“The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters”*

Tibor R. Machan

In basic reasoning courses one learns that certain ways of thinking are fallacious, others are sound. Sadly, most students don’t actually remember much of what they learn here because these courses are taught too early in their college years, just at the time they are still celebrating no longer being in high school. (Yes, for nearly two years many students pay hardly any attention to their studies, having been incarcerated in school for 12 years prior to entering college!)

Had they been educated about reasoning well versus badly, they might catch some of the howlers committed by members of the media (or anyone else). As a case in point, I had the distinct displeasure of watching Bill O’Reilly during the 2000 presidential election, when the mess in Florida with those hanging chads was going down. In his ponderous and pompous manner, which apparently many people welcome for some reason, O’Reilly announced in the middle of his coverage of the events that journalistic objectivity is a total myth, that everyone is biased, including him. And not just when they are voicing their particular viewpoint. Also, when they report on facts.

Now here is a good case of muddled and fallacious reasoning. It is inconsistent for a journalist to both make a report about journalism--e.g., that it is always biased--while also claiming that all such reports are biased, which is to say unreliable, distorted, one-sided, partisan or subjective. If the latter were true, than the former could not be treated as also true since it would also fall victim to distortion or bias. And why would anyone trust a journalist who distorts the facts he is supposed to be reporting to us? We could find something far more productive to do.

More generally, any kind of corruption in a profession, such as journalism, cannot be inherent. If it were, no distinction between distorted and dependable reporting could be identified. At least the possibility of credible reporting must exist. It’s like food--not all of it could be poisonous; nor could we all be sick all the time. These pairs of concepts, like poisonous versus healthy, corrupt versus honest, biased versus objective, etc., and so forth are meaningful only if both were possible. Just one of them on its own makes no sense. Like beginning versus end, or up versus down--they make sense only when paired.

Anyway, quite a few people get tripped up by forgetting these and many other elementary points of human reasoning. They will accept the idea, for example, that all human thought is fallacious; that everyone is always lying; that our minds are innately defective, etc. None of this could be so, in part because then these reports about us would themselves be unreliable since we made them with our human minds (and our human minds, remember, always distort everything, etc., etc.).

Why is there so much of this sort of babbling about when it is so flawed? (Another infamous case in point is “All property is theft” since theft presupposes the existence of untainted property.) One reason is that a great many people are misanthropes. They are very eager to demean humanity, to put it down as something worthless or inherently flawed. So they attack our most vital faculty, the human mind. (Maybe in fact they are projecting!)

The most prominent example of this is a certain version of the idea of original sin, in the form that states that human beings are basically and thoroughly sinful from the git-go. (If all it means is that human beings are capable of being wicked, well that’s no news!) Another source is the famous and famously misunderstood idea the comes to us from Socrates, the main character of all those great Platonic dialogues. Socrates is supposed to have said, if Plato is to be believed, that the only thing he knows is that he knows nothing (and that no one who thinks he is wise is really wise, including he).

These are very paradoxical claims to make and, most probably, their point is ironic not literal. They could be one approach to keeping hubris in check, making sure no one takes himself too seriously, no one gets carried away with his or her cleverness. This is also where the idea “sophistry” comes from, of cleverness masquerading as wisdom. Sophists in Plato’s time where those who pretended to be wise but in fact merely exhibited technical skill in argumentation, a bit like attorneys are reputed to do.

It would be nice if all those hours of sitting in basic reasoning classes actually left their mark on all students. But since you can become a famous anchor on TV while committing lacunae galore, I suppose many fail to see the benefit from it.

*Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes.

Democrats Against Democracy?

Tibor R. Machan

Am I alone in finding the Wisconsin Democrats who have been AWOL anything but democratic? Sure, they weren’t doing anything illegal like soldiers who go absent without leave. But that’s a legalism that makes little difference here. What counts is that these Democrats refuse to join their Republican colleagues in an effort to sort out how the state might be brought to its economic senses.

Just think of it like a household where enormous debts have accumulated because some members have spent and committed for future payment way more than the family resources and now something needs to be done so as to put the family back on some kind of manageable budget, which will entail reducing allowances and restricting what can be spent on food, household goods, entertainment, education and the rest. So some of the family call a meeting to discuss just how this should be accomplished but, alas, half of them refuse to show.

Except in Wisconsin it’s worse. In a household the few members who do stay to try to deal with the situation are usually authorized to make decisions without those who refuse to take part but in Wisconsin the rules of the process make this approach impossible--a quorum is required to do anything at all.

Now I believe those who take advantage of this and block the work by going AWOL are not serving their constituents properly at all. Because, remember, you cannot get blood out of a turnip. The coffers are empty. The only alternatives are to default or to impose such high taxes that it will kill Wisconsin’s economy--unemployment will increase, investments will vanish, shops and firms will close by the droves. And who wins? It is the Democrats who seem to have only one objective, namely, not to be legally associated with making cuts that will impact public workers. Why? Because by their lights the constituents are too stupid to realize that, well, you cannot get blood from a turnip! So these citizens will not see the effort to make cuts as a means to save at least some elements of the system, to make substantial retirement payments still possible. No. If you just reduce these retiree’s payments, they will certainly retaliate by voting you out of office.

It is at this point that one can raise the question, where is there some leadership around here? Why don’t the Democrats come back and teach their constituency some elementary accounting, like that one needs to makes cuts when one has no funds with which to keep paying the hefty pensions. Indeed, this is one of the more reasonable roles of politicians, to explain public finance to voters instead of to keep promising to deliver what cannot be delivered!

But the Democrats have chosen another path, at least for a long period until finally the Republican colleagues managed to come up with a few adjustments. As reported in The Washington Post,

“In Ohio, Republican lawmakers agreed to modify a bill that would have banned collective bargaining, allowing state workers to negotiate on wages. Michigan's GOP governor offered to negotiate with public employees rather than create political gridlock. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) called on GOP lawmakers to abandon their "right to work" bill that would have made it a misdemeanor for an employer to require workers to become or remain members of a labor union.

“Even in Wisconsin--where more than 60,000 demonstrators have camped out at the Capitol for the past week to protest a budget plan by Gov. Scott Walker (R) to end collective-bargaining rights for public employees--Republicans and Democrats took a small but significant step toward resolving their clash....”

It was about time. What is still a mystery is just how all these phony obligations to public workers, obligations that were known as impossible to fulfill from the git-go, seem acceptable to make in the first place. If you work for me and my budget goes to a certain level but you demand I pay you a lot me, is it not fraud for me to promise that I will pay you way beyond it? How come something like that isn’t the focus of the debate? Why is it even permissible to make such promises? It would seem to me even illegal to do so, no?

But it looks like politicians are held to a far lower standard of negotiation than we ordinary citizens are when we deal with one another. And the Democrats in many states would appear to be willing to corrupt their precious democracy itself so as to try to avoid the problems with their evidently reckless public finance policies. But then they have corrupted the idea of limited government all along, so this isn’t a stretch for them.

Are Public Unions Unjust?

Tibor R. Machan

Bona fide Labor unions work within a free market system where firms compete for customers who are normally able to switch from sellers of wares and services if they want to. Public works are noncompetitive, however. Workers who belong to public unions conduct their labor negotiations without their employers facing any competitors. The USPS, for example, has a monopoly over first class mail delivery; teachers at public schools are working for monopolistic employers--students must attend school and the funds are confiscated through taxation and not obtained through voluntary exchange. So, as the saying goes, public workers have the taxpayers over a barrel--there are no alternatives and in most cases one cannot refuse to deal with these workers.

So public workers unions are not genuine free market agents. As such they are able to have their terms met by the taxpaying public basically at the point of a gun. The public must deal with these workers otherwise they face legal sanctions. There is nowhere else to go apart from moving out of the state to another where the same situation obtains, where once again public unions possess monopoly powers and costumers have nowhere else they can turn to get a different deal or to avoid dealing altogether.

In a genuine free market place unionization would involve organizing workers in a firm that competes with others for costumers and with which costumers are free not to enter into trade. So the unions would not be able to engage in extortionist practices, making demands that must by law be met. If one’s child attends a public--or, as some prefer calling them, government--school, and teachers decide they want a higher salary or other benefits, the option of leaving the school doesn’t exist because one will be taxed to pay for it anyway. The same basic setup exists when it comes to any public work and unions. So for these folks to unionize is quite unjust.

Indeed, the rationale behind public works is not the same as behind private works. In the latter all the parties are involved so as to get the best deal they can find and bargaining occurs to bring this about. Public works, however, are supposed to amount to public service, something done not for profit but as a commitment to the public good or interest. Anyone who views public work as if it were the same as private work is suffering from a misconception or perpetrating a hoax.

Accordingly, all the people who work for governments, which are all supported through confiscatory payments--that is, taxation--are strictly speaking ineligible for unionization.

Public work in contrast to private business is something legally required and paid for involuntarily. So unlike going to the grocery store, of which there can be several in one’s neighborhood and which one can actually avoid if one decides to do with little food and household supplies, in the case of public services citizens are not free to deal with others or walk away from the providers.

