TheAvowedAnarchist: 2007

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Check out my Anarchist website!

Come here and post in my forum :P
http://AnarchoCapitalism.zakyoung.com/

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Further debate on FDA between idiot and anarchist

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Have you not heard before of scientists passing judgement on other scientists' findings?

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Usually when that happens, the judges attempt to reproduce the findings.

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Excuse me, what?

I guess that takes care of the peer review process. Ah well.

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You admit the FDA doesn't reproduce anything, they just review data. In the "real" scientific world, when a scientist claims X, other scientists try to reproduce X. That's how cold fusion was found to be bogus. Nobody could reproduce it.

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I already told you: The main problem is not obviously qualified pilots or obviously unqualified pilots (we are using airplane pilots as an example) -- but people who are neither obviously qualified nor obviously unqualified, as pilots.

Get it yet ?

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Got it. And why is government magically better at this task than anyone else?

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Also, I already told you that the process of sorting the lot through an AC, "free-market", free-for-all "process" would be costly in every sense of the word.

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How is government magically able to do this cheaper? What's the special sauce?

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Why would road ownership be divided up into small chunks of a mile or less?

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Why would it not ?

Are you suggesting some kinda government law (the horror! ) that would impose a minimum of "private road ownership" of, say, fifty miles ?...

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No, I don't see any reason to assume that people are going to have an interest in developing a one-mile stretch of road between two other one-mile stretches of road. Efficiencies suggest that if you're going to go through all the trouble of building a road, you'll build more than one mile. Of course, some people might, in certain situations, choose to build a one-mile road.

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BTW, I read your blather about my supposedly devious debating tacticts and it's unworthy of a response. Try and concentrate on the issue: You think the reason that most public roads are ..well, public has something to do with ...tyranny or something, and it's not just a matter of obvious, elementary practicality? Then prove it. History is against you.

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So it's impractical to have roads with different owners every mile. Therefore, the alternative to government owning all roads is to have different owners every mile. What an argument.

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What part exactly don't you understand abt using a second tier of scientists (who are *not* working for the manufacturer) to help me make up my mind abt drug XYZ which the manufacturers' scientists claim it's good for me?

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Where have I said you should be prevented from getting expert opinions?

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But I forgot that the very notion of peer review is alien to you. Alright. Explain to me then how an "anarcho"-capitalist would go about choosing a drug (just think of the situation as an emergency) amongst many choices without any information at all from an outside scientific agency such as the FDA? You have drug "Cheapodrix", "Toxicalgine" and "Placebol" to choose from and the kid is trmebling from a fever.

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Who said you can't get any information? The alternative to government-supplied information is no information.

It's always the same. The alternative to government is living in a cave.

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No FDA seal of approval, no nothing. No doctor is anywhere to be found -- and the pharmacist guy is an "anarcho"-capitalist like you!

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Yes, all doctors will be prevented from issuing advice. This gets better and better. Remember what I said about your tactic of using nonsensical arguments? That you decided wasn't worth responding to? You're doing it again.

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How many lives could have been saved by drugs the FDA quashed or bogged down in red tape for years?

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Our topic happens to involve drugs. We could be using other examples of "anarcho"-capitalist impasses. I gotta confess I have a lot of insight into the matter from a close relative, a general surgeon (now retired), who has used in his life only the absolute minimum of drugs. (Yes, he did anaesthetize 'em! ) He also performed surgery only when necessary -a rarity among surgeons, this-- but that's not relevant.

Trust me when I tell you this: Man needs very, very, very few drugs in life to get by in life. If you don't get anything else out of our little exchanges, take this: You could spend the rest of your life outside the reach of drugs and most probably not be affected at all by that (outside of some serious viral outbreak).

On the other hand, it is the explicit objective of drug manufacturers to treat drugs as any other product, such as CDs, athletic shoes or chocolates: Drugs need to be "improved", "re-packaged", "expand their share in the market", "raise their unit profit margins", etc. It's a most unfortunate situation and we must recognize it for what it is.

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So it's not necessary, therefore we need someone to prevent us from getting it.

People survived before the internet, therefore the government should arbitrarily restrict its use, since it's obviously not vital. Internet providers are just trying to get rich off of non-vital services!

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If someone thinks that [having the FDA around] is good for him, then I have no problem with it. Feel free to fund the FDA on your own and abide by its recommendations. Why do you need to force other people to pay for it and force them to follow its recommendations?

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We live in a system of democracy. You have to demonstrate a practical way, for you, of living amongst other people (who have chosen or are simply content to live in a democracy) without causing havoc to their way of living, by refusing to pay taxes, tolls, etc. Beyond arguing the theoretical pros and cons of "anarcho"-capitalism, you have to find a way to live amongst the subjects of "democratic tyranny" -- at least for awhile; until your vision of "anarcho"-capitalism becomes a reality, I mean.

That's the best I can offer to you, honestly, and to any other utopian visionary.

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My choice to take experimental cancer drugs (which I probably don't need) is going to cause havoc to your way of living?

FDA - Freedom Doesn't Allow (it)

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You seem to be dismissive of the idea. Is this something new for you? Have you not hear before of scientists passing judgement on other scientists' findings?

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Usually when that happens, the judges attempt to reproduce the findings.

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We've been through this as well but you seem to be treating well-trodden ground as something new.

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You brought it up. Now you complain that you repeat yourself.

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But the suggestion that ONLY the private corporations are ALWAYS the best at making decisions and setting standards which affect more than themselves (e.g. who will fly a planeful of passengers over the cities) does not even pass the giggle test.

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Why? Because private corporations can increase profits by having their planes crash into cities?

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Why would every mile be owned by someone else?

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Why would it not be? Are you saying thet "every time you walk into a building" someone owns all the floors?

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When I walk into a building, all of the floors are owned by someone, but in most cases, the floors have a single owner. Why would road ownership be divided up into small chunks of a mile or less?

And either way, why should I be afraid of this? I drive on roads with different owners all the time.

Sometimes these owners use different signs. Amazingly, I haven't yet gotten so confused that I drove into a tree.

This is a great tactic for you, though. First say something that has no basis (every mile will be owned by a different owner), then follow it up with something that has even less basis. Then you can have your opponent spinning wheels on these red herrings, which distracts attention away from the real issue. And you're very, very good at coming up with nonsensical things. Play to your strengths. And you beautifully combine it with the "mention a dead horse then act all surprised and bored when it gets talked about" tactic (which you did with roads *and* pilots!). You might want to throw in a few more French phrases, though. The illusion of sophistication is crucial to pulling this off.

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So if the government doesn't test drugs, you'll have no choice but to blindly believe whatever the producer of the drug tells you? Even though that's what you're doing now, since the FDA bases their decisions on data supplied by the manufacturer?

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And I respond that, yes, that's what I do -- only they are not (as you deviously call 'em) just "bureaucrats"; they are scientists.

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So you *do* blindly beleive whatever the manufacturer tells you?

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And they do their own work, independently (supposedly) of the manufacturers, but using manufacturers data, provided the data and the work behind it meet the FDA criteria. (Click on the damn link already!)

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Oh. So they don't reproduce, they just run the same numbers through the same formula. But they do it independently!

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And I conceded the inherent shortcomings of any hierarchical, bureaucratic organisation in another post.

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You conceded that bureaucracies perpetuate themselves. You forgot to concede that bureucratic monopolies with coercive authority are huge chokepoints. They hold product from market longer than necessary (sometimes "forever"), and when they allow bad product to the market, the results are catastrophic.

