Last Thoughts on Vouchers

I, similarly, have a philosophy that "washing in hot water and lengthy dryer-time" produces the "best results" laundry-wise. When my new Zegna suit was rendered unwearable by this manner of cleaning, I remembered that my philosophy "produces the best results for all of us" and accepted the outcome.

Many right wingers believe in specific tax breaks for specific favored businesses.

They justify it by saying that it will create jobs, and that the number of jobs and tax revenue created from those jobs, will outweigh the cost of the tax break.

It can become a kind of dogma though where any tax break or tax cut should be instituted, and should be paid for by raising sales taxes or cutting services to the poor or cutting salaries to civil servants.

"look at all the data and decide what we think about every issue"

In fact that's what I'd like to see most on this vouchers issue: one of the 50 states going whole-hog for vouchers for all school children, and sticking with the policy for about 10 years, so that we can see how it's working out.

Excellent idea. Is there some good reason why this can't happen?

I think it does demonstrate that it's incorrect when someone makes a statement like "the free-market economy [always] produces the best results for all of us." This is manifestly untrue, as there will never be a perfect free-market economy and the existence of imperfections mean that the textbook models will always be imperfect. Therefore, every individual policy must be considered individually as to whether "all of us" actually benefit by it. Even libertarians are in favor of some government restrictions on economic activity: the trade in plutonium weapons, for example, or murder-for-hire contracts.

It's a true enough statement when you're just trying to make up your own mind on something.

But when you debate an issue with someone else, you've got to chuck that out the window. If you care enough to discuss a particular issue, you owe it to the others involved to discuss that issue in its particulars, and not just as a for-instance where your dogma can be applied.

Even libertarians are in favor of some government restrictions on economic activity: the trade in plutonium weapons, for example, or murder-for-hire contracts.

I think you give some of them too much credit. For example, if there were really free trade in plutonium weapons, surely the majority of people who fear annihilation would form some sort of private cartel to buy up all the available weapons and take them out of circulation. How wasteful to demand that the government regulate this activity when the free market can solve it! And so on.

Not all libertarians are kooks, of course, but when you're talking about the people who don't believe in traffic lights, you really shouldn't put anything past them.

Why do we have to "decide what we think about every issue" at all?

Yes Steve all Libertarians are kooks.
Or, minimally, profoundly unserious.

"We don’t have the time to look at all the data and decide what we think about every issue"

The last big advantage the USA has in the public sphere is its capacity for data analysis. The number of quantitative analysts and the resources at their disposal in the US is staggering. Our capacity for analysis is exceeded only by our military power. Any important matter that can not be shot to death damn well should be analyzed to death. We should certainly analyse anything as expensive and important as educating about 50 million children.

I have been trying unsuccessfully for years to get that point across. Principles are a short cut that are sometimes useful in abstracting away parts of the problem that are abstractable.

Tyler Cowen seems to fall into this with regards to the Minimum wage (he calls it going with theory) and single payer health care.

Tyler is an interesting case though as he seems to be aware of his role in the grand theme of things.

This, to me, is more or less why it's not a very good idea to try and debate policy specifics with libertarians. That it's an ideology that precludes trying to decide issues through some dull "look at all the data and decide what we think about every issue" doesn't, of course, demonstrate that it's incorrect, but it hardly lays the groundwork for a productive exchange of ideas.

Admittedly, this is inelegantly put: "the free-market economy produces the best results for all of us" in that the "all of us" is facially unclear. However, Boaz clearly means to say is that the free-market economy maximizes total utility when compared to the next best alternative. He does not think that the free market economy maximizes individual utility or else his examples of his failed business and non-super-good Amtrak service make no sense. Thus, James Gary's example of his Zenga suit (above) and Yglesias' critique miss the mark.

Also, any ideology can be used to replace analytical analysis. This is not a sin unique to libertarianism.

At least libertarians are foolishly evaluating all policies against a set of rules. Conservatives nowadays also evaluate everything not on the details of the policy, but on whether it seems "conservative," a term roughly synonymous with "bad-ass." (You need to imagine "bad-ass" here voiced by Eric Cartman.)

What I think is profoundly unserious is to pretend to ignore, in some specific discussions, everybody's everyday experience with "markets in everything" that work the vast majority of time, and to pretend that competition is some sort of weird theory that has yet to prove itself. The usual arguments are unserious, too. Sara Mead starts by citing, as an example of market failure, a TV show that is not very popular despite her liking it. Huh? She then says there is no guarantee that market in education will produce good results. Huh? Is there such a guarantee in the market in pencils? Based on the everyday experience of everybody living in this country, a market in education is likely to produce desirable, and improving, results for the majority of consumers. This is a reasonable expectation because markets in everything else do. This is also vastly better than the current situation.

