Peter Thiel's libertarian paradise ...

... as described by the Onion.

I like the bit about the debt clock.

Libertarian anti-capitalism

A thoughtful and useful piece at Bleeding Heart Libertarians that tries to sort out the different meanings of the term capitalism as used in conventional political discourse. This is useful, because left and right, and various groups within the left and right, often use the term in quite different ways.

The piece also indirectly highlights the ways in which anarchists of the with and without property rights varieties resemble one another in important ways. Thinking about anarchy of both sorts is a very good way to clarify one's thinking about the state, its justification and role in economic and social life. The best modern treatment of with property rights anarchism is probably David Friedman's Machinery of Freedom.

I do think that the author implicitly understates the importance of economies of scale, as well as the potential roles of government regulation in the form of joint stock corporations and bankruptcy laws in driving economic growth. But the overall point that the free market and government support for big corporations are very different, indeed mutually incompatible things, is most important.

Happy 99th Milton

A fine birthday tribute, with video, for Milton Friedman, courtesy of reason.

I particularly like the emphasis on the process - of following arguments wherever they lead and of speaking truth to power and taking on conventional "wisdom" - that Friedman did such a fine job of demonstrating.

Toward libertarian progressives

Matt Zwolinski from the Bleeding Heart Libertarians blog (link on the right) offers up seven reasons why progressives should be more libertarian.

Liberty magazine

Liberty magazine, a long-running competitor to reason, which makes reason look like the quite moderate journal that it is, has ceased producing its print edition and is now solely on-line.

Looking about the web site today for the first time in a while - they have been on-line only since the end of 2010 - I found this most excellent rant by Stephen Cox (a professor of literature at UCSD) on the deeper social meaning of Weinergate. Here is a taster:

“Democrats consider the scandal all the more sad because Weiner is married to Huma Abedin, a hugely popular aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.”

Did you ever see that phrase before — “all the more sad”? If you haven’t, I’m not surprised. It’s one of those expressions that today’s journalists use when they need to get around the fact that they don’t know grammar. “More sad” means “sadder,” in your grandmother’s untutored but accurate vocabulary. The difference is that your grandmother knew how to form a common English comparative and therefore didn’t have to invent cumbersome phrases to circumvent the obvious.

So journalists are naïve about grammar — so what? Well, ex ungue leonem: they are also naïve about the rest of the world. Do you believe — does anyone believe — that Democrats went into terminal depression because of their sympathy for Huma Abedin, or that more than ten of them had ever heard of Huma Abedin? “Hugely popular”? Who’s buying this stuff? Hillary Clinton isn’t “hugely popular” — so how should Huma, her assistant, be? And are we supposed to believe that a top aide to one of the Clintons is to be pitied for her association with a sex scandal?

Good stuff!

John Hospers, RIP

The Libertarian Party's first ever presidential candidate - and only presidential candidate to receive an electoral vote - passed away in June.

On Nozick

There has been a lot of blogospheric buzz about this piece, ostensibly about Robert Nozick, on Slate a few days ago. I am not sure it really worth your time to read.

In contrast, this piece by Julian Sanchez, formerly of reason, is worth your time. It is not really a rebuttal, as Julian fesses up to not having read all of the Slate piece, but it is a very thoughtful meditation on Nozick and how his views evolved over time.

I am not going to write a full rebuttal, entertaining though that would be, but would note a few things:

1. It is Metcalf, not Nozick, who confuses physical and human capital, as well as human capital and ability. Nozick presumably chose his Wilt Chamberlain example to be simple and (not unrelated) persuasive, not because he failed to note the existence of factories or joint stock companies. More broadly, Metcalf seems a bit mired in the Marxian definition of capitalism in a way that confuses his understanding of Nozick and of libertarianism more broadly.

2. Metcalf seems unaware that many, if not most, neoliberals (or classical liberals or moderate libertarians or whatever you like to call them) base their views in whole or in part on something other than the natural rights view presented in Anarchy, State and Utopia. If Metcalf understood this, he would not conflate Nozick with Hayek towards the end of the piece. Hayek's rule utilitarian liberalism would allow a much larger state than Nozick's minimal state views.

