First, Paul Krugman reflects on what's been coming out of the INET Bretton Woods meeting and the revival of "the oldies" (Bagehot, Kindelberger, Keynes, etc.). In this portion, he ties the problem with the last couple decades back to the microfoundations push:
"Bagehot wrote of panics in which the collective desire to shed risky assets and debt produced a downward spiral; Keynes of situations in which the collective desire to save but not invest led to mass unemployment. And in both cases these arguments suggested a case for government intervention to undo or limit the bad macro consequences of reasonable individual behavior.
But notice that I’ve framed this in terms of “reasonable” behavior; it’s a lot harder to tell these stories in terms of perfectly rational, maximizing behavior.
One response — a pretty good response — is, “So?” After all, maximization isn’t a fact about human behavior, it’s a gadget — an assumption we use to cut through the complexities of psychology and all that, one that can be very useful if it clarifies your thought, but by no means an axiom or a law of nature.
But maximizing models have a special appeal for modern academic economists: they require solving equations! They’re rigorous! They make it easy to show that you’re doing “real research”. And so maximization tends to acquire a bigger importance in economic thought than it deserves."
The point isn't that microfoundations are inherently bad. The point is simply that we need to be intelligent about how we talk about microfoundations. In an earlier post I gave the example of physicists grappling with making quantum mechanics and relativity consistent. It would be weird (wouldn't it?) if physicists said "well relativity really needs microfoundations, so lets try to derive relativity from quantum mechanics and if relativity ends up popping out the other end, that's great - but if it doesn't we just have to abandon relativity." Would that make sense? Of course not. First, we need to really interogate this claim "relativity needs microfoundations". Why? Are microfoundations some sort of scientific pre-requisite? Nope. Nevertheless, consistency is good even if there's not a necessity for microfoundations. But that just leaves open the question - why derive macroprocesses from microfoundations? Why not derive microprocesses from macrofoundations? One is at risk of the ecological fallacy and the other is at risk of the fallacy of composition, but neither is a bad approach in and of itself. You all know my take on this - the Krugman post is very good.
*****
Robert Vienneau has a great review of Nozick up. There are a few things I especially like, starting with his assertion that "libertarians" are better called "propertarians". I would actually suggest that "paleo-propertarians" is better, because not only is libertarianism essentially a philosophy that enshrines property rights - it often offers preferential status to existing or status quo property arrangements. This distinction is important because it's precisely the assignment of rights that determines whether a social order is one of "liberty" or not. This is not something a lot of libertarian seem to appreciate. I did a double take recently when I read Bryan Caplan write: "boosting libertarians' Total Fertility Rate to 3 is the most realistic long-run path to liberty", and as far as I can tell he meant it seriously. Libertarians identify their philosophy with a philosophy of liberty, which is odd for other liberals. It's actually a very specific sort of philosophy of property, and it's not at all clear that a society arranged along libertarian lines would have more liberty. The fact that libertarians identify libertarianism with "liberty" makes engaging with them hard, because they actually do believe this. Convincing yourself of this sort of equivalence is powerful rhetorically; one need look no farther than the Bush administration for evidence of this. It's akin to equating ideas with the will of God - you obviate the need to really probe the idea when you equate it with the will of God. The modern Western world is a world of secular liberalism, and liberty is the new "will of God". If you proclaim your philosophy as being equivalent to liberty ("the will of God") as a matter of definition, you render unintelligible the counterarguments that offer different perspectives on exactly what we mean by liberty ("the will of God") and the implications of a specific philosophy for liberty. Just like with older fundamentalists, when I argue against libertarianism I am perceived as arguing against liberty.
Vienneau has other great points too - including Nozick's begging of the question on how to define "property rights" (a point I raise here a lot). He also presents Nozick's three propositions for the just distribution of property. What caught my eye here is that the third proposition: "Whatever injustices may nevertheless have arisen in original acquisition or transfer must be rectified justly" is usually defined circularly by libertarians - and it is defined on the basis of the very property rights that we're trying to rectify!
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I have heard the word "propertarian" used by anarchists.
