Can Welfare Rights be Rescued?

Tibor R. Machan

In this short essay I address an argument concerning welfare rights made against the late Robert Nozick by one Adrian Bardon and by some others who dispute the usefulness of resting law on basic rights (like the famous judge and law professor Richard Posner does). Bardon brings up an issue that’s central concerning the nature of basic individual rights that the American founders proposed as the foundations of a constitutional government (and were, in fact, partly incorporated and elaborate in the Bill of Rights).

Bardon argues that he has successfully “cast doubt on that approach to rights” that holds that “there are negative rights that cannot be outweighed.” And there is no need to go much further since Bardon’s way of putting his point already shows how wide of the mark he is concerning an essential feature or nature of individual human rights. Specifically, individual rights, the unalienable sort the Declaration lists, aren’t like other good things—such as ice skating, volley ball, dinner at home, a vacation in Hawaii or a trip to Italy—all of which may be weighed and compared, say based on what they cost, how much joy they bring, etc. It’s what philosophers call a category mistake to think they are, not unlike thinking that one can weigh seconds or that fingers can think about something.

Consider a very widely accepted right, that of a woman to be free of rape. What would it mean to have such a right outweighed? Bardon’s conception of such a basic right raises the possibility that someone might weigh it against, say, a desperate male’s desire to gain sexual satisfaction by using her against her will. But this is quite out of the question—the two are incomparable, incommensurate. The right to be free is a principle—a firm limit or a basic framework for any peaceful conduct if you will—which identifies the fact that women are free to do as they choose involving their own bodies, that they are sovereign authorities concerning how to live their sex lives, to whom they will give their consent to engage in sex, etc.

Of course, Bardon is concerned with property rights but he forgets that these, too, are rights to action, not rights to objects. As Ayn Rand makes clear, “the right to property is a right to action, like all the others: it is not the right to an object, but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it. It is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values.” Put another way, the right to private property is a right to acquire and to hold—which are both actions—various items no one has previously acquired and is holding—or ones others who have acquired and are holding them are willing, freely, to part with (another action).

So, in fact, private property rights are akin to rights to act freely—as when one acts to engage in consensual sex or work or recreation. In the case of property rights, one acts to engage in, as it were, consensual acquisition or holding of some items. (Notice, no one may impose ownership on another against his or her consent because of this right to freedom of actions such as acquisition and holding.)

Thus, property rights identify someone’s sphere or range of freedom of action vis-à-vis items in the world, not unlike the manner in which the right to freedom of speech spells out spheres of freedom of action vis-à-vis verbal or written expression of ideas. Indeed, these latter presuppose the right to private property, for speeches need to be given someplace to which one has a right or gained permission from those who do, and writing takes places on materials (paper, blackboards, sand, computers, etc.)

Now it is true that others could well desperately need the items someone has come to own by exercising the right to acquisition and holding but since that exercise may not be interfered with and interference with it would place others in the position of violating the agent’s basic rights—that is, sovereignty—consent needs to be secured in order to obtain even such desperately needed items. A need cannot be weighed against a right, anymore than a wish or desire or urgent want can be weighed against a right.

There can be no weighing involved, not between rights, nor between rights and needs, etc., although a rights holder could very well weigh whether to hang on to what he or she owns, contribute it to the person in dire need, to some cause or project, or otherwise dispose of it in light of his or her weighing of the importance of these alternative possibilities. The weighing is not of different rights or different people’s rights but of the importance or value of the goals to which one may contribute what one has the right to freely acquire.

Here is what would happen if the weighing were about rights. Someone would have to do the weighing. By what right would such a person weigh other people’s rights? Would that person’s right to weigh also be open to being weighed? By whom? The whole process would amount to a conceptual and public policy mess.

In fact, the role—or conceptual point—of basic individual rights is to remove from public policy, based on constitutional laws that rest on rights, the element of arbitrariness by basing decisions on self-consistent, compossible or mutually harmonious principles—that is, on the rule of law—instead. The very conceptual point of rights within the sphere of social, political and legal policy is lost if they are subject to being weighed since they are supposed to be the rock bottom of public policy decision making. If I have a right to do X, this is the end of the story—none may act against me as I do X.

There is no such activity as “weighing rights”—the idea is what philosophers call a category mistake, akin to talk about weighing, say, time or concepts. Indeed, to even consider weighing rights is to suggest that the importance of human beings. vis-à-vis their place in the citizenry, may be weighed against each other within the realm of politics, something that had been abandoned once the idea of inherent status was jettisoned, finally, so no one could justly claim to be more important than someone else as far as the law of the land is concerned.

Trashing of Property Rights Again

Tibor R. Machan


The Oakland Worldwide apartments in California do not ban smoking around the pool frequented by renters. John Birke thinks that the smoke his child is inhaling there is hurting her. But instead of taking the trouble of moving to a place where no smoking is permitted by the pool, of which there are plenty, he has decided to sue the owner(s). At first a lower court tossed the lawsuit but then an appeals court gave it a go ahead. No word yet how it will fare but just to get a chance at a win is a travesty of justice in a free country. Nor did news reports disclose whether Melinda Burke moved to the apartment complex after the policy of permitting smoking around the pool was in place--a vital issue in determining if she has a valid complaint.

When you own something it is for you to decided what is done with it provided no one's rights are being violated. When you rent someone an apartment, if they know there is something done by fellow renters or you that they do not like--something that even could injure them--they have to put up with it or go elsewhere. They don't get to move into the place and then deny others the right to be free to smoke or whatever that's not an imposition. And it is no imposition when the lack of a smoking ban is fully disclosed.

Now the radical position, the right one, is not widely embraced and practiced, mainly because the government makes rules for private parties which these parties may not break even if these rules are onerous. So if my apartment house were to make it OK for renters to run around nude at the pool and everyone knew about this before renting there, anti-nudists would have no justification for throwing a hissy-fit about it all although the government would probably ban it. And the same with smoking or anything else one doesn't approve of. As they used to say, without flinching or irony, "It's a free country, go live elsewhere if you don't like it here."

The reactionary trend toward making government determine what rights we all have rather than human nature, which is how the Founders did it, is now rampant. Rent control, for example, is a perfect example of government violating the rights of the apartment owners who should have no one telling them what rents to charge. It's supposed to be a free country. And, yes, this extends even to racial discrimination--if it is my place, I get to be a racist about it however vicious racism is. (I am free, so far, to be a racist when I pick my friends and lovers, which again is arguably irrational.)

In a genuine free country a great many ways of life are possible, many of them objectionable, even morally odious for some but not others--one size does not fit all. But in the nanny state that America is becoming, the ruling opinion is imposed on everyone, be this opinion sound or unsound. The only exception so far is with what someone has a right to say or whom someone may worship. The First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution still gives legal protection to everyone's right to freedom of expression and religion but it's hard to say for how long. There are some trends suggesting that even these rights may come under assault. People who dispute man made global warming, for example, have been threatened with being barred from all government contracts even though the spirit and letter of the 14th Amendment clearly makes this unconstitutional.

When one finds oneself in the minority with one's life style, one's choices, tastes and preferences--even with what may well be one's better judgment--one makes one's way in life without coercing others to fall in line. A free country is also supposed to be a pluralist, multicultural country and the fact is that what some people would enjoy in life may annoy others to no end.

"Public" Abuse

Tibor R. Machan

Run, don't walk, for the exit whenever someone begins to carry on about the public interest, the public good, the public welfare and similar allusions to deed and policies that supposedly advance us all. There are very, very few such matters. It was one of the most insightful aspects of the American founding to have realized this fact--the sole public interest is the securing of our individual rights.

This makes very good sense. First, it is honest--no other candidate really helps everyone much but, instead, various special interests, special agendas. The public--you, I and everyone else in the country--cannot be benefited much together, only as members of special groups, as individuals, and so on. The sole respect in which we can all be benefited politically is to have our basic rights strictly respected and protected. That is because we are first and foremost individuals and then members of more or less sizable groups--clubs, corporations, universities, unions, professions, families, churches, and so forth. We are, of course, all human and by virtue of our humanity we possess certain unalienable rights. Forget that this is disputed vigorously by people who want to have the license of abridge, abrogate or violate our rights. That we have these rights is indisputable on any rational grounds. But after that we have only few things in common. Even our health is best served in highly varied ways--some will gain from this, others from that program of nutrition, exercise, diet, and so forth.

