Are These Truths Self Evident?

The bedrock of this nation's conception of justice has been summed up with Jefferson's beautiful phrase 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

But our nation has changed greatly over the past 236 years.  Among those changes is the nation's lack of faith in Jefferson's Creator.  Now, I will not condemn that change, for as an agnostic I too hold doubts of any such Creator existing.  Any honest person will note, however, without the Creator, the source of our endowment becomes unclear, raising the question: are we endowed with any such rights at all? 

I have been sifting through the works of various philosophers of positive and natural law in search of a solid footing on which such rights might rest, but the search has largely been in vain.  A ridiculous amount of verbiage is spent to create ludicrously few solid concepts, but this much I see:

There is no natural law or natural rights in the sense that "Good" requires those laws to be and anything in contradiction is not actually law.  "Good" itself has no objective existence.  Positive laws, those that are actually imposed by men on other men, do exist, no matter how poorly expressed or even insane they may be.  Laws are judged not in objective abstract terms of how will they coincide with the philosophical concept of law but in whether it aligns with one's political philosophy.  As atrocious as it seems to me, Nazi law was in fact a legal system in that it allowed those subscribing to Nazi ideology to fulfill their goals.  We may condemn those ideologies and their attendant jurisprudence, but we cannot point to a Higher Power that condemns them.  If God is dead, so is the Devil; there will be no retribution on evil men who live out long and happy lives.  

This fact has driven philosophers I otherwise respect into flights of fancy.  Friedrich Hayek, for example, condemns positive law as the rule of those who make the rules rather than dispassionate, impersonal law.  Hayek (and my) political philosophy may very well depend on limiting the power of those making the laws, but all of the rules ever written to that effect are in vain if nobody is there to enforce them.  In any democracy, it is easy to bribe a segment of the populace by promising the redistribution of the wealth of another segment's.  Those of us who see this as both morally wrong and economically harmful to most of us (even many in the bribed party) face Plato's daunting task of convincing the tyrant with the ring of Gyges that he personally would be better off doing good, even in comparison to doing evil with absolute impunity.  

Plato did not have a particularly good answer.  Neither the Myth of Er nor the Creator have much sway these days and pushing them would be a pathetic Nobel Lie.  I believe respecting the life, liberty, and property of all citizens it he only way to preventing our government from being an organ of theft and corruption to benefit whichever party currently occupies the Capitol.  But so long as some citizens are willing to be bribed with the wealth and happiness of others while most remain ignorant and apathetic, those on the throne making our laws will reap the benefits of Gyges' ring.  All appeals to natural law will fail, as those corrupt governors are following the natural law of their ideologies.  The only appeal that will demand their attention is the use of force. 

Thrasymachus Must Be Answered

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

I've been pondering these lines and the question of what makes things right and other things wrong.  We establish government to secure our unalienable rights granted to us by our Creator.  But what if there is no Creator, no God?  Does the theory of Natural Law still stand if there is no Natural Law Giver?  It can be said that Natural Law is the Best Positive Law that we can create...but the best for whom?  

At the beginning of our Republic, these principles were generally (though obviously not absolutely) held by the public, that the life, liberty, and property of others were sacrosanct, that they are granted by a Higher Power.  These values have largely been replaced in society with the idea that the wealth of others may be deemed unfairly gained without a reference to what fairness is, that liberty can be enhanced by the dictates of government.  In most aspects, people lack any guiding principles apart from personal gain, regardless of means.  In fact, most people consider the means of government appropriating and redistributing wealth gives the action moral credibility. 

The ideal of Life, Liberty, and Property as fundamental Natural Rights has been usurped for Might Equals Right.  Most will not be comfortable putting it so bluntly, but the idea that government actions are legitimate because it is a democratic government that took them is arguing that having the power of the majority makes an action right.  Of course, the same people that support government intrusion on the rights of others become indignant the second they become part of the minority, the abused class.  And sadly, many that denounce the abuses of government do so because they wish to be sucking at the tit of government instead.  It is not the abuse of government powers, but the recipient of the benefits that angers these people (the Occupy movement is a great example of this).  For so many people in this country, what is right equals what is good for me.  

The threat of an afterlife, the Myth of Er, may have been false but it certainly had its uses.  In a world without a Higher Power (and I am an agnostic myself), the whole question of right and wrong is often thrown overboard; there is no disincentive to do wrong, and often a great reward. 

Can a society survive if it embraces the philosophy of Thrasymachus?  Perhaps so, perhaps not.  But will such a society be happier than a free society based on respect for life, liberty, and property?  For a small group, yes; for the rest, no. 

And that's where I find myself.  I'm an agnostic.  I don't believe there is a Creator that particularly cares if our Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness are upheld or violently raped.  I do believe that a free society, with positive laws upholding Jefferson and Locke's ideals, is the happiest of societies for most within it.  But I also know that those same political tools used to create positive laws will almost inevitably be employed to destroy what they are supposed to protect; politicians will forever bribe some people with the wealth of others.  Perhaps liberty is such a fragile thing that its existence cannot be maintained.  Like a silver coin passed around too many hands, perhaps we can't prevent its tarnishing and eventual ruin. 

But I intend to keep throwing objections at Thrasymachus, even if he isn't listening.  The political tools used to abuse our economic machine have taken that machine to its breaking point.  Europe may have passed that point already and we are definitely moving in that direction.  When the breakdown occurs, Thrasymachus will not be content to watch the world (and his privileged position) blow up into a billion pieces.  No, he'll have a new political system to mitigate the impact of the next economic implosion.  This one won't be democratic, though I can easily see it being demanded by the people. 

"You never want a serious crisis go to waste."  They won't miss their opportunity. 

Cicero Speaks on OWS

"But many claims in his speech were those of the demagogue, and especially reprehensible was the statement that less than two thousand persons in the state owned property.  This was a pernicious speech, promoting as it did the equalization of property; what could be more baneful than that?  Why, the chief motivation behind the establishment of states and city structures was to ensure the maintenance of private property; for though nature guided men to form communities, it was in the hope of guarding their possessions that they sought protection in cities."

"So those who seek to pose as populares, and with this in mind raise the agrarian issue to have owners shifted from their properties, or think that money owed by debtors should be remitted, are undermining the foundations of the state, which depends first and foremost on the harmony between classes (and this cannot continue to exist when some citizens are robbed of their money and others have their debts remitted), and secondly on fair dealing, which is totally abrogated if the individual cannot keep what belongs to him.  For, as I remarked earlier, the distinguishing feature of the community and the city is that every individual should maintain free and undisturbed control of his possessions."

These quotes, which come from De Officiis by Marcus Tullius Cicero, are worth pondering.

Atlas Didn't Shrug, He Was Shot

Government requires corporations to do a lot of dumb economic things (massive regulations, minimum wage laws, requiring hefty amounts of money be lent to those who can never pay it back, etc.).  

