These days, the air is thick with straw-man criticisms of libertarians. If you want to attack my version of libertarianism, this is what you should go after:
Regarding the performance of social arrangements, I focus on dynamics. I do not assume that the best production systems and social arrangements are known. Instead, I believe that better ways of doing things are always being discovered.
My concern is with what facilitates discovery and retention of better ideas. Which systems are conductive to improvement, as opposed to stagnation or regression?
I dislike economic analysis that ignores dynamics. For too many economists, comparative statics are everything. That is, you compare two static outcomes (e.g., with or without some regulation), and advocate for policies that in theory lead to the superior outcome. Use of the term “market failure” almost always indicates comparative-statics thinking. I have two major objections, based on dynamic thinking. One objection is that static analysis fails to anticipate the dynamic response to policy–people figure out how to game the system. The other objection is that static analysis fails to account for entrepreneurial efforts to overcome market failure. In a dynamic sense, markets are the solution to market failure.
My emphasis on dynamics and institutions owes a great deal to Douglass North. Note how many of the titles of his works included the word “change.” Note that his definition of institutions is broad, and I often substitute the term “culture” instead.
North would judge an institution (or cultural practice) by what it rewards. If it rewards prosocial behavior, things will get better. If it rewards predation, we are likely to see less progress.
Markets tend to reward prosocial behavior. Not all markets at all times, but most markets at most times.
Governments tend to reward predatory behavior. Not all governments at all times, but often enough that we should take this into account when we advocate for government to “do something.” Government power is a prize for which elites will compete. The competition for government power tends toward predation rather than prosocial behavior. Under monarchy or autocratic regimes, you get assassinations and wars of succession, which are very destructive.
The great virtue of democracy is that it creates a norm of peaceful transfer of power. The great vice of democracy is that it exalts the “will of the people.” In practice, this creates a bias toward greater government intervention. Ideally, I would like to see the peaceful transfer of power without the democratic impetus for expanded government control.
An optimistic view of democracy is that parties compete for power by trying to outdo one another in the enactment of pro-social policies. If this were the case, then bigger government would be better government. But I don’t take the optimistic view. In practice, I think that big government is what North, Weingast, and Wallis call a “limited-access order.” Powerful and important members of the governing coalition capture rewards, at the expense of everyone else.
Furthermore, I believe that even if government officials were free of special-interest influence and wanted to be pro-social, they would fail. They under-estimate their own ignorance, and in choosing leaders the political process selects for a lack of humility. Officials are prone to blunders, and the error-correction mechanisms are much weaker in the public sector than in the private sector. Markets tend to correct their failures. Governments tend not to.
This is a somewhat different definition of libertarianism than I have seen before but I think it is an excellent one.
This kind of libertarianism results in much more inequality than progressives are comfortable with and much more social change than conservatives are comfortable with.
And it requires much more tolerance than either of those groups is comfortable with.
I had recent discussion with someone on the question if I think that democracy is the “best” from of government. I told her that the will of people is an overrated idea that becomes more and more counterproductive (in a sense of progression) with the pervasiveness of social media. On the other hand a peaceful transfer of power and a strong culture of accountability (through courts, journalism, open access, to a degree oversight institutions) are much more important to safeguard a dynamic society. Alas most people want that their “will” is somehow considered in politics. I might just send her your post.
I do agree with Greg. I think your definition will not be palatable for those who think dynamic outcomes are somehow wrong and need to be fixed.
I guess the real question is what does any of that have to do with libertarianism. Not poking, just don’t see the relevance.
Peter,
If I am understanding Arnold correctly he is saying that the arrangements he is advocating here are the ones that would maximize liberty and that maximizing liberty is the best way to support all the values that lead to human flourishing.
You don’t have to agree with that to see that it is the relevant claim here.
+1
In other words, on a practical level, what policy implications does this have (if any) for drug legalization, policing, immigration, foreign policy, tax rates, global warming, homelessness, etc? I.e. The stuff people actually care about right now.
Also, see Jeff Friedman, voice vs. exit. He probably doesn’t consider himself a libertarian, but he may have provided the most compelling case for libertarianism that I’ve read.