But if a politicians said openly that what he or she is after is to benefit just this person or group, not the rest, there would be no plausible basis for being funded from the U. S. Treasury. All that would be recognized for what it is, a matter of private or special interest to be served apart from public policy, policy pertaining to what benefits everyone.

A great case in point is that fraudulently named outfit, public broadcasting, PBS, as well as national public radio, NPR. Neither of these is even close to being a project that serves the public, all of us. Yes, I do sometimes check out PBS and when in a particularly masochistic frame of mind, even listen to NPR. But I am always appalled at these outfits claim to have anything to do with the public. What public? PBS is watched by just a fraction of television viewers, and NPR is similarly ignored by the bulk of the American public. What about all those public beaches and public forests and public parks? All fraudulently labeled! Not a one is a bona fide public service. But, of course, it serve those who are providing it to pretend that they are since that appears to justify raiding the public treasure in small and large ways.

Sadly, I am pretty much shouting about this against the wind, which blows, sadly, along the fraudulent ideas of collectivism, something that is a plain disguise of some people's interests at the expense of all. Hardly any editorials point out that most of the political talk about "we" and "us" is completely deceptive since the policies promoted for us, from which we supposedly benefit really serve just some of us. And so the rest of us are being hoodwinked by rhetoric that relentlessly and dishonestly invokes the idea of the public. Editorial writers and pundits and commentators of all sorts should point out, over and over again, that political talk about "us," making use of "we," is most of the time either very sloppy or out and out disingenuous, wrong.

Fortunately there is still the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution that does not permit the extension of the policies of the welfare state, the nanny state, to how we think and talk, although even this isn't quite true, what with all the political correctness at schools and government related endeavors. If there were anything like a regulatory agency keeping watch over how people talk, the first item on their agenda, assuming there were not yet captured by some special interest group, would be to censor nearly all uses of "public," "we," and "us" in our language.

Rights as Basic Principles

Tibor R. Machan

The point of having a written constitution to which the administration of a country's legal system is firmly committed is to provide a framework of viable, just social life to all members of society who renounce violations of its principles. The American framers believed, in large measure, that the principles laid out in the Declaration should be fully represented in the country's constitution. These principles are referred to collectively as individual human rights. The Founders declared that these need to be held as self-evident, not something provisional, incidentally, temporary or otherwise less than fundamental in a legal system. In the U. S. Constitution these principles are mostly laid out in the Bill of Rights. As the grandfather of those principles, the philosopher John Locke, understood them, these rights are not grants of the government but based on an understanding of human nature, of what is most fundamental, basic, about being a human being. People are highly varied, multifaceted, diverse. But they also share some attributes by virtue of which they are indeed human, not other kinds of, beings.

Today a great many intellectuals are dedicated, sadly, to the demolition of this American legacy. They are very critical of the one political philosophy that fully affirms the ideas of the American Declaration and the Bill of Rights. They want to re-institute the idea that our rights are made up by governments and merely granted by them. They believe that our basic human rights may be revoked by some people, those in government, just exactly as monarchs used to believe that their preferred ideas are the principles by which a country should be governed. As, for example, one such advocate, Paul Fairfield insists--in his book Public/Private (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005)--over the last century our rights have come to be recognized as "thoroughly social in nature." As Fairfield put it, "Whereas classical liberalism had often conceived of [our] rights as presocial natural endowments of the individual, a less metaphysical conception of rights in general as social constructions emerged" more recently, one that "appropriately subordinates [these rights] to popular conceptions of social welfare..."

First, of course, the more recent conception Fairfield mentions is actually the older conception whereby monarchs, for example, granted rights. These heads of state were said to represent the popular conception of social welfare. Later, in democracies, the majority was often deemed, by various anti-Lockean political thinkers--such as Rousseau and Marx--as the source of human rights. And it is clear that such an idea is very far from what Locke argued and the American Founders insisted upon, in large part because they wanted to make the basic laws of society independent of the will of government administrators. (This is what is referred to by "the rule of law.") In short, Fairfield's idea is a reactionary one, by no means progressive.

The idea of basic human individual rights is meant to solve the problem of people being governed by principles, not by their fellows who have no authority to dictate to others how they ought to act, what is to be legal and what isn't. And that holds for property rights, too. Consider the idea of eminent domain which was to apply only to government's taking of private property for a bona fide public purposes, not for any special or private project, and with full compensation. Watering down the strict application of the eminent domain provision may well be something many in society desire--ones who believe they could do better things with other people's property then the owners are doing--but in a society governed by the rule of law that is impermissible.

Second, Fairfield makes much of the fact that Lockean individual rights may be said, somewhat contentiously, to be metaphysically conceived, all they were meant to have is a firm, stable foundation in something that is itself understood to be firm and stable, namely, human nature. That is, indeed, why slavery and serfdom are deemed to be morally objectionable and forbidden in a just society, not because of popular will! If that were all, any time advocates of slavery became a majority slavery would have to be judged OK. But that is absurd--such principles are not to be subject to the whim of anyone, kings of majorities.

The attack on basic rights is wrongheaded. It expresses an impatience of some citizens with the fact that they are blocked from conscripting others and the private property of others to purposes for which they could not obtain consent from them. Anyone aware of the New Deal should know this, given how President Roosevelt want to remove principled obstacles to his political program by stacking the U. S. Supreme Court the members of which adhered to principles with which he was very impatient.

Disputing Wittgenstein on Objectivity

Tibor R. Machan

Ludwig Wittgenstein is reported to have said, by O. K. Bouwsma, that "No one can write objectively about himself and this is because there will always be some motive for doing so. And the motives will change as you write. And this becomes complicated, for the more one is intent on being 'objective' the more one will notice the varying motives that enter in." (Wittgenstein, Conversations 1949-51, Hackett, 1986)

I believe the following would support a refutation of Wittgenstein’s skeptical thesis. Wittgenstein conflates ‘objective’ with ‘neutral’ or ‘impartial.’

Objectivity is something different. It means being honest, sticking to facts and reasonable inferences and theories, and distinguishing, rationally rather then with prejudice or bias, what is more from what is less important. It does not mean, as Wittgenstein implies, lacking motives or not caring. (Wittgenstein seems here to follow the famous German philosopher, Immanuel Kant who held that if one has motives or inclinations for doing what one does, then one is failing to be rational, impartial. But that is an esoteric, idiosyncratic conception of rationality. One can have sound motives for actions, or unsound ones.)

So, then, are there pitfalls in writing a memoir or about oneself and one’s beliefs? Why shouldn't there be when there are pitfalls in every kind of human activity? But pitfalls do not render the project impossible.

Just as Wittgenstein himself seems to suggest in his posthumously published book, On Certainty, we need not doubt if there are no reasons for doubting and unless one has good grounds for suspecting oneself of bias or prejudice, there need be no deep concern about one’s capacity to be objective in a memoir or autobiography.

Just consider in this regard that a medical doctor must be thoroughly objective as he or she approaches the patient’s malady and devises an appropriate cure; such a doctor is not impartial, not indifferent, not disinterested at all. Indeed, to satisfy his or her interests what is most needed is strict objectivity; otherwise the doctor will not be of help. (Same, by the way, with engineers or farmers.)

Now a lot of folks believe that philosophical ideas are kind of abstract, out of this world and not really relevant but in this case, as indeed in many others, philosophy matters. The idea Wittgenstein and Kant have propounded has been very influential. It is partly responsible for an insidious public perception, namely, that when it comes to anything in which one has some interest, anything that concerns one even just a little, never mind deeply, one’s views will be subjective, strictly personal, not based on facts but on how one feels about things. This is where the popular notion comes from that people’s reports on historical facts or events in the news must all be “from their point of view.”

After this is accepted, the only issue that remains is what accounts for one’s point of view. Is it one’s parentage, nationality, race, gender, age, or some such aspect of oneself. That this is the kind of stuff that many believe makes people think the way they do is evident from how they quite often explain away what someone is thinking by saying things like, “Well, you know she is a woman,” or “He comes from Europe,” or “It is he cultural background, of course, why she says what she does.” So when it comes to very important issues, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, everyone is supposed to be biased, no one can be objective.

