The Expanding Public Realm

Tibor R. Machan

Virtually every time someone promotes increasing the scope of government's involvement in our lives, the excuse is that the problem being tackled is a social or public type, not one of individuals. In some cases this is credible, as when a contagious disease surfaces. But in the cases now being dealt with by means of government intervention, such as smoking and even helping people to be happy, this is a phony excuse serving primarily to expand the reach of government into the life of everyone.

Both the Left and the Right resort to the tactic. When the Right advocates drug prohibition, the story goes that drug use spreads among people and is not the problem of individuals, nor can it be dealt with on an individual basis. Nearly all the victimless crimes, from prostitution to drug abuse, have been defended on the grounds that the conduct they involve spreads around the community and must be stopped in the name of protecting the community.

Of course, this is a plausible enough line in support of such laws because on and off people clearly take up vices because their neighbors engage in them. Bad conduct, as well as good, is often copied. It can be said of vices that they spread. But this is arguably a metaphor, not literally true. Choices are still the main determinants when people take up harmful drug use. The choices may not involve deliberation but they do involve intention, which is entirely sufficient for holding people responsible for what they do. (Just think of how criminal negligence rests on the presence of intention!)

The Left, in turn, invokes the collectivist ploy by claiming that other vices, such as greed and racism are fostered by way of peer pressure. Theorists of human conduct--they like to refer to it as behavior because that does not presuppose choice on the part of the agent--from both the Left and the Right effectively deny human volition when it comes to the kind of conduct they disapprove of and urge governments to ban. Since private conduct tends to be something both Left and Right accept as not government's business to meddle in, this theory of how the favorite vice spreads across the society is widely invoked by each.

Consider, also, how New York politicians and bureaucrats are now working to make smoking illegal even in wide open public parks, claiming that the smoke invades non-smokers' lungs even there. Never mind that non-smokers or anyone who wants to escape the smoke are very likely able to find a place free of it. But because sometimes the smoke travels to people who would rather avoid it, it is now a target for prohibition. It all becomes a matter of public policy which is the preferred way to organize society as these public administrators see it.

In a recent issue of The Sunday New York Times Magazine one article details how various benefits to people, such as being of a cheerful, happy disposition, can be enhanced by a process of osmosis, not by means of personal achievement and effort. Once gain, the idea is being reinforced that individual conduct is negligible in the shaping of one's life. Instead what works best is for groups to follow various practices. And from this it is but a skip and jump to the idea that such practices need to be imposed on people--if you want folks to be happy in their lives, make them get together with neighbors who enjoy themselves. That way, instead of by means of good personal judgment and conduct, happiness is spread around in the community. And how does that get accomplished? Well, naturally, by wise leadership, by instituting the Nanny State. (Books advocating "making people moral" and "making them just" have been produced over the decades by various academics--e.g., by Princeton University Professor Robert P. George and Notre Dame Professor James P. Sterba--who champion this kind of engineered society.)

As I noted earlier, of course osmosis can give support to people's well being and even happiness but could that be sufficient? And would appointing various wise leaders to engineer such an outcome not rob citizens of their sovereignty, their self-government? Of course it would but in the name of such projected consequences, why should one object?

More sensible is the idea that happiness, health and other good things come one's way by means of sound judgment and conduct and the role of osmosis is derivative, not primary. But this idea does not support the kind of petty tyrannies both the Left and the Right believe in.

Inventing Animal "Rights"

Tibor R. Machan

Among the truly bad guys in the Obama administration none can outdo Professor Cass Sunstein, now of Harvard Law School but earlier a colleague of Adjunct Professor Barack Obama at the University of Chicago School of Law. The really bad thing about Professor Sunstein is that he is championing one of the most reactionary and corrupt ideas in legal theory. This is that human rights are mere inventions of governments.

He and his co-author Stephen Holmes have argued, in The Cost of Rights, Why Liberty Depends on Taxes (1999), that, as they put it, “individual rights and freedoms depend fundamentally on vigorous state action” and “statelessness means rightlessness.” In other words, the idea here is exactly what the American Revolution was meant to refute, namely, that the government--king, czar, Caesar, or majority--grants citizens rights instead of securing the rights they have by virtue of their human nature. As Charter 08 of the Chinese (!) dissidents put it, "Human rights are not bestowed by a state. Every person is born with inherent rights to dignity and freedom. The government exists for the protection of the human rights of its citizens. The exercise of state power must be authorized by the people. The succession of political disasters in China’s recent history is a direct consequence of the ruling regime’s disregard for human rights." But Professor Sunstein rejects this and as a reward President Obama has appointed him, suitably, as the super administrator of all of the federal government's regulations.

Among the results of this development is that Professor Sunstein, who is apparently very fond of various animals, wants the government to grant animals rights, just the sort human beings have. And why not? After all, if rights depend on governments granting them, then whoever is the government is empowered to invent rights so long as the politicians and regulators will go along with this. There is really nothing very surprising about the idea since despite what the American Founders argued--having learned it from the English philosopher John Locke (who developed the theory of natural human rights)--American politicians, no less so than others around the globe, have been inventing "rights" all over the place.

Just now of course the most consequential of these inventions is the "right" to health care, health insurance, etc. The minimum wage was such a "right" invented earlier, as was the right to social security and to unemployment compensation. Indeed, this populist political idea has been around for quite a while and the U. S. Supreme Court has been declaring it constitutional despite the fact that it clearly is not. The entire edifice of entitlements that the American welfare state has concocted rests on this notion, that governments can simply cook up human rights and there need be no basis for them apart from that.

Of course, the cost of it all is enormous, which is one reason Professor Sunstein and his co-author were so eager to make the case for heavy taxation while denying that rights come from our human nature. Those rights, spoken of in the Declaration of Independence, are essentially negative--they spell out our sphere of liberty, not any entitlement to other people's labor and resources. That idea returns us to the time when people in a country were deemed to be subjects of the will of the monarch, essentially serfs, who can be forced to perform involuntary servitude never mind what they want to do with their lives.

And now come animal "rights," a phony notion of there ever was one. Animals are not moral agents and cannot have rights like human beings. One may have the responsibility to be humane to animals but not because of animal rights but because it would be cruel and mean to treat them badly without good reason. But for such reasons as medical research or feeding the hungry, animals may be used by people, just as may trees or fruits.

But if you don't like these niceties, sign up for the invented rights of the Obama team and see your freedom destroyed as a result in the name of what animals need from you, what they are entitled to.

On Respecting the Presidency

Tibor R. Machan

After one senator shouted out "liar" during President Obama's speech to Congress the other evening, one of Mr. Obama's cheerleaders at The New York Times intoned gravely that even if one disapproves of a given office holder, one ought to show respect for the office. Well, not really, not any more.

Suppose as a fan of the sport of baseball you have discovered that umpires across the country have become corrupt. They take payoffs, get sloppy with their calls, favor some players or teams based on personal prejudices and biases, etc. It is all over the place, you notice. Your child, however, is in Little League and the coach has invited a prominent umpire to give a talk at some celebration. Given the widespread corruption among umpires, you protest the invitation and when this is ignored by the powers that be, you go to the event and shout out or carry some kind of sign of protest. Those around you express dismay saying, well, yes, many, many umpires are admittedly corrupt, but the office of baseball umpire should still receive respect.

You then consider this and reply, well, the office may well be a good idea but when it is filled with crooks, respecting it is no longer possible or desirable. This reply holds in the case of politics, too.

In most countries it is pretty much a given that politicians are and have for centuries been corrupt. This is true even in so called civilized societies since politicians take bribes, payoffs, and favor special groups of citizens rather than the citizenry as a whole. Here and there one may find some poor, lone member of parliament who is doing his or her best to keep to the straight and narrow but then he or she is promptly defeated since what the public seems to want is not sticking up for principles but bringing home the bacon.

There used to be some hope for America's politicians, albeit minimal, because they were working in a system the basic principles of which aimed at keeping power out of their hands, certainly the arbitrary type that guarantees corruption among them all. The U. S. Constitution, with its Bill of Rights and separation of branches, was intended to keep politicians and their power in check. Alas, this intention has been thoroughly subverted over time, if it ever had a chance in the first place. Even in the time of Jefferson, Adams, Lincoln and other luminaries, corruption was rampant, if only the kind that amounted to overstepping the authority of the office these individuals were holding.

Today the entire field of politics, no matter which party is running the show, amounts to nothing much better than an extortion racket. You vote for me and I will let you have some money, favors, whatever; if you don't vote for me, don't support my candidacy, I'll show you who is boss. Wealth redistribution, the major task of national or local politicians--with armies of bureaucrats ready to do the detailed work--simply has no way of being done honorably. It is like asking bank robbers to be decent as they divvy up their loot; it cannot be done--that "honor among thieves" bit is an oxymoron from the get-go.

So don't preach about respecting the presidency when the presidency has been in the hands of people who have used it mostly for larceny or worse. That presidency has long lost its claim on anyone's respect. This is no less so than it would be with being a baseball umpire or football referee or judge at the Olympics if all those holding such offices caved in to the temptation to violate the principles of their office. That is exactly what the bulk of politicians across the country over the last several decades have done, yielded to the temptation to subvert their office in the name of various phony agendas, all of which mascaraed as working for the public interest. If you buy that one, I have a bridge for sale for you at an excellent price!

