Rigging the Debate

Calling something"reform" biases the discussion from the start. It's question-begging. Whether the proposed changes actually amount to reform -- that is, improvement -- is precisely what is in dispute.

Health-Care Interview on Antiwar Radio

Scott Horton interviewed me about health care on Antiwar Radio. The audio is here.

The End-of-Life Rigmarole II

I'd like to take this matter a step further and to make explicit what was only implicit in the original post. It should be a matter of concern that people paid by the State -- doctors treating Medicare patients -- would be authorized under the House legislation to venture into end-of-life issues when the government's priority is to control medical costs. One need not be an alarmist to connect those dots and wonder how the source of the paycheck might influence the advice given. Whom exactly is the doctor working for?

But this is a general problem that plagues any government intervention in health care, and the advocates of increased government intervention have no answer. Worse, most of them do not even acknowledge that the agent-principal problem exists.

For whom does the doctor work? The patient, whom medical ethics would seem to designate as the principal, or the State, which pays the bills?

I can't blame anyone for finding the end-of-life issue ominous in the context of healthcare "reform." Still, we must get our facts straight.

The End-of-Life Rigmarole

Sometimes I almost believe that the right-wing critics of Obama healthcare "reform" are moles working for Obama. Take the end-of-life controversy. There is nothing in the House bill that would require Medicare recipients to have end-of-life counseling, much less submit to some kind of euthanasia process. All I can find is a requirement that Medicare pay for end-of-life counseling if requested. Not that I like this; I don't want government anywhere near medical care or end-of-life decisionmaking. But nothing is imposed on the elderly. (By the way NBC reported tonight that this provision has been dropped from the House bill.)

Correction: It's the Senate Finance Committee that has removed the provision from its bill.

Here's why I almost believe the right-wing critics are moles: By raising the phony "death panel" claim, Palin, Gingrich, Limbaugh, Beck and the others have taken everyone's eye on the ball. Defenders of Obama's scheme had an easy time demolishing the inventions of the right-wing simpletons, enabling Obama defenders to evade the real problem with"reform," which continues to fly under the radar.

The problem is not that the bill calls for death panels--it doesn't. The problem is that the expansion of medical coverage by government decree and taxpayer subsidy, along with a determination to keep prices from rising, logically requires rationing of medical services. How else can you expand demand without raising costs? Through government efficiency? Get real. (Price controls would lead to shortages and then rationing.)

With rationing the government would decide how medical resources would be distributed. Bureaucrats would have to make choices, and they'd have to have standards by which to make those choices. Is it outlandish to suggest that they would want to divert scarce resources from people who are near the end of life and with little chance of recovery to those who are not? This wouldn't be euthanasia; but it might well be a refusal to pay for some medical procedures for older people. It might even include a prohibition on paying for services privately. (The alternative to rationing is bankruptcy, to which Medicare has already put us on the path.)

Obama has already said he wants Medicare to pay for the value not volume of services. Value to whom?

Instead of conjuring up phantom death panels and compulsory counseling, the right wing should have been demanding that the defenders of "reform" explain how they can avoid rationing if they are serious about pumping up demand without pumping up prices. They should have been using their access to the media to point out that rationing in an inevitable implication of a government limit on total healthcare spending.

Maybe some advocates of "reform" really haven't thought about this. Maybe they believe that somehow costs can be controlled without rationing and bureaucratic triage. (This can't be said about others, such as Peter Singer.) But their premises logically commit them to rationing whether they know it or not and whether they like it or not.

By the way, do not accept the glib comeback that the market rations too, only by price. As I point out here, the market does not ration. The market is not a conscious, decision-making entity. It's a process in which people exchange money for goods and services, and vice versa. That is not rationing. Economists talk about markets rationing, but that is only a metaphor. Our choice is between rationing by bureaucrats (including insurance clerks empowered by government tax policy) and individual self-determination through free exchange.

Government Logic

1. Outlaw full interstate health-insurance competition.
2. Denounce the lack of competition.
3. Propose ersatz competition (exchanges) with a government option.
4. Live happily ever after.

Government's Track Record in the Insurance Business

Barack Obama and many others want the government to get into the health-insurance business. Very good. Is the government in any other kind of insurance? As a matter of fact, it is: flood insurance. It essentially has a monopoly. Here's a Reuters story about the House last month extending the "troubled [i.e., broke] program" for six months while postponing a comprehensive overhaul. Why does it need an overhaul?

The program has been deep in debt ever since the costly hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005. Repeated rescue efforts have failed....

[T]he administration said it favors forgiving the 40-year-old program's $19 billion debt.

This would not be the first time the program was bailed out by Congress or had its huge debt forgiven. This trouble did not begin with Katrina. See this article I wrote 16 years ago. (Scroll down.)

About the postponement of comprehensive reform, Reuters reports that Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank "said discussion on repairing the program needed to be put off due to other pressing matters, including healthcare and financial regulation reforms."

Translation: Government can't fix what it's already screwed up right now because it's too busy screwing up some other things.

The Healthcare-Reform Protests

Many of the people attending congressional district meetings to protest the emerging healthcare reform harm the cause of freedom when they are unruly and, more importantly, when they repeat unfounded rumors they’ve heard on the radio or read on the Internet. My advice is to get your facts straight and act in a dignified way. Reason should be in for forefront. Passion too prominently displayed looks like blind emotion and alienates those who might be persuaded by calm argument. Don’t call people names. Coolly state the moral and economic reasons against government control. Remember: Statism did not begin with Obama.