But notice immediately that this also undermines these accounts--whoever gives it as an explanation of someone else’s position on some topic will also lack objectivity if he or she has any interest in the matter! And then can it be relied upon, trusted?

I am actually something of a fan of Ludwig Wittgenstein but in this instance I believe he was quite wrong.

Inexcusable: Terrorism

Tibor R. Machan

In discussing the Arab-Israeli conflict one often comes across disturbing defenses of anti-Israeli policies by such organizations as Hamas and Hezbollah. One such line of defense I have encountered, for which even some of my colleagues in philosophy have shown sympathy, is that given the desperate situation of Arabs, say in the Gaza strip, one must accept their resort of terrorism, including, of course, the indiscriminate murder of people, many of them children and thus indisputably innocent of anything that might plausible justify killing them. And often this line of defense is put in terms of what Israel has done to Arab citizens in Gaza, placed them into desperate situations by cutting off the flow of supplies, starving them, etc.

Without going into the whether the claims against Israel are true or accurate, of who is ultimately responsible for the conditions in Gaza, it is crucial to realize that even if those claims were all true, they would fail to justify terrorism, the murder of innocent people for political purposes and the like. Say I am starving and say I believe that this has been caused by various adults around my neighborhood. Would my situation justify my recklessly lobbing bombs around the homes in this neighborhood, never mind who is being killed by what I am doing? Am I justified in my state of desperation to inflict violence on those who have had nothing to do with what I am experiencing? No, not at all. All one might say is that I have completely lost control over myself and am now simply flaying about madly, caring nothing about the consequences, about whether any remnant of justice attends to my conduct. And in that case I need to be pacified!

It is one thing to show some understanding of the dastardly conduct of certain people in dire straits. It is something else entirely to claim that this conduct is just or justified. And over the last decades it is difficult to deny that on the whole, apart from the early terrorist actions of certain Israelis, the overwhelming majority of indiscriminate, often suicide, killings have been done by anti-Israeli partisans.

For some reason that escapes me, quite a few people who would ordinarily be appalled at deeds of cruelty toward the innocent seem to find what these anti-Israeli parties are doing acceptable. I cannot see that the fact that Israeli policies are imperfect, disputable, sometimes over the top, serve in the slightest to give these anti-Israeli policies unobjectionable or even OK on balance.

Again, I hasten to say that a full grasp of what is happening between Arabs and Israelis escapes me, albeit I seriously doubt that anyone has that grasp, given how it is tied up with a very long history, many religious convictions based on faith, and, most of all, collectivist or tribal thinking. Some of the arguments that are propounded by many who contribute to the debate, especially on the anti-Israeli side seem, also, to be linked to manufactured historical events and religious claims that are wholly unprovable.

At times simply abstaining from forming any conclusions about these matters is acceptable. But that is nearly impossible to do in a democracy where one is called upon to approve or disapprove policies of one’s government vis-à-vis foreign governments. Even if the entire situation in, for example, the Middle East is basically irrational and beyond hope of sorting out fully, one is simply left with a need to have some attitude so as to be able to assess with some measure of competence what one’s government is doing (even in circumstances that are tainted with confusion and a history of mistakes).

I am certainly only in the process of coming to grips with the issues, not by any stretch of the imagination at the point of having formed a fixed, stable position on them all. But just as Socrates, who confessed not to know very much at all, continued to search, along with all of his pupils, for what is true, perhaps some attentive if incomplete reflections on the Arab-Israeli situation can help advance not only one’s understanding but the eventual resolution of the troubles.

Keynes' Problem


Tibor R. Machan

From the frying pan into the fire, the saying goes, and it applies well to the way John Maynard Keynes suggested we deal with economic uncertainty and to the advice his followers are now foisting upon Barrack Obama.

An assumption of some prominent economic theorists involves that we can pretty much calculate how the future will turn out and, therefore, tell the difference between very risky and not so risky investments. This, however, does not hold true when arbitrary forces enter the market place. And the most important such force is government action. This is because governments act by way of mandates, or outright force, not voluntary agreements.

Sure, even with a system of voluntary agreements as the foundation of the economy nothing is completely certain--after all, who can tell what the weather will be, or if there will be an earthquake or something else that has serious economic consequences quite apart from human decisions which are, themselves, often unreasonable and, thus, unpredictable. But only government can try to go against widespread human choices that mainly determine the economy since only government can impose its decisions by force, without the consent of the governed. And when it does so, the reasonable, albeit not absolute, certainty of how the future is going to turn out is completely undermined.

In the face of economic upheavals it is widely believed that most people will reduce their spending, including their risk-taking. While this is not a bad assumption, it doesn't tell the full story. After all, those who specialize in wealth management will be aware of the assumption and will often go counter to it so as to gain a bit from the widespread caution. Second guessing human behavior is one skill in which wealth managers specialize. And they will often figure out just what the government is likely to do, too. But then governments will impose their might to counter the effect of the managers' manauverings. And so it goes.

Keynes wanted to put a stop to all the guesswork that goes into economic thinking by advising that government spend when ordinary folks would act cautiously and save. Since Keynes believed that economic prosperity is mainly a function of spending money, of an aggressive consumerism, he found it disturbing that "the possession of actual money lulls our disquietude," so people refuse to do the spending that would keep the economy healthy and instead put their money away for later use (which, by the way, still doesn't mean it will be idle).

One of Keynes's contemporary followers, Robert Skidelsky, wrote that "There was only one sure way to get an increase in spending in the face of an extreme private-sector reluctance to spend, and that was for the government to spend the money itself. Spend on pyramids, spend on hospitals, but spend it must." As Skidelsky noted, "This, in a nutshell, was Keynes's economics." And he added, "His purpose, as he say it, was not to destroy capitalism but to save it from itself."

Capitalism, of course, is not saved by Keynesian economics but contradicted by it. The reason is that capitalism requires full respect for the voluntary exchanges in a free market place. When government prevents this from happening, capitalism is sacrificed. And how might Keynes' proposal prevent the voluntary exchanges of the free market place? By taxing and borrowing--without proper collateral--and similar policies that counter what people would do of their own free choices. The people want to save, so expropriate their money and use it to fund projects the people don't choose to fund. Build pyramids no one wants, spend on hospitals even if most people are healthy, spend like mad even if most people are pleased enough with what they have and therefore choose not to spend so much for the time being.

So the Keynesan remedy to occasional dips in economic activity is to put a gun to people's heads and force them to spend. And it sounds plausible, when you remove from it the criminal factor and one other thing: government stupidity. Even if it were not a blatant violation of peoples' basic rights to expropriate their money, the assumption that governments will know how to spend it so as to boost economic activity is completely off. This is the fallacy of thinking of government as some kind of God, some Supreme Being who knows better than ordinary mortals what to do, how to spend resources, when to save and when not to do so. This monumental--what F. A. Hayek, Keynes's friend and critic called "the fatal"--conceit is the age old idea that the state is supreme. And this is the theory that is now being championed by Barack Obama & Co.

Israel, Hamas, and I

Tibor R. Machan

When one is bombarded with information about events the history of which is ancient and so complex that hardly anyone commenting makes sense of them, it is very tough to judge. That’s how it is with me and the current upheaval between Israel and Hamas.

The news reports at the beginning said Israel took military action after hundreds of missiles were being launched at it from Gaza. So to rid the Gaza strip of the missile launchers, Israel began to target various areas from which the missiles were being launched, presumably centers where Hamas had most of its personnel and equipment located. Further reports, especially on CNN International, observed that Israel’s response to the initiation of aggression by Hamas was disproportionate to what Hamas did to Israel. Still, as with most fights, this one had to start with someone throwing the first punch, as it were, and that seems to have been Hamas this last time. (Last time Hamas supposedly kidnapped some Israeli soldiers, another situation that was bizarre from the start.)

The Israelis claim that all they want is for the missile launching to stop and Hamas spokesmen on CNN say they will only stop of Israel stops its aggression! But this is confused since Hamas clearly started the launching of missiles out of the Gaza strip and isn’t even disputing this. So how could Israel be the aggressor? To aggress is to begin a fight, not to respond to one being initiated.