ReplyDeleteBy anarchists, I mean the anarchists who murder police officers in Greece (such as members of The Cell of the Fire Conspiracy of Athens and Thessalonica), who bomb hotels in Catalonia, Spain, who tried to egg students to violence against police during the British student protests, and who have been making a game out of killing policemen in Italy.
That kind of anarchist. So basically, many of these readers of Proudhon and Bakunun (although these two men would probably have loathed their deeply insane followers) say that "libertarian" was the word they were using in large numbers first, and they have the rightful claim to it. Their opponents should call themselves "propertarians"...or else!
So I wonder about this American group called "libertarians" - why don't they let them have it?! Let these crazy terrorist thugs take back the words they were using to describe themselves. Do American libertarians really want to use a word that once described pyromaniacs and cop-killers?
By the way, if you don't believe me, here is one of the relatively milder anarchist hangouts: http://anarchism.pageabode.com/ Many articles in the FAQ describe their annoyance with the expropriation of the word.
(By the way, by relatively, I mean that they will still now and then post apologism for the occasional outbreak of anarchist violence.)
Daniel, I presently revising based on referee comments a paper called "Liberty Versus Libertarianism." You might like it -- shoot me a Facebook message if you'd like to see it.
ReplyDeleteHas Krugman ever even read Bagehot?
ReplyDeleteIt is my general impression that people who talk about Bagehot have as a general rule never read him (the same is true with lots of thinkers I'd add).
Anyway, the way Bagehot is presented these days is not the way he presented himself - Bagehot never stated, that money should be lent to firms which are insolvent, merely firms which are potentially damaged by the insolvent. He would have let Chrysler fold in other words. His idea was to protect firms which were "sound," not to bail out firms which were unsound. How to do this? In part by making the rates of interest high for those wishing the funds.
Calling libertarians "propertarians" has been around, for, well, decades.
"...it often offers preferential status to existing or status quo property arrangements."
This is non-sense on stilts. It is modern liberals who are enshrined to tradition when it comes to property rights or anything else for that matter. It is after all modern liberals who were the greatest advocates of city planning as it exists today (including of course the disaster which is public housing); that's not something libertarians were involved in. You people got exactly what you wanted - lots of single family tract housing. You will find that libertarians have no problem with any sort of private property arrangement available so long as it consensual between the parties - same with sex between adults, what adults imbibe, what they eat, etc. You like to paint libertarians as if they were obsessed with property rights, however, you will find that most of libertarians write about cannot be so narrowly confined or caricatured.
Prateek,
Daniel really doesn't have a very sound understanding of the history of libertarianism in the U.S.; a good place to start is "Radicals for Capitalism" - it also deals with the link between libertarianism in the U.S. and European ideas regarding liberty, the state, etc.
Prateek,
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I use libertarian because it is convenient; it is in the end though, just a word. In fifty years those who advocate the liberation of the human mind, body and "spirit" will probably be called something, to which I say, who cares? We'll still be fighting the same battles against paternalists, etc. that we are still fighting today (though hopefully the tables will have turned a little bit by then).
re: "Bagehot never stated, that money should be lent to firms which are insolvent, merely firms which are potentially damaged by the insolvent."
ReplyDeleteAnd how do you propose distinguishing one from the other?
The reason why "propertarian" has long been applied to libertarians is because it's exactly what they are.
ReplyDeleteYour example of liberals on property (which is a little narrow... that particular housing policy of a particular set of politicians is no more definitive of a liberal philosophical outlook than the particular policies of Reagan are of libertarians because he once said he was a libertarian) doesn't even fit your argument - and it's an example of an opposition to status quo property rights - to excess, I would say.
Libertarians are really status quo propertarians because property comes first for them. If you look into how they define liberty, it is defined as leaving existing property rights inviolate. If you look at what they complain about in others who they allege violate liberty, they are pointing to people who violate existing property rights.
