In Which Milton Friedman Defends James Delingpole
Earlier this week, James Delingpole put up a post entitled, "Why Not?", quoting Ron Paul's question, "Why is it that we can't put into our body whatever we want?"
James received a deluge of comments, many of them denouncing the libertarian position in terms that (frankly, and alas) sailed pretty close to the Ricochet CoC. Yet as unpopular as James's question may have proven, I was reminded, no less a figure than Milton Friedman would have endorsed it, completely and heartily.
In a podcast they'll be recording on Tuesday, James and Paul Rahe will be debating the war on drugs, providing us all with the intellectual equivalent of King Kong versus Godzilla.
In the meantime, I thought I'd post an excerpt from an episode of Uncommon Knowledge, dating back to 2000, in which Milton Friedman and California Gov. Pete Wilson warm up for James and Paul. (The excerpt favors Milton, but in the full exchange Pete Wilson gets in punches of his own.)
Milton Friedman: The dollars are the least of it. What the real costs is what is done to our judicial system, what is done to our civil rights, what is done to other countries. I want Pete Wilson to tell me how he can justify destroying Colombia because we cannot enforce our laws. If we can enforce our laws, our laws prohibit the consumption of illegal drugs. If we can enforce those, it would be no problem about Colombia. But, as it is, we have caused th--tens of thousands of deaths in Colombia and other Latin American countries. I think that prohibition of drugs is the most immoral program--immoral program that the United States has ever engaged in. It's destroyed civil rights at home and it's destroyed nations…
Peter Robinson: It's destroyed civil rights at home because of large numbers of Blacks and Hispanics and…
[Talking at same time]
Peter Robinson: …what do you mean by that?
Milton Friedman: No, no. It's destroyed civil rights at home for a very simple reason. If you take laws against murder or theft…
Peter Robinson: Right.
Milton Friedman: …there's a victim who has an interest in reporting it. So if somebody is--has a burglary, he calls the cops and the cops come and investigate. Now in drug use, in the--when you try to prevent somebody from ingesting something he wants to ingest, you have a willing buyer and a willing seller. There's a deal made.
Peter Robinson: No one has an interest in reporting it.
Milton Friedman: No one has an interest--and so the only way you can enforce it is through informers. That's the way in which the Soviet Union tried to enforce similar la--laws, laws which tried to prevent people from saying things they shouldn't say. Th--what's the difference, Pete, between s--p--saying to somebody, the government may tell you what you can take in your mouth but the government may not tell you what you may say out of your mouth?
- Comment (82)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (3)
Comments:
Jun '10
Re: In Which Milton Friedman Defends James Delingpole
dogsbody
There's a problem with this: it justisn't true. We can and do test for unsafe drug use, particularly for people operating vehicles. You don't need a network of informers. This is just flat out false.
I'll repeat what I said in response to James Delingpole's post: if you're piloting an airplane, you'd better not "put into your body whatever you want." Even if you don't kill anyone else, it would be a loss of a good aircraft. · 9 minutes ago
The problem here is that you can't administer a urinalysis to every citizen, nor can you require that every private business, educational institution, etc., do the same. I think that's the point that Mr. Friedman was arguing.
Regarding the operation of vehicles, it's already illegal to be intoxicated. What would decriminalization or legalization of, take marijuana for instance, change about that?
Aug '10
Re: In Which Milton Friedman Defends James Delingpole
Casey Taylor
Andrea Ryan
Seriously? You want to compare some behavior of mine with a drug user's? I'm not even participating in that ridiculous exercise. · 1 minute ago
Don't give up yet! If you hand in there for a second, he actually has a pretty good point. The drug trade has some fairly obvious negative consequences, but many, many other trades do, as well. Do you wear makeup? Do you drink coffee or eat chocolate?...
Umm... Casey. Coffee and chocolate are drugs. At least in my book. (For the record, I love them both.)
Jun '10
Re: In Which Milton Friedman Defends James Delingpole
John Walker
Casey Taylor
This is exactly why my posting at Ricochet has slowed to a crawl, Peter. Dealing over and over with irrational argument and personal insults starts to wear down even the most thick-skinned of people.
As a wise person said to me three decades ago, speaking of mainframe system programmers, “It isn't that they're thick-skinned; it's that their scales don't peel easily.”
Being a libertarian, even around here, often requires reinforced carbon-carbon scales. Works for me, but those of us inclined to agree with the estimable Delingpole may find ourselves on the outs here.