What happened with Vioxx? Did the failure occur in the FDA's "supposedly" independent work, or the criteria they set for judging the data and work?

In a free market with multiple, independent, competing testing labs, would this have been found sooner or later?

When there is one monopoly agency, failures affect a larger market.

The negatives of flipside of this (drugs that are kept from market) are even harder to discern. How many lives could have been saved by drugs the FDA quashed or bogged down in red tape for years?

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And I stated that I would still prefer the FDA to exist rather than the alternative, because their motive is very different fromthe manufacturers'.

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You haven't shown that a coercive monopoly is the only way to provide an agency with motives different than the manufacturers'.

The remainder of this post is really the only part I'm interested in hearing your response to. I'll read whatever you write in response to the above (and probably continue the conversation), but the stuff below is the real issue.

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And I elaborated on that : Having a government agency that prevents some drugs from circulating and forces a significant amount of time to lapse (in order for drug effects to manifest themselves better) is a good thing, IMO.

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It might be good for you. And if you determine such, then feel free to not use new drugs. My doctor and I might decide that we're willing to risk using a new, experimental drug in some situations (terminal illness is the obvious case). Our decision to accept such risk in no way forces you to do the same.

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Yes, the FDA is probably in need of re-organisation but it's still better to have it.

And, by the way, that's what the citizens of the society in which you have decided to live yourself too, have (freely) decided it's best for them.

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Like I said, if someone thinks that it's good for him, then I have no problem with it. Feel free to fund the FDA on your own and abide by its recommendations. Why do you need to force other people to pay for it and force them to follow its recommendations?

Putting the nail in the FDA's coffin

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The FDA people who decide about various things, including drugs, are not simple MBAs. They are qualified scientists. But you knew that.

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"Scientists" who look at somebody else's research.

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So if government doesn't license pilots, airlines will just let anyone who wants to fly their planes in order to figure out who can do it and who can't? That doesn't even pass the giggle test.

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Giggle all you want. I have already explained to you, in another thread, that the issue is not the out-and-out unqualified pilots (although, theoretically anyone could fly once, in your anarchist vision of the world!) -- but the uncertain levels of expertise; the persons who are not surely qualified nor surely unqualified. A robust process of qualification meeting industry-mandated and/or government-mandated standards is, in fact, the efficient and right play.

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You're not saying anything new. So there is a demand for some sort of way to qualify pilots, but only the government can provide it? You even use the word "industry-mandated" but still maintain this can't be done without government?

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Every building I go into has different, unstandardized signs for the restrooms. Somehow, though, I manage to find the men's room without confusion.

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You're saying it would be the same thing with automobile roads, every mile of which would be owned by a different owner?

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Why would every mile be owned by someone else?

What incentive do road owners have to make their signs confusing? If people can't figure out what the rules are, accidents go up, and accidents are bad for business.

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I told you I see such a set-up as a Three Stooges sketch. Sorry for giggling.

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Obviously, if it's not the way you want it, it's retarded.

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So if the government doesn't test drugs, you'll have no choice but to blindly believe whatever the producer of the drug tells you? Even though that's what you're doing now, since the FDA bases their decisions on data supplied by the manufacturer.

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I provided a link to the FDA website which presents in some detail what the agency is actually doing. Obviously, you have understood little of it, and even less abt my position on the matter. Plus ca change...

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Exactly. It's always the same. You still can't articulate a coherent argument. You explicitly said that your inability to throughouly research drugs yourself is one of your reasons for supporting the FDA's authority over drugs, but then when someone says that's your position, you wonder why nobody "understands" your brilliant positions. And then you throw in a foreign phrase to give yourself that je ne sais quois.

More on the FDA...blah blah blah

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I'd assume (I'd concede, if you want) that the primary objective of any organisation, and espcially of a bureaucratic, hierarchical organisatiion, is to perpetuate itself, i.e. the equivalent of the reproduction instinct in living beings. So, yes, the FDA, like most aforesaid organisations, first and foremost would want the necessity of its existence continuously affirmed and strengthened. Which would affect its overall work, in some way, one supposes.

Still, and that's the significant difference, such a motive pales in comparison to the importance of the motive behind the private organisation putting out its products (drugs): that organisation's sole objetive is profit maximization. Apparently, people have wisely decided to check that motive, as best as they could, through the creation of social woking agencies such as the FDA.

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But when profit is a motive, and there is no government intervention stifling free trade and competition, then companies do have an incentive to provide safe products, since companies profit by getting voluntarily consenting customers, most of which would not like to purchase unsafe products. Your point about the average person not being an expert on drugs, etc., is irrelevant, since there are plenty of ways to get information on products that do not involve an agency that can coercively decide which products you can and can't use.

I really do not understand how you think the FDA has a real incentive to do a good job. Since the FDA does not actually serve anyone voluntarily, it can do as [censored] a job as it wants and still "perptuate itself" because it is a government agency funded through taxes, etc.
Bun when a company needs to "perpetuate itself", somehow they will almost surely provide unsafe products?? This makes no sense--they have far more incentive to provide good service than the FDA, since the company can only survive by profiting, and can only profit by selling a product people voluntarily buy. Like anything in the real world, obviously bad things can happen on a free market, and comanies concerned with profit may try to peddle poor products, but there is a system of checks and balances already in palce to prevent this--free trade and open competition (in theory--obviously we don't have anything close to that now, and eliminating the FDA is a small part of a bigger task).

Further analysis of the FDA

More explanations to idiots

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[Cyrus rebuts to my comments on safety regulations and private roads]

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I don't feel like addressing this again. Let's just make this easy: let's pretend that I provided an argument about why the free market can provide safety inspection based on supply and demand. You and several others disagree, and I and the rest of the ACer's argue your disagreements.

There, I like that better.

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I'd assume (I'd concede, if you want) that the primary objective of any organisation, and espcially of a bureaucratic, hierarchical organisatiion, is to perpetuate itself, i.e. the equivalent of the reproduction instinct in living beings. So, yes, the FDA, like most aforesaid organisations, first and foremost would want the necessity of its existence continuously affirmed and strengthened. Which would affect its overall work, in some way, one supposes.

Still, and that's the significant difference, such a motive pales in comparison to the importance of the motive behind the private organisation putting out its products (drugs): that organisation's sole objetive is profit maximization. Apparently, people have wisely decided to check that motive, as best as they could, through the creation of social woking agencies such as the FDA.

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The incentives are not terribly different. The FDA, like any market business, is run by people. Individuals. Greedy, self-serving, goal-oriented human beings. The people in the FDA want to increase their personal wealth just like the people in the drug companies.

The FDA, as a whole, has no collective hive mind trying to pertetuate itself, that's just an inevitable result of profit maximization. For the FDA administrators, like any government agency, to accomplish their goal of profit maximization (and thereby perpetuate itself), it has to be able to claim to the government that it needs more money. To claim this, it needs to fail.

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I'd vote for the FDA to be re-organised, overhauled, whatever, but I would not vote to do away with the FDA.

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You must use a different definition of "overhauled" than the one I'm used to

Further assault on the FDA

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Do you suggest that we allow any substance which for-profit corporations (god bless 'em!) put up on the shelves -- and then we allow the free market to sort out the dangerous stuff from the good stuff?

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YES.

And it actually worked quite well too, historically. Before the FDA started poking its nose where it didn't belong, drug companies still had great incentive to produce safe drugs. What is more, they had incentive--unlike now--to produce drugs that actually helped, as opposed to things that just were tested to be safe. Before the coercive FDA, the AMA had a journal of sorts (like a consumer's report) that served to let the public know which drugs were good and which weren't. Of course, it had no coercive authority, yet, for reasons unbeknownst to those who don't understand how markets work, it made for a highly competitive market in drugs.

