RedStateEclectic

A Survey of Law - Simple Rules for a Complex World

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Richard Epstein is a rich source of insight and inspiration for the classical liberal who seeks to tread the middle ground between 

(1) F.A.Hayek's highly abstract theory of the rule of law - valuable in its own right, but often of limited use in discussing concrete issues - and

(2) the broad and uncertain schemes of law attributed to a social utopia void of the state, the attendant summary denouncement of legal arrangements and the denial of freedom in contemporary societies with pervasive state structures, or

(3) today's predominant legal positivism based on the assumption that the state has a superior problem solving capability compared to all other societal agents and is therefore entitled to practice unrestrained discretion in its capacity as the the sole legitimate source of all law.

 

Recidivism

I just bumped into him again - Theodore Dalrymple. Electronically, that is. We first met in Bodrum, Turkey, last September. His lovely French wife was the first person I got to talk to in the hotel's luscious garden, after I had arrived late and hungry and glad to find myself amongst a crowd of diners. Soon Theodore appeared, back from a buffet prowl, I seem to remember. We were also joined by the historian Professor Norman Stone, formerly of Oxford university, who now teaches at universities in Istanbul and Ankara. With the three of them, I spent a wonderfully convivial evening of a British and a pronounced academic flavour. I would be only too happy to fall into relapse.

A retired prison doctor and psychiatrist, Theodore writes:

I was on my way a few days ago to France via the Eurostar, the train that goes from the center of London to the center of Paris via the Channel Tunnel, and bought Le Figaro, the French newspaper of conservative posture, to read on the way. Its lead story was about the plans of the French Minister of Justice, Christiane Taubira, to suppress short prison sentences in favor of such penalties as probation, community service and the wearing of electronic bracelets, to release substantial numbers of prisoners before their prison sentences were completed, to give future prisoners the automatic right of release after serving two thirds of their prison sentences, and to remove certain crimes (unspecified) from the penal code. My heart sank; we’ve tried all that in Britain, with results that only an intellectual with years of training to prevent him from being able to see what is in front of his nose would or could find surprising.

The entire article.

George Will on the Sequester

“Sequester is the only possible route to spending cuts.”

George Will comments on the Laura Ingraham show.  Daily Caller story here.

Audio/video here.

George Will has always been one of my favorite conservative commentators.  Incredibly smart.  Impeccably articulate, without giving the occasionally snobbish impression that William F. Buckley did. Thinking and civilized in a way that most of the conservative talk radio folks aren’t.

LLE

Tomorrow, I Write (Something)

Wednesday is the day.  While Georg continues to post here on a near daily (or multi-times a day) basis, I’ve been slacking off.

Tomorrow, after I get a good night’s sleep, I’ll put fingers to keyboard and finish one or two of the posts I’ve been thinking about.  Of course I’ve got to grade papers and do some laundry, as well.

Things I’m thinking about lately:

• The National Debt and the immorality of what we’re doing to our kids (notice, I’ve added a running debt clock to the top left of our page).
• Gun control, and the threats of confiscation
• Sequestration (really? We’re supposed to think that having a little bit less of an increase than planned for—still above and beyond last years’ budget—is going to cause something akin to the zombie apocalypse?)
• Losing our rights

Oh, and on that note, here’s a video that was brought to my attention today:

I’m not really sure that I’d have the nerve to challenge the authorities that directly—especially not if my kids were in the car.  In many instances, it seems like it would be easier to just say, “yes, I’m an American citizen” and show them my driver’s license.  But I understand the frustration, and hope that I would stand my ground if justified.

LLE

Debtor-Prison Nation

Here’s an interesting, brief article written by Frank Ryan, published on The American Thinker.

Great Britain's tax rate at one point in time exceeded 70%, and as such, Great Britain experienced a great "brain drain."  Many of those citizens came to the United States.

The United States is likely to experience a similar brain drain and economic malaise if the fiscal policies of the past and present go unchecked.