And to supplement Jeff Friedman’s writings, highly recommend Jim Manzi’s “Uncontrolled,” and Tim Harford’s “Adapt.”
Nicely put.
“These days, the air is thick with straw-man criticisms of libertarians.”
Not trying to be overly provocative, but are you overstating this one? Or, perhaps I’ve just missed the recent critiques of libertarians? In that case, could someone provide some background for my understanding?
My take: the libertarians appear outdated and irrelevant to the most pressing issues of the current election cycle. They have little to offer outside of the right or left. Is that a straw-man?
Lastly, is Unity2020 a more relevant, mainstream and practical approach?
Perhaps the largest and most important consumer product category in modern markets is the mobile phone and related ecosystems. I think when libertarians can explain coherently how such a market should work, they will have gotten somewhere.
Perhaps you’d like to go first?
Seems to me like both sides of the argument you are referencing are using ‘libertarianism’ in an unconventional and narrow way.
Instead of ‘libertarianism’, those people are attacking “the ideological perspective that places a very strong presumption on the social benefits of free markets and open trade with minimized state regulation or interference.” The detractors like Quiggin or Stiglitz would call this neo-liberal “Market Fundamentalism” or perhaps “Market Naivete”.
In set-speak, this is the “relative complement” of left-libertarianism in right-libertarianism (“RCLIRL”), and that’s what I mean by ‘unconventional’, because the typical convention is use ‘libertarianism’ to refer to the union (the total range of libertarian opinion) or intersection (the common overlap between major camps).
You are complaining about the people who are attacking a straw-man version of RCLIRL while calling it ‘libertarianism’, and you are explaining a steel-man version of RCLIRL, while also calling it ‘libertarianism’.
A straw-man is inaccurately weak, but a steel-man is inaccurately strong. RCLIRL or Klingism, reads a lot like Hayekism – “Institutionally-Optimized Social Evolution” – to me, with its special emphasis on competitive free market capitalism.
But from a TLP perspective, in your description I don’t see the words “state”(!), “liberty”, “coercion”, “freedom”, “tax”, “police”, “immigration”, “drugs”, “expression”, “law”, “morality”, and all the usual libertarian terminology and words that commonly appear in discourse about currently popular causes among libertarian public intellectuals. Thus ‘unconventional’.
It would certainly be much better if people could simply express their arguments about free-marketism in politically neutral language that avoids the use of the word ‘libertarian’ altogether and that tries to avoid turning particular names for ideological perspectives and preference into boo-words and a signifier for the absurd and maliciously concocted fantasy conspiracy of a mysterious cabal of dark and sinister forces who, despite their tiny numbers and electoral insignificance, secretly maintain an iron-grip on their barely-contested influence over opinion and who are successfully spreading false consciousness among the public and elite policy-makers in the name of their plutocrat overlords.
This is almost Alinsky-ite in it’s motivation and effect. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” In this case, “Name the enemy, distort it, personalize it, discard it.” The folks on the left are against market-libertarianism because they are against markets in general. In truth, to the left, everything is a market failure. Even when markets succeed beyond anybody’s wildest dreams, that still means that some people get rich, which is by their definition is still a failure.
The folks like Cass and Navarro and Anton who are contesting the right to define the new-new-new-‘conservativsm’ want to pretend they are still pro-market, and so must distinguish their pro-marketism from the libertarian pro-marketism. They are doing so by pretending that ‘libertarianism’ in general is mostly about unthinkingly dogmatic and unrealistically naive adherence to mere laissez-faire tenets which, they claim, are not adequate to deal with the complex reality of what it takes to optimize social welfare in today’s global economy with hostile strategic competitors.
>—“An optimistic view of democracy is that parties compete for power by trying to outdo one another in the enactment of pro-social policies.”
I would put the emphasis for the best defense of democracy in a different place. The competition you refer to is the key but that is so because democratic competition in government punishes failure more reliably than in any other form of government, not because it necessarily leads to pro-social policies. Failed governments get replaced much more reliably in democratic systems. Not always with something better, but avoiding long term entrenchment of failed governments is the place to start when designing a political system.
