A Bird in the Hand

I've only occasioned to catch Alex Jones' commentary a few times over the past several years. But he did a brief segment today on a radio show I frequent during my morning drive. The subject: Birds dropping dead from the sky in Arkansas.

Of course, it didn't take long for the conversation to make an outward spin towards talk regarding more general and larger conspiracies. But for a short time some conspiracies regarding the death of said birds were discussed. There was a time in my life where I was far more open to conspiracy theories (as I was to New Age philosophy and spiritualism - but that is another story). But it seems like in recent years, at least for me, most talk from conspiracy wonks meet their end in a long path of logical fallacies. In short, it's hard for me to listen to most conspiracy-theorists without them sounding a little crazy - or at the least unfounded.

Luckily, Alex didn't disappoint.

Unwinding the story, he relayed how "suspicious" it was that the birdly body count kept rising from story to story. I couldn't begin to tell you how quickly my brain began to dismiss every tidbit of opinion that followed that statement. "Suspicious?" I thought. Body-counts (avian or otherwise) rising as a story unfolds doesn't sound suspicious at all. Generally the numbers will match what can be confirmed at any given time. And over time, you might expect that number to remain the same, but it wouldn't be particularly suspicious if it increased...as with any story about a flood, earthquake, or bombing.

In fact, what would be "suspicious" is if that number decreased over time. And even then, I would generally attribute that to over-zealous and shoddy early reporting...not to some global conspiracy to kill us all off via fluoride in our faucet-water. Then again, maybe I'm just one of the "sheeple" as Alex would put it.

Baaaaaaah.

Political Blog Tip #3,501

You will not overcome an idealist by deferring to the probability of their vision taking actual form

...present company included.

Over at Cafe Hayek there has been some squabbling regarding some comments about health care being perceived as a "right." Needless to say I generally agree with the sentiments of the author - and I've certainly made similar points several times. Something somewhat unique about this post is one of the commenters (I'll let you spot him/her for yourself) who seems to be giving some of the regulars a rather hard time. And I don't mean a hard time in the usual sense - which usually involves a speudo-intellectual progressive throwing things against the wall to see if anything sticks.

I spotted him/her immediately as a left-leaning anarchist (a la Proudhon). No one else seemed to pick up on that (or at least they chose to be silent about it). That surprised me somewhat at first. It took several responses for me to realize they had no idea where he was coming from, and they were starting to spin their collective wheels in search of a response. At least one of them seemed to resign himself to the last-ditch effort of the "the real world can't work like that" argument. And, of course, this isn't immediately persuasive to the more idealist among us.

The problem, of course, is that an anarchist of that breed has read Proudhon and George and had (at some point) pushed prevalent political questions back to principles that have remained somewhat unquestioned by the other commenters - not so different than the way in which they so often dispatch typical liberal-progressive types with lines of questioning which average leftists probably don't take the time to consider. Against the anarchist, however, they seemed impotent at best.

At the core of the squabbling was the idea of property itself. It was clear that most of the commenters had simply taken the concept of property as a given, and never had stopped to consider that such a concept is purely abstract, and derived from social interaction and tradition. And once the rug of "property" was being pulled out from under them, they had little left to stand on.

Of course, there are some excellent defenses of the concept of property rights - and much better than the religious ones provided by Locke et al. A formidable ANCAP (say, Rothbard) could more easily grapple with the question at hand (as he did, actually, in For a New Liberty). But without the drive to question not only yourself but the beliefs you hold dear, you're subject to having that ideological rug pulled out from under you. And seeing so many people fumble with what, at least in name, is something so fundamental to them, it only goes to show that sometimes we're too docile when it comes to the ideas we ultimately adopt.

What's Neutral About Net Neutrality?

I haven't been able to parse the ins and outs of the bill yet, but apparently a blow is about to be struck to the few of us who oppose "net neutrality." In a recent piece on the UK Guardian, Al Franken heralds the forthcoming passage of the bill as a victory for free speech:

Al Franken, the Democrat senator, said the vote would decide "the most important free speech issue of our time".

"Imagine if Comcast customers couldn't watch Netflix, but were limited only to Comcast's video-on-demand service. Imagine if a cable news network could get its website to load faster on your computer than your favourite local political blog. Imagine if big corporations with their own agenda could decide who wins or loses online," Franken said on Monday. "The internet as we know it would cease to exist."

Yes, and imagine if Rolling Stone magazine refused to include advertisements for Revolver, or if a restaurant chain owned by Coca-Cola refused to sell Pepsi products. Oh, the horror! We can't afford to allow such a disintegration of our freedom of speech!

