Libertarianism -- sell me

Great Debates
201

The meat-packing industry example is pretty compelling, I must admit. OTOH, it also proves the case that “less safe is cheaper”. But, yes, I can see how a big industry could use the fact that smaller competitors might not be able to comply with byzantine systems of regulations to clobber their smaller competitors.

As to corporations growing to behemoth proportions due to being able to provide the best service…

I have sort of a half-assed theory about that, from my observations of Wal-Mart, Boyd Gaming, Inc. and Station Casinos.

They grow to their giant size because of the hard work and innovation of guys like Sam Walton, Sam Boyd and Frank Fertitta, the First (no, really, there’s a FF the 2nd and 3rd…). They build their empires by providing their customers with the best possible product, service, gaming experience, whatever at the best possible price. They also treat their employees very well, because having actually had to work to build their companies, they understand that it is the front-line workers that make the company a good place to do business.

Then Sam Walton, Sam Boyd and FFtheF dies, and Rob Walton, Bill Boyd and Frank Fertitta II takes over. He has inherited what he sees as this gigantic cash cow, only looks at the bottom line, doesn’t see the actual work involved in running this gigantic beast. So they start trying to cut costs by trimming wages and benefits for workers, cutting staff as much as they can get away with, cutting back on comps in the case of casinos. They try to minimize outgo because they don’t see it as an investment in generating income. So the workers are miserable, and there aren’t enough of them to get the job done, customer service suffers…

Becky Binion-Behnan basically ran the Horseshoe into the ground by trying to cut operating costs. She cut costs to the point that nobody wanted to play there anymore. Eventually the gummint shut the place down, with a little help from the Culinary Union- seems health insurance premiums were being deducted from paychecks but not being sent along to the insurance companies. It was eventually sold to another company. Harrah’s is managing it for the time being, and Harrah’s has a reputation for being an extremely unpleasant company to work for…

Anyhoo, I’m also a big advocate of local production of goods, and, as far as possible, people selling the goods they produce themselves. I have some lovely handmade rosaries I’d like to be able to take downtown and hang out in front of a church when noon mass is letting out to sell them, but I don’t have a license to do so, and really can’t afford one right now. I have exactly one dollar to my name at just this moment. But yeah, that would be an advantage of scaling back government regulations as far as business licensing was concerned. Folks who made handicraft type stuff could set up a little stand on the sidewalk or wander around with a little basket and sell their wares.

202

If I may expand on this for a second, it is only true in certain cases. Clearly if I can make shirts in a building, it is clearly cheaper not to have to add fire sprinklers. However, this is only true in the short term. Fire insurance will certainly be more expensive. Over time the possiblity of a fire could cost much more than the installation and maintenance of a sprinkler system. Remember from the shirtwaist fire that one of the complaints was that sprinkler technology existed prior to that fire. That is, the private sector had already developed the means to prevent the tragedy which occured.

What I mean by all this is that it was impossible for some meat packers to implement the new safety regulations. It cost the large concerns money, but it was money they had and were willing to invest for greater market share and more stable production environment. Long term gains for short term investments. Just what large corporations are good at taking advantage of and small companies often must forgo.

203

Hmmm… Well… Yeah… In our society, that’s likely true enough. Problem is, I can’t really think about the lib ideal without considering the possibility of one business owning everything and not caring about anyone and grinding the public under its iron heel and…

And that’s not real probable. But “often” is a relative term, after all.

I’m not at all interested in getting into the details of OSHA regulation. But as for your other questions: There are naturally some professions which are more dangerous than others, which should be kept in mind, but if an employer wishes to create an unnecessarily unsafe work environment, and you’re cool with that, that doesn’t mean society should stand back and let you risk injuring yourself.

Think about seatbelts. It costs everyone more when dumbasses suffer avoidable injuries. That’s why you’re supposed to buckleup, whether you want to or not. The same sense should apply to employment.

I wasn’t calling freedom, in and of itself, nonexistant, I was calling the pure lib ideal of freedom nonexistant. The freedom that the hardcore libs believe in is as makebelieve as the freedom that the hardcore communists believe in. When anyone wants to define freedom so radically that it has never existed in any human society, then I don’t see the point in using the term.

204

Well, ok, but what exactly do you mean by “unnecessarily”? If the employer and employees are freely and knowledgeably willing to accept the risk, and assuming that no one else is involved (remember libertarians don’t favor public health care either), then what exactly makes the safety precautions “necessary”. I understand I am stretching your hypothetical a bit. But I am not doing it to make an idle point. It is not unreasonable to suggest the I might value my life more dearly than some bureaucrat far away. Perhaps my definition of “necessary” precautions are far different than his. And I think it is important to remember that this is the choice we are talking about. We are not talking about allowing risks in general. We are talking about allowing individuals to decide for themselves what risks they will assume and for them to take the responsibility for such assumptions.

Quite right. But the choice is not between buckling up and not buckling up, the choice is between a law forcing you to buckle up and programs to encourage it. That is between forcing you to (at least when you are caught) and convincing you that it is actually in your best interest.