Yes, I think it is clearly in public interest to ensure that even children of parents uninterested in education get educated well. This is a problem. I suspect it can be partially solved with the right incentives. I suspect it cannot be solved completely in any system. In any case, the public education system fails to solve this problem, so let's please stop citing it as a reason to have public education.

Oh, and trying to decide issues through some dull "look at all the data and decide what we think about every issue": you know, it has been tried. Planned economy, maybe you've heard of it. A smashing success. We can try again, of course. As soon as we have "all the data" on education.

It's worth noting that his examples of the 1st Amendment and the free market are dissimilar in an important respect. The 1st Amendment protects lots of individual cases of speech because it was instituted as law. If a different law were instituted, or the amendment were repealed, the protection wouldn't then continue to exist as some kind of natural phenomenon. In contrast, the idea that "the free-market economy produces the best results for all of us" isn't something that was legislated into existence. It's an empirical claim about how the world works, except that empirically it's not that well-supported, so it functions more as a basic article of faith for people of a certain, er, ideology.

I do think the author is right that it's important to have principles, so long as they are rules of thumb. For instance, it's perfectly sensible to insist on reliance on markets where there's no demonstrable likelihood of market failure. But one must not allow the rule of thumb to cross the line into dogma, where it blinds one to the possibility of market failures.

On Marginal Revolution, Cowen has a link to a Virginia Postrel piece about "empirical" vs. "ideological" libertarians. I don't really like myself for saying this, but her article is worth a read. It draws some pretty insteresting distinctions between what I think of as "Libertarianism, the religion" and some basic and powerful arguments about markets and freedom.

However, Boaz clearly means to say is that the free-market economy maximizes total utility when compared to the next best alternative.

von, this would still be profoundly unserious. To determine what maximizes totaly utility in each particular case, we have to look at policy specifics. A one-size-fits-all approach (and that's exactly what James Gary was criticizing) isn't worth debating.

To look at the specifics, Boaz was discussing subsidies for biodiesel. Now I don't know the specifics, so I don't have any views on this particular issue, but if there is a case for those subsidies it's surely that using biodiesel has positive externalities (or that other fuels have negative externalities). In the presence of such externalities an unfettered free-market approach won't maximize total utility, even theoretically.

Actually, there are very few circumstances where an unfettered free-market approach will maximize total utility, even theoretically; what it will maximize is the sum of utility times market power.

If a libertarian starts getting empirical, they eventually morph into a (gasp!) liberal.

what it will maximize is the sum of utility times market power.

Technically, I think it's something like utility divided by the marginal utility of a dollar, but because of the decreasing utility of money this correlates with market power. But try this thought experiment: Suppose someone has no money at all. Then a perfectly free market will give them nothing at all. The more people with no money, the more people who will get nothing -- which will decrease average utility. So it doesn't seem as though the free market will be maximizing total utility; it's got to be maximizing some sort of weighted utility, where people with no money have weight 0.

Link to Cowen's link to Postrel.

Oh, and trying to decide issues through some dull "look at all the data and decide what we think about every issue": you know, it has been tried. Planned economy, maybe you've heard of it. A smashing success.

Um, the fact that it was tried and failed would constitute, you know, data that would help us decide that planned economies suck.

Furthermore, your statements that: "Based on the everyday experience of everybody living in this country, a market in education is likely to produce desirable, and improving, results for the majority of consumers. This is a reasonable expectation because markets in everything else do. This is also vastly better than the current situation." demonstrate that you have failed to understand the point of the original post. These assertions are statements of faith in markets, not an analysis of empirical evidence for their efficacy or shortcomings regarding the issue at hand.

This, to me, is more or less why it's not a very good idea to try and debate policy specifics with libertarians....sums it up pretty well.

What I think is profoundly unserious is to pretend to ignore, in some specific discussions, everybody's everyday experience with "markets in everything" that work the vast majority of time, and to pretend that competition is some sort of weird theory that has yet to prove itself.

But we don't have "markets in everything" - specifically, we don't have markets in the things we've been accustomed all our life to having governments do for us. Most of us don't choose between various private companies to provide us with police protection, for example. Maybe some people are libertarian enough to believe markets would work well in those areas, too, but you need a better argument than "it works for pencils."

