Tag: freedom

Smith, Smith Everywhere

Everywhere I turn I see a theme: decentralized, unplanned order is superior to rigid top-down plans.

Popular economist Nassim Talib’s new book, Antifragile is about, “Things that gain from disorder”.  Historian James C. Scott’s latest book is called, Two Cheers for Anarchism.  A few years back I read a pop-business book called, The Starfish and the Spider, about the “Unstoppable power of leaderless organizations.”   Then there’s this discussion of the 2004 book, Sync, on, “The emerging science of spontaneous order.”

What do these have in common?  None of the authors describe themselves as libertarians, and only some of them reference F.A. Hayek or other libertarian thinkers who are known for the idea of spontaneous order.  This is exciting.

At first I noticed this trend and thought it was interesting how Hayek’s ideas are so fundamental that they are being explored in all disciplines by all kinds of thinkers.  But really, it goes back to Adam Smith (who doubtless drew on ideas from many others before him).  One of Smith’s core insights was that individuals pursuing their own interests unwittingly produce a broader order that benefits all.  It seems simple.  Yet this observation is so deep and rich with explanatory power that we might easily overlook it’s staggering implications.  Hayek’s work, among others, extended this insight and asked more questions about why and how unplanned order is superior to top-down dictates.

Today we see not only an extension of this idea in theory, but widespread application. Websites like Wikipedia were founded on this insight.  User-generated content and the network based framework of the web are live experiments in decentralized order.  The self-policing of blogs and forums and the customers reviews on Amazon and Yelp put the idea to test for all to see.  It’s increasingly difficult to be unaware of the “invisible hand”; it’s becoming more visible every day.

Many who are tapping the power of this insight don’t necessarily extend it to society at large.  As I said, most of the works referenced above are not full-fledged calls for libertarianism.  Still, the power of decentralization, the clunkiness of monopolistic bureaucracy, and the beauty of the unknown and emergent are more understood than ever.  Understanding breeds acceptance.

Seeing is believing.  So is doing.  A generation that believes in the power of voluntary cooperation because they take part in it every day is no less valuable than one that reads libertarian theory.  The future is open, unknown, and bright.

Without Narrative, Vision, and Imagination, the People Perish

I had a friend who assured me sometime around 2000 that the internet wasn’t going anywhere.  He was a smart guy, and even worked in the tech world.  Still, he couldn’t foresee any way the internet could grow large and fast enough to accommodate demand, especially because there was no reliable revenue model.  He predicted it would skyrocket in cost and be used only by big players with a lot of cash.

Today free internet at speeds then unimaginable with content beyond the wildest dreams of that time is ubiquitous.  But he was not a fool.  He just lacked imagination.  It’s possible that the relatively high level of expertise he had with the technology actually made him less able to see beyond its current applications.

We can laugh at predictions like this, but how often do we have small imaginations about our own present and future?  We tend to overvalue the status quo because we cannot think of any other way.  The world is replete with examples if we open our eyes.

At the very time my friend was struggling to see a way companies could offer internet access for free broadcast television and radio were already doing it and had been for decades using advertising as a revenue source.  His focus on what was immediately before him prevented him seeing what was all around him.

We suffer not only from inadequately appreciating the present and the possibilities of the future, but blindness to the past as a clue to what is possible.  I listened to a recent discussion over whether a coercive government monopoly was needed to provide firefighting services.  For nearly twenty minutes there was back and forth as the discussants struggled to think up a viable business plan absent tax funding.  If left to decide roles for the state, this group may have concluded firefighting had to be one, as the free market just couldn’t do it.  The problem with this conclusion (like that of economists who claimed the same for lighthouses) is that for the majority of history firefighting was privately provided.

In order to make the world a freer, better place we need a combination of three things: narrative, vision, and imagination.

Narrative is our story about the past.  If we don’t have enough facts or we interpret them through an incorrect theoretical lens, our narrative about what was will be incorrect.  If, for example, we persists in the false assumption that firefighting and lighthouses have never been privately provided, or the American West was a violent and disorderly place before governments took hold, we will be incapable of accurately seeing present and future possibilities.

Vision is how we see the present.  Do we see harmony and assume that legislation is the only thing keeping mayhem at bay?  Or do we see the beautiful and complex workings of spontaneous order? Our vision will determine how comfortable we are with freedom.  Through state-colored lenses we will live in fear of the chaos around the corner and be reticent to allow our fellow man liberty to experiment, try, fail, succeed and progress.  If our vision expands and we begin to see the way individuals cooperate and coordinate for mutual benefit absent central direction we will welcome and embrace freedom.

