The recent discussion here at the Cafe about the necessity or sufficiency of the state prompted a long-time patron to ask me to re-run this post from December 2004.
December 07, 2004
More on Blue-State Creationism
Don Boudreaux
A few days ago I was inspired by Tom Palmer’s incisive review of Cass Sunstein’s latest book to point out that many “blue-staters” – Americans who think of themselves as “progressive,” rational, and “reality-based” – are also creationists. Not biological creationists, but creationists nevertheless – “social constructivists,” as Hayek called them.
At the blog The Panda’s Thumb several commenters misunderstand my point. Whenever an author is misunderstood, it’s the author’s fault. I try below to clarify.
…………..One view of the origin of order is the design view – the creationist view. For example, fundamentalist Christians believe that all life on Earth is the result of conscious creation by a deity. Human beings’ opposing thumbs resulted from a (higher) mind’s plan and action, and the absence of hen’s teeth and horse’s toes likewise is the result of conscious design. Without such design, chaos and disorder would reign.
The non-creationist view – represented most compellingly by the theory of natural selection – explains how wonderfully intricate, useful, and orderly biological structures can and do emerge unplanned.
Creationist views (there are several variations) differ from non-creationist views by insisting that all order ultimately is the result of some design acting upon the whole.
Just as there is a compelling non-creationist view of biological beings, there is a compelling non-creationist view of social order. And while obviously different in detail, at a general level these two
non-creationist theories share much with each other, not least of which is the scientific insistence that order is best explained, not by
positing a creator, but by understanding the logic of an order’s emergence from small, individual acts, no one of which is “intended to” (or “intends” itself) to become part of a larger order. (And remember, Adam Smith offered his “invisible hand” theory a century before Darwin offered his.)
The “social” creationists are well and ably represented by Cass Sunstein who argues that peace and security and (hence) property rights and market exchange are impossible without an effective system of law. Because, in Sunstein’s view, the state is the producer of law, the state is ultimately responsible for our property and prosperity.
I’m prepared to argue that law can, and has been, ably produced and enforced without the state. (See, for example, Bruce Benson’s superb book The Enterprise of Law.) But let’s put that issue aside and grant Sunstein his claim that only the state can produce and enforce law. Because no reasonable person doubts that law is indeed necessary for a prosperous society, Sunstein concludes that each of us owes our prosperity to the state. It’s a fair interpretation of Sunstein’s argument that the state creates society.
People such as Sunstein who believe that sovereign power is responsible for everything remind me of other people who thank God for their good fortune – for the roofs over their heads, for the food on their tables, for the good grades they got on the exam…. as if the roof over someone’s head had everything to do with the good graces of a deity and nothing whatsoever to do with the actions of the owner of the house or with the actions of thousands of other people, each of whom contributed in some little way to making that roof a reality.
So the state protects me from thieves and built the highway that I use to transport my goods to market. I’m grateful. But what about the farmer who grew the food to feed the trucker who drives the truck carrying my goods to market – and grew the food to feed the politicians who keep the state going? What about the oil-rig worker who helped to extract oil from the ground to be turned into gasoline to power the truck – and to power the limos in DC and the police cars in Denver? What about the engineer who helped design the engine that powers the truck and the limos and the police cars? What about the clerk at the convenience store who sells the trucker the coffee that helps to keep him awake on his drive?
In a market economy, even the most mundane good or service requires for its production and distribution the efforts of millions of people. Many of these individual tasks are utterly necessary for that good’s existence, but none of these individual tasks – including that of the state – is sufficient. There’s nothing special about the state.
Civility, high wages, economic growth, ingenious engineers, clean neighborhoods, excellent education, health care, baseball stadiums – you name it, it probably can be (and probably has been) produced by private efforts. Government can certainly affect the production and distribution of things – and reasonable people can argue about whether that effect is likely to be beneficial or not. But even if government’s services are necessary for our prosperity, it does not follow that government creates that prosperity.
….
Stated baldly, this proposition will attract few detractors – except the likes of Sunstein. But “blue-state creationism” is nevertheless rampant. Consider this letter to the editor in today’s NY Times:
Like Thomas L. Friedman, I was shocked to read that Congress cut financing for the National Science Foundation.
The United States is at a crucial turning point now in regard to scientific leadership in the world. We can either invest as much money as possible in supporting groundbreaking research benefiting nearly every aspect of our lives – training new scientists and engineers, improving science education and ensuring that the United States remains the best place in the world to pursue a career in science – or we can dedicate that money to frivolous pork, losing our place as the world leader in science and engineering.
As a graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, I was instilled with the belief that science is vitally important to our society.
It’s unfortunate that Congress hasn’t learned the same lesson; the security of our nation, as well as our economic health, depends on it.
In other words, without taxpayer-financed scientific research, we’ll enjoy neither national security nor economic well-being.
NSF funding might or might not be justified. (I personally don’t think it’s justified, but that’s not my point.) The claim that this reader (and columnist Thomas Friedman) make is that genuine scientific advance can be created only by government. It’s a creationist myth.
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Do you mean that when that aquatic creature crawled ashore those many millions of years ago that there was no government waiting to snare it?
That just blows my mind.
If there was a government awaiting life to evolve, was there more than one? Did we have competing governments looking for life to rule……heh heh, to "help".
Where is the government graveyard where those loser governments went to die when they couldn't snatch life to direct?
It always struck me as ironic that those (politically speaking) who demand that evolution and only evolution be taught in biology class, try to circumvent the process through the redistribution of wealth.