Shit hits the fan due to bad policies.  Government then bails out corporations to stem the disaster.  

Progressives use the disaster to "prove" that corporations (not the government) are responsible.  More power is forked to the government for things like "economic justice" rather than anything fitting economic reality.  

Shit continues to get worse.  Again, blame corporations, give government more power.  Repeat.  

The biggest problem with Atlas Shrugged (though I love it, there are a few) is that Rand ended it on a happy note.  In reality, when this vicious circle begins, it ends in bloodshed and starvation.  See Revolutions in France, Russia, China, Cambodia, Zimbabwe, etc.  The scariest and most frustrating part is that the people have their scapegoat and so little understanding of economics or morality that rational discussion is almost impossible with them. That very lack of understanding causes them to be supremely confident in their gut feelings about what is "right and wrong" in economics and that surely their ideas of economic justice would be feasible.  Nevermind that time and again, reality has proven this wrong.  These are the same idiots who bought into "Hope and Change" in 2008; they have had power for three years and things have become even worse.  Rather than talk about actual policy changes, in particular their own policy failures, they want to talk about wishy washy terms and blame corporations. 

If there is any consolation in any of this, it is that the many people in this country who do not deserve liberty may not have it for long. 

Directive 10-289 Has Been Expanded and Amended

You just can't make this stuff up.  It reads like a law created in an early draft of Atlas Shrugged that Rand struck out because it was too unbelievable.  I can't go through 50 something pages of nonsense point by point, but some of the more entertaining things include:

"Truth in Journalism" law.  Why, we all know the government will make sure the truth is told! 

Compulsory voting.  Yes, we need more people who are not informed to vote.  They'll be thrilled about it, too.  Only good things can come of this.

Ban short selling.  Yes, when things are overpriced, we need to make sure nobody knows it until the shit hits the fan so that everyone suffers rather than those paying attention!

Hold out government accountable for a Gross Happiness Index.  Like Bhutan.  No, seriously, they are advocating that position, even the Bhutan part. 

Everyone supporting Occupy Wall Street should be required to read pages 41 and 42 of this trainwreck. For starters, oil is outlawed; you need to turn in your car.  How you will be getting to and from anywhere is left unstated.  Free education for all, provided by God knows whom.  Free healthcare for all, again provided presumably by God via manna from the sky. 

By far and away, my favorite part is the mandated salaries.  Here they are:

Concepts of Economic Sustainability and Right Livelihood

Bankers $20,000
Lawyers $27,500
Realtors $25,000
Doctors $28,000
Nurses $27,500
Teachers/Librarians/Train Engineers/Bridge Maintenance/Ship Pilots, etc. $35,000
Police $36,000
Public Servants $28,500
Laborers $20,000
Other public sector $30,000
Other private sector $29,000
Technical/Research/Academic $36,000
Entrepreneurs/Business Owners $10,000 (i.e., tax breaks for corps)
Congress $30,000
President 40,000
Soldiers N/A
Defense workers $25,000

All jobs include full health benefit for worker and family, full retirement benefits, full free
education for children.

Taxation - to run the government. The only tax will be a sales tax for all goods and services, which will be fixed at: 4%.

As a teacher, I will be among the richest Americans!  We're sure to have new businesses making new products with entrepreneurs being the least paid individuals in the nation.  It is good to know that people will put in the work and sacrifice to become doctors, even though they will be paid less than teachers who will make more than almost anyone for 180 days of work. As we all know, running a bank is child's play, especially when compared to being a realtor or a librarian!

This is what I've wanted from hardcore Leftists for some time, a detailed outline of their world.  And it is everything I expected it to be. My favorite part may be that this document begins with this requirement:

Actions should not interfere with the efficient functioning of a market economy, the allocation of capital, and incentives for innovators, entrepreneurs, investors, and consumers as long as basic welfare and genuine opportunity for the entire American people are served.

Between this and the abject failure of consensus democracy put on show in Atlanta, I can only hope Occupy Wall Street is highlighted more in the news.  The looks on the faces of those shouted down is priceless, especially since those people are fans of Representative John Lewis, a civil rights activitist and liberal Congressman.  They sure aren't Tea Parties is my point.  This "consensus democracy" doesn't actually remove dissent, it just silences it, much to the chagrin of those not in the majority.  Funny thing about democracy, there always seem to be a minority who wants to voice its point of view.  Jazz hands and shouting "mic check" makes those folks feel ostracized. 

The Free Rider Argument

Neil Siegel of Duke argues at SCOTUSblog that the ACA is legal under the Commerce Clause because that clause exists to fight free rider issues in this nation.

For starters, the main reason the interstate commerce clause was included was to prevent states from charging duties and establishing monopolies, inhibiting trade across state lines. This isn't a free rider issue at all; it was a matter of preventing state interference from messing up the economy.

But even if you ignore that, Siegel's argument is absolutely ridiculous. The free rider problem "arises is when people benefit from collective action regardless of whether they contribute to it." So creating a program in which 30 million people get health care from the government without contributing a dime is fighting free riding? It sounds like expanding free riding to me. Healthy people who do not buy insurance because they choose a healthy lifestyle now must pay in order to cover the costs of those who do not have a healthy lifestyle or pay their own insurance (via their own pocket or from work). Sounds like they are free riding off of the healthy people.

Isn't the entire notion of the welfare state creating more free riders?

Meanwhile, I'm still waiting to hear what limit there really is to Congress' power if this expansion of the Commerce Clause holds up.

Of Constitutional Conventions and Secession

In late September of this year, Harvard Law School will be hosting a Conference on the Constitutional Convention. Rather than being an actual Convention for forming a new government like that held at Philadelphia, it more closely resembles the much less famous Annapolis Convention. Think of it more as a grand jury rather than as a courtroom jury. This convention is being sponsored by the Left and the Right.

I have to admit, I am a bit skeptical about this. Were our current Constitution more strictly obeyed, in particular in matters of federalism and limitation of powers, I think our system would be working smoother. Any change to our system would require 3/4ths of all states to sign on to. The problem this convention is going to run up against, and which is no real secret, is that there are two dominant political philosophies that are pulling in the opposite direction. Statists on the Left will want to remove obstacles to government action while Tea Partiers like myself wish to see restrictions tightened. Realistically, there is no compromise that will satisfy these diametrically opposed notions.

Let me illustrate this point. Lawrence Lessig, the Left sponsor of this convention, argued at the Huffington Post that if our Founding Fathers could compromise enough on slavery to create a functioning government, surely our differences can also be put aside to find meaningful compromise. Lessig is wrong, however. The Founding Fathers did compromise, as did later generations in 1820 and 1850 under the notable leadership of Henry Clay, but none of them actually found a solution to the problem of slavery. In the end, what eliminated the problem was not rational discussion but the death of over half a million Americans during our Civil War. Compromise postponed dealing with the problem; it did not solve it.

