Disqus - Latest Comments for Dain

Re: Mismeasuring Progress

Dain — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 22:05:22 -0000

Once one realizes what the origins of the state are, and that it is (somehow) the sole legitimate purveyor of violence, how can one defend it without simultaneously throwing out any kind of universal morality? If the state is allowed to steal, for instance, why aren't I?

Re: Inequality; Lant Pritchett is Awesome; the Injustice of Labor Market Restrictions

Dain — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 17:53:10 -0000

"Hey, ho, restrictions on labor mobility have to go!"

The term "labor mobility" rather than "people mobility" takes the edge off of the radical counter-"Social Justice" Social Justice that you advocate. It has a conservative (as in right wing libertarian) ring to it, implying that immigrants are solely good for the economy, rather than good for an ethic that seeks to apply the same standards of justice for all.

Invoking Rawls helps, but the constant use of "labor mobility" injures the humanist dimension by saddling it with that which is good for the libertarian economist's particular obsession.

Re: Almost Nothing Rotten in Denmark

Dain — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 20:20:58 -0000

Having lived in California all my life ("Cali baby!") and also having visited Denmark, I can say that although Danish women are attractive in that yuppie-ish, "Ready Made" magazine, cute and elfin white girl kind of way, they are no match for the diversity of the Golden State's females. Yes, boring in comparison. Vs. the USA as a whole? I'd still say so, given the astonishing array of personality types - and body types (thick for the so inclined) - and lifestyles you'll encounter. In Denmark it's small apartments and bicycles for everyone.

But yea I'd rather live there, at least for a long while. Hey, I like electronic music and the internet alot.

Re: Ron Paul Debacle Must Reads

Dain — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:07:51 -0000

"...people whose values and habits of mind are deeply hostile to liberal modernity are not our allies."

As long as they don't advocate statism and war, they are less dangerous than those that do. Arguably, an anarcho-communist primitivist is far more deeply hostile to liberal modernity than Giuliani. Whom do I view as more dangerous? It's a no brainer.

Re: Media This Week

Dain — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:08:21 -0000

Jonah Goldberg is an example of how just how much the rhetoric of the old left has been adopted by the new right, buttressing the accusation of paleocons that neocons are in fact more left wing than often thought.

Goldberg abuses the word Fascism in a manner typically reserved for angry college students who call anything they don't like "Fascism", though admittedly better defended and thought through. I watched the interview and noticed he even cited A. James Gregor, probably the foremost scholar on the subject. Yet his sloppy use of the term in the title of his book would seem to negate this familiarity. Gregor explains just what Fascism was, as outlined by Giovanni Gentile and Mussolini themselves; its specific formation is original and unique to Italy in the early twentieth century. The Nazis are not Fascists, for example, but National Socialists, with important differences between them. To argue otherwise is a rehash of the official Marxist line of the time that anything that isn't specifically Communist and perhaps even pro-Soviet is de facto "Fascist".

Golberg is as irresponsible as the people behind "Islamo Fascism Awareness Week", confusing globally minded mystical theocrats with scant apprecation for political economy and industrialization with secular nationalists devoted to industry, corporatism and the philosophy of Actualism.

I understand the urge to reach for the dreaded "F" word when attempting to sock it to your enemy, but someone of Golderg's intellect should not shy away from calling something by what it is. Perhaps there isn't a term for the current Hillary Clinton style political approach other than "big government liberalism" that would best fit, but certainly designations other than Fascist would better fit her viewpoints. I would argue that "corporate liberal", "Fabian", "managerialist", etc., is a more appropriate description.

Re: Media This Week

Dain — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 15:12:18 -0000

Fred,

Can you be more specific? I didn't read the book, never said I did, but I watched the interview.

Re: If the U.S. Is So Rich, Why Isn’t It Happier?

Dain — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 15:44:41 -0000

As a California guy, I first visited Minnesota when my cousins moved there in 1989. It was winter and I was blown away by how much suburban Minneapolis - Chanhassen and Minnetonka - reminded me of the movies Uncle Buck and Home alone (hey, I was eleven). A winter wonderland with cool sports and activities I never saw at home, like hockey and ice skating. So clean too.

Summer was humid with tons of mosquitos, which kinda sucked, but still, the abundance of trees was visually appealing. The central valley in California is rather ugly looking, a flat marshland/chaparal.

I realize now that I wouldnt' trade California's incredibly diverse culture (including women) for all that, but it'd sure be cool, literally, to have a winter retreat on some frozen lake in Minnesota. I'm now in the bay area Cali, an awesome place if not infrastructurally dilapidated.

Re: George Kateb vs. Patriotism

Dain — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:48:03 -0000

Indeed the difference between patriotism and nationalism should be emphasized. Proudhon was a French (regionalist) patriot, for example, and as an anarchist about the furthest thing from the vulgar nationalists of the GOPAC.

Re: Positive-Sum Within, Zero-Sum Without

Dain — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:29:19 -0000

The 'superficiality' of pointing out Obama's association with this guy is no more or less superficial than what happened with Ron Paul.

Why the urge by Wilkinson to sweep Wright under the rug but look at Paul's associations square in the eye?

And I'm inclined to agree with Wright, according to what I've seen. Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Check. 9/11 as consequence of foreign policy coming home to roost? Check.

Re: Krugman on Immigration and Inequality

Dain — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 16:10:17 -0000

Scratch a universalist humanitarian and you'll ultimately find a rather milquetoast conservative.

Here's why.

The welfare state must be defended, and by extension the political borders and nation-state conventions it is concretely based on. There's a tension here between the liberal disdain for national borders and their commitment to upholding the redistributist and regulatory status quo.

Re: Krugman on Immigration and Inequality

Dain — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 17:32:54 -0000

KJ,

Allowing Muslims into the country, to proselytize and accumulate wealth and likely political power could also very well drive the plebs into the hands of the Republicans. Should Muslims, then, be descriminated against?