Don, I've been extremely critical of your views on some issues, like lionizing corporations as model capitalist entities, mainly because I think your free-market thinking is not thoroughgoing enough in some rather self-serving ways.
But this is really good stuff. I might even say brilliant but I'm too jealous.
One of the greatest scams in human history was the conversion of the parasite class into the savior of humanity.
In a complete reversal of roles, the parasitical class convinced their hosts that they, the parasites, were indispensable to the existence of the hosts.
If you guys have a better idea about how to finance science beyond applied applications, please let us know.
It seems incongruent of the blue-staters to profess the creation of complex biological forms without design and at the same time deny the emergence of spontaneous order in the marketplace. To the extent one might have said or implied that basic scientific research can occur without government I doubt there would be any clarification that would be understood or accepted at The Panda's Thumb. That crowd has been slurping out of the government trough far too long to have any tolerance for such heresy.
One of the greatest scams in human history was the conversion of the parasite class into the savior of humanity.
In a complete reversal of roles, the parasitical class convinced their hosts that they, the parasites, were indispensable to the existence of the hosts.
Fan of Nietzsche?
If you really want to piss off a leftist tell them the believe in Intelligent Design. Then succinctly point out that Central Planning is synonomous with ID.
Jeff,
Can't say in the year or so I have been a participant in this Cafe that I can remember an instance where Don lionized any corporation; but I can recall several times when he did state that a one or more corporations did not deserve the hatred and detractions vomited up by the left wingers.
Refusing to castigate a particular corporation(s) is not the same thing as praising it.
The word meandering comes to mind initially.
Anyway, let's slog through this tour de force and see what coherent items we can salvage.
Central planning and its consistent failure is an accurate example of why creationism is impossible?
Ironically, both beliefs, creationism and Don's stated view of non-creationism, both rely on faith in the unseen and unprovable. The good prof should borrow a primer on logic, and start over by providing a sound ladder of premises and conclusions instead of wildly leap frogging.
And Sunstein is more of a utilitarian – as opposed to natural law theory – which perversely puts Cass and Don on the same utilitarian side while splitting them on the God issue. Weird.
I am assuming Don to be one to refuse natural law – that is to say, an objective morality. But that's not too much of a leap judging from his writing.
Excellent post. The argument goes both ways, of course. This immediately reminded me of your recent post on "I, Pencil." I first introduced to Read's writing 30 years ago when I was in college. I recall being captivated by many of his arguments, but also being dismayed by his belief that individual rights derived from God. I did not grasp the parallel between the invisible hand at work in free markets with the similar invisible hand at work in evolution, but Read surely must have. I believe that's why he felt the need to bring God into "I, Pencil"; for otherwise would have been to leave open the apparent contradiction. Namely, if social order could happen without a creator, so could evolution.
Huh? That is a very strange thing to say.
"It seems incongruent of the blue-staters to profess the creation of complex biological forms without design and at the same time deny the emergence of spontaneous order in the marketplace."
Or anarchists attacking the smaller-government oriented Republican party.
How exactly is big government socialism a step in the direction of true anarchy?
Fan of Nietzsche?
I've heard the name many times and a few quotes…that's the extent of my knowledge of Nietzsche.
If you guys have a better idea about how to finance science beyond applied applications, please let us know.
Let scientists reap the rewards for their research and reinvest as they please.
Let people keep their money and invest in or donate to research as they please.
How exactly is big government socialism a step in the direction of true anarchy?
What do you mean by "true anarchy"?
"What do you mean by 'true anarchy'?"
The absence of government rather than mere anti-authoritarianism.
I am not entirely certain the Republican party is sufficiently small government oriented. I am really beginning to think that they are all for smaller government as applied to causes they do not particularly care for, but just fine when the government grows due to their favored programs.
There was a time when Republicans were serious about smaller government, but of late they seem more enamored with appeasing demi-democratic voters than pushing the hard cases of cutting government. Just look at the current nominee for president and his voting record.
This is worthy of inclusion on the list of muirpidities, only muirduck didn't write it.
I'll just quote an excerpt.
————-
L.A. Times, Sun 8/31/08:
"California town may ban building low-end homes"
Some believe area not prospering because of the poor.
50-year Moratorium?
This summer, about 400 people signed a petition asking the City Council to approve a moratorium on the "low-end" housing until it represents less than 15 percent of the housing stock in Santa Paula. Moratorium supporters say it would take 50 years to achieve that goal – which would mean a 50-year ban on the construction of low-income housing.
"What we want is a balance," said Larry Sagely, one of the leading voice in town calling for a moratorium. "Let the free market run."
————
How can a discussion about free markets happen if one side doesn't understand what a free market is?
Is it possible that the so-called housing crisis had its roots in stupidity such as that being offered up by some in Santa Paula?
Randal O'Toole of the Cato Institute makes a compelling case for that view in this article, The Dog that did not Bark, in the September issue of Liberty Magazine. This is the link to Liberty,
http://www.libertyunbound.com/archive/2008_09/index.html but it isn't available on-line yet.
I know, what good does the link do? If you don't have the URL for Liberty Mags home page, you might want to keep it because they do have a lot of good material each month.
Randal O'Toole documents how areas that have land use regulations in place are the ones that actually suffered the most foreclosure rates due to the inflated extreme high prices land use laws inflict on people.
How exactly is big government socialism a step in the direction of true anarchy?
Big government/socialism contains the seeds of its own collapse.
This shows absolute intellectual bankruptcy and bias. This is nothing more than ad hoc rationalizations for your ideology. The state of nature gives rise to the state and to social constructs. Order from chaos and social constructs are not conflicting ideas. The point of the social construct is that it is not a natural law but something created by man and thus changeable by man.
