A neighbor of mine has become involved in the tea-party movement over the past few months. This is a fairly new thing for her. I’ve talked to her about god and politics on a few occasions. I have to say, she doesn’t do much to improve the image I have of the tea-party movement; quite the opposite – she comes across as sheltered, narrowminded, and short on facts.
The first time I asked her about why she supports the tea-party movement, it didn’t take long before she was almost yelling. This was certainly not due to any hostility on my part – in fact, I didn’t have a hostile tone and didn’t even respond, I honestly wanted to hear what she had to say so I was avoiding being confrontational. It was scary how quickly she was able to work herself into a frenzy about illegal immigrants, Obama, etc.
More recently, I was talking to her again about politics and religion. She’s gotten involved in a republican groups – which means she’s more surrounded by people who reinforce and polarize her opinions. I feel like she’s slipping into crazy territory, and is pretty hostile to anyone who thinks differently.
While talking to her, I told her that, while I didn’t completely disagree with ideas about fiscal responsibility (I’m more of an economic moderate, think that a national deficit and debt is bad), I didn’t really like the tea-party movement because of the other ideas floating around the movement. For example, one tea-party activist who won the Republican primary wants abortion outlawed even in cases of rape and incest. Another one thinks Denver’s bike program is tied to the UN, global-warming activists, and represents a threat to American liberty. I’ve seen the tea-party activists protesting in front of the capital, comparing Obama to Hitler and the USSR. I brought up the birthers (i.e. people who think that Obama wasn’t born in the United States – which would disqualify him as President of the United States). She immediately responded “why hasn’t he shown his birth certificate?” Oh, no, I thought – she even buys into the birther movement. I told her that he has, and that they’ve also shown the announcement in the Hawaiian newspaper about his birth. She seemed to suggest that maybe they faked it. As I would find out in discussions, this conspiratorial type of thinking came up frequently. Whenever some fact would contradict her viewpoint, she would immediately question whether it was some liberal plot to cover-up the truth. It’s a rather robust strategy – it allows her to disconnect from reality and believe almost anything she wants. Under this system, facts are no obstacal.
The Tea-Party in Colorado
I’ve looked up statistics on the tea-party movement in Colorado. 51% of Republicans in Colorado say they part of the tea-party movement. Two tea-party candidates won republican primaries recently. (Both of them barely squeezed by, but were considered long shots six months ago.) They’ve got some support from independents and something like 10% of democrats. Overall, the polls say that the tea-party has about 30% support in Colorado. This astounds me to think that 1/3rd of the state is positive towards the tea-party. This is actually much higher than in other states – their numbers are about 16% in the country as a whole.
Illegal Immigration
She talked about how Obama wanted amnesty for the illegal immigrants, but illegal immigrants are harming the US economy by going to hospitals and getting free medical care. She complained that whites would be a minority in the United States any day now, and we needed to kick-out the illegals. I can understand the argument about stopping illegal immigrants from coming across the border, and I can sort-of understand the argument about getting all the illegals out of the country (though, I’d question the cost of actually doing it). Personally, I think illegal immigrants are a mixed-bag. On one hand, they do provide cheap labor. Some republicans actually like illegal immigrants for exactly this reason – they see them as providing cheap labor which helps the US economy. On the other hand, poor people tend to consume more tax-based services than they pay in taxes (which would be the argument from fiscal responsibility, although I’m unsure if illegals consume as many public services as poor Americans). I’m just don’t believe it’s the crisis that conservatives think it is. I think conservatives are actually more concerned about the language and culture of illegals. They seem them as the “other” who are edging out the “better” white majority in the United States. They want to preserve the things they like – the English language, the white culture, the white majority – which is why, on this issue, the issue of “whites becoming a minority in the United States” is always a step or two behind the illegal immigration issue.
She claimed that whites would be a minority in the United States within ten years because mexicans and blacks have so many children. I told her that whites and blacks have about the same number of children – about 2 per female, and mexicans have about 3 children per woman. Of course, she didn’t believe me. So, we opened a browser and looked it up. I also said that whites in the United States would not drop below 50% within the next ten years – rather, it would be another 30-40 years. Again, she didn’t believe me, so we looked it up online. This was a familiar pattern – she had some hyperbolic belief about the state of the country which was entirely false, but it reinforced her beliefs and her anger.