One may as well say that Democrats being Democrats drives non-Democrats into the hands of Republicans. Thus Democrats should be...Republicans.

Re: Krugman on Immigration and Inequality

Dain — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:30:51 -0000

Well, uh, to the extent that authoritarian elitists and police-backed technocratic paternalists essentially don't trust people to run their own damn lives, I'd say Goldberg's thesis isn't INHERENTLY frivoulous.

The problem with Goldberg is that he has no credibility writing a book like that, supporter of Bush - a right wing social engineer - that he is.

Re: Let Me Serve You Up!

Dain — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:43:51 -0000

I think making sexual services synonymous with the transaction between a self-righteous BK customer and an obedient drone at the cash register who MUST do it the customer's way is an awful rhetorical mistake.

"To be treated like a 'customer' is to be treated precisely the way you want, not the way someone else wants to treat you."

See Amanda's comment again.

Re: Double Evil!

Dain — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:11:33 -0000

One would be led to believe by the constant bickering between paleolibs and cosmolibs that theirs is the ONLY insider fight taking place.

I'd direct everyone to Kevin Carson and his alliance of left libertarians. They primarily differ from the CATO ilk not over culture war stuff, but in their defense of REAL free markets from the kind of corporate friendly, centralized statism that often goes under the name of "libertarian":

http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2006/09/vulgar-li...

Re: Unequal Democracy

Dain — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:31:34 -0000

If indeed the presidency alone is THAT important to the lives of 300 million people, does anyone find this to be a problem in itself?

Re: Analytical Nationalism vs. What Actually Happens

Dain — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:43:40 -0000

I'm loving these posts exposing the both explicit and implicit nationalism of the mainstream left.

It's long been obvious that libertarians are despised by the right because they aren't nationalist enough. And by the left? Because...they aren't nationalist enough!

Re: I Wouldn’t Say Incest Is Best…

Dain — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:58:11 -0000

To disallow incest for "birth defect" reasons would mean disallowing dwarfs the right to consensual sex. After all, there's a relatively high likelihood of passing on dwarfism.

Face it, it's all cultural (though in this case a damned near universal one!). Issues of power imbalance and potential for abuse is seperable from the act itself, in a way that, say, polygamy isn't.

Re: I Wouldn’t Say Incest Is Best…

Dain — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 20:25:58 -0000

Micha,

You're right, or at least I'm not as right as I thought. Polygamy, strictly defined, is having more than one spouse. The power "imbalance" issue, then, can be mitigated because there can be equal numbers of men and women in such a situation, with more or less equal incomes. I was originally thinking of polygyny.

Nonetheless I support the legalization of plural marriage.

Re: I Wouldn’t Say Incest Is Best…

Dain — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 20:28:32 -0000

Jeremy,

If the father and daughter are over 18? Sure, what the hell business is it of ours?

Re: I Wouldn’t Say Incest Is Best…

Dain — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:52:56 -0000

Jeremy,

Good point.

Re: “Not just the signature on a series of essays”

Dain — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 22:58:59 -0000

As far as I knew all those old white bastards were slaveowners and white supremacists. Since that is held constant, we can analyze them on their remaining libertarian (or not) elements.

Re: Nussbaum on Sex Work

Dain — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 17:54:49 -0000

This echoes her book on the visceral reaction of "disgust" and the way it affects politics. I forgot the name...

Re: False Consciousness, Psychological Freedom, and Pluralism

Dain — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:24:36 -0000

It is possible to find out how the mind works and to develop intelligible conceptions of normative cognitive functioning.
Normative cognitive functioning? As in the way ones mind ought to work? Forgive me if I believe this oversteps bounds. I myself wouldn't like someone telling me that some of my particular habits - including the one that afflicts most Americans, too much TV time - run afoul of proper normative cognitive functioning.

Like TGGP, I take people at their word, and don't second guess what they claim to value and celebrate in their particular lifeworld, as Habermas might say.
I think being a Santa Cruz hippie burnout is stupid, but hey, it ain't my thing, and my capacity for empathy can at least produce some reasons in favor of it. And if he tells me he was homeschooled by former Dead Heads and their friends? Hm, that's kinda cool.

We all have extremely parochial and circumscribed experiences and points of view. Truth and widely shared subjective views of the good life result from interaction among discrete individuals, some more cosmopolitan than others. They certainly aren't something known in their entirety at any given time by a certain group of people who staff the state. And they are certainly never settled.

Someone in a tight knit family who values tradition for its own sake and the older values of solidarity and 'natural' living could very well have something unique to offer the urban yuppie, but not if they aren't allowed to play out that particular lifestyle to begin with. Especially when they've already declared they want to.

I'm curious as to how Marx's theory of false consciousness can be debunked while the claim of false consciousness on the part of Mormon kids (or my parents' kids!) cannot be. As Jeffrey Friedman would say, somebody is always mediating between a claim and the point of its reception. Whether it be advertisers appealing to a 'need' for a product or a Mormon parent doing the same for a sisterhood of house wives.

Lastly, as a side note, Joan Iverson wrote a paper called Feminist Implications of Mormon Polygny. She notes that Mormon women were some of the nineteenth century's most vocal feminists! I'd never seen these women referred to as feminists, but their status as an official pariah and fiery defender of and unpopular group, comibined with their efforts to keep their territory independent of broader US control, turned the heads of eastern feminists who were rather baffled by these women. Good god, what does it even mean to be "progressive" and "feminist" in the face of this? (The current struggle between first world feminism and third world Muslim women is fascinating, and somewhat parallels this.)

Re: False Consciousness, Psychological Freedom, and Pluralism

Dain — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:43:45 -0000

Ok, I worded that badly. Ought should be distinguished from "you must".

Yes, I think kids ought to be able to read by, well, fairly soon in their lives. That's my preference. I can't accurately pinpoint a specific age for every child, everywhere, no more so than the Dept. of Education.

If a parent decided to take their young child on a grand tour of the nomadic cultures of the world, not learning to read English until well after age 7, that's rather neat, me thinks.