It's difficult for me to envision how the Hubble Space Telescope – arguable the most important scientific instrument in the history of humanity – would ever happen if we had to rely solely on the private sector. The profit motive tends to be short-sighted when it comes to research that does not promise an immediate return on investment. I am sure most Cafe Hayek patrons decry having to pay for items like the HST, but knowledge benefits everyone.
The state of nature gives rise to the state and to social constructs.
The nature of man has given rise to the state.
The state is merely a formalization of tribal hierarchy.
It is mercantilist and predatory by nature.
It's difficult for me to envision how the Hubble Space Telescope – arguable the most important scientific instrument in the history of humanity – would ever happen if we had to rely solely on the private sector.
It is difficult for you because you have confined your imagination to the current reality. As a government project, you must realize that the Hubble scope likely cost several times what it should have.
Metre,
I'll add to Sam's comment.
"It's difficult for me to envision how the Hubble Space Telescope – arguable the most important scientific instrument in the history of humanity – would ever happen if we had to rely solely on the private sector.
Posted by: Metre | Sep 2, 2008 3:05:47 PM"
Stick around this Cafe for awhile and you find your ability to imagine things expanded.
Sam has a historical track record of piss poor government spending to quote (As a government project, you must realize that the Hubble scope likely cost several times what it should have.)
Imagine, Metre, if you will, that the government said to the private community, this is what (specifications on a telescope of the Hubble's capability) we want in order to further sceintific research that our military and research facilities need. You build it and we will buy the data from you at a fairly negotiated price.
Have faith in the market, Metre, where there is a customer there will come a market. Even if what the customer wants is "illegal".
Now the private company that built a Hubble TS could hire the man that negotiated the $600 hammer price and use him to negotiate the price of research data from the telescope and return an extremely handsome profit on their investment.
Thanks for reposting. This is still original and interesting.
I love the analogy between spontaneous ordering in biology and within political economy. In fact, I've noted the same thing elsewhere. But just for the fun of it, let me try and take Sunstein's side in this.
Sunstein might acknowledge that no central planner is necessary for designing institutions. He might nevertheless argue that making certain kinds of building blocks for these institutional designs available (and banning certain other kinds of building blocks) might facilitate institutional evolution. The role of the state here is not planner per se.
To explain by a different analogy, if (as Dane Stangler likes to say) the economy is like the game of baseball, then according to Sunstein we need the state to play the role of the league (deciding the rules of the competition for the teams and players) and referee (making calls in close cases). To the extent that the rules and refereeing can be tweaked to make a better game, all the better. But I have never understood Sunstein to be in favor of a central planner deciding batting orders, for example.
Of course spontaneous order happens, states spring up from anarchy. We've seen it in the wake of major societal collapse.
However what you are proposing is in fact social darwinism, survival of the fittest. What most liberals and modern conservatives advocate is rising above the state of nature with uniform law and justice.
The war of all against all, as Hobbes put it, is what you are advocating. Without a sufficiently large state you will have mini-state versus ministate (or private legal system versus private legal system) to the detriment of the populace. Not to mention the gross injustices of unanswerable law, the rule by force, and the ravages of robber baron style poverty.
Societies without institutions don't exist to my knowledge. The moment that a society imposes an institution is becomes a state. From the first group of cavemen who exacted lethal force for the stealing of food to the modern copyrights. Even Rothbardian law or minarchism is a state.
Property, capitalism, markets, etc would not exist without a state. Even Stephen Molyneux's DROs are de-facto states. Without a top down projection of law there could be no property beyond what you yourself could defend with force. The ideas of absentee property, money, markets, etc are institutions of society, social constructs in other words. If you remove the state another state will rise to take it's place. Society and the state cannot be separated.
In the state of nature, the state of human beings without civilization, there is no property beyond the edge of the sword. Businesses would have no reason to abide by fairplay if they could change the rules. Markets would be chaotic and transitory without a regulatory body.
Also, you are mistaken about the is-ought problem. Hume did not say you cannot derive an ought from an is, he said that any attempt to must address the problem of how it can be done. If we reject the non-physical and the non-natural then nature is the only source of oughts.
"Property, capitalism, markets, etc would not exist without a state."
Posted by: Jimmy_D | Sep 2, 2008 5:20:37 PM"
How so, Jimmy_D? All you said after that sounded nice but wasn't really convincing.
I do not think that a band of Kiowa in the 16th century thought of themselves as a state, nor do I know of anyone that is ready to make that claim, yet they had property, property rights, capitalism, and markets.
That band of Kiowa was not primitive in any cultural sense and for their time and place they were quite sophisticated in their dealings with one another and with traders that came through periodically.
Of course they had leadership, but it was more leadership "upon demand" than anything we would call a state.
"Upon demand" leadership. A war chief when conflict threatened, an experienced and hopefully wise leader of warriors but not a dictator. A tribal leader that settled disputes when they arose, had influence on when and where the band moved next, but who did not even think about micro-managing anything involving daily life. A medicine man, who exercised spiritual leadership but had no real secular authority.
The examples of successful stateless societies abound in both the old world and the new.
However what you are proposing is in fact social darwinism, survival of the fittest.
Not.
What we have now is political Darwinism where the ablest prevaricator rises to the top of the hierarchy.
You have to break the hierarchy model in your head, bust out of it.
What most liberals and modern conservatives advocate is rising above the state of nature with uniform law and justice.
What they actually advocate is the perpetual use of primal force to make society in their own image.
Rather than raising society above the state of nature, political power perpetuates ancient the ancient order of rule from above.