That said, I must point out that the critics of the protesters — those who want to continue the status quo of government-dominated health care but even more so — are off base in their sneering dismissal of the people who are worried about the so-called reform. Why would anyone have confidence in an 1,000-page-plus piece of legislation, obscurely written, that would give not-fully-defined powers to the secretary of Health and Human Services? Because Barack Obama, Ted Kennedy, Henry Waxman, Barney Frank, and Chris Dodd say so? Excuse me, but that’s not good enough.

Anyone who doesn’t have an instinctual revulsion at such a bill needs to read some history.

Healthcare Thoughts

Random thoughts on healthcare reform:

• The core of "healthcare reform" is the principle that what one takes out of the system should have no necessary relationship to what one pays in. Aside from the injustice of the inevitable coercive subsidies, this principle is economically nonviable.
  
  
• Healthcare reformers must think they've repealed the law of unintended consequences. Can't be done.
  
  
• Healthcare reform rests on a pretense of knowledge (Hayek): viz., that bureaucrats know the just price of medical services, drugs, and insurance coverage.

Law Did Not Predate Commerce

Best quote I've seen today:

Law and commerce were indelibly linked in the thought of David Hume, who argued that it is commerce itself that gives rise to notions of justice between people and peoples. Although commerce is today typically seen as something which is proactively enabled by law, it is much more accurate historically to see law as something which emerges because of its vital importance in commerce – and particularly commerce involving foreigners. Within the Roman Empire, it was the ius gentium, the “law of nations,” derived from custom rather than legislation, and applying specifically to noncitizens, that governed most types of commercial transactions.

The modern notion that law is inseparable from the will of a ruler or ruling body, antithetical to the idea of a universal natural law or a ius gentium, has, in parts of the world and during epochs where it has actually been applied, been devastating to economic development.

--Benn Steil and Manuel Hinds, Money Markets, and Sovereignty

Hat tip: Don Boudreaux, Cafe Hayek

TGIF: The Market Doesn't Ration Health Care

Healthcare reformers say they have two objectives: to enable the uninsured and under-insured to consume more medical services than they consume now, and to keep the price of those services from rising, as they have been, faster than the prices of other goods and services. Unfortunately, Economics 101 tells us that to accomplish those two things directly — increased consumption by one group and lower prices — the government would have to take a third step: rationing. The reformers are disingenuous about this last step, and for good reason. People don’t like rationing, especially of medical care.

The rest of TGIF is here.

Hiroshima

Today is the 64th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima, one of President Harry Truman's two acts of butchery against Japan in August 1945. There isn't much to be said about those unspeakable atrocities that hasn't been said many times before. The U.S. government never needed atomic bombs to commit mass murder. It's "conventional" weapons have been potent enough. But considering how the "leaders" saw The Bomb, its two uses against Japan stand out as especially heinous acts. The U.S. government may not have used atomic weapons since 1945, but it has not yet given up mass murder as a political/military tactic. Presidential candidates are still expected to say that, with respect to nuclear weapons, that "no options are off the table."

The anniversary of the Nagaski bombing is Sunday.

Rad Geek People's Daily has a poignant post here. Rad says: "As far as I am aware, the atomic bombing of the Hiroshima city center, which deliberately targeted a civilian center and killed over half of the people living in the city, remains the deadliest act of terrorism in the history of the world."

[This post appeared previously.]

The Market Does Not Ration!

Why do economists, even those who favor the free market, call what the market process does "rationing." When you choose, because of the price, to buy four pounds of hamburger rather than eight, that is not rationing. Rationing is when an authority says you can only buy four. It indicates a conscious process of allocation of other people's property. The market is not a conscious process. Rather it's a bunch of people engaging in conscious exchanges involving their own property to improve their situations. That's very different.

I think it does the case for the market harm to call what it does rationing. The other side can say: "I agree. But the market is a cold, impersonal rationer. We need a kinder, gentler rationer: the State."

I don't think we should want those to be the terms of the debate.

Later thought: When I enter a store and spend $50 rather than all I have, would we say I rationed my money to the store owner? Who would talk like that?

Rachel Maddow, Demagogue

I know, I know. Why am I wasting time on her? Good question. But I can't let this get by me.

The other night she and state-socialist congressmen Anthony Weiner had a good laugh because all the Republicans on a congressional committee voted against his trick amendment to end Medicare. What hypocrites, they sneered. Republicans say they are against socialized medicine, but when their political careers are at stake, they won't vote to end the socialized medicine we already have for retirees. (Clip here.)

I am the last person to want to defend the Republicans. The charge of hypocrisy is easy to make, and no doubt Maddow and Weiner are right about many or most of them in this case. But they were engaging in demagoguery, and they must have known it. The principle of charitable interpretation is worth applying not only because it's decent but also because it forces oneself argue against your opponent's strongest possible case. Going for the weakest case is a wimpy thing to do--a confession you lack confidence in your own.

Someone can nonhypocritically and coherently say, "I'd vote against creating Medicare today. But since after 44 years people on fixed incomes have come to rely on it, I would not just kill it in one shot now. I favor some kind of gradual transition to a private system."

Agree or disagree with that position, it shows that voting no on an up-or-down vote to kill Medicare is not necessarily hypocrisy for one who opposes government-controlled medical care.

Maddow's schlocky program is little more than a series of conversations with guests who agree with her so she can distort the positions of those she diagarees with. She might have brought on a someone to argue the point I make above, but she wouldn't know what to do with someone who intelligently disagrees with her. That speaks volumes about her intellectual heft or confidence, or something.

What We Spend on Health Care Is None of the Government's Business

So it should butt out and stop making medical services more expensive than they'd be in the free market.

Details here.

Read this Article!

My friend Shikha Dalmia at the Reason Foundation nails the healthcare issue here. No, we don't have a free market here, and see what's happening in Germany and France.