She complained that Obama wants complete amnesty. (Actually, Obama talked about a “path to citizenship”, although Republicans have argued that it’s all part of a sneaky plan to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants.) So, I told her that her tea-party candidate had almost the same position on illegal immigration a year ago as Obama did. She said that her tea-party candidate hasn’t changed his position on illegal immigration – he’s always been fighting for sending the illegals back to Mexico. So, I looked it up online. Her initial response was that she said she probably wouldn’t believe what was written on the internet because “the media is liberal” and was, therefore, unfair to her candidate. I looked it up, and found a copy of her candidate’s website (one year ago) on the wayback machine. Her own tea-party candidate talked about a “path to citizenship” (same exact phrase as Obama used) for illegal immigrants who didn’t have a DUI or felony. At first, she didn’t believe it – questioning whether or not the wayback machine was accurately displaying the website. (Wow, I actually had to convince her that the screen-capture of *her own candidates website* was an accurate portrayal of her candidate’s position!) Her next response was to say that the “no felonies” part would immediately disqualify half the illegal immigrants. It seemed pretty unlikely to me that half the illegals were felons – but it would fit with her general tendency towards hyperbole that reinforced her own views.
It occured to me just how powerful the whole “liberal media” game was for conservatives – it enabled them to ignore anything they didn’t want to read or believe. It justified not listening to the “biased” otherside. Instead, they could justify getting their news exclusively from conservative sources. Those conservative sources could either avoid talking about negative facts about “their guys”, softpedal them, or twist-around the situation into something that it wasn’t. It allowed the conservative media to keep people in their own pocket. Of course, she claims that she reads outside of conservative news sources, but given her immediate hostility to believing anything said about her candidate on the web, I’d have to think that – even if she does read other sources – it’s from the perspective of “I can ignore anything they say, because those guys are probably liars anyway”. Even some famous conservatives have stated that the whole “liberal media” idea is exaggerated and inaccurate, but that it’s a really useful tool for conservatives:
“I admit it — the liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures.”
– William Kristol
Libertarianism
Being very anti-tax, she had some libertarian leanings towards the free market taking care of everything. I don’t care much for libertarianism. I think economics and business are more complex than libertarians believe it is. Despite the libertarian mantra about the market taking care of itself, there are far too many ways for businesses to swindle money from customers, and too many externalities that fall outside businesses’ bottom line. For example, businesses have no incentive to lower the pollution put out by cars – air is a “shared resource” and it’s not something that they have a direct interest in preserving, and neither do their customers except from the standpoint of “social responsibility”. There’s an enormous amount of money-swindles that can be done on Wall Street – everything from pump-and-dump of stocks, to buying insurance on mortgage-backed securities that were designed to fail (and earning hundreds of millions of dollars doing it), to hedge-fund managers giving out fake reports (or no reports at all – “trust us”), or in the case of Standard Oil, lower the selling price of oil to drive out competition and gain a monopoly.
So, of course, I always have to ask the libertarian-minded person: “Do you think ponzi schemes should be illegal?” By libertarian thought, the market will adjust – i.e. once people get burned by ponzi-schemes, they’ll learn to avoid them, so the market will fix the problem. This seems terribly naive. Not only will it mean that people have to get duped before people learn (and sometimes experience is the worst way to learn a lesson), but there’s a million ways to swindle people. Do people in society need to learn all the millions of ways they can be swindled in order to avoid them? That’s putting quite a burden on the public. Furthermore, there’s always cases where people might get involved in stuff that they don’t realize is a ponzi-scheme. It’s like saying that all “medicines” should be legal (regardless of whether they’re effective or tested), and society will figure out from experience which medicines work. Nevermind that people can be notoriously bad at sorting out effective and ineffective medicine, thanks to things like confirmation bias and the placebo effect. According to libertarians, medicines that don’t work or are harmful will eventually get eliminated from the market. Now, we’re expecting everyone in society to become experts on finance and medicine in order to protect themselves against a million swindlers? The libertarian position is bad because it forces people to learn through experience – which can be the worst, slowest, most painful way to learn something. And, the whole time that learning process is occurring, swindlers are getting rich selling sham treatments for cancer or foisting ponzi-schemes on the public. It’s really a market where liars, con-men, and monopolists can earn a fortune.
