Force, as a concept, comes up constantly in discussions of voluntaryism. But, like many words, it’s exact meaning is a bit of a slippery eel.
I’ve been thinking about this recently and think I have it nailed down. Therefore, I proffer this definition:
Force is any unwanted activity that changes the state of another’s person or property.
I think that the two key words here are “unwanted” and “changes.” In other words, anything you do that introduces unwanted changes in another person’s property (including, of course, the person themselves) is force. Let’s hold this definition up to some commonly considered scenarios and see how it performs.
It’s easy to see how this would apply in the case of a mugger demanding that you give them your money or he will shoot you. That’s certainly a threat of force, as you being shot is certainly unwanted, and the actual shooting causes a very noticeable change in your body. But what about when the change is very small?
If your neighbour shines a powerful spotlight into your window at night, that’s certainly an act of force. The light isn’t wanted, and it has changed your property quite a bit. But what about a candle in their window? Certainly, if you can see the candle then there some photons crossing your property line and entering your house. Is your neighbour using force on you? I would say that, in this case the “change” requirement has been met (however small) but what about “unwanted?” It is conceivable that the distant light of the candle could be unwanted, though it’d be a tough case to make in any practical circumstances. The candle is technically force, but is so insignificant that for all practical purposes it isn’t. The same is true with a lot of the small things we do. Simply siting in a room forces others to breathe my air, though again it’s to significant to care about (unless I’m carrying a horrible disease, of course, in that case it’s very forceful to have you breathe my air).
What about a starving beggar or a drowning child? If you don’t help them, are you using force? Well, in these cases I would say that the “unwanted” requirement is undoubtedly met. That person definitely doesn’t want you to not help them. But what about “change?” Many would say that yes, there is a change: If you don’t help them, they will die. That’s certainly a change, but it is a change from inactivity rather than activity, and that makes all the difference in the world. There’s a simple test, you ask “What would be the circumstances if I didn’t exist?” If the circumstances are the same as whatever your choose to do (or not do) then the change isn’t coming from you. Ergo, no force. If you didn’t exist, the beggar and the child would die anyway, therefore choosing to not help them isn’t a use of force. Keep in mind that this isn’t to say that not helping is probably a reprehensible act, it’s only a question of whether or not isn’t an act of force.
Now, consider a person who is being threatened with firing from their job. Are they being forced? Well, apply the simple test. If their employer didn’t exist, then they wouldn’t have a job to go to so from that perspective, no, they’re not being forced. But also, if their boss didn’t exist then presumably they would have gotten a job elsewhere, so in fact the person has been changed in that respect. So what’s the answer? The answer lies in the fact that acts of force must be considered in isolation. Determining an act of force cannot be made with consideration to past acts, otherwise anything the employer or employee did from that time on could be considered an act of force. It might make more sense if we change the wording of the simple test to “What would be the circumstances if I ceased to exist?” That makes it a bit more clear. In that case, the employee being fired isn’t force. And likewise, the reverse is true, the employee quitting can’t be considered force. This isn’t to say that there can’t be force involved somewhere, I’m speaking of simply terminating employment.
One last example: The classic ethical paradox of pushing someone out of the way of a bus. The argument goes that in order to save the person from the bus, you would need to initiate force on them in the form of pushing them out of the way. How can you save them without using force? What we have here is not actually a paradox, though it does looks like one on the surface. When you push someone out of the way of a bus, you aren’t initiating force on them if they want to be pushed out of the way. The problem is that at the time you push them, you’re not certain that they want to be pushed, and neither are they since they don’t see the bus. You’re actually taking a gamble that they do. The truth is, though, that you’re taking this gamble all the time. Going back to the candle example above, when you light a candle in your window, you don’t go and ask all of your neighbours if it’s okay, you gamble that the change won’t be significant or unwanted.
