The Free Market versus Racism
Had an interesting conversation with the wife tonight while watching the College episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit. She suggested that diversity experts were useless, a nonsense creation of the PC movement because most people would prefer to maintain the status quo and make sure that people aren’t uncomfortable in a situation.
I think that’s a fair assessment. I’d go a step further and contend that in the absence of government intervention, people’s prejudices probably won’t ever go far.
Granted, that’s a pretty sizable caveat: human history is filled with one group finding pretense under the law for legalizing their discrimination. In America, we’ve seen legalized slavery, separate but equal discrimination, and long train of additional abuses. But I’d bet that that’s more a function of the government having too much power to legislate discrimination than it is the populace being too discriminatory.
When you’re talking about a system where people are solely dedicated to chasing that dollar, I’d wager that discrimination would all but disappear nearly immediately. What profit is there in offending potential clientèle? What does one stand to gain by publicizing their racism?
Ultimately (and this may be the free market idealist in me), I’m of the belief that the profit motive would quickly kill any desire to discriminate. I’m not so naïve to believe that hate or racism or discrimination would up and disappear; I simply am suggesting that when there’s a buck on the line, people would in most situations shut their trap and extend their good or service to the widest possible consumer base.
Racism only has power when there’s a state which can enforce it. When the government can enforce separate but equal, when it legislates servitude, we see an ugly side of history. Absent that state — or rather, in the presence of a state which is committed only to providing equal protection under the law (such that all men, being created equal, have equal opportunity to make and spend money) — what’s the point?
Zombie James Madison will kill us all…
He's coming to get you, Barbara.
…if we don’t get the General Welfare clause under control. He will rise from the dead. And he will eat our brains.
That’s my theory after reading this, which argues for the constitutionality of health care reform on several stunningly wrong platforms: that our only hope is for Zombie James Madison to kill us all for being just so mindbogglingly dumb. Among those platforms…
The individual mandate is a tax. Does it serve the general welfare? The constitutional test is whether Congress could reasonably conclude that its taxing and spending programs promote the general welfare of the country. This test is easily satisfied.
Well, that was simple. General welfare means anything at all we want it to! What’s that, James Madison?
It has been urged and echoed, that the power “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,” amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction.
He goes on to say, “if we didn’t say anything else Article 1, Section 8, you might have a flimsy case to decide that General Welfare means you can do whatever you want. But we did.” And then he lays the real smack down…
But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars.
And then for good measure, there’s this question, which is now more stupidly relevant than ever:
what would have been thought of that assembly, if, attaching themselves to these general expressions, and disregarding the specifications which ascertain and limit their import, they had exercised an unlimited power of providing for the common defense and general welfare?
In other words, why in the name of all that is holy would we throw off such Government and provide new Guards for their future security AND THEN GIVE THEM THE SAME ABSOLUTE POWER THEY ESCAPED? Forgive the yelling, but COME ON.
When it’s all said and done, the General Welfare clause, according to the guy who wrote it, is explained and enumerated in the same sentence it appears in. It’s separated by a freaking semicolon, Madison says, so finish reading the damn sentence:
To borrow money on the credit of the United States; To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Which part of the general welfare clause, Jack M. Balkin, J.D., Ph.D., is easily satisfied by the individual mandate? Which part of the actual words of the constitution give you unlimited power to do whatever you want?
Ultimately, Jack M. Balkin, J.D., Ph.D., you fail at reading comprehension. And I hope Zombie James Madison comes for you first.
Stunningly Useless
As the Washington Post editorializes, the National Broadband Plan, issued forth last week by the FCC, has set its sights on…well, on doing what was already going to happen without their help:
BY THE Federal Communications Commission’s own account, broadband use in the United States has exploded over the past decade: “Fueled primarily by private sector investment and innovation, the American broadband ecosystem has evolved rapidly. The number of Americans who have broadband at home has grown from eight million in 2000 to nearly 200 million last year.”
So it is curious that the FCC’s newly released National Broadband Plan faults the market for failing to “bring the power and promise of broadband to us all” — in reality, some 7 million households unable to get broadband because it is not offered in their areas. Such an assessment — and the call for government intervention to subsidize service for rural or poor communities — is premature, at best.
Having just finished writing a term paper on this for my Masters program, I can speak somewhat lucidly about how stunningly useless the FCC’s interference actually is: with absolutely no intervention from the government, the FCC estimated that 90% of households would have broadband access by 2013. FiOS is growing, Google is getting in on the Fiber to the Home game, LTE is slated to bring mobile download speeds of up to 50Mbps to increasing areas in the near future…
So obviously, the private networks which are on pace to grow broadband access from 65% to 90% in the next three years must receive government grants. The government must step in do something.