In a lot of ways, I think the libertarian take on the free market is like someone who thinks the body can always heal itself. Sure, the free market can do quite a bit, and the body can heal itself quite well, but libertarians look at any kind of interference in the market as a distortion from the “perfect” solution coming from the market. This seems as absurd as someone who says that the body can always heal itself, therefore, antibiotics, medicine, and surgery are distortions of the body’s perfect healing system. There’s some truth to the core belief, but things go wrong when it’s seen as the perfect system and interventions are seen as distortions of perfection.
She couldn’t really give me an answer to the question of whether or not ponzi-schemes should be illegal. I’m assuming her mind was caught between the obvious fact that ponzi-schemes are a scam to enrich con-men (and should be illegal), and the libertarian belief that the market sorts everything out (and therefore, it’s okay for them to be legal).
God and Morality
At some point, the topic of Gene Simmons’ reality show came up. She talked about what a great businessman he was. I said that I didn’t like him because he came-off as being rather amoral – that he goes after what he wants and doesn’t much care much about people in the way. She responded with a “isn’t that the American way”? I wasn’t entirely sure if she was endorsing what he was doing, or what exactly she was saying. It wouldn’t surprise me if she was endorsing ambitious, amoral business practices. She then accused me of being amoral. Huh? I said that being atheist and amoral are not the same thing. She had a hard time believing that. (Oh great, I thought. This is pretty typical Christian-type thinking: that anyone who’s an atheist must be amoral.) She said that if I don’t believe in God, that I have no reason to be moral. “Sure I do. It’s just that if you always grew up believing that you’re supposed to be good because God says so, you start to believe that God is the only reason people should be good. If you didn’t believe in God, you’d start to think more deeply about it and realize that there are reasons other than God to be moral.” She said that God was the source of all morality, and therefore, by definition, anyone who doesn’t believe in God is amoral. This struck me as an odd argument – it doesn’t matter how I act, or how I think people should be treated. I am amoral simply because I don’t believe in God? I asked her: “Buddhists don’t believe in God. Do you think that Buddhists are amoral?” Yes, she responded. I just shook my head. It just all sounded so sheltered and narrow minded. It was like she couldn’t wrap her head around the idea that her belief system – which revolved around Christianity and conservative America – wasn’t the perfect one, and anyone who thought differently was deficient in some major way.
I told her that the fact that I don’t believe in Christianity doesn’t make me morally deficient, and my atheism was not some sort of decadent rebellion against God. There were plenty of good reasons to question Christianity. I said that God kills all the first born in Egypt, even the slaves. I said that the Old Testament teaches that rapists have to marry the woman they rape.
If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her. (Deuteronomy 22:28-29)
How could “God”, the creator of morality, teach that women who are raped have to marry their rapist? “Those were different times with a different culture” she responded. I responded that those Old Testament laws are the creations of someone in a bronze-age mindset, and not the teachings of some perfectly moral deity. (Besides, how incredibly morally relativist can you get when you say that those laws are okay because “it was a different culture”? Funny how theists always throw the “moral relativist” stone at unbelievers.)
She said that atheism was a terribly depressing belief – it’s a belief that everyone ceases to exist when they die. She knew that she was going to heaven with her family. I said that Christianity is depressing because it says that some people will be tortured in hell for eternity, to which she replied, “Not me and my family”. That seemed like an incredibly self-centered response – it doesn’t matter if people suffer in hell for eternity, because it won’t be her or her family – therefore, it isn’t that important. Her attitude reminded me of this conversation from a sitcom:
Elaine: Oh. So, you’re pretty religious?
Puddy: That’s right.
Elaine: So is it a problem that I’m not really religious?
Puddy: Not for me.
Elaine: Why not?
Puddy: I’m not the one going to hell.
