Sunday, February 27, 2011

The Solution to Wisconsin's Union Trouble is to Play Fair

Unionization is a complicated topic for libertarians. Usually, it's not really much our business, if the union in question is organizing workers in private industry. The First Amendment guarantees the right of free association, so there is nothing suspect about joining a union. One might argue that the company also has the right of free association, and thus has the freedom to not be associated with union members. The hedge against that is the unity of the union, the threat of striking and bringing the company to its knees.

I am generally pro-union. As a college student I was required to join the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers when I read electric meters for Union Electric. My father was a Teamster. My grandfather was a union activist with the Glass Worker's union. Back then, unions were necessary for several reasons. One, the legal fiction that is the corporation was growing larger, more powerful, and legally complicated. One person against a corporation is a hopeless cause in the case of a dispute. Two, conditions for workers were sometimes dangerous, and frequently unhealthy from a long-term perspective. If work was scarce, you made a choice of a living or your life. Third, the court system was expensive, and corporations had plenty of resources to fight any lawsuits an individual might bring.

When my grandfather began working for Pittsburgh Plate Glass (PPG Industries) in Crystal City, MO, in the '30s, he worked in the polishing room, where they use rouge (the same stuff they use for women's makeup) to polish glass to a high shine. This process produces a lot of glass dust, and the rouge is dusty as well. When he asked his management for a respirator to wear, they pretty much said, "hey, if you don't like your job, there are 100 men outside that gate who would love to have it." 40 years later, he would die of that glass dust and rouge at the relatively young age of 67.

When my father was a Teamster, it was a different era. Jimmy Hoffa's union was as powerful as the corporations the union members worked for. While many of the unions had already fallen to the lure of greed, the Teamsters continued to spend money on their own people. To combat this, the other unions colluded with the Kennedy and Johnson administrations to make all union benefits taxable. That made many Teamster benefits, such as poor houses, impractical and the programs ended. The suggestion that Hoffa and the Teamsters were in bed with the Mafia has been debated at length, but my grandfather doubted it. According to my father, he said, "The Teamsters didn't need the Mob. We were our own mob."

It could be said that throughout the '70s and '80s, the unions became their own worst enemy, falling victim to corruption, poorly picking their battles, forcing sclerotic work rules upon their employers, protecting seniority over merit, and various other sins. Their roles as support for their members have faded, as Federal agencies like OSHA and programs like unemployment insurance took over for everyone what the unions did for their members. Younger workers, never having seen the way things used to be, concluded that they didn't need unions anymore. The public's opinion of them became profoundly negative. Their power and influence declined. In 1945, about 33 percent of American workers had union representation. That figure had declined to less than 14 percent by 1998.

Whether or not unions are still necessary is debatable, but what isn't debatable is your right to associate with one. Collective bargaining, the central feature of unionization, is a product of that freedom of association combined with the corporation's respect for and fear of equal standing in negotiating the terms of employment association. Without a union, employment becomes a take-it-or-leave-it proposal of one against a gigantic legal fiction.

What if that employer is the government? Can the government itself indulge in the same abuses that a large corporation might? Of course. That is why we distrust large governments. Many would argue that without minimum wages, without protections, corporations would no longer barter fairly, an honest day's pay for an honest day's work. If you amass enough control, you can easily force upon a person a Devil's deal. Given enough mismatch between the power of the company and the power of the worker, the capitalism of labor fails to function properly. This is not always a problem, provided people have enough mobility and the economy is functioning properly. But this has been an issue, such as with the past phenomenon of "company towns", as well as serious economic downturns like the Great Depression, the moribund stagflation period of the '70s, and the bursting of the housing bubble last decade.

Both corporations and unions enjoy government protections that libertarians would disapprove of. If we strip those away, we do not strip away the rights that dwell behind both. The laws have simply been crafted to tilt the playing field one way or the other. Unions lobby for laws protecting them when economic conditions work against them. Corporations lobby for anti-union laws when economic conditions work against them. Corporations and unions usually don't get along.

