No Coercion

George Mason economist Don Boudreaux writes a brilliant letter (over at Cafe Hayek) to Obama regarding something truly bizarre the Mafioso-in-Chief said about rationing:

8 March 2010

Mr. Barack Obama
President, Executive Branch
United States Government
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC  20500

Dear Mr. Obama:

CBS radio news this morning ran a clip of one of your recent speeches.  In it, you criticize insurance companies because they “ration coverage … according to who can pay and who can’t.”

My first thought was “not exactly; coverage is rationed according to who pays and who doesn’t.”  Ability to pay isn’t the same thing as actually paying, and what insurers care about is the latter.  Many folks – especially young adults – have the ability to pay but choose not to do so.  They get no coverage.

But further pondering of your point leads me to look beyond such nit-picking to see fascinating possibilities.  Not only insurers, but all producers who greedily refuse to supply persons who don’t pay should be set aright.  Now I’m sure that you don’t ration the supply of the books you write according to any criteria as sordid as requiring people actually to pay for them.  But our society is full of people less enlightened than you.

For example, the typical worker rations his labor services according to who pays and who doesn’t.  That must stop.  Oh, and supermarkets!  Every single one rations groceries according to who pays.  Likewise with restaurants, clothing stores, home-builders, furniture makers, even lawyers!  You name it, rationing is done according to who pays.  Indeed, my own county government has been corrupted by this greedy attitude: if I don’t pay my taxes, the sheriff takes my house – effectively booting me out of the county merely because I didn’t pay for its services.

Preposterous!

I look forward to your changing this selfish and unfair system of rationing that for too long now has kept Americans impoverished.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

And I love the non-traditional way he addresses the letter, omitting the usual tone of deference.

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A nice take on the true nature of the State by J. Craig Green:

Grateful Slave

I am a grateful slave.
My master is a good man.
He gives me food, shelter, work and other things.
All he requires in return is that I obey him.
I am told he has the power to control my life.
I look up to him,
and wish that I were so powerful.

My master must understand the world better than I,
because he was chosen by many others
for his respected position.
I sometimes complain,
but fear I cannot live without his help.
He is a good man.

My master protects my money from theft,
before and after he takes half of it.
Before taking his half,
he says only he can protect my money.
After taking it, he says it is still mine.
When he spends my money,
he says I own the things he has bought.
I don’t understand this, but I believe him.
He is a good man.

I need my master for protection,
because others would hurt me.
Or they would take my money
and use it for themselves.
My master is better than them:
When he takes my money, I still own it.
The things he buys are mine.
I cannot sell them,
or decide how they are used,
but they are mine.
My master tells me so,
and I believe him.
He is a good man.

My master provides free education for my children.
He teaches them to respect and obey him
and all future masters they will have.
He says they are being taught well;
learning things they will need to know in the future.
I believe him.
He is a good man.

My master cares about other masters,
who don’t have good slaves.
He makes me contribute to their support.
I don’t understand why slaves must work
for more than one master,
but my master says it is necessary.
I believe him.
He is a good man.

Other slaves ask my master for some of my money.
Since he is good to them as he is to me, he agrees.
This means he must take more of my money;
but he says this is good for me.
I ask my master why it would not be better
to let each of us keep our own money.
He says it is because he knows
what is best for each of us.
We believe him.
He is a good man.

My master tells me:
Evil masters in other places are not as good as he;
they threaten our comfortable lifestyle and peace.
So, he sends my children
to fight the slaves of evil masters.
I mourn their deaths,
but my master says it is necessary.
He gives me medals for their sacrifice,
and I believe him.
He is a good man.

Good masters sometimes have to kill evil masters,
and their slaves.
This is necessary to preserve our way of life;
to show others that our version of slavery is best.
I asked my master:
“Why do the evil masters’ slaves have to be killed;
along with their evil master?”
He said: “Because they carry out his evil deeds.”
“Besides, they could never learn our system;
they have been indoctrinated to believe
that only their master is good.”
My master knows what is best.
He protects me and my children.
He is a good man.