Chinese Fight for Genuine Freedom

Tibor R. Machan

Over the last four centuries the idea of basic natural individual (human) rights has had a rough career. After surfacing in history as far back as ancient Greece, then coming to nearly full fruition at the hands of the English philosopher John Locke--who had a major influence on the American Founders--several prominent political thinkers gave it a thumbs down. The English jurist Jeremy Bentham ridiculed such rights, calling them all "nonsense upon stilts." Although the idea had been adopted to serve the thinking of some major legal theorists, philosophers were skeptical. This is because philosophers began to move in the direction of the belief that only what could be observed could be known to be true and moral or political ideas could not pass this test, one that the sciences employed and benefited from.

Indeed, until the mid-20th century, ethics, morality, politics and aesthetics--all areas where one is concerned with norms, with how we ought to or ought not to think and act (where right versus wrong is most significant)--had been dismissed as literally meaningless. Yes, what to ordinary people is the most important area of human life, namely the issue of what standards ought to guide our conduct, to the major academic philosophers had no foundation at all. This is because of the widespread philosophical belief that only what is perceivable can be meaningful--"I am from Missouri, show me!".

This outlook lasted a long time, at least until it was realized, finally, that if it were true, then the rejection of these ideas would also lack any foundation. After all, the skeptic is saying, "You ought not to use ethical, political or aesthetic notions," and that, of course, amounts to the ethical notion that it is wrong to think in terms of what we ought to do or ought not to do.

But many people in the academic philosophical world, including some very prominent legal philosophers, hung on to the skeptical position so that even in our day some of the most influential ones reject the idea that politics could be based on principles of right versus wrong. Public opinion, majority rule, governmental edicts are all that can be invoked, meaning, of course, that in the end all we have is power underlying our morality and laws.

This is one reason that the idea of rights is no longer based on human nature but on governmental power. Several prominent legal theorists, some working in the new administration of Barack Obama, think that no one has any rights without government first giving it to them. Contrary to the American Founders, who stated clearly in the Declaration of Independence that government has as its job the protection of our bone fide rights--rights which exists without any government, rights based on human nature--these modern thinkers are taking us all back to the earlier era when rights were thought to be grants of the monarch, the king, Caesar or the voting majority. This, of course, goes against the belief of the Founders that even the democratic majority is constrained by the rights of the people and just like the lynch mob, may not violate those rights.

This is one reason that in our day governments--politicians, courts, bureaucrats and the lot--take themselves to be the granters instead of discoverers of rights. And ironically, it is now in countries across the globe that have had and still have governments that violate rights all over the place that the American Founders' and John Locke's views are dominant. For example, the Chinese Charter 08 group, under the leadership of Liu Xiaoba and 302 dissidents, has written as follows:

"Human rights are not bestowed by a state. Every person is born with inherent rights to dignity and freedom. The government exists for the protection of the human rights of its citizens. The exercise of state power must be authorized by the people. The succession of political disasters in China’s recent history is a direct consequence of the ruling regime’s disregard for human rights."

It is truly amazing that today it is people who have lived under tyranny instead of in relative freedom who make such a declaration.

Stealing a Penny

Tibor R. Machan

Over the centuries it had been pretty much routine for some (powerful) folks to raid the wealth of those not fit or well armed enough to resist this. Widespread trade entered the picture late in the game, as did generosity, charity, and other voluntary transfers of resources useful to people. In time, however, it dawned on most people that involuntary transfers are wrong and even to be prohibited. Yet this development has not always been fully embraced, not, especially, by certain formidable advocates of political economic systems that rest on wealth redistribution.

In a recent book highly critical of the free society as understood by libertarians, The Libertarian Illusion (CQ Press, 2008), the author, William Hudson, makes a snide comment by which I can only imagine he means to indicate how ridiculous the right to private property really is. He says, and I am paraphrasing, that taking even a penny from a millionaire is regarded by libertarians as theft. Now how silly can they be!?

Well, I am not willing to accept this "reductio ad absurdum" argument. Consider another area libertarians consider important, namely, personal liberty such that, say, rape or assault is regarded by them to be impermissible and should be illegal. Of course, there are relatively minor instance of date rape or quasi-sexual engagements with minors, as well as cases of minimal assault, such as bumping someone while walking past him or stepping on someone's toes and libertarians would not give these a pass either. Even some really minor sexual intrusiveness, such as ogling some very young person, may qualify for moral and even legal rebuke. Few may have suffered major injuries from such conduct, perpetrated by others against them, although some kind of untowardness could well have come from them, such as causing fright or anxiety. But it is clear that these would be minor, compared to out and out rape or mugging.

Well, we are in a similar situation with stealing even a penny from someone who is very rich and might not notice it. But stealing isn't merely removing something from another. It is a kind of invasion. Even the removal of a penny could be seen as such because for some folks it could be very important to hang on to whatever belongs to them and anyone who breaches this could produce serious malaise for them.

But even aside from any specific harm that could well come from stealing even a penny from a rich person--or just well to do one--what about the slippery slope effect? It is like telling white lies which in an of themselves could receive a pass but in forming someone's character is likely to lead to serious damage. If stealing of even little things is going to be approved of, especially by moralists, ethics teachers, and so on, at what point will a theft reach a level that may be condemned as morally wrong?

It is one thing to overlook, forgive, various minor moral transgressions, another entirely to approve of them, including as public policies. When governments perpetrate the transfer or redistribution of wealth from completely innocent citizens to others, they are not only injuring the former but establishing a precedent. So now it is fine to do a bit--or maybe even a good bit--of stealing because, well, Barack Obama made it clear that he approves of it (in his chat with Joe the Plumber during the election campaign). Indeed, reportedly House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told several wealthy people in a talk she gave in San Francisco that "You have money and we are going to take it from you."

Ethical transgressions, even legal ones, are not like violations of the principles of Euclidean geometry of formal logic but neither are they inconsequential matters to indulge in, not among civilized people at least. The entire point of being civilized, of being civil, is to deal with one's fellow human beings peacefully, respectful of their rights, even in small matters. And while small transgressions can be forgiven, they should never be praised.

Instead, though, in our current public policy climate we have out and out official flaunting of the fine points of human morality, especially those pertaining to respecting other people's property rights. From the U. S. Supreme Court to the Congress and the President, officials are practically proud of not caring about adhering to such principles of right conduct. The president of the United States of America and many of his supporters in the academy proclaim themselves to be pragmatists, which is to say indifferent to principled conduct and willing to bend ethics and principles of social life whenever these stand in the way of their grand plans.

But this is the way to building a corrupt society, not just an impoverished one.

Contra Krugman Again

Tibor R. Machan

A repeated theme of Paul Krugman of The New York Times and Princeton University is that Ronald Reagan was a "market fundamentalist" and too many of the critics of President Obama's economic policies are blinded by this ideology, so much so that they are retarding the great leap of progressivism that would come our way from the President and his team of experts. if only these critics got out of the way! Column after column Krugman criticizes Reaganomics. So let's take a look at this for a moment.

It turns out that Ronald Reagan didn't introduce anything radical or even very different from his predecessors (such as Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon) that can justly be called market fundamentalism. Nixon had declared that "We are all Keynesians now" and even went so far as to impose wage and price controls, just what an interventionist like Paul Krugman would welcome under certain circumstances and totally anathema to free market economic philosophy. And while Reagan didn't do that, he didn't deregulate much either as it is often contended by his detractors.

In a review of The Age of Reagan, The Conservative Counterrevolution 1980-1989, by Stephan F. Hayward, the reviewer, Ross Douthat, quotes Hayward thus: "Reagan successfully curbed the excesses of liberalism [but] he did not curb liberalism itself." Douthat himself adds, "The angst of his opponents notwithstanding, Reagan's budgets hardly touched the Great Society, let alone the New Deal. The conservative era he ushered in was, in fact, conservative: It halted liberals in their tracks, without significantly rolling back the state that Roosevelt and Johnson had built" (The NY Times Book Review, 9/06/09, p. 9). So all the angst Krugman has been voicing about Obama's critics and their Reagenomics seems to be unwarranted since, well, Reagan was actually quite in line with the policies spawned by Keynes (via Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon).

What this shows is once again that instead of arguing policy, numbers, history, and such, Krugman prefers to engage in name-calling, in labeling and besmirching. As if he didn't trust his readers to be able to follow arguments, as if economics for him were some kind of mysterious science only the in-crowd can grasp. For the rest, what is best is to assault the character of those who disagree with the Professor.

When it comes to facts and figures, however, Krugman is no better. As economist Donald J. Boudreaux of George Mason University writes, "Noting that 'it's important to have some perspective,' Paul Krugman argues that while Uncle Sam's budget deficit is now large, 'we also have a huge economy, which means that things aren't as scary as you might think' ('Till Debt Does Its Part,' [The New York Times,] August 28). Whew! No cause for much concern, for the size of America's GDP swamps the size of the budget deficit.