To sum up, the voluntaryist ideal is a world without the use of force. Unfortunately, this is impossible to achieve in a world with more than one person, so the voluntaryist instead strives to point their life in that direction. It’d be nice if the rest of the world did, too, but in in the absence of that the voluntaryist encourages (through non-forceful means) everyone else to become less forceful.
Whew, that was quite a bit more heavy and detailed than I thought it would be when I started, but I had to get it off my chest. Thanks for your patience.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Democracy the Pyramid Scheme
I’ve always really liked this quote:
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.
As wonderful as this quote is, I think it’s missing something. The problem is not that people vote themselves largesse from the public treasury, but that they vote themselves largesse from the future’s public treasury, who must then vote themselves even more largesse from a further future public treasury, and on and on.
This sounds suspiciously like a pyramid scheme, or a Ponzi scheme, or the typical MLM. They all have one feature in common, they are destined to fail. They are completely unsustainable for one simple reason: The ability to keep pushing off responsibility onto someone else. Eventually you will run out of “someone else” and the music stops and no one has a chair.
Take a look at MLMs, for example. What is the single biggest difference between those that survive and those that fail? Those that survive have an actual product to sell, those that fail only sell the business itself (though they typically will have a token product which is overpriced and low quality). The problem with only selling the business is that it doesn’t actually generate any value, it can only transfer value from the late comers to the founders. No value (in the form of a quality product) goes the other way, so that the late comers need to extract value from later comers, and the cycle repeats. Eventually the supply of late-late-late comers is exhausted and there’s no value left to transfer up the chain and the whole thing collapses. Sound familiar?
Democracy is the greatest MLM of them all. It provides no real value, it only transfers it from later generations to now. Examples of the Social Security and Medicare crises in America, the pension problem here in Australia, Vajello California, and the weak balance sheets of most European nations are testament to that fact. People are outraged because the promises they voted to themselves aren’t being kept by the people who weren’t even alive when the promises were made. The solution, obviously, is for the current electorate to vote promises out of the as yet unborn. Yes, that’s sure to work, it always has in the past.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.
As wonderful as this quote is, I think it’s missing something. The problem is not that people vote themselves largesse from the public treasury, but that they vote themselves largesse from the future’s public treasury, who must then vote themselves even more largesse from a further future public treasury, and on and on.
This sounds suspiciously like a pyramid scheme, or a Ponzi scheme, or the typical MLM. They all have one feature in common, they are destined to fail. They are completely unsustainable for one simple reason: The ability to keep pushing off responsibility onto someone else. Eventually you will run out of “someone else” and the music stops and no one has a chair.
Take a look at MLMs, for example. What is the single biggest difference between those that survive and those that fail? Those that survive have an actual product to sell, those that fail only sell the business itself (though they typically will have a token product which is overpriced and low quality). The problem with only selling the business is that it doesn’t actually generate any value, it can only transfer value from the late comers to the founders. No value (in the form of a quality product) goes the other way, so that the late comers need to extract value from later comers, and the cycle repeats. Eventually the supply of late-late-late comers is exhausted and there’s no value left to transfer up the chain and the whole thing collapses. Sound familiar?
Democracy is the greatest MLM of them all. It provides no real value, it only transfers it from later generations to now. Examples of the Social Security and Medicare crises in America, the pension problem here in Australia, Vajello California, and the weak balance sheets of most European nations are testament to that fact. People are outraged because the promises they voted to themselves aren’t being kept by the people who weren’t even alive when the promises were made. The solution, obviously, is for the current electorate to vote promises out of the as yet unborn. Yes, that’s sure to work, it always has in the past.
Friday, August 15, 2008
The Big Ripoff
While reading a recent newspaper article I was struck by how economically naive a large part of the population is. The article was in reference to recent high gas prices. After rising to record high prices, oil finally started to drop. It was a great relief to drivers, but there was a week or so delay between the drop in oil prices and drops at the pump. Apparently, according to the article, there were some petrol stations which lowered their prices slower than others.