Until, of course, the government granted the FDA power to decide which drugs we were allowed to use. This, combined with the awful patent system (which is a topic deserving of its own post) is what has created many of the bad situations with drugs today, not the free market.

Examining the FDA

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The profit maximization objective is not the right tool to decide what ride is safe for my child,

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Why don't you decide what is safe for your child?

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who is qualified to fly an airplane,

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Don't fly on a plane with poorly qualified pilots. (I have a feeling that imcompetant piloting would get some costly bad reviews rather quickly)

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or which car has priority in an intersection.

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Right, because you assume incorrectly that private roads would be unregulated. You don't think there's a demand to enforce some basic safe driving laws, if they are in fact a problem?

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When you are comparing tools, you have to consider the tools' inherent functionality (objectives) first and foremost.

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The functionality of Soviet Communism was to create a welfare state to establish equality and eventually provide peace and happiness in the Marxist utopia. Pity it forgot to think about incentives. The fact is, there's an organization (the FDA) run by human beings; fallible, and easily corruptible. It cannot go out of business or lose to competition. What are their incentives to provide a careful service? Good will? HAH!

Debunking Socialists

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Bank robbers also get a little miffed and try to change the subject when people call them criminals in polite conversation.

You've never questioned my arguments to the effect that there really is no such thing as a pretax income in the U.S.

Are you brain damaged? I question it every time you mention it, and you give the same handwaving answer every time.

Is there any such thing as "money in a savings account"? When you go to the bank, you can't identify the particular dollar bills that belong to you. Your savings account balance is just an accounting figure. Do you have any right to that?

And EVEN IF we allow that the income earner has no right to the pretax income, you haven't shown that government, or anyone else, does have a right to it. If the "it's just an accounting figure" argument works against ownership by the earner, then surely it works against others who claim rights to that arbitrary number.

All income is pretax income before taxes. Since the earner has no right to any of it, why do you allow him to keep any of it?

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Until you do, since people can't 'own' something which doesn't exist, it can't be 'theft' because theft presupposes ownership.

How can you distribute something that doesn't exist?

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You guys just assert it over and over, following the old and cheap political tactic of 'tell a lie enough times and eventually people start to believe it', without ever demonstarting that anybody legitmately owns pre-tax income in the U.S. today.

You haven't demonstrated anything to any other effect.

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Example: How you think this when the very dollar bills that the economy runs on are printed by the government is a good question. (How can you own what the government produces, btw, if the government can't own what you produce?) Try to imagine participating in the economy without using public roads, publicly funded communication infrastructure, publicly educated employees, publicly funded electricity, water, gas, and other utilities, publicly funded information, technology, research and development -- it's absolutely impossible. The only way to avoid public goods and services is to move out of the country entirely, or at least become such a hermit, living off the fruits of your own labor, that you reduce your consumption of public goods and services to as little as possible.

This is the same old "government has invaded every corner of your life, therefore the government is legitimate" argument. If someone moves into your house with a gun pointed at you all the time, but he makes you some scrambled eggs in the morning, is his intrusion legitimate? Should you have to leave your house to get away from him?

The fact that you feel it necessary to isolate anyone that doesn't go along with your plan, and that you will prevent those people from working together on their own shows how authoritarian you are, and how much you fear the results of people working together voluntarily.

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Or this:

Suppose the gang of ten men had helped you buy a car, pitching in with a loan that covered 40 percent of the sticker price (which is about the percentage of the GDP devoted in the United States to taxes). And suppose they simply wanted return payment. By not returning the favor, it is you who become the thief. If you want a car that is 100 percent yours, simply pay the full price of one.

Government won't allow me to buy a car without getting a loan from them.

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Of course, by accepting the loan from the gang of ten men, you were able to buy a better car than you could afford in the first place. The same is true with all government services: they helped you in ways we can't imagine to earn income.

I can imagine. I could probably have gotten a loan with a better interest rate from a free market; since government forces me to take their loan whether I want to or not, though, I can't afford to take out the better loan in addition to the required one.

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People who make arguments like this are big on taking these goods but short on seeing why they need to pay for them.

The fact that government provides something does not indicate that they provide it *well*.

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It doesn't matter that they believe these public services should be privatized -- the point is that the government is nonetheless producing them, and they need to be paid for.

This is the labor theory of value talking. If a private firm produces stuff that is shoddy, poorly designed, and that doesn't fill a market demand, they can't force anyone to buy it, no matter how hard they scream that those goods "need to be paid for".

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Ultimately, any argument against paying taxes should be compared to its private sector equivalent, and the fallacy will become evident.

True. The fallacy does become evident. The fallacy is always in the government action, not the market action.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

More Q&A about A/C

Q :
"Turning to more substantial matters, Rothbard's key error seems to me to lie in taking the proposition that states exert a monopoly of coercion to be an empirical fact, when in actuality it is a mere definitional truth - what we mean by 'state' is something like "agency which more or less successfully enforces a monopoly of coercion over a given territory". Rothbard begins, as it were with the true premises that coercion is bad; he goes on to observe that states are the things that do most of it; and he concludes that if we changed our societies by removing the elements in them called "states" we would be much better off."

A :

This is ridiculous. Rothbard’s “key error”, we are told, is that he takes “the proposition that states exert a monopoly of coercion to be an empirical fact, when in actuality it is a mere definitional truth”? If it is a definitional truth, how can it not also be an empirical fact? The last time I checked, if something is true by definition, then every time I test it empirically I will find it to still be so. How is this an “error”, much less a “key” one? Sampson’s key error is that he believes (apparently, since he calls himself a libertarian) that coercion and monopolies are bad, except of course, monopolies on coercion! Indeed, two wrongs must make a right!

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This is rather like saying: "Potholes in roads are a bad thing; a pothole is essentially defined by the boundary between the metal of the road and the space inside the hole; so we ought to dig away the edges which create the potholes, and we'd end up with better roads." In reality, we'd end up with bigger potholes."

A :
It is most certainly NOT rather like saying that at all. Only by using a ridiculously useless definition of “pothole” can he even attempt to employ this ridiculous analogy. A pothole is not “essentially defined by the boundary between the metal of the road and the space inside the hole”—the pothole is essentially defined by the [censored] hole. We get rid of potholes, defect in the rode, by completely filling in the hole and doing away with them, not by mostly filling in the bottom so the hole isn’t quite so deep. In fact, I have no Earthly idea why he even brought this silly imagery up, because it bears absolutely no relation to his last paragraph. Something that is “rather like” his last paragraph would go like this:

"“Bob’s key error, seems to me to lie in taking the proposition that murderers murder to be an empirical fact, when in actuality it is a mere definitional truth - what we mean by 'murderer' is something like "a person who murders". Bob begins, as it were with the true premises that murder is bad; he goes on to observe that murderers are the things that do most of it; and he concludes that if we changed our societies by removing the elements in them called "murderers" we would be much better off.”"

We can see how absolutely nonsensical and mentally masturbatory his entire paragraph and the following pothole canard actually are.

Q :

"What would happen in practice, if the institution called the "state" were magically to disappear from Great Britain tonight? What would happen would be that, within a few days, various individuals with a taste for bullying their fellow men (and all of us have some of this in our personality) would start coercing their neighbours in ways which the state apparatus had previously made impossible or at least imprudent; small bullies would acknowledge the suzerainty of bigger bullies, and quite soon the territory of Britain would he systematically parcelled up into a set of states, in each of which the degree of coercion of the average inhabitant would, at a guess, be very much higher than it is at present."