Clearly, then, the original idea of labor organization into unions does not fit the public service situation. Unfortunately, this is rarely kept in mind. Thus when in Wisconsin or anywhere else for that matter public service employees are insisting on retaining the benefits they have obtained through bargaining with the government they were getting a very special deal. Public policy imposed their services on the citizenry and now the citizenry is no longer able to come up with the loot previously extracted from them via what comes to extortionist means. Yet, because much of the population--egged on by people who would very likely just as soon impose public services on everyone in every line of work (just check out Paul Kurgman’s column in The New York Times last Monday [2/21/11])--has sympathy for the usual laborer or worker when these are often dealing with powerful firms in a free market, the unions are getting a free pass in their current conflict with their employers.

This situation needs to be seriously reexamined. It may indeed imply that the entire idea of public service, let alone public service unionization, is misguided.

Making versus Owning

Tibor R. Machan

Now it is obvious to most of us that one need not make something so as to own it, fair and square. No one made one’s eyes, kidneys, and other organs and limbs yet they belong rightfully to the person who has them, no one else.

Beyond this of course one way to come to own something is by creating it, like a table or musical composition. So often making something makes it one’s own. But that’s not the only way one can come to own something. One can receive something as a gift! It then belong to one, no one else. One can find something that’s been abandoned or that’s just out there in the wilds. Unless someone else has come upon it and laid claim to it, one can come to own it this way, as well. Certainly if I find a gold nugget on an unowned desert or mountain, I can come to own this and no one may thereafter take it from me with impunity.

While all this would seem to be plain common sense, it needs often to be reiterated because the failure to keep it in mind provides would be confiscators of private property the warped idea that they may get stuff from us if only we didn’t make it. This notion of the public ownership of unearned or unmade holdings has tyrannical consequences.

Those who spread the ruse that we cannot own what we haven’t produced hope to persuade us that they, on the other hand, can. This is, of course, fallacious thinking, the fallacy of the non sequitor--it doesn’t follow! But because ownership and production or creation are so closely associated in our minds, it sounds like there may be something to the idea. There isn’t! And it is vital to remember it because otherwise the notion can unleash tyranny, Draconian and petty, all over the place. The promoters of the notion that you must have made it so as to own it would like nothing more than have you hand over to them whatever you didn’t come by via earning or making it. But it is clear, once considered carefully, that nothing like that follows. They have no right to any of it, you do.

There is, of course, no reasonable doubt that when one makes something one is very likely its owner, although there are quite a few exceptions. If I hire you to be my scout for valuable resources and you come up with such, it is very like that these will belong to me, not to you. What belongs to you is the salary I promised you for your scouting services. But what you discovered will rightfully be mine. (I might also have lost all my investment in you had you come up empty handed!) Also, if you came across some valuable item in my backyard while attending one of my festivities, what you found would not be yours but mine, although you need not call to my attention that you did find it.

Let’s just conclude from these minimal reflections that ownership--the right to private property--can be a fairly complicated matter. While its foundation is simple enough in most cases, its elaboration in a complicated society required a nuanced legal system, with a solid tradition of property law. This is why it is vital that no legislature or court be tolerated when it distorts private property rights (e.g., via misapplied doctrines like eminent domain). And in order to prevent the corruption of the principle of private property rights in a complex society, the citizenry--via research and scholarly centers, schools, punditry, think tanks and so forth--needs to be vigilant. Otherwise the sophistic enemies of freedom will triumph.

And those sophists are not resting, believe me. All one needs to do is read some of the publications--journals, magazines, newsletters, blogs, etc.--produced by these sophists to learn just how diligent they are in their efforts to unravel the private property rights system that had been developed over time under the influence of the classical liberals.

Krugman and Bias

Tibor R. Machan

In a recent column Princeton economist a regular New York Times columnist Paul Krugman claims that the economics profession--including the editors of scholarly journals and the staff at econ departments--is fraught with bias. This is a serious charge, impugning the integrity of those involved. Any scientist in any discipline who engages in biased thinking is disloyal to his oath of office, one might say.

Now if the bulk of those in a given scientific or scholarly discipline have reached conclusions in favor of certain systems or policies, this could be the result of bias but it need not be. Accordingly, the term "bias" may be severely misused by Krugman.

Suppose engineers favor lighter versus heavier materials in building skyscrapers. Would this be a bias? Only if they did so without a sound reasons. Taking a certain stance in economics need not be a bias by any means. It can be well grounded, supported by research and analysis.

All of the practical disciplines involve selectivity--e.g., in medicine safer and more effective drugs are selected over other ones. Again, only if the reason for this is unjustified would that amount to a bias. So when Kgurman advocates the injection of more stimuli into the economy this, too, need not amount to a Keynesian bias unless it is done thoughtlessly. And what other economists are doing when they defend public policies that are based on free market economic theories might but need not be a bias. It could derive from honest and competent investigation in their field of study.

But there is a difficulty about all this. Throughout the history of the social sciences there has been a problem with reaching policy conclusions, with making claims about what bureaucrats, politicians, and others who are responsible to propose what should be done ought to say and do. This is because of the powerful influence of value-free thinking in the epistemological foundations of these sciences.

The very influential 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume and later the positivist school of the philosophy of science that followed his lead insisted that no one can establish any solid foundations for what ought to or ought not to be done. As the point is often put, no “ought” can be derived from “is.” (Actually, Hume argued that none can be deduced but this has been widely misunderstood to mean that no argument can be given for normative conclusions based on observations and descriptions of facts. But that view, if true, would abolish all of the practical sciences.)

Because of the widespread acceptance of this epistemological stance, the overwhelming majority of social scientists took it as an article of proper science that all statements favoring how one ought to proceed, be this in private conduct or public policy, amounted to something unsupportable--a bias or prejudice--instead of something defensible by human reason and research.

Whether this outlook is sound is a very long story and cannot be explored in a brief discussion but it can be said that there is much debate about it. One very big problem with it is that it is self-defeating since it issues a conclusion about how scientists ought to do their work, the very thing that the position says no one can reasonably do. But, in any case, this idea that all value judgments, recommendations as to how people out to act, must amount to biases has been quite prominent.

Accordingly whether it is the free market or statism that is being defended by an economist, by the the tenets of the prominent underlying philosophy of science it will always amount to a bias. In short, no one can rationally defend some policy of action since these all involve saying what should or ought to be done.

What then is left for policy studies? Only the determination of whether a policy has widespread support. In a largely democratic society that means whether the voting public favors or opposes it. But that doesn’t do away with the theoretical problem--the majority’s choice of policy is still no more than a bias according to this view.

By now, of course, the philosophical case in favor of construing all policy proposals as expressing no more than a bias has been widely disputed but, sadly, this hasn’t had a major impact on how many social scientists think. Some tend to sense that there is something amiss with the idea but that doesn’t mean they have come up with a cogent alternative.

In any case, what Krugman is doing in labeling the free market stance a bias is either saying something that is obvious since all policy positions are biases from his perspective; or he is begging the question, which is a serious logical fallacy. He would need to show that the free market stance is unjustified, flawed, and advocated only as a matter of a personal prejudice, which of course he has not done.

So what Krugman has done instead is distort the meaning of “bias” to serve his own ideological opposition to--we could call it his own “bias” against--the free market.

Where Multiculturalism is OK

Tibor R. Machan

It is reported that France’s, England’s and Germany’s leaders have issued an announcement claiming that multiculturalism is a failure. But are they right? Or perhaps it is more likely that implementing multiculturalism the way it has been tried in these and many other countries cannot work? Multiculturalism requires a particular kind of legal system. Not any will do.

What is multiculturalism? For political purposes it is the idea that members of different cultures can co-exists within a given legal order. But what order might that be? (There is an untenable philosophical idea of multiculturalism which holds that every culture is equally sound, equally well suited to human community life, which is clearly bunk.)

Now if members of different cultures are expected to co-exists as in the same family or fraternity or church, there will be serious problems, irresolvable conflicts afoot. Take those who believe in polygamy or who think women must not show any skin in public. Surely close coexistence between such folks and others who don’t share these practices is going to be difficult. But impossible?

In a society that strictly upholds the principle of private property rights the potential for conflict among members of even radically different cultures and religions is drastically curtailed. This is fairly obvious--if you stick to your own place as you practice your culture’s edicts and principles, you are not going to run into much opposition. Frank can do his bull fighting in his arena but you need not join him and can ban it where you are in charge. I can marry as many women as will have me where I am the owner of the realm while you can insist on the practice of monogamy where you are.

Crisscrossing the various cultures in such a society would be by mutual consent. No one would be required to admit into his or her realm those of whose cultural practices one disapproves. Catholics would not need to accept the practices of Jews or Muslims or atheists where they are the proprietors. And the examples can multiply endlessly.

Now it has to be admitted that there are limits to what a regime of private property can make room for as far as diverse practices are concerned. It would not be permitted to intrude upon other people who don’t consent to such intrusion. One could not trespass on to other people’s land and various spheres either. So if one’s culture demands that one invade the spaces of others, that would not be permissible. But that is a restriction that everyone should be able to live with since if one’s practices are important, they would be important mainly to oneself and one’s fellow faithful or cultural mates. To impose these on non-believers could not be necessary so as to be loyal to the creed.

It was the late Harvard political philosopher Robert Nozick who called attention to this feature of a genuine free society. He called it “experiments in utopia”--innumerable different approaches to community life carried out side by side with the only common requirement that everyone’s basic rights, especially private property rights, are respected and protected. In his powerful book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Basic Books, 1974), he argued that while other systems demand a one size fits all policy for everyone to follow, in a free society there is room for a great variety of ways to live.