Imagination is what we believe about the future.  It determines what we think possible.  If we zoom in too close to the problem at hand we get stuck and fail to allow for the unknown.  We don’t have to know what will be, or even what precisely is possible.  We just have to be humble enough and learn from the patterns of past and present that all our assumptions are going to be blown to smithereens by human creativity.  Don’t try to resist it.  Expect it.

Only when we have the right narrative about the past, the vision to see the beauty of the present, and imagination enough to allow for the wonders of the future will we have the freedom to create it.

Don’t Let Words Own You

I had a recent discussion with some passionate people who were frustrated by various public figures describing themselves as libertarian.  They felt it imperative to police the use of this word and go on the offensive, making sure to publicly demonstrate how wrong it was for people to use the word to describe themselves unless they believe certain things.  I’m not sure this is a productive response.

I understand the frustration.  When you use a word to describe yourself or your philosophy, you become increasingly attuned to how the word is used and perceived among the masses.  Christians and other religious groups have this problem, as do political ideologies.  It’s easy to feel like the labels you use abandon you as they become hijacked by people with views entirely different from your own.  The often cited example of the word “liberal” serves as a warning in the minds of many of what happens if you don’t fight to protect definitions.  It used to describe the ideas of people who favored more freedom from government power, now it means something far more nebulous and sometimes it is even used to describe the ideas of people who see more government power as the solution to nearly everything.

But who has “lost” in the transition?  It is true certain words sound nicer than others, but the word was always a shortcut to convey ideas.  The ideas are still here.  You are no less free to believe in less state power because the word “liberal” has changed meaning over the years.  You are no less free to use the word as you choose either.

To say that a word is hijacked is to assume it was first owned.  Can you really own a word?  Language is a constantly evolving spontaneous order.  You can use it, influence it, and benefit from it.  You can’t really own it.  If you spend your time feeling bitter and robbed when people use language in ways you don’t like, you will probably enjoy life less and you’ll be no more able to stand athwart language and yell, “stop!”

There are two potentially productive responses.  You can simply ignore the misuse.  Stop using the word if you must.  Or keep using it if it makes sense.  Or use it sometimes and not others.  Ask people to clarify what they mean by a word if you’re not sure, but don’t demand they stop using it.  Try going label-less.  Be indescribable.  It can be a little inconvenient, but it can also be a lot of fun.

Maybe labels are too important to you to drop and you want to influence the way they are used.  Instead of getting mad, see it as a kind of game or challenge.  What can you do to alter the way people perceive a word?  If you want people to associate good things with labels you use, live a life that impresses and attracts them.  Your ideas and your example are likely to do more to shape the meaning of the word than direct attempts to define it.  When you hear the word “Buddhist” or “Atheist” do you think only of the dictionary definition, or do you think about the way people using that label speak and behave?   Living your ideas will certainly do more for them than brow-beating word abusers.

Live your philosophy and don’t worry about trying to own the words that describe it.  Either live without labels, or live in such a way that it improves the public image of your labels.  Appointing yourself language police and waging war over words is likely to make you look small and grumpy.

If you live in perpetual fear that whatever label you belong to might move in a direction you don’t approve of, then you’re being owned by that label.  Language is an awesome and beautiful tool, but it won’t be made a slave and it’s a poor master.  It can be used, but it can’t be owned.  When you try, it tends to own you.

Waging Generational Warfare Against Yourself

I just read a wonderful book called How They Succeeded.  I was struck by how many of the highly accomplished individuals interviewed mentioned staying out of debt as a key to success.  It’s obvious that being debt free has practical benefits like the ability to accumulate capital, the maintenance of good credit and a good reputation.  But these seemed rather simple and obvious and not enough to warrant the repeated advice.  None of them mentioned personal hygiene or other obvious practical disciplines, so why debt?

I think there are reasons beyond the practical and material for minimizing debt.  There is a psychological loss of freedom that can take place with the knowledge of debt hanging over ones head.  This can subtly subvert free-thinking and creativity and narrow the lens through which one sees the world.

This is probably not the case for everyone in every circumstance.  If you’re involved in lots of business endeavors where you need to operate on credit you may be very comfortable with and adept at handling debt.  I know people who do not seem to have any trouble with a constantly fluctuating personal balance sheet.  It’s not that way for me.  I definitely feel the steady pressure of debt like white noise in the background of all I do.

