because they were the snitches involved. They said they “terminated” everyone that got arrested. I hope they had the decency to pay them what was owed them but I suspect they didn’t. By the way you can bet I won’t be buying from Pilgrim’s Pride.

These employees were called “illegal workers”. Think about that for a second. Work is supposed to be good. Nature makes it necessary for survival. We applaud people for being hard workers. Yet we have this asinine concept of “illegal work”. If work is a virtue then making it illegal is the height of folly. Would we ban honesty, criminalize charity, or outlaw compassion? There is often so damn little virtue in the world that the very idea that we make virtue illegal is beyond comprehension.

The xenophobic nativists and fear mongers argue that these workers “took” jobs from Americans. Apparently they think there are entitlements to jobs. But a job is a voluntary contract between consenting adults. No one can take a job from another person because NO ONE has a right to a job or owns a job. Jobs are not property. If I hire a so-called “illegal” to paint my walls I didn’t take a job from you. It wasn’t your job. The job only exists when I consent to hire someone and then only if they consent to work for me in return. If I didn’t offer the job to you I didn’t take it from you since you have no right to demand I enter into an involuntary contract with you. You have no more right to demand jobs from me than I have the right to demand work from you.

This is what is so baffling about modern conservatives. These hypocrites of the Right fraudulently claim that they believe in capitalism, free markets, private property, the sanctity of contract, and small government. But they propose policies, and push ideas, that entirely contradict those ideas.

The job I offer is a private contract between me and whomever I wish to hire. But the conservatives nationalize the job market and make government a partner to every transaction. They demand that I only hire people that they approve of. They think they have a right to rig my contracts according to their own wishes and desires. That sounds like bloody socialism to me.

A free market is one where people trade voluntarily. Yet these conservatives want to ban voluntary trade unless they first approve of all the participants in the exchange. That is not a free market. The modern conservative hates free markets. Sure they say they love free markets. Many a wife-beater claimed he really loved his wife as well. Actions speak louder than words.

I find it hilarious that these fake “free marketeers” whine that immigrants just “want our welfare” and then they cheer so loudly when people are arrested for working. The people working were not living off welfare. They were making a living by cleaning the damn chickens that we eat.

Conservatives prattle about the sanctity of the family. So what have they pushed for? They want harsh, cruel enforcement of laws that prevent people from finding productive jobs that enable them to feed their families. Apparently the are so pro-life that would happily force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term but then don’t give a damn if the child starves because daddy and mommy are forbidden to work people who are willing to hire them. Someone once defined a conservatives a someone who believes a fetus has rights right up until the moment it is born. Sad, but true.

The modern conservative, especially the brain-dead types that have infested the Republican Party are walking contradictions. They are so mentally screwed up that they can’t see that they are just as much statists and advocates of big government as the worst sort of socialist. The only thing that separates the Republicans from the Democrats is that Republicans want to cram Jesus down your throat while forcing you to obey them.

The biggest advocates of regulated labor markets today are Republicans. They want absolute state control over who you hire. They want to create a data base of approved workers which you must use before you hire anyone. If your employee doesn’t appear in that data base the Republicans will send thugs out to punish you. And the Republicans call that a “free market”.

The political Left may oppose free markets. But the political Right is actually worse. They are traitors to free markets. They are the kind of lowlifes who, in a battle against a tyrannical enemy, open the back door to let the enemy in because they are cowards. Conservatives are worse than the enemies of free markets because the feign a love for them while betraying them every single chance they get.

Slaves, shopkeepers and markets.

Here is a riddle for you. Imagine the world where slavery was commonplace. Why did the slaves work to benefit the slave owner? Was it because slaves, on a whole, loved laboring for the benefit of others? Was it a sense of a duty on their part? Was it because the slave master provided them with some water, some food, some shelter and protected them from others the way a farmer protects his herd from the wolf?

I sincerely doubt that most slaves were motivated by a sense of of obligation or gratitude. What they faced was a regime that was cruel but which promised more cruelity, of a more severe kind, if they didn’t comply with the wishes of the slave master.

Today most of us get up in the morning andlabor in one form or another. Much of what we do also benefits others. In a market economy it is difficult, if not impossible, to labor in a manner that only benefits one’s self. What gives labor value is that others value it, not that you enjoy it. If others want the value which your labor creates they have to enter into free exchange with you. If you didn’t gain value from this exchange you wouldn’t agree to it. If they didn’t gain value from this exchange they wouldn’t enter into it either.