The analogy with capitalism should be obvious. Businesses tend to care far less about being pro-social than making a profit. But the fact that failing businesses can’t continue wasting resources due to competition is key to the fact that capitalism produces better outcomes than other economic systems.
Many political factions that vehemently oppose each other would agree with this anodyne defense of libertarianism: Bernie Sanders supporters like Megan McArdle, Never Trumpers like George Will, and a majority of the Trump Administration staffers would all agree with this.
Immigration is the big issue that has bitterly divided libertarians. Would Kling even acknowledge someone like Hans Herman Hoppe as a valid libertarian given that he opposes open borders? The existing political system requires compromise; most libertarians seem eager to throw every non-immigration issue under the bus to promote immigration. That’s why, someone like McArdle would so enthusiastically back a Bernie Sanders or a Elizabeth Warren despite disagreeing with them on pretty much every single issue. Apparently, a government takeover of the health care system, and the Green New Deal, and explosive levels of growth in all aspects of government are all bad ideas, but ultimately they are small political compromises to make.
Speaking as a self-identified libertarian, ASK’s analysis doesn’t touch on what I think is the biggest weak spot of libertarianism.
While we are strong at identifying government’s vs. markets concepts, I’ve come to realize that libertarianism doesn’t have any sort of sensible answer when it comes to the primary non market human activities.
This is why, I suspect, few women are libertarian. I’ve never heard, for example, a well-thought out libertarian approach to dealing with domestic violence, mental illness, and legitimate use of force. A simplistic ‘get out of an abusive situation’ or ‘don’t associate with crazy people’ response isn’t something that most folks will find compelling or helpful.
The Jacob Blake case is a good example. He appears to have been violent and abusive towards the mother of his children. This woman, under any libertarian theory, should be able to appeal to the state for protection. Generally speaking though, libertarians seem ambivalent to this problem, or focused on the potential for excessive use of force. But if the state isn’t willing to protect a woman from rape and theft, it’s really not doing much of anything.
the state also exists to protect its citizens from coercion and force. A
I do not understand your complaint. No libertarian supports domestic violence, theft, or any sort of “aggression.” On the other hand, libertarians reject the illegitimate use of force by officials who are responsible for suppressing “aggression.” Obviously, there will be some borderline cases—some hard calls as to whether a particular use of force is legitimate. Do non-libertarians handle these close judgments better than libertarians do?
Mental illness, childhood, dementia, and other conditions that make someone less than a competent, independent agent are, indeed, problematic for libertarianism. But, again, some judgments are hard for everyone, libertarian or not. What is your objection specifically to libertarianism?
Well, let’s put it this way. What would the Libertarian mayor of Kenosha do in the current situation?
Libertarians are very good at high-minded platitudes, but ask them to get into the weeds, into the day-to-day mundane tasks of a local government, and it’s very hard to get a concrete answer out of them.
“Well, let’s put it this way. What would the Libertarian mayor of Kenosha do in the current situation?”
+1 yes, mostly empty platitudes. No practical solutions to the most pressing issues at hand from the libertarians.
Alex tries his darndest over at MR, but most of his solutions ignore or miss the obvious trade offs.
Another interesting question is what the libertarian mayor would have done in the previous years. Say she had ten years to put into place a “libertarian program”. Would anything she did have prevented what happened?
I don’t think that’s accurate, however, there is probably a lot of variety in the answers self-identifying libertarians would give you, after clarifying whether they had to work within the existing system which essentially outlaws most libertarian solutions, or some theoretical system of a local libertarian independent sovereign like some kind of Lichtenstein.
Most old school libertarians would say that property owners or their designated agents (such as insurance or security companies) have the right to use physical violence to defend their lives and property from mostly intensely peaceful rioters, like Korean snipers on convenience store rooftops in the LA riots. No need for the mayor or police to get involved at all, and if you need more help, you can promise to pay more people to help you kill those threats. If the dependents and heirs of the deceased rioters object then their life insurance company can sue your “property and personal security” insurance company, and they can work it out with a private arbitration company.
