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Ayn Rand v. Paul Ryan
The Ayn Rand Institute is disappointed in Paul Ryan. Here the House Budget Chairman goes to all the trouble of rolling out an anti-poverty plan, and he somehow forgets to obliterate the safety net. What gives? Does Ryan remember nothing from the Ayn Rand reading of his youth? Someone delete the Summa Theologica off his iPad ASAP!
Here is ARI’s Don Watkins:
If you’re going to have a welfare state, it’s obviously better to have one that minimizes the incentive to stay on welfare, and from what I’ve seen, I suspect that a Ryan welfare state would be marginally less destructive than our current patchwork of so-called anti-poverty programs.
But of course that assumes we should have a welfare state. … The real question is not whether we should have a “safety net” or not. The question is whether we should have a coercive welfare state. What I find offensive about Ryan’s … whole approach is that it doesn’t regard the rights and well-being of those forced to pay for the welfare state as worthy of much, if any, consideration. Instead, it starts by observing that some people are in need and jumps immediately to the question of what welfare state programs would most help them.
But that’s immoral. Just because there are people out there suffering and Ryan wants to help them doesn’t give him the right to concoct schemes that treat you and me and everyone who pays his own way as a means to Ryan’s supposedly noble ends. What about my goals and priorities? What about my right to pursue happiness? What about yours?
If you’re someone who finds that kind of reasoning — “Taxation is theft!” — appealing and persuasive, then of course you will dislike Ryan’s anti-poverty plan and the safety net it wishes to reform. I really have no interest in engaging in that sort of dorm-room argument. What I do have an interest in is living in the real world, one where Americans, as a society, have long committed to making sure everyone is fed, sheltered, educated — even if that requires government action and taxpayer dough. The useful questions are ones of determining a limiting principle and sustainable funding. As Yuval Levin has described one conservative approach:
The federal government’s role in the provision of social services should be minimal, and largely limited to helping the states and the institutions of civil society better carry out their missions. It would still have some role as an investor (in infrastructure and education, above all), but this too should be strictly targeted to essential public needs that the private sector would not meet, and block-granted to the states whenever possible. Government at all levels should also look to contract its remaining functions out to the private sector where it can, both to improve efficiency and to avoid harmful conflicts between the government’s obligations to the people it serves and its obligations to the people it employs — conflicts that have been rampant in our time.
And as Arthur Brooks, AEI’s president, puts it:
One of the things, in my view, that we get wrong in the free enterprise movement is this war against the social safety net, which is just insane. The government social safety net for the truly indigent is one of the greatest achievements of our society. And we somehow want to zero out food stamps or something, it’s nuts to want to be doing something like that. We have to declare peace on the safety net.
Perhaps someday ARI and like-minded libertarians will be able to persuade their fellow citizens to think and vote otherwise. But I don’t see that Overton Window opening any decade or generation soon.
Anyway, it is a stubborn fact that the safety net has cut US poverty, material deprivation, in half since the 1960s. Unfortunately, in too many cases, poverty is a trap. As the Manhattan Institute’s Scott Winship notes in “Room to Grow, “… upward mobility among young adults who grew up poor is no higher today than it was in the mid-twentieth century.” That problem is what the Ryan reforms — from welfare to education to prison — mean to address.
Published in General
I am tired of being treated like food. Let the whole thing burn.
“What I do have an interest in is living in the real world, one where Americans, as a society, have long committed to making sure everyone is fed, sheltered, educated — even if that requires government action and taxpayer dough.”
A few questions: How exactly does a society go about committing to something? Is it a matter of simple a majority? Does the individual have any say in the matter? Given that not all Americans vote how does one even tell that they as a society have committed to something? Can a society “long committed” decide to end that commitment?
And lastly, though I’m sure this verges on “dorm room” argumentation: Why, and to what extent does supposed societal commitment supersede the rights of the individual?
The problem with appeals to pragmatism is that to make sense they must imbue pragmatism with enough (unspoken) tenets as to make it as much an ideology as any dogma that self proclaimed pragmatists instinctively shun.
