Property Rights and Coercion: Institutional Philosophy

A Marxian philosopher who is dating my sister was nice enough to have her forward a Marx reader and a link to an interesting critique of "libertarian parables" (from Arnold Kling at Econlog) which "conflate" coercion by government with coercion by other individuals.

Based on a utilitarian framework, the blogger argues that these kinds of coercion are not the same:

A well-ordered society is governed by the rule of law. This means that there are institutional processes to govern certain classes of action. The outcome of a just institutional process -- whether it be a guilty verdict, or minimum wage legislation -- has a different normative status than the corresponding action of a neighbour who takes it upon himself to unilaterally impose his will on others.

This is a good argument. However, it doesn't resolve the problem, it just kicks it down the road. What is this "normative status?"

True, institutional coercion is different from unilateral coercion; but it may be better or it may be worse: this depends both on what the government coercion achieves and also on how you define "better" and "worse". The institutional takings by the Soviet government were not - I'd argue - better than unilateral theft: they were worse. I haven't proven this in any framework; I could show it with efficiency as the endpoint; I could also try to show it with morality as the endpoint or with the magnitude or quantity of coercion as the endpoint.

What is the difference between coercion by individuals and coercion by government? Is it the organized nature of the latter? Or the equality before the law? Is it a matter of "fairness"? Or is it an efficiency thing? If the framework is utilitarianism, it would be efficiency - however, then only efficient coercion should count for that, and for example, a minimum wage certainly isn't that.

But libertarians who cry "coercion" are usually not taking a utilitarian framework; they are usually arguing "natural rights." So, we need to determine the "ends" and then judge the "means" on that basis.

Organized coercion by government could be said to violate more rights, not fewer. If government consistently violates rights, then one could argue this is "better" in some sense; if fairness not coercion per se, is the measure. Then, of course, "fairness" must be defined.

On the other hand, if government only punishes theft by an individual, then coercion is minimized; while if government punishes individual coercion but then violates rights on its own, then quantity of coercion is increased. So, if quantity of coercion is the measure, government violation is also worse.

The blogger also argues that the freedom from coercion is not enough, because common property implies a freedom to use of said property, and property rights invade this freedom. Hence protection of property and freedom from the takings neglects the freedom of others - and hence in its own way is coercive:

Freedom to use common land and resources is restricted by private property rights, which replaces it with a (particular individual's) freedom to dispose of property, and exclude others from use of it.

This reminds me of that quote I blogged about last week:

If someone is starving in the minimal state, yet in a ‘no-ownership’ world they would have been in a more advantageous position, then they do, in fact, have rights to compensation against all property holders (although not against the state) under the principle of justice in rectification. The Lockean proviso, or rather its historical shadow, would have been violated.

It appears to me as a natural rights argument, not a utilitarian one.

In reality, whomever has made a claim to the property is the rightful owner, whose rights must be protected. If someone buys it (under private property institutions) then he owns it-- there is no "right" to "common property" if someone has purchased it. The only way to claim that "freedom to use" common property has been violated is to invoke natural rights. Otherwise it is just the institutional framework, which either protects private property or it doesn't.

The blogger also slips in a positive freedom based on outcome, which far exceeds the institutional framework setup:

(2) It neglects other kinds of constraints that can impede us, leading to an impoverished conception of "freedom" that fails to track what really matters to us (namely, capability). Negative liberty is fine as far as it goes, but it makes for a rather one-eyed approach to evaluating policy. A better maxim would be to seek to enable people to achieve their goals. Economists (like everyone else) should be concerned with opportunities, not merely interference.

Now he wants to give people a right to certain outcomes. This goes beyond any protection of rights or freedoms (natural or otherwise) and seeks to determine outcomes. However, the assumption, of course, is that government could even get the outcomes desired-- something which is clearly a huge jump. It also has nothing to do with freedom. It may have to do with "welfare" but is has nothing to do with "freedom." And welfare - well that comes with its own bag of worms.

The Social Will

From the comparative physical impotency of man in his natural state, and from his inability to invent, make and use, unaided by his fellows, all the tools he needs to multiply his power of motion in the degree required for his safety and welfare, comes the social state, in which the tool is necessarily a social organ; social in its origin, social in its growth, social in its purpose, social in its incorporation of natural forces which of right belong to all; set in motion by human muscles, for the good of the social body, under the direction of the social will.

The common good, the will of the people, the drive of mankind. The people have spoken, it is an increase in social welfare, the "individuals as a whole" prefer it.

When we come together, are we stronger or weaker? Or rather, does collective purpose exist- and if so, when? Certainly "united we stand" in the short term can work; but just as clearly, imagining that we as a people have some aggregated preference is dangerous at best.