All kidding aside, when did rights transition from a negative conception to a positive one?

In the debate on health care, the right to be able to receive it turned into the "right" to take it. Maybe it's just a differentiation in terms; semantics. But some terms mean something very specific (at least to me). I have the right to own a firearm...it doesn't translate into the right to be given a firearm if I cannot secure one for personal use. And what of "free speech?" When did your right to speak turn into your right to use other people and their property as a vehicle for that speech? If a billboard owner wanted to charge a rival billboard owner twice the going rate for a billboard advertisement, would we collectively harangue over the abridgment of "free speech"?

Of course, there are more complex arguments for net neutrality - not the least of which is an argument that the telecoms are quasi-monopolistic. Yes, quasi-monopolistic and quasi-municipal. I have to wonder how many supporters of government intervention a la "net neutrality" have sat and pondered about the municipal nature of such companies and what role government has played in the larger scheme of things. But that conversation is for another day perhaps.

In any case, as easy as it is to jump on-board with such programs under the mental duress of feel-good language like "equality", "neutrality","hope", "compassion", etc. - I implore people to actually look closer at the issue at hand and think twice before they throw their support one way or the other. We don't have "magazine neutrality", "soft-drink neutrality", or "billboard neutrality". And if you can figure out why there's not a need for any talk of those things, then you've got at least one foot in the door.

Economics for the Neoconservative

Over at Andrew Wilkow's forum (God, help us all) I tried to engage in a discussion about the "Buy American" movement with a woman who believes we'd be better off doing just that. When I inquired about her excuse for agreeing with Obama on this matter (thought that might give her pause) she replied:

my excuse is that i want America to the best. I see that happening only when we buy things we can produce on our own first. I'd like to not have to buy anything made elsewhere. screw em all. Americans should be growing our own produce, making our own cogs, etc,,,i didnt bother to open your links,,,i dont care about your opinion all that much,,meh

The links she was referring to were to the Wikipedia entry for "comparative advantage" and an editorial on the CATO website ripping apart Obama's "Buy American" initiative. Apparently she didn't have the time to be bothered by "words and stuff." Nevertheless I pressed on with a response that I thought was generally simple enough to explain to anyone why buying American or pushing people to buy American isn't always the best thing for Americans. This is part of my response:

Maybe you don't care about my opinion much for whatever reason. I can't do anything about that. But have you ever tried digging into an economic text-book; or even Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson that Wilkow throws homage to on occasion? I'm not asking that facetiously - because this really isn't a matter of my personal opinion; it's about basic economics.

It's hard to dissect exactly what someone means when they say, "I want America to be the best." In this context I would take it to mean either you want Americans to be the most productive or the most well-off...and in either case, trying to keep trade within our own borders would hamper each of those ideals. Even though people are talking about countries like China closing the cap, Americans are BY FAR the most productive people on the planet (thanks to our excess of capital). We could make the simple products we buy from other countries (clothes, food, electronics) if we wanted. But comparative advantage tells us that even if we are better at making cheap things than other people, we are still better off doing the most productive thing we're capable of instead, and then buying the less exotic or labor demanding products from other countries.

If you try to push American labor into markets that no longer have good returns (as per our productive capacity), you will actually be lowering our GDP and subsequently our standard of living. If you try to set up trade barriers to artificially stifle the free market and protect the wages of people who engage in such labor, you will certainly make those people better off, but you will (in the process) hurt every other American who sees the price of cheap staples inflate. This is the economic problem that protectionists (who are predominantly liberal BTW) have to face.

When someone like, say, Obama politically wrangles over the idea of China flooding the market with cheap tires, what most people see is US manufacturers of tires being hurt (which is true). What they don't see are the millions of Americans who would be able to better afford tires, and would then have more discretionary income to spend on other products (which may be American-made).

If you're still scratching your head, sometimes it's better to break things down on a micro-level with simple analogies. If you think America would be better off (in whatever terms you mean) by just trading with other Americans (whenever possible) then reduce the problem. Would Virginians be better off if they only traded with Virginians? Would people in Richmond be better off if they only traded with people from Richmond? Would a household be better off only trading their services with other people in that household?

It's true that the more you limit your trading partners, the more "employed" you will be - largely because with a smaller network of trade people will find themselves doing things they're less productive doing. In an open market, I may find that I'm good at programming...and I might contract those services out to people in others states or countries for a pretty penny. If I limit trade to within my household, all of a sudden there's a smaller pool of people to produce the things I need (clothes, food, etc.), and possibly no one in that household is particularly skilled at producing any of these things. This is lower productivity - more labor being spent to produce what I consume. All of a sudden you find yourself living on a subsistence level a la the year 1,500 (AD).