The Left and the Right in this nation have a very different idea as to the proper role of government, which in turn leads to different interpretations as to the legal powers of the government. This is best appreciated in the current debate over ObamaCare's constitutionality.

SCOTUSblog has held a symposium on this very issue with a number of top legal scholars from both sides. This is not the time and place to go over the merits of each side's case (I have done that elsewhere), but just consider how radically different their views are. One the pro side, defenders of the ACA say that Congress may regulate interstate commerce or any activity that could potentially impact interstate commerce, even on an infinitesimal level. Against this, detractors point out that any moment of our lives could theoretically be used to impact interstate trade and that this basically gives Congress carte blanche, that Congress may only invoke this power to regulate existing trade that does in fact cross state lines. Where, exactly, are these two sides to compromise, either with existing Constitutional language or with any proposed amendments that both sides would have to agree to? The Left will not allow any constitutional movement Right; the Right will not allow any constitutional movement Left; ergo, we will not move as one unit.

Perhaps rather than a political marriage counseling session, we may wish to consider a political divorce? If this convention is really about spit balling ideas, I don't see why secession should be so quickly dismissed. Let's get this out of the way right now: this is not an advocation of slavery. Yes, 150 years ago the Confederate States broke away largely (but not entirely) because of slavery, but it is a non sequitur to then imply that every secession act is thereby about slavery.

Would it be an easy process? Absolutely not, but neither would it be impossible. The Soviet Union managed to break apart fairly peaceably. Southern Sudan split from Sudan and Montenegro has recently joined the world by splitting apart from the rump of Yugoslavia. A call for secession is not a call for violence; we could split and go our separate ways, assuming both sides are willing to concede the independence of the other group.

The details of such a secession can be discussed later. I'm not necessarily advocating this position; I am advocating, however, that we at least examine it. I have no illusions about it being the saving grace that will create a perfect world. Politics would still exist within whatever nations are created by the division, but I believe it would be much less over principles and more over which form of administration is best to achieve fairly agreed upon principles. I see no particular reason why the divided nations could not peaceably coexist.

Anyway, it is an idea that would actually go somewhere. To try to shift the whole United States left or right via a constitutional change is impossible. Any changes all sides would agree to are likely to be dealing with extremely minor problems.

I am looking forward to seeing what this convention produces.

The Daily Snark 8/9

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have always been an important subject to me. My grandfather was a combat engineer in the Pacific during that war. The alternative to bombing Japan was invading it. People, like Greg Mitchell at The Nation, seem to think Japan would have thrown up their hands by that point anyway and that the bombings were not necessary.

The Battle of Okinawa, fought from April to June 1945, says otherwise. The closer we got to Japan, the worse the battles became. In this one campaign, the United States suffered many more deaths than Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

Mitchell doesn't point out that on August 10th, the day after the Nagasaki bombing, the Empire of Japan did not end the war. On August 11th, after two nuclear bombings and being attacked by the U.S.S.R., Japan did not surrender. On August 12th, Japan did not surrender. On August 13th, Japan did not surrender. Mind you, people are dying on every one of these days. On August 14th, Japan did not surrender. On the 15th, after a failed coup attempt by a military faction to continue the war, Japan finally capitulated.

The point here is simple enough: on August 9th, 1945, it was far from obvious to anyone that Japan would give in without another nuclear demonstration.

Had the atomic bombs not been dropped, it seems highly unlikely that Japan would have surrendered without being invaded. The American plan for that invasion, Operation Downfall, would likely have lead to the deaths of millions of Japanese and Americans. My grandfather, as an engineer, would have been key in turning Kyushu into a gigantic, unsinkable aircraft carrier in order to invade Honshu.

When given the choice between my grandfather (a person with no role in creating this war) dying in that invasion, and hence my own nonexistence, or the destruction of a city in the nation that launched this conflict, I feel no moral compunction about supporting the latter. No, nobody is arguing that the atomic bombing was a pleasant experience, but that does not justify having more Americans killed in order to protect the people who launched the war in the first place.

International law and justice is an unholy mess. In the end, the argument against using the atomic bombs is an argument in favor of risking my existence. No muddled argument about non-existing standards of international morality and ridiculous claims about Japan suddenly being willing to surrender will change my mind on this issue.

I, and millions of others, exist because of those bombs. I will not be made to feel guilty because I exist and the expense of a warmongering nation. The innocent people in Nagasaki certainly were wronged, but they were wronged by their own government that viciously attacked other nations, not by the nations that defended themselves.

Evolution in Thought

For whatever reason, I find the shower to be a very contemplative place. Before jumping in, I was reading from Mao: A Life by Philip Short about Mao's plan for a Hundred Flowers Movement in which intellectual diversity would be encouraged by the state. Unsurprisingly, it was a ruse to get intellectuals to raise their heads and identify themselves as targets, but it generated a different question in my mind: how many people in their late 20's and 30's have almost the exact same political beliefs as they did at 18? I'm willing to bet that the political thought of most people doesn't evolve much, which is rather frightening. Then, as I always do, I turned self reflexive and pondered my own evolution of thought. 27 is still young, very young in terms of politics, and most biographies on famous leaders show a great deal of change in their philosophies throughout life. As is, though, I'm kind of surprised by how much my own has changed.

• At age 15-16, I would have been considered a hawkish American Liberal. I supported Clinton during the impeachment mess (I still think that was uncalled for), supported attacking Iraq and Serbia, and generally believed that the government should help out he less fortunate. The 2000 election result was the result of a political Supreme Court. Bush's tax cuts were a waste of money that could be better spent elsewhere.
  
• When I was 17, 9/11 happened. This was really the first time I was willing to consider Bush in a positive light. Foreign policy trumped all else in my mind at this time and I began to slide into the Republican camp. Similarly, I had begun a turn to Christianity that tied in well with preexisting social norms I possessed. My first encounter with Ayn Rand occurred by reading The Fountainhead for a scholarship essay; I loved the story but hated her philosophy.
• From then until about 24, I was a conservative. As I immersed myself into politics and history, I began to consider the economic side of politics, but foreign policy remained the most salient issue for me. To the extent that I cared about politics, it was to lower taxes and spending, but the Republican Party at that time wasn't particularly good about such things. At this time, government still looked like it could be a positive force in shaping society, and I found myself disagreeing quite a bit with Henry David Thoreau.
  
• At 21, I read Plato's Republic and Isaiah Berlin's The Proper Study of Mankind. This combination of books would ultimately put me on the road to being a Libertarian, as I learned that "good" is not a unified concept; there are many types of goods that can contradict each other. If that is the case, somebody must decide which goods to pursue and which to leave behind. The only question is, who decides, the government or the individual?
• At 24, I read J.S. Mill's On Liberty. Reread John C. Calhoun's Disquisition on Government and Locke's Second Treatise of Government. It begins to dawn on me that perhaps the government only exists to keep others off of me (and, of course, me off of others), rather than to improve anyone.
  