She seemed to flip-flop on the issue of who goes to heaven. At times, she would say that only Christians go to heaven. I responded that a perfect God would not create the system of Christianity. There were too many people who never heard of Christianity within their lifetimes. The God she believes in would not create a system where most of humanity would never hear of Christianity within their lifetime if God wants to save people. I pointed out the tragedy of the millions of Americans who (before Columbus) lived and died without hearing about Christianity – even though Jesus had already died on the cross, and therefore, could theoretically be saved. God had the power to bring Christianity to America, and mankind did not. The whole system, especially the part about people not knowing which religion is the true religion (and therefore, being condemned to hell for making the wrong decision) was just a bad system. No one makes a completely informed decision about which religion they follow, and therefore, it’s unfair that they should be punished/rewarded eternally for their decision. Chosing to follow Christianity is not synonymous with wanting to obey God. And chosing not to follow Christianity is not synonymous with not wanting to obey God. Therefore, the whole system is bad, and wouldn’t have been created by God. She argued “that life isn’t fair, and religion isn’t logical. You can’t use logical arguments to think about religion. Religion is faith. It wouldn’t be faith if you could figure it out.” I said again that faith isn’t a system that God would create – it’s really just saying that everyone has to make an uninformed decision, and then eternally punishing/rewarding them for their decision.
She responded by saying that God makes the rules, we don’t. This also seemed like a pretty bad argument. Essentially, she was arguing that “might makes right”. God, even if his system is dictatorial and unfair, is the one “in charge”, so we’d all just better get used to it. It sounded a awful lot like arguments for the monarchy — it doesn’t much matter if the king is fair or kind or just, we’d all just better decide to fall in line behind what he wants because he’s got the army on his side.
I will say that “faith” and “religion isn’t logical” is a pretty good way for religious believers to avoid criticism of their religion. It allows them to bulletproof their belief against things like logic and reason; a system of thought that allows them to avoid ever having to change their own minds, and can be used to reinforce any belief system (whether it’s Christianity, Islam, Scientology, or whatever). Any argument that let’s people reinforce any belief system that they already have is probably a pretty crappy argument.
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More recently, she sent me an article about how the tea-party is taking over, the democrats are divided and in disarray, and Obama’s approval numbers have been falling like a rock this summer. I pointed out the flawed numbers used to legitimize the argument. In reality, Obama’s numbers have barely moved this summer (in fact, her article links to poll numbers that contradict its own argument). (And here’s another article saying the same while pointing out Obama’s numbers compare favorably to Reagan, Carter, and Clinton.), which promoted her to respond that she has a right to her own opinion. What an odd response – that pointing out factual errors in an article somehow amounted “depriving her of the right to her own opinion”. Although, I suppose in some sense, facts do deprive people of their own ignorant opinions. But, it seems like conservatives have found a solution to that “problem”.
Tiny Frog 
You seem to talk with her a lot. Do either of you ever get upset or just lose it? You said at the beginning it didn’t take much for her to start raising her voice.
Can you sense what her goal is in talking with you? She’s taking a lot of time to talk with you, even sitting down and looking something up online. Is she trying to bring you to her side? Or is she just trying to present her view?
In my experience, a lot of people who are wrapped up in an ideology tend to shut down any conversation when they are confronted by someone who disagrees with them. Some of her evasions are like this, but I’m talking about her (or you) just walking away when it becomes obvious that neither of you will budge.
Does she keep coming back to talk about more, or do you initiate the conversations?
You seem to talk with her a lot. Do either of you ever get upset or just lose it? You said at the beginning it didn’t take much for her to start raising her voice.
In general, she starts to raise her voice first. Sometimes I match it, and sometimes I just give up because I think it’s pointless. I wouldn’t say either of us have ‘lost it’.
Can you sense what her goal is in talking with you? She’s taking a lot of time to talk with you, even sitting down and looking something up online. Is she trying to bring you to her side? Or is she just trying to present her view?
I don’t think she’s trying to convert me to her side. I’m trying to moderate her views and get her to have at least a small amount of respect for my views. The main reason I want some respect for things like atheism is because I realize she’s in the majority, and worry about the ramifications for us if the majority thinks like she does.