America in a way approximates this and has done so all along. Maybe more of that is what we need to create peace among people. And maybe that is one reason why some Americans hope that their ways are going to spread around the globe.

In contrast, consider the religious conflicts in Jerusalem where three different faiths are all laying claim to one realm instead of dividing it and living peacefully together. The public square can never be truly multicultural while a group of private ones definitely can.

Holding One's Nose for Principles

Tibor R. Machan

One of the difficulties with standing on principle is that often one is defending them when they are practiced by bad people. Or when bad conduct is involved. In both kinds of cases one may have no sympathy at all for the specific but still finds it important to defend the principle, as when one defends sleazy journalists or artists against those who would want to censor them.

In England recently a couple of homosexuals won a court case that forces bread and breakfast places to rent to them even when the owners disapprove of homosexuality. And, of course, the argument advanced was all about public accommodations, as if opening one’s establishment for rent somehow committed one to accept every prospective renter. Why is that supposed to be a knock down argument for forcing renters to rent to anyone? Presumably because commerce is a public action.

Now by this line of reasoning censorship, too, should be allowed since most material that’s the target of it is sold or viewed in public places or places that are adjacent to public places. This is how imposing government smoking regulations and bans on restaurants and bars is legally justified--these places all open on to public roads or sidewalks, so they are "affected with a public interest," a phrase first used in the USA by the Supreme Court in Munn v. Illinois (1877). Never mind that newspapers are often sold in kiosks and on street corners. But because of the explicit protection provided in the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, they are immune to government regulation. (This may not hold as statute in the UK but is more of a tradition there, while it is indeed a constitutional principle in the USA.)

Whatever the law is, the moral fact of the matter is that one’s sayings and writings may not be banned or regulated by anyone. Nor should one’s decisions as to one’s trading partners be subject to government regulation, however odious the terms are by which one accepts or rejects a trading partner.

Of course, in innumerable cases even if the government wants to regulate terms or trade it just cannot do so. One may decide not to purchase goods or services someplace because one knows that the owners are of a faith or political position that one opposes. Or they are of a race against which one is irrationally hostile. Millions of shoppers are free to engage in such unjust discrimination, while, of course, vendors are not (which, by the way, violates a cardinal feature of the rule of law, namely, that every one is equal under the law--shoppers and vendors alike).

Conceivably, however, having announced in an advertisement that one’s bed and breakfast place is available for rent does commit one to rent to any civilized person who comes up with the proper funds. Yes, that is a pretty good argument but in a free society it can be circumvented by making it clear, up front, that one does not accept certain people as prospective renters. So if you place a notice to that affect in the advertisement or by the entrance, there ought to be no objection to excluding those whom you don’t chose to deal with even if what you are doing is morally insidious.

The mere fact that one trades may not be used to subject parties to the trade to public micromanagement. After all, marriages are usually public--one must get a license--and so are many other noncommercial interactions with people. In a free society one must tolerate those who would deploy deplorable criteria for these as well as for doing business.

As much as it is a contemptible practice to reject homosexuals or blacks or whoever as prospective trading partners, it is even more contemptible to rob people of the liberty to determine whether they will do business with certain others. Yes, they need to be up front, otherwise by the standard of the reasonable person it is understood that anyone is welcome; yet if that is not one’s choice, however insidious that may be, one who openly opts out ought not to be made to embrace it. Let neighbors, colleagues, family, friends and others exert peer pressure or boycotts so as to change such people’s ways. But do not coerce them to do the right thing--it must be their free choice.

Unjustly discriminating against people isn’t assault or battery or some other kind of aggression, so the law must not interfere with it.

Besmirching Libertarianism

Tibor R. Machan

Now that libertarianism has gotten some publicity in mainstream forums, those who are convinced of its merit have much work to do. This is because of the well publicized distortions of the position in prominent forums, especially by well credentialed academics in law, political economy, ethics, philosophy, and other disciplines bearing a public policy. You see, the idea that no one ought to coerce another even for noble purposes is pretty much common sense in America. Sure, some folks disagree, among them many highfalutin academics with great skills at sophistry. But the bulk of those who vote pretty much agree that when you want something from your fellows, you need to ask them instead of robbing them. So when this is being denied, lots of fancy footwork needs to be deployed, which is just what’s being done by numerous pundits at The New York Times and other outfits that champion all kinds of coerced wealth redistribution. (Of course, wealth redistribution goes on peacefully all the time, but that’s not under these statists’ control, so they don’t like it!)

What you can expect from these people is fancy discussions about how, in fact, the American system gives the legal authority to Congress and others in government to take, take, and take anything they want from you and me, as well as to force you to do what they want you to, “for the public interest.” And to make their case more palatable, they need to make it appear that the libertarian reading of the US political tradition--that reading that made it exceptional instead of just a watered down version of feudalism--is callous, heartless, and bent on undermining the public good at every turn. By besmirching the position this way, the unsophisticated citizenry, whose members are libertarian at the gut or second nature level, might then get turned around and give the statists the power they clamor for.

But here is an important piece of information that one can use to rebut this underhanded effort to discredit human liberty and to empower the statists: the American political system has a very clear doctrine of the public good (or interest). It is stated in the Declaration of Independence and it consists of a system of laws that secure the natural rights of the citizenry. That’s the American version of the public interest, namely, protecting everyone’s liberty to live his or her life by his or her own judgment. That is why a legal system is instituted, not to serve other ends, the bulk of which are, of course, on the agendas of the statists. What the Founders did so brilliantly is discern the public good or interest correctly, based on what in fact all members of the public will benefit from. And this is their being free from aggression by other people even when such aggression would be deployed for high sounding objectives.

Now it is very tempting to designate everything someone badly desires as being in the public interest. Just listen to all those lobbyists who march to centers of power peddle their special interests as in need of being pursued for the public good. But this is a ruse and it is precisely in the proper public interest to unmask and resist it, which is everyone’s basic right to life, liberty and property. That is what everyone benefits from without any cost to anyone else. That is a bona fide public good, not some trumped up version which always amounts to ripping some people off so that the goals of some others get served.

All this is vital to remember as one witnesses the desperate efforts of sophisticated statists to discredit human liberty, to label it “fundamentalism” and other ad hominems. Sadly the prominent, prestigious forums are mostly in the hands of statists so there will not be much of a chance to do intellectual battle with these sophists on the turfs them dominate. Have you ever read anyone in The New York Review of Books who had a nice thing to say about individual liberty or free markets? Just like Karl Marx did with the right to property--which he dubbed a right of selfishness that makes all sorts of mischief possible (omitting all the wonderful things this right serves as well and depending on the nasty version of "selfishness" so popular since Hobbes rendered the self something nasty and brutish)--these statists only stress the relatively rare misconduct that men and women engage in when they are free. So they will not permit anyone to say otherwise in those forums they dominate (which, by the ways, they could not do without the right to private property being well protected).

Libertarianism is a sound political idea but it faces an uphill fight given how its embrace means the demotion of all sorts of tyrants, Draconian or petty, who are very reluctant to give up their well entrenched power.

Big Guns for Statism

Tibor R. Machan

Since some federal judges have ruled against the constitutionality of Obamacare, there has been a bit of panic in the ranks of defenders of American statism. Thus, for example, Harvard Law School's Lawrence Tribe has chimed in, on the pages of The New York Times, with the predictable observation that "Since the New Deal, the court has consistently held that Congress has broad constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce. This includes authority over not just goods moving across state lines, but also the economic choices of individuals within states that have significant effects on interstate markets. By that standard, this law’s constitutionality is open and shut. Does anyone doubt that the multitrillion-dollar health insurance industry is an interstate market that Congress has the power to regulate?" Well, yes, those of us who champion individual rights as against collectivism do!

David Cole made his pitch in The New York Review of Books, claiming that these rulings were far too libertarian and thus not really consistent with the way the U. S. Constitution has been read of late. As he wrote, "The objections to health care reform are ultimately founded not on a genuine concern about preserving state prerogative, but on a libertarian opposition to compelling individuals to act for the collective good, no matter who imposes the obligation." Indeed, and that’s all to the good! Who on earth wants to defend state prerogative other than some crypto-monarchists!

Both apologists for statism are correct, of course, but they are also beside the point. Just because justices have been appointed who have favored expansive powers for the federal government--and, indeed, for governments as such--doesn't prove anything about whether that is how they ought to rule on, for instance, Obamacare's constitutionality.

In earlier years the courts have interpreted the constitution as limiting the power of governments, including the power to regulate--let's call it what it is, namely, to regiment--interstate commerce. They used to view Article I, Section 8, the interstate commerce clause, as authorizing Congress to regularize commerce, not to regulate it--that is to say, to establish uniform free market conditions for doing business within the borders of the country and across state lines. Prior to the formation of the union the states often behaved in highly protectionist ways but once united into one country this became a serious restriction on the exercise of individual property rights and an impediment to the free flow of commerce. Ergo, it had to be stopped, given the broad principles of community life laid out in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. It was a revolution, after all, not a minor putsch.