As I was watching report after report on CNN, while attending a conference—and getting no sleep--in Mexico, I noticed that the reporters of this news network kept repeating the claim, made by Hamas leaders and others who support Hamas and oppose Israel, that Israel is targeting innocent civilians. Yet it is nearly impossible to tell who is a civilian in the Gaza conflict, judging by the footage showing various groups of young people and adults shooting whatever weapons they have at hand and throwing rocks in the direction of the border between Israel and the strip.

Unfortunately the reports fail to include any discussion of how one is to tell the difference between Hamas civilians and Hamas militia. I have never seen any footage showing Hamas soldiers, if they exist; Israel, however, does distinguish between its civilians and its army by way of their garb.

After about five days of the hostilities CNN’s reporters had some Gaza government officials on the air and posed some pointed questions about who is the victim and who the aggressor. It was immediately clear that the official wanted at all cost to dodge the issue of who had started the current hostilities. When the CNN reporter asked about Israel officials’ claim about the missiles that had been launched at Israel and to which Israel was supposedly responding, the spokesman was so obviously evasive that I couldn’t believe it. Who sent this person to speak for Hamas? He replied to the CNN reporter by saying “I have always been known as an opponent of violence.” So what? Why is that an answer to “Israelis say they are responding to your aggression, so what is your answer to them?”

When one is bombarded with selective, nearly haphazard information about events around the globe, events that are one’s only source of understanding who is doing what to whom and how is it all justified, there is not much one can do but listen very carefully and determine who is making logical mistakes--who is equivocating, who is being evasive and vague, who is being clear and answers relevant questions directly, without obfuscation.

By that criterion I have to say that my provisional assessment of what is reported from the Middle East leaves me with the impression that Israel is less responsible for the recent mess than Hamas. That’s as well as I can do with the immediate information at hand. Maybe more detail, more history will lead me to alter what I think about the matter but for now I am pretty sure that Hamas is the bad guy here, while Israel, as so often in history, is the victim.

As my mother, who lives in Europe and went through the mid-century disasters there, said to me a while ago, “Why don’t they leave those people live in peace?” Frankly, I am mystified myself. And it is also puzzling why so many Western academics seem to get on board with the anti-Israel stance. No, I don’t call it anti-Semitism because I don’t know the motivation behind their position. I do know that they nearly always favor Israel’s enemies and consider America’s official pro-Israel stance something wrongheaded, based not on considerations of justice but on the so called influence of the Jewish Lobby.

I don’t care about any lobby. I am only concerned that when fights break out, those who start them be identified, and that their reasons and motives be objectively evaluated. That is the only way I personally can make some bit of sense of these kinds of situations of which I receive such spotty information unless I become a specialist and for that I would need to return to school and get a graduate degree in Middle Eastern studies.

A revolutionary Struggle

Tibor R. Machan

Be it welcome or not, there are a revolutionary struggle afoot in the world. It started when certain thinkers began to dispute the claims made by defenders of various rulers--monarchs, dictators, tsars and the like--that some people have a divine or natural right to run the lives of other people. In modern philosophy it was John Locke who mounted the most sustained and influential challenge to this statist idea. His insights and arguments made a big impression on the likes of America's founders--the Declaration of Independence is filled with points most fully developed to that date by Locke.


Just think--for centuries on end it was the common notion that certain folks are superior to others, not because of their achievements or skills but by blood or even just their names. Just as we accept that parents have authority over children--at least parents who carry out their role properly--in much of human history it was widely advocated and believed that government or the state had full or at least a great deal of authority to manage the lives of people within the realm they supposedly cared for. Nearly everything that happened in society had to be a project of the state--commerce, science, religion, the arts, education and so forth.

There are a great many people, even in countries like the USA, who still embrace and even vigorously defend this position. For them the government owns the country, practically, and distributes and redistributes some of the wealth to citizens for limited private use. Fierce taxation is defended by prominent legal scholars at America's most prestigious educational institutions, on the grounds that government actually owns the wealth and taxes are merely a way of recapturing it from the people who produce but do not own it. Whenever something goes amiss in society, such people and those who give elaborate intellectual support to them insist on turning to government for help, accepting it as the ruler of the realm. These people always ask for government regulation, which assumes that governments are, as kings had been thought to be, superior in wisdom and virtue to the citizens. The very idea of a citizen is revolutionary--elsewhere "subject" is used more regularly to identify the people who live within the realm that's being governed by a select few of them.

This whole notion that governments--people who worked at centers of power--are superior to us all is what the American Revolution was challenging--it had begun to be challenged before but America's input was immense and made the biggest difference. It was not, however, to last very long and the revolution is in retreat now, not so much intellectually but as a choice of the bulk of the citizenry. After all, the thrust of the revolution is that citizens need to govern themselves, need to take on the responsibility that others pretended to possess over them. That's a scary idea to millions!

Both ideas, statism and individualism, are still very much topics of discussion and argument but judging by which of them has more support at famous academic institutions such as Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton, and other prominent universities, statism is reasserting itself.

Of course there is also the counter movement which shows itself in world wide commerce and more or less liberal democratic developments, which are clearly signs of advances in human freedom. The revolutionary vision of the American Founders is, in fact, more eagerly embraced abroad these days than in the USA, with some exceptions, such as gay and women's rights, the expansion of first amendment ideas, etc. (As someone who does a lot of lecturing around the world I can testify from my own experiences that a great many people in, say, former Soviet colonies are enthusiastic about human liberty and not so much about the power of the state.)

Revolutions have some pivotal periods but they move slower than their supporters would want. This is also true with the American revolution and its central ideas. Nonetheless, the revolution is under way. How it will fare is quite indeterminate.

Without Free Will

Tibor R. Machan

Lots of important people, in the sciences and in philosophy, are saying that free will is a myth, a delusion. Some go so far as to embark on revamping the legal system and our ideas of ethics or morality so concepts of guilt, innocence, responsibility and so forth are dropped. No one is guilty of anything, they hold, since no one could have done anything other than what he or she did. This is just one notion that follows from the absence of free will in human life. What are some others?

Regret is out; so is pride. Apologies are pointless since no one could have done better than she or he did. Certainly no one can be blamed for anything. Or praised. Just as it makes no sense to blame the weather for being unpleasant or even horrible, or praise it for being great, so none of the awful stuff that people do can be blamed on them and none can receive praise either, since it all just happens as it must. That means, also, that editorials that congratulate some while those that chide others are all nonsense, gobbledygook, if there's no free will. Forget about admiration, too, for no deed is a function of individual good judgment and effort. It's like nice flowers, which simply grow as they, too, must. Artists must do their art, murderers must do their murders, no alternative to any of it is possible, just as the way a river runs is how it must run.

Most difficult to swallow, though, is that what I am saying or writing here or anyone else has said or written or is saying or writing or will say or write is no more true or false than is the noise made by ocean waves since the idea of truth--the independent, objective identification of reality by an unprejudiced mind--is also dead without free will. You affirm free will? Well, you just had to do it, just as if you were to deny it, that to just had to happen. The issue of which is right cannot arise, either, since when it is claimed that one is while the other isn't, that too just has to happen as it does.

Juries, too, simply have to come up with the verdict they do--they have no freedom to consider evidence, or to evade it (when supposedly perpetrating malpractice). Scientists, too, just must believe as they do, as do their detractors--Creationists cannot help but believe as they do, as do the Darwinians. Everyone just has the beliefs he or she must have, as the unstoppable chain of causal connections has made it necessary. Que Sera, Sera!

But this, of course, means that believing in or disbelieving in free will or determinism amounts to just something that happens to people. Arguing is pointless--it is just helpless prattle, no more productive of truth (or falsehood) that the yapping of a parrot or the noise of a tape recorder. It's no more related to truth or falsehood than are thunder and the roar from a lion.

Of course, all of this could be as I say but none could know it since knowledge itself requires freedom of judgment, of a capacity to research and think about issues without prejudice, without being driven to reach some given conclusion!

As far as I can figure, being without free will makes no sense since giving up everything one must to be without free will is nonsense. But that may not be a decisive enough argument for free will. What would be? Among other things that would have to be dealt with is how come so many serious folks can so easily come to believe that tossing free will can make sense, despite all of what follows from it. What might be amiss with their framework, with how they go about considering this matter? These folks are bright--in fact, one of them has proposed that there should be a name for them, at least the ones who also deny God, and it should be "Brights"! (A label that's a bit vain, if you ask me, but not necessarily wrong.)

