The Thing Itself is the Abuse

I have a lot of friends who are not fans of George Bush. To put it mildly. They wish him no harm, certainly not Nicholson Baker's dadaist fantasy of flying saws, but they think he is the worst President since...well, ever.

These same people, without exception, talk about how great and important the "state" is.

Me, I wonder what the "state" is. There is a guy, George Bush, who in many ways runs the state, but my statist friends hate him. The state must be something else. It could be Louis XIV, of course, because he said "l'Etat, c'est moi !". But my friends don't really think Louis XIV was the ideal form of government. What is the answer? What is the state?

I think I found it. The state is Cherrail Curry-Hagler, of the DC Transit Police.

The Washington Post ran a story, and another, about a scientist who got arrested for taking three or four seconds too long to obey the state.

Here are the facts, which (remarkably) are not in dispute. Seriously, the arresting officer (Ms. C-H) agrees that these are the facts.

Participants:
Stephanie Willett, EPA Scientist, 45
Cherrail Curry-Hagler, DC Transit Policewoman

About 6:30 p.m. July 16, Willett was riding the escalator from 11th Street NW (DC transit map) into the station, and eating a "PayDay" candy bar. Cherrail Curry-Hagler, D.C. transit policewoman, was riding up on the other escalator. Officer Curry-Hagler warned Willett to finish the candy before entering the station.

Willett nodded but kept chewing the peanut-and-caramel bar as she walked through the fare gates. Curry-Hagler, who had turned around and followed Willett, warned her again as she stuffed the last bit into her mouth before throwing the wrapper into the trash can near the station manager's kiosk, according to both Willett and the officer.

Curry-Hagler ordered Willett to stop and show ID, because she (Ms. C-H) intended to write a citation. Willett said she refused to stop and told the officer, "Why don't you go and take care of some real crime?" while still chewing the PayDay bar as she rode a second escalator to catch her Orange Line train.

At that point, Willett said, Curry-Hagler grabbed her and patted her down, running her hands around Willett's bust, under her bra and around her waist. She put Willett in a police cruiser and took her to the D.C. police 1st District headquarters, where she was locked in a cell. At 9:30 p.m., after she paid a $10 fee, Willett was released to her husband. She is scheduled to appear in court in October for a hearing.

Okay, now here's the thing:
1. Ms. Willett was on a DOWN ESCALATOR. She couldn't turn around.
2. She was already chewing the candy bar. She couldn't spit it out, without littering. Even I think you should be given a ticket if you spit chewed up food on a public escalator.
3. When Willett got to the bottom of the escalator, she put the last bit into her mouth, threw the wrapper into the trash can, and continued on toward her train.

There is no way that Ms. Willett could have obeyed the instruction not to eat in the station, unless she had run back up the escalator, or spit out candy bar.

The real reason that Ms. Willett (who, if it matters, is African-American, as is Ms. Curry-Hagler) got smacked down is that she brought out some attitude. She said, "Why don't you go and take care of some real crime?"

And here is the answer: given the law on the books, Ms. Willett had flagrantly committed "a real crime." You can't take food into a station, and you can't eat in the station. Ms. Curry-Hagler had not, in fact, committed an abuse of the system. Ms. Curry-Hagler, and all the other eager beaver Transit Gestapo in DC, are out there with their gimlet-eyed vigilance for EXACTLY offenses like these.

Which brings me to brilliant, but not nearly well-known enough, observation by Edmund Burke, in A Vindication of Natural Society.

In vain you tell me that Artificial Government is good, but that I fall out only with the Abuse. The Thing! the Thing itself is the Abuse! Observe, my Lord, I pray you, that grand Error upon which all artificial legislative Power is founded. It was observed, that Men had ungovernable Passions, which made it necessary to guard against the Violence they might offer to each other. They appointed Governors over them for this Reason; but a worse and more perplexing Difficulty arises, how to be defended against the Governors? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

[The Latin bit at the end means, "Who will guard the guardians?" But you knew that.]

The U.S. has criminalized so much behavior, from eating a candy bar on an escalator while moving toward a Metro station to mild drug use to consensual sexual practices, that our prisons are full of people innocent of any real crime. The only reason that we are even talking about the case of Ms. Willett is that she was middle class and an employed professional. In poor areas all over the U.S., police harass and beat nameless citizens while trying to enforce unenforceable laws. Those cops, and those bureaucrats who try to enforce the tax laws and the regulations on transactions and safety standards and a thousand other things, may or may not be good people. I expect that Ms. Curry-Hagler took her tin Transit Cop badge, and herself, a little too seriously in handcuffing Ms. Willett. But we don't fall out only with the abuse. The state, the state itself, with its hydra-headed legal restrictions on liberty and its extraordinarily complex and expensive mechanisms of support and oppression....the thing itself is the abuse.