Money quote:

The point is that there is no health care model, whether privately or publicly financed, that can offer unlimited access to medical services while containing costs. Ultimately, such a model arrives at a cross roads where it has to either limit access in an arbitrary way, or face uncontrolled cost increases.

TGIF: Are We Really All Healthcare Collectivists Now?

“We have to do something about health care.”

The scariest word in that sentence is not something. It’s we.

TGIF is here.

Appearance on Mike Beitler's Free Market Program

Here's the link. It's mostly about health care, but we covered cap and trade also.

The Gates Incident as a Free Speech Case

Harvey Silverglate, a founder of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), has an excellent article in Forbes on the arrest of Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates. For Silverglate -- and I agree with him -- this is entirely a free-speech matter. Gates was arrested exclusively for what he said to a policeman and for how he said it. The incident is less about race and more about a police attitude toward "civilians" that free people should not tolerate. That attitude is exemplified in the current practice of not including police personnel in the term "civilian." This is a recent change. "Civilian" used to mean everyone but the military. This is another sign of the militarization of the police, which is stimulated by the "wars" on drugs, guns, and other things that are not directly connected with crimes against person and property.

Obama, Medicare, and Socialized Medicine

At his AARP event yesterday, President Obama derided those who in the 1960s called Medicare "socialized medicine." Yet later in the event he conceded the point. See for yourself:

I got a letter the other day from a woman; she said, I don't want government-run health care, I don't want socialized medicine, and don't touch my Medicare. And I wanted to say, well, I mean, that's what Medicare is, is it's a government-run health care plan that people are very happy with.

As he read this, he and the audience laughed condescendingly as if to say, "What a dolt. She hates socialized medicine but she loves Medicare. Doesn't she realize they are the same thing?"

As for people being happy with Medicare, Obama might have pointed out that retirees receive far more in medical benefits than they ever paid into the system. At the moment they can basically have all they want for free or for low cost. Now they even have drug coverage. But that will change if Obama gets his way, because he's decided "we" spend too much on m medical care and he is determined to do something about that. Part of that "something" will be to scale back Medicare, which Obama himself says is, along with Medicaid, the biggest source of the budget deficit. Anyone who thinks that "reform" won't start denying options to retirees is dreaming. It's already happening. Wait until the government inserts itself in to end-of-life decisions. I guess the earlier critics of Medicare weren't wrong, they just had their timetable off.

If government were really interested in seeing a rational medical system, it would stop forcing the taxpayers to pick up the tab for other people's medical care. How could that do anything but send costs through the roof and then "justify" government control?

TGIF: A Cornucopia of Healthcare Fallacies

The effort to reinvent medical care is so full of fallacies and bad logic that it would take volumes to properly expose them. Nevertheless, in this short space, let’s take a crack at some of the problems.

The rest of TGIF is here.

For Gates and Against the Police

Professor Henry Louis Gates was perfectly justified in being pissed at the cops who ordered him out of his own home. The police sergeant who cuffed and arrested him for disorderly conduct, after he knew who Gates was, was retaliating against him, a black man, for not showing proper deference to a representative of the State. How dare he yell at a policeman who treated him like a street thug? I side with Gates.

George Orwell, Call Your Office

If someone is already sick, a plan to pay his doctor bills can’t be insurance! Can we at least get that much straight?

We're All Marxists Now

Why the Rush on Health Care?

Why is Obama so eager to have his healthcare "reform" voted on before members of Congress go home for their August recess? Because this advocate of "representative government," like many others, is a big fraud. He wants the vote to occur before the members go home and get an earful from their "constituents" about how intrusive and costly the "reform" will be. In other words, he fears he will lose votes over the recess. This is not the first time this kind of thing has happened.

Wouldn't a true democrat insist that congressmen consult with the people they allegedly represent back home before voting?

There are many reasons for agreeing with Joseph Schumpeter that representative democracy is a "sham." Here is the latest proof that even its advocates don't really believe in it. As historian Edmund Morgan argues the "sovereignty of the people" is a principle that developed as a mean of controlling not government but the people.

(For more on Morgan see this.)

Amazon Promises Not to Trespass and Steal Again

Here's what Amazon has to say about its trespass against Kindle owners and its forced "buy-back" of copies of 1984 and Animal Farm:

These books were added to our catalog using our self-service platform by a third-party who did not have the rights to the books. When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers’ devices, and refunded customers. We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers’ devices in these circumstances.

"[I]n the future we will not remove books from customers' device in these circumstances." We have them on the record now. Let's see what happens.

HT: Peter Kafka.

Books Vanishing from Kindles

David Pogue of the New York Times reports:

This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid -- for thought they owned.

But no, apparently the publisher changed its mind about offering an electronic edition, and apparently Amazon, whose business lives and dies by publisher happiness, caved. It electronically deleted all books by this author from people's Kindles and credited their accounts for the price.

This is ugly for all kinds of reasons. Amazon says that this sort of thing is "rare," but that it can happen at all is unsettling; we've been taught to believe that e-books are, you know, just like books, only better. Already, we've learned that they're not really like books, in that once we're finished reading them, we can't resell or even donate them. But now we learn that all sales may not even be final.

As one of my readers noted, it's like Barnes & Noble sneaking into our homes in the middle of the night, taking some books that we've been reading off our nightstands, and leaving us a check on the coffee table.

You want to know the best part? The juicy, plump, dripping irony?

The author who was the victim of this Big Brotherish plot was none other than George Orwell. And the books were "1984" and "Animal Farm."

Scary.

Healthcare Arrogance

The conceit of a handful of congressmen is truly astounding. They actually think they know enough to design a medical marketplace. Do they have any idea what they are up to, any idea of the havoc they will wreak, the hardship they will inflict?