The incentives of this system make it incredibly dangerous and costly for you to even get close to threatening anything to anyone, because you are going to get killed, and the police aren’t going to care, because there are no police, that’s a private matter between you and your killer.
Also, who owns the road you are trying to protest upon? Probably a private toll road company (transponders mean all roads can be private toll roads), and you didn’t have any right to protest on them. If you refuse to go away, the road owner calls up his security company and then they kill you too. What about making a bunch of noise outside somebody’s house? Well that road is private too, or the community gated, and you are trespassing and violating the terms of service, so if you refuse to stop, I send in my security company to eject you from the area, and if you resist and pose a threat to them, they kill you.
How is a riot supposed to get off the ground in the first place without the subsidy of the state holding back people whose lives and property are threatened from just killing their threats? A free and armed society is a peaceful and orderly society, because if you are not ‘peaceful’ and ‘orderly’ then pretty soon you are also not ‘alive’.
It is not that a libertarian society doesn’t share the property of every society, which is that in the end order and peace are maintained by the threat of violence. It’s different in who has the right to deploy the violence. If the libertarian mayor tells her citizens, “if you are genuinely threatened then you can kill your threats and me, the sheriff and the judge will let the arbitration companies handle the fallout when the dust settles”, then then the riots instantly evaporate like a popped soap bubble.
Can you point to any public-intellectual Libertarian (as opposed to random anonymous Internet libertarian) who has actually said any of that in specific reference to the current riots? Maybe a public-intellectual Libertarian who has expressed support for Kyle Rittenhouse, who arguably followed that exact playbook?
Most public-intellectual Libertarians take great pains to avoid saying anything concrete and specific. Maybe the fact that–when push comes to shove–they don’t say such things is a sign that deep down they don’t believe in them.
The old school anarcho-capitalists would say it. I would say probably only David Friedman, Walter Block, and, more obliquely, Robin Hanson, either have said or would still suggest the possibility of such institutional arrangements today, but again, it’s simply not fair to make such judgments based on silence when everybody is at risk of getting in trouble and begin cancelled, and indeed Robin Hanson has gotten targeted and into hot water for much milder stuff. The benefit of a culture of genuine tolerance for free expression is that you have a much clearer idea where people actually stand, because they tend to want to talk about it if they feel it’s safe to do so. When it’s not safe, they have to bite their tongues.
“indeed Robin Hanson has gotten targeted and into hot water for much milder stuff.”
Seriously? He got in trouble for saying stuff that was 100% idiotic and insensitive.
Sorry, but you aren’t going to be able to use Robin as an example of speaking about controversial topics during the age of wokeness.
….
“In the tweet, Hanson said ‘So what food is appropriate to celebrate Juneteenth? We actually like fried chicken & watermelon a lot.’ Hanson deleted the original tweet.”
Or, a couple of rioters, masked by the crowd and difficult to target or pick out, simply kill the “property protectors” before they become a threat.
Or, the judges decide that the threshold for firing automatic weapons into crowds of angry but unarmed people should be quite high, and so the property protector that does that might not be prosecuted for shooting the one guy who got close enough to hit him, but will be prosecuted for the 10 who he shot that were not that close.
Basically, there are all kinds of ways that this might not just “evaporate”.
Which is why it’s a non-starter of an idea, and stable societies tend to regard self-help as a last resort.
—————————
In the US legal regime, a sound libertarian response (and one that would likely reduce these problems) is:
1. There is plenty of libertarian support for de-unionizing police and increasing transparency and accountability.
2. The majority of the proposed improvements to policing use of force and oversight (which, for example, are quietly being killed by the Democratic party in California) are libertarian friendly.
3. I’d argue that there’s plenty of room for investment in non-lethal restraining technologies. It looks to me like Jacob Blake was ultimately shot because he was able to fight off and walk away from police who were reluctant to use more force. Developing more non-lethal options for ending such standoffs would be worthwhile.