My master lets me vote for a new master,
every few years.
I cannot vote to have no master,
but he generously lets me choose
between two candidates he has selected.
I eagerly wait until election day,
since voting allows me to forget that I am a slave.
Until then, my current master tells me what to do.
I accept this.
It has always been so,
and I would not change tradition.
My master is a good man.

At the last election,
about half the slaves were allowed to vote.
The other half either broke rules set by the master,
or were not thought by him to be fit.
Those who break the rules
should know better than to disobey!
Those not considered fit should gratefully accept
the master chosen for them by others.
It is right, because we have always done it this way.
My master is a good man.

There were two candidates.
One received a majority of the vote -
about one-fourth of the slave population.
I asked why the new master
can rule over all the slaves,
if he only received votes from one-fourth of them?
My master said:
“Because some wise masters long ago
did it that way.”
“Besides, you are the slaves;
and we are the masters.”
I did not understand his answer, but I believed him.
My master knows what is best for me.
He is a good man.

Some slaves have evil masters.
They take more than half of their slaves’ money
and are chosen by only one-tenth,
rather than one-fourth, of their slaves.
My master says they are different from him.
I believe him.
He is a good man.

I asked if I could ever become a master,
instead of a slave.
My master said, “Yes, anything is possible.”
“But first you must pledge allegiance
to your present master,
and promise not to abandon the system
that made you a slave.”
I am encouraged by this possibility.
My master is a good man.

He tells me slaves are the real masters,
because they can vote for their masters.
I do not understand this, but I believe him.
He is a good man;
who lives for no other purpose
than to make his slaves happy.

I asked if I could be neither a master nor a slave.
My master said, “No, you must be one or the other.”
“There are no other choices.”
I believe him.
He knows best.
He is a good man.

I asked my master how our system is different,
from those with evil masters.
He said:
“In our system, masters work for the slaves.”
No longer confused, I am beginning to accept his logic.
Now I see it!
Slaves are in control of their masters,
because they can choose new masters every few years.
When the masters appear to control the slaves
in between elections,
it is all a grand delusion!
In reality, they are carrying out the slaves’ desires.
For if this were not so,
they would not have been chosen in the last election.
How clear it is to me now!
I shall never doubt the system again.
My master is a good man.

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Stefan Molyneux, an anarchist philosopher, has written a handful of books (available for free), one of which is Practical Anarchy, in which he addresses many concerns that non-anarchists often put forward when we talk about abolishing the state. In one of my favorite passages, he brings up the very good point that we don’t often call for statist solutions to the problems we face in our personal and professional lives:

For instance, when you face a problem at work, I can’t imagine that you ever sit your team down and say:

“I’ve come up with the perfect solution to our problem – what we’re going to do, see, is pick two of us, give them guns, and then those two are going to force the rest of us to do whatever they want for the next few years, and then we are going to perhaps pick two other people who will get those guns, and then they’ll be able to force us to do whatever they want us to do for the next few years, and then we’ll start all over again…”

I have yet to see a business book with anything close to the title of: “Creating A Violent Internal Monopoly To Solve Your Customer Service Woes!”

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The latest in a recent spate of temporary government shutdowns, the Rhode Island government will shut down most of its operations for 12 days.

This warms my heart! I’ve been glad, of course, when government shutdowns have occurred in the past due to the two state-sponsored parties being unable to come to agreement on how much money to confiscate from people and what to spend it on (i.e. budget debate impasses). But for governments to be shutting down from lack of tax income–this is a whole new ball game (at least in recent memory). It shows, I think, that it is potentially possible to “starve the beast” and force government to waste away, particularly as envisioned in agorism. We should all try to do our part by engaging in as much black and gray market economic activity as reasonably feasible (like when you pay a babysitter or buy produce from an acquaintance). What the government can’t see, it can’t tax!