Oh. Can you give me an idea of what that conception of freedom is? Remember to cite a prominent Libertarian who advocates it. :wink:

205

Zagadka, The Asbestos Mango, furt and holmes: You’ve got mail.

While you’re waiting for the books to arrive you might want to check out some columns by Thomas Sowell. I find his kind of simple case study approach to libertarianism to be very similar to Milton Friedman’s. Not too intellectual (for me at least), not a lot of energy going into defining terms. Also, none of the personal villification which distracts from the bigger points. Just simple examples of how well intentioned government programs wind up doing a lot more harm than good.

Thomas Sowell Archives

206

To get all economic about it: It’s unnecessarily unsafe when the social costs outweigh the social benefits. Yes, the regulation is depriving your hypothetical of the contractual ability to work in an unsafe workplace. At the same time, my hypothetical doesn’t have to face the “choice” between starving or losing a limb because of a cheap employeer. I honestly believe that we’re all better off when no one is put into that sort of dilemma, even when it’s at the cost of no longer allowing your hypothetical workers to “freely” put themselves into that type of dangerous situation. How does it matter if a person is free to choose if the only choices are injury and death?

This is what I’m trying to work toward when I criticize the lib view of freedom. I’m not somehow parroting “prominent Libertarians”. I’m not here to argue for them. According to the beliefs of certain libs I’ve had discussions with, if I owned EVERYTHING, it would be totally within my rights to keep everyone from eating. The food is mine. Others have no right to eat it. I can let them starve, and the gov’t, according to them, would be wrong to stop it from happening.

The situation is implausible to the point of absurdity, but still, check that out: They say the gov’t would be wrong to interfere with my starving out humankind. That their ideal would allow for that is incredibly disturbing, especially considering the real life situations (such as company towns) that somewhat mirror my farout situation.

207

  • Company towns do not even come close to mirroring your farout situation.

  • I can come up with equally far out situations where government regulations lead to death and starvation. <far out and pointless hypothetical deleted>

  • Your hypothetical falls into the trap of assuming that libertarian policies would somehow lead to fewer and fewer people owning more and more of the worlds resources. I mean seriously, you a single individual owning everything? Remember the old joke about “You can’t own everything, where would you put it?”

But how do you divorce the social costs and benifits from the individual costs and benifits? What is the societal costs expept the sum of the costs to the individuals who make up that society?

Why is substituting the judgement of a bureaucrat for the judgement of the individual involved in the choice automatically better? I ask this in all seriousness. I truly do not understand how a central authority making this decision makes the decision ok, while an individual making it for himself is not ok.

208

Yes, they somewhat mirror my farout situation. Let me try a different tack, though…

My hypothetical falls into no “trap”. Income inequality has been increasing in this country for the past many years. It has not yet reached levels on par with the days of old, but the fact remains that economic power is coalescing in the hands of the few. The free market system is absolutely dependent on many economic decision makers; it’s what drives the whole machine. When you take that away, you’re left with just a few firms, or sometimes just one firm which controls the market.

Antitrust regulation is the government attempting to step in to stop this process when it first begins to do harm. Take this away, as it seems you would like, and the monopoly can then use its market power to squelch competition in other markets. This is not a hypothetical. Microsoft has been accused of this very thing.

So, yes, a few people owning most everything in a lib world is a very real concern. In fact, if I didn’t consider the lib model to be inherently unstable, I would believe that the private collectivization of all major industries to be inevitable. Power wants to gather more power, whether you’re talking about a government agency or a corporation.

*“Automatically” better? Where do you get that? Let’s go back:

Emphasis added.

I favor a small amount of regulation. I favor a small tax code. I favor a small government. I have never once said that regulation is “automatically” better. But sometimes, sometimes, a little regulation is better. Sometimes not letting a dummy get his damn fool self injured is better for society as a whole, even if the dummy disagrees.

A crippled worker isn’t just a drain on himself, and you can’t pretend otherwise. Even if you take away any potential costs from public health coverage, which you seem eager to do, his injuries will without question adversely affect his family and friends, and quite likely his community as well. Again, I’m not making this up. Give a poor and desperate man a raw deal, and crime is a likely result. Now, I realize that you can’t legislate away stupidity, but providing a few regulatory safeguards can help reduce the overall harm caused.

You know, I get real tired of people badmouthing corporations and saying that they’re inherently evil, but I get equally exasperated by people who believe markets are always the savior from the demon government. Trusting any institution too far is simplistic and shortsighted, regardless of whether you place your trust in the public sector or the private.

209

I think perhaps we are talking past each other. I appologize for contributing to that.

I am not advocating removing all regulations. What I was trying to get at was trying to see where you would draw the line. It appears that you give no weight whatsoever to my own ability to take responsibility for myself. Is that right?

As to the concentration of wealth, I’m not sure it is at all self evident that “economic power is coalescing in the hands of the few”. Furthermore, I would argue that the extent to which this is happening has more to do with increasing government regulations than otherwise.