Here’s the thing: by the FCC’s own analysys, it would take $350 billion to provide truly universal broadband access. That’s about a bajillion times larger than the $7.2 billion Congress gave the FCC to get the project done, which means there’s about 0.0% chance the plan will involve building infrastructure, which means that the money that is going to be taxed and spent is going to be on subsidies for satellite “broadband,” which means there’s absolutely no incentive to expand mobile or fiber internet in those areas through existing or emerging technologies.
Is there a better way to stifle innovation than by government intrusion? And for what, bragging rights?
This must be what going mad feels like.
(Hat tip on the WashPost editorial to Becky Chandler’s Twitter feed.)
Everything old is new again
But this modern world, modern civilization, does exist only where men have been, for a short two centuries, free from these ancient state tyrannies, called controls. Free thought, free speech, free action, and freehold property are the source of the modern world. It cannot exist without them. Its existence depends upon abolishing these reactionary state controls and destroying the socialist State.
The task before Americans is to end these police-controls of peaceful, productive American citizens, to repeal all the reactionary legislation and rescind the Executive orders that established the national socialist regime, to abolish the Federal corporations, departments, bureaus and agencies that dictate and enforce these State controls, to return three million Federal tax-eaters to useful, tax-paying work, to release American farmers from Bismarck’s socialization and to lift from American industrial workers the burden of Bismarck’s Sozialpolitik, called here “Social Security,” and to require men in public office to recognize again every American’s natural right, as a free person, to own and sow and reap his own land, to manage and to profit or lose by his own business enterprise, to own and to save or spend his own money, to join or not to join a labor union, to sign or not to sign a contract, to choose his own work and to do his own bargaining for wages earned or paid, either individually or as a member of any group of other free men.
No politician, yet, has asked American voters to give him the power to strip any State of the powers it has usurped from its citizens, nor to strip the Federal Government of the powers it has usurped from the States; to restore the rights of the citizens, the rights and powers of the States, and the political structure of this Union of States; nor to add to the original list of restrictions upon political power – the list known as the Bill of Rights – further restrictions that will adequately protect the property, liberty and lives of persons living in the modern world and make the United States again the world-champion of human rights and the leaders of the world-liberating revolution.
The Americans who already are undertaking this task, and will do it, are individuals – the individual who is called “nothing” and patronized as “the little man” in Germany, and as “the common man” here, the individual who makes and re-makes the world.
Just finished reading Rose Wilder Lane’s Give Me Liberty. Do yourself a favor and make time to read it.
RC’s Iron Laws
I’ve gone hunting for these too many times to count, so I’m posting them here for posterity. My thanks to reason commenter R C Dean:
- You get more of what you reward and less of what you punish.
- Money and power will always find each other.
- If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.
- The less you know about something, the easier it looks.
- You aren’t free unless you are free to be wrong.
- Me today, you tomorrow.
- Foreseeable consequences are not unintended.
Originally discovered at reason, but looks like it originated at samizdata.
On Selfishness
A friend of mine recently quipped on Facebook that opponents of health care reform were selfish, and that such selfishness was the height of irony coming from Christians.
Granted, this was an internet argument. It’s dumb of me to even care, much less address. But I figure there’s a question behind the question that needs to be answered: are libertarians selfish?
The ethos he is following was Marx’s: from each according to ability and to each according to need. (Not in some secret socialist way, either…he actually quoted the line directly.) It’s a core tenant of socialism: everyone contributes, everyone benefits. And with that as your jumping-off point, I suppose anything else would seem selfish. When the greater good of society is paramount, what use do we have for any individual liberty?
Which is why I suppose people of this mindset believe their rights are derived from government. If government is the source of rights, surely it has the ability to take them away in order to benefit society.
And somewhere in here, I think, is what Paine described in Common Sense:
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil in its worst state an intolerable one…
This friend of mine is no different than the 18th century writer longing for the King’s gentle guidance. He wants the fatherly hand of government to wipe away society’s ills, to remove all needs, to fix all problems.
But we don’t live in that world. We don’t live in a world where rights are granted by the government, but where government itself is created by the people for the people. Our rights on Earth are inherent and inalienable, endowed by our Creator. Government exists not to give us rights — we have them by default.
That expansive liberty comes with pitfalls, for sure. It comes with the ability to fail, to lose everything and suffer the consequences of poor choices. But it also comes with the freedom to succeed, to follow dreams and acquire the things and relationships that can make us content — to pursue happiness. When we remove rights, when we invite government to dole out rights, to take away consequences, to distribute wealth with more equality, we destroy the ability to pursue what makes us happy. What is more selfish than to make life not worth living?
To the original question — are libertarians selfish? — my answer is no, not in this world. We are selfish in a world only where government is the source of rights, only in a world where freedom is granted and not endowed, only in a world without the ability to succeed.
I don’t root for failure, I don’t care to see people suffer; but these are my burdens, not society’s. And in a world where I have the freedom to succeed or fail, I also have the ability to take care of a downtrodden friend.
That’s the power of individual liberty: my life is mine to lead, in whatever manner I think best. Taking that God-given right away from people is true, fully-embodied selfishness.