Some people want more government control over things that are currently left to the marketplace; some people want less control over things that are currently run by the government. To resolve this dispute, it's helpful to see if we can identify a set of principles that distinguish areas where markets work from areas where they don't, to see which side of the line the grey areas fall on.

If you're a free-market advocate, it can only serve your interests to actually spell these arguments out. Most people don't like the idea of "shopping around" when it comes to health care, for example, so the notion of consumer-driven health care is always going to lose in a democratic system unless you make a persuasive case for it. But as someone who think it's a terrible idea, I'm more than happy to see you end your thought process at "it works for pencils, and you're unserious if you assume it wouldn't work for everything else."

dj moonbat,
I think you are on the money - at least as far as philosophical reasons. Liberalism shares crucial normative values with libertarians - the universal import of all 'people' being the key one.
Liberalism is the empirical philosophy - we make no determinations about large or small government, only that such and such is more likely to acheive goals (libertarians often seem to miss this, thinking that we somehow have a foundational preference for big government).
If libertarians want in on the empirical philosophy, they have only differences in weighting that are common under a big tent political organization (that libertarians are often contrarians probably explains the general reluctance to work within a bigger tent). If they want to go the ideological route (bigger government is bad despite empirical results) than they are really off in a strange land.

where it blinds one to the possibility of market failures.

Not to mention the EXISTENCE of market failures. Like: Hello! Your traffic jams are out of control, and your train service is horrible! People die in your country because they make rational choices based on imperfect information to save money by not going to the doctor for a checkup! Your health care costs are double every other country's, and your health care service, in comparison, sucks! Your schoolchildren get creamed in international testing by every country that has a decent public school system! Free market ideology literally renders these people unable to see the things around them.

Um, the fact that it [planned economy] was tried and failed would constitute, you know, data that would help us decide that planned economies suck.

As somebody on whom it was tried, I'd just point out that plenty of people knew why it wouldn't work before it was tried.

I am not an economist and I am not motivated by faith in free market or in anything else. My approach is purely empirical. We have markets in most things, and most of those work well. If you think this is an article of faith, well, I'm not sure how to argue with that, other than to say that perhaps you should compare to alternatives that actually exist or existed, rather than ideals. If your point is that we don't sufficiently understand how those market work - well, there are lots of medicines that work but nobody knows how or why - should we stop using them? In any case, I'm not a good candidate to discuss the reasons why markets work and the mechanisms of their success, but it seems obvious to me that, at a minimum, you need a system that aligns the interests of consumers and producers/providers.

We do have non-market services that work reasonably well. I'll personally agree that police is a good example, though I note that people who are more concerned about security than I, or have more to lose, tend to hire private security, install alarms, etc. The military works OK, too. In these areas the interests of the service providers are aligned with the consumers' better than in other government functions: police officers and soldiers tend to get hurt first when the opponent gains advantage.

But we have extremely important areas where markets are severely restricted, like healthcare and education. Those are also the areas that are widely considered our biggest problems (of course, they are spectacular successes by world or historical standards, and failures only compared to other areas of our lives that "just work", and are thus taken for granted, and which happen to have freer markets). So if we are going to try other approaches, why not try the ones that work elsewhere?

Our health care system is a FAILURE by world standards. It is twice as expensive as that of any other advanced economy, fails to cover almost one-sixth of the population, and leaves us with higher rates of infant mortality, lower life expectancy, etc. etc. You have experienced Eastern Europe and the US; you clearly have not experienced health care in Western Europe. It's better, and, for me, it was costing about 1/5 to 1/4 as much as my inferior American health care did.

Our educational system through the high school level is a FAILURE by world standards. Our kids are beaten by those of dozens of other advanced economies in international testing. The savage inequalities in our school systems, far worse than those in most European or East Asian systems, mean that we effectively have two school systems: the upper half gets an education like Sweden or Japan, the lower half gets an education like Turkey or Mexico.

The reason both of those areas are heavily regulated and subsidized is that the market literally can't be allowed to take them over entirely without turning your country into a pre-industrial third world nation, with a ruling class and an ignorant, impoverished proletariat, destined to live poor and die young.

So if we are going to try other approaches, why not try the ones [markets] that work elsewhere?

Well, in the healthcare arena, because a lot of people will get sick and die--that's just how markets work. In the educational arena, because a lot of people will undereducate themselves, and markets in other things will suffer from a lack of decent labor. (Here, I'll ignore the humanist arguments for education and go solely economic.)