• At 25, in the wake of Obama's election, I picked up Ayn Rand again, this time reading Atlas Shrugged. I was enthralled by this book; its 1,000 plus pages is full of notes comparing her 1950's fiction with current events, with bailouts and stimulus spending and regulation of companies in favor of unions.
• Since then, I have picked up the likes of Hayek, Nozick, Rawls, Rothbard, and von Mises. I'm not an Objectivist because I do not believe most people have the same life goals as Rand did. Rather, I see each person's subjective goals as legitimate so long as they respect the life, liberty, and property of others. Though I disagree quite a bit with his analysis, Rothbard has done quite a lot to show me the connection between liberty and economics. The right to liberty and the right to "pursue happiness" or, as Locke put it, property, is not so easily separated. The idea of natural law is giving way to positive law as I wonder about the origin and nature of rights.
  

This is far from a complete recounting of my political thought, but I think it is clear enough that over the last 10 years I have changed quite a bit in my ideology. I would vehemently disagree with my 18 year old self. In fact, I wish I could find a paper I wrote for my English 101 class taken in high school, in which I argued the First Amendment should be changed in various ways that restrict speech. I would tear it to pieces now.

Looking back, it does not strike me as surprising that my thought would change. Politics and ethics are huge fields. Unfortunately, they also are matters of choice that reflect upon the person holding those views. As most people fundamentally see themselves as moral and ethical, they have a strong psychological reason for not finding out otherwise. The only way to be disabused of false notions is to have them proven wrong before your eyes, when the choice is to admit you were wrong and change your thought or continue unchanged but knowing you are wrong to do so. I put my thought out to be challenged. Unsurprisingly, it has been found wanting more than a few times, but in the end I have a more coherent political philosophy than most people. Many of the dead limbs have been trimmed off.

If we are to live in a successful democracy, more people need to be willing to do this. Hiding behind the "impoliteness" of discussing politics is ridiculous. I consider it far more of an insult for someone to intentionally be ignorant and make decisions over my life than to have a discussion. As the great philosopher Gregory House, MD, once said,

You know I get it if people are just looking for a way to fill the holes. But they want the holes. They wanna to live in the holes. And they go nuts when somebody else pours dirt in their holes. CLIMB OUT OF YOUR HOLES, PEOPLE!

The Daily Snark 7/7

This is a piece by a conservative. One can tell, because the author has a limited understanding of libertarian thought. True, New York's action in legalizing gay marriage is a government action, but it is one of the few throughout history to expand personal freedom for thousands rather than continue the contraction of liberty. To the extent the author has a legitimate point, it is in that the government ought not to be in the marriage business at all.

Of course, this is not actually the author's point. He says:

New York State notwithstanding, the argument over marriage will and must continue, because it touches first principles of democratic governance — and because resistance to the agenda of the gay-marriage lobby is a necessary act of resistance against the dictatorship of relativism, in which coercive state power is used to impose on all of society a relativistic ethic of personal willfulness.

Er, no. This sums up why I no longer consider myself a conservative. I believe that there are a multiplicity of goods, rather than one concept of "the good." Those goods can be mutually exclusive. Different things will make different people happy at different points throughout their lives; there is no objectiveness in what is good for people. That said, people should be left alone to do as they like, so long as they respect the life, liberty, and property of others.

Allowing other people to do as they like does not impose anything on me, or you, or the author, or anyone else.

The task of a just state is to recognize and support this older, prior social institution; it is not to attempt its redefinition. To do the latter involves indulging the totalitarian temptation that lurks within all modern states: the temptation to remanufacture reality.

The task of the just state is to protect our natural liberties. It strikes me as insane to believe the state exists to continue social institutions. The institution of marriage as society sees it has changed to include homosexuals. It is the opponents of gay marriage who are attempting to remanufacture reality and indulge a totalitarian temptation by imposing their understanding of marriage on others.

Government exists no more to reinforce outdated social institutions and mores than it exists to impose new ideas. Government ought to impose no ideas on peaceful people but rather let them go and live their lives as they see fit.

More than anything, I am amused by the author's indignation at libertarians for not opposing this "relativism." Clearly, he has never read Hayek, or von Mises, or Rothbard, or John Stuart Mill, or any of the other leading lights in the libertarian camp. The entire reason liberty is important is because there is no objective, proven way of living life best. Liberty gives each of us the breadth of decisions to make our own lives according to our own subjective goals.

Happy Fourth of July

Today marks the 235th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. This nation is not great because of fireworks and parades, but because of principles. We cannot celebrate those principles if we do not know those principles. So, without further ado, the document every American should know by heart:

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

My fairly quick primer from last year on what this document means can be found here. That second paragraph is probably the single most important thing ever put down on paper. A happy Fourth of July to all; may we remember and defend what makes our nation great so that it may remain so for all of our days.

Quick Reactions to the Legalization of Gay Marriage

I applaud New York State for allowing homosexual couples to marry. I further applaud their decision not to force religious groups opposed to such weddings to carry them out. The use of force should not be used upon consenting adults. If it makes people happy and harms no one else, then there is no justification for using force. Many religious individuals will be unhappy with this vote, but they need to understand that the state apparatus is not a vehicle for imposing their morality on other people. God calls on us to remove the logs from our own eyes prior to removing specks from that of other people; in short, until you are perfect, don't worry about what other people are doing, much less so use force on them to change their ways.

That said, many of my friends on the Left need to learn the same lesson. They applaud this decision, but then turn around and require higher taxes on tobacco, disgusting images on tobacco products, higher taxes on sugary foods, requiring people to purchase health care, etc. The whole point and purpose of opposing gay marriage bans is that the government has no point in telling people how to live their lives; what makes these other issues different? Live and let live, even when you don't like how other people choose to live.

There is a great deal of hypocrisy on both the Right and the Left. Neither side is truly committed to the ideal of not legislating morality; they merely have different moralities they wish to impose with the use of force. That is why I am a libertarian. I vote Republican because the Libertarian Party is a joke and the Republican is the lesser of the two evils, but hopefully the Tea Party movement will continue to swing the Republicans into the libertarian camp. The question we must ask every time a law is created is this: cui malo, or who is harmed? Laws regulate the interactions of man and man, not man and nature. Harm only exists when one person physically destroys, injures, or threatens to injure the property or person of another human being. If no one is harmed, then the government has no right to intervene. Gay marriage is a great example. Gay people are clearly not harmed by being allowed to marry each other. Other people may not like it, but that does not materially harm them. Furthermore, people may not like particular heterosexual marriages, but we recognize their right to choose regardless of society's collective opinion.

Politically, I am glad this went through the legislature rather than the courts. Other states have attempted to create this change through the judiciary, but it has often been countered with a state constitutional amendment that passes. Under such a situation, not only can the judges not change the laws, but even the legislature finds its hands tied. Having it passed through the legislature is more democratic, which is a better indicator that a constitutional amendment challenge will fail.