Anyone interested in freedom should read as much as they can about the bills working through the House and Senate. They can be found online, though of course they are not easy to read. The authors don’t want us looking too close. That also means most members of Congress won’t be reading them either. Par for the course.

They call this “representative government”? This is what Joseph Schumpeter had in mind when called political representation a “sham.”

I would advise that no one believe the cost figures the Obama administration and the bills’ sponsors are throwing around. We know the real costs will be far higher. Read the history of Medicare for proof. Today Medicare has an unfunded liability of over $30 trillion.

I would further advise everyone to doubt all the promises about keeping your doctor and medical coverage. The fact is that all medical plans will have to comply with detailed government regulations or they will not qualify for tax exemption. All new policies will have to be bought through government-created “exchanges.” When the government’s own “insurance” plan puts the screws to its rivals and to doctors, they will leave the market and abandon their customers and patients. We’ll be stuck with either the government plan or “private” plans that ape it. Some choice. Some competition. What a cruel hoax on the American people. But they won’t realize it until it’s too late.

No, the alternative is not to do nothing, though that would be far better than what these cretins are about to do. The alternative is to free the market, deregulate top to bottom, and let freedom work for a change.

There is no free market in medical care or insurance. It’s about time we’ve had one.

When will these vain, power-lusting politicians leave us alone?

TGIF: Sotomayor, Freedom, and the Law

The dreary Senate hearing on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court left me so in the doldrums that my only chance for solace was to dig out my copy of Freedom and the Law (1961) by Bruno Leoni.

The rest of TGIF is here.

Novelist Gagged by Judge

The U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, two weeks ago issued a preliminary but indefinite injunction against publishing, distributing, or advertising of an "unauthorized sequel" to J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye titled 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye. The text of the preliminary injunction against Frederik Colting, writing as John David California, is here.

Everything hinges on whether California's book is deemed a parody. If so, it can go ahead. If not, it goes to the shredder. Seems like an odd task for a judge or jury.

Thus another demonstration that so-called intellectual property requires the suppression of freedom. Despite our proclaimed belief in freedom and the First Amendment, as things now stand you may not publish a novel about someone who seems to be the Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye. (The name does not appear in California's book.) Why? Because Salinger claims to "own" Holden Caulfield. Whatever the heck that means.

More on McNamara

I managed to avoid Vietnam, thank goodness. But for several years I was aware of the threat Robert McNamara's project posed to me and my generation. How do I feel about his death? I keep thinking that justice has eluded us. There was no chance in the world he could have suffered even to the slightest extent what was suffered by the people he helped send to the slaughter -- American and Vietnamese.

McNamara Gone

The establishment thinks Robert McNamara, who ran the Vietnam War for Lyndon Johnson, made amends by later directing the World Bank. Actually, he just found another way to make poor people suffer.

Happy 4th of July

The 4th of July is the appropriate time to contemplate what has happened to America. I've always thought this song by the band Steppenwolf did a great job of laying out the case. The song is really worth listening to.

"Monster/Suicide/America"

Words and music by John Kay, Jerry Edmonton,
Nick St. Nicholas and Larry Byrom

(Monster)
Once the religious, the hunted and weary
Chasing the promise of freedom and hope
Came to this country to build a new vision
Far from the reaches of kingdom and pope
Like good Christians, some would burn the witches
Later some got slaves to gather riches

But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light

And once the ties with the crown had been broken
Westward in saddle and wagon it went
And 'til the railroad linked ocean to ocean
Many the lives which had come to an end
While we bullied, stole and bought our a homeland
We began the slaughter of the red man

But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light

The blue and grey they stomped it
They kicked it just like a dog
And when the war over
They stuffed it just like a hog

And though the past has it's share of injustice
Kind was the spirit in many a way
But it's protectors and friends have been sleeping
Now it's a monster and will not obey

(Suicide)
The spirit was freedom and justice
And it's keepers seem generous and kind
It's leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they won't pay it no mind
'Cause the people grew fat and got lazy
And now their vote is a meaningless joke
They babble about law and order
But it's all just an echo of what they've been told
Yeah, there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watchin'

Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching

(America)
America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster

TGIF: Congress Declares Independence

What a difference a year can make. On July 6, 1775, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, issued the Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking Up Arms. Significantly, the document declared, "We have not raised armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain establishing independent states."

The rest of TGIF is here.

Walmart Unmasked

From the perceptive Megan McArdle at The Atlantic:

I find it hard to believe that none of the liberal commentators breathlessly celebrating Wal-Mart's "capitulation" on national health care have even entertained the most parsimonious explanation: that Wal-Mart is in favor of this because it raises the barriers to entry in the retail market, and hammers Wal-Mart's competition. Yet somehow, this appears nowhere in any of the analysis.

She wraps up: "All of which is to say, Bootleggers and Baptists should be required reading in all schools. When you find strange bedfellows in politics, don't look for a surprising outbreak of spontaneous virtue: looking [sic] for the hidden conspiracy."

More here.

Happy Independence Day!

On this day in 1776, the Second Continental Congress passed a resolution of independence, submitted by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, declaring that "these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and Independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."

Two days later, July 4, the Congress approved a document, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, intended to explain why independence was proper and necessary. We call that document the Declaration of Independence.

Re the Energy Bill

There's a rumor that the energy bill would require passing a government efficiency inspection of your home before you can sell it. I cannot find this in the 1,200 page bill. Does anyone know the section, subsection, etc.? Or is this right-wing agitprop?

Anarchism Can Fly!

The minarchist is like a scientist who insists a bumblebee cannot fly because it doesn't satisfy his theoretical criteria for that capability. That bumblebees do in fact fly apparently offers little ground for examing and revising the theory.