The litmus test for the amount of slavery within a political or economic system is the amount of force required to inspire individuals to work for the benefit of others. What the slavers didn’t understand was that the amount of benefit derived from such an arrangment is smaller than it would be in a system of free exchange. The slave may be “inspired” to work in order to escape the lash but his inspiration is limited. He will work as hard as necessary to avoid punishment but is rarely willing to go beyond that.

In a system of free exchange the worker finds that his ability to satisfy his own wants and desires increases as he becomes more productive. He is inspired, by the added wealth that accrues to himself, to shower more benefits on others through his efforts. The entire sytem becomes more productive and what we call “society” tends to benefit.

One shouldn’t pretend that there were no benefits from slavery. The slave master benefited by the coerced labor of his slaves. But the society was poorer than it otherwise would have been if free exchange dominated. Chances are that slavery didn’t just distribute wealth from the slave to the slaver, but also redistributed wealth from the society in general to the slaver. Society was poorer by the absence of free exchange in order to endow the slaver with a small benefit.

The same thing is happening today in our mixed economy. Our society is a mixture of slavery and free exchange. Most of us work voluntarily, directly or indirectly, to produce goods and services that benefit the society at large. We do so voluntarily because such labor makes us better off. But about half the time to one third of the time we also work involuntarily in order to pay taxes.

The excuse for taxation is that it is necessary to benefit the society as a whole. In reality it benefits the class of individuals who decide how the fruits of your labor will be spent -- the political classes. And just as slavery provided the wrong incentives to slaves, and limited their economic output, taxation provides the wrong incentives to workers, and limits their economic output. The society, as a whole, is actually made poorer that it otherwise would have been in a system of pure free exchange.

But like the slave system there is a class of people who accrue small benefits to themselves through the forced labor of others. The political classes, those elected officials and their unelected bureaucratic lackeys directly benefit from the coerced labor imposed by taxation.

You pay your taxes for the same reason the slave gave the slaver as much labor as necessary to avoid the whip. If you don’t comply the state promises to use force against you. If you pay late they are very quick to send you a letter telling you how they will impose this force upon you and immediately penalize you for your failure to comply in a timely manner.

The idea that this arrangement benefits the society as a whole is an illusion. It is a classic example of Bastiat’s “broken window” fallacy where people see the benefits but not the costs. In Bastiat’s example a shopkeeper has a window broken and is forced to replace it. Those who replace the window benefit. They spend the money in various ways benefiting others as well. The conclusion drawn by the fallacious logic is that the broken window was a net benefit. That is what is seen.

But the shopkeeper lost money that he would have spent in other ways. That is not seen. The tailor who lost the sale of a suit is not counted in the equation because he is not seen. All the broken window did was transfer wealth from the tailor to the glazier. And society was the poorer because of it. The total wealth was down by one suit. The new window only replaced the old window adding no net benefit. Certainly the shopkeeper was worse off. He was out the money and never got the suit he wanted. Now imagine how bad this would be if the glaziers were free to go around breaking windows!

The glazier may try to convince us that society has net gains due to the value “created” by breaking windows. And as long as we only look at the one side of the equation this is true. Only when we take into account the lost benefits, and the lower wealth of the shopkeeper, do we see that these benefits turn in net losses.

Government is like the glazier and the slaver. It benefits from the forced labor of the populace. Just as both those special interests would argue that they were creating net benefits, the political classes do the same. And this remains true --- provided you only look at one side of the equation.

Bleak rocks and gardens.

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) once said something that was profoundly important yet relatively simple to understand. “Give a man the secure possession of a bleak rock, and he will turn it into a garden; give him nine years lease of a garden and he will convert it into a desert.”
What Mill was writing about, simply put, is the concept of property rights and the economic incentives those rights create.

A bleak rock with property rights becoming a garden may seem to be hyperbole. But Hong Kong was precisely such a bleak rock. It was a colony of Britain but it was colony where property rights and free markets prevailed. And it quickly became one of the most prosperous places on the planet. It has no natural resources to speak of and even the drinking water has to be imported. But with property rights the people prospered.

I’ve always marvelled when I walked the streets of Hong Kong. The massive skyscrapers and the hundreds of thousands of thriving shops and businesses are enticing. It’s a shoppers paradise.

Of course at one time the people of Hong Kong were poor. But they were free to trade their labour and they were, most importantly, free to keep what they produced. The average GDP per capita is now at $27,527 Government only consumes about 10.3% of GDP and the highest tax rate for individuals is 18.5%. There are few regulations, no minimum wage and secure property rights.

According to the Wall Street Journal’s economic freedom index Hong Kong is one of the world’s freest economy and has been for decades.

But Mill also wrote of a garden without property rights that turns to a desert. I can’t think of a better description for Zimbabwe.