So far so good; sounds like different areas of Sydney have slightly different factors of competition and availability which makes such large swings in prices noticeably uneven. Pretty simple supply/demand type stuff. What bothered me about the article is the way it referred to these higher prices with sentences such as “motorists being ripped off by major petrol companies,” “many motorists were still being ripped off,” and “motorists would continue to be ripped off.” This phraseology betrays a complete misunderstanding of the operation of the market.
It’s one thing to state that the high prices are a “rip off” if there are lower prices elsewhere. This colloquial use of the term simply indicates that a smart shopper should look elsewhere. But that’s not the way it was used; it was used in the sense that denotes a fraud or a swindle. I’m assuming that these “ripped off” motorists were fully aware of the price when they entered the stations, the price that was posted on signs and pumps was the price that they paid, and no one threatened to harm them if they didn’t purchase. So wherein lies the rip off?
Nowhere, that’s where. Those higher prices were not ripping off consumers any more than the higher prices of designer handbags rip off fashion consumers. People paid higher prices because they were not willing to find or patronise stations with lower prices, plain and simple. The owners offered a good a certain price and people chose to buy of their own free will.
Now, there’s a whole other argument buried in there about free competition and government intervention in the petrol market, but we’ll leave that for another day (I’m sure you can guess where I stand on that issue). But the end result of this is that I’m now slightly more saddened about the state of the world. When simple economic concepts are complete voodoo to supposedly educated people like professional journalists it doesn’t bode well for the future of the nation, or the world.
So far so good; sounds like different areas of Sydney have slightly different factors of competition and availability which makes such large swings in prices noticeably uneven. Pretty simple supply/demand type stuff. What bothered me about the article is the way it referred to these higher prices with sentences such as “motorists being ripped off by major petrol companies,” “many motorists were still being ripped off,” and “motorists would continue to be ripped off.” This phraseology betrays a complete misunderstanding of the operation of the market.
It’s one thing to state that the high prices are a “rip off” if there are lower prices elsewhere. This colloquial use of the term simply indicates that a smart shopper should look elsewhere. But that’s not the way it was used; it was used in the sense that denotes a fraud or a swindle. I’m assuming that these “ripped off” motorists were fully aware of the price when they entered the stations, the price that was posted on signs and pumps was the price that they paid, and no one threatened to harm them if they didn’t purchase. So wherein lies the rip off?
Nowhere, that’s where. Those higher prices were not ripping off consumers any more than the higher prices of designer handbags rip off fashion consumers. People paid higher prices because they were not willing to find or patronise stations with lower prices, plain and simple. The owners offered a good a certain price and people chose to buy of their own free will.
Now, there’s a whole other argument buried in there about free competition and government intervention in the petrol market, but we’ll leave that for another day (I’m sure you can guess where I stand on that issue). But the end result of this is that I’m now slightly more saddened about the state of the world. When simple economic concepts are complete voodoo to supposedly educated people like professional journalists it doesn’t bode well for the future of the nation, or the world.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
The Third Wave
I’ve been thinking recently about Alvin Toffler’s seminal book The Third Wave, which I read several years ago. The basic idea of the book is that we are now entering the third wave of societies. The first wave was agrarian, the second industrial, and the third informational. The question I’ve been wrestling with is where does a voluntary society sit in this continuum?
I often hear the argument that voluntary societies can’t exist because they haven’t existed. This is obviously a very weak argument if you take it at face value. But I think that the argument is actually quite a bit deeper and more nuanced than that. What they’re really saying is society always forms into some form of coercive government because that is the only thing that can work. In other words, voluntary societies have been discarded by societal evolution. A society of one person (let’s assume that “society” is the right word here) is obviously voluntary. A society of two is likewise voluntary unless one of them uses force on the other. A society of three the same, and so on. Eventually someone uses force and a government is formed in response, and since this has always happened at some point in all societies, it must mean that the voluntary society cannot work.
