What I Really Think about Libertarianism

 

My libertarian friends may be surprised to hear this, but my respect for libertarianism has grown quite a lot since my introduction to Ricochet two years ago. Admittedly, my estimation at the time was pretty low. I had lots of libertarian undergraduates, and I also encountered a handful of professors and grad students with broadly libertarian views, so I was well familiar with that “I’m-conservative-but-not-a-moral-nag” snobbery. That bothered me only a little bit. My real reasons for dismissing libertarians were twofold.

First, libertarianism struck me as reactionary in broad sense. It presents itself as a universally applicable theory about the relationship between the individual to the state, but on that score, I found Ayn Rand far less insightful than Thomas Aquinas, Plato or Aristotle. Her influence, I saw, related to more idiosyncratic conditions of her time: the rise of the administrative state. That was, I supposed, a real problem in our time, but in historical terms it was still contingent; not every society has these same problems. As a political theory, then, it seemed to me that libertarianism drew unjustifiably broad principles on the basis of historically distinctive challenges.

Second, libertarianism seemed morally lazy to me. You can see this especially clearly when you watch undergraduates learning ethics. We spend a lot of time working through the ins and outs of an Aristotelian-type virtue ethics. That means we’re discussing lots of detailed questions about what the good life involves and what it takes for human beings to be excellent. Some of the students get into it. Others become irritated by all the nitty-gritty details and also by the general sense that a virtue-based ethics reaches into every nook and cranny of their lives. It has things to say about their dietary and sexual habits, what they read, what they watch on television, and what they do with their friends. Of course we’re only talking about ethics here and not politics; nobody’s suggesting that we hire virtue police to ensure that everyone behaves well. But even on that score, some people yearn to escape from all the complication, and to find some area of life where the only ethical mandate is, “do whatever you want just as long as you’re not bothering anybody.”

Then we get to modern moral philosophy, and you can watch the relief spreading over their faces. We knew it didn’t have to be that complicated! Being good can’t possibly require us to wrangle with all those messy details! This is the appeal of utilitarianism, for example. If you want to know what to do, just add up the relevant pleasures and pains associated with the various alternatives, and see what makes people happier. There’s no need for all this complicated stuff about virtues and human nature and detailed analyses of the common good. And on an individual level, the fact that an activity makes you happy is a good enough reason to do it, provided of course that it doesn’t make someone else sad.

Libertarianism is not explicitly an ethical theory, but for many it has a similar sort of appeal. It dispenses with troubling moral and political questions by pushing them all under the convenient heading of “not the state’s business.” Undergraduates love this. It gives them that air-clearing feeling that they’re craving after wandering through the intricacies of Aristotelian moral theory. It feels to them like that scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and friends come out of the woods and look out over shining fields of poppies. Free at last!

Like the poppies, though, this shining simplicity is deceptive. One way to realize this is by reflecting on the complexity of the concept of “freedom”. From what do we need to be free? For what do we want to be free? When humans live together in society, one person’s exercise of freedom can obviously impinge on another’s in a wide variety of ways. My neighbor blasts his music at top volume, and I can’t sleep. Another family up the street starts feeding the squirrels and before I know it my porch pumpkins have fallen victim to the little monsters as well. Advertisers want to put up pornographic billboards, but then I’ll have to drive by them every time I grocery shop. My state legalizes pot, and now I don’t like going to the local park because I don’t want my kids running through clouds of sweet-smelling smoke.

Now, I said that my respect for libertarians has increased. That’s true. Some of them have arguments far more sophisticated I had encountered before, and some are extremely interested in promoting the good through private means. They persuaded me to take the problem of administrative bloat far more seriously. Their relentless focus on size-of-state questions has led them to some very astute insights on the nature of the technocratic state, and they make excellent watchdogs (or gadflies?) against the constant temptation to take advantage of administrative bloat. But in the end, I think my two original criticisms still stand. They’re enormously clever about suggesting ways for us to accomplish communal projects without the help of the state. That can be quite useful in its way. But they’re still elevating a theory of government beyond its contextual importance. And they still provide a large haven for the morally lazy at precisely the time when we need to be morally energetic.

Advances in science and technology have massively increased the state’s power to rule us in every minute detail of our lives. It’s also increased our ability to hector and impede one another. Advances in technology allow us to spy on one another every minute, to redistribute wealth on a massive scale without sending a tax collector door to door, and to manipulate life (plant, animal, human) on a very fundamental level. We’re wrestling now with new and sometimes terrifying questions about justice and obligation and what kind of society we want to build. Libertarianism seems like something of a haven in this storm, because its prescriptions seem so fundamental and principled, and because it doesn’t demand consensus on most of these challenging questions. It seems like a good out.