Once again a reformicon ‘argues’ against a contrary view by just asserting that it’s silly.
Let’s think about ways ‘a society’ can ‘commit… to making sure everyone is fed, sheltered and educated’.
One way might be to recognise as morally praiseworthy volunteering at a soup kitchen, running hospitals and endowing institutions of learning.
Another way might be to take people’s money at the point of a gun and give it to corporate farmers, VA administrators, and the teachers’ unions.
I’m no Randian, but one of these approaches seems not only to be grounded in morality, but to have a future.
(If someone can explain what the last paragraph of the post is trying to say, I’d appreciate it.)
I can’t help but correlate this thread with the earlier thread about generous rules of bankruptcy.
I’d make the case that if you can appreciate the value of (excuse the provocative rhetoric here) getting losers back in the ballgame, you should also appreciate the virtue of getting new blood into the game. The idea is to get players.
We can’t deny that there are people who just can’t compete – genuine disability, the elderly, and so on – and society just isn’t going to let them die. We’re going to take care of Aunt Edna, and that’s that.
But that leaves a lot of others who aren’t competing because the incentives are against working and being productive. I see Ryan’s plan as trying to change those incentives. Maybe the Ricochet economists can come up with better tactics, but I fully support the strategy.
A productive worker is a terrible thing to waste. Dear God, at least Ryan is talking about it, and trying to address the problem. I heartily respect that.
Yet again, the smarter-than-thou Reformicons try to tell us how arguing over the size of the welfare state somehow resolves the fundamental problem that the welfare state itself distorts the basic relationship between citizen and federal government. Everything else proceeds from that first corruption. It’s no surprise with allies like this that we have a century of failure in trying to get the federal government out of our lives.
So, Jimmie P, it all boils down to this. Who do you steal from, and how much, to support the least among us? And yes, “Taxation is theft.”
Ryan’s anti-poverty plan is not that at all. It is a “continue poverty” plan.
The problem with these “libertarian” arguments is that they are fundamentally arguing for “anarchy”, and hence any sort of “tinkering” with government is going to seem to them as “theft, force, gun” etc.
But that’s not what the US government was set up to be. It’s not an anarchist system. Taxation is not theft. A government exists to provide a very limited and very particular type of service: a public good.
“Libertarians” wave their hand and assume that no such real economic good exists. They assume that there are no transaction costs, no coordination costs, and that the market does not, in fact, suffer from these costs in providing these types of goods.
I.e., they rely on economic “ignorance”.
Which is why so many of them twist themselves into all sorts of knots trying to explain how a private police force, or private courts etc COULD exist, in a make-believe world. But they never bother to explain why they don’t, actually, exist, and never have. I.e., ignore reality and substitute it for a made up one.
Welfare is not going to go away. But it can be shrunk, and should. Baby steps.
So you believe the Constitution to be a fundamentally immoral document, since it grants to Congress the “power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises” and these constitute nothing but the power to steal?
No, the Founding Fathers didn’t believe in plebiscites and neither do I. They may be appropriate at the state or local level, but the national government is a representative democracy.
Society goes about committing to something by sending representatives to Washington to legislate on our behalf. And yes, we are morally bound by those commitments provided they are made in accordance with the Constitution.
Because no man is an island. Because we are social and political animals, because we live together in communities and that requires following certain prevailing rules and norms. It requires compromise and a willingness to yield to the will of our family, neighbors, and friends.
To what extent? It’s always a delicate balance, but again I think the Constitution provides a good framework by limiting government to specific enumerated powers, and then further listing a Bill of Rights that the will of the majority cannot infringe, ever, for any reason.
Are those who do not participate in Congressional elections not part of society?
While grateful for the limits the constitution imposes on the exercise of arbitrary power, I do not believe can be morally bound by a document which I did not sign. Officeholders sworn to uphold that document are another matter.
Taxation is never willing and the IRS is neither my family, my neighbor nor my friend. Again, society is being conflated with the state.