It is the market and trade that has allowed us to rise above the primal state.
People have been fooled by the supposed nobility of the aristocracy who came to power through conquest and disdained those the had conquered and fed upon.
disdained those they had conquered and fed upon
To Sam and Vidyohs,
Thanks for responding to my viewpoint. I have been a follower of CH for over a year now, and it has broadened my perspectives on a number of issues.
As an engineer in the corporate world, I can tell you from direct experience that shaking research dollars out of management is difficult, even when you can build a strong case for a return on the investment. When I scale up to something like the Hubble Space Telescope, I cannot imagine, even in an imaginary free market utopia, that any investors would invest in such a project. It requires a huge capital outlay, entails enormous risks, and has no promise of a return on the investment in the foreseeable future. Though markets always find uses for scientific knowledge, they are not always willing to assume the risks or fund the research, not in real markets and not in imaginary ones.
So perhaps only a government is willing and able to fund expensive, high risk scientific projects. The reality is that markets and governments both exist and are both necessary. Arguments about which is more responsible for order and prosperity – governments or markets – is akin to calculating the number of angels that can fit on the head of a pin. I am a fan of free markets, but I think it takes a government to create a Hubble Space Telescope.
"I am a fan of free markets, but I think it takes a government to create a Hubble Space Telescope."
I can think of two ways this could happen.
1. A billionaire finances it to benefit society.
2. A private company finances it and makes money selling the photos.
It's interesting to see what's going on in the overhead imaging market now that Google Earth is around. I doubt they are paying the same prices per satellite as the NRO but their resolutions are comparable (e.g. sub 50 cm resolution).
Metre,
You make very valid points in your second paragraph and we have to recognize them as such.
Risk is what it is, a thing that causes some hesitiancy in proceeding without caution and doing due diligence, so I agree that seeing a private company forge ahead recklessly without knowledge that there will be a demand for the product in the end is unlikely.
However, the scenario I set up removed that risk of "no profit" from the equation. Government stated it would buy the product. With that in mind a private company would be then free to approach the matter of how do we build the scope to the specifications offered by the government and at a cost that will allow us to recoup our investment and move to profit in a fashion timely enough to satisfy our investors.
Now, let's take government out of the equation and replace them in the role of the market. Say Bill Gates made the offer and set up the specifications. Then he presented his proposal to private companies with the stipulation that he would fund two of the best proposals submitted up to the point that one became the superior and economical. Again, we see a scenario where risk is removed. What profit could Gates expect on the final product of the scope that he caused to be put into space? Exclusive ownership might make that a handsome piece of property, or perhaps may make a handsome piece of scientific charity if he did not charge for the product.
Our problem, Metre, as I see it is that we (the vast majority of us – not just Americans) humans are enculturated to automatically think that government is the answer to every question; and, only the rare few ever break through that mental stanglehold. It is in government's best interest to enculturate you thus and see to it that you pass that on to your children.
Just for fun ask yourself what possibilities existed for ancient Egypt, how far down the road of scientific development, mechanical development, industrial development, and medical development; had all that wealth that we see evidence of not been confiscated and wasted on vast glorification of kings.
Chris,
Thanks for your response, but I don't think your suggestions are plausible. No one billionaire or one company could muster the resources needed to develop, launch, operate, and maintain the HST. No one billionaire or company has the knowledge or capabilities to build or operate the HST. In addition to the telescope itself (which is enormously expensive), you need a lauuch vehicle, a launch facility, ground stations to receive and process the data, astronauts and a space shuttle and another launch vehicle to run regular servicing missions, etc. It would take a large consortium of companies to pool their knowledge and resources to make it happen. And selling photos won't pay for the costs (if you think $600 hammers are outrageous, try estimating the costs of those photos). And the risks are enormous.
You may be able to imagine it happening in some hypothetical world, but I don't see it happening in the real world.
What we have now is political Darwinism where the ablest prevaricator rises to the top of the hierarchy.
As opposed to your system where the wealthy prey upon the weak. Our current system and your anarcho-utopianism both share the same problem, those with the gold make the rules. I see little difference in what you are attacking and what you are advocating.
People have been fooled by the supposed nobility of the aristocracy who came to power through conquest and disdained those the had conquered and fed upon.
Strawman, nowhere am I advocating top down hierarchies of control. The state is not necessarily top down or large.
How so, Jimmy_D? All you said after that sounded nice but wasn't really convincing.
The arbiter of law is the state even if that arbiter calls himself a corporation, or a syndicate, or a DRO. Without an arbiter of force there can be no capitalism. What happens to the market when there is no commonly agreed upon measure of exchange, no rules of engagement, or regulation from fraud? We either have to constantly threaten both economic and physical force (two sides of the same coin) or return to individual barter. What happens to property if there is no arbiter of force? You can own your land just so long as you can defend it with your life and no longer.
I do not think that a band of Kiowa in the 16th century thought of themselves as a state, nor do I know of anyone that is ready to make that claim, yet they had property, property rights, capitalism, and markets.
This is why anarcho-capitalism is so utopian, it only works on a small scale amongst those that universally agree. It cannot function on a large scale and without large scale defense it will be absorbed by whatever state rises form the ashes of the last one. A small town of anarcho-capitalists will last only as long as the larger town of state-capitalists, or syndicalists, or marxists allows it to.
A state, an arbiter of force, is the necessary evil to prevent this war of all against all. If we reject freedom-from as an absolute value then anarcho-capitalism makes little sense. If, like myself, you hold humanism as a highest value then the state using coercion to create better lives is no sin. Any realistic modern society must create an environment that caters to the values of the majority and quite frankly the curtailing of your pre-tax income or propertarian dominion is an insignificant loss compared to the greater gain.