On the one hand, it seems odd that debt would be problematic.  Borrowing money from the probable excess of the future to subsidize consumption of the tighter present can make financial sense and result in an overall increase in enjoyment of life.  Indeed, if we never changed or grew and our preferences were the same through time, debt would make perfect sense as a way to smooth the ups and downs of material pleasures.  But that’s just it, we change.

This excellent blog post about doing what you love mentions being stuck with the career choices made by your teenage self.  If you are determined to be a lawyer or a doctor at a young age and persist down that path at some point you may realize you no longer enjoy it, but your options have narrowed with your skill set.  You are a captive to the choices of your earlier self.  It’s no different with consumption decisions than educational or career decisions.  Going in to debt is a way for your present self to borrow from your future self.  Think about the level of presumption.  Are you really confident your future self will be the type of person who would think it a good idea?  Might they have other uses to put the debt payments to?

When you go into debt, you are binding another person – your future self – to subsidize the desires of your present self.  It may be a good idea in some cases, but it warrants very careful consideration.  It’s not merely a question of whether your future self will have the resources to subsidize your present preferences; it’s also a question of whether you’ll be happy about doing it.  I don’t want to be bitter at my former self for the financial obligations I have.  I’d rather the self of the past, present and future work together towards the fulfillment of our individual and shared life goals.

Beyond Good & Evil

Since our move to South Carolina I’ve had a renewed interest in American history and, in particular, the history of the South and the institution of slavery. I’m a Yankee invader, so my notions of the South were pretty simplistic. I saw monuments and read snippets that were incongruent with the narrative I grew up with regarding the Civil War, slavery, and the South in general. It became clear how uncomfortably complex the whole mess was.

A friend recommended Roll, Jordan, Roll by Eugene Genovese. What an excellent book! The author filters some things through a lens of Marxian class theory, which is not really my thing, but the book is jam-packed with counter-intuitive insight and uses tons primary sources in a very enlightening way, not just a bombardment of long quotations or endless footnotes which historians sometimes do. The book is a great reminder of how much more complex the world is than we try to make it in retrospect. American slavery was not a simple story of good people and evil people. It was not a simple case of economic exploitation. It was an elaborate and highly nuanced institution with unlikely defenders and enemies. It was an evil institution, but the people within it were not necessarily evil or good.

I’ve written elsewhere about the fact that institutions can be good or evil even if the people within those institutions are not. I think it’s important to remember this. It doesn’t let us off the hook with sweeping declarations of good and evil. It forces us to look at the world as it is, and understand that people respond to incentives, and that good people can support bad institutions because of false beliefs. It doesn’t mean they aren’t accountable for their beliefs, but they mightn’t be knowingly engaging in evil.

Genovese’s book revealed that some slave owners abhorred the institution. Why didn’t they simply free their slaves? Sometimes state law prohibited or made very difficult the freeing of slaves. Some owners believed that, once freed, the slaves would risk re-enslavement by others, a much crueler life in the free but still racist North, or great hardship in a world for which they were not equipped. Whether this was true, there was some reason for slave owners to have such fears. Some freed slaves did suffer these fates. One doesn’t have to hate slavery any less or agree with the logic of these conflicted slave owners to allow the possibility that they needn’t have been pure evil. One former slave owner wrote how wrong he had been to assume that the slaves needed him and that he needed the slaves. He described how poorly most plantations were doing financially, and how the end of slavery actually improved them economically. He talked about how well the former slaves got on away from the plantation. Both of these outcomes surprised him. His worldview was so entrenched that he failed to see how the institution was harming not only the slaves but his own economic well-being.

The more difficult fact is how many slaves claimed to not want freedom, and how many chose not to take it when given the chance. One could make the material case that some slaves might have had better lives on a plantation than the other options available at the time, and that is certainly worth considering, but it strikes me that there’s something deeper at play here. There is a belief in one’s own helplessness and a fear of the unknown common to all people who have long been oppressed. When the Soviet Union fell there were stories of people who did not know what to do and longed for the security of the previous tyranny. Abused spouses sometimes exhibit similar behavior. Fear of the unknown dangers of freedom does not make the captives bad people in any of these cases. It reveals the complex nature of such institutions and reminds us that long-run oppression of such magnitude requires far more than physical force: it requires some level of belief on the part of oppressors, oppressed, and third parties that the institution is either moral, necessary, or at least inevitable.

We do ourselves a disservice if we boil everything down to good vs. evil and explain every tyranny as the result of raw physical power. People are complicated creatures who seek the most gain at the least expense and who accept or contrive all manner of beliefs to justify their choices. Or maybe the beliefs come first and determine the choices. Either way, in the long run ideas shape the institutions we live under. History and our own times are better understood when we treat people like rational actors whose choices are shaped by their beliefs rather than evil egomaniacs or saintly altruists.