But ultimately, that’s just a dodge. Small-state principles can’t save us from working through these issues. Suppose we could achieve political victory on a “morality-free” limited-government platform, legalizing drugs and prostitution and abandoning any efforts to recognize traditional marriage or protect the unborn. None of that would deconstruct the technocratic state. Meanwhile, social breakdown would continue apace, and eventually (probably rather soon) people would cry out for government to step up its efforts to save them from themselves. We’d end up with more statism than ever. But actually, I’m not even very worried about that, because I don’t think such a platform has any chance of winning the country back in any case. If we want to win America back, we have to show real insight into the problems they’re actually facing right now. Americans think that the GOP has failed to understand or “care about” them, and to some extent they’re right. We haven’t given them any good answers to the deep social and spiritual problems that have arisen in our modernist, technocratic, democratic state.

We need to return to core principles, but not Ayn Rand’s. She doesn’t have the insights we need at this juncture. Plato and Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas all reflected on a much more sophisticated level on the relationship between humans and their neighbors and their communities and the state. That is the level of complex, careful analysis that we need to diagnose and respond to these intense challenges. And insofar as I’m hard on libertarians, it’s not because I think they have nothing useful to contribute to this effort. They do have things to contribute. But often I see conservatism’s relentless focus on small-state advocacy as something of an obstacle to the kind of conversations we really need to be having right now. That’s not because I doubt that we need to shrink the state. It’s because I don’t think we can do it without answering the bigger questions about human excellence and human community, family, life, and the complex relationship between political freedom and virtue. And regrettably, libertarians frequently use their small-state principles as a kind of excuse to avoid those conversations.

Mike H asked yesterday: what do social conservatives want? I would answer: human excellence, happiness, virtue and a thriving society. Those are my highest goals. And while I do have some interest in the thriving of the state, that’s only about the eighth or ninth question on my list of concerns. 

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  1. Byron Horatio Inactive
    Byron Horatio
    @ByronHoratio

    Markets exist to meet demand. That’s it.  They don’t exist to strictly allow society and human beings to flourish (though that is a natural consequence)  Is it the market’s fault if the results do not meet nebulbous criteria like that?  

    I have various niche interests that local stores can’t meet.  My prized possession is a mint condition Finnish M39 rifle. For a while, I was looking for a specific adapter that would allow the installation of a scope without drilling into the receiver.  Lo and behold there was enough of a demand for such a peculiar item that the free market had encouraged a someone to supply such a thing.  

    Does this encourage human flourishing?  Not really.  But it’s a free transaction.  Nothing more or less.

    • #121
  2. Owen Findy Inactive
    Owen Findy
    @OwenFindy

    anonymous: Witness the teeth behind the soothing smile of the central planners. Who are we? Why are they elevated above the desires of individuals?

    Much better said than I was thinking of putting it.

    • #122
  3. BastiatJunior Member
    BastiatJunior
    @BastiatJunior

    Rachel Lu:

    … and I think we put ourselves in a very vulnerable position when we’re overconfident about markets as a reliable means of attaining authentic human good.

    Maybe so, but an un-free market is a reliable means of attaining authentic human bad.  That has been demonstrated around the world.

    Let’s test the proposition.  Since 2000 the United States has been drifting downward on the index of economic freedom.  We are now “Mostly Free” instead of “Free.”

    Are Americans more virtuous now?

    • #123
  4. Gödel's Ghost Inactive
    Gödel's Ghost
    @GreatGhostofGodel

    KC Mulville:

    Gödel’s Ghost: I’m led to understand, on good authority, that this is even fashionable among you Catholics these days.

    Well, we’ll have to put a stop to that right away.

    We Catholics believe that the “Deposit of Faith” is sufficient. We may be trying new ways to say it and explain it, but it’s the same core body of beliefs.

    Completely tangential side note: there is a body of theology devoted to the phrase “keys of the kingdom.” If you read the text without nuance, it suggests that Peter (of all people) has the power to bind Heaven. So he’s got that going for him.

     Exactly. I was observing, very tongue-in-cheek, that of course the working-out of Catholic theology follows the same pattern I ascribed to Lutheranism, and for the same reason: we have the Deposit of Faith… which is expressed imperfectly, in human experience and language, which introduce both struggle (not to err) and opportunity (to learn of and to appreciate other believers’ experience of this shared faith). Christians share at least one central historical claim. But I continue to maintain that the working-out of what that implies follows exactly “market processes,” given a reasonably accurate understanding of said processes.

