Jun
15
Waves of Freedom
Filed Under Libertarianism | 10 Comments
This article at Reason discussed the efforts of Patri Friedman (Dad: David, Grandad: Milton) to establish anarcho-capitalist/libertarian societies at sea. The idea is to finally establish a place where libertarians and/or anarchists can live without the constrains of big government, without the hassle of political revolution or armed confrontation with standing armies over land already under government jurisdiction. The societies would most likely be made on platforms installed in international waters, and possibly mobile so as to allow competition among sea states. Friedman argues for “I’m taking my ball and going home” solutions to traditional political activism:
Libertarians, he says, expend precious time and energy on truly and self-evidently impossible paths toward political change. “Like the Ron Paul movement,” he says. “Lots of libertarians’ effort and millions and millions directed in a way that’s hopeless! For real change [electoral politics is] totally hopeless. Think how much more likely to succeed [libertarians would be] if that amount of resources were put into something that could actually work.” By which he means seasteading. And you have to admit: When you compare it to the likelihood of creating a libertarian world through American politics, seasteading starts to look more and more sensible.
The article listed a few examples of “Seasteading” that have been tried in the past, but with one glaring omission: The Principality of Sealand. I came upon Sealand’s wikipedia entry a while ago, and the whole idea seemed like something I would do when I finally achieve my goal of being a wealthy and eccentric old man. While hardly a libertarian endeavour (Sealand had a hereditary monarch and all laws were by decree), it did manage to coin its own currency and print some stamps. From the article, the most interesting part of Sealand’s colorful history is the 1978 ‘forcible takeover’:
In 1978, while Bates was away, Alexander Achenbach, who describes himself as the Prime Minister of Sealand, and several German and Dutch citizens staged a forcible takeover of Roughs Tower,[9] holding Bates’ son Michael captive, before releasing him several days later in the Netherlands.[citation needed] Bates thereupon enlisted armed assistance and, in a helicopter assault, retook the fort. He then held the invaders captive, claiming them as prisoners of war.[10] Most participants in the invasion were repatriatedat the cessation of the “war”, but Achenbach, a German lawyer who held a Sealand passport, was charged with treasonagainst Sealand,[9] and was held unless he paid DM 75,000 (more than US$ 35,000).[11] The governments of the Netherlands and Germany petitioned the British government for his release, but the United Kingdom disavowed all responsibility, citing the 1968 court decision.[citation needed]Germany then sent a diplomat from its London embassy to Roughs Tower to negotiate for Achenbach’s release. Roy Bates relented after several weeks of negotiations and subsequently claimed that the diplomat’s visit constituted de factorecognition of Sealand by Germany.[9]Following his repatriation, Achenbach established a “government in exile” in Germany,[9]in opposition to Roy Bates, assuming the name “Chairman of the Privy Council”. He handed the position to Johannes Seiger in 1989 because of illness. Seiger continues to claim—via his website—that he is Sealand’s legitimate ruling authority.[12]
The whole thing is kind of a mess, but I would love to meet the people who participated in all of this. Here is the nation in all its glory:
While the entire concept of seasteading is an interesting one, there are a few things that I would want to point out. First, I did not like how libertarianism and anarchism are used interchangeably in the Reason article. They are not synonymous, and I am not an anarchist, and not even a true-blue libertarian (I think of myself more as libertarian-leaning, a fellow traveller if you will). I also think that if such a colony were to be established to the extent that Friedman wishes, some government somewhere would find a way to oppress it sooner or later.
However, I have no doubt that the unrestrained innovation a marine colony would allow could overcome many of the logistical problems posed by such a venture. Also, I like the idea of a mobile citizenry, effectively able to “shop” for the government that best suits their needs.
Most importantly, the fact that advocates of freedom would be willing and able to move elsewhere to establish their type of society, I think, shows the moral authority inherent in libertarianism and capitalism over statism and socialism. Folks like myself are simply advocating for an order where individualism, commerce, and private property are not forcibly infringed on by government. If such a society were to exist, there would not be any obstacles for people to live communally and share property and resources if they wish. I have no doubt such places would develop. All we want is the abolition of force. A libertarian country could easily tolerate a socialist community within its borders. However, there is no room for a libertarian sect within socialism and communism. The state has implemented collective practices, like the Social Security Administration, and I am not able to opt out if that is my choice. I am forced to contribute my property to it. There is no choice. Any time a system is threatened by the availability of choice, it is morally deficient.
