Archive for the ‘Political Philosophy’ Category
David Brunori Comes Out as a Libertarian
My friend David Brunori announced this week that he is no longer a “liberal” but a libertarian, although he says of the “bleeding heart” variety.
This is interesting because David has long been one of the nation’s top state fiscal experts. He is currently an editor of the Tax Notes family of periodicals (which are subscription only).
What made David see the light about government?
I’ve been calling myself a liberal in the pages of State Tax Notes since I began this column in 1996. I’ve been introduced at conferences and bars as a liberal tax pundit, a liberal professor, and a card-carrying liberal. In my line of business, it was expected that one would either be liberal or, if you were a pawn of the 1 percent, a conservative. Decent tax policy folks weren’t libertarians. Libertarians had no tax policy. But I’m too old to hide my feelings.
I came to realize my true identity by taking a survey on the Libertarian Party website. I scored a perfect 100 percent on the personal freedom meter, but only an 80 percent on the economic freedom meter. Still, those scores make me a libertarian. Some of my liberal friends will hate me for coming out. But I’ll remind them that hate is not a tax policy value. Besides, by definition, I still care for the poor and dispossessed. I’m no anarchist. I’m no isolationist. I still believe that government has a positive role to play in society. I want good roads and teachers and appreciate that someone will answer the phone when I dial 911. But I think we should look at government more skeptically.
I’m weary of corporate welfare. I’m weary of tax incentives. I’m weary of government economic policy that’s largely intended to enrich politicians’ cronies. For example, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) has been hellbent on spending $93 billion on a train that apparently no one wants and few will ride. But a small number of connected men would make a fortune building it.
I’m weary of the incessant arrogance of the nanny state. The Boston Public Health Commission recently voted to ban electronic cigarettes from the workplace. Memo to those in Boston: Electronic cigarettes are fake. They blow a harmless vapor of mist. Real cigarettes are banned from public places purportedly because of the dangers of secondhand smoke. Personally, I think the marketplace can handle smoking issues just fine, but let’s assume people are too stupid to make decisions about working at or patronizing places that allow smoking. What gives political elites in Boston the right to ban a product that has no secondary harm? Nothing. They do it because they don’t like people who smoke (even ersatz smokers). But more importantly, they do it because they have the power. I’d go blow real smoke rings in their faces if it weren’t so obviously immature.
David also provides a useful essay in Tax Notes this week: “A Practical Approach to Libertarian Tax Policy.” He proposes seven principles to guide tax policy from a limited-government perspective:
- Pay for Government—With Taxes [not debt]
- Reject Tax Expenditures
- Make Taxes Visible
- Reject Excise Taxes
- Reject Inefficient Taxes
- Oppose the VAT
- Embrace Federalism and the Property Tax
It’s a pretty good list. David and I particularly have a mind meld on the importance of fiscal federalism. David is an excellent analyst and concise writer, so I’m glad he’s now on the team.
For more on libertarian tax policy, readers can look at my “Options for Tax Reform.” I propose three broad principles to guide tax reform: simplification, efficiency, and limited government.
Freedom Left and Right
The Sunday Washington papers carried several dire reports about the state of freedom in America. Funny thing is, they didn’t much agree on what kinds of freedoms are being lost.
In the Washington Post, law professor Jonathan Turley warned:
In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, which allows for the indefinite detention of citizens. At what point does the reduction of individual rights in our country change how we define ourselves? . . . .
An authoritarian nation is defined not just by the use of authoritarian powers, but by the ability to use them. If a president can take away your freedom or your life on his own authority, all rights become little more than a discretionary grant subject to executive will.
He pointed to such hallmarks of authoritarian states as the official assassination of U.S. citizens, warrantless searches, immunity from judicial review, and continual monitoring of citizens.
Meanwhile, the editorial in the Washington Examiner deplored the rise in regulation and federal spending under President Obama “and the resulting decline in U.S. economic freedom.”