To help get to the bottom of this topic, much besides listing what all we would have to do without free will is necessary. Still, considering what it would be like without free will should be a good beginning for seriously considering the matter.

Year End Pet Peeves

Tibor R. Machan

Mostly I write on topics I suspect concern a wide enough audience. Columnists don’t just write on anything that pops into their minds but need to do a bit of service to reader-clients. But, if one has a regular venue for one’s columns, it maybe fine, now and then, to indulge oneself with a topic or two that’s more personal. Even these will, of course, aim to please, if only by inviting reader-clients to know a bit of the writer.

In that spirit I am going to take the risky step of laying out some of my pet peeves. These are not the most serious complaints I have about culture, politics, religion, and other human institutions. Instead, they are matters that tend to irritate me personally even as they may pose nothing much objectionable to others and might not even need to, either. Individualists like me will fully accept that some stuff is strictly personal, amounts to likes or dislikes and implies nothing about what others ought to feel, do, or pursue.

Take my favorite color, for an example. I am nuts about red-orange, the color of the California poppy and the old Mustang and the setting sun over the Pacific. This is, yes, the opposite of a pet peeve, more of a pet love. It is, however, exactly personal and idiosyncratic.

What about a genuine pet peeve, then? Well, heavy bangs would serve as a good case in point. Cannot stand them even if the face is gorgeous in all other respects. Somehow these bangs even suggest something more generally puzzling--why would someone wish to hide a forehead? Is there some message afoot in that, like, “I don’t like my brain?” No, need not be, but it’s somewhat intimated, at least for me.

Bad dancers get to me, those who go out there and gyrate without a bit of rhythm. Sure, they could be having fun, though I cannot see how, given how bad they are at what they are doing. I just cannot abide by it, maybe because I am such a great fan of the likes of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelley. And while I am at it, I should mention singing off key. Totally puts me off, especially in some popular singers--for example, the late Dinah Shore!

There is also that genre of painting, the very poorly executed abstract work! I didn’t used to take to any abstract paintings but then changed and began to like some of them as a form of design--shapes and colors and intensity, all well coordinated. But when it is without the slightest sense of balance it really sucks, as far as I am concerned. I even fancy that I can spot one of these awful efforts at a distance. But I am not confident enough to say I know they amount to bad works of art. Maybe some individuals are really sent by just such stuff!

Pointless Jargon, the sort that reeks of having been manufactured despite there being no need for it at all! I am nearly paranoid about this--some folks write, it seems, to prevent their being understood. Again, I could be wrong but I am awfully suspicious. (I guess one reason is that escaping into jargon is a temptation of writers when their ideas aren’t clear enough to them but admitting this isn’t cool.) At times it appears evident that some of the most erudite folks, highly praised scientists from prestigious institutions, will succumb to this temptation, at least in regions of their discipline they are still confused about.

Cops who swagger really put me off, and this includes nearly all those out there enforcing the rules of the road. Frankly I don’t even regard these people as police officers or officers of the law because rules of the road, however necessary, are just that, rules of the road, just a step or several above rules of attire at some private school. Yes, yes, the rules sort of aim at orderliness and even safety but more often they appear to aim solely at revenue generation. So one is stopped for making an “illegal” U-turn by a person wearing really scary outfits and prominently carrying a menacing weapon! Tends to demean the very idea of law, which is a general system of principles that is supposed to serve to secure civilized conduct, protect the rights of individuals, not bother about the specific details of various forms of life. But I suppose this pet peeve stems in part from my near-anarchism, my fierce resentment of all those who lord it over other people who are carrying on in mostly peaceful ways.

I won't go into the types of driving that I despise. It would fill a book. But here is at least a small sample of what I just happen to like and dislike. It may say a bit about me, for better or for worse.

Left Liberals and Right Conservatives

Tibor R. Machan

It is not always taken note of that conservatism refers to a procedure for dealing with life, ethics, politics, or public policy, not with a position on these. What the conservative urges is that as one considers matters related to any of the above, one ought to pay heed, first and foremost, to what has been found acceptable, useful, sensible in the past, by the dominant and persistent traditions in human history. It is these that ought to be conserved. There is, for conservatives, no other road to reliable truth. Just as the pragmatist rejects the possibility of firm, lasting principles in any area of inquiry, so the conservative rejects the possibility of gaining understanding apart from following dominant traditions.

As such, conservatives oppose something that’s central to the American political system, namely, individualism. Just consider what Edmund Burke, the father of modern conservatism, said: “...Men have no right to risk the very existence of their nation and their civilization upon experiments in morals and politics; for each man's private capital of intelligence is petty; it is only when a man draws upon the bank and capital of the ages, the wisdom of our ancestors, that he can act wisely,” adding that “We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason, because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank of nations and of ages.”

And it is in this that conservatives share something essential with the Left, with socialists, communists, communitarians, and many modern liberals as well. All these regard individualism fatally flawed because it entrusts human individuals with the capacity to know the world on their own (a rare case but still not unfamiliar when we consider innovators, discoverers, scientists who are often way ahead of their colleagues, etc.). For socialists human beings are innately socially bound. Karl Marx put it best when he coined the term “species being,” meaning that everyone’s basic identity is intimately tied to the whole of humanity (or in less grandiose versions, society, the tribe, the race, the ethnic group, or the nation).

This is why neither those on the Right nor those on the Left favor individual rights, those social-legal provisions that make room for the independence, sovereignty of the human individual. For these Leftists everyone belongs to society and the right to individual freedom, as per Locke and the American Founders, does violence to this idea, undermines it. At nearly every turn of the debate between defenders of the American political system, with the tenets of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, in the end this issue becomes central, pivotal both vis-à-vis Right and Left.

American individualism, following Locke and advanced mainly by Objectivists and Libertarians, holds that although human beings flourish best among their fellows, this must be under conditions where everyone’s individuality is fully respected and protected. In the last analysis a citizen must have the option to withdraw from society, say when its policies have turned against individuals, just as the Declaration makes clear. This “exit option” testifies to the prominence of individualism in this system of social-political thought. This isn’t about living like a hermit or not being closely related to others--those charges are disingenuous or misconceived. Individualism is about an adult human being having the ultimate authority over his or her life, exactly what the great and small tyrannies of human history have denied.

If you want to know why the central American viewpoint has it so hard with not just the rest of the world but its very own crop of intellectuals, it is because both Right and Left are essentially against its basic tenet, individualism.

Why Gray Isn’t

Tibor R. Machan

Not unlike others who have become students of philosophy, I have had an abiding interest in ethics or morality, especially on what if anything justifies a moral conviction one may have or indeed the moral principles that are taken to be true by millions. As I grew up to get more and more involved in this issue, I became well aware that there are not only famous philosophers but millions of lay persons who basically scoff at the idea that right and wrong can be distinguished at all. Indeed, it is often deemed to be hallmark of sophistication, erudition and even wisdom to declare that thinking in moral black versus white is a form of infantilism.

When the superb actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who plays Father Flynn in the movie Doubt, was recently quoted about this, I had to smile. What he said was is that Doubt “isn’t about whether the priest ‘did it’.” For him “What’s so essential about this movie is our desire to be certain about something and say, This is what I believe is right, wrong, black, white.” But, he is quoted as saying, we do not want to be “living in what’s really true, which is the whole mess that the world is.”

Interesting. Suggests to me that Hoffman like so many people who think themselves to be profound is urging that we embrace the ambiguity of the world, especially of morality. That would, as he seems to see it, a good--white--thing to do! Thinking in black and white, let alone acting accordingly, would appear to strike him and many others who consider themselves aware of the complexities of life as simplistic, something to be avoided! That would be another good thing.

Well, that’s all well and good because, of course, many of us don’t give the topic of right versus wrong a very close inspection, not unless we are very directly involved. Looking on as other people grapple with ethical or moral issues we give it all a cursory glance and walk away thinking that surely what is right, what is wrong isn’t anything clear cut or certain. No, it is full of doubt, maybe even inherently doubtful so that no right and wrong actually exist at all.

Yet, most of those who hold such sophisticated views on ethics or morality will balk at extending it to every ethical or moral issue. What about rape? How about racism? What of bigotry? And there is Guantanamo Bay and torture, and Mr. Bush’s policies and suddenly these very sophisticated folks show themselves to be thoroughly committed to the black versus white outlook on ethics or morality.