In later times, under the reactionary influence of the populists and other statists, the courts started to reintroduce the principles of government that had been in practice for many centuries, principles that rationalized the power of government over the citizenry in contrast to what the revolution aimed at, namely, the demotion of the state, placing sovereignty in the hands of citizens rather than governments. Of course it didn't happen all at once, nor completely, radically, but more like changing the course of an aircraft carrier, gradually. The aim was revolutionary but the process was slow just as with the abolition of slavery.

Clearly some elements of the legal order of the new country needed major overhaul, such as the permission for the states to support slavery, a permission that contradicted the ideals of the revolution. To the extent that this required some temporary broad powers on the part of the federal government, it amounted to nothing more than carrying out the implementation of the ideals of the founding. State rights, while a good federalist idea in certain respects, also had the unfortunate side effect of standing in the way of a nationwide renunciation of slavery.

Because in this instance federal power was used for purposes of of expanding human liberty, those who champion statism jumped at the chance to argue that statism itself was consistent with the basic principles of the founders. Its like arguing that because it is permissible to deploy force against others in self-defense, it is perfectly OK to deploy it aggressively, too.

No doubt, some founders felt that way, such as maybe Alexander Hamilton. They were not all of one mind. But it is sheer sophistry to argue, as Tribe and Cole do, that the needed adjustments on America's legal system were meant to reintroduce into the country broad powers for the federal government under the distorted, albeit prominent, reading of the interstate commerce clause.

Nonetheless, these eager statists are continuing what has amounted to a counterrevolutionary legal trend, one that reestablishes the government--the king, Congress, the state--as the sovereign in the country, making the citizenry once again subjects, people who could be ordered by other people to purchase health insurance on the grounds that the public interest demands this. No wonder people ask if forcing us to exercise or to eat broccoli will come next, as per the enlightened polices of the Third Reich.

Such is the nature of statism, sacrificing the rights of individuals for some alleged public good, one that reduces, in the end, to the private agendas of the statists and has nothing to do with the public at large.

Can People be Objective?

Tibor R. Machan

Even to ask whether people can be objective suggests that they can be because such a question assumes that an answer can be given and what use would an answer be if it were not objective? But forever the idea that people can be objective, as they attempt to grasp what’s what, has been challenged. Never mind that such challenges would themselves be moot if objectivity is impossible--who would care to get an answer if it were just someone’s subjective opinion, one that’s no better or worse than the answer given by some drunk or mentally deranged individual?

But it is understandable, nevertheless, why the possibility of objectivity is widely doubted. For one, what counts as objective knowledge has often been confused with what is supposed to be absolute, timeless, unchangeable knowledge (the God’s eye point of view). This last is very doubtful, that’s true, since none of us who seeks to know anything stays around forever to make sure an answer will never change.

As the saying goes, the perfect is the enemy of the good. Perfect knowledge, as imagined by Plato, for example, is an impossible dream, kind of like the perfect mate or job. But there can be good ones, of course. Objective is what the good kind of knowledge must be, the knowledge untainted by prejudice, by preconception, by bias and the like. Objective knowledge need not be final or perfect, only the best and most dependable for the time being.

But some object to this by claiming that since we are all using our human faculties to figure things out, how could we expect objectivity?

That reply, however, embodies an unwarranted assumption. It is that using our minds and our senses, indeed all our tools of knowledge, turns out to be an impediment rather than a proper means by which knowledge is to be gained. It is like claiming that because to move sand, one must use some kind of tool, like a shovel, moving it is impossible. Moving sand, truly, would involve using no tools. Or claiming that if one wants to see things accurately, one must not use one’s eyes since the eyes will pose as an obstacle to true seeing!

Now this idea that objectivity is impossible because whenever one attempts to know anything, one needs to make use of various tools or instruments, such as one’s eyes, mind, a microscope or a telescope, is based on the belief that a tool must always impede the process for which it is used. But that’s very odd. Not only does it undercut the claim itself--after all, that claim, too, came from using one’s faculties of understanding--but it assumes that everything used to learn actually impedes learning. So true learning is a kind of mindless, senseless learning. Go figure!

Now, true enough, if one is careless, too hasty or insufficiently cautious, one can fail to notice impediments to how one best uses one’s faculties--that’s one reason to be especially careful when driving in fog. But such impediments aren’t necessarily a part of our approach to understanding the world. Moreover, even to learn that one’s faculties may have been impeded, it is necessary that they are not always impeded, at least not when one discovers such impediments.

Of course, with this issue, like so many others one needs to grapple with, is complicated and has been studied forever. But to resolve it for oneself it isn’t required that one reach a consensus about it. That would dismiss the work of many excellent scientist, researchers, thinkers who have been prescient. Yes, peer review is useful but it could express widespread bias, too. For example, in the debate about climate change--does it happen, how much of it, did people’s conduct make it happen, etc.--both sides tend to insist that their opponents are not objective enough! So back to the drawing board, one might conclude.

In general, the issue of objectivity is important because if one becomes convinced that one cannot be objective, how can one trust one’s own judgments, even carefully made ones, and how can one confidently reject bogus notions and pretenders to authority? After all, then everything could be bogus, which leaves matters to con artists.

Knowing versus imposing What’s Ethical

Tibor R. Machan

Among those who champion human liberty--the sovereignty of every adult when it comes to managing one’s own life--some hold that if one could know what good conduct amounts to, one would be authorized to impose it on others. Among those who thought this was the world famous classical liberal economist, Milton Friedman. Friedman, who was an avid champion of human liberty, denied that we can "really know what sin is". By this he meant that what for people is the wrong thing to do is not something anyone can know. And he also held that one could not reasonably champion human liberty, the sort that one enjoys when others must abstain from imposing their ideas of how one ought to act, "if you could be absolutely certain that you had the revealed truth." By the “revealed truth” he merely meant whatever it is that others ought or ought not do. If one knew such things, one "could not let another man sin."

Right away there is a problem here because the argument advanced is actually supposed to show how one should act, namely that no one ought to impose himself or herself on another adult human being. So others ought to be left free. And that is, of course, based on the moral knowledge that it is wrong to make people act in ways they don’t choose to. The only exception is when they choose to impose their idea on others. But that is self-defense, not any kind of imposition.

This point actually makes it evident that in some cases we do know what amounts to sinning or doing the wrong thing--for example, when one coerces peaceful others to act as one believes they should. But that is not all. We can pretty well know that when someone wastes away his or her life, say by becoming a junkie or a bum, this isn’t something the person should do. The details may vary but it doesn’t require rocket science to know that people who waste away their lives are normally misbehaving and ought to change. What is crucial here, however, is that it is they who must do the changing, not someone else. So imposing hard work or prudence on them simply cannot improve matters.

Some argue that if you impose worthwhile conduct on others and they later realize that this is indeed worthwhile and they should henceforth conduct themselves accordingly, your imposition is justified. This line of reasoning is advanced precisely because it is widely realized that to have moral significance one's conduct must be freely chosen. So those who want urgently to make other people moral--for example, Professor Robert P. George in his book Making Men Moral (Oxford University Press, 1993)--reject the moral right to act immorally, a right to do what is wrong (provided no one is being victimized). Yet, since morally significant conduct does have to be chosen, be it right or wrong, adult human beings do have such a right. It is not a moral but a political or natural right, however.

The contrary doctrine, namely, libertarian paternalism or nudging, applies only to children. It does not to adults. One is of course welcome to attempt to persuade people to do the morally right thing, maybe even implore or exert peer pressure to encourage another to do what is right. However, in the end an adult must make the choice and not be coerced to do so. That’s part of what it means to respect human dignity. In nearly all major religions this is fully acknowledged. One must choose to accept Christ, for example. Even Stalinists believed that good communists had to voluntarily admit their flaws or ideological crimes before they could be punished meaningfully.

The only serious challenge to the idea that morally significant conduct must be voluntary comes from those who consider all of morality bogus, meaningless. In every known era of human history, including ours, there are serious moral skeptics--a recent issue of the magazine Philosophy Now features five philosophers arguing this position. Today the basis of the case rests mainly with neuroscience which supposedly shows that people are never free to choose to take actions, so in effect nothing they do is really their own doing! (This is what many defense attorneys set out to show about their clients and there are major institutes at universities embarking on research that promises to make the case for them!) But this brings up a whole bunch of other issues for which there is no room in this short essay.

Forcing Us to Do what We Choose not to do

Tibor R. Machan

Over the last couple of years many conservatives have argued against President Obama’s health care program on the grounds that it unconstitutionally forces citizens to purchase something they may not want. Imposing this kind of force conduct, they have argued, violates the right of a citizen to refrain from doing something, the right to liberty or to freedom of choice. Generally this may well be a sound objection although I am doubtful about its violation of the U. S. Constitution.

In response, defenders of Mr. Obama’s health care project tend to point to the fact that state governments require citizens to purchase car insurance. That comparison, however, is fallacious: one only needs to buy such insurance if one drives on public roads and driving on such roads is not deemed to be a basic right but a privilege since government owns the roads. This seems to be a legal distinction with some teeth to it. Mr. Obama’s program requires one to purchase health insurance no matter what, just as a matter of one’s citizenship. And car insurance, some have pointed out, serves to protect fellow travelers and is thus not, like requiring one to buy health insurance, a paternalistic policy.

