Best intra-libertarian argument I've heard in a long time. Kevin Carson responds to Anthony Gregory's position, who was in turn responding to Kevin Carson's treatment of Mitt Romney's on Corporations. Why is the argument so good? Because Carson is so clear in laying out the opposing positions. I don't think that after you read it, you have to agree with Kevin. However, odds are that if you don't read it, you just don't understand.
Please, RTWT...even though it's long. You don't have to read the 2 prior positions...but Kevin's final position is eloquent. Perhaps some of the folks who read this blog and find my left-libertarianism thoroughly crazy will find it more understandable (though likely no more correct) in reading Kevin.
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11 comments:
In general, I agree with Carson that much (if not most) of what government does results in a transfer from the poor to the rich by protecting the rich from competition; however, I find Friedman more persuasive when it comes to the notion of class analysis. It may be that case that many (if not most) people currently working as teachers and firefighters would continue to occupy similar roles in a freed market; however, I can't see why wouldn't assume that a corrupt system (government monopoly schooling) wouldn't attract a fair number of "corrupt" individuals attracted to the occupation not for genuine desire to educate & protect, but rather to be protected.
Todd,
I agree with Friedman here too. But then, I've worked in the schools, whereas Carson, I think, works in Health Care, where what he says is more true.
The point is...the analysis, and the laying out of small differences, is beautiful. And even if you don't agree 100%... it's really easy to see where he's coming from. Probably even to understand why to call oneself a left-libertarian.
Very true. It was high quality exposition.
Speaking of health care: my wife just finished her 1st year of a radiology residency. When she met with the program director for her annual performance review, the director informed her that apparently Medicare was cutting funding for residency positions. The director then had the nerve to suggest to my wife that if the cuts continued, they would eventually find themselves in a situation in which residents would have to pay for the privilege of participating in a residency program. Keep in mind that the attending physicians literally make >10x the amount of residents while the difference in marginal product is nowhere near that level. Truly astounding what privilege does to your worldview.
Todd,
The wonders of government mandated-licensing. Bail on the law that says only licensed physicians may practice, and this falls apart in 3years or less.
Congrats to your wife on her near-ascension to Doctor Mrs. Todd.
I agree. I also think that getting rid of licensing would substantially improve the working conditions of current doctors: no more "voluntary" 100 hour work weeks.
I will pass along the congratulations & I too am impressed with her resolve & work ethic, but truth be told, she has seriously considered dropping out (don't know how any sane person could). I don't think she will at this point, but I honestly wouldn't think any less of her if she did. I have never seen such a toxic work environment and it sounds like it is industry-wide. It makes me sad to see otherwise decent human beings treating each other so poorly at all levels because of crappy institutional design.
I find myself confirmed in my non-left-libertarian-ness after reading the exchange. Carson and I agree on the best policies, and we agree on their likely outcomes and what's good about them. At least compared to the median American, we are even in close agreement about the facts.
When someone buys a glass of water in the middle of the Sahara for $1000, she considers the transaction to be a net positive benefit compared to dying of thirst — so what? The question is which of the parties to the transaction is in the dominant position, and how that affects the terms of exchange — and the returns on it for the dominant party.
And if a party’s revealed preference for an exchange over no exchange is sufficient to demonstrate its non-exploitative nature, I submit that’s a very low hurdle to clear. But I deny that it is sufficient. Exploitation, or privilege — by definition — is the use of coercive power to restrict the range of alternatives available to disadvantaged party
Hey-O! Who said the water-seller used coercive power? He slid from "dominant position" to coercion, exploitation and privilege.
Carson seems highly motivated to base the arrow of causality with large corporations. It seems to me, that that arrow should be based with the rationally-ignorant rationally-irrational voters, the civil service (as the primary beneficiaries of government) and Moldbug's Cathedral of big media, academia and government funded science. Even though many corporations make money in ways sourced from government, these policies are for the most part popular.
Carson seems to suggest a conspiratorial vampire state, but Moldbug's "Red Giant State" seems a better description. Huge, bloated and inefficient, but in its expansion, it swallows up and incinerates the little guys. It can't accomplish anything worthwhile, but it burns so bright it dominates the sky.
Take affirmative action. I don't see how large corporations would want this policy, even though it "benefits" them compared to smaller organizations in that adding a legal department and a human resources department is a fixed cost that can be born better by a larger organization. It makes more sense to me as coercive exploitation by both the beneficiaries and the enforcers under a cover story that appeals to the broad masses' genuine and good anti-racist sentiment.
Alex,
1. I am comfortable with folks not beign convinced...I just love the clarity.
2. My view of legislation is that all benefit is relative, and almost all competition is local. Your even though is sufficient.
3. Did you listen to Munger on econtalk on euvoluntary transactions? It's a very relevant moral distinction for almost everyone, minus some of us odd folks. Google euvoluntary or find it on my blog.
Yes, I've listened to that podcast. I was thinking about pointing out that Tony wasn't hanging out in the desert with his taco truck by random chance, just like Russ did. :) I agree that the voluntary/euvoluntary distinction is lost on most people (c.f. rational irrationality) I'm shocked that Carson makes this conflation too.
I agree that under my (and Carson's!) preferred policies, the average, median and especially maximum firm size would get much smaller. It just seems obvious to me that the corporate-hate distracts from the government-hate to no purpose. Why focus on corporations when it's the government that needs to change? I didn't understand before and I still don't.
Alex,
1. Voluntary/Euvoluntary is Munger's term for it. Other people use different terms for the same 2 events. Most commonly, the terms used are coerced/voluntary, where their use of voluntary matches Munger's use of euvoluntary. It may be annoying to you or me that folks use words imprecisely, or meaning different things than we do...but indeed they do.
2. The corporate hate question is wonderful. I need a separate post to explain.
If you're going to post about that, I should clarify: There's certainly some justified corporate hate! It's just that the "legitimizing ideology" of our "rulers" is democracy, and they reside in Washington. I should point out that the progenitor of our current system was FDR, no friend of corporations, and Microsoft was condemned as "arrogant" for not having a lobbying office in Washington - an oversight since corrected, of course. Also, the worse off the people of various countries are, the weaker corporations in their countries are and the stronger (in the red giant sense) are their governments. The notable exceptions are in Russia, which rather supports my position rather than detracts from it.
I find the arguments unpersuasive; they beg points they should be establishing where they aren't outright misrepresenting things. Neither the "definition" of exploitation nor privilege meets the "by definition" Kevin attempts to establish fairly early on in the debate, for example.
There's a valid point there about state intervention in the economy, but it's been grossly distorted.
There's also an implicit rejection of intellectual property going on there, and that's not something you can just reject implicitly. It's a very sizable debate, particularly when you consider the moral principle from which property rights necessarily must derive from, the right of conversion.
Ultimately his attack on corporations is meaningless because corporations in terms of liability shields don't require government definition or protection - they could as easily be established through a complex series of contracts which divorce investors from direct ownership of the property they derive income from; don't tell me there aren't people out there who would willingly take on liability in exchange for substantial income, particularly in a stateless, or income-tax free state.
As for the rejection of the stateless society more broadly, I'll refer you to the argument I posed to Billy Beck on the matter: http://orphanwilde.blogspot.com/2011/05/challenge-to-anarchists.html
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