Libertoids
Okay, let’s think this out a little bit.
I think there’s a good case to be made that taxing people to protect the Earth from an asteroid, while within Congress’s powers, is an illegitimate function of government from a moral perspective. I think it’s O.K. to violate people’s rights (e.g. through taxation) if the result is that you protect people’s rights to some greater extent (e.g. through police, courts, the military). But it’s not obvious to me that the Earth being hit by an asteroid (or, say, someone being hit by lightning or a falling tree) violates anyone’s rights; if that’s so, then I’m not sure I can justify preventing it through taxation.
An impending catastrophe – asteroid strike – threatens to kill everyone in the society. That doesn’t violate anyone’s “rights” because you don’t have a “right to life” but rather a right not to have your life taken away by somebody else against your will. Therefore, the government has no right to tax you to protect you – and everybody else – from the asteroid.
So how is the asteroid to be stopped?
Presumably, everyone in society would agree voluntarily to cooperate to stop the asteroid. That is to say: we could still have collective action, but it would have to be voluntary, not coerced.
But would everyone participate?
The government goes around, passing the hat for contributions to stop the asteroid. A certain percentage of people, though, don’t believe in asteroids. Another percentage believe that the asteroid will bring the Rapture and so must not be stopped. These people are crazy, though, and crazy people are not interesting to talk about. Let’s hope there aren’t too many and ignore them.
Some people, though, notice that there are wealthier people than them in the society, and figure those other people should shoulder the burden of saving society. These are the “free-riders.”
Now, so long as this group is relatively small, no problem. Enough people will still put up enough money to stop the collective catastrophe. But so long as that is the case, free-riding is the economically rational thing to do. Indeed, in any large enough society, free-riding is always the rational thing to do: in a society with enough people putting up enough money voluntarily to stop the asteroid, free-riding is costless; in a society without enough such people, contributing is pointless.
The salvation of this ultra-libertarian society, then, depends upon the existence of a sufficient number of irrationally self-sacrificing people, people who ignore their rational self-interest in order to procure a social good for the group, without regard for the amount of “free riding” going on around them.
On the assumption – which I don’t think is pushing it at all – that there are a whole lot of communal problems that require collective action to address, libertarianism is only practical in highly communitarian societies.
I don’t know that that’s a knock-down argument against libertarianism. Wikipedia is a highly communitarian activity that grew up in a highly libertarian environment (the Internet), and most of the world is free-riding.
But it’s worth stressing nonetheless, because libertarians tend to talk as if rationality will lead to the necessary level of cooperation. But it won’t. In any case of communal threat where attempted free-riders cannot independently exposed to the threat, while contributors are protected, the rational thing to do is free-ride.
I suppose this could be an interesting thought experiment, but I can’t get past the concept that taxation violates anyone’s rights. Taxation without representation? Sure. A society forcing you to pay taxes while denying you the right to exit that society? I’ll buy that. But for a willing citizen in a democratic civilization to regard paying taxes as a violation of their rights, that’s just loony. A system or form of taxation may be bad, but a violation of your rights?
Mike
— MBunge · Feb 15, 10:13 PM · #
Rights, schmights.
— Matt Frost · Feb 15, 10:25 PM · #
Hey, legless orphans have the right to eat. If we tax people to pay for their food, that’s the real tyranny!
— Freddie · Feb 15, 10:40 PM · #
This isn’t right:
“The salvation of this ultra-libertarian society, then, depends upon the existence of a sufficient number of irrationally self-sacrificing people, people who ignore their rational self-interest in order to procure a social good for the group, without regard for the amount of “free riding” going on around them.”
It isn’t irrational: they’re going to die, and presumably it is rational to spend any amount you have in order to live.
And of course, libertarians will often grant that it is important to have social norms against free-riding. They just don’t want to force people not to do it.
You also have a very anemic view of rationality. Kant argued-and many agree-that a real reason is universalizable: it would have to be a reason for anyone in similar circumstances. Since everyone can’t free-ride, I don’t have a real reason to free-ride. I just have an incentive.