    • #124
  5. Mike H Inactive
    Mike H
    @MikeH

    Rachel Lu: Enabling people to effectively pursue their immediate goals has actually left us with a society in which many or most people are miserable, lonely and vicious.

    I agree to an extent, but we don’t have a market. We have a government preventing the market from working. I don’t believe the status quo says much about how people would act in a true free market. There are many reasons to believe a true market would be better than the status quo. Maybe not satisfactorily close to your ideal virtuous world, but a heck of a lot closer that what we have now.

    • #125
  6. Gödel's Ghost Inactive
    Gödel's Ghost
    @GreatGhostofGodel

    Byron Horatio:

    3). This is where I part ways with some libertarians. I am a federalist as well and while libertarianism is my ideal, decentealizing authority and “laboritories of democracy” is the most practical path there. I’d much prefer two states with different policies on drugs or nudity for that matter than a one-size-fits-all federal edict.

     Bingo. I frequently observe that, being pro-life in America, I want to overturn Roe v. Wade—which would return the issue to the state legislatures, which could then express the will of their constituents on this life-or-death issue, just as they do with, e.g. capital punishment. Then everyone could “vote their conscience” with the instruments that effect real change: their feet and wallets. Being a Lutheran adoptee, my vote would almost certainly be obvious.

    Why this is difficult to understand is beyond me.

    • #126
  7. Rachel Lu Member
    Rachel Lu
    @RachelLu

    Byron Horatio:

    Markets exist to meet demand. That’s it. They don’t exist to strictly allow society and human beings to flourish (though that is a natural consequence) Is it the market’s fault if the results do not meet nebulbous criteria like that?

     
    Markets aren’t moral agents per se, so depending on what you mean it may not make any sense to speak of “faults”. But they don’t always bring about human good, and when they don’t we should recognize that fact, and consider the appropriate response. I’m highly amused by all these paranoid comments about tyranny. I haven’t called for state control of anything, apart from indicating that it’s okay for towns to deny brothels a license to do legal business. I’ve talked about the importance of freedom. I’ve agreed to the evils of the administrative state.

    My only real contention is that we can’t simply trust markets to bring about human good “on their own” as it were. They are driven by those plans and projects that individuals immediately pursue, but that collective can potentially push society rather far from actual liberty, justice and happiness for all. We need to apply more direct moral analysis to determine whether these higher goals are being met.

    Libertarians tend to have trouble with this, because they have so much faith in markets. I think that prejudice is putting kind of a drag on the conservative conversation, making it hard for us to assess the current state of our society and craft a message Americans will find compelling. 

    Which, yes, makes it hard to win elections.

    • #127
  8. Rachel Lu Member
    Rachel Lu
    @RachelLu

    BastiatJunior:

    Rachel Lu:

    Maybe so, but an un-free market is a reliable means of attaining authentic human bad. That has been demonstrated around the world.

    Let’s test the proposition. Since 2000 the United States has been drifting downward on the index of economic freedom. We are now “Mostly Free” instead of “Free.”

    Are Americans more virtuous now?

     Obviously, I’m not arguing that market regulation guarantees human good. That would be absurd. 

    • #128
  9. user_385039 Inactive
    user_385039
    @donaldtodd

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake: #90 “The earliest Christians didn’t have an explicit formulation of the Trinity, for example, or of a lot of the stuff listed in the Nicene Creed. Instead, they had to cooperate with one another until truth emerged. The Holy Spirit’s guidance didn’t absolve them from the necessity of cooperation.”

    Historically several of the positions held by the Church occurred because differing opinions were competing, not agreeing.  One might suggest a short history of Augustine and Donatism as a quick means of ascertaining this.  Also Augustine supported Athanasius in one of the Christological controversies, facing a heresy named Arianism.

    The Church was pretty well split along eastern and western lines over this issue.  So I might suggest that the tension and the need for truth is the reason that the Holy Spirit brought the Church to that truth, and that Peter’s successor recognized it.

    • #129
  10. user_385039 Inactive
    user_385039
    @donaldtodd

    Manny: #94 “I hope I’m not coming to this late.”

    An observation:  Never late.