Can Communism Avoid Collapsing Into Tyranny?

Question: Can Communism work with a “Dictatorship of the Proletariat?” Will it always
devolve into tyranny of one?

Works Considered:

Karl Kautsky, Dictatorship of the Proletariat
Vladimir Lenin, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky
The State and Revolution

Thoughts:

Marx's political theory is a source of fascination for me. I'm not greatly shocked that communism would prove popular in areas that are truly destitute, where peasants' living conditions almost could not be worse and where communism at least offers a glimmer of hope for improvement. What really amazes me is that there are people in the Western world who could be suckered into this belief system. It has a great deal to do with the fact that many supporters of Marxism have never actually read Marx or considered the implications, but there are still many academics who have read his works and passionately support his platform.

The problem with Marxism does not lie in the tearing down of the state; that much is fairly easy. However, Marxism promises a better life after the Revolution and it is here the problem lies. Once society is overthrown, what follows? Marx and his disciples are short on details to describe this period. Such chaotic situations are beneficial for the strongest thugs, not the most just rulers, to gain power; to create such chaos with the intentional goal of destroying a class of people (the bourgeois) is a perfect recipe for creating a totalitarian state, not a stateless and classless society. History has vindicated this (Stalin, anyone?), but this should have been obvious to any literate member of society without historical examples to rely upon.

Mr. Kautsky, to his credit, foresaw this problem. Marx's vagueness on the famous concept of "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" is a big stumbling block for socialists, as some see this dictatorship in the common political sense of the word while others like Kautsky fear such a political leviathan. The traditional strongman at the head of the Dictatorship, as supported by Lenin, was needed in order to wipe away the hated "oppressing" class, but the power of such a man could just as easily be turned on socialists unwilling to dedicate themselves to the particular man in charge. Socialism is not a monolithic concept; dissent exists within its ranks. As Hayek pointed out later, those who achieve dictatorial powers are those ruthless enough to grasp for it. Such people will be loathe to relinquish such power and almost inevitably the revolution will began to devour itself as dissenting socialist elements become targeted.

That anyone is impressed with Lenin's writing amazes me. Lenin's fanaticism in the infallibility of Marx rivals the most passionate fundamentalist of any religion; often, a quote from Marx is considered authority in and of itself. Obviously, we have the benefit of hindsight, so we know that Lenin's "scientific" political beliefs in the ripeness for revolution in Russia was anything but scientific. But again, even without this knowledge, one should have been wary of Lenin's books. He goes into detail about the destruction of the bourgeois state, but what follows the creation of a classless society is largely glossed over. Indeed, about the only real detail I could find in either book was that somehow mankind will come to love labor, which will keep the economy going and create riches for everyone. Now, never mind the problems of knowing what to produce, how much, and all of the other basics of economics: how on earth do we convert mankind from people who love leisure into people who love labor?

Lenin's books are not worth reading. It is easy to be a cheerleader for the destruction of society. Anyone can point out problems and generate anger about exist problems, but to demand we completely start society over is outrageous, especially if one lacks a realistic plan for the aftermath. Kautsky's book, however, is worth consideration. Kautsky calls for a revolution by the ballot rather than the bullet; without popular support, any violent revolution would either lose or devolve into tyranny anyway. He also realized that "the" revolution is unlikely to be global and instantaneous. Lenin's revolution in Russia was just that, limited to Russia; so long as the rest of the world was constituted of nation states, the Soviet Union would have to remain as a political entity to protect the revolution from outside forces. Rather than seeing a withering of the state, such a hostile international system would actually require a strengthening of the socialist state. With more power being concentrated in the government, controlling the government becomes a bigger and bigger prize that once obtained would be too valuable to give up. And while not mentioned by Kautsky, it should be pointed out that nationalism and religious intolerance could very easily be stronger forces pushing the international working class apart than the label of proletariat could be at pulling them together. Even if all nations overthrew their bourgeois governments, national antagonism might prevent the withering of the state and create future wars between purportedly socialist governments.

Perhaps Kautsky's most important point is that the failure of Capitalism that is the focus of Marx and his apostles does not in and of itself lead to Socialism. Marx's magnum opus, Das Kapital, is about just that, the flaws of capitalism. A socialist equivalent of von Mises' Human Action, describing how exactly the favored economic system will work, does not exist. To overthrow capitalism (on in Russia's case, pseudo-feudalism) in the name of Socialism without a solid economic and political plan risks creating chaos, again in the name of Socialism, which for obvious reasons would make Socialism look god awful in the eyes of the world. Kautsky is amazingly honest about the source of wealth to make people want to join socialism: the capitalists! Their wealth is needed in order to be redistributed; without it, Socialism has nothing to offer. Land reform is pointless, as you will be moving land from a productive bourgeois minority to an ignorant and less productive proletariat/peasant majority. Given the lack of excess food at the time to begin with, such a move could create devastating famines, à la Mao's Great Leap Forward and Mugabe's land reform efforts.

While Kautsky is more realistic, his theory presents problems of its own. Lenin's system leads to a pretty clear moment at which property stops being private, while Kautsky must worm his way through a parliamentarian system. Classical Liberalism, with its notions of property rights, would be a hindrance to creating a complete socialist system through democratic means. At some point in time, the majority would have to make radical redistribution of land and property, as having a unanimous decision is highly unlikely. How and to whom this wealth will be redistributed will undoubtedly lead to contentions within the majority faction. As Hayek noted, such wrangling may make reaching a decision impossible, with calls for an economic dictator to complete the redistributive aspects of the revolution. At this point, we are back to having the one strong man that so plagues Lenin's version. Further, just because the decision was made democratically does not mean socialism has solved the problems of calculating prices, distributing resources in an efficient manner, providing proper motivation to work, and all of the other economic criticisms of centralized economic planning.

Conclusion

Marxist thought finds its strength in the jealousy of the lower classes and in its ability to criticize current problems without offering a concrete set of alternatives. Once it is actually implemented, however, that lack of detail as to how socialism will really work proves itself to be fatal. The concentration of power and resources into the "dictatorship of the proletariat" makes such a position, whether it be one man or an administration of equals, a prize worthy of the cruelest means to obtain for those willing to stoop to such levels. Such societies will, rather than creating a classless society, create a most unequal pair of classes, those of the governing bloc and those of the oppressed subjects.

Lenin's books are not worth reading. Apart from the fact that his "scientific" predictions are nonsense in the light of history, his unflappable faith in Marx's infallibility should disturb any open minded person. Further, he offers little in the way of positive contributions for a future socialist society, focusing instead on how to create a revolution to overthrow the current order. Such short sightedness is particularly dangerous when the immediate plan is to overthrow all stability.