There is a lot to learn from the experience of American slavery. It was a unique institution, but not so unique that it doesn’t have modern lessons and parallels. Many people failed to see beyond slavery. What evils do we fail to see beyond or imagine the world without? Robert Higgs provides some provocative food for thought here.

Resisting Anger

I’m not a fan of the state.  It’s arbitrary and highly inefficient.  Still, it’s here for the time being and I try to make my peace with it even while I try to change it.  For the most part I succeed in being happy despite the state harassment we all encounter.  Trips to the DMV, pat-downs by TSA agents and interactions with traffic cops can get me irritated, but I’m generally optimistic and calm.  So why did the relatively small increase in payroll tax get me so steamed?

To be honest I’m not entirely sure. For some reason I was really struggling to not feel anger and helplessness after recalculating our family budget post tax hike.  It was not the additional amount of money being taken that evoked such deep frustration, but the total inescapability of it.   It reminded me of the feeling I had when I had my bike stolen as a kid.  I came out of the store and it was just gone.  I felt violated and insecure.  But now it wasn’t a random thief who strikes once and leaves you alone; it was the state, always there and ready to demand more when the mood strikes.

If your cable bill goes up, you have options.  You can call and vent your frustration.  You can tell them the increase was not in your contract, or in the very least not clear to you.  This often results in a renegotiation.  My wife has a knack for getting utility providers to reduce their rates or offer temporary discounts if ever they make an error.  As a last resort you can always cancel the service entirely and go with a competitor or simply go without.  The state leaves no such option.

Being completely captive to this supposed service provider is disempowering.  I was recently reading a book about depression and optimism in children and one of the things that stuck out to me was how powerful early experiences of helplessness can be.  When kids are not able to experience cause and effect; when they can’t take action to alter the outcome of their world, they begin to despair.  The despair often manifests as depression, bullying and withdraw.  Punishment and reward with no connection to the child’s actions plant seeds that can take a lifetime to uproot.

The realization of just how vast and impersonal the state is can have a similar effect.  One day you must pay the state X, the next day the rate is Y.  There is nothing you’ve done or chosen to make this happen.  There is nothing you can do.

My wife asked me what the least oppressive tax environment in the world was.  At first I tried to recall some of the lists and charts I’ve seen, but then I remembered that it wouldn’t matter.  We were both born in this country.  That means even if we moved to another country, the IRS would demand income taxes from us for the rest of our lives.  The only option is to officially expatriate, in which case the state calculates your lifetime tax liability and asks you to pay it in one lump sum.  Some “social contract” this turns out to be!

I’ve been to countries with a high level of government “corruption” – an abbreviated way of saying a state that does what all states do, but without the factory-like repetition and paperwork.  It’s not uncommon in such places to have a state agent approach you and claim you are in violation of some or another rule.  You pay them $20 or so and they’re on their way.  The rules are used as a threat to get your money.  You pay, you can ignore the rules.  Here in America it works a little differently.  Instead of one agent showing up at your door, there are fifteen hundred bagillion nestled in cubicles wrapped in drab Soviet prison style architecture.  They send you a lot of papers demanding that you get in your car and drive to them.  You fill out six forms and wait in line for three hours.  Then they tell you one of the forms is out of date and send you away because the new form is only available tomorrow.  On your third visit you complete the forms properly so you can move on to the next step, paying whatever amount they determine you must pay.  You pay them.  But unlike countries with corrupt governments, your payment here does not buy you freedom from the silly rules.  You pay in order that you may obey them.

Of course there is no doubt this kind of system is more predictable than the corrupt states.  Then again, prison is predictable too.  Predictability is something, but it’s not everything.

Back to my tax bill.  I was angry.  I knew it was unhealthy and counter-productive.  I indulged in it for a little while and then decided it was time to be free, state or no state.  I went and re-read this inspiring interview with my good friend T.K. Coleman.  It got me back on track.  T.K., The Shawshank Redemption and the late Harry Browne’s book How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World are excellent go-to’s when I start to let the oppressors win.  If I’m free, “what can man do to me”?

What is the State? Then What?

A few good friends and I teamed up with the Mackinac Center and put together a colloquium for undergraduates.  It gets its name from Thomas Clarkson, a young man who played a major role in ending the British slave trade.  More on Clarkson here.