I’m of the school that this is partially true. Voluntary societies couldn’t have existed in the past. A truly voluntary society must be built on a framework to support it. Much like computers couldn’t have existing 200 years ago because it took time to develop all the necessary pre-requisites; voluntary society requires that some groundwork be laid. This brings us back to The Third Wave. It’s instructive to consider the political structures that existed, primarily, within each of the waves.
Agrarian societies had very tall and rigid hierarchies. Birthright was paramount and the sovereign was usually ordained by God. Classes were very strictly enforced and mobility between them was rarely achieved.
Industrial societies changed that by flattening things out. Contrary to what socialist apologists would have you believe, the industrial revolution was more to the benefit of the working poor than the capitalised rich. Mass production was the order of the day, and that included mass production of political power. Democracies sprang up as fast as shareholder-owned corporations. To be certain, there was still a hierarchy, but it was shorter and wider. Mobility between classes became a reality, if a relatively uncommon reality. Classes themselves became less distinct, and based more on achievement than birth.
What about informational societies? That question has yet to be answered. I believe we are still only at the very earliest beginnings of the informational shift. It seems that most post-industrial societies are moving toward socialism, that is certainly true in the United States and Europe. But I contend that this move isn’t a furtherance of drive toward informational society, but is instead a reaction of that drive. It’s the outgrowth of the conflicting pull between the two types of societies. The real trend will be to continue the flattening of hierarchies and even more massification of production. But massification in a different way. Industrial societies were about increasing the amount of production. Informational societies are about increasing the amount of producers.
Another great read on the topic is The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson. The world is moving to a mass of producers, as evidenced primarily by the entertainment industry. No longer is television dominated by a handful of national networks. Now there’s cable, on demand, Internet video, DVDs, video games, and a host of other options available to consumers. This new trend of massification applies to everything, even, the seats of power. Exactly how this will play out is yet to be seen, but I believe that eventually the great monolithic government will go the way of the birthright ordained monarch. In its place will be a society based on individual choice, and a total decentralisation of power. But it won’t be without a fight, and we can expect those who have attained power will try their damnedest to maintain it.
Sadly for them, like the Luddites of days gone past, progress will march on regardless of how they try to stop it.
I often hear the argument that voluntary societies can’t exist because they haven’t existed. This is obviously a very weak argument if you take it at face value. But I think that the argument is actually quite a bit deeper and more nuanced than that. What they’re really saying is society always forms into some form of coercive government because that is the only thing that can work. In other words, voluntary societies have been discarded by societal evolution. A society of one person (let’s assume that “society” is the right word here) is obviously voluntary. A society of two is likewise voluntary unless one of them uses force on the other. A society of three the same, and so on. Eventually someone uses force and a government is formed in response, and since this has always happened at some point in all societies, it must mean that the voluntary society cannot work.
I’m of the school that this is partially true. Voluntary societies couldn’t have existed in the past. A truly voluntary society must be built on a framework to support it. Much like computers couldn’t have existing 200 years ago because it took time to develop all the necessary pre-requisites; voluntary society requires that some groundwork be laid. This brings us back to The Third Wave. It’s instructive to consider the political structures that existed, primarily, within each of the waves.
Agrarian societies had very tall and rigid hierarchies. Birthright was paramount and the sovereign was usually ordained by God. Classes were very strictly enforced and mobility between them was rarely achieved.
Industrial societies changed that by flattening things out. Contrary to what socialist apologists would have you believe, the industrial revolution was more to the benefit of the working poor than the capitalised rich. Mass production was the order of the day, and that included mass production of political power. Democracies sprang up as fast as shareholder-owned corporations. To be certain, there was still a hierarchy, but it was shorter and wider. Mobility between classes became a reality, if a relatively uncommon reality. Classes themselves became less distinct, and based more on achievement than birth.