The solution to the problem of creating a devastating paradox of a debtor-prison nation is to uphold the principles of our Constitution in Article 1, Sections 7 and 8 and limit the growth of the federal government.

The Repeal of the 17^th Amendment, while not likely initially, would begin the process of limiting federal government growth.

The 17^th Amendment to the Constitution diminished the rights of the states by allowing for the popular vote for the U. S. Senate, such that the stage became set to have the federal government begin to assume a role for which it was not originally intended.  This creates an environment in which states may have their financial solvency threatened by the actions of other states when the federal government becomes the lender of last resort to the insolvent states.

When a nation has such extensive debt, as in the United States, that it restricts its options for creating and fostering economic growth or prosperity for future generations, it is likely that the nation will cease to flourish as it has in our past.  Opportunities to escape to other states may be for naught if the problems are national in scope.

A significant, prolonged, and sustained economic malaise will likely occur with our current debt burden and unfunded obligations.

Only disciplined, controlled reduction in out-of-control public-sector spending will reverse this trend...which started in the 1930s.  Keynes, you opened a can of worms!

It seems to me that among the people I talk to, they either “get” the problem of our national debt, or they’re blissfully oblivious. 

LLE

Allgemeinbildung

There is a monstrosity of a term in German: Allgemeinbildung - general education or educational background. What turns the German term - for me - into a monstrosity is its historical and institutional background. For Lincoln's dictum certainly holds true in the case of Germany, where homeschooling is a crime and institutions of private education are strictly content-controlled by the state:

“The philosophy of the classroom will be the philosophy of the government in the next generation.”

Nothing could be more antithetic to the idea of genuine education than a monopoly on asserting what it is.

Education is the ability to acquire, handle and advance human knowledge. For these purposes, freedom and competition are of the essence.

Instead those who ought to be protected against any kind of conscription are being conscripted into a behemoth broadcaster of prejudices - as Arthur Schopenhauer said:

The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.

Robert E. Peterson at The Freeman offers an account of a far better model:

The results of colonial America’s free market system of education were impressive indeed. Almost no tax money was spent on education, yet education was available to almost anyone who wanted it, including the poor. No government subsidies were given, and inefficient institutions either improved or went out of business. Competition guaranteed that scarce educational resources would be allocated properly. The educational institutions that prospered produced a generation of articulate Americans who could grapple with the complex problems of self-government. The Federalist Papers, which are seldom read or understood today, even in our universities, were written for and read by the common man. Literacy rates were as high or higher than they are today. A study conducted in 1800 by DuPont de Nemours revealed that only four in a thousand Americans were unable to read and write legibly.

See also Sapere Aude.

Prosperity and Violence (3/3)

In Prosperity and Violence (1/3), we have seen that kinship-based agrarian societies, the precursors of the modern national state in the West, were (a) inherently restrained in terms of economic development. They were also (b) of highly fragile peaceableness. Both - (a) and (b) - were due in large measure to the inaptness of the private provision of coercion. The nature of coercion had to change for more advanced forms of civilization to emerge.

In Prosperity and Violence (2/3), we trace the development of Structures of Maximal Power as they developed in the feudal period and during the transition into the post-feudal world. The gains in economic efficiency achieved in the feudal period made it possible to enhance the military prowess of the manorial household. Especially when the economic boom induced by urbanisation fostered the commercialisation and thus higher levels of prosperity in the vast agricultural sector. The level of strife under the private provision of violence intensified and widened, setting in motion a new round of evolutionary competition among Structures of Maximal Power. The centralised, territorial or national state turned out to be the winner:

To pay for their wars, the heads of the ruling lineages broke into the strongholds of subjects to seize gold and jewels [...]They confiscated the wealth of their bankers, the estates of the church, and possessions of their aristocrats [...] To pay for their wars, the heads of ruling families also manipulated the rules of kinship." (p. 56/57)

However, in their insatiable quest for resources by which to finance their battles,

[...] in their efforts to prey upon the wealth of the urban centers, they found seduction preferable to bullying as  a means of securing revenues. (p.57)

Endowed with superior wealth and greater numbers, the towns were in a position to marshal insurmountable defensive means (sophisticated fortifications, cannons etc.).