Corporate policies don't carry the force of law. But what's going on in Wisconsin is different. There, the legislature is voting to pass a law that tilts the playing field strongly in favor of the employer, i.e. the state government of Wisconsin, and their "policy" does in fact carry the force of law. Furthermore, it explicitly abridges both the Union's free speech rights, and unfairly redraws the playing field by unilaterally placing its demands into law. We know that Scott Walker is trying to balance Wisconsin's budget. That is admirable and desirable. But you cannot run roughshod over people's rights to get there. Supposedly, the purportedly intractable unions have in fact agreed to the budget cuts Walker wants, but Walker has rejected their agreement. He wants to bust the union purely for political purposes. He is banking on the public's lingering dislike of unions to defend his effort. If this were a state legislature passing a law to strip workers of collective bargaining in the private sector, it should be roundly condemned by libertarians as an inexcusable interference in the internal affairs of a private entity. But when the employer is the government itself, and it is being paid for by tax money, and the budget is out of whack, does that make things different?

I cannot agree with that. Remember, union rights arise from two Constitutional guarantees, the right of free speech and the right of free association. If corporations can incorporate themselves, so can unions. If corporations have rights, then so do unions. You cannot pick one over the other. Either both have rights, or neither do. You can't pick just because the money situation is inconvenient. If we had a guaranteed-to-work plan in hand to balance all Federal and state budgets, eliminate the public debt, and insure economic prosperity, but it required eliminating freedom of religion (or the right to bear arms), would we as minarchists rush off the cliff to embrace it?

Corporations with unions are forced to negotiate in good faith or suffer the consequences of the union's power. Governments with unions can simply create laws that eliminate the need to negotiate in good faith.

I've read several articles saying that the elimination of collective bargaining rights is a lie, and that it's only about the budget and the cost of benefits. That is itself a lie, and a crafty, disingenuous one at that. The law eliminates all collective bargaining except for negotiating salaries. That leaves a kibble of collective bargaining so Walker can claim he hasn't eliminated it, but leaves the union the least desirable right in the public's eyes, playing to the public's assumption of unions as greed machines for their members. If this was about the budget, why leave the *most expensive part*? He could have stripped the unions of the right to negotiate benefits and salary and job security, and left them the right to negotiate for working conditions and due process rights. He didn't. So, it's apparently not about money or the budget.

I'm sure there are decent arguments you could throw against me. Was it legitimate to unionize government workers in the first place? How can we reduce the size of government with unions in place to oppose it? What about opposing legislators fleeing to deny a vote on the measure? Sure, we could debate that, but it won't change the immediate problem. Scott Walker needs to slow down, back off, and play fair. If the unions have agreed to your budget concessions, TAKE THEM. Balance your silly budget first. Then worry about your political vendetta against unions.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

It's better than politics....it's baseball

I like politics, but I love baseball. Unlike the other major team sports in America -- football, basketball, soccer, hockey -- baseball has a linearity that makes it at once predictable, and not so much. It's a lopsided game, where half the time a player can carry the team, and the other half must depend on eight other guys to do their jobs. Those other sports are all very similar to each other: one bunch of guys getting the ball into a goal on the other end of the field in more or less a straight line, against another bunch of guys, all working simultaneously and in concert to achieve success. Not baseball. It is dominated by one mano a mano matchup after another, where everything else stops until their joust is complete. It goes in a circle, and the goal is where you started. It's the only sport where going out of bounds in the right direction is a grandiose event that cannot be responded to other than by standing and watching the opposing player make the circle unchallenged, basking in his greatness.

It is not a contact sport. When contact is made, it's usually an error on someone's part. It is not a particularly violent sport. It is the only major sport where men and women could plausibly play with or against each other. Athletic might doesn't mean as much as skill. In this game, right now in the Major Leagues, one person can throw a pitch 105 mph(1). Another person can throw 65 mph(2). Both are successful pitchers. One could be a short, wiry, fast person outsprinting ground balls(3), while another could be a hulk who gets on base by hitting the ball so far no one can retrieve it(4), or -- in many cases -- intimidate the opposing team so much they choose not to pitch to them at all(5). One could be a fresh face not even done with high school(6), while another can be within reach of their AARP membership card(7). It has been played by a man nearly 7 feet tall(8), and by a man less than 4 feet tall(9). It has been played by at least two men missing limbs(10).