Re: False Consciousness, Psychological Freedom, and Pluralism

Dain — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:49:27 -0000

selective moral skepticism...
It’s not selective, I do not even believe that someone else torturing and murdering me along with everyone I know is objectively bad. I simply would not like it.

Well, I'm gonna have to part ways with you here. At the point of coercion - of physical apprehension - I believe I can "go out on a limb" and say this is objectively bad. Normatively bad. Force is not a viable generalizable maxim. It's zero sum and eliminative.

I'm no Stirnerite.

Re: False Consciousness, Psychological Freedom, and Pluralism

Dain — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:55:57 -0000

Woops, there I go again. An ethos of might makes right could be a generalizable maxim. But it'd be still be zero sum and eliminative, and someone making the case for it is assuming their own exemption from this ethos the minute they indignantly try to save their own ass from coercion-because-I-can.

Re: False Consciousness, Psychological Freedom, and Pluralism

Dain — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 21:21:11 -0000

TGGP,

I'm not sure I understand your first point. I tried to show that a non-zero sum and non-eliminative ethos was good, not bad.

In any case, I see that you value conversation by engaging in it. This cannot occur unless we at least implicitly agree to keep our hands to ourselves and abide by the NAP. If I violate it and interrupt your ability to conversate by gagging you, you might very well think "so be it, he got the upper hand". You believe this not to be immoral, but just an unfortunate preference?

I'm willing to accept an evolutionary, game theoretic reason for more or less libertarian rules of interaction, but as far as I'm concerned an objectively derived ethics is part of this process. So, we give our kids the line about how it's just wrong to hurt somebody for no reason, but also about how we wouldn't want somebody to do the same to us. It's two sides of the same coin.

Re: The Hong Kong of Scandinavia

Dain — Sun, 04 May 2008 14:19:51 -0000

Earth,

Sounds like Mutualism. Indeed it's overlooked by most.

Re: Arthur Brooks on Religion and Happiness

Dain — Sat, 17 May 2008 14:16:32 -0000

I think your reference to Culture and Subjective Well Being is a good explanation for why Brooks would find his thesis supported only in the US.

Interestingly, in his earlier book he notes that self reported conservatives were more likely to be civically engaged. If the culture and well being thing holds, and Scandinavians are happier because their personal collectivism meshes with society/state, then it really IS just a matter of socializing Americans over generations to be happy with big government. Path dependence might make that very difficult for the diverse and unwieldy citizenry of the US, but just give it enough time...

Hitchens seems like a deeply unhappy individual. Almost the perfect stereotype of the spiritually depleted and cold communist bureaucrat.

Re: The Politics of Human Capital

Dain — Sun, 18 May 2008 20:58:20 -0000

TGGP,

But Harris said that it was peer groups that influenced children more than parents. Peer groups are a manifestation of policy too, thus leading to yet another conservative libertarian oriented criticism.

Re: The Politics of Human Capital

Dain — Sun, 18 May 2008 21:02:19 -0000

Social Justice and Social Control are linked at the hip. If anything, a failure of pure "social justice" will entice "social control" on behalf conservative policy wonks. A good reason for leftists to eschew the state and organize grassroots and voluntary associations. That way, they can have their cake (concern for the reproduction of poverty) and eat it (concern for social control) too.

Re: Arthur Brooks on Religion and Happiness

Dain — Sun, 18 May 2008 21:13:45 -0000

John,

Europeans don't seem to care for the "market test", so I don't know if that explains much.

Re: The Politics of Human Capital

Dain — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:52:39 -0000

There would seem to be some tension between early childhood intervention and libertarian (and radical leftist) fear of life planning and regimentation for the most vulnerable.

Setting benchmarks for the level of, say, reading comprehension and math proficiency for all of the nation's children seems rather No Child Left Behind-ish to me, and totally at odds with a citizenry in control of its own life.

Brink Lindsey has discussed the way that upper middle class childrens' lives are meticulously planned for them from their earliest years on through to young adulthood. For poor parents, it's more "do your own thing". I fear that liberaltarianism might be another Jane Addams like scheme to reign in the relatively freewheeling lower classes and set them on the track to respectability.

Re: Arthur Brooks on Religion and Happiness

Dain — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:20:10 -0000

What Imp said.

I wonder if the form of evangelism in the south is not more than coincidental vis-a-vis the high divorce rates, etc. I suppose in a place where faith healers and the like are popular, the time preference of the general population would also be conducive to getting in over one's head in matters of love and lust.

It's all about passion.

Re: The Politics of Human Capital

Dain — Tue, 20 May 2008 16:49:52 -0000

bjk,

do you personally prefer a reduction in relative or absolute poverty?

Re: All Disaster, Only Part Natural

Dain — Wed, 21 May 2008 18:30:10 -0000

I wonder how much the impact of UN and US sanctions contributed to the destruction of Nargis.

Re: All Disaster, Only Part Natural

Dain — Thu, 22 May 2008 01:45:04 -0000

Justin,

Unfortunately the reasons for the bumbling and inept response to Katrina (for instance) have little to do with the kind of variance found in the preferred public policy of any major candidate. Nobody is pushing a plan to abolish FEMA, most especially the public.

Re: Collectivism and Meaning

Dain — Wed, 28 May 2008 14:31:13 -0000

Of course if the collective effort is aimed at something positive - say, national health care and cleaning up the environment - this would not mean human slaughter.

Re: Wherein I Do Not Accept Crispin Sartwell’s Challenge

Dain — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:12:52 -0000

Where is the empirical evidence for the justification of utilitarianism?

Re: Wherein I Do Not Accept Crispin Sartwell’s Challenge

Dain — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:34:19 -0000

So showing that the state is not legitimate need not entail that it is morally indefensible.

If we allow this, can one also say that robbery and murder by "civilians", committed in no sense defensively, might also be defensible? Or is the point of this post to say that "Yes, the state (or more precisely the flawed individuals that comprise it) is simply a completely different beast, wherein these acts of robbery and violence, if not continued massively on a regular basis but only upon the establishment of a state, are not necessarily morally indefensible if they aim at human "flourishing"?