A :

The ridiculousness mounts. This gentleman calls himself a libertarian? For surely he can see that if we privatized meat inspections we would all immediately die of ptomaine, and if we privatized the mails we would never hear from Mummy and Daddy again, and that if we had private insurance and healthcare and education and food and clothing and consumer electronics and bakeries and prostitutes and candy shops and porno stores we would have none, right? This is a libertarian?

But let’s take a look anyway. First, he asks “What would happen . . . if the institution called the “state” were magically to disappear . . . tonight?” This is akin to debating the pros and cons of slab versus crawl-space foundations with the owner of a home with a crawl-space and asking him, “What would happen if the foundation of your house were magically to disappear tonight?” Well quite clearly, the house would collapse. Also quite clearly, this doesn’t have a bloody [censored] thing to do with which style of foundation is better.

The entire hypothetical is ridiculous and specious. Societies adapt to the conditions they are embedded within. When the State tells people that they don’t have to have the personal responsibility to educate their own children, eventually you get millions of children sent off to centrally planned Soviet-style indoctrination camps to be turned into gibbering idiots. When the State tells people that they don’t have to have the personal responsibility to provide for their own security, they don’t. The people who believe in the goodness and omnipotence of the Government fairies do not invest in their own security, and hence they become victims of crime. They do not invest in their children’s education, and hence they become idiots. They do not invest in their own retirements, and hence they become poor in their old age. They are tricked into behaving irresponsibly.

The converse is also true. Sensible people do spend on their own security. They install deadbolts and alarm systems, they buy a dog and a handgun, they contract with a security company to monitor their alarm, they install exterior lights, they purchase a safe, they purchase insurance, they move to a gated community. People tend to spend on security in proportion to the value of their property and the level of risk or threat. And it is this personal responsibility and investment that keeps society in order. It is not the police. The idea is patently absurd. Studies have asked actual prisoners, in actual prisons, what factors could deter them from committing crimes, and it wasn’t fear of the police, the courts, jail or prison. All of those are too far off in the future, and too unlikely because of the general level of incompetence and scarcity of police resources, to have any real deterent effect on a high time preference person like a criminal. What deters criminals are: the fear of being SHOT by a victim, dogs, alarms, etc. Personal responsibility deters criminals, protects life, liberty, and property, and it keeps order.

Again, when government tells people that they don’t have to provide for their own security, they are tricked into spending less on that security, crime is then incentivized and goes up, making people less secure. Meanwhile, government services can never have enough resources to take responsibility for all the people they have tricked into behaving irresponsibly. NEVER. This is why ALL government services are “chronically underfunded.”

When hurricane Katrina hit and there was rampant looting in the New Orleans, it wasn’t because the police weren’t there—they were. They were in on the looting. The looting took place because the property owners left. There have been many cases where the entire police force of a city has gone on strike. Did pandemonium ensue? Hardly. Nothing changed. So we can see empirically that when the police are off the job, crime does not go up. But when homeowners cease to provide for their own security, crime skyrockets.

Now, you tell me. If all of the police suddenly vanished tomorrow, do you think chaos would ensue? Hardly.

More Dirt on Lincoln

"I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality; and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary." -- Abraham Lincoln, debate with Stephen Douglas in Ottawa, Illinois, 1858.

In the same speach Lincoln also said that he was not and never had been "in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people."

Lincoln was indignant after Douglas insinuated that Lincoln favored equality for blacks: "Anything that argues me into his idea of perfect social and political equality with the Negro is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can proce a horse chestnut to be a chestnut horse.

"On at least fourteen occasions between 1854 and 1860 Lincon said unambiguously that he believed the Negro race was inferior to the White race. In Galesburg, he referred to 'the inferior races.' Who were 'the inferior race'? African Americans, he said, Mexicans, who he called 'mongrells,' and probably all colored people." -- Lerone Bennett, Jr., Forced Into Glory, Abraham Lincoln's White Dream, p. 132.

"Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this . . . We cannot, then, make them equals." -- Abraham Lincoln, "Lincoln's Reply to Douglas," p.444

Abraham Lincoln was in fact a great supporter of "colonization," which was the general name of several plans that called for the deportation of every single black man, woman, or child "back to Africa," or to Central American, or Haiti.

The idea that Lincoln waged a savage bloody war and [censored] all over that Constitution to end slavery is a joke.

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it." -- Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Horace Greeley

The Emancipation Proclamation was a desperate measure that came 18 months into the war, when the South was winning. It was carefully crafted so as not to free a single slave; after all, it only affected the territory held by the CSA. It didn't affect territory under US control where slaves were held. It was a transparent political ploy to incite a slave rebellion and to attempt to keep the European powers from intervening in the war on the side of the South on moral grounds.

The idea that a bloody war had to be fought to end slavery is itself a joke. Slavery ended in every other nation on the Earth, peacefully, in the 19th century because capitalism and capital-intensive manufacturing techniques had made it uneconomical, as had happened in the North, decades before. Slavery in the south was only propped up by laws against manumission (a slave purchasing his own freedom) and the Fugitive Slave Act, which externalized much of the costs of slavery from the slaveowner, both of which were supported by Lincoln.

The Worst President in American History

Recently I posted a poll asking how many people thought George W. Bush, Franklin Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, respectively, were good presidents. 81% disagreed that G.W.B. is a good president, and an impressive 92% agreed that Lincoln was a good president.

What I want to understand is, how can the people I see routinely bashing Bush on here for lying, violating the constitution, fighting an illegal war, corruption, cronyism, etc. possibly think Lincoln was a "good" president? And don't misunderstand, I think Bush, like all politicians, is a douchebag. But honestly, compared to Abraham Elizabeth Lincoln? Bush is practically Thomas Jefferson.

Just as a little reminder:

- Abraham Lincoln violated the Constitution in practically every particular

- He invaded a sovereign constitutional democracy, with the full knowledge that all States reserved the right to secession

- He waged total war on civilians, killing approximately 50,000 of them. This wasn't a push button war; when civilians were killed they got killed up close and personal

- His unconstitutional and illegal war killed between 600,000 and 700,000 soldiers; as a fraction of the population that would be over 5,000,000 dead today

- He suspended the writ of habeus corpus, something only the Congress can do, and interned between 10,000 to 15,000 northern civilians in military prisons without charges or trials

- He shut down hundreds of northern newspapers by military force for criticizing his administration, including imprisoning publishers and editors in military prisons

- His administration had pastors and preachers imprisoned for failing to include a prayer for the president in their sermons, as had been decreed by the White House

- He arrested and imprisoned the entire Maryland legislature so they couldn't convene to discuss secession

- He created an entire State out of whole cloth so that he could install a puppet government to tighten the Republican hold on Congress (West Virginia)

- His administration engineered election fraud on a massive scale to secure his reelection, including turning Democrats away from the polls with bayonets and issuing different colored ballots for the two parties, so that voters with the wrong color ballot could be arrested

- He created an income tax in direct violation of the Constitution (recall that the Constitution had to be ammended in 1913 to allow the income tax, but it didn't stop Lincoln)

- He imprisoned and exiled a sitting member of Congress for criticising his administration (Vallandigham)

- He discovered dictatorial "war powers" not enumerated in the Constitution to justify all of this

- He repudiated every clause of the Declaration of Independence (which was, after all, a declaration of secession), and either he or his party after his assassination reproduced each and every charge in the Train of Abuses leveled at the despotic King George

- All of this was undertaken for the express purpose of removing the Constitutional barriers to the so-called "American System" of corporate welfare, high tariffs, and centralized banking (with an inflationary fiat currency, his "greenbacks," to pay for it all) for the benefit of Republican party political cronies

This is just a tiny fraction of his crimes. Had the South won the war, Lincoln and his entire cabinet would almost certainly have been hung for war crimes.

