Or that’s mostly the point, anyway. Hattip to Mark Thoma, whose post pointed me to the article, but Professor Thoma misunderstands part of Boaz’s point. The libertarian argument against too much economic intervention is that economic liberty is inextricably tied to personal liberty. If we allow the government to intervene beyond what is absolutely needed in our economic lives, we open up the door for governmental power in our personal lives. In short: in order to control markets, you have to control people.
No serious person would argue that a complete abscence of government would be a good thing. No, I do not consider Anarcho-Capitalists to be serious people. Professor Thoma notes that we do need government for some functions, and I think any thinking libertarian would agree with that. There are externalities, there are contracts and property rights that need enforcement, etc. In the comments he also mentions that he likes the move to incentive-based regulatory schemes and away from fiat. Good indications, as far as I’m concerned, we can get into a discussion about to what degree we should enact regulations, but agreeing on the mechanism is a good start. It made me start thinking that perhaps we’d make a libertarian out of him yet…however, the following passage from another comment gives me great pause:
I am willing to apply the same principle in the arena of ideas generally - if the regulation of ideas (e.g. social behavior) somehow makes all of us better off, and none of us worse off, then I am all for them. I haven’t thught this through enough to make a strong assertion, but this seems to be a much more stringent standard in the arena of social behavior because it is harder to devise cross-compensation schemes to compensate for the losses. [Emphasis Mine]
It’s an off-the-cuff remark, but at the same time it makes me wonder exactly how we go about regulating ideas in such a way as to preserve personal liberty. I mean, what’s dangerous? Who decides? Do I get to be arbiter? Does Professor Thoma? Hastert? Dennis Kucinich? Do we leave it up to the government? Do we vote? Do we pay people to change their beliefs? The regulation of ideas is a one-way, do not pass go, ticket to a land of despotism and gulag. If the 20th century gave only one lesson, it’s that trying to control ideas is only possible through fear and will result in a total loss of freedom.
Behavior is different from an idea: the former is an outward action that may or may not affect others, an idea is purely an internal construct of the human mind. You can think it’d be a really swell idea for your neighbor to die, hell, you can even think it’d be a great idea to kill him yourself; but until you either attack him, threaten to attack him, or plot with others to attack him (all actions) you have committed no crime. Unless we want to live in a terrible world beyond even my own, rather vivid, ability to imagine, I suggest that all regulation stay far from the realm of ideas. I further suggest that the line between ideas and behavior in a legal sense become sharper: we stick to punishing behaviors that have only direct, measurable effects on the welfare of others. Things like theft, vandalism, murder, rape. Mostly crimes against person and property.
I think we’d be best off ending, or at least not extending any further, crimes for simple posession of anything: drugs, guns, whatever. I think we could do well to legalize the consumption and sale of many narcotics, particularly marijuana. On the guns front the expiration of the Brady Bill is a good start, perhaps the courts will recognize an individual right soon enough and this whole business can be over.
If, like me, the overriding premise around which your entire political philosophy is based happens to be personal choice, it’s obvious that trying to control anything more than a small set of behaviors is the quick road to tyranny. Further, the government exists only to make freedom possible: not to tell us with whom we may or may not do business, what we may build on property we own (usual note of possible externality regulation through incentive schemes mentioned earlier), what we may or may not consume for medical or recreational purposes, and with whom we may or may not engage in the consentual sex-acts of our choice. Lastly, economic freedom of choice is by necessity an extension of individual liberty and therefore must be preserved if we wish to live in a free nation.