    • #130
  11. liberal jim Inactive
    liberal jim
    @liberaljim

    Rachel Lu: Markets aren’t moral agents per se, so depending on what you mean it may not make any sense to speak of “faults”. But they don’t always bring about human good, and when they don’t we should recognize that fact, and consider the appropriate response.

     Shame was at one point in our history a primary and effective response.  It has all but disappeared  as a concept.  I believe that this is yet one more indirect result of larger government.  Absent shame, we are left with few other options.  This explains why we  grasp at the illusion that the heavy hand of government can make things better, when the exact opposite will be the more likely outcome.  Virtue and liberty are not in conflict, they are dependant on each other.  

    • #131
  12. BastiatJunior Member
    BastiatJunior
    @BastiatJunior

    Rachel Lu:

    I’m highly amused by all these paranoid comments about tyranny. …

    My only real contention is that we can’t simply trust markets to bring about human good “on their own” as it were. 

    I’m vain enough to think that you were referring to this sentence in comment #124:

     “Interfering with someone’s economic decisions (as long as they don’t involve theft or fraud) is tyranny, especially when it’s out of fear that people might make the wrong decision.”

    If you don’t advocate such interference, you’re not a tyrant, and I’ll sleep better tonight knowing I’ll continue to be free.  Well, “mostly free” according to the Index of Economic Freedom.  :-)

    What’s puzzling are your repeated assertions that free markets can’t solve all of the world’s problems, even though no one disagrees.  That’s not it’s job.

    Wealth destroying interference with markets can create resentment and a pervasive sense of injustice and actually leave us with that “society in which many or most people are miserable, lonely and vicious,”  as described in your hypothetical.

    I won’t address the “paranoid” remark.  Someone might be listening …

    • #132
  13. Rachel Lu Member
    Rachel Lu
    @RachelLu

    There are lots of ways of “interfering with people’s economic decisions” and some of them are definitely okay. Just talking to people might interfere with their decisions. Threatening them with social disapprobation is a stronger way. Or threatening not to do business with them anymore. Or not to help them get their favored political candidate elected. The list goes on and on. It would take lots of thorny discussion to figure out in what ways and under what circumstances we can ethically interfere with people’s economic decisions.

    I think what I’m saying is stronger than that free markets “can’t solve all the world’s problems”. Their outcomes are not necessarily just. Nor conducive to human good. There are many potentially good reasons for wanting to impede particular effects of free markets, or to build “shelters” from market forces (as Midge discussed) or just to persuade people on a widespread level that “hey, people! These markets are ruining our lives!”

    Markets are a kind of natural aggregator of “directly pursued” human interests, but these can differ from real human good in all sorts of ways that are worth examining. If I seem reticent to offer a “plan of action”, it’s because the diagnosis is itself a pretty massive project, so throwing out an action plan before we’ve even done it would be a little absurd.

    People who think about markets in complex and sophisticated ways (as Midge does, and I have an economist brother who takes a similar approach) can have some really fascinating insights. But I think there are other important moral truths that that approach tends to obscure. Sadly, for many self-identified libertarians, I don’t think you even get the sophisticated thinking about markets. Market-worship for some is more just a kind of shield from uncomfortable and difficult questions about justice and truth.

    • #133
  14. Mike H Inactive
    Mike H
    @MikeH

    Rachel Lu: I think what I’m saying is stronger than that free markets “can’t solve all the world’s problems”. Their outcomes are not necessarily just. Nor conducive to human good.

    Of course not! Markets aren’t necessarily going to give you the right answer. They can only solve a hell of a lot more problems than government can. It doesn’t mean markets yield the best morality, but when you mess with markets with absolute force, you are almost guaranteed a worse outcome. It’s a comparison thing. Markets only have to be, on net, better than government. And they do so, handedly.

    • #134
  15. user_86050 Inactive
    user_86050
    @KCMulville

    Gödel’s Ghost:  But I continue to maintain that the working-out of what that implies follows exactly “market processes,” given a reasonably accurate understanding of said processes.

    I don’t think so, at least not for Catholics. Catholics also have a highly developed doctrine of magisterium, i.e., authority – exactly the kind of “market meddler” that Hayek opposed in secular affairs. The bishops are the arbiters of the truth, even as the whole church (clergy, theologians, lay people) participates in the development of the faith.

    I sense a collective groan from the other posters in this thread, worried that we’re going to veer off into abstract theology. I think I even spotted a laser sight on my upper chest, so I’m going to proceed reticently on this tangent.