Similarly, minarchists insist that market competition in the "production" of law and security in theory cannot generate a peaceful, just, and efficient society. Like the scientist, they ignore the many examples of successful stateless relations in history and in our own time, and refuse to examine and revise their theory of where law comes from and how it is enforced.

(The apparently true story on scientists and the bumblebee is here.)

Anarchism: It's All in the Rules

Scratch a minarchist and you'll find someone who fundamentally does not understand social rules -- their organic origins in custom and mediation, their evolution, their power to induce compliance. Yes, it's as simple as that.

Op-ed: Obama the Health-Care Reformer Should Grow Up

Barack Obama insists he does not want the government to run the medical system. He insists that he wants only to fix what’s broken while leaving what works intact.

Taking him at his word, this is typical of Obama. His desires are a primary, things that can be achieved if only we want them badly enough. All that prevents fulfillment are the obstacles created by uncooperative, ideological, and perhaps evil people.

If Obama really believes this — and is not merely engaging in demagoguery (a strong possibility) — then he has the maturity of a child.

The rest of my latest FFF op-ed is here.

Farrah and Ayn

Call me a sentimental fool, but I like this story about the contact between Farrah Fawcette and Ayn Rand.

Hat tip: Brian Doherty.

Anarchists vs. Minarchists: The Defining Economic Difference

The crux of the economic difference between market anarchists and market minarchists is that the minarchists -- a priori -- find a market failure in the provision of law and security. Market anarchists do not. Considering that the minarchists embrace market theory in every other area, it seems they have the burden of showing why their own principles don't apply in those excepted areas. (It is significant that the first market anarchist we know of was an economist, Gustave de Molinari.)

Market anarchists have the theory, the history, and the moral philosophy. What's left?

TGIF: The Misrepresentation of Healthcare Reform

Why should the people get something through government–that is, at the point of a gun–simply because they want it?

The rest of TGIF is here.

"Kindle's DRM Rears Its Ugly Head"

Dan Cohen had a frustrating time with his Kindle and iPhone relating to DRM. He tells about it here and here.

The "bottom line":

You are able to redownload your books an unlimited number of times to any specific device.

Any one time the books can be on a finite number of devices. In most cases that means you can have the same book on six different devices.

Unfortunately the publishers decide how many licenses, that is devices, a book can be on at any one time. While most of the time that will be five or six different devices there will be times when it's only one device.

At the present time there is no way to know how many devices can be licensed prior to buying the book. [Emphasis added.]

I guess we shouldn't be surprised.

Cross-posted at Against Monopoly.

Shut Up about Iran

Here’s some advice for Barack Obama, John McCain, and any other U.S. politician who feels the urge to issue a declaration about the election in Iran: Shut up.

The rest of my latest FFF op-ed, "Shut Up about Iran," is here.

The Freeman, July-August 2009

IP Debate Breaks Out at FEE

At a recent FEE seminar, a debate over intellectual "property" broke out spontaneously among Ivan Pongracic (second from right), Paul Cwik (second from left), and me (left, where I belong). Who won?

A Palestinian State .... If

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the Palestinians can have their own country ... if, if, if, and if. See details here.

Reminds me of the story philosopher Norman Malcolm told about Wittgenstein:

When in very good spirits he would jest in a delightful manner. This took the form of deliberately absurd or extravagant remarks uttered in a tone, and with the mien, of affected seriousness. On one walk he "gave" me each tree that we passed, with the reservation that I was not to cut it down or do anything to it, or prevent the previous owners from doing anything to it: with those reservations they were henceforth mine.

Cross-posted at @TAC and Liberty & Power.

Economics Reporters Ignorant of Economics

I just watched David Mark of Politico say on MSNBC that there is no positive side to the closing of auto dealerships. No positive side? What about the freeing up of labor and resources for projects that will create -- rather than destroy -- value?

It is outrageous -- though hardly new -- that major news organizations have reporters covering economic news without knowing even the most basic concepts of economics -- such as scarcity!

Is ignorance of Bastiat's "broken window" fallacy that widespread?

Welcome to Post Office Health Care

America’s health-care system has problems — all traceable to government intervention — but it could be worse. And if the so-called reform emerging in Congress is enacted, it will be worse.

My latest Future of Freedom Foundation op-ed, "Welcome to Post Office Health Care," is here.

Bourne Updated

Health is the health of the State.

TGIF: Intellectual "Property" vs. Real Property

Intellectual “property” (IP) is a sleeper issue. It seems uncontroversial: Someone invents or writes something and therefore owns it. What could be plainer? But IP contains the power to destroy liberty.

The rest of TGIF is here.

Will the “Public Option” Be a Cutthroat Competitor?

President Obama says he doesn’t want the government to run health care. He just wants a “public option” to keep the private insurers “honest.” Imagine that: A government bureaucracy keeping someone else honest. Physician, heal thyself!

But would a public option keep insurers honest? People who dislike markets often spin horrifying scenarios about big companies engaging in cutthroat competition and predatory pricing to drive their rivals out of business. But none of these folks ever see this danger in government “enterprises.” A public option will have sources of revenue no private insurer has: captive taxpayers, the U.S. Treasury, and the Federal Reserve. Do you mean to tell me this won’t permit the government program to engage in cutthroat competition and predatory pricing against the private insusers? And let’s not forget that it will be government that dictates what products the private companies can sell.

Beware Politcians' Sweet-Talk about Healthcare Reform

President Obama had sugared words for those concerned that government healthcare "reform" will violate freedom of choice. He insisted that people happy with their insurance and their doctor will be free to stick with them.

What he didn't say is what those people should do when the government's tax-subsidized "public option" insurance program and price controls drive private insurers out of the market and doctors get fed up dealing with the government.