It is America's pastime, the last great government-sanctioned monopoly, with the most visible labor union. Yet its operation reflects capitalism. Sure, baseball teams can't move at will like those in the other sports, but its lack of a salary cap makes sure nobody complains too loudly. Trading and free agency are much more influential on baseball than on the other sports. It's the only sport with a credible professional developmental process, the minor leagues. Yes, hockey has minor leagues, but to a much lesser extent. Football and basketball assume that college students will major in their sport, paying for the privilege, or at least not being paid (officially). This dichotomy serves to level the playing field. Money can buy you success(11), but skill at drafting players and developing them can lead you to success too(12).

It is a sport that lends itself to constant analysis. Because of its linear nature, it is easy to record statistics about it. It is slow enough that it can be sufficiently analyzed while the game is going on. It can, in fact, be more easily simulated by computers than any other sport. And yet, it is full of unpredictability. As Captain Ben Sisco told the wormhole aliens in the pilot episode of Star Trek: Deep Space 9, "It's linear! No one knows what's going to happen next. That's why we play the game."

It is a celebration of human ability, and human fallibility. Errors are an explicitly tracked statistic. A batter who fails only two-thirds of the time is considered a star. So ingrained in baseball is failure that perfection is an event that has happened for pitchers less than two dozen times in 125 years. Unlike every other sport, baseball has no time limit. It takes however long it takes to finish the game. That means no lead is insurmountable, ever, and complacency can still lead to loss(13). Unlikely heroes can appear at unlikely times, and then just as quickly vanish once again into obscurity(14). Errors can be introduced by the games judges, the umpires. It can extend a World Series to an unlikely outcome(15), or it can wipe out perfection(16).

For all of these reasons, I have never been able to really get into other sports. Sure, I follow hometown teams in other sports, but the only game I have passion for is this linear, lumpy, unpredictable combination of athletics, skill, and plain dumb luck.

That's why I tell people, it's better than politics....it's better than sports.....it's baseball!


Notes:
(1)Aroldis Chapman
(2)Tim Wakefield
(3)Rickey Henderson
(4)Babe Ruth
(5)Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols
(6)Joe Nuxhall
(7)Jack Quinn
(8)Jon Rauch
(9)All-time, Eddie Gaedel (3'7", played one game in 1944); among "serious" players, David Eckstein (5'6").
(10)Pete Gray(OF), Jim Abbott(P)
(11)New York Yankees
(12)Tampa Bay Rays
(13)In 2001, Cleveland beat Seattle by scoring 12 runs, going from losing 14-2 to winning 15-14; three times, teams scored 9 runs in the 9th inning to win
(14)Brian Doyle
(15)Don Denkenger
(16)Jim Joyce

Monday, February 21, 2011

"Who Is Ayn Rand?"

"Who is John Galt?" was Ayn Rand's failed attempt at a popular catchphrase. In her 4th and last novel, Atlas Shrugged, the question was contemporary slang for answering an important question with no (or no obvious) answer. It roughly translates as "What's the point?" or "Why bother?"

Get into discussions of political theory, and few names rankle more hackles than that of Ayn Rand. Deified by some, vilified by many, Rand was and is a polarizing figure in politics and philosophy. There are good reasons for this, as Rand herself was a love-her-or-hate-her type of person. She had a reputation for being arrogant, self-aggrandizing, and dismissive of her critics. We seldom use phrases like "followers of Aristotle" or "followers of Kant" or "followers of Nietzsche" as if such things were abnormal, but "followers of Ayn Rand" immediately put to mind an image of a mindless sycophant spouting quotes from Atlas Shrugged and berating "looters and moochers". A major figure in philosophy from the '50s through the '70s, few people outside of libertarians and some feminists remember her. Should we? Or should we let her ideas remain in the past?