You say "who cares" about the name... usually I agree with you. But this particular name, "libertarian" has power - and it's the same effect that Bush had when he would always invoke "freedom". You're taking one thing - the maintenance of existing property relations - and calling that maintenance "liberty", and you're reaping the benefits from it. Lots of people have been flocking to libertarianism because of those sorts of claims it makes. It's not the worst thing in the world to flock to, I would agree, but you all have just convinced yourself that you're the guys who support human liberty and you seem completely oblivious to the fact that a lot of people challenge that claim to priority.
re: "In fifty years those who advocate the liberation of the human mind, body and "spirit" will probably be called something, to which I say, who cares? We'll still be fighting the same battles against paternalists, etc. that we are still fighting today"
ReplyDeleteTHIS is part of the problem with what words can do, Gary. Today you identify people as paternalists and enemies who also advocate the liberation of the human mind, body and "spirit". Libertarianism chauvanism and obtuseness regarding liberty hurts the cause of liberty. It would be better for more people to talk frankly about exactly what libertarianism - a philosophy of status quo property rights that is certainly in the liberal tradition but which bears no special claim to the cause of liberty (and may, through its advocacy of status quo property rights, work against liberty).
Randites believe in very strong copyright protections; anarchists often want no intellectual property; a host aren't sure and vacillate. Austrians question even how far underneath a swatch of land ownership should extend. Libertarians like Heinlein questioned the most simple element of property rights and spent a lot of energy describing the traditions of ownership and transfer and whether they made sense. Aretae and other left-libertarians question corporate arrangements, etc.
ReplyDeleteThe reason you can't see and get the property rights complexities is because all you're hearing from us is automatic push-back. We're convinced that you're literally evil and can't wait to get some government guns to play with. Knowing that there are so many like you, it's probably safer to just settle on "don't change anything."
"We're convinced that you're literally evil"
ReplyDeleteIs this a parody?
"And how do you propose distinguishing one from the other?"
ReplyDeleteRead Bagehot; he does a fine job doing so.
"...and it's an example of an opposition to status quo property rights - to excess, I would say."
Only if you think of the status quo as something that existed prior to WWI. The point is that we are dealing with the status quo that modern liberals created; one that cut off just about any experiments in living when comes to how people use their land - that would have never happened in a more libertarian society.
Libertarians are really status quo propertarians because property comes first for them."
No, I'd say self-ownership exists first for libertarians, and then the non-coercion principle follows from that (if there is anything unifying at all about the verse diverse tribe known as libertarians). I'm a libertarian and you will note that I very rarely talk about property - I mean yeah, the vast abuse of eminent domain power pisses me off certainly (largely because it is used by the rich and connected to stick it to everyone else - and note how modern liberals are tone deaf regarding that) but it isn't what most animates me. Violations of personhood, mindcrimes, etc. are what animate me for the most part - that's true for a large swath of libertarians. Only in your caricature do libertarians come off as propertarians.
"Lots of people have been flocking to libertarianism because of those sorts of claims it makes."
Heh. I wish. Being a libertarian remains a very lonely road I'd say. If I wanted to be popular I wouldn't be one.
"Today you identify people as paternalists and enemies who also advocate the liberation of the human mind, body and "spirit"."
They are paternalists actually. I identify them as such because that is what they are. Ex. Obama is a paternalist; which is why he mused about having a tax on sugary sodas (then a lot of push back happened and he shut up). Yeah I know, paternalism is freedom, etc.
"It would be better for more people to talk frankly about exactly what libertarianism - a philosophy of status quo property rights that is certainly in the liberal tradition but which bears no special claim to the cause of liberty..."
You keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better. In the real world it is not libertarianism which calls for the regulation by the state of every area of human life - that comes from the modern liberal and conservative tribes.
BTW, if you stuck a hundred libertarians in a room and asked them what comes first, you'd get roughly forty different answers I expect. People come to libertarianism from a variety of starting points; my rough guess is that 10%-15% start with property rights.
ReplyDeleteThis article should add something to the conversation: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/04/inequality_and_politics
ReplyDeleteGary, self-ownership is a property right. I think you are taking me far too literally.
ReplyDeleteThat depends on whether one agrees with Murray Rothbard or not. When anarchists use the term propertarian they are generally not referring to something like self-ownership. This bears out even more what a complex tribe libertarians are because of course most libertarians are not Rothbardians.