Income mobility for those born poor recently has not improved relative to those born poor prior to advent of the “Great Society.”
This is a problem, which has two elements:
-one objective of the anti-poverty programs is to help the disadvantaged to a better life than to which they were born
-we spend a ton to apparently no effect on this front
Ryan is attempting to address this problem.
Does that help, or did I just muddle it up worse? (Feel free to weigh in James)
I doubt it, if only because many libertarians are familiar with Coase and admire his work.
What is the definition of “truly indigent?” I would say, the indigent are those who lack basic food, clothing & shelter. We’ve moved from Food Stamps previously used exclusively for FOOD, to EBT cards that can get $18 cash back on the purchase of a candy bar.
I think many of our programs have created less of a safety net and more of a fish net for poverty.
Good point, the net draws in more than the “Urban Poor.”
Roughly two years ago, I was at 7-11 and a couple of well-dressed college kids pulled up in a 35k newish SUV. They were browsing the jerky aisle trying to decide between bbq and hot. The guy said, “I don’t have enough money for both.” The gal replied, “Don’t worry, Obama’s paying” and showed her card.
It isn’t the only time I’ve witnessed that type of garbage. I’ve had plenty of college student employees request info for the express purpose of submitting for EBT cards.
Still, I think we’ll have more success if we attempt to reform this than we will by claiming that “taxation is theft.”
Then it appears you and I have an irreconcilable difference of opinions regarding political first principles.
The IRS collects the funds that pay for the U.S. Armed Forces, without which neither you, your family, neighbors, nor friends would enjoy the blessings of liberty.
You are morally obliged to pay for this and other services, whether you are willing or not.
Yes, but those kind of “libertarians” are statist oppressors, according to the “true and real” “libertarians” of the Randian/Rothbardian/Misses.org type (of course, to the Rothbardians, Ayn Rand was a statist too…obviously!).
I.e., “libertarian” in the classical liberal sense is no different than a “conservative”. But I don’t think that’s who we’re talking about.
Ok, I agree that Joseph Stanko’s argument may seem a bit of stretch.
The argument can be made much more simpler than that: individual freedom needs protection. The individual in their own is not the only person responsible, or capable of protecting his/her freedom. If you were to do that, it would end up costing tremendous amounts of resources.
Hence, a cost-reducing way of protecting an individual’s freedom is the creation of a government: a third-party which mediates between individuals in such a way as to reduce transaction costs between individuals. It provides things like police, courts, roads etc. These are the things called public goods, and is the fundamental purpose and concept behind government in the classical liberal sense.
Hence, taxation is not theft. As a concept. Government is not coercion. As a concept. It is a transaction-cost minimizing mechanism. Not for the purposes of some “social good”, but precisely to facilitate individual freedom.
Of course, that doesn’t mean THIS particular government, hasn’t gone too far.
To say that taxation may in most circumstances be necessary to provide for the protection of rights is one thing. I was never arguing to the contrary. It does not follow from that however that taxation is an appropriate method for funding whatever project society makes a commitment to (whatever any of that means) as Mr. Pethokoukis argues.
Nor does it follow that taxation ceases to be theft. Ultimately this comes down to a matter of semantics and I can’t stop anyone from defining theft any way they please. I can’t image, however, anyone coming up with a definition of theft which did not include taxation unless it was constructed intentionally to exclude taxation. Under what other circumstances would it be argued that theft was not theft if the end result enhanced the victim’s individual liberty or that of his neighbor?
Calling taxation what it is does not necessitate abolishing it, but it would deflate many of the statist/collectivist myths that pollute our civic culture.
From Merriam-Webster:
Congress has the power to tax. Taxes duly passed, for a legitimate public purpose, when collected fairly and impartially, are neither “felonious” nor “unlawful.”
Lawfulness in no way guarantees fairness, impartiality, or a legitimate public purpose. Neither does constitutionality, given that all of the constitution’s provisions can be amended by the majority of voters through their representatives.