Butting into another conversation:
————————————————
Our problem, Metre, as I see it is that we (the vast majority of us – not just Americans) humans are enculturated to automatically think that government is the answer to every question; and, only the rare few ever break through that mental stanglehold.
And so many of you have a knee-jerk response to any colelctive action that you fail to see that the government can and once was the arm of the people.
Just for fun ask yourself what possibilities existed for ancient Egypt, how far down the road of scientific development, mechanical development, industrial development, and medical development; had all that wealth that we see evidence of not been confiscated and wasted on vast glorification of kings.
Just ask yourself what scientific and medical advances could have been made if all the wealth and resources of america weren't being used ot make personal jets and solid gold toilets. The rich, politicians, and kings are all the same class of leeches and overlords.
Even an anarcho-capitalist commune is collective. What is a true market but a collective endeavor? The only way, aside from an arbiter of force (physical or economic, there's no meaningful difference) is collective force. In an anarcho-capitalist commune if one member doesn't play by the rules then he will not be traded with. That of course assumes everyone at the commune shares the same ideology. Collectivist capitalism, something that would not work so long as there is one person with a different ideology.
I have to agree with Metre. Everything that is said around here may be perfectly accurate with regard to markets, growth, consumer prosperity, etc.; but none of it has really convinced me that private enterprise can fund ALL basic science the way government can.
Vidyoh's comments that government could do it better by having private companies bid on proposals. This might work better than the current system, but would still only work for applied science where the government knew what it wanted. What about basic research in obscure academic fields? What about the fact that companies, even when they do finance great research, have little incentive to communicate it to the public? I admit that much government-financed research is a waste of time, but the waste is almost certainly worth the relatively tiny price tag just for the few outstanding contributions to knowledge.
My argument is essentially a cost/benefit argument. In the case of basic research, much of it is so cheap in terms of the federal budget that the benefits are well worth the costs. For example, the Javits Gifted and Talented education grant program costs the taxpayers only about 8-10 million dollars per year, yet if that research pushes even one brilliant child from slacker to entrepreneur per year, it is well worth the cost. In many areas it is true that private enterprise also provides huge funding and research, from what I have seen government-funded research tends to be of a different flavor. They are complementary.
Scientific research funding is such a minuscule fraction of the federal budget and has such glaringly obvious benefits. The total basic research budget for FY 2009 is less than $30 billion (http://www.ostp.gov/galleries/Budget09/Fy2009R_DFinal.pdf)!! This amounts to just $100 per person per year. I just can't see why conservatives attack it. It may be true that a world can be designed where all those benefits and much more are reaped from private enterprise alone, but we are far from that world. Today we should focus on the government programs that actually cost something substantial. I say us libertarians should focus on bigger fish and hands off the research budget for the foreseeable future.
The one difficulty with the argument that evolution and the free market are similar is the factor of intelligence. In the free market, the contributions of individuals amount to a greater whole because of the intelligence of the parts. The belief that individuals are rational and that they will act rationally in their own best interest is core to the operation of the free market.
Conversely, evolution argues that there is no guiding intelligence save for random natural processes and that faulty "choices" will be eliminated because they do not fare well in the "market" of nature.
While it can be argued that poor decisions on the part of consumers do backfire and that business enterprises founded upon poor choices will not last, enforcing a kind of "natural selection" upon the market, the base driving forces are still nonetheless based upon intelligence.
So to prove total equivalence, it must be successfully argued that the random processes of evolution are functionally equivalent to the directed, intelligent driving processes of the free market.
Otherwise one winds up in the field of theistic evolution: evolution by small steps directed by a greater intelligence. Sort of, anyway. The intelligence is still consolidated.
Jimmy D.,
“Without an arbiter of force there can be no capitalism.”
Do an intellectually honest reverse engineer of capitalism and see where you wind up. Nothing exists without a beginning, a source, a foundation, or a root.
In its true sense, what is capitalism?
Yes Marx authored the word capitalism to describe the fruits of that particular tree, but in Marx or any of his disciples I find no intelligent understanding or explanation of how that capital came to be.
Focusing on one end of a system without understanding the entire process has made a misery of more lives than profit ever has. If capitalism is the fruit of the creation tree, what is the root of that tree?
Capitalism is as natural to the human as sex or breathing. If it wasn’t, humanity would still be roaming the Earth naked, shelterless, and eating only for today. Capitalism wasn’t forced, coerced, or directed.
I, an individual, am the base arbiter of force regarding my property. If as arbiter, I choose not to defend it, then it is gone. However, if as arbiter, I choose to defend it then I am free to solicit any assistance I feel necessary and effective. That assistance may be a uniformed town Constable, a private bruiser, or simply knowledge and use of law as my weapon depending upon the circumstances of the attack, as arbiter it is my choice.
—–
“What happens to the market when there is no commonly agreed upon measure of exchange, no rules of engagement, or regulation from fraud?”
You might consider spontaneity as the solution to the answer to your question here. When traders met they created their medium of exchange, rules, and took it for granted each would get the best deal they could and it was up to each to defend themselves against being taken. Trade happened all over the known world between villages, cities, regions, nations, and even inter-continental with no common measure of exchange, no rules of engagement, or regulation from fraud except those that were “on the spot” agreed upon by the two traders. Measures of exchange were discussed and agreed on, rules of engagement were agreed on, and protection from fraud came from the individual’s involved having sense enough to know when someone was trying to take them. Time evolved customs and procedures in trading that becme commonly known, but not created by a state no enforced by a state.