3. Metcalf does not appear to know the meaning of the word coercion, which would seem to be fundamental to the discussion. He states incredulously that "... Nozick insists that progressive taxation is coercion" when in fact everyone (but, apparently, Metcalf) defines any sort of taxation as based on coercion. If you do not pay, eventually people come to your house with guns and take either you or the money or both. It does not get much more coercive than that. Justifying the state means justifying those people with the guns.

4. Neither Nozick nor any other libertarian endorses fraud, which would seem to make Bernie Madoff a poor example of outsized compensation justified by Nozickian libertarianism. This sort of basic error should have been caught by the Slate editor (they do have editors, right?).

5. Metcalf should check out both the pay and the number of defense contracts obtained by philosophy professors. Oddly, his pop psychological argument for the genesis of Nozick's original views as propounded in Anarchy, State and Utopia depends on both of these being large.

I'll stop there. There are plenty of thoughtful arguments against hardcore libertarian views, but you won't find them in the Metcalf piece. And shame on Slate for publishing something with so many logical and factual errors.

Alan Bock, R.I.P.

A fine obituary from reason.com.

Movie: Atlas Shrugged, Part 1

As it turned out, the movie at the multiplex that best fit our schedule was Atlas Shrugged, Part I. As noted yesterday, the critics and the audiences differ here: as I write, the tomato meter based on the critics sits at 6% out of 100 while that based on the viewers sits at 85% out of 100. I suspect that this may be the only movie ever to get 6% out of 100 at which the majority of the audience, at least at the theater we went to, applauded at the end of the movie.

A big part of the problem on both ends is that neither the critics nor the audience is really judging the movie as a movie. Instead, they are expressing their support or disdain for the political viewpoints of Ayn Rand (something many of the critics, I suspect, know only in parody).

Another big part of the problem, and I say this knowing that it is quite a statement indeed, is that the movie is much, much less well written than the book. Yes, Ayn Rand is hardly Jane Austen or even Charles Dickens, but she is a reasonable writer of genre fiction. In contrast, the writing in the movie is just plain awful.

Here is Roger Ebert's review from the Chicago Sun-Times. It is clear that he doesn't like Ayn Rand's political views, but he still gives a pretty good summary of what is not right with this movie. It was made on the cheap, with weak writing, sometimes mediocre acting and a very low budget. Hence all the landscape shots and soap opera interiors.

My own view is that this was an opportunity missed and missed badly. I do not agree with much of Ayn's philosophy - I support altruism the way I define it, I don't care for her atheism, and I prefer my rationalism to her romanticism. But one could have made a really great movie that mocked those in politics and in the broader cultural world who pander to envy and sloth and who denigrate achievement while elevating mediocrity. Ayn Rand mocks such people in her books with icy enthusiasm; in the movie the corresponding characters come off as simply drones playing their parts in the great beltway pork machine, and thus more banal than evil. Also, Ayn's attacks were aimed directly at the people and ideas of her time. One of her later books contains a chapter that pairs similar quotations from JFK and Hitler, for example. There is none of that in the movie. The bad guys are generic and boring. The only one you really hate at the end of the movie is Hank Rearden's ball-busting wife and you hate her not for her philosophy, as Ayn would have wanted, but just for treating her husband so poorly.

So, if you have read the book, it is worth going to see what they do with it. If not, take a pass.

Lanny Friedlander, RIP

A fine obituary from Nick Gillespie of the original founder of reason magazine.

I had no idea Nick has a sentimental side.

Bleeding heart libertarians

That is a term I have sometimes used to describe myself. I've added the blog by the same title to the blogroll on the right.

Interview with Nick Gillespie

Not sure where I found this but it is Nick - a.k.a. libertarian Fonzie - at his finest.

A snippet:

12. Tell me about the moment you decided to enter the political arena.

GILLESPIE: One of the good things about being a libertarian is that you can refuse to enter the political arena, which is about as inviting to normal, decent human beings as a men's room stall in the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport.

Indeed.

Summer seminars for undergrads

The seminars run by the Institute for Humane Studies are a lot of fun - at least they were 20 years ago when I did one. I suspect they're even better now.

The seminars provide an introduction to classical liberal thought across a range of disciplines. In my experience, the students were at least as much fun as the faculty. When I did it there were people from all different perspectives within, and in the neighborhood, of the classical liberal perspective, ranging from anarcho-capitalists to Randroids to conservatives to sensitive, wonderful, clear-thinking and nearly always correct people like yours truly. :)

Well worth doing, if an experience like this appeals to you.

