Many people often claim that more government intervention is necessary for a market's success to become assured. Examples abound everywhere. Just recently, it has become a mantra of congress and the media (excluding Fox news and a few newspapers) that this entire crisis was caused by individuals not being regulated enough. The idea is, as a caller on a radio show I listen to on occasion said, is that if people are given less choice (his words, not mine) then the market will be less volatile. In other words, if people are controlled just right, the market itself can be controlled in a free market system.
The reason people want to control the market has not really changed much for a long time. It all revolves around this idea of 'social fairness'. The idea is that our current system allows for greed, and that these greedy people, through acting in their own best interest, affect the markets adversely. It is also claimed further that after these markets collapse, the “rich” come out on top while the “poor” lose their shirts. These cycles of greed as any good liberal may call them are what is supposed to cause the bubbles and bursts of a market.
A little more background before I start. In his work “The End of Laissez-Fair”(1926 ), John Maynard Keynes wrote about the most basic parts of this theory of why we were doomed to fail in a truly free market system. In section three of this particular article he made several claims that, given his description of laissez-fair, seemed to work.
To quote “...the conclusion that individuals acting independently for their own advantage will produce the greatest aggregate of wealth, depends on a variety of unreal assumptions to the effect that the processes of production and consumption are in no way organic, that there exists a sufficient foreknowledge of conditions and requirements, and that there are adequate opportunities of obtaining this foreknowledge.”
To put his statement simply, his strong refutation of laissez-fair is that people could never possibly be able to predict, and therefore control the market for their own benefit. Hence, the idea that everyone benefits in the long run due to individual initiative is a crock. Unfortunately for Keynes, this argument works far better against himself than it does against Laissez-Fair economics.
Keynes's idea is that while an individual would not likely be able to help himself, let alone the whole of the populous, a large group of people, like a government, could. It is s simple enough hypothesis. Suppose you were trying to make a million dollars. You try to do this in, say, corn. To make it easy, we could suppose you were an expert farmer. Even given all of this information, all of this declarative knowledge, you can't possibly know everything that will have an effect on the price of corn. That would require knowing what the harvest would be like in every country at every point in time in the year, the quality of that corn, what diseases are rampant in what area and at what times, what new technologies will come out to increase the price of corn, any and all food fads that affect demand, and then both the purchasing power, and the affinity for your particular product, corn. If it seems impossible to hold all of that in your head, don't worry, you should not be able to.
Instead of just one expert, as in the last example, Keynes suggests that a market can be controlled through the joint knowledge of many experts all studying one thing, the economy. This idea makes sense if you ignore some problems I mention later. Suppose you have four farmers all working together. One farmer focuses all his time on harvest yields, another on technologies,and another on food demand, and the last one on diseases. It would be a lot easier to study the entire system if everyone involved only studied a part of it. This is where Keynes is coming from, more people equals more knowledge, more knowledge allows for better control. So if you get enough experts into government, then that government can literally control the market for the greater good of all of mankind.
However as history shows us, his theory does not hold scientific water. Keynes was right, it is not possible for any individual to know what would happen everywhere all at once so that he/she could predict the markets. He was wrong about the reason though. His assumption is that a lack of knowledge was the cause of this individual not being an accurate predictor of the world, but it isn't the knowledge that he does not have, but the actions he makes based on the knowledge he does have.
A simple fact of life is that the market is made up of a lot of people, billions of people in fact, all making decisions on the basis of some incomplete knowledge of the world. Suppose though that a large entity like a government, based on more complete knowledge of the current market conditions decided to help farmers make more money by buying up corn. Farmers, knowing that corn is a favorite staple food, respond by planting more corn and consumers, expecting corn prices to go up, respond by switching to other staple foods. Suddenly farmers of corn that can't be sold fast enough and the excess rots.
Suppose I built a time machine and happen to discover that a certain stock increases in value by 300% next week. So I take a large amount of money and buy a large share of that stock. So everyone else noticing the decrease in availability in stock, sell to make a smaller, but more assured profit. The stock tanks and I lose my shirt.
The point is that you cannot know what will happen not because of a lack of knowledge, but because your very attempts to control the free market, affect the free market. Just like the Heisenberg uncertainty principal, the very act of measuring the market, affects the market. Further, the more people you get in the pool trying to make a large wave, the less predictable the waves become. Go back to the time travel story, if I had bought only 100 shares, would that have a smaller impact on the market than if I tried to buy one million?
Because individuals have a much smaller impact, the fact they know far less than the government is inconsequential to their success. They need only read a very small number of trends and then follow the wave long enough to get rooted. A government though will always create a large splash because 1) they are extremely visible, and therefor so are their actions, 2) their foreknowledge of the events are often public, if they think a bank will suffer, the fact they think that will make the bank suffer even if the information the government has is wrong, and 3) the actions tend to be very very large, so large in fact that a single small transaction by the government is equal to the net worth of even the richest of the rich. These facts make it so that every action the government makes will be anticipated and the market changes automatically.
Further, Keynes's assertion that the market would be more stable with more government is insane. Just suppose the government, after buying all that corn and forcing the prices to go up temporarily, decides to release its corn to the public to allow the prices to drop. What reactions would take place? People might not buy corn for a little while, and those who do (seeing the prices dropped back down) won't buy enough to make up for the decrease in profit. Suppose this continued with the government just 'tweaking everything until it gets it just right' for awhile. Would you invest in farms or corn futures? Would you even know? The short answer is no.