May
1
The Problems With Health Care
Filed Under Healthcare | Leave a Comment
With the current economic recession possibly pushing more people into the ranks of the medically-uninsured, many Democrats will be looking to seize the opportunity to create an expanded government health care system. Whether this comes from mandates, expanding existing programs, a combination of the two, or the less-likely alternative of single-payer has yet to be seen.
Of course I oppose any measures that involve the government meddling with or providing health care. The purpose of government is to protect us from force and fraud. Providing health care does not fit under this umbrella. It’s that simple really.
At least to me.
Now there are some that believe that my point is wrong-headed because our fellow humans are entitled to health care. Of course I would love to see everyone’s medical needs taken care of. However, having the state force some people to pay for the needs of others is robbery. We need shoes, do we not? If you support hiring the state to force earners to pay for others’ health care, why not shoes?
In case my moral posturing hasn’t persuaded you against government run or subsidized health care, perhaps a consequentialist argument will suffice. The problem with access to health care is not so much in having enough money. Health-care, like education, has had a ton of money thrown at it over the years with little or no gains in return. In an excellent piece from Dan Boudreaux (who blogs at CafeHayek), we can see clearly how not allowing individual incentives to do their work, as they do in the free market, has led to a mess in healthcare. Dan begins by saying:
One of the cherished beliefs of many Americans today is that health care can be improved only through a collective effort. As a television talking head expressed it recently, “We all have to pull together to improve health care in this country.”
Nonsense.
Each of us has it within our power to improve our own health care.
To help explain the dynamics of the situation, Boudreaux offers up an analogy:
To see why, ask the following question posed by my George Mason University colleague Russell Roberts. If you go to dinner with a large group of strangers and you know that the bill will be split evenly, aren’t you more likely to order pricier dishes and drinks than you would order if you, and you alone, were responsible for picking up your full tab?
The answer is surely “yes.” Let’s say that you’d be content to order the pork chop priced at $15, but would get even greater enjoyment from ordering the rack of lamb priced at $25. If you alone were responsible for your tab, you’d order the lamb only if it is worth to you at least the extra $10 that it costs. So suppose that you value the lamb by only $8 more than you value the pork chop. In that case, you’d order the pork chop. You wouldn’t spend an extra $10 to get extra satisfaction worth only $8.
But if the bill is evenly shared among, say, 10 diners (yourself and nine others), then if you order the lamb, your share of the higher bill will be only $1. That’s $10 split evenly 10 ways. You’ll order the lamb.
You might think that this sharing arrangement is good. After all, in this example, the cost to you of getting something you valued more (the lamb rather than the pork chop) was reduced. It became sensible for you to order the lamb.
Look more deeply, though. What happened is that society (here, the 10 diners) was led to supply something that wasn’t worth its cost. The lamb was worth to you only an additional $8, but to make it available to you, society spent $10. Ten dollars were used to raise the welfare of society by only $8. (You’re a member of society, so any improvement in your welfare counts as an improvement in the welfare of society.) That’s a waste of $2.
You are better off, but the group is worse off.
Now look even more deeply. Everyone at the table faces the same incentives that you face. You’re not the only person who will order excessively costly dishes and drinks. Everyone will. The entire table over-consumes. The total bill is higher — even your share is higher — than it would have been had the bill not been split evenly. Resources are wasted.
Such sharing of our medical-care bill takes place now on a massive scale. It is impossible to see how expanding this sharing will reduce the bill.
Make sure to read the whole thing. I realize I quoted more than half of it, but the point made is important. I illustrated the point back in March here.
Megan McArlde warns against expecting any kind of Utopian solution to health care, while also noting the similarities between healthcare and education:
What you will see–what you do see, among specialists who are monitored for their success rates on procedures–is what liberals complain about with insurance companies: physicians will compete to get rid of their sicker patients. Pay for office visits, and you will get a lot of unnecessary office visits. As David Cutler once told me, it’s no coincidence that health care and education are the two fields where outcomes are hardest to monitor, and where costs are growing uncontrollably.