There the average per capita GDP is a mere $2,607.00 and falling—Hong Kong is far wealthier in spite of both starting out as poor colonies. But where Hong Kong had no natural resources Zimbabwe had an abundance of them. But in Zimbabwe government spending equals about 38% of the entire GDP and the highest individual tax rate is a whooping 45%. Zimbabwe today is listed near the very bottom of the economic freedom index.

Just a few years ago Zimbabwe was a major food exporter but Mugabe’s infamous land confiscation made that history. Within a few short years the breadbasket of Southern Africa became the desert that was predicted by Mill over a century ago.

People produce goods and services, including food, when they feel that their effort will not go to waste. People won’t invest in property they don’t own or which they feel may be taken from them at the whim of government bureaucracy. There is security of property in Hong Kong and the bleak rock has become a garden. In Zimbabwe the garden has been transformed into a desert because property rights are no longer respected.

A farmer who fears losing his property won’t invest the same time, labour or money into the farm as does one who believes he’ll be allowed to reap the fruits of his labour. A business owner who knows that government will tax the bulk of his profit away is not as likely to put in the effort required to expand his business.
Production is not something that people plan on Monday and do on Tuesday. It’s a long term process. Even the talk of appropriating property from people, either through the process of land confiscation or higher taxes—which amounts to confiscation on the piecemeal basis—has the same effect.

A farmer fearing land confiscation may not put in the new irrigation system that is needed. He won’t build the new barn or bother clearing that extra land of rocks so he can plant there. He’s not just farming for tomorrow. He’s farming for next year, for ten years from now, even for the next generation.

Talk about involuntary land exchanges (where property is taken from an unwilling seller who is compensated) immediately impedes investment in land. The fruits of that lack of investment won’t show up immediately. It takes time but the results eventually do appear and they aren’t good.

Note: Different sources give different statistics but the relationship remains the same and they are mostly in the same range.

Why no conflict over socks?

Conflict seems rampant in politics. But why is that a surprise? The political process creates artificial conflicts where they would not normally exist in the absence of State intervention.

To some degree there will always be conflict. And the main justification for the existence of the State has been to resolve such conflicts. It exists to protect rights and rights are a means of resolving conflict. If two people are in a parking lot fighting over who can use a car the first question we ask is: To whom does it belong? If one is the owner and the other is not the issue is solved.

Certainly a government limited in functions to those of protecting the life, liberty and justly acquired property of individuals would be one that would do more to resolve conflict that to create it. But no where are governments today limited to those primary functions. They have all taken on secondary functions as well. And here they undo much of the good they do when filling their primary functions.

What sort of conflict do we have over socks today? Not much that I’m aware of. For the most part we have “sock peace” in the nation. There was no great effort to accomplish peace, it is quite natural. But politicians can create a “sock war” almost instantly.

Currently we have sock anarchy. Each individual pursues socks to their own satisfaction. No one thinks of the “greater good” whatsoever. There is no sock central planning, no program to get socks to the masses, no socks education program of any kind. There are just socks. Numerous people produce them, billions buy them. They come in various kinds, qualities and colors.

What if Congress, or parliament, were to come up with the brilliant idea of a “National Sock Policy”. Under this policy they would decide what socks would be permitted on the market and which ones would be forbidden. Perhaps to ensure equal distribution of socks the State may nationalize sock production and forbid the private production or distribution of socks.

One of the first thing to happen is that people will suddenly find debating socks of some importance. If the government is to produce socks then what kind of socks? Should we have dark socks that match suits, white socks for athletic footwear, or nylons for women?

The government will immediately end the production of some socks. After all, if there were too many varieties then some have to go. Certain styles will disappear, certain fabrics won’t be used, etc. Many individuals, who are partial to one kind of sock, will be upset that their favorite variety has vanished.

The government might decide to produce socks that appeal to the widest market. They might spend millions on surveys and studies. Cotton manufacturers will pour millions into lobbying in order to push for a requirement that all socks be produced with cotton. Nylon manufacturers might do the same. It would be potentially worth billions so lobbyists will flood the capitol arguing the virtues of one fabric over another.

Attempts to outline which socks will be produced will bring cries of outrage from certain groups. Most people, politicians included, never knew there were special socks produced. There are a variety of orthopedic socks and socks for diabetics as well. Chances are that these groups will start lobbying also. No doubt while doing so they will want subsidies in the process. And some people need socks that have extra width to them. Every minority sock market will wants its say.

Suddenly it is discovered that the entire sock business is incredibly complex. The market provided all of these varieties for a reason. People had different needs and different tastes and different budget priorities. Government tends toward the “one size fits all” philosophy.