So, is it just poor education that causes people to worship this evil [censored] and his Zeus-like marble statue?

If you despise Bush for his trespasses, can you admit that he's at worst a complete joke compared to the First American Dictator, Abraham Lincoln?

The uselessness of the FDA

What happens to the gas stations that sell the exploding gas or the grocers and restaurants that sell the poison meat? They go out of business. They'd go out of business twice if they could. Once when they got sued into oblivion and once when they lose so many customers they can't cover their costs. In fact, these consequences are so predictable that there is no sane businessman who would attempt to provide such products. It's telling that the only markets where consistently dangerous and unpredictable products are continually available are black markets, where government literally restricts competition and supply by outright bans and denies access to the courts.

Federal "meat inspections" are a complete joke. There are a handful of "inspectors" who make visual inspections on a nearly infinitesimal fraction of the food supply. The problem is, the things that make you sick cannot be seen. The reason that meat and other products is safe is the same reason they are inexpensive and plentiful: market competition. Government interference with market competition makes products less plentiful, more expensive, and less safe.

The FDA serves several purposes, but none of them are "consumer protection." First, it becomes almost a marketting agency for the industries it purports to regulate. Second, it serves as a protectionist barrier to entry and competition. Large companies lobby heavily for "strict consumer protections" that are actually regulatory burdens that are easily born by large companies but cannot be born by smaller companies. This either forces them out of the market or prevents them from entering in the first place. Thus consumers get hit with a triple whammy. They lose the benefits of competition, have to pay for the regulatory burden in the price of the food, and have to pay for the regulatory bureaucracy through taxes.

"I'm just looking for your honest opinion. What about niches in the market for crooked arbitration firms or firms that pander to the magnates of society? This is just a thought experiment, but I could definitely see this happening and these firms being very profitable."

There are shysters in all places. They tend to naturally gravitate to government, but that's irrelevant. The point is that shysters occupy a small fraction of the market, when they don't have government to lean on. It is hard for a shyster to gain market share in and industry where the product is objective and observable (shysters rule in industries where the product is subjective and unobservable, like fortune telling; they're all shysters). Let's say that an arbitrator began peddling influence by making judgements that favored a particular company because that company pays him hefty bonuses. Other arbitration services will monitor each other's judgments for just such occurences. Why? Because they can advertise that their competitor is making unjust judgements and is on the take. Behaving unethically in this scenario is a large risk; you can lose your entire business to gain one bribe. Who will want to bring their case to your firm in the future knowing that you essentially shill for certain companies?

In short, there are private mechanisms that prevent this. Why doesn't Underwriter's Laboratories hand out their approval based on which company pays them the most? Because their approval would mean nothing, and they'd go out of business. The same is true of many private certifications that are extremely well respected and render their judgement on the competence of a firm or worker or the quality of a product or service yet who do not take bribes.

"I realize that even in states power peddles power, but I can't see any check on things like this in AC."

You have it exactly backwards. There are market mechanisms that punish shysters. Under government, the shysters don't have to be market entrepeneurs, providing a better or cheaper product or service, all they have to become are political entrepeneurs, and have the government, or more properly the politicians whose reelection campaigns they fund, write the law in their favor. A market entrepeneur can only succeed by pleasing customers more than his competition. Political entrepeneurs arrange to use the police power of the state to keep the competition from outcompeting them.

The rational basis of Anarcho-Capitalism

"
I contend, therefore, that believing in the rightness of anarcho-capitalism is a reasoned faith. Your answers will never satisfy us, and our continued questions force you back to the same simple axioms. "

You have your axioms wrong. And my anarcho-capitalism is not a faith. I am an anarcho-capitalist because after years of study I have never, upon sufficient investigation, found ANY good or service that both should be provided for and that government provides for better than the private sector. NONE. Furthermore, for every single good or service that I have EVER been told the private sector cannot provide and government can, after sufficient investigation I have learned of free market mechanisms that seem entirely adequate. EVERY ONE. This includes national defense. Entire scholarly works have been written on the private production and provision of security and defense, and I find their logic lucid, transparent, and inarguable. As I stated above, I'll be starting a thread on national defense under anarcho-capitalism soon.

So there is no faith involved. I do not believe the state is necessary because no one has ever been able to demonstrate that it is. Therefore I am an anarchist. Furthermore, capitalism is the inevitable result of human nature allowed to progress freely, and it produces the best possible outcomes for the largest number of people. Therefore I am a capitalist.

Put them together and I am an anarcho-capitalist.

Contrast this with the typical statist, who rails that the state is necessary for no deeper reasons than that he's been taught that it is throughout 12 to 20 years of government funded education. Who has most likely never investigated the private provision of roads or security, or anything else we are told we need government to do for us because we are too irresponsible or stupid to do it ourselves. Who likely believes that "anarchy" is synonymous with "chaos," and likely believes "capitalism" is synonymous with "exploitation."

In short, the vast majority of people are statists for the same reason they speak whatever language they speak or believe whatever religion they believe. They were raised that way.

National Defense and Anarcho-Capitalism

"
Are you saying that those two things are NOT (or would not be) good for the general welfare? I would doubt extremely much if one were to assert that the infrastructure of the interstate highway system was not a worthwhile investment, which has come to greatly benefit all Americans."

That's not what I'm saying at all. In fact roads and highways were of such great benefit to all Americans that by 1800 there were nearly 70 different companies providing private roads (turnpikes) with over 400 turnpikes already having been built. That's 1800. There was no NEED for public funding of roads. The reason that road construction was monopolized by government was mercantilism. Politicians used the power of their office to subsidize certain private road companies and construction projects (roads and canals, actually) to benefit their campaign supporters. The justification given for this, the free rider problem, was a smokescreen, clearly, since investment in private roads was heavy. Even though the rate of return on investment was lower than other industries (only 3% per annum), this was not detering capital investment, since the bulk of capital investment in road companies came from local entrepeneurs and businessmen, who knew that good roads meant routes for their imported and exported goods.

In fact, every instance of government "internal improvements" subsidies (roads, canals, railroads, etc), was an unmitigated disaster. They were so fraught with cost overruns, corruption, outright theft, squandering of public monies, and downright uncompleted and useless boondoggle projects, that almost every state in the Union had outlawed what we now call corporate welfare and "internal improvements" subsidies by the mid 1850's. It wasn't until the American mercantilists triumphed with Lincoln's election and the War Between the States that such laws began to be repealed. And now road provision is a disaster of similar scale, but people rarely recognize it as such, because they have nothing to compare it too. They have no idea what a real private interstate system would be like. I'll be starting a thread on it sometime. Suffice it to say that our road system, like our education system, is a disaster, the kind of disaster you always get when you have Soviet-style provision of a "public good." Traffic jams are what you get when capitalists provide the cars and socialists provide the roads.

"My first point was a general agreement with your critics, especially regarding defense against a huge organized military foe such as Nazi Germany or the USSR. As Natedogg and I merely expressed serious doubts as to whether a non-state could effectively deal with certain such concerns, the above being one such concern, the onus isn't on us to show that it couldn't, but rather on you to show that it could (since that is your apparent assertion; we're expressing some degree of doubt of that assertion)."