"During the Bush years, however, Mr. Krugman preached a different gospel. For example, in his February 11, 2005 column--devoted to condemning tax cuts--he insisted that 'the deficit is indeed a major problem.'

"So let's take Mr. Krugman's advice and get some perspective. In 2005, when Mr. Krugman insisted that government's budget deficit was 'indeed a major problem,' that deficit was 2.5 percent of GDP. Today, when Mr. Krugman no longer is very concerned about the budget deficit, that deficit will be about 11 percent of GDP."

Ok, so why bother with Professor Krugman's various infelicities? Because he is a big gun and if such big guns are allowed to carry on with their bad ideas unchecked, there is certainly going to be a high price to pay. Not that refuting them is always going to stem their influence--they often play to wishful thinking and arguments are not very effective means by which to counter their pitch. But one has to try--going down in defeat is far less painful if one has made the effort to set things right.

Today the Left's pitch is effective, in large measure, because George W. Bush has undermined any coherent defense of American values, mainly by his tax and spend policies as well as with his very suspect behavior when it came to the military measures the US took under his watch, indeed, under his command. So when it comes to resisting Leftist policies from President Obama and his academic cheerleaders, it is hopeless to rely on Republicans. What might do the trick is for those of us to keep on watch and exert pressure with criticism who aren't tainted with Bushism.

The Burden of Liberty

Tibor R. Machan

It was a contribution that the French philosopher and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre made to 20th century thinking, within his Existentialist outlook, to point out that although human beings are, unlike other stuff in the world, free to choose, this freedom is a big burden to them. For Sartre the burden came from the absence of God and any of helpful moral standards, a kind of absurd freedom that human beings must suffer instead of enjoy. Yet even if you acknowledge that there are standards for people to follow in their lives, standards by which to tell right from wrong, it is still not so very easy to make the choice the proper way.

So while for centuries most people lived in servitude and wanted out from under, once some did manage to free themselves--or were helped to freedom--it wasn't always something they welcomed with open arms. The reason isn't so difficult to see.

Freedom means not only choice but also responsibility. Free men and women have to face up to the fact that it is up to them to do the right thing, to find out what that is and to make the effort to do it. The zillions of small and large decisions made by them all require some attention, although because people can cultivate habits--like the habit of driving carefully, of working out, or of being polite to neighbors and such--it isn't always terribly burdensome to have to choose. They can, with admitted initial difficulty, commit themselves to a wise and prudent course and then stick to it and that way not need to handle every choice anew.

Still, the very prospect of being able to go wrong with how one acts can be frightening, so many folks escape into mindless routines or accept other people's rule over them. Just think of this health care mess--isn't it possible that millions simply don't want to have to cope with having to prepare for the prospect of ill health, of having to think ahead and save up and choose a good insurance system early enough in their lives with which to anticipate getting older and more frail? Instead of taking up the challenge oneself, it seems it's simpler and easier to get a bunch of politicians and bureaucrats to handle it all. Never mind that that assumes other people are responsible for one instead of oneself. Never mind that one is signing up for some kind of bondage and relinquishing one's liberty. But it seems such a hassle to start having to think of what the future may bring and how one needs to forgo current benefits so as to make sure enough that the future will not be left unmanaged.

Trouble is that this temptation to escape freedom is readily accommodated by those who like it when they are made to be in charge of others. Nothing like getting control of portions of other people's lives, to feel that macho and saintly feeling! Thus, in their eagerness to unburden themselves of responsibility, many folks find it ping to entrust the politicians and bureaucrats with jobs they don't like to do themselves. And this will make it seem that some folks are heroes, great people, leaders of us all--like the late Senator Ted Kennedy who recently, posthumously, found himself virtually canonized just because he took it upon himself to take care of people (with other people's resources, of course).

Sartre was on to something. Freedom isn't so easy to handle. But I would like to amend his thinking by suggesting that when one does assume the responsibilities that come with freedom, one will have something to be proud of. One will have lived up to the task of a human being to shoulder one's own problems--maybe with a little help from friends--and not dump dealing with them on other people who, after all, have problems of their own to deal with. And there is always getting together with others quite apart from the political. That, of course, also involved having to figure out which associations are the wisest, which are hazardous. But it will help one not only to act freely but to make as sure as one can that others are also free to choose for themselves.

Why Exactly is Slavery Wrong?

Tibor R. Machan

Hardly anyone in America disputes that slavery is wrong. It's an institution that must be prohibited, never to be readmitted into society. Indeed, slavery is so wrong that it is very tempting for decent men and women to devote time and resources to ferret it out abroad, wherever it is still being practice in measures large or small.

But why is slavery so wrong, so horrible? It is, simply put, because it obliterates an individual's self-governance or sovereignty. It takes over that person's life by others who have not obtained any authority to do this. Of course one can have peaceful relationships with others that could superficially appear like slavery does--when one is employed by another, virtually night and day; the difference is, however, that employment is voluntary. It avoid subjugating another against his or her will but involves coming to mutually agreed to terms. Sure, at times one party might be hard up a good bit and will more easily yield to the terms another wants but still, the employment relationship even at its most unpleasant contains the exit option. You are free to exit it and no one may go capture and return you to the employer. You are free, even if you may go hungry for a while.

Slavery, in contrast, means you are not free even if you're terribly well fed, even if your health is well taken care of by your master, even if you are being educated at your master's expense, even if your retirement is guaranteed. If the condition of your existence involves being coerced to perform services for someone, if you may not leave without loss of everything, if you are obligated to others regardless of your refusal to give your consent, you then are enslaved or, at best, suffer the condition of severe involuntary servitude.

Yet, while nearly no one would support slavery, the kind where on person is said to own another--which is morally impossible--millions believe in the idea that you belong to society, that you are not sovereign but in bondage to the rest, somehow. The most forceful expression of this idea comes from the French father of sociology, August Comte, who wrote:

"Everything we have belongs then to Humanity…[Comte's favored system,] Positivism never admits anything but duties, of all to all. For its social point of view cannot tolerate the notion of right[s], constantly based on individualism. We are born loaded with obligations of every kind, to our predecessors, to our successors, to our contemporaries. Later they only grow or accumulate before we can return any service. On what human foundation then could rest the idea of right, which in reason should imply some previous efficiency? Whatever may be our efforts, the longest life well employed will never enable us to pay back but an imperceptible part of what we have received. And yet it would only be after a complete return that we should be justly authorized to require reciprocity for the new services. All human rights then are as absurd as they are immoral. This ["to live for others"], the definitive formula of human morality, gives a direct sanction exclusively to our instincts of benevolence, the common source of happiness and duty. [Man must serve] Humanity, whose we are entirely" (Auguste Comte, The Catechism of Positive Religion [Clifton, NJ: Augustus M. Kelley Publ., 1973], pp. 212-30).

And many others promote this kind of collective slavery, all over the modern academy, in prominently published books, at conferences, in Op Ed pages, in prominent political speeches, everywhere. Yes, we are surrounded by loud voices that champion the very idea that used to mar whatever element of morality American culture had going for it, namely, slavery. You do not have a right to your life, to your liberty, to your resources, nothing. This is what is now advocated in books like The Myth of Ownership (Thomas Nagel, Liam Murphy) and The Cost of Rights (Cass Sunsten, Stephen Holmes). Well rewarded philosophers, like Charles Taylor of Canada's McGill University--recent recipient of the hefty Templeton Prize--proselytize that you belong to your community, that it is the community that has the right to your life and not you. This is the exact outlook that was defended by East German communists who justified shooting those who tried to jump over the Berlin war by claiming that these were, after all, thieves who were stealing the society's labor! "... In Germany the phrase for chattel slaves or indentured servants was Leibeigenen, for the bodies belonged to their owners; now we have the new concept of Geisteigene, for minds and spirits are also part of the new social property relations. When a bureaucracy considers itself to be the owner of literature, then it has the absolute personal right not only to cultivate its own garden but also to remove ruthlessly such weeds as it deems harmful." [Francois Bondy, "European Diary, Exist This Way," Encounter, 4/81, pp. 42-3] This very thing can be said about when a bureaucracy considers itself to be the owner of all wealth, of what the citizenry earns or comes by through peaceful means.

Collectivism of this sort is in principle the very same thing as slavery. Yet is it now being advocated in the United States of America. And it is terribly wrong and must be stopped however sweet the words are with which it's championed. When will those of us who refuse to submit to national health service be deemed to be weeds who need to be removed ruthlessly? I am not being paranoid--it has happened in the 20th century in superbly civilized Europe (a place loved by American liberals now for its wonderful welfare states) and can easily happen in the 21st unless Americans refuse to submit. Some already show this kind of disdain toward those who oppose their way!

What Reality has Society?

Tibor R. Machan

The question of how real is society can arise whenever people make reference to "obligations that citizens have to society," obligations in the name of which individual liberties are said to need restriction. (Other ways of putting the ideas is "obligatory service to the common good, public interest, etc.") Especially the liberty to own, trade, exchange, hoard, save, and so forth. The claim is that this kind of liberty may not be "absolute" because of those enforceable social obligations or responsibilities everyone has. (Especially anyone who has united with others to form a business corporation--the CSR or corporate social responsibility ruse, is what I humbly consider it.)