The reading list is intended to have an arc to it.  We examine what the state is in theory, what the state is in practice, whether the state works well compared to non-state alternatives, whether states can be improved or constrained, whether statelessness is an option, and finally how to get from the current to a better (or no) state.  There are too many excellent books and essays for each of these questions, but I’m pretty excited about the sampling we put together.

I majored in political science as an undergraduate, and I can tell you we were never asked to consider fundamental questions like these.  Nearly all of my courses and readings assumed an idealized state or talked about what a noble or just state should be like.  Public Choice theory was never mentioned, nor did we engage in serious examination of competing views of the origin and nature of states (just Plato and Hobbes) and how they actually operate.  After a few courses touching on such theories, the rest was mostly squabbling over quantitative methods for gauging public opinion and whether single member districts were more “efficient” than proportional representation, whatever that means.  It was always assumed that democracy was wonderful in and of itself and achieving and maintaining it the goal of all political action.  I don’t think you’d find such religious devotion to an ideal in divinity school.

Maybe I’m trying to relive my undergraduate days vicariously through the participants, but I hope it will be valuable for them as well.  Here’s the reading list we compiled.

True European Values

Here’s a letter I had published in the Washington Post:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy claims that banning burqas would uphold traditional European values. Unless he is referring to the values of a few infamous European dictators, he could not be more mistaken.

The bedrock of European cultural and political traditions is liberalism. A true liberal understands that the use of force, by which all government edicts are ultimately backed, is neither an effective nor moral means of promoting values. Banning an expression of religious conviction in the name of protecting a liberal culture is the stuff of satire.

Force is the tool of those who lack the competence or courage to peacefully persuade.

Isaac M. Morehouse, Falls Church

Strategies for Advancing Liberty

I just read an excellent article by Murray Rothbard (circa 1989) called, “Four Strategies for Libertarian Change“.  Strategies for social change have long fascinated me. (I ran a student colloquium on the topic when I was with the Mackinac Center’s Students for a Free Economy)

In the article Rothbard describes four approaches with four historical examples and discusses the pros and cons of each.  The piece is entertaining and well worth a read on its own, but coupled with the response by my current colleague Steve Davies (starting on page 13 of the linked article) it is especially savory.  Davies largely finds Rothbard on point but happily advances the discussion further.  He corrects a few of Rothbard’s historical characterizations (Rothbard’s histories are always engaging, but often portray events and figures as more libertarian than they probably were), and adds a dose of Public Choice realism. Most interesting to me, however, is the addition of other potential strategies.

Davies mentions the seldom attempted but often fantasized strategy of letting things get so bad they eventually get better (which I briefly address in this Liberty Magazine Reflection, “Story Time“), and wisely warns against it.  He mentions the possibility of violent revolution and rightly dismisses it out of hand.  He mentions the libertopian approach of a mass defection from current societal arrangements but, Seasteaders not withstanding, considers this highly impractical if not fundamentally flawed.

The final strategy that Prof. Davies mentions is to me the most promising and intriguing, and probably has the best track-record historically, though it often goes unnoticed.  That is the idea that existing coercive institutions can be toppled not primarily by direct attack, but by subterfuge.  Rather than convincing people they should give up the status quo, which means convincing them to drop the perceived security of the known and embrace an unknowable future, or overturning it by force or via an elite cadre, instead create the alternative.  Convince the world that non-coercive institutions and solutions to social problems are preferable by showing them.  If this is done well the act of formally removing state institutions becomes almost a foregone conclusion or a mere formality.

Though Hayek espoused a more ideas-based view of social change in The Intellectuals and Socialism, the Davies approach is quite Hayekian in that it is more of a spontaneous than a planned order.  That makes is somewhat unsatisfying to us as libertarian “elite” intellectuals.  It’s messy, slow, unpredictable, and nearly always lacks that single climactic moment when freedom defeats statism.

Illustrative of how unsatisfying it can be, consider that we may be witnessing an example of this approach unfolding before our eyes in mail delivery.  Public Choice realities being what they are, the likelihood of toppling the state postal monopoly with any amount of education, policy paper publication, or direct civil disobedience is very slim.  (Ask Lysander Spooner.)  These efforts are not futile and, as Davies points out, work to compliment and aid the undermining process, but ultimately they cannot win the day alone.

We’ve seen the Post Office’s monopoly weaken with the advent of UPS, FedEx, DHL, etc.  We’ve seen it’s importance wane with new technologies like email.  Sure, policy battles have played a part in this process, but the real impetus was self-interest on the part of parcel delivery entrepreneurs.