When the market becomes unstable it becomes hard to predict. It would be like trying to predict the waves in a pond that was shot with a hundred rounds. The only option is to sit back and wait for things to calm down and become more predictable. This is also true of the economy. Suppose the economy became extremely unstable, would you invest or wait to see how things go? The problem is that when the market becomes unstable due to these effects, people don't invest money in the market in the form of businesses and jobs. This means that government intervention, which naturally causes instability, causes job losses and therefor recessions. This is true no matter the type of intervention used.
The only way Keynes could ever be proven right is to remove the free market altogether. You see, Keynesian economics works only in the event every facet can be controlled, including the people in the free market. However without free people making free choices, you do not have a free market. You have a government market. Only when freedom, or at least all forms of economic freedom are abolished can the market become truly predictable and controllable.
The conclusion then is that the government, assuming they are not stupid, wants to and needs to destroy the free market and replace it with some sort of feudalism. People cannot be permitted to make decisions of any sort. Not even about what he or she wants to eat or what doctor he or she wants to see. If you can make that decision, then the government cannot control the market, and as the market is made up of the people, controlling the market necessarily requires controlling the people.
Remember, the only people who will ever tell you they can control the market for you is either an idiot or a tyrant. Don't be fooled into thinking you are getting a sweet deal, because the cards will fall and the house always wins when you choose to gamble with them.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
It is Time to Drop the Word Conservative
Let me start by saying first-of-all that I am not claiming that we abandon the 'conservative' principles we hold dear. So do not reply telling me that I have given up, threw in the towel, betrayed the movement, etc... I also am not saying that we begin trying our hand at the liberals game and try to 'control the language'. What I am saying though is that we need to stop letting ourselves be branded or that we cease to hold on to a term we have held for long and that we simply begin to call ourselves and the people we oppose by their correct names.
The word "Conservative" refers to someone who wishes to retain, to 'conserve' the current order of the world. In simpler terms, a conservative seeks to ensure that things remain the same. Let me be clear, under this definition, we are no longer 'conservatives'. This is an obvious point as we no longer wish to conserve our current position in the world.
On the off chance you do not believe me, consider:
Simply put, the very system we are said to want to protect and 'conserve' no longer exists. Today, to be a conservative is to want government intervention, to desire handouts, and to accept taxation as a necessity for the common good. In other words, to be a conservative today, is simply to be a slightly less radical liberal. This is because the beliefs held by the people that call themselves conservatives are no longer in place. The things that are in place are the very government programs that we want to end, the taxes we want removed, the bureaucracies we want dissolved, the regulations we want lifted, the practices we want ended. Nothing in our current government is left to us to conserve. Even our founding document is now more of a decoration than a document to be enforced. It would be simpler to find a genie to grant wishes than to find things we wish to conserve.
In short, we are now the radicals. If you do not believe me then read the tenth amendment to someone who calls themselves a liberal. If you are not hounded for being 'crazy' then I am truly amazed. We are now the crazies. This sounds insane to think, but consider the crazy ideas many people now accept without question. We now live in the world that gives credence to the remark that "the lunatics are running the asylum." When it is the lunatics who run the world, is it not logical to assume that it is the sane who are called crazy? Insane? Radical?
The term conservative no longer applies to us anymore and so it seems we need a new word to identify ourselves with. This term already exists. That term is "Classical Liberal". A word from which Progressives originally snaked the term 'Liberal' in order to change their colors for a time. The simple fact is that we have always been Classical Liberals. We simply have allowed the Progressive movement to re-brand us as conservatives in order to make us sound old and dusty. This no longer has to be.
That term is our term and many already identify with it. As long as we allow ourselves to be called conservatives, the progressive movement will always be able to tell the world how it seeks to change the world. As the very word conservative contains within it the meanings they need to place the blame on our shoulders, our possessing it, even reveling in it will simply be a hindrance.
In order for us to win this battle, we must educate everyone and tell them what it is we mean. The word conservative cannot be tolerated anymore as confusion can only be created by such a word. In preaching a change of government, we must not also incorporate words that confuse our intent. We cannot preach change as the "Conservative Party" or as the "Grand Ole Party". We must leave behind us our tendency to cling to things that possess a certain tenacity for it is this tendency toward the present that people wish to avoid.
This world can still be won with ideas as long as their exists one person's mind which is not yet made up. These minds however do ask for consistency in message, and it is best that we choose even our words carefully so that we do not get confused with the current set of ideals.
The word "Conservative" refers to someone who wishes to retain, to 'conserve' the current order of the world. In simpler terms, a conservative seeks to ensure that things remain the same. Let me be clear, under this definition, we are no longer 'conservatives'. This is an obvious point as we no longer wish to conserve our current position in the world.
On the off chance you do not believe me, consider:
- We have sought, not the continuation of things as they are, but of things as they were.
- To this end we have sought not our current government, but a smaller one. i.e. different government.
- We have argued for lower spending, not our current budget, but a smaller different one.
- We have argued against the high taxes we have had repeatedly imposed upon us, and argued against this continued practice. i.e. we have argued for an end to the current system.
- We wish our government to be held accountable to the people, and held in check by its laws and restrictions, especially its limits on power. In other words, we want our system to be governed differently from the way it is now.
- We seek an end to government handouts and demand a return to self-reliance.