Please bear with me while I take you on this little philosophical journey. I teach and every year since the fall of 1970 I have met my various classes and taught for them various philosophy courses. I have obligations to my classes--for example, to know my subject, to arrive on time each period, make my assignments and grading policies clear to them, etc.

What, then, are my classes? Best as I have been able to determine over the more than four decades of dealing with them is that they are groups of individual students with a common chosen objective, namely, to become familiar with the subject matter of the course they are all taking. The class is, you might say, a group with a common educational purpose.

Is society something like this? A group with a common purpose?

That seems like a candidate except that members of my university classes are, as young adults, free to sign up or reject signing up for the pursuit that's the objective of the course they may or may not come to take. No one may enroll any of them without their explicit or sometime implicit consent--the latter if the course is part of a package of courses that amount to a concentration or major which includes it. But consent it crucial.

When one is part of a society one can join inadvertently, by being born to those who are already part of it. No consent is required, not at least initially. And when one is born into a society, unlike when one signs up for a class, one isn't assuming various obligations, although if one wishes to remain a part the others may impose some, few, elementary requirements--no killing, no theft, no assault, no similar aggressive conduct is acceptable, so those who choose to engage in these will be banished (e.g., to jail). (Remember Devil's Island? That was the idea of it.) Or one can join by requesting that one be admitted as a member--immigration is one such way).

Now some societies have rules that are imposed on members and some of these are reasonable, just, but others can be anything but. If they aren't reasonable and just, they aren't really fit for human membership. Some clubs within a society could, of course, exist that has rules that would make a large, human society unjust. For example, in some subgroups one might have to give up all of one's belongings or renounce eating on Fridays or even worship at the feet of some select members of the group. So long as membership isn't mandatory, this could well be acceptable--one size does not fit all.

But the larger society, the one into which one can be born, would only have rules that derive from what the members are all about, human beings. A human society, in other words, needs to accommodate human nature, just as an ant or bee or termite society would only be fit for its membership if it accommodated the nature of those members. This is not so with a university class I or thousands of other teachers teach since apart from needing to fit human nature, classes must also fit the purposes for which they exist, such as learning about biology or philosophy or law. One in effect takes an oath when one signs up for a class and if one seriously breaches that oath, one can be ejected (as many students routinely are).

Now what rules would fit a human society per se, just as such, a human society, with no special purpose that some members might like to sign up for? It depends upon human nature. Which is where the idea of natural law and natural rights comes from. By being natural, based on human nature, on what everyone has to be just to be human, these laws and rights indicate what rules members need to accept as well as what rules they may reject as unsuitable to human social life. Thus a society that has rampant violence, corruption, etc., as its constituent parts would not be fit for human inhabitation.

What then of the various claims that the membership has numerous obligations to serve society? What about a position like this one: “The ability that any of us have to earn income and acquire wealth depends only partly on our own individual efforts. It relies as well on the operation of political, economic, and social institutions that make it possible for any of us to ‘earn a living.’ . . .Viewed in this light, those deductions from my paycheck can be seen as reimbursements to society for that portion of my earnings derived from social goods” William E. Hudson, The Libertarian Illusion: Ideology, Public Policy, and the Assault on the Common Good (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2008), p. 43.

Sorry, this won't do. It would--and does, where it prevails--amount to imposing involuntary servitude on members of society, even if most members do benefit from the various features of the society; nothing may be imposed on members apart from having to act peacefully, non-aggressively. Anything else would amount to oppression, subjugation and the removal the most essential element of a bona fide human society, namely, respect for individual liberty.

On Freedom's Advances

Tibor R. Machan

The freedom of central concern to human beings is that of the adult individual not being intruded up, not governed by others no authorized to do so. Different types of freedom are sometimes talked about but they don't concern the law--such as being free of headaches or to fly off to a pleasant vacation spot. Those kinds of freedom can best be secured when one is free in the first sense, free of the aggression of one's fellows.

Of course, norms that are significant in community affairs needed being well enough understood before they could be tried out in practice. For centuries on end the freedom basic in human relations was constantly, often systematically crushed--as was done by slavery, serfdom, and similar institutions, or class systems wherein some were deemed superior to others by birth and thus entitle to rule them attests to this.

Nor is there any clear sign that steady advance toward realizing freedom--to use the title of Tom G. Palmer's new book of superb essays published at the Cato Institute--is forthcoming. It ought to, of course, but what ought to be done can be severely neglected. This is both because an understanding of the implications of the right to individual liberty grew slowly and because even once it was well and widely enough understood it was also widely and powerfully resisted by those whose rule over others was challenged.

Even today the most ingenious rationalizations are being regularly cooked up by theorists whom I call cheerleaders of statism. Those who are loyal to individual liberty simply cannot afford to relax their vigilance, never. To take a break from the effort may be necessary now and then, so as to enjoy what liberty one does possess and to be rejuvenated for resuming the fight. But such tasks never get completed since there is always a new crop of hopeful thugs ready to cash in on any relaxation by freedom's warriors.

As to the way understanding freedom has advanced, we can appreciated it from reflecting on how for many centuries the main focus on liberty dealt with various groups of people getting rid of other groups bent on oppressive them. Thus, for example, when Machiavelli identified the main task of the prince (or government) it was to secure as best as possible the freedom and independence of the principality, the country that was under his rule. This didn't much concern the freedom or liberty of individuals but it was a step in the right direction--not unlike the way talk of the self-determination of a country or group of people is an advance toward the most important form of self-determination, namely, that of adult human beings. Countries have no selves but the people who make up countries do and reference to their self-determination can be understood as a valuable step toward the main objective, namely, establishing the legal regime of individual rights. (It was John Locke who successfully redirected the concern for liberty toward individuals, away from states.)

Don't get me wrong, in human affairs there is no automatic, historically driven progress toward any good thing--even in science and technology there is need for vigilance otherwise regress will set in. That's because unlike the rest of the living world that is subject to evolutionary forces, when it comes to people with their free will and moral responsibility as central aspects of their lives, nothing moves forward without the personal effort needed to drive it.

Unfortunately, while over the long haul there is little dispute that individual liberty has made significant advances--at the hands of its dedicated champions on all the fronts where they need to exert the different types of effort--there is at the present evidence of regress, too. The promoters of human subjugation aren't unintelligent, stupid people; they are often quite vicious politically, yes, but not without brains. Just like all the minions and apologists of the monarchs throughout the ages, they are aware of the myriad ways individual liberty can be curbed, arrested, and reduced by means of fancy, sophistic excuses and clever, righteous calls for sacrifices for the alleged public interest or common good. (Check out a recent book devoted to this mission, written by one William E. Hudson, titled The Libertarian Illusion: Ideology, Public Policy, and the Assault on the Common Good [Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2008], wherein many old and new twists and turns are deployed so as to enhance the power of the state and deprive individuals of their liberty (which could be used to resist that power).

So please consider this missive as a reminder of the truth of that famous clarion call: "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance"--or as it was put originally in 1790 by an Irish judge, John Philpot Curran, "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt."

What you "Owe to Society"

Tibor R. Machan

Sadly this is an ancient thesis that's being revived now in a country that was founded on denying it. The idea is well expressed in a recent book by Professor William E. Hudson, titled, The Libertarian Illusion: Ideology, Public Policy, and the Assault on the Common Good (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2008). Hudson states, on page 43, that “The ability that any of us have to earn income and acquire wealth depends only partly on our own individual efforts. It relies as well on the operation of political, economic, and social institutions that make it possible for any of us to ‘earn a living.’ . . .Viewed in this light, those deductions from my paycheck can be seen as reimbursements to society for that portion of my earnings derived from social goods.” The very same idea has been championed for years by one of President Obama's favorite intellectuals, Cass Sunstein, for example in the book the latter co-authored with Stephen Holmes, The Cost of Rights: Why Liberty Depends on Taxes (W. W. Norton & Co., 1999).

Reimbursements to society! What a lie that is, given that society is nothing more than all of us together as individuals and that what we own, so long as we stole it from no one, ought to be left to each of us to allocate as he or she judges proper, not to the likes of the sneaky professor and his gang in centers of political power.

A long time ago it was the French father of sociology and avid champion of a huge system of socialism, Auguste Comte (1798-1857), who maintained that very same thesis. As he put it, in his book The Catechism of Positive Religion (Clifton, NJ: Augustus M. Kelley Publ., 1973),

"Everything we have belongs then to Humanity…[my system] never admits anything but duties, of all to all. For its social point of view cannot tolerate the notion of right, constantly based on individualism. We are born loaded with obligations of every kind, to our predecessors, to our successors, to our contemporaries. Later they only grow or accumulate before we can return any service. On what human foundation then could rest the idea of right, which in reason should imply some previous efficiency? Whatever may be our efforts, the longest life well employed will never enable us to pay back but an imperceptible part of what we have received. And yet it would only be after a complete return that we should be justly authorized to require reciprocity for the new services. All human rights then are as absurd as they are immoral. This ["to live for others"], the definitive formula of human morality, gives a direct sanction exclusively to our instincts of benevolence, the common source of happiness and duty. [Man must serve] Humanity, whose we are entirely" (212-30).