And Michael Barone of the American Enterprise Institute wrote in the Examiner about President Obama’s not-really-recess appointments:
The Framers of the Constitution saw it a different way. When the Senate refuses to confirm a presidential appointee, that person does not take office. When the Senate is not in recess, the president cannot make a recess appointment.
The Framers thought it more important to limit power than for government to act quickly. Obama disagrees.
All good points. The three articles together would make a comprehensive case brief on the loss of freedom under President Obama. And under President Bush, of course. After all, Turley notes that Bush pioneered many of the new powers that Obama now exercises. Bush also increased federal spending dramatically and expanded regulation and economic intervention from Sarbanes-Oxley to TSA to TARP.
Libertarians have long argued that freedom is indivisible, that it is difficult to sustain either political or economic freedom for long without the other. These articles remind us that both economic and civil liberties are threatened today, and thus we need a broad movement to protect and advance liberty and limited government against all these threats.
Capital Confusions over Bain Capital
Today POLITICO Arena asks:
Are Romney’s GOP rivals smart to continue their attacks on capitalism that have so far fallen flat? Would this theme be any more effective for the Obama campaign?
My response:
The Gingrich and Perry attacks on Mitt Romney’s work at Bain Capital are appalling. We expect that from Obama — as in yesterday’s “insourcing” press conference — because his understanding of how markets work is so slim and everything, for him, is politics. Those in the party that purports to stand for free markets should never stoop to such shameless pandering.
Steven Rattner’s piece in POLITICO this morning nicely summarizes the facts surrounding Romney’s work at Bain Capital. And yesterday my colleague Steve H. Hanke pointed to a more detailed study issued recently by the National Bureau of Economic Research, “Private Equity and Employment.” As Rattner puts it, Bain Capital’s record “was extraordinary, among the best in the business.” Yes, restructuring companies may cost jobs. Letting them fail does too — but also costs those who’ve invested in them, many of whom are or will be small retirees. At least Romney did it with private funds, not with taxpayer money or regulatory protections. That’s how capitalism works, for the benefit of all of us.
Private Equity, A Capitalist Bane?
Motivated by Newt Gingrich’s assertions — which cast a cloud over private equity operations by characterizing Mitt Romney as a predatory capitalist who destroyed jobs during his tenure at Bain Capital — the chattering classes are playing fast and loose with the facts. If they want the facts, a recently released National Bureau of Economic Research paper authored by Steven J. Davis (University of Chicago), John C. Haltiwanger (University of Maryland), Ron S. Jarmin (U.S. Census Bureau), Josh Lerner (Harvard Business School) and Javier Miranda (U.S. Census Bureau) is just what the Doctor ordered. It’s time for the private equity critics to stop talking and start reading.
Rick Santorum v. Limited Government
With former senator Rick Santorum suddenly attracting attention in Iowa, it’s time to dig up some of our previous reporting on Santorum.
In 2006, as Santorum campaigned his way to an 18-point loss in his Senate reelection race, the New York Times reported that he…
…distributed a brochure this week as he worked a sweltering round of town hall meetings and Fourth of July parades: “Fifty Things You May Not Know About Rick Santorum.” It is filled with what he called meat and potatoes, like his work to expand colon cancer screenings for Medicare beneficiaries (No. 3), or to secure money for “America’s first ever coal to ultra-clean fuel plant” (No. 2)….
He said he wanted Pennsylvanians to think of him as a political heir to Alfonse M. D’Amato of New York, who was known as Senator Pothole for being acutely attuned to constituent needs.
So . . . the third-ranking Republican leader in the Senate wanted to be known as a porker, an earmarker, and Senator Pothole.