Not only was it therefore difficult to seize a town; but the benefits were few. Because of the mobility of urban assets, the physical seizure of the towns yielded few rewards. (p. 58)

[...] In the face of the urban economy, specialists in violence therefore had to alter their strategies for securing revenues [...] Rather than plundering wealth, they had to instead elicit its creation. They had to nurture, rather than to despoil, the new economy. They had to adopt policies that facilitated the growth of towns. (p. 58)

Necessitated by this impasse, mercantilism was resorted to, which

constituted a cluster of policies aimed at the promotion of urban manufacturing [and other urban interests] [...]

while, at the same time, constituting

[...] a means for paying for the king's wars. Powerful ties of self-interest ran from the making of wars to the search for revenues and thence to the promotion of urban-based economic activity. The desire to prevail - and the necessity of prevailing -in combat shaped the economic role of government in the development of Europe. (p.62)

Again:

The rise of manufacturing promoted the growth not only of towns, but also of rural economies. The increase in rural wealth produced in its train an increase in private violence, and the formation of private armies, led by rural elites, that sought to encroach upon the wealth of others. The demilitarization of these kinship groups took place when, on the one hand, rural dwellers came to demand it and, on the other, monarchs could afford to impose order. (p. 62/63)

As for the demand side:

With the commercialization of agriculture, land became valuable and fighting therefore increased; such conflicts once launched, were difficult to terminate. Fighting interrupted farming and destroyed crops, livestock, property, and human life. With the rise in demand for rural products, peace became increasingly valuable. (p.63)

Rural disarmament was at a premium, and in parallel a new concept of law and justice began to prevail:

Under the system of the feud, kin possessed a collective obligation to revenge wrongs inflicted upon one of their members; under the system advanced by the monarchs, they again bore collective responsibility, but now to surrender one of their members had he inflicted a wrong upon others [...] The new system [... resulted] not in reprisals and further fighting but in the apprehension of felons and their delivery to the courts of the kind." (p. 63/64)

Criminal law became separate from civil law:

The threat of revenge and physical reprisal had lain at the heart of the private provision of security. the redefinition of such acts as felonies thus signaled a fundamental recasting of the political system and a step in the direction of demilitarization of kin groups in rural communities. (p.64)

The monarch faced a gigantic task of demobilising kin groups and communities:

It was crucial that each [party] believe that the kind could, and would, hunt and harry those who might violate the peace. It was crucial that each party believe that the kind was so powerful that no one would emerge unscathed should he renege upon an agreement forged in the process of pacification.

With their growing access to the wealth of the new economy, monarchs were able to assemble armies of sufficient size and power to provide the assurances necessary to demilitarize kin groups and communities. While rural warlords may have been able to mobilize retainers, the monarch could pay for armies, train them, and keep them in the field. Private armies could feud; those of the monarch could campaign [...] [He had] the power to impose "the institution of the peace [gradually and enduringly throughout the territorial state]. (p.66)

In addition:

Replete with revenues, the court had become a fountain of privilege [...] By judiciously targeting favors, the monarch could make, or break, the fortunes of a clan head, and so render it in the interests of agrarian elites to withdraw from their rural redoubts and to attach themselves to the center. In this manner, too, kings secured the demobilization of the countryside. (p.66)

In conclusion:

In response to the demands for peace, monarchs transformed the local order, demilitarizing kinship, co-opting elites, and incorporating local communities into a system that terminated, rather than exacerbated, conflict. (p. 68) [...]

In historical Europe, then, states emerge from war. Governments pursued policies that promoted the development of the economy not because they wanted to but because they had to, the better to secure the resources with which to fight. As states developed, coercion did not disappear. Rather, when those who specialized in its use altered the purposes to which they employed it, coercion provided the political foundations for the great transformation. (p.69)

War Economy

It looks to me as if The Coyote is getting it right once again. This time on the question whether war "helps" the economy.