So, even assuming the idea of "flourishing" is more important than legitimacy, where is the legitimacy in restricting competing entities in the attempt to provide said flourishing? Either initially or currently. That would seem to be the argument to make precisely if one upholds value pluralism and multiple "moral vocabularies".

Re: Wherein I Do Not Accept Crispin Sartwell’s Challenge

Dain — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:51:12 -0000

As for Sweden vs. Somalia, I'd argue the case for Sweden lies more in its culture than its statism. Combine bad culture with bad state and you get trouble. In the case of Somalia, Peter Leeson's research suggests that it was actually better off under anarchy. Perhaps an anarchic Sweden would be ideal..

Re: Positively Heretical?

Dain — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:59:04 -0000

For example, should we care about inequality per se? We can help answer this question by asking poor people (or finding out some other way) how much it hurts their happiness to know about all the richer people in the world. If it doesn’t matter at all to them, that is interesting! It should make us less willing to pursue equality as an end in itself. If it matters a lot, also interesting.

If "inequality" here were replaced with "immigration", the liberal reluctance to satisfy those for whom the issue is most salient would be obvious. And I'd share that reluctance.

Re: Liberaltarianism: Back the Future

Dain — Fri, 30 May 2008 23:38:34 -0000

I think it's interesting to compare your attempt to achieve fusion with liberals with someone like Kevin Carson and his goal. (Though he'd probably prefer the term "leftist", as liberal lends itself too easily to "corporate liberal" or "neoliberal".)

I've been following both you and him, and I can with all confidence say that your citing Milton Friedman very much undermines his effort to build bridges. And probably vice versa, as his vigilant anti-statism and respect for Rothbard undermines your effort to downplay Rothbard's influence. Indeed, the importance of Rothbard for some one like Carson or the more hardcore libertarian is that he was staunchly anti-imperialist and refused to yield to the big government, commie-bashing right of mid-century. It's precisely this kind of thing that potentially garners respect for libertarians from certain liberal corners (cobwebbed corners, no doubt, from those in the "real world"), and aids in the effort to achieve a different, more radical kind of fusionism.

Of course you're influential, being at Cato and all, and thinking of ways to find agreement with others of a more establishment persuasion. The kinds of liberals that you meet are not of the sort that a market anarchist might meet. It's Ezra Klein and Will Wilkinson vs. Karl Hess and Murray Bookchin.

Ok, so the point of all this is to note that the virtue of "meeting a liberal halfway" very much depends on which kind of liberal. There's another alliance going on. The one discussed here is far from the final word on the matter. (Not that you said it was, of course.)

But I suppose I've gone so far down the rabbit hole that the dominant political discourse looks almost weird to me.

Re: Liberaltarianism: Back the Future

Dain — Sat, 31 May 2008 14:08:45 -0000

(1)Protectionism is illiberal and not conducive to economic growth. The fact that countries grew was despite protectionism, not because of it. I'd agree that we do not have free trade today.

(2)NPR is superior to an independent, privately run radio station? I doubt that. The coverage on NPR is rather milquetoast compared to, say, KOOP in Austin Texas. Ah, "public" (state) radio. "With sheckles come shackles". The politicization of public radio, and the inevitable "accountablity" placed upon it has made it rather bland on the one hand and increasingly "professionalized" (read: less grassroots) on the other.

(3)The military and law enforcement are increasingly one and the same. The wanton destruction heaped upon innocents abroad by the military due to its ability to externalize costs upon hapless taxpayers is a massive strike against it as some kind of organizaiton superior to a private defense force. (It's difficult to compare, of course.) But as it stands, the wealthy and powerful can take advantage of a state military force, paid for by the citizenry, to do their bidding. The fact that it is "publicly funded" (coercively funded) makes it worse in this regard - as an auxilliary to private interests - than it would be otherwise, if these private interests had to pay for it themselves.

They love government programs and handouts.

Yep. See above.

William Graham Sumner once said that there will one day be either socialists or anarchists. It's rather amazing to think that most liberals are quite conservative in this respect.

Re: Liberaltarianism: Back the Future

Dain — Sat, 31 May 2008 18:02:22 -0000

My view is that CPB/NPR is as biased and self-interested as any private media company (Fox included). NPR’s donors and supporters are left-of-center and so is its viewpoint. In general, I don’t want people running the show who think that government agencies are usually objective, fair, and selflessly dedicated to the benefit of the public and are, therefore, superior to private alternatives.

This is actually something I've looked into. There is some recent research by an outfit in England that looked at altruistic behavior by both public and private actors/agencies. Altruism here is defined as going above and beyond merely professional obligations. For a libertarian, the surprising news is that public servants were more likely to be altruistic and less "self interested" (yes, there's alot going on with that term). Here is the paper: http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/CMPO/workingpapers/...

But here's the clincher. This was only compared to the for-profit sector in the private realm. The non-profit private sector showed similar amounts of altruistic behavior to that of public (state) actors.

Now of course this is America, not England, but still.

As for your statement above, I'm not sure this research speaks to whether the government is more "objective", but on the question of self interest, the cynical public choice perspective needs to be modified. In some respects, it would seem, the government is less self interested. (Theory? Altruistic types get co-opted by the state and its ability to crowd out the voluntary. Also, England is more culturally homogenous?)

Of course, even given similar amounts of altruistic behavior, the higher levels of waste and administrative costs on the part of the government favors the non-profit private sector.

Re: Liberaltarianism: Back the Future

Dain — Sat, 31 May 2008 21:42:12 -0000

Indeed.

Re: More on Carbon Policy Equivalence

Dain — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:09:22 -0000

We should assume it's as bad as the scientists say, given our collective ignorance of the subject on this comment board. Given that, taxes can be overcome - companies can choose to pay them - but caps are a mandate to reduce carbon emissions. We should favor the latter course, no?