I’ve tried my best to make the point that socialized health care is not only wrong, but ineffective. But what about the unintended consequences? I’ve warned many times on this blog that once you allow the government into bed, it’ll start taking all the covers. There are strings attached:
Access to healthcare is one of many very important issues to which the left in this country have a never-ending list of government solutions. However, we as citizens need to be aware of the strings attached when we accept such bribes. Whether it is universal healthcare, or light rail from stimulus funds, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Maybe New Zealanders should join gay Mexicans in voting Republican. The following from Cato @ Liberty illustrates an important point:
One of the factors considered by New Zealand in ruling on applications from would-be immigrants is health. If you are fat — and thus at risk for various health conditions — forget it!
The 51-year-old, who has not been named, argued that her 52 inch waistline was no obstacle to her work as a nurse, which involved 60-hour weeks.
She was offered a job in a home and hospital for the elderly in a provincial town in New Zealand, documents from the country’s Residence Review Board said, and applied for residence in March 2008. But officials rejected the argument that 10 years’ experience as a nurse meant she should be allowed to live there — even though there is a shortage of qualified nurses.
The woman decided to move to New Zealand after a holiday in 2007 and wanted to set up home there with her husband, a crane driver, and her daughter who planned to work in a shop.
But medical advisors calculated that with a weight of 21 stone and height of 5ft 1in, her body mass index (BMI) was 55.2, putting her at a high risk of developing health problems.
This isn’t the first time New Zealand has turned down an applicant for health reasons. Adds the Telegraph:
In 2007, a British man who moved to New Zealand was told his wife was too overweight to join him.
Socialism, in all of its forms and degrees, not only is wrong from the perspective of rights, but it is ineffective and only serves to grossly expand the powers of the state.
Mar
19
On the Obama ‘Town Hall’ (Rally)
Filed Under Economics | 2 Comments
Yesterday, President Obama held a rally in California (he called it a town hall) to garner support for his budget. While a lot of topics were covered, I want to focus on one important part:
Let’s talk tax policy for a second, because, again, some on the other side have said, oh, Obama, he’s a tax-and-spend Democrat — tax and spend. Well, it turns out, yes. You know, what I’ve said is we should return to the tax rates that we had under Bill Clinton, which means — which means this: which means that for people who are making more than $250,000 a year, they would pay instead of 36 percent, they’d pay 39 percent. Like, a 3 percent increase on their tax rate.
Now, these folks can afford it. They were rich — they were rich back in the ’90s. It’s not like suddenly they’re going to have to go to the poor house. But what that does is it allows us to pay for health care reform for a lot of people who are out there working every day but are just one illness away from bankruptcy.
Now, that’s — I don’t think that’s unreasonable. I don’t think that’s socialism. I think that’s part of understanding that we’re all in this together and that if the middle class is working well, if working people are doing well, then everybody does well. (Applause.) Then they can buy products and services, and businesses will succeed. That’s the philosophy that we are pursuing in this budget; that’s why I need your support.
This is where The One shows that class-envy is at the center of his politics. “These folks can afford it,” he says. Is affordability the qualifier we look at when determining tax policy? If I happen to have an extra $10 at the end of the week, does that mean I have any less claim to it than if I needed it?
Then Obama tries to pass the fallacy that if we tax one individual and give to another, it will stimulate the economy. How does this make sense? If Jack is buying $500 worth of goods and Jill is buying $100 worth of goods, does that make any difference than if they were both buying $300 worth of goods? No. Progressives and Socialists care little about economic growth. They care about shared misery. In a capitalist society, some folks are more adept at finding new products and services, and get richer than others. If we try to ’spread the wealth around,’ these producers will have less capital and incentive to drive this innovation and prosperity. Is equality (if it could be achieved) worth sacrificing all of the benefits we reap from the innovations of the “rich”? Yes, Bill Gates is ridiculously wealthy, but aren’t our lives much better off because of the PC revolution (Mac fans can substitute Jobs for Gates and the iPod for PC)?