Both Comte and his contemporary followers--who, by the way keep calling themselves progressives even though what they advocate is about as reactionary as it could get--maintain the fallacy that because people made major contributions with their works to our lives--the scientists, artists, farmers, inventors, and the lot--we now are obligated to give up our resources, our labor, indeed our very lives, and let a bunch of our contemporaries whom we don't know and often have never met, decide what is to be done with it all. What a ruse this is!

In fact, of course, the contributions made by all those productive, creative folks of the past were not made with the provision that members of far off future generations will be held in bondage to them somehow, in consequence. And notice, the debt is not said be to those who made those great contributions, no sir. The debt is to be paid to these contemporaries who have done little or nothing at all for you and me other than to send out tax collectors to raid our more or less substantial wealth. All because, well, we didn't earn all the value of this wealth on our but had benefited from those folks from the past. (By that argument you don't own your health, beauty, talents, nothing you didn't produce on your own!)

Exactly why any of this should entitle this current bunch to any of what you and I and the rest of us they want to rip off have come by, whether by luck or personal effort, I cannot fathom. The argument they put forth, from Comte to Hudson, just does not prove any such obligation, none at all, certainly not to those who now collect the reimbursement--i.e., perpetrate the extortion, which is what it in reality amounts to.

I greatly enjoy the works of many artists and performers who have long since died, via old movies, reproduction of their paintings, music, literature, and the rest. I mean they literally keep thrilling me, as I listen, watch and read. Quite spontaneously I often wish I could shake their hands, hug them, thank them for having done so much that gives me pleasure in my life. (I am especially fond of the works of some novelist, musicians, actors, painters with whose work I have surrounded my life for decades.)

By what perverted line of reasoning, if one can even call it that, do the likes of Comte, Sunstein and Hudson make a claim on me in the name of these wonderful folks? Who on earth entrusted them with this job?

No one, that's who. They are trying to perpetrate an out and out ruse, that's what they are about. If one falls for their deception, they will have gained power and resources they certainly did not earn and do not deserve. And it will not be luck that landed them all of what they are attempting to gain from us but trickery, sophistry, and ruthless indifference to our own right to make the effort to carve out a decent life for ourselves.

I hope they do not win, at least not for much longer.

It's Not Capitalism, Stupid

Tibor R. Machan

When the economic mess came to light about a year ago, a good many friends of the welfare state and its full expression, social democracy (a type of socialism), seized the opportunity and claimed that it is all the fault of capitalism, of free market economics. James Galbraith, the political scientist son of the late John Kenneth Galbraith, a professor at the University of Texas, Austin TX, gave a talk in which he gleefully referred to the late Milton Friedman as someone who contributed to "the bust," hoping to get some laughs out of his audience at Chapman University where Friedman not only has a small bust displayed in the courtyard but whose president, James Doti, studied with Uncle Miltie. All because Galbraith believed, along with such luminaries as Princeton University Nobel Laureate in economic science and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, that it is indeed the free market that's to blame.

One central flaw in this line of analysis, if one should even call such outbursts by that term, is the plain fact that there has never been any kind of full blown free market capitalism implemented in the United States of America. Among the many elements of the country's economy that clearly diverge severely from that system was slavery.

Under free market capitalism all persons in the market place must be free to trade, to sell and buy the valuables they own and no human being may be treated as anyone's property (other than, perhaps, one's own--in the fashion, as it is sometime put, self-ownership). Any kind of subsidy, a standard policy of various levels of American governments--whereby the government confiscates some citizens' resources and hands these to other citizens--violates the principles of the free market. Those from whom the resources are confiscated have lost their liberty to make use of them in their own market activities. Protectionism, which has been practiced in this country on and off from the beginning, is also a practice that violates free market principles, preventing citizens from the freedom to buy goods and services from abroad and forcing them to pay whatever domestic vendors ask for what they might have obtained elsewhere. And there are a great many other such breaches of capitalism that have been features of the American economy, including all those local restrictions of free trade that come from blue laws, various ordinances as to where one may build homes, businesses, etc.

Oh, you may say, but these are all results of democratic politicking and should not be objected to in a country like America where democracy is the method for determining public policy. Well, if so then at least admit, I would argue, that democracy has been trumping the free market system from the nation's birth, making the claim that there's has been rampant free market capitalism afoot here utterly false. Yes, compared to many countries across the globe and throughout human history, America has had a freer economic system. Before the birth of the USA most countries operated with a mercantilist system wherein the monarch and his minions decide on important social, including economic, matters--in science, religion, publishing, trade with foreign nations, etc. and so forth. So compared with that the citizens of this country obviously enjoyed more liberty (except, of course, those kept enslaved).

But just because of the relative greater economic freedom here, it is not true that there has been free market capitalism in America. In some regions of the economy freedom has been progressively eroded, such as in banking and finance which have become nearly nationalized under the rules of the central bank, the Federal Reserve system, since the early 1900s. Again, the point here isn't whether this was something right, just as the point about democracy in the political system isn't about whether that is just or proper. The issue here is only whether those who loudly blame the current fiasco on free market capitalism have any kind of case at all. And they do not.

Making references to the late Milton Friedman, as did Professor Galbraith, is also quite disingenuous because while the great economist from the University of Chicago did advocate a virtually fully free market capitalist economy, his recommendations were hardly followed and, instead, he was listened to mainly concerning certain technical monetary policies, rules laid down by the Federal Reserve. But following those rules by no means gave the country a free market economy.

The task of figuring out how various results are produced in a mixed economy such as America's is a difficult one. Many claim, of example--and not at all implausibly--that what largely brought about the current mess is the federal government's insistence that banks lend money to people who were utterly unprepared to repay it and how this policy spawned others, mostly in the financial markets, so that they led to the mess we now face. But whatever is the right explanation, it simply cannot be that free market capitalism cause it all since, well, there has not ever been free market capitalism in America, especially not in the financial sector.

Darwin's helpers

Tibor R. Machan

My familiarity with Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection as the driving force of biological evolution on earth comes mainly from some colleges courses I took many moons ago and my reading of certain recent books focusing on the controversy about whether Darwin's work is theoretically adequate for its purpose. In short, I am no expert. However, I do not doubt that creationism is no substitute since that view accounts for the same phenomena by way of a first big cause--God or some other creator--which then would need to be explained by some other creator, ad infinitum. And that has its own theoretical difficulties.

There are some matters, though, that Darwinians seem not to have dealt with satisfactorily, no doubt--theories like these which have so many aspects and cover so much territory, can always use updating, modification, improvement, etc., in light of new discoveries. Indeed, no such theory is ever complete, not until the end of the world arrives and nothing new will be forthcoming that will need to be integrated with it. That will be, as the saying goes, the end of the day when we can close the book for good. But until then it needs to be kept open.

I am curious, however, about how Darwinian evolutionary theory, even its most up to date version, squares with the efforts of many people to interfere with what they consider the natural world or, what I call, the wilds. If evolutionary theory is sound and natural selection drives all the living world, how would it work for people to interfere--say, by preserving endangered species or refurbishing meadows in the Scottish Highlands (where periodically old grass is replaced by people with new grass that's been cultivated by human beings for that purpose) or conservation or finding cures for maladies caused by viruses? Would such measures taken by people themselves amount to features of natural selection? But then wouldn't zoos and wildlife parks and keeping pets and, indeed, whatever happens by dint of what people do in the world count, also, as aspects of natural selection? Wouldn't it also mean that anything that happens is a feature of that process, be it untouched by people or a function of their intervention? People being part of the world interact with the rest of the world and by Darwin's account would need to be included in the evolutionary process whatever the result. If people wipe out whales, for example, well then that's natural selection. If they preserve the bald eagle, that too fits. Natural selection is what drives it all, so complaining about the loss of this species or another or cheering the recovery of another is like complaining about or rooting for some planetary motion or the shape of a galaxy.

I have asked around among friends who champion a strong Darwinian position, one that's supposed to take care of all the nooks and crannies of how the living world works, and I never find their answers very satisfactory. It is especially odd, for my money, that environmentalists fret and fuss about what happens, stuff they dislike, stuff they want to improve upon. What is going on here? Sure, whether the sun shines or not can be pleasing or not but certainly it has to be what it is, no one can be blamed, no laments make any sense, none that imply that things ought to go some other way.

Indeed, is criticism of human interference, the kind that supposedly causes global warming or climate change--or whatever the last term is that is used, by which human beings are roundly indicted for mishandling the wilds--even intelligible? Can one meaningfully criticize what has to be and cannot be otherwise?

Just thought I'd ask because some of this simply fails to hang together coherently and folks might like to think about that, especially when certain people, say Al Gore, tear into them--including into their businesses and corporations--so vehemently for doing what they shouldn't--or not doing what they should--be doing. But if it is all que sera, sera, as strong Darwinians argue, how could this kind of chiding make any sense at all--like chiding folks for how tall they are, their skin color or where they were born.

Go figure.

Egoistic Benevolence Anyone?