This is not all that dissimilar from how many erudite people look at the determinism versus free will topic. Being modern and respectful toward a certain idea of science, they tend, in the main, to dismiss free will as an illusion. This is what the editor of Science News, Tom Siegfried, states quite categorically, in his essay, “The Decider” [December 6, 2008, p. 28]: “Free will...is...an illusion that endures only because biochemical complexity conceals the mechanism of decision making.”

Never mind for now whether Siegfried is right or wrong. What is noteworthy is how difficult it is to consistently embrace his position. In editorial after editorial in the magazine he edits he and guest commentators chide, implore, criticize, urge, and do all the kinds of things one can really only do sensibly if there is free will. How can one be critical of what President Bush does about, say, torture or scientific research--the latter a prominent target of criticism in the pages of Science News--if Mr. Bush has no free will? How could one even be critical of those who believe that free will exists if free will doesn’t exist and they are helpless in what they believe?

It is remarkable how many people with very high regard for their intelligence and understanding announce something they firmly believe but then, shortly thereafter, proceed to talk and act as if what they so firmly believe were quite false, after all. It seems as if they didn’t really bother to think through what they say with such firm conviction.

So for such people, then, all morality or ethics is about grays, not blacks and whites, except for what bothers them about how people talk and act. All human conduct is driven by impersonal force, absent any freedom of the will, except that those who disagree with this and other important ideas ought to straighten out their thinking, just as if they were quite free to do so.

Not all of us can be full time disciplined, professional thinkers but it would be a welcome thing if those who aspire to it did a better job at the task.

My Fine Wealth Redistribution

Tibor R. Machan

So Barack Obama got elected president of the United States of America, allegedly the freest country in the world and in human history, partly on the promise that he will redistribute a goodly portion of our wealth, yours and mine and everyone else’s. But why on earth does that make him a deserving individual? Why, in other words, is that a good thing? First, why is it a good thing that this wealth is to be redistributed? And then why is he and his team of politicians and bureaucrats the ones who should do this redistribution?

I was writing out some checks this morning, some to pay bills to compensate various people for the work they have been doing for me, and some as contributions to various causes--like Robert Paul Wolff’s fund to help black South African graduate students, and like the Institute for Justice, etc., and so forth. In short, I was doing some wealth redistribution, all on my own without any need for help from the likes of Obama & Co. Every month I do this, some of it via the Internet, not even needing to write checks, merely clicking some icon and sending off the electronic payment with the utmost efficiency, the money to be removed from my checking account and provided to those I have selected to receive it.

But I am not deemed smart or wise enough to carry off this task of wealth redistribution for nearly 50% of my wealth, not by a long shot. The local politicians hit me up for some $2K for my property taxes which they then will distribute according to their standards of what is important to finance with it; then of course every payday I have substantial sums extorted from me by various governments, through my employer (who is forced to be complicit in this extortion), and later, this coming April 15th or thereabouts, some more of my wealth will be expropriated from me all because I am not deemed smart and good enough to know how much of my own wealth should be distributed, what I should purchase with it and to whom I should contribute some of it as a gift.

If you consider it this way, the whole idea of wealth redistribution is a colossal insult to--and assault against--all of us citizens of the United States of America. Why should Mr. Obama and his cohorts be the ones to redistribute a substantial portion of my and your and everyone else’s wealth? Why not, say, the local bank robber or pick pocket or embezzler? What actually is the difference between Obama & Co. and all those unsavory characters such that if the latter attempt to do this wealth redistribution, they get prosecuted and convicted of criminal conduct but when the latter proceed to do it they are paid a salary for doing so?

Oh, you may say, it is democracy that makes the difference. A majority of voting Americans have elected Obama &Co., so they are now authorized to confiscate a goodly part of my and your and everyone else’s wealth and proceed to redistribute it as they in their ways choose to do. But why is this OK? How is it that these voting Americans may authorize these folks to engage in these dastardly deeds that would send other people to prison if they were caught doing them?

Surely these voting Americans may not authorize Obama & Co., to engage in murder or assault or even racial and sexual discrimination, not to mention banning the religious practices and free expression of Americans. So if they aren’t authorized to do those things--presumably because doing such things is vicious, criminal conduct--why do they get to extort funds from us and spend them as they see fit? What is the difference? Need? No, what people need they have to secure peacefully, from ones with whom they do trade or from the charity of their fellows, not by means of the threat of force as government obtains the portion of wealth it expropriates from us so as to engage in wealth redistribution.

It seems to me certain beyond any reasonable doubt that Obama & Co. are no better qualified to redistribute a substantial portion of my and your and everyone else’s wealth than we ourselves are. And, furthermore, even if they by some magic did possess greater virtue and wisdom in the wealth-redistribution department, that still does not authorize them to do it. As Abraham Lincoln so poignantly noted, “no man is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent.” And the redistribution of wealth politicians such as Barack Obama & Co., are embarking upon certainly isn’t done with the consent of those who own that wealth and from whom it will be confiscated.

So neither is there good reason to think these people are more qualified to do the wealth redistribution than we all are, nor, certainly, do they have any moral authority to confiscate the funds they are set to redistribute!

Against USA, Inc.

Tibor R. Machan

Just as in much of human political history the grossest error was to see society as the household of some leader--pharaoh, monarch, tsar, or dictator--in our era the mistake is to see society as a company or corporation that needs a CEO. Although in much of the West the political idea of monarchy, a country lead by one individual with various measures of powers--absolute to limited--has been traded in for democracy--one lead by and for all of the people--this has not proven to be a sufficient improvement.

The very idea of society as a purposeful organization, like a corporation, is the big mistake of contemporary politics. It shows up well during the current transition from the Bush to the Obama administration, what with the parade of appointments of officers who are supposed to run various aspects of USA, Inc. The spectacle reminds one of that famous Monty Python episode, “The Ministry of Silly Walks.” Intentionally or not, the renown British comedy troupe showed how absurd it is to view government as the management team of the great variety of elements of a society.

The basic lesson implicit in the sketch and in much of human political history is that society is not an organization set up to pursue some goal such as scientific progress, prosperity, artistic development, physical fitness, worship of God, etc. Societies are, instead, settings for the members to pursue their great variety of purposes in ways that are mutually harmonious, that make it possible for everyone to pursue peaceful goals that are, however, extremely different from one another.

This is one reason some of us cringe whenever there is talk of how a country requires a leader! It does not, since a country isn’t headed anywhere and no expertise of getting it there, the role of a leader, is relevant to its government. Instead, a country, properly understood, is a realm within which innumerably varied goals may be pursued by millions of different people in different peaceful arrangements--as individuals, families, clubs, corporations, teams, etc., etc. Once it is understood that adult human beings have a right to their lives, to their liberty, and to their acquisition of property (valued stuff), it becomes more and more evident that thinking of society as some purposeful organization is a gross mistake.

Just consider all these secretaries of this and secretaries of that, and their innumerable deputies and such, that president-elect Obama is appointing--what are they all for? To help him take the country down some road to a destination that he imagines was chosen by the people who voted him into office. With a private firm, profit or non-profit, this is an acceptable way to understand the role of the president or CEO and his or her management team. Those who set up such a firm have come together aiming for some goal--helping the poor or sick or making cars for profit and similar familiar pursuits. So the president or CEO has a well enough defined job to carry out.

But a society isn’t anything like that. The people didn’t come together to aim for any common goal. (This is what is so misconceived about the idea of the public interest or the common good other than in some minimal way, comparable to how referees at a game may be said to pursue the common good of upholding the rules but without by any means being players.) The political mission in a society is precisely to provide a framework within which all the disparate factions--those individuals, clubs, companies, etc. mentioned earlier--are free to work for what they want to accomplish.

Sadly, most of those doing this will regard their chosen goal to be politically very important, maybe even superior to all the others being pursued. But this is a mistake. Here is where equality is an important aspect of a truly free society--everyone’s peaceful objective is equally politically worthy of pursuit and the job of government is to secure the equal right of all to do what they want.

But if so, then politics doesn’t really call for all these secretaries of this and secretaries of that, as it may be proper in a business corporation or some other purposeful organization. It calls for a competent team of peacekeepers, nothing else. And the only element of democracy in such an organization is that the keeping of the peace, the securing of rights, is for all members of the community.