What about informational societies? That question has yet to be answered. I believe we are still only at the very earliest beginnings of the informational shift. It seems that most post-industrial societies are moving toward socialism, that is certainly true in the United States and Europe. But I contend that this move isn’t a furtherance of drive toward informational society, but is instead a reaction of that drive. It’s the outgrowth of the conflicting pull between the two types of societies. The real trend will be to continue the flattening of hierarchies and even more massification of production. But massification in a different way. Industrial societies were about increasing the amount of production. Informational societies are about increasing the amount of producers.
Another great read on the topic is The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson. The world is moving to a mass of producers, as evidenced primarily by the entertainment industry. No longer is television dominated by a handful of national networks. Now there’s cable, on demand, Internet video, DVDs, video games, and a host of other options available to consumers. This new trend of massification applies to everything, even, the seats of power. Exactly how this will play out is yet to be seen, but I believe that eventually the great monolithic government will go the way of the birthright ordained monarch. In its place will be a society based on individual choice, and a total decentralisation of power. But it won’t be without a fight, and we can expect those who have attained power will try their damnedest to maintain it.
Sadly for them, like the Luddites of days gone past, progress will march on regardless of how they try to stop it.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Does Might Make Right?
Quite often when discussing voluntaryism with people, I get this question: “So, are you saying that might makes right?” I get this question because these conversations typically boil down to conflict resolution. When two parties are in conflict over something, such as property rights, which cannot be resolved through any amount of arbitration (neither side needs to recognise an arbitrator’s decision, after all) the “winner” will be the one which can garner the most outside support. One party may have an insurance or security company who will drop them because they refuse to follow the arbitrator. Or one party’s security company may be so much larger than the other as to make enforcement against it too risky.
In essence, when an intractable conflict occurs, might will always be the final arbiter.
This frightens people, and understandably so. Most people have been taught that might doesn’t make right, that the little guy can still win against great odds, that society protects the interests of the weak. Unfortunately, none of this is actually true. In reality we’ve been indoctrinated with blinders to not see that the above scenario is exactly how it works today. Might is still the final arbiter. What makes it hard to see is that the “might” is all held by one company, the government.
There’s no more reason for a person to accept the ruling of a government court than there is for the person to accept the ruling of a private arbitrator. That is, except for the might wielded by the court’s enforcement arm, the police. In a voluntary society, just like in a government one, I protect my property exactly the same way: with the might of those who agree that my property should be protected. The market will do an excellent job of finding the balance between these conflicting centres of “might” because people will be able to move freely between them as their needs or circumstances change. Unlike the single centre of might we have today, which is controlled by a small group of people.
So, when asked this question I usually respond, “Not any more than you do.” As a further illustration I ask them to consider why it is that the current government is in charge. In the US, for example, why is it that the United States government runs the country and not the British? Or a Mexican or Spanish or Japanese or German, or especially Native American government? What allowed it to rise to dominance? The answer is simple, the United States government used its might to defeat all existing and potential competition for governing the country. Might has made right, for all intents and purposes.
Let me also add, that I don’t like the phrase “might makes right.” I prefer the phrase “might makes moot.” Not only is it a nice alliteration, but it also is more accurate. Might in no way makes someone right, but it does make it irrelevant who is. You may be right in crossing at a marked crosswalk, but the 10-tonne truck bearing down on you makes your “rightness” completely moot. The loser of a government court case may still be right, but it doesn’t much matter when the police come to take their property.
For better or worse, might will always be the final decision maker in conflicts. Acknowledging that fact is one of the first steps to accepting a voluntary mindset. Being afraid of it doesn’t make much sense when we live with the fact every day, no matter how well hidden by our training.
In essence, when an intractable conflict occurs, might will always be the final arbiter.
This frightens people, and understandably so. Most people have been taught that might doesn’t make right, that the little guy can still win against great odds, that society protects the interests of the weak. Unfortunately, none of this is actually true. In reality we’ve been indoctrinated with blinders to not see that the above scenario is exactly how it works today. Might is still the final arbiter. What makes it hard to see is that the “might” is all held by one company, the government.