Simply put, the very system we are said to want to protect and 'conserve' no longer exists. Today, to be a conservative is to want government intervention, to desire handouts, and to accept taxation as a necessity for the common good. In other words, to be a conservative today, is simply to be a slightly less radical liberal. This is because the beliefs held by the people that call themselves conservatives are no longer in place. The things that are in place are the very government programs that we want to end, the taxes we want removed, the bureaucracies we want dissolved, the regulations we want lifted, the practices we want ended. Nothing in our current government is left to us to conserve. Even our founding document is now more of a decoration than a document to be enforced. It would be simpler to find a genie to grant wishes than to find things we wish to conserve.
In short, we are now the radicals. If you do not believe me then read the tenth amendment to someone who calls themselves a liberal. If you are not hounded for being 'crazy' then I am truly amazed. We are now the crazies. This sounds insane to think, but consider the crazy ideas many people now accept without question. We now live in the world that gives credence to the remark that "the lunatics are running the asylum." When it is the lunatics who run the world, is it not logical to assume that it is the sane who are called crazy? Insane? Radical?
The term conservative no longer applies to us anymore and so it seems we need a new word to identify ourselves with. This term already exists. That term is "Classical Liberal". A word from which Progressives originally snaked the term 'Liberal' in order to change their colors for a time. The simple fact is that we have always been Classical Liberals. We simply have allowed the Progressive movement to re-brand us as conservatives in order to make us sound old and dusty. This no longer has to be.
That term is our term and many already identify with it. As long as we allow ourselves to be called conservatives, the progressive movement will always be able to tell the world how it seeks to change the world. As the very word conservative contains within it the meanings they need to place the blame on our shoulders, our possessing it, even reveling in it will simply be a hindrance.
In order for us to win this battle, we must educate everyone and tell them what it is we mean. The word conservative cannot be tolerated anymore as confusion can only be created by such a word. In preaching a change of government, we must not also incorporate words that confuse our intent. We cannot preach change as the "Conservative Party" or as the "Grand Ole Party". We must leave behind us our tendency to cling to things that possess a certain tenacity for it is this tendency toward the present that people wish to avoid.
This world can still be won with ideas as long as their exists one person's mind which is not yet made up. These minds however do ask for consistency in message, and it is best that we choose even our words carefully so that we do not get confused with the current set of ideals.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Individualism and Collectivism
In UNLV, I am a Psychology major and a Philosophy minor (undeclared). I have been spending a lot of time trying to prove, in a philosophical manner, a central tenet of individualism. If you read my previous posts I have made, my obvious bias toward individualism can be seen. When I was little, I thought that it was an undeniable fact that I was right, and that if logic were followed, everything I believed in would be proven. I now know this was naive and ignorant of me. This is because I had accepted, as an absolute, an axiom that I now seek to prove should be accepted by everyone. I said I would focus more on theory now that news is calming down, or to be more precise, is becoming more repetitive. (You can only do so many “Obama's taking away our rights, or violating our constitution” posts in a row) I shall focus on two axioms that most people seem to take for granted as being correct. I shall try to make this sound as non-philosophical as possible because, well, most people hate philosophy for that reason. So I will tone down the language so as to not bore the crap out of my > .01 reader per day. If someone happens to come across this and mistake it for an intelligent conversation, then feel free to post objections to me or my argument.
A crap load of people call themselves individualists or claim at some point that individual rights are important. This is probably the reason I began to believe my axiom was absolute. Alas, natural law theories like that are easily destroyed. I realized this when I was talking to a guy on campus at UNLV. He was an Obama stumper and naturally we got into a heated argument. Eventually I tried to get him to tell me what premise is his argument must be based of off for what he was telling me to be acceptable. Naturally the reaction I got was the question repeated back at me to which I gave the often used reply, “I believe that individual liberty and responsibility are the most sacred things in this world.” I was rebuffed with the reply “but how could we build a society?” Though memory may not serve me well enough for that to be an exact quote, his reply allows me to begin describing what believe, what I think everyone believes or should believe if they are conservatives or libertarians, and what I have begun to learn about the opposing ideology of the man I had that argument with.
Consider what I was saying first of all. Essentially I was explaining that I believed in liberty; which, in this case, is defined as freedom to choose. This is a central tenet of a philosophy called individualism. This is primarily a political philosophy, but I am trying to extend this to ethical debates as well. On the political side, this states that the smallest unit that possess its own rights and therefore must be respected in its own opinions and choices with regard to itself is an individual. To be more clear, every person must be respected and counted as far as their voice, opinions, beliefs, desires, and freedoms go. To be even more clear about this, it is an accepted fact that every individual possesses their own rights and these rights cannot be determined from an outside source without their own consent. This means that there is no reason that is good enough to deny any individual's rights unless that right is freely given. I am making the assumption that the word 'freely' leaves out all forms of coercion.
In this respect, I was making a statement about what I believe is right. That being that I have rights that cannot be taken from me, as Jefferson would put it, rights that are inalienable. If you are a conservative or a libertarian then you likely already believe, or think you believe this whole heartedly. The man I was talking to made a statement that spoke to the heart of the opposite belief. This belief is the negation of individualism, or that 'It is not a fact of the world that any individual has a right that cannot be violated under any circumstances.' In other words, if it serves some purpose that is deemed worthy, then an individuals rights may be violated if it serves that purpose. This is the axiom that a collectivist must take as being true to be considered a collectivist. (It could be argued that a collectivist must also believe that these violations must be for the 'collective good', but this is not integral to my argument. If it does bother you, then simply note that a collectivist is an anti-individualist and that my arguments would apply to all anti-individualists as well.)