There are two kinds of monopolies. Government or state sponsered and market driven monopolies. There can be companies which do some of both. That is, state sponsored monopolies never offer totally useless products and sometimes companies which are market leaders use government influence to increase that market share. However, I would contend that the vast majority of abuses by monopolies are directly related to the degree to which they rely on governmental support. That is, the problem has much more to do with government interference than private property rights. Companies which have to compete simply cannot stray far from the market value of their products or resources. They may be able to dump products for a short time in specific locations. But they cannot do so in drastically abusive ways for very long. Not without government support, at least.

You do know that the anti turst legislation has been abused don’t you?

I agree with this whole heartedly. Notice that I have not advocated private armies or police.

210

I appreciate that. I am trying to be as clear as possible, but sometimes I just fail.

To be honest, I have no idea what you mean.

If you mean that you should be able to take risks whose consequences can only be detrimental to yourself, then yeah, I’m fine with that. It’s when seemingly “private” risks can impose large societal costs that there’s a problem. I consider some of the basic risks involved in employment to be a part of that, which is why I’ve stuck with that example. I realize that it’s extremely difficult to measure social costs, and this is why I think the gov’t should think long and hard before it decides intervention is necessary. The line is occasionally crossed, though, and it would not do for the gov’t to stand still when this happens.

If you look at the numbers, the trend is plain to see. There’s even been a Straight Dope column about this continually increasing inequality. If this trend eventually stabilizes, as it might could do, then we’re gravy. If it continues unabated, then there’s trouble, whether the cause is government or private enterprise.

I don’t believe that. In my opinion, western Europe is the best laboratory in existance for analyzing the effects of large amounts of red tape on the economy, and income inequality is less there than it is here. But, to let you know, I am aware that the gov’t sponsors many monopolies that it shouldn’t. I can’t disprove the possibility that that’s contributing to the increasing inequality, but it doesn’t seem likely to me.

And just to make sure you know: I don’t believe income ineqaulity, in and of itself, is a bad thing. More productive workers deserve better pay. People who invest in risky enterprises should be rewarded when those enterprises succede. Maybe that’s all that this current increase in inequality is. That’s just fine, as long as it doesn’t continue too long, cause that would make the system too top heavy, and then something’s gotta give.

211

I understand. I often find that things I say are not nearly as clear as they seem to me before I type them. :wink:

Well, I think you cleared it up with your next paragraph.

I agree with this general sentiment. If a risk can be said to impose a cost on others, then clearly those others should have a say in when and where the risk is taken. Probably we are simply differing in our opinion of what sorts of risks effect others, how said risks effect others, and so forth.

This is a good example. I agree that government regulations do not always cross the line. However I differ in my opinion that they cross the line much more often than is commonly acknowledged. That is, regulations defining the allowable angle on pickles seem ridiculous to me. While I agree that regulations defining how long they should be cooked, or how clean they have to be, for instance, I think there are far more examples of regulations which do not bear directly on the health of the consumer.

Thank you for the link to the column. I had not seen that.

I think it makes both our points. Perhaps we are talking across one another again. When I said the trend is not so clear cut, I was specifically refering to the power. That is the idea that fewer and fewer people are controlling more and more power in the country. According to the article, “What do we mean by “Gilded Age”? According to the Britannica, the phrase refers to the 1870s, a “period of gross materialism and blatant political corruption in U.S. history.” Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner christened the era in a book of that name published in 1873.” This is precisely what I meant when I said before that many of the Robber Barons that we are familiar with from history were not merely economic powerhouses. They held (through bribary and influence) immense political power. When discussing the merits of Libertarianism, or capitalism for that matter, you have to seperate those sorts of rich people from others who become rich merely because they produce more and better products than their competitors.

I’m not sure at all, that the trend is towards fewer people becoming more powerful while more and more become powerless. As the article suggests, “The robber barons weren’t just rich, they controlled the U.S. economy to an extent that today’s superrich can only dream about. Today Microsoft may dominate the operating-system market with Windows, but in the context of the total U.S. economy the company’s a drop in the bucket. In contrast, when Standard Oil had a 64 percent market share in 1911, John D. Rockefeller’s net worth amounted to more than 2 percent of annual U.S. output and in inflation-corrected dollars was more than twice that of Bill Gates.”

At the same time, I recognize that this is a possibility. The debate in the US about campaign finance reform, for instance, takes for granted that money influences politicians. I’m not sure that such an assumption is wrong. Again, however, one way to reduce such problems would be to reduce the power available to said politicians. Such that they had less to sell,as it were. Or perhaps more precisely, they had less chance of benifiting individuals or corporations.

Thank you for this. It does me good to hear someone on the other side of this debate suggest this. I know it seems obvious, or should “go without saying”, but sometimes it seems like those opposing libertarian ideas do not agree with this sentiment.

For the record, I understand that some of the current trend of income inequality is a bad thing. That is some of the current wealth being accumulated is not being accumulated simply by working harder, smarter, or taking better risks. Specifically, I’m saying that just because someone is rich does not mean they earned their wealth legitimately, even if they did so leagally.

Perhaps such discussions are better off starting with lengthy definitions of terms. It is a testiment to John Mace’s wisdom that he identified the essential proposition for discussion at the begining of this thread. Thank you for the reasoned discussion on these matters. Such threads are why I come here.