There’s no more reason for a person to accept the ruling of a government court than there is for the person to accept the ruling of a private arbitrator. That is, except for the might wielded by the court’s enforcement arm, the police. In a voluntary society, just like in a government one, I protect my property exactly the same way: with the might of those who agree that my property should be protected. The market will do an excellent job of finding the balance between these conflicting centres of “might” because people will be able to move freely between them as their needs or circumstances change. Unlike the single centre of might we have today, which is controlled by a small group of people.
So, when asked this question I usually respond, “Not any more than you do.” As a further illustration I ask them to consider why it is that the current government is in charge. In the US, for example, why is it that the United States government runs the country and not the British? Or a Mexican or Spanish or Japanese or German, or especially Native American government? What allowed it to rise to dominance? The answer is simple, the United States government used its might to defeat all existing and potential competition for governing the country. Might has made right, for all intents and purposes.
Let me also add, that I don’t like the phrase “might makes right.” I prefer the phrase “might makes moot.” Not only is it a nice alliteration, but it also is more accurate. Might in no way makes someone right, but it does make it irrelevant who is. You may be right in crossing at a marked crosswalk, but the 10-tonne truck bearing down on you makes your “rightness” completely moot. The loser of a government court case may still be right, but it doesn’t much matter when the police come to take their property.
For better or worse, might will always be the final decision maker in conflicts. Acknowledging that fact is one of the first steps to accepting a voluntary mindset. Being afraid of it doesn’t make much sense when we live with the fact every day, no matter how well hidden by our training.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
The Myth of the Common Good
I keep hearing about the Common Good™ as though it is an obvious and useful way to measure public policy. It’s found neatly in the middle of the utilitarian creed: “The most good for the most people.” I have a problem with this idea of the common good. Not that I think there’s anything wrong with the utilitarian ideal as a personal goal; I think anyone who lives their lives that way has their heart in the right place. I have a problem with the idea as a method of driving policy. My main problem with the Common Good is that it cannot be measured.
Of course it can be measured, you may say to yourself, it’s possible to measure whether something is good or not. Of course good can be measured in isolation. A policy to feed homeless people can be measured to determine if any homeless people are dying of starvation. What can’t be measured, however, is the opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is essentially what is lost when resources are allocated. Since money, time, and effort don’t spring forth from nowhere, they must all be taken from another use. Using money to feed homeless people means that the money isn’t doing something else.
Consider a drug trial. Testing drugs is not simply about how well a drug does in curing a patient, but also how little harm a drug causes. A drug that cures headaches 90% of the time isn’t a success if it causes heart attacks 95% of the time. If a trial for a drug didn’t take into consideration the negative side effects of the drug then it’s not possible to determine if the drug actually worked. The same is true with policy intended to help the common good. If you can’t measure the opportunity costs then you can’t be sure if the policy is working. You’d have to take it on faith.
This isn’t to say that all opportunity costs can’t be measured. Of course some of them can. The opportunity costs you can measure are those which you take yourself. When you decide to use some of your own resources, you are the only one who can decide if the opportunity costs are worth it. Only you can decide if it’s worth the time to watch a movie, eat dinner, volunteer at a homeless shelter, etc. When you decide to take those resources from someone else, though, you can’t possibly know what they would have done with them.
The socialist minded person would probably think that taking money from rich people is okay because they weren’t going to use it to help the common good, but that betrays a naiveté about both human nature and economics. Perhaps the rich person would have left the money in the bank and done nothing with it. But money in the bank isn’t static, that’s the money which is used to finance home loans and business expansion. Perhaps the money would have been used to support some charity had it not been taken. Or it may have been used to buy gold faucets and larger stereos. But someone had to make those faucets and stereos. Those businesses employ people and there are more businesses which support those. About the only truly worthless use of money is to put it in a mattress and sleep on it, and I’m betting that’s a pretty rare occurrence.