Strip-Search

Okay, so I'm reading about the Florence strip-search and jail case. And I'm thinking, "Please let the guy be white, so this isn't just police racism." No such luck. Mr. Florence is black. In a BMW. Has a BMW dealership, in fact. So, cops stop black people in a BMW, for "speeding." No citation given to wife, who was driving. (WHY WERE THEY STOPPED IN THE FIRST PLACE?). Cop does check on the car. Finds old unpaid ticket, after what is basically a fishing expedition.

Mr. Florence is handcuffed, strip-searched TWICE, jailed for a week with no bail (HE'S A FLIGHT RISK! NO BAIL, BECAUSE HE ALREADY SKIPPED ON A TICKET!). Finally sees judge. Is able to prove that in fact HE PAID THE TICKET! On time. Police just failed to record the payment. Whoopsie daisy, sorry, fella. Have a good day.

Exactly the same thing happened to me, Dec. 2010, except no arrest and strip search. Got notice of failure to pay ticket that had, in fact, been paid. Had to send copy of cancelled check, had to get notarized statement, all because the state is too busy to recognize when citizens do what the state forces them to do. It happens all the time. The state is remarkably incompetent, and indifferent to the consequences of that incompetence, given that if YOU make a mistake the consequences are enormous.

You'll want to watch this excerpt from one of best movies of all time, Brazil. Four mins, watch it through, please.


Now, the Supreme Court case is about the strip-searching. I'm afraid, on that narrow question, the court got it right. If (IF!) you are going to put the guy in jail, for a week, for a nonviolent traffic ticket (which he had actually already paid, but never mind for a minute, suppose he hadn't), then you HAVE to strip search him. It's the logic of domination and humiliation in the prison system. The strip search is a consequence of the dangerous security situation in the jail where the state is choosing to hold this person. In jail, you lose the presumption of innocence.

The real questions didn't come up in the court case. Why did police stop a black couple just because they had a BMW, and then searched for something, anything, to nail the guy. Then why send him to jail, with no way out, for a week. And why not keep better records, if the stakes are really this high? If failing to pay a ticket is worth a week in jail, away from work and family, what should be the punishment for failing to record a valid and timely payment for a ticket? Shouldn't it be symmetric?

The REAL question, then, is why all our sensitive leftist friends put so much faith in a state that routinely does the sorts of things described above. I bet (paraphrasing Edmund Burke) it's because you fall out only with the abuses, and think that the thing itself is good. The THING! The thing itself is the abuse!

Why do you people love the state so much? It doesn't love you.

Democracy is Overrated II

Now K. Grease is really angry. I hold the following truths to be self-evident.

• Voters are (rationally) ill-informed
• Most of them aren't that bright anyway; in any case, they don't know more than I do about good choices in my life
• Regardless of their wisdom, other people shouldn't be able to tell me what to wear, or who to sleep with, or what to think or say about God
• I should have the right to use or dispose of my property in any way that doesn't physically harm others ("I'm offended" doesn't count).

But the particular brand of mob rule we call democracy ignores, or actively lies about, all these things. Still, "democracy" is a thing we all admire, right?

Actually, I think we do, or claim to. That's okay, people get to be wrong about what they believe. But what bugs me is the hypocrisy of so many people who claim to favor democracy, because they actually favor the opposite. What most liberals mean by "favoring democracy" is this: "I favor using the coercive powers of government to implement through the court system, backed by Federal marshalls and the Army if necessary, a particular brand of policy that is honestly supported by less than a quarter of the U.S. population." In other words: We got guns! We don't need no stinkin' persuasion.

Consider "gay marriage": 2/3 to 3/4 of most states are opposed to civil sanction of same sex unions. Louisiana just voted on a ban, and it passed overwhelmingly (excerpt of AP story at bottom of this post).

Now, being a Libertarian, I strongly favor gay marriage rights. But not because I think that gay Americans should be singled out for special protection.

I favor gay marriage because "the people," and their knuckle-dragging hired thug, "the government," have no right to dictate private choices. I don't want to live in a system where some group of yahoos, if they are numerous enough, can use religion, prejudice, or whim to restrict the right of contract between consenting, informed, competent adults. And the name of that system is "Democracy."

I have no problem using the Bill of Rights, and the court system, to thwart repressive impulses of the mob, as long as we all admit that that is what we are doing. Saying "I love democracy" out of one side of your mouth, and then fighting against the majority will on the other side, is the basest kind of hypocrisy.

