Strategy

    How can we convincingly demonstrate that we should eliminate any particular government program?  The problem with pointing to flaws in the program is that a liberal can always respond that we should mend and not end it. The libertarian response is that the flaws in government programs are an inherent result of the flaws in government decision-making, so that there is no reason to expect that attempts to mend programs will actually improve them.

    It is usually thought that the difference between a libertarian and a liberal is that the libertarian has more "faith in the market." While there is much truth to that, I believe that the crucial difference is actually that the liberal has more faith in the government. If so, then the crucial issue is how much we can expect from democratic politics.

    It's hard to see how we can demonstrate the inherent feebleness of democratic politics except by looking at particular cases. But suppose that we could show that the major programs of the welfare state have been deleterious--that we would have been better off if they had never been tried. That would be strong evidence, not only against those programs as they have actually existed, but against the feasibility of ever achieving the goals of those programs under democratic politics, and we would have a strong libertarian argument.

    Thus, even in an argument against a particular government program, a libertarian is relying on a negative appraisal of government programs in general.

    Thus, the libertarian argument against any exising government program has two claims

  1. We would have been better off if the program had never been institututed.
  2. And we cannot expect to mend the program because of the inherent feebleness of goverment politics.
    To support claim I, the libertarian has to introduce facts and arguments about how the program in question has in fact operated.  But how do we argue for claim II?
  1. If the program has existed a long time, that itself is an argument for claim II:  If democratic politics hasn't gotten it right yet, it's unreasonable to expect politics ever to get it right.
  2. But also:  A libertarian should have a long list of claim I arguments against other government programs.  If the government gets it wrong so often, it's unreasonable to expect it to get it right in this case.
    Point 2, I think, is a reason why libertarians often seem unduly dismissive of a government program.  Even when we're talking about a particular program, we are relying on a judgment about government in general.

    If Medicare works poorly, that is an argument against the minimum wage; if the minimum wage works poorly, that is an argument for drug legalization; etc.

    For example, a libertarian argument against Social Security would be structured thus:

  1. We would have been better off without Social Security as it has actually existed.
  2. We shouldn't expect to be able to mend Social Security because
    1. if we haven't gotten it right in 60 years, we'll probably never get it right
    2. if we haven't gotten [a long list of other government programs] right, how can we expect to get Social Security right?
    The most important object of a libertarian argument against a particular program is to discredit government in general; and in the contemporary context, that means that the most important object of an argument against a particular program is to discredit democracy.
 

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