Though, I would slightly qualify his argument: if war is considered necessary, say, for reasons of self-defence, we are likely to be thereby inviting a planning regime that is strictly incommensurable with a free economy. The best you can do is to ponder if the "war economy" could be run more efficiently than it is, or not.

In fact, a "war economy" isn't really an economy. For it is simply an attempt to turn the economy proper into a single purpose project or organisation amenable to comprehensive planning. Not surprisingly it does perform a lot worse in terms of the criteria we would apply to measuring the effectiveness of a free economy. At best, it can give us the materially most effective way of attaining a specific objective - winning a war.

By contrast, the whole point and beauty of a free economy is to serve as a facilitator for as many goals as its participants may desire to attain - none of which goal commanding per se a higher rank of validity than any other.

See also Liberty - The All-Purpose Order.

One of the reasons that people often believe that war "improves" the economy is that they are looking at the wrong metrics. They look at unemployment and observe that it falls.  They look at capacity utilization and observe that it rises. They look at GDP and see that it rises.

But these are the wrong metrics. What we care about is if people are better off: Can they buy the things they want? Are they wealthier?

These outcomes are hard to measure, so we use unemployment and GDP and capacity utilization as proxies for people's economic well-being. And in most times, these metrics are reasonably correlated with well-being. That is because in a free economy individuals and their choices guide the flow of resources, which are dedicated to improving what people consider to be their own well-being. More resources, more well-being.

But in war time, all this gets changed. Government intervenes with a very heavy hand to shift a vast amount of the resources from satisfying people's well-being to blowing other people up. [...]

What we find is that in war time, unemployment is down, but in part because young people have been drafted (a form of servitude) to fight and die.  Are they better off so employed?  Those who are left find themselves with jobs in factories with admittedly high capacity utilization, but building things that make no one better off (and many people worse off).  GDP skyrockets as government goes deeply in debt to pay for bombs and rockets and tanks.  This debt builds nothing for the future -- future generations are left with debt and no wealth to show for it, like taking out a mortgage to buy a house and then having the house burn down uninsured.  This is no more economically useful than borrowing money and then burning it.  In fact, burning it would have been better, economically, as each dollar we borrowed in WWII had a "multiplier" effect in that it destroyed another dollar of European or Asian civilian infrastructure.

Sure, during WWII, everyone in the US had a job, but with war-time restrictions and rationing, these employed people couldn't buy anything.  Forget the metrics - in their daily lives Americans lived poorer, giving up driving and even basic staples.  This was the same condition Soviet citizens found themselves facing in the 1970s -- they all had jobs, but they could not find anything to buy.  Do we consider them to have been well off? [...]

The entire post.

Beggars' Banquet

Take some common human propensities, say envy and greed, add a measure of misinformation, stir the ingredients a little, and you have another feast of political scarcity. But don't get confused.

For the currently less fortunate members of society, the costs of envy can be especially high when it misdirects their conceptions and energies. Where poorer people are lacking in human capital – skills, education, discipline, foresight – one of the sources from which they can acquire these things are more prosperous people who have more of these various forms of human capital. This may happen directly through apprenticeship, advice, or formal tutelage, or it may happen indirectly through observation, reflection, and imitation. However, all these ways of advancing out of poverty can be short-circuited by an ideology of envy that attributes the greater prosperity of others to “exploitation” of people like themselves, to oppression, to bias, or unworthy motives such as “greed,” racism, and the like. Acquisition of human capital in general seems futile under this conception and acquisition of human capital from exploiters, the greedy, and racists especially distasteful.

The source.

 

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

 

I may have become a full-fledged anarchist today.  Well, maybe not, but right now, I’m not a very happy camper.  Why?  Well, call it “looking ahead to April 15”.

Today was a “snow day” here in Nebraska, and while I had a lot of things I could have done while the kids were fighting, reading, playing in the snow, etc., I made the mistake of deciding to do a first run at calculating our taxes.