This is a fundamental misconception on your part. I hear this so much that I may start another thread on it. Suffice it to say the onus is NOT on me to provide every detail of a market provided service X. Rather, the onus is on the statist to demonstrate that X A) "should" be provided for, and that B) Coersion and central planning can provide X in a "better" way than the private sector could.

This is really, really fundamental. So fundamental that I can't understand how people can fall for it.

Consider the "God of the Gaps." The devotees of Intelligent Design tell us that there are biological structures for which no evolutionary mechanism can be imagined for their origins. Or rather, they personally cannot think of an evolutionary explanation. Thus they claim, no evolutionary mechanism is even possible, and therefore God, er, the Intelligent Designer must have designed it that way. This argument is transparently fallacious.

Guess what? We have the exact same argument for the "Government of the Gaps." Because the statist cannot personally think of how the private sector could provide for national defense, the roads, education, health care, vaccines, police, courts, bakeries, clean water, etc., he asserts that it cannot, and therefore Government is required to perform those functions. This argument is 100% fallacious. 100% fallacious.

Now, I understand how someone would want to hear how the private sector could provide for X, and would like to hear some kind of plausible free market explanation. And lest we take our analogy too far, we do have to remember that Government really does exist, and is all too observable. But the point remains. It is NOT my problem to explain exactly how, in every minute detail, the free market would provide for X. It is rather the statist's task to explain why it can't.

A response to an idiot

"The right to use (unprovoked) force/coersion/violence to acieve what you want is moraly wrong and something humans don't naturaly do."

Yes, force/coercion/violence are morally wrong. Nobody, however, ever makes the claim that it is something humans do not naturally do. It is merely our postulation that a state-less system will deal with these problems more effectively, and provide more disincentives to commit these crimes.

Even without bringing up private security forces (which would undoubtedly be more efficient in the market (in that they wouldn't be wasting their time with drugs/gambling/prosititution and the like)), I can use the following basic example:

You are a criminal. What is going to provide a larger disincentive to your committing a violent act? The small chance that you may be apprehended by agents of the state and convicted in states courts or the immediate threat of being shot by an armed victim?

Now, I am not saying that all of AC would be wild west shootouts, I am just saying that self-defense is FAR more efficient than the alternatives when violence is imminent. Smaller crimes like theft could be handled by private detectives and private arbitrators. Supply would actually meet demand in this respect (modern bureaucratic courts are constantly backed up).

A look at anarco capitalism and the issues

1) Child Abuse - It is naively paternalistic to believe that in the grand scheme of things, government is actually successful in preventing this, but since there are some cases where they are...

Obviously it is impossible to predict what would happen under AC, but it is likely that 'common law' would dictate that a child would have the right to divorce his or herself from their parents. Remember, the fundamental property right is self-ownership and this also applies to children. It is likely that there would be organizations created to prevent child abuse and help abused children pursue their emancipation and find new, better homes.

2) Slavery - It seems ridiculous that any arbitrator would render a decision in favor of the slave owner given that the most important property right of any individual is self-ownership, which inherently makes the ownership of another human impossible.

3) National Defense - Defense is not definitively a public good. Since it would be demanded on the market, it would be likely that insurance-based defense companies would be formed. A person like Bill Gates, who has a lot to lose, would likely invest a good amount in defense. A person living in a studio apartment who is barely making a living would likely not contribute or contribute a meager sum, depending on the prospects of invasion. If an invasion were likely, it is logical to assume that the demand for defense would skyrocket, and because the resources would be allocated on the market, they would be used much more efficiently.

Add to this the fact that a successful conquest requires the quelling of frequent ubiquitous guerilla uprisings. Look at the Vietnam War if you need to see how difficult these are to deal with.

I think the propensity to conquer is being vastly overrated. It is fundamentally self-destructive for governments. If it weren't, then states would always make attempts at conquest in order to advance their power. Granted, there are cases in history where people were able to be coerced into aiding conquest, but these are rare in the grand scheme of things and can be suppress through the market, rather than coercive means.

4) Intellectual Property - It is likely that copyrights would survive and patents would be done away with. This would be in the area of "common law", but I would imagine that arbitrators would show discretion on these matters. Remember, in the current system, copyrights are established at the time of creation, not when they are filed for (which is something of a formality).

5) Criminal cases – Each the defendant and the plaintiff would have the right to have their case tried in from of their own courts. Now, if both courts decided the same verdict, the case would be settled. If the courts came to different verdicts, then they would have to agree on an appeals court. It is likely that the general consensus would be that the decision of two courts at any time would be deemed final. Again, this is common law and may vary from area to area, region to region.

Suppose either party decides to go to an arbitrator who is not reputable (his brother, a known dishonest judge etc…). This judgment simply wouldn’t be accepted by the rest of society and ignored. A decision only means something if people accept it.

It is likely that there would be a few large arbitration firms, all of which would be generally accepted. They would be set integrated with various appeals courts. Thus, Arbitration Firm A and Arbitration Firm B always agree to do appeals with Appeals Court A.

Monday, July 9, 2007

The Ethics of Boycotts

By Murray N. Rothbard

A boycott is an attempt to persuade other people to have nothing to do with some particular person or firm — either socially or in agreeing not to purchase the firm's product. Morally a boycott may be used for absurd, reprehensible, laudatory, or neutral goals. It may be used, for example, to attempt to persuade people not to buy non-union grapes or not to buy union grapes. From our point of view, the important thing about the boycott is that it is purely voluntary, an act of attempted persuasion, and therefore that it is a perfectly legal and licit instrument of action.

Again, as in the case of libel, a boycott may well diminish a firm's customers and therefore cut into its property values; but such an act is still a perfectly legitimate exercise of free speech and property rights. Whether we wish any particular boycott well or ill depends on our moral values and on our attitudes toward the concrete goal or activity. But a boycott is legitimate per se. If we feel a given boycott to be morally reprehensible, then it is within the rights of those who feel this way to organize a counter-boycott to persuade the consumers otherwise, or to boycott the boycotters. All this is part of the process of dissemination of information and opinion within the framework of the rights of private property.

Furthermore, "secondary" boycotts are also legitimate, despite their outlawry under our current labor laws. In a secondary boycott, labor unions try to persuade consumers not to buy from firms who deal with non-union (primary boycotted) firms. Again, in a free society, it should be their right to try such persuasion, just as it is the right of their opponents to counter with an opposing boycott. In the same way it is the right of the League of Decency to try to organize a boycott of pornographic motion pictures, just as it would be the right of opposing forces to organize a boycott of those who give in to the league's boycott.

Of particular interest here is that the boycott is a device which can be used by people who wish to take action against those who engage in activities which we consider licit but which they consider immoral. Thus, while non-union firms, pornography, libel, or whatever would be legal in a free society, so would it be the right of those who find such activities morally repugnant to organize boycotts against those who perform such activities. Any action would be legal in the libertarian society, provided that it does not invade property rights (whether of self-ownership or of material objects), and this would include boycotts against such activities, or counter-boycotts against the boycotters. The point is that coercion is not the only action that can be taken against what some consider to be immoral persons or activities; there are also such voluntary and persuasive actions as the boycott.

Whether picketing as a form of advertising a boycott would be legitimate in a free society is a far more complex question. Obviously, mass picketing that blocked entrance or egress from a building would be criminal and invasive of the rights of property — as would be sit-ins and sit-down strikes that forcibly occupied the property of others. Also invasive would be the type of picketing in which demonstrators threatened people who crossed the picket line — a clear case of intimidation by threat of violence.