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I just read a fascinating review by Katherine Mangu-Ward over at Reason Magazine of The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates, by Peter Leeson. The author analyzes the actions and customs of 18th century pirates from the standpoint of their being economic actors structuring their lives to maximize their profit. The results were pirates that, in many ways, were quite libertarian.

Here are some particularly interesting excerpts:

But a pirate’s life had less publicized qualities as well: Ships were known among sailors for their relatively decent living conditions, profitsharing opportunities, democratic practices, and racially integrated crews. Life “on the account,” as pirating was known, was often far more civilized than legitimate seamanship.

…

Pirates…were outlaws, with no recognized authorities to settle disputes. So they invented their own ways of doing business. Decades before the American Founders got their act together, pirates were drafting documents full of voting rights, juries, checks and balances, rules for property allocation, even methods for impeachment. The buccaneers may have been less concerned with natural rights than with survival and claiming their fair share of booty, but the end result feels surprisingly like the kind of self-governance we expect from enlightened modern republics. Perhaps even better, since the deal was truly voluntary (for the pirates if not their prey). No one is born a pirate, and everyone has to swear into the contract on each venture.

…

Captains were elected, and they could be removed by a vote of the crew. Speeches were given for and against candidates…Speeches also contained warnings and reminders of the power of the people: “Should a Captain be so saucy as to exceed Prescription at any time, why down with him! it will be a Caution after he is dead to his Successors, of what fatal Consequence any sort of assuming may be.”

A ship’s captain received the same lodging and rations as ordinary sailors, and very similar pay…Additional payments, agreed upon in advance, went to those who lost eyes or limbs, a primitive sort of workers’ compensation.

Balancing the powers of the captain was the quartermaster, the captain’s peacetime counterpart. Sort of a den mother with a blunderbuss, he oversaw the distribution of loot and generally kept peace on the ship by enforcing the rules and arbitrating disputes. He too could be replaced at any time by a vote.

They may have been outlaws “without government,” Lesson writes, “but they weren’t without governance.” And here’s where Leeson gets to his lesson. The book is actually an argument for extralegal systems of regulation—for ordered anarchy.

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In case anyone was curious, I am indeed still alive. I’ve just been a bit tied up with the birth of my second child last Wednesday and the events leading up to it, as well as my real estate business picking up. I’ll make more of an effort to post regularly, even if they’re just short blurbs.

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The Libertarian Party of North Carolina succeeded in getting more than 2% of the vote in the gubernatorial race, thus meeting the state government’s oppressive requirement for staying on the ballot for the next four years without having to complete another obscenely time consuming and expensive petition drive!

Mike Munger, Libertarian candidate for Governor, received 2.87% of the vote. Along the way, he managed to spread the message of liberty to all corners of the state. He showed people fed up with the state-sponsored parties that there is another choice.

The Republicans and Democrats have worked for decades to make sure the public doesn’t hear other voices. They don’t want people to know that there is a philosophy out there that is based on cooperation and achievement rather than coercion and pandering. Now we have a good four years to focus on breaking through the government’s barriers to our message and helping North Carolinians get to know the libertarian philosophy–the only philosophy that’s built on freedom in ALL areas of life, not just certain select categories. More on that in my next post.

Again, great job by Dr. Mike Munger and all our candidates across the state!

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It’s a guilty little pleasure of mine that, even though his blog is named after Hayek (whose theory of libertarian ethics was quite internally consistent), one of the first things I do each morning is scan through Don Boudreaux’s (and Russ Roberts’) thoughts on the daily Cafe Hayek feed that comes to my inbox. Don and Russ are great defenders of freedom and fierce enemies of the state.

One of Don’s entries posted over the weekend was this: Yet Another Reason I Dislike Politicians. In it he describes a seminar he took part in where North Carolina’s very own Congressman Brad Miller was also a participant. His thoughts on Miller are insightful, especially as they apply to most politicians.

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Because…um…I am.

Check it out!

Seriously, though…it must use a bad algorithm or something. Still, I’m adding it to my sidebar…’cause that’s awesome. And a great man once told me to never pass up on an opportunity for self-bragging.

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