The real point of disagreement between me and the liberal democracy apologists is this: they think democracy is basically good, but prone to abuse, unless vigilance keeps it pure. I think the abuse is the thing itself: Democracy is inherently oppressive, unless it is chained up like a dangerous wild animal in domain restrictions.

In vain you tell me that Artificial Government is good, but that I fall out only with the Abuse. The Thing! the Thing itself is the Abuse! Observe, my Lord, I pray you, that grand Error upon which all artificial legislative Power is founded. It was observed, that Men had ungovernable Passions, which made it necessary to guard against the Violence they might offer to each other. They appointed Governors over them for this Reason; but a worse and more perplexing Difficulty arises, how to be defended against the Governors? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Edmund Burke, in A Vindication of Natural Society.

*********************************************

Associated Press Story Excerpt (The lawyer's name is John Rawls! Is that cool, or what?)

September 19, 2004, Sunday, BC cycle 12:26 AM Eastern Time508 words

HEADLINE: Louisiana voters approve same-sex marriage amendment; opponents promise court challenge

BYLINE: By KEVIN McGILL, Associated Press Writer

...Louisiana voters overwhelmingly approved a state constitutional amendment Saturday banning same-sex marriages and civil unions, one of up to 12 such measures on the ballot around the country this year.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting, the amendment was winning approval with 78 percent of the vote, and support for it was evident statewide. Only in New Orleans, home to a politically strong gay community, was the race relatively close, and even there the amendment was winning passage. Turnout statewide appeared to be about 27 percent of Louisiana's 2.8 million voters, somewhat low for a state election. Christian conservatives had conducted an intense grassroots lobbying campaign for the amendment, which had been expected to pass easily.

The civil rights group Forum for Equality had already promised legal action against it."It's gratifying to see the people of Louisiana had an opportunity, as distinguished from judges, having the final say on the issue of whether traditional marriage will continue to be the fundamental institution in our state," said Darrell White, a retired state judge and consultant for Louisiana Family Forum, which pushed for the amendment.

John Rawls, a lawyer for Forum for Equality, reiterated the group's contention that the amendment does far more than stop gay marriage and that it could affect many private contracts between unmarried couples, gay or straight - a claim its supporters dispute."I am disappointed that so many Louisianians either did not read the amendment or are so afraid of gays that they voted for this amendment anyway," Rawls said....

Monday's Child

1.  Phone call for Dr. Skarbek:  Academic labor practices similar to drug gangs.

2.  Satellite at LaGrange Point maps path of comet.  And what a LaGrange Point is.

3.  If we can't fix this, we can't anything.  But then, maybe we can't fix anything.

4.  The Munger diet:  Red wine and also lots of nuts. Okay, it's actually the Susan L. diet, but I'm going to borrow it.

5.  If you think everything is "about" race and gender, you will find this offensive.  If you think people who think everything is "about" race and gender, you will this even MORE offensive.

MOREMOREMORE

My Speech from the NC Libertarian State Convention

(Burlington, NC, May 5-7) (Link)

Hello! My name is Mike Munger, and I am a Libertarian. (sounds like Alcoholics Anonymous: “Hi, Mike!”)

I went to vote in Primary, on Tuesday, May 2.
Walked up to the volunteer at the desk at the precinct, and said hello.
Told him my name, my address.
He asked, “What party are you?”
I said, and I said loud: “Libertarian party!”
He looked nonplussed. Some other people looked over at us, because I had said it pretty loud. “That’s not one of the choices.” He said that, yes he did.
I said, “Oh, I see now. What you mean is, ‘Which of the state-sponsored parties did I sign up for? Which of government-run parties did I show my little ID card for, and get the government’s permission to take a stand on political issues that won’t threaten anybody or change the status quo.’!” I said. Yes, I did.

He was looking a little flustered now. He was just a nice old man, volunteering at a polling place at 2:30 in the afternoon. He wasn’t expecting the bloody Spanish Inquisition.

He said, as if speaking to a child: “Your choices are Democrat, Republican, or….”

But I interrupted again. “Or ‘none of the above’? Is that my only alternative? Either I can accept one of the state-run parties, or else I have to vote none of the above? I guess I’ll be ‘unaffiliated’ then.”
Now, think about that. Think how many times you have heard someone say, “It would be easier if you would just…” and then something about voting for state-sponsored parties, or let the government do it, or something like that.
Of course it WOULD be easier, for those who want a docile, obedient public. Much simpler if we would expect dependence on the nanny state.
Now, in many ways, the news in the last year or so is very, VERY good for libertarians. Many of our worst predictions about the consequences of relying on the nanny state have come true. There is a growing sense of distrust of government, and of the people who govern us (since we are not allowed to govern ourselves). All good news for libertarians, right?
Well, not really. The prescription in the public mind, the solution to the problem of bad government, is always reform. Get better people in office. Build better government institutions.

