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I mean, your counter-analogies are great, but there's a very standard response to it that works just as well: the reductio ad agricolum. Our market returns surely would not exist without farmers to grow our food, since if they didn't provide us with food we'd all starve to death. Does it follow that a "substantial portion" of our earned wealth is actually due to the farmers' efforts? Does it follow that the more we earn, the higher the percentage of our income they ought to be able to make us pay for our food?
Of course not. It follows only that the farmers get to demand that we pay them the market price for the goods they provide. Likewise, if the basic institutions of the minimal state-- police, courts, anti-fraud laws-- are necessary for our market returns, that at most legitimizes such taxes as are necessary to fund the minimal state. (I leave aside the question of whether some or all of these institutions could be provided privately.)
To justify taxation for the welfare state, then, you need to claim that the welfare state *itself* is necessary for our market returns. Which its defenders tend not to claim because it isn't true.
But Mashaw says that unless some of the surplus is redistributed in ways that seem fair (note that he puts scare quotes round "fair", presumably to distance himself from issues about what is really fair) then the system will no longer seem legitimate to the people whose labor make the surplus possible. That's not an argument about desert. That's a prudential argument to the effect that the peasants will burn down our chateaux unless we give back some of the surplus that their efforts helped to create.
In any case, I find it hard to see him as making an argument about what people happen to believe, namely, that a lot of national wealth is a social product because there are diffuse social enabling conditions. That's not what regular people believe. That's what liberal law professors and political philosophers believe. So this can't feed into a popular perception of legitimacy or illegitimacy. He's got to be making a point about what actually does make a system legitimate.
Well, put like that, no. But the idea that people might see the system as illegitimate if they think they're making a contribution but not receiving a commensurate benefit doesn't strike me as a crazy view about our psychology, whether or not you think that the system would be really illegitimate. (Full disclosure: I'm a philosopher myself, but a philosopher of science; maybe I'm just susceptible by association.)
Still, perhaps you're right. Perhaps I'm too ready to believe the guy can distinguish between concepts of xs, and actual xs. But, I mean to say, my students can do it. (Although I do have the smartest students in the world, I suppose.)
Then a kindly government steps in and funds schools that will teach knowledge even if it has no market value. In addition, they pay schools to hire people who get doctorates in worthless knowledge so they can teach it to others.
Little Willy is very happy and studies Philosophy for many years. When he's done, to show his gratitude to the generous government...he decides he wants to work for a right-wing think tank that attacks "useless government programs."
But Little Willy is sad again.
Right-wing think tanks don't exist. They only exist when a corrupt and spendthrift right-wing party takes over the government. Once again, Little Willy is dependent on the government. Just when Willy is about to go back to school to study something useful, like refrigerator repair, a revolution occurs and corrupt, spendthrift right-wingers take over the government!
Little Willy gets a job and begins to happily turn out "thought pieces" about telekinetic dwarves and how evil government programs warp the oh so perfect markets that, if left alone, would create a paradise on earth.
Then the people tire of the corrupt right-wingers and chuck them out of office...and Little Willy becomes a comedian...then retires on his Social Security benefits.
- Josh
Anywho, I was wondering if you had written anything on what libertarianism actually is, or at least what it is to you. Or perhaps you could point me to a site with resources relevant to that end? I'm just a simple college student, and wish to acquire knowledge from the almighty intellects of the Interweb. Thanks.
A good place to start is my David Boaz's Libertarianism: A Primer, a bit of which is online: http://www.libertarianism.org/ Poke around IHS's Liberty Guide... http://www.theihs.org/libertyguide/
And though its too late this year, you should apply for an IHS summer seminar next year.
Monkyboy could use some philosophy classes taught by big shots from research universities. Then, he might masturbate less in public and utter more truth-functional strings of words. He might realize that mocking others just irritates and angers them, it doesn't cast any doubt on what they've said (hell, it angers me, and I wasn't even the one being mocked!). He might eventually realize (after reading Nietzsche's _Geneaology_?) that better people (i.e., people who are better than Monkyboy) find other ways to have an impact on the world and feel like they made a difference. Like serving fries and Wendy's and wishing people "Have a nice day, ma'am!". Oh, but he is just a little shit-throwing monky. Can't do any better than throw his own shit. It's too bad.