ReplyDeleteSo yes, propertarian means different things to different people - or such has been my experience at least.
If you don't like self-ownership, try sovereign individual - even that will cause all manner of disagreement though, because libertarians, anarchists, etc. all use the same term.
Daniel,
ReplyDeleteTo me this just points up the obvious - you just aren't all that familiar with libertarianism. I've been living in the libertarian world for a very long time; you just pop your head in from time to time and those snapshots aren't very useful from what I can see.
Gary, you've said this a lot lately because you seem very put off by the fact that I recognize but don't particularly care about the diversity of libertarian thought. I understand perfectly well that it's diverse.
ReplyDeleteI will never successfully chronicle, taxonomize, and catalog libertarian thought by critiquing the libertarian center-of-gravity that is the equation of violation of rights with violation of liberty. This is quite true.
But I'm not setting out to present libertarianism in all its diversity. I'm setting out to articulate a liberal philosophy that's more coherent and better capable of serving humanity. One of the biggest obstacles to that right now, it seems to me, is confusion on the relationship between liberty and rights.
Insofar as I am ignorant of all the details of libertarianism (and I certainly am), you are considerably more ignorant of virtually every non-libertarian position in the liberal tradition which you dismiss as paternalist or statist. I may not always be able to differntiate every perspective, but you regularly conflate, for example, the actions and perspectives of politicians with some non-libertarian philosophical disposition. You regularly confuse and conflate quite specific and quite deliberate points about the role of the state and present it as a more totalizing perspective on the role of the state.
I err by omitting nuance that I never pretend to present. You err by completely misrepresenting positions and missing the whole point of what I'm saying.
Well, it can't be both - libertarians can't be both diverse and have the same starting point at the same time.
ReplyDeleteAs for me my libertarianism started with a rather discrete moment - the movie "Footloose." The state and the religious authorities conspire to keep the kids from having dances, and the kids - via a voluntary emergent order instigated by an outsider - decide to hold a dance outside the scope of the reach of the politico-religious authority. Aww man, that makes me want to listen to some Kenny Loggins.
Here's the thing Gary - I'm making a substantive point here. Violation of rights is not the same as violation liberty. An accompanying substantive point often worth making with it is that rights are social constructions.
ReplyDeleteDo I just need to stop saying "libertarian"? Would that make it all better? I don't think I'm wrong in pointing out that the group most likely to make this equation between rights and liberty is libertarians.
It would be nice to know how I ought to talk about this so that I don't get caught up in a libertarian genealogy on the one hand or accusations of paternalism and telling people what to do on the other. Paternalism presupposes a rights structure, which is precisely what I'm critiquing. If my critique hold any water that accusation of paternalism goes out the window.
re: "Well, it can't be both - libertarians can't be both diverse and have the same starting point at the same time."
ReplyDeleteWe are discussing a center of gravity.
I just don't see it that way; it is not my experience with the unruly mob that is libertarianism.
ReplyDelete"Rights" is just another way of saying that I, the individual, has total and ultimate control over my life and the state may not impede that choice except that it might harm another in some discrete way.
"An accompanying substantive point often worth making with it is that rights are social constructions."
Or they aren't.
"I don't think I'm wrong in pointing out that the group most likely to make this equation between rights and liberty is libertarians."
Actually, I'd argue that rights talk is more common amongst modern liberals and progressives. Libertarians talk more about choice (in fact, the 35th Anniversary edition of the "best of" Reason was named "Choice" for a, well, reason), responsibility, control, sovereignty, decentralized decision making, individual autonomy, etc.
"Paternalism presupposes a rights structure, which is precisely what I'm critiquing."
Not rights/liberty in the way that libertarians tend to think of rights/liberty. This goes back to the moderns vs. ancients clash between "liberty within the state" or as a member of the state (ancients) vs. liberty of the individual (moderns).
Modern liberals tend to hew to the ancient view of liberty, whereas libertarians tend to hew to the modern view of liberty.
Let me put it this way, Gary.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think is the center-of-gravity libertarian answer to the question "what constitutes a violation of liberty?"