But we have fundamentally misdiagnosed the problem.
The real problem is this: today, a group of Americans decide there is a problem. And they work on it. They start, though, by saying, “What should we do?”
My question is, “Why the hell do you think there is a ‘WE’”?
I have obligations, and responsibilities. And you have obligations and responsibilities. But why would we start out, as a first step, with the idea that WE have anything at all? That WE have an obligation to the state? Why would it be that our bodies, our money, our property, are OWED to the state, or are contingent on the state’s sanction?

The sense of the obligations of the individual, and the value of the individual, is something that is in danger of disappearing in American society. The independent, free and responsible citizen is disappearing.

This time right now, this moment, is our greatest opportunity, as libertarians, if we can see our chance clearly and grab it! Libertarians are the only remaining heirs to the classic American virtues. Self-reliance, independent self-protection through the responsible possession of fire-arms, independent communities, and education of children in independent values.

The problem is not that government is corrupt, not badly led, not full of bad people. Coercion is the basis of most policy. It is inherently dangerous and abusive. As Thomas Jefferson said, “Any government large enough to give you what you want is powerful enough to take everything you have.”

Edmund Burke had it right when he said, "In vain you tell me that Artificial Government is good, but that I fall out only with the Abuse. The Thing! the Thing itself is the Abuse!" (Liberty Fund Edition of Vindication of Natural Society).

This may be the key distinction, the test of whether someone is “really” a libertarian. If you believe government is good, but you hate abuse, you are not really a libertarian. The thing, the state itself, is inherently a threat to liberty. It may be a necessary threat, something we have to live with, but it is a threat nonetheless.

It is really a matter of nature. Think about it: you can’t blame a dog for eating out of the garbage. That is what dogs do. Can’t ask yourself, “Why? Why isn’t my dog a good dog? I can imagine a good dog, one that doesn’t eat out of the garbage. Can’t we just get a better dog?”
No, no you can’t. All dogs eat out of the garbage, and all states coerce unjustly. It’s what they do.
Sometimes I wonder what the "state" is. There is this guy, George Bush, who in many ways runs the state, but my statist friends hate him. The state must be something else. It could be Louis XIV, of course, because he said as much "l'Etat, c'est moi!" But my friends don't really think Louis XIV was the ideal form of government. What is the answer? What is the state?
I am proud to say that I have found the state: It is Cherrail Curry-Hagler, of the DC Transit Police. The story comes from the Washington Post (July 30, 2004). The facts, (remarkably) are not in dispute.
About 6:30 p.m. July 16, 2004 Stephanie Willett, EPA scientist, age 45, was riding the escalator down from 11th Street NW to the subway station, and eating a "PayDay" candy bar. Cherrail Curry-Hagler, D.C. transit policewoman, was riding up on the other escalator. Officer Curry-Hagler warned Willett to finish the candy before entering the station.
Willett nodded. But she kept chewing the PayDay as she walked through the fare gates. Curry-Hagler, who had turned around and followed Willett, warned her again as she stuffed the last bit into her mouth before throwing the wrapper into the trash can near the station manager's kiosk, according to both Willett and the officer.
Curry-Hagler ordered Willett to stop and show ID. Willett refused, and retorted "Why don't you go and take care of some real crime?" Admittedly, this may be seen as rude, since her mouth was still half full of PayDay bar. The scientist rode a second escalator down to catch her Orange Line train.
At this point, according to Willett, the officer grabbed her and searched her, running her hands under Willett's bra and around her waist. She put Willett into the back seat of a police car, took her to the 1st District station, and locked her in a cell. At 9:30 p.m., after she paid a $10 fee, Willett was released to her husband.
Got it? Okay, now consider:
1. Ms. Willett was on a DOWN ESCALATOR. She couldn't turn around.
2. She was already chewing the candy bar. She couldn't spit it out, without littering. I'm a libertarian extremist, but even I think you should be given a ticket if you spit chewed-up food on a public escalator.
3. When Willett got to the bottom of the escalator, she put the last bit into her mouth, threw the wrapper into the trash can, and continued on toward her train.
There is no way that Ms. Willett could have obeyed the instruction not to eat in the station, unless she had run back up the escalator, or spit out the candy bar. The difficult part, for the "let's have the state be our nanny" tribe, is this: Given the laws on the books, Ms. Willett had committed a crime. You can't take food into a station, and you can't eat in the station. It's the law. The officer had not, in fact, abused the system; Ms. Curry-Hagler, and all the other Transit Police in DC, are supposed to keep their gimlet eyes peeled for offenses exactly like these.
You think that's wrong? Fine. But don't blame Cherrail Curry-Hagler, D.C. Transit cop. She was simply doing her job. So is the TSA employee who makes my kid take off his shoes at the airport and who makes me show my boarding pass four times. So is the cop who gives me a speeding ticket for going 38 in a 35 mph zone.
Is there an alternative to these zealous examples of pettiness? Sure. We could give discretion to bureaucrats and the police. And that is a ticket on the train to tyranny, folks. Discretion allows the representative of the state to indulge racism, or sadism, or blankism. That won't fly (and it shouldn't!) in a democracy. So we are stuck with legislation that must be foolishly blunt and mindlessly enforced. It is the nature of the state, not a perversion of it.