Mar
9
A Not So Looney Toon
Filed Under Economics | Leave a Comment
LibertarianRepublican featured the following video from 1948 about a salesman peddling a little “Ism” to some American groups:
As the video shows, this “Ism” could be socialism, communism, or just collectivism in general. This is one of the better and more straightforward videos explaining the difference between individualism and collectivism, and the supreme dangers of the latter. The main points of the video were:
- It is very hard to define “American.” Whether it is a teenager, a senior citizen, mothers, fathers, blacks, whites, and everything in between, an “American” can best be described at an individual level instead of as a member of a group.
- Someone seeking power, like the hat-wearing politician or the snake oil salesman, will often employ a strategy of lumping people in groups (labor, management, farmers) and prescribing collectivist solutions rather than allowing individual decisions. Such practices are especially effective in a time of duress.
- Visions of “utopia” will come at the cost of freedom, and any attempts to slow or stop utopian programs will be met with charges from interest groups of slowing progress (much like what happened with the bailout and stimulus bills).
Regarding capitalism specifically:
- “Capitalists,” “investors,” and “speculators” are very often regular, hard working people who use their hard earned savings to fund further growth.
- This capitalist-fueled growth provides jobs and prosperity for many new generations of people.
- Like in the case of Doakes Motors in the video, entrepreneurs, capitalists, workers, and consumers are all better off by having the freedom to voluntarily cooperate with each other motivated by their own self-interest.
- Society is better off collectively by allowing individuals to experiment and take on risk to develop new products and services for a profit. Socialism may say they support the masses, but what system is built on the premise that everyone, even a lowly mechanic like Joe Doakes (or Henry Ford, or Michael Dell, or Eli Whitney, or Oprah Winfrey) may be the next innovator who changes the world?
Nowadays, we can see how prophetic a cartoon like this is. As “John Q. Public” warned:
“When anybody preaches disunity, tries to pit one of us against the other, through class warfare, race hatred, or religious intolerance, you know that person seeks to rob us of our freedom and destroy our very lives.”
See anything like that here?
It is true that from 250 up – from 250 – 300 or so, so for that additional amount, you’d go from 36 to 39%, which is what it was under Bill Clinton. And the reason why we’re doing that is because 95% of small businesses make less than 250. So what I want to do is give them a tax cut. I want to give all these folks who are bus drivers, teachers, auto workers who make less, I want to give them a tax cut. And so what we’re doing is, we are saying that folks who make more than 250 that that marginal amount above 250 – they’re gonna be taxed at a 39 instead of a 36% rate.
Step 1: Divide the public (business owners vs. workers like bus drivers, teachers, auto workers). Step 2: Make promises (”tax cuts,” healthcare, “green jobs). Step 3: Go after the villians (entrepreneurs, the wealthy).
Jan
25
Change We Can Believe In!
Filed Under Economics | Leave a Comment
You’re never going to believe this, but I got the scoop on President Obama’s new legislation! Here’s a few new acts he’ll be pushing through congress:
- The heart of today’s economic crisis is the way the Bush administration handled the mortgage crisis. America needs decisive leadership from our next president. That’s why, as president, Senator Obama will create the Mortgage Amortization Reset Exchange (MARX). Through this, no American will be forced to live in a house they bought because they were preyed upon by unscrupulous lenders. If, at any point, a citizen cannot make their mortgage payment, they will be allowed to take over any house that is in their county of residence. That homeowner will be required to house, feed and clothe them and their progeny for as long as needed. That way, no American will be forced to face the consequences of their actions.
- While speaking with folks all over America, Senator Obama has heard countless stories of ordinary Americans being pushed aside in the workplace over the past eight years. That’s why in the senate Barack Obama sponsored the Work Ethic Equality Act. For too long our friends and neighbors have been discriminated against by employers just because they don’t work hard. President Obama will make it a capital offense punishable by 30 years in prison to deny a worker a job on the basis of work ethic, attendance, punctuality, or ability. Its time we put the working (or non-working) class first again after eight disastrous years of George Bush.
- An Obama administration will make sure all Americans have the ability to voice their concerns with their government through the American Yearly Executive Request Service (AYERS). Through this program, Americans of all walks of life will be trained on how to make an explosive impression on local government and government buildings and how to realize how awful and terrible our country has been.
Yes we can!