I think the conversations generally start from some news event. We’re generally on friendly terms except for political and religious issues.
Does she keep coming back to talk about more, or do you initiate the conversations?
Generally, it starts with some off-hand comment about some recent news. Sometimes I ignore it to avoid getting into it. Sometimes I can’t resist pointing out some obvious flaw in what she said.
Interesting post. It’s good to see you back posting thoughtful items.
Regarding immigrants: I think they contribute a lot more to America than they get out of it. And I am sure you are aware, they don’t like being called “illegals.” It’s an interesting semantic debate about the fact that U.S. companies are hiring them illegally. So why are the people called “illegal” but the companies aren’t? No doubt, the workers are breaking immigration law. But I am starting to have sympathy for this argument. If you want to call them “illegals” – fine, but when you buy a bagged salad at the grocery store, you should also refer to it as an “illegal salad.” It’s kind of fun and reminds you that this is a complicated issue.
On atheism and morality: People with a narrow world-view don’t like to think about the fact that there are “others” out there on the planet. The ability to see someone else’s point of view is seen as amoral, because it contains shades of gray. So they think of fuzziness as moral relativity, which they equate with absence of morals.
Regarding immigrants: I think they contribute a lot more to America than they get out of it.
Yes, that may be the case. I tried to find some numbers online. One site claimed that they produced $30 billion worth of value for the US economy and consumed $26 billion in services (presumably through things like hospitals, schools, the legal system, although, I assume they can’t get welfare). I don’t know if that’s accurate, but from a fiscal perspective, it looked like a $4 billion benefit to the US economy, while not huge, isn’t negative. It seems like there would have to be a huge negative fiscal effect to justify the anger that I see among the anti-illegal immigrant movement. Plus, it would have to justify the cost of getting them out of the country.
I still find it interesting that there are two minds on illegal immigration among republicans. The pro-business republicans wanted to quietly ignore the issue because it helped businesses, but it seems like the anti-immigrant republicans have seen a rise in support over the past few years forcing more and more of the pro-business republicans to come out as more anti-illegal immigrant.
And I am sure you are aware, they don’t like being called “illegals.” It’s an interesting semantic debate about the fact that U.S. companies are hiring them illegally. So why are the people called “illegal” but the companies aren’t? No doubt, the workers are breaking immigration law. But I am starting to have sympathy for this argument. If you want to call them “illegals”…
True. I don’t really see a problem using the shortened term “illegals”. I wasn’t intending to attach a bias in any direction by using that term, although it might have that effect.
Sounds very similar to several discussions I’ve been in. It is very difficult to discuss facts with someone that believes the world is designed to mislead them.
I don’t have much to add, except that I applaud your patience in talking with your neighbor so long. I used to have more conversations like that, but have grown frustrated that they usually lead no where.
Also enjoyed your observation on the usefulness of the “Liberal Media” idea for conservatives. When I’m not frustrated with the followers, sometimes I am truly in awe of how belief systems can mold their followers so as to immunize them against defecting. It seems clear that “truth” is not a very important fitness function for ideas!
The Tea Party movement is made up of a diverse range of people, including pro-immigration atheists like myself.
I won’t try to dissect your views on economics, but I would like to point out that under laissez-faire capitalism fraud is still illegal.
I recommend that you give the question of laissez-faire vs statism the same careful study you have given to evolution vs creationism. I think you would find that the pseudo-science is all on the side of statism, and for the same reason. Whereas creationism attempts to save the literal word of the Bible, socialism attempts to save its central moral thesis: that we exist for the sake of others. Neither is rationally defensible.
I have more of a hybrid position. This isn’t about “statism” or “laissaz-faire” capitalism. My position really has more to do with the fact that there isn’t a reliable, trustworthy actor in the whole system.
Thus, a system of balance between the existing powers brings about the best result. (In that sense, it’s kind of like the balance of power in the three branches of the US government.) That’s my main problem with libertarians: they seem to think that the businessman is the reliable, trustworthy actor and everyone else is beneath that. (In fact, you can see exactly this kind of deification of the businessman type character in libertarian propaganda.)
> “but I would like to point out that under laissez-faire capitalism fraud is still illegal.”