——
“What happens to property if there is no arbiter of force?”
What happens to property if the arbiter is the force? The arbiter of force becomes the de facto owner. More reason to fear the arbiter than to embrace him in my view.
——
“This is why anarcho-capitalism is so utopian, it only works on a small scale amongst those that universally agree.”
It worked all over America until it faced a force that it could not comprehend and waited too long to repel.
——
“If, like myself, you hold humanism as a highest value then the state using coercion to create better lives is no sin.”
I don’t hold humanism as a highest value. I hold individual freedom as the highest value, therefore any coercion is the ultimate sin. The state can not create a better life for one without reducing the quality of life for another because the state has no money or resources other than that it steals from the people.
I just realized a long time ago that taking my concern, care, and humanity, fracturing it into 6 billion plus pieces just to feel good about myself was a really really stupid idea. Then, I asked myself, how many of those 6 billion plus can I rightfully reject before I get to the ones I intellectually think I should be concerned about. Got it down to about four or five as an accepted obligation, and anything more than that I can handle on an individual case of charity.
——
“And so many of you have a knee-jerk response to any collective
action that you fail to see that the government can and once was the arm of the people.”
This Café has had this discussion and beat this horse for so long and in every way possible that it is amusing and slightly ridiculous to see someone come along and assign rejection of collectivism as “knee jerk”. Damn, we never thought or read of the wonderful ideas of socialism until you brought them Jimmy D.! Do you suppose, Jimmy D., that some of us know something about collectivism/socialism?
Do you suppose some of us know something about government? Yeah, we do.
——-
“Just ask yourself what scientific and medical advances could have been made if all the wealth and resources of america weren't being used ot make personal jets and solid gold toilets. The rich, politicians, and kings are all the same class of leeches and overlords.”
In my opinion you come close here, Jimmy D., but you make that collectivist/socialist mistake again of knee jerk lumping rich in with corrupt and greedy. Just isn’t so you know. The rich are no more prone to lapses of morality than the poor. The politicians, leaders, kings of communism and socialism have shown themselves to be equal in corruption and venality to anything a capitalist society ever produced, actually worse because of their hypocrisy of motive.
Now, I agree with you whole heartedly about the squandering of our resources by the corruption of politicians. I ignore Kings in context of our discussion vis-à-vis America, we don’t have them. Corrupt politicians, the word politicians in my mind automatically draws forth the knee jerk reaction of thinking corruption.
——
“Even an anarcho-capitalist commune is collective. What is a true market but a collective endeavor?”
I think you’re besotted with the word collective. Pairing the word anarchy with word collective is more than a little strange to me. Then the second sentence, just how is a true market a collective endeavor? Perhaps before you answer that you might tell me that you view interaction between two individuals as a collective, is that true?
Actually, James, this is not what I said, my fault for being unclear:
"Vidyoh's comments that government could do it better by having private companies bid on proposals."
I intended my comment to be read as private companies responding to an announced desire, with the successful reaping the reward of guaranteed government patronage and potential private patronage, not bidding on a contract.
And, again I state me firm belief that government should not be involved in any enterprise that dispenses money to projects and people it selects as worthy. Why? Because government has no money, it is my momney and I think they should come to me personally to get permission to spend it.
Kevin, you make two errors in your logic.
Firstly, it is highly questionable whether humans are really all that rational and highly intelligent in their decisions. That isn't to say that people are stupid, but rather that given the fantastically huge amount of information that exists, we are complete and utter idiots. We are idiots who are pretty good at making decent decisions based on very incomplete information.
Secondly, evolutionary systems do have a certain rationality in their function. Those things that self perpetuate tend to do so, and those that don't, don't. Truism though it is, it is a very powerful rule that opens the doors for all sorts of wierd things. The results are not completely random, but rather emergent properties of the rules, rules that if different would necessarily yield different results.
So, the two are very, very similar processes, if not exactly the same. The fact that humans are fairly intelligent and try to shape their environment and systems in it to their ends does not make them any different from any other organism that attempts to accomplish something within its system.
Do you suppose, Jimmy D., that some of us know something about collectivism/socialism?
Do you suppose some of us know something about government? Yeah, we do.
If only you acted like it.
Kevin,
What impresses me is the ease with which we all use the words market, markets, and marketplace with no definition. It becomes obvious over time that most of the comments are made from a very personal viewpoint about the words, or from a rote learned view point.
I think this contributes enough differences in our thinking that we have these debates and are probably just tlaking around each other but with no significant disagreements.
"The one difficulty with the argument that evolution and the free market are similar is the factor of intelligence. In the free market, the contributions of individuals amount to a greater whole because of the intelligence of the parts. The belief that individuals are rational and that they will act rationally in their own best interest is core to the operation of the free market."
No one yet has contradicted, in effort or fact, my understanding that each of us is a market and that each of us in our decisions and action are the invisible hand that moves and shapes the economy.
This being the case, even my stupid decisions in a market transaction have an effect on the economy. The truth is, that like most, I don't care or worry about it.
For instance when I go to Walmart to purchase something I do not do so with any other motive in mind than to satisfy my desire or need. I don't do it to ensure the success of Walmart. The same is true of all my market transactions.
I take what I have said as the ultimate proof that attempts to control or regulate markets is the same thing as trying to herd or control 6 billion plus cats.
Enough of the 6 billion plus markets in their random operation become similar enough across a population that a sense of order emerges and some predictable anticipations can be made.