No truer words have been said. It's good to find a kindred spirit, here!
Feb '11
Re: In Which Milton Friedman Defends James Delingpole
Friedman identified the externalities as "neighborhood effects" in Capitalism and Freedom" on pgs. 30-32: "strictly voluntary exchange is impossible ... when actions of individuals have effects on other individuals for which it is not feasible to charge or recompense them ... In many instances, however, this rationalization is special pleading rather than a legitimate application ... They can be a reason for limiting the activities of government as well as for expanding them. Neighborhood effects impede voluntary exchange because it is difficult to identify third parties and to measure their magnitude; but this difficulty is present in governmental activity as well... When government engages in activities to overcome neighborhood effects, it will in part introduce an additional set of neighborhood effects by failing to charge or to compensate individuals properly... (T)he use of government to overcome neighborhood effects itself has an extremely important neighborhood effect which is unrelated to the particular occasion for government action. Every act of government intervention limits the area of individual freedom directly and threatens the preservation of freedom indirectly... We shall always want go enter on the liability side of any proposed government intervention, its neighborhood effect in threatening freedom, and give this considerable weight."
Edited on February 19, 2012 at 10:31pmJun '10
Re: In Which Milton Friedman Defends James Delingpole
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Umm... Casey. Coffee and chocolate aredrugs. At least in my book. (For the record, I love them both.) · 2 minutes ago
When you say drugs, I think you mean necessities. And please, call me Roget.
Nov '10
Re: In Which Milton Friedman Defends James Delingpole
So, why not prohibit the harm the drugs causes directly?
Feb '11
Re: In Which Milton Friedman Defends James Delingpole
Respect for individual liberty doesn't mean unrestricted individual liberty. One problem with totalitarian societies is that there is no tolerance for local diversity or care for local interests (scale). Another is that the means of persuasion and direction of legitimate public authority is severed from the source of its legitimacy - the individual. The checks on public authority are federalism and subsidiarity, with increasingly well-defined limits imposed as the governing unit in question is removed from the source of authority. No one claims that such a system is perfect or free of abuse, but the alternatives of pure statism and pure individualism seem even less desirable to me.
Aug '10
Re: In Which Milton Friedman Defends James Delingpole
Casey Taylor
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Umm... Casey. Coffee and chocolate are drugs. At least in my book. (For the record, I love them both.) · 2 minutes ago
When you say drugs, I think you mean necessities. And please, call me Roget.
Isn't that what addicts always say, Roget?
Edited on February 19, 2012 at 10:43pmSep '10
Re: In Which Milton Friedman Defends James Delingpole
Devil's definitely in the details with this one!
Casey Taylor
Andrea Ryan
Seriously? You want to compare some behavior of mine with a drug user's? I'm not even participating in that ridiculous exercise. · 1 minute ago
Don't give up yet! If you hand in there for a second, he actually has a pretty good point. The drug trade has some fairly obvious negative consequences, but many, many other trades do, as well. Do you wear makeup? Do you drink coffee or eat chocolate? Do you drive a car? Do you use rechargeable batteries? Each one of those activities involves severe harm to human beings somewhere in the manufacturing and distribution process. · 18 minutes ago
Sep '10
Re: In Which Milton Friedman Defends James Delingpole
Casey Taylor
The problem here is that you can't administer a urinalysis to every citizen, nor can you require that every private business, educational institution, etc., do the same. I think that's the point that Mr. Friedman was arguing.
Your interpretation is more charitable than mine--I just thought he was engaging in sloppy reasoning for the sake of making a rhetorical point.
We could require everyone to be tested, but this would be a level of government oversight and intrusion that I hope none of us would welcome. I'm not in favor of the War on Drugs--just to choose one example, I believe the heavily armed "no-knock" raids on American homes are absolutely unacceptable. But I don't think the only alternative is just to legalize them. There should be another way; but as Leslie says above, the devil is in the details.
Edited on February 19, 2012 at 10:41pmDec '10
Re: In Which Milton Friedman Defends James Delingpole
Dogs, amphetamines were used by military pilots in WWII, Vietnam and I believe Desert Storm. Provigil, an alertness drug with minimal side affects, has been claimed to be widely used by the military - I was told, it was used by pilots during the first mission against Libya in the 1980's. Maybe Casey Taylor can speak to it's current use.