She was born as Alisa Rosenbaum in 1905 in St. Petersburg, Russia. A girl during the Russian Revolution, she saw her father's pharmacy business seized by the Bolsheviks. After a brief exile to the Crimea, her family returned and she was in the first group of girls permitted into Russian colleges. She got a degree in history (during which she was purged once), and also spent a year in film school. In the '20s, she emigrated to America, living in Chicago and Hollywood while doing film writing. She took Ayn Rand as a professional name and worked as a screenwriter in the '30s and began her career as a novelist with the autobiographical "We the Living" (1936) and the novella "Anthem" (1938). During the '40s she became a political activist for the Republicans and participated in several anti-Communist organizations. She finally found fame with her novel "The Fountainhead" (1943), a story about a successful architect seeking to free himself of the hangers-on that had attached themselves to him seeking a piece of his wealth. As her ideas about living a life based on rational thought developed, she undertook the multi-year writing effort that resulted in the book that concluded her literary career and launched her philosophical career, "Atlas Shrugged" (1957). She founded organizations based on her philosophy, which she called Objectivism, and wrote non-fiction and lectured for most of the rest of her life. She died in 1982.

Rand's early experiences in Russia influenced her thinking. The two early run-ins with the Bolsheviks set within her a strong anti-Communist attitude, and she also decided during her teens that she was an atheist. Her philosophy was most influenced by Nietzsche, and was based on the primacy of the creative human mind. Her biggest novels, "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged", outlined the struggle between people who create and people who take advantage of the creators. Her philosophy of Objectivism grew into a no-holds-barred attack on altruism and charity. She derided "looters", usually government entities and officials who claim the assets of creators to give to those who do not create, and "moochers", who live off the production of creators.

Her most notable contribution to philosophy is her concept of "Sanction of the Victim", which proposes that Good permits itself to suffer at the hands of Evil in a sacrificial role. Evil is a parasite on Good, and can only flourish if Good permits it. In the context of her idea of the primacy of individual, which she described as "rational self-interest", Evil became the parasitic individuals who feed off the produce of the Good. In Rand's world, the worst of the Seven Deadly Sins would be Sloth. This "rational self-interest", however, does not grant a person the right to take unfair advantage of other people. A person who takes something from someone else by force is a "looter". A person who defrauds someone else is a "moocher" of sorts. The morality in Objectivism arises, then, in Good dealing with Good on equal terms, and respecting each other as rational human beings.

It's a philosophy that does not lend itself to sentimentality. Rand proposed that people do not have an obligation to support anyone but themselves. In her mind, only laissez-faire capitalism served society's purpose. Many characterize her philosophy as a sort of social Darwinism, where the non-creators perish while the creators thrive.

Objectivism found little acceptance in academic philosophy initially, but gained more after her death (perhaps they just didn't want to stoke up her ego :-). Its biggest influence has been on politics, especially libertarianism. Those who claim Rand as an influence reads like a Who's Who of fiscal conservatism and libertarianism, including Fed chief Alan Greenspan, Libertarian Party co-founder David Nolan, Texas congressman Ron Paul, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. While her admirers are overwhelmingly Right on the political spectrum, she has also drawn praise from feminists and atheists. Rand was fiercely pro-choice and was an early proponent of women as sexual equals to men.

Okay, so why all the bile aimed at her? The obvious is that most of her core ideas are anathema to both Liberals and devout Christians: A dismissal of supporting the weak and disadvantaged, the rejection of altruism and charity, and distaste over the appearance of her depiction of the advantaged as victim. Additionally, she consciously stoked a cult of personality, surrounded herself with the sycophants described earlier, and by most accounts was arrogant and obnoxious to be around. Rather than recognizing people could disagree with her philosophy in good conscience, Rand looked down on them as morally inferior.