While I disagree with Kautsky on the values of socialism or its ability to work, I do believe his book is worth a gander for those on the Left, in particular the few hardcore Marxists remaining in this world. His views are similar to many European leftists and not a few in America. While his views on a ballot rather than bullet revolution are admirable, it would likely prove difficult to implement, as traditional rights concerning property and liberty would need to be undermined without the use of force. Whether those losing those rights would be so willing to part with them at the behest even of democracy is uncertain.

The Daily Snark 5/19

I picked up Alistair Horne's A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962. This follows a couple of excellent books concerning the Indochina conflicts, Hal Moore and Joe Gallaway's We Were Soldiers...and Young and Bernard Fall's Street Without Joy. The Algerian conflict is one I knew vaguely about but am ignorant of the real details. I found it interesting that on the front of the book is a tag saying this book is on the reading list of President Bush (43). The newest preface clearly takes a negative outlook on the Iraq conflict; given that it was published in 2006, that is hardly surprising. While I pretty clearly disagree with Alistar, the author does know a thing or two about guerrilla conflicts (or, in Fall's perhaps better terminology, revolutionary warfare) in Arab nations. A full review will be posted later, probably much later as I finish getting my students ready for a global regents test, but for right now I want to be snarky about a particular sentence Alistar writes in the 2006 preface. He says:

Now, with the Internet and al-Jazeera, one set of photos from Abu Ghraib is enough to inflame hatred across the Islamic world against the West, providing excuse for all the beheadings and atrocities carried out by al-Qaeda. From the Inquisition to the Gestapo to the "Battle of Algiers," history teaches us that, in the production of reliable intelligence, regardless of the moral issue, torture is counter-productive.

[quoting an Algerian prefect on why "torture should never, never, never be resorted to by any Western society..."] "Because if you once get into the torture business, you're lost...All our so-called civilisation is covered in a varnish. Scratch it, and underneath you find fear."

I don't buy the argument that civilized people cannot resort to terrible violence, ever. When civilization itself is threatened, the only recourse that can work against uncivilized terrorists is violence. Just as police are not horrible people for tying people up and kidnapping them (better known as handcuffing and incarceration), so Western nations are not unjustified or uncivilized in dealing harshly with enemies. That quote about fear is accurate; we enter society and civilization for the sake of self preservation and enrichment. Government is created to preserve that peace and tranquility; government can only do so with the use of force to such extents that others dare not challenge it.

The effectiveness of torture I leave for another day. But if the West requires it for survival, so be it. I will shed no tears for enemies of peace. Civilization exists to make life better for those who will participate in its rules, not to completely undermine our security over a Utopian notion that civilization equals permanent and unequivocal non violence.

Why I Am Voting No On The 2011 Candor School District Budget Vote

On Tuesday, May 17th, I intend to vote against the proposed Candor School budget. The proposed budget can be found here. I am not voting against the budget because it includes the highest tax increase in Tioga, Broome, and Chemung counties (though that is true). I am not voting against this budget because we spent money paying half time teachers, already collecting pensions, to read the newspaper on the taxpayer dime this year (though that is true, too). I am not voting against the budget because the performance of Candor has been lower than regional schools (though this, again, is true).

No, I am voting against the budget because on page four of the budget newsletter, you will find this:

However, with a reduction in State Aid, even a contingency budget was unattainable for the District. Therefore, with the 2011-2012 budget being over $325,000 below the 2010-2011 budget and over $625,000 below a contingency budget, if the budget is not approved by the voters, the Board of Education can adopt the proposed budget as presented.

This is not a vote. Voting implies that the decision of the majority of voters will determine the outcome. According to the newsletter, however, the outcome is already determined: this is the budget. Rather than being a vote, it is a fait accompli. While the school board would like public support, it is by no means necessary for their exercise of power.

If the people reject this budget, the reasonable thing to do would be to go back to the drawing board, address the concerns of the community as best they can, and propose another budget. Giving us an ultimatum of providing public support to this plan or have it imposed on us anyway with restrictions to use of facilities is hardly a choice.

I encourage everyone to vote "no" on this budget and to do so in the future should Candor Central School again offer such ultimatums to the public.

And as I've mentioned before, our educational system needs some serious reform. By reform, I mean less money pumped into forcing every student into the same curriculum, regardless of their abilities or goals for life. The educational system needs to exist for the sake of the students, not for the teachers, not for the administration, and not for the teacher unions.

What Is An Educated Citizen?

In my latest thoughts on Egypt, I mentioned that republics require educated citizens with the virtue to follow through with that education despite temptations to do otherwise. But what would an"educated citizen" look like? For starters, let's remove the ridiculous notion that completing high school or college qualifies. We seek education, not accreditation.

Perhaps we should ask first what the goal of an education would be. As John Adams wrote to his son, future President John Quincy Adams, "You will ever remember that all the end of study is to make you a good man and a useful citizen." As citizens in a democratic republic, each of us is a ruler of the nation as a whole, along with ruling the state, county, and other levels of our federalist system. Plato rightly calls governing the highest art upon which all others depend; consequently, to rule is a mighty responsibility. Citizens must be knowledgeable in all areas that they rule in lest they rule in ignorance.

What do rulers need to know? For starters, the law is the primary tool of rulers, so a functioning understanding of the law must be obtained. How are rules made, enforced, interpreted, by whom? What are the current laws, in particular those interpreting the Constitution? To understand that latter aspect, a solid understanding of the history of our legal and political philosophy must be had.

Rulers control the national treasury and have vast influence over the economy; naturally, rulers must have a firm grasp of economic theory and current fiscal practices. There are many competing theories here. To best perceive which are most attuned to reality, a strong foundation must be had in philosophy, in metaphysics, epistemology, and of course ethics and political theory.

Rulers also possess the power of the sword. In addition to understanding the ethics of such a power, there are practical considerations as well. The best teacher here is history, which is also important in all aspects of ruling. In human society, there is no laboratory to test our ideas first. The best we can do is study past action, notice the similarities and in particular the differences between the studied situation and the current one, and use that information to make decisions which will most likely lead to the achievement of our goals set out by our ethics.

No man who has ever lived understood all of these ideas and most citizens today barely have any inkling into many of these categories. An educated citizen is one who continually strives to understand these subjects. A day should not pass by when none of these areas are improved upon and an effort must be made to know all of those topics, both in bredth and in depth. To be an educated citizen is a life long pursuit. Merely following current events is not sufficient if those events are not properly understood.

An educated citizen will be frustrated from time to time as they discover the realm of things they do not know expands faster than the sphere of things they do know. The more they know, the more they will realize how small their understanding really is compared to the vast field of knowledge out there. A citizen who does not expand their field of vision will not only believe their small amount of wisdom is huge but will not even be aware of how much they are unfamiliar with. But there is a benefit to the frustration felt by the educated citizen. The educated citizens learn their own limitations. These citizens understand that the less you govern, the less likely it is they will err in deciding on matters not properly understood. An educated citizen will appreciate the concept of limited government more and more as they learn not just new ideas but also as they discover how little of those vast fields of knowledge they have truly explored.