Let me put this into context. If I were a politician who was also an individualist, and say there were people starving in Calcutta that I wanted to save, then I could do anything that I wanted so long as I never violated another person's rights. For instance, it would be wrong obviously to kill a man and feed him to the children in Calcutta as that would probably violate his right to make choices with regard to his own life. Pretty simple huh? It would also be wrong to steal money from people, or otherwise compel them through force to give their money to the people of Calcutta. This is because I would be violating their own individual rights to choose what they should do with their possessions. I personally do believe in charity, but this belief does not grant me the right to violate others rights. A collectivist on the other hand would have no qualms about doing any of this if he or she decided it was a good thing.
That is the difference between individualism and collectivism, it is that simple. However, both have extreme consequences as well that I have been wrestling with. Starting with collectivism, some people may not yet have a problem with this yet. After all, the collectivist could argue, what is wrong about taking some small percentage of everyone's income if it ends world hunger. Peter Singer actually makes several claims and even alludes to the idea that someone ought to do just that in “Famine, Affluence and Morality”, though to be fair, this is mostly a result of his argument pattern. Who could argue that famine is a worthy cause? Most religions actually state that it is a moral obligation of all their followers that they be generous. Ignoring that, could it be hard to accept that people's lives are unimportant?
This line of thinking may get you jumping on the bandwagon a little too early though. Note that I could use the same sort of logic to argue that all children in the world must be given education. After all, would it not be a crime to allow a single child to go without this benefit? Imagine being unable to get a job somewhere that does not include saying “pull up to the next window please”. In fact, if it could be argued that any cause imaginable could be undertaken in this manner given the proper argument. If the cause is good, then the collectivist must agree that an individuals rights can be violated to achieve it. This is dangerous. Take Obama for example. No one will doubt that he believes that we must strive to help the working poor and so he supports all sorts of programs and taxes to do so. Consider though the possibility of an ideological shift. Now it is considered true that it is in the best interest of the population to be taught a certain thing. Maybe this thing could be argued to help the working poor as well if everyone was taught and and believed this thing. Imagine now this thing was that certain people or groups of people should be made infertile. Margret Sanger believed that “the idiots and morons should not be allowed to reproduce” and see sought funds for her crusade, successfully might I add.
The collectivist might argue now “That is obviously wrong and should not be allowed.” I could argue back though, “consider how much food is being wasted on the useless. If the useless could no longer reproduce, then there would be more food left over for the poor. Also production would likely increase faster ending poverty on a planet wide scale. Is it not more right to save the lives of millions over the mere ability to reproduce? In order to avoid this type of trap, the collectivist would now be forced to add qualifiers to his original axiom; qualifiers like “unless it leads to personal mutilation” or “unless it leads to death”. These qualifiers are just arbitrations and therefore up to arbitration. Could I not argue that back then we thought it wrong to castrate people on the basis of who they are, but now we no longer think that. Unless a rule is an absolute by virtue of being itself or being based upon something that is based upon itself, then there is no foundation strong enough to keep an arbitrary rule like that from being violated.
This may make collectivists run to become individualists now. I myself am an individualist and I have done a great deal of thinking about what it means to be an individualist. As I believe there is no circumstance that justifies violating someone else's rights, then I must also believe that even if it meant the death of children in Calcutta, I cannot choose to take someone else's rights to help another no matter the circumstances. This is an obvious point and almost all conservatives and libertarians will agree with this. This goes much further too. For instance, take a hypothetical many people have encountered. Suppose you are the president and you are kidnapped by strange terrorists who take you to a secluded room. In this room you are confronted with your grandmother who is bound and gagged. You are told that you have only two choices, either shoot your grandmother or blow up a city in your country. What is the right choice? A lot of people would answer “the first one” and this is used often to prove what is called Utilitarianism. However in this case I would say that neither choice is right by the strict definition of it. Pretty simple and agreeable right? That fact that shooting your grandmother might not be as bad as nuking a city, does not make killing your grandmother a good thing. Further, as an individualist, you would be forced to try for the 'third option' so many action stars try in movies. This is because the other two choices violated someones rights and this option, though its success rate is probably very low, does not.
Even the last point I made could be accepted by conservatives and libertarians, though it would be remarked as being impractical and so could not be exercised in the way I described it. I would not disagree with such a statement; though we should strive to create that perfect world where no one ever needs to have their rights violated. Now I find it necessary though to point our some places where conservatives and some libertarians cease to follow the logic of the axiom. The first point is at torture. Obviously torture is wrong if your are torturing for the hell of it, but it is applauded if it is done for what is considered good. Obviously, if you believe that an individual has certain inalienable rights, then barring the possibility that you would argue the person being tortured lacks these rights for some reason, you must agree that torture is wrong. I am probably hated at this moment but read on for a second. Torture is wrong, but the same argument regarding grandma and the terrorists could be used to argue for torture. Note though that this still means that torture is still wrong, not that it is right. What is we had our hands on a terrorist and discovered through some reliable source that he possessed information that could stop a nuclear bomb from going off. Would it not be right to get the information by any means necessary? No, it would not be right, but it may be unavoidable. This argument sounds pretty impotent if I were trying to stop torture. My real purpose is not to stop that though. My point is to make apparent the fact that torture is not a good thing, or even an okay thing. As such, it should never be regarded as such and should be used as a last resort at all times. This attack is more an attack against the attitude about torture than an attack against torture itself.