Vadim: nice post. A couple of points:

--there is an argument that markets work less well in certain areas where stability and continuity of some minimal level of decent service are more important than maximizing efficiency at every point. This was true in electricity markets in some cases, and it may also be true in education.

--part of the liberal hesitation about introducing markets is a belief that government will be unwilling to do the income redistribution necessary to ensure people decent purchasing power, and people without purchasing power get completely ignored by markets. A lot more liberals would be pro-voucher if they could be sure that the voucher structure would go some genuine length toward equalizing education purchasing power between the rich and poor.

--there is a very large market role in health care, and while the private insurance market has some advantages over the public sector, it also has many issues/problems that are precisely related to its pursuit of profits.

What matters is not the ideology, but that difficult problems are solved. Too frequently, instead of being pragmatic, we tend to dismiss those ideas that help our goals (e.g., alleviate poverty), but rely on a foreign ideology. Ideology needs to always be tempered with a strong dose of pragmatism.

We liberals should also not be blinded to good solutions because of ideology. Personally, I believe there are cases where market solutions may help (school vouchers), and other cases, where because of market failures, market solutions are inadequate (health care).

We should also look towards science and empirical analysis for clues to answers. While these won't tell us our values, they can help us achieve our goals. If the overwhelming consensus of scientists in a field tells us that global warming is occurring, or that free trade is beneficial, does rejecting the empirical analysis ever change reality? We need to accept the facts and then work from there.

We're already seeing a significant amount of privatization of the military, and it isn't clear that it's an improvement. Similarly for the prison system.

A lot more liberals would be pro-voucher if they could be sure that the voucher structure would go some genuine length toward equalizing education purchasing power between the rich and poor.

Why would an existing school simply not raise its usual tuition by an amount equal to the voucher? ($15k p/a, plus the $9k p/a voucher = $24k, e.g.) It would presumably retain all of its present student body, who could already make the nut at the old price, and be able to simply pocket the difference, since the voucher alone wouldn't make any new admissions possible unless it was only about half the cost of the old, and a third of the cost of the tuititon?

Yeah, you will get -- eventually -- start-ups, schools who will run, or try to run, simply on the revenue from the voucher, but for existing schools -- and that's all there'd be for at least a while -- it's not just a subsidy, it's a subsidy that can be moved directly to the bottom line.

Whenever I find myself in the midst of a tedious debate with a propeller-head (i.e., a libertarian), I point to Haiti. There, there's your no-government paradise. Go check it out and then come back and tell me how awesome it is.

Fools.

Your traffic jams are out of control, and your train service is horrible!

If you read Boaz carefully, he's saying that these are not "market failures" to be corrected. He's saying that they are simply market outcomes, which may not be preferable, but ones we must endure, since our place in life is to beholden our lives to the market. Out of control traffic james and horrible train service is considered by Boaz to be an acceptable sacrifice for the privilege of living in a free market society. The alternative, as vadim tells us, is central planning and Stalinistic purges. So you should accept poor public infrastructure, otherwise we will face a Communist dictatorship with millions dead.

I see you've read your Hayek. When I was 14, I found the whole libertarian slippery-slope road-to-serfdom thing compelling. Now I'm 34, and...ehhh...not so much. But you captured it perfectly: regulating traffic leads to Stalinist purges, inescapably. Why, they're probably lining Kulaks up for execution in London right now.

Actually, there are very few circumstances where an unfettered free-market approach will maximize total utility, even theoretically; what it will maximize is the sum of utility times market power.

Matt Weiner, I think your post raises some interesting points -- although not the one in which you call me "profoundly unserious" (natch). But I wonder why you think Boaz's mention of a "free-market economy" means "unfettered free-market approach". It strikes me that "free-market economy" means somethign quite different.

So you should accept poor public infrastructure, otherwise we will face a Communist dictatorship with millions dead.

The best illustration (literally) of this slippery slope argument is the comic version of The Road to Serfdom. Not to be missed.

Our health care system is a FAILURE by world standards

You have strange criteria for comparison. I'm no expert, but from what I've seen there is no difference in healthcare outcomes between the US and Western Europe - surely that is more relevant that the rate of coverage. Oh, and the US healthcare system subsidizes R&D for the rest of the world, WE included. Again, that's my impression and I may be wrong.

Ditto for education. If the US education system produces such complete idiots, how come their productivity and standard of living are so high? I am no big fan of the current US healtchare and education, but to call them complete failures - well, you haven't seen complete failure.