Rights and Action

Some political economists and other social philosophers, advocating statism of some sort or against it, argue mainly using economic arguments, while others argue from the perspective of "natural rights."

Both sides can get heated about which is the right argument or which is more fundamental. Both kinds of arguments have advocates who believe that it is clear that their preferred system is well defended by their preferred method of defense.

And then there are some interesting blends. What if you could throw Locke, Madison, Mill, Mises, some natural rights libertarians, some anarchists and some Marxists into a pot, shake it up, pour it into a beaker and distill, and get some crystallized insight?

As a starting point, consider the following:

If someone is starving in the minimal state, yet in a ‘no-ownership’ world they would have been in a more advantageous position, then they do, in fact, have rights to compensation against all property holders (although not against the state) under the principle of justice in rectification. The Lockean proviso, or rather its historical shadow, would have been violated.

A natural right to communism as against anarchy; what of the social welfare: could you calculate, using justice in rectification, to determine which society statically has more rights-utils from a social welfare perspective? A meaningless task, but for a rainy Sunday, it could be amusing.

And then this golden one:

The only manner in which man can act upon nature is by motion. In this respect John Stuart Mill observed: “Man moves a seed into the ground; he moves an axe through a tree; he moves a spark to fuel; he moves water into a boiler over a fire; the properties of matter do the rest.” In other words, “This one operation of putting things into fit places for being acted upon each other by their own internal forces is all that man does, or can do, with matter.”

This is a statement of fundamental import, and John Stuart Mill so highly valued it that he claimed the credit of having first made it. Yet, with the usual shortsightedness of political economists, bounded in their views by their narrow, middle-class environment, he utterly fails to draw from it the only possible conclusion, viz., the social character of machinery and the stupendous wrong done to man, a social being, by the private ownership of the mechanical organs of motion.

If you didn't catch it: that was a Marxist using Mises' law of action, via Mill to prove the truth of the Law of Value (Marx). Or wait, was he using the "natural rights" explanation for the inherent right of man to own the value of his labor... indeed, that is an example of Leeson's argument that all natural rights people are essentially able to come to whatever conclusion they want, because they can avoid all science and just assert that something is a right. Hence does he own the product of his labor, or does it own him?

Here are some thoughts on Madison.

Sorry. I am just having fun; some readings to get my mind off of serious stuff. Hope you enjoy them too.

The Morality of Government

This is another recycled post (see I'm good! No waste!) and though its a little different than the usual type of post I will be making, I think its important; if you want to judge government planning, you need to understand how we perceive government:

Somehow, maybe because we've lived so long in dictatorial governments of one kind or another- monarchies, empires, tribal rule, religious societies, etc-- we look to authority for morality. So, we end up trusting government's motives even when we should know better, and we see corruption as bad but legalized wrongs as okay, simply because they are legal.

Sometimes corruption is not what is actually immoral-- like under the Soviet Union, corruption could mean pay offs that allow people some freedom to move, to trade, to free their relatives from gulags. It might be unfair for some to be freed and not others but the corruption is at least saving some people. But it is very difficult for people to separate what is legal from what is right.

We often think, maybe unconsciously, that if something is legal, it is okay, it must be okay. It must be fair and right and moral. Or even if it is theoretically wrong, it isn't your fault - you are absolved of any sin. If the system is set up that way then you have no moral duty to go against it. Perhaps, in fact, your duty is to go along with it, to obey the law. And if something is against the law then it is wrong in some degree even just because it is breaking the law.

Because of this, we end up sustaining evil regimes and rules and institutions that we might otherwise break out of. It also explains why we inevitably expect government to fix any perceived problems seen in the market, rather than asking whether government could actually do something better than the private sector, we see a problem and say "this is a problem so government must fix it." So, the irrational faith in government is a serious problem, it distorts our world view and we don't even realize it. We have far too much faith in the moral authority of government, and hence its omniscience and omnipotence.

Here is an example. Someone, ostensibly a libertarian - the group least likely to trust government, seemingly least likely believe in the moral authority of government - was commenting on a blog post and made the following remark. With regard to why it is okay to accept government welfare he said this; I am paraphrasing: "You've already paid in to the program. The program already exists. It may be immoral but while it exists you may as well enjoy it. Heck, if there was a law that required all women who I wanted to have sex with to sleep with me, I'd be a busy man."

Now, it was an offhand remark which he probably hadn't thought through. And, he said that the program itself (welfare) might be immoral, so he was admitting that government can do wrong. However, he was essentially arguing that so long as the program or the law exists, it is morally okay to make use of it. Without necessarily realizing that he was saying so, this guy had just said "If government made rape legal, I would rape every woman I was attracted to."