The Paper of Record

The New York Times headline about the shooter at the Holocaust Museum:

Museum Gunman a Longtime Foe of Government

Skousen Update

I have exchanged emails with Mark Skousen, and here's what he tells me:

1. Jim Davidson misstated his position.
2. He does not believe people who disagree should seriously fight it out.
3. He invited the offended vet, an ex-Marine, to argue with Doug Casey not at a FreedomFest but at a Blanchard Conference.
4. Mark also playfully invited them to Indian arm wrestle.
5. Doug did not win; it was a draw.
6. Davidson asked to speak at FreedomFest; Mark did not approach him.
7. The quote from an email that Mark sent Davidson is taken out of context.
   

On the quote, Mark's point makes sense. The quote says nothing about fighting: “The vet was expressing outrage by [sic] Doug in his insensitive comments about veterans, and that’s all. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

My apologies to Mark. Unless new revelations arise, I am through with this.

Mea Culpa

I still do not know the full story about Mark Skousen, Doug Casey, Jim Davidson, and the wrestling vet, the subject of the post below. But, and however the story comes out, I wish to apologize for posting before I contacted Skousen. That was wrong.

Stay tuned.

Sticks, Stones & Words Can Get Your a Thrashing at FreedomFest

Mark Skousen has a strange conception of libertarianism. He believes that a person may express his outrage physically against anyone who merely offends him, say, by writing an article that doesn't regard war vets as saints. Read the horrifying details at Roderick Long's Austro-Athenian Empire here.

Kirzner Speaks

Israel Kirzner, the eminent economist of the Austrian school, speaks about the morality of markets.

Beyond Efficiency from FEE on Vimeo.

Carson on Intellectual "Property"

I highly recommend Kevin Carson's "'Intellectual Property': A Libertarian Critique" (pdf), published by the Center for a Stateless Society. It is first-rate. So-called intellectual property is not just about rock bands "protecting" recordings. It's about big dinosaur corporations attempting to subordinate people through the control of ideas. This big issue will only get bigger in the near future, and much is at stake. Whether one realizes it or not, defense of patents and copyrights puts one on the side of the opponents of liberty.

TGIF: Regulation Red Herring

Most people believe that government must regulate the marketplace. The only alternative to a regulated market, the thinking goes, is an unregulated market. On first glance that makes sense.

The rest of TGIF, "Regulation Red Herring," is here.

"The Depoliticization of Law"

In my article "The Rule of Lore" I sought to draw attention to John Hasnas's great paper "The Myth of the Rule of Law." I now want to spotlight a later paper by Hasnas that expands on the first: "The Depoliticization of Law" (pdf). In it Hasnas makes clear that the rule of law is a myth only when the law is politicized through a monopoly lawmaker. But when law is the product of a depoliticized, competitive, and spontaneous customary and common-law system, it meets the criterion of a true rule of law; namely, it is a system in which people are subject to rules that evolve out of custom and market-based dispute resolution, rather than to the conscious will of a single person or group of legislators and politically appointed judges. Especially interesting is Hasnas's critique of consent-based law.

Highly recommended!

TGIF: The Rule of Lore

“This is a nation of laws not of men (and women).” We will be hearing a lot about that in the coming weeks.

The rest of TGIF, "The Rule of Lore," is here.

Revisionist History Day, 2009

Tomorrow is Revisionist History Day, what others call Memorial Day. In that spirit, I again quote a passage from the great antiwar movie The Americanization of Emily. This AP photo is a perfect illustration.

I don't trust people who make bitter reflections about war, Mrs. Barham. It's always the generals with the bloodiest records who are the first to shout what a Hell it is. And it's always the widows who lead the Memorial Day parades . . . we shall never end wars, Mrs. Barham, by blaming it on ministers and generals or warmongering imperialists or all the other banal bogies. It's the rest of us who build statues to those generals and name boulevards after those ministers; the rest of us who make heroes of our dead and shrines of our battlefields. We wear our widows' weeds like nuns and perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifices....

My brother died at Anzio – an everyday soldier’s death, no special heroism involved. They buried what pieces they found of him. But my mother insists he died a brave death and pretends to be very proud. . . . [N]ow my other brother can’t wait to reach enlistment age. That’ll be in September. May be ministers and generals who blunder us into wars, but the least the rest of us can do is to resist honoring the institution. What has my mother got for pretending bravery was admirable? She’s under constant sedation and terrified she may wake up one morning and find her last son has run off to be brave. [Emphasis added.]

Enjoy the day. I'll spend some of it reading the truth about the warfare state (Chalmers Johnson's Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic) and, I hope, watching Emily. Oh, and if there's time (I have to lecture today at the first FEE seminar), I'll begin Jeff Riggenbach's new book, Why American History Is Not What They Say: An Introduction to Revisionism.

I have belatedly learned that the best scene in Emily is online:

The State Is Still the Main Evil

Christopher Preble is right. Terrorism is bad, but it can't come close to the destruction that governments have wrought. "Cures" CAN be worse than the diseases they address.

The casualties caused by international terrorist incidents since September 11, 2001, and the prospects for future casualties, pale in comparison to the death and destruction that took place between August 1914 and November 1918, and again between September 1939 and August 1945.

The violence and bloodshed that can be deployed by non-state actors is an order of magnitude smaller than what could be caused by even a medium-size modern industrial state.

Can it even be compared with the Cold War, which claimed far fewer lives but lasted nearly five times longer than the two world wars combined? Again, no.

See more.

Neocons Happy with Obama

Neocon Charles Krauthammer thinks we're witnessing "Obama in Bush Clothing." He's happy about that. Teaser:

If hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue, then the flip-flops on previously denounced anti-terror measures are the homage that Barack Obama pays to George Bush. Within 125 days, Obama has adopted with only minor modifications huge swaths of the entire, allegedly lawless Bush program.