    • #135
  16. Larry3435 Inactive
    Larry3435
    @Larry3435

    Since Rachel has not answered my question about who will decide what is just and good under her preferred regime, I will move on to the other question that bothers me. Rachel, where do you draw the line between matters where government ought to intervene to preserve virtue, and where government should avoid intervening even if such a hands-off policy will result in vice?

    Most libertarians will answer that question with some form of the “harm principle.” Government should not intervene except to prevent real and direct harm to others, such as murder or theft.  Here’s a quote that sounds a lot like a version of the harm principle to me:

    “Now human law is framed for a number of human beings, the majority of whom are not perfect in virtue. Therefore human laws do not forbid all vices, from which the virtuous abstain, but only the more grievous vices, from which it is possible for the majority to abstain, and chiefly those that are to the hurt of others, without the prohibition of which human society could not be maintained; thus human law prohibits murder, theft and the like.”

    So, Rachel, where do you draw the line?

    • #136
  17. Larry3435 Inactive
    Larry3435
    @Larry3435

    Oh, did I forget to mention?  Yes, that last quote was from noted libertarian, Aquinas.

    • #137
  18. Larry3435 Inactive
    Larry3435
    @Larry3435

    KC Mulville:

    Gödel’s Ghost: But I continue to maintain that the working-out of what that implies follows exactly “market processes,” given a reasonably accurate understanding of said processes.

    I don’t think so, at least not for Catholics. Catholics also have a highly developed doctrine of magisterium, i.e., authority – exactly the kind of “market meddler” that Hayek opposed in secular affairs. The bishops are the arbiters of the truth, even as the whole church (clergy, theologians, lay people) participates in the development of the faith.

    I sense a collective groan from the other posters in this thread, worried that we’re going to veer off into abstract theology. I think I even spotted a laser sight on my upper chest, so I’m going to proceed reticently on this tangent.

     I have no problem with you discussing theology, so long as you don’t try to enact it into law.

    • #138
  19. user_86050 Inactive
    user_86050
    @KCMulville

    Byron Horatio:

    Markets exist to meet demand. That’s it. They don’t exist to strictly allow society and human beings to flourish (though that is a natural consequence) Is it the market’s fault if the results do not meet nebulous criteria like that?

    My two cents, fwiw … this reveals the conflict between what a market does and what a society does. A market doesn’t maximize virtue, but a society (and culture) does.

    That may be the core debate, whether society is supposed to maximize virtue. With no intention of offending anyone, I’d suggest that libertarians believe that “virtue” is either too slippery a concept to pin down, or that we simply don’t have a fair and free mechanism to do the maximizing without trampling on individual freedom. Would that be a proper interpretation?

    • #139
  20. Gödel's Ghost Inactive
    Gödel's Ghost
    @GreatGhostofGodel

    KC Mulville:

    That may be the core debate, whether society is supposed to maximize virtue. With no intention of offending anyone, I’d suggest that libertarians believe that “virtue” is either too slippery a concept to pin down, or that we simply don’t have a fair and free mechanism to do the maximizing without trampling on individual freedom. Would that be a proper interpretation?

     I dunno about anyone else, but this particular self-identified Hayekian Libertarian believes the virtue-maximizing process is good-ol’ moral suasion. Where I part company with my SoCon brothers and sisters is in believing the State has any role in this beyond that of protector of individual rights. What I think even thoughtful, sincere American SoCons like Rachel overlook is how, the more you ensconce a particular model of virtue politically, cf. the official state religions of European countries (hey, I’m Lutheran; I should move to Denmark!), the faster that model gets hollowed out and becomes inoperative in the populace.

    And really, who is surprised by this? Who doesn’t understand that mandatory participation results in pro-forma participation, then no participation, and ultimately paper virtue?

    With respect to tyranny vs. freedom, it’s disappointing, but again not surprising, to read Rachel tip her hand with her comment about “paranoia about tyranny.” Nothing to see just in the period from the Reagan years to now, move along…

    I largely became a Libertarian on the strength of Lord Acton’s insight that “power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The intervening decades have underscored Acton. With a vengeance.

    • #140
  21. Tuck Inactive
    Tuck
    @Tuck

    Rachel Lu: So, markets make right? No. Don’t believe that.

     Success and failure is not the same thing as right and wrong.

    • #141
  22. Tuck Inactive
    Tuck
    @Tuck

    Rachel Lu: As you say, the administrative state already supplies a kind of “answer” to many of these deep questions. That’s why I don’t think we can destroy it until we can offer a better, truer answer. The problem with dependency is that it makes people, well, dependent. If you just tell them, “be independent!” they will probably tell you, “no!” And the uncommitted middle will just think you’re being mean. I think we have to be armed with a better, truer, more ennobling vision before we will have the opportunity to dismantle the administrative state.