But there is another measure many conservatives fully embrace that compares with making people buy health insurance: making them check on the citizenship of prospective employees. In their vigilance against illegal immigration, many conservatives insist that those who employ people may be forced to check on whether those they plan to hire are in America legally.

Now this seems to be a clear case of forcing such employers to do something they may not want to do. It is also outsourcing a line of professional work to non-professionals. Checking on the legal status of prospective employees is detective work and should only be performed by authorized agents of the law, not by private citizens. Yes, in some cases one citizen may even arrest another, but usually only in special circumstances, such as when illegal conduct is clearly evident and not something one needs to detect through the scrutiny of someone else’s legal status.

In any case, forcing citizens to engage in law enforcement is not very different from forcing them to purchase insurance. In both cases citizens are required to perform something they may well not choose to perform. One may even regard this as imposing upon citizens involuntary servitude or force labor.

Of course, here too there is plenty of precedence. When the government forces employers to collect taxes from those they employ, that is forced labor as well. The collecting of the income tax throughout the year, the requirement that this be accurately and promptly reported to the IRS, are no less forcing people to do something they do not choose to do than is forcing them to buy health insurance.

It is thus a bit hypocritical of many Americans to be outraged with Mr. Obama’s and the Democrats’ health care law. If one consistently opposed making people do things they do not choose to do, many measures of municipal, county, state and federal governments would have to be declared wrong and maybe unconstitutional.

We live in a mixed system. There are elements of socialism, fascism, communism, capitalism, libertarianism and other regimes the American legal system includes. Cherry picking some and insisting that one is doing so as a matter of principled adherence to the U. S. Constitution may not be very credible. If one is going to object to governmental regimentation, to forcing people to act in ways they to not choose to (apart from abstaining from violating the rights of fellow citizens), it would have to begin with numerous measures way before getting to Mr. Obama’s health care policy.

As with the objection to restricting corporate contributions to political campaigns--based not on what this should be based on, namely, the violation of private property rights but on its alleged curtailment of freedom of speech--the objection to Obama care is a bit forced. People are made to do so many things by their various governments that to protest making them buy health insurance because this involves making them do something they don’t choose to do simply isn’t credible.

Democracy Wont Help Egypt

Tibor R. Machan

Even without being a Egyptologist I can say with reasonable certainty that it will not help to solve Egypt’s problems to make it into an unlimited democracy. What we are likely to get is Lebanon with the heavy hand of Hamas in charge there. In Egypt it looks like the Brotherhood is ready to jump into the position Hamas occupies in Lebanon.

In any case, in none of the discussions about what lies ahead for Egypt is there ever any mention of ushering in a limited--or bona fide liberal--democracy, with a constitution that would restrain all sides and leave the citizenry in peace to attend to its own affairs. Such pluralism isn’t very likely to take center stage in that country.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak became a virtual dictator after the assassination of the previous president Anwar Sadat, with hardly any credible and sensible resistance from the population and it’s only now, that a bunch of young people appear to be upset enough with the culture he has been heading up, that his his rule is seriously questioned. Nothing much that’s rational is evident in the current developments apart from the simple insistence on the part of a great many Egyptians that they’ve had it up to here with being ruled by Mubarek team.

Now this is not so surprising when one realizes that none of the leaders around the globe, including American presidents, nor indeed many intellectuals in Egypt itself, have made a serious pitch for Egypt adopting constitutional reforms that respect individual rights. That’s not the same thing as promoting the vague idea of democracy, which as history shows, has not managed to be a bulwark against tyranny, not in Western or Eastern Europe, not in Latin America, not even in the United States of America where nearly all the good ideas failed to get democratic support or bad ones got swept aside democratically. The American civil war was no triumph of democracy, nor the New Deal, nor again all the oppressive federal measures that are burdening the country, keeping its economy hostage to populist and egalitarian notions.

Very probably the reason the U.S.A. hasn’t gone under yet is that some of its better features gained solid momentum and despite the absence of sustained political and judicial support for them these are continuing to be fairly dominant--relatively free and competitive markets, civil liberties, private property rights, freedom of religion and speech, due process, etc. But they are all gradually being replaced with the widely championed ideology of activist citizens in higher education and media, people working in the most prestigious and invincible institutions in society, who not very surprisingly want to regiment us all into compliance with a vision of full equality. (The cautionary tale about this was written by George Orwell, in his brilliant fable, Animal Farm, who was anything but a Tea Party type but, rather, a rare sensible Leftist!)

When the mobs in Egypt, who have been treated as a bunch of unruly children by Mubarek’s regime, finally couldn’t take it any more and stood up to the dictator, there is little reason to think they would become a civilized citizenry that renounces the temptation to rule others once they gain power. Their call for democracy appears to have little to do with the kind of constitutional system that America’s founders favored. Even their call for freedom seems mostly to be about being free to rule instead of being ruled.

At the personal level my fear is that those expatriates from Egypt who in the last few years decided to return in the hopes that their country would move closer to a liberal democratic model are now packing their bags again, headed back to some more stable region of the globe so as to save their necks from chaos. I know a few such people and can only empathize with their disappointment.

True self-government isn’t the sort of democracy we have seen in the Weimar Republic, in Lebanon, in Venezuela, and being widely demanded now in Egypt. It is, instead, a polity that upholds the rights of individuals not simply to take part in the vote but to live as they choose in peace with their fellows.

Obama is a Socialist—A Crazy Thought?

Tibor R. Machan

Right after President Obama’s state of the union address several Republicans, mainly of the Tea Party faction stated that he is a socialist. This isn’t the first time the claim has been made. Indeed, based on his early schooling the idea that he may well be one simply cannot be dismissed.



Not that all of us inherit our parents’ political views, quite far from it. I myself had a father who was an avid champion of Hitler and a fierce Anti-Semite, whereas I grew up to embrace libertarianism in politics and a refined version of Objectivism in my general philosophy. A great many folks I know don’t at all think as their parents did. But there are those, also, who do and in the case of Obama it seems his socialist grandmother had considerable influence on him (judging by his own testimony).



When it comes to the allegation that Obama is a socialist CNN-TV anchor Soledad O'Brien quoted Webster’s Dictionary as evidence that he is not. The passage singled out the socialist view of property, namely, that everything important is to be collectively owned, that private property “in the means of production” must be abolished. (Which, by the way, for socialists means, human labor!) The Communist Manifesto makes this clear—Marx and Engels claimed the fist thing toward establishing socialism—the stage of history prior to reaching communism—is the abolition of private property. So it would seem that there is no way that Obama could be a socialist since he has said many nice things about the market place and hasn’t ever called for abolishing private property rights, only heavily regulating it and getting in bed with certain big businesses, which strictly speaking isn’t the same thing is collectivization.



However, looking a bit more closely, it needs also to be kept in mind that Mr. Obama has often declared his own pragmatism, which is a philosophical stance of not sticking by any firm principles. And such a policy could very well be deployed exactly when one wishes to disguise one’s actual political economic philosophy. And then there is this wonderfully instructive passage by Lenin himself, certainly a bona fide communist:



Only one thing is needed to lead us to march forward more surely and more firmly to victory: namely, the consciousness everywhere that all communists, in all countries, must display the maximum flexibility in their tactics…. [Lenin, "Left Wing Communism," 1920].



But this isn’t all. What is really central to socialism is the view that we all belong to society, that there are no genuine human individuals at all, that human beings are what Marx called specie beings somewhat on the order of termites or bees that exists as a collective, never individually. The collective ownership of everything that’s valuable and important is a derivative doctrine, not a primary one. This is one reason that some socialists are actually called “market” socialists. They recognize that as a matter of efficiency—or at times public relations—it is quite OK to give a nod to certain elements of capitalism.


It is not easy to tell what is in someone’s mind, especially not if that someone is convinced that the only way to advance his or her position is to keep its true nature obscure. Indeed, among neo-conservatives this is a prominent theme, learned from the political scientist the late Leo Strauss. He argued that it is only prudent for philosophers to keep their true views a secret, if only because it would scare ordinary folks to be told that brilliant philosophers have come o believe.


Surely this could apply in the case of Mr. Obama, as well: the American public would be very upset if he came right out and said, “Look, folks, I happen to believe that socialism is a sound political economic viewpoint and will do what I can to steer the country that way. I honestly think it is better than capitalism.” Not a way to win elections, so much better to keep it under wraps.

Government Regulations: Demeaning and Costly

Tibor R. Machan

Every time I am dealing with an organizations like the omnipresent TIAA-CREF--which seems to have a monopoly on handling retirements at colleges and universities across the country--I am put through a labyrinth of bureaucratic procedures. With each turn, of course, there is a quite lengthy average--say, 7 to 13 minute--wait, mostly on being on hold on the phone. This happens also when I make airline reservations or deal with banks and other financial institutions but there is some competition there, although these, too, appear to be heavily regulated by the government which imposes on them innumerable.

Whenever I voice a protest about any of these inconveniences--actually, more than that since my life-time is being consumed when these waits go on endlessly--I am told that they cannot help it, they are required to go through all these infuriating delays by the government. Forms need to be filled out and sent off just to satisfy the state! And those people who impose these requirements are, of course, nowhere to be found so one can give them one’s opinion of their handiwork. Instead hapless office personnel are confronted with outraged citizens and are, of course, exasperated when they cannot answer their complaints with any hope of relief.