It is likely that the Post Office will die a slow death – or maybe never even completely disappear on paper – but one day we will be so used to other methods of delivering goods and information that we will forget it ever existed.  I would not be surprised to see the public education system undermined in the same way.

The beauty of this method is that it does not require the agents of change to themselves be libertarian, only self-interested entrepreneurs.  Libertarian ideas still play a key role, as do policy and legal efforts, activism and education, but the real change comes when the alternatives to state programs are implemented rather than just talked about as possibilities.

Now a little twist.  This approach can be very powerful on an individual level when combined with Rothbard’s first strategy, a sort of Taoist retreatism.  In order to make society a happier and freer place, it helps to make oneself happier and freer first.  (This is the nut of an argument I made against worrying about elections and reading the news.)  We ought to focus less on what makes us unhappy and thwarts our freedom, and more on how to be as free as possible as individuals.  Just like UPS undermines the Post Office, we can undermine our own oppressive mindsets and internal institutions by building up freer alternatives underneath them.

I do not mean to be cute or self-helpish.  I genuinely believe that a social movement led by unhappy or internally unfree people is doomed to failure.  Occasionally retreating from the things we wish to change in the world and realizing that true freedom is not contingent on other people not only improves our own quality of life, but makes us much more attractive to the freedom philosophy’s would-be converts.

First free yourself.  Then work towards societal freedom by creating competing solutions to those offered by the state.  Simple, right?

Interview on Capitalism, Freedom and the Future

An interview where I am asked some nice open-ended softballs on liberty, regulations, and the future.  The blog where the interview is posted is apparently supporting a particular politician, but I do not personally support or endorse any politicians, and the fact that the interview is posted to this blog should not be interpreted as support.

Oh, and I am referred to in the post as an “economist” and “Dr. Morehouse”, neither of which I am.  Full text of the interview below.

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Josiah Schmidt: Thank you for agreeing to talk with us, Dr. Morehouse!  Tell us how you came to hold such a liberty-oriented philosophy.

Isaac Morehouse: I grew up in a typical Midwestern conservative home and I was taught responsibility, hard work and initiative.  In high-school, my brother told me about this book he was reading called “Capitalism and Freedom” by Milton Friedman.  I liked the ideas in the book, since I was sort of predisposed towards free-markets.  As I began to read more I eventually (after a long road and lots of rabbit trails) realized that, at bottom, government is force, and everything it does is backed by force.  It made me realize that so many things I wanted done in the world–good things–should not be done by force, but peacefully and voluntarily.  Not only did it sit right with me from a moral standpoint, but I learned through studying economics that voluntary actions have better results than centrally planned attempts by government to make the world a better place.

Josiah Schmidt: How would you define capitalism, in short?

Isaac Morehouse: Technically, capitalism is simply an economic system where individuals own the “means of production”, rather than government.  In popular usage however, capitalism has come to mean a lot of different things, some of which I support (property rights, free-markets, etc.), some of with I do not (bailouts, subsidies, regulations against competition, etc.).  I’m careful how I use that word, since people give it different meanings.  To me, it means simply free-markets.

Josiah Schmidt: Why, fundamentally, does capitalism work?

Isaac Morehouse: Capitalism works because without private property and the right to reap the gains and losses of our own efforts there is little incentive to produce or to innovate.  Property and free-trade also allow prices to form, which provide some of the most valuable information on the planet such as where demand and scarcity are and where surpluses are.  Prices, which form spontaneously as a result of free-exchange, allow for the most impressive coordination in the history of man; billions of people and resources constantly adjust their individual behavior in a way that benefits society, not because they are trying to or would even know how if they were, but because they are responding to signals sent through the price system.  No “rational” system of central planning can even come close to replicating that.

Josiah Schmidt: Is it meaningful to advocate a “mixed economy” of capitalism and socialism?

Isaac Morehouse: No.  Any coercion in the peaceful, voluntary and spontaneously coordinating market reduces it’s efficiency, not to mention it’s a violation of individual rights.  An only partly “planned” economy may be degrees better than a fully socialist one, but a free economy is magnitudes better than both. [For more on “mixed” economies see this article.]

Josiah Schmidt: How does capitalism, as opposed to socialism, accept human nature as it is, accounting for the flaws and fallibility of man?

Isaac Morehouse: It avoids what F.A. Hayek called the “Fatal Conceit” by recognizing that no one has enough knowledge to know where to put all the resources in the world all the time.  It recognizes the dignity of each individual by allowing anyone to justly obtain and use property, but it recognizes the limits of each individual by not allowing any one person to control all others by force.  If people are corrupt, the last thing we want to do is give a small number of them monopoly control over the rest, which is what government is.