Out of the thousands of buying markets that walk into Walmart on any given day there will a percentage that want a bag of sugar. Walmart can in no way predict that because every day is random. But, each random day over time reveals that X number of bags of sugar should be available to prevent loss of sales.
The growth of the advertising agencies have even shown that markets can be shaped, subtley, and relentlessly directed in certain directions for a profitable time if not permanantly.
It is legal reality here in the USA that corporations are a person in the view of the law. So when I take my buying market to the selling market Walmart I am legally dealing with a person, an individual market, technically no different than if I were dealing with my neighbor.
Forgive me, nearly all of you guys know more about this stuff than I do. I am just expressing my personal street educated viewpoint.
I'm not going to argue that the Hubble Telescope hasn't provided us with useful knowledge, but was it really the most efficient allocation of the resources used? How would we know? This is speculation, but it's entirely possible that if those scientists & engineers had not been building a giant space telescope they could have been working on solving more immediate problems at a lower cost & with greater benefit to mankind. To say they wouldn't have done so is equally speculative.
You would have a hard time convincing me that the government would know how to spend this money better than the owners of that money. There are few economists in congress, & fewer scientists. How would they know? Why trust them?
My chief objection to government funding is the violent nature by which the state collect these funds. I object to this on both moral & practical grounds.
& debating whether some historical group had a state or not is pointless without defining what a state is. Barring that definition, the defenders of the state will call anything a state while overlooking just what some of us are objecting to. So I'll ask: apologists of the state, just how, exactly, do you define a state? Only then can a useful debate follow.
"If only you acted like it.
Posted by: Jimmy_D | Sep 3, 2008 2:14:36 PM'
Teach me all about government, oh guru.
Preach to me of collectivism/socialism.
I am receptive to your newfound wisdom.
Hammer,
Thanks for the reply. Now to keep it up…
First, let me make certain I understand the points you put forth in your reply.
1. That humans, because of lack of perfect information, cannot be judged rational with any certainty.
2. That evolution is not completely random due to the constraints of natural law.
Therefore: Because both processes are semi-random (constrained random, if you will), they are similar.
First, let's agree on a definition for "rational". Webster's defines rational as "a: having reason or understanding b: relating to, based on, or agreeable to reason".
Reason, then, is "2 a (1): the power of comprehending, inferring, or thinking especially in orderly rational ways : intelligence (2): proper exercise of the mind (3): sanity b: the sum of the intellectual powers".
Evolutionary systems, then, are rational only in the sense that they can be understood by ourselves (in an incomplete fashion), as per definition b of "rational". In and of themselves, they possess no rationality (no intelligence). The laws that govern evolution do not, by popular scientific position, arise as the result of intelligence (otherwise we're positing Intelligent Design).
Economics also contains certain "laws", or theorems, such as that of supply and demand. However, these theorems are based upon the observation and generalization of human behavior. As such, lack of perfect information does not change the fact that economics is based upon the action of intelligent beings, however constrained. Limited rationality is not equivalent to irrationality.
Those items produced by humans within a capitalist system are the result of intelligent effort despite limited information. This limited information is also the reason for group efforts: the pooling of information. This helps mask the more limited information of individuals. Altogether, products such as microprocessors can be produced. The issue then, is not whether or not the product survives in the market, but the fact that it was produced in the first place.
One can argue that organic populations seek their own survival, but we're not talking about survival. We're talking about initial creation.
Of course, since this discussion is framed within the assumption that evolution is true and that intelligence has been produced through random processes completely untouched by intelligence, it makes my case that much harder to fully posit.
The only end point I can really make, then, is that economics and evolution compare poorly because of the fact that evolution is necessarily devoid of rationality in its natural operations, while economics is based upon the rationality of humanity, however limited.
Do an intellectually honest reverse engineer of capitalism and see where you wind up. Nothing exists without a beginning, a source, a foundation, or a root.
The foundation of capitalism is exploitation. The wealthy land owner gives the starving serfs a choice between dying on the streets or working for whatever wage he desires. if you are asking about the roots of capital then that comes form workers owning (for lack of a better term) the means of produciton. Farmers "owned" their fields, as did blacksmith's their irons. Only as warlords and thugs began to concetrate power did the idea of absentee property and capital (as seperate from the worker) arose. You system was started by exploitation and continues in it.
In its true sense, what is capitalism?
Capitalism is not markets or money or voluntary exchange. Capitalism is the concentration of wealth to absentee landlords. The idea that anarchism and capitalism can be put together in any way is laughable as the capitalist is no different from the king or the politician.
Capitalism is as natural to the human as sex or breathing. If it wasn’t, humanity would still be roaming the Earth naked, shelterless, and eating only for today. Capitalism wasn’t forced, coerced, or directed.
That's rhetoric over logic. Interaction and trade do not cpitalism make. Not to mention the fact that humanity brought itself up with a variety of states form the tribal hierarchy, to the bloody dictator, and the feudal lord. Capitalism is a modern take on feudalism, no natural office of man.
I, an individual, am the base arbiter of force regarding my property.
Your property only exists either through forcing others to recognize it through violence or by collective institution. We'll skip the absurdity of non-agression in the context of initial aquisition and move on. You are the arbiter only of your own force, you are not arbiter of your property because you can be killed and your property taken.
You might consider spontaneity as the solution to the answer to your question here. When traders met they created their medium of exchange, rules, and took it for granted each would get the best deal they could and it was up to each to defend themselves against being taken.
Yes a wonderufl system by which no man could be trusted save at the point of a knife. My point remains that without objective standards trade becomes primitive brutal barter. You might want to look into the forensics of your average drug deal. No impersonal force to worry about or objective arbiter so you can gain through illicit action.
