DISQUS

Aww man, I miss the Teaser. Especially the Boaz firing prank.

Hence their illegitimacy.

You forgot the part about the Bilderbergers and the the extraterrestrial prison warder reptilians from the constellation Draco. Addendum made!

The issue of human trafficking is overblown. Yes, it exists, and is wrong, insofar as it is coercive and harmful. And yes, there is certainly anecdotal evidence that it occurs. The problem is the statistical aggregate described by the term "human trafficking" is often bogus, and includes non-coercive, non-harmful cases of (often illegal) labor mobility lumped in with the coercive, harmful kind.

This is one of Kerry Howley's frequent topics of inquiry. Here she writes:

I’m inclined to see the hugely exaggerated statistics regarding human trafficking as driven by economic realities; sex slavery, thanks to evangelicals domestically and other social forces abroad, is where the money is. No one–least of all an NGO vying for that money–has an incentive to suggest that there are fewer victims than previously believed, or that the data suggests very few victims of trafficking are women sold into sex as opposed to men and boys forced into less titillating forms of labor; correct the misperception and you may shut off the tap. But clearly, there has to be some deeper will to believe among those who continue to parrot the now-discredited numbers.

In that same post she cites this Washington Post article:

Human Trafficking Evokes Outrage, Little Evidence
U.S. Estimates Thousands of Victims, But Efforts to Find Them Fall Short

And the money quote:

Ronald Weitzer, a criminologist at George Washington University and an expert on sex trafficking, said that trafficking is a hidden crime whose victims often fear coming forward. He said that might account for some of the disparity in the numbers, but only a small amount.

"The discrepancy between the alleged number of victims per year and the number of cases they've been able to make is so huge that it's got to raise major questions," Weitzer said. "It suggests that this problem is being blown way out of proportion."

[...]

Although there have been several estimates over the years, the number that helped fuel the congressional response -- 50,000 victims a year -- was an unscientific estimate by a CIA analyst who relied mainly on clippings from foreign newspapers, according to government sources who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the agency's methods. Former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales told Congress last year that a much lower estimate in 2004 -- 14,500 to 17,500 a year -- might also have been overstated.

Also, the issue of human trafficking is closely tied to the issue of sex work, and so there are lots of biases and assumptions that predictably go along with any discussion of trafficking. For example, Howley often cites Laura María Agustín,

a sociologist who studies migrant sex workers. In her writings, she is critical of the conflation of the terms "human trafficking" with "prostitution" and "migration", arguing that what she calls the "rescue industry" often ascribes victim status to and thereby objectifies women who have made conscious and rational decisions to migrate. She advocates for a more nuanced study of migrant sex workers without pre-conceived notions.

Kerry interviewed Agustín for Reason here, in The Myth of the Migrant.

Kerry excerpts a piece by Agustín on the gender biases coloring our view of human trafficking here:

Single men’s decisions to travel are generally understood to evolve over time, the product of their ‘normal’ masculine ambition to get ahead through work: they are called migrants. Then there is the case of women who attempt to do the same…

It is striking that in the year 2001 women should so overwhelmingly be seen as pushed, obligated, coerced or forced when they leave home for the same reason as men: to get ahead through work. But so entrenched is the idea of women as forming an essential part of home if not actually being it themselves that they are routinely denied the agency to undertake a migration. So begins a pathetic image of innocent women torn from their homes, coerced into migrating, if not actually shanghaied or sold into slavery. This is the imagery that nowadays follows those who migrate to places where the only paid occupations available to them are in domestic service or sex work.[3] The ‘trafficking’ discourse relies on the assumption that it is better for women to stay at home rather than leave it and get into trouble; ‘trouble’ is seen as something that will irreparably damage women (who are grouped with children), while men are routinely expected to encounter and overcome it. But if one of our goals is to find a vision of globalisation in which poorer people are not constructed solely as victims, we need to recognise that strategies which seem less gratifying to some people may be successfully utilised by others.

To sound the left-libertarian note, this is yet another case where patriarchal "traditional" cultural values about the proper role of women and the moral legitimacy of sex work leads to unlibertarian conclusions: millions of dollars wasted, mostly by governments, on essentially an urban legend popularized and believed by prudish traditionalists.

The issue of human trafficking is overblown. Yes, it exists, and is wrong, insofar as it is coercive and harmful. And yes, there is certainly anecdotal evidence that it occurs. The problem is the statistical aggregate described by the term "human trafficking" is often bogus, and includes non-coercive, non-harmful cases of (often illegal) labor mobility lumped in with the coercive, harmful kind.

This is one of Kerry Howley's frequent topics of inquiry. Here she writes:

I’m inclined to see the hugely exaggerated statistics regarding human trafficking as driven by economic realities; sex slavery, thanks to evangelicals domestically and other social forces abroad, is where the money is. No one–least of all an NGO vying for that money–has an incentive to suggest that there are fewer victims than previously believed, or that the data suggests very few victims of trafficking are women sold into sex as opposed to men and boys forced into less titillating forms of labor; correct the misperception and you may shut off the tap. But clearly, there has to be some deeper will to believe among those who continue to parrot the now-discredited numbers.