MQ: thanks.

--part of the liberal hesitation about introducing markets is a belief that government will be unwilling to do the income redistribution necessary to ensure people decent purchasing power, and people without purchasing power get completely ignored by markets. A lot more liberals would be pro-voucher if they could be sure that the voucher structure would go some genuine length toward equalizing education purchasing power between the rich and poor.

Sorry, I don't think this is reality. By this logic, the places where liberals are firmly in power would be open to vouchers. I live in San Francisco and this doesn't seem to be the case. I'm afraid real reasons for opposition are simpler. People respond to incentives, after all...

--there is a very large market role in health care, and while the private insurance market has some advantages over the public sector, it also has many issues/problems that are precisely related to its pursuit of profits.

You seem to be talking only about the insurance market, which, as I understand it, has weird government-dictated limits and influences (starting from the insurance-through-employment model). Market, such as it is, seems to work pretty well in other areas of healthcare: new drugs are developed all the time, and the quality of American doctors is incredible.

Vadim, this is basically an acknowledgment that your analysis is profoundly unserious. The empirical evidence that you present for your position is absurdly limited.

"there are lots of medicines that work but nobody knows how or why - should we stop using them"

No we should not. But we should also try and figure out how they work so we can duplicate and expand on their effectiveness. Similarly just because you don't know how markets work doesn't mean there aren't plenty of people who have a pretty damn good idea how they do work and they are applying that understanding plus plenty more empirical understanding to try and figure out, in the case of healthcare or education, what system will produce the best results.

You have essentially proved the point, which is that you are reaching a conclusion after explicitly limiting the scope of your analysis of the issue. Nobody expects everyone to be an expert in everything they hold an opinion on, but you cannot expect anyone to take your opinion seriously if this is the extent of the analysis you're willing to consider.

No we should not. But we should also try and figure out how they work so we can duplicate and expand on their effectiveness. Similarly just because you don't know how markets work doesn't mean there aren't plenty of people who have a pretty damn good idea how they do work and they are applying that understanding plus plenty more empirical understanding to try and figure out, in the case of healthcare or education, what system will produce the best results.

There are? And where are the results? Are these people hiding? Are they setting up their own education systems based on their brilliant analysis so they can raise a race of super-intelligent overlords to dominate us? Or, maybe, they just started on this after reading Jane Galt's post?

Because I use plenty of very complicated things in my daily life, such as this very computer and all the apparatus this comment will go through on its way to you, and I don't think this was built by people who designed a "system that would produce the best results". I think it was built by people who figured it out piece by piece and who knew they had to compete for your and my money to survive. And unlike healthcare and economics, I do know something about this stuff.

Well, Vadim, our public education system was constructed in much the same way. We knew we needed an educated populace in order to survive and get ahead in the world, and this is the system we chose. So I think we can be pretty confident that it's a good system.

I think the point of Boaz's argument has been missed. He's complaining about "conditional" libertarians, I.E. "Free Market for Thee but not for Me", so the Dentist is perfectly ok with a more liberal licensing of Brain Surgeons and letting more foreign brain surgeons into the country but not so keen on loosening up the licensing restrictions for practicing Dentists, as that would effect the bottom line.

Same thing with the Bio-Diesel guy, he's a conservative pro-market libertarian who abhors government intervention...but, he needs those government subsidies otherwise he can't turn a profit.

As for ideology & such, it's a pretty silly reason for not debating anyone. It shouldn't be very hard to make a firm case in favor of same-sex marriage & liberal sexual laws to me regardless if my religious ideology believes such things are immoral. If some libertarian thinks public sidewalks are totalitarian or whatever, it shouldn't be hard to make the case otherwise despite the fact that he obviously arrived at such a belief due to an idealogical disposition. Plus it's not like either liberals,conservatives,socialists,fascists or whatever don't have ideological principles that often predispose their positions on certain topics, or that those positions are guaged by cool-headed, rational isolated thinking and not at all driven by reaction, emotion, or broader political beliefs. That's a conceit, which it's possessors would be better off quickly disabused of.

von, thanks. If it's any consolation, I don't mean so much that you're profoundly unserious, just that Boaz's stated position is profoundly unserious even interpreted as you say. I'm being principled. ;-)

But as to "why [I] think Boaz's mention of a 'free-market economy' means 'unfettered free-market approach'"; basically, because Boaz didn't say what else he meant. Amtrak it seems to me does operate in a free-market economy in some sense of the word; they buy and sell tickets, no one is made to work for them, etc. So just saying "free-market economies yield the highest total utility" doesn't get you very much at all, other than that we shouldn't have total central planning.