Time evolved customs and procedures in trading that becme commonly known, but not created by a state no enforced by a state.
Yes, enforced by the state. Customs and procedures that if broken would do what? Bring a third party to bear? And what is a state again? Oh yes, an arbiter beyond the knife-point deal that can deal objectively with both men. You are acting off of a definition of the state that requires a county seal or fancy title. Let's not forget that customs are collective cultural rules for behavior that are enforced by a state, even if that state is the collective will of that culture. Just look at amish justice. When the rules are broken a man is cut off from speaking or trading. That's collective pressure, a state by any other name.
What happens to property if the arbiter is the force? The arbiter of force becomes the de facto owner. More reason to fear the arbiter than to embrace him in my view.
Yeah because losing that land to a system by which you can seek redress is so much worse than a system of where you have to risk your own life employing force.
It worked all over America until it faced a force that it could not comprehend and waited too long to repel.
America was recklessly capitalist during the robber baron age. However it was far from voluntaryist or anarchist. It is simple revisonism to decalre otherwise.
I don’t hold humanism as a highest value. I hold individual freedom as the highest value, therefore any coercion is the ultimate sin.
Except freedom-from is useless and without value in an of itself. Freedom can only instrumental value due to what it allows us to do. The the freedom of speech isn't valued because a lack of censorhip is in-itself good but because it allows us to speak our minds. Freedom-to is far more valuable than simple freedom from and neither deserves to be the highest value. To value freedom-from as the highest value is a brigand's morality.
The state can not create a better life for one without reducing the quality of life for another because the state has no money or resources other than that it steals from the people.
And the lone man can only ever produce a hut and some game. Only by becoming a member of a collective can he become more than a primitive. Government produces value not only in services it offers but the risks it removes. As a matter of fact nothing you make today is free from obligation to the state as without them you could not now (as opposed to ever) produce. The roads, the education, the police, the military, and son and so forth were all used in anything produced today. To simply stop at the individual in whose hands a thing resides is arbitrary and intellectually dishonest.
Not to mention that removing the capability of a person from buying a leer or a solid gold toilet is insignificant compared to the giving the capability to eat, learn, and strive. Taking from the rich their diminishing returns luxury money in no meaningful way harms them but letting the poor starve to death in the streets is meaningful and is real harm. Now do you see why the claim of social darwinism is so often lodged against your philosophy?
This Café has had this discussion and beat this horse for so long and in every way possible that it is amusing and slightly ridiculous to see someone come along and assign rejection of collectivism as “knee jerk”.
I don't think you have ever had this conversation before or are having it now. It's obvious from your tone that you have no interest in debating but rather outshouting. You are knee-jerk in that you step into this discussion with absolute faith that you are in possession of the one true philosophy that will create a utopia.
You're just as bad as fundamentalist christians. Your attitude is knee-jerk and your rhetoric is kneejerk with an outirght dismissal of anything that does not agree with you faith, without even an argument.
In my opinion you come close here, Jimmy D., but you make that collectivist/socialist mistake again of knee jerk lumping rich in with corrupt and greedy. Just isn’t so you know. The rich are no more prone to lapses of morality than the poor. The politicians, leaders, kings of communism and socialism have shown themselves to be equal in corruption and venality to anything a capitalist society ever produced, actually worse because of their hypocrisy of motive.
I find it laughable that you are spekaing fo hypocrisy of motive. Look at you claiming that the concetration of welath is not the concentration of power. That concentrated power is a state, it is the power of the right to control the lives of the poor. By the rich I mean the uber-wealthy, the top 1% who are all corrupt and all their gains are ill-gotten. Those that come to elath honestly are the upper middle class honest small-business man and middle manager with a heart of gold.
I am no foe to competition/markets, no advocate of centralization, or opponent of profit. I am an opponent of capitalism.
Now, I agree with you whole heartedly about the squandering of our resources by the corruption of politicians. I ignore Kings in context of our discussion vis-à-vis America, we don’t have them. Corrupt politicians, the word politicians in my mind automatically draws forth the knee jerk reaction of thinking corruption.
And the rich who pay off the politician and create monopolies, restrict neccesary resources, pillage the coffers of the people, and exploit the worker is no different. I also find it hilarious that you think it was the politicians who seduced the kind onld millionaire to become a special interest and not the other way round.
I think you’re besotted with the word collective. Pairing the word anarchy with word collective is more than a little strange to me. Then the second sentence, just how is a true market a collective endeavor?
I think you don't udnerstand what the collective is and are besotted with the myth of the individual. Imagine the human being born into a windowless room. There he never develops complex language, or the concept of property, or morality. These are inventions of the group experience. Individuals are nothing outside the group just as the group is nothing without the individual, it's interdependance both materially and psychologically. This Ayn Rand Neitzchian superman that will supposedly populated you Utopia doesn't exist.
Perhaps before you play at sociology you look into what creates a man and what creates customs. To claim that man alone is anyhting more than an animal is libertarian creationism, man springing full formed without ever being molded by the collective environment.
The only upshot to the war of all against all is that I would pop you one for being a condescending son of a bitch. Thankfully society, and it's institutional arm the state, prevent me from doing that through coercion.
The only upshot to the war of all against all is that I would pop you one for being a condescending son of a bitch. Thankfully society, and it's institutional arm the state, prevent me from doing that through coercion.
The only upshot to the war of all against all is that I would pop you one for being a condescending son of a bitch. Thankfully society, and it's institutional arm the state, prevent me from doing that through coercion.