Of course many libertarians will accept your anemic view of rationality. But it’s worth pointing out.
— John 4 · Feb 16, 12:17 AM · #
“Since everyone can’t free-ride, I don’t have a real reason to free-ride. I just have an incentive.”
It’s arguments like that which remind us there comes a point where even great minds like Kant need to stop trying to square a circle.
Kant – “You don’t have a reason to do that, only an incentive.”
Everybody else – “Wha?”
Mike
— MBunge · Feb 16, 12:39 AM · #
The analogy is interesting but it doesn’t seem to knock the particular hole in libertarianism that you say it does. I mean, the end of the world is sort of a singularity: as I understand the libertarian argument about rationality it has to do with finding the optimal path over some parameter space given some kind of quasi-continuous fitness function. You’ve got a case where there is no really good model.
In fact I suspect libertarianism and all kinds of other political philosophies will look terrible under this test: screw liberalism, conservatism, Marxism, and all them other -isms, when you’re looking at the rapidly-approaching well-understood we’ve-got-a-solution end of the world, the -ism you want is fascism. I want dudes with guns being sent out telling all you motherfuckers where to stand and what button to press when to keep the damn meteor away, and beating the necessary cash out of anyone who doesn’t pony up. But I don’t really see that as an argument for fascism in general..
[to be honest that’s not what I want either — let it crash, sez I: I like the idea that it’s some other species’ turn.]
— Kieselguhr Kid · Feb 16, 01:39 AM · #
The Dispossed by Ursula K Leguin is all about how libertarianism (anarchy) requires both society wide communitarianism plus an vast array of ridged social norms that force people to be communitarian. I think it is a pretty good depiction of the issues. It is also interesting how closely her anarchy resembles some aspects of soviet style communism.
The solution to the dilema in the book is basically permanent revolution: i.e. individuals who are willing to risk everything to buck the social norms. But in your thought experiment the people bucking social norms would be the tax decliners, who in your examples are basically the free riders/bad guys.
So the problem with permanent revolution is that everyone has thier own personal revoloution, i.e. Timothy McVeigh or the tea partiers. A military coup could also be considered a revolution.
It is most interesting to me that we are still discussing whether libertarianism actually makes sense. I think we just have to ask ourselves, has there ever been a libertarian society? I’m not totally sure but I’m pretty sure the answer is no.
— cw · Feb 16, 01:58 AM · #
I think your presumption that donating is irrational is wrong. Say it costs X to stop the asteroid. At the least, donating is rational up to the point where it is a certainty that X will be raised.
And that’s just as far as survival goes. There are also social benefits. Won’t you think more highly of someone wearing the asteroid-colored wristband? What price the memories of the time you saved the Earth from frightening destruction by going to the “Kicking Asteroid” megaconcert with Hootie and the Blowfish and Matisyahu? Would Larry Ellison front the money if he could make Bill Gates look bad? Signs point to yes!
— CTD · Feb 16, 02:33 AM · #
“libertarianism is only practical in highly communitarian societies”
That’s one point Heinlein made emphatically in “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress” — workable libertarianism requires an extremely high degree of neighborliness.
— Steve Sailer · Feb 16, 03:05 AM · #
I agree with CTD that it likely wouldn’t be that hard to get a big insurance company like Prudential to sponsor, say, a $10 million per year astronomical project to map potentially dangerous asteroids and comets in return for the marketing rights.
— Steve Sailer · Feb 16, 03:09 AM · #
Why don’t you use a scarier example than the one of an asteriod destroying the earth? Why don’t you postulate the onset of rule by university and celebrity leftists. That will concentrate people’s attention on the problem.
The first one can be ignored because when it happens we’ll all be dead. We’ll all be dead sooner or later anyway. But the second one will mean some of us will be unfortunate enough to have to live out a hellish existence for long enough to be conscious of it.
— The Reticulator · Feb 16, 03:36 AM · #
Would Larry Ellison front the money if he could make Bill Gates look bad? Signs point to yes!