Now, without going into specifics, I should probably make a few things clear.

1. My husband is a general practice/family physician.  I will not pretend that we don’t have a higher than average income.  I will, however, say that we have a significant mortgage; my husband drives a 1999 Durango with 180,000 miles on it; I drive a 2004 minivan with 150,000 miles; we’ve got two kids at home; we helped pay for my oldest daughter’s wedding last year; we’ve got consumer debt that we’re trying to pay off; we’ve got some parent student loans from our oldest daughter’s college years that we’re working our way through, etc.  We try to take a larger vacation about every other year, and settle for long weekends or non-major trips in the off years.  In other words, while some might look at our gross income and say that we were quite well off, if they looked at our bank accounts, they’d see that we’re paying our bills, and occasionally able to save a little. 
2. Our income in 2012 was higher than in 2011.  I taught a few more classes, and my husband had a very busy year (which in doctor terms means 12 hour days aren’t unusual, late nights aren’t unusual, weekends are common), and had some extra dollars come in via his performance incentives that he gets at work for working more and seeing more patients.  He’s a salaried employee for his base income, and gets incentive payouts twice a year based on estimated levels above and beyond a benchmark figure.  All income that we have is subject to withholding.
3. Last year (2011), our taxable income less our itemized deductions netted us a small refund on our taxes.  This year, our taxable income less our itemized deductions (both of which went up—we had more money, so we gave more to charity) results in us OWING the IRS roughly the amount equivalent to the increase in income this year.  In other words, not enough was withheld, and all that “extra” we made, is going back to the feds (and a bit more of it to the state, who we’ll owe some money to, as well).

Now, I could complain (oh, I guess I am!) that our tax system stinks.  This “problem” of making more money obviously isn’t going to affect everyone in the way that it affects us.  We happened to hit one of those benchmarks where all of a sudden you’re paying more.  But you know, I have to think carefully about whether it makes sense for me to keep teaching part-time, because for all intents and purposes, every cent that I earned last year will go toward paying the remainder of our tax bill this year.  EVERY CENT, and then some. 

Is that the end of the world?  No, probably not.  Fortunately, my husband’s performance incentive for the last half of last year was paid a few weeks ago, so we’ll have the money available to write a check when the time comes (but I have this rather bad attitude—if we OWE money, I’ll wait till after the first of April to file—no sense in letting them have MY money any earlier than I have to).  But as I started working my way through our taxes today, I started feeling ill, as I had this realization that our income taxes alone this year would have been enough for us to buy a new or a couple of newer cars, without borrowing the money and adding to our monthly payments.  It would have been enough for us to replace some of those kitchen appliances that are now 10 years old and starting to need replacing.  It would have been enough for us to pay off our second mortgage and then some.  It would have been enough for us pay off virtually all of the consumer debt that we’ve got.

Our income tax payment—and the income tax payments of everyone—represents money that really doesn’t seem to be helping the economy all that much; it represents money that someone has earned, but is not entitled to spend as they see fit—in ways that—through consumerism or investment, would likely have helped put others to work and keep some businesses open.  It makes me wonder whether we should work so hard for that “little extra”—especially when that “little extra” isn’t going to be ours anyway.  And it also goes to prove, I think, that taxes can be a disincentive to work, for some anyway.

We’ll pay our taxes—we always do—although we won’t be happy about it.  It’s been a while, though, since we’ve had to write a big check to Uncle Sam—back in the days when my husband was moonlighting and no taxes were being withheld from that pay.  But I’m a fine example of what’s wrong with withholding taxes: when we never see the money—or when we get some little bit back after having it withheld all year—it’s not nearly so painful, nor so likely to inspire resentment; but when you’re faced with writing a check for a significant chunk of change, and you think of all the things you might have done to make yours and your family’s life a little more pleasant this year (or how much more we might have given to our church or other good causes), well, it changes (or in my case, confirms) your opinion of a government that spends more than it brings in every year already, and just demands more and more all the time.

LLE