Nearly everything the bureaucrats demand is farmed out to various administrative departments at colleges and universities, primarily the offices of HR, ironically called human resources (as if what HR did at these places had any productive function are all). And, of course, when it comes to payroll offices at nearly all companies, there, too, most of the procedures are controlled by directives of governments, including that odious, vicious practice of withholding taxes, something again that the government managed to farm out to the employers who then are the object of ire of all of us who are peeved about the various tax policies.

Round and round goes the bureaucracy, treating us all as if we were robots doing service to some far off master who cannot be contacted by any of us (except in a very iffy and indirect fashion when people cast their votes). Even then, while politicians can be dismissed, bureaucrats cannot.

The one time I had anything to do in Washington, as a founding member of the Jacob K. Javits National Fellowship Program -- http://smu.edu/nationalfellowships/javits.asp -- I was told that the bureaucrats at the Department of Education, where this program was administered, never changed no matter who got elected. If Washington had a Democrat regime, the same folks stayed in the various bureaus as when Republicans were in office. And in time this became evident to me quite directly through the arrogance of the staff whose members never feared being dismissed or demoted. Their jobs were secure! (This may not always be the case, just as treasury bonds aren’t so secure when major financial fiascoes occur at the federal level.)

Now all of this is, of course, infuriating and utterly demeaning--you must stay on hold because no one ever is authorized to make outgoing telephone calls! I always feel like a royal subject, tempted to stand at attention until I am spoke to by these folks who are doing the government’s work, work that, of course, should not have to be done. Are we all involuntary servants of these people?

Then there is, of course, the waste of time and money involved in all of this. Each year I probably spend 20 to 40 hours or more dealing with the bureaucracy, directly or indirectly, and if one multiplies this across the country, the wasted time piles up incalculably. The economic value of this time is difficult to estimate but when some try the numbers turn out to be beyond belief. (John Stossel did his very first ABC-TV special on the topic of government regulation and the cost that he estimated for it went way beyond virtually everything else the taxpayers are force to pay for.)

Maybe some people do not care about this just as some people do not protest spousal abuse. But no matter--it is still very demeaning to be subjected to all this and it costs a bundle to boot, money spent that could very well go to genuine productive task that might even ease the unemployment problem in the private sector.

Civil Discourse Revisited

Tibor R. Machan

We were having lunch and the topic of how to frame a friendly, productive holiday conversation about politics and such came up. I had been thinking about what role a host might play in upholding standards of civility and what one can do if things get a bit ugly. For that they surely can get, especially in the current atmosphere which appears to contain very little in the way of argumentation and analysis and a whole lot of venting, name calling, besmirching, ridiculing, and caricaturing even by the most erudite of commentators.

One reason for the abundance of heat in and the absence of light from most discussions on TV, radio and even the dinner table appears to be that nearly all the moves have already been made by all the sides championing their cause, so what then is left? Few of the parties seem to be upgrading their stance, improving their evidence, honing their reasoning, probably because ofter years and years of believing as they do and repeatedly mulling it over, there seems to be no use for going through the exercise again and again. Grandma will remain true to her faith whatever the grand kids bring back from college bull sessions or even their courses in the way of challenges to her ideas. And the same would seem to go for grandpa and mom and dad and brother and sister, even. So mostly the family sticks to trivia or play--sports work well, since there is little at stake and the passions would tend to be shallow. (Why get all bent out of shape about Auburn’s various rivalries or the next Superbowl?) And even if one holds views one considers quite sound and important to promulgate, who has the time for this? On TV and radio the objective appears to be mainly to keep the floor, learn how to speak without breathing, wearing down everyone else, since the time limit is normally quite onerous.

But in fact it could be much better than this, from the Thanksgiving dinner table to the talk shows, if only a few points were kept in focus. Here is my own list, by no means complete:

* Recall that there is always time to go through the reasons why one holds one’s views and to gain the benefit of critical objections and insights from thoughtful friendly others, even if in the end one wants to be triumphant. It really isn’t about subduing one’s interlocutors but about making a decent effort to reach sound conclusions, to get at whatever truth is available to us.

* Recall, also, that while on some topics--religion, politics, child raising--one may different quite seriously with one’s friends, colleagues, relatives and neighbors, there is much more to life than just these areas of interest. There are people one knows who fervently disagree with one’s political views, even may dislike one for holding them, while they are congenial when it comes to great many of other concerns. I have learned over the years that even some of those I most sincerely and seriously find objectionable in one area can turn out to be, quite surprisingly, candidates for comrades when it comes to other issues. (Parents, especially, may find that people whose politics or economics they disapprove of share their own ideas about raising children and handling the household budget.) One’s politics or religion isn’t everything about the person, at least in most cases. So if time is limited, perhaps talking about movies or traveling can be a friendly territory.

* Often when we dislike others it isn’t anything dire or morally important, merely a matter of a difference in style and taste. And it is quite OK to insist on one’s style and taste for oneself without insisting that everyone else share these--they can all be quite swell people but not like what you like. I do not like baseball or football or even basketball but am very keen on tennis. Others in my circles do not share this but it would be serious folly to be critical of them for this. My favorite color needn’t be anyone else’s, nor my favorite food or even restaurant or make of car. Indeed, some people just rub me the wrong way even though there is nothing I can identify that would deserve condemnation. We don’t all have to get along on all counts, despite some Utopian thinking along such lines.

* There is much more but let me just add one idea that I have found very useful: If one wants to bring up a testy topic, one that’s pretty likely to sit badly with one’s companions, it usually helps to do what I call some meta-talk, or preparatory talk. Something like, “I will make some points now that may very well be objectionable to some of you but please bear with me and let’s run through them gently.”

So, have a good dinner visiting the folks and do not focus so intensely on how much you disagree. And heed the advice of one of my daughters: you can attract more flies with honey than with vinegar.

The Insanity Defense Debate

Tibor R. Machan

The New York Times blog featured a debate recently, in the wake of the Tuscon massacre, among several people on the insanity defense. One of the debaters, Kent Scheidegger, wrote a comment that included a point that’s often proposed but that needs some amendment.

Scheidegger said "The traditional test [of criminal responsibility] is whether the defendant was able to understand the nature of the act and understand that it was wrong. This test ... remains the proper legal and moral test. A person who understands what he is doing and that it is wrong but does it anyway is morally responsible for his act."

There’s a problem with this idea, namely, that at times culprits place themselves into a position of being unable "to understand that nature of the act and understand that is was wrong," as when they voluntarily become severely intoxicated by drugs or alcohol or some other behavior that leads to mental incapacitation. So strictly speaking while the crime is being committed, the understanding Scheidegger says is required for culpability is indeed missing; so by his account perpetrators cannot be held criminally or even morally responsible for what they have done. Yet, arguably, such persons would still be fully responsible since they ought to have been sufficiently prudent or careful prior to becoming unable to understand and embarking on conduct that requires care. Thus, if one sits at home alone (or with family likely to offer care if needed), and imbibes to a point of mental incapacitation, that's one thing; but if one does so just before undertaking tasks where the effects of alcohol or drug consumption can reasonably be expected to lead to a crime, that's another. Ignorance of those effects at the time of the commission of the crime should be no excuse--one ought to have known!

Of course these days there are innumerable reasons being offered for not holding anyone responsible for anything one does, be it criminal or noble or whatever. The most influential grounds for this come from some experiments conducted recently in which it has been determined that an agent of conduct is most often motivated un- or subconsciously. Reported cat scans of the human brain have shown that prior one’s conscious awareness of what one is intending to do, the action in question has already commenced in the brain, with consciousness coming only later. So what one is doing is in fact not in one’s conscious control. Such experiments were conducted by, among others, the famous neuro-scientist Benjamin Libet. Libet himself, while casting doubt on consciously willful conduct concludes one of his famous essays, “Do We Have Free Will?”--included in Benjamin Libert, et al., eds., The Volitional Brain, Towards a neuroscience of free will (Imprint Academic, 1999)--with the observation that free will’s “existence is at least as good, if not a better, scientific option than is its denial by determinist theory.” Yet he regards the hypothesis of free will’s existence “speculative,” but does the same with the determinist position. As he puts it, “Given the speculative nature of both determinist and non-determinist theories, why not adopt the view that we do have free will (until some real contradictory evidence may appear, if it ever does).”

Since the time Libet carried out his studies there has been considerable work on the issues involved in the free will and conscious willing controversies (work that’s continuing as I write these lines--for example, at the recently established Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies at UC Santa Barbara, which, as its web site states, “is dedicated to interdisciplinary research and education to advance understanding of the nature and potential of consciousness.” Libet’s earlier work has sparked much further work and debate but a good many neuroscientists contend now that it and further work has indeed lead to the conclusion that conscious willing is not very likely--see, for example, Daniel M. Wegner, The Illusion of Conscious Will (MIT Press, 2002).

I am not going to be able to chime in very fruitfully on this topic in a short column but I do wish to call attention, briefly, to a line of argument favoring freedom of the will that seems not to be addressed much these days when only experimental science is trusted to handle the issues involved. This line of argument basically holds that the existence of free will is undeniable or on strictly conceptual or logical grounds--that is, axiomatic--since scientific knowledge itself depends on it.