Re: Furmanology

Dain — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:13:01 -0000

I'm with Afro. (That sounds funny.)

I'd think that Obama's overheard mumbling about poor, uneducated people disliking trade is another clue to his essentially upper class (relatively trade friendly) economic inclinations.

Re: Americans Hate Redistribution

Dain — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:50:36 -0000

How does this square with loads of survey data that show support for social security, etc?

When Herbert Gintis et al. conducted their research for the book Moral Sentiments and Material Interests (MIT, 2006), they found the kind of dislike for "pure, non-contextualized" redistribution referred to above. However, Social Security (most certainly redistribution!) was favored because it was perceived to be "helping those who help themselves". If the welfare state debate can be defined as just this, it isn't suprising that Americans would support it.

Public Opinion continues to be very elusive, but this survey notwithstanding, the public, from what I've read, is far more sympathetic to the welfare state than some libertarians let on, albeit with an undertone of "deserving" or "non-deserving" relatively absent in Europe.

Re: Americans Hate Redistribution

Dain — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 00:50:37 -0000

Likewise, most Americans want universal health care not because it will be a handout, they fully expect to pay for it through their taxes...

You sure about that? Americans are notoriously conflicted about what they want and what they are willing to pay for.

True, I think UH would make it easier to switch jobs, but that's only because currently the law favors employee provided care.

More efficient and reliable? Don't know about that. Are all forms of nominal "streamlining" necessarily efficient? And rationing and reliability don't often go hand in hand.

We should be breaking down cartels, not solidifying them further.

Re: Feedback Loops and the Matthew Effect

Dain — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:11:37 -0000

The Boston Globe link goes to the same GTD link further down.

Re: Raising Kids in Cages

Dain — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:55:48 -0000

Literacy is crucial to the meaningful exercise of freedom in a society like ours.

True, and this can be extended to the world at large, not just American society. But this is issue is separable from the question of government force. When CLR James, the unorthodox Marxist anti-colonialist, critiqued the excuses for continued British control of various parts of Africa, he mentioned their idea of the inability of the indigenous blacks to self-govern due to mass illiteracy. Self-determination was to be denied because of a "politically mandated developmental minimum" in the eyes of the colonizers.

The British, in this case, can rightfully claim that literacy is a necessity for a "meaningful exercise of freedom" (even then, mid 20th century), can they not? Or, at least, meaningful for an exercise of freedom that a Brit would likely undertake. But the indigenous Africans of yesteryear, and the resistant young adults of FLDS, are not comfortable with an external force telling them that without their intrusion their life is not sufficiently "meaningful" from the perspective of the dominant mainstream.

Robin's argument is not necessarily "cultural rights" in orientation. Mine is not. No individual member of the FLDS should be forced to reside in rural Texas by government forces in order to "preserve" culture any more than the FLDS, collectively, should be suppressed by same forces. (And, apparently, the Texas welfare apparatus has been keeping these folks in suspended animation - isolation - for some years.)

Kind of off-handedly, I recently read a story about ex-Californians and Vegas yuppies moving to a very remote part of southwestern Utah. The area has a good number of polygamists, who exist in tension with the more mainstream Mormons. These newly arrived, relatively secular liberals are fine with the polygamists, and get along well with them. The mainstream Mormons find this upsetting. If I can only find the link somewhere...

In any case, it'd be interesting to see if a kind of polygamist attrition occurs over time, as the "secular liberal professional" population grows in rural Utah. (But if the polygamists continue to exist in a legal-welfare limbo, they can be artificially sustained.)

Re: Raising Kids in Cages

Dain — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:56:01 -0000

I, for one, want to achieve that which allows people to achieve what they deem happiness-maximizing - without full knowledge of every possible lifestyle (an impossible demand which even cosmopolitans would fall short of) - without coercion; "coercion" being described in the typical classical liberal fashion.

When enforced "happiness maximization" is something apart from the aggregate of individual desires, with all of their informational and situational shortcomings, it comes dangerously close to being illiberal and authoritarian.

Re: Raising Kids in Cages

Dain — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 23:52:46 -0000

Dain: so if some people believe that bringing up children illiterate, blindfolded, mute and caged is a happiness maximizer, according to their own personal holy book, that's okay, and everyone should let them do that?

This makes me wonder how anyone would even know this was happening to the children, as apparently removed from the peering eyes of the community as this hypothetical would seem to make them.

Children have individual rights too, and I'd have to wonder how they'd feel about such actions being taken against them. But I'll assume you mean that these kids have grown up since day one in conditions like this, and so pose no real threat of resistance, not knowing any better.

This is akin to slavery IMO. Many, if not most, slaves grew up thinking their condition - being caged, actually owned - was simply reality, and they could expect no better. They had to be persuaded that their bondage was unjust, and to demand bodily sovereignty. But no matter how much one demands they realize this, "forcing them to be free" (to leave the plantation) is unjust. Admittedly, in the case of children unable to communicate, it would be fine by me, and a risk I'd be willing to take, if they were so forced (rescued). If they later say "What the hell were you doing, I wanted to stay!", well, they have a point. (Keep in mind this is indeed what the FLDS kids were saying, and not even "later" but rather immediately!)

If the community, as represented by the government, feels that it has the right to step in so as to prevent children being raised in cages, then (1) the community has some implicit wants with respect to raising children; (2) the community is imposing its own interpretation of what behaviors will reach those goals; and (3) the community is imposing coercion in order to get those behaviors.

There is no need to invoke "community" as demanding justice, just any individual or collection thereof taking action to end coercion. But they don't have a right to do this at the expense of others lives, i.e. bombing thousands at the periphery to reach thousands at the core.

It is even theoretically only possible for a community to be _relatively_ liberal, and to have _relative_ absence of coercion.

Of course. And no definition of coercion is rock solid. I'd refer to J.C .Lester's definition as "minimizing proactive imposition" as an alternative to an impenetrable Rothbardian natural rights edifice. In this way, reductios become less likely to cause one's head to explode.