In general, if we accept that free-market economy doesn't mean unfettered free-market approach, then we have to ask which fetters might be appropriate, and we're back in the weeds of policy discussion. Perhaps subsidies for biofuels will be the best kind of intervention in the markets! Certainly restrictions of some sort on greenhouse gases seem like they will be necessary, because of the negative externalities.

At least libertarians are foolishly evaluating all policies against a set of rules.

No they don't.

Boaz's statement is a crock. There's not a single libertarian principle that they actually adhere to. Libertarianism is inconsistent with capitalism, which requires extensive government apparatus to enforce property rights.

A truly libertarian society would have no real property, no patent law, no copyright, no stock exchange, no intercity rail traffic. No interconnected highway system. No internet. They don't want that. What they want is the United States without any welfare programs.

There's a huge stinking contradiction in their very basic principle of substituting tort for regulation, because compensation has to be adjudicated. The trusted third party who is adjudicating has to have some kind of enforcement mechanism. That enforcement mechanism ultimately takes property away from one party or the other by force.

Take real property, for example. The way you get real property is for a government to kill or drive out the usufruct users of the land--taking something from someone by force. The land that the government wants citizens to be able to own, it creates conditions for obtaining that ownership. The rest it retains for itself. It also retains ultimate ownership rights even after assigning title to the land to a citizen owner. It adjudicates all property disputes, and it is the authoritative source of boundaries.

Without real property, you don't have capitalism. Libertarians love their capitalism. The only way to get it is to violate their first principle--taking something by force. The only truly libertarian society would be a usufruct society--hunters and gatherers.

....to call them complete failures - well, you haven't seen complete failure.

Oh, quibble, quibble! Certainly it overstates the case to say our health and education systems are complete failures, but this does not obviate the mounds of evidence that they are substandard compared to the rest of the industrialized world.

It also does nothing to recognize the ways that market failures contribute to the problems we already have (i.e. adverse selection in health insurance, drug patent "innovation" geared toward protecting pofits, property tax based school funding, etc.). How will your "more market forces" strategy successfully address these issues?

You vaguely point to other areas that "just work", and are thus taken for granted, and which happen to have freer markets without asking (or even realizing that it could be asked) "just works for who"? "At what cost?" The fact that I can purchase 150 kinds of breakfast cereal while millions starve "just works" for libertarians, I guess.

A truly libertarian society would have no real property, no patent law, no copyright, no stock exchange, no intercity rail traffic.

I think you're talking anarchism. Every self-identified libertarian I know insists that the government's only real job is to provide the enforcement mechanisms that allow everything else to be decided through private contractual relations.

"In general, if we accept that free-market economy doesn't mean unfettered free-market"

That's exactly the point. Once you concede any government role from defense to stop lights, you've lost your principle. Libertarians are collectivists, too. The argument is who to take money from and how to use that money for all collectivists, from libertarian to communist.

Moreover, they want a pretty damned big government too. The things they'd really change are insignificant. They'd keep defense and the court apparatus. They'd keep cops, defining them as part of the court system. Heck, I even think they'd keep streetlights. They may say, as debating points, that these services would all arise naturally, but in point of fact, that's impossible. They didn't arise naturally anywhere, and there were plenty of places for them to do so. Or, at least, there haven't been any that they'd want to live in. Hunter gatherer bands come close, like the !kung. Semi-nomadic farmers, like the Dinka.

These positions they take are simply put, lies. If they were serious, they'd go buy an island and set up their society. They're not serious.

I think you're talking anarchism. Every self-identified libertarian I know insists that the government's only real job is to provide the enforcement mechanisms that allow everything else to be decided through private contractual relations

Yes, I know that's what they say. But when you start asking them questions like "So no real property, right? No registrar of deeds? Nobody certifying boundaries? Nobody recording transfers of real property?"

You really can't have real estate without a large and intrusive government.

"How about stock markets? Who's going to certify income statements? Do you remember the Dutch East India company"

This society depends on the government playing the role of a trusted third party in dozens and dozens of situations. When you really press a libertarian with question like these, it turns that they want things pretty much as they are.

It also relies on infrastructure that nobody really wants to do without. The libertarian will wave his hands and say "free markets" but in point of fact there is no society that has done things like build highway systems or rail systems without a government. In fact, it's impossible, because all such structures depend on the fact that the government is the ultimate owner of all real estate which was acquired by coercion.