Yes, I was aware that some of my examples involved fraud. I probably should’ve been more careful to avoid those examples if only to avoid giving libertarians something to poke at. Regardless, there are still examples listed above about the pitfalls of capitalism which aren’t connected to fraud.
Laissez-faire capitalism is a system in which government is limited to the protection of individual rights. If you say that’s not enought, then it seems that you believe that it’s possible to harm others without violating their rights. How? The examples you gave really don’t hold up.
Air pollution: This is an example where if you can show that actual harm is being done, there’s no problem with making laws to prevent it. Even Ayn Rand was not opposed to laws protecting air quality so long as they were based on objective science, and applied equitably.
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/pollution.html
Mortgage industry: The failure of that industry has Made in Washington stamped all over it. They pushed the industry to make high risk loans, provided an unlimited guarantee against failure, and got precisely the result that could have been predicted by anyone with half a brain.
Standard Oil: Genuine monopolies can only be maintained by government force. A market dominance created by superior competitive practices must constantly be earned by satisfying the demands of costumers, in which case the company has a right to it. There are plenty of examples of companies that had market dominance and lost it to new comers with superior innovations.
In general: Free market economists do not claim that we should rely on the goodwill of our fellow citizens to insure our rights. That is the legitimate function of government. Government, however, must be limited: It must only be allowed to respond with force to the initiation of force (or fraud). When government is allowed to initiate force to achieve an alleged public good, it inevitably goes wrong.
This is the pattern we’ve seen:
* The actions of one group of citizens creates a social problem that affects us all. Therefore, their freedom must be restricted.
* It’s not enough to simply make it against the law, and respond to breaches of the law. To ensure that that they are complying with the restriction, we need a regulatory agency that oversees their actions.
* In order to engage in certain activities, they must prove to that regulatory that they aren’t committing a criminal act.
Can you imagine if this were applied to all criminal acts? What if you had to undergo a yearly house inspection in order to prove that there were no stolen goods in your house? What if you had to submit proof of purchase for every item in your possession? We’re already close to that level of coercion with regard to the drug laws.
So far, the government has established its power to take these actions by directing them at one unpopular minority. When all citizens are threatened with the kind of scrutiny that businessmen are subjected to on a daily basis, perhaps they will wake up to the creeping totalitarianism in this country.
“The examples you gave really don’t hold up.”
Really? Did you address the pump-and-dump of stocks? Ponzi schemes? Selling medicines with no oversight at all? (Boy, that would make the world ripe for snake oil – particularly when the snake oil is supposed to cure a fatal disease, because people who are dying are willing to give away vast wealth if it might help them survive.) I also disagree with eliminating drug-laws. There are drugs that are just too addicting, and sometimes governments have to look-out for the society. Perhaps the libertarians can accept the idea of lots of drug-addicted citizens, but it’s not in the interest of the country as a whole, nor in the interests of individuals (whether they are drug-addicted themselves, or affected because a parent is addicted). I really think libertarians fetishize this concept of “liberty” way too much – as if liberty is the only thing that matters – everything else is worthless and insignificant.
“Air pollution: This is an example where if you can show that actual harm is being done, there’s no problem with making laws to prevent it. Even Ayn Rand was not opposed to laws protecting air quality so long as they were based on objective science, and applied equitably.”
Under a libertarian system, there would be no government solution because businesses would be so powerful that no laws would ever get passed. Speaking of which, I recently read an article about the Koch brothers. They’re ultra-rich owners of chemical and oil companies. They’re also libertarians. They’ve been fighting to end air-pollution regulation, and undermining public belief in global warming. All for their own benefit, of course. It’s really an interesting article – it shows what ultra-rich libertarians would really do when they’ve got the power. An excerpt:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all
“Mortgage industry: The failure of that industry has Made in Washington stamped all over it. They pushed the industry to make high risk loans, provided an unlimited guarantee against failure, and got precisely the result that could have been predicted by anyone with half a brain. ”
Nope. There were lots of issues going on here, and the libertarian explanation of the government pushing for home ownership is missing the big part of the story. I recommend: http://podcast.thisamericanlife.org/podcast/405.mp3
What Magnetar was doing had nothing to do with the government wanting people to own homes. It had everything to do with bankers earning money by selling mortgages, mortgage-backed securities, and being quiet about the risks involved to buyers of CDOs. And here’s the thing: they didn’t break any laws. The worst thing the US government could pin on them was that they weren’t more upfront about the connections between the financiers.