Re: Raising Kids in Cages

Dain — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:43:51 -0000

If the community, as represented by the government, feels that it has the right to step in so as to prevent children being raised in cages, then (1) the community has some implicit wants with respect to raising children; (2) the community is imposing its own interpretation of what behaviors will reach those goals; and (3) the community is imposing coercion in order to get those behaviors.

There is no need to invoke "community" as demanding justice, just any individual or collection thereof taking action to end coercion. But they don't have a right to do this at the expense of others lives, i.e. bombing thousands at the periphery to reach thousands at the core.

Sorry, I notice I didn't quite provide a reponse to your points that actually addresses them.

When you write "the community is imposing coercion...", I don't think they are, but instead preventing it (from continuing), save for the ex post facto declaration of "Hey, I didn't want to be saved!", in which case coercion was imposed. In the hypothetical you present, however, I'd be damned surprised if this posed much of a problem though.

Re: Governments of Men Governed by Laws

Dain — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:56:05 -0000

Thought this was pertinent:

Members of all three branches of the federal government now act with near impunity in stretching the Constitution to suit their political objectives and personal preferences. This development is illustrated by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act; reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act; the alternative minimum tax; the REAL ID Act; presidential signing statements; warrantless domestic electronic surveillance; the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America; and Supreme Court decisions on eminent domain, the commerce clause, and the First Amendment.

http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/art...>

So here Charlotte Twight documents how all three branches of our government formally changed the law, procedurally legit in most cases if not constitutionally (uh, until they change that), and yet it's hard not to notice how utterly indicative this is of a government of (wo)men, not laws.

Re: Governments of Men Governed by Laws

Dain — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:57:05 -0000

Sorry for the screwy italics.

Re: Two View on Luck and Redistribution

Dain — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:42:37 -0000

It seems to me the hardcore luck egalitarians are in a bind when it comes to the efficacy of actually implementing a redistributive apparatus via the state.

If there are no predictable patterns of human behavior/interaction that facilitates minimal levels of "success", then how can those in government be expected to follow through with their functions in a way that can actually accomplish a welfare state? Are we relying on coincidence and "good luck" when imagining how those in government will make the social safety net actually work out for the poor?

Re: Tim Lee on Patriotism

Dain — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:13:17 -0000

It's hard for people abroad to "ease up on the Americanism" when the classical liberal ideas that are, in theory, supposed to having nothing to do with the organized violence that is the American state constantly appear to be coupled with it.

This makes for cynicism, not a love of Frederic Bastiat.

Re: Regrettable Prudence

Dain — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:27:46 -0000

Nah, stay in America and have a fling with a fellow seminar student at a classical liberal foundation function . Cheaper, and might very well be from Europe anyway.

Re: Losing Faith in What?

Dain — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:41:11 -0000

The American's committment to the free market seems weak at the abstract and operational level, when confronted with survey quesitons, etc. But at the personal level, i.e. the rich cousin or the friend who runs a business, Americans are fairly sympathetic to these "ideal types" and their perspectives, and enmeshed in a system they don't really mind when all is said and done.

Or so it seems.

Re: New on Free Will: Polluting the Polls with Jason Brennan

Dain — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 22:19:20 -0000

According to political scientist Diana Mutz, people tend to avoid political participation when they expect conflict. Given the non-realized Democratic persuasion of many apathetic youth on college campuses, I think drives for youth participation among poli sci students and campus Democrats comes from the fact that, yes, they don't expect any conflict. They know these non-voting youth lean their way, so all that's needed is encouragement, not a load of knowledge and rhetorical skills.

Re: Fearful Asymmetry

Dain — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:12:04 -0000

It comes down to whether you think it's plausible that civil society makes sense outside of a political settlement...

This is a typical argument, but even here, one would have to show that, say, the majority of what taxes actually go to work to prevent Hobbes' brutish state of nature. Since (needless to say?) Bush's foreign policy, farm subsidies and an AIG bailout hardly prevent a collapse of civil society, indeed necessary to procure a living at all, one can still justify a right to about 95% of pre-tax income based on the argument of "political settlement" as vital. And seeing as how choosing which taxes to pay is not an option, one can say "I'm keeping it all!" until further notice.

Re: Whip Conflation Now!

Dain — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 12:30:21 -0000

Long and Carson do not consider themselves anarcho-capitalists. Carson especially is not fond of the term "Capitalism", seeing it historically as a term to designate the merger of state and corporate power. Carson is a Mutualist, and Long a 'Market Anarchist', though Carson would probably be fine with that term too.

Re: Free Will, Now Freer of Will

Dain — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:28:38 -0000

Way cool to see Malik on Free Howley. I feared he might be missed over here, more a British phenomenon, with no popular stateside publisher.

Re: I Only Sleep With Cosmotarians

Dain — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:47:38 -0000

Ha! That girl is from the show Scream Queens on VH1. She struck me as pretty Orange County Republican. Her beef with the black girl on the show was classic.

She ain't no Democrat.

Re: The Indeterminacy of Propertarianism

Dain — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:12:08 -0000

If one can't even agree that he or she owns their own kidney, I don't see how most other ponts of contention in politics suffer from even more ambiguity.

And with Todd above, I think most left-liberals simply don't hold property in such high esteem, rather than have a wholly different conception of it.

Re: Virtue and Trust: Insufficient but Necessary

Dain — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:17:00 -0000

But it remains that we WANT good government, and public-spiritedness helps.

Of course the hardcore anti-statists believe that government is the antithesis of society! For them, public-spiritedness demands unceasing criticism of the state, perhaps especially on the warm and fuzzy sounding stuff like the welfare state.

Actually, given the propensity for adulation of authority figures and the evolved psychological satisfaction derived from the "People's Romance," I think that public-spiritedness probably does demand deference to the modern equivalent of tribal chiefs, "fairly" rationing out goods and services in the spirit of the hunter gatherer band.

Which renders libertarian individualists rather counter-cultural as well. Fellow Feeling? It's so conservative!