And David Brooks points out that even Obama's better positions (Guantanamo, torture) were embraced by Bush as time wore on. It's not Bush-Cheney versus Obama. It's Bush-Obama versus Cheney.

Preventive Detention

It wouldn't be the first US preventive detention. Remember the so-called mentally ill, the forgotten victims of the (therapeutic) state.

Obama's Betrayals

It was said during the presidential campaign that one of the candidates was running for George W. Bush’s third term. Did you think it was Obama?

Read the rest of "Obama's Betrayals" at The Future of Freedom Foundation site here.

TGIF: Medical Misunderstanding

Economic illiteracy will be hazardous to your health.

The rest of TGIF is here.

"Prolonged Detention"

Read Obama's speech carefully. He promises a regime that will allow him to hold people without charge or trial -- indefinitely. He calls it "prolonged detention." He says it won't be one man's decision, but that is not the issue. The issue is preventive detention. Scary. Think of what that means -- holding people not for what they've done (after charge and property trial) but for what they're expected to do. So much for Obama the civil libertarian.

Chris Matthews Makes a Fool of Himself Again

Chris "Nerf Ball" Matthews tonight had two politicians -- not scientists -- debate global warming. The Democrat, James Moran, says it's a catastrophe in the making and human beings are causing it. The Republican, Dana Rohrabacher, says it's a natural occurrence.

Why didn't Matthews have scientists doing the debating? Simple. If he had scientists on, it would have wrecked his contention that Republicans are skeptics about global warming for the same reason they are skeptics about evolution: Their religion makes them suspicious of science and the scientific method. For Matthews this is a culture/religion thing. Rohrabacher tried to rebut that claim by making scientific arguments and citing scientists in his defense, but Matthews was too busy laughing and patting himself on the back to hear.

He thinks this is good news programing?

The CIA Wouldn't Lie!

I find it hilarious that the right-wing of the War Party is so up in arms over the suggestion that the CIA might lie to a member of Congress. Seriously, does this even need a comment? (Not that Nancy Pelosi can't be lying this round.)

Murder in Afghanistan

Read eyewitness accounts of U.S. airstrikes in Granai, Afghanistan, last week. Imagine yourself in that village. This is what the U.S. government does in our name. Who isn't sickened by what's going on? What now, Obama? He withholds torture pictures for fear of inflaming anti-American sentiment, yet he does this. (See Glenn Greenwald.) Whom does this protect? How long will the "progressives" stick with him?

I'm sure we can count on some "libertarians" and Objectivists to say, "But the Taliban fight among the civilian population. They use human shields. They are responsible for the deaths of innocents."

Or maybe they can no longer say those things without embarrassment. Let's hope so.

Paine on War and Taxes

War is the common harvest of all those who participate in the division and expenditure of public money, in all countries. It is the art of conquering at home; the object of it is an increase of revenue; and as revenue cannot be increased without taxes, a pretence must be made for expenditure. In reviewing the history of the English Government, its wars and its taxes, a bystander, not blinded by prejudice nor warped by interest, would declare that taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on taxes.

--Thomas Paines, The Rights of Man

"Among the Several States"

Just to report a bit further on my reading of William Crosskey: he presents overwhelming evidence that "among the several states," a key phrase in the Constitution's Commerce Clause, meant "among the people of the several states" and that an exclusively interstate meaning was almost certainly not intended. For example, he provides quotations from literate people at the time who referred to the duty of government to promote peace or tranquility or happiness "among the several states." The contexts of these quotations indicate that these could not have been meant to exclude intrastate peace or tranquility or happiness. In fact, in one example a delegate to the Constitutional Convention lamented that although Congress in the Confederation period "was intended to be a body to preserve peace among the states," it was not authorized to suppress Shays' Rebellion, an entirely intrastate affair.

Moreover, Crosskey provides countless quotations showing that the word "state" itself more often than not meant the people of a state. This was apparently the default meaning; other senses of the word seemed to require specification. Thus "among the several states" would have meant "among the people of the several states." This, again, is inconsistent with a strictly interstate reading of the Commerce Clause.

The upshot is that the Commerce Clause was not likely to have been intended as a limit on the power of Congress to regulate commerce. It's unfortunate, but the facts are the facts. Hiding from them does us no good.

Today's Offerings

FEE TGIF -- "The Bankers' Bank": the origins and ruling-class nature of the Fed.

FFF Op-ed -- "Liberty Creates Order": demolishing David Brooks's false alternative.

Shame on You, Jon Stewart

Shame on Jon Stewart, host of "The Daily Show," for his cowardly apology for calling Harry Truman a war criminal. If dropping atomic bombs on two militarily irrelevant cities, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent and defenseless men, women, and children doesn't earn the perpetrator the label "war criminal," I don't see how Bush, Cheney, et al. deserve the label. Shame on you, Jon Stewart. Some edgy, renegade social critic you turned out to be.

See the appalling display here. And read Justin Raimondo's appropriate denunciation here.

Constitutional Question of the Day

(Full disclosure: I probably won't be able to do this everyday.)

Articles of Confederation, Article II. Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.

Constitution, Amendment X: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Are these significantly different? If so, why?

Constitutional Question of the Day

Where in these words does it state that the national government may regulate only interstate commerce?

The Congress shall have Power ... To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

I know it's been interpreted that way since about 1808 (not 1789), but why? Does the text actually support that interpretation and no other?

U.S. Housing/Finance Policy

From the ridiculous to the subprime.

Calling a Spade a Spade

War: the ultimate shovel-ready project.