$21
"Coercion is not the only action that can be taken against what some consider to be immoral persons or activities…."

But even "peaceful picketing" is a complex question, for once again the use of government streets is involved. And, as in the case of assembly or street demonstrations generally, the government cannot make a non-arbitrary decision between the rights of taxpayers to use government streets to demonstrate their cause, and the right of the building owner and of traffic to use the streets as well. Again, it is impossible for government to decide in such a way as to eliminate conflict and to uphold rights in a clear-cut manner. If, on the other hand, the street in front of the picketed building were owned by private owners, then these owners would have the absolute right to decide on whether picketers could use their street in any way that the owners saw fit.[1]

Similarly, such employer devices as the blacklist — a form of boycott — would be legal in the free society. Before the Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1931, it was legal for employers to fire union organizers among their employees, and to circulate blacklists of such persons to other employers. Also legal would be the "yellow-dog contract," another device before the Norris-LaGuardia Act. In such a contract, the employee and the employer agree that, should the former join a union, the employer can fire him forthwith.

Minimum wage hurts teenagers

In recent years Republicans have proven their unreliability as proponents of limited government, especially where Federal spending is concerned. However, Republicans have been fairly reliable when it comes to opposing minimum wage increases. The bad news is that the recent victory by House Democrats led to an increase in the national minimum wage.

Institutional factors are now against opponents of minimum wages, and President Bush has proven himself unreliable as a defender of free markets once more.

The good news is that factual evidence and logic remain on our side. We can win this debate, and this is a debate worth winning. Proponents of minimum wage increases see things differently, but when you examine their arguments carefully, it is clear that we are in a very strong position. For example, law professor Ellen Dannin makes some strong, but false, claims regarding the debate over minimum wage laws.[1]
Dannin claims that opponents to minimum wage increases practice "economics-lite" and have been bought off buy wealthy corporations in an effort to increase corporate profits. All evidence against minimum wages is, to her, fabricated by "right-wing think tanks." According to Dannin, right wingers "stretch facile and sterile ideas to fit all situations." The economics-lite of right wingers "are mere theories (in the pejorative sense of the word), and, unlike scientific theories, they have no evidence to support them." Given the contempt that Dannin exhibits towards her opponents, one would expect her to make a strong case. Examination of her arguments indicates otherwise.

Dannin admits that ending minimum wage laws might increase employment, but "it is just as likely that the employer would keep the same number of workers and pocket the rest as profit." Ending minimum wage laws would cause wage reductions for some existing employees, but this in no way precludes the hiring of new low-productivity employees.

Dannin obviously does not understand two simple facts: first, market wages are roughly equal to discounted marginal labor productivity; second, productivity varies from one worker to the next. Numerous studies and common sense confirm these facts. After all, who in their right mind would doubt that we differ as individuals? So when minimum wages fall, employers hire additional low-productivity workers. This is an eminently reasonable proposition, but Dannin dismisses it — without explanation.

Dannin avoids discussing the marginal productivity theory of wages because it makes too much sense to be taken as "economics-lite." As for her contention that there is no evidence to support marginal productivity theory, Dannin needs to become better acquainted with the facts.

The level of Dannin's ignorance on this subject is revealed by this statement: "The first and still most rigorous testing of the relationship between the minimum wage and unemployment was performed ten years ago by David Card and Alan Krueger, economists at Princeton University. Their book Myth and Measurement: The Economics of the Minimum Wage (1995) compiles the results of a number of empirical studies they performed." Both these claims are absurd to the point of being laughable.

Economists have published hundreds of studies on minimum wages before Card and Krueger. See for example:

"Minimum Wages and Teenagers' Enrollment-Employment Outcomes: A Multinomial Logit Model." Ronald G. Ehrenberg; Alan J. Marcus The Journal of Human Resources V17 N1 (Winter, 1982), pp. 39–58
"Teenage Employment Effects of State Minimum Wages." Arnold Katz The Journal of Human Resources V8 N2 (Spring, 1973), pp. 250–256
Brozen, Yale. 1969. "The Effect of Statutory Minimum Wage Increases on Teen-age Employment." Journal of Law and Economics, vol. 12 (April): 109–122
"Recent Department of Labor Studies of Minimum Wage Effects." George Macesich; Charles T. Stewart, Jr. Southern Economic Journal V26, N4 (Apr., 1960), pp. 281–290
"The Marginal Productivity Theory of Wages and Disguised Unemployment." Dipak Mazumdar The Review of Economic Studies V26 N3 (Jun., 1959), pp. 190–197
"The Economics of Minimum Wage Legislation." George J. Stigler The American Economic Review V36 N3 (Jun., 1946), pp. 358–365
Dannin is obviously ignorant of the real evidence on minimum wages. Economists studied the effects of minimum wages long before Card and Krueger came along, and found that higher minimum wages reduce demand for low productivity labor.

As for analytical rigor, Card and Krueger have been widely criticized for the statistical techniques used in their studies. Card and Krueger relied on phone surveys in their original study — they had some research assistants ask some fast-food managers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania about their employees. Card and Krueger found that the increase in New Jersey's minimum wage increased employment relative to a Pennsylvania control group. Neumark and Wascher (2000) examined actual payroll data from fast-food places in the same geographic location. What did Neumark and Wascher find? The New Jersey minimum wage increase reduced demand for workers by 4%, just as standard theory predicts. Neumark and Wascher also found that the Card-Krueger data set suffered from "severe measurement error." This is not the only published study that contradicts Card and Krueger.

Dannin mentions "A study that the cons and corps allege refutes their findings, however, was funded by a fast food lobbying group, and those who conducted the study, unlike Card and Krueger, have refused to make their data public." Leftist ideologues have often claimed that there is no peer reviewed evidence against Card and Krueger. The fact of the matter is that Neumark and Wascher published the aforementioned study in the prestigious American Economic Review.[2] Left-wing think tanks, like the Economic Policy Institute, and self-styled public intellectuals, like Dannin, try to use the Card-Krueger study as definitive proof that minimum wages are good policy, but this simply is not true. Analysis of the data collected by Card and Krueger by Neumark and Wascher, among others,[3] reveals serious problems.

Prior to Card and Krueger, economists had nearly all concluded that minimum wages decrease labor demand. Economists like George Stigler and Fritz Machlup proved the relevance of economic theory to minimum wage laws and other real-world issues, and the economics profession accepted this conclusion for decades. Card and Krueger have forced us to reopen the minimum wage issue, but the only thing they have really proven is Coase's dictum that if you torture the data long enough it will confess to anything.

Dannin also dismisses the idea that minimum wages affect minority teens more than others. Unemployment rates among minority teens are in some instances over 40%,[4] but Dannin blames this on racism. There is, in fact, substantial evidence showing that racism is not the key factor.

During the late 1940s there was little difference in the unemployment rates between blacks and whites.[5] Unemployment did not take on racial characteristics until the 1930s. For example, one study indicates that the imposition of minimum wages by FDR on June 16, 1933 caused over 500,000 black Americans to lose their jobs. Minimum wages displaced mostly young and inexperienced workers, and older workers — low productivity workers.

It looks like there is considerable weight behind what Dannin refers to as "economics-lite." Of course Dannin might respond that this depression-era report must have been doctored up by cranks at a right-wing think tank. But the author of this report was C.F. Roos, Director of Research at the National Recovery Administration under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.[6] Was the NRA a right-wing think tank?