There is also the issue that Objectivism as a societal ideal is, in many ways, impractical to implement. Rand's idea of oppression of creators is supposed to be more like a musician being taken advantage of by their record label, or the sort of governmental confiscation of small business she witnessed in revolutionary Russia. In the real world, her philosophy seems to give permission to big business to use people with impunity, to propose that up is in fact down by virtue of the wealthy being oppressed by the poor. This is exacerbated by Rand's own ardent support for laissez-faire capitalism, which most people associate with the abuses of the corporate world rather than the barter economy of the small town. She seems to make little distinction between earned wealth, inherited wealth, and exploited wealth.

She has also been dismissed by many as a hypocrite. While she enjoyed an affair with a younger man (with her husband's permission), she severed all contact with him when he had his own affair (albeit without her permission). While noisily anti-government and anti-welfare, she once accepted government medical assistance, rationalizing that she might as well take it, since the government took the money from her in the first place. She opposed anti-gay laws on one hand, but reviled gays on the other. She opposed the draft on one hand, but criticized draft dodgers on the other. While her philosophy included virtues of honesty and integrity, Rand publicly supported the taking of land from the Native Americans.

Ayn Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism will no doubt be evaluated and debated for decades to come. Even if you don't know or remember her name, her ideas are sure to influence a ballot box near you.

Friday, February 18, 2011

I Am a Libertarian


I am a libertarian. I used to be a Libertarian (that is, a member of the Libertarian Party) but since 2000 I have just been a libertarian. It's difficult being a libertarian in American society, and I am far from ideologically pure.

What does it mean to be a libertarian? The basis for the policies of the Libertarian Party is the Principle of Non-Aggression. When a person joins the Libertarian Party, they must sign a pledge disavowing the use of force and fraud to achieve social goals. On its surface, it sounds very difficult to argue against. Its power is in its simplicity. And yet, it has such far-reaching implications towards government policy that most people simply don't feel they can stay on for the entire ride.

There are different kinds of libertarians. The most common type is the minarchist. They advocate small and limited government, so as to maximize personal freedom and liberty. Usually, they use the US Constitution as their guide, since as government structural documents go, it is one of the most liberal in the world, and it is extremely difficult to modify, thereby making it an enduring touchstone. Minarchists will usually start any political discussion by asking, "Is it in the Constitution? Then you can't do it." They're usually fairly open-minded when it comes to social policies. If it doesn't hurt anyone, then the government can't ban it.

Another kind of libertarian is the anarcho-capitalist. They take the Non-Aggression Principle one step further by claiming that the government, being only based on force, cannot be permitted to exist, which is okay because anything the government does can also be done by the Free Market. While the theory is logically consistent, I don't subscribe to this school of thought because it kinda assumes people are inherently good, which I don't believe to be the case. Many of their proposals are trotted out by non-libertarians as proof that libertarians are crazy and should never be elected, with ideas such as privatizing the police and such. A short story by sci-fi author Vernor Vinge, "The Ungoverned", from his collection True Names, actually does a good job of describing some aspects of anarcho-capitalism.

Another, better known strain is the Objectivist. These folks usually cite the system of thought advocated by political philosopher Ayn Rand, also called Objectivism, that proposes that personal self-interest should motivate people's actions, and it includes an inherent mistrust of altruism. The idea seems to be that all self-interest is enlightened self-interest, and that individuals should be left free to pursue that interest. Rand's ideas are mainly articulated in two novels, The Fountainhead (1943) and the world-famous Atlas Shrugged (1957), which near the end features an extended, embedded essay on Objectivism presented as a speech broadcast by the book's secondary character John Galt. It should be noted that while Objectivism and libertarianism have much overlap, and because many Objectivists claim to be libertarians and vice versa, the two political philosophies are not the same, and one is not necessariy representative of the other.

Some political positions are similar to libertarianism without being libertarian per se. Fiscal conservatives, sometimes referred to as paleo-conservatives, are frequently labeled "libertarian", especially if they do not espouse the conservative Christian social policies of Neo-Conservatism. This is the case with many prominent economists, such as Milton Freedman, and a handful of politicians, such as Texas congressman Ron Paul***, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, and to a lesser extend former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura. Many fiscal conservatives are concerned primarily with the level of governmental spending and its undue influence on capitalistic systems, and seldom take interest in social policies beyond that.