Thoughts on Egypt

The riots in Egypt over the last two weeks have laid bare a conundrum in American policy and ideals. We face a situation in which an allied dictator of sorts is threatened by a populist uprising. President Mubarak of Egypt has kept the peace with Israel and ruled over a stable nation for nearly thirty years, but there is clear discontent in his society over corruption and economic failures. I love liberty to an extent that many might consider excessive (libertarians are few and far between in our nation today, though this seems to be changing), but can the protesters be supported in this case? Machiavelli and Hobbes were quite right to pronounce stability a sine qua non to a prosperous society. Yet every dictator loves stability, too. The expansion of liberty must always be won with a wager against stability, but such undertakings are indeed gambles liable to failure.

In this particular case, failure would come at an exceedingly high cost. Egypt, along with Jordan, is one of the few examples of a stable nation with some degree of prosperity not dependent on oil in the Middle East. Moreover, any change in government risks future conflict with Israel, a conflict that certainly would engulf the whole region. We have an image to uphold of supporting freedom, an image of moral and strategic importance, but supporting the rise of chaos (or worse) is counter productive.

Liberty will never be sustained in a nation where the people do not acknowledge the rights belonging to others. The United States was extremely fortuitous to be created by colonists possessing a fierce devotion to such liberty and to have crafted functioning local governments based on this idea by the time independence was declared. Very few places are so blessed, and Egypt is certainly not in their number. Far too often, the people are tempted to disregard the vital liberties of disliked societal groups. A constitution is worthless scrap paper if the people at large do not respect the rights of speech, religion, property, and a host of others. France found this out the hard way after 1789. A people must possess a civic education to know right from wrong in terms of liberties and the civic virtue to abide by it, even if it means forgoing certain pecuniary advantages or the ability to silence critics.

Even with such citizens, the machinery of government must be adequate. If chaos emerges, the most ruthless and least disposed towards liberty generally emerge victorious. France, Iran, and most of post-colonial Africa show this. The people of Egypt could overthrow Mubarak, but they would not be able to replace him.

And this is why liberty must be held dear wherever it may exist already. Free people in stable societies are the rare exception in mankind's lamentable history. The combination of education, virtue, and a fertile political ground to grow liberty seems to be a sparse gift from Heaven; I do not see how those elements could be created but in the presence of the others, a rare condition indeed. The greatest threat to existing liberty comes from within, those who have lost their virtue of lack the proper education.

Notes on Notes From Underground

Fyodor Dostoevsky has never disappointed me in his ability to write an entertaining and thought provoking story. Notes From Underground, one of his shorter stories, is certainly no exception. I picked this book up largely because I have enjoyed reading his previous works (Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamozov, The Idiot) and because Russian literature (at least that prior to the Revolution) tends to be amazing. These people knew a thing or two about human suffering, both from poverty and from an identity crisis. To continue being Russia, to Westernize, or some sort of mix was a problem that vexed the Russian intelligentsia during the 19th Century.

It was with a bit of surprise to learn that this particular book was largely a critical response towards another Russian book I have read and enjoyed, Nikolia Chernishevsky's What Is to Be Done?, a book I had the pleasure of reading for a Russian history college class oh so long ago. Having read Dostoevsky's book, I cannot be surprised that the Soviets who would later rule Russia would be naming their books after Chernishevsky's title rather than Dostoevsky, as the latter annihilates the basic assumptions of all Utopian philosophies.

The Underground Man is a disgusting creature. He is vain, confused, prone to hating people for their success or for his failures. Nobody should read Notes From Underground and believe the narrator is in any way of creature to be emulated or maybe even really understood; the point is, he exists. This man exists all too often. His traits exist in all of us at some point.

Dostoevsky challenges those who seek to marshal men into a "better" society: this is your building material. Good luck creating your socialism, your rational egoism, your communism with such men.

"One's own free and voluntary wanting, one's own caprice, however wild, one's own fancy, though chafed sometimes to the point of madness - all this is that same most profitable profit, the omitted one, which does not fit into any classification, and because of which all systems and theories are constantly blown to the devil.

"You shout at me (if you do still honor me with your shouts) that no one is taking my will from me here; that all they're doing here is busily arranging it somehow so that my will, of its own will, coincides with my normal interests, with the laws of nature, and with arithmetic.

Eh, gentlemen, what sort of will of one's own can there be if it comes to tables and arithmetic, and the only thing going is two times two is four? Two times two will be four even without my will. As if that were any will of one's own!"

This is the point people who desire to "fix" society miss. We live to be happy, to fulfill our own needs, however we may define them. Those needs and wants are different from person to person and even within the same person from time to time. The will of mankind will never fit into an equation. All attempts to force them into such neat equations will fail or lead to the mass deaths of those who do not fit. The result is never, ever, a paradise on Earth or even an improved society.

Ironically enough, this point has been made fairly recently in the worst of the Matrix Trilogy. The Architect, one of the most annoying characters ever written, gives a bombastic speech explaining why the Matrix exists. He had attempted to create a perfect society so as to preserve their own power source, but all attempts that denied mankind a measure of choice in determining their own futures failed miserably. The needs of mankind are, frankly, beyond the ability of mankind to truly understand.

The Conundrum

I'm about halfway through reading Ludwig von Mises' Human Action. So far, I am highly impressed. He does an excellent job showing how physical reality combined with human desires is the only way to understand economics (Mises takes a very wide view of what constitutes economic action, which I believe is appropriate). His book has also done a magnificent job of destroying falsehoods concerning the nature of value (it is subjective and transient, not objective and measurable contra Marx) and the nature of the free market, in particular that state intervention on behalf of businesses is still a form of statism incompatible with the free market.

There is a problem, however, with the free market. Mises points this out but does not spend a great deal of time on it. Here's the situation:

The free market is predicated on the idea that the use of force, whether by individuals or the government, will not be used. People are free to buy from the best sellers to their individual needs and to sell likewise.

This means that some businesses will fail. Those that, for whatever reason, cannot compete to meet consumer demand best will not survive, which is a good thing seeing that resources are scarce and need to be employed to fit consumer's values. Those not doing so are wasting those goods. Even for those winning, they have to sell their goods at a lower price than they would if competition did not exist.

Here is the problem: those businessmen do not want to compete with others. It lowers their profits. If at all possible, they will wish to use force either to improve their own resources, increase their own clientele, or to damage competitors. The best means to achieve this power is via the government, which has a tendency to be seen as legitimate.

In democracies, the government is elected by the people. Like anyone else, they wish for more power, or at the very least to maintain their current level of power.

The anti competition businessman and the company see an opportunity for mutual cooperation. The government can claim powers to regulate businesses (introducing the use of force to compel people to act contrary to their own desires) in order to help either consumers or weaker businesses. These people, in turn, come out to support those politicians.