Maybe most people could come to terms with the above. However, this is not the only problem I have come across. Consider gay marriage. It is my opinion that both sides have the proper solution wrong. The left overwhelmingly believe it is our duty to legalize gay marriage both on the state and federal level as no one has a right to say no to anyone regarding who they love or who they can marry. Many people who call themselves conservatives believe that gay marriage should be banned to protect the sanctity of marriage. Here is the simple truth with regard to individualism, both sides are wrong! The left tends to first make the correct point that we have no say in other peoples marriage practices, but then they throw that away by continuing to use the government. This behavior implicitly acknowledges the government's (and therefore everyone else's) say in what they do. A lovely way to contradict yourself. Of course any conservative that preaches for smaller and less intrusive governments is also contradicting him or herself when they then insist on regulating away a kind of marriage. In reality, government intervention must be removed entirely to avoid this problem. Note that I am not saying we must accept what anyone else does, lets face it, I am not pro-gay. I personally believe that a homosexual lifestyle is a stupid choice of lifestyle. However, if you grant the right to regulate marriage from one group, you have also implicitly given permission to have the same done to yourself. For this reason, and the fact that it is plain wrong, you cannot regulate marriage. For more information on this argument, read my previous post on marriage.
Individualism is obviously very anti-government control and regulation. In fact, if the logic is followed well, then it would seem that the best form of government the world ought to exist under, is the government that most closely comes to Anarchy as possible, while still holding enough power to prevent people from violating each other's individual rights. If ever it were no longer necessary to use government intervention to prevent murder, theft or rape, then it would follow that it was no longer necessary to have a government. This may seem insane but consider what government was used for in the first place. It was created with the sole purpose to prevent chaos and rampant crime, it was also created to protect its citizens from enemies both at home and abroad. If none of these problems existed then what would be the use of such a construct? It would be like keeping a can opener when cans have been discontinued. This once again comes down to practicality. I do not think for a second the Utopian world described above will ever exist, but it is imperative according to individualism that only those rights should be taken that are absolutely necessary for people to live around each other and that the individual gives his or her explicit or implicit permission for all violations of his or her rights.
It is finally time to consider objections to Strong Individualism. I could argue that Individualism is self-contradicting. Imagine a serial-killer decided to use individualism. He claims that he has the right to choose whether or not he can stab a poor woman on the street. This woman would obviously not want this and so would claim that she has the right to choose to live. It seems then individualism protects both people and so contradicts itself. This is so only if you agree that all choices must be respected. If it instead reads something like “An action is wrong if and only if it violates another persons choice intentionally...” then this is no longer self contradicting in this way. This is because the serial-killer never possessed the right to kill the woman and so his rights are not diminished if he is disallowed.
One last objection is that individualism does not prevent fraud or consensual child molestation. To this individualism need to be modifies in a small way. Simply make it wrong to intentionally use information, restrict information, or in some way reduce the number of options the individual is aware of so as to undermine their ability to make a choice. So in the case of fraud, it is obviously wrong to misinform someone to trick them into a certain condition. In the case of consensual child molestation, even if the child were told before hand what was going to happen to him or her, it would be difficult to say the least, to prove that the child understood what was being described. Because of this, it seems that under the age of fifteen, it would be almost impossible to prove the individual had the ability to understand what was going on or the consequences of his or her actions.
I will be the first to admit that this is radical. It is insanely radical. I must point out though that most conservative and libertarians hold these truths to be fact. It would be dishonest to not follow them to their conclusions. While I do not expect most of what I have written here to ever be enacted in full, I do believe that we must at least always move in that direction. It is the right thing to do.
A crap load of people call themselves individualists or claim at some point that individual rights are important. This is probably the reason I began to believe my axiom was absolute. Alas, natural law theories like that are easily destroyed. I realized this when I was talking to a guy on campus at UNLV. He was an Obama stumper and naturally we got into a heated argument. Eventually I tried to get him to tell me what premise is his argument must be based of off for what he was telling me to be acceptable. Naturally the reaction I got was the question repeated back at me to which I gave the often used reply, “I believe that individual liberty and responsibility are the most sacred things in this world.” I was rebuffed with the reply “but how could we build a society?” Though memory may not serve me well enough for that to be an exact quote, his reply allows me to begin describing what believe, what I think everyone believes or should believe if they are conservatives or libertarians, and what I have begun to learn about the opposing ideology of the man I had that argument with.
Consider what I was saying first of all. Essentially I was explaining that I believed in liberty; which, in this case, is defined as freedom to choose. This is a central tenet of a philosophy called individualism. This is primarily a political philosophy, but I am trying to extend this to ethical debates as well. On the political side, this states that the smallest unit that possess its own rights and therefore must be respected in its own opinions and choices with regard to itself is an individual. To be more clear, every person must be respected and counted as far as their voice, opinions, beliefs, desires, and freedoms go. To be even more clear about this, it is an accepted fact that every individual possesses their own rights and these rights cannot be determined from an outside source without their own consent. This means that there is no reason that is good enough to deny any individual's rights unless that right is freely given. I am making the assumption that the word 'freely' leaves out all forms of coercion.
In this respect, I was making a statement about what I believe is right. That being that I have rights that cannot be taken from me, as Jefferson would put it, rights that are inalienable. If you are a conservative or a libertarian then you likely already believe, or think you believe this whole heartedly. The man I was talking to made a statement that spoke to the heart of the opposite belief. This belief is the negation of individualism, or that 'It is not a fact of the world that any individual has a right that cannot be violated under any circumstances.' In other words, if it serves some purpose that is deemed worthy, then an individuals rights may be violated if it serves that purpose. This is the axiom that a collectivist must take as being true to be considered a collectivist. (It could be argued that a collectivist must also believe that these violations must be for the 'collective good', but this is not integral to my argument. If it does bother you, then simply note that a collectivist is an anti-individualist and that my arguments would apply to all anti-individualists as well.)