You can extrapolate that (to a more or lesser degree) with restricting your trade (self-imposed or not) to/at any level. It's the "fetish of full employment" (Hazlitt term). People are so concerned with people from their particular country being employed that they blind themselves to how their ideal might actually end up hurting more people. A protectionist would implore that we still buy American cars as opposed to cheaper foreign cars (to protect American auto-workers of course). But extrapolate that out a little more.

If one morning millions of brand new vehicles started washing up on our shores it would cripple American auto-workers - but would Americans really be better off by turning down free cars, pushing them back into the sea? Was the production of farming equipment that eventually unemployed 80% of Americans a boon or a death knell? Would you implore Americans then to not use such machinery, to keep 90% of us gainfully employed picking fruits and vegetables all year round?

I would hope that you would think twice before you push for something like that (particularly if you have a significant care for your fellow countrymen). It doesn't matter whether it's a machine or inferior foreign labor - if we can get something using less of our labor, that is a good thing for us. It may temporarily hurt a specific interest group, but as long as there is something we demand, there is always an avenue for labor - it's simply a matter of time. All the liberal/collectivist protectionist aims at stifling trade or technological progress in the name of saving jobs does nothing but keep those Americans you care about so much about poorer.

I'm predicting her response will be classically bad...but we shall see.

Phenomenal Headlines

Skimming through Google's news aggregator, I ran across an article with the following headline:

Obama Admits Failing to Sell Successes to Americans

It's good to know that the only bias to be found in news media these days is that which can be found under the umbra of one Rupert Murdoch (read: Fox News). All kidding aside, there's a lot to be said about the framing of an argument, and I'm not quite sure if this particular framing is actually that of Obama, the writer of this article, or both. But one thing is for sure, responding to a political loss by acknowledging a particular candidate's failure...to convey his awesomeness...is a kind of ego-trip that even Randians would wince at.

And I know because they're my friends.

A Third Way

In a recent MSNBC article, the author seems surprised by an apparent contradiction. A recent study confirms that most Americans grossly underestimate the current level of income inequality in the United States. A related find - there is a high level of preference for more equality when presented with the numbers. So, in light of the seemingly "anti-socialist" swing underway in the current political landscape, the writer is left scratching his head:

The United States, according to this study, is a nation of people who would like to spread the wealth around. They just don't know it.

But is this really accurate? Do Americans really support redistribution through taxation and are simply too stupid and biased to realize it? I'm open to believing this to be true of some Americans, but on the whole I remain unconvinced of this notion.

The problem I have with this premise is that it only gives us enough political leg-room for two tenable positions - that either Americans with an actual preference for more equality realize current levels of it and push for government action or are ignorant of it and push against it. However, it seems quite possible that something more complex could be occurring.

Take my personal position for example. I'm currently aware of massive income inequality. I too would prefer that incomes were more in line with one another to a degree. And yet I'm in staunch opposition to government redistribution of wealth. Given the author's premise, how could someone like me resolve such a view?

Well, I'm certainly aware of the current income gap. I would like to see that gap close; but not for the sake of equality itself - rather I'd like to see the least productive people in a position to further enable their productivity to greater heights. This view is distinctly different than finding it morally objectionable that two people would prove themselves to be of different value on the market and/or that the one of greater value is somehow inflicting harm on the less productive. This difference leads into an ever greater distinction that I believe is probably a more logical solution to the intellectual dilemma.

To create a simple analogy, if I would wish or hope that every person on this planet would be able to be with the love of their life, it wouldn't lead me to a conclusion that, for people who are unable to achieve this, we should use the hand of government to subdue the objects of their affection and force them into such a role. Or, to make an even more clear analogy, if I felt that every single person should have a TV in their home, I wouldn't support the government starting a program in which they would, in the dark of night, break into homes with more than one TV to furnish the homes with none. So what does this say about me?

Well, it certainly doesn't say that I don't want more people to have TVs. On the other hand, it certainly doesn't say that I think we should engage in theft to lend people a hand. But it also certainly doesn't say anything inconsistent either - which is precisely the mental trap the aforementioned article's author finds himself in. Why is it so hard for us, collectively, to imagine a third way?

I suppose it would be too easy to chalk it up to the politics of a two-party system, but it's certainly a little scary to see bimodal dispositions on socio-political matters; simply taking into consideration what the government should do or what it should stop people from doing. It seems to be that if you believe X to be bad, then you must accordingly believe that government must remedy X. And if you believe Y to be good, then you must accordingly believe that government must provide Y. I'm left to wonder, "When did we stop considering the idea that some issues should be out of the scope of the one institution that we seem to be willing to grant a monopoly on violence to?"