Santorum had already dismissed limited government in theory. Promoting his book, he told NPR in 2006:
One of the criticisms I make is to what I refer to as more of a libertarianish right. You know, the left has gone so far left and the right in some respects has gone so far right that they touch each other. They come around in the circle. This whole idea of personal autonomy, well I don’t think most conservatives hold that point of view. Some do. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues. You know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world and I think most conservatives understand that individuals can’t go it alone. That there is no such society that I am aware of, where we’ve had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture.
He declared himself against individualism, against libertarianism, against “this whole idea of personal autonomy, . . . this idea that people should be left alone.” And in this 2005 TV interview, you can hear these classic hits: “This is the mantra of the left: I have a right to do what I want to do” and “We have a whole culture that is focused on immediate gratification and the pursuit of happiness . . . and it is harming America.”
No wonder Jonathan Rauch wrote in 2005 that “America’s Anti-Reagan Isn’t Hillary Clinton. It’s Rick Santorum.” Rauch noted:
In his book he comments, seemingly with a shrug, “Some will reject what I have to say as a kind of ‘Big Government’ conservatism.”
They sure will. A list of the government interventions that Santorum endorses includes national service, promotion of prison ministries, “individual development accounts,” publicly financed trust funds for children, community-investment incentives, strengthened obscenity enforcement, covenant marriage, assorted tax breaks, economic literacy programs in “every school in America” (his italics), and more. Lots more.
Rauch concluded,
With It Takes a Family, Rick Santorum has served notice. The bold new challenge to the Goldwater-Reagan tradition in American politics comes not from the Left, but from the Right.
At least Santorum is right about one thing: sometimes the left and the right meet in the center. In this case the big-spending, intrusive, mommy-AND-daddy-state center. But he’s wrong that we’ve never had a firmly individualist society where people are “left alone, able to do whatever they want to do.”
It’s called America.
Ron Paul and the Libertarians
The New York Times editorializes that if Ron Paul can’t separate himself from his unsavory writings and supporters, “he will leave a lasting stain on his candidacy, on the libertarian movement and, very possibly, on the Iowa caucuses.” Certainly it’s a problem Paul is struggling to deal with. As for the Iowa caucuses, if they could survive strong votes for Pat Robertson and Pat Buchanan and an actual win for Mike Huckabee, I dare say they can survive Ron Paul. But should these things “stain . . . the libertarian movement”? Not in a rational world.
Libertarianism is a philosophy of peace, freedom, toleration, and individual rights — just the opposite of the collectivist racist and homophobic ideas that appeared in newsletters written under Ron Paul’s signature. As I wrote in Libertarianism: A Primer, “Libertarianism is the view that each person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others.” Those ideas have played an important role throughout American history, from the American Revolution to abolitionism to the Tea Party.
And now Ron Paul is attracting support for his advocacy of the ideas of small government and free enterprise. As the Times notes in a dispatch from Iowa, Paul “is drawing supporters for his libertarian and antiwar views. …For the students, much of Mr. Paul’s appeal derives from civil libertarian views like ending the federal ban on marijuana and other drugs, as well as his desire to end foreign wars and his small-government credo.” That’s the message that has moved Ron Paul to the top of the polls in Iowa.
Still, he did allow associates of his to write racist and homophobic screeds in “The Ron Paul Political Report” and other newsletters. And that has created a stench around his candidacy. Some people want that stench to envelop and stain the libertarian movement. Jamie Kirchick, the anti-Paul jihadi who brought the newsletters to light in 2008, asks, “Why Don’t Libertarians Care About Ron Paul’s Bigoted Newsletters?” But of course many libertarians have expressed revulsion at the newsletters. Ilya Somin noted at the Volokh Conspiracy (one of the few conspiracies not denounced in the Ron Paul newsletters) that he himself had condemned the newsletters in 2008, as had his co-blogger David Bernstein. And Virginia Postrel, the former editor of Reason, and various current writers at Reason. And a leading Austrian economist, Steven Horwitz. And Ed Crane, the founder and president of Cato.