4. From a “Bully Pulpit” perspective, the mayor and police should be emphasizing the vastly greater and routine transactions in which Blacks (and every other group) are helped by the police, and…
5. … cases where police do abuse power should be dealt with harshly and publicly.
Basically, all of this the standard libertarian approach. Few rules, but the ones that exist should be transparently and strongly enforced. Strongly favor non-violent or at least non-lethal solutions.
@MikeDC
Those ignorant of the law of self defense are not likely to provide useful analysis of such law.
Hint: there is a reason that George Zimmerman was fully acquitted. Until you can adequately articulate why this might be the case, then you don’t have anything particularly interesting to add here.
Also, for the record: none of the weapons involved were “automatic.”
@MikeDC,
Everyplace people have tried to add “transparency” and “fight police abuse” it’s been counterproductive. Crime and murder shoot up. It happened with BLM in 2015 and now in 2020.
The evidence shows that there is something like a Laffer Curve on how much you restrain police. And we past the point of maximization towards being too restrictive on police. All the numbers show that. And all attempts to move further in the direction of more restriction result in more murders are a terrifying rate of tradeoff.
Remember a few years ago when body cameras were supposed to reveal tons of police abuse and racism and add transparency. Well, it turned out that when you film the entire affair blacks tend to look really bad relative to cops, so now BLM is against body cams. They didn’t want transparency, they wanted power.
The truth is libertarianism seems to have jack to say about how to handle an unruly underclass.
“Remember a few years ago when body cameras were supposed to reveal tons of police abuse and racism and add transparency. Well, it turned out that when you film the entire affair blacks tend to look really bad relative to cops”
+100
Glad to see that I wasn’t the only one that noticed this. Whole YouTube channels dedicated to documenting body cam videos and the results are telling.
This is an argument for body cams and additional transparency not against them.
Of course the people with a vested interest in creating and maintaining an underclass are going to push back against it.
Since I’m a libertarian, I don’t want that, so I want as much transparency as possible.
“Of course the people with a vested interest in creating and maintaining an underclass are going to push back against it.”
Who the hell “created and maintained” an underclass? What the hell does that even mean? Sounds like Marxist conspiracy theory bullshit.
Bodycam footage reminds everyone of how savage and impossible to deal with the underclass is. How justified police are in the actions they take. It wasn’t SUPPOSED to show that, because conspiracy theorists like you think there is some vast racist conspiracy to keep the underclass down, and therefore body cameras would prove the conspiracy to everyone.
But it didn’t because there is no conspiracy. In fact it takes away the one weapon the left has, which is poorly captured partial cell phone video of events edited to elicit a response. When you actually get the whole story it deflates leftist bullshit. Just like the body cam footage of George Floyd is going to help exonerate the cops currently being charged for the “crime” of being nearby while he ODed on fentanyl.
The underclass is the underclass because they are born that way. Left to their own devices they are as savage as they can manage. Only the fear of pain and privation holds back that savagery.
@asdf,
Nope. Not sure how to “take the most charitable view of this”, except to say that I don’t believe anything like this, didn’t say anything like this, and don’t think you’re responding cogently to … pretty much anything that’s being said.
Cameras provide evidence and that’s a good thing. If the evidence generally exonerates police actions, that’s also a good thing.
The push for body cameras was based on the idea that they would uncover police misconduct.
The entire “police reform” agenda is based on the idea that there is massive police abuse/corruption being hidden due mostly to racism.
The data shows something like a “null hypothesis” for policing. That is to say that reforms to combat “police abuse” don’t appear to produce results in line with their costs (say, unjustified police killings prevented versus incremental increases in the murder rate).
This seems especially true of disruptive or outside of the system reforms. That is to say that ordinary police conduct reviews that police unions and other stakeholders already do and have done for a long time are providing a sufficient safeguards on police conduct. Viral activism and outside interference on the other hand have proven catastrophically counter productive.
The reason for this is that there is no police misconduct problem. There is a fundamentally violent and criminal black underclass which needs to be policed way our of proportion with their population % but not out of proportion with their violent crime %.