It seem easy for some people to convince themselves that they know better how to use other people’s money; that *their* particular use of the money alone serves the common good. They may be right, perhaps their plan does increase the common good. But there is no way to prove it. They are, in essence, asking the rest of us to take it on faith that their plan is better because the are unable to show that the alternate use of the money is worse. There are some things that I’m not willing to take on faith, and this is one of them. I’m not willing to cross the line of taking money by force because one group of people “believes” (not knows) that by so doing the common good is served. The common good is best served by letting us each find our own way to serve it.
Of course it can be measured, you may say to yourself, it’s possible to measure whether something is good or not. Of course good can be measured in isolation. A policy to feed homeless people can be measured to determine if any homeless people are dying of starvation. What can’t be measured, however, is the opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is essentially what is lost when resources are allocated. Since money, time, and effort don’t spring forth from nowhere, they must all be taken from another use. Using money to feed homeless people means that the money isn’t doing something else.
Consider a drug trial. Testing drugs is not simply about how well a drug does in curing a patient, but also how little harm a drug causes. A drug that cures headaches 90% of the time isn’t a success if it causes heart attacks 95% of the time. If a trial for a drug didn’t take into consideration the negative side effects of the drug then it’s not possible to determine if the drug actually worked. The same is true with policy intended to help the common good. If you can’t measure the opportunity costs then you can’t be sure if the policy is working. You’d have to take it on faith.
This isn’t to say that all opportunity costs can’t be measured. Of course some of them can. The opportunity costs you can measure are those which you take yourself. When you decide to use some of your own resources, you are the only one who can decide if the opportunity costs are worth it. Only you can decide if it’s worth the time to watch a movie, eat dinner, volunteer at a homeless shelter, etc. When you decide to take those resources from someone else, though, you can’t possibly know what they would have done with them.
The socialist minded person would probably think that taking money from rich people is okay because they weren’t going to use it to help the common good, but that betrays a naiveté about both human nature and economics. Perhaps the rich person would have left the money in the bank and done nothing with it. But money in the bank isn’t static, that’s the money which is used to finance home loans and business expansion. Perhaps the money would have been used to support some charity had it not been taken. Or it may have been used to buy gold faucets and larger stereos. But someone had to make those faucets and stereos. Those businesses employ people and there are more businesses which support those. About the only truly worthless use of money is to put it in a mattress and sleep on it, and I’m betting that’s a pretty rare occurrence.
It seem easy for some people to convince themselves that they know better how to use other people’s money; that *their* particular use of the money alone serves the common good. They may be right, perhaps their plan does increase the common good. But there is no way to prove it. They are, in essence, asking the rest of us to take it on faith that their plan is better because the are unable to show that the alternate use of the money is worse. There are some things that I’m not willing to take on faith, and this is one of them. I’m not willing to cross the line of taking money by force because one group of people “believes” (not knows) that by so doing the common good is served. The common good is best served by letting us each find our own way to serve it.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
The Trouble with Voting
I recently heard an interview with the author of the book, “The Myth of the Rational Voter” and it got me thinking. What is it about voting that slowly brings about bad government? Why does the electorate seem to give up a tiny piece of their essential rights every election (or follow a one step forward, two steps back cycle)? I’ve got the book on my reading list, so one day I’ll be able to match my theory up with what the book says. For now, though, I’ll just have to speculate.
I thought back to the book, “The Wisdom of Crowds” which talks about group decision making to find part of my answer. You should read it, if you haven’t already. The book contained many examples of groups making decisions, making very good decisions, even though few of the members of the group were experts in the area. What’s the difference between these group decisions and voting?
One difference is cost. The good decisions that groups were able to make always entailed some form of expense to the decision makers if they got it wrong, or a reward if they got it right. Whether it was trying to guess the weight of a bull at a county fair to win a prize (the example the book opens with) or betting against Morton Thiokol in the Challenger shuttle disaster on the stock market; the quality of the individual decisions had a direct link to a reward or expense. Isn’t this also true with voting?