Government, even if democratic--meaning one that serves everyone in society--is to be limited in its scope. That scope is to secure our rights, just as the American Founders envisioned it.

Barack Obama and Professional Ethics

Tibor R. Machan

President elect Obama told us, during his appointment of several financial regulators, that even while the best regulators are being selected, “everybody from CEOs to shareholders to investors are going have to be asking themselves not only is this profitable, not only whether this will boost my bonus but is it right.” This remark is quite revealing. It pits the professional responsibility of CEOs, for example, against their responsibility to consider what is right.

When a professional such as a teacher or doctor or, yes, a financial manager sets out to do his or her job, it’s assumed that that job is a morally justified undertaking. So doctors who set out to cure patients, teachers who try to educate their students, and financial managers who attempt to make money for their clients are supposedly doing what is right. It isn’t that they do what their profession requires and in addition they must also do what is right. There is no such “in addition” except in so far as they have other responsibilities, as parents, friends, citizens, and so forth. But in their capacity as the professionals they are, what is right amounts to performing well at work.

Imagine if it were not like that. Imagine that what is the right thing to do is something other than fulfilling their professional obligations. What would that additional right thing be? Would it be something that conflicts with their professional responsibilities? Should a doctor care for his or her patients and then do what is right? What would that be? Should a CEO work hard to make the firm he or she manages succeed in the market place and then take time out to do what is right? What would such extra “doing what is right” amount to?

Actually, professional ethics guides the CEO--and the doctor and teacher and plumber and farmer--to act properly and that amounts to nothing else than fulfilling the proper tasks of their profession. That is what doing the right thing means for professionals. Sadly, when it comes to CEOs and other professionals in the financial industry--and indeed in any other profit making endeavor--many people believe that there is a conflict between doing what the profession requires and doing what is right. For example, many attorneys hold that when they do their work on the job that’s one thing but when they do pro bono work, that’s doing what is right. But why would this be the case?

The problem is that many people see ethics or morality in terms of sacrifice, of unselfishness, and of course all professionals carry out their work as a matter of their self-interest, their self-expression even. No one embarks upon a career (unless perhaps if they are monks) for unselfish reasons. Parents, too, send their children to college so they can develop themselves and find a line of work that will be self-fulfilling.

In teaching or medicine this is fine enough since those professions appear to require service from the professionals. As if doctors or teachers did their work purely as a matter of serving others. The pay they receive, the living they make from that work, tends to be overlooked. Of course, the pay is rarely all that such professionals seek from doing their work--they tend, also, to gain other rewards (often called in-kind compensation), such as the joy of the work, the satisfaction that comes from what they accomplish, and so forth. Even those involved in what seem to be service professions--nurses, fire fighters, and so on--seek to find satisfaction from the work they do. It is often indirect satisfaction--they find the work they do worthwhile and that gives them satisfaction.

The point is that few professionals are doing their work from altruistic motives even when they benefit others with what they do.

In the financial industries, in markets, it is mostly quite obvious that professionals are after financial or economic success. And there is nothing wrong with that except that many moralists, folks who advance ideas about how people ought to act in their lives, do not see what such professionals do as moral or ethical. Quite the contrary. So they are viewed as professionals who must not only heed their professional responsibilities but also what is right, something mysteriously different and even more important.

What people who go corrupt in various professions do is to violate either ordinary human morality or their professional ethics. But if they do not do violence to either, then they are doing what is right. Their professional tasks are what is the right thing for them to do. In other words, there is no conflict between seeking success in the market place and doing what is right, not unless one is violating the ethics of one’s profession.

Missing Xmas Commercialism

Tibor R. Machan

Some lessons are learned at great expense and just how healthy Xmas commercialism is seems to be one of them.

For decades editorialists, pundits, and other commentators have implored us all to stop all this commercialism during Christmas holidays. The holidays have become too commercial! People just focus on purchasing goodies instead of on the spirituality of Christmas. And so on and so forth the relentless blather went on and on, year after year, even in the midst of the reports on how good or bad have been holiday retails sales. This hypocrisy could be hidden from the consciousness of a great many people for a good while but now it is no longer possible to disguise it.

Fact is, what is most missing from Christmas this year is, yes, the healthy commercialism that has been part of it over the last several decades. The absence of such healthy commercialism is having some disastrous impact on the lives of millions of people across not just America but the world. Because so many of us react to the current economic fiasco by imposing restraint on our commercial activities, millions of people are going to have to experience severe economic contraction in their lives. Minimum of gifts, modest dinners, limited travel, brief vacations and similar tightening of belts characterizes this year’s commercialism and everyone is quite understandably upset about it all. Maybe a few fanatics are pleased and even propound the doctrine of austerity. Some even urge the embrace at these times of the impending poverty for all too many people around the world. (It needs to be noted that even at the best of times there are folks who advocate self-denial, asceticism, a vow of poverty.)

But most sane people recognize at last that it is not a good thing for commerce to be leaving our midst. They realize that all that talk of the evils of commercialism tends to be just a lot of words and very few human beings really commit to abandoning the malls--or the Internet--for good! The decline of commerce is indeed lamented nationwide for its impact on millions whose livelihood came from a robust economy.

Not that there are no cautionary lessons from the current mess. Too many people went way over their actual, real budgetary limits and yielded to fantasies of riches that in time came a cropper. For some it was outright greed, the unwillingness to contain oneself and the reckless indulgence in acquiring that which one had no business to attempt to acquire. Like spoiled children whose parents refuse to say “no” when asked for more and more goodies even while the household budget is clearly being strained, millions of adults pursued their imagined limits instead of remaining within the limits of reason. (I have some personal history of my own that testifies to this fact.)

It is even arguable that the tendency of many people to go overboard with buying bigger and better and more fancy--in homes, cars, vacations, gadgets, furniture, clothing, and the rest--is related to the false ideal of austerity. Just as sexual promiscuity and debauchery are very probably related to teachings of unnatural sexual self-denial, so overindulgence in acquisition is likely related to a senseless profession of the virtue of poverty. Instead of a sensible middle way, of a prudent approach, too many religions and philosophies preach at us about how evil we are for having wants at all, for desiring to be well off, for wishing to enjoy a good measure of abundance. It is understandable that with such a state of mind many people would just cast caution to the wind and become reckless instead of prudent.

It is even possible that the current economic fiasco is largely due to the failure of the leadership in our culture--of writers, pundits, public philosophers, politicians and the rest--to counsel moderation instead of self-denial and sacrifice. When prospects seem promising it is not natural to accept this counsel and the temptation to overreach will not be resisted. Sensible caution, prudence instead of sacrifice, would, however, be something most people could live with, I submit.

During these times of involuntary self-denial maybe the lesson will be learned that healthy commercialism is no vice, nothing to chide. After all, part of Christmas includes the giving of gifts, not just the receiving of them. And both are very much dependent on commerce.

On Government Regulations Again

Tibor R. Machan

A recent New York Times carried an item that's of some general political philosophical interest bearing on the nature of a free society’s system of laws. In particular it relates to the discussion of whether public policy matters ought to be addressed pragmatically--that is, issue by issue, with no regard for general principles--or based on some system of ideas.

In "The Week in News" there was a report on something one Elizabeth Kolbert wrote on the New Yorker Web site concerning how Barack Obama's choice for new energy secretary, Steven Chu, once "established the country's first refrigerator-efficiency standards" back in California, in the face of industry opposition, and how the decision is now judged a roaring success. "The following decade, standards were imposed for refrigerators nationwide. Since then, the size of the average American refrigerator has increased by more than 10 percent, while the price, in inflation-adjusted dollars, has been cut in half. Meanwhile, energy has dropped by two-thirds." Ergo, it might be suggested, government imposition of standards (and, more generally, government regulation) is a jolly good thing!

Perhaps pragmatists would find this a decisive argument in favor of government regulations--or at least quite a few of such regulations. But I am not a pragmatist. I tend to approach the issue of whether government regulations are proper in a principled fashion, even if in some cases such regulations are arguably helpful. (Actually, once the law mandates refrigerator-efficiency standards, it is impossible to say how things would have turned out without this mandate! An there is that famous fallacy, post hoc, ergo propter hoc, that this line of argument commits!)