Just look at how government education is a source of constant conflict. There is no way to make the customers happy. It just isn’t possible. Teach evolution (as I would) and you have some religious people upset. Teach creationist ideas and you have scientists, rationalists and others upset. And which creationism do you teach? There is more than one variety.

I prefer schools have a comprehensive sex education course. George Bush wants them to teach abstinence. Parents want all sorts of things.

Much of what is called the “culture war” is over areas of
State intervention in the realm of private morality. And both sides want to use the State to invade the territory of the other side. Christianists want to stop gays from forming relationships and gays want to force Christianists to hire gays.

On the primary functions of government there is little dispute. Few people believe the government shouldn’t prevent murder, theft, rape, kidnapping and similar violation of rights. We might argue about punishments but not over the criminal nature of those functions.

But when government starts regulating what television is allowed, what food we are permitted to eat, what clothes we must wear, who we must hire, what we must learn, what views we are allowed to express, and so on, then every one of those issues becomes a source of conflict.

Currently we have sock harmony. Bring the State in and we would have sock conflict. Now this analysis not apply to every issue in the culture war, and other forms of political conflict, but it does apply to a lot of them. Certainly one of the greatest causes of conflict in history has been the alliance of State and church. The reason is rather simple to understand.

State is a monopoly on force and violence in a specified area. Religion is a deeply held belief about existence. When you use force to uproot one belief, or to implant another, you create massive conflict. The result will be violence in all forms, ranging from fist fights, to torture, to execution, to war, to genocide.

When the State was separated from religion the level of conflict was reduced drastically. A couple of door-to-door missionaries might be annoying but rarely lead to violence. But the moment religion and State are seen to be courting with marriage in view conflict again escalates.

The relative peace brought about by the separation of church and State is instructive. We need to seriously consider how we can extend that armistice to other areas of conflict as well. And that means separation of State from those areas of life as well. Freedom allows diversity, politics, no matter its intentions, breeds conformity.

And you think the Right supports free markets?

What’s a little fraud between bigots? I am on numerous mailing lists from the Loony Left and Bigoted Right both. It’s dirty work but someone has to do it. Today I got a mailing from the Theopublicans at the Right-wing TownHall website. It purports to be a survey on whether you want to crucify undocumented immigrants or allow them to stay in the country.

I voted to let them stay. Now it promises to give you immediate results of the “survey”. Except it is no survey at all. No results are being counted. It’s a fraud, a lie, a deception, dishonesty, etc. It’s the typical Right-wing bigoted nonsense. If you vote for amnesty you are immediately told that 99% of the public disagree with you and that you ought to join some radical left-wing group.

If you vote “yes” you are immediately told that 99% of the public agrees with you and given the option to send a fax, free to yourself, to Congress attacking the free market in labor and whining about evil immigrants who live on welfare and steal our jobs at the same time. They are very cleaver those immigrants to do both!

There is nothing that 99% of the American agree about. Nothing! They may be the most religion soaked nation outside of Islamic “republics” but even 99% don’t believe in God. And that is probably the one issue there is the most unity over. The fact is that the survey is fraudulent.

While the bigots at TownHall put it out it is actually a paid advertisement for another group NumbersUSA. What is interesting about this mental midgets is that they manage to combine some of the worst economic fallacies together into one package. They take Left-wing nonsense about the “overpopulation threat” and combine it with Right-wing bigotry about how immigrants destroy “quality of life” and “wage fairness.”

They also help prove that the Right today is anti free market as free market economists are almost united in noting that immigrants do negatively impact wages. The jobs immigrants take go unfilled for the most part because most American workers are more highly paid in better jobs. These people, just starting out on the economic ladder, start by necessity at the bottom of the ladder. But it improves their lives and their kids start higher up on the ladder.

An immigrant cleaning up the garden doesn’t depress the wages of office workers, lawyers, or most Americans. The Right pulls the typical Left-wing fast one when they prove it does.

If you have a community of 5 workers each of whom earns $100 per week you know the average is $100 per worker. Someone comes along and takes a job no one else is doing. He earns $50 per week. You know have 6 workers earning an average of $91.66. So the average dropped by almost 10%. This is proclaimed proof that immigrants depress wages. But notice something important. Those other five workers are still earning $100 per week.

Averages are tricky that way. If you have a room of basketball players the average height is rather impressive. If you now add a class of of first graders to the room the average height has fallen dramatically. But it did so without the basketball players becoming shorter. What the bigots are doing is implying that, in fact, the basketball players are getting shorter.