In that same post she cites this Washington Post article:

Human Trafficking Evokes Outrage, Little Evidence
U.S. Estimates Thousands of Victims, But Efforts to Find Them Fall Short

And the money quote:

Ronald Weitzer, a criminologist at George Washington University and an expert on sex trafficking, said that trafficking is a hidden crime whose victims often fear coming forward. He said that might account for some of the disparity in the numbers, but only a small amount.

"The discrepancy between the alleged number of victims per year and the number of cases they've been able to make is so huge that it's got to raise major questions," Weitzer said. "It suggests that this problem is being blown way out of proportion."

[...]

Although there have been several estimates over the years, the number that helped fuel the congressional response -- 50,000 victims a year -- was an unscientific estimate by a CIA analyst who relied mainly on clippings from foreign newspapers, according to government sources who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the agency's methods. Former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales told Congress last year that a much lower estimate in 2004 -- 14,500 to 17,500 a year -- might also have been overstated.

Also, the issue of human trafficking is closely tied to the issue of sex work, and so there are lots of biases and assumptions that predictably go along with any discussion of trafficking. For example, Howley often cites Laura María Agustín,

a sociologist who studies migrant sex workers. In her writings, she is critical of the conflation of the terms "human trafficking" with "prostitution" and "migration", arguing that what she calls the "rescue industry" often ascribes victim status to and thereby objectifies women who have made conscious and rational decisions to migrate. She advocates for a more nuanced study of migrant sex workers without pre-conceived notions.

Kerry interviewed Agustín for Reason here, in The Myth of the Migrant.

Kerry excerpts a piece by Agustín on the gender biases coloring our view of human trafficking here:

Single men’s decisions to travel are generally understood to evolve over time, the product of their ‘normal’ masculine ambition to get ahead through work: they are called migrants. Then there is the case of women who attempt to do the same…

It is striking that in the year 2001 women should so overwhelmingly be seen as pushed, obligated, coerced or forced when they leave home for the same reason as men: to get ahead through work. But so entrenched is the idea of women as forming an essential part of home if not actually being it themselves that they are routinely denied the agency to undertake a migration. So begins a pathetic image of innocent women torn from their homes, coerced into migrating, if not actually shanghaied or sold into slavery. This is the imagery that nowadays follows those who migrate to places where the only paid occupations available to them are in domestic service or sex work.[3] The ‘trafficking’ discourse relies on the assumption that it is better for women to stay at home rather than leave it and get into trouble; ‘trouble’ is seen as something that will irreparably damage women (who are grouped with children), while men are routinely expected to encounter and overcome it. But if one of our goals is to find a vision of globalisation in which poorer people are not constructed solely as victims, we need to recognise that strategies which seem less gratifying to some people may be successfully utilised by others.

To sound the left-libertarian note, this is yet another case where patriarchal "traditional" cultural values about the proper role of women and the moral legitimacy of sex work leads to unlibertarian conclusions: millions of dollars wasted, mostly by governments, on essentially an urban legend popularized and believed by prudish traditionalists.

Hey, I did the Jew thing first. This comment thread ain't big enough for the both of us, Levy!

I don't understand what you think Glen got wrong. Median can indeed be less than the mean in cases where many small numbers are added to the sample (i.e. "If you've got *lots* of immigration").

Libertarianism, rightly understood (i.e. as I understand it) inexorably leads to questioning and then ultimately rejecting the morality of the nation-state itself. Will is not an anarchist, so he somehow pulls off this balancing act in a way I've never fully grasped, but hey, no one is as perfect, ideologically speaking, (or as humble) as me.

Will is the most metrosexual male I've ever met, right after Julian Sanchez.

Mazel Tov! Any chance you will rethink your anti-breeder stance? Or at least adopt some cool Southeast Asian kids and turn them into rabid Rothbardians and/or Objectivists?

If Japan/Germany/Korea want to take from their own citizens in order to subsidize cars purchased by American consumers, I fail to see the problem from the U.S. consumers' perspective. Free stuff is cool. As long other countries are willing to give us cheaper cars than we can make ourselves, I say we take the freebies and call it a day.

And if we smash five million windows, we can "create" five million new jobs as well, thereby destroying our way to prosperity.

I also love the "retrain the workers" option. Can someone please tell me which industries are in desperate need of millions of workers?

Candlemakers.

Saving capitalism through socialism, on the other hand, is exactly smart.

No one will buy a car from a company in bankruptcy, even a Chapter 11. IT IS NOT AN OPTION.

What does this even mean?

I can't believe we are going to have the bailout argument over and over again. Maybe bailout proponents can give us a list of companies they consider too big too fail, before they fail, just so we know how far this bailout ideology is supposed to go? I mean, if no major company is considered small enough to fail, that sort of says all there needs to be said about killing capitalism, doesn't it? Put a fork in it, it's done.