@asdf @MikeDC
“For every 10,000 black people arrested for violent crime, 3 are killed
For every 10,000 white people arrested for violent crime, 4 are killed”
https://twitter.com/leonydusjohnson/status/1267466345844740098?s=21
Until BLM is able to address these stats and many others like it, it will remain a data free, emotionally driven religious movement.
1. The motivation for an action doesn’t matter too much for me if it’s a good action. Body cams are a good action because they present more data. If it’s more data that generally exonerates police actions, that’s good.
2. The general jist of what you’re saying is, itself, seems to be an emotion based response. I don’t like those people who wanted this, so I’m against it! Which is pretty much the same as the BLM folks. My response is simple and consistent. More evidence is better.
3. “The data” you’re talking about is so all over the map as to be meaningless. And obviously problematic if we’re talking about situations where, in response to rioting, the police simply stop responding to crime. Most of the studies that show “increase in police reform -> more crime” are in this vein. It doesn’t generally cover the sort of reforms that are obviously sensible from a libertarian perspective.
4. I don’t much care that whites are killed at similar or higher rates than blacks. The goal would be to reduce killings across the board and increase knowledge of the general facts, and increase the factual information everyone has to make decisions.
The solution to misinformation in the long-term is to provide information.
@MikeDC
The solution to reducing the perceived police violence problem doesn’t require complex data sets, statistical analysis or ideological interpretations. It comes down to basic common sense:
1) DON’T RESIST ARREST – comply, comply, comply and let the civil and criminal system sort it out later when cooler heads can prevail. What possible good can come from escalating a matter by resisting arrest? The police are expected to practice de-escalation, but why isn’t the average citizen expected to do so as well?
2) DON’T PRESENT DEADLY WEAPONS – knives, guns, machetes, etc. should never be introduced into a conflict unless they are intended to stop an imminent threat of grave bodily injury.
We teach our young daughter these basic truths (obviously, in a more simplistic manner) so that she can avoid potentially violent confrontations.
(She is also being educated on the AR-15 platform so that she knows what to do in the extremely rare situation where force or the display of force is necessary.)
What would Lee Kuan Yew do? I guess you could say he’s not a libertarian, but that seems a mark on Liberians than LKY.
In his own words:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZdeqbJUSwM
+1 good one.
Definitely a mark on libertarians (but not necessarily on Liberians..but could be)
Fair enough. Hard to think of anyone better to cite as an influence than North. Elinor Ostrom’s pragmatism appeals more to me. But the appreciation of North linked to included the line “He profoundly appreciated how little we know about how societies actually work and how, as individuals and social scientists, we interpret what we see and experience through the ideas – theories, histories, and frameworks – we construct for ourselves. “
Yes. He hit the nail on the head.
The facts on the ground are so different in different countries that it seems impossible that the same priorities should apply to all. Some might say the same priorities ought to apply to Pakistan, Uruguay, and Indonesia but how do you make that happen? Obviously you have to start from very different starting points.
The USA is starting from a relatively backwards position amongst the rich developed countries. Listed as a “flawed democracy” at number 25 on the Economist’s democracy index, tied for 15th with the U.K. on the human development index, 20th on World Justice Project’s rule of law index, with 27 percent at less than $10,000 net worth and 35 percent in the $100,000 to $1,000,000 range, and 12th on the Fraser Institute’s world economic freedom index.
“Less democracy, more economic freedom “ (hopefully not a straw man summary of Dr. Kling’s thesis) might lead one to look to Hong Kong and Singapore as examples to learn from. They are ranked 1st and 2nd on the Fraser economic freedom indices and tied for 75th on the democracy index. They are 4th and 9th respectively on the human development index. And are 13th and 19th on the rule of law index. And Singapore has 14 percent with less than $10,000 and 45 percent in the $ 100,000 to $1 million range. Can’t find numbers on Hong Kong but it seems like it may have growing numbers below $10,000 but overall is more or less fairly prosperous.
So more or less Hong Kong and Singapore are head and shoulders superior to the USA in everything but democracy and provide strong support for the superiority of “less democracy, more economic freedom.”