Tibor R. Machan

A popular, indeed highly respectable, view of ethics is that it's all about serving others. Even if this were true of ethics, it is seriously doubtful that those who preach the idea actually practice it. As the famous poet W. H. Auden put the point so adroitly, "We are here on earth to do good for others. What the others are here for, I don't know." Which pretty much points up how impossible the notion is that altruism is the ethics by which all of us must be guided in our lives.

Anyway, I have a practice that many might regard as altruistic but I don't believe it is at all. Whenever I travel in places teeming with tourists, I offer to take pictures of couples when I see them taking pictures of each other and seem to be missing out having pictures taken of them both together. I started doing this as far back as the late 60s when I first visited Europe following my immigration from there to the USA many years earlier. I went back and took trains all over the place, partly for fun, partly because I needed to kill time between my arrival and departure on the cheap charter flight I managed to book for myself. I was then going back to meet my mother who for the first time was permitted by the communists to come West to meet her family in Germany. I got one of those cheap flights and met her after not having seen her for about 15 years.

But between when my flight arrived and when I could finally meet with her, I had to wander around a good deal, and on the cheap--I couldn't really afford to be a proper tourist but had to settle for being a bit of a vagrant. I bought one of those passes on Europe's trains and went wherever the trains took me for a couple of weeks before i could meet my mother in Hamburg.

And it is while bumming around this way that I noticed how many couples kept taking pictures of one another but no one took pictures of them both. And it occurred to me that they might welcome some help in this matter and began to offer it all over the place--Paris, Lisbon, Monaco, Munich, Vienna. Tbilisi, Hong Kong and so forth. I rarely ever got off the train other than to walk around or to catch a street car and take it from where I boarded it all the way back there, a round trip, as it were.

In all these travels not only did I take in the sights--although I am not one who uncritically admires the palaces and castles and churches one can visit on such trips, given that I could never get rid of my apprehensiveness about how those got built in the first place, by a lot of serfs and otherwise oppressed folks in feudal systems--but often, actually rather spontaneously, offered to take pictures of those couples that hadn't a way to capture their memories on film together. As time went by, and I made trips to places like South Africa, New Zealand, Armenia, Greece, and so on and so forth--by this time mostly to make various presentations, give lectures, attend conferences, and so on--the practice of providing this photographic service became a routine, even a habit. Not the least because it was so much appreciated by those to whom I extended it. And even this late in the day, on my recent trip to Scotland and France, I continued it and found that most folks were very surprised at the offer and also quite appreciative. (Once in a while I have found the need to assure them that I am not going to steal their camera!)

Anyway, none of this is any kind of grand generosity, more of a minor gesture of friendliness in a world that's all too much filled with suspicion and hostility among people. As I mentioned, often it comes up spontaneously, without much deliberation, nearly second nature. And why not? It doesn't take all that much to stop and do this little favor to total strangers.

Unfortunately, some will make of it much more than it is, as if it showed how nifty altruism really is. But there is no self-denial, self-sacrifice, unselfishness in any of it, none. What it involves is a certain measure of thoughtfulness and generosity, OK. But then why not? Most folks are pretty nice so extending a bit of help to them even if not expressly wanted can do no harm and can brighten things up for them a bit. I figure, carry on!

Misanthropy Revisited

Tibor R. Machan

It seems to me that among too many scientists and champions of science there is a pointless misanthropy afoot, as if somehow to defend proper science against its pseudo variety one needed to take humanity a notch or two. It seems to be doubtless that human beings have special (enough) capacities, attributes, and so forth that classifying them as quite unlike all other animals known to us makes eminently good sense. Just take a few examples of what makes them so: it is human beings who do science, not dogs or orangutans or crows. It is they who build museums, produce movies, write novels, teach courses in anthropology and biology, etc., etc. Yes, people also are known to be quite destructive and, as Aristotle said some 2500 years ago, "If there is anyone who holds that the study of the animal is an unworthy pursuit, he ought to go farther and hold the same opinion about the study of himself." But while we are all animals, there is a lot that is quite different about people, different from other animals, and much of it is quite beneficial, even admirable at times. (Think of the works of Newton, Einstein, Mozart, Hugo, Degas, among others, in support of this point.)

In a recent essay, in the magazine Science News (8/29/09, p. 5) by science writer Bruce Bower about how crows use sticks, stones, etc., as tools, much is made of what crows can do as something that "has debunked the traditional view that tool use is a defining human characteristic." Unfortunately, no example is given of any traditional view Mr. Bower may have in mind but, in any case, the one that defines human beings by reference to the capacity to use tools is at most just one and certainly not the only traditional view. (Bower's subsequent reference to one of Aesop's fables in his essay--in support of a separate point--"in which a thirsty crow plunked rocks into a pitcher to raise the water level," indicates clearly that some traditional views see nothing odd about nonhuman animals using tools.)

Now, just because some traditional views elevate human beings toward some superhuman status, it doesn't follow that human beings do not in fact belong above many if not all the rest of the animals in the hierarchy of living beings. Who can reasonably deny that people do far more interesting and complicated things than at least the bulk of other animals? I mean, it amount to sticking one's head in the sand to deny this. And such self-imposed ignorance is quite unbecoming of scientists, even science writers. After all, the evidence shows, even in what scientists themselves, as well as science writers, do that people are special. But then so is an eagle in comparison with, say, a slug. Indeed, what is all too evident, as we look around and study the world, is that there is a great deal of diversity and among all the diverse living beings some have capacities to do far more complicated and indeed valuable things than do others.

I believe if writers like Bower concentrated more on reporting and avoided gratuitous polemics, Science News would be a better magazine of science. There is now altogether too much misanthropy in the world, including in too many science magazines! As to what human beings should be defined as, certainly at least one tradition states is that they are essentially rational animals, which means they survive and flourish mainly by their capacity for conceptual awareness, for thinking by means of complex ideas, theories, etc. And this does seem quite right, does it not?

Yes, there is a continuum involved here. But between what crows and other nonhuman animals can do a vast distance exists before one gets to what humans can, such as editing magazines, building museums, and running research centers in the great variety of disciplines Science News, among other magazines, covers.

TANSTAAFHC

Tibor R. Machan

TANSTAAFL is an acronym for "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch," popularized, according to Wikipedia, "by science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein." But the saying caught on mostly with classical liberals and libertarians who have a philosophical commitment to tell the truth about public policy matters. The current version should, however, be changed to TANSTAAFHC, meaning "There Ain't no Such Thing As Free Health Care" despite what Obama Care champions pretend.

Consider Sarah Lyall, who wrote--in her essay pushing to something like the UK's National Health Service here in the USA, titled "An Expat Goes for a checkup, Here and Abroad," published in The New York Times on August 16th--that "Certainly, as someone who in the 1980s paid $333 to have an emergency room doctor at Georgetown University Hospital remove a piece of toilet paper from my ear after I had unsuccessfully tried to use it as an earplug, I applaud a system that is free."

Never mind about the stupidity of stuffing one's ear with toilet paper--whatever turns you on, I say. But why should anyone other than Ms. Lyall be paying for the removal of it? Because, let's face it, there really is no such thing as free health care. Doctors want to be paid, as do nurses, medical labs, the clerk in the various facilities, the drug manufacturers, as do all others working in the health care industry. (I am also pretty sure that Ms. Lyall wants to be paid for her work that produced the essay about the wonderful free system in the UK which, of course, is anything but free.) Someone must pay for it all.

But of course Ms. Lyall isn't alone in advocating the "free" system--moreover, to her credit, when I contacted her by e-mail she answered that "You're absolutely right that the NHS isn't free, but is paid for by the taxpayer, and I should have explicitly said that in my article. But by that measure, I do indeed help pay for it: I pay British (and US, too, alas) taxes." In its coverage of the debate, which has featured some people on both sides of the Atlantic, UK produced magazine, THE WEEK, in a short piece published August 22, 2009, and titled "Knocking the NHS," also referred to the NHS as providing "free health care," which it clearly is not. It's no more free than are freeways in the USA. But because many people do share the primitive magical belief that the name one gives to something influences its nature, politicians who favor socialized medicine--meaning medical care that is provided at the expense of taxpayers many of whom would rather take part one that involves no government and involuntary wealth redistribution at all--as well as all their academic and journalistic cheerleaders keep calling government mandated and taxpayer funded health care "free."

But saying something is "free" will not make it so. Among the few free goods and provisions in the world health care is certainly not one. Perhaps the heat from the sun, when the clouds are hiding, is free. Maybe so is motherly love, at least to a baby. But because life requires support from hard-to-come-by materials, the work needed to discover and deliver those materials must be paid for by someone. And the case recounted by Ms. Lyall indicates pretty directly why collectivizing the provision of health care services is unjust--after all, all those folks who take better care of themselves than to stick toilet paper into their ear should not have to foot the bill for those who do and then must be provided with medical services to rectify their imprudence.