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"Ideology is no substitute for sound theory and data."

Dannin urges her fellow leftists to "stand your ground, even if you have never taken an economics course. What it takes is being curious and willing to ask questions and challenge claims." This is very bad advice. One must understand economic theory and statistical techniques to participate in meaningful debate on issues like minimum wage increases. Amateurs like Dannin lack the economic education needed to understand the effects of minimum wages. Or to put it more bluntly, ideology is no substitute for sound economic theory and valid data.

I offer Dannin advice in the form of the following quote:

"It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance." — Murray N. Rothbard

To those who desire greater liberty I would say stand your ground by learning economic theory and by studying real data. Leftist ideologues do pose a real threat. Many people find their rhetoric convincing. But all the Left really has to defend their position on minimum wages and other issues are faulty studies, demagogic remarks regarding poverty and racism, and vague references to "social justice." Logic and evidence are on our side. We can win this debate by focusing on sound theory and accurate facts.

Economic Lessons from the Amish

By Dan McLaughlin

The Amish are interesting people. Having lived much of my life in a rural area with a significant Amish population, I have had the opportunity to interact with them, and have some level of understanding of the culture. It is a fascinating study.

The Amish make a conscious choice to live without most of the modern conveniences that Americans take for granted. They have strong religious beliefs and a commitment to principles. Different communities have varying perspectives on what is allowable and what is not, but they all have a common belief that they must maintain a separation from the world and worldly things. They provide lessons to us that they may not intend, but are valuable nonetheless.

Their life is centered around the local Amish community, and they live separate lives from non-Amish people around them. They generally don't use insurance, but they share risk in a different way. They have a strong sense of internal community, and in time of disaster, they are drawn together to help their neighbors. When someone's barn burns down, there is a barn raising, where the whole community gathers to build a new one. It is an amazing display of cooperation.

Many people view full employment as the primary purpose of society. It is a concept that animates much of the discussion in economics and politics. If full employment truly is the primary goal of our society, then we should follow the lead of the Amish. They have developed a social structure that provides full employment for every member. In fact, the problem is not too little employment, but too much employment. They have to have large families with many helping hands to absorb all of the employment that the lack of modern equipment affords them.

Because they do not use tractors, they need many hands to plow, cultivate, and harvest the fields. Milking cows by hand is time-consuming manual labor. Shoveling manure by hand provides employment for some of the less fortunate members of the family. Cutting, transporting, and stacking wood for heat and cooking provides more work that can keep someone busy and sweaty for a considerable period of time.

By being fairly self reliant, rather than maximizing the benefits of national and international divisions of labor, they choose to be less efficient and to perform activities that subtract from the time they can devote to what they do best. By shunning modern labor-saving devices and technologies — such as electricity, hay bailers, power equipment, and modern milking facilities — they choose to live with less of everything. Many fall within the modern definition of poverty. Nearly all use child labor. They would starve without it.

Living with less is not necessarily a bad thing. I believe that most Amish people are very satisfied with their chosen lifestyle. Most do not regret the choices they made and find their lives quite rewarding. They are generally people of character who stand up for what they believe in, for the whole world to see.

Should full employment really be the primary goal of modern society? The Amish live in an agrarian economy. It thrives in the midst of modern society, not because of inherent advantages, but rather because it borrows much more from that society than meets the eye.

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Most third-world countries are also agrarian societies, mired in a state of misery, reflecting the primitiveness of their economies. What they don't have, that the Amish in America do, is economic freedom, secure property rights, a well-developed system of trade, legal protections, fairly reliable money and access to the fruits of capitalist society. Yes, Amish do go to the store to purchase some things that make their lives simpler and more pleasant. They rely on cars and busses to transport them long distances. They use telephones when necessary. Trucks bring their milk to market.

Modern society is highly dependent on the division of labor, on vast networks of traders, on information and communications. The goal of modern society is not full employment, but rather the increasing prosperity that comes from continuing innovation and increasing specialization, trade and capital accumulation, where even the poor are better off than most people in the world. Economic freedom in fact reduces unemployment to levels significantly below those in less free countries. The Amish may hold the secret to full employment, but rejection of modern capitalism is full employment in poverty and hardship, not the rich fruits of progress.

A Market For Criminal Skills

By Jeffrey Tucker

We’ve all suspected that the market economy has a civilizing effect on people, but I've rarely seen such a poignant example.
Here I was returning a rental car to the dealer, and some confusion set in about the keys. The attendant asked for them back, and I handed them over even as I was pulling bags and things out of the car. The attendant hopped in the driver's seat to check the mileage, and left the keys in the car. He shut the door, I shut another, even as one more bag remained insider. But there was a hitch: the car was now locked.

We all looked at each other with a sense of: what were we thinking? Now the car was locked, and it was the only set of keys. This isn't one of those old fashioned cars that were easy to crack open. No sir, this was a new car with all the security features we've come to expect. It surely couldn't be broken into.

I was imagining that we would have to throw a brick through the window, and we would be arguing for weeks about liability.

Then something amazing happened. The attendant, who didn't look like a pillar of the community, called over some of his rough-looking buddies—authentic archetypes of street thugs—and gave them a special signal. They reached into their little bag of tricks and pulled out four little items:

A business card
A crowbar
A squeegee stick
A clothes hanger
I watched with intense interest, and then astonishment. One person slid the business card between the top of the door and the car. Another stood next to him and began to work the crowbar between the card and the door until it began to move outward. He gave it a bit of a twist, and a third person made the gap wide with the squeegee stick. The tools moved here and there until they locked into place and a clean gap separated the door frame and the car body.

Next, one person bent the clothes hanger in a curved way, and put a loop at the bottom. He inserted it and with surgeon-like precision, he lifted the lock. The door opened right up, the tools were removed, and all was well. The car alarm did not sound, and there was not a single scratch on the car. No evidence remain that the car had been hacked.

Total time that it took to open this door: about 20 seconds.

The operation was a marvel, and it proved to me something I did not know: namely, that cars only appear to be locked. In the hands of these guys, every car was only superficially secure.

The owner of the rental place came over to see what had been happening, and he too was rather shocked. "If one of my cars ever turns up missing," he said in a gruff way, "I'll know who took it!" Then he smiled and winked: "Good job, men."

Now, it is possible that these skill was one learned on the job. Possible, but doubtful. They were too accomplished at it. And one confirmed to me that this was the first time in memory that a set of keys had ended up being locked in the car.

So what do we have here? A skill gained from, mostly likely, years spent doing things they should not have been doing, now put to service in a way that is beneficial and profitable to the human community of civilized people.

It's hardly the only example. We can think of the number of computer hackers now serving large companies to the benefit of everyone, or toughs who might otherwise be hurting people who play sports, or people with a penchant for guns and violence now serving as security guards or bouncers. There are many ways in which skills associated with criminality can serve a productive purpose.

Imagine a world without market-based opportunities to serve. These people would be social parasites instead of producers who are valued by others for their contribution. The more the division of labor expands, and capital is accumulated in a context of the freedom to trade, the more opportunities there are for civilizing what would otherwise be destructive impulses.

There are the effects of markets that are impossible to quantify but they have a grand impact on the culture in turning people away from crime and toward peaceful forms of human engagement.

They can also teach us a few things about security holes that exist in the world we inhabit. In the same way that a hacker can provide a good test against holes in program code, the crowbar kids at the rental place showed me something important: if you are worried about the security of your automobile, you need to do more than lock your car.

TheAvowedAnarchist