On paternalism - no, what I'm saying is that your hurling of the accusation of paternalism presupposes a rights structure. And ancient thinking on citizen distinction has nothing to do with what I'm claiming, or what modern liberals claim.
I ask this of you, of course, with you in full "don't let him think he knows anything" mode right after I told you what my critique is.
ReplyDelete_What do you think is the center-of-gravity libertarian answer to the question "what constitutes a violation of liberty?"_
ReplyDeleteI have no idea. I know what the answer is for me. It is a violation of personal autonomy - of the individual as decision maker, particularly as such are manifested by hierarchies - be they they state, religious authorities or any other corporate body (I've made this point enough you would think it would not be worth repeating - it comes right out of Locke's "Letter on Toleration"). Libertarianism is for the most part the individual vs. the corporate - while individuals do clash, most of the dangers (small, medium sized and large) in life have very little to do with my day to day interactions with other individuals. Most of the talk about the need for corporate bodies to keep people from hurting one another is bunk; most of what corporate bodies do has little to do with that and their power is out-sized in comparison to the dangers associated with human interaction.
"On paternalism - no, what I'm saying is that your hurling of the accusation of paternalism presupposes a rights structure."
Not in the way that you define a rights structure; thus ancients vs. moderns.
Are you suggesting I define rights like the ancients? Sorry - I just have trouble keeping up with the part that is assigned to me sometimes.
ReplyDeleteThough I am taking a bit of liberty with Benjamin Constant's thoughts on this subject, I am generally in line with what he thought. So...
ReplyDeleteI'd say that is the way modern liberals do things; you say it yourself - rights are socially constructed and depend on participation in the body politic by "the people" in order for them to come to fruition - that is close enough to the ancient version Constant defined of rights/liberty to talk about it that way.
Modern liberty stresses the individual as sovereign actor outside the confines of the state; I just do not see you stress that sort of thing. I suppose you will argue that the latter requires some sort of societal understanding, but I would argue that it does not require a state - and it certainly doesn't require a state (or any other centralized corporate bodies) in the way that the liberty of the ancients does.
Anyway, I'm all talked out.
ReplyDeleteI'm talked out too, but I want to clarify in no uncertain terms that I'm not suggesting that the body politic constructs rights at all. I have said that these rights are socially constructed. I've said this specifically, so I'm not sure why you keep tying it back to the body politic, participation in the body politic, or the state.
ReplyDeleteNow, of course I have said that the state essentially ratifies a lot of rights that are generated in societies, and that seems perfectly functional and fine to me. Sometimes the state even generates legal rights - like incorporation rights - that end up being great innovations.
But noting that the state sometimes ratifies rights is completely different from the claim that rights "depend on" the state or "come to fruition" through the state or the body politic. I've never claimed anything of the sort.
This is somewhat depressing, actually, if you think that I'm saying participation in the body politic and the state play a primary role in rights.
ReplyDeleteAs you point out, this is completely anti-modern. It's illiberal, and it is starkly juxtaposed to what I've been saying about rights.
The fact that that appears to be my position I hope is a function of your wanting it to be my position, but I'm not sure. I've always thought "social construction" didn't need elaboration, but perhaps I should define it better when I use it.
Same with liberty outside of the confines of the state. If you think I'm claiming that then either you're not listening or I'm not communicating.
But I think it may be the former... I've consistently talked about a social reality and society as a real thing and individuals in a society as a real dimension of individual action. I don't think I've ever brought the body politic into it - so I don't think it's me. I've always thought there was a pretty clear distinction ebtween "society" and "the state" or "the body politic", but perhaps I should not have taken that as understood.
No wonder you trace Rorty back to the state too!!!!
re: "No wonder you trace Rorty back to the state too!!!!"
ReplyDeleteI was thoroughly confused when you had brought that up. But if you're reading "body politic" wherever you see "society" or "social", I suppose that makes sense.
Speaking of this whole Bretton Woods meeting, I tried to find some videos of it. And I was almost falling asleep 20 seconds into one of them.