It is tempting to think that competition is the answer. But, there is good political competition and bad political competition. The fundamental human problem is to foster the good and block the bad. So, as I argued in my Presidential address to the Public Choice Society in 1988, the fundamental human problem comes down to the design and maintenance of institutions that make self¬interested individual action not inconsistent with the welfare of the community.

One example of a set of institutions that accomplish that reconciliation of selfish individuals and group welfare is the market, Adam Smith?s ?invisible hand.? We still can?t accurately predict the exact circumstances or times when markets might work as he described, but it is definitely not always true that self ¬interest leads to the welfare of the community, even in market-like settings. Nonetheless, by and large we know that competition in markets serves the public interest.. The question is this: under what circumstances is competition good in politics?

Good political competition is where ambition checks, or at least balances, opposing ambition. When President Bush tried to push through the domestic spying program, some senators and representatives, and some citizens, objected on the merits. But even more objected on the grounds that the president was usurping judicial authority and personal liberty. Our political rules have to create situations in which politicians’ ambitions are opposed, in which attempts by one group or person to grab all power are always frustrated.

Bad political competition is what public choice theorists call rent seeking. In my classes, I ask students to imagine an experiment that I call a George Mason lottery. The lottery works as follows: I offer to auction off $100 to the student who bids the most. The catch is that each bidder must put the bid money in an envelope, and I keep all of the bid money no matter who wins. So if you put $30 in an envelope and somebody else puts $31, you lose the prize and your bid. When I play that game I sometimes collect as much as $150. Rent-seeking competitions can be quite profitable. In politics, people can make money by running rent-seeking competitions. And they do.

What are all those buildings along K Street in Washington, DC? They are nothing more than bids in the political version of a George Mason lottery. The cost of maintaining a D.C. office with a staff and lights and lobbying professionals is the offer to politicians. If someone else bids more and the firm doesn?t get that tax provision or defense bid or road system contract, it doesn?t get its bid back. The money is gone. It is thrown into the maw of bad political competition.

Who benefits from that system? Is it the contractors, all those companies and organizations with offices on K Street? Not really. Playing a rent-seeking game like that means those firms spend just about all they expect to win. It is true that some firms get large contracts and big checks, but they would be better off overall if they could avoid playing the game to begin with.

My students ask why anyone would play this sort of game. The answer is that the rules of our political system have created that destructive kind of political competition. When so much government money is available to the highest bidder, playing that lottery begins to look very enticing. The Republican Congress has, to say the least, failed to stem the rising tide of spending on domestic pork-barrel projects. Political competition run amok has increased spending nearly across the board.

In a perfectly functioning market system, competition rewards low price and high quality. Such optimal functioning requires either large numbers of producers or low¬cost entry and exit. Suppose that Coke and Pepsi not only had all the shelf space for drinks, but asked in addition if they could make their own rules outlawing the sale of any other drink unless the seller collected 100,000 signatures on a petition to be allowed to sell cola. The Federal Trade Commission would not look favorably on the request, or the industry.

But in our political system, we have an industry dominated by two firms. Republicans and Democrats hold 99 percent of the market share and have undertaken actions at the state and national levels to make it practically impossible for any other party to enter. How did we come to have such a system, with outside competition for office nearly closed off, but with inside competition for access to the public purse organized as a kind of expensive ritual combat, where Congress keeps all the bids?

I believe that the perverse competition in the political system is a direct consequence of the so¬called progressive reforms. First, reformers systematically hamstrung the ability of political parties to raise funds independent of individual cults of personality. Parties are actually necessary intermediaries. They solve what my colleague John Aldridge calls the collective action and collective choice problems by giving voters a shorthand by which to identify and support candidates whose opinions they share. Campaign finance reform cut out soft money, thus weakening parties’ ability to support new candidates, but doubled hard money limits to members of Congress.