While we are at it, let's grow up and realize that the problems facing candlemakers and horse-and-buggy manufacturers are enormously complex and need to be handled intelligently. These industries are the source of many jobs, and providing jobs is their primary function. It's long past time to extinguish the sun and ban automobiles in order to save these jobs.

Save the candlemakers! Fuck the Sun!

You don't speak for everybody. I don't want someone to be watching me, neither an omnipotent, omniscient God nor an omnipotent, omniscient government. Both are childish fantasies.

To paraphrase Oliver Wendall Holmes, three imbecilic, failed, inefficient U.S. automakers are enough. Time to euthanize them.

Yes, this. Similar to arguments for rule utilitarianism over act utilitarianism.

TGGP,

I'm not sure I entirely agree with the argument, but if I were to make a libertarian argument that by locking a door you can coerce someone, I would mention the encirclement problem and the common law solution of easements:

Suppose that the states owns all the land along the border. Then we have the same situation as one in which one person buys all the land surroundig another person’s property, thus keeping them prisoner (if they were on it at the time) or keeping them away from their proeprty (if they were off it). Since you can’t legitimately use your property in a way that interfere’s with the liberty and property of others, you are obligated to provide an easement.

Jack,

The left-libertarian project has two components: speaking to the left (that's you) and speaking to the libertarians who do not already consider themselves left-libertarians (they are the people who want to kick Will out of libertarianism). The first component often seems easier than the second, surprisingly enough.

Tim,

The argument put forth by "thick" left-libertarians isn't that the two are identical, but that they are closely connected, causally, logically, or rhetorically. See: Libertarianism Through Thick and Thin. Will here seems to be making what Charles Johnson calls a "Thickness from Grounds" argument:

Second, libertarians have many different ideas about the theoretical foundation for the nonaggression principle—that is, about the best reasons for being a libertarian. But whatever general foundational beliefs a given libertarian has, those beliefs may have some logical implications other than libertarianism alone. Thus there may be cases in which certain beliefs or commitments could be rejected without contradicting the nonaggression principle per se, but could not be rejected without logically undermining the deeper reasons that justify the nonaggression principle. Although you could consistently accept libertarianism without accepting these commitments or beliefs, you could not do so reasonably: rejecting the commitments means rejecting the proper grounds for libertarianism.

Of course, Charles speaks in NAP-compatible language, while Will does not. But the argument remains the same: on whatever grounds Will derives his libertarianism, he also derives his opposition to bigotry.

Let me add to that: Will's thinking about liberty is much closer to Hayek's than Hayek's is to Locke or Rothbard. That is not necessarily a good thing, as Hayek's view of liberty is terribly confused. But Hayek was certainly no Lockean or Rothbardian about natural rights and liberty.

From Daniel Klein's Mere Libertarianism: Blending Hayek and Rothbard

Others have offered other concepts of liberty. In The Constitution of Liberty Hayek offers a series of passages and remarks that attempt to delineate his own idea of liberty. A brief examination of some of the passages ought to establish, as argued by many critics (Viner 1961, Hamowy 1961, 1978; Brittan 1988: 85-92; Kukathas 1989: 151-65), that Hayek’s hints about the meaning of liberty are deeply flawed.

In the book, Hayek never defines liberty in a Lockean fashion (coming
closest at 140-41). Rather, he says, “Whether [someone] is free or not [depends
on] whether somebody else has power so to manipulate the conditions as to make him act according to that person’s will rather than his own” (13). Liberty is the “independence of the arbitrary will of another” (12); it is the absence of
“coercion by other men” (19, 421).2 The state of liberty is “that condition of men
in which coercion of some by others is reduced as much as possible in society”
(11). Each hint introduces additional terms that call out for definition.

What is the difference between a well-defined minority and the fringe? (That is a rhetorical question.)

For what it's worth, Friedman's views (the consequentialist ones, not so much the anarchist ones) are shared by many (most?) economists who self-describe as libertarian and work out of the neoclassical (as opposed to Austrian) tradition, most notably his father, Milton.

For more on the problems with defining liberty, see Daniel Klein's Mere Libertarianism: Blending Hayek and Rothbard [.pdf]

A taste:

That the ambiguities are countless is undeniable. The limits of ownership, rights of joint property, criteria for nuisance or invasion, definition of “threat” or “risk” to one’s property, relevance of intent, definition of “use” in homesteading, status of brand-names, trademarks, patents, copyrights, and stolen property, criteria for consent, implicit terms of contracts, status of promises, issues of children and the senile, liability of principals for the torts of agents, the theory of punishment, compensation of duress, standards of proof in court, etc., all involve serious gray areas and matters of interpretation—as the libertarian theorists David Hume (1751: 26-32), Wordsworth Donisthorpe (1895: 1-121) and David Friedman (1989: 167-76) have explained. Sensible judgments on such matters will depend on particulars of time and place -- the paths of technology, of precedent, of expectations, and so on. It is foolish to think that a definition of liberty could ever spell out definitive interpretations and clear demarcation lines.

A third option: drown the regulatory apparatus in the bathtub until there is nothing left to capture.