No, it isn’t. Because while in voting the decisions are made by the individual, the costs and rewards are spread over the group. That is, if you vote and get it “right” it won’t affect you at all unless you’re on the winning side. Likewise, if you vote and get it “wrong” it won’t you personally, but everyone. This causes a slight shift in the definition of “right” and “wrong” in the election process.
The meaning of right and wrong change from “selecting the best choice” to “selecting the winning choice.” It’s a subtle change, because quite often those are the same. Consider an election on whether to commit national suicide via drinking poison Kool-Aid. In this case (I hope) the winning choice is also the right choice. But it isn’t always so.
There will be times, however infrequent, that the best choice doesn’t appear to be the most popular one. In that case, when enough voters shift sides because they want to be on the “winning” side of an election, the wrong choice is made. Since this doesn’t happen every time, it explains why voting is a slow slide into fascism and socialism. Even more perverse is the idea that the winning side may not actually have been the most popular, but was portrayed as such by the media; becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
You can see this shift in action every time someone tells you that you’re “wasting your vote” by selecting candidate X because they can’t win. The only way such a vote is wasted is if the goal of voting is to predict the winner, not to vote for the most capable person.
Voting has the inherent flaw that it does not scale well. There are times when it is an effective way to judge the interest of a group (where should we have lunch today?) but quickly breaks down as the size of the group grows. If you feel like your vote has no impact on the outcome, but you’re going to be subject to its decision, what’s the point in trying to vote well?
Voting is a topic I will visit again, as I think an understanding of its flaws is critical to breaking the official myth that Democracy = Freedom.
I thought back to the book, “The Wisdom of Crowds” which talks about group decision making to find part of my answer. You should read it, if you haven’t already. The book contained many examples of groups making decisions, making very good decisions, even though few of the members of the group were experts in the area. What’s the difference between these group decisions and voting?
One difference is cost. The good decisions that groups were able to make always entailed some form of expense to the decision makers if they got it wrong, or a reward if they got it right. Whether it was trying to guess the weight of a bull at a county fair to win a prize (the example the book opens with) or betting against Morton Thiokol in the Challenger shuttle disaster on the stock market; the quality of the individual decisions had a direct link to a reward or expense. Isn’t this also true with voting?
No, it isn’t. Because while in voting the decisions are made by the individual, the costs and rewards are spread over the group. That is, if you vote and get it “right” it won’t affect you at all unless you’re on the winning side. Likewise, if you vote and get it “wrong” it won’t you personally, but everyone. This causes a slight shift in the definition of “right” and “wrong” in the election process.
The meaning of right and wrong change from “selecting the best choice” to “selecting the winning choice.” It’s a subtle change, because quite often those are the same. Consider an election on whether to commit national suicide via drinking poison Kool-Aid. In this case (I hope) the winning choice is also the right choice. But it isn’t always so.
There will be times, however infrequent, that the best choice doesn’t appear to be the most popular one. In that case, when enough voters shift sides because they want to be on the “winning” side of an election, the wrong choice is made. Since this doesn’t happen every time, it explains why voting is a slow slide into fascism and socialism. Even more perverse is the idea that the winning side may not actually have been the most popular, but was portrayed as such by the media; becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
You can see this shift in action every time someone tells you that you’re “wasting your vote” by selecting candidate X because they can’t win. The only way such a vote is wasted is if the goal of voting is to predict the winner, not to vote for the most capable person.
Voting has the inherent flaw that it does not scale well. There are times when it is an effective way to judge the interest of a group (where should we have lunch today?) but quickly breaks down as the size of the group grows. If you feel like your vote has no impact on the outcome, but you’re going to be subject to its decision, what’s the point in trying to vote well?
Voting is a topic I will visit again, as I think an understanding of its flaws is critical to breaking the official myth that Democracy = Freedom.
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