The crazy thing is that he didn't realize it. The much more frightening thing is that nobody else seemed to either. The comment went by unnoticed. When I saw it, I pointed out the implications of what he'd said, and most people ignored my outrage. Then someone actually called me a PC nut-job and extremist and defended him. One person claimed that "if its legal, it can't be called rape!" Only one person agreed with me, but it wasn't a rigorous agreement, it was "I actually agree with that" as if it was a matter of opinion.

It isn't a matter of opinion. Just because government makes something legal doesn't change what it is- be it theft (legal under communism) or murder of a certain group (legal under Hitler) or slavery (legal once in America) or rape. It is the worse form of moral relativism to imagine otherwise, yet we are much more capable of it than we realize.

If one is oppressed and forced to engage in these immoral activities as happened under communism and under Hitler, they might be more easily forgiven, but we must still recognize that it is immoral and we must not think that we can happily engage in these activities without guilt simply because they were made legal - and that is what this guy was saying.

Until we can take responsibility for our own actions under any system, we will have a hard time fixing the system.
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I will add: maybe he thought it wouldn't be his crime (the rape) because the law made her have sex with him. So, government was raping her- he wasn't. Still, it is a strange sort of morality that makes it okay for him to oblige the government's sin and take part. And, slavery is no different - if the government makes it illegal for the slave to escape, does that negate the role of the slaveholder? Does that absolve him of any wrongdoing?

Sentimental Economics

I am finally reading Caplan's Myth of The Rational Voter. I feel like I've read 90% of it online already, but as usual Caplan has me agreeing and disagreeing within a given moment. Somehow balancing brilliant and vacuous on the head of a pin.

In any case, it got me thinking. Why is it - and a million people have asked this question, its nothing new - that humanity is so drawn to ideologies like socialism?

While a materialist like Sasha might argue that politicians and voters choose policies they believe to be in their own material self-interest, the desire for socialism seems not to be materialistic. True, for the political entrepreneur it is a good materialistic choice, but not for the masses. And, yet many don't seem to care. Utopian socialists did not expect it to bring wealth, and many cling to the ideology even after seeing the poverty it can bring. The staying power of the desire for socialism is amazing- people do not want to give up the sentimental ideology underlying this economic system.

Caplan argues that belief is a normal good - people are willing to spend money on it; they will give up material wealth for the chance to hold their beliefs. Even if the belief is wrong, and this costs the adherent, he will spend money to maintain the belief in the face of contrary evidence. Okay, but why do people want to believe in socialism? Why, for example, would they be willing to spend a huge amount of money on it - potentially giving up half or even 90% of their future personal wealth?

One thing is that it is probably quite recent that we have realized just what must be given up. Caplan points out that, while the average voter underestimates the ability of markets to perform well, even the average economist underestimates this ability as compared with government - they overestimate government. And, if we step back to earlier centuries, if we underestimated the market we might not realize how amazingly prosperous we could be in the long run, using markets. So, even if we properly estimated government (which surely we did not), we might still underestimate markets to a great enough extent that we would not see the full opportunity cost of giving them up.

Still, what draws people to socialism and keeps them entranced? Many have called it a religion, and this is true. But it isn't simply a religion because people want to believe in it, and don't care about facts. It is more than that- socialism itself plays the role of a religion particularly well.

And this is really the crux of it. The same drive that calls people to seek out God draws people to socialism. The self separates a person from others, the separation from God, as many see it, or from the womb. People long to reunite, and look for it in true love, religion, spirituality, drugs, sex, music, and so on.

The reason for this is an interesting question in itself- I tend to think that it must be biological (except when I am feeling spiritual, in which case I have an irrational explanation), and is part of the same emotional drive that compels us to want to procreate. This is very important especially today when kids are expensive and useless (you can't even send them out into the field to till wheat until they are, what, 18?) But it is also at the core of who we are. What would life be without this drive? It is a drive for life, for love and for greater purpose.

There is a longing to be one with the universe, to come home to a Greater Self or soul, so as to end the eternal loneliness of the isolated self. And, better than any other political ideology, socialism offers this.

It isn't just a uniting movement, like some nationalist ideology, and it isn't just a cold planned order. Socialism offers the coming together of all people, united in a collective desire, acting as one. All people on Earth coming together for a common purpose, to better the common good. No more isolation, no more struggle on your own, no more separation from God. Together, we can achieve anything, and you won't be alone. All good is in socialism, because it is made by all people for the good of all people.

How could you not be entranced?