In my view, a large part of what the United States was founded upon was a minimal federal government that existed only to the extent it had to - to protect us from each other. If I passed by a Salvation Army box without contributing, you wouldn't chase me down and beat me or put me in a cage. In fact, you'd probably save me from such an assailant. Yet a very large number of Americans support what is essentially the same type of coercion through the federal state apparatus via taxation and social programs. And even worse, apparently, many Americans would be likely to assume that I want the poor to suffer since I'm against such violence. Or maybe if I had contributed a few dollars they would wonder how I could be against such violence as I most obviously care about the poor.

I've felt for a very long time that the larger part of American politics is being played between the 40-yard-lines; and, in reading articles like this one, I don't think that's about to change any time soon.

Means to an End (Part II)

In a recent post I described the contention I felt in reading some of Gene Callahan's comments as of late. I wanted to (briefly) elaborate on my final point just to illustrate it further.

Gene laments the idea of people worshiping "tools" (and by that he means "stuff") as ends in and of them self. This is generally comparable to the the off-used criticism that we, modern society, are too materialistic...too focussed on this "stuff" that shouldn't constitute the whole of what we are about or what we should strive for. I parried with the notion that a view of people worshiping such tools is really not an accurate description of reality; rather that people value tools as ends (as they do with any tool) generally to the extent that the serve to facilitate even greater ends. I value money because I know it can afford me X. And, if I highly value X (although "stuff" it may very well be), it's only to the extent that it is a means to personal happiness.

I feel that this explanation is somewhat incomplete, or at least that it doesn't incorporate the more explicit notion I was trying to put forward. It would seem that maybe leaving it at X (cars, phones, houses, TVs, etc.) doesn't really resolve the question of why "stuff" makes us happy - it nearly explains that since stuff makes us happy, it serves as a means to the end of happiness, and thus you aren't valuing the item insomuch as the happiness it brings. But I did not mean to imply that objects simply bring value de facto. There are perfectly good reasons we value the things we do (even if someone objects).

My central thrust is that larger means/ends frameworks are (in most cases) composed of a network of further means/ends frameworks; a lattice which can be small and simple or large and very complex. In the example of "stuff" it's not so much that "stuff" directly makes people happy. Even this is part of a more explicit framework. What brings happiness is the product of having "stuff." You value a TV because you enjoy being entertained. You value a house because it provides shelter; larger houses because they may support a family; and even larger houses still could have a social signalling value. Likewise you may value a particular type of phone for its social signalling value; and/or you could value it simply as a way to keep in touch with your friends and family (as a tool of communication). You might value your car, also, as a tool of social signalling; you may value you it as an excellent tool to get from point A to point B as well. I think the question we should be asking is - Why is it really surprising that we would value these things?

It's true that to some degree I'm sure there is a point of excess (as there may be for everything). But I don't find it particularly peculiar that people would value "stuff" a whole hell of a lot in a tangible world where tangible people need tangible things. And what, per se, is even wrong about that? Is there some Malthusian underlay to that kind of critique of modern society? When did me wanting "stuff" and then wanting even more "stuff" for my children become such a terrible thing? I'm not sure I see anything particularly upright in being anti-"stuff" to be honest.

It seems like, in this particular context, he finds it disheartening that his students only value things (which are tools for happiness) - but that there is much more to life! Well of course there is. And your students are well aware of that unless you found yourself being robbed after class. There's nothing mutually exclusive about wanting lots of things (in this very, truly material world in which we exist) and still abiding by certain basic ethical principles. In fact, it occurs to me that several of those precious ethical notions derive from the fact that we live in a world of scarcity - it's not really detached from materialism.

If people are undervaluing the "non-stuff" in the world, I think we can have a discussion about that. But I'm not under the impression that it shares and inverse relationship with our want for things. I wanted to really sympathize with Callahan's point - because I do think the world of ethics (in our personal lives) is in disrepair...but I don't think wanting material goods is to blame. In fact, trying to cast out such demons almost immediately reeks of some progressively slavish (in the Nietzschian sense) mentality. As if a shifting purpose towards the greater good requires us to give up our personal quest to amass wealth.

I just don't happen to see it that way. And I see an attack on that want of wealth (which brings us, in many cases, some of the best and most important tools for happily living our lives) as a throwback to a kind of moralizing that I think is responsible for many terrible things. Please, feel free to try to fix what is broken. We certainly aren't perfect. But don't throw the baby out with the bath-water.