Basically the point is that knowledge must involve independent, unprejudiced observation and thinking but determinism denies this since it holds that everything one does is controlled by various impersonal causes impinging on one’s conduct, including one’s observations and thinking. If that were so, then no conclusion about anything, including about the free will issue, could be considered sound since all of it would be simply imposed on us. We would not in fact be concluding from unprejudiced reasoning and observation but merely exhibiting behavior imposed on our brains and caused by such imposition.

So it is best to conclude that if science is possible, including about the human mind, free will must exist.

Confessions of a Refi Junkie

Tibor R. Machan

No, I am not actually a junkie of any sort but I sometimes feel like it when I reflect upon my history of borrowing funds against the estimated value of my home.

You see, I have been trying to encourage my and my children’s various endeavors, just as many other parents who somehow think they can are wont to do. Helping with down payments for a home, chipping in a bit with rent, or, and this is the biggie, subsidizing a love for a serious extracurricular activity, not to mention the more immediate help with daily expenses--all these and others have induced me to try to generate resources not just from productive work but at times from borrowing against anticipated income.

And so on several occasions I have done what millions have, namely, refinanced my house, mine in Southern California. I even experienced the bail-out phenomenon when I have taken over some of the credit card debts of one or another of my children.

This all has slowly subsided, of course, as they have become more productive and thus reasonably self-supporting but it has left me with fairly hefty debts which I keep paying off. (And I am now nearly where I would like to be, leaving me with just my mortgage and car loan payments.) Of course, it also means that retirement is out of the question, at least so long as I am fit to keep working and like my work reasonably well to keep me interested in it. At 70+ now, this is all a bit iffy but not beyond the pale.

In all this I believe I have behaved pretty much as most people would, given the information they possess about market conditions, public finance, etc. Once the extortion by government has transpired each year--taxes forked out on time so the dastards cannot nail me while I am relentlessly hammering at the ideology that supports their policies--I am still in a position, given the excellent management of at least one of the places where I work, to carry on, although not without constant maneuvering through the financial maze of my life.

And let’s not forget, the role of good luck in all this! I am reasonably fit, with but a few manageable maladies--back problems, sciatica, etc., and so forth--so I don’t have to shell out gobs of funds for medical care (apart from the insurance I carry through my place of employment). Not everyone has such luck and while that certainly obligates none of us to submit to servitude in their behalf, it should encourage some understanding and maybe even generosity toward the deserving unlucky among us.

In any case, if one multiplies my situation a couple of hundred million fold, leaving aside for now out and out corruption and shady dealings, it is not difficult to see that all that would lead to financial disasters, what with the government creating a political-economic environment of false signals and phony incentives which to most ordinary citizens who are trying to navigate their economic lives isn’t fully disclosed. (Who among ordinary folks knows why housing prices rose and why one could refinance on such welcoming terms? Does anyone but a small proportion of the population realize that President Clinton, among others, had foisted upon the country financial policies that made borrowing money so easy? And what about the influence of past decisions, such as making mortgage interests partly deductible from one’s taxes? Who but experts or especially savvy lay people realize the impact such policies have on the long term economy of the country and, indeed, on most of the citizenry?)

As with regular junkies--or even with people who just like to do certain things a lot and will do it more if the cost isn’t prohibitive--those who are trying to improve their economic situation will take the opportunities around them at face value and not normally realize that they often flow from the minds of tricky politicians and all their little helpers throughout the bureaucracies of the country (not to mention the academic apologists supporting them)?

That is, at least, one way to make sense of recent economic and financial undulations in America. But this is a work in progress for me, so I keep on thinking about and studying just how to make sense of it all.

MACHAN ARCHIVES: DEREGULATION IS A MORAL ISSUE*

Tibor R. Machan

There have been plenty of studies, economic analyses and investigations and related work showing that government regulation is harmful, stifling, inefficient, and otherwise destructive. Despite this, the actual regulatory onslaught continues full force, and more is to be expected. Why is this so?
The research has shown that the regulation rarely achieves the goals set for it by Congress. Studies indicate that it has undermined productivity and competition and increased political favoritism and corruption. Market failures or imperfections, so called, have not been eliminated by way of government regulation. Why do millions still continue to believe in the desirability of this discredited system?
Even those few prominent individuals who have come to doubt that regulation is useful consider it a proper function of government where it can achieve its goals. Many more believe that even where government regulation has proven to be ineffective and harmful, the task is simply to muster up greater effort, to “clean up” the agencies, to tighten regulatory specifications—never to abandon the task. In an article in Commentary Magazine several years ago, Paul H. Weaver points out that Americans overwhelmingly support “the full range of present-day public programs to which [the New Deal] has given birth. Indeed, something like half the population would like to see the government provide even more benefits and intervene in more areas of social life than it already does…. Yet by almost equally large margins, Americans also say that the institutions responsible for creating and running the New Deal state are currently in the hands of liars, cheats, frauds, and profligates.” Never mind that economists and social scientists have produced an enormous body of evidence that discredits the very activity of regulating!

Why More Regulation?
Some solutions have been offered to the resulting puzzle about the persistent belief in regulation’s desirability. Since it is mostly economists who study regulatory activity, they are also the ones interested in why their studies fail to alter policy. The explanation usually offered is that regulation has not been discontinued because the legislators and regulatory bureaucrats are like all other people- they work to benefit themselves. It’s self-interest that accounts for the continuation of regulatory activities.
This explanation, however, is vacuous. We can’t get anything from it, any more than we can from an explanation of animal behavior by reference to instincts. It doesn’t explain anything. Why do cats swim in water? Well, they have the instinct to swim in water. What does that mean? It means simply that if you throw them in water they will swim. Why do regulators continue with regulation? Well, because they carry out their regulatory schemes. This is not at all enlightening.
Of course, this misrepresents the complexity of the theory that underlies such explanations. But instead of dwelling on this here, let’s consider an alternative explanation.
People often act as they do because they are guided by certain ideas and ideals. Ideas have consequences! And many of the central ideas guiding people in their personal conduct are moral or ethical ideas. Ralph Nader, for example, often makes reference to justice. He insists that it is unjust not to prevent product failures. He insists that certain people are being victimized. He argues that certain kinds of corporate activities are evil. Freely using these concepts to explain political and economic affairs, he reflects the views of many in our culture.
These kinds of ideas and ideals are powerful guidelines and motivators of human action. And there is something distinctive about moral or ethical ideals–as opposed to, say, scientific, technological, or legal ideas–as principles of human action.
A moral idea (and idea and ideal are interchangeable here) is one that provides guidelines to human beings simply as human beings. Why should I be honest? Because by their very nature human beings as such ought to be honest. Why should I be just? Because human beings as such should be just; if an action, policy, or entire institution recommends itself on the grounds that it is just, any human being in the community should support it.

Moral Reasons
This is very different from offering an economic explanation for what I do. “It paid well” is not comparable to “It was the just thing to do.” Nor is it the same as referring to my preferences. Why did I select that ice cream) Well, I prefer it. That I selected it or that I prefer it does not imply that everyone should do the same thing.
Why then is government regulatory activity continued? Because, despite what economists and many others have demonstrated, people believe that the goals that regulation aims to accomplish are just goals; they are morally justifiable goals to strive for. A person who believes that to defend his community or to educate his children is a matter of justice is not likely to be moved- and, if his belief is correct, he shouldn’t be moved- by the fact that these will be very expensive. He will say: “I’m sorry. Those sacrifices are justified because this is a moral goal; it is one’s duty to do it.
We can talk endlessly to Mr. Nader and Co. about how costly and inefficient government regulation is. If he believes that the goals are morally superior to the other goals that have to be sacrificed so as to pursue them, he will insist that economic concerns can be discounted. This view has been voiced by David Ferber, solicitor with the SEC, in a reply to free market economist Henry Manne, both writing in the Vanderbilt Law Review. Commenting on the regulations imposed by the SEC, Ferber observed, “Since I believe Congress was attempting to improve the morality of the marketplace, I think that the economic effect is largely irrelevant.” Edwin M. Zimmerman, assistant attorney general with the antitrust division of the Justice Department, made the same point in his essay in Promoting Competition, a Brookings Institution volume. He denies that economic efficiency was ever the impetus for regulatory laws.
Plainly put, many who support regulation believe this to be the correct way to try to achieve valued goals. They are dead serious about this. And if they are right, they are also on target when they counter that objection based on inefficiency and high cost are trivial, if not outright callus.
So moral ideas are important in this area, so important that there are some who even feign moral reasons for supporting government regulation. When lobbyists and corporate executives appear before Congress and ask for handouts or subsidies or tariffs, often the bottom line is that these would be in the public interest, the public good, rhe national destiny- or for God and country, as the old saying goes. Those are usually ornaments for shortcuts on the marketplace. But unless people took such ideas seriously, those asking for favors would not bother even to mention them. These are crucial moral terms that count. There are enough people everywhere motivated by just such moral ideas.
Can anyone doubt, then, that deregulatory policies would also require moral support? It’s not enough to say, “Well, regulation costs too much and it’s inefficient.” An alternative moral perspective is needed to conclusively establish the propriety of deregulation. Economic arguments alone do not suffice. But is there anything in the way of ethics that might support deregulation?
If we look at prominent and widely articulated beliefs about what is right and wrong, we find that altruism is pervasive. Altruism literally means “otherorientedness.” This morality is a sort of grab bag for all the various moral systems the bottom line of which is that one’s life must be led so as to secure the welfare of others, either today or tomorrow. It is the view that every person’s prime purpose is to live for others—humanity, one’s country, and one’s race. There are variations on this view, but they all come to this.