We have a winner.
— The Reticulator · Feb 16, 03:41 AM · #
An America ruled by Noam Chomsky and Leonardo DiCaprio seens a fair bit less likely than a deadly asteroid. The dinosaurs weren’t killed by post-modernism, you know.
— Pithlord · Feb 16, 06:46 AM · #
CW: I think we just have to ask ourselves, has there ever been a libertarian society? I’m not totally sure but I’m pretty sure the answer is no.
Once upon a time I made a graph that showed how libertarianism was like communism, and how they were both unlike free-market conservatism. The graph was lost in an internet move several years ago. But on the x axis it showed the degree of libertarianism/communism as a percent of fulfillment, with values from 0 to 100 percent. The Y axis was an indication of human misery-happiness, with values ranging from pure hell to nirvana.
The data were based on listening to internet communists/libertarians. When you talk about the misery produced by their ideologies, they explain that’s because they’ve never been tried.
So the graph shows that the more that communism or libertarianism is tried, the greater the human misery. At 50 percent, life is getting pretty bad. By 99 percent we have pure hell. But at 100 percent of implementation, the world becomes a wonderful place — pure joy, ecstasy, peace, etc.
Free-market conservatism never reaches either of those extremes. But in the middle ranges, at least, more is somewhat better than less.
Mind you, despite their similarities I have voted for libertarians occasionally, and never for communists. In the last three presidential elections I voted for whatever buffoons the Libertarians were running. I don’t remember their names, but it doesn’t matter. They’re all clowns. But it was better than voting for the corrupt fascists and morons that the Democrats and Republicans have been running, some of whom had a chance of winning.
— The Reticulator · Feb 16, 03:07 PM · #
Never mind, all y’all are wrong,it turns out people can probably get money when they need it for pretty much anything even in sorta broke polities.
— Kieselguhr KId · Feb 16, 11:51 PM · #
Glad to see Kant make an appearance. But he recognizes that selfish incentives are real reasons, real as all get out. They’re just not “pure” reasons, which he argues means that they can’t be a source of obligation.
— matt · Feb 17, 01:51 AM · #
1) There seems something a bit unrealistic about debating a theory of liberalism that few actual libertarians would espouse. Most libertarians I read want a society that is substantially more free that the current status quo, but I don’t read many people who think that all government taxes are illegitimate. Radical pacifism is refutable the same way, but that’s not necessarily relevant to real-world pacism.
2) In this specific case, Noah’s letting the words “rational” and “irrational” do a lot of work for him. Wasn’t the last nobel prize in economics given for work on ways people organize themselves around communal problems? In this specific case, you might see glory or shame arise. Also, if the problem of free riding was so substantial as to prevent a project that was certain to save the human race from extinction, one easy way to solve the problem would be with a subscription model – if you authorize a $500 credit card deduction, we’ll take it, but only once we have enough subscribers to save the world. There would still be an incentive to free ride, but you would have to balance that against the possibility that your decision might lead to global annihilation.
— J Mann · Feb 18, 07:24 PM · #
Ok, so this is a lovely example of reductio ad absurdum, to what purpose I am not sure, but it sure seems like an attack on libertarianism. An interesting bit of navel gazing, but completely lacking in a realistic expectation of occurring, or as an example of some other libertarian, free-riding bugaboo.
Pure libertarianism and pure communism have never been, and I predict will never be, seen in human civilization. On the continuum that exists from libertarianism to communism, with grades of free market conservatism between, our societies have vacillated among the middle spaces. Free riders are a worrisome concern mainly for those at the socialism/communism end of the scale, and is one of their arguments for totalitarianism.
As for Larry Ellison, Bill Gates is no longer on his radar.
— s walsh · Feb 19, 01:54 PM · #
I’ll consent to taxation for collective action against asteroid strikes and on front-lawn decor regulations. Maybe traffic laws. But don’t forget I decided to let you decide. Or else I’ll take my chances with the rapture.
— Walker Frost · Feb 20, 04:15 AM · #