Second, progressive campaign finance reform surrounds incumbents with a nearly impenetrable force field of protection. Any equal spending rule or equal contribution rule benefits incumbents, who can live off free media and other publicity. Any rule that restricts contributions or makes them more expensive, such as reporting requirements for contributions, benefits those with intense preferences and deep pockets. So restrictions on contributions ensure that only the most hard-core competitors?those along K Street?participate in the political bidding wars.

The hidden problem is that politics actually abhors a vacuum. If real grass-roots parties are denied the soft money they need to mobilize people and solve the problem of collective action and collective choice, organized interests will fill that vacuum. Because no individual can influence government, stripping away intermediary organizations of individuals makes the remaining organized groups more powerful.

The problem is not our inability to reform. The problem is precisely the extent to which we have reformed the system. Our reforms killed healthy political competition at the citizen level. And now all real political competition takes places in the offices on K Street. That’s the kind of political competition that is antithetical to the interests of the community.

The problem, then, is that the first step citizens take is to ask “what should WE do?” But presuming an organic “we” means that we are already lost.

To achieve change, we need to make the case to the American public that the problem is not corruption, not poor leadership, and not a lack of budget. The problem is that stated so clearly by Edmund Burke: “In vain you tell me…government is good, but that I fall out only with the abuse. The THING! The thing itself is the abuse.”

RELATED:

April 10, 2006: [Podcast/Audio File] Ticket Scalping and Opportunity Cost. With Russ Roberts
April 3, 2006: A Fable of the OC
January 9, 2006: Unintended Consequences 1, Good Intentions 0
August 1, 2005: Everybody Loves Mikey
March 7, 2005: The Thing Itself
January 10, 2005: Democracy is a Means, Not an End

The Thing Itself III

Can government do anything to better people's lives? Should government do anything? These questions don’t get asked very much. We all just assume that government should do SOMETHING, and then argue about what that is….

Still…Let me ask. Actually, let me answer.

1. Can government do anything to make things better? Let’s suppose that government is neutral instrument, with a real power for accomplishing good in people's lives. The provision of public goods, particularly local public goods, is a "government" function.

(One might quarrel with this claim, as Burke did when he said, “The thing! The thing itself is the abuse!” But let’s not go there)

EVEN THEN, there are limits to what government can do. One of the first people to recognize this was the man who put the dismal in the dismal science, Parson Thomas Malthus. (Yeah, I know, it was Thomas Carlyle). Malthus discovered a general principle that will sound familiar to everyone: the more you have of something, the more you need!

In third world countries, we have found that if all you do is give people enough resources to make them a little bit healthier, you increase births. Births continue until the society comes up against the new resource constraint. People are still starving, but now there are lots more of them.

In cities and counties, the same logic applies to roads: if you make commuting cheaper by building or widening roads, it isn't long before people are once again, stopped and staring at the stationary taillights ahead of them. There are six lanes of gridlock now, instead of two, but people respond to the costs of the activity until the cost rises.

Sometimes we try to get around this problem by subsidizing an activity we think we value. Suppose, for example, we all think family farms are good. But we look around, and see that family farmers are all poor or going out of business. So, Congress or the state legislature passes a law that subsidizes farm crops. Everyone who owns farmland gets a one time wealth transfer from consumers and taxpayers. So far, so good: farmers (briefly) are wealthier.

Over time, though, people sell the land, or deed it to their children. But these people now implicitly pay a higher price for the land, a price that capitalizes the subsidy on the crop. If you ever cut the subsidy, the farmers will go bankrupt. But if you leave the subsidy, the farmer (at best) only breaks even, barely scraping by. We all still hear stories about the poor farmers, and wonder how this can be, when we are spending all this money on farm support.

This is how it can be: after the one time wealth increase for people who own land, new people enter (or farmers or their children stay on their farms). Profits fall back to subsistence levels, and farmers are once again poor, just indifferent between staying and leaving. Only now, we are all paying high prices for crop support programs, and taxes for subsidies! Lots of pain for us, no gain for the poor farmers!

In short, much of the time, government CANNOT do anything to help. Rent-seeking dissipates give-aways, and in equilibrium people crowd up to the same point whether there is a two lane road or a six lane road, as long as you charge a zero price.

2. The second question I raised above was: Should government try to help people? Appallingly fallacious analogy to "customers." Taxpayers aren't our customers; they are our bosses. May be that the use of "customers" is a way getting employees to accept a role, a style of treatment, in dealing with the public. Easier to train employees this way, better results.