Kirchick identified Conor Friedersdorf of the Atlantic as a libertarian who supported Ron Paul despite the bigotry in the newsletters that bore his name. But in fact Friedersdorf wrote a long and tortured article acknowledging the “egregiously offensive . . . racially bigoted . . . execrable” content of the newsletters. He went on to say that there was still a good case for supporting the only candidate who has consistently opposed the Iraq War, indefinite detention, drone strikes, anti-Muslim bigotry, and the war on drugs. Other libertarians who know about the newsletters are no doubt making similar calculations. And as David Weigel of Slate notes today, many less-engaged voters — such as American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson — still haven’t heard about the whole issue; they like Ron Paul for the issues he talks about, smaller government, budget cuts, sound money, and noninterventionism.
I wrote about “Ron Paul’s Ugly Newsletters” in a 2008 Cato-at-Liberty posting:
Those words are not libertarian words. Maybe they reflect “paleoconservative” ideas, though they’re not the language of Burke or even Kirk. But libertarianism is a philosophy of individualism, tolerance, and liberty. As Ayn Rand wrote, “Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism.” Making sweeping, bigoted claims about all blacks, all homosexuals, or any other group is indeed a crudely primitive collectivism.
Libertarians should make it clear that the people who wrote those things are not our comrades, not part of our movement, not part of the tradition of John Locke, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, and Robert Nozick. Shame on them.
The fact is, there’s a small band of self-styled “libertarians” who over the past two decades have associated the great ideas of Austrian economics and libertarianism with bigotry, reflexive anti-Americanism, and vitriol directed at everyone from the Trilateral Commission to Cato and Reason. They have very little association with the larger libertarian movement or with such libertarian-inspired movements as the Tea Party, the drug reform movement, or the school choice movement. Virtually their only point of contact with the broader constituency for smaller government is through Rep. Ron Paul, who, for whatever reasons, has unfortunately continued his association with the people who have tarred him and the causes that are drawing many voters to him.
Libertarians have been fighting ignorance, superstition, privilege, and power for centuries, and we will continue to do so in the future. Libertarians reject bigotry and advocate equal rights for every individual. Ron Paul’s very bad decision to outsource his writing to reprehensible characters doesn’t change that.
Stossel Tonight: 2011 in Review
John Stossel takes a look back at 2011 tonight at 10 on Fox Business Network. Jeff Miron and I will be on, along with Nick Gillespie and Katherine Mangu-Ward of Reason, legendary MTV VJs Kurt Loder and Kennedy, and more. Many people think of politics when they think of 2011, but not John Stossel. He’s a policy guy. So expect plenty of discussion of Iraq, the Arab Spring, the economy, the Fed, the debt, the nanny state, gay marriage, and more — but nary a candidate’s name.
And if you don’t get Fox Business, well, call a friend in a different cable monopoly jurisdiction and ask if you can come over.
Will the Last Job Creator to Leave California Please Turn Off the Lights?
I’ve written before about whether California is the Greece of America, in part because of crazy policies such as overpaid bureaucrats and expensive forms of political correctness,
And we all know that California has one of the nation’s greediest governments, imposing confiscatory tax rates on a shrinking pool of productive citizens.
So it is hardly surprising that the Golden State is falling behind, losing jobs and investment to more sensible states such as Texas.
But not everybody is learning the right lessons from California’s fiscal and economic mess.
There’s a group of crazies who want to increase the top tax rate by five percentage points, an increase of about 50 percent. And they have made Kim Kardashian the poster child for their proposed ballot initiative.
I’m relatively clueless about popular culture, but even I’m aware that there is a group of people know as the Kardashian sisters. I don’t know who they are or what they do, but I gather they are famous in sort of the same way Paris Hilton was briefly famous.
And they have cashed in on their popularity, which may not reflect well on the tastes of the American people, but it’s not my job to tell other people how to spend their money.
But not everybody share this live-and-let-live attitude, which is why the pro-tax crowd in California produced this video.