Josiah Schmidt: Do government “consumer protection” measures actually protect consumers?

Isaac Morehouse: What is called “consumer protection” is almost always a special privilege or protection for some politically favored business or industry over their competitors.  Since government hands out favors and makes regulations, instead of competing in the marketing place by trying to better serve customers, many businesses go to government and lobby for regulations that they can afford, but that will cripple their smaller competitors.  The result is higher priced products, fewer choices, less competition, corruption in government agencies, and often times less attention to safety by consumers and producers who believe the government will do the work for them.

Josiah Schmidt: What is one of the most egregious examples of “consumer protection” measures that actually harmed consumers, in your view?

Isaac Morehouse: Oh boy, there are so many.  It’s hard to say which is the most egregious, but certainly some very silly examples that really bug me are things like requiring decorators, hair stylists, yoga instructors or lemonade selling kids to get state licenses and pay fees just to offer their goods and services.  These examples all exists in at least some states, and in every instance the laws were passed at the behest of some industry lobby that didn’t like lower priced competition.  It’s very sad for the people who just want a chance making a living by offering their skills to consumers.  They aren’t forcing anyone to buy, yet government is forcing them not to sell.

Josiah Schmidt: What advice would you give to libertarians reading this interview?

Isaac Morehouse: Take heart.  It’s too easy to see all the violations of liberty around us and feel things are always getting worse.  If you keep the big picture in mind and study some world history you will see that, in so many ways, freedom has advanced tremendously and there is no reason it cannot continue to do so.  Don’t follow the news too closely or you’ll be angry all the time, and angry people are rarely good advocates of the ideas they believe in.  Be optimistic and never stop learning about and fighting for freedom.  It’s worth it.

Josiah Schmidt: Anything else you’d like to say to our readers?

Isaac Morehouse: Sometimes it helps to remember that really, liberty is all around us.  We often feel that it would require such a radical change in our everyday existence if government were not so invasive.  While I do not want to downplay the destructive effects of government meddling, it is instructive to stop and think about what really makes the world tick.  Why don’t people run through the shopping mall naked?  I’ll give you a hint: it is not because they are afraid of indecent exposure laws.  That may play some very small part, but it is primarily because they would be embarrassed.  They are afraid of the social consequences.  This is just one example of how society remains orderly without the use of force; without government mandates and rules and regulations.  In fact, nearly all of the order, cooperation and coordination we see around us is not the result of government edicts, but of the forces of spontaneous order that emerge in a voluntary society.  In many ways, government is less important than even libertarians think.  The message we need to send to our big-government friends is not that government is so bad (even though it often is), but that society voluntarily produces so much good that we don’t need to use the blunt instrument of government.

Josiah Schmidt: Very insightful thoughts.  Thanks again for taking the time out of your schedule to answer some of our questions.

Elections Don’t Matter

This was written for the Shotgun Blog during election season.

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“I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or if they try, they will shortly be out of office.” – Milton Friedman

Amidst the din surrounding the U.S. presidential elections there is much debate and discussion over which candidate can best lead the nation in the right direction. The right direction to me is towards greater freedom. Which candidate can move us there?

None of them.

This is not because of the specific field of candidates we have to choose from this election; this is always the case. As Milton Friedman pointed out (quote above), the nature of politics is such that a politician will only be able to do as much as he or she can get away with. No president, no matter how much he or she wanted to, could enact reforms more radical than what the general populace finds acceptable. In the end, all governments – monarchies, autocracies, democracies – can only do what the majority of the populace allows. Even a powerful tyrant, in the long run, cannot resist the will of the majority of people if they are motivated enough to oppose him. It is the ideas that they hold which determine their motivation.

Ideas, not people, run the world.

In a system like ours with democratic elections, government leaders are particularly sensitive to the mood of the public. Relatively frequent elections, recall threats, loss of fundraising from would-be supporters, and constant media coverage create a high price for unpopular decisions. Even the ability to change policy after being elected without sufficient popularity is limited – since multiple branches of government are needed to enact policy an unpopular leader will have little luck convincing congressional colleagues to go out on a limb for him.

Why then have we moved away from freedom in many areas? Because in the battle of ideas, temporary comfort, promises of impossible “equality”, lack of self-respect and responsibility, and a desire for the state to impose our tastes upon others by force have had too many victories.

Freedom will not keep without constant maintenance. Freedom is an idea. Ideas must be continually re-stated, defended against the trends of the day, taught and passed down, communicated and re-communicated in ways relevant to each generation. If we give an inch, the deceptive lures of state-sponsored “comfort”, “equality”, “fairness”, “niceness”, etc. will quickly creep in and gain a mile.