Millions of immigrants have come to America and that depresses the average. Yet Americans are among the most economically well-off people in the world. And the growth rates in their prosperity put most other developed nations to shame.

Here are a few facts for you from someone who spends a lot of time in Europe (the other main center of economic development). Americans are far better off economically than most Europeans! Let me mention a few facts of life that the Malthusian Right won’t like.

Americans earn, on average, more than Europeans do on average. The same is true is you compare Americans to individual European nations. The typical income is higher in the US.

Not only is income higher but taxes are lower. So you keep more of what you earn. And in addition prices are much, much lower in the United States. Your money goes further.

Britain has one of the “highest standards of living” in the developed world and it is rather sad compared to the US. Housing here is cramped and small for the most part. I know people in the US who have homes five times the size of what the same money could buy them in England. Food selection is fair in the UK but not great. But prices for food is absurd. A slice of roast beef for a sandwich (just one slice) can cost $1. An ear of corn can cost $2 per ear. I would estimate that many day to day items cost 50% to 100% more in the UK over prices in the United States.

In Germany it isn’t quite that bad but prices are still 25% to 50% higher. And the range of items are much lower than in the US. I honestly know of people who have flown to the US, when air tickets are on sale, just to shop for clothes to bring back to Europe. The savings on clothing alone pays for the air tickets and they still save money.

Of course Europeans have much higher rates of unemployment as well. So they have a harder time finding a job, earn less when they do find one, keep less of what they do earn, pay more for the items that can purchase, and have a smaller selection.

The US government may be an inept, infested with authoritarians and meddlesome, but the on a whole Americans are economically better off than Europeans. It is hard to see how these millions of immigrants have impoverished America.

In fact there are numerous ways they improve American competitiveness and increase wages for Americans. Consider a man who is middle-income at a company or perhaps self-employed. He does all right for himself. But if he takes 5 hours away from working his income could drop by $20 to $30 per hour. Illegal Immigrant Gardening Service comes along and offers a worker to clean his yard, cut his grass, and weed the garden each week. It is $50 per week for this service. (Having hired illegal immigrants in the US I can attest that most want $10 per hour for this sort of manual work.) The man pays out $50 to have his garden serviced and uses the time to earn $100 to $150.

He is better off financially and so is the gardener. And so are the man's customers who were able to prosper because he was available to do what they needed done. He could have done the yard work himself. He would have lost more money than he saved and the gardener would be worse off. The man’s clients would be worse off as well. And since both he and the gardener earned less money they each spent less money in other areas where their spending would have created jobs.

One of the basic principles of free markets, which neither the Right nor the Left understand, is that when people make voluntary exchanges all the parties to the trade benefit. State intervention can only increase the number of losers. It can never create more winners. If people benefit by the trade they will make it and they don’t need the state intervening to get them to do what they would do otherwise.

State intervention can only do the following:

1. It can force people to trade who otherwise would not trade. If the trade would not have taken place otherwise that is because at least one of the traders is either worse off from the exchange or had a better option elsewhere. In other words someone will lose something.

2. It can change the terms of the exchange by force. If the terms were favorable to all traders they would voluntarily impose such terms themselves. That they didn’t do so indicates that state has only made one or more of the participants worse off.

3. It can use force to prevent a trade that otherwise would happen voluntarily. When this happens all participants to the trade are worse off.

At no point can state intervention improve the economic conditions of the willing participants to a market transaction.

So why do people support state intervention in the market? Because the intervention does make someone worse off! The actual goal is to harm the economic well-being of one trader through the redistribution of wealth from that trader to another participant in the exchange. Now that doesn’t mean that these regulations actually make the other participant better off. Sometimes they make a small group better off while harming the majority. Sometimes they make everyone worse off.

People often promote redistribution based on false assumptions. The plan they propose doesn’t actually make anyone better off they just fantasize that it will. A lot of the immigrant bashing the racist Right engages in is an example of that.

Very, very few Americans are clamoring for the opportunity to be a bus boy in a restaurant, mow lawns, or pick vegetables in the fields. And if that is their ambition I can assure they wouldn’t have trouble finding the work. But what the work is worth is not a salary they want to earn. And all the regulations you can invent will never make a job worth more than it actually is. You may force the wages higher than the job is worth but then the work goes undone and the man who would have done is unemployed.

These immigrants come to America because doing so improves their lives. And they also improve our lives. They make the nation more productive. They do work that would often go undone otherwise. And they are slowly building capital for themselves and their children, capital which makes everyone wealthier in the long term. And what they spend for their daily living goes back into the economy creating more demand for goods and services and thus even more jobs.

The Right may play lip service to free markets. But they don’t understand them. Nor do they really support them.