But consider the implications of the "customer" metaphor run amok. I have participated in "studies" (and you can hear the quote marks drip down the side of that word as I use it) where we were paid money by the state, by a county, or a city to do "market research." What we did was ask poor people if they would like a better house, assuming somebody else would pay for it.

Mirabile dictu, they said "Yes!" We then wrote a study saying that there was, indeed, a "need" for this program. To put it another way (and this is how we put it): There was customer interest in this new program. But remember what that program was: we were taking money from taxpayers, without their consent and under threat of arrest or seizure of property, and giving it to people who didn't have decent housing. Then, to check to see if the program should be expanded, we asked the "customers" (the people whose housing would be improved) if they liked it. When they said yes (actually, they said the amount of the rental subsidy should be doubled), we concluded in our scientific way that this was something government should do.

Now, I participated for two reasons: First, I needed the grant money. Second, I believed (and still believe) in the goals of the program, which were to give poor people a life of dignity and a chance to achieve self sufficiency.

But the "customers" metaphor was a lie! Liberals pretend not to understand why taxpayers are so angry, but I understand it, and you should, too. Here is the reason.

The liberal philosophy, based on this conception of customers, has become a pathetic self parody: "Look, there's one! If we just had some funding, we could help him! Her, too! Her life would be better if we improved government services to her." Again, this is just rent seeking, and it is a nonproductive activity that is absorbing a high proportion of our best minds and resources.

When you apply for a grant, or money from a government program, you are doing it so your constituents (maybe taxpayers in your county, or clients in your social service delivery program) can be better off. But that money doesn't come from creating a new product or service, it comes from taxpayers. Instead of devoting creativity and talent to new ways to make things people need, or make those things more cheaply, we are overseeing an enormous bureaucratic paper shuffle: you spend months writing a grant proposal, a team of people read it, and send a few applicants some money. Everyone is paid for their role in this exercise, and all pay taxes on their income to help subsidize the next go round.

The worst part is, it can only get harder and more time consuming as the years go by. Have you noticed that the applications for grants are getting longer? That the competition for this free money is getting tougher? Ultimately, rent seeking forces agencies and non profits to spend a substantial part of the value of the grant up front, just so they can win the competition to get the grant. The only time you can really do much good is if there is a new grant program (just like a new farm subsidy). After a few years, many more agencies are applying for the same fixed (or shrinking) grant pool. You spend so much time pursuing this "free money" that you wonder if it is worth it.

What the left has forgotten, or actually never wanted to believe, is that you have to persuade taxpayers that this is a good thing to do. Discovering heretofore unknown "rights," which are really privileges involuntarily extracted from taxpayers, is the stock in trade of the political liberal.

The failure of liberalism in the United States is to articulate a compelling set of reasons why. The great expansions in the social "safety net" occurred under a clear (debatable, but clear) set of arguments. FDR, JFK, and LBJ all seemed to believe that you had to get the people's consent, or at least their understanding, before you started taking their money. The argument that we can do good has become the only argument that we should.

So now we are at an impasse, a Gordian knot with nothing but fingers sticking out, all pointed in different directions. Liberals pretend not to understand that you have to persuade people that tax money should be used to "help customers." The fact that you can "help" people if you give them other peoples' money is not enough of an argument, not today.

In All His Glory

Lord above. The Blago, in all his glory. Nice comparison to Nixon. He's right, actually.



Here's my question: why would ANYONE think is unusual? This is not a pathology of government action. Blago is the ESSENCE of government action. This is how government "works." Corruption, payoffs, thuggery. As Edmund Burke put it:

"In vain you tell me that Artificial Government is good, but that I fall out only with the Abuse. The Thing! the Thing itself is the Abuse!"

And, as I put it:

Instead of teaching our children to be moral, and to care about social opprobrium, parents and schools abdicate their roles as shapers of minds and rely on the state to punish misbehavior after the fact. Children naturally conclude that if there is no punishment from the state, there must have been no misbehavior. But the state cannot fulfill this function, for reasons of simple competence and resource constraint. And the state would fail to carry out the function correctly, even if it were competent, because power corrupts and breeds malevolence. The abuse and the thing are the same. The conviction that we can harness Leviathan is the most dangerous conceit of our age.

I really think Blago sincerely believes he has done nothing wrong, except get caught. Voters don't care how bad politicians are. All voters care about is how much politicians promise. We get the government we deserve. (Except for Angus and me; we deserve much better government, because WE are the Cognescenti)

(Nod to EL)

State = Violence

I'm always surprised, and a little amazed, when my lefty bed-wetter friends say that there is no violence inherent in the state. People pay their taxes because they WANT to, don't you know. They keep quiet out of respect, not fear. In your mind, friends, that may be true.