The ideas we hold, the value we place on freedom, our understanding of why it matters, our interpretation of history and the warnings it provides against statism – these are what determine the policies of the nation. Indeed, choose the candidate that seems best. Choose the one that you believe can best restrain the urge to take more power and trample more freedom. But know that in the end it is what you believe, and what others around you believe and how strongly we believe it that will determine what the politicians do.

Is freedom your passion this year, or is it the candidate of the month? The former can truly transform the world forever; the latter can only follow our mood swings. Don’t expect your vote or candidate to change the world – nothing worth having can be had so easily. I hope to change the world with ideas; the candidates will follow.

“I am really sorry to see my Countrymen trouble themselves about Politics. If Men were Wise the Most arbitrary Princes could not hurt them. If they are not Wise the Freest Government is compelled to be a Tyranny. Princes appear to me to be Fools. Houses of Commons & Houses of Lords appear to me to be fools, they seem to me to be something Else besides Human Life.” – William Blake

Christianity and Freedom

Is there a dichotomy between law and love?

After reading an article I wrote (Palm Sunday and Politics), a friend of mine told me he thought I espoused a sort of dualistic view of Christian life.  As if Christ came only to preach a spiritual transformation as something entirely separate from physical life.

Upon a rereading of the article, I can see how one might draw that conclusion.  That is not, however, what I meant to communicate.  Indeed, I view life as holistic, with all elements – spiritual, emotional, mental, physical – inextricably intertwined.  I view the Christian life as wholly transformative, of the spiritual life as well as the others listed above.  I do not see a dichotomy between the spiritual and physical life as far as my Christianity is concerned.

That said, there was a dualism expressed in the post.  It was not a dichotomy between the spiritual and physical life, but a dichotomy between peace and force – and by force I am referring to the initiation of physical violence, or the threat of it.

The things I believe as a Christian affect every aspect of my life.  My goals in life spring from my theistic view of the world and the resulting actions that view brings.  Things like caring for those in need, learning humility, showing love and offering freedom to others–these are goals because of my acceptance of the Kingdom Jesus preached.

These beliefs and duties are physical as much as anything else.  What they are not is violent.

To attempt to achieve these goals by initiating force against others is antithetical to the ends themselves.  Though physical force may be justified in some instances (such as self-defense, though Christ and many others refrained even from this and chose martyrdom), I do not see any way in which the initiation of violence can be seen as a moral way to advance the work of Christ.  When Jesus taught kindness to the poor, do you think he meant it by first doing violence to the rich or middle class?  When he taught righteousness, do you think he meant making others righteous on threat of fine or imprisonment?

I do not.

If we do not feel justified in using force to advance these goals individually, why should we feel justified doing it as a group, or hiring it out to others?

Everything government does is done by force.  If it’s a new law or regulation, it is backed by threat of fine, imprisonment, or (if you are persistent enough in resisting) force to the point of death.  If it is a welfare program, it is funded by tax dollars, which are not given voluntarily.  Try not paying your taxes long enough and you’ll find that indeed, force is what’s ultimately behind tax collection.  If it were not, funds would be collected by a voluntary association, not government.  Government has nothing to give but that which it first takes, and it takes by force or the threat of it.

If you’ve accepted the Christian life, it should indeed transform your entire being and all your actions.  Far from believing Christ’s example and words regarding righteousness or care for the poor to be merely spiritual commands, I see them as part of the holistic goal of His kingdom, and involving physical actions.  However, I do not see these ends as a justification for violent means.

To attempt to use government to achieve Christian goals is to, ultimately, use physical force.  This not only corrupts government, it corrupts the goals themselves and diminishes the true depth of the work of the Kingdom.  It reduces a life-transforming message delivered by loving believers into a program for political preferences pushed by a religious interest group.

Oh, and it just so happens that the way human nature works, peaceful and voluntary means of helping the poor and promoting moral behavior achieve unimaginably more than any force-backed government initiative ever can.  The genius of creation is manifest in economics – free individuals acting to prosper individually achieve more for their fellow man than mandatory efforts.  What is moral, it turns out, is also very efficient.

Christians should not only daily examine their hearts to see if their goals and actions are in line with the ultimate Truth; they should also ask themselves if the means they are using to accomplish those goals are righteous.  Sometimes a government program would be easier than doing the work of Christ ourselves, or organizing voluntary efforts.  Then again, Christ never said it would be easy.