Re: More on Corruption

Dain — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:10:04 -0000

Whether one can maintain that balance probably depends on the impression a lay observer gets from the critic of state power. Those that appear just generally cynical are the types that undoubtedly contribute to an environment conducive to corruption. No matter the superstructure, their base are belong to non-initiative reciprocity.

When I think of anti-war religious leftists, for instance, I see the kinds of people that can strike the balance between upholding a sentiment of civic virtue while speaking truth to power, no matter how much a sense of 'folksiness' emanates from the politicians that apologize for mass murder.

But I still dig H.L Mencken.

Re: More on Corruption

Dain — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:56:30 -0000

More generally, it reminds me of the old Stalinist propaganda that would blame all the failures of the Soviet system on legions of fascist or Trotskyite “wreckers” who were supposedly sabotaging the economy at every turn. The idea that the system itself had serious problems could not be contemplated.

As awful as it is for me to admit, the propagandists had a point. But yes, there are limits to agent-sensitive institutions, and I'd say that authoritarian central planning is it. It simply can't produce the wealth that the commie state agents themselves were witnessing everywhere else in the world. And since the commies ultimately shared the more or less hedonistic and instrumentally rationalist culture of the West, they were jealous.

Re: Naomi Klein Quote of the Day

Dain — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 15:04:16 -0000

If I were a die hard socialist, the main lesson I'd draw from the current economic crisis would be that the government failed to do its job. After all, we should expect capitalists to be greedy psychopaths, so the failure of the government to stop them is a failure of the master to prevent its pitbull from attacking others. Just as corporations need permsission from the government to exist (a charter), the pitbull needs food and shelter from its master.

As a good socialist, I'd show the government that I was displeased by exiting! But only if I were inclined toward anarchy and secession, which would make me libertarian.

Oops, I've come full circle. Even if Klein is right, libertarianism is the answer.

Re: Naomi Klein Quote of the Day

Dain — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:41:59 -0000

There was a book released only last year called Freedom From Want by Edward Gresser, about the what he believes to be the decline in free-trade sentiment on the part of the Democrats. According to him, they've abandoned their traditional liberal internationalism on this front.

Re: Naomi Klein Quote of the Day

Dain — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:16:25 -0000

No. Capitalism doesn't require that 700 billion dollars. Socialists like George W. Bush believe it does.

I heard that John Stewart rant about a "useful" product too...

Re: Naomi Klein Quote of the Day

Dain — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:00:18 -0000

Seems as if libertarians - the ultimate free market fundamentalists - have overwhelmingly NOT approved of the torrent of bailouts lately. Jeffrey Miron, for instance. I'm not sure who you speak of that is at all representative.

The last 8 years have seen an incredible increase in government assistance, including Bush's "ownership society" nonsense, which contributed to the current problem. The claim of a hugely interventionist Bush administration is a widely recognized fact at this point. Increased spending on discretionary "nice" stuff like education, etc.

And actually, there are many communists who'd claim that communism hasn't been tried, only authoritarian undemocratic versions. I'm not that familiar with their train of thought, so I'd best be humble. This sort of reminds me of the argument that Nietzsche was responsible for the Nazis, that Marx was responsible for Stalin.

Re: Naomi Klein Quote of the Day

Dain — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 23:40:46 -0000

Wait, who are you saying is contradicting themselves? You mean Bush? Of all that he's ever said during the past 8 years, I scarcely recall him discussing Friedman. And him saying he likes capitalism is hopelessly vague, again, no more interesting than a Stalinist saying he likes "socialism." Either way, people actually dedicated to making a living as a professional free-marketeer or socialist can take what these professonal politicians say with a grain of salt.

If rhetoric should be held responsible for reality, then every tin pot dictator who's made references to the "people's will" or other vague, generally warm and fuzzy sounding b.s. ought to be strung up along with their lame, super nice ideology.

Re: Parties, Government Capture, and Poverty

Dain — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:36:05 -0000

The odd thing about strong party identification is that at the level of realpolitik being a Democrat or Republican means compromise, as Don says - there aint no other parties at the table (despite the uptick in partisanship in Congressional voting in recent years). At the grassroots level it means the most rah-rah superficial cheerleading, as if the high ranking Ds and Rs don't compromise constantly to produce the very system their respective loyalists believe is dominated and directed (or obstructed) by their enemies (the superior virtue of the oppressed).

Re: If You’re Not Outraged, You’ve Internalized a System-Justifying Ideology

Dain — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:56:14 -0000

I didn't find "rationalizing away inequality" to be particularly disturbing. I could designate someone as "rationalizing away libertarianism" if they fail to be moved by my arguments, and I don't think it necessarily suggests that they secretly harbor an animus toward classical liberalism. People "rationalize away" many things when they form opinions.

Re: Tyler Cowen Fans

Dain — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 22:19:08 -0000

That Andrea Dworkin quote is a canard:

http://radgeek.com/gt/2005/01/10/andrea_dworkin/

Re: Tyler Cowen Fans

Dain — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:44:45 -0000

In the post I linked to, philosopher Charles Johnson makes the argument that Dworkin uses the "sex as rape" concept as a metaphor for structural patriarchy, etc., as you say. In that sense no heterosexual intercourse is fully consensual, which places it, in her mind, precariously close to an act of rape. But she never explicitly states that all intercourse is rape.

I'm not committed to being on one side of this issue - I'm not a gender studies major - but I think that Dworkin is being accused of her critics of stating, unequivocally, that heterosexual intercouse ought be treated as a criminal act: rape, which she denies in the interview excerpts provided.

I'm a sex positive individualist feminist myself, though as a straight man I recognize that this isn't particularly impressive.

Re: Don’t Grow Up to Be Shepherd Fairey

Dain — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:59:13 -0000

The authors of The Rebel Sell are on point.

Re: Naomi Klein “Prebuttal” Lecture at U of Iowa Tuesday Night

Dain — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:44:57 -0000

It is simply a myth...