Just Helping Out
When made to apply to political policy, the altruist ethic implies that government must try at all costs to achieve the goal of helping people, however bungling, inefficient, or otherwise objectionable such efforts might be. In a debate in an old issue of Analog magazine (April I975), we find this attitude well illustrated in the words of Alan E. Nourse, a fervent defender of national health insurance. He tells us that it is “not a new concept nor is it a particularly efficient concept as far as health care delivery is concerned, because many many precious dollars will be dribbled away to administration.”
Does this suffice to dissuade Mr. Nourse? Do such economic considerations lead to the conclusion that national health insurance is a bad idea? No, counters Nourse, because “‘it is a concept that might—repeat might—meet some of the desperate health care needs that exist today.” If the primary responsibility of government is to engage in helping other people, then trying, even in the face of evidence that it will not do any good, is quite justifiable. People who share those values will simply continue in the face of disastrous performance records.
But we need to consider whether altruism is really the system that should guide us in our lives. The question is not whether certain of our virtues are other-oriented, nor whether in certain circumstances we are obligated to look out for others. The question is whether we are to live our lives primarily for other people.
In a few paragraphs, all the issues involved cannot be covered. There is one interesting point to be raised against altruism, however. Why is it that everyone deserves this prime consideration from others, but not from themselves? Why is it supposed to be this daisy chain of my doing benefit to you, your doing benefit to him, his doing benefit to her, etc.? It clearly engenders meddlesomeness in human affairs. It invites more rigorous attention to other people’s circumstances than to one’s own; because if one is first morally obligated to benefit other people, then their circumstances, their needs, their aspirations, and their wishes must be known. One must obtain the maximum amount of information about those people, and one must do everything possible to find out what will indeed benefit them.
This explains why there is such widespread government information-intrusion in people’s lives. Government, too, must know about others in order to help others. It must be able to walk into private homes, for example, to make sure that welfare recipients get the right care. It is its obligation, according to altruism.
Although altruism claims that individuals should live their lives so as to benefit others but not primarily to benefit themselves, they would, just on the face of it, seem to know much more about themselves to start with. So if people do deserve a lot, why is it that others should do it for them as opposed to their doing it for themselves? This is a puzzle, and it’s worth considering. But let’s leave aside the full criticism that could be offered against altruism and take up as an alternative moral theory that, not surprisingly, is going to be called ethical egoism.

Self-Help
Now ethical egoism—in ancient Greek moral philosophy known as eudemonism—is not egotism which is an excessive concern with one’s image or at least with one’s reputation or power. Ethical egoism, in contrast, is a rational concern with one’s own bona fide happiness. It holds that every human being’s prime moral purpose in living is to achieve happiness in life- the fulfillment, throughout one’s life, of one’s potential as a human being. Happiness is the result of excellence at being human. Here, a person’s primary responsibility is not to do good for others, although it may still be true that on many occasions human beings should do what is good for others. The primary moral responsibility of individuals is to achieve their own happiness in life.
So we have an alternative ethics. Is it possible, in terms of this ethics, that in the process of regulating our commercial and many other activities, government is violating certain moral and political principles?
Government regulation usually involves the following. Some activity by some commercial agents, manufacturers, or industrialists might be of harm to someone who is going to buy their product. If it is possible- just barely possible—that these activities will produce some harm to others, the activity is prohibited or regulated. As Senator Javits once put it in a personal communication on the subject of vitamin C, the government must protect citizens against potential possible hazard.
Now watch those qualifiers: potential, possible hazards. Even a hazard is only a possible harm. A hazard doesn’t guarantee harm. A lot of people have hazardous jobs, meaning that the likelihood of getting hurt in those jobs is considerable. Now imagine a possible hazard. What then is a potentially possible hazard? To be safe in life from “potentially possible hazards,” one must be protected in everything.
If, however, one’s primary obligation in life is to achieve happiness, and if one shares this obligation with other people- so that they should achieve their happiness- then, what must first of all be protected and preserved in a social context are the conditions that make it possible for people to strive for or to pursue their happiness. For example, the Declaration of Independence refers to the protection and preservation of rights we have as human beings—the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
If these were indeed rights that we have and that ought to be protected, then in the pursuit of our happiness, someone else’s interference would be wrong, morally wrong. Not just inefficient and very costly, but morally wrong—wrong because human beings should not act that way. In most of the criminal law this point is observed carefnlly, even if not fully consistently. The burden of proof rests with the prosecution-those who believe they have reason to impose burdens on citizens. Unfortunately, the same principle goes by the wayside when it comes to administering government regulations. If members of an industry, profession, or trade engage in “potentially possible hazardous” activities, there are now legal grounds for placing heavy burdens upon them.

A Risky Business
The most persuasive argument in support of this practice involves what Ralph Nader never tires of citing the famous thalidomide case. Many European women took the drug during pregnancy but the FDA barred its distribution in the United States. It had tragic results in Europe; but in America, almost no one was hurt from the drug. Nader constantly remarks this upon, in his numerous talks and essays in support of federal regulation of the food and drug industry.
Now it is clear that if guaranteed safety is the highest value we should aim for in life, then Mr. Nader and Co. are on the right track. If it is our prime duty to make certain that other people are safe, then we should never profit from nor allow others to profit from selling them some goods or services that just might be hazardous. But if freedom to seek our own well-being, the political and economic liberty to make our own way in life, is the highest political good, then even the tragic events associated with the thalidomide case do not suffice to give support to government regulation.
Life is undoubtedly a risky business. Those who want to accept risks may not be prevented from doing so regardless of how convinced we are that they are foolish to take these risks. We may not prevent mountain climbers, auto racers, horseback riders, firefighters, and even plain, ordinary consumers of voluntarily acquired drugs and foods from doing what they have chosen to do. Nor may we gather into majorities and legislate these wise prohibitions for them.
We can, however, point out how life can be made safer! Hazards can be overcome in a free society, even when other people pose them by their sloppiness, negligence, greed, or stupidity. Government regulations preempt a crucial human virtue: the willingness of industrialists, manufacturers, professionals, to do well at whatthey have promised themselves to do well-their jobs. By usurping the field of morality, by forbidding the risky business of people’s developing themselves and getting on in society through mutual self-development, government regulation is a gross denigration of human dignity itself.
Altruism is the main moral game in town. The only place it is not advocated very much is in psychotherapy sessions and books on self-help therapy, because in these areas people have come to face up to the debilitating consequences of living by such a moral point of view. Entire political institutions, however, are built on the doctrine of altruism. Among these, governmental regulation of people’s productive, trading, or consuming activities is just one. Others include all the victimless crime laws, “blue laws,” involuntary mental hospitalization statutes; and the list could go on.
But altruism is a view that does not prepare one for coping with life on earth. It stifles personal growth, ambition, self-development; and it encourages deceit. We must claim that everything we want to do will be good for others, just so we can “get away with doing it.” And it also gives perfect excuses for our failures- “I did it for you. I lied, killed, maimed, stole, and cheated only because I meant well for you.”

Stopping Meddling
Without affirming, with utmost confidence, the alternative moral position—so that each person can realize that the prime moral goal in life is to excel as a person, to become the best one can become in life, given one’s human nature and one’s personal potentials as an individual human being-the case for stopping all this meddling in people’s lives cannot be made conclusively. Sure, governmental regulation is inefficient, devours our income, breeds corruption, centralizes enormous power, stifles production, leaves people overburdened with bureaucratic trivia; but if its goals are morally superior to others, so what? We must be heroic; we must sacrifice for the great good that we might- “repeat might”—achieve. We must toss aside this materialist concern for efficiency, thrift, and prudence. We must march on the noble trail of doing good for our fellow human beings, whether they want it or not.
If, however, we should aspire to our own happiness, if this is our primary moral task, then others should abstain from interfering with us; then regulation is not just uneconomic, but wrong. Government regulation violates our rights—period. And we have those rights because it is we, individually and in voluntary cooperation, who should strive to live, produce, trade, and consume, Only by realizing that this is a matter of profound moral truth- not merely of convenience, efficiency, cost, or pleasure (although not without rewards in these respects)—can we overcome the intellectual and basic moral force of the case for regulation.
That will not lead to instant deregulation. But it will have robbed the meddlers of their most potent weapon—the appeal to people’s frequent, even if not fully consistent, concern for doing what is right in personal and political matters. Even the famous Nobel Laureate (Princeton University) economist and columnist for The New York Times has come to see that the case for interventionism needs moral backing, so he has gone out of his way—in The New York Times (Sunday, January 8, 2011) to present what he takes to be such backing. (That he doesn’t succeed because no moral case can rely on coercion—men and women must freely choose to do the right thing for it to have moral significance.**)

Notes:

* This essay is based on Tibor R. Machan, “Deregulation is a Moral Issue,” in Ellen F. Paul and Philip A. Russo, Jr., Public Policy, Issues, Analysis, and Ideology (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House Publishers, Inc., 1982)
**See my discussion of this point at http://tibormachan rationalreview.com/2011/01/column-on-krugmans-incoherent-moral-stance/