On the other side we have left-libertarians, the vast majority of which are anti-Drug-War activists. They champion individual rights as epitomized in the Bill of Rights, and generally sympathize with anti-Federal ideas, but have a deep distrust of organizational power, especially corporate power, and so usually cannot bring themselves to be thorough-going fiscal conservatives. They will champion many positions that assume the primacy of the individual, such as legalization of drugs, prostitution, sexual activity, and religious rights, but see use of economic force as interchangeable with government force. Many self-identify as Liberal but will not usually involve themselves with traditionally liberal positions such as poverty assistance or workers' rights.

Who isn't a libertarian? In a nutshell, anyone who insists that the government must do something to assist some segment of society, or to take positive action to achieve a societal goal, cannot be considered a libertarian. Taxation is one of the biggest bugaboos in libertarianism, alongside regulation of business activities and regulation of consensual activities on moral grounds. I would not say it is inherently bad to take a political position that is Liberal or Conservative, but from my perspective I find a lot of people holding those views to willfully ignore the undesirable consequences or side effects of those positions. There tends to be a lot of emotion imbued in most political positions.

Libertarianism is unemotional to a fault. For so many positions, any given position is the result of a cold calculus. To be a moderate libertarian -- a phrase many people believe to be an oxymoron -- one must recognize that we did not get to where we are now overnight, and to attempt to get to where we wish to be overnight would be needlessly destructive. One must recognize that other people take their political positions earnestly. They usually aren't stupid or evil or powermongering. They may not even be ignorant, the next most common conclusion. They may simply disagree with the Non-Aggression principle, or see shades of grey where libertarians see black and white. One must accept that only incremental persuasion, followed by proof of non-destructive results, will create a more libertarian society.

A society where individual freedom and personal responsibility continues to demonstrate why America is the nation that people around the rest of the world aspire to emulating.

David V


*** While it is true that Ron Paul is a social conservative by personal belief, his voting record in Congress has been mostly libertarian, which is why so many pro-choice supporters overlook his personal beliefs in supporting him, and why so many Libertarians felt betrayed when he endorsed Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party candidate (a strongly Neo-Conservative political party) in 2008.

What Won't Republicans Cut?

[Originally posted to Facebook on February 18, 2011]

So far, what the press has told us is that Republicans are doing what they always do when they get into office, which is turn into paleo-social crusaders. Cut Head First? Sure, those little bastards should be home with mommy, who should be married anyway. That's not an exaggeration, as these amazing comments from county administrators in Maryland cringetastically went on the record for earlier this week (http://www.gazette.net/stories/02092011/frednew175041_32611.php) . Cut funding for PBS and NPR, because the media should be privately funded (or at least, corporately funded). You gotta figure that Republicans will gleefully cut anything that smells Liberal, since That Is Not The Role Of The Government And Not In the Constitution.

Now, in a previous life, I would have agreed with the cuts (but not the ridiculous justifications that frequently accompany them because I actually like and respect women) and in theory, I still would, except that it's plain that Republicans and Conservatives are always very selective in what cuts they propose. Let's brainstorm and see what things Republicans will leave in the budget.

* They won't cut military spending. Now, this is presently dicey because after two wars, we're a tad depleted, so there is a certain argument that we need to spend enough to stay ready. But there's no real desire to rein in the American Empire from places that can plainly support themselves, such as Japan, the UK, and Germany. We have a whole navy fleet based in Bahrain. But nobody is proposing cuts to those programs.

* They won't cut spending on law enforcement or domestic surveillance. Certainly, we need the FBI, and we need national and international intelligence. But we don't need the continually raging War on Drugs, and we don't need specific funding to crack down on Driving While Black in a White Neighborhood, or for that matter, Driving While Hispanic Anywhere. It's not a matter of not needing law enforcement, but rather where to spend the money and what social priorities we need to focus on.

* They won't cut Faith-Based programs, even though they provide social services, since that serves their back-door attempts to undermine the separation of Church and State (which, like gun ownership, IS in the Constitution, despite their pitifully rationalized bleating to the contrary) and thus bolster their Christian-centric worldviews.