It is simply a myth that this is a myth, unless one wants to define away free markets by calling just about anything "political." There are many cases of the enforcement of property rights and the persistence of trade free from state control (though if one includes coercion to mean emotional manipulation and such, as Wilkinson does, then no, it's never been "free"). The American frontier, portions of medieval Italy, medieval Iceland, etc. In fact the creation of a state presupposes a previous level of wealth generating activity that could not have been state created and enforced.

But even assuming states, I'd submit that increased levels of state control leads to cartelization and the tendency toward consumer unfriendly schemes. You can call the relatively easy exit of consumers from unsatisfactory commercial relations "political" if you'd like, but I'd disagree.

Re: The Hope and Horror of Liberaltarian Alignments

Dain — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 20:11:20 -0000

I've met almost no progressives/liberals who recognize any distinction between conservatives and liberals. Look at the widespread assumption that Bush was a free-marketeer. Or here, in California, where Schwarzenegger is hated for his "austerity" measures and cruel budget cuts, even as he's presided over a 40% increase during his tenure so far.

The opinion forming elite's understanding of nuance doesn't seem to "trickle down."

Re: The Hope and Horror of Liberaltarian Alignments

Dain — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 20:22:46 -0000

I've become even more disinterested in activism since discovering the depressing literature on ideology, with its "motivated skepticism" and such. Who was it that said "Intellectuals make poor leaders [and followers I'd add] because they are always in doubt"? It's disheartening to think, as even you've hinted at Will, that any kind of activism libertarians partake in will not enliven the human spirit/psyche, because it isn't built to appreciate the non-romance of the extended order and a strong defense of individual autonomy.

That's where I'm at, and it's left me as an outwardly pleasant cynic who likes to go to "cocktail parties", i.e. techno clubs, occasionally shock liberals (I'm in the bay area - where are the conservatives anyway?) by defending well my libertarian ideas, and perhaps get laid by doing so too.

Re: New at Cato Unbound: Glenn Loury on American Prison Policy

Dain — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:46:55 -0000

Unfortunately rehabilitation has become an "industry" in itself, wedded to the drug war in scary ways. And I'm not certain "rehabiliation" doesn't have the potential to be even worse than, say, shorter prison sentences coupled with separation of drug possession offenders from murderers in lock up.

Alan Bock discusses the qui bono angle to rehab therapists in this discussion:

http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/03/06/alan-bock-4/

Re: New at Cato Unbound: Glenn Loury on American Prison Policy

Dain — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:49:44 -0000

I remember hearing that for what New Orleans spent on public transit in the decade before Katrina the city could have purchased a used, working vehicle for every driving age poor person.

Re: New at Cato Unbound: Glenn Loury on American Prison Policy

Dain — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:56:56 -0000

Because it's mostly black people getting thrown in prison because of the drug war, white people have less incentive to stop the drug war. Because black people are disproportionately harmed by the monopoly public school system, white people have less incentive to break the monopoly.

This is why state sanctioned monopolies and "drug wars" are bad. In markets, not everybody has to show, explicitly, that they care for, say, the (hypothetical) fact that Indian Americans do or do not have access to Netflix, the mall, etc. It isn't usually a problem. And there is little reason, historically, empirically or theoretically, to think that the more important things in life wouldn't also be made available to more people, more often sans state interference.

Re: Exillon- [Portishead] Silence Remix

Dain — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:34:36 -0000

Exillon is dope! He played Circuitry in SF a few months back.

Re: Synthetic in Sacramento

Dain — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 17:57:06 -0000

Cheers for the Nod!

Re: Basura: 'Synthetic Live Mix'

Dain — Mon, 05 May 2008 00:26:02 -0000

YEAH!

Re: Panico- Subliminal Kill: Basura's Pick of the Week

Dain — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:07:23 -0000

Cristian Vogel is awesome, and will forever be in my heart for his Supercollider work.

Re: The Screamers: Demos 1977-1978- Basura's Pick of the Week

Dain — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 01:46:46 -0000

Diggin thru da crates on this one. Keep it up you scholar!

Re: Immigration and Assimilation

Dain — Wed, 24 May 2006 14:43:59 -0000

"Based on what's going on in the rest of the Americas south of Texas, Hispanics seem to favor leftist governments."

With the realization that Republicans and Democrats are equally likely to love big government, what is that supposed to mean?

Should evangelicals be allowed to breed because they have no understanding of economics and redistribution, and prefer a morally activist government? What about the vast majority of the white middle class who think Social Security and financial aid for college are a given?

Stop scapegoating immigrants.

Re: Immigration and Assimilation

Dain — Wed, 24 May 2006 18:44:14 -0000

"We don't 'scapegoat immigrants'. We scapegoat illegal immigrants. If you don't see a difference, there's no hope. In fact, Brian is the only one who used the word "illegal'."

Well, I could care less about arbitrary political borders. And if Ireland were located beneath the US, my ancestors would have smuggled across too, instead of waiting years for the paperwork to go through and dealing with asshole border guards. But that's the difference between law and order "libertarians" and the real thing I guess.

Your complaints about state spending should be directed against the general socialist trend in the U.S., regardless of immigrants. Most of it by the intellectual and political class of whites of generations past. Your typical whining white suburbanite is a larger beneficiary of welfare, across the board, than some under the radar illegals. Not so easy to collect financial aid for college, social security benefits, civil service incomes, corporate welfare and all else when you're breaking your back providing cheap labor, your comparative advantage. You (probably) and I went to state schools too, and should feel no sense of special entitlement just for having been born here.

"It's small wonder that California is number 40 or thereabouts in the national standings."

And Alaska is 44, at least according to this: http://www.morganquitno.com/edrank.htm. What say you?

"An economist said that no society can withstand an endless influx of poorly-educated poor people."

Which economist is that? And is he or she aware of the history of the U.S.? Most economists are in agreement on the benefits of immigration. This country is LESS generous now on the immigration front than it has been in years past, not more. Bring em' on!