It is interesting, by the way, that just at this time it has stopped being politically incorrect, even illegal, to discriminate against people who neglect their health. It is beginning to be OK to refuse to hire smokers and obese people because their condition, often brought on by themselves, imposes costs on employers. (It used to be considered unjust discrimination to refuse to hire the obese among us, not so long ago, actually.) That there are inconsistencies lurking here seems to have escaped many public commentators, including ones who were avid supporters of certain provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act that made it illegal to discriminate against, well, obese people, at least in enough cases to have a chilling effect on those who would refuse to hire them. (www.ada.gov/archive/mythfact.htm)

The most important flaw in both the UK's NHS and similar systems around the globe, as well as the comparable proposals coming from the Obama administration, is that they treat all of us as if we were members of a voluntary group the membership of which has accepted the obligation to care for all. But the USA or UK is not such a club. They are countries where people are supposed to have the liberty to either sign up or refuse to sign up for systems of wealth redistribution, including health insurance.

Krugmania Revisited

Tibor R. Machan

Princeton University Nobel Laureate economist and regular pundit
at The New York Times, along with many other contemporary defenders of
mercantilism--the idea that the state is the most suitable agent for
making economic decisions in society--is fundamentally opposed to a
principled public policy that rests on the renunciation of coercion among
human beings. Indeed he repeatedly ridicules those who do renounce
coercion. He considers them ideologues, people wedded to a mindless dogma.

At first inspection Krugman`s fierce opposition to principled free
market public policies may appear sound. He makes such thinking appear to
be mindless, dogmatic, unchecked by experience or history, merely a matter
of churning out some slogans. Yet, Krugman is on remarkably weak footing
in his stance. This is because principled thinking about public and
indeed any policies is the hallmark of intelligent and civilized human
approaches to problem solving--from engineering, farming, psychiatry, all
the way to epistemology (the theory of knowledge), ethics or politics. The
scientific method, for example, deploys principled thinking in
distinguishing between sound and pseudo-science. In law it is also
remarkable how procedures depend upon principled thinking, due process!

But to illustrate the pervasiveness and significance of
principled thinking, consider the nearly universal opposition to rape by
decent people. This opposition rests squarely on the principle that sex
with anyone must be voluntary, uncoerced (thus those unable to give
consent must not be sexually approached). There is no exception to this
idea, however tempting it may be to breach it. The fiercest commitment is
required of all, a commitment that according to Krugmania amounts to
ideology. By his view of what kind of thinking must go into the forging
of policies, public or private, in human affairs, each case of rape would
need to be considered individually, divorced from any
fundamental--opposition to rape on principle!

Those whom Krugman ridicules for holding to principles thinking in
public policy decisions, especially pertaining to economic affairs, hold
that the principle of voluntariness also applies to economic relations
among people, not just to sexual ones. This approach is, indeed, not
different from the common sense idea that under no circumstances is it
permissible to use people and what belongs to them without their consent.
This is what free market economics stresses, ultimately. And this is what
Professor Krugman considers infantile, ideological.

Now ideological thinking is often denounced without really
understanding it at all. In some cases there is nothing at all wrong with
using a well examined ideology to guide one in making decisions, including
in public policies. It merely means that there are general ideas that
apply and not every single action one takes has to be treated as a brand
new one. In other contexts ideological thinking amounts to something
insidious. This is when someone desires to do something and invents a set
of phony ideas to justify it, post facto. This is the kind of ideological
thinking that most serious scholars and researchers consider fallacious,
objectionable.

For Professor Krugman, however, all principled thinking amounts to
ideology. This spares him the trouble of having to actually examine the
principles being deployed--they can just be dismissed out of hand, never
mind any arguments in support of this dismissal. Yet, as already noted, a
great deal of the thinking done by human beings--be this thinking what
guides one`s driving or cooking or child raising--involves using
principles that have been tested and found sound and useful.

That, in fact, is what prompts many people to oppose not government
per se but the use of government`s major tool, namely, coercive force, as
the economy is dealt with. Governments use force because their role, as
the American Founders made clear, is to secure the rights of all citizens.
That is why governments exist, not for all the reasons so many statists,
mercantilists--in short, meddlers in human affairs--keep brining up.
This, at least, is the idea behind preferring public policies that follow
free market principles rather than interventionist ones. And it will not
due, however much Professor Krugman keeps repeating the idea, to dismiss
such thinking as some kind of blind fundamentalism.

So Who is Simplistic?

Tibor R. Machan

Having been a loyal champion of the regime of individual liberty for decades on end now, I have met up umpteen times and more with the charge that these ideas are mere ideology and simplistic to boot. The only tune I am told I sing is "Reduce the power and scope of government whenever that's possible." How childish, isn't it? All this freedom stuff, for which millions have lived and died over the centuries.

Well, most people have certain central notions from which they draw their political convictions. Simple some may be but not necessarily simplistic. That's because championing liberty, for example, is in fact championing extensive complexity--when millions of human beings are free to think and act as they choose, the outcome is something totally diverse, a complex society with thousands of elements, features, attributes, processes, goods and services contributing to human flourishing. Freedom isn't just one course of conduct but many, many, and most aren't even predictable. So those who champion it by no means place their trust in just one idea but in the capacity of people to forge millions of them.

In contrast, do the critics of the regime of liberty promote anything comparably complex? No, not actually. Their bottom line is always: "Have governments use additional coercive force!" Rob Peter to serve the needs of Paul. Force Peter to conform to rules and more rules. The one note that such political operatives, including citizens and their "representatives," sing is "Just make people do what they don't want to do." Coercive force is the answer that will save us from every adversity! Be they conservatives or liberals or socialist or Fascists such folks trust in just one policy over all others, namely, to subdue the will of their fellow human beings and bend them to their own.

What could be more simplistic than this? Where is there any complexity, diversity, multifacetedness in such a doctrine? But one may suppose that by dismissing their critics as simplistic adherents to this idea hope that their own simplistic idea will not be too evident. Just insisting that the policy of coercion against innocent human beings is a sophisticated one might put champions of liberty on the defensive and confound those on the sidelines. But what champions of liberty need to realize is that it isn't they who advance simplistic, one-size-fits-all answers to the problems people face in their lives and communities but their opponents who trust nothing more than the deployment of state power--from the mild sort now dubbed "nudging," to the more Draconian one involving vice squads.

Take this to the personal level and consider whether a peaceful individual, unarmed, lives a more complex, diverse, multifaceted life, and interacts with others in highly varied ways or does a bully do this, or a criminal, whose one and only effective method is to deploy coercive force? The answer seems quite evident from just looking around at history and our daily lives. Take terrorists, as a case in point. Do they have many ways of dealing with their fellow human beings? Not at all--what they do is kill and maim them, period.

So when those who chide defenders of the free society for having only one answer to our problems, or for saying "no" to coercion wherever it is found, they have it all wrong. Champions of individual liberty are only starting out toward solving problems by refusing to sanction coercion. Once coercion is prohibited and substantially removed from human associations, all kinds of different peaceful ways of dealing with life's challenges are unleashed. Statists, however, do not trust this. They have confidence in only one thing: coercion or its threat. Anything else seems to leave them utterly nonplussed.

I recommend that no one be intimidated by the thoughtless charge that freedom is a simplistic solution to problems we face in our personal and social lives. It is not. Freedom is what makes possible, indeed encourages, creativity, ingenuity, entrepreneurship, adventure, productivity, friendship, cooperation, and all the rest of what makes for a worthwhile life for people. It is the use or threat of coercive force that ruins all this wherever it is invoked.

Is Fear of Our Government Rational?

Tibor R. Machan

Too often now when some people voice fear of the American government, whether it is its policy involving Homeland Security or health care reform, one is accused of being irrational or paranoid. It is that familiar "It can't happen here" syndrome at work. But there are good reasons not to dismiss such concerns under current circumstances.

When society is considered a collective--akin to a team, only not voluntarily established like most sport teams are--those who see themselves as its leaders and charged with selecting the goals everyone must pursue, can quite easily slip into a mode of thinking that construes all opposition a form of betrayal. If, for example, the federal government is understood along these lines, setting goals for us all for which resources and hard work are needed, and dissent from which may threaten the ability to collect those resources and secure such work, the dissenters will naturally be perceived as traitors to the cause. Indeed, their obstreperousness will easily be perceived as dangerous obstruction of justice! After all, those who are leading us all toward a goal they consider vital to the public interest do understand themselves to be promoters, champions of social justice. How else are they to understand wealth redistribution, for example? In all the literature I have run across in my now quite long career in the field of political philosophy, insisting on the idea that the rich must not be allowed to keep their wealth, the poor must be made to share in the wealth of the nation, the indigent are legally entitled to support obtained by taking from those who have it--all these views are defended mainly as varieties of social or economic justice. And is it not even a crime today to obstruct justice? Sure, that means obstructing law but it is called obstruction of justice, is it not? Because if the law itself is deemed as just, then those who oppose it are in cahoots with criminals who obstruct it. And by the lights of the collectivists, laws promoting their idea of the public interest are indeed just.

How can a bona fide promoter of social justice tolerate serious, persistent dissent? It is not possible unless one is firmly committed to the idea of individual rights, the right, for example, to campaign against and even withdraw from various projects government officials consider vital to the public interest. And when a country's government is administered by officials who do not believe in individual rights, as for instance President Obama is not--judging by his close association with and reliance on the advice of legal theorists who denigrate such rights as fictitious--the concern that dissent will land one in hot water with government officials is quite rational.