* They won't cut Corporate Welfare. By this, I do NOT mean they won't "cut" corporate tax cuts. I mean, the programs that actually give money to corporations (beyond military and law enforcement contracts). Things like farm subsidies, that's the best and most notorious example. They began as protections for famiy farms, but since famiy farms are increasingly rare, being replaced by corporate farms, it's now protections for corporate farms, which don't really need protection.

I kinda would have liked this list to be longer, to be honest. It makes things look a bit unfairly tilted toward the Liberals as being responsible for the burgeoning Federal government. But it does show that Republicans in general, and the Tea Partiers in particular, are not the disciplined minarchists they claim to be.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Emerson Epitomizes the American Business Paradox

[Originally posted to Facebook on February 13, 2011]

When people on the right say they want government to "get out of the way", what exactly do they mean by that? Here in St. Louis, the Post announced David Farr, CEO of Emerson Electric, to be Citizen of the Year. I found that curious, given Farr's comments in the recent past about America and American workers.

Many of you probably have no idea what Emerson is. They make electrical equipment that other heavy industry buys and uses. They're as important as GE in that regard. Oh, they also lend their name to ultra-low-end consumer electronics in some markets (sitting next to companies like Yorx and Hinyo and stuff). If you operate an electrical power plant, you know about Emerson. They're probably the largest company whose corporate HQ remains in St. Louis. That's important to the city, given how many we've lost over the years.

But Farr is far from popular, after telling shareholders in 2008 that he's "not going to hire anybody in the United States. I'm moving." He hasn't stuck to that, and he admits he's hired Americans, but he has a tendency to exaggerate to make a point: Americans are expensive and against the interests of shareholders.

His proclamation as Citizen of the Year is for his charitable contributions and donations and support to various causes around St. Louis. He is a generous contributor to the arts, sitting on the board of many venerable organizations in town, such as the Muny Opera. But it also strikes many people as ironic that a person who thinks Americans aren't worth hiring are worth donating to help out. Or perhaps that's just pragmatic.....people without jobs need help, and he won't help them with jobs.

He, like many business leaders, ask the Federal and state governments to "just get out of the way" of business. That brings me back to my opening question, because I think the majority political view -- what can the government do for me? -- means different things to different people. I've told people before, from the perspective of a moderate libertarian, that government regulation usually doesn't just exist in a vacuum of the desire for power, as so many loud Conservatives assert frequently. Neither is the government totally in the pocket of Big Business, like many loud Liberals assert.

The truth lies somewhere in between, and in between lies the trench warfare of force politics. I'm sure many businesses would like government to get out of the way, so they can get back to the business of dumping waste into rivers and the air, killing their employees with unsafe working conditions, and owning communities as indentured servants. Such things are why unions came about, and why the government does in fact regulate things. Most government regulations come about because of bad behavior.

On the other hand, business could make good arguments that they are not, in fact, tax collectors or welfare agencies. The tethering of health care to employment is one of the big cultural failures of the last century. The perspective that Liberals have of deeming "unfair" the fact that rich people have stuff and poor people don't is one of the primary motivators for businesses to flee America. Government regulation frequently goes far beyond protecting people, and into using business as a bank account for funding social policy change.

So honestly, Conservatives, what parts of the Federal government are in your way? What would it take for you to bring your jobs back to America? And Liberals, at what level of control over business will you be satisfied? Let me know in the comments.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Living Everyday Life as a Libertarian

[Originally posted to Facebook on February 6, 2011]

It is incredibly difficult to be credible as a libertarian these days. It's easy to chant the mantra, "government bad, government bad" when one receives a fair amount of government support just by sitting still. As a Big-L libertarian in the '90s, I could certainly talk the talk. My Libertarian Party of Oregon compatriots typically found it difficult to walk the walk, and it's not hard to see why.