Oh, and for those who say that's not always true, it is in fact always true. People have lived everywhere people can live for tens of thousands of years. One way to define "Civilization" is as the forcible taking of land by agriculturalist states from the current holders. That's a first principle violation--and it's one that all libertarians believe in.

If you can get them to understand this argument (there's a huge cognitive dissonance problem with this one) then what they'll say is "Oh well, then the best we can do is make the government as market oriented as possible." But that's no good, because the basis for their whole argument is that their position is a moral one. The whole free market/tort only thing is a shuck.

Oh, and one thing that really pisses them off is when you start talking about children. They've got this big complicated driftwood on a beach argument about making a table with your own hands, and therefore it's yours. That fundamental principle of ownership is set right there. So, you point out, what about children? The parents make them, right? So they own them, right? Can do whatever they want to, right? Chattel?

No, they'll say. They have rights too. So, you say, then they can be abandoned without penalty, right? No citizen can compel another citizen to give them stuff, right? The two year old's recourse is to go to court and say just which tort should apply?

It's fatuous nonsense.

My favorite libertarians, though, are the ones who oppose abortion.

To use Boaz's example, whatever merits free markets may have they clearly don't do a good job of producing high-speed intercity rail service.

You know, Matt, you may not be getting the outcome you want, but that doesn't mean that the market didn't work. Unless high speed intercity rail service is a public good (which it is not.)

Actually, high speed interrail service between DC and NYC is probably a viable business. If they got rid of the rest of Amtrak and sold just that off, it would work, probably better. But the Senate would never allow that. It's much more convenient than flying.

Free market ideology is quite Panglossian, actually: "no matter what happens, it is for the best, for this is the best of all possible worlds."

When you really press a libertarian with question like these, it turns that they want things pretty much as they are.

I don't think this is true at all. If you perouse Cato or read somethinglike Reason magazine, they have a bunch of pet issues or aspects of government that they'd rather not be "pretty much as they are"

I'm also afraid we risk the danger of erecting strawmen due to the fact that there no actual libertarians here to discuss what they actually believe. Surely someone like Tyler Cowen or Will Wilkinson can't be that far away.

jay,

You're correct about Amtrak. All too correct, unfortunately.

It also does nothing to recognize the ways that market failures contribute to the problems we already have (i.e. adverse selection in health insurance, drug patent "innovation" geared toward protecting pofits, property tax based school funding, etc.).

Those aren't "Market Failures".

The wierdest thing to me about the Boaz quote is that back when I was succumbing to the libertarian temptation, 15-18 years ago, Boaz was one of the folks making the argument that one didn't have to believe in market perfection or anything like it. It was, he argued then, only necessary to find that on the whole markets delivered better results than the alternatives for the libertarian approach to be justifiable. I thought then that was a good argument, and I still do even though I stopped agreeing that we find anything of the sort - it's still a stance based on the evidence, rather than that peculiar faith.

Brian Baugh

As long as they'll concede that they are not morally superior I'm happy to have a policy discussion between fellow collectivists. But they refuse to do so. They judge every policy question through the lens of whether it increases or decreases the degree of the free markets participation.

As for the concern about constructing straw men, I have actual on line arguments from actual libertarians. My views on this were honed over about a three week long discussion back in the early days of Slate's fray. I even think Boaz showed up for a while. One of the big name libertarians did anyway.

But that's my ultimate beef. Their claim to a superior moral foundation for their views is specious. I'm actually pretty much on board on many of their policy views.

Those aren't "Market Failures".

Yeah I know, I probably should have said something like "market incentives", but I'm in a rush today and the gist of my argument still stands.

jay,

I think that I like free markets about as much as anyone. I think that I would have hard time seeing how their efficiency necessarily makes them morally superior to fettered markets, however.

But if I remember that the free-market economy produces the best results for all of us, then I will accept the outcomes of the market process.

Why do Libertarians expect people to pursue their own rational self interest in every instance but public policy? It's just silly.

It's like they expect people to to become communists in the voting both only, sacrificing their families livelihood for the greater good. Good luck with that.

I'm happy to have a policy discussion between fellow collectivists. But they refuse to do so. They judge every policy question through the lens of whether it increases or decreases the degree of the free markets participation.

If libertarians are "collectivists" as you define the term in that they concede the neccessity for the things deemed hallmarks of collective society, then what's the difference if they advocate for more market orientation and less regulation?