Let me put this into context. If I were a politician who was also an individualist, and say there were people starving in Calcutta that I wanted to save, then I could do anything that I wanted so long as I never violated another person's rights. For instance, it would be wrong obviously to kill a man and feed him to the children in Calcutta as that would probably violate his right to make choices with regard to his own life. Pretty simple huh? It would also be wrong to steal money from people, or otherwise compel them through force to give their money to the people of Calcutta. This is because I would be violating their own individual rights to choose what they should do with their possessions. I personally do believe in charity, but this belief does not grant me the right to violate others rights. A collectivist on the other hand would have no qualms about doing any of this if he or she decided it was a good thing.
That is the difference between individualism and collectivism, it is that simple. However, both have extreme consequences as well that I have been wrestling with. Starting with collectivism, some people may not yet have a problem with this yet. After all, the collectivist could argue, what is wrong about taking some small percentage of everyone's income if it ends world hunger. Peter Singer actually makes several claims and even alludes to the idea that someone ought to do just that in “Famine, Affluence and Morality”, though to be fair, this is mostly a result of his argument pattern. Who could argue that famine is a worthy cause? Most religions actually state that it is a moral obligation of all their followers that they be generous. Ignoring that, could it be hard to accept that people's lives are unimportant?
This line of thinking may get you jumping on the bandwagon a little too early though. Note that I could use the same sort of logic to argue that all children in the world must be given education. After all, would it not be a crime to allow a single child to go without this benefit? Imagine being unable to get a job somewhere that does not include saying “pull up to the next window please”. In fact, if it could be argued that any cause imaginable could be undertaken in this manner given the proper argument. If the cause is good, then the collectivist must agree that an individuals rights can be violated to achieve it. This is dangerous. Take Obama for example. No one will doubt that he believes that we must strive to help the working poor and so he supports all sorts of programs and taxes to do so. Consider though the possibility of an ideological shift. Now it is considered true that it is in the best interest of the population to be taught a certain thing. Maybe this thing could be argued to help the working poor as well if everyone was taught and and believed this thing. Imagine now this thing was that certain people or groups of people should be made infertile. Margret Sanger believed that “the idiots and morons should not be allowed to reproduce” and see sought funds for her crusade, successfully might I add.
The collectivist might argue now “That is obviously wrong and should not be allowed.” I could argue back though, “consider how much food is being wasted on the useless. If the useless could no longer reproduce, then there would be more food left over for the poor. Also production would likely increase faster ending poverty on a planet wide scale. Is it not more right to save the lives of millions over the mere ability to reproduce? In order to avoid this type of trap, the collectivist would now be forced to add qualifiers to his original axiom; qualifiers like “unless it leads to personal mutilation” or “unless it leads to death”. These qualifiers are just arbitrations and therefore up to arbitration. Could I not argue that back then we thought it wrong to castrate people on the basis of who they are, but now we no longer think that. Unless a rule is an absolute by virtue of being itself or being based upon something that is based upon itself, then there is no foundation strong enough to keep an arbitrary rule like that from being violated.
This may make collectivists run to become individualists now. I myself am an individualist and I have done a great deal of thinking about what it means to be an individualist. As I believe there is no circumstance that justifies violating someone else's rights, then I must also believe that even if it meant the death of children in Calcutta, I cannot choose to take someone else's rights to help another no matter the circumstances. This is an obvious point and almost all conservatives and libertarians will agree with this. This goes much further too. For instance, take a hypothetical many people have encountered. Suppose you are the president and you are kidnapped by strange terrorists who take you to a secluded room. In this room you are confronted with your grandmother who is bound and gagged. You are told that you have only two choices, either shoot your grandmother or blow up a city in your country. What is the right choice? A lot of people would answer “the first one” and this is used often to prove what is called Utilitarianism. However in this case I would say that neither choice is right by the strict definition of it. Pretty simple and agreeable right? That fact that shooting your grandmother might not be as bad as nuking a city, does not make killing your grandmother a good thing. Further, as an individualist, you would be forced to try for the 'third option' so many action stars try in movies. This is because the other two choices violated someones rights and this option, though its success rate is probably very low, does not.
Even the last point I made could be accepted by conservatives and libertarians, though it would be remarked as being impractical and so could not be exercised in the way I described it. I would not disagree with such a statement; though we should strive to create that perfect world where no one ever needs to have their rights violated. Now I find it necessary though to point our some places where conservatives and some libertarians cease to follow the logic of the axiom. The first point is at torture. Obviously torture is wrong if your are torturing for the hell of it, but it is applauded if it is done for what is considered good. Obviously, if you believe that an individual has certain inalienable rights, then barring the possibility that you would argue the person being tortured lacks these rights for some reason, you must agree that torture is wrong. I am probably hated at this moment but read on for a second. Torture is wrong, but the same argument regarding grandma and the terrorists could be used to argue for torture. Note though that this still means that torture is still wrong, not that it is right. What is we had our hands on a terrorist and discovered through some reliable source that he possessed information that could stop a nuclear bomb from going off. Would it not be right to get the information by any means necessary? No, it would not be right, but it may be unavoidable. This argument sounds pretty impotent if I were trying to stop torture. My real purpose is not to stop that though. My point is to make apparent the fact that torture is not a good thing, or even an okay thing. As such, it should never be regarded as such and should be used as a last resort at all times. This attack is more an attack against the attitude about torture than an attack against torture itself.