TGIF: Of, By, and For the Elite

The New York Times pulled back the curtain this week to give readers a rare glimpse at the workings of a political-economy essentially run by a ruling elite. Anyone who thinks representative democracy can’t coexist with rule by a political class is in for a surprise. The clique need not control everything. The pervasive money and banking industries are more than enough.

The rest of this week's TGIF, "Of, By, and For the Elite," is here.

Systemically Risky

I have more to say about government as a systemic risk here at the Future of Freedom Foundation website. A teaser:

The Obama administration and congressional leaders assure us that the government can protect us from the “systemic risk” posed by big banks, insurance companies, and hedge funds.

But who will protect us from the government?

Aye, Matey!

I could not be more enthusiastic in recommending Jesse Walker's explanation of what's going on with Somalia and piracy. Read it here and learn.

Credit-Card Deform

Beware the unintended consequences of the "Credit Card Holders' Bill of Rights," which could pass the House this week. Even assuming the best of intentions, the proposed restrictions (like usury laws) would make it harder for lower-income people or those with weak credit records to use credit cards. This wouldn't reduce their debt; it would only encourage a switch to inferior forms of debt. I hate defending the banks since they are not free-market firms but rather part of a state-banking cartel. But this is no way to address whatever credit-card problems exist. Even in the current context, banks compete for credit-card customers, and people shop around aggressively. (I've transferred balances at zero-interest often in the past.) The alleged obligations attached to TARP money are irrelevant if the new regulations would harm people.

Torture

Of course those who ordered and carried out torture should be prosecuted for criminal wrongdoing. Enough said.

TGIF: Boomerang: Government and Systemic Risk

If you’re not careful when throwing a boomerang, it could come around and hit you in the back of the neck. Politicians and bureaucrats should learn the same lesson when touting their supposedly indispensable role in safeguarding the country’s economic security. If you look closely, you find that they are the biggest source of the very dangers they presume to protect us from.

Read the rest of TGIF here.

Do They Get to Change Their Votes

The top U.S. trade official said it isn't necessary to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, despite a campaign promise by President Barack Obama to strengthen the pact's labor and environmental provisions.

--Wall Street Journal

I didn't like Barack Obama's protectionist appeals during the campaign, but shouldn't those who did get to change their votes? Oh, that's right. Unlike in the market, there are no refunds or exchanges in the democratic realm.

End the Cuban Embargo!

Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro have nothing to talk about. While they do their diplomatic dance, the Cuban people are suffering because of the American trade embargo. It should end forthwith. The idea that trade between Americans and Cubans must await an American president’s say-so is an insult to anyone who aspires to be free.

The rest of the op-ed is here.

Keynesian Cons

My latest article in The American Conservative is here. A teaser:

Indeed, you would be hard-pressed to find a conservative who admits to being an orthodox Keynesian, conservatives having joined the Church of the Supply Side many years ago. But though Keynesianism tends to be associated with big-government “liberalism”—in its original form, liberalism stood for small government in all realms—many who take Keynes’s approach to economics are nevertheless self-identified conservatives. In practice, “conservative Keynesian” is not a contradiction in terms.

The Real Debate

The foreign-policy debate shouldn't be unilateralism vs. multilateralism, but interventionism vs. noninterventionism.

Government Spending Is No Cure for Recession

Mario Rizzo debunks the claim that government spending is as good economically as private spending here. Definitely worth reading.

What Is to Be Done?

From FEE on Vimeo. Western New England College, March 2009

Taxation with Misrepresentation

It’s tax season. Consider what that means. It’s the time of year when you must account for yourself to the government. You must report every dime you earned last year, and if you believe any of it should be beyond the state’s grasp, you’d better have the proof. If the government withheld more of your money than (you think) the rules require, it is your burden to prove that. You then must submit the official paperwork by a certain time. If the authorities are not satisfied with what you submit, they will demand that you prove you’ve done it right. If you can’t, you’ll have to do it their way and pay more. Should you refuse to comply with any of these requirements — and a lot more no one understands — the government has the power to make your life hell and impose additional financial burdens. It can even imprison you.

And all in a country most people would swear is free.

See the rest of my op-ed here.

TGIF: Bad Regulation Drives Out Good

In 1969 economist Harold Demsetz identified an important flaw in much public policy analysis, the “Nirvana Fallacy.” We would do well to keep it in mind as we think about solutions to the current economic problems.

The rest of TGIF is here.

Executive Privilege

I see Barack Obama has one-upped George W. Bush in his defense of executive autocracy by invoking both state secrets and sovereign immunity against people suing the government over Bush's warrantless wiretapping. Well, what's the point of being president if you're not going to have all those cool executive powers Bush accumulated?

Kevin Carson has a good comment here.

Beware Systemic Threats

The current push for a regulatory dictatorship over the financial industry is based on the principle that we must keep on a tight leash any organization whose activities are so pervasive and consequential that its potential for misjudgment stands as a “systemic threat.”

Isn’t that the case for strictly limiting the government?

The G(rasping)-20

We expected little of sense to come out of the G-20 summit, and it met our expectations with flying colors.

The rest of TGIF is here.

The Freeman, April 2009

On the Glenn Beck Show Today

Topic: Is it Fascism or Socialism?

Walmart: Yea or Nay?

Good discussion about Walmart going on over at Austro-Athenian Empire, one of my favorite places to hang out on the Net. Have a look. We don't know exactly how things would be in a laissez-faire economy, but I tend to think big companies like Walmart have a corporate-state advantage over smaller and yet-to-be-founded companies. I don't care that Walmart might look the same in a free(d) market. What matters is why it is in its current state. If a billionaire made his money through state advantage, no libertarian would say, "It doesn't matter because a guy that smart would be a billionaire in the free market anyway."