ReplyDeleteWonks are so...wonkish!
If Rorty didn't want people to think he was talking about the state then he shouldn't have talked about the state so much. It isn't the "social" that he refers to, it is the "political" (you see this throughout his work) - and the political means the state. The agenda of reformist liberals like Rorty is always intimately tied with a focus on the state and the winnowing away of the private; thus you see Rorty stating rather bluntly that the very language of what the state does needs to be divorced from the language used for the private - something which has always disturbed me greatly because it is a proposition ripe for so much mischief.
ReplyDeleteHe talked about the political, but he specifically talked about things like whether "moral communities" as he put it, are contiguous with political communities.
ReplyDeleteHe's not skiddish about the state (and neither am I) in the way you are, it is true.
It does not seem to do with him what you did with me - and take that to mean that all collective action is somehow really just a reference to state action.
You did this above when you said: "you say it yourself - rights are socially constructed and depend on participation in the body politic by "the people" in order for them to come to fruition". Of course I never said this at all. I only said that rights are socially constructed - I said nothing about the requirement of participation in the body politic. That's something you made up in your head to pin me to the Greeks.
The term "social construction" is the offspring of a bunch of theories of knowledge that it was my unhappy task to read a great deal of in graduate school - personally I've never been sure if you are really talking about construction or constructivism because you're all over the place on that. Then there are all the causation related issues associated with social construction - weak, robust, whatever. I find the notion creates more confusion in blog conversations than it explains because the field has exploded so much since the 1960s.
ReplyDeleteBe that as it may, I get that impression because you rarely talk about anything but the state here. Since you're a professional economist that ought not be that surprising I guess.
How am I all over the place? I've never even mentioned constructivism on here because I'm not really familiar with it.
ReplyDeleteI am coming from the Berger, Luckmann, etc.. From what little I know about constructivism it sounds alright as a knowledge creation process that goes on. I see nothing immediately objectionable about it in a cursory look at it. But I've certainly never mentioned it on here so I have no clue why you're raising it as an issue. I am not "all over the place on that" because I am not any place on that. If you want to make a case that constructivism is consistent with something I've said, be my guest.
Rarely talk about anything but the state????
I find that I talk about things other than the state a lot, and you always end up bringing the state into the comment section. And when I do talk about the state, it's sometimes to reference it as a social institution that free people act through, but never as the source of rights or knowledge or anything like that. Never once.
I also talk about what people are interested in.
ReplyDeleteI would talk much more exclusively about economics if I had a somewhat different readership... and even economics talk gets back to the state in the comment section sometimes.
Take a look at the posts that appear on the home page right now - I just did.
ReplyDeleteOnly one is explicitly about "the state" as an institution (another is about policy, and another is about political philosophy more broadly but no real discussion of "the state").
The ONLY one about "the state" of all the posts currently showing is highlighting the problem of government failure.
"The state" you see here is often the state you've brought to the table, Gary.
Skittish about the state? I'm don't trust any hierarchal/corporate entity if that is what you mean by skittish - that is an essential aspect of being a classical liberal.
ReplyDeleteLook, to get back to Rorty, his utopia is a "democratic" one ordered primarily by state processes, mine is a market utopia ordered by "voting" in the marketplace and by a bottom up emergence of human liberation. They are radically different visions of how humans function one with another.
Let me tidy up something, on Hume, despite the fact that Rorty tried to appropriate him, he had to dump so much of Hume's thought in the process that the Hume he presents isn't the historical Hume (and Rorty would not disagree with me - that's how he used past philosophers and their works).
To sum up, Rorty, like Keynes, tried to "transform" classical liberalism, and in doing so abandoned it for a anti-liberal way of thinking about things.
daniel,
ReplyDeleteMy point is that you're confusing constructionism and constructivism a lot of the time.
As for the 'state' comment, it may be just a lot more used to it never being mentioned in the blogs that I follow because the general assumption is it that is mostly a cock-up. However, it is involved the majority of your conversation topics - which I think is partly indicative of the unfortunate level of power it wields over our lives.
re: "As for the 'state' comment, it may be just a lot more used to it never being mentioned in the blogs that I follow because the general assumption is it that is mostly a cock-up."