Would Dr. Kling say that Hong Kong and Singapore are libertarian countries consistent with his thesis? What, if anything, would he suggest about them that the USA should emulate? Or is there another country that he would point to?
System of governance might be one place to start. Hong Kong has an executive council form of executive branch. “Chief Executive is elected from a restricted pool of candidates supportive of the Central Government by a 1200-member Election Committee, an electoral college consisting of individuals (i.e. private ) and bodies (i.e. special interest groups) selected or elected within 28 functional constituencies”
The legislature “is a body comprising 70 members, 35 of whom are directly elected through five geographical constituencies (GCs) under the proportional representation system with largest remainder method and Hare quota, while the other 35 are indirectly elected through interest-group-based functional constituencies (FCs) with limited electorates.”
Singapore is more of a traditional Westminster model parliamentary system with up to 105 seats but unicameral with first-past-the post voting for 31 geographic electoral divisions and 17 group representation committees to represent the non-Chinese minorities (Malays, Indians, others).
If I understand Dr Kling correctly none of those differences matter? The same increase in economic freedom and prosperity could be achieved in the USA through a more juridical system in which courts would more strictly limit the ability of the government to interfere in the economy.
As a populist I believe that system of governance makes a difference and would pick the much lower numbers of citizens per representative and the parliamentary system as a jumping off point. And as a populist I wish Dr Kling every success, but as a populist, I remain more attracted to the “more democracy, more economic freedom “ examples of Switzerland and New Zealand, and even some others like Norway, Australia, and Canada that seem to produce more pro-social income distributions with many fewer poor.
Are those income statistics before or after government? If someone’s job pays them $10,000 but they have an earned income credit, fuel assistance, SNAP (formerly food stamps), subsidized housing, and free medical insurance worth $30,000, are they listed as having an income of $10,000 or $40,000 or something in between?
They are not income statistics but net worth statistics. Credit Suisse adds up financial assets and real assets then subtracts debts to get net worth. The methodology and data are set out at: https://www.credit-suisse.com/media/assets/corporate/docs/about-us/research/publications/global-wealth-databook-2019.pdf
I don’t think that they are adjusted for age or purchasing power parity. But net worth does give an “after government” sense of financial well-being. And it doesn’t mix apples and oranges like employer sponsored health care with government health care.
Thanks.
Does this account for government transfer programs?
For example, I have paid many years into Social Security and Medicare. These are funds which I could have otherwise invested to increase my net worth. However, these programs function very much like wealth, since wealth is essentially the ability to consume. Shouldn’t these programs be included if we are tallying up everyone’s wealth?
My issue with democracy is that appearances are more important than actual accomplishments under it. If you have friends in the media or are good with media manipulation, you can be easily reelected.
You can do awful things with bad people like Epstein as long as you look like your news media is on your side. It’s why our elites today are morally awful, corrupt and incompetent. The people best at gaming the system rise to the top in a democracy.
Another issue is the democracy today is too inclusive. Democracy was originally limited to men with property or those who risked their lives wars. This made sure people who had skin in the game and certain psychologies control government decisions. Now anyone can vote.
You can see the impact of that with regard to the riots in the city. The rioters and supporters are largely people who don’t own or couldn’t acquire property and don’t understand what it takes to get property or the work it takes to maintain it. They are also a huge voting bloc in cities, which incentivizes mayors to not put down and instead implicitly support the unrest.
The world wars required mass mobilization of the entire society. Otherwise worthless men could be given six months training and a rifle and be militarily useful (a rare in history). Otherwise militarily worthless women could work the assembly lines that supplied the troops.
Once that norm was established we’ve basically hung on since then due to inertia.
If anyone was ever able to overcome the US military (by force or complicity) there is a 0% chance “the people” could impact that at all. In 1950 randos with rifles were worth something. Today they aren’t. One day someones going to act on that reality, for good or ill.
At this point, Tucker Carlson > any living libertarian (excluding ASK). And, it’s not even close.
The last time I felt this way was circa 2018 during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.
Sad (but true).