     That’s enlightening. 

    • #142
  23. Rachel Lu Member
    Rachel Lu
    @RachelLu

    Mike H:

    Rachel Lu: I think what I’m saying is stronger than that free markets “can’t solve all the world’s problems”. Their outcomes are not necessarily just. Nor conducive to human good.

    Of course not! Markets aren’t necessarily going to give you the right answer. They can only solve a hell of a lot more problems than government can. It doesn’t mean markets yield the best morality, but when you mess with markets with absolute force, you are almost guaranteed a worse outcome. 

    “Messing with” can take a lot of forms. They definitely don’t all guarantee bad outcomes. But as I’ve said several times, I’m less concerned with the “messing with” at the moment than with the “figuring out”. Exactly how are our market forces failing us (as humans, not just as engagers in commerce)?

    Actually I think the administrative state is itself in many ways a later consequence of market forces, in the sense that people are unprepared to tolerate the consequences of free markets in a technologically expanding world, and thus they demand that the state make things “safer” for us all. That’s partly why I think we need to understand what the moral challenges are that make the administrative state feel so necessary to us. For that, you need an analysis of markets and human good that isn’t too slavishly deferential to the markets, as libertarian thinking often tends to be.

    • #143
  24. Tuck Inactive
    Tuck
    @Tuck

    Mike H: Sorry Tuck. Markets can fail.

    Markets are not God, and are not perfect.  Markets are the sum of the humans involved in them.  The sum, in this case, is not greater than the parts.

    The biggest mistake people make about markets is imagining them to be better than people.  They cannot be, as they ARE people.

    So markets can fail in the same sense that God can fail: by not answering your prayers.  But that’s a theological discussion, not a discussion about human nature or economics.  And frankly, I think it’s a deeply immature discussion: God never promised to answer, let alone deliver, on all prayers.  Expecting the same of groups of people is unrealistic, to put it mildly.

    All examples of “market failure”, including yours, are examples of holding markets to standard higher than what can be expected of people.  You would never expect a group of people to anticipate and deliver all your wants.  So to expect the same of a market is irrational.

    • #144
  25. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Donald Todd:

    Historically several of the positions held by the Church occurred because differing opinions were competing, not agreeing.

    The competition was ultimately a form of cooperation, as competition often is. To exchange competing ideas freely until one idea “wins out” is a fairly effective mode of intellectual cooperation, actually.

    • #145
  26. Tuck Inactive
    Tuck
    @Tuck

    Rachel Lu: Some people, in the name of governmental neutrality, are prepared to get pretty Draconian about suppressing anyone who seems too confident or open about having concrete ideas about the good.

     Because history has demonstrated that they’re usually delusional, and often harmful.  Fool me twice, shame on me.

    • #146
  27. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Rachel Lu:

    Exactly how are our market forces failing us (as humans, not just as engagers in commerce)?

    Well, how do  you  think they are failing us?

    Evidently, you consider anything resembling a market in babies (whether through ART, surrogacy, or adoption) to be failing humanity. But what else?

    Most of the failures I see are where markets are  prevented  from working freely, though I admit it’s easier to see what you’re looking for than what you aren’t.

    • #147
  28. BastiatJunior Member
    BastiatJunior
    @BastiatJunior

    Rachel Lu: There are lots of ways of “interfering with people’s economic decisions” and some of them are definitely okay. Just talking to people might interfere with their decisions. Threatening them with social disapprobation is a stronger way. Or threatening not to do business with them anymore. Or not to help them get their favored political candidate elected. The list goes on and on. It would take lots of thorny discussion to figure out in what ways and under what circumstances we can ethically interfere with people’s economic decisions.

     I thought it was clear from my comment that I was talking about government interference with people’s economic decisions.  Government can do that in only one way: coercion.

    All those other ways of interfering with the market are non-coercive and not the government.  In fact, they are the market.

    • #148
  29. Tuck Inactive
    Tuck
    @Tuck

    [Redacted for CoC]

    • #149
  30. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    [CoC]

    Tuck, you are understandably frustrated, and yes, I can understand where that frustration comes from. But Rachel is not a troll.

    Not everybody who repeatedly “doesn’t get” something is trolling. Sometimes differences in understanding really are that hard to bridge.

    • #150
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