Monkyboy could use some philosophy classes taught by big shots from research universities. Then, he might masturbate less in public and utter more truth-functional strings of words. He might realize that mocking others just irritates and angers them, it doesn't cast any doubt on what they've said (hell, it angers me, and I wasn't even the one being mocked!). He might eventually realize (after reading Nietzsche's _Geneaology_?) that better people (i.e., people who are better than Monkyboy) find other ways to have an impact on the world and feel like they made a difference. Like serving fries and Wendy's and wishing people "Have a nice day, ma'am!". Oh, but he is just a little shit-throwing monky. Can't do any better than throw his own shit. It's too bad.
You made my day, Lima.
:-)
Bit of a tangent, but...
I remember seeing a similar argument about taxes, something like: it's not really YOUR money, since you depend on society for enabling you to make it, and on the gov't for printing it, etc.
Therefore, don't complain about taxes: taxation doesn't mean the gov't is taking YOUR money, it just means the gov't is KEEPING some of ITS money.
1. Wealth (or income) variance depends (in part) on luck.
2. No one deserves their luck.
3. Therefore, wealth (or income) variance is (in part) undeserved.
4. Undeserved wealth (or income) variance is undesirable.
5. Therefore, public policy should try to reduce wealth (or income) variance (ceteis paribus, not at all costs).
That argument does not depend on the telekenetic dwarf principle that we ought to pay people an amount commensurate to the benefit we receive from them, even if they will do it for less.
The second argument is derived by David Gordon of the Mises Institute from S L Hurley's Justice, Luck, and Knowledge. The core of the argument is thatthere's no reason to assume that in the absence of good/bad luck, we'd make more equal amounts of money. Either you assume we start out from equality, in which case you're simply defining luck and inequality to be the same, and thus can't treat luck as an independent cause of inequality; or you realize that luck is just a matter of how else things could have turned out, and we can't figure out what we owe to luck and what to other traits. Hurley argues for redistribution under different grounds, but I have other problems with her argument.
A third response that occurrs to me is that some things can arguably be products both of luck and of desert. For instance, suppose that I was born with some inclination to be honest, work hard, and get ahead. On the one hand, I was born with these traits, and so don't "deserve" the rewards I reap from them; on the other hand, these traits seem to me morally praiseworthy. If you say that chance cannot create desert, you're arguably undermining the whole premise of desert itself.
Well, Monkyboy probably *doesn't* need anything more. The rest of us ... well, we're better than Monkyboy. We have some curiosity about the world around us, we ask questions, we don't sit content with pat bullshit answers from talking heads who couldn't reason their way out of a cardboard box. We have an interest in continuing to learn the things that others have discovered and developed. Since many of us have such an interest, they built special places where we can go and learn about history, ethics, cognitive science, economics, and so forth.
Not for you, Monkyboy? That's fine, we don't mind. Just don't mock things you don't understand. Get back to your NASCAR race and your malt liquor, and mouth back the same old bullshit that we all hear on the television. University departments weren't meant for people like you, anyway.
'Monkeyboy' likes to play the troll.
Spewing invective in response is, perhaps, entertaining for you and him, but not so much for the rest of us.
I wonder if there isn't another way to look at this question. A state of society is a historical moment in time and not just a complex interplay of people and activity frozen at (and abstracted from) the moment. The great innovators who make huge fortunes present one sort of ethical issue if the question is restricted to the moment. But viewed historically, innovations transform the reference frame in which ethical choices are defined.
Since the 1920s, both conservatives and liberals have conflated the flow with the moment, with trickle-down theorists taking the flow to be everything and redistributionists taking the moment. I would think that the question of what is owed to people first requires separating the question of what relative shares of income people receive from the question of what absolute needs people have. The question then would be how far a society can go to guarantee absolute needs and remain productive, if both are desired and if they are in any sort of tension.
"Suppose gravity works only if a team of powerful telekinetic dwarves sit in a room together and concentrates really hard."