In Portland, some cops just straight up pepper sprayed a girl in the face. (if this picture is real; can never know, of course).

(photo credit), click for a more burning image.

This video happened to be taken at about the same time. You can see some people trying to help the girl, on the right side of the view, as she screams and vomits.


The state IS violence. The state does not USE violence, it IS violence. Sure, maybe you think this girl had it coming. Or perhaps, to paraphrase Burke, you fall out with the abuses. The THING! The thing ITSELF is the abuses.

Thomas Hobbes had it right, and nothing has changed. It is not wisdom but authority that makes a political "law." Authority is power, backed by violence. And the reason the state exists is to be able to wield overwhelming, irresistible power, enough to "overawe" even the thought of resistance.

Now, mind you, I don't fault the police. This is dangerous work, the kids are breaking the law, and the kids are screaming vile things at the cops. The point is that all you lefties want a police state. How do you like it now?

Guy Tries to Explain Government to Alien

It's pretty long, and (intentionally) painfully slow.  But parts of it are (intentionally) excruciating.




If you want to hear the 18th century version of this conversation, here it is.  In particular, Burke really nailed it one rockin' passage:

Parties in Religion and Politics make sufficient Discoveries concerning each other, to give a sober Man a proper Caution against them all…

In vain you tell me that Artificial Government is good, but that I fall out only with the Abuse. The Thing! the Thing itself is the Abuse! Observe, my Lord, I pray you, that grand Error upon which all artificial legislative Power is founded.

It was observed, that Men had ungovernable Passions, which made it necessary to guard against the Violence they might offer to each other. They appointed Governors over them for this Reason; but a worse and more perplexing Difficulty arises, how to be defended against the Governors? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

In vain they change from a single Person to a few. These few have the Passions of the one, and they unite to strengthen themselves, and to secure the Gratification of their lawless Passions at the Expence of the general Good. In vain do we fly to the Many.

The Case is worse; their Passions are less under the Government of Reason, they are augmented by the Contagion, and defended against all Attacks by their Multitude.

That's amazingly close to the alien's final summary, actually.

The Rule of Law...of Nature Red in Tooth and Claw

Paul is a "rule of law" scholar, and a smart guy.

But I don't understand this lament. I agree with the sentiment, but not the contradiction.

Abuse of power is not a perversion of government. Abuse of power is the ESSENCE of government. We trade off abuse of private power, theft, and foreign aggression against the certain knowledge that our own government will abuse the powers we give it to protect us against the bad things in the first part of this sentence.

Or, as the young Edmund Burke put it:

Parties in Religion and Politics make sufficient Discoveries concerning each other, to give a sober Man a proper Caution against them all. The Monarchic, Aristocratical, and Popular Partizans have been jointly laying their Axes to the Root of all Government, and have in their Turns proved each other absurd and inconvenient.

In vain you tell me that Artificial Government is good, but that I fall out only with the Abuse. The Thing! the Thing itself is the Abuse!

Observe, my Lord, I pray you, that grand Error upon which all artificial legislative Power is founded. It was observed, that Men had ungovernable Passions, which made it necessary to guard against the Violence they might offer to each other. They appointed Governors over them for this Reason; but a worse and more perplexing Difficulty arises, how to be defended against the Governors? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

In vain they change from a single Person to a few. These few have the Passions of the one, and they unite to strengthen themselves, and to secure the Gratification of their lawless Passions at the Expence of the general Good. In vain do we fly to the Many. The Case is worse; their Passions are less under the Government of Reason, they are augmented by the Contagion, and defended against all Attacks by their Multitude. (source link)

So, Paul: I'm with you for being upset at government abuses of power. But how could even your fertile imagination for a moment believe that it could be otherwise?

Going all Munger on your asses!

Thinking about the NSA, and HRC and the Ferguson police department, I was drawn to this quote from John Locke as posted by Ta-Nehisi Coates:

"The injury and the crime is equal, whether committed by the wearer of a crown, or some petty villain. The title of the offender, and the number of his followers, make no difference in the offence, unless it be to aggravate it. The only difference is, great robbers punish little ones, to keep them in their obedience; but the great ones are rewarded with laurels and triumphs, because they are too big for the weak hands of justice in this world, and have the power in their own possession, which should punish offenders. What is my remedy against a robber, that so broke into my house?"


and then to the old Mungerian chestnut from Edmond Burke:

In vain you tell me that Artificial Government is good, but that I fall out only with the Abuse. The Thing! the Thing itself is the Abuse!

Damn Gubmint got me all crabby on a beautiful Saturday morning!