Feb '11
Re: In Which Milton Friedman Defends James Delingpole
Ed, I appreciate your defense of our Republican form of government and I think many times it has worked. But, the problems with the drug war outlined in Peter's post still stand, countless American and foreign lives have been destroyed not because of drugs - which they may be perfectly capable of doing - but because of the government's attempt to abolish drug use. Perhaps this is a case that should fall under the "well defined limits" of what the federal government is prohibited from regulating.
Re: In Which Milton Friedman Defends James Delingpole
@caseytaylor @johnwalker @ultravires
Thanks chaps. You have restored my faith in, well, in at least one part of America...
Nov '10
Re: In Which Milton Friedman Defends James Delingpole
As the government is composed only of enlightened angelic leaders, they can be safely pursue the glorious cause of reducing negative externalities, informed by the voting preferences of some majority of the equally enlightened and angelic citizenry.
Meanwhile, those citizens engaging in behaviors only probabilistically related to, and not sufficient to produce the negative externalities, can have their freedom to do so summarily sacrificed on the altar of presumed collective good.
After all, there is no way that the authority to subvert the freedom to ingest X that could ever be abused; or that the measures adopted could ever be counterproductive; or that unforeseen complications might results in more harm than good being done.
As long as it's people like us calling the shots for people like them, it'll all be fine.
Nor can we merely rely on laws that ban the social harm that disinhibiting drugs are probabilisitically related to (e.g., disorder, assault). We need special new laws.
These laws will pre-emptively prevent people from voluntarily choosing to use disinhibiting drugs, lest they ever get out of hand.
Irony aside: once the principle of personal freedom is ceded, the engrenage begins. Today crack, tomorrow Sudafed.
Feb '11
Re: In Which Milton Friedman Defends James Delingpole
Like Paul Rahe, I don't have any firm opinions of the war on drugs (except probably the more potent varieties), and I'm not really trying to argue the merits of any particular policy. I'm more interested in the claim by some opponents that even having a policy is an illegitimate infringement of individual liberty, regardless of the effectiveness (or lack of).
Dec '10
Re: In Which Milton Friedman Defends James Delingpole
Aodhan: So, why not prohibit the harm the drugs causes directly?
Good idea.
We can, for example, authorize the police to remove derelicts made insensate by substance abuse from the doorways of businesses and from public parks and dump them at their homes, or in vacant lots if they have no homes. Under no circumstances should we take them to hospital emergency rooms unless they have proof of financial responsibility.
We can remove children from parents whose substance abuse has rendered them incapable of caring for their kids. Not sure who pays for the care and feeding of those kids, though. And of course, we can sterilize the incompetent parents (maybe temporarily, if they have a desire and hope of becoming competent again someday).
We already have laws for substance abusers who can't keep a job and resort to crime to pay for drugs. Too bad about their victims, though.
Feb '11
Re: In Which Milton Friedman Defends James Delingpole
Ed G.
Like Paul Rahe, I don't have any firm opinions of the war on drugs (except probably the more potent varieties), and I'm not really trying to argue the merits of any particular policy. I'm more interested in the claim by some opponents that even having a policy is an illegitimate infringement of individual liberty, regardless of the effectiveness (or lack of). · 8 minutes ago
It is understandable to be skeptical of a policy complete individual liberty, but might I ask that you favor a presumption in favor of individual liberty rather than the usurpation of such liberty? (i.e., Place the burden on government to show why an outright ban of any use/sale of drugs substantially outweighs the principal of individual liberty and the actual use of that liberty.)
Sep '10
Re: In Which Milton Friedman Defends James Delingpole
Jets, on a much smaller scale, I've used coffee to be alert before a flight or two. But James Delingpole's original question was, "Why can't we put whatever we want in our bodies" and that's what I was responding to.
On a tangent--someday we Ricochet pilots should have a fly-in....
Feb '11
Re: In Which Milton Friedman Defends James Delingpole
Aodhan:
Irony aside: once the principle of personal freedom is ceded, the engrenage begins. Today crack, tomorrow Sudafed. · 21 minutes ago
What is today, but yesterday's tomorrow?
Jan '11
Re: In Which Milton Friedman Defends James Delingpole
As a rule, I took whatever Friedman's position was and adopted it for myself. Very often, there was no need second guess myself as he made complete sense. On those rare occasions where I felt uncomfortable with his positions, I did some serious reflection on balancing my preferences with what was best for the cause of liberty...and, needless to say, Friedman makes sense to me 99 times out of 100. This topic is not one of those exceptions...for me at least.