What I really think is funny about the whole financial crisis is the way that everyone with an economic theory thinks their system solves the problem. I heard a talk the other day by a communist explaining the financial crisis and how everyone needed to become a communist in response to what happened. Personally, I think communism has been pretty well shown up to be a failed economic system, but apparently some people still cling to it and come out from under a rock to preach communism whenever the capitalist system stumbles. I guess libertarians are no different in putting up their system as the solution. (And I’m no more impressed with the libertarian solution than the communist one.)
“Standard Oil: Genuine monopolies can only be maintained by government force.”
Huh? That’s obviously incorrect.
“A market dominance created by superior competitive practices must constantly be earned by satisfying the demands of costumers, in which case the company has a right to it. There are plenty of examples of companies that had market dominance and lost it to new comers with superior innovations.”
Yes, companies lose dominance. Of course, they also existed in worlds where government break up monopolies. Let’s see: (1) Standard Oil lowers the price of oil below market value, drives out competitors, buys up their assets, raises prices back up again. It’s very difficult for competitors to come into that market – both because of the high-cost of entering the market, and also because Standard Oil can pull the same trick. Your solution is based on some vague, undefined “stuff will happen and they’ll lose out”. (2) A number of years ago, there was an antitrust case against the handful of global manufacturers of Lysine (this was made into the movie “The Informant”; lookup ADM, Lysine, Mark Whitacre). Because these companies colluded to raise prices, they were raking in profits. Under a libertarian system, I guess that’s okay and “stuff will happen” to break up the monopoly control. (3) Ticketmaster has had a lot of control over concert ticket sales. They force bands to sign a contract that says they must use Ticketmaster in every city where Ticketmaster exists. This makes it very difficult to competitors to get into the business. Competitors essentially have to setup a massive national ticket-system to compete. Ticketmaster also has a tendency to buy-out competitors if they start to do too well. What Ticketmaster is doing is raising the barrier-to-entry into the market. (4) Movie studios and movie theaters used to be owned by the same companies. If you were a movie creator and wanted to put your movie in theaters, the movie companies would block you out of the market – you couldn’t play you movies in their theaters. And they wouldn’t show any of their movies in anyone else’s theaters. It meant that nobody could get into the business without owning movie-production and lots and lots of movie theaters simultaneously. (5) In the late 1800s, J.P. Morgan could out-compete his competition by owning a monopoly on railroads. If clothing manufacturers wanted to ship their merchandise on his railroads, he could charge them such high prices that everyone would buy clothes from J.P. Morgan instead. Over and over, he could outcompete his competition by making them pay high prices to use the railroads. He became one of the richest people in the US.
There are lots and lots of situations where companies can block competitors out of markets, and get a lot of wealth doing it. It’s easy to just say, “oh, the railroad monopoly will eventually be broken by cars — in a couple decades, so it’s okay”. Generally, they make out like bandits in the meanwhile, and society is the one who pays the cost.
By the way, it was Greenspan (a acolyte of Rand) who said a few years ago that he was wrong about the market being able to regulate itself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Greenspan
“Can you imagine if this were applied to all criminal acts? What if you had to undergo a yearly house inspection in order to prove that there were no stolen goods in your house?”
Yeah, but this is because there are a million ways to swindle the consumer.
I find your conversation with your neighbor infinitely depressing, because it’s the exact same conversation I always have with these people.
It’s like Pascal’s Wager: the probability of a believer bringing out Pascal’s Wager is 1. The only question is whether it takes one hour or three hours to make an appearance.
Sometimes they already know I have a degree in philosophy. And yet, they still bring it out as if it were shiny and new; as if they thought I had never heard of it.