The more powerful the protected business, the more influence they can have in bribing politicians with votes and public support; the more power the politicians get, the more they can offer to protect those businesses, which in turn empowers those businesses further. It becomes a nasty cycle of increasing use of force and power for the government at the expense of competition and a free market.

Consumers are screwed in this deal, as more competitive businesses that could provide goods for lower prices are forced out via regulation (if not outlawed outright). However, most consumers do not understand what is going on in terms of economics and will not trace back the problem to government interference into the free market in the first place. Many will naively believe that more regulation will somehow be helpful, further limiting the ability of businesses to compete. If the best businesses at a particular time are protected, potentially better newcomers are kept out; if a bad business is protected, good businesses are damaged. In both situations, the consumer losses. Those who gain (the only ones who gain) are the protected business and the government which gains more power.

Very simply:

1. Competition is good for consumers, bad for businesses.
2. Businesses will seek protection from government officials in return for electoral support.
3. Competition is reduced; consumers pay more, protected businesses make more, government can grab more power to protect more privileged businesses or "protect the consumers."
4. Cycle continues.

This is not an optimal situation for anyone but the protected business and the government; the more it occurs, the more we get screwed. How do we stop it from occurring, though?

One proposed solution is to quit on the free market and establish a full blown socialist system. This idea is ridiculous on multiple fronts. For starters, resources are still limited and have to be distributed somehow. As von Mises points out, giving all power and resources to the government is to create the mother of all monopolies; the bureaucrats running the show will have no incentive to do anything efficiently save use those resources as a bribe for their own individual good. This isn't a solution to the above problem; it is that problem in its absolute worst form. The other problems need not even be stated, as this solution fails completely to mitigate to problem at hand.

The other proposed solution is...non existent.

I'm concerned that the drift towards more powerful governments and hence less efficient economies is a likely (if not inevitable) result of the very conditions that make the free market work. Politicians will always want more power; in a democracy, that usually means bribing people, in particular voters, to support those particular politicians. Those politicians, in order to pay off those bribes, have to take the resources from otherwise innocent people; productive taxpayers are screwed, productive businesses are "regulated" and made less productive.

But so long as voters think they gain, they will continue to allow such abuses of power. The situation will get worse (competition is ruined, goods are not sold at optimum prices for consumers), the government claims that yet more regulation will help, and the mess is repeated.

An educated, virtuous citizenry would be able to stop this madness by understanding how the free market works. But such a citizenry does not, and probably never will, exist. It is on par with hoping for socialist denizens that love shoveling horse manure for the collective good; such people do not exist.

It is like finding a solution to the prisoner's dilemma.

I do not believe in a sentient being willing us towards this conclusion (Marx, his historical materialism, and his entire critique of capitalism and crisis theory are hogwash). None the less, as technology makes more power available for people to use over one another, this centralization of power into the hands of a few and away from personal liberty seems likely. It is a horrifying thought for anyone dedicated towards human happiness.

Machiavelli may have been on to something with his idea of virtu. Rather than being a willingness to fight and increase the power of one's country, though, we should view it as the willingness to uphold the rights of others. How this particular trait is created is beyond my understanding. I do know that it is easier to destroy than to create; it is our nature to want more, even if at the expense of others, and reversing this trend is extremely difficult. Places like Russia did not make a nice transition to the protection of rights.

I wonder if stable democracies with free markets are like Plato's philosopher king, a fluke that just kind of happens by accident? If so, and if they are destroyed more easily than created, our future will not be nearly as bright as it could have been.

Plato

Anyone who recalls anything about Greek history for their school days remembers the name of Plato. Most know that he was a philosopher who studied under Socrates and mentored Aristotle. If pressed, these people could name one or two of his books, usually the Republic and Plato's Apology. Beyond that, your average person knows nothing about the man or why he is important. Not was, is.

I, being the great nerd I am, love reading the ancient Greeks. Just to upgrade my nerd credentials, I wish I could read ancient Greek just to avoid any bias in the translators, but alas I am not that talented. Usually during the winter, I make a point of reading something by Aristotle or Plato, though I also enjoy the playwrights and historians. Plato tends to be more interesting to me for various reasons. He combines story telling with philosophy, he alone knew the three most influential people on Western political thought (himself, Socrates, and Aristotle), and it is safe to say that Plato is the father of philosophy.

And for those who think, he is also very frightening to read. Plato is frightening precisely because his vision is so alluring. Imagine, a perfect society guided by truth and justice under the tutelage of a wise and impartial philosopher king! Man is perfectible; the philosopher can illustrate the traits of perfection, giving us a goal for all to strive for. Alas, it is a pipe dream.

Unfortunately, not everyone realizes that. The totalitarian regimes that have plagued the last century have all been based on the philosophy that man is perfectible through the state and collectivization. It is hard to tell what Plato himself thinks of the actuality of the perfectibility of men. Many thinkers who witnessed the rise of totalitarian regimes during the 20th Century saw Plato as either a dangerous man who created the blueprints for modern tyranny or as a philosopher who wrote books like The Republic to warn us of the inhumanity of such schemes. I haven't studied their works in depth (though Karl Popper and Leo Strauss are high on my reading list and currently in the mail). Reading Plato, however, it becomes almost unavoidable to view his thoughts through a modern historical lens.

That is half the reason why I enjoy reading a philosopher who has been gone for nearly 2,300 years. I cannot help but imagine what Plato's reaction would have been to the tyrannies of the 20th Century. Given that he did consider tyranny to be the worst form of government, both for those who live under the tyrant and the tyrant himself, I doubt he would be surprised that such governments did exist and that they were as horrible as they were. Perhaps it would be more interesting to see his reaction to the liberal revolution that occurred during the early 18th Century, a belief in the danger of government and its inability to improve people.

I have read the Republic numerous times, but today I finished Statesman. The goals are similar in both: the government, under a true statesman or philosopher king, exists to weave men together into a perfect society. Again, his analogies and goals are beautiful, but they are wrong and misleading. Plato himself doubts whether a true statesman will ever exist, but even if he did, I would not have him rule. Plato errs in believing men can be made subservient to the needs of society. In Statesman, Plato says the true rulers may rule and that "it makes no difference whether their subjects be willing or unwilling." That is the seed of fascism and communism. We are human beings, not bees or ants, and I cannot consider a government or society just if it fails to recognize the individual value of mankind.

Despite this, I absolutely love reading Plato's works. Reading the Republic for the first time in college will probably always be among my fondest memories. Between the class that focused almost exclusively on that book (led by the most brilliant woman I ever met) and everything else that happened that semester, I felt like I was reading the mind of God. Even though I disagree with many of his ideas now and disagreed even when I first encountered his thought, he touched on a remarkable number of subjects and his genius is hard to deny. If given the chance to be anywhere in all of history for a day and understand the language, I would almost have to pick the best conversation between Plato and Aristotle. The two titans of thought debating the theory of the forms, the existence of reality and our perception thereof; I can only imagine.