I even met someone I dated a few times.

Richard Epstein

Nick Gillespie from reason interviews law professor Richard Epstein.

There's not as much meat here as in Epstein's law school talk that I blogged about a few weeks ago, but it is still good fun.

Dave Nolan, RIP

A fine obit from reason magazine co-founder Bob Poole.

Humor? At Mother Jones?

The usually humorless, lefty scolds at Mother Jones offer up this entertaining quiz: can you tell the difference between rappers and libertarians?

I got 8 out of 10.

Hat tip: Nat Wilcox

Richard Epstein

Thanks to a friend on the law school faculty I was able to attend Thursday's lunch presentation at the law school by Richard Epstein as a guest. I read Epstein's Takings early on in graduate school and it had a big effect on my thinking about constitutional law and about the relationship between law and liberty more generally. Reading classical liberal legal theorists is an excellent complement to reading economics. They think about things differently and often in ways that add depth and insight to simple economic models.

Epstein spoke about a new book he is writing on constitutional interpretation. The bits I found most interesting were his contrast between libertarian and classical liberal views on legal theory. The parts that were most entertaining were his denunciations of various supreme court decisions he doesn't like. The best line of the hour was "I'm not crazy. I'm just controversial."

Even relative to other law professors, who as a group are very good at speaking without notes, Epstein's ability to construct well organized verbal arguments on the fly is impressive. Back in the day, when Dora Costa and I were running the U of Chicago student libertarian group, we had Epstein come and give a talk. He gave us a topic in advance. When he arrived, he asked how long he had to talk. We told him, and he gave a marvelous, well-organized, no notes lecture of *exactly* that duration. Those same skills were on display on Thursday.

I also learned that the law school has Zingerman's cater their lunches. Clearly, I need to be spending more time over there. All other seminar lunches will now pale by comparison (other than, perhaps, the ones I construct myself from goodies purchased at Morgan and York).

On Atlas Shrugged

A fine rant from John Scalzi, whose writing for the Chicago Maroon was notably good back in my graduate student (and his undergraduate) days.

I like this bit:

So that’s how it susses out for me. As a pulpy, fun read about an unrealistic world that could never happen, I give Atlas Shrugged a thumbs up. As a foundational document for a philosophy for living in reality with other actual live human beings, I rank it below Jonathan Livingston Seagull and The Secret, both of which also have the added value of being shorter.

Really, though, Jonathan Livingston Seagull is much, much better than The Secret.

And as to the jerks and thugs from high school (or, in my case, mostly junior high) who feature in Scalzi's rant, living well is a much more satisfying revenge than being a Randian.

Rose Friedman, R.I.P.

Notice from the Friedman Foundation.

Sad news but a long life lived well and lived usefully.

Randy Barnett's libertarian wish list

Though labeled as a "Bill of Federalism" (as in "Bill of Rights") these suggested 10 constitutional amendments go well beyond federalism, narrowly defined.

The proposed amendments are quite a mixed bag:

Amendment 2 really just undoes the ahistorical reading of the commerce clause enshrined in Wickard v. Filburn. This ruling, indirectly a gift of FDR, essentially wrote all limits on federal activity out of the constitution. Reading this case in Mike McConnell's constitutional law class at Chicago, which I audited (but did all the readings for) as a graduate student was a real eye-opener for me. It was then that I realized that the court really just was making it up when they cared to and that, as the song goes, "all the crap I learned in high school" was just that.

Amendments 3 and 4 are very directly about federalism and seem to me to aim at restoring the balance between states and the federal government envisioned by the framers. No one very much seems to recall that the constitution was originally a contract among sovereign states and thus more like the EU in some ways than like the present US.

I am not sure that the empirical case for term limits, embodied in Amendment 7, has really been made. It might be better to enforce limits on the process of defining districts to make more of them competitive or to require instant runoff voting.

I think that Amendment 8's tying of the line-item budget veto to the state of the national debt is very clever, though the devel would be in the details here as the court and congress could conspire to undermine this via determinations of what is and what is not counted as public debt. Can borrowing escape this limit by being labeled a "trust fund"?

Overall, though, quite thought provoking.

I crossed paths with Randy a few times in graduate school when he was at UIC. My recollection is that he usually had two or three attractive female followers. Life is good as a libertarian law professor!