Maybe most people could come to terms with the above. However, this is not the only problem I have come across. Consider gay marriage. It is my opinion that both sides have the proper solution wrong. The left overwhelmingly believe it is our duty to legalize gay marriage both on the state and federal level as no one has a right to say no to anyone regarding who they love or who they can marry. Many people who call themselves conservatives believe that gay marriage should be banned to protect the sanctity of marriage. Here is the simple truth with regard to individualism, both sides are wrong! The left tends to first make the correct point that we have no say in other peoples marriage practices, but then they throw that away by continuing to use the government. This behavior implicitly acknowledges the government's (and therefore everyone else's) say in what they do. A lovely way to contradict yourself. Of course any conservative that preaches for smaller and less intrusive governments is also contradicting him or herself when they then insist on regulating away a kind of marriage. In reality, government intervention must be removed entirely to avoid this problem. Note that I am not saying we must accept what anyone else does, lets face it, I am not pro-gay. I personally believe that a homosexual lifestyle is a stupid choice of lifestyle. However, if you grant the right to regulate marriage from one group, you have also implicitly given permission to have the same done to yourself. For this reason, and the fact that it is plain wrong, you cannot regulate marriage. For more information on this argument, read my previous post on marriage.
Individualism is obviously very anti-government control and regulation. In fact, if the logic is followed well, then it would seem that the best form of government the world ought to exist under, is the government that most closely comes to Anarchy as possible, while still holding enough power to prevent people from violating each other's individual rights. If ever it were no longer necessary to use government intervention to prevent murder, theft or rape, then it would follow that it was no longer necessary to have a government. This may seem insane but consider what government was used for in the first place. It was created with the sole purpose to prevent chaos and rampant crime, it was also created to protect its citizens from enemies both at home and abroad. If none of these problems existed then what would be the use of such a construct? It would be like keeping a can opener when cans have been discontinued. This once again comes down to practicality. I do not think for a second the Utopian world described above will ever exist, but it is imperative according to individualism that only those rights should be taken that are absolutely necessary for people to live around each other and that the individual gives his or her explicit or implicit permission for all violations of his or her rights.
It is finally time to consider objections to Strong Individualism. I could argue that Individualism is self-contradicting. Imagine a serial-killer decided to use individualism. He claims that he has the right to choose whether or not he can stab a poor woman on the street. This woman would obviously not want this and so would claim that she has the right to choose to live. It seems then individualism protects both people and so contradicts itself. This is so only if you agree that all choices must be respected. If it instead reads something like “An action is wrong if and only if it violates another persons choice intentionally...” then this is no longer self contradicting in this way. This is because the serial-killer never possessed the right to kill the woman and so his rights are not diminished if he is disallowed.
One last objection is that individualism does not prevent fraud or consensual child molestation. To this individualism need to be modifies in a small way. Simply make it wrong to intentionally use information, restrict information, or in some way reduce the number of options the individual is aware of so as to undermine their ability to make a choice. So in the case of fraud, it is obviously wrong to misinform someone to trick them into a certain condition. In the case of consensual child molestation, even if the child were told before hand what was going to happen to him or her, it would be difficult to say the least, to prove that the child understood what was being described. Because of this, it seems that under the age of fifteen, it would be almost impossible to prove the individual had the ability to understand what was going on or the consequences of his or her actions.
I will be the first to admit that this is radical. It is insanely radical. I must point out though that most conservative and libertarians hold these truths to be fact. It would be dishonest to not follow them to their conclusions. While I do not expect most of what I have written here to ever be enacted in full, I do believe that we must at least always move in that direction. It is the right thing to do.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Vindication and Agitation
I am back after a long hiatus. School continues to be disruptive to my hobby of yelling at no one, for no one to hear. Well, the GIVE act has almost vindicated me and the prediction I have made in December of last year. I need to get my congressman on the phone and ask him what in the world he thinks he is doing voting for that, but whatever. That is between me and him.
Since I took off to do a great many things at UNLV, a great big amount of ruckus has been made about bailouts, and even more about a bunch of guys getting their bonuses. Well, of course we could not block those bonuses; I mean, that would have been unconstitutional. Though that does not seem to be the reason for that. This is evidenced by a great many people clamoring for a tax on their bonuses. Gee whiz, that almost sounds unconstitutional. I mean... taxing particular people, and making the tax retroactive. Nah, I am just stupid. Besides, who cares about the constitution? It is our money!!
Let me first make the obvious point that if AIG was not bailed out, this conversation would not exist. But who cares about little facts like that? Let's just go grab our respective pitchforks and go hunting. The simple fact is that this IS our fault. It is not like AIG walked into our homes in the dead of night and took this money. The government, that we voted in, taxed it from us and gave the money to AIG while so many were crying out about some mysterious and vague end-of-the-world scenario. That is not to say no one cried out about these bailouts. Many, like me, were down right angry we were even considering it. Then we allowed them to fulfill their contracts, as was constitutionally required of us. Low and behold, one of the contracts we allowed them to honor included the bonuses.
Well people are outraged that their money is going to these big corporate execs. People are so angry now that they are even happy that we are going to take all their money via tax. Why are we allowing this? Does it not strike anyone as strange, or dare I say wrong to tax these men and women in particular?
Let me put this differently. What if it were you? What if, for whatever reason you want to choose, the government decided to tax you in particular? What if the reason was you do not give enough to charity? Or maybe it is because you earn an 'inordinate amount' of money in comparison to others in your same job? Or maybe it is simply because you happen to be registered for a certain party, or voted for a particular guy?