So, depending on whether your system of government is democratic or autocratic the legalism expressed in those Marriam-Webster definitions will find its root in either authoritarianism or majoritarianism.
In other words, if taxation is not theft then either might makes right or numerical superiority does. Such a view leaves no room for objective morality.
For what it’s worth, the Libertarian Party takes the Randian side of that debate (see plank 1.6 of their platform). If you want to argue that the LP isn’t libertarian, then I kind of agree with you, but I believe that James agrees with the bulk of Ricochet’s libertarians in disagreeing with us, and that that disagreement over this subjective idea is legitimate.
I’ve been reading a lot of Rand lately (just finished The Fountainhead yesterday, in fact), as much to know what to criticize as what to admire about them… and I think you’re mis-characterizing their position. Tax isn’t necessarily “theft” to them, and they think there are legitimate functions of government authority that things like taxes and tariffs should pay for. IIRC, Rand thought that the federal government’s legitimate functions were a military, law enforcement, and court system. And you have to pay for those things. Don Watkins is more right that wrong on this, James, and you’re treading some of the waters Newt Gingrich once mocked: “Tax collectors for the welfare state”. There’s no doubt that the permanent welfare state has grown, not shrunk, the underlcass. It encourages more dependence, not less. Even Bill Clinton eventually saw the real benefits of kicking people off of welfare after awhile.
You answered your own question. Under the conditions when all parties are made better off by this supposed “theft”.
Another example? The oil field utilization example, i.e. natural resource utilization under conditions of multiple owners.
Now you might say that in that case, the owners “mutually agree” to enter into such a contract. But you do so with respect to government to. You chose which local and state government to live in. You can also chose not to live in the US, if you want. The practical economic implications, however, are the same as with taxation.
Hence, if it’s simply a matter of “semantics”, then why bother using words which are clearly intended to have a negative connotation?
Fundamentally these sort of arguments are bought forth to support a system of anarchism, not to argue over particulars of what types of taxation, or government, we should have. If “libertarians” want to argue for anarchy, fine. They can have at it.
Well, it’s good to hear that about Rand. In all fairness, there’s so many different interpretation of “liberterianism” that it becomes difficult to keep track. Unfortunately, the ones that get most vocal and “popular” are some of the weirder strands coming out of the Mises.org/Ron Paul crowd, which are really just anarchists.
As for the argument that the welfare state has gown out of proportion and is mostly detrimental, I fully agree and I suspect so do the vast majority of people here. Hence I don’t think there’s any disagreement, so far. Rather, the question is, how do we proceed form here? You can’t eliminate it overnight.
I do agree that the “moral” arguments, are non-starters. They play into the Left’s hand. The “reformcons” should run away as far as possible from their “moral” arguments mixed in with technocracy.
Just FYI, Rand didn’t consider herself or her movement Libertarian at all, and thought the Libertarian movement (and party) was misguided weaksauce. She had pretty nasty words for them at times. Objectivism, she claimed, was mankind’s only truly ethical philosophy. Now, I have more of her work to read, but at present, she strikes me as pretentious when she’d make those kind of claims. That kind of stuff bordered on cultish narcissism. When I’m finished with her works… should be a few more months… I’m planning on doing a post on her and her ideas in the member feed, what I think she was right and wrong about, as well as a critique on her fiction.
I believe you are confusing two distinct types of law: moral law (aka natural law) and positive law (aka human law).
I agree that moral law is not subject to majority rule, but taxation is a question of positive law.
One way to think about taxation and theft is through the lens of ‘justification’ versus ‘excuse’. In criminal law, a plea of justification is to say that you have done nothing wrong; a plea of excuse is that while you have done something wrong, you may not be punished. Thus self-defense is a plea of justification: yes, I killed him, but I did the right thing. Crime of passion is a plea of excuse: yes, I committed murder, but I ought not to be punished.
It is very easy to push this analogy too far, but taxation can be seen as theft, but morally unpunishable – it is a necessary evil.
I fear the second part of this formulation – evil – has been forgotten.