I suppose I could criticize the petty dishonesty of the proponents, since they deliberately blurred of the difference between “tax rates” and “taxes paid.”
Or I could expose their economic illiteracy by pointing out that higher tax rates would accelerate the emigration of investors, entrepreneurs, small business owners, and other rich taxpayers to zero-tax states such as Nevada.
But I won’t do those things. Instead, like the Nevada Realtors Association and Arizona Business Relocation Department, I’m going to support this ballot initiative.
Not because I overdid the rum and eggnog at Christmas, but because it’s good to have negative role models, whether they are countries like Greece, cities such as Detroit, or states like California.
So here’s my challenge to the looters and moochers of the Golden State. Don’t just boost the top tax rate by five-percentage points. That’s not nearly enough. Go for a 20 percent top tax rate. Or 25 percent. After all, think of all the special interests that could use the money more than Ms. Kardashian.
And if somebody tells you that she will move to South Beach or Las Vegas, or that the other rich people will move to Texas, Wyoming, or Tennessee, just ignore them. Remember, it’s good intentions that count.
In closing, I apologize to the dwindling crowd of productive people in California. It’s rather unfortunate that you’re part of this statist experiment. But you know what they say about eggs and omelets.
By the way, here’s some humor about the Golden State, including a joke about the bloated bureaucracy and a comparison with Texas.
Vaclav Havel on Cuba
Czech writer Vaclav Havel, who died on Sunday, was a lifelong champion of freedom. The former dissident, and later, president of his country, was especially active in denouncing Cuba’s totalitarian system and in stressing the importance of solidarity with that country’s many brave dissidents. In the video below, he discusses Cuba.
On a related note, Cuban cyber-dissident Yoani Sanchez had this to say by Twitter upon the death of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il: “Nature accomplishes what citizens have not been able to.”
I’ve Never Seen an Unbroken Window Create Jobs
Such is, literally, the wisdom of retiring Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), who (according to ThinkProgress) said:
I’ve never seen a tax cut put out a fire. I’ve never seen a tax cut build a bridge.
That is the equivalent of saying, “I’ve never seen an unbroken window create jobs, so let’s break this one.”
Frank either never read his Bastiat, or didn’t understand what he read.
Vaclav Havel, RIP
Vaclav Havel, the playwright who led the Velvet Revolution that ended communism in Czechoslovakia, has died at 75. At a conference in Prague in 1995, Cato research fellow Stanley Kober drew on Havel’s writings to discuss civil society, the spirit of humility, and the case for limited government. He quoted Havel on the essential quality of a free government:
I am in favor of a political system based on the citizen, and recognizing all his fundamental civil and human rights in their universal validity, and equally applied. The sovereignty of the community, the region, the nation, the state–any higher sovereignty, in fact–makes sense only if it is derived from the one genuine sovereignty, that is, from human sovereignty, which finds its political expression in civic sovereignty.
Although Havel sometimes found himself at odds with his successor, Vaclav Klaus, on the extent of the market economy, Cato vice president Jim Dorn related Havel’s commitment to markets at a conference in Shanghai in 1997:
Though my heart be left of centre, I have always known that the only economic system that works is a market economy, in which everything belongs to someone–which means that someone is responsible for everything. It is a system in which complete independence and plurality of economic entities exist within a legal framework, and its workings are guided chiefly by the laws of the marketplace. This is the only natural economy, the only kind that makes sense, the only one that can lead to prosperity, because it is the only one that reflects the nature of life itself.
Vaclav Havel helped Czechoslovakia make the transition from one of the most repressive Communist regimes to one of the most successful post-Communist countries. RIP.
Christopher Hitchens on Audio
Earlier today I posted an edited transcript of Christopher Hitchens’s talk “Mayor Bloomberg’s Nanny State.” The only thing better than reading Hitchens is listening to him. So here’s an 8-minute excerpt from his talk:
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