ReplyDeleteI don't know. I have felt for a long time that 75% of the discussion of the state that goes on on here gets started with your comments. We simply do not have a commenter here more interested in the state than you Gary. That's fine. I'll talk about lots of stuff. But I definitely talk and think about the state now more than I would if you did not comment here. This is probably a good thing - it's always good to think through things oyu normally wouldn't think about. In thinking about Rorty's thoughts on truth - as I was thinking about when I wrote the post above this one - politics and the state were quite far from my mind. Maybe it's good to have thought of them. But it often comes up when you bring it up.
In other words, I am very surprised to hear you say it's never mentioned in other blogs you follow because you strike me as someone who talks and thinks about the state a lot.
ReplyDelete"Based on an intuitionist view of moral judgment, we focused on the underlying affective and cognitive dispositions that accompany this unique worldview. We found that, compared to liberals and conservatives, libertarians show 1) stronger endorsement of individual liberty as their foremost guiding principle and correspondingly weaker endorsement of other moral principles, 2) a relatively cerebral as opposed to emotional intellectual style, and 3) lower interdependence and social relatedness.
ReplyDeletehttp://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1665934
So if you want the "empirical" work, there it is. You value equality at gunpoint, libertarians value individual liberty.
ReplyDeletemobsrule my whole point has been that we may be dealing with two incommensurable definitions of "liberty" and libertarians may be wrong. How does a paper that works of single definition of "liberty" inform that at all?
ReplyDeleteI steeply discount the study upon reading this alone: "2) a relatively cerebral as opposed to emotional intellectual style". Libertarians are among the most emotionally volatile people I've ever met.
Before anyone overreacts - the first paragraph was a serious point, the second was a joke.
ReplyDeleteBecause liberty is such an indistinct term, you can decide for yourself what a libertarian means when he calls you anti-liberty based on how he answers questions as put forth by Haidt's group and how your answers differ. You'll notice that Haidt comes to the obvious conclusion that libertarians are driven by the same feelings whether the situation is economic or other, so the term propertarian doesn't really get it.
ReplyDeleteLibertarian definition of liberty can't be wrong (that's granting one exists) because our axioms are different. You so value equalizing certain outcomes between people NOW that you think it's totally legitimate to point a gun at me to make it happen. I don't care about equality of outcomes AT ALL for a host of reasons, principle being that capitalism leads to discovery and once widely useful knowledge is attained it's not lost, so even the most ineffective and useless people in America (which is much less egalitarian than the other almost mono-racial OECD countries) tend to live great lives by comparison with just a short time ago, pinhead.
As I cautioned Gary above - don't interpret "property rights" as such a strict economic issue.
ReplyDeleteWho has proposed equality of outcomes? Someone, perhaps, but not me - and I've certainly never said it's legitimate to point a gun at someone to do it.
And who are you calling a pinhead? You really need to get a grip if you want to comment here. I don't appreciate it.
By your definition, if a libertarian wants pot to be decriminalized is it because he views it as a property right... and how do you distinguish this from a progressive wanting the same? Are progressives "propertarian" regarding pot but not regarding OPM?
ReplyDeleteRegarding equality of outcomes I quote you:
"Inheritance allows the appropriation and accumulation of property with NO LEGITIMATE CLAIM AT ALL. The inheritor didn't work for the property. It's solely his by virtue of the pact of violence between him and society to bash the skulls of anyone else who would claim it. What is the difference between the heir and the non-heir that warrants the award of property to the heir? Sheer luck of birth, and nothing more."
That's pretty clear. Smells Marx-y with the appropriation and accumulation stuff. You decide what wealth is legitimately owned. It's unfair for some to be unequally wealthy just because of birth. Fan of the Death Tax? Why do you want a "public option" if not to equalize services? If you think the government should do a thing, you think it's legitimate to point guns at people to do it because government can't tax or legislate anything without using guns. Your kind never convinces me that you're right, you just point a gun at me and start laughing.
Did you not mean it when you said calling someone a pinhead was fine?