In any case, as far as I understand law and politics, whether government regulation is sound policy isn’t a matter of a few successes. It is more one of whether the general policy of the government regulating the economy is a good idea. There are several grounds to oppose it; mainly because it amounts to the insidious practice of prior restraint, namely, of limiting people’s liberty before they have done anything to deserve it. (This also is a telling objections to various precautionary public policies advocated by environmentalists--they limit liberty without having proven anyone’s culpability!)

In certain areas, of course, hardly anyone would be tempted to use such arguments. Take the case of torture! Surely some cases of torture yield desirable results--victims confess and in turn lives are saved. But, as observed by that famous ancient Greek sage, Aristotle, “one swallow does not a springtime make.” Even robberies could on rare occasions produce overall beneficial results--nay, even rape might--but they nonetheless ought to be prohibited.

Opposition to government regulation should not be based on some imagined absolutism, namely, that each instance of it will necessarily result in regrettable consequences. No opposition to this and any other coercive public policy ought to rest on grounds of its injustice, on its perpetration of prior restraint! In broader terms, government regulations treat people as if they were experimental tools that may be used as decided by government officials. Something seems (though hasn’t been proven) to be hazardous, so then those doing it may be forced to desist. This attitude, of enforced paternalism toward adults, is wrong even if once in a while acting on it will produce good results.

The debate is an old one, actually. Are there principles of human conduct in terms of which people should desist from, say, lying, cheating, misrepresentation, aggression, violence, and so forth? Or can the issue only be handled piecemeal--is this particular case of lying or cheating or stealing or using violence or, yes, rape good or bad, never mind any general principles?

Those who claim there are principles that ought to guide our actions even when ignoring them would appear convenient, practical, useful, etc., are often labeled ideologues, mindless dogmatists who want to act without thinking. But this is entirely unfair. The thinking went into the formulation of the principles--indeed, if we had to think through piece by piece every action we take, we would be paralyzed. Over centuries and centuries of human living, some principles have been identified as very worthy of being obeyed, including the principles that without a criminal conviction, no one ought to be treated as a convict, as subject to other people’s will.

Philosophy and Public Policy

Tibor R. Machan

When elections roll around, not to mention when dictators try to rationalize their rule, talk of the public interest becomes endless. Indeed, anytime that pundits chime in with their missives about politics, there is bound to be reference to the common good or public interest. As an example, check out Gail Collins’s Op Ed in The New York Times, Saturday December 13. It’s misleadingly title “The Dreaded Fairness Doctrine’’--it has nothing to do with broadcasting but with the auto bailout the defeat of which the previous day in the US Senate Ms. Collins laments. By her account, the reason the bill failed is that too many folks were obsessing about fairness, which she rightly suggests is a non-starter when it comes to public policy. But then she jumps from the frying pan right into the fire, writing that “The real human trick is to get past the quid pro quo [i. e., fairness] and try to focus on the common good.”

What's that? Given the immense diversity among human beings and any subdivision of them, such as people connected to the auto industry, whatever is good has virtually nothing common about it. The only common good, upon close inspection, is the protection of everyone's right to life, liberty and property. The American Founders had that right--we all benefit from the protection of our basic rights but beyond that what's good for us varies from person to person, or at least group to group, community to community, and so forth. That is the great and ultimately peacemaking insight of American individualism--eliminate the tribe or clan or ethnic group as the focus of concern and focus on the individual. About nearly everything other than our basic rights we differ so much from one another that talk of the common good or public interest has to be some trick to gain power, nothing substantial. And that is indeed what folks who pose as defenders or cheerleaders of the public or common good are after, the imposition of their idea of how everyone ought to live, what everyone ought to be devoted to.

But by pretending that they are concerned about the public good or interest, they get to posture as being above petty concerns of this or that group or individual. They are above all that trivia!

Fact is, however, that the individual’s well being is not trivial, quite the opposite. In human affairs it is the most important thing and virtually everything--apart from our common basic but very general rights--that pretends to trump it is a phony, an excuse for some individuals to lord it over other individuals, with the excuse that they are speaking for the public or common good.

This point needs to be stressed in public debates, over and over again. Those who keep invoking the public or common good are perpetrating a ruse! And they are aiding and abetting the power seekers even if they do it unintentionally. Das Folk, the Working Class, the People, humanity--there are many ways in which the mythical entity of the public is invoked by these deluded or sneaky people. And they all converge on the practical result that some will be put into positions of power over others with the excuse that we must all care about something greater than ourselves. But, once and for all, there is nothing on earth greater than ourselves, nada. We are it, each of us individually!

Sure there are many goals we can pursue that are very worthy but they are all our goals and the peaceable goals of some are no worse than the peaceable goals of others. That is the real meaning of a pluralistic society, by the way, not ethnic, racial, or national diversity and such.

Will you be duped into thinking that the ones who harangue us all about the public interest are really after something other than their own agenda? I hope not. Because therein lies the danger of demagoguery! And that’s not something that’s compatible with a free society.

However, none of this can be grasped without a bit of philosophy and some other adjacent disciplines where we learn whether individualism or collectivism is the sound social philosophy for human beings. Those who hope to do without such inquiry as they approach politics are doomed to fail and indeed wreak confusion.

Pragmatism Questioned

Tibor R. Machan

One of the standard features of ethics is that one ought to stick to principles or standards of right conduct even when it is difficult, when there is strong temptation not to. Being principled is generally thought to be a plus for a human being. It works toward reducing wrongdoing because such a person does what’s right regardless--or at least there are very, very circumstances when breaking those principles would be proper, justified. Such an individual is also said to have integrity.

Since the latter part of the 19th century, however, a powerful movement in philosophy, including ethics and politics, disputes all this. The name of this movement, often considered home grown in America, is pragmatism. Pragmatists dispute that basic principles or standards can be found in any area of human concern, be this the most basic one of metaphysics or the more practical one of ethics or politics. Every alleged basic principle, the pragmatist argues, can be successfully challenged and so it is not really a basic principle at all. At most it would be a heuristic policy or rule of thumb--be honest (when you can or it isn’t to troublesome); be courageous (unless its too dangerous); respect people’s rights (unless it costs you too much), etc.

Today this pragmatic attitude is widely associated with successful politicians such as Barack Obama and Tony Blair. Instead of being what is pejoratively called “an ideologue,” namely someone who upholds certain basic principles even against great pressure to cave in, president-elect Obama and many who admire and would emulate him claim to be pragmatists.

In the current political economic fiasco this comes out as not minding stepping on various economic principles or laws when it’s deemed something possibly workable not to do so. Prudence? Forget about it. Thrifty? Another idea up for sale! Private property rights? Never mind those, especially. The integrity of money? You old fuddy-duddy, don’t go there. Certainly the principles of the free market economy--which include that businesses quit that cannot keep solvent while answering to customers’ needs--are dispensable.

Now it isn’t always clear just how far pragmatists like Barack Obama will go to jettison morality and political justice but perhaps the governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich who apparently was willing to breach his oath of office right and left, didn’t realize that pragmatism has it own limits. Or he didn’t know what they are.

Most pragmatists will not go so far as to claim that the prohibition of, say, rape is provisional or situational and may be overlooked under certain circumstances, say when the rapist is terribly eager or important. Or murder. And, I am sure, most of those who admire Barack Obama’s pragmatism would not claim that we ought to have a pragmatic attitude toward torture.

But why not? Why are some principles exempted from the pragmatic rule that all principles are subject to violation in cases where upholding them is difficult or complicated?

The reason is that pragmatism is rarely fully accepted by those who profess it. Their own values, what they regard is truly worthy, may not be abandoned but those that others embrace, well they are OK to violate. So the principles of the free market economy are by no means something to fret a lot about when millions of voters ask for bailouts, never mind how economically and otherwise unwise and wrong this is. On the other hand, however, the right to have an abortion, that is inviolate, pragmatism or no pragmatism! And the prohibition of torturing suspected terrorists--no pragmatism about that!

Bottom line is that pragmatism is unworkable as any guide to human action or public policy. To do whatever works begs the question. It fails to inform us about the principles or standards by which to figure out what we ought to strive for and use to determine whether some conduct or policy works. (Works for what?) Remember, pragmatists deny there are stable, firm lasting principles or standards of ethics and politics--they are flexible about such matters (unless the flexibility doesn’t suit them).