OK, for a while there is the protection afforded by the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution but with sufficient savvy the defenders of the public interest as they see it could very well see full warrant for weakening such protection. This is one of the lessons of Franklin D. Roosevelt's efforts to pack the U. S. Supreme Court when that court would not go along with his plans for the country, plans that involved breaching the principles of the U. S. Constitution. Roosevelt did not believe in the Bill of Rights as traditionally understood in America's legal history but crafted, instead, a Second Bill of Rights. It wasn't only that some of the older interpretations of the Bill of Rights needed to be straightened out but that the very idea of citizens having basic, unalienable rights stood in the way of his aggressive statism.

Today the legal team of President Obama is of the same mind as FDR was when he launched the New Deal. What is needed, they argue, is the reaffirmation of FDR's Second Bill of Rights, with its emphasis on entitlements and the coerced services needed from everyone so as to deliver on these. So when one opposes this policy, one is clearly an obstructionist. One is breaking ranks from an army that needs all the soldiers to be dedicated and loyal. Patriotism is then defined as falling in line with the government's plans.

Why is it such a surprise, then, that the Obama Administration is attacking those American citizens who voice opposition to, for example, its plan for the virtual nationalization of the health care profession in America? Why be surprised that opponents of bailouts and stimulus programs are denigrated and marginalized instead of argued with? Such people are seen as vicious opponents of social and economic justice and such opposition is quite intolerable to anyone who cares for such justice, is it not?

Once the bulwark against this kind of tyranny--namely, the basic rights of individuals and the legal system that rests on those rights--is rejected as ultimately mythical, what will stand in the way of treating dissenters as traitors?

The fear of the American government becoming more and more tyrannical is not irrational but completely justified by the logic of the current administration's attitude about political and legal theory. What we are seen as, all of us, is tools and resources for carrying out the government's plans. Anyone who disagrees may well need to be neutralized.

Could it be Genuine Collectivism?

Tibor R. Machan

Whenever one is involved in a debate or argument about normative matters--ethics or politics, for instance--certain moves are made by means of using labels. One might characterize another's position as "extreme right or left wing," "fascist," "socialist," "ultra conservative," "ruthlessly capitalist," "radically individaulist," and so forth. All such labels contain a charge to the effect that the other's position is misguided and maybe out and out disastrous and vicious in its implications. Which is why the labels are so vigorously rejected, why they are deemed to be a variety of "name calling."

Yet they are not always off base. Some people's viewpoint and policy proposals do amount to one of these on the list above. Slightly rephrased, they might even be openly embraced by one's adversary. Thus, for example, one might consider someone's position socialist and the person might accept it so long as it is a socialism "with a human face." Even Nazis, national socialists, might fess up to their viewpoint provided it doesn't get linked to concentration camps, just as communists might accept being communists so long as Stalin and the gulags are not linked to this characterization.

But in certain contexts, however much one's position may amount to a variety of socialism, communism, or, alternatively, fascism or Nazism, because of the pejorative intimation of such terms they will be rejected, resisted, and one's adversary will see it as underhanded, dirty pool, to make use of them. We have exactly this situation now with Barack Obama's recommended public policies, such as his idea of a heavily government-linked health care system, his bailout efforts vis-a-vis the auto and bank industries, his stimulus program, etc. By all accounts these measures leave very little of the already truncated American system of a free market capitalism intact. By all accounts they require revising the meaning and function of the U. C. Constitution, the complete undoing of the market economy, and the abolition of the American founders' idea of natural individual human rights.

For example, many legal scholars who support Mr. Obama now believe that the U. S. Constitution is basically outmoded and must be fundamentally re-conceived. Just peruse a recently published collection of papers by these scholars, The Constitution in 2020, edited by Jack M. Balkin and Reva B. Siegel, from Oxford University Press, all of which are self-labeled as "progressive" despite the fact that virtually all want to revamp the American legal system by returning more and more power to government, just as that used to be the case under the monarchy that the American Revolution overthrew! (In other words, this progressivism is in fact reactionary politics.) A leading light among the contributors is Professor Cass R. Sustain who completely rejects the American Founders' idea that before law, before government, in "the state of nature," human beings have rights to their lives, liberty, property and so forth, which governments are instituted so as to secure for us all. For these folks government may or may not grant or create rights--which is exactly the kind of power and authority claimed by kings, czars, chiefs, rulers, and politburos over their subjects.

How can one detect the socialist version of this attempt to revamp the American system in Mr. Obama & Co.'s proposals? The one straightfoward way is to pay attention to how the regime has accepted one of the most basic tenets of classical socialism, namely, that wealth is publicly owned, not by individuals who earned or otherwise honestly came by it. (The very first item of action recommended by Karl Marx and his partner Frederick Engels in The Communist Manifesto for advancing toward socialism--a system that must, by their account, precede communism--is the abolition of private property.) John Locke, the grandfather of the American legal tradition, considered the right to private property--which included for him one's life and its fruits--fundamental to a just human community. The Obama team of legal and political theorists rejects this. Or it considers the position only right for a brief period of American history, but by now in need of discarding.

When politicians and legal scholars who stand by them--who want to revise the law to suit their so called progressive goals--believe that they may just take from one portion of the population whatever they deem necessary and use it for a purpose they deem in the public interest, they see the society as a kind of organism whose various limbs and organs and other attributes may, if need be, switched around. (This is like a surgeon who believes some bone fragment from one's hip may be useful to repair, say, one's broken nose!) The Obama regime is totally nonplussed about wealth redistribution because it believes wealth is all socially held, not private property. And since they run the society, they can make use of this wealth, including the wealth yet to be produced by members of future generations, as they believe is wise. This is why bailouts, stimulus packages, clunker programs and the like are all just fine and dandy with them. All the wealth involved belongs to us, with them in charge of it.

Since there may well be some serious resistance to this socialist program once Americans get full wind of its implications, it can well come to pass that the government will make use of rough measures to make sure its will is the way. So, lookout--this socialism with a human face could change rather abruptly to one just like those we have seen first turn brutal and then crash in the 20th century!

Fallacies of the Clunker Program

Tibor R. Machan

Most have no time to consider the big picture so when the clunker program comes their way, they think only of the immediate consequences. It all reminds me of those horrible failed urban renewal government plans to raze innumerable small city communities and built huge high rise apartments, plans that Robert Moses of New York City pushed on New Yorkers all the time, which the late Jane Jacobs, the brilliant theorist of city life, opposed most of her life. But when you present the artist conception of the new high rises it tends to look kind of cool and many people are seduced by them.

Same with the clunker trade in program--I will just toss my old jalopy and get me shiny new wheels. Never mind that the money you get from the government will eventually come out of your or, especially, your children's and grand children's pockets and the clunkers will end up in some junk yard that will cost millions and millions to clean up.

It appears that the recent build up of a housing bubble hasn't taught people anything at all. Much of it was due to easy credit, credit folks didn't really have coming to them based on their actual financial situation. To recover from this the bulk of the population would need to go on an austerity program at least until after they paid off the debt and got back into the financial saddle.

Instead of dealing with the matter with some patience and prudence, the instant fix-it Obama regime simply reintroduced various ways once more in which the country as a whole can go into massive debt, leaving the problem to be dealt with by members of a future--and now non-voting--citizenry. It is all still just as reckless as the many private accruals of credit had been but now it is more cleverly disguised because members of the current citizenry will not feel the pinch right away. It matters not at all to these people that they are imposing immense burdens on those who have no opportunity to accept or refuse them, not even by means of the democratic method. Once again the principle of "no taxation without representation" is flouted not only by violating it unabashedly but by not even acknowledging this fact and trying, however feebly, to argue against it.

The clunker program is especially cynical. Most of us have no chance of exploring the broader implications of current public policies--most of us just try to live with them, make the most of them for purposes of managing our current affairs. So if a politician engages in the massive violation of elementary principles of justice and fair play while handing his constituency resources confiscated from others--or "borrowed" from helpless future voters--most will just accept it and make the most of it, never mind how the process can progressively corrupt the system under which we live.

The clunker program will seem like manna from heaven to a great many people with old cars they wish they could trade in for newer ones on favorable terms. Never mind that the precedence set or continued with the program spells hardship for those who will be citizens in the future. They cannot protest and no politician, nor anyone in the major media, is going to bring up the matter since it is now and has been for decades quite routine and deemed acceptable. Republicans do it, Democrats do it, so no one on Meet the Press or the Op Ed pages of The New York Times or Washington Post is going to write in opposition to it since bringing the matter up for discussion will simply prompt one's opponents to say, "Hey but your party has been doing this for decades on end." Robbing Peter to subsidize Paul is what welfare state politics is all about and both the major parties are firmly committed to this system. All that is open for discussion is how deeply the country ought to sink into the morass the system creates.

I am not excusing ordinary folks for their eagerness to take advantage of a something-for-nothing federal program but I do wish to point out that such measures are by now so deeply entrenched in the country that one would need to do some very searching thinking about political economy to realize just how insidious it is. Few can devote the time needed to come to terms with this, so they just roll with the punches. And sadly the country lacks leadership in the mainstream that might remind folks of this fact.