I'm actually pretty much on board on many of their policy views.

Yeah, but those views are almost all if not all about increasing the freedom of private actors from the supposed coercive forces of the state, in which case why the caveat above?

Brian--

Yeah. My views have shifted over the years. For example, fee for service medical care was clearly broken, and my preference in the 80s was for some form of prepaid group practice, like Kaiser Permanante. That turned out to be a bad idea in practice. So I'm now in the universal health care corner. And I'm getting mighty tired of "free market" meaning "state-protected oligopolies."

And "free trade" meaning "export subsidies."

But it does seem to me that free market should be the default policy alternative. This is not to deny market failure, the existence of externalities and the need for interventions in the interest of greater equity. My favorite income transfer program is a lump sum transfer to everyone, at some large fraction of the poverty level with a broad moderately progressive income income tax.

The trouble is that there are no advocates with access who support broadbased policies that benefit the society as a whole. And look what happens when they get snuck under the radar? If it were not for DARPA, the internets would not exist. There'd be no GPS without huge government investment.

jayackroyd, you and I agree that most libertarians underestimate the degree to which government is foundational by a significant amount. But I think, again, that all of them would admit to the necessity of whatever amount of government is required to maintain a system of real and chattel property.

In the process of trying to get that government down to as small a machine as possible, they would come to all sorts of awakenings as to how foolish their ideas are, but libertarians luuuv them some property, so they would ultimately end up with a more bloated state than they originally realized. But they would put up with it. If you couldn't have property, why bother with a state at all?

I do think you're right that their ideas of stock markets are flatly insane, though.

DJ Moonbat: In addition to stock markets, in my experience, libertarians tend to have in their heads an imaginary court system like nothing the world has ever seen. They imagine one that would work quickly, efficiently, reliably, and cheaply enough that it could handle via tort all the stuff we now do via regulation, and do it better.

Then, of course, they turn around and cry out for reforms that all end up making it harder to touch corporations and the very wealthy.

Yeah, but those views are almost all if not all about increasing the freedom of private actors from the supposed coercive forces of the state, in which case why the caveat above?

This is where my objection lies. Their claim that they reject solutions that depend on the coercive forces of the state is false. It's at the heart of their claims of moral superiority, and it is simply not true. That's why they won't agree, as I used to say, to get off their high horses and engage in honest policy debate.

The point of my children and real estate examples is that they do in fact believe in a coercive role for the state, that the claim they don't is a lie, and until they acknowledge that lie, and agree to have policy discussions based on some kind of practical measure of social benefit then there's no way to continue.

It's snarky of me to call them collectivists, but it's accurate. Their claim to oppose states that act coercively is clearly false. The stateless societies that have those characteristics are inconsistent with the capitalism that they also espouse. These societies do fit the model pretty well--they pool resources for defense. They have some kind of legal system with social ostracism as the enforcement measure. Sharing of resources is voluntary, although governed by social pressure. There is a clear sense of private property. But libertarians don't want to be hunter-gatherers.

When you point this out, if they can follow the argument (as I said, there is often a cognitive dissonance problem) and will acknowledge that it's a problem, they'll talk about a smaller, if not really libertarian state, as per a comment regarding Boaz above. That's fine, but then I want them to acknowledge that we're done talking about a superior moral system and having a policy discussion where we all agree that the state properly plays a coercive role--and therefore they don't get to just say "the market solution is better" without examining the policy ramifications.

Ms. McArdle's belief that vouchers couldn't possibly make the situation any worse sounds strikingly like Ralph Nader's belief that George Bush Jr. couldn't make the situation any worse.

But I think, again, that all of them would admit to the necessity of whatever amount of government is required to maintain a system of real and chattel property.

Yes, that's my point. They're perfectly willing to sacrifice their principles when it turns out those principles end up defining a state they don't like. So their claim of moral superiority is vacuous. Their claim that the fundamental principles that they start their books off with about self-ownership and the centrality of property rights all go out the window when they don't like the result.

Yes, that's my point. They're perfectly willing to sacrifice their principles when it turns out those principles end up defining a state they don't like. So their claim of moral superiority is vacuous.

Ah, yes. Then we don't actually disagree much at all.

So Matthew,

I take this as you more or less applying the Precautionary Principle to public education? Lame, dude.

yours/
peter.

"That it's an ideology that precludes trying to decide issues through some dull 'look at all the data and decide what we think about every issue'"

Just out of curiousity, what do you think about the First Amendment, with all that "Congress shall make no law" stuff?

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