As Libertarians, we certainly understood that if one of our number were actually elected to office, they would be single term public servants only, for two reasons. One, both of the entrenched parties would be gunning for us, and they have lots and lots of money. Two, if we were to actually implement our policies, nearly everybody would be pissed off. After all, the unofficial slogan of the Libertarian Party was, "the party with something to offend everyone". Imagine if in an insanely serendipitous world, the Libertarian agenda was implemented. Within the course of a single term, chaos would ensue. Let's see, we repealed Medicaid and legalized marijuana. So people can't afford any health care but they can smoke weed. Imagine the re-election campaign races that would come out of that.

If the Tea Party Republicans are earnest in their election claims (of which I am highly dubious), we should see a reduction in government budgets. Is that good? Well, it depends. People seldom vote for what hurts them but is otherwise "responsible". The knee-jerk assumption that all government regulation is bad, leads to a festival of irresponsible behavior. I want to ask a question, and I want you to be completely honest in your answer:

Why are industries regulated?

Your answer says more about you than you think. On the one hand, Libertarians can certainly trot out all sorts of examples that things like licensure and other barriers to market entry exist purely to protect the profits of the established players. Sure, that's the case in a great many cases. But if you think a primary motivation of "the government" is its thirst for control of as many parts of society as possible, you've obviously drunk the Kool-Aid of conspiracy nutjobs. As one who has worked for "the government" a couple of times, I can tell you that "the government" isn't nearly as unified as that to pull it off. That's a favorite of Obama critics right now: "He doesn't care about America. He hates America and wants to destroy it and expand its POWER(power power power)." (Read that as if you were hearing the announcer for a monster truck rally at the local arena next weekend....you know, SUNDAYsundaysundaysunday....!)

True, some regulations are proffered by overzealous do-gooders who will lie in order to get what they want (which is authority over you, because you're too stupid and greedy to do the right thing) but what is more likely is that the industry in question acted so stupidly and selfishly and unethically that it DEMANDED REGULATION. That was true of timber companies in the '80s (I know this because I worked for one), it was true of the banks and Wall Street companies this decade, and its undoubtedly going to inspire government intervention in the future.

One thing that all Libertarians agree on is the Principle of Non-aggression. Most of you probably aren't aware of this, but it is the bedrock upon which the Libertarian Party's platform is based. It goes like this: "I oppose the initiation of force and/or fraud in order to achieve societal goals." Quite simple, actually. One would actually find it hard to find someone who would, on its face, oppose it. It drives the entire rest of the party's ideas. It's powerful stuff.

It leads to rather surprising policy stances. It actually interfaces quite nicely with a quote from someone on the other end of the political spectrum, Mao-Tse Tung: "Political power grows from the barrel of a gun." Many Libertarians will gleefully explain to you how this comes from just about every portion of Federal, state, or local government. Many people, when confronted with this, don't know how to react. Then Libertarians act all smug and tell you to vote for their obvious political truth in the next election, which no more than 2 percent ever typically do.

This is one reason why the Tea Party should be taken with a heavy grain of salt. If they're earnest, they'll accomplish precisely dick in office, because everyone else is arrayed against them. If they're not, then they'll pursue the typical ultra-conservative agenda of Christian totalitarianism.

The best thing to do is to make a conscious decision that you will do what you can for yourself and your family, initiate force against no one, and hope for the best. A libertarian society will only emerge if a critical mass of people do this. The problem is, both "conservatives" and "liberals" have a vision of their perfect society and are perfectly comfortable with initiating force to achieve this. "Liberals" can be forgiven for this more because, I think, they make the mistake of thinking emotionally, which is where their cracked economic ideas come from. They feel bad that some people have stuff and others don't, and want to "help people" and "make the world a better place", which inevitably involves initiating force on everyone to achieve this. The far more virulent form of profligate denial is on the part of "conservatives". They have convinced themselves that forcing Christian asceticism on everyone is the ideal, while at the same time clothing themselves with "freedom". Uh huh. Freedom to obey the Christian god, which involves the freedom to be punished for thinking otherwise. Freedom to be a good, docile employee. Freedom to suffer nobly. Freedom to think like they do.

Am I wrong? Argue with me in the comments.