'No! That is different.' Certainly the circumstances and reasons are different, but can you tell me it wouldn't be done? With this 90% tax that is going through congress right now, we are giving congress precedent. This means that this belief that it could not happen to me goes away. You could argue that the reasons are different, but does that mean whatever reasons given for the unconstitutional tax levied on them are any more or less important then the ones that could be levied on you? You could say that this reason makes it justified, or that it was a punishment for a 'wrong' they have committed. However, could I not make up a reason for doing the exact same thing to anyone else and then claim that this reason is just as justifiable as the ones for this atrocity?
Once this door is opened it cannot be closed simply by crying bloody murder. If we take these bonuses, then there will be no reason why we shouldn't levy a tax on someone for having done something, anything. All we would need would be the proper motivation for it, whatever that motivation happens to be at that time. Maybe sexual preference, skin color, the fact that your hair is parted on the left. All that is required is that someone at some point makes up a good enough reason, and soon the rights of an individual are infringed "for the right reasons".
This is why a diminishing of rights of one, diminishes every person's rights. So you cannot allow this, even IF you think this is a good reason. The rights that protect you protect them as well. By giving the federal government permission to tax anyone in particular, you have given the government permission by assent to do the very same thing to anyone including yourself.
Why should I care though? Some people I know may want everyone to root for this. After all "the libs brought it upon themselves." Once all hell breaks loose these friends of mine will undoubtedly be the ones laughing all the way to the gas chamber. The reason I am against this line of logic is simple; I live here too. Though I warned people and was insulted, and am still insulted. Even though I put up with crap from every 'know-it-all' who listens to NPR; the fact still stands. I live here and I do not think I will be moving for awhile. Laughing at people for making mistakes, even horrible ones will not repair anything. It will get me and everyone else nowhere. We all must simply get together and vote for every conservative we possibly can in two years. When the problem is fixed, that will be the time we can go say I told you so.
Since I took off to do a great many things at UNLV, a great big amount of ruckus has been made about bailouts, and even more about a bunch of guys getting their bonuses. Well, of course we could not block those bonuses; I mean, that would have been unconstitutional. Though that does not seem to be the reason for that. This is evidenced by a great many people clamoring for a tax on their bonuses. Gee whiz, that almost sounds unconstitutional. I mean... taxing particular people, and making the tax retroactive. Nah, I am just stupid. Besides, who cares about the constitution? It is our money!!
Let me first make the obvious point that if AIG was not bailed out, this conversation would not exist. But who cares about little facts like that? Let's just go grab our respective pitchforks and go hunting. The simple fact is that this IS our fault. It is not like AIG walked into our homes in the dead of night and took this money. The government, that we voted in, taxed it from us and gave the money to AIG while so many were crying out about some mysterious and vague end-of-the-world scenario. That is not to say no one cried out about these bailouts. Many, like me, were down right angry we were even considering it. Then we allowed them to fulfill their contracts, as was constitutionally required of us. Low and behold, one of the contracts we allowed them to honor included the bonuses.
Well people are outraged that their money is going to these big corporate execs. People are so angry now that they are even happy that we are going to take all their money via tax. Why are we allowing this? Does it not strike anyone as strange, or dare I say wrong to tax these men and women in particular?
Let me put this differently. What if it were you? What if, for whatever reason you want to choose, the government decided to tax you in particular? What if the reason was you do not give enough to charity? Or maybe it is because you earn an 'inordinate amount' of money in comparison to others in your same job? Or maybe it is simply because you happen to be registered for a certain party, or voted for a particular guy?
'No! That is different.' Certainly the circumstances and reasons are different, but can you tell me it wouldn't be done? With this 90% tax that is going through congress right now, we are giving congress precedent. This means that this belief that it could not happen to me goes away. You could argue that the reasons are different, but does that mean whatever reasons given for the unconstitutional tax levied on them are any more or less important then the ones that could be levied on you? You could say that this reason makes it justified, or that it was a punishment for a 'wrong' they have committed. However, could I not make up a reason for doing the exact same thing to anyone else and then claim that this reason is just as justifiable as the ones for this atrocity?
Once this door is opened it cannot be closed simply by crying bloody murder. If we take these bonuses, then there will be no reason why we shouldn't levy a tax on someone for having done something, anything. All we would need would be the proper motivation for it, whatever that motivation happens to be at that time. Maybe sexual preference, skin color, the fact that your hair is parted on the left. All that is required is that someone at some point makes up a good enough reason, and soon the rights of an individual are infringed "for the right reasons".
This is why a diminishing of rights of one, diminishes every person's rights. So you cannot allow this, even IF you think this is a good reason. The rights that protect you protect them as well. By giving the federal government permission to tax anyone in particular, you have given the government permission by assent to do the very same thing to anyone including yourself.
Why should I care though? Some people I know may want everyone to root for this. After all "the libs brought it upon themselves." Once all hell breaks loose these friends of mine will undoubtedly be the ones laughing all the way to the gas chamber. The reason I am against this line of logic is simple; I live here too. Though I warned people and was insulted, and am still insulted. Even though I put up with crap from every 'know-it-all' who listens to NPR; the fact still stands. I live here and I do not think I will be moving for awhile. Laughing at people for making mistakes, even horrible ones will not repair anything. It will get me and everyone else nowhere. We all must simply get together and vote for every conservative we possibly can in two years. When the problem is fixed, that will be the time we can go say I told you so.
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