Its not really a problem:
Rabbi Raymond A. Zwerin, Temple Sinai / Denver
Sermon on Kol Nidre September 15, 2002 / 1 Tishri 5763
"It is said that at all times there are 36 special people in the world, and that were it not for them, all of them, if even one of them
was missing, the world would come to an end. The two Hebrew letters for 36 are the lamed, which is 30, and the vav, which is six. Therefore,
these 36 are referred to as the Lamed-Vav Tzadikim.
This . ... Jewish concept is based on a Talmudic statement to the effect that in every generation 36 righteous "greet the Shechinah," the
Divine Presence (Sanhedrin 97b; Sukkah 45b).
... the legend maintains that they are each extremely modest and upright, often concealing their identity behind a mask of ignorance and
poverty, and usually earning their livelihood by the sweat of their brow.
The Lamed-Vav Tzaddikim are also called the Nistarim (concealed ones). In our folk tales, they emerge from their self-imposed concealment and, by the mystic powers, which they possess, they succeed in averting the threatened disasters of a people persecuted by the enemies that surround them. They return to their anonymity as soon as
their task is accomplished ...
The lamed-vavniks, scattered as they are throughout the Diaspora, have no acquaintance with one another. ... Since the 36 are each exemplars of anavah, humility, having such a virtue would preclude against one’s self-proclamation of being among the special righteous. ...
What's even more disturbing than the original post by the resident blogger are the comment replies contained herein (especially the first one in this case).
"Our ability to become wealthy in a market libreal [sic] order depends crucially on the maintenance of certain set of beliefs, expectations, behavioral norms and various state and non-state institutions. Our interests are complexly interrelated and mutually supporting. This is why it is total nonsense to characterize the market as a morality-free zone of self-interested atomized individuals jockeying to step on each others' heads on their way up."
I'm afraid this does not quite work. We can use a simple example from Richard Dawkins' _The Selfish Gene_. Assume all the birds of a particular species on an island are unselfish cooperators when it comes to grooming one another. In other words, there are prevailing norms and expectations. How on earth can atomistic selfishness arise in a system that is richly interrelated and mutually supporting? Well, use your imagination (or read the book). Just because the ability to generate wealth crucially depends on mutual support does not mean that system will reward cooperators. Omigosh, isn't there a common term economists use to describe this behavior? Free-*something*
Maybe the original author would contend that situation is absurd! Hmph- Unselfish cooperators. But that would take quite a bit of gumption from someone who posits telekinetic dwarves.
"It is especially incoherent when welfare liberals accuse markets of involving BOTH radical cooperative interdependence, such that much of a society's wealth is a "social product" to which individuals have no moral claim independent of some rule of distibutive justice, AND a kind of radically fragmented free-for-all state of nature war of all against all. Mashaw doesn't make this mistake, but it's just stunning how often you see it."
"Cooperative interdependence" is the misleading phrase in this context. Who are the welfare liberals making this accusation? I know, I know, they're out there, somewehere. The essentials of the "welfare liberal" argument can be found on the website for the _Boston Review_ in the "New Democracy Forum". See the section on a universal basic income and look up Herbert Simon's piece.
Once one understands the basic argument it's easy to see how this "cooperative interdependence" fosters selfish, anti-social, look-out-for-number-one, attitudes. Even the Randroids manage to grasp this elementary concept.
If I might be so bold as to conclude with an example from Thomas Sowell's awful book _Basic Economics_. I'm sure Sowell has written nearly a dozen awful books, but this is the only one I bothered to read.
Therein Sowell uses the (unoriginal, but powerful) example of Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris to show the ideal of remuneration in accordance with marginal productivity of labor doesn't hold in the real-world. We often tend to regard hitting as very individualistic (hey no one else is in the batter's box). But there is somone in the on-deck circle, and in the case of this Yankees ball club that would have been one Mickey Mantle. Pitchers were naturally reluctant to walk Maris because it would put a runner on base and then they'd have to face off against Mantle (arguably an even better hitter, and certainly more feared). So Maris got a boost from his teammate (he didn't really hit 61 homers all by himself). And today players get a boost from the ever-growing body of medical and nutritional literature that becomes more widely available -- and of course the person who supplies them with illegal muscle enhancers.