Also, you are totally on-target when you say that the economy is more complex than libertarians realize. Here’s my 30 second argument for them (complete with their inevitable responses, although for Q4 and Q5 you may have to resort to Google to prove it):
Q1: Is government less efficient than enterprise?
A: Yes.
Q2: What is the role of an insurance company?
A: Taking money from a lot of people and giving it to a few.
Q3: What is the role of a social security?
A: Taking money from a lot of people and giving it to a few.
Q4: What percentage of incoming cash do private insurance companies give back out?
A: 50%
Q5: What percentage of incoming cash does social security give back out?
A: 95%
Q6: Which number is larger, 50 or 95?
A: But social security is morally wrong!
Q4: What percentage of incoming cash do private insurance companies give back out?
A: 50%
Q5: What percentage of incoming cash does social security give back out?
A: 95%
I had to laugh at that. I don’t know what the actual figures are in either case, but if the SSA is running at a deficit already, it’s more like 101%. And the whole point of a private insurance company is that it is supposed to turn a profit–SS isn’t. Not to mention the fact that the IRS does all the SSA’s collecting for it, at no charge, and the Treasury agents go after the deadbeats–again, at no charge. And the SSA’s advertising costs are minimal. Finally, it pays no federal, state, or local taxes.
If I was handed a gun and told I could rob as many people as I wanted with impunity, provided I only robbed each person once, and gave away 95% of my take, I could live pretty well. But I don’t think any of my victims would thank me.
“And the whole point of a private insurance company is that it is supposed to turn a profit–SS isn’t. Not to mention the fact that the IRS does all the SSA’s collecting for it, at no charge, and the Treasury agents go after the deadbeats–again, at no charge. And the SSA’s advertising costs are minimal. Finally, it pays no federal, state, or local taxes. “
I think his point was that, even if government is less efficient than private businesses, it puts more of that money back to work doing the job that society wants rather than extracting it as profit. In more concrete numbers, if the 50% and 95% numbers are correct (and I’m not saying that they are correct), but if government was only 60% as efficient as business, then 60%*95% = 57% for government versus 50% for private insurance, which would make a government-based system better, even though it’s less efficient.
Personally, I think there’s a good argument to be made for the effects of cover-everyone systems. This isn’t always true, but, to use an easy example: vaccines are tremendously cheap and effective. In terms of the money spent and the benefits it gives, vaccines are very, very good. Now, imagine two systems: (A) the government pays for everyone’s vaccines through tax dollars and everyone gets them for free, or (B) everyone has to buy their own vaccines. A libertarian might argue for maximum freedom and free markets – leading them to say that “B” is the best option. But, from the perspective of the greatest benefit to society for the dollar, it could very well be “A” that’s the best option. This is because “A” allows for things like herd immunity and offers the possibility of eliminating diseases entirely (like we have done with smallpox and are close to doing with polio). In fact, this is how smallpox was eliminated worldwide – if we charged the poor for these vaccines, then many of them would’ve gone without and we’d still be working against smallpox today. But, instead, we’re in a very different situation: smallpox was eliminated, the last case was seen in 1973, and nobody’s had to bother with the cost or effort of getting the vaccine (*except for military) for decades.
If we go with option “B” – well, that’s the “liberty” and “free market” solution, but lots of people end up not getting the vaccine, putting a hole in herd immunity and eliminating the possibility of eradicating certain diseases. Even worse, the poor end up getting hit hardest, and disease is a huge drain on productivity – not only are people dying, but potentially ending up paralyzed in the case of polio. So, I think there are cases when good arguments can be made for society-wide benefits based on tax-dollars. I think there are similar arguments that can be made for fire departments, public education, and possibly even government healthcare in general.
If I was handed a gun and told I could rob as many people as I wanted with impunity, provided I only robbed each person once, and gave away 95% of my take, I could live pretty well. But I don’t think any of my victims would thank me.
It seems to me that the logical conclusion of your argument here is that taxes in general should not exist — not even for things like national defense.
“It seems to me that the logical conclusion of your argument here is that taxes in general should not exist — not even for things like national defense.” –tinyfrog
And it seems to me that the logical conclusion of your argument is that we shouldn’